#Hack/Slash: My First Maniac | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rookthorne · 1 year

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⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ 𝐍𝐨𝐭 𝐀𝐥𝐥 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐒𝐢𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐆𝐨𝐥𝐝

The Soldat’s captain was ruthless and never showed any quarter to his enemies. When an armada appeared on the horizon like a beast from the ocean, you knew the battle would be bloody and victory would be sweet, and the treasure would be worth more than silver and gold.

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒑𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒈 ✗ Pirate!Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒅 𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕 ✗ 1.5k

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒘𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈𝒔 ✗ Fluff, descriptions of battle (blood and gore), praise kink

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆 ✗ As a woman obsessed with POTC, I got to use my hoarde of knowledge on pirates for this.

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒎𝒔 ✗ The Kraken by Hans Zimmer ✗ Angelica by Hans Zimmer, Rodrigo y Gabriela

჻჻჻჻჻჻჻჻ 𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕 ✗ @the-slumberparty Week 1 Fic Challenge ჻჻჻ 𝑷𝑰𝑹𝑨𝑻𝑬 ჻჻჻ 𝑫𝑰𝑨𝑴𝑶𝑵𝑫 𝑵𝑬𝑪𝑲𝑳𝑨𝑪𝑬 — Masterlist

𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐒𝐞𝐚𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭

Canon fire peppered the air while smoke billowed from the muzzles of the guns lining the deck of The Soldat’s ship, its captain bellowing orders and commands in quick succession, the volume of his voice rivalling the constant explosions of gunpowder.

Crewmen were yelling, screaming threats and making good on their promises to maim and murder the King’s men. It was a gruesome sight with bodies strewn over the deck and hanging off the hull rail with swords and bayonets rooted deep in their backs and stomachs; enough to turn the churning sea red below the belly of your ship.

“No quarter!” A voice boomed by your ear and you spun ‘round to see your captain, sprayed with blood with a maniacal grin on his normally stoic face. “Send ‘em down to Davy Jones’ locker, lads!”

Roars of ascension echoed and the battle grew in intensity around you - men were turning savage with bloodlust, gutting their opponents with the order of no mercy. The once pristine Man’O’War you called home had carved a path through the blockade with its wide berth that was now painted a deep crimson from the loss of life.

“If you can put as many men down as me, lass, I’ll see to you it that you get a bit of the bounty,” your captain said, his grinning face now focus on you. “C’mon, I know you want it as bad as the rest of these idiots.”

You smirked. “You know me, sir-” A loud yell came from your right and you turned on your heel, blade at the ready and before the decorated King’s soldier knew what had happened, he was impaled on your sword. You turned back to your captain, your smirk now a wild grin. “I can never turn down a challenge.”

Sailors and King’s soldiers clashed and fought around you whilst you faced two brutes, their weight an advantage, though your nimbleness won the battle; your cutlass in one’s back, your dagger in the other’s neck.

Battle cries from your crew mates carried you on - a force to be reckoned with, slashing and hacking and impaling your sword against any foe that crossed your path. An armada of King’s men had been slaughtered by the time The Soldat’s crew had slowed, the bloodlust now a low simmer in their ale full bellies.

Bodies littered The Soldat’s deck, and with the battle now over, you glanced down at yourself to search for injuries you did not feel with the roar of adrenaline in your blood, but found none.

“Captain,” a sailor to your left started, his voice louder than the shouts of victory. Your captain looked towards the call before briefly glancing at you, a slight smirk on his pretty lips. “What’re we gonna do with the last of the armada–they might send more men.”

“Burn it all, douse them with oil and burn it all down.”

A shiver crawled up your spine at your captain’s words and the men murmured excitedly before rushing off to the lower deck for the barrels kept exactly for this reason.

“First mate,” the captain called, and you looked up sharply, a brow raised. “My quarters, if you please.” He jumped down from the railing and sauntered over, the belts and leather coat swaying with his gait and it was all you could do to keep your attention focused on his icy gaze. “We have many things to discuss for the next course,” he trailed off once he was right in front of you, though the men around were far too busy and excited at their orders to wreak pure destruction on the fallen. “And I have my word to make good on, lass.”

“Yessir,” you said, saluting proudly and he laughed heartily - a sound that warmed you to your core.

The captain’s cabin was luxurious in furnishings - for what a pirate could get his thieving hands on, this you knew, but the majesty of the room never ceased to amaze with the dark stained wood of the walls and floor while pops of red and silver accented the room. Your boot falls were muted on the many rugs strewn over the floor, and you sat down on the edge of his bed with a weary sigh.

Battle was exhausting. Though, you never grew weary or tired of unsheathing your blade and fighting alongside the crew.

The sun had fallen below the horizon by the time your captain finally strode into his cabin, the door shutting with a loud click and rattle of the ornate glass. “You look exhausted, my love,” he started, shucking his coat off and hanging it on a hook by the door. “Are you injured?”

“‘M fine, handsome,” you sighed, smiling up at him as he slowly walked over to stand between your knees. While waiting for him, you had stripped from the bloodiest of your clothes and thrown one of his blouses, a poet shirt he had taken after a bloody wager. “Though I am tired and ready to sleep for eternity.”

“I will join you then,” Bucky smiled, his calloused hand cupping your jaw before he moved away to strip away the black leather adorning his muscled chest and thighs.

You hummed and shuffled on his bed until your back rested against the headboard. “Don’t you have something for me, captain?”

“You know we are safe here, my love. It’s Bucky, unless you want to call me sir, I don’t mind,” Bucky purred. The slight clink of his swords being hung on the wall echoed loudly in the charged silence, but you smiled. You knew this game.

“I know you have something for me, sir,” you breathed, and Bucky looked over his shoulder at you with a brow raised. “You promised, and I did win that wager… didn’t I?”

Bucky turned to face you, though he kept a hand behind his back and you narrowed your eyes in suspicion. “You did, my love, the deadliest lass I’ve ever seen.” He stepped closer to his bed and lifted his hand, beckoning you closer. “C’mere.”

“Why?”

“Because I said so,” Bucky replied, the authority unmistakeable in his tone. “Come here.”

You rolled your eyes in defiance and Bucky stared through you, straight into your soul it felt. The darkening of his normally ocean grey eyes made you pause, what was he going to do? “Fine,” you muttered and you scooted forward so your legs dangled off the side of his bed, resting them either side of his.

“Good girl.” Bucky’s hand ran through your hair and moved it so it fell down your shoulder. “Now, I promised you something from this bounty and the coffers–of course, I had to get my girl the best,” he said, drawing his hand out from behind his back. “And the best just happened to be this.”

You looked towards his hand and your mouth fell open in a silent gasp of shock. Diamonds and jewels glinted in the warm candle light; the red of the rubies casted a red reflection onto Bucky’s palm while the silver of the diamonds shimmered like the rays of the sun on high tide.

“Oh, my-” Was all you managed before Bucky bent at the hip and kissed you hard, distracting you from the heavy weight of the necklace while he clasped it around your neck. “Bucky!”

“What?” Bucky smirked. “You don’t want me to be sweet on you? Don’t want me to love on you, is that it?”

“No! No, no it’s not,” you began, trying to process the weight of the jewels and diamonds around your neck and resting against your chest. “I-I do want that,” you murmured. Bucky’s hand cupped your chin and forced your gaze up so he could stare into your eyes. “I just- thank you, it’s beautiful.”

Bucky smiled softly and bent to kiss your forehead. “Not as beautiful as you, my love.” He stepped away and toed off his bloodied boots, kicking them to the corner before tossing off his undershirt. “Nothing on God's green earth will ever come close to your beauty, nothing.”

The statement made butterflies bloom in your stomach and you smiled shyly.

“Now, let's sleep for eternity, hmm?” Bucky gestured for you to move. “Get comfortable, my love. I want to join you.”

Soft cotton sheets rustled while you moved and settled on to Bucky’s bed, your head coming to rest on his pillow. You sighed happily when the bed shifted under Bucky’s weight as he settled behind you, your back flush against his bare, toned chest. “You did so well today, my love,” Bucky murmured and you smiled. “Did your captain proud.”

“Thank you, sir,” you whispered and Bucky tensed behind you.

“None of that, you little minx,” Bucky said and you giggled, shuffling back against the warmth of his muscled body. His arm rested over your waist and moved to cradle you, a possessive move that he knew you adored - it made you feel loved, protected. “Sleep now, my love.”

The last thing you remembered before sleep pulled you under its swell was the weight of the diamonds and jewels on your neck, and how it remarkably felt like your captain would now always be with you.

⠈⠂⠄ 𝐢𝐧𝐛𝐨𝐱 | 𝐥𝐢𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 | 𝐚𝐨𝟑 ⠄⠂⠁

⠈⠂⠄𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 | 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 ⠄⠂⠁

#bucky barnes x female reader #bucky barnes x f!reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x female reader #bucky x f!reader #bucky x reader #bucky barnes oneshot #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes imagine #pirate au #pirate bucky #navy and roo's sleepover #rookthorne's works #Treasure

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unhingedwomandiaries · 10 months

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I tried a beat saber game for the first time yesterday. And as impossible as this might seem, I was godawful at it. We're talking humiliating levels of ineptitude here. Soul-crushing, ego-shattering, cupcake-stealing ineptitude. I mean, how could I - with my impeccable pedigree as a rhythm game iconoclast - utterly fail at hacking little digital blocks.

This is me we're talking about. Me. The fourteen-time Dance Dance Revolution All-Valley champion back in high school (on Super Maniac difficulty, natch). Me, slayer of plastic foot arrows, defender of the arcade cabinet. Me, with the dexterity and precision of a Swiss freaking watchmaker thanks to years of shredding fingers on the piano, flute, guitar, melodica, and ukulele.

And yet here I stand, my coordination and spatial awareness suddenly reduced to that of a drunken toddler. I couldn't slash those neon cubes if my life depended on it. It's as if my brain became disconnected from my body the moment I donned that controller, like I'm existing in some pseudo-real shadow dimension where up is down and left is right. Surely this must be a glitch in the simulation. A fatal error in the code. There's no way my elite rhythm game stats could utterly betray me like this otherwise…right?

#diary #Video games

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gregellner · 5 years

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Artwork by Tim Seeley, Daniel Leister, Mark Englert, and Chris Crank through Image Comics from “Hack/Slash: My First Maniac” #1.  (Mild censorship applied to Mortimer Strick’s buttons.)

For October 30 and Halloween of 2018, I did a thorough analysis of “Hack/Slash,” the horror comic epic (in the classical sense of the term) primarily by Tim Seeley. The analysis (viewable here as Part One and Part Two) was deliberately incomplete, as not only did it only intensely cover the first half of the original 2004-2013 run, but doing so involved providing intentionally inaccurate information as to the way in which the world of “Hack/Slash” functions so as to entice incoming readers without giving too many spoilers.

Here, I will be examining one way in which the world of “Hack/Slash” actually seems to function, by way of looking at the creatures that inhabit it so far as can be thoroughly explained.

There are many different kinds of beings in the world of “Hack/Slash,” all of which initially were collapsed under the overall collective name of “slashers.” While the Psychofiles in the earlier volumes (Volumes 1-5, collected in Omnibuses 1 and 2) did label them all as “slashers,” there were enough outliers, especially those who are given their own, unrelated categorization like “Faustian,” that the term itself seemed too generalized. In fact, many of the most famous villains of the slasher genre do not technically qualify under the actual, more precise definition proposed roughly halfway into the epic’s initial run.

As a note, “Hack/Slash” is a mature comic series. As such, there is the possibility of the occasional swear, as well as graphic imagery.

Furthermore, there will be no censorship for spoilers on this article either, so it assumes the reader is comfortable with the epic as a whole.

Some of the information gleaned here is from inference based on the information presented across the epic, while other pieces are from direct questions asked to Tim Seeley himself either online or through in-person conversation at New York Comic-Con 2018.

Slashers

For convenience, it seems best to list at least part of the first half of the analysis I did on Halloween for this.

What are slashers? Well, imagine your basic slasher movie villain. Revenge driven, extremely durable and at times supernatural. Commonly able to survive and escape if you don’t keep them in your sights. In many cases having additional supernatural abilities, most commonly superhuman strength and at least some level of physical regeneration to come back from death again and again. These villains focus on hurting those who are often guilty of some vice, mostly in terms of sexual activity.

Some of these villains, including many in “Hack/Slash” itself, focus on a specific day or a specific set of circumstances, in particular a holiday or otherwise a single day a year, before returning to their graves. These types of slashers are definitely the most predictable, and so are only very rarely dealt with, but do come up, in particular ones for Groundhog Day, Memorial Day, and Christmas each having some time devoted to fighting them in the story, and some others being mentioned as having been fought off-panel.

[…]

As defined, the slashers in “Hack/Slash” are also known as revenants, an older variation on the zombie archetype from European folklore as early as the Middle Ages, if not earlier. These undead are reanimated corpses that are believed to have revived to haunt the living. In the case of the slashers, as far as Cassie Hack knows from the beginning, they are reanimated by their sheer unstoppable hatred and insanity, their need for revenge, and are drawn to the things that they miss from life, mostly the aforementioned sexual vices. Furthermore, they often (but not always) retain intelligence on some level, enough to remember their past lives in spite of their new (or perhaps not-so-new) murderous obsessions, with their homicidal tendencies geared toward those memories, or even just basic impressions on the moments prior to or directly involved with their deaths in particular.

Additionally, several slashers tend to develop a skill set associated with the method of their death, making for a range of different types of villains. These powers range from someone who can kill others in their dreams, to secreting acids when sexually aroused, to the ability to detach one’s own limbs and move them independently, to transmission through the Internet like an electronic ghost. Each of these powers connects primarily to the manner of death, but also sometimes connect to the users’ personalities, in particular with respect to the acid user and the Internet transmission. The powers eventually tend to evolve over time and with subsequent appearances, developing new means of utilizing skill sets like the acidic secretions or a merger of dream-based powers with general psychic illusions, but on the whole, the power sets stay within set parameters in terms of what kinds of things they can accomplish.

While they do have a variety of powers, there are also some weaknesses that often do not come up in slasher movies. For instance, the most common slashers can be taken down with gunfire if in sufficient amounts, and can also suffer greatly from other forms of damage including blunt trauma or being cut up. In essence, while some slashers may have incredibly high healing abilities, they still can only take so much damage. One especially powerful weakness is fire. Whether or not it is truly the case, fire and explosions seem to do more damage than most other things. Those killed by fire have a tendency to have far more difficulties coming back from the dead again. The weakness is potent enough that Cassie tells others that “fire is your friend” when it comes to slashers. How exactly it works is unclear, but there are a high quantity of stories (which Cassie researched in the process of learning more about slashers) that include fire being used to keep things dead, especially zombies or vampires, so perhaps the same rules of “purifying the unholy” follows, as far as she can initially understand.

Now, all of that is all well and good. But why does fire work so well? Why do only some vengeful beings come back as slashers, while others do not? Not every serial killer Cassie Hack and Vlad face returns as undead, after all, and some of the slashers, like Blackfin the shark, are not even human in the first place.

The answer lies in where they come from, and by whom they were initially created. In fact, the elements stated before are an oversimplification at best.

The two elements at play are best said together at first, then explained separately. Rather than try to tell in general terms, it seems best to go to a certain quote from “Hack/Slash: The Series” #24.

“During his travels, Akakios discovered a small African tribe whom regularly used a plant with many unusual properties. When burned, it created a black flame. When its nectar was injected into a corpse, the body would regain a semblance of life. The plant was used respectfully, and in moderation. Inevitably, the plant’s effects on the brain wore off, leaving only a starving, unliving beast that fed upon living flesh. Akakios destroyed the tribe, taking the secret of the plant, which he called black ambrosia, with him back to Greece. […] Akakios synthesized a chemical from the flower, which he and his followers ingested. Akakios’ alchemy would allow the most devote among the believers to return to life after death, as true paladins of their beliefs. They would live again, stronger than ever before, some with bizarre powers and abilities like the Roman gods of myth, to destroy the Children of Dionysus and save the world. […] [Modern] paladins are those who have the nectar of the black ambrosia running through their veins even after many generations. Those you call slashers.”

First, let’s talk about black ambrosia, and its applications. The flower itself is rarely ever seen, but its nectar is rather prominent. The use of fire seems to burn away the black ambrosia nectar in the slashers’ blood, thereby making reanimation far more difficult (if most of it is removed) or outright impossible without other magical means (if all of it is removed). In the case of fire from lighting up black ambrosia flowers’ oil, the effect is even more potent, first negating the supernatural powers of a slasher, then killing them without the ability for the alchemy to bring them back. Furthermore, every subsequent death seems to result in both heightened powers (if they have specialized abilities) and lessened morals (to the point of attacking those formerly out of their own personal morality either without much care or with deliberate malice, such as in the cases of Bobby Brunswick and Acid Angel). In all, it seems as though a part of the slasher is left behind with each return, replaced with the power that flows through them.

The fluid is not limited to humans, as it has been shown to reanimate and make hostile at least one shark (Blackin) and one car (which will go unnamed intentionally, but appears in “Hack/Slash: Trailers 2”), indicating that ingesting the fluid can also cause one to turn given enough time.

Black ambrosia sees use in two distinct forms: through the bloodline of those who previously been given it, or through direct experimentation to create similar effects artificially.

The ones born into a bloodline with the black ambrosia can be considered “pureblood” slashers. They are the most common of slasher types, seeing as they can crop up at random and are bound to the anti-“sin” mentality originally thought up by Akakios himself, be it intentionally going after such people or unintentionally targeting them. The substance has to be activated, most commonly by the subject’s death, but it can, in theory, be neutralized by certain modern science to at least be rid of the homicidal insanity (or at least the exacerbation of it by the black ambrosia itself), but leave them biologically at the apparent age of their initial death until they are killed by external means. In this case, some of the more famous examples include Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th franchise (with his resurrection as a zombie) and, possibly, Michael Myers/The Shape of the Halloween franchise (with his ambiguously supernatural abilities even in continuities that lack the Curse of Thorn). The members of this group that are “Hack/Slash” villains are extremely high, including, but by no means limited to, Doctor Edmund Gross, Angela Cicero/Acid Angel, Ashley Guthrie, both Fathers Wrath, Ian Mattheson/D1aboliq, Matthew Ravenswood/Grinface, Delilah Hack/Lunch Lady, and many, many more.

On the other hand, certain organizations have taken to creating slashers artificially, either intentionally or not, by utilizing black ambrosia-related substances.

On the unintentional side, we have “hate juice” distilled from captive slashers by the pharmaceutical company Ceutotech, Inc., which engaged in “experimental cosmetics” as one of its bases. The goal was to replicate slashers’ ability to heal in order to make better anti-aging creams and presumably other applications to that effect. Of course, the fact that the name was “hate juice,” along with Emily Cristy’s to use it herself, indicates that Ceutotech was aware of its dangerous nature. After ingesting the fluid orally (by drinking it), she began to take on some elements of a slasher, primarily in the form of some limited healing. Cristy, unfortunately, also took on some of the negative side effects as a result, including the “back of your head ‘panic attack’” voice (to quote Cassie from ‘My First Maniac’) and highly violent actions, but managed to keep herself more or less under control aside from some slips until her first death in the explosion of her building. Despite probably not being a hereditary slasher herself, she reanimated, and was far more lucid than many others, even to the point of paying back Cassie and Vlad’s kindness by saving their life once. Her ability to reanimate appeared to be far less potent than most, as being impaled killed her once again, and subsequent reanimations were quickly dealt with.

On the more intentional side, we have the work of Doctor Ezekiel Chase at the Englund Prison in Indigo River (examined in ‘Resurrection’ during its first arc). He seemed to be completely aware of the nature of slashers, to the point of having sought out Vlad to help her, and various “resurrection fluid” formulas (which are directly identified as connected to black ambrosia by Cassie and Vlad both) are able to reanimate subjects in varying levels of cognition, ranging from Vlad having all of his faculties back to Dominique Peacetree being little more than a zombie, as was the case with the “controlled fun-dead” of the prison and the fatally poisoned counselors. While this type does engage in some ritualized behavior in the case of the less aware, as Cassie herself says, “their brains are mostly soup at this point.”

Outside of black ambrosia itself, we have its originator, the mystical alchemist Akakios. Without indulging too heavily in who he actually is, his power over existing slashers, especially those of the pureblood variety, cannot be denied. To explain, it seems best to indulge not only in the events of his life (and apparent unlife) but also what came after his final death. During ‘Final,’ he seemed to have an unparalleled control over slashers as a whole, able to control even the most volatile of his “paladins” such as the first Father Wrath and Grinface with little more than a look and a speech, could control entire hordes of slashers in the averted apocalyptic timeline, and could even “feel their deaths, new and final” when Nef magic annihilated his army at the end of ‘Final.’

As Cassie says in “Hack/Slash vs. Chaos!” #1, “Vlad and I put an end to the slasher bloodline. They don’t come back anymore.” In arcs ranging from ‘Crossroads’ to ‘Final’ (especially those two), the black flame seemed able to resurrect many slashers without any direct input, something that ceased entirely after Akakios was finally executed with extreme prejudice, indicating that the slasher repeated reanimations relied upon his continued life as a mystical tether. This idea is further proven by the fact that Dick Weiner of the final issue of “Hack/Slash: Resurrection” was reanimated in the 1980s, but unlived long into the 2010s until his death by woodchipper being his last demise, as well as the reanimation fluid of Dr. Chase only allowing for one extra life.

Putting together these clues, Akakios seems to, as the “father” of the slashers as a whole, link the slashers’ reanimations to himself through his mystical alchemy to enhance his control over them and render himself indispensible (not to mention heighten his apparent messiah complex as the “murder messiah”). The problem with this is that Akakios renders the entire group vulnerable once he is killed off, but what can you do?

Witches

Some characters can use magic, but only a rare few are so integrated with magic that they can easily learn it. Only directly identified as “witches” in ‘Murder Messiah,’ this kind of magic user is distinct from other ones due to the fact that she (the examples given are both female) is intrinsically tied to magic through her bloodline, rather than being just any random person who can use a spell book.

In the world of “Hack/Slash,” the two primary examples are Laura Lochs and her black sheep sister, Liberty “Libby” Lochs. Magic comes exceptionally easily to these, and likely other, witches, regardless of its form. However, the type of magic used differs depending on the witch’s preferences (in terms of the style of how they use it) and what they come across (in terms of the magical systems themselves) more than anything else. Both of the Lochs sisters were able to learn myriad types of magic about as easily as basic study of a book, rather than needing any real training in many cases.

For Laura, it came in the form of the spell book with which she originally learned magic in her first story, ‘Girls Gone Dead,’ which seemed to consist of verbal magic and blood rituals, but very little, if anything, in the way of direct offensive use of her power. On finding Papa Sugar, she learned the use of certain voodoo magics (in the style of Child’s Play, on account of it being during the ‘Vs. Chucky’ story) such as the creation of certain potions and use of specific incantations, with little apparent effort needed to learn any of the intricate elements. She also appears to have known necromancy, which she taught to her sister Libby. Her own style focused on controlling others and the environment through murder, including creation of voodoo zombies, controlling a slasher’s actions through verbal commands said backwards, and leading her sister to control Julian Gallo the Mosaic Man by linking him intrinsically to the powers of death.

Libby, on the other hand, stuck to a different style. Aside from controlling the Mosaic Man in the name of revenge against Cassie’s hand in Laura’s death, she used necromancy’s control of souls to attempt to help people by manipulation of luck. After abandoning necromancy itself, she took to a more “modern” sorcery, to the point of openly calling herself a witch, focusing in on the use of verbal commands to control those who can hear them, to the general effect of far more offensive use of magic in the name of helping others instead of her sister’s malevolent, more low-key use of spells in general. She also seems to have a very good grasp on Neffish black magick (to be discussed lower down), such that she is capable of using the Neffish guitar for time travel relatively easily (physical illness notwithstanding).

According to Libby, every witch gets a “broom” (hers being a motorcycle) and a “familiar” (hers being flesh-eating bacteria), leaving the possibility that the reason why Laura did not develop either of these things is that she never took the time to do so or did not live long enough to accomplish it, unlike Libby’s several months on her own learning new magic.

Just because witches can have easy access to magic does not mean that they are completely aware of all of the intricacies of the magic that they use, as can be seen from attempts to use necromancy for benevolent purposes without understanding its basic manipulation of souls.

“She ruins everything she touches. She wanted to do ‘good’ with a necromancy book. She tried to make lucky items for the dregs, the luckless losers like her. But necromancy isn't meant to bless items. To do so drags a spirit out of the afterlife and binds it to the object. A slave spirit that doesn't want to be there.”

On account of their mystical nature, some of these beings (in particular Laura) can subvert their own death by latching on to another witch’s consciousness to teach how to use some magic, becoming a kind of ghost in the process, albeit one with very limited connection to the physical world.

Mystic Empowerment

Certain entities were empowered by magical sources, whether through spells they cast or those cast upon them or others connected to them. As these entities are not intrinsically magical in the same way as witches, they seem appropriate to discuss separately.

Insofar as famous examples in fiction go, we have Charles Lee Ray and his transformation into Chucky through voodoo magic of the Heart of Damballa in the Child’s Play franchise (though he might, possibly, be a witch), and the cursed, corporeal ghost of Victor Crowley in the Hatchet films, both of which coincidentally appear in the “Hack/Slash” series themselves.

While slashers can be additionally mystically empowered, such as the case with the Mosaic Man in ‘Sons of Man’ and ‘Foes and Fortunes,’ that power is distinct from that of external spells, and so cannot truly be considered the same type of foe. However, empowering certain beings with additional magic may leave them as servants of said forces instead of their own will, as is the case with the aforementioned slasher.

“When we raised Julian, we bonded him to the powers of death and black magic so that he would be at our beck and call. Julian serves death. He'll free any spirits imprisoned on this plane.”

In general, mystic empowerment is a subset to the doings of witches more than it is a distinct power on its own.

Nef

The creatures of Nef (adjective form “Neffish”) are, by and large, some kind of amalgamation between aliens and demons. They are called demons, and treated as such, but in fact are not in any form of Hell that can be accessed by humans after death. Instead, Nef seems to be some kind of alternate dimension.

The only real method of reproduction for the beings of Nef is impregnating virgin females from the main dimension, regardless of species. The resultant Nef being emerges from the host’s body through their torso akin to an Alien franchise chestburster, killing the mother very violently. Understandably, finding a willing mother is pretty much impossible, hence the use of avatars (see Avatars below).

What type of Nef being emerges depends upon the individual being impregnated. In the case of a dog, the emergent Nef demon will be a “lowbeast,” a kind of hellhound type creature that is what appears to be the lowest form of Nef life, and of which the character Pooch is a member. Others exist, such as the apparent greatest warrior Kuma, a tusked humanoid misidentified as “Bigfoot,” but barring one appearance of hers and some others like minor villain Kumok, there isn’t a lot of emphasis on them as a whole.

One thing that is known is that, again much like the Xenomorphs of the Alien franchise, Nef creatures appear to have some form of DNA reflex, an ability to take on certain aspects of the host creature while still being definitely of Nef. This difference accounts for not only the bizarre look of lowbeasts being vaguely similar to a dog or a horse, but also certain abilities of more advanced Nef beings. Mid-level Nef creatures like Kumok have the ability to utilize weapons such as Nef wands to control “black magick,” but instead of being sorcerers on their own, these wands seem accessible to and easily usable by anyone, including Cassie Hack or Vlad, meaning that there isn’t an intrinsic ability more than there is general sapience.

The most prominent example of this reflex giving powers has to be the Stillborn, a creature that was born from the body of the psychic Martha "Muffy" Jaworski possessed by the dream-based killer Ashley Guthrie, the latter of whom had a psychic connection to Cassie Hack that had only been exacerbated by increased powers through the former. As a result, he had an exceptionally strong psychic connection to Cassie, able to have her see through his eyes during his serial killings even aside from his fame-based cannibalistic empowerment, paralysis-inducing “starstruck” abilities, and eventual electrical manipulation, both of which fit in with the “worship through a rock star” attitude of Nef itself.

Avatar

In some cases, individuals play host to an otherworldly, superhuman power. The means of acquiring these powers differ, but the overall effect is that of a need to keep the connection to that power to retain magical (or presumably other) abilities.

On the one hand, we have the classic Faustian bargain, offering something up in exchange for power from demonic entities, ones that entirely relinquish their hold on said abilities until they decide to take them back through one manner or another. Our most prominent example of this kind of power would have to be Jeffrey Brevvard, a.k.a. Six Sixx of the short-lived band Acid Washed. Given access to the Neflords (see Nef above) by their latest recruiter and former avatar (heavily implied but never outright stated to be a certain music King who is presumed to have died in August of 1977), he sacrifices young women to the Neflords in exchange for various powers that his Psychofiles profile identifies as “black magick,” a skill set that includes raising his soulless bandmates from their crates, transforming into a demonic entity with wings, the ability to be seen as very famous and popular in spite of his lackluster music through probability alteration, and access to his black magick Neffish guitar. The latter is not as much a part of his type of creature as it is a consequence of said power, which can be used by others if they can get their hands on it to do things including opening a portal to different dimensions such as Nef and the Dream World or between different areas on Earth, time travel, projection of blasts of energy, hypnosis of virgins, and potentially much more. In all, the power relies upon a steady flow of virgin sacrifices, to which point Six Sixx develops a body count of at least fourteen before the end of his run.

Another example of this kind of power is famous from slasher films, and even comes up under a different name in the ‘Mind Killer’ arc after a brief appearance at the ends of ‘Shout at the Devil’: the Dream Demons that empowered Freddy Krueger of the A Nightmare on Elm Street franchise. Although the Dream Demons are only identified as “Dread Drinkers” by Six Sixx on account of him not knowing their names, their appearance and fear-inducing abilities make their true identities readily apparent to those with the right knowledge, placing Krueger (who had been previously identified by Chucky and also was mentioned without directly stating his name in ‘My First Maniac’) in the role of an avatar to their power, rather than a slasher in and of himself. The fact that he could be depowered through skillful use of time travel in Freddy vs. Jason vs. Ash: The Nightmare Warriors adds further credence to him not being a slasher.

The other major type of power is that of a divine influence, as is the case with Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle, a character in public domain who was involved in events during the ‘Super Sidekick Sleepover Slaughter’ arc and her own one-shot arc ‘Mystery Woman.’ In her case, the powers granted are fantastical to the point of her being seen as a goddess, able to perform ridiculously powerful, often quite over-the-top punishments on those she deems to be worthy of said behavior, including villains associated with her capture and those who would attack her jungle. However, while the powers themselves are quite memorable, their source is less reliable. Fantomah’s power relies upon the continued existence of her jungle, and with her capture for decades in the “Godbox,” she was unable to prevent the quite realistic destruction of said jungle by modern society’s deforestation. As such, while her powers are quite strong shortly after emerging from her captivity, they quickly weaken to nothing more than illusions, and eventually are removed from her altogether in favor of a more suitable host, leaving her to mortality once more.

Monsters

Perhaps the best term to use for the creatures outright called “monsters” in ‘Son of Samhain’ would be “orcs,” in the classic J.R.R. Tolkein scheme. Judging from how the overall tone of ‘Son of Samhain’ is more of a pulpy action story than a horror story, determining their characteristics is a bit more difficult, in no small part due to them only being brought up for a single arc.

What can be determined is that they are an ancient species that dwells deep beneath the Earth in tunnels, and that they have their own hierarchy. They have a variety of subspecies, including the following: insectoid tinier creatures that can possess and enhance bodies of others by crawling into their orifices, forcing their minds into a dream state; humanoid figures in varying degrees of muscle mass that look like prototypical orcs, with green skin and primitive weapons like clubs; and flying beasts described as “gods” of their kind that are, nonetheless, not powerful enough to withstand sufficient human-based explosives. Their numbers are in the thousands at least, but they are weak enough to be taken down with a single swing of Cassie’s bat, to the point that she seems willing to take on an entire wave of their army more or less by herself.

Vampire

Of course, vampires are known throughout fiction as bloodsucking undead, as one of the archetypical creatures of the genre up there with spirits and werebeasts. Given that, an analysis of their nature seems in order, considering some rules may differ depending on the series. In particular, the ones seen are from the ‘Return to Haverhill’ arc of “Hack/Slash: Resurrection.”

Of the typical vampiric traits, several are shown, especially for Chetly, Earl of Chanders. In particular, they have some form of hypnosis through eye contact, cannot cross into a location without being invited, and have superhuman strength and speed. In at least the case of Chet, vampires can be kept from touching particular people by specifying who exactly is allowed to fall under the “invitation,” with others being treated as essentially a restraining order. All vampires under the head of a group will turn back to normal once said vampire is killed. Vulnerabilities include holy water, silver, and staking (with a stake being any long, sharp piece of wood). Furthermore, multiple types of vampire, from the one first shown in ‘Return to Haverhill’ to the recurring crossovers with Vampirella, are afraid of cats.

As said by a head vampire, “The blood contains many magics.” On the one hand, this could mean sharing of abilities across vampiric strains, such as enhancing one vampire’s control over an area of expertise only held by the other. On the other hand, this also allows for transference of command of a group from an ancient vampire to a younger one through a dark ritual that involves “the purest of sacrifices,” which may include, or in fact be, the heart of the older vampire. The fact that the explanation changes slightly between issues of the series makes determining what exactly occurred unclear.

Hybrids

Across the entire series, there are some hybrids between humanity and other creatures, through a variety of means. Some are born as hybridized creatures, others are granted said hybridization through mystical means, and others still artificially hybridize themselves.

“Each generation brings us closer. We move away from humans and toward monsters with every hatching. It won’t be long before Attan-Soolu’s DNA consumes the human’s, giving it the strength to life on its own.”

First, there is the process of using an artificial selection process of breeding (coupled with directly applying nonhuman DNA) to create hybrid creatures. On a lower key level, this technique was seen with the eponymous creatures from the ‘Sons of Man’ arc. The Society of the Black Lamp used inhumane breeding programs to create specialized human breeds, essentially subspecies, including the following: the “Hades,” with innate night vision; the “Poseidon,” able to hold their breath and swim unnaturally well; the “Artemis,” near-animalistic supersoldiers; and the “Venus,” little more than companions and sexual slavery (with the exception of one).

More overt was the process used in the alliance between the degenerated remnants of the Black Lamps and the monsters under Morinto, which merged the DNA of Akakios (still called “Samhain” for whatever reason) and that of the monstrous god Attan-Soolu to create monster-humans. There are some more disturbing examples present, such as an apparently full-grown man with Akakios’ orange hair and a shell on his torso, but the most successful was one of those that they deemed to be the greatest failure known to live, the eight-year-old October “Ocky” Bourne, who had little if any connection to the monsters themselves.

“Her boon was power. The power to take. The power to kill. She made him better. She made him more than a man. Of course, tha’ power came with certain dietary requirements. Tha’ ne’er bothered Sawney. Eventually he decided it’d be selfish to keep all tha’ power to himself, so Sawney took a wife. When he saw his golden daughters, he knew tha’ he had to keep the blood strong. And so the Beanes passed into myth and legend. But the blood did remain strong…”

In the case of the Beane Clan, descended from the infamous Alexander “Sawney” Beane and his 48-member cannibal clan originated in 16th Century Scotland, the influence is more mystical in nature. After Sawney showed no fear in the face of a demoness that had attempted to kill him, she granted him the boon of superhuman strength and durability, powered by his own cannibalism. For his descendants, he decided to “keep it in the family,” resulting in an incestuous clan spanning all the way to the 21stcentury in Chicago. The women who were born of his line were very physically attractive at first, but were liable to transform into a far more hideous, green skinned form once sufficiently agitated. For whatever reason, private military contractors from Moreci Securities seem fit to call those ones vampires, perhaps due to their habit of injecting some kind of poison into victims to make their faces puff up with blood. On the other hand, males of the line were constantly in the monstrous form, with the green skin also working along with a complete inability to grow hair and an overall deformed appearance. The actual dilution of the bloodline as a way of weakening the power is unclear, seeing as Vlad, a member of the clan who had a father outside of it, was able to defeat one of their stronger members.

The downside seems to come with those who refrain from cannibalism. As the power is inherently tied to that food source, those who do not eat human meat, such as Vlad, seem to have a variety of physical ailments, ranging from respiratory problems (such as those that are half of why Vlad wears his signature gas mask) to a progressive bone disease that leaves Vlad bedridden for a several arcs of the latter half of the comic’s original run. While Dr. Vincent Morrow (of Witch Doctor) seemed to create a serum to cure his bone condition from the blood of Vlad’s grandfather, Bronson Beane, it is unclear if this treatment is permanent. However, considering there has been absolutely no mention of his various ailments since, and considering Dr. Morrow’s treatments are pretty comprehensive, it seems fair to say that the negative effects were counteracted until otherwise proven.

“You know as well as I do that this job, hunting like we do, has a way of aging us in some ways, and keeping us young in others.”

What exactly Caraway Cordero, ancestor of Cassie Hack on the side of her mother, actually happens to be is a bit of a mystery to some, but after some discussion with Seeley at New York Comic Con 2018, that question has been answered in regards to Tini Howard’s plans for her. She is still a human being, but mutated through a variety of deliberate, artificial means in a manner not unlike the Witchers of the novel and video game franchise of the same name. How exactly she imbued herself with supernatural properties is not entirely clear, but seems to involve things like drinking the blood of certain beings, injecting other things, and the like to the point of becoming similar to them, but on a lower level in some respects. Caraway is capable of sniffing out Cassie’s relationship to her down to who her mother was on first meeting, limiting or even entirely disrupting her aging process since the 1800s to the point of still appearing to be roughly in her forties in the 2010s, developing enhanced reflexes to the point of being able to take out a vampire coming at her from behind, an ability to scare away other vampires by hissing in a manner not unlike them, and, most impressively, using superhuman speed to a degree that even Vampirella, a vampire herself (albeit an alien one in this continuity), was unable to even see her until she had already struck a fatal blow to the head vampire of Haverhill.

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odinsblog · 2 years

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Hack Slash cover art by Jenny Frison

#hack slash #comics #art #digital art #jenny frison #image comics #my first maniac

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adorablele · 3 years

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@riothae ♡ to my darling table leg 💞 this is to push the doyoung dream boy agenda. and also i’m sorry for not releasing this on your birthday, please accept this belated birthday gift.

☍ pairing; kim doyoung x reader ☍ genre; fluff, romance, a little bit of angst but mostly fluffy // apocalypse!au, zombie apocalypse!au, strangers to lovers!au, soulmate!au, parallel world!au ☍ word count; 4, 210 ☍ summary; you have your very own dream boy, a literal man of your dreams and he goes by the name of Kim Doyoung ☍ a/n; don’t be fooled by the beginning, 99.9% of this is just dialogue. also I tried my very best to avoid using the word zombies to describe the people who were affected by the virus because...yeah it has something to do with the characters mindset but i didn’t get to explore that because I wanted to focus on the romance lmao ANYWAYS PLEASE ENJOY AND FEEDBACK IS ALWAYS APPRECIATED since this is my first ever apocalypse!au and longest fic (in general and for doyoung)

trigger warning(s); mentions of weapons, use of weapons (doyoung uses a machete, mc also uses a weapon to kill the zombies), mention of blood

This has got to be the stupidest thing you’ve ever done.

“Hey!” you screamed, banging together two pots.

The growling behind you started to multiply.

You smirked, continuing to clash up more noise, “C’mere!”

Out of the corner of your eye, you saw two rotted figures make their way towards you. The adrenaline in your veins pushed your legs to move faster. You heard the growling behind you grow louder, more shuffling of feet syncopated between your own. Out of either confidence or pure insanity―quite possibly both―you turned around to admire the hoard of creatures that you managed to gather.

Disgust swirled in your stomach. They were ugly with skin so pale that you could see the infected black veins running through their body. They snapped at you with rotted teeth, blistered lips and blood-shot eyes.

You laughed. “You’re so slow.”

Those vicious, viscera eating monsters didn’t seem to like your taunt. With inhumane twists of their bodies, they started to sprint towards you. This was, without a doubt, the stupidest thing you’ve ever done. Still, you shouted at them and banged your pots. Your pace was already outmatched by theirs, but it didn’t help that you were walking backwards.

“Just a little closer, I know you can do it!” you cheered.

By now, more monsters have noticed the ruckus that you’ve caused and they decided they wanted to join in on the fun. That’s when you decided to continue running. You could hear their growls growing closer and closer. For a split second, there was a single drop of fear that touched your spine, or rather, a finger. Acting on instinct, you slammed the pan into the head of the intruder.

You were done for. They were catching up to you.

And yet, you kept running, faster than you’ve ever ran. Despite the fact that any one of the, probably, hundreds of virus-infected bodies were one step away from tearing you limb from limb, you laughed.

This was it. This was the end.

This was where you die.

The maniacal smirk on your face never ceased. You didn’t know how long you’d be able to run for, but you kept going. At least, you tried to until you were suddenly slammed by a body quite larger than your own. The wind was knocked out of your lungs, the buildings behind you a blur until you were pulled into an abandoned convenience store.

“Are you insane?” the stranger scowled.

One second, two, three before you gathered up your wits.

“Let go of me,” you shouted, pushing off the stranger, “and yeah, I am.”

You aimed your gun at the stranger who held his arms up in surrender.

“A thank you would be nice,” he frowned.

The tall man was dressed in tattered jeans and a fitted black t-shirt. Around his wrists were newspapers bound by masking tape. He was covered in blood, dirt and grime; chapped lips and sharp eyes; black hair nestled messily on top of his head. Aside from all the cuts and bruises, you would deem him handsome. Although, that’s not of importance right now.

“What would I be thanking you for?”

“For saving you,” he replied like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I didn’t need saving.”

He scoffed, “You were about to die.”

“I’m already dead,” you muttered, “we all are.”

The stranger raised his brows, “Is that so?”

“There’s nothing to live for,” you replied.

He stared you in the eyes. “Then go back out there. Go say hello to your fanclub.”

A brief staredown occurred, his gaze challenging your own. Both of you knew that you wouldn’t walk back out there. At that moment, you wanted to see how close you could get to Death, but when it really came down to it, you didn’t want to die, not to those things anyways, and―as much as you’d like to say otherwise―most definitely not now. You were on the brink of insanity, yes, but you weren’t completely diving in head first. You also knew that deep-down, you’re relieved that he saved you.

And he knew that too.

“Don’t move!” you shouted when he started to lower his arms.

He paused and looked over to the counter, “I’m just reaching for the candy.”

You eyed the counter where a bag of food laid and followed his movements closely as he reached for the opened bag of gummy bears on the counter.

“You’re human, just like me. We’re not like those...beasts out there, but if you really want to become like them, then go ahead.” He reached for the backpack lying on the floor by the counter and slung it over his back, “I already tried saving you once, though your actions aren’t in my controls.”

He opened the back door of the grocery store and left.

Your shoulders finally relaxed. You lowered your gun, then glanced out the window at the horde of monsters that roamed around aimlessly looking for the meal that had escaped them. Those soulless creatures were easy to read, easy to know what their intentions were. You turned back to the door where the stranger walked through. Who knows what his intentions were?

Yet, you decided to follow him.

For a block or two you followed him, watching as he slashed through the creatures with his machete. Occasionally, you too, killed the monsters that made their way towards you. Eventually, he entered a building and climbed all the way to the roof.

You found him sitting at the edge, feet dangling as he stared ahead. His weapon lay next to him and his previous bag of opened gummy bears sat in his hand. You joined him by the edge, and this might be even stupider than attracting a mob of bloodthirsty fiends.

Rather than shoving you off, he offered you some gummy bears which you accepted. He didn’t turn to look at you once. In silence, the two of you observed the abandoned city in front of you. Rubbled buildings weakly stood, streets filled with crashed cars, various monsters (who were once human) lingered on the sidewalks. The prettiest of all the ruins was the sky. A toxic mix of orange hues. Shapes of clouds filled the sky, providing no rain and no shade. The Sun was half over the horizon. It sent out constant waves of warmth.

“I’m Doyoung,” he whispered, as if it were sacred to share his name. He turned to you, eyes vulnerable, a soft brown like the fresh soil used to plant a flower, “Kim Doyoung.”

You gasped out your name as you woke up.

You sat up in your bed, dazed from the dream. Or, was it a dream? Panic slowly tickled your spine and you immediately turned on the news, phone dialing with numbers of your loved ones.

After constant reassurances from your friends and family, you slumped on the couch. It was all just a dream. It was just a dream! You shook your head and went to wash your face in the bathroom. It was just a dream. A dream that you vividly remember.

A dream with Kim Doyoung.

For the next few months―each month―you had one overly vivid dream that included Kim Doyoung and the apocalyptic, orange skied world. It mostly consisted of the two of you running around in empty fields, abandoned cities and hacking away at monsters. In many ways, it was you and Doyoung against the world.

“Any updates on dream boy?” Kara, your best friend, smiled, sitting at the bar-counter of the diner you worked at.

You placed her usual order of coffee in front of her. “You’re still calling him that?”

“Well, isn’t he?” she shrugged.

“Yeah…”

She smiled, “Any updates?”

Your heart thumped slightly at the question, the memory of the dream you had this morning resurfacing.

The squelch of flesh echoed against the walls of the room as you and Doyoung explored the bakery.

“Believe it or not, I was a baker,” he shared, slashing at a crazed waitress

“A baker?” you asked, raising your brows, quickly opening the door to the kitchen area. Running towards you was a murderous customer who, you assumed, didn’t receive the food they wanted. After taking care of the virused creature, you frowned at the disemboweled chef on the floor, “Should we bake in this kitchen?”

“Do you want to?”

“Not with this on the floor,” you mumbled with a pout, “I thought we finally found a place!”

He shrugged, “Let’s just move the body.”

Together, the two of you, while trying not to gag, dragged away all the dead bodies in the kitchen and tossed them out. After another check around the bakery, the two of you barricaded the windows and doors, also checking through them to make sure no more rotted mouths were running towards you.

Once all safety precautions were taken care of, Doyoung took out a container of sanitary wipes.

You snorted, “Are you really going to clean?”

“I told you, I was a baker, and in order to cook or bake, you need a clean area.”

You didn’t say anything, only smiling in amusement as he started to wipe the counter.

“Aren’t you going to help me?” he asked.

Your smile turned upside down as you saw the dusty counter, bloodied floors and molded dishes. “Do I have to?”

Doyoung threw the container of sanitary wipes at you. You caught it with a grumble. After a good three hours, the kitchen was finally clean enough for Doyoung’s standards.

“I can’t believe you wanted to clean on your birthday. We could’ve just grabbed one of the pastries or gotten a cake from another place,” you sighed.

“Well, if we did that, then you wouldn’t make me a cake.”

“Aren’t you the baker?” You countered.

“Yep!” he leaned against the counter, “but you’re the one who promised to make me a cake.”

“Fine,” you grumbled, dragging your feet as you made your way over to the pantry.

Somehow, you managed to follow the recipe that you tore from a cookbook and not burn down the entire building. You grabbed the cake from the counter, “Let’s hope you enjoy this, Mr. I’m-a-baker-so-I’m-going-to-give-your-novice-attempt-at-a-cake-a-rating-out-of-ten.”

“Just an FYI, I had my own bakery,” he proudly added.

“Showing off now, I see,” you chuckled, placing a one tier cake with a very messily and unnecessarily large ‘Happy Birthday Doyou’ written on it. “I ran out of space for your name,” you explained as you added a candle, “but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

“2 points off,” Doyoung called out, “didn’t complete your decorations, y/n? Not good.”

“No mercy, huh?” you tsked, lighting up the candle, “not even one point for the effort?”

He shrugged.

“Guess I’ll just have to impress you with my singing skills,” you sighed.

Doyoung watched with amused eyes, “You can try.”

“Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear Arden- ”

“Minus another two points.”

Your jaw dropped, “What, I totally was hitting that high note!”

Doyoung shook his head, “First off, no. Secondly, who even is Arden.”

“Don’t know, maybe it was a classmate of mine whose birthday just happens to be today,” you shrugged.

He raised a brow.

”Look, I just wanted to say a random name other than yours.”

“Another point off.”

“You’re being ridiculous.”

“Insulting the judge,” he shook his head, holding back a smile, “another point.”

“Doyoung!” you whined.

He laughed, “Okay, okay. I’ll give back two points if it tastes good.”

“Four if it blows you away,” you bargained.

“Deal.”

Although you watched with a confident smile, your heart pumped nervously in your chest. You weren’t the best cook, nor baker, so you knew that there was a chance that the cake wouldn’t taste that good. And you were right.

Doyoung’s face twisted into a sour expression.

“It’s…”

“Just say it,” you sighed, “don’t hold back.”

“Horrible.”

You sighed and sat down next to him. You took a piece of the cake to taste. Upon the abomination you called a cake landed on your tastebuds, you realized that you deserved a final rating of -54325/10.

“This tastes like…very salty sand,” you gagged, “did I forget the sugar or something?”

Doyoung got up from his seat and analyzed your ingredients. “My love, I think you did.” He then placed the bag of what you thought was sugar in front of you.

“It’s salt?!”

Needless to say, Doyoung saved his own birthday cake by making one himself. You insisted that you should help which, reflecting back on it, you weren’t sure was a good idea or not. Multiple times, you got distracted by the way the dim lights of the kitchen seemed to highlight his face, or the way it felt too comfortable with his hand over yours when he would teach you how to do something. It left your stomach flipping, palms a little sweaty, and your heart ready to burst out of your chest.

“And it’s done!” he smiled, finding the last flower decoration on the cake.

It was clear who decorated what.

All the orderly placed strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, along with the prettily swirled flowers and legible font were obviously Doyoung’s expertise whereas the little random patches of unevenly placed blueberries and poorly attempted flowers that ended up looking like dots were your humbly added touches.

“Wait, I want to add one last thing,” you told him.

You took the piping bag full of royal icing from him and started to shakily draw on the corner of the cake.

“Is that...a bunny?”

You bit the inside of your cheek as you concentrated, “Yep.”

“Why a bunny?”

“You look like a bunny when you smile,” you nonchalantly confessed.

Doyoung didn’t say anything.

“Alright!” you smiled, proud of the animal that you drew. You turned to Doyoung who you were surprised to see already looking at you. “Doyoung?”

He looked towards the cake and cleared his throat, “You uhm, you ready to sing?”

“I thought we were just going to eat it?”

“Oh…”

“Well, I mean, unless you want to hear my amazing vocal-”

“Let’s just eat,” he grimaced.

You laughed, taking a knife and slicing a piece. You offered for him to take the first bite.

“No, no, you taste it.”

“You’re the birthday boy,” you countered.

“And as the birthday boy, I want you to take the first bite.”

You frowned, “Pulled that one on me, huh?”

He only gave you the bunny smile that made your knees weak.

“Fine,” you grumbled, taking a bite of the cake. It tasted a thousand times better than the cake that you made. “Oh my- This is really good! You need to try it.”

You didn’t get a chance to fully give Doyoung a piece of cake because he gently cupped your jaw, turning your chin to face him.

“I think I’ll try it now.”

Before you could respond, he kissed you. It was quick, unexpected on both sides of the party. That didn’t stop him from kissing you a second time though. This time, it was less hesitant and a little longer. He pulled away, yet again.

The two of you took time staring into each other’s eyes. His thumb rubbed against your cheek.

“You’re absolutely breath-taking,” he confessed.

You smiled, “Doyoung…”

“Completely stunning,” he whispered, leaning closer.

Your eyes started fluttering close as you muttered his name.

“Yeah?”

“Kiss me.”

Kara’s smile widened, her eyes glinting with mischief, “Oooo someone did have a dream.”

Your face felt hot.

“Someone had a dream?” Felix asked curiously. He took the seat next to Kara and placed a plate full of waffles in between the three of you.

Kara stuffed a piece in her mouth, “Dream boy strikesh ahjain.”

“What?” you mused.

She swallowed her food. “I said, dream boy strikes again,” Kara smiled, “perhaps, a little something happened?”

“Maybe a little something.”

“Like…” Felix trailed off.

“Like… a kiss.”

“You kissed him?!” your friends both exclaimed.

Luckily, at the early hour of 6 in the morning, the diner was always empty except for the three of you. You rolled your eyes. “So what, we kissed,” you shrugged, “it’s just a dream.”

“Y/N,” Felix sighed in an exasperated tone, “it’s not just any dream-”

“It’s a dream with your dream boy!” Kara finished.

“He could be your soulmate!” Felix gasped, “What if he’s having dreams like this too!”

“C’mon,” you gave your best friend a look of disbelief, “he’s not even real.”

“You don’t know that,” Kara told you, “there are people out there named Kim Doyoung.”

Felix tilted his head and rubbed his chin thoughtfully, “You know, his name does sound pretty familiar.”

You shook your head, “You guys are crazy.”

They continued to converse about people named Doyoung and possible suitors for you which you ignored and, instead, focused on continuing to wipe down the counter. The door to the diner then jingled as a customer stepped in.

“Welcome in!” you greeted, still not looking up from the counter. Not hearing a response from the customer, you looked up. The rag in your hand dropped onto the counter. At your reaction, your friends stopped talking.

Doyoung.

The man dressed in all black that stood at the door, smiled slightly, “Hello.”

You felt the eyes of your friends.

Clearing your throat, you nodded, “Oh uh, hi. Sit where you want.”

He nodded before making his way towards a corner table.

“Looks like someone likes-” Kara started, but you interrupted her.

“It’s him,” you told them quietly.

“He’s the man of your-” they both exclaimed.

“Shut up!” you hissed before they could finish their sentence.

They both glanced over at the man looking out the window before turning back to you with wide grins.

“He’s the man of your dreams?” they both asked excitedly.

“You two are unbelievable,” you mumbled, taking a menu and walking over to the man.

“Here’s your menu. My name is y/n, I’ll be serving you today. Just let me know when you’re ready to order,” you smiled.

When Doyoung, or the man that looked like Doyoung, heard your name, you could’ve sworn that his eyes widened slightly, but you shook off the thought and left when he mutely nodded his head at you.

“It’s dream boy,” Kara immediately said once you returned back to the counter.

You shook your head in disbelief, looking over at him before back to Kara. “No.”

“What do you mean no?” Felix quietly whispered.

“Just because it looks like him doesn’t mean it is him! He’s just a dream,” you nodded over at Doyoung, “that guy, he’s real.”

While you bickered quietly with your friends, Doyoung spared another glance your way. It was odd seeing you in normal clothing, ones that weren’t tattered or bloodied. You weren’t holding your usual weapon, and you most definitely weren’t bashing heads. Though, he couldn’t help but admire you in the same way he had in his dreams.

“Completely stunning,” he mumbled.

When you dropped the rag, he was sure that you recognized him; recognized him as the Kim Doyoung from NCT. When your friends kept whispering and looking back at him, he knew that, not only you, but also your friends knew who he was. Doyoung turned back to the menu.

He doubted you knew had the same dreams as him. He did feel a bit awkward considering the fact that he dreamt of kissing you without knowing that you were an actual person. Maybe he should leave? After all, he was hoping to come to this diner because it was relatively empty, and he just hoped that the people in here wouldn’t know him.

He glanced once more over to the counter where your friends quickly turned their gaze away from him.

“Guys, he’s looking over here,” you muttered, “you’re making him feel uncomfortable.”

“You’re right,” Felix mumbled, “we can’t destroy your chances at dating dream boy.”

Kara nodded, “Yes, we’ll leave.”

“What?” you exclaimed, a bit louder than intended. Lowering your voice, you sent a panicked glance at your friends who were packing up, “Where are you going?”

“Well, I have to go to work now,” Kara sighed loudly, slinging her bag over her shoulder, “I’m going to get going.”

Felix followed Kara’s lead and stood up, “Yeah, I have to go walk my cat.”

Before you could process that Felix doesn’t have a cat, they were out the door, leaving you alone, in the diner, at approximately 6:37 AM with a boy that―just this morning―you dreamt of kissing. Your face felt heated again.

Shaking your head, you looked over at Doyoung who was analyzing the menu.

For the first time, you could clearly see him. His hair matched the color of his black long-sleeve turtleneck that was tucked into some black jeans. No blood, no dirt, no machete, just him. Just him and the highlight of the Sun on his cheeks. That reminded you of the dream you had and you shook away the daze, turning your attention to the very interesting tile of the counter that looked like it needed some serious scrubbing (not really).

“I’m ready to order,” Doyoung softly called out.

You quickly walked over to him, jotted down his order, then ran away to hide in the kitchen. Your body worked on auto-pilot as you prepared his meal. With his drink and food in hand, you started to walk back towards his table. Doyoung was staring out the window and he was humming.

As you got closer, you realized that you knew that song.

“Do you remember what the stars looked like?”

In the middle of an empty grass field, you laid with Doyoung. Your head was rested on his chest, and you felt his voice vibrate throughout his chest.

“Yeah,” you told him, “they look like your eyes.”

You could feel Doyoung roll his eyes, “I’m serious.”

“So am I!”

He chuckled and brushed his fingers through your hair. “Did you ever stare at the stars and see everything you wanted? Did you ever see your ambitions? Your achievements?”

“Getting deep here, aren’t we?”

Doyoung sat up, “Have you?”

You stared at him for a moment before turning to the endless orange sky. The Sun never seemed to move from its place over the horizon.

“Yeah, I have.”

A pause of silence.

“When I looked up at the stars, I saw my future. I saw the plans I had, the answers to my problems, I saw hope. However...” you smiled sadly at the orange hues, “they all went up in flames.”

Doyoung placed his hand on yours.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get that deep,” you crookedly smiled, but Doyoung only pulled you into a hug. And the two of you stayed like that for a while.

“What did you see?” you asked when the two of you were back to laying on the floor.

“Honestly?”

“Honestly.”

“Me on stage, singing.”

“Singing?”

He sighed, “Yep. It was nothing more than a hobby, but my grandmother would tell me that I was a singer in some other life. She told me that if I looked at the stars, they would show me.”

You chuckled, “Kim Doyoung, a singer.”

“I’m sharing a heart-touching story and you’re laughing.”

“Sorry,” you gave his knuckle a kiss, “it’s my coping mechanism.”

He intertwined his hand with yours, “I’m just kidding, but is seeing me as a singer that funny?”

You shrugged, “A bit hard to believe.”

“Really?” he asked, sitting up, untangling your hands.

“A little,” you admitted.

He stood up and lent you a hand. “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” you asked, taking his offer.

The two of you were back to traversing through empty fields and abandoned streets (fighting zombies along the way) until you stopped in front of a music store. Ripped posters hung from the window, a broken open sign dangled from the door, and a few savage creatures were lingering inside. Using the power of teamwork, you and Doyoung were finally able to do what you pleased.

“So why’d you bring me here?”

He sat a keyboard, “I’m going to play for you.”

“Doyoung, that’s going to attract a lot of noise,” you peeked through the boarded windows, “is this really a good idea?”

“Aren’t you five kills behind me?” Doyoung asked.

The competitive side of you perked at the mention of your kill counter. You were reminded of the little daily game that you and Doyoung decided to play. It was simply just to see who could kill the most virus-infected barbarians you could in a day.

But, your smarter side still worried about safety.

“I’ll sing you two lines,” he told you, “just two lines.”

“Fine,” you sighed.

“This is an original, by the way.”

“Wow, an original song,” you teased, “just for me.”

He winked, “Of course.”

“What’s it called?”

“Lost Souls,” you mumbled, “the song is called Lost Souls.”

“You’re actually my dream boy,” you blurted.

“What?”

You awkwardly placed his food down on the table, along with his drink, “Uhm-”

Outside the window behind him, you could’ve sworn you saw the setting change and a creature run head first into the window. You gasped as Doyoung quickly turned towards the noise. “The apocalypse,” he mumbled.

Slowly, the blue sky started to change. “Orange skies,” you announced.

The tables were rusted, chairs torn, walls peeling. “Empty buildings,” he added.

Doyoung turned to face you, the same warm eyes as in your dreams staring right into your own. A certain dream resurfaced.

You looked at the familiar looking convenience store, “Is this the building where we met?”

Doyoung didn’t answer you, only saying, “I hope you like watermelon ring pops.”

“What?” you laughed, watching as he reappeared from between the aisles.

He stood in front of you, unwrapping the watermelon ring pop. He then bent down on one knee.

“Just you and I?” he asked.

“Against the world.”

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ichiban-ka · 4 years

Note

Hello! I want to request a prompt number 12 with Majima , thank you!!!

Hey there! I did my best to combine both prompts into one since you didn’t clarify which 12 you wanted (no worries though!) Hopefully you’ll like this one regardless

Goro Majima | Dueling Together

Couples love to talk about how they met their sweetheart to any open ears. You know how it is; they will gush and gush about how they first set eyes on each other or ramble about that great moment when they knew they had fallen in love, and the earlier the relationship the more annoying it is. You’ve heard so many tales from friends and drunken strangers alike: “When I saw him save that poor stray puppy, I knew he was the one for me!” “I fell in love with her the moment she placed that precious gift in my hands.” “Well, I simply fell in love with them at first sight.”

“His cooking is just that good, I was hooked from day one!”

For Majima, however, it was the day you had swiftly kicked his ass.

You were minding your own business speedwalking down Tenkaichi Street to grab a taxi back home, umbrella in hand, staring down at the wet pavement and counting your steps to keep your mind busy until the sound of a scuffle reached your ears, causing you to perk up and search for its source. It didn’t take long at all to find - you saw other passersby begin to step back, leaving a clear area in the middle of the street where only two men remained.

The fight began right as you managed to squeeze through the crowd and wind up right up front, the perfect first-row seat to the brawl. Only one of the men was armed, wielding an ornate dagger that he soon showed his ability to use, hacking and slashing at his opponent who dodged the blade with an equal amount of skill. The armed man was quick on his feet, freakishly so, seemingly teleporting from one side of the ring to the other while still having enough air in his lungs to taunt at his enemy in a nearly endearing manner - perhaps they knew each other?

The enemy in question made up for his lack of agility in pure strength, sending kicks and punches that occasionally threw the other onto the rough concrete below. However, it wasn’t enough - the armed maniac got back up as quickly as he got put down - and you were able to tell he was running out of energy, and fast.

You analyzed all of this carefully. Really, this was none of your business, and you could easily get hurt if you intervened, but you weren’t about to stand passively while a stranger could possibly get killed.

The fight soon reached its climax, the brawnier man left exhausted, pinned to the ground under the other’s polished steel-tipped shoe. But just as he raised up his knife, poised to strike, you stepped in, using your elbow to deliver a precise blow under his jaw, then using his shocked state to your advantage, grasping your umbrella like a spear and jabbing the man in his bare torso straight at the solar plexus and he was done, left a whining and mostly unmoving mess on the pavement as the crowd surrounding you explodes into wild cheers.

You released a breath you didn’t know you had been holding before turning around and offering a hand to the other man.

“Hope I didn’t step in too late, sir.”

“Oh, not at all,” he replied, politely denying your offer and pulling himself up from the ground instead. “You have some good moves of your own.”

“Mhm, I get that a lot. I guess people tend to underestimate me,” you joked. “Mind if I have your name?” “Kiryu Kazuma,” he said curtly.

He left soon after his introduction, clearly not in the mood to carry a conversation with a stranger. You couldn’t blame him, nearly getting stabbed ‘tween the ribs must do that to a person. The crowd died out, as did the high from the brawl. You turned on your heel to face back down Tenkaichi, already dreading the long taxi wait, until you heard a voice wail behind you:

“Oi! You! Pretty one over there - ya just gonna leave a dyin’ man out on the street like this?”

Inexplicably, the two of you were drawn together after that night. No doubt it was a bumpy road, you getting used to his erratic behavior and he to your until then purely civilian lifestyle, but you made it work well. You balanced each other out, Majima bringing an excitement into your life you had never experienced before, while you gave him the safety and gentle care he thought he’d never earn again.

Despite your fighting spirit, you rarely ever did duel with Majima. Whether you two were too exhausted from other fights you had during the day, had no time left for fooling around or would much rather cuddle up on the couch under a thick blanket, there was always something that had to come up.

Then, finally, the chance appeared.

Majima busted into your apartment so suddenly that you dropped the magazine you were reading right onto your face. “(Y/N)-chaaaaan,” he drawled, “Guess what!”

You peeled the magazine off your face. “What now?” Majima walked up to you, playfully snatching it from your hands. “Nah, (Y/N)-chan, ya gotta guess.” “Fuck you.” He barked out a laugh, throwing the magazine on the floor behind him. “Kiryu-chan’s outta town, babe. I don’t know how I’m gonna cope.” “Sometimes I wonder if you’re cheating on me with him, Goro.” “Hah! Not a chance.” He bends down to plant a kiss on your forehead, “I’m just itchin’ for a fight, some kinda stimulation y’know.” You stared up at him. “C’mon,” he begged, “First one to fall loses. I’ll go easy on ya if you’re that scared’a me.”

“Hey hey hey, don’t start patronizing me now,” you answered, peeling yourself off the sofa with a soft groan, “Look, I’ll indulge you just this once so long as you keep quiet this time. I don’t want the neighbours calling the cops on us. Again.”

He smirks. “Ya got my word.”

That's how you ended up facing each other in the backyard. Majima already riled up and ready to go, he gave you the mercy of five minutes to stretch your body and brace yourself for whatever was to come. “I’ve missed this, y’know. Gotta say, I think I fell for ya the day y’kicked my sorry ass on Tenkaichi.”

You smiled, raising your fists into position, “Bet. Hate to cut your fun short, but let’s just get this over with, hm?”

Majima put a hand to his chest, “Ah, why ya gotta hurt me so, darlin’? Was your magazine that steamy?” Before you could even retort, Majima charges right at you, giving you a split second to dodge him.

Someone’s excited, you thought.

He turned to rush at you again, though this time you’re fully focused, easily evading him with a sidestep. That’s the problem when fighting against Majima - he moves fast and is a fast thinker, too. Either you wait for the perfect moment to land a strike or you wait for him to slip up or wear himself out.

He saw through your strategy, though. “C’mon, don’t keep me waitin’!”

Fine with me.

Majima made a bold move, swiftly swinging his metal bat at your head. You pulled up your forearms, braced, and took the hit - painful, but definitely not the worst you’ve had happen to you. There’s a brief pause when this happens, the bat’s force bringing with it its momentum, and Majima couldn’t move his arms, but you sure as hell could move your legs. You landed a kick to his gut, putting as much of your weight into it as you could, and it worked perfectly. Majima gasped, the air stolen from his lungs as he fell to the grass.

You wiped the sweat off your forehead with your sore arm, looking down at your panting boyfriend.

“Hah… Hah… Gotta say, (Y/N)-chan... Ain’t nothing prettier than that grin you got on your face right now.”

#Yakuza #Yakuza fanfiction #goro majima #majima goro #goro majima x reader #majima goro x reader

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twisted-nox-sidus · 4 years

Note

Hi there, hope you’re well and safe. I really love your fanarts. If you have the time, can you do a headcannon where Strix is cooking while singing Chef Louis’s song Les Poissons with Azul and the Twins watching & listening. Thank you and have a good day or night.

Lmao I legit forgot this was a song in the movie. Rewatching it, I thank you for bringing this to my attention. I hope this satisfies!

Strix had to relieve some stress. What better than to sing them away while you cook?

She was in the mood for fish and began singing a song she believed was a hilarious scene from The Little Mermaid. Looking back on it, she understands Sebastian’s perspective and why he feared for his life in the kitchen. Regardless, a song devoted to cooking killing fish was funny.

Meanwhile the Octavinelle trio were heading for the kitchen. They were hoping to grab a snack before resuming their duties at Mostro Lounge. As they neared the door, they noticed it was left ajar, allowing light and the aroma of seafood ingredients to seep through.

They hear a girl’s voice humming. Strix must be cooking by her lonesome in the kitchen.

The boys were about to open the door until they hear her sing:

“Les pois~son les poissons how I love les poissons~ Love to chop and to serve little fish!” CHOP. CHOP CHOP CHOP.

Each thundering chop against wood made the three Octavinelle boys jump. What could she be making that involves aggressive chopping?? Or rather, is she okay????

“First I cut off their heads then I pull out their bones~ Ah mais qui ca c’est toujours delish!”

For the first time, they’ve never heard a girl switch from singing passive aggressive like a madman to singing French smoothly like a maiden skipping in the gardens. All while dangerously wielding a cleaver in one hand.

“Les poissons les poissons *humming* With a cleaver I hack them in two~ I pull out what’s inside and I serve it up fried God I love little fishes don’t you?” Cue maniacal laughter.

All was okay until the laughter. Floyd looked to the other two, a shade paler. “Did we do something to make her pent up?”

“I don’t recall any event that would...” Jade replied uncertainly. Her body language sometimes does look like she wanted to target her stress towards something.

“Here’s something for tempting the palate~ Prepared in the classic technique~ First you pound the fish flat with a mallet~ Then you slash through the skin give the belly a slice then you rub some salt in ‘cause that makes it taste nice~!”

Azul silently pushed his glasses up his nose, an unreadable expression crossing his visage.

“Now I stuff you with bread it don’t hurt ‘cause you’re dead and you’re certainly lucky you are~ ‘Cause it’s gonna be hot in my big silver pot toodle loo mon poisson au revoir!” Cue gleeful laughter again.

The trio closed the door. None of the three could look at the other.

“...Let’s treat Strix to tea next time.” Azul said. And hopefully get on her good side.

“Yes sir.”

#twisted wonderland #my post #twst oc #strix noctowl #twisted wonderland oc #octavinelle #azul ashengrotto #floyd leech #jade leech #headcanon asks #anon #disney twisted wonderland

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baconsoupforthesoul · 4 years

Text

The Ink Demonth - Day 23 - Lost

Lost Together

A/N: Spacy’s back with more Borderlands au cause she can’t get enough of it apparently. Just a warning though, this piece does contain some extreme violence so proceed with caution. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy~

Bendy was lost. Or, at least he thought he was lost. Could you be lost if you didn’t have a destination in mind? He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about a lot of things. But the one thing he was sure of, was that he was damn happy to be away from Joey Drew.

The little inky devil strolled idly around the dusty Pandrian desert, watching the sun slowly sink below the horizon. He didn’t really like being in his little form. It made him feel weak... vulnerable. But his much taller form required energy, and as long as no one was around, he could put up with being small… at least for a little bit.

Bendy kicked up some sand as he wandered by a large skeleton of some unknown ancient beast. At least he assumed that’s what it was. When you’ve only existed for a few months, there’s not much you do know. But Bendy was a fast learner. He watched and observed the world around him, picking up what he could from the landscape and the creatures…

“LITTLE LORD!”

… and the people.

“You!” Bendy spun around and yelled at the inky figure running towards him. “I told you to GO AWAY!”

Bendy could feel his limbs lengthening, the eridium he kept tucked into his inky body start poking out, running along his spine like spikes. The dark ink dripped down his face as he towered over the masked man.

“TALL LORD!” The man screamed happily. “GLORIOUS INKY LORD!”

Bendy growled, his tail whipping back and forth angrily, This stupid psycho had been following him for days now. He didn’t know how the man seemed to be permanently covered in ink, or how he ended up with a mask that looked almost exactly like his face. But Bendy was already sick and tired of this weirdo fawning over him.

“Stop calling me that!” Bendy yelled back, flexing his claws menacingly. “And STOP following me!”

“NO NO NO!” The psycho objected, but still managing to sound gleeful. “MUST FOLLOW INKY LORD TO BLOOD AND MEAT!”

“NO! YOU’RE NOT!” Bendy roared back, right into the man’s face. “Scram already! Get outta my face!”

“MEAT AND BLOOD! MEAT AND BLOOOOOOD!” The inky man continued screaming, waving his buzzaxe around excitedly.

“Uggghhh,” Bendy ran a hand down his face. “Well, if I’m your lord, then why don’t you do as I say and go somewhere and hit yourself in the face with your own buzzaxe!”

“YES! WANT THE PAIN! NEED THE PAIN!” The inky covered man cheered before taking his buzzaxe and hitting himself with the blunt end of it.

“Ugh, you’re hopeless,” Bendy sighed, turning around and walking away, leaving the crazed man to continue hitting himself in the face. As the inky devil continued on, weaving between the rusting metal ruins that seemed to poke out of the desert like spikes, a faint noise made him pause.

It was hard to hear anything over the sounds of the inky maniac hitting himself in the face and screaming “PAIN!” repeatedly. But Bendy could have sworn he heard something...

Just as he was about to dismiss it as just the wind, a gunshot rang out and Bendy felt a bullet penetrate his inky flesh. Luckily, something like that wouldn’t hurt him, but someone was shooting at him.

“Huh?!” Bendy looked out among the ruins and saw a bandit duck behind one of the ruins. He wasn’t alone though. A psycho not covered head to toe in ink came running towards him, swinging his buzzaxe wildly.

“I'll feed your skin snacks to my cockatiel!” The newcomer psycho screamed, but Bendy only smirked. Did these bandits really think they could kill him? It was almost cute, and Bendy couldn’t help but let out an amused chuckle.

The ink demon rushed forward, gutting his deranged attacker. More shots started to ring out as Bendy charged the rest of the bandits trying to hide among the ruins.

The lanky devil jumped on the piece of metal that the man who had shot at him first had used for cover. The bandit yelped as he fell back, trying to scramble away from Bendy.

“Oh no, buddy. You ain’t going anywhere!” Bendy chuckled darkly as he rushed forward, pinning the man down onto the sand.

The man tried to push him off, his buddies firing at the ink demon but to no avail.

“Thought you could take me, huh? Did you think I was weak? Easy pray for you and your pals here? Think again.” The devil slashed the man’s throat, letting him gurgle out his last breath before taking off after the other foolish ambushers.

As he clawed and slashed his way through the bandits, Bendy had to concede to one thing when it came to Joey Drew. It was a hard thing to admit, as the man had tortured him, created him to use as merely a tool, an experiment. But while the man deserved nothing but a slow and painful death at Bendy’s own hand, he would admit that the man had done one thing for him. He had made him strong. All that raw eridium that had been thrust into him cause he had been deemed to weak by his creator. He remembered the pain and how he had screamed at Joey to stop, to just make the hurting stop. But... it had made him stronger. So much stronger than these dumb bandits who thought they could take on the demon.

However, Bendy tore through his attackers, he failed to notice one of their number sneaking up behind him. As the devil was looming over his next victim, another bandit psycho rushed up behind him. Bendy heard him and started to turn around, but it was too late. The man was about to bring his axe down right on the eridium spikes coming out of his back.

Before he could land the hit, the idiot from before, the psycho who adorned his face as a mask, rushed forward.

“IT HURT TIME!” The inky psycho screamed as he lodged his buzzaxe in the side of the bandit's head. Blood splattered as the dead man fell over, painting his killer red with it.

Bendy stared in shock, frozen to the spot. That dumb knucklehead had just... saved him? He actually helped him? No one… no one had ever done that before. None of the scientists ever did, Joey definitely didn’t, and no one on Pandora had either. It felt… good actually.

As Bendy stood there in shock, the inky man rushed forward and finished off the man Bendy had been standing over.

“NOW GO TO SLEEP!” He screamed, hacking away at the bandit even though he was already clearly dead. Bendy straightened up at the inky psycho laughed maniacally. Maybe… even though this dumb idiot was really annoying… it might be a good idea to let him stick around. He’d make a good meat shield in any case. Or an ally perhaps. Meat shield, ally, same difference.

“Are ya done?” Bendy asked, as the psycho finally stopped slashing at the deceased man. The psycho was panting as he turned to Bendy, heaving his axe out of the bandit’s stomach.

“Listen… I don’t need your help. But…” Bendy let out a sigh, letting himself shrink down to his smaller form. “But if you want… you can stick around I guess.” The devil avoided eye contact, kicking up at the dirt as he crossed his arms.

“YESSSSSS!” The masked man cheered, swinging his buzzaxe in the air victoriously. “WILL BUTCHER ALL THE SHEEP FOR THE LORD!”

“Yeah, you do that,” Bendy snarked. “But if you’re gonna stick around… I need something to call you. Do ya got a name or something?”

“ALL OF THE KILLING! PUT LAMBS TO SLEEP! SAMMY AND LITTLE LORD FIND BLOOD AND MEAT!” “Sammy? Is that it?” Bendy tilted his head at him. He’d have to get used to his insane speech patterns.

“NEVER STOP THE KILLING!! NEVER!!”

“I’ll… take that as a yes,” Bendy gave the man, Sammy, an incredulous look. “Well then, come on, Sammy. Let’s ditch this dump,” The devil motioned to the inky man to follow him as he continued his trek through the forsaken desert. As the two of them continued moving, Sammy occasionally spouting off about random things involving blood, meat, and sheep, Bendy couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. Bendy may be lost out here, but at least he hadn’t lost his mind.

#the ink demonth #ink demonth #bendy and the ink machine #batim #bendy #ink bendy #ink demon #sammy lawrence #borderlands au #spacy writes #// violence #// disembowlment #// blood

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smokeybrand · 3 years

Text

I'll Die If I Stop

I’m a massive fan of RPGs. I imagine you could probably glean that from all of the Final Fantasy content I've clotted in this blog but my love for the genre doesn’t just extend to the excellence of Square. True enough, if you peruse my archive, you’ll find a ton of stuff on the Persona series. I love those games about as much as i love Final Fantasy. It’s the narrative, the way they weave their stories. I’m a proponent that plot and characterization is just as necessary as game play. It’s a very fine line to walk and you often see titles fall short. David Cage has a problem going too far into the narrative side of things and a lot of action titles or shooters fall into the trap of not going far enough. Mass Effect found that balance perfectly, especially with the second entry, but lost it with the fourth. Andromeda was such wasted potential. I’ve written at length about that franchise, too. Dragon Age is another one that comes to mind. The first was excellence, the second not so much, and the third fell short of it’s potential. A franchise that fulfilled the entirety of it’s potential? .Hack. Not only did they develop several titles, each filled with a compelling, connected plot and dope characters, but CyberConnect2 effectively popularized the entirety of the isekai genre we see today. This particular entry isn’t about the whole franchise, though, just my favorite part of it; .Hack//G.U.

G.U. came out years ago, way back in the golden times of the PS2. That thing was lousy with RPGs and, between my chick and i, we owned a great many of them. I had long since beat the original .Hack quadrilogy, harboring an intense hate for Skeith, but a respect for it’s design and for The World, itself. I missed the whole hack-and-slash aspect of the series. It felt like there had been a much longer drought between the two series than than there actually was.. It was only three years between //Quarantine and //Rebirth, which can be an eternity if you’re a gamer. The second G.U. was announced, i was all over it. I ran through each one of those titles the as soon as i got my hands on them. That delicious action RPG gameplay felt so familiar and so right. While the actual, playable, aspect was how i remember it to be, The World was completely different. Characters were brand new, except for Piros. Piros is Piros. But everything else was so fresh.

In G.U., you take the reins of Haseo, the Terror of Death. He’s an Adept Rogue out for blood after being betrayed by his mentor and friend, Ovan. He was set up to be killed by Tri-Edge; A mysterious entity known for PKing players all over but, once they’re taken out in The World, they fall into a coma back in reality. Haseo’s close friend, Shino, fell prey to this maniac and he has been searching for it ever since. G.U is basically a Haseo vengeance journey, laden with new allies and revelations. Along the way, he’s recruited by G.U, a clandestine organization who’s members have the ability to call forth Avatars. I don’t plan to get into what those things are and what they can do because you should totally play this game but, suffice it to say, sh*t is dope.

.Hack//G.U. is f*cking amazing. I love these games, man. It has one of the deepest, most realized worlds in any franchise out there. The characters are all developed considerably, making it incredibly easy to immerse yourself into their struggles and victories. We spend enough time with Haseo to actually see him grow, to actually watch him evolve into a real, bonafide, hero. The best narratives allot for that type of growth and it’s always rewarding to participate within them. The graphics are, of course, a little dated. The last game in this trilogy was released way back in aught-seven so that is to be expected. I would be remiss if i didn’t mention the excellent soundtrack Seriously this game gives the Ar Tonelico franchise a run for it’s money in the music department, and that franchise is literally based around it’s music. That opening to //Rebirth? F*cking chef kiss, man. Seriously, play these games. There is an eighth generation remaster available, complete with a brand new game, bringing the trilogy in line with it’s predecessor’s four titles. That was a welcome surprise. If you have the ability, definitely check these games out, they’re spectacular. Also, Alkaid is best girl.

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

Note

say RWBY and co. are relying on Ruby Silver Eye-ing Salem to death. 2 possible outcomes: 1. she disintegrates bur reforms b/c remember IMMORTAL and that Immortality comes from Light, just like the Silver Eyes. So not a good idea. Or 2. it ends up "purifying" her from the Pool of Darkness, thus cutting her off from the Grimm leaving her w/o an army, she is still jaded against the world and the gods and has possibly 10X the magic any Maiden has. So that's a 50/50 chance for a bad and not-so-bad.

My thinking is that RT might go with option #2. Just because supposedly RWBY is a story all about hope, optimism, and - relevant here - forgiveness. We certainly haven’t seen that recently when it comes to some characters, but that’s where the story started out, whether we’re talking about Blake learning to forgive a Schnee, Ruby inviting Raven to their side, or Ozpin trying to protect Lionheart’s name. Plus we now have a 20 minute backstory for Salem in which the first half paints her rather sympathetically. At its core, RWBY feels more like a show that would fix a cursed woman (and then maybe have her pass on so as to avoid the pesky complications of “How do we, on a practical day to day basis, forgive the woman who tried to destroy our world for a thousand years?”) rather than just hacking and slashing her. They do that to grimm, but Salem is no longer presented as just a mindlessly evil beast. At least, even if she is one now, she wasn’t always and, given the magic of the show, perhaps has a chance of returning to that.

All that being said, I have very little faith in RT pulling option #2 off in a why that doesn’t feel horribly like just excusing an abuser/genocidal maniac. In the last two volumes we’ve seen precisely how unforgiving the group can be, so if we are suddenly given the chance to compare things - “We despise the man who gave up everything to improve the world but his Big Bad abuser? Aww, I’m so glad she got a happy ending :)” - is going to be frustrating, to say the least. I think some writers could definitely pull off an option #2 really well. I’m not sure we’ll get that in RWBY though, if they do end up going that route.

#rwby #rwde #mymetas #mystech-master

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schrijverr · 4 years

Text

A hunter and his angel

Dean and Cas rescue a woman from a vamp nest. For her perspective they’re the strangest duo she has ever met.

On AO3.

Ships: Dean x Cas

Warnings: Canon level of violence against vampires

~~~~~~~~`~~~

Rachel was freaking out, she had been held hostage by maniacs for days and she wasn’t sure the maniacs were even human. They called themselves vampires and she had seen the fangs as they fed on her, but really, vampires? That would shake her world view a bit too much to think about right now.

But back to why she was freaking out, besides the vampires and the kidnapping of course. She was freaking out because two guys had just burst into the room and started hacking the shit out of her attackers.

Rachel wanted them to win, to get her out, but as she was looking she was fearing more and more for herself.

The two men were tall, one had hazel hair and the other hair so brown it was almost black. The hazel haired one had bow legs, but he moved with grace as he was beheading the “nest”. Yes, beheading, it was disgusting with blood spewing around everywhere. The dark haired one was slightly shorter than his friend, but his piercing blue eyes seemed to glow in the dark as he swirled his blade around effortlessly.

One by one the kidnappers dropped until there were four left. Hazel had just beheaded one, but in the process he had dropped his blade and before he could pick it up the next one was on him and driving him backwards.

He looked at his partner, who had beheaded one of them with the other too far away to be an immediate threat, and yelled: “Cas, knife!”

Dark hair, Cas apparently, turned and quickly threw the knife. Without breaking eye contact with his attacker he caught it and slashed the dude’s head off.

After that, he looked around with a smug grin on his face, not seeing the last one creep up behind him. Rachel wanted to scream at him, but she was gagged. He saw her distress and quickly turned around, but it was to late. The man had set his teeth into Hazel and was pushing him backwards.

“Dean” a cry pierced through the air. And Rachel distantly thought, huh, so that’s his name

Then Cas was sprinting through the room. Dean saw him coming and flashed the other a quick smile, despite the pain he must be in, before closing his eyes.

Cas had reached him and put his hand on the back of the attackers head. Rachel was just wondering what he wanted to accomplish with that when it started to glow. The man screamed in agony and fell to the ground with a loud thunk, his face turned to Rachel and she saw that his eyes were burned out.

The two men didn’t seem to care as Cas cupped Deans cheek and locked eyes with the other. They stared at each other for a few seconds, then Cas hand glowed again and he pressed it against the still bleeding neck wound. When he removed his hand the wound was gone. Dean softly whispered: “Thanks, angel.”

“No problem, Dean.” Cas answered.

Then Dean broke away from him and walked over to Rachel. He squatted in front of him and she noticed the light freckles poking through the blood on his face and his beautiful green eyes. Cas came up beside him and lightly touched her forehead, somehow making her feel much better with the light touch. Dean started untying her as he said: “My name is Dean, this is Castiel. What’s yours?”

Stunned she answered: “Rachel, Rachel Dare.”

“Good job.” Dean said, taking care of the last knot, “We’re here to save you. It’s okay, just relax and we’ll get you out of here.”

Rachel nodded and answered: “What the hell just happened?”

“I’m gonna sound crazy, but vampires.” Dean said, “This nest of pesky little fuckers likes to have one feeder, so they’ll be less noticeable. Me and Cas only caught wind of them, because one of them went rogue and on a murder spree. We tracked him here, been in the forest for days, trying to find this God damned nest.”

“Don’t take my fathers name in vain, Dean.” the other piped in.

Dean rolled his eyes and said: “Yeah, yeah, whatever angel.”

Rachel chocked on her spit, connecting the comment and the pet name, and repeated: “Angel?”

“Oh, yeah. Vampires aren’t the only thing that’s new.” Dean said lightly, “Anyway, the way back to civilization is two days by foot. Are you good to walk or do you need to be carried?”

Rachel wasn’t really paying attention, because she was still trying to work through Deans comment about the supernatural. Dean seemed to notice and he said: “Just say when you’re ready to get out, okay. We’ll be over there.”

He pointed to the kitchen and moved out of view, dragging the other man along with a soft: “Just let her cope for a second, dude.”

When she looked up again, she saw Castiel and Dean dragging the bodies and heads outside and pile them up. She followed them with her eyes as they searched the house for lighter fluid and set the pile of bodies on fire. They moved in a casual manner, with an ease that scream familiarity with the actions. Rachel shivered as she thought about what that might mean for her.

When the pile was burning steadily she got of the chair and walked over to the two and asked: “Why did you do it? Come to save me, I mean?”

Both pinned her down with their gazes, but while Castiel just stared at her with confusion, Dean answered her question: “Because that’s our job. We hunt things that go bump in the night, that’s just our life.”

“You and an angel?” Rachel asked, not really convinced.

“Well, my brother as well, but this was an us trip. He was going to catalog the entire library, I mean who wants to do that in their free time?” Dean said with a fond smile on his lips.

Rachel just nodded, kind of weirded out by Dean. She turned to Castiel and asked: “Why would an angel come to back you up?”

Castiel opened his mouth for the first time since his scream, his voice was low and gravelly: “Because this idiot needs it if he wants to survive.”

“Dude, I had already twenty nine years of surviving without you, I was managing just fine.” Dean said in an offended voice.

Tiredly Castiel replied: “You were in Hell, Dean. I don’t consider that “managing just fine”.”

Dean ignored the comment as he exclaimed: “You did the air quotes right!”

That made Castiel grin with pride and Rachel was blown away by the duality of the two men in front of her. If she forgot about the blood on their faces, she could almost forget that they were chopping off heads fifteen minutes ago.

Dean and Castiel had already fallen back into casual conversation when she mentally checked back into reality. Dean took her being back into her awareness as a sign that they could get moving to get the Hell out of there.

As they walked Dean explained more about what had happened and the supernatural, he was a pleasant conversation partner and his lightheartedness kept her thoughts away from the horrors she had endured.

Castiel on the other hand was more of an enigma. He was content with being quiet and just adding some commentary where he saw fit, like cutting down on Deans descriptions of his own badass-ery and telling her something that seemed more truthful. Other than that he kept staring at Dean, with an intensity so strong that Rachel wondered how Dean couldn’t not notice or ignore it.

After an hour of walking Rachel was too tired, a combination of blood loss, lack of sleep and adrenaline wearing off putting her down. It was still light out and Dean and Castiel knew they couldn’t afford to stop, so without a complaint Castiel heaved her on his back and marched on.

Rachel awkwardly asked: “Don’t you mind carrying me, Castiel?”

“Not a problem.” Castiel replied, “And call me Cas.”

Dean now leaned into her sight with a shit eating grin and giddily said: “Angel strength, isn’t it awesome!”

After a few more miles passed beneath their feet and the sun had started setting, they decided to call it a night and set up camp. They built a small campfire and Dean pulled a bag of beef jerky out the duffel bag he had been carrying. He shared it with her, but Cas didn’t eat a bite.

Dean offered her his jacket to stay warm and Rachel protested: “I can’t take that, you saved me. I can manage a bit of cold, you can have it and stay warm.”

Dean smiled gently at her and with a nod to Cas he said: “I have my own heat source, don’t worry about me.”

Rachel raised her brows as her eyes flicked between Cas and Dean. She never would have pegged them to be that kinda guy, but it explained the staring and the cheek caressing. So, she accepted the jacket and relaxed.

Cas had made himself comfortable against a tree trunk and smiled at Dean as he settled down next to him. Dean asked: “You’re gonna be okay with being the look out?”

“I do not require sleep and I can see in the dark, I think I can manage.” Cas replied.

“Okay, just checking.” Dean said and laid down against Cas, he then complained: “Ugh, I’m all dirty and grime-y.”

“I can fix that, you know.” Cas said while raising two fingers.

Dean waved him away and said: “Dude, no. You don’t know how good it feels to shower all this shit off, besides I’m gonna get dirty again tomorrow, so it won’t matter either way.”

“If you say so.” Cas shrugged.

“I do say so.” Dean said and snuggled into Cas’s side, the angel rolled his eyes and swung his arm over Deans shoulders and carded his other hand through the short hairs, lulling the hunter to sleep.

Rachel smiled to herself throughout the interaction. These two men were so weird, first they were cutting off heads, then they were snarking at each other and arguing over little stuff, while still looking at each other like they hung the moon in the sky and now these two badasses were honest to God cuddling on the forest ground.

She might have been saved by weirdos, but they were cute adorable weirdos, who made her believe in love a bit. With a smile still on her lips she fell asleep.

The next morning she was woken by Cas shaking her shoulder. He asked her how she was feeling and she replied honestly that she was feeling much better than yesterday. Cas nodded at that, face still impassive that didn’t really change unless it was Dean, but with a kind voice he said: “That is good to hear.”

Dean fed her a bit more beef jerky and some M&Ms he had found in his bag. Then they were moving again. Dean complained that they didn’t have any coffee and Cas shot back that Dean had drank it all, so he shouldn’t complain.

The rest of the journey continued like that. Dean would make a comment, Cas would react with a mix of fond and annoyed replies or Dean would start a conversation about something random, completely out of the blue, mostly dragging Rachel into a discussion of some sort.

By the time the shadows became longer a parking lot came into view with as only occupant a big black muscle car. When Dean spotted, his face lit up and he exclaimed: “Baby! I have missed you. Are you okay?”

He checked over the car and Rachel chuckled to herself, of course Dean would love his car and talk to it. Beside her Castiel said: “You laugh, but try having to explain to him that it wasn’t your fault that someone else busted her tail light while you were out getting groceries.”

That made Rachel laugh more, which seemed to please Cas. Meanwhile Dean had concluded that there was nothing wrong with his car and ushered them all in, with Cas riding shotgun.

When they pulled onto the highway Dean said: “Cas already healed you, but if you want to get checked over we can drop you off at the hospital. Otherwise we can bring you home or to a family member.”

Rachel though about and said: “Can you drop me off at my parents place? They live a few miles from here.”

“No problem, just tell me where to go.” Dean answered.

It was quiet for a few seconds, then Rachel suddenly asked: “What do I tell anyone? Do I go to the police?”

Dean cringed at the mention of the police and said: “I’d rather you don’t go to the police. Otherwise just say you got kidnapped, but one had mercy or something. He freed you and you ran. You found the motorway and a nice couple picked you up and brought you home. You can’t really recall what they looked like, because of the shock and you don’t know what kind of car it was, just that it was black.”

Rachel raised a brow and said: “You came up with that just a bit too fast.”

Dean shrugged and said: “Lifetime of practice.”

They lapsed into silence once more and before Rachel knew it they were sitting in front of her childhood home. Dean opened her door for her, Cas right behind him. Rachel gave them both a quick hug and whispered: “Thank you for saving me. Take care of yourselves.”

Dean put his hand on her shoulder and said: “We will, you too. I know this is hard, but you lived, make the most of it.”

Both got back into the car and as Rachel walked away she could hear Dean say: “That was a job well done, I’d say. Now, how about we celebrate by taking a shower and maybe putting you angel strength to good use in there, if you know what I mean.”

Rachel rolled her eyes, but smiled. She wasn’t okay, but she was going to be. She looked over her shoulder one last time, waving goodbye at the weirdest duo she had ever met. They waved back and waited while she rang the bell, only speeding away once the door had opened and her mother had pulled Rachel inside.

#RR writing #Destiel #POV outsider #OC #dean winchester #castiel/dean #dean x castiel #castiel #cas #supernatural #SPN #spn fanfic #vampires #case fic

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leal-5 · 5 years

Text

Tomb of Time Destiny Chapter 19

Erza POV

It seem to happen in slow motion. One minute we were winning, and then suddenly Mard Geer appeared from the shadows, his face grinning darkly as he whispered in my ear. ‘You knew what the cost of betrayal would be, Erza Scarlet.’ I immediately looked up to Lucy and Levy, but they were still safely taking out phantom soldiers. I whirled back around to face him, but he was gone. It wasn’t until then that I saw it.

“Look out!” I screamed just a second too late.

My heart stops as I watch Juvia spin around just as an enormous thorned vine came at her. I helplessly watch her jump away, but not fast enough. Something hot sparked in me I witness a thorn slice her from her hipbone to her stomach. Juvia gasped and leaned forward a bit, as if more surprised than in pain. Levy screamed and dashed down stairs as fast as she could, sprinting over to Juvia just as pressed a hand to her side slightly perplexed at the blood that was oozing from her hand. Dazed, Juvia looked up and met my eyes just as her knees began to wobble. Levy made it just in time to catch Juvia, gently easing her down as a pool of blood began to form around her.

All noise seemed to be muffled as I turned around just as multiple vines of thorns shot out from all directions, surrounding the entirety of the Phantom Lord castle, grabbing both our allies and our enemies, wrapping them in a tight grip. Natsu, Gray, Gajeel, and Jellal tried to fend off the thorns with magic, but it was coming too fast. They soon found themselves wrapped in it too.

‘You were warned the price of betrayal, Erza Scarlet.’

I looked back to Juvia again, Levy was sobbing while desperately applying pressure to Juvia’s wound and I watch as Juvia’s breathing became more and more labored. Gajeel and Gray cried out Juvia's name in alarm, but all I could really focus on was the enormous pile of blood that was pooling around Juvia. So much blood…

"AHAHAHAHAHA!!! "

All my senses rushed back to me when heard Mard Geer laughing maniacally while staring right at me, relishing in my torment.

I finally snapped.

“I’VE….. HAD…. ENOUGH!” I yelled to the sky as the hot feeling in me exploded into a red magic circle, my hair flying about my face wildly from the force of it. “REQUIP: HEAVEN WHEELS ARMOR!”

A bright light surrounds me as my current armor changes into a much longer skirt that was covered in feather-like silver plating and a revealing breast plate. A tiara and two large wings appear on my back. Lastly, two magic swords appear in my hands and over a dozen swords spin in a circle behind me.

Wasting no time I immediately jump up and furiously shout “DANCE, MY BLADES!” and with a wave of my hand the amount of swords behind me double and triple as they spin even faster before shooting out in all directions, effectively slicing the vines and beginning the process of setting everyone free.

Mard Geers laughter stopped as he stared at me in shock. “You’re a witch!”

“TRINITY SWORD!” I yelled as I jumped at him, slashing my swords at him in a delta formation. He immediately called up a thick wall of vines to protect himself. The crash was loud and made the wall break. Mard Geer slid back from the impact of the collision, raising an arm to protect his face from they flying debris. Once it all settled he lowered his arm and squinted through the dust and debris. A flash of red was his only warning before my fist connected solidly with his face, knocking him back several feet into a wall, cracking and denting it horribly. He hacked and coughed, raising his hand to grab onto a vine to lift him out of the way seconds before the sword I threw could pin him there through his stomach.

Gritting my teeth, I run full speed at the wall before jumping and sprinting horizontally up the wall, wrenching my sword out of the wall in the process. I then push off the wall and rush forward, attacking Mard Geer relentlessly from all directions. At first he clumsily brought vines up to stop my attacks while stumbling back, but then he suddenly smirked and two vines burst from the ground in front of him coming straight at me.

“Tss… You’re no stronger than any of the other witches I’ve taken out!” He yelled while attacking me from all sides with his vines.

I jump and flip out of the way, skidding to a halt to catch my breath. “REQUIP: CELESTIAL ARMOR!!”

A white light surrounds me again as I switch armors while continuing to dodge his vines. Soon there were so many all I could see were his vines and all I could do was dodge the thorns.

“Hahahaha! Look at you! I have you jumping all over the place like a puppet!” Mard Geer laughed.

From the corner of my eye I saw Jellal and his brothers, still struggling out of the vines since I unequipped my swords could completely finish cutting them out, except, Jellal wasn’t trying to get out. He was too busy staring at me with open disbelief and….awe. His eyes shifted from mine, to my armor, then back at me before they lost focus for a second and widened. “ERZA LOOK OU-”

My distraction was all Mard Geer needed. He appeared suddenly, running up one of the vines and catching me completely off guard. His kick to my stomach sent me flying upwards and he used a vine to catch me in mid air, squeezing the air out of my lungs and slowly trying to kill me. I heard Jellal yell my name but I squeeze my eyes shut as the thorny vines tighten more and more on me.

Mard Geer rose calmly on a vine as more and more vines appeared. Lucy and Levy screamed and cried as they were dragged away Juvia’s lifeless body, blood still oozing from her wound. They tried to lung back towards her but the vines merely tightened their grip. He leaned closely to me, putting a hand under my chin and forcefully turning my head so I would meet his eye. “Such a shame I have to kill such a beautiful creature.” He said with a wicked smile. I glared at him. “You won’t get away with this!” I screamed at him while struggling against my restraints.

He laughed at my retort. “Oh, but you see Erza, that's where this becomes interesting! I am actually a hero! Would you like to know why?” I glare at him. “No? well I’ll tell you anyway. You see, I saved the day by killing a crazed witch that used the siege on Fairy Tail as an opportunity to massacre countless Phantom Lord soldiers.” My bangs overshadowed my eyes as he reached up a hand to cradle my cheek.

“Don’t touch her!!” Jellal yelled angrily, struggling to get out of the vines but Mard Geer ignored him, focusing only on me. “So really, I have you to thank Erza. Thanks to you, my council judgement won’t be as harsh. AhahAHAHAHA-”

A bright red glow from the ground caught his attention even through all his writhing vines. “What the-”

Before he can comprehend what is happening I slice through his vines with the dagger I used against the giant knight earlier and grab Mard Geer, pinning his arms to his sides with my legs as he stared up at me in horror.

“THEN I’LL MAKE SURE THE SEVEN STARS JUDGE YOU MORE HARSHLY!!!” The red light becomes brighter and all seven seals I had scattered around while I was dodging Mard Geers vines earlier revealed themselves. Jellal’s eyes widen in alarm when he recognized the pattern of the seals. “ERZA! STOP! YOU’LL KILL US ALL!!”

“GRAND CHARIOT!!!” I yell loudly as my body is engulfed in a white light. Red beams shoot up to the sky from each seal, becoming larger and brighter the closer as we near the ground. The floor cracks and breaks from the immensity of it all and large boulders from the torn ground go flying and everything is engulfed in a bright blinding light that can been seen for miles.

When it’s all over, I’m standing beside a large crater, breathing heavily in my Adamantine armor. The barrier I encased around Levy, Juvia, Lucy, Gray, Natsu, and Jellal in order to protect them from the spell flickers a bit before dissolving entirely along with my armor. They emerged unscathed. There is nothing left except for a few dead vines and a large crater in the middle of what used to be the Phantom Lord courtyard. The last thing I remember was Jellal calling out my name as I wobbled a bit before I falling to my knees and face planting in the dirt.

###################

I watch excitedly as I wait for my turn to open my birthday present. We had flour and icing all over ourselves since our guardian insisted we bake the cake together. “Alright, calm down everyone it’s present time!” Our guardian said while smiling at me brightly while stepping away from a large box that she really wasn’t doing a good job at hiding. We all gasp and I jump up and down excitedly.

“Is it from that far away place you always go to?” Levy asks with sparkling eyes. Our guardians smiles down at her and nods. “This one especially took me a long time to find. Over three months!”

Lucy giggled. “But you’ve never left us alone more than a few hours!”

She laughs. “Indeed, I haven’t.”

“Juvia is dying of curiosity! Open it Erza-chan!”

With a nod from our guardian I dash forward and rip the wrapping from the box. “ARMOR?!” I squeal excitedly as Levy, Juvia, and Lucy huddle around me and awe at the large armor.

“It’s not just any armor Erza. It’s a special defense armor. Best one I could find.” Our guardian said, clearly pleased with herself. “It's called Adamantine armor.”

Unable to contain my excitement I yell “Requip: Adamantine Armor!” A red magic circle forms at my feet but nothing happens. I frown and try again. Same result.

“Maybe it’s broken?” Juvia suggested after my third try. I shook my head. “It’s new! It can’t be broken already.”

“This armor will take time for you to master, Erza. You’re only six years old. Remember how long it took you to even summon your Heaven Wheels armor?” Our guardian asked me with a gentle smile.

“A year…” I mumbled dejectedly.

“Exactly! Tomorrow we can begin training for your new armor, for now, let's finish this delicious strawberry cake we made!”

My eyes light up at the mention of strawberry cake and we all run back to the kitchen table.

#############

I slowly try to blink away my fuzzy vision and gather myself. But bit by bit, from the outside in, each inch of what I could see was clarified and I internally panicked for a moment, unsure of where I was. I blinked once more before I recognized that I was in a room, not in a dungeon. My head whips in the direction of the door when I hear someone opening it.

“Erza!” Is all I hear before Lucy throws herself at me and crushes me in a tight hug. She has quite a grip. “Thank heavens you’re awake!”

“Ju-Juvia” I croaked, my throat a bit dry.

“She’s fine. Levy sewed her up.”

My jaw hit the floor as I stared at her incredulously. “Levy? Our Levy McGarden sewed Juvia's open wound up?!” I all but shrieked as Lucy handed me a cup of water.

Lucy grinned a bit as she nodded and handed me a cup of water. She watched me drink for a moment before biting her lip nervously. “You were asleep for three days Erza.”

Damn.

“...Well it has been a long time since…”

Lucy nodded when I let my sentence hang. “Juvia woke up yesterday. She’s been wanting to see you for a while.”

I throw my legs over the side of the bed and test how steady I was. I wobbled a bit but I refused any help from Lucy.

Juvia POV

It was Levy who had sewn me up. That was enough of a shock that I almost melted back into a week of unconsciousness. Our tiny, Weak-kneed, slightly green at the sight of manure or moldy cheese in the fridge Levy, had found it in herself to disinfect my wound with alcohol- thank heavens I had been unconscious- thread a needle with sinew, and sew up my side like I was an elementary school project.

Imagine my shock when I woke up and was told that Gray himself raced me back to Fairy Tail, screaming at everyone to find a medic. The nearest one ways days away so Levy stepped in. She saved my life. Unfortunately,not that I'm alive she wont stop teasing me about jow Gray would come every day to check on me. If I didn’t know any better I’d say he was worried for me! I was more worried for Erza though. It had been over ten years since she used her magic, and of course, she over exerted herself in doing that Grand Chariot spell.

I lifted my shirt and stared at my six-inch wound again, gaping at the perfect, even curves of each stitch.

I looked up just as I heard Erza’s voice say “My gosh, Levy actually did it.”

“Erza!” I cried happily, wincing in pain when I move my still tender wound a little too much. Erza immediately rushes to my side and pushes me back down onto the mattress and examines my wound up close. “They’ll have to come out” she whispered quietly while throwing me an apologetic glance.

I closed my eyes and winced, thinking of the pain to come. But not yet. Levy explained to me that we had to let the flesh weave itself together again without letting the sinew become embedded within it.

I could feel the whisper of air as Lucy fell to her knees beside me. “What are we going to do? They’re calling us ….princess warriors. Literally. They think we’re All That and more. And that Tall dark guy and Natsu are following Levy and I around everywhere we go.” She rolled her eyes.

‘That’s super cute.’ I almost squealed. Even Erza was smirking.

“Well, you and Levy saved all our lives with your arrows,” I said. “I’d bet you money they’ve never seen a woman do that before.”

She shook her head. “How are we going to get out of this? Erza already revealed that she’s, what these people call, a witch and I pretty sure they’re suspecting us too.”

I closed my eyes, heaved a sigh, and then peeked at her. “I have no idea.… How is Simon??”

“Oh, amazing,” Levy said. “Apparently, that’s just another reason to throw us a big party. They’re all excited because he’s back from the dead or something.”

Erza and I looked at each other and smiled. I for one, was afraid that I’d wake up to find Simon gone, even buried.

Levy rose and gestured in the direction of the courtyard. “You guys, everyone’s been going crazy out there every since they found out Juvia woke up, and now that you’re both back from the brink, there’s no way they’re going to be able to hold it off any longer.”

Erza’s smile faded. “What do you mean?”

“It sounds like the entire town is coming in for the celebration.” I said. “Something about a three-day feast to celebrate our victory. And we’re the guests of honor.”

Victory. Phantom Lord defeated. For Fairy Tail, it would be huge.

“I don’t get it.” Erza said quietly. “Jellal and the others saw first hand that I wield magic. I heard firsthand from Mira that witches are to be executed on sight. Why did they bring me back?”

Lucy said the only thing that came to mind. “The he must really like you.”

Erza shook her head and began pacing. “This goes beyond that, Lucy. His own mother was killed by a witch! There’s no way he can just find out I’m one of them and just be okay with it. Most likely, the only reason he hasn’t told everyone in Fairy Tail that I’m a witch is cause he feels indebted to us for saving his life, his brothers’ lives, and his cousins life.”

She had us there.

“We have to get back to the tomb.” Lucy said quietly. “Try it together. I mean, to make the jump back.”

“Maybe we can get you to the tomb on my own somehow,” Levy said, looking at my side again. “It’d be better if we could get you home and to the doctor.”

“And how do we explain that?” Erza asked, pointing to my side.

“That’ll be tricky,” she said, pursing her lips. “I still can’t believe I did that, sewed you up. Ha! And Minerva teased me for reading DIY sewing books! Who’s laughing now, Minerva!?” Levy laughed while shaking a tiny fist in the air.

A knock sounded at the door, startling us all, and a moment later, Mira peeked in. She looked at me with her kind eyes. “I thought you’d enjoy a bath.”

Her eyes widened and she squealed uncharacteristically when she saw Erza sitting beside me like nothing happened. “You’re awake!! Oh my gosh you’re finally awake!!” She shot across the room and hugged Erza tightly.

“Of course. Juvia gets wounded in battle and Erza gets all the credit.” I joked in english with a giggle. Lucy and Levy laugh as Erza just awkwardly pats Mira on the back but almost as immediately as she had grabbed her, Mira pushes her away in shock. “Oh my gosh you're awake! You're awake! I have to- I have to-”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Mira.” Erza sweatdropped.

“I have to tell Simon and the others” She said while bolting to the door, her voice carrying down the hall.

“I need to tell them right away!”

We stared at each other questioningly, wondering what exactly just happened, when a large yell of joy came from the courtyard.

“Well, sounds like everyone knows your both awake now…” Lucy said with an awkward chuckle.

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gregellner · 6 years

Photo

Cover by Jenny Frison.

Today I’ll be reviewing the complete four-issue limited series “Year One” style story for Cassandra “Cassie” Hack, the protagonist of “Hack/Slash,” titled “Hack/Slash: My First Maniac.” It is written by Tim Seeley, with artwork by Daniel Leister, colors by Mark Englert, and letters by Crank!, all published by Image Comics (@imagecomics) as the first of the “Hack/Slash” properties to be published there before they took up the second ongoing series.

As a warning, this review is also an analysis, and so will include spoilers regarding this arc and major developments therein.

Throughout “My First Maniac,” Tim Seeley’s word choice rules the day, showcasing changing scenarios through repetition of common lines that have small, significant variations. Particularly in the first issue, there are intense parallels during the last two days that Cassie spent in her Wisconsin hometown, with her survivor’s guilt and vulnerability contrasting against her utter viciousness on her last day, figuring out how to use her “otherness” to make others afraid of her. On a similar note, the repeated use of certain phrases such as “come home” and similar words helps to add on to how alone Ms. Hack really feels and how she does, deep down, wish she could be at home again, but can’t seem to allow that for herself, a recurring struggle for her throughout her slasher slayer career.

Repetition also continues through events, such as the aforementioned last two days and her feelings about firearms. While Hack was at first upset and in shock over shooting her mother after she had become a slasher, noting that the gun felt heavy in her hands, her almost casual execution of the slasher she set out to hunt in this arc and intentional use of the gun she had actually demanded from someone else gives a look at how far she has delved into her killer lifestyle.

Religion, in particular Christianity, gets some mention, and acts as a contrast to the slashers themselves. Seeing as Cassie doesn’t know much about them (and won’t know much at all beyond the basics for years), she equates their ability to rise from the dead by sheer hatred as a kind of opposite number to Jesus of Nazareth, albeit not an actual antichrist. “The Bible says Jesus Christ died for our sins and returned to show his love. What about those who died for their own sins and returned to show their hate?” While this connection isn’t really all that important, it helps to tie readers in to the story, given a common perspective that many are at least familiar with on a cursory level.

Tim Seeley has long proposed that all of the famous slasher film franchises (and a few horror comic series) take place within the same world and share that world with “Hack/Slash,” with crossovers including “Hack/Slash vs. Chucky” (Child’s Play after Seed of Chucky), “Cassie and Vlad meet the Re-Animator” (Re-Animator), and “Hatchet/Slash” (Hatchet) alongside other more subdued connections or offhand references. In this limited series, Cassie’s original research into slashers includes direct mentions of the actions of Freddy Kreuger of A Nightmare on Elm Street (“a man who kills in dreams in Ohio”), Michael Myers of Halloween (“a masked maniac who terrorizes a small town on Halloween”), and Jason Voorhees of Friday the 13th (“a camp plagued for thirty years by a psycho who won’t die”) who, though already mentioned to exist within the world by Charles Lee “Chucky” Ray in his one-shot story, are still a nice treat for readers.

As a fun little note, Delilah Hack’s year of death is mentioned on her tombstone as 2004, the same year that the original “Hack/Slash” story, “Euthanized,” was published, and therefore probably the same year that this story takes place.

“My First Maniac” is, at its core, a tragedy. Cassie Hack wants a normal life, and by right, probably would have had one, albeit one filled with bullying, in most other circumstances. But with her life’s path and her survivor’s guilt, any hope for a happy life is mercilessly, repeatedly dashed, and she isn’t the only one to whom this genre applies.

First, let’s look to the case of Cassie herself. From the outset, re-killing her undead mother has irrevocably changed her life, leading her down a dark path that results in running away from the loving foster care of Shannon and Karen Moore. As she starts to develop a new, real life for herself in Buffalo Center, Iowa, over the course of her first intentional slasher hunt, she actually seems to be happy, or at least give the idea of possibly becoming happier with time. She develops friends, and seems on the road to becoming better again after her violent turn in Wisconsin. Then, of course, things go horribly wrong, as becomes a pattern for her life from then on.

On the other hand, we have the supporting cast and even the villains. The Moores just wanted to help Cassie, but her self-given mission had consumed her to such a degree that any happiness would be impossible. Sarah Bunn and her boyfriend Kelsey each have a tragic tale, each a victim of the slasher of the story in their own way. Cassie even identifies them as a “free-spirited girl with a dark secret” and a “genuine good guy” respectively, acknowledging that they also were suffering from tragedy much as she was in their own ways. Even the slasher was in his own way a victim, though not as sympathetic. He was murdered in a rage, but his actions in life were not kind either, so there is less sympathy afforded to him.

A major part of “My First Maniac” is not just the case itself, but how Cassie Hack evolves from a relatively innocent girl into… well, kind of a sociopathic girl with intense post-traumatic stress disorder. By the end of the arc, she even claims that “Cassie Hack, teenage girl” is dead.

The majority of the symptoms of her disorder do not come into play during the limited series (having apparently been developed gradually in the months since), but her increased aggression is definitely important. Over the course of a single day, perhaps two, Cassie Hack goes from reluctantly shooting her mother to death in order to save someone’s life, to experiencing such severe survivor’s guilt that she feels she deserves the beating that a trio of bullies led by group alpha Rhianna Stegman are giving her, to beating Stegman to within an inch of her life with her bare hands the next day and threatening to murder her if she ever tried again. Even more, that very night she threatened her foster father’s life with a knife in his bed to keep him from following her as she ran away, further showing that she is seriously unwell. The speed with which she shifts from a shy, bullied girl to making death threats and physical assault demonstrate a thoroughly fractured mind, one that will only get worse as years of hunting take their toll.

On another note, it is important to be aware that while Cassie is a huntress of monsters, she is not a good person on her own. When she witnesses Jay and Ludo beating up a homosexual student outside of Club Fuzz after work, she almost doesn’t help at all on account of them not being her prey and her not being a hero, only actually getting involved when the odds are obviously in her favor once Kelsey and Sarah jumped in. Part of this relates to how she feels she can’t have anyone to care about, seeing any attachments as collateral in her hunt that she cannot afford (something that takes years for her to grasp is not necessarily the case, and never really leaves her mindset altogether), but another is the fact that she is so obsessed with her mission that she has faith in nothing else at all and makes attempts to refuse any other ways to help.

Even with her increasingly hardened exterior, there is still a sheltered, hidden part of Cassie Hack that is still that flustered, shy, teenage girl who ran away from home. Being the center of attention and attracting compliments leaves her very shy, with her new goth wardrobe breaking her out of her intense focus when people bring up how good she looks. Furthermore, when someone actually tells her she is a cool girl, she is overjoyed, actually writing it down in her diary with her feet up and crossed like a guy she likes noticed her.

Daniel Leister’s artwork is amazingly done, and in two different, but similar styles. On the one hand, we have the present day storyline, with realistic, well-detailed faces and scenes, the emotion clear on everyone’s faces (especially important for this particular slasher). Blood and guts are in horrific, terrifying detail through which Leister considers the amount of time that has passed since the blood has spilled, ranging from a general stain to caked on gore or bruises to a smear to a bloody, oozing wound. Water is shown in detail as well, with sweat and splashes helping to showcase effort in a way that many other artists might overlook.

On the other hand, the tellings of the tale of the slasher threat are somewhat more simplistic in nature, with flatter artwork that somehow works very well regardless, playing off in a way that is not unlike the works of Jack Kirby. In fact, the artwork even utilizes his famous “Kirby dot” technique!

On the whole, it is very well put together in some of the best art on “Hack/Slash” in general (not to put down any of the other phenomenal artists either).

The issue would be incomplete without Mark Englert’s coloring. Darkness and light, across different times of day, different ages of bruising, or even different styles of artwork help to make the entire story feel like a classic slasher movie, even as it is clearly something different.

The coloring of blood and gore is particularly well handled, as each of these elements has a weight to them, with light and shadow playing across them to showcase the amount of blood spilled or the fact that a blood stain may just be a single layer, whether a minor smear on clothing or skin. By using that kind of detail, readers are made aware of how fresh, how wet, a wound really is at any particular moment.

Together, this four-issue series is put together wonderfully, with the masterful writing, excellent illustrations, and disturbingly realistic coloring working together to make yet another piece of the amazing “Hack/Slash” epic.

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thegremlinofransei · 5 years

Text

Welcome to the Family | Ch. 3

Resident Evil 7 AU

Fandom: Split, Glass

Rating: M (strong language, VERY INTENSE violence this chapter)

Word Count: ~2.7K

Summary: Casey has finally found Kevin in an abandoned farmhouse three years after his mysterious disappearance, but she doesn't anticipate the short life of their less-than-joyous reunion...

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Casey's heart pumped so hard she could hear it. Someone...something...waited for her to take one more step down the stairs. As she descended, she finally saw it. A hunched figure with deathly pale skin and stringy brown hair, built of pure muscle showing through his dingy t-shirt, crawled up the stairs.

Casey's jaw quaked as she pitifully attempted to address the approaching menace. "K-K...Kev…"

He lunged at her and grabbed her by the throat, holding his face to hers and breathing the scent of death. His eyes were opened maniacally wide, his teeth were speckled with black as his mouth opened in a wild grin, and his complexion was ghostly pale. In one swift motion, he retracted his arm and thrust her back up through the doorway. Casey crashed into the wall behind her and fell forward, catching her breath and staggering back to her feet.

Kevin now stood directly in front of her, that menacing smile still disgracing his disfigured face. Casey held up a hand and mouthed, "Easy."

It did little to stop him from grabbing her wrist and pulling out a kitchen knife in his right hand.

Kevin flung Casey to the side like a ragdoll and got down on his hands and knees to crawl after her. She rolled over and reached out a hand to block, which gained her a slit on the bony part of her wrist as he thrust the knife down at her. He continued to climb fully on top of her as she thrashed to deter him, but by the time she could see into his enraged blue eyes, it was too late.

The knife had gone clean through her left hand, and Casey screamed out in pain.

Kevin slid the knife back out of her hand, and she took this opportunity of retreat to kick him back and whip around to her feet. He had fallen, but was back on his feet in an instant, scrambling back down the hall.

"Wait...Kevin, hold on! Stop!" Casey shrieked at him as she backed away, but he refused to back down, instead lifting the knife as he ran. He gave her a few more nasty slashes on the wrist until she finally got a hold of him, his arm in her left hand and his face in her right. With all her might, she pushed back against the brutal onslaught.

Kevin staggered backward again before a third charge. Casey wrapped her hand around the blade, able to ignore the pain of it slicing through her palms by continuing her resistance. She was unable to keep him completely at bay, however, as he sunk the knife into her shoulder before dropping it to the floor and shrinking back.

Casey looked down to her blood-spattered hands in horror and reached down to retrieve the gory weapon. Turning back to Kevin, he now stood clutching his head, his appearance back to normal.

"I can hear him," he groaned, his face exhibiting pure pain, "he's...clawing his way back inside of me."

The pitch of his voice elevated as he reeled his head back. "Get out!" he screamed, slamming his head into the wall. "Leave me alone!" Another slam. His tone fell into defeat. "I've been bad. I deserve this." One final slam, and Kevin collapsed onto his back.

Casey heaved, but her stomach had nothing left to expel, so her eyes made up for it in a tsunami of tears as she stared down at her boyfriend's body sprawled on the floor. "What the fuck happened to you?" she thought out loud in a choked whisper. What happened to the loving hugs? The gentle kisses? The reassurances? Her memories harassed her. What the hell in this place changed them into knife fights and amnesia and cryptic messages?

Casey didn't want any more of this. She hustled to the end of the hallway and found door around the corner. Locked. Like everything else in this goddamn house, she grumbled internally. Deciding to go back to the basement and search for another exit, she ventured back down the hallway.

And was stopped in her tracks by Kevin rising to his feet like a marionette and regaining his sickly look from earlier.

He grabbed her arm, twisted it into submission, and pulled her closer to him by the throat, growling in her ear,

"Leave me."

She crashed through the wall into an abandoned room and watched as Kevin yanked at an exposed stake in the wall, attempting to free it as a weapon. A gleam caught Casey's eye, and she reached for it as she rolled over to her hands and knees. Catching the smoothly carved handle, she pulled back and spun around to face Kevin, who had almost wrenched the stake free.

Casey readied her axe. If he was going to start another fight, she was going to finish it.

She sprinted at him and swung, landing a deep gash on his shoulder just before he could bolt out of the way. They exchanged a few slashes and blocks back and forth before Kevin shoved Casey away, and they squared up to each other.

Casey went in for another shot, but Kevin was ready this time. He thrust the stake through her torso, barely missing her vital organs and retracting as she stumbled back. She held him off as he approached again, threw in a few futile punches to his jaw, and shoved him away.

Lining up her last shot, Casey landed the axe directly in the crook of Kevin's neck.

He slowly turned his head up to look at her, the color returning to his face and the light fading from his cerulean stare. His body began to collapse, and Casey reached out with a trembling hand. Despite his returned reach, Kevin went down, driving the axe further into his neck and spilling a pool of blood around his head.

Casey's breathing grew shallow as she stared down at Kevin's body. The pain from her multiple stab wounds was catching up with her, and her head throbbed as she tried to process the hopeless sight in front of her.

You murdered him.

He tried to kill me first.

He's still the fucking love of your life, you callous bitch.

Every one of her internal monologues was screaming, tugging her in a different direction, justifying her actions and demonizing her for them and over and over again.

An electronic ringing sounded from down the hall. Casey gingerly stepped out of the room and peered at the phone. The orange light was flashing. Incoming call. She ran as fast as she could and picked up the handset, and a sassy, effeminate voice with a light Southern twang began to speak.

"You really shouldn't have come here."

Casey was beyond pissed at the lack of information surrounding her calamity. "Who's this? And what the fuck is going on?"

"My name's Jade. There should be a way out through the attic."

Beeeeeeeeeeeep.

Casey looked at the handset in disgust before replacing it. As she turned back to the long hallway, she heard a door squeak open and shut in rapid succession and paced back to the enormous hole in the wall. A bloody smear trailed out of the room and around the corner.

"Kevin?" Casey asked between incoming sobs. As she looked into the room, she was greeted by the axe, planted firmly into a plank of wood. She removed and readied it with her good hand, preparing for whatever skirmish waited beyond the next door.

It was wide open, revealing the main hall in as much disarray as she had left it, give or take the claw marks and blood spatters of Kevin's escape. Casey recalled that this Jade girl had told her to take the attic, but it very well could be a trap. Nevertheless, she wracked her brain to figure out a route up there.

The missing fuse!

She flashed back to the locked armoir in the first hallway. It HAS to be hiding something! she told herself, ecstatic at the renewed prospect of escape.

Casey journeyed through the kitchen, lulled by the thunder- at least, she hoped it was thunder- from overhead. Readying the axe, she hacked at the door, making five heavy swings before it shattered fully open, revealing the desired fuse on a hat shelf.

After slipping it into her waistband, she turned back to the kitchen and froze. Across the long room, she could see Kevin stumbling past the doorway to the stairs. She took a deep breath, desperately wishing she wouldn't be so afraid. It's just Kevin, she reminded herself as she trekked forth. Sweet, caring sensitive Kevin.

However, her ego overcame her denial. This isn't YOUR Kevin.

Casey readied the axe as she rounded the corner, but there was no sign of him. She made quick work of reaching the living room and replacing the fuse, ready to leave this house of death and the hollow, bloodthirsty shell of her boyfriend behind.

That is, until Kevin tumbled out of a small closet beneath the stairs.

He tenderly reached for Casey's arm as she remained petrified where she stood. "Casey, babe, it's me, you're okay!" he reassured her, guiding her as he inched backwards. He kept a hand behind his back, and upon noticing this, Casey began to struggle but his grip only tightened as he cooed, "I know you didn't mean to hurt me."

Kevin had already started to morph back into the pallid monster as he finished this sentence, and he slammed her into the wall along the stairs by her shoulders. "But you shouldn't have done that," he whispered heavily into her face, his breath smelling of decaying flesh. He pulled her left hand up further on the wall and pulled a screwdriver from behind his back. "It fucking hurt!" he screamed, driving the tool through the open wound in her hand.

Casey screamed for help, knowing it wouldn't come, as Kevin trudged away. She couldn't bring herself to cry, having dehydrated herself in such a manner with each of the prior revelations. Trying to escape her compromising position, she reached for the screwdriver and tried her best to shake and twist it loose. She heard a dull revving noise from just beyond the stairs and tugged harder. With a final strong pull, she removed it and held her left hand out in front of her to hastily block whatever attack Kevin had prepared.

The chainsaw cut through her wrist like it was melted butter.

Casey shrieked out in agony as her hand fell to the floor. Kevin growled, grabbed her by the throat, and lobbed her back, leaving her to watch him retreat as she wrapped her right hand around the raw stub in a pointless effort to contain the rapid bleeding. She climbed slowly to her feet, her breathing shallow and her vision spotty, and muscled her way up the stairs.

A quick press of the button at the top released a creaky set of steep stairs from the ceiling. Casey ascended, refusing to lose the light at the end of the tunnel. She was met by a dusty passage with a wide open door on the right, light flowing out of it from a small white lamp. Stumbling through the door, she spotted a welcome friend on a cedar table and slid the narrow axe into her last available belt loop.

Resting before her was a loaded M19 handgun and a magazine of bullets. Casey slipped the latter under her bra strap and pulled out a tube of ointment. She hoped that rubbing some on would at least dull the pain and slow the bleeding, and after her hasty medical procedure, she dropped the empty tube and picked up the gun.

"Playtime's over, fucker," Casey muttered, hardening her expression.

She reentered the corridor and rounded another corner, finding a door. Fumbling with the knob between her palms and the gun, it finally creaked open, and Casey stumbled into the rectangular room, which was covered in all manner of tarps.

A pair of eerie mannequins were balanced against a support post in the room's center. And on the other side of the post, a ladder leaned precariously against the wall, leading up to a small cupola with a hatched window. Before ascending to freedom, Casey did another once-over of the room and picked up two more magazines, stowing them with her other spare. She nodded, and a small smile broke out onto her face.

I don't care what's controlling you, Kevin, she resolved as she approached the ladder, we never even knew each other.

As she began her climb, the familiar revving sound came from overhead, and Casey opted instead to flee as sawdust sprinkled down from the cupola hatch. She sprinted across the room and only turned back as she heard the ladder clatter to the floor.

Kevin had hopped down and landed on his feet, and he was bolting toward her with the chainsaw.

Casey could only slow him down with a quick aim and fire directly between his rabid eyes, which only made him feel back slightly. He slowed his approach, and she began to back away cautiously continuing to fire at him.

"You…" he spat out between coughs of blood, "you were always watching me. I… don't need your HELP!"

Casey fled the room and kicked the door shut behind her, sprinting to the end of the hall. She hastily worked a new magazine out of her bra strap with her left arm stub, moved the gun into the crook of her elbow, and loaded it with her right hand before turning back and taking aim at the door.

"Why are you hiding, Casey?!" Kevin screeched before thrusting the chainsaw through the door and carving a long slash across it. The door collapsed, and Kevin emerged.

She shot him in the face twice, but it was no use. He charged, and Casey made a quick leap out of the way as Kevin screamed, "Forget about me! Everyone...is...relying on me!"

He came at her again, but Casey thrust her left elbow against the plastic casing of the chainsaw and her right hand at Kevin's face, barely holding her assailant at bay. She took a swift kick at his balls and took off down the next segment of the corridor as he stumbled back.

Casey had a perfect shooting range as Kevin rounded the corner to follow her. Bang! Forehead. Bang! Bridge of the nose. With those two shots, he dropped the saw to his right and fell to his knees, growling in a choked death rattle,

"I love you."

Kevin slumped over face first and a fountain of blood gushed from his face, but Casey wasn't taking any chances. She kept her gun trained on him and stayed about four feet away as she stared. There were no more tears to cry for this monster that repeatedly tried to kill her. Just the promise of escape and the thought of burning every last photograph she had taken with him.

She slowly crept around him, grunting in pain as the adrenaline wore off. But he didn't move this time as she stood by his feet. The wood creaked around the hallway, and a renewed uneasy feeling grew in her stomach as she aimed at the staircase back down at the second level, waiting for something else to come. When it was silent for a few long moments, she turned around, hoping the ladder wasn't broken.

A large hand grabbed her shirt and finished pivoting her around. Her eyes widened in fear and her breathing grew shallow as she looked up into the face of a tall, burly man. He wore a neatly-pressed yellow flannel tucked into his slacks and heavy workboots. His head and face were shaved, and his glasses gleamed over his dark eyes as he gave her an evil smile.

"Welcome to the family, kiddo."

With that, he slammed her head into the wall and let her fall to the ground like a rejected toy.

Casey's last sight before the dark spots took over her field of vision was Kevin's bullet-riddled face.

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A/N: You know I had to do it to 'em. Also, for those of you who have played RE7, you may realize that Casey is in Ethan's role and Kevin is in Mia's role. However, I was just thinking the other day that, if this game were to receive a film adaptation, Anya Taylor-Joy would be great as Mia IMHO. Anyway, be sure to like, comment, and reblog. If you want to be on the tag list, just drop me an ask!

Tag List:

@lady-serenitty

@martina-leanza

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chemicalmagecraft · 4 years

Text

The Gamer Hero, Deku Chapter 19

"So the cavalry battle's about to start," Mic-sensei said, "and I've just gotta say..." I strapped myself into the harness Hatsume had thoughtfully made for me so that I wouldn't fall while I was Meditating, because I really needed to use Meditation for my crazy plan to work. "IS THAT ONE OF THE ROBOTS FROM EARLIER!?" The two-pointer that I'd stowed in my inventory during the obstacle race. I was sitting on the center of the robot's torso, which thankfully acted a bit like a platform, Uraraka and Hatsume were by the front of the robot, with Hatsume arm-deep in the robot's guts still. Our final teammate, Tokoyami, was by the back of the robot due to its size. While I was the only one with a harness, my teammates had bits of scrap metal that Uraraka had magnetized that let them stick to the robot but still allowed them to move if they needed to.

"Too loud, Mic," Aizawa complained. "And yes, that is one of the robots from earlier. The problem child argued that if his teammate, Hatsume, modified and hacked the robot, then it would be her creation and therefore, as she is a support student, her team would be allowed to use it." He sighed. "And apparently the principal specifically wrote into the rules that hacking the robots is okay, so it's not even technically a loophole. When I asked Nedzu about it, he just maniacally laughed."

"To be honest I probably should've seen that coming."

"Probably. And by the way, the cavalry battle begins in about one minute, so get ready."

I took a deep breath and focused on my mana. A ball of faintly glowing light blue mana appeared on my chest, and three tendrils of mana extended from it. The tendrils touched my teammates on the chest, forming balls of mana on their chests like mine. Bestow, a spell I thought of that allowed me to share my mana with others, though there was a bit of mana lost. "So interesting!" Hatsume shouted as she poked the ball of mana on her chest, her eyes glowing. She was actually pretty good with magic, judging from how quickly she'd picked up Eye For Magic.

Tokoyami put a hand up to his mana ball. "I feel power flowing through me," he muttered.

I nodded. "Just remember that even with Meditation, I have a limited amount of mana. And there's three of you, which means that my mana will be split between you. We should be fine if only one person does something big at a time, so coordinate your spells."

"On three!" Midnight shouted.

"And finally snap me out of it if we need something big and I'll use Limit Break," I said quickly, then activated Mana Dome and Meditation.

"Begin!" Midnight shouted.

I couldn't really see much of what was happening at first because of how I was meditating and in the center of the robot. However, after a few moments, it seemed like Bestow started to synergize with Open Mind and possibly even Meditate, Tactician, and the party we'd made, because I was able to see through my teammate's eyes. I mostly focused on Uraraka because Tokoyami was watching the rear and Hatsume was piloting the robot. I kept a bit of an 'eye' on Hatsume, though, because I hoped to absorb some of her mechanical expertise. Uraraka saw that a lot of the teams made a beeline straight for us. One of the teams used some sort of ground-softening Quirk. "I'm gonna lower gravity!" Uraraka shouted. "Hit the jets, Hatsume!" I felt a sudden drain on my mana coming from Uraraka. A pink glow spread from her body, engulfing the entire robot. Hatsume activated the robot's jets, and despite its weight it flew. Tokoyami deflected a few shots that came after us with Dark Shadow.

When we touched down, the robot sank a bit. Hatsume looked down at the legs and saw some mud, using Eye For Magic. "Someone's attacking my new baby with water magic!" she shouted.

Uraraka looked around and saw Tsu and someone from gen ed that I didn't know very well riding on Shoji's back. "Tsu-chan!" she shouted.

Tsu spat out a glob of water, which shaped itself like a buzzsaw. "Ochako-chan, I'm sorry to do this, but-"

"Well I'm not at all!" Hatsume shouted, then laid her hands on the robot. She stared at her hands with Eye For Magic as she poured mana into the robot. She, and therefore I, could see how the mana interacted with the technology. I heard a text box open as I learned the skill from her. Blue lines spread across the robot, and Hatsume's vision changed to the robot's camera. She shot a net at Tsu's team, entangling them, and made the robot carefully step out of the mud.

"DEKU! YOUR FUCKING ROBOT WON'T SAVE YOU NOW!" All three of my teammates turned in unison to see Kacchan's team. Kacchan jumped off of Kirishima, his front horse, and started flying at us with Fire Dash. Tokoyami had Dark Shadow curl around me protectively.

"He's going after my baby!" Hatsume screeched.

"I've got this!" Uraraka shouted. She slapped her hands on the robot, blue sparks springing into existence and traveling over to the leg Kacchan was aiming for. When Kacchan tried to explode the leg, it just... compressed a bit before springing back with a wave of energy. Kacchan was knocked back, but another one of his horses, Sero, grabbed him with his tape. "Get us out of here, Hatsume!"

"What did you do to my baby?" Hatsume demanded as the robot ran.

"I temporarily messed with the strength and stuff of the armor using particle magic. I can do that to my skin, too. It feels really weird." If I wasn't drawing in the energy of the world or however Meditation worked I'd have asked how that worked. It sounded interesting.

A few teams moved to intercept us. "I'll be taking your headband, Midoriya," Todoroki said. "Kaminari!" His teammates were Yaoyorozu and Kaminari in the back, on roller skates that I assumed Yaoyorozu made, and Iida in the front.

Yaoyorozu made a sheet and a grounding rod while Kaminari started to build up lightning. "I believe my power will be the most useful in this situation," Tokoyami said. "My comrades, please allow me to complete access Midoriya's font of power." Tokoyami drained my MP even faster than Meditation could bring it back. In return, a shroud of near-total darkness engulfed the world. "Primordial Void!" he intoned. Through Hatsume's enhanced eyes, I could just barely see Corvo and Dark Shadow emerge, though Dark Shadow was so big that it dwarfed our robot. I remembered what he said, about how Dark Shadow got stronger but harder to control the darker it was. "Now, my minions of shadow, let us have a true revelry in the dark." Dark Shadow rushed forward, with Corvo riding him and seemingly controlling him, or at least directing him.

Kaminari shot most of his lightning at Dark Shadow, or at least I think that's what happened in the gloom. It wasn't very effective with such poor light, and it seemed that the dark magic was dampening the lightning itself somehow. Dark Shadow raged, knocking back all of the teams. The drain on my MP abated, and the black shroud started to fade away. "Run, Hatsume!" Tokoyami shouted. "Away from Todoroki's team!"

"I can see!" she shouted as the robot started running away. Tokoyami saw Todoroki freeze out the other teams in the confusion and then Iida shouting something. Todoroki made a ramp of ice and Iida shot off faster than I'd ever seen him run before. Tokoyami made to intercept with Dark Shadow, but Todoroki's team sped up even more as the ice at the tip of the ramp exploded, and then Kaminari shot a bolt of lightning at Dark Shadow that stunned it. Yaoyorozu shot a miniature cannon past Tokoyami. I opened my eyes just in time to get hit in the back of my head with the cannonball that shattered my Mana Dome. It didn't hurt, but it was really jarring! Because I'd flinched from the hit, I wasn't able to react in time to stop Todoroki from snatching my headband. Their team landed on a platform of ice, then slid down the slide that Todoroki turned it into.

I took stock. The two skills that I'd learned, Sight Sharing and Technomancy, wouldn't be very useful. However, we already had everything we needed to get that headband back.

"Ditch the robot and go after them, guys!" I shouted. Luckily, Todoroki didn't think to melt the slide. Actually, I couldn't remember him ever using his fire in battle. That probably wasn't a good sign... My teammates jumped into the formation that we'd discussed on the slide, and I used Sonic Embodiment to take my place as the rider. Tokoyami used Dark Shadow to push us down and I used Speed Up on my teammates. Now that I wasn't using Meditate, which didn't let me use Observe while I was using it, Tactician told me that Iida's engines were stalled by whatever special move he'd used. "That move wiped out Iida's Quirk for the rest of the game, so we have a chance! Get me close!"

Uraraka lowered our gravity, letting us run faster. I noticed that the robot was tailing behind us, but I didn't give it much thought. We got within range, and Todoroki's eyes widened as his left arm caught fire, a knee-jerk reaction. I slashed my arm at him with wind mana, blowing his defenses away, then used a light amount of One For All to grab the golden headband. They'd flipped the headbands around and mixed up their order to try and trick us, but with Observe and Tactician that meant nothing to me. "We're flying away!" I shouted, activating the jetpack I hadn't had to use yet in the cavalry battle. Uraraka used a mixture of her Quirk and gravity magic to lift us out of there. Apparently the reason why she got such bad nausea when she used her Quirk on herself was because she was resistant to it, but she didn't have as much of a problem with gravity magic.

"DEKU!" Kacchan screamed at me, flying toward us. It looked like he was back to attacking us...

"Uraraka! My baby!" Hatsume shouted. Uraraka got what she meant immediately and pointed at the two-pointer, which jumped and started using its jets. Uraraka pulled on Bestow again, causing the robot to glow pink and start flying. It intercepted Kacchan, but it looked like Uraraka did the strengthening spell again. This time, though, well...whatever the spell did, it didn't completely solve the problem of Newton's third law of motion. The robot absorbed all of the force, yes, but when it rebounded the force... It was weightless. "MY BABY!" Hatsume shrieked as the robot was repulsed away from Kacchan. I didn't want a giant robot, even a giant robot with the weight of a beach ball, crashing into the stands or even worse the stalls outside, so I grabbed it with Mana Rope and braced myself on an air platform. I swung the robot down to try to take some of the motion off.

"Get on the robot!" I shouted after getting the robot to only be slowly falling. We landed on it and I started meditating again to help with keeping us lightly falling.

"And Team Midoriya are back just in time for the end of the cavalry battle!" Mic-sensei shouted when we touched down. "The game was totally crazy, but now it's OOOOVEEEER!"

"In first place, we have Team Midoriya, clearly," Aizawa-sensei said. "Second place is Team Todoroki, third is Bakugou, and fourth is... it looks like Team Shinsou snatched a few last-minute points. Impressive."

"We'l be taking a lunch break, but we'll move on to the final games after the break, folks! Stay tuned!"

I dropped off of the robot, not waiting for Hatsume to lower it. "Are you okay, Midoriya?" Yaoyorozu asked me, rubbing her elbow.

"O-oh, I'm fine," I reassured her. "I can fall from higher than that without any problem."

"No, I mean from when I shot you. That looked like it hurt..."

I shook my head. "No, no, it was more surprising than anything! My Mana Dome probably took most of the hit, and my Quirk is really overpowered. I think I wouldn't be too hurt if All Might were to punch me in the face."

She nodded. "That's impressive. I still apologize, though. I was aiming to just pop your barrier, but we were going very fast, so..."

"It's fine!"

xoxoxo

After we left to get lunch, Todoroki stopped me and rather forcefully asked to meet me alone. I saw no reason not to, so I followed him to an abandoned hallway. "What did you need me for?" I asked. "Did you get hurt in the caval-"

"I was overwhelmed." He glared at me. "Your power. I only saw it once, but it reminded me of All Might."

"I'm pretty sure All Might doesn't use wind magic. He just punches the air hard enough that it looks like he does."

"I don't mean your magic. You did... something that wasn't magic."

"How did you know?"

"I can sense magic. And that sudden movement you did, it was more like All Might's Quirk than magic."

I blinked. "I'm sorry, did you just say you can sense magic?"

"And considering how All Might seems to be supporting you, I have to ask one thing." I gulped. I didn't know what he was going to say, but he was getting pretty close to the truth... "Are you All Might's secret love child or something?"

I spluttered. "Wow, I wish I was All Might's secret love child! All I know about my dad is that he had some kind of firebreathing Quirk and curly white hair. And that he owes us a lot in child support."

"Regardless, you clearly have some kind of connection to All Might. Just know that I must beat you. You see, my father is an ambitious man. He wanted to be the number one hero, and wasn't even satisfied with second place." His voice became ice cold. "And so he made me to carry out his ambitions."

"What do you mean, 'made you?'" His Quirk involved two separate powers, even stated in Observe to be two Quirks in one body. It reminded me of that Nomu thing...

"Are you aware of Quirk marriages?" Oh. In hindsight that was the more likely conclusion. Probably worse, though. He snarled. "My father used his influence to put pressure on my mother's family, forcing an arranged marriage. It took the bastard four tries, but he finally made me, his masterpiece, and trained me relentlessly. My mother hated my left side. I don't blame her. It's his." I'm not a psychologist or a Quirk counselor... yet... but that seriously did not sound like a good sign, psychologically speaking. "I remember one time, she was talking to someone on the phone, about my left half." Seriously, I could tell Tokoyami was joking whenever he called his power a curse, but it seemed that Todoroki genuinely felt that the entire left half of his body and the power it gave him was some sort of... well, curse. "She saw me, and threw boiling hot water at me face, as you can see. As you've probably noticed by now, my left side is heat-resistant, but not fireproof."

"Yeah, I may not have a fire Quirk, but I still have some weak fire resistance from my dad. Speaking of which, I suddenly feel very grateful my jackass firebreather dad was an absent jackass firebreather father."

"I envy you for your absent parent."

"You know, if you want I could try to heal that scar? It's obviously tied to some serious trauma, and I figure not seeing it in the mirror would ease some of the pain?"

He shook his head. "No. My purpose was to tell you this: I plan to deny my father the satisfaction of using his fire. I'll defeat you without ever using my left side again, this I can promise you." He started to walk off, leaving me in thought.

I Flash Stepped behind him a moment later and put my hand on his right shoulder. "You do realize I'm going to have to report this, right?"

His head whipped back. "What?"

"One of the stipulations of Shuzenji-sensei's training program. If I find evidence of any of my classmates being abused, I'm to report it to her or another teacher, with or without their permission. Even if I wasn't, though, I wouldn't just take that and say nothing. What kind of hero would I be if I learned my classmate was being abused and didn't say anything?"

"I appreciate the offer, but Endeavor's influence is too much. He always boasts how, if we did do anything, he'd have his people on it." He shuddered. "And then he'd punish us."

"Have you ever actually done anything?" I asked.

"I just said-"

"You said what he told you," I corrected. "A few years before Endeavor's debut, there was, obviously, another hero in the number two spot. Undertow. He had a flashy, powerful water Quirk that let him shoot water from any part of his body, and lots of it. To be honest, it'd be pretty funny how similar he was to Endeavor if it didn't extend to the point of abusing his daughter in the form of 'training.' Apparently, he even married a telekinetic so he could get a child with hydrokinesis, much like with your situation."

"What happened?"

"It took a while, but Undertow's sister reported him. She'd known for a while, but he'd threatened to... do something to his daughter if she did." I wiped a giant tear from my eye and sniffed. "It wasn't publicized much, because people were afraid that a pro of that ranking turning out to have done something like that could've triggered massive unrest, but Undertow was arrested and some of his charges were released, enough that nobody would question the arrest. He's still behind bars today." I smiled. "And at the same time I'm sure All Might would be willing to help you if he heard what happened, and I doubt that the influence of the number two hero outstrips that of the symbol of peace."

Todoroki nodded. "I'll take your word for it. Though, how do you know about Undertow if, as you said, the whole story was suppressed?"

"My grandmother told me about it." I used some magic on my tear ducts, causing a massive amount of water to pour from them. Then I wiped off my face and shirt because I didn't put any pressure into it, making the water dribble all over me. "She didn't want me to repeat her mistake."

Todoroki blinked. "Wait, so are you saying-"

"Undertow is my great uncle, yes. We don't talk about him much, though, because of the whole, ah..."

"I see. You have my condolences. If I may ask, would it be possible for you to get me in contact with Undertow's daughter?"

I rubbed the back of my head. "Ah... that won't be possible, unfortunately. For one, she kind of hated my grandmother? Okay, not exactly hate per se but, well... Grandma didn't blame her, what with how she didn't say anything about the abuse for a while. And I think Undertow made it worse somehow..."

"When was the last time I talked to my siblings..." Todoroki muttered.

"Yeah, child abuse is pretty awful," I said. "Anyway, I think she reached out to my mom a few times, but... well... Then she died..."

"I'm sorry for your loss."

I shrugged. "I didn't even know her. Well, I didn't know her personally. I knew a lot about her. She was actually a pro hero."

"Was that... how she..?"

I gave him a small nod. "The hero duo Water Hose. A husband-and-wife pair. About two years ago, they sacrificed themselves to take out a dangerous villain with a powerful enhancement Quirk. But enough about my messed up family. I won't force you to go to Shuzenji-sensei now, but when the sports festival is over we are talking to him, even if I have to drag you there myself."

He grunted. "Fine. If it will really destroy my father, then I'll happily talk to Shuzenji-sensei."

"That's probably not quite the healthiest thing to say, but it's better than not telling anyone about the abuse, so I'll let it slide," I muttered. Todoroki shrugged and started to walk off. This time I let him.

xoxoxo

A/N: Okay, so originally Undertow wasn't going to be related to Deku, but then I remembered that I said that his grandmother had a water Quirk and decided that he'd probably have reason to know about this guy if grandmother dearest told him about her evil twin. I mean, hero-nerd Izuku would probably know about the guy even without being related to him, but there's the reason for him to know the censored bits.

#fanfiction #bnha fanfiction #bnha #The Gamer Hero Deku #Gamer Hero Deku #GHD CH19

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