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ethanesimp · 3 years

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LET ME GO // V. D. A.

Pairing: Servant! Victoria De Angelis x Royal GN! Reader

Summary: You're cornered into making a decision that won't only break your heart but Vic's too.

Request: Maybe something that makes me cry

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death threats and death, arranged marriage, swearing

Word Count: 3.1k

Masterlist // Taglist link in bio

Taglist: @superchrystaldrug @reputationdamiano @ethaneskin @dont-let-me-drown-in-you @bidet-and-legolas

A/N: I hope this is sad enough nonnie and that you like it :) It's my first time writing for Vic so I hope y'all enjoy reading as much as I did writing it! And yess, we’re still continuing this angst fest :)

Love was a double-edged sword.

That was one of the first things you learned in your life. You’d see people in pain, crying and destroying themselves for it. It took you a long time to understand why one would do so much for a person, what was so special about them to sacrifice so much?

It took Victoria for you to fully understand. She was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful, energetic, and sweetest people you’d ever met. Those gorgeous blue eyes and endearing laugh made you fall head over heels for the girl you often saw around the castle ever since you were little.

Ever since you shared your first kiss with her at the back of the stables while your friend Thomas looked out for guards, you knew your relationship was going to live on borrowed time but had always refused to dwell on the thought too much.

You were aware the circumstances you lived in were like a ticking time bomb stuck to your back. It was far too obvious and you’d be too naïve to think otherwise considering you were a member of royalty and the kingdom would eventually be your burden to carry. However, what you weren’t aware of was how easily things would fall apart or when, or how quickly.

You’d already spent three years of pure bliss next to Victoria, sneaking around the castle and stealing moments and memories only the two of you knew about. You couldn’t deny that you’d always longed for more, to be able to show all your love for her in public and ask her to rule the kingdom by your side, but no amount of dreaming or wondering about what if’s would ever make your situation any different.

Six words were all it took for your bubble of denial to finally burst. Those six little words kept on repeating inside your head over and over again as you held Victoria in your arms. Her pretty eyes were looking into yours and a sad smile adorned her face as you brushed her hair back with your fingers. You could see the tears in her eyes and knew she could see yours, but neither of you dared to comment on it yet.

It was a delicate subject and neither of you wanted to talk first in fear of triggering an argument, even if you were both aware it was coming soon and there was no way to stop it. So you just sat there together in complete silence. The only thing that could be heard was the sporadic sounds of the window creaking because of the wind and the soft crack of wood burning on the large fireplace.

You placed a soft peck on her lips and caressed her cheek delicately with your thumb, also removing the tears from her rosy cheeks. You pressed your forehead against hers and tightly closed your eyes as you smelled the sweet scent of flowers that hung in the air because of the small flowers woven into her light hair.

Her arms were tightly wrapped around your body as if she was afraid that you’d suddenly vanish in the form of smoke and would slip from her fingers. You held her closer as a form of reassurance and sighed when you felt her once quiet sobs turn so violent they’d shake her whole body.

“I’m sorry,” You mumbled and rubbed circles on her exposed back. You wanted nothing more than to take away all the pain she felt and let her know things would be alright, but you didn’t want to lie to her either, “I’m so sorry you had to see all that amore.”

She shook her head and buried her face against your chest as she cried harder. Victoria had always been so strong, so unbreakable, yet those six little words had just broken her and her heart into a thousand pieces.

You’re getting married tomorrow. No questions.

You’d been set to marry the heir of a nearby kingdom ever since you were a little kid, promised away to the other royal in exchange for resources to save a dying kingdom and they’d told you all about it in front of your friends… and your girlfriend.

Your father had made you meet them right in front of her. The young royal, ignorant to your situation, had even gone as far as to kiss both your cheeks and quickly peck your lips. You had all been so taken aback by it, but no one commented on it because it would look suspicious.

Even though all you wanted to do was take Victoria and run as far away as your legs would take you, the conversation you’d had with your father just minutes before the announcement stopped you from even trying.

He looked exasperated, angry. You’d tried to browse your mind for anything you’d done wrong as of late but couldn’t come up with anything. There was no reason for him to be as mad as he seemed.

“I seem so stupid to you, don’t I? You ungrateful child,” He’d spoken, tone sharp and voice laced with venom. You had flinched at how harsh his words sounded, still clueless as to what he was talking about, “I could put up with you not giving a shit about the Kingdom that will soon be yours because you’d have to stop that childish behavior of yours. But sneaking around with a maid’s daughter? That’s just ludicrous!”

Your heart fell to your stomach right then and there. He knew.

“I have tried so much, given you every single thing you wanted to hopefully get you to listen, but I’m tired of playing nice. You’re getting married tomorrow. No questions. And don’t you dare try and run away unless you want all her friends and family killed the second you step foot out of this castle.”

She thankfully hadn’t heard your father’s words and you weren’t planning on telling her a thing. You knew for sure that if she’d heard, you would’ve already lost her. She had always been one to stand up against things that were wrong, and that time wouldn’t have been an exception. Unfortunately, your father was anything but lenient and you had no doubt that if she even thought of raising her voice at him things would end in chaos.

“This is so unfair,” She murmured against your chest as more sobs escaped her lips. You stroked her head gently and nodded, “I know it is, I know.”

Then, she raised her head and looked at you with excited eyes as she wiped her tears away. She had an idea and you had a feeling you wouldn’t like it, “Let’s run away, Y/N. Right now. I have an aunt who lives far away in a kingdom where they will never find us! And we can be happy.”

Your gaze softened at her words. There was nothing you wanted more than to run away with Victoria, far from your parents and the responsibilities you’d been born into. You would’ve tried it too had your father not threatened to kill her family and friends if you did so. But you weren’t going to say a thing.

“Victoria… We can’t- I can’t,” Her smile fell the moment she heard your words. She pulled away and left your embrace, making you instantly miss the warmth of her body pressed against yours.

Victoria sat down next to you, her eyes focused on yours as if she were trying to read your mind, “What do you mean you can’t? This hasn’t been the first time we’ve talked about it and you’ve always agreed to do it if we ever needed it, which we do now. What’s changed?”

You had to look away after hearing just how hurt she sounded. You didn’t want to see her cry again because you knew you’d end up telling her every single thing your father told you. Anything would’ve been better than having to tell her, so you decided to say something that would not only break her heart but yours too, “I just can’t, okay? Vic, we were being childish! I cannot just flee the kingdom and expect no consequences. That was a stupid idea that would never work. I need to serve my duty, not run off with some servant’s daughter and forget all about my responsibilities here!”

She moved even further away from you. Victoria didn’t even try to hide the hurt caused by your words, “Oh, okay. I get it now,” She nodded and laughed bitterly as she turned around and gathered all the clothes that had previously been scattered all over the room, ”All this time I’ve been nothing but a fool...

“You know, when this all started between us, my friends kept telling me you were just using me for your amusement,” Victoria spoke. Her tone almost made you flinch because it just had as much venom laced in it as your father’s had earlier that day, “I never believed it, you know? I thought you loved me! But no, you’re just as hungry for power as all those fucking bastards, and I was nothing more than just your little game.”

Her words felt like agonizingly painful stabs to the heart. You didn’t give a shit about power, about the kingdom, about anything but her. However, you weren’t selfish enough to be driven by your desire to be with her, a desire that was almost a need at that point. At least not after knowing everything that was on the line. Her family… her friends, friends who had become your own too.

Oh how much you wanted to cave in. You wanted to reach out to her and wrap your arms around her frame while you told her just how sorry you were, how much you didn’t mean those words. But you stayed quiet instead and listened to her insults, took them in, and tried your hardest not to flinch or shed a tear, as much as it hurt to do so.

You didn’t stop her either when she ran out the door, tired from crying and screaming at you. Instead, you waited until she harshly shut the door behind her to finally cry. You cried and cried for what seemed like an eternity, got up from the bed, and tore the room to pieces out of pure frustration and hatred to both the universe and your parents for doing this to you.

It felt like everything was moving in slow motion as you smashed the mirror to pieces with your shoe and tore off the blue wallpaper from the walls. Then, with weak knees and a heavy heart, you slid down the wall and sat on the floor. You pressed your forehead to your knees and placed your hands over your face as you cried some more.

Eventually, you fell asleep, exhausted from all the crying and heartbreak you were feeling, wanting nothing but for it to stop. Not too far away, Victoria was being held in the arms of her best friend, who held her while she cried and fell apart in his embrace. No one who was with the two knew what to say. Contrary to what Victoria had said in an attempt to hurt you, all her friends believed you were head over heels for her. Everyone knew you’d do every single thing she asked, but they had all been proven wrong.

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There was an instant the next morning when you woke up, everything still foggy, where you forgot everything that had gone down the day before. You should’ve held onto those seconds tighter, but your brain didn’t let you as it brought back all the memories from the previous night like violent waves breaking into the shore, so painfully you had to hold your head with your hands.

When a servant walked in, he didn’t question the broken glass scattered all over the wooden floor, neither did he comment on the bare walls and the fact that you looked terrible. He didn’t because he was one of Victoria’s closest friends, Damiano. He silently pieced the story together in his mind and felt his heart break for his two dear friends.

He’d once described you two as a melody. A beautiful one that seemed to flow smoothly and left everyone around them speechless because the force in it was something that no one ever expected from such a quiet-sounding and delicate piece. You loved each other with everything you had, kissed each other like that time would be the last, and now, when you needed all that power and force, you weren’t using it. It made him sad and he couldn’t help but compare you two to an instrument that had gotten out of tune during an important solo.

Minutes before entering the room, he’d been ready to lash out at you for breaking his sister’s heart, but the mere sight of you made him reconsider. Especially when you looked at him with red eyes and tear-stained cheeks. You looked into his eyes with so much panic and desperation as you spoke up, voice hoarse and barely inaudible, “I’m so sorry.”

He crouched down to your level and didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around your body and hold you like he’d held Victoria the night before. Damiano, for the first time in a while, was out of words to say. He wanted to understand what had happened because Victoria had been so distraught the night before that her words had come out in, mostly, incoherent mumbles that not even Thomas or Ethan could catch.

“What happened Y/N?” He asked in the sweetest, most delicate voice he could muster. It caught him off-guard how you started crying even harder at his question and gripped the collar of his shirt so tightly he was afraid of getting choked by a heartbroken you.

After a few sniffles, you spoke up. Thankfully, your words were much clearer than Victoria’s had been, “I fucked up, Damiano. That’s what happened,” You hiccuped, “I’m nothing but a coward. When my father threatened to kill her family I just stood there looking so fucking stupid. I just nodded along to everything he was saying.”

Damiano’s brown eyes opened wide as he processed your words, “He did what?” You brought a hand to your face and pulled at your hair in frustration at the realization that you had let those words slip. No one was supposed to know, especially not the person who was so close to her that he was basically her brother.

But the secret you’d tried so hard to hide was now out and it felt like a breath of fresh air after being close to suffocating, so you told him everything. All the words spilled out of your mouth and you didn’t even try to stop them. In fact, the exact opposite thing happened and you told him everything with as much detail as possible to the point where a little movie seemed to be playing inside your head.

He didn’t say a word until you finished talking. By that point, you had already calmed down enough to only sniff every once in a while, which was nothing compared to how distraught and shaken up you’d been minutes earlier. That’s when it dawned on him that the only thing you needed was to talk, it also explained why Victoria had been so heartbroken. She didn’t know about it…

It was like you were able to hear his thoughts, because the moment he opened his mouth to speak, you interrupted him, “No. I cannot tell Vic and neither can you. I know you love her just as much as I do and you know how she’d take this… Look, I can live happily if I know she’s out there, safe. How would I ever live with myself if she was gone and it was all my fault?”

His heart broke at your words, but he truly had no clue what he could ever say to make you feel any better, so the only thing he did was hold you closer and let you cry some more.

He eventually had to leave before another servant walked in to help you get ready for ‘the big day’. The other servant didn’t question the looks of your room either and stayed quiet as they helped you into the outfit that had been selected for you to wear to the wedding. You almost wanted to chuckle, you had no choice on who’d be there at the altar by your side and it seemed like you had no choice in what you’d be wearing either.

To anyone who’d seen you walk down the halls of the castle would’ve easily mistaken your frown for nothing more than being nervous at the thought of getting married. Hell, Damiano had even told you that a rumor had spread around the castle quickly after everyone found out about you being engaged.

It was, apparently, no secret to any of the servants that you were seeing someone. Anyone who didn’t know any better had thought it had been the other royal you were set to marry. That you’d spend blissful hours sneaking around the castle, eager to finally unite and live together forever. They weren’t exactly wrong. You did wish for that with everything you had, but not for the person who was already anxiously waiting at the altar for you to walk in.

No. You wanted all that with the blond-haired girl that sat at the very back, with her hair neatly braided back and a few flowers adding a pop of color to her head. You almost wanted to chuckle when you saw she wasn’t wearing a dress. Ever since you were little kids and she’d started working around the castle, she’d begged your father to let her wear a pair of jeans instead of the skirts maids would wear. He hadn’t seen it as a huge deal and ever since he allowed her to do so, you’d never seen her in a skirt, ever, much less a dress.

As you stood at the altar, you often looked for her in the crowd. Thankfully enough, she’d stayed with her eyes glued to the floor for most of the ceremony and hadn’t caught you staring, not once. Everything that followed seemed to happen so quickly you spaced out over most of it. It hurt, but Damiano’s reassuring smiles and just looking at Victoria gave you enough strength to keep the tears in.

You never thought that’s how your life would go, but you were thankful because at least she’d be safe. She’d have the chance to find someone else and fall in love one day. You only hoped that eventually, when many years had passed, Damiano would tell her all of the truth and maybe, just maybe, she’d find it in herself to forgive you for it all.

#victoria de angelis x reader #victoria de angelis x you #victoria de angelis x y/n #victoria de angelis fanfiction #maneskin x reader #maneskin fanfiction

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the-silentium · 4 years

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Doppelganger

Summary: Reader found herself in front of the weirdest situation ever. Her boyfriend... fighting himself from another timeline.

Masterlist

Pairing: Five Hargreeves x Reader

Words: 2250 words

Warnings: TUA season 2 spoilers, violence, sex reference, swears.

A/N: The season 2 was crazyyy! Can’t wait for a season 3 now . Okay, so let's say Five got his time travel to 2019 good and is the same age as his siblings and the reader.

Being in a relationship with one Hargreeves was strange enough. It took you a while to get used to your boyfriend's habit of jumping from spot to spot, mainly because he, sometimes, would bring you with him and nausea would hit you like a train. As much as you admired his ability, your stomach had a limit and space-jumping was far from it.

Five Hargreeves was your best friend from the age of seven. Whenever he wasn't practicing, studying or fighting crime, he passed his time with you, playing around, pranking his siblings or simply hanging out. He became your boyfriend on your twelfth birthday. You were never one for big parties, so Five took you out, bought you the next book of your favorite series that recently got published and took you to the roof of his house. The space had been decorated with string lights, pillows, blankets, a projector and a plate of doughnuts you suspected were from Griddy's. You passed the evening watching Marvel movies, both of you leaning on the other, your head on his shoulder. He asked you to be his girlfriend at the end of the night.

Being in a relationship with one Hargreeves naturally comes with passing time with his siblings, which let’s be honest, add to the strangeness of your daily life. Klauss constantly talking to an invisible Ben, sometimes laughing at you like a maniac because you almost sit on his brother. Diego with his usual black suit, sharpening knives at any time of the day and throwing them randomly only to move them in the air. You didn't have enough fingers to count the times you had leaned down in a hurry trying to dodge a knife that had ultimately deflected from its trajectory before it could reach you. You knew they would never hit you, but your survival instinct was strong. Luther and Vanya were usually silent when you were around. From what Five had told you, Luther was just shy around you and Vanya was… Vanya. Allison was pretty happy to have another girl to hang out with. You liked her kind heart and felt comfortable around her.

You never thought that your life could get more strange. Or fucked up. But then there was Five’s disappearance, which broke your young heart. This same heart started beating again 17 years later at Sir Hargreeves’ funeral, when your boyfriend reappeared, taller than in your memories. His hair was longer, his young features were now mature and his stubble made him incredibly attractive. Tears fell from your eyes when your gaze found his. Immediately, he space jumped to you, wrapping his arms tightly around your smaller form.

Finally, you thought. Everything is back to normal. You should have known. The apocalypse was at the corner and you had to stop it. Needless to say it wasn't a big success. So there you found yourself, in 1963, in front of two fighting Five. The Five of your timeline wasn't doing a lot of progress convincing the older Five to follow the plan and get into the portal, so you got an idea.

At the bar, the older Five couldn't take his eyes from you. His fingers twitched at his sides when he first saw you, a clear urge to take you in his arms written on his features. With a smile you made the first move, sliding your arms around his waist in a hug, head on his chest. His sharp breath made you tighten your hold a bit. He just passed 45 years without you and you couldn't imagine the pain he was in. His embrace was just as tight around you, but you didn't mind. Your own Five had been as desperate for contact when you both reunited.

You faintly heard a soft "I missed you" before a forced cough ended the moment. You released your hold around him with a smile. The second his hands were off you, another hand got a hold of yours and pulled you to a strong body. Your boyfriend radiated jealousy. You rolled your eyes, knowing that it was useless to explain your actions because of the paranoïa he was currently in.

Back to the present, Luther was getting more agitated by the minute and the hits he received from both Five were nothing to help. Before something too dramatic happened, you took the matter in your own hands.

"Five!" Your shout got both their attention almost immediately. Both of them had the other's collar in their grip, fist in the air ready to strike.

As you walked up to them, the fists slowly fell down, surely to avoid hurting you in the process. Their grips though stayed the same.

"This," you said removing both their hands off the other, "is childish." They both huffed, insulted but not daring to talk back to you. You put yourself between them, facing your boyfriend and pointed to Luther. "Go with Luther."

His brow furrowed in indignation. The sweat dripping from his forehead, his messy hair, his wide eyes and his crumpled clothes made him look like a wild animal. You hoped he wouldn't be jealous and trigger the seventh phase. You couldn't deal with homicidal rage and you doubted Luther could either.

"I won't let you-" you cut him off by raising your hand between you. Reluctantly, he closes his mouth and glare at you. Sadly for him, his glare had stopped affecting you long ago.

"I got this." Your palm made contact with the tense muscles of his torso. Never before had you felt him like that. Stiff. Ready to slit throats. You shot him a wink, hoping he would back down and let you execute your plan. Again, you should’ve known that it would never be as easy.

Having run out of patience, Luther got a hold of the sniper rifle and pointed it in your general direction. “Hey, assholes!” The second your boyfriend registered that the rifle was pointed at you, he quickly got a hold of your left arm and pulled you to safety behind him. In the corner of your eyes, you saw the old-timer do the same, only a second too late. “I’m done listening to you both. I’m in charge now!” The barrel of the sniper traveled from one Five to the other multiple times, accelerating your heartbeat.

“Luther, lower that gun.” Both Five growled at the same time. Two hands were still traping you behind your younger Five, his protective grip keeping you in place.

Luther shook his head. “Not before you two-” his words abruptly died under the two murderous ice-blue gaze of well trained assassins. That was your cue to save the day.

“Luther. Lower the gun.” Your voice was steady, you knew what you had to do. To your surprise, Luther listened to you, the gun slowly lowering to the ground once again. You gently pushed Five toward his brother. “Let me talk to him.” You were pleased with your confidant tone despite how insecure you felt inside. Five’s grip on your arm loosened after a while, allowing you to take a step toward the older Five.

You were pleasantly surprised to see that your boyfriend’s blue gaze would never lose its brightness. The older version of Five still has his stunning icy eyes, which means that you will have the pleasure to get lost in them for your whole life. The enamored smile that slowly stretched your lips caused the older Five’s heartbeat to skyrocket. He had missed that smile for 45 years and he was desperate to see it again and again.

“You could have it, you know?” His eyes went wide, mouth slowly opening in silent words. His astonishment made you chuckles. “You may not be the Five of my timeline, but you are still Five. I can still read you like a book.” Your beautiful smile almost made him tear up. He was definitely helpless when it came to you.

“I really can? After all I’ve done?” You didn’t have to read him to know he was apprehensive of your answer. As kids, Five always repeated to you that he never cared anyone’s thought of him, never failing to put the emphasis on anyone. But you were perfectly aware that your opinion counted. And a lot at that.

“Of course.” You looked at him with sad eyes, thinking of the you of his timeline. The you that is still waiting for the love of her life to come back. Your gaze fell on a couple down the parking lot, walking happily hand in hand. “I know for a fact that I’m waiting for you back home.” Your eyes found his once again. “Because my heart will always belong to you.”

The older Five took a sharp breath in, trying to keep his composure. He opened his arms a bit inviting you for a last embrace that you contentedly accepted. You made sure to do it quickly so there was no more jealous altercation but made sure to convey your message properly. “You know, if you make sure that your siblings are good with Vanya, you and the other me will have plenty of time to catch up instead of worrying about the apocalypse. And if I could give you a bit of advice…” You got on your tiptoes to be closer to his ear, whispering the next part. “Don’t shave your stubble. I can’t resist it.”

Older Five’s chuckles reached your ears, making you smile. You two separated after a few seconds and the old-timer nodded to his younger self, who needed not to be told twice. As quickly as he could, your boyfriend used his power to create a blue vortex toward 2019.

“Into the vortex you go, asshole.” Five’s sharpness made you roll your eyes. His hands pulled you to him, allowing him to kiss your cheek possessively.

“Give me the math so I don’t end up too young or too old for her.” He winked at you, earning a laugh from you. There could be a thousand Five out there, but you were 100% sure they would all be the same. Meanwhile, your boyfriend’s arms tightened around you.

“You stand next to the vortex and I’ll tell ya.” The old-timer hesitated a moment, knowing well that his younger self could easily double-cross him. “Go!” You smiled at him and nodded, assuring him that you would not let that happen. Older Five made his way toward the vortex, close enough that he started to be pulled slightly by it.

“Now give it to me!” You kept an eye on your boyfriend before he gave the equation, wanting to be sure he would be honest. You saw a flicker of mischief, but a slap on his chest from you got him back to business.

“It was a typo. We put the decimal in the wrong spot in our proof of the existence of a bound for the number of limit cycles of planar polynomial vector fields of fixed degree. We wrote down five-point-seven. It should be-” You were so lost it almost made you laugh. Instead, you put your head on his chest, hugging his side. His arm automatically wrapped around you, his hand stroking tenderly your back. Oh, how you loved your genius.

“Zero-point-nine-seven.” Their synchronism got the best of you this time and your laugh escaped your mouth. A kiss on your head made you tighten your grip for a second, reciprocating the sentiment.

“Son of a bitch! I knew that didn’t look right!” Older Five took a time to breathe and prepare himself. He looked at the young couple in front of him, ready to finally find his happiness once again. “I guess this is it. I’ll see you soon.” He winked at you. You smiled and waved goodbye.

“Now off you go.” By your Five’s tone, you knew it was time for the old-timer to go. If he took another second, you were sure that Five would push his older self through the vortex with enthusiasm. Just before the old-timer has time to get in, a fire extinguisher was expulsed out of the vortex, hitting Luther square in the head.

Your eyes went wide from the shock. You didn’t see that coming, but then you remembered Klaus throwing it in the blue vortex, back at the funeral, and you can’t help yourself and laugh wholeheartedly.

During this time, the old-timer entered the vortex, safely appearing on the other side. True to his word, the younger Five gave him the good formula. He felt young again. But most importantly, in front of him was you, the second part of him. Before the tears in your eyes could fell, he space jumped to you, pulling you in his arms. He silently thanked the you that was still stuck in 1963 for convincing him to get in the vortex.

In 1963, you smiled at your Five before giving him a kiss. He was still a sweaty mess, but you two have already been there. If you were lucky, maybe later you two would be a sweaty mess together. A smirk appeared on Five’s lips, clearly telling you that he caught your train of thoughts.

“We did it!” Luther’s cheers burst your bubble, pulling you back to reality. “We have the briefcase!” Five sighed in your hair. There was still much to do before getting some alone time.

#five hargreeves #five hargreeves x reader #the umbrella academy #tua s2 #spoilers #y/n #number five imagine #number five x reader #number five #time travel #the boy meet the old man #doppelganger

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missturtleduck · 3 years

Note

idk if this can be triggering but can you maybe do a sokka x reader who’s struggling with mental health? those fics make me feel less alone <33

Hey, anon! I hope you enjoy this oneshot, and know that my DMs are always open <3

The After

Sokka x Reader

TW: Descriptions of panic attacks + mentions of canon realistic injuries

Firebenders rise with the sun. Taking from the power its primal energy, they stayed as close to it as they could get, like child to mother. Waterbenders gained strength under the moon, changing and shifting with its phases as easily as the tides flowed. Earthbenders and airbenders were luckier as they were constantly surrounded by the source of their power, and yet it could be taken away.

Y/N rose when all others were asleep.

It had started at the beach house. Before Ozai was thrown to rot in a jail cell, she couldn’t let herself sleep. Something about staying right under the enemy’s nose made her skin crawl, let alone in one of the beds once occupied by them. The nightmares were horrendous that first night, leaving her to wake in a cold sweat, stifling a scream for everyone else’s sake. Her chest had tightened, throat constricting as if she were being crushed by a python. Y/N’s head went light, and her breathing shallow. Spirits, what was happening?

She needed to get out of there. The white sand under her bare feet grounded her, the salt-scented air opening up her airways. Even Momo, who snuffled from under the duvet to follow her out, licked the tears off of her cheeks, staring at her with those massive, inquisitive eyes. Giggling, Y/N scratched his head, focusing on his purrs.

A solution came to mind; she would stay awake whilst her friends slept. If she was awake, she could prevent them being ambushed, ensure their survival and victory. So, every night, Y/N and Momo sat on the stairs to the beach house, weapons in hand. Under a blanket of starlight, illuminated by Yue’s gentle glow, she would stay until Zuko awoke where she would creep back to bed and catch an hour or two. The beach was lovely to sleep on too, Y/N convincing her friends she was just relaxed.

The oncoming battle was insane, but they made it.

Y/N came out mostly unscathed. Her only physical scars were the burns along her forearms, trophies from her glorious victories against Fire Nation soldiers. Everything was fine – great, even. However, when it came to staying within the walls of Zuko’s palace, other scars came to light.

“Y/N?”

She looked up from her seat on Zuko’s doorstep, eyes glazed over and not quite focused. Taking a moment, the blue in her vision and the low, concerned voice was all she needed to work out who it was.

“Hey, Sokka.” Y/N quirked a smile, resting her cheek against the heel of her hand. “What’re you doing up?”

“I could ask the same of you,” He said, raising an eyebrow.

Patting the floor next to her, Y/N welcomed him to join her. As soon as Sokka was sat by her, her head tilted until it rested on his shoulder, her body relaxing in a sigh that took with it all of her energy. Frowning, he wrapped an arm around her, chin atop her head until they were practically tangle.

Sokka was warm, warm enough to sooth her into something close to sleep. Beneath closing, fluttering lashes, Y/N watched the steady rise and fall of his chest, moving past his still broadening shoulders to look at the gardens. It was later than she had thought as she looked at the turtle ducklings snuggled up with each other on the grass, their mother close by. The way the turtle duck stayed only inches from its children, half-awake and protective.

Y/N shot up. “I can’t fall asleep.”

“What do you mean?” Sokka yawned, nuzzling his head against her neck. “I could fall asleep right here.”

“No!” She shoved off of him, unsheathing her blade. “I can’t fall asleep, because if I do, Zuko’s in danger! The Kyoshi Warriors aren’t here yet, and I’m not risking his safety again!”

Sokka’s eyes widened as he rose slowly to his feet, hands out. “Okay, Y/N. We can stay here if you want, but you don’t need your sword out.”

Breathing hard, she absorbed the emotions on her friend’s face, realising the fear in it. Clattering to the floor, the sword slipped from Y/N’s hand as she began to tremble. As tears began to pour, Y/N couldn’t reach for the Ember Island sand, nor the open sky, and not even Momo. A crushing pressure pushed on her chest, leaving her gasping for breath that seemed stolen from her. Seeing how her hands shook, she looked at Sokka.

“I’m so tired, Sokka.”

Stepping towards her, he tested the waters, placing a hand on her shoulder. With no outwardly negative reaction to it, Sokka engulfed Y/N into a hug. Gripping his shirt into her hands, she shook out shallow breaths, trying to ground herself as she focused on the feelings around her. Sokka’s gentle hand threading through her hair was rhythmic, methodical even, and the shirt on his chest was soft in her grip.

As her breathing levelled, Sokka pulled away from their embrace, taking a gentle hand to cup her cheek. Brushing away stray tears with his thumb, he studied her face with such care. Y/N stifled a giggle.

“What?” He grinned at her. “You don’t laugh at my jokes, but you’ll laugh now?” Leaning into his hand, Y/N gave him a watery smile. “I’ve never seen you so careful with something that isn’t your boomerang.”

Sokka gasped, scandalised. “I am very careful, I’ll have you know.”

“I’ve seen you walk into a canal because you were too busy impressing a girl.”

“That was different,” He huffed, crossing his arms and leaving her cheek feeling suddenly cold. “I can be careful whilst impressing a girl.”

Y/N sniffed. “Oh, yeah? Prove it.”

His grin made her wonder whether she should have challenged Sokka, but it was too late as he hoisted her up into his arms, protests or weight be damned. Since his broken leg had healed, and he had more time to grow into his shoulders, he had only gotten stronger, and Y/N had only gotten more bashful about the fact it was harder to see him as just a friend.

The guards seemed unwavering at the sight, Y/N only catching a single smirk as she was carried away from Zuko’s quarters and towards the kitchens. Only when Sokka had decided the coast was clear did he finally put her down, placing her up on one of the countertops.

“What are we doing here?” Y/N asked, going to slide down to the floor.

Sokka’s hand stopped her, firm on her knee. “You haven’t been sleeping properly, so I’m gonna make us some tea!”

“You? Tea?”

“Yeah,” He said, hand still on her as he rummaged through shelves of dried herbs. “Iroh taught Zuko, who taught Katara, who ranted to me a lot about some medical nonsense, but I picked some stuff up.”

“Please don’t poison us,” She laughed, placing a daring hand over his.

He looked up at her, deadly serious. “No promises.”

Snorting a laugh, Y/N pushed down the clingy need to whine as he moved away from her, watching Sokka begin to heat tea. In the water, he strained some brown roots and dried purple flowers into the water. It didn’t look like poison, and it certainly didn’t smell like it. Nevertheless, she found some joy watching him focus on the tea, tongue stuck out to the side as he did.

After a few minutes, Sokka had served the tea in cups he had swiped from another cupboard. Tapping their cups together, they both took a sip.

“It’s certainly...” Y/N grasped for a word, “Memorable.”

“It’s not as good as Iroh’s, that’s for sure,” Sokka frowned, but still sipping at the tea.

“I like it,” She beamed, basking in the warmth of the herbal blend.

The smile on his face made her comment worthwhile. Tentative, he took a step towards her, placing his cup down at her side. “Do you feel better?”

“A little bit,” She said, looking down into the remains of her tea.

“I know you haven’t been sleeping properly for a while, but I didn’t know it was this bad.”

Y/N startled. “W-what do you mean?”

“Y/N, I’m not just a pretty face,” Sokka smirked, though it fell into concern near immediately. “Do you not remember ending up in your bed every time you fell asleep on the beach?”

Huh. She did remember that.

“I’d always assumed I had made my own way there and was too tired to remember.”

There was that hand again, soft against her cheek. “I’m not gonna leave my best girl to sleep on sand.”

“Oh.”

“Hey.” His voice brought her gaze to his eyes. “Can I kiss you?”

She nodded. His lips ghosted hers. The kiss tasted of bitter valerian root and was all the sweeter for it. She leaned into the warmth of his touch, feeling more content then than she had in months. Smiling against his lips, Y/N snaked her hand up the back of his head to untangle his hair from its wolf tail, running her fingers through it. Sokka only seemed more enthusiastic as he pulled her closer until she was flat against him on the very edge of the counter.

For a moment, he pulled away, and she couldn’t help the small whine that escaped her lips. “You need to sleep.”

“What?” She barked out a laugh. “You go from kissing me to saying I should go to sleep? I wasn’t that bad.”

“No! No, no, no,” Sokka said, panic overtaking his face. “I just worry about you, Y/N.”

Nuzzling into his neck, she grinned. “I could sleep right here.”

“Could we at least move to somewhere comfier?” He whined, wrapping his arms around her. “My room has a sofa I could take.”

Y/N looked at him. “And a double bed.”

With a low laugh, Sokka pecked a kiss on her nose. “Sure.”

Despite the laughs - and the kisses - Sokka made it known that he could be her safe space, and was happy to be it for her.

#anon request #anon #sokka x reader #sokka #zuko #post-atla #angst #fluff #happy ending #the after #mental health #self care #missturtleduck

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talpup · 3 years

Text

Summary: The war between the Dragons and Griffons ended 233 years ago, and both races right along with it.

Or so it was believed. There are three individuals that will soon change that.

Kai is the last of the Dragons and he seeks to take what he sees as his rightful place and rule over all of Oblvi. Meanwhile, Shouta, the last Sphinx, wants nothing more than to do his job; keep the peace and and teach the young Fourth’s to hopefully avoid the mistakes of their ancestors. And Teris, a Foundling who is just trying to understand and survive in this strange new world that is supposedly her own.

All three have their own wants and desires, but Kai’s plans, Teris’ existence, and Shouta's past mean that none of them may get what they want.

***while they are capable of beastly forms, most of the time they keep to their human form

This fic is rated explicit and has warnings of sex, violence, and other possible triggers. For a full list of story tags please check the fics AO3 (link to that at the top of my tumblrs homepage).

13.1

The door opened before they were fully up the walk.

Hizashi’s eyes narrowed wondering if it was coincidence or if someone had been watching from within.

“Good evening.” Hari extended an ushering arm of entry. “You can leave your coats with Shin.”

So not a coincidence of someone happening to exit at the same time, Hizashi thought slipping off his jacket. Stop it, he scolded himself. They were expecting us. Of course they’d be watching and waiting for us. There’s nothing nefarious about it. You’re just being protective cause of what Teris went through today, and still on edge from what you saw; though you shouldn’t be. Kai already explained why he did that.

The disturbing image of Kai choking Hari replayed in his mind. Hizashi shook the memory away, wishing he had heard what Kai and Hari had said yet also glad he hadn’t.

He glanced at Hari. The Arepyiai didn’t seem timid or afraid. And though it had only been a few hours, Hari’s voice wasn’t raw and graveled from being choked. There was no bruising along his neck. Though thanks to Hizashi being half High Elf, his quick sharp eyes caught sight of puncture marks beneath Hari’s high collar where Kai’s talons had pierced the Fourth’s skin.

Trying to brighten his mood and Teris’, Hizashi tossed his jacket to the other man and theatrically asked Teris. “Why didn’t you tell me! I’m so getting on Oboro for skipping the really important stuff. I mean, I don’t care what fight Shouta would've put up, you can bet I would’ve pestered and worn him down till he caved and let us hire a maid or butler if you or Oboro had told me we could have ‘em.”

Teris stared, wide eyed.

Shin straightened and tensed, but to his credit said nothing.

Clearing his throat, Hari stiffly corrected. “Shin is a member of Kai’s Ilca. Not house staff.”

“Oh…” Hizashi's mouth hung in a perfect ‘o’ for a beat. “Sor--”

“If you will follow me. Kai and Master Ryuu are waiting.” It was rude to cut off a guest; but when the guest was a loud, lowly Hybrid, Hari didn’t much care and doubted Kai would take issue with it.

Turning with a sniff, Hari led the way. He would never dare question Kai’s reasoning or orders, but couldn’t help but wonder at Hizashi being invited. The Hybrid’s mere presence in their Ilca dorm was a disgusting insult. And to think the High Elf-Banshee Hybrid would have the pleasure of dinning at Kai’s table when Joi and Hari himself, two of Kai’s most trusted followers, rarely experienced such an honor.

“Sorry.” Hizashi mouthed to Teris as they followed Hari.

Teris smirked, battling a laugh. It wasn’t as if she could scold Hizashi when she had thought the same the first time she’d been in Kai’s Ilca dorm.

Hizashi brightened at Teris’ smile.

After getting back from hanging out with Oboro, he had found Shouta grading papers in the great room of their Ilca dorm. The Sphinx had said Teris had gone up to her chambers and wasn’t to be disturbed; nor was Hizashi to mention her interview or inspection unless she brought it up first.

Worried as Hizashi had been for Teris, Shouta's show of protectiveness had excited him. He knew Shouta and Teris would make a great couple if they but stopped arguing long enough to admit their feelings for each other. And for a few hours Hizashi had thought that their confession of love could be on the horizon. That today’s events would be a turning point for them.

But then Teris had come down and she and Shouta had had yet another argument. This one about her going to Kai’s for dinner. While Hizashi did his best to avoid getting involved in their disagreements, he had spoken up this time saying he would watch over Teris while they were there.

That had silenced both Shouta and Teris. And while the look of betrayal hidden within Shouta’s ireful expression had furthered Hizashi's sense of guilt; what had stung was the flicker of upset that had crossed Teris’ face. Was she not happy he was going? Did she not think him friend enough to hang out with Kai?

Seated in a plush chair in the sitting room adjacent to the formal dining, Kai smiled lightly. He smelled Teris’ wonderful scent before he even saw her. And after what happened today, it took everything in Kai’s power to control his dragon instincts and reclaim what was his.

As it was, a low barely audible growl sounded from his chest. Someone, he still didn’t know who, had inspected his chosen mate. It was bad enough that the Council had interviewed her; but to know someone had looked upon and touched what was his made him want to kill.

Ryuu didn’t need to see or smell Teris to know she had arrived; not when he could visibly see the changes in Kai. Though so subtle no one else would likely notice, for Ryuu who had raised the young Dragon, Kai’s deep savoring breath may as well have been a shouted declaration of love.

Ryuu didn’t question Kai’s sudden dark tension. The Tengu wasn’t anymore pleased about Teris’ interview and inspection than he had been about Kai’s several years ago. He wondered if Kai would’ve felt the same anger and protectiveness if he knew Teris was a Griffon. Probably not as Kai’s interest in her was still in its early stages. But Ryuu hoped that would change. That Kai would be able to look passed his pride and hate, and continue to love Teris anyway. He hoped that not just for Kai’s happiness, but for Kai and Teris’ continued existence. Cause even if the last Dragon and Griffon got along and were mated, it would still be a long hard fight to convince the Council to let them live when it was finally discovered that Teris was a griffon.

Hari stopped just inside the double doorway while Teris and Hizashi fully entered.

Getting to his feet, Kai went to Teris. His hand and inner wrist ran down her arm, scenting her. “I’m glad you’re here. Aizawa gave you no further trouble about coming?” He asked, keen gold eyes watching her for hidden tells.

Argument with Shouta still fresh, Teris bristled at the reminder. She stepped away from Kai’s touch annoyed with him. Glad as she was to have Hizashi attend with her, it bothered that Kai hadn’t mentioned his plan to include her friend this evening. Then again Kai hadn’t invited her, instead telling her she was joining him for dinner the afternoon of the dinner.

You’re being uncharitable, Teris thought. Everyone’s been on edge about members of the Council being here. Now that she knew Shouta and Kai weren’t just under the Council’s watch but continued to live only by the Council's good grace… Well, it didn’t excuse Kai deciding things for her; but given the level of her own distress, Teris couldn’t blame Kai for wanting support and friendly company.

Honestly, she doubted she would've gotten through the interview and inspection without Shouta’s strong, calming presence. The entire thing had brought back memories of when the scarred man with blue flames had questioned and tormented her. No doubt the ordeal had brought up memories of Shouta’s own interview and inspection. It certainly couldn’t have been easy for him to sit beside her during the interview then stand outside the room during her inspection. The fact that he likely struggled made her all the more grateful he had stayed with her and sought to divert her fearful focus.

And how did you thank him, her mind asked. By arguing and leaving him alone with his brought up memories. Shouta didn’t need or want me there, Teris argued with herself, ignoring the stab of guilt. He just didn’t want me to come here cause he’s controlling and hates Kai, she thought, trying to make herself feel better.

Pushing aside her warring feelings, Teris gave Kai an apologetic smile for rebuffing his touch and kissed his cheek. “You didn’t tell me you had invited Hizashi.”

Hizashi looked between the two, his earlier hurt easing. She hadn’t known he’d been invited? Well that explained her moment of silent surprise. But it still didn’t explain her brief beat of upset.

Kai softened at her chaste, tender kiss but looked disapprovingly at her when she didn’t answer his question and instead seemed to question him. “I did it for you. Are you not glad to have him here?”

“Of course I am.” Teris reached out and gripped Hizashi’s hand, hoping he didn’t think she didn’t want him there.

Kai hid his frown by turning to Hari. He didn’t like the idea of Teris touching anyone but him. But her willing touching a filthy Hybrid… He would have to see she had a bath before they got into his bed tonight. Then again he would've had her bathe with him before getting into bed either way.

“Inform Tabe he can start serving.” Kai told, dismissing Hari.

After a brief introduction between Hizashi and Ryuu, they moved to the dining room.

The space gave Hizashi pause. It was even more formal than what he’d seen of the place thus far. While not cluttered, the entire dorm made him nervous and afraid to touch anything. Kind of like the formal front sitting room at his grandmother’s that no one was allowed to sit in unless company came over.

Hizashi swallowed thickly at the four place settings of fine china and numerous utensils that sat atop the large table capable of seating well more than four.

Kai moved to a chair left of the head of the table and pulled it out. “Teris.”

“Thank you.” Teris sat, eyes skimming the table setting. She looked up a Kai frowning at the placement.

Kai pulled out the chair at the head of the table, to Teris’ right, and waited for his other two guests to take their places.

Still at the rooms entrance, Hizashi couldn’t help but notice he would be sitting alone at the middle of the long table.

Ryuu noticed it too, certain that Kai had ordered the seating arrangement for more than just honoring him and wanting Teris close. After all Kai was a Dragon and the dragon species had been obsessed with purity in all things; seeing purity itself as one of the greatest forms of wealth and power, two other things dragons had been consumed with having.

Knowing how distastefully difficult inviting Hizashi must’ve been for Kai, Ryuu was too pleased to be upset. The fact that Kai had willingly invited the Hybrid at all filling Ryuu with hope that Kai could move passed his aversion and change. But just because Kai had done well in inviting Hizashi didn’t mean Kai shouldn’t be pushed to grow further and act better.

The tinkling of silverware and clink of crystal against china drew everyone's attention.

From the opposite head of the table Ryuu gathered his place setting. “This table is too big for four to dine and comfortably converse so far apart.” The Tengu smiled kindly at a displeased Kai. “I am honored by your show of respect in placing me here and thank you for your esteem. But it has been a long, tiring day and I would greatly appreciate it if you humored an old Fourth in an friendly, less formal dinner.”

13.2

Shouta flew threw the bright moonlit sky, a sea of darkened treetops rushing beneath. It was nice to get out and stretch his wings just for the sake of it. Despite the fight he had put up at the time, he was grateful to Nedzu for ordering him off of patrol for today and tomorrow.

Shouta hadn’t realized how exhausting the day had been until he instinctually started getting ready for patrol.

When he finally remembered he had two days off, he’d fallen back in a chair and fell asleep. He had woken with a start sometime later, the nightmare slow to fade.

Even now as he flew, Shouta could still hear the yowls and growls of his pack being slaughtered as he was hidden and turned to stone. The cries of his dying pack mixed with those of the angry Council who shouted for his head and said he shouldn’t be alive.

Shouta shook his head, mane whipping around him, and flew faster as he could out fly the echoing memories.

13.3

“You know I still don’t get why the Boss wants a copy of my report to the Council's Leader.” Hawks said, fingers holding onto the envelope he was handing over.

Toga pulled, trying to take the envelope. “If you—don’t know—then maybe he—doesn’t want you knowing. Ha!” She proudly held the envelope freed from Hawks before her.

“Do you know why he wants my report on the female Foundlings inspection?” Hawks asked.

Toga deflated, seeing the envelope was magically sealed. She frowned at Hawks. “No.”

“It’s only the Boss already knows what the female Founding is.” Hawks said.

“Yeah. So.” Toga inspected the envelope in the moonlight, trying to find a way around its magical sealing.

“So,” Hawks drew out the word, “why would he want a copy of my report on a practically fruitless inspection that left me with nothing but a handful of traits that crossed off one, maybe two possible beasts she could be from the list of thousands?”

“Hundreds of thousands.” Toga’s distracted voice chirped.

“No. Not hundreds of thousands.” Hawks corrected. “Hundreds of thousands is the rough number of beasts there are. The reason I’m here is cause she’s an ancient beast which means my looking at a possibility of thousands is probably too broad, but I like to be thorough.”

Toga lowered the envelope and looked at Hawks. “You’re here cause the Boss said. Not cause the stupid Council wants you to figure out what that female Founding is.”

“I’m here for both.” Hawks said.

Toga frowned. She didn’t trust Hawks. The Anzu worked for the Council and spied for them. His allegiance clearly given at a price, there was no guarantee their double agent won’t turn on them and become a triple agent.

“Do you know what Teris is?” Hawks asked.

“No. And I wouldn’t tell you if I did.” Toga stuffed the envelope in her coat.

Hawks sighed. He missed dealing with Dabi. Sure Toga had been more fun at the start. His meetings with her a much needed reprieve from meeting with Dabi who always kept him on his toes. But Dabi’s watchful and conniving ways had helped keep him sharp; something he direly need if he was to protect the Fourth's of this world.

“So when’s our next meeting?” Hawks asked, dully.

“You’ll hear from the Boss. Big things are coming so when or who you’ll met at the next exchange.”

“What big things?”

Toga shrugged. “Don’t know. So long as I get to have fun I don’t care either.” Her eyes focused, piercing his. “You shouldn’t care neither, Spy.”

Hawks opened his mouth to say that it was because he was a spy that knowing what was going was so important; but a large shadow flew overhead staying his words.

Hawks and Toga looked up. They were meeting a short ways outside of Traverseen Hall’s property line. With Traverseen Hall’s guarding Shedu on one side and patrolling Ilca on the other, most would've thought this area the safest, most protected place in the region. It wasn’t. In actuality it was a dead zone and regular meeting ground for illegal activity because the Shedu of Traverseen Hall were too focused on guarding the many buildings and acres within the property line, and the Ilca were too busy patrolling the surrounding towns, villages, and roadways. So why then had someone just flown over them?

Hawks looked back at Toga to tell her to go but she had already turned into a fox and was running off.

Though tempted to leave himself, Hawks waited. The guilty ran; and if the flyer was a member of the Ilca and doubled back, he certainly didn’t want to appear guilty.

Seeing a bit of color beneath the canopy of trees, Shouta turned in the air and doubled back. He expected to find the color moving in attempt of escape; but it hadn’t.

His eyes narrowed. Surely whoever was down there had seen him pass overhead.

Shouta growled. The trees were too dense for him to break through the canopy in his true form without taking the risk of breaking a branch or tree and harming whoever was down there.

With practiced efficiency, Shouta’s wings folded back. He plummeted, forelegs outstretched. As soon as his paws touched the top most leaves, he change into his human form and flipped in the air. Sturdy work boots punched through the canopy. His head ducked, bent arms coming up to shield his face from clawing branches.

Through the dense branches, Shouta gripped his piece. The coil of fabric around his neck came to life. Several loops shot out, wrapping around thick branches.

Shouta swung through the air, his capture weapon slowing his fall.

Hawks watched Shouta land several paces from him. What Hawks assumed was a carefully chosen distant that would allowed the Sphinx to react should he be attacked.

“Impressive. You sure know how to make an entrance.”

Shouta’s piece unwound from the branches and settle loosely around his neck. “Hawks. What are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same. Nedzu gave you two nights off.”

Shouta stared unblinking waiting for answer.

“Just needed some air.” Hawks lied.

Shouta’s eyes skimmed the area, unfazed that Hawks knew of Nedzu’s order. He was use to the Council keeping tabs on him. It didn’t surprise that Hawks, in the employ of the Council, would take the time to learn his schedule.

“This area’s not a safe place to get some air.” Shouta told.

“Really? Why’s that?”

Hands slipping into his pockets, Shouta’s eyes returned to Hawks. “Regular meeting spot for criminals.”

Hawks blinked, head pulling back in feigned surprise. “And here I figured this was the safest place outside of Traverseen Hall, what with the guarding Shedu and Ilca constantly leaving and returning from patrol.”

“A common misconception. Traverseen Hall’s properly line is a mile and three-quarters northeast. For your safety I suggest you return. It has the same fresh air as here without the risk.” Shouta turned to go.

“If I may, I’d like to ask you some questions about Teris.” Hawks called after him.

Shouta paused, shoulders tensing. Schooling his features, he turned back. “Sure. Feel free to make an appointment at with dispatch or the schools main office.”

Smart ass, Hawks thought. He smiled. “Or you could just let me ask them now.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for your appointment. Let’s hope I’ll have I free moment to meet with you before you and the Council Elder’s leave tomorrow afternoon.”

Hawks’ smile widened. “You hadn’t heard? Well, I suppose you wouldn’t’ve. I doubt Director Nedzu’s been informed yet.” His wings ruffled, feathers puffing. “I won’t be leaving tomorrow afternoon. I’m staying on indefinitely. So I’ll have plenty of time to in more of Traverseen Hall’s air, and make that appointment with you.”

13.4

Dinner had been a long, loud affair which had made Kai feel like a third wheel at his own table. What he had planned as an evening of the two most important people in his life getting to know each other and bonding over him had turned into Teris, Ryuu, and Hizashi telling jokes and sharing stories while he sat there and listened.

Kai wasn’t one to drink in excess but he certainly had his fair share of drink tonight. Lucky for him his dragon system burned through alcohol quickly or he’d be drunk. Instead, he was all too sober as the evening drew to a close and he led his guests to the door.

“This was such a pleasant evening. Thank you for hosting us, Kai, my boy.” Ryuu smiled, taking his coat from Hari.

Kai inclined his head. “It was my pleasure.”

“I didn’t expect to have so much fun.” Hizashi put in.

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself.” Kai forced a smile. “I’d be happy to have you over again.”

Hari’s eyes snapped to Kai. He couldn’t be serious. Surely having the Hybrid over once was enough to appease Kai’s chosen mate. Hari still didn’t understand why Kai was going through all this to win Teris’ affection. The woman should be honored to have Kai’s favor. The only reason Hari could fathom Teris wasn’t falling over, proclaiming herself unworthy was because she was a know nothing Foundling. Even so, it was an insult.

Teris caught the slight tension in Kai’s expression. She felt bad that he’d been left out at his own dinner party. It wasn’t like they’d purposefully excluded him from the conversation. In fact she, Ryuu, and Hizashi had continually tried to get him to participate. Kai was simply too proper to comfortably engage in raucous conversation.

“Maybe next time we can have you over at our place.” Hizashi invited.

“Or, we could meet somewhere else.” Kai said, thinking he wouldn’t be caught dead entering Aizawa’s Ilca dorm.

“Sure! That sounds great.” Hizashi beamed, oblivious to Kai’s reasoning. He took his jacket and looked to Teris. “We best get home.” He laughed. After only three months in this new world it was amazing how their dorm truly felt like home.

Kai tensed, looking from Hizashi to Teris. Upon his order Hari hadn’t brought her coat since he assumed she would stay a while after Ryuu and Hizashi left.

Teris saw Kai’s look. She knew him well enough to know he wanted her to stay a bit. Tired as she was, she’d rather avoid going home and seeing Shouta. She wasn’t up for another argument or the guilt that would come for having left him alone when he likely needed company and distraction.

“I’m— ah… —gonna stay a bit longer.” Teris told Hizashi.

Ryuu smiled at her and Kai. They would make a fine, powerful couple. With luck they would forge a true and lasting peace that healed the wounds their species had inflicted with the war. The Council said that’s what they were doing; but as a Council member himself, Ryuu could safely say they were nothing more than a group of cruel, paranoid authoritarians who formulated hypocritical laws in effort to force their brand of peace and fairness.

Well aware of his own faults, Ryuu had no trouble admitting to himself that he was part of the problem. He couldn’t count the number of times he had used, twisted, or purposed a law to benefit him or those he favored. Wrong as it was, it was how the Council's system worked. But just because he knew it was wrong and went along with it, didn’t mean he couldn’t hope for something better.

Hizashi blinked, ears lowering. He might've come to like Kai this night; but he still thought Teris and Shouta belonged together. Shouta would be at their dorm waiting for them. If he came back without Teris, Shouta's feelings would be hurt. It would drive Shouta and Teris into further arguments.

“Al—alright. If that’s what you want.” Hizashi said.

“I won’t be long. An hour or two at most.” Teris said.

“Well, be safe getting back.” Hizashi hugged her.

Even though the magical barriers and guarding Shedu made Traverseen Hall as safe a place could be, Teris hugged him back. “You too.”

Kai’s skin grew itchy just watching them. Filthy Hybrid. If Teris was always this affectionate with Hizashi, he should have her disinfected every time she entered his dorm. He couldn’t wait till they were companions so he could tell her to cease unnecessary contact with all hybrids. Or better yet skip being companions and be mated so he could order her to stay by his side or in their chambers so she’d never have to see or speak to anyone else again.

Ryuu stepped before Kai. “I’m leaving in the afternoon and probably won’t see you again.”

Kai nodded, respect and care for the Fourth that raised him welling in his chest.

“I hope it won’t be so long before we see each other again.”

“I feel the same.” Kai said.

“I take it you’ll continue to write.”

“Of course.”

Ryuu smiled. He wanted to hug the young Dragon that was more like a son than the sons he had lost in the war. But out of respect for Kai, he held back. “I’m proud of you, my boy.”

Kai’s head dipped. “Thank you. sir. That means a lot coming from you.”

13.5

Returned from his flight, Shouta entered the Ilca dorm. The place was dark and quiet. Too quiet; at least compared to the new normal of having Hizashi and Teris living there. He should've been happy. His dorm was empty and peaceful, the way it should've been. The way it had been before Nedzu had guilted and all but forced him to accept two Foundling’s as part of his Ilca. But he wasn’t happy or at peace. The dorm felt too empty and quiet.

Disgusted with himself, Shouta closed the front door and plopped on a couch in the great room. Shouldn’t Hizashi and Teris have been back by now? Just how long did a dinner party last?

You’d know if you’d ever been to one, Shouta sardonically thought laying his head back against the cushion.

Of course he’d gone to all sorts of parties. ...okay, maybe not all sorts. But Nemuri and Oboro had begged and bugged enough to make him attend several functions. Granted he usually arrived late and never stayed long enough to see them end, so he had no clue just how long these things lasted.

He sighed. He should use this time to work on specialized lesson plans for 1-A but after the long, trying day he just wanted to sit and relax. He had wanted to sit and relax with his Ilca. But Kai had ruined that; just as he and his kind before him had ruined everything in Shouta’s life.

The front door opened.

Shouta fought the urge to sit up and turn, forcing himself to stay put.

“Back already.” Shouta’s disinterested voice rumbled.

“Oh! Hey, Shou. What are you doin’ sittin’ in the dark?” Hizashi flicked on a light and closed the door.

Shouta watched him slip of his jacket as he came around the sofa to sit in the opposite one. “Where’s Teris?”

“Teris? Um…” Hizashi rubbed the flat of his chin. “She, uh… She decided to stay a bit longer.” At Shouta's darkening expression, he hurriedly added. “Just for an hour or two.”

“Is this what you call watching over her?”

“She-- I--”

Shouta sat up. “You said you would watch over her.

“I--”

The Sphinx got to his feet and made of his office. “Thank you, Yamada. It’s nice to know what I can trust my people with. I’ll remember this when need someone officially looked after.”

Hizashi stomped a foot and stood. “That’s not fair!”

Shouta looked back, eyes widened slightly in surprise. Hard as he was on Hizashi and Teris, Hizashi had never spoken back or raised his voice in disagreement.

Hizashi frowned. “You’re just mad cause you didn’t want Teris going to Kai’s and now she’s staying a few more hours and alone with him. Well that’s not my fault. What was I suppose to do? Argue with her? That’s your thing. Maybe if you were nicer and told her how you feel she would've stayed here instead of going to Kai’s, who for your information might be kinda posh but is a really nice and charming guy I don’t get why you hate him. Though I suppose you just decided you hated him without giving him a chance the way you do with practically everything.”

Shouta stared.

Hizashi gasped, slapping a hand over his mouth. “I’m sorry, Shouta. I didn’t mean all that.”

Shouta ignored the muffled apology. “What feelings do you think I need to tell Teris about?”

Hizashi blinked, hand lowering slowly.

“I have no feelings for Teris. She’s--” my Ilca, Shouta thought carefully not wanting any mistakes, “--my Ilca, same as you. There are no feelings passed that.”

“But…”

Shouta pinned Hizashi with a boring gaze.

“...right. Never mind. Sorry.”

Shouta gave a curt nod. “I got lessons to plan which need to be done tonight since I, unfortunately have a surprise for you tomorrow.”

“A surprise!”

Shouta winced at Hizashi's loud piercing voice. What had he been thinking? Was he a glutton for punishment? He had to have been possessed when he returned home and thought it too quiet.

“What’s the surprise!” Hizashi enthused, volume barely a decibel lower.

“Nothing if you don’t quiet down and leave me alone.”

Hizashi's head pulled back, ears lowering.

Shouta sighed. Hizashi may have been wrong about Kai. He was totally wrong in thinking he had feelings for Teris. But Hizashi wasn’t wrong about his needing to be nicer. It was just so much easier to be gruff and rude. It scared people away and kept him safe from growing attached and getting hurt. He had lost his pack. And though he didn’t remember their names and faces; he remembered the joy, love, and warmth. He still suffered the anguish of their loss. He didn’t want to chance getting close to anyone, afraid to have them ripped away like that again. He didn’t think he could survive it.

But like it or not, he had accepted Hizashi and Teris as his Ilca. It was wrong to always be so sharp and distant with them. He had to find a way to be nice and still guard himself.

“I’ll tell you when Teris gets back if you’re still up.” Shouta said, tone mildly softer.

“Okay.” Hizashi beamed.

13.6

Teris exited the washroom and pulled the towel Kai had carefully wrapped around her hair, wet locks falling free.

Kai grimaced as droplets rained down on her robe and the expensive area rug beneath their feet. It wasn’t the cost that bothered but the mess. His chosen mate needed to learn to take more care.

“Here, let me.” Kai held out a hand.

Teris pushed her wet hair back and balled up the towel. “It’s fine. I’m use to letting my hair dry on its own.”

“Then you could do with some pampering.”

“Kai. There’s no need to fuss.”

“You’re the one making a fuss, Beautiful. Now hand me the towel and sit down and turn around.”

Teris rolled her eyes and sighed but did as she was told.

Kai collected her hair. “There. Was that so hard?”

“Yes.” Teris played. She could feel Kai’s stare and turned, looking at him over her shoulder.

Kai raised a brow.

“No.” Teris admitted fighting a smile. She faced forward.

Kai frowned down at the top of her head. He wasn’t adverse to playful banter. In fact he had grown insanely jealous of the amount of inside jokes and laughter Teris had shared with Hizashi this evening. He wanted to have that with her. He wanted to be the only one she had that with. But first he had to be sure Teris knew he would always be the one in control. That she would respect and obey him in all things. Only when he was sure of that could he allow himself to be fully free with her. His cause was simply too important to let it be otherwise.

To others it might seem like harmless playful banter. But given his precarious position and aims, it could expose him and make him look weak; and weakness could mean death. Too many Fourth's were counting on him. The pride and continuation of dragon kind depended on him. His life and wants were not his own.

He might have picked Teris to be his mate. But there was still so much he didn’t know about her. He didn’t even know what species of Fourth she was, other than that she was a pack beast of ancient heritage. Despite his personal desires to form a connection as free and open as he had witness between her and Hizashi tonight, for the sake of his cause and followers he couldn’t do so until he was certain of her complete obedience and fealty.

“I didn’t realize you and Hizashi were so close.” Kai said, after a moment of towel drying her hair.

Teris shrugged. “Not sure if it’s cause of what we went though together after being found and brought here. But we kind of latched onto one another and became fast friends. He’s like a brother.”

“I’m glad you have him.” Kai said, surprise to find he actually meant it to a certain degree.

It couldn’t have been easy for Teris to be brought to Oblvi and learn another world existed. That the beasts, spirits, sprites, and demons she’d previously thought as mythical were real and she was one of them. Given all that, it was no wonder she was so close to Hizashi. No doubt her coming here would’ve been a lot harder on her if she’d gone through it alone. For that Kai was grateful for Hizashi.

Thinking of how she was a pack beast, Kai asked. “Did you have anyone close like that before you were found and brought here?”

Teris looked down, unconsciously picking at a hang nail.

“It couldn’t have been easy. Being discovered and taken from them.” Kai prodded.

Teris’ eyes unfocused. The memory of exiting a movie theater with her friends invading her mind like tidal wave.

The theater had been dark and deserted, a midnight showing the only time they could all meet up to drool over their favorite Hollywood hottie on the big screen. For those few hours she had forgotten about the scarred man who had been following her for nearly a week. That was until she had exited the theater to find him waiting outside.

The man had grinned, blue flames igniting from the mans hands. Being the first one to exit, Teris spun and shoved her friends back inside. With superhuman strength that she had later thought was from adrenaline before being brought here Teris bent the steel door frame locking the door in place. With her friends safely locked inside, she turned to run; but it had been too late. The scarred man was on her.

“Teris?”

The memory faded. Teris swallowed. Taking in a steadying breath she apologized. “Sorry. Can we talk about something else?”

“Sure.”

“Ryuu’s less scary than I first thought.” Not wanting to mention her interview for both their sakes, Teris looked back at him. “Thank you for giving me a chance to get to know him.”

“So you forgive me for planning tonight's dinner?”

“I wasn’t upset at you planning dinner. I was--” Not wanting to argue, she stopped herself and began again. “I’m glad we were able to be here to divert your thoughts from whatever today rehashed.”

Kai caressed her cheek. He had long ago bottled and buried the childhood fear he had over his interview and inspection; instead using the memory to spur his hate for the Council and fuel his drive for his cause. But it warmed his heart that she thought she had cared for him and was glad for it. “I did it for you.”

“Well I certainly needed the diversion, so thank you.”

Kai tenderly kissed her. Teris tugged at the back of his neck, deepening the kiss. Kai groaned. He wanted her on her back, robe off, now; but her hair was still a wet mess.

Kai straightened to his full height, breaking the kiss. “Face front and let me finish.”

“If this is your way of making me wait to further entice, it’s annoying and working.” Teris said as she turned her back to Kai.

Kai chuckled. “Nice to know you’re so easy for me, Beautiful.”

“Ha!” Teris huffed.

Done drying, Kai proceeded to brush her hair.

Teris’ eyes slipped closed. There was no clock in Kai’s rooms. At least not the three rooms she’d been in. But that didn’t matter.

She hadn’t lied to Hizashi when she said she’d only be an hour or two. At least she hadn’t intended to lie. At the time she had wanted to go home and sleep in her bed. But the soft domestic comfort she found with Kai, coupled with the haunting memories today’s events churned up, had her wanting to stay the night. She wondered if Kai would be alright with that.

Afraid to ask should he say no, she decided not to mention her desire to stay; instead choosing to wait and see if he asked her to leave.

Her scalp tingled, skin prickling. “Mmm… That feels good.”

Kai continued working as he bent, head coming beside hers. “See. I know what’s good for you.”

“You sure do.” Teris murmured, revealing in the bristles gentle rake over her scalp. “Don’t ever let me doubt you again.”

Kai smiled slightly, taking in her profile. “I won’t. I promise.”

13.7

Shigaraki entered the abandoned warehouse, the closing door doing nothing to stifle the stench of humans. Damn, he hated this world with a vengeance. Eyes adjusted to the darkness, he squinted, blue flames igniting on the towering loft.

“It’s common courtesy to knock.” Dousing his blue flames, the Salamander stepped off the loft. Long coat tails flapped behind his falling form. Heavy boots hit the damp concrete floor with a resounding bang. Dabi straightened. “Then again, you strike me as too ill-bred to know what the word courtesy means.”

“I will strike you for real if you don’t shut up.” Shigaraki said.

“I’d like to see you try, freeze-dried.”

Shigaraki’s eyelids fluttered, crimson eyes rolling. This was why he had stayed away from Dabi during their time here. He couldn’t fathom why his Master wanted the Salamander alive. Far as Shigaraki could tell Dabi was good for nothing other than getting on peoples nerves. Sure Dabi had been the one to find and capture Teris. But Dabi had lost her. And while Dabi’s flames were hotter and deadlier than most Salamander's; his wasn’t immune to his own fires heat.

“By this time tomorrow we’ll be back home and free these forced meetings.” Shigaraki told himself and Dabi.

“I’m thinking of staying on.” Dabi said.

“What do you mean?”

“Here. In earths realm.”

“You can’t be serious.” Shigaraki said, incredulous.

“Why not? Humans are so much fun.”

“Humans are disgusting, weak vile creatures who smell.”

“I know.” The scarred Salamander smiled, wickedly. “They’re so weak and smell so good.”

“Stay if you want. See if I care.” Shigaraki spat.

“You mean you’re not gonna try and reason with me, or say how my life belongs to the Master of All and I need to obey his order to return?”

“If our time together here has taught me anything, it’s that there’s no reasoning with you.” Shigaraki paused a beat, daggered eyes stabbing through Dabi. “And your life does belong to the Master. So if you want to forfeit it by disobeying, so much the better.”

“Well you suddenly became a whole lot less fun.” Dabi complained. “I’m glad we’re going home tomorrow.”

13.8

Teris slowly stalked through the forest in search of her prey. She caught sight of tail flicking behind a tree and charged. Her laughter resounded through the woods ruining the surprise attack.

Black wings spread from behind the tree trunk. In a flash of dabble grey and black fur, and whoosh of air her prey took to the sky with an echoing laugh.

Teris followed, chasing her new friend.

Hide and seek forgotten, a game of tag begun in its place. They flew and ran through the forest all afternoon. Swooping passed watchful guards. Racing around chiding adults. It was the best time Teris had ever had in her short life, and she never wanted it to end.

The sun was dipping low when a voice called for her. “Teris. It’s time to go.”

Teris skidded to a halt, the chasing boy running into her. She looked back at her friend then turned to her father. “Can’t we stay a bit longer, Papa?”

Standing with her new friends parents, her father shook his head. “I’m afraid not, Chickadee. Say your goodbyes.”

Teris took to the air with her father and their guards. She looked back at the mass of rock caves that was her friends home, watching him grow smaller the further she got.

“Face front, Teris. Always be looking forward.” Her father told.

With reluctance, Teris turned away facing forward. “Will I see and play with him again?”

A purring growl resonated in her father’s chest. “I hope so, my dear. For all our sakes, I hope so.”

The dream changed from forgotten memory to a rather forgotten nightmare.

“I hope for your sake you remember, little bird.”

“Remember what!” Teris cried, cowering away from the scarred mans blue flames. “I don’t know what you want. Please! Just tell me what you want. I’ll do anything. Say, anything. Please. Please. Just tell me what to say.”

“It doesn’t work that way, lion cub. If I knew these things, I wouldn’t need you, now would I.”

Teris trembled despite the searing heat. The man was going to kill her if he got what he wanted. At the rate things were going, he was going to kill her either way. How she had healed from the blue fires, let alone survived them was a wonder.

“Remember, Teris. It’s bad enough your very existence will rip apart the feeble peace our new overlords have made. If you don’t remember there will be war. You’ll be to blame for millions of deaths. Towns and cities will crumble and burn. Blood with stain the ground and flow in stream and sea. Do you really want to be the cause of so much death? Do you want to be what ends our world? Remember!”

Teris threw her arms over her head and pulled at her hair. “No!”

Kai jolted awake, face smacked by something. His fighting instinct died in the space of a rapid heartbeat. Teris laid naked beside him, restless and mumbling in her sleep. Sometime during the night she had shifted out of his arms; but that wasn’t what bothered him at the moment. No. It was the way her face was pinched in fear and pain. Her sweet lips pressed between her teeth biting them raw. Hands tangled in her hair, roughly pulling.

Kai firmly grasped her hands, staying their tortuous tug. “Teris.”

She moaned in anguish.

“Teris, you’re dreaming. Wake-up, Sweetheart.”

Teris’ eyes snapped open. She pushed against the person in front of her, trying to back away.

Kai’s arm wrapped around her, holding her fast. “It’s me. You’re safe.”

Her eyes cleared of the nightmares fog. “Kai.” She clasped his shoulders, needing something solid and strong to anchor to.

Kai’s arm tightened around her, the other smoothing her hair. “It’s okay. I got you. It was just a dream. You’re safe, here with me.”

Teris buried her face in his chest, fighting oncoming tears. She had woken-up alone in her chambers numerous times from nightmares about the scarred man. Each time she had broken down crying. But her pride wouldn’t allow her to do so with Kai. Even if it did, she still would've held back. Kai was stronger and just as proud as she was. Tears would likely make him uncomfortable and be a sign of weakness.

“You’re shivering. I’ll start a fire.” Kai propped up in bed.

Teris’ head jerked up, eyes wild. “No fire!”

At the same time as her plea, Kai’s amber eyes glowed. He blew out a puff of orange flames in the direction of the fireplace. The fireball flew across the room and struck a pile of wood set in the hearth.

Kai turned back to her. “I wasn’t going to leave your side.”

Teris’ trembling died down. It wasn’t blue fire. She wasn’t the scarred mans captive. She was free, and safe with Kai. Kai would never let anyone hurt her.

“I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Hey.” Kai’s hand cupped her face, attempting to lift it. “Look at me.” He commanded when she fought against him.

Teris slowly lifted her head.

“If you’re ever upset, distressed, or in trouble I want you to come to me. I don’t care what’s going on or what time it is, if I’m asleep or in a meeting. If I’m away on mission one of my Ilca will find me while other watches over you.”

“Kai--”

His hand gripped the back of her neck. “No matter what it is, you are to come to me. Understand?”

“Kai, I--”

“Do you understand?” Kai pressed, hand tightening a fraction.

Her eyes searched his. He was so handsome, gold eyes shimmering in the warm dancing firelight. He’s flames were nothing like Dabi’s cold, consuming fire. She could bask in his hold and comfort forever. But one thing she couldn’t do was say she understood. She was simply to proud and independent to agree to something like that.

She kissed him, letting her lips and tongue tell of her appreciation despite her refusal to accept.

Kai returned her hungry kiss. He knew full well what she was doing but couldn’t deny his quickly hardening cock. Not when her hot, naked body grooved against his. He would let it go for now. But the conversation wasn’t over.

“Let me take care of you.” Kai murmured against her lips.

“Kai…” For a moment she thought he was continuing to press the matter.

Kai rolled her onto her back, heated kisses moving to her neck. “Lay back and relax. Let me take care of you, Beautiful.”

Teris sucked in a stuttering breath, back arching herself up against him.

Kai breathed in her scent, nose gliding up her pulse point. “Still so eager and needy. And after I gave you how many orgasms this night? How many do I think I can give you this time?”

Teris’ hips rolled against his. “Kai. Please.”

“Patience, my Sweet.”

Teris mewled, lashes fluttering.

Kai’s lips pulled along the line of her jaw, trailing open mouthed kisses down her chest. “I’m going to take such good care of you.”

Her head lifted as he got to her stomach, realization dawning.

Kai’s honeyed eyes shined up at her over the expanse of her body. “Don’t worry, Gorgeous. I’ll give you my cock soon enough. But first, I’m going to enjoy a midnight snack.”

Next chapter is the Fall Harvest Moon Festival. Or, as someone on here called it, the Orgey Festival. lol

***This fic will have a LOT more world building than my others. Please feel free to comment or send me an ask if you have any questions.

Thank you to those who have left hearts. And a special thank you to those who have left comments and/or reblogged. They really mean a lot.

Special thank you to @inorganicone2230 who knows of my love for the mythic and encouraged me to start this fic without stressing about the other two I’ve got going. Your friendship means the world to me.

#aizawa shouta #kai chisaki #yamada hizashi #Hari Kurono #yandere #bnha #lost song

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burning-clutch · 4 years

Text

The Appointment Is At Tooth-Hurty

Read on A03: Here Pairings: None Trigger Warnings: mild blood and cartoon style violence Author: @burning-clutch (Team Ghost) Total words: 1472 Prompt by: Bonuscat AO3 and FFN: Bonuscat

Tucker just had to jinx himself didn't he. Danny is just happy that it wasn't him who ended up with the short end of the stick this time.

“This is awful! The worst I say! The worst!” “Come on Tuck, it’s not that bad…”

“Like you would know Sam! Do you not see it? Or hear it? It’s just all… nyyyeeeaah!” Tucker said as he dragged his hands down his face.

“Really, Sam’s right it’s not-”

“No! It’s not alright! My mouth feels all wrong and "I've bitten myself sev- OW! Eight times already!”

“You can hardly see it if it’s any help…” Danny tries to soothe his friend. “Hardly, Danny? Hardly is not the same as not seeing it at all.” Tucker groaned.

“It really is nothing. Lots of people have braces.” Sam said waving off the other’s concern.

“Yeah! All of ‘em are nerds though! Do you think this is good for my swagger? No, it’s not! And I’ve got a lisp now! This is the worst!” Tucker whined continuing to flail about overdramatically.

“I mean it was your own fault. You should have known better, out of all of us, you’re the least coordinated.” Sam huffed in exasperation.

“Hey! ...well okay valid, but how was I supposed to know that was going to hit my beautiful face?” Tucker complained pouting now.

Danny sighed. Even though he felt this whole thing was technically his fault he was long past feeling sorry for his friend.

The whole thing happened the day before with Danny fighting the box ghost for the God only knows-ith time. The trio had opted to check out the new Dead Teacher movie when his ghost sense had gone off.

With a groan and a long suffering sigh, they ducked into an ally so Danny could transform without being seen. A quick flight later and the trio were phasing into the nearby storage locker place.

“BEWARE! I AM THE BOX GHOST MASTER OF ALL THINGS CARDBOARD AND CUBED!” Came the nasally voice almost instantly.

The trio exchanged glances. “Who’s turn is it?” Sam sighed out. “Danny’s I think?” Tucker responded by pulling out his PDA to double check. “Yep, Least we won’t miss the movie then,” he said simply.

“Fine, fine.” Danny huffed out.

“HOW DARE YOU IGNORE THE BOX GHOST! NOW YOU SHALL FEEL THE WRATH OF MY CARDBOARD FURY!” The blue nuisance spouted, throwing up his arms to do his ‘scary fingers’ before looking around the storage unit and levitating a box to himself. “NOW FEEL THE PAIN OF… FRAGILE!”

The ghost telekinetically threw the box at Danny while the glassware that was in the box shot out after the box sailed right through the halfa’s intangible body. “Right, so, don’t suppose you would mind saving me the trouble and just go back to the zone until tomorrow?” Danny tried hopefully.

“NEVER! YOUR SILVER CYLINDER CAN NEVER KEEP ME AWAY FOR LONG! IT IS INFERIOR TO THE MIGHTY CUBE!” The ghost rebutted in turn.

“Actually, the triangle is the strongest shape, from a building and construction standpoint anyway…”

“Not helping Tucker!” Danny shot back to his friend.

“INSOLENT CHILD! HOW DARE YOU BESMIRCH THE GOOD PERFECTLY GEOMETRIC BEAUTY THAT IS THE CUBE!” The Box Ghost roared in defiance before floating a myriad of boxes swirling around him in a tornado. He keeps up the excerpt of power for a moment before launching them rapid fire towards Tucker with a shout of “TAKE THIS FOUL BOX HATER!”

Tucker yelped and ran towards the back wall of the locker ducking out of the way just in time as a heavy ‘thunk’ hit the wall from the tossed cardboard weapon. “Hey foul! That was a rectangular prism!”

The call only made the box ghost roar in anger once again while Danny sighed, not even caring about the whirlwind of cardboard being empowered by the ghost. With a flat look, he unhooked his thermos and aimed it at the annoying spectre, and fired.

It was super effective! Box ghost was caught.

The form of ghost warped and stretched as he was pulled inside, before only a little bit of bluish smoke was left. Danny quickly capped the device and floated back to the ground with a deep sigh of relief.

“I’m keeping you in there until tomorrow,” Dany grumbled down to the thermos.

Tucker and Sam made their way out from behind the items they had ducked behind to come over to the halfa. “Honestly Tucker, how many times have you triggered him into being more annoying than usual?” Sam growled out kicking the other boy’s shin in an attempt to accentuate her words.

“Oh come on. It was funny, besides it wasn’t like anything too bad happened,” Tucker waved off, hand making a shooing motion in the air.

“Tucker you idiot! You know never to say stuff like that! You’ll kill… and rekill us all!” Danny chastised angrily.

No sooner did the words leave his lips did two things happened...

One; Sam jumped away from Tucker towards Danny clinging to the halfas armed as though Tucker had suddenly been electrified, and Danny was her only life line… And two; the boxes that the Box Ghost had been exerting his power over chose that moment to fall.

Danny turned intangible on instinct, taking Sam with him into the land of the incorporeal, while Tucker hearing a rattling noise above his head, stupidly looked up at it instead of simply running. A heavy torrent of boxes and their contents cascaded down onto the teen, practically burying him alive.

Then the avalanche was finished Danny allowed himself and Sam to phase back to normal before he called out, “Tuck? You good?”

Sure enough, the haphazard teen popped his head out of the pile with a thumbs up. “I’m good…” he groaned out in exasperation.

Danny sighed and went over to his friend to pull him out of the boxes. “Come on, let’s get outta here, we still got that movie to watch.”

With that, the halfa teen flew his friends back to the alley next to the theatre de-transforming and cracking his back. As they headed towards the movie theatre, Danny pointed out a small group of girls from their school and Tucker ran ahead. He got to the door first and caught the eye of the group of girls as they came up to the doors as well.

Thinking he’d be a ‘gentleman’ he wiggled his eyebrows and rushed forward to open the door for them. Only to whack himself in the face with the door as he did.

He yelped in pain and cupped his hands across his mouth. His friends ran over to him instantly fretting over his well being as soon as they saw the small dribble of blood.

“Oh my God! Tucker you okay!” Danny asked eyes wide as he began mother hen mode.

“Oh. Hey, look… That yours?” Sam asked, pointing to the tooth on the ground.

Instantly Tucker’s demeanour changed, and he became pale as could be. “Mah toof! Mah woods sound sunny...!” The teen blinked wide green eyes to his half ghost friend before running his tongue along the inside of his mouth. If possible he paled further.

“I think you should call your mom, man,” Danny said after looking at his friend’s open jaw.

“Oh no! How messed up is my beautiful face man? Am I still gorgeous?” Tucker wailed.

The phone call to his parents went well… If you could call his mother laughing at her son’s expense well. Regardless the emergency dental procedure was booked and ready, leaving the teen with an implanted tooth and braces to pull the others that got knocked in the process back in line.

Tucker licked at the thin wire at the front of his teeth and groaned. “I can still feel it! And my tongue is so sore from biting it!” he complained, “It’s like they pulled my teeth back too far or something…” he groans.

“Well, should we get you one of those rings that babies chew on instead?” Sam huffed out.

“What? No why…. Sam, you’re awful” Tucker whined out.

“Well then quit griping about it, I’m sick of hearing about it. So unless you want me to knock out more teeth quit showing them off and just take your turn.” Sam growled out shoving the bowling ball from the rack in her basement into Tucker’s chest.

“Bu-”

Sam rounded on him once again a new bowling ball in hand holding it like a shot put threateningly.

Tucker let out a long suffering sigh, before tossing the ball down the lane. Once his pins were hit he turned to Sam and Danny once again. “Just tell me I’m beautiful?” he pouts.

Sam and Danny exchange a look and Danny smirked evilly turning back to Tucker as he changed into his ghostly form.

“Hey man, what are you-” the last thing Tucker remembered of that day was Danny phasing into his body.

-.-.-.-.-

Complete

Total words: 1472

#Phic Phight 2020 #Danny Phantom #Danny #Sam #Tucker #Written at 3am forgive me #box ghost #bad luck tuck

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yamamuragaku · 5 years

Photo

Excerpt: Novel IDOLiSH7 Ainana Academy

Novel: Sasaki Teiko

Character Draft/Illustrator: Tanemura Arina

Original Work: Bandai Namco Online

In the darkness, a phantom flower bloomed.

It was a digital art flower projected on a jet black wall as if ink was painted on it. In a space where there was nothing, a speck of emerald green light suddenly flashed. Shining young buds quickly spread, leaves flourished, and at the tips, seven flower buds--fleeting like the moonlight--grew.

As the flower buds grew, each took on a different color and soft flower petals gently unraveled.

Here was the recording studio of a web-distributed program.

The ones filming were the members of the budding idol group, IDOLiSH7.

It was the recording of the final episode of the mini drama "Ainana Academy".

"Ainana Academy" was a drama in which Yamato, who planned to control the school, joined with Sougo and Iori to confront Nagi, Riku, and Tamaki.

Bright lights were lit simultaneously. The camera crew was on standby.

At the cue to start shooting, against a background of faintly lit digital art flowers, Nanase Riku, dressed as a cheerleader in a white chouran with the sleeves tied with a red ribbon, raised his voice.

"I hate the darkness! I hate your darkness! That's why with the power of love, I will burn away all your hatred! I will not forgive you--"

A gentle and honest voice resounded throughout the studio.

At that moment, a warm and pleasant atmosphere spread all through the studio.

No fragments of hatred could be felt from the way Riku crisply shouted, nor his direct gaze. Instead, Riku was making puppy dog eyes.

Confronting Riku was Ousaka Sougo, who was wearing a cape like a vampire, and Nikaidou Yamato, playing a doctor in a white coat, whose face relaxed.

"...Sorry, Riku. I don't really feel hated by you. It feels like I'm actually being forgiven,"

Told Yamato, who was fiddling with the stethoscope hanging around his neck.

"Um."

"If you say it with more contempt, onii-san might feel it."

"Uh...um."

Yotsuba Tamaki, who was waiting behind Riku, snorted.

Riku stared at Tamaki who just made fun of him. Tamaki, a current high school student, looked really good wearing a uniform casually and stylishly.

He looked back at Riku and as if a switch was flicked, Tamaki began roaring with laughter.

Standing to the side, Izumi Iori made a face like he swallowed a bug. Iori was properly wearing a uniform buttoned all the way to the top, with glasses as accessories. Iori pushed up the bridge of the glasses with his fingertips, and sighed heavily.

However, the director could not be heard saying "cut." In other words, filming continued.

"I-I will not forgive you!!"

Quickly turning towards Yamato and Sougo, Riku said his lines once more, for good measure.

Right in the middle between Riku and Yamato, Izumi Mitsuki who was tied up and sitting with an apron on, looked over Riku with a nervous expression. Next to him was Rokuya Nagi, holding a glow stick and wearing a happi. Nagi crouched down, untied Mitsuki, and stood up.

"OH! Riku. Hatred doesn't suit us. Even if your partner is the leader of darkness. When our weapon is ready, you'll feel not hatred, but love. So, Riku--"

Nagi informed with a smile. Hair of gold and eyes of blue. Anyone would be fascinated by the beauty of Nagi, who came from a small country in Northern Europe.

"Let us sing."

"What?! A song?!"

Riku batted his big eyes.

"Yes. Because we are IDOLiSH7. Come on, music!!"

Nagi snapped his fingers.

Music began playing.

While they were acting out the mini drama, in the background, a paradise of digital art flowers started playing, each bud blooming.

"...I didn't hear anything. About this."

Riku opened his mouth flabbergastingly. It seemed that not only Riku but the other members besides Nagi didn't know to sing there.

Mitsuki was the first one to suddenly run off. He raised his hand in front of the camera,

"Does each person have a mic?"

And signaled to the staff. The members each picked up the mics prepared by the staff.

They automatically settled into their positions.

The intro ended, and Riku's singing voice resonated in the mic. His overwhelming singing ability and rich singing voice enveloped the entire studio.

At first there was a bit of confusion, but once Riku began to sing, everything was clear.

A sparkling singing voice that would drive away the darkness burst out, and Nagi said, "Good job," and gave a thumbs up with a smile, and took his turn.

While Sougo waved his jet black cloak, he made a careful step.

Mitsuki's petite body jumped according to the music, exciting the staff.

Tamaki's dynamic dancing drew everyone's gaze.

Yamato looked at Tamaki's dancing, and showed a daring smile.

The appearance of Yamato, who was twirling the stethoscope while casually singing, immediately conveyed that, "Come to think of it, this is a scene from a mini drama."

He made a gesture like he was acting in a play, and while singing and dancing, Yamato’s presence overpowered Riku and Nagi. Iori immediately reacted to Yamato's acting, and he forced his way in front of Yamato to support Riku. Yamato was instantly impressed with the ad-lib and smiled faintly.

The director's "cut" still could not be heard.

The studio was dyed in IDOLiSH7's color.

IDOLiSH7 was asked to appear on a web-distributed program two months ago.

The first member who heard about this was Iori, who heard it from Takanashi Tsumugi--a manager belonging to the talent agency, Takanashi Production.

Although Iori was an idol, he had confidence in his analytical ability, and assisted Tsumugi a lot. However, that Iori took on the role of Tsumugi's brain was a secret to everyone. There was fear as a current high school student, whether other members might show resistance to the youngest among IDOLiSH7 leading the group.

"A web-distributed program...?"

"Yes."

As idols, IDOLiSH7 was a bud that just sprouted. With hidden sparkling and shining energy, they are absolutely "real idols", but they're still rather unknown to the general public.

As for the reason they haven't made their break yet, it was obvious to Iori. They had too little exposure.

If you listened to their songs and saw their dancing, you would become a fan. That was the only ability and charm they held. However, there were almost no TV programs that invited the rookie idols IDOLiSH7.

During this time, an offer arrived at the agency for a variety program that would be distributed online, rather than on TV.

"That's right. I think it may be good to try this,"

Iori said, checking the terms of the request. However, Tsumugi made a surprised face.

"Eh? Really? But before, didn't you say you had a concern about doing online programs?"

While Iori discussed IDOLiSH7's future development with Tsumugi, she recalled what he formerly expressed.

"Yes. I said that. We are an idol group that attracted attention from online videos. The assumption that we are familiar with online distribution is correct. But..."

Because of an accident, IDOLiSH7 had to sing outdoors during a storm, and a video of that went viral and drew them a lot of attention.

Idols of the Internet age. The video circulated among people who liked and favorited it on social media. Spread without corporate promotion, the radiance of a new and fresh group called IDOLiSH7. That was one of our weapons, Iori thought.

But at the same time, he understood that this precarious position was a double-edged sword.

"On the other hand, if we rely too much on online distribution, there's a possibility we may develop an unwanted reputation. If I may say this freely--I don't want us to become 'cheap idols.'"

"Cheap...idols...?"

"Yes. It's a really subtle balance...but with one misstep, cheap idols will fail. Now is an era where anyone can post online. Amateurs can get popular by posting videos online, and they collaborate with companies to make videos. In that context, we must think of what it means to be professional idols. It isn't just about increasing exposure."

Tsumugi listened with a despondent face. Although Iori wasn't mad about Tsumugi's management, he sometimes caused her to make this kind of face. Her chest hurt a little.

"But...I think it's fine!! IDOLiSH7's singing and dancing are not cheap. You're the real deal. You're true idols. I know for a fact. I believe when people see you, they'll definitely understand!"

Tsumugi looked discouraged, but as soon as she bit her lip and took a deep breath, and her big eyes moistened, she turned to Iori and declared this.

Iori, taken aback, gulped. Because she said this with a puppy dog face without calculation--manager is scary.

"Of course,"

He replied immediately. Because Iori himself "knew" that IDOLiSH7 was the real deal.

The idol group that ran before them--TRIGGER--wasn't strong in variety.

Therefore, it was a good strategy to target the areas in which TRIGGER was weak.

Also--.

"This time, the web-distributed program seems to have a tight budget at this stage, so we need to tackle the project sharply. As for the film editor, a freelancer is better than a well-known one, but..."

He looked over the proposal, and checked the names of the staff along with the plan.

Before, Iori saw one of the names of the people involved with the filming in an interview online.

The name came up in a question about "interesting people lately" in the globally active, up-and-coming digital art group, Y-Classic.

He was a student who attracted attention in the art world for the stylish video he created as a hobby, which spread by word of mouth and became famous.

"I watched the video he made. In addition to his skill, his excellent way of showing the theme, the beautiful imagery, the quick tempo, and how it made you laugh, was understandably popular. If we find that kind of fresh talent and attract him to our program--isn't it okay to entrust ourselves to him?

Tsumugi stared in wonder and muttered, "I didn't know. There was someone like that in the staff."

"Our greatest weapon is Nanase-san's singing. If they hear our singing and see our dancing, the viewers will definitely understand that we are the real deal. Finally, if we make a corner showing our singing and dancing, along with the main point of the proposal, the mini drama ‘Ainana Academy’, I think the staff will surely challenge it and make something interesting. This job seems worthwhile."

"Understood. Then, I'll take accept this job!!"

Tsumugi responded energetically.

Five days later, the script for the drama arrived at the agency. A job for all the members of IDOLiSH7.

Within the group, MEZZO" already formed as a two-person unit, and Tamaki and Sougo had their CD debut, so their workload would further increase. Their responsibilities would grow, but even so, the two in MEZZO" were overjoyed.

In the first place, Tamaki and Sougo didn't have the slightest intention of only doing MEZZO". Rather, for the sake of debuting with IDOLiSH7 as seven people, they had been working hard to cut through as the advance guard, and clear a path.

It wasn't lip service; they were seriously acting with those intentions. Therefore, when the manager wanted to focus on IDOLiSH7's management and business, MEZZO" had a lot of work where it was just them alone.

At a small and weak agency, idols were being produced. They couldn't buy a car for exclusive use yet, so the two people in MEZZO" moved around by train. For the time being, they hid their faces with sunglasses and hats, and moved with their idol switch off. Even so, people who notice will notice, but they haven't yet experienced someone overbearingly talking to them and causing a racket.

However, Tamaki was disappointed in hearing "there's still quite a ways."

Tamaki stepped into the highly exposed entertainment world because he wanted to find his missing little sister. He had not revealed this reason to others yet, but he thought he always wanted to be more famous. He wanted to appear on TV a lot more. It would be good if his sister saw his existence.

Tamaki had his head in the clouds while he was riding the train with Sougo. They were sitting next to each other on an uncrowded seat. To the public, MEZZO" got along very well, but the truth was entirely different.

"Tamaki-kun, did you properly read the script?"

Sougo took the script out of his bag, and began reading it. It was also Sougo who put effort into remembering their travel times. He was serious. He was the type of person who thought what you ought to do today, you should accomplish today. It didn’t mean he was not serious. He always kept his eyes on the ball, which was why he was now only thinking of their next job.

"I'll do it later,"

He brusquely responded. Sougo slightly lowered the corners of his eyes.

It was unknown how many times it had been repeated.

The two have had similar back-and-forths many times.

Sougo looks very kind, and spoke with a gentle tone. With an atmosphere like warm spring sunshine, Sougo was basically always gentle and kind.

However--sometimes Sougo gave instructive guidance to only Tamaki. Tamaki was displeased with this.

"Since it's a job for the seven of us, we must do our best. We discussed this when the job came in earlier. The recording is the day after tomorrow. If we filmed separately, it would look unnatural, so we're doing it on a day when everyone can gather together."

It always felt like this. Sougo just gave Tamaki a lecture.

"Okay."

"To match our schedules, the staff hurriedly booked a studio. Everyone suddenly had to memorize their lines, and they were even individually practicing in the dorm."

"Soo-chan, did Mikkii tell you to be so loud?"

It was a mini drama about a school. Sougo was cast as a hot-blooded teacher.

Sougo was worried about how to act hot-blooded, so he consulted Mitsuki about various things. According to Mitsuki's advice, Sougo tried waking up the sleeping Yamato with a loud voice and took him along running, loudly interrupted Nagi who was proclaiming his love for ‘Magical Girl★Magical Kokona’, confirmed the schedule, and earnestly asked, "For the next job I want to raise my level of enthusiasm, so please watch ‘Magi★Kona’ with me. I will use it as a reference." Even if Nagi wasn't asked, he was always devoted to spreading the word of "Kokona's splendor". When Nagi realized, he had Sougo sitting in seiza in front of him while reciting "Kokona Love", while Sougo nodded with a serious expression vowing to "study a lot".

"What was that, practice?"

Sougo nodded with a troubled face at being seriously asked this..

"It was practice."

"It was noisy."

"...."

"Last night, Soo-chan was so loud, I lost motivation."

Sougo, deeply serious about "creating a hot-blooded role", approached Mitsuki for a consultation. At Mitsuki's advice, he gently laughed, said "I'll try," and straightened his posture. Afterwards was a rare scene of Sougo loudly waking up Yamato.

Sougo boldly challenged Yamato who easily brushes those things aside, and yelled from the pit of his stomach. Sougo did not usually raise his voice like this.

Yamato dodged with a, "Sou, are you drunk? Don't run around, sleep next to onii-san," and it ended in failure.

Mitsuki laughed at Sougo's failure and said, "Don't mind." Sougo replied "yes" with a serious look on his face. Riku, Nagi, and even Iori surrounded Sougo and let out a laugh at the gap between the endeavoring Sougo and the everyday Sougo,

At everyone's smiling faces, Sougo said, "Being hot-blooded is tough," and showed a bashful smile.

However, Tamaki could not laugh.

The inside of his chest felt prickly and unpleasant and hurt a bit.

When Sougo was around people other than Tamaki, he always gently laughed like a flower swaying in the spring wind. He did not get mad at anything Mitsuki said, and acted earnestly in accordance with Mitsuki's suggestions.

Sougo did not consult Tamaki, among other things. He did not rely on Tamaki.

Even though he knew he was unreliable, Tamaki still did not like it.

"Is that so. Sorry. So that I don't bother you, Tamaki-kun, I'll quietly practice in my room starting tonight,"

Sougo said with a troubled face.

He was bewildered by the apology. However, that wasn't it, thought Tamaki. Tamaki didn't want Sougo to apologize to him. But he also didn't intend to complain.

Even though he didn't say it was a nuisance--.

Did he mean to sound that way?

Sougo was good at extracting unpleasant words from Tamaki.

Tamaki got depressed at telling him to throw away his blunt words.

Sougo also got depressed being told that.

The two in MEZZO" were not good friends in the slightest.

Once again, the inside of Tamaki's chest prickled.

Sougo hid away the beaming smile he showed everyone from Tamaki, and the shutter in his heart made a loud sound and fell with a clatter. He pushed aside the feeling of "Today's smiles are out of stock. The store is closing now."

Sougo began reading the script fervently. Tamaki still felt like he wanted to say something, but he was irritated and without saying anything, he firmly pulled down the brim of his hat and closed his eyes.

So then, the recording of the web-distributed program started.

In the studio, each person was reading the script which was prior distributed, and Yamato who was wearing a costume, asked Riku,

"As I thought, isn't this look tight for onii-san? Wearing a high school uniform after all this time at the age 22 feels too much like a punishment."

One corner of the program was a mini drama--"Ainana Academy".

Somehow, Yamato was forced to wear a high school uniform. He wore a navy blazer, red necktie, and white button-up shirt.

"The size seems right. Yamato-san, it's a perfect fit. Where is it tight?"

Riku answered Yamato with a straight face, and looked over Yamato's school uniform from the front to the back.

Yamato didn't know what expression to make at being thoroughly examined, and looked to the sky.

Riku spontaneously burst out. Even if he explained his reason to Riku, he would not understand. Yamato pushed his glasses up and muttered.

"Mitsu, Sou, and even Nagi get to play teachers, so why am I playing a student..."

"Ah, I also thought something was strange. I wonder why I'm playing the youngest character. It feels weird that Iori and Tamaki are playing my senpais."

Yamato tilted his neck at Riku who was wearing the same school uniform.

"Oh. Rikkun is my kouhai?"

Tamaki, who was wearing a school uniform, asked Riku with the sense that he "just found out."

"Yeah. That's right."

"Oh."

"Yotsuba-san, incidentally I'm playing your classmate,"

Iori confirmed with Tamaki.

"Really? Okay."

Iori was also in a school uniform. He wore an armband that said "Student President" on his sleeve, and blackish green glasses. They were the type of frames that would look uncool depending on the person who wore them, but they fit Iori's fresh and neat look very well.

"Tamaki-kun.... You read the script properly?"

Sougo heard the conversation, and asked Tamaki worriedly.

Sougo wore a cool blue three-piece suit. The necktie was tied in a small knot, and he wore thin frame glasses. With silvery-green glasses adorning his serious-looking features, Sougo looked sharper than usual.

"Yeah."

"Not just read it, did you properly memorize the lines?"

Iori asked Tamaki to confirm again.

Sougo stared worriedly at the silent Tamaki. Tamaki, who was sensitive to people's emotions like an animal, noticed that Sougo was feeling anxious, and his chest prickled.

"Yeah."

Again, he made an uneasy face. Tamaki just made Sougo worry about him.

Mitsuki nonchalantly cut through the silent, awkward atmosphere formed between the two in MEZZO".

"Sougo's just like a teacher. Although he isn't hot-blooded. So math teacher-ish! If you were a calm and kind teacher, you'd be fine without having to practice for the role!"

Sougo made a troubled face at these embarrassing words.

"Mikkii is better than Soo-chan as a teacher"

Tamaki said softly.

"Really? Well, I'm also a teacher though. Of home economics"

Mitsuki's role as a teacher did not seem bad at all. He was wearing a necktie, but instead of a jacket, he wore a traditional knit sweater.

"...So why am I a student? Even if I wear a school uniform, I don't know whether I look like a student, so onii-san is really worried"

Yamato grumbled again. He was not seriously convinced.

"OH! Now that you say that, I am also really, really worried whether I look like a teacher! My elegance naturally flows out. My unparalleled beauty can't be thought of as of this world. I'm troubled about how to look like an ordinary teacher. There's no reality where such a beautiful teacher is in this school, so will any viewers complain?"

Nagi put his index finger against his cheek, and with a worried face, let out a sigh.

Was his wide-collared white shirt silk?

The sheen was clearly different from everyone else's shirts. There was no tie, and there was the impression that the suit was not ready-made, but an exquisite brand.

"Nagi's confidence is always impressive,"

Mitsuki had a distant look.

Nagi was pondering about something.

"It's fine because sometimes there are really beautiful and cool teachers,"

Riku said with sparkling eyes.

"It's fine if Nagi doesn't speak,"

Mitsuki continued.

"Really? But Mitsuki, I have dialogue too."

"Isn't it fine if you don't add OH or HEY to your lines, and avoid ad-libs and winks?"

Mitsuki sheepishly replied as if he had misgivings.

"But my role is a special English lecturer. 'OH' is in my lines."

"...OH......"

Mitsuki let out an "OH" from the bottom of his heart. Yamato laughed at the same time. Iori crossed his arms and furrowed his brows. Tamaki's expression did not change at all, while Sougo made a bewildered face. Riku grinned.

A girl ran towards them from the crowd of staff who were staring at them from a distance.

"...Um, excuse me. Can I take your picture? I want to take a group photo of you behind the scenes, and upload it to my blog for publicity."

"Yeah. ...It's fine, right? Manager?"

Mitsuki looked around, and asked for confirmation from Tsumugi who was talking to the staff.

After getting Tsumugi's approval, the costumed members of IDOLiSH7 turned toward the camera and smiled for the group photo.

On the other side of the camera, "kyaaa" could be heard from the women in the staff.

Nagi winked at the women.

Filming began. It was a scene where Riku, a transfer student who was late on his first day of school, was running to school with bread in his mouth.

Riku was running.

He was running--with a loaf of bread in his mouth.

Naturally a loaf of bread was not something you could just hold in your mouth, so he supported it with his hands while darting his eyes about. Looking like a small animal frantically putting food that's too big in its mouth, he put on a serious expression and filled up with motivation to run.

Everyone watching became rowdy. Even Tamaki, who was in a bad mood, burst into laughter.

"...Why is he running with a loaf of bread in his mouth? Is it this kind of scene?"

Sougo said incredulously.

"Sorry, it was my fault. It said in the script that it was a scene where he runs with bread in his mouth, so I bought some freshly baked bread,"

Mitsuki said.

Since it was freshly baked bread, it was not sliced.

"I thought about cutting it later, but I forgot.... It unexpectedly became an interesting scene..."

It won't block Riku's throat, right...?

In a sense different from being worried over his acting, all the members watched over Riku anxiously.

As Riku ran with bread in his mouth, he bumped into Iori at the street corner.

It was a clichéd opening scene.

Iori who was waiting across the street corner according to the script, looked considerably distressed at Riku's appearance, who was running at full speed with "a loaf of bread in his mouth."

Forgetting to act, Iori lost his bearings, made a surprised face, and came to a halt, and then Riku crashed into him.

Even though Iori tried to stop Riku who was protecting the bread, from falling, he bounced back, got his foot stepped on, and he pulled Riku towards his chest to support him.

The bread was sandwiched between them, and his face became mixed with astonishment and worry. Iori said,

"Isn't it dangerous? Why were you running with bread in your mouth without looking ahead? You--"

They were lines from the script.

"S-so...sorry."

Iori apologized to Riku, but they were positioned much closer to each other than it stated in the script, and although it wasn't a scene where they hugged, it looked like they were hugging.

In a panic, they suddenly let go of their hands. The chain of events reflected the odd innocence of a fastidious youth in the throes of puberty, and all the members watching the filming let out an "oh."

"Cut!! That was a good scene. Yup. You two were also good. It was different from the script, but your ad-lib was definitely effective. Let's go there. One take."

The director, in a good mood, clapped his hands.

#idolish7 #novel #translation #excerpt

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tuwam · 3 years

Text

@urianius

“uhhhhhhhh general, i’m gonna need transport.” ‘come again?’

kihyun’s not sure if it’s static interference because he’s deep, deep in the fire nation stronghold or if it’s simply the fact that the general usually never has to repeat herself that she sounds scandalized by his words. this particular mission has been fast-paced, the general’s always meticulous in her planning - accounting for any and all possible outcomes that there’s no time for delays. it always operates exactly how she wants to the point where she knows when she’s going to receive a call and why.

kihyun’s tired.

because missions like this require him at full capacity and there’s no pride in being her trump card when he’s being worked to the bone. it’s good for the tales that spread about him when he’s done but in the moment, it’s quite tiring. he’s barely had time to catch his breath if it wasn’t spent checking his shoulder for enemies and trying to catch all the cues fed through the earphone and remember the outline of this enormous prison.

the prison at crimson valley has been a topic of discussion since the first leak of rumors about a fire nation weapon being housed here. why they would decide to hold a weapon at a maximum clearance prison has been the talk of the council for months now, just as talks of what kinds of criminals are held here. the prison is located deep underground, breaching land that was once home to an older, ancient fire nation tribe, located in the remains of a volcano. the land is all cracked rock and ash, hard to breathe and even harder to enter. the insides of the prison lined with reinforced steel and humidity that only fire-benders can claim to withstand.

besides the intense temperatures and the immense pressure, no one dares enter the fortress. who wants to come face to face with a weapon built for fire nation traitors?

at least that’s what the rumors entail.

a weapon that wipes out everything in it’s path in a flash. a weapon that no one gets to recall seeing, those who have seen it have gone mad with the grief from the carnage in ti’s wrath. all they remember is soldiers, masses of soldiers before the light. they can only assume all witnesses either dead or captured. the weapon is indiscriminate and for that reason the general has adopted the task of seeking it out.

kihyun’s spent far too much time traversing from prison to prison, dealing with tales of the weapon while undercover but everything is sealed tight, kept under the tight watch of the squadron stationed at crimson peak. that’s why rather than this being a silent infiltration he’s had to not only break in but maintain stealth while searching for whatever the hell this weapon is.

he wasn’t expecting much of the weapons and his orders were to grab blueprints if destroying seemed impossible so that they could manufacture a counter to it. so here he is, sneaking past corridors after taking out yet another guard who outright laughed in his face when he mentioned looking for the weapon. truthfully he expected the weapon in a more fortified area but the trail had lead him to a lower level than the prison and a cell not heavily guarded aside from reinforced doors and a few bars.

what he doesn’t expect to find are two people inside the cell. a woman, sitting demurely on her knees, hands fastened in her lap and toying with what appears to be cloth? bandages. she regards him first and kihyun’s eyes go to the mass that’s in the furthest corner, a mass covered in bandages, some old some new, some fraying and some doubled up on. it’s a person. the bulkiness around the arms leads him to believe it’s a boy.

“didn’t expect any prisoners down here...” it’s the only area he didn’t check though aside from the main quarters. kihyun’s speaking more so to himself than the prisoners and the look the woman gives him is unwavering, even as her hands move almost methodically to untangle and knit up the bandages.

‘his wounds just closed, he needs rest.’ he doesn’t expect the voice that leaves her to be so - authoritative. especially because when she says it her eyes aren’t on him anymore but kihyun can feel them, can hear that the words aren’t for negotiation. it confirms the suspicion that the figure in the corner is a boy - and that he might be a little more than beat up, if the bloodied bandages are anything to go by.

“i’ve come for the weapon.” ‘as i said - he needs rest.’

so, for the moment, kihyun considers taking the transmitters from his ears because maybe - maybe that’s why he’s confused as to what’s going on right now. maybe the general’s orders filtering in and out through channels is scrambling him more than he thought - maybe the pressure in the prison is finally getting to him but he replays her words, taking note that the only ‘he’ the woman could be referring to is the crumpled mess on the floor.

“you can’t be referring to ---?” ‘i’m guessing you’re new here.’

she can’t be referring to the mess of a person that hasn’t moved since he’s made himself known, not even to address that they’re most definitely talking about it - him. the way the figure sits in their bandages they almost look like a mass of laundry thrown about, not even the slightest hint of movement to indicate breathing.

“that’s the weapon?” ‘so you are.’

the weapon is a human?

it’s not unheard of. it’s not surprising really. in the early times of conflict benders were considered a form of warfare that much is true, but kihyun had no idea they were still considered the sort. he’s not so much surprised that the weapon is a human that he’s surprised that one - this woman looks so calm with it - with him. and two, that the weapon looks more like it’s had a few weapons used on it. on him. he’s begun correcting himself only because of the sheer annoyance that was building up in the woman.

a flash of lightning. entire villages wiped out. bodies charred beyond recognition, a firepower stronger than blue flames. a light so bright and so fast that those who have seen it can only remember the sounds. the screaming. the smells.

this is that weapon?

“he looks pretty pathetic for a horror story.” kihyun’s taken to relaxing. like they have all the time in the world. like there isn’t a time that the guards should be coming down to do rounds. like no one has found some of their guards knocked out by now. he’s taken to leaning against the walls, his grin coming to match the glare the woman fixes him with. “and what are you supposed to be? his nanny?”

she’s stopped knitting, and kihyun can tell that right now she wants to shove the tool through his skull.

that’s fun.

‘if you're only here to see a legend, then i suggest you leave.’ “on the contrary, i’ve become the rescue team, so maybe you should thank me.”

he’s counting, the details of the general’s plan meticulously replaying in his head. she’d accounted for mistakes, even mistakes that kihyun could make. she didn’t account for this, she couldn’t have?

he’s got maybe five more minutes to haul them both out this cell and above ground. judging by their state, kihyun’s going to carry this mess of a boy and hope the girl’s got strength in her to run and keep up. if not he’s lugging both of them, and if she resists he’ll have to knock her out and carry both ---

‘what’s taking so long lieutenant.’ ouch, she only uses his title when he’s not performing up to standard. his check in’s should be three minutes apart.

“i need transport.” the static of his transmitter through the emptiness of the cell almost seems to disturb the bubble they were in before he arrived.

‘it didn’t reach you yet?’

what.

whether it’s audible or not is unimportant because in that second there’s rumbling and then he’s operating on instinct, jumping to move the woman from the blast zone.

there’s an explosion from the roof and rubble piles underneath the hole made in the ceiling of their cell, frayed and distorted metal and the hiss of some powerful ass fire that’s melted all the way through.

all the way. when kihyun manages to peek up - after avoiding all the glares from this woman like he didn’t just save her from being vaporized. he sees the hole through all the reinforced cells and the outside of the prison - the transport being their actual ship hovering over the hole. the entrance to the ship marked by two figures, one waving obnoxiously down to kihyun.

‘HEY LOSER NEED A RIDE!!’

fuck. it’s the general’s little brother. her trigger happy little brother and his best friend. of course it is. only he would wave around a top-grade weapon like that without a care.

“you almost vaporized me dipshit.” ‘but i didn’t - we’re sending the gurney down and the ladder.’

the gurney?

“wait how’d you--” ‘i don’t have all day lieutenant.’

ouch. he hurries up after that. the gurney lowers down, all the other prisoners taken out by bouts of gas spewed from holes in the steel. the general’s really thought of everything.

“alright we’re getting out of here.”

he hasn’t taken the time to inspect the prisoners here. he didn’t even notice the woman had moved and was shielding the boy - the weapon - from him.

“um - did you hear me?” ‘you’re not touching him.’ “i’m rescuing you both, did you miss that part?” ‘i won’t let you guys use him.’ "we’re the best bet he has.”

kihyun’s never too good at this part. he can do it when it’s insincere, when he’s tricking other soldiers undercover, play comrade as long as it benefits him. but he’s not good at this. he knows the truth of the general’s plans and that’s why it frustrates him to have to prove it, he knows what they do to people here and now he’s got a good idea fo what they’ve been doing to that boy. he’s not about to make this woman believe him in five seconds and he doesn’t want to.

he’s tired, he’d rather hop on the ladder and leave him. she looks like she’d rather be anywhere but here.

“listen - when this dust settles and the smoke clears they’re going to send him right back out - after us no doubt. you said he’s not healed well he won’t get any after that. we’re not here to use him do you see the firepower we have? if i needed only him you would’ve been dead by now. either you come by choice or by force and i’ve been using force all day i’m tired.”

‘lieutenant what’s taking so long?’

he’s not good at this that’s what.

‘you touch me and he’ll incinerate you.’

it’s not an empty threat either. for all the exhaustion kihyun hasn’t been paying much attention to the very person he’s been referring to. the same person that’s less like a hunched over mess and a figure now standing, supported by her, body prickling with bits of electricity.

fucking great.

‘yo what’s taking so long?’

minjae’s voice comes into view, the same bandaged boy turns his gaze in that direction eyes yellow and sparking. kihyun would very much like for the general’s brother to not get injured so he fires the projectile he’d been fidgeting with, moves as fast as he’s been trained and they’re out. with the same woman thrashing in his arms as he holds to the steel ladder and minjae strapping the now unconscious boy to the gurney as they fly out the hole and towards the ship.

‘no way the weapon is a boy!!’ hyuck’s greeting them as they land in the entrance. the same woman is glaring daggers as she runs to the gurney.

‘you sure have a way with the ladies don’t you.’

he’s fucking tired.

#urianius #au: avatar.

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feferipeixes · 4 years

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Mother Knows Best (1/5)

Answering an oddly familiar summons, Alcor finds himself face-to-face with none other than his own mother. Sure, she died years ago and reincarnated as someone completely different, but it's a little hard for Alcor to see past who she once was. As time goes on, however, he starts to wonder if maybe she really has changed -- and maybe, just maybe, if things could be better between them this time.

Here’s my entry for the 5th annual @transcendence-au ficathon! Based on the prompt “Dipper and his mother have a talk” from the awesome @toothpastecanyon! As you can see, I took it in a bit of a different direction :)

(See the most updated version on AO3!)

===

Chapter 1: Summoned

It was a clean summoning, one of the smoothest he'd felt in a while. No incorrect symbols on the circle. Plain candles, flames lapping at the wick, fresh from the box. Flawless Latin that sang across the Mindscape to bring him forth, instead of the grating mispronunciations he'd gotten more and more accustomed to as the years passed and there was almost no one left who even knew that Latin was a language.

Why then, Alcor wondered, did this summoning feel so off? Why was there a bitter edge to the call that triggered his fight or flight response in a way that a sad group of cultists hadn't managed to do in decades? And why did it feel so familiar?

The structure of a room pulled itself together around him, and with a pop he was there. By the blue light of the candles, he noticed that the room he’d been summoned to was actually quite small -- most likely a bedroom, given the bed tucked in the corner. He couldn’t help but notice the walls coated in boy band posters -- his mind jumped right to Mabel, filling his brain with a fuzzy sadness that wasn’t appropriate for a summoning.

That sadness evaporated pretty quickly when he saw the pro-nat hate speech on the posters hidden beneath them. He had a few guesses as to how this was going to go. Might as well get on with it.

"W̞̦̙̬̪̻̳H͖̦̲̟̻̖O̯͡ ̨̻̻̫̜͔̗͇D̛͔̣A̹͚͢R̞E͇̻͎̰S ̭͇͚͔T̹̣͔̦͎̝O̧ ̛̥̦̥̼̗S̢̳U͇M̦̘̺̰̲M̻̥̳̫̝̟O̩̗̥̦N͞ ͉͖̪̰͚̖A̙̣̠̫̬̗̰L̸̲C̭̠̖̣͚O͕͇͇͍̲͍R͖͕̞̲̣ ̷͔̙T̠̘͢H͔̼͉E̠̩͇̖͔̕ ̴D͉͙R҉̳͓̯̼̺E̢̘̬̱̠A͓̰̗͇̪͚M̜͎̟͇͍̱̺B̟̦̱̪̕E̲̘̯̙̜͘N̵͈̜̝D͏͈͓E̝͇̺̹R̛̝̱̳̭?͖̖͔̩̙͉̟" he roared.

The only person in the room was a young woman -- couldn't have been more than 25 -- who practically jumped out of her skin at the sound of his voice. She had mousy brown hair (she’d considered dyeing it many, many times, but always chickened out in the stylist’s chair) and stunning green eyes (contacts -- her eyes were really brown but she figured if her eyesight was poor enough that she needed contacts she might as well be adventurous), was dressed in a plain t-shirt and jeans (all of her nice clothes were in the wash), and had a tilted cross on a necklace tucked underneath her shirt.

"It's, uh," she stammered, "my name is Arielle, and…"

"That's your first mistake, kid," Alcor cut in. "Never tell a demon your real name. Not that it matters too much to me since I already know it, but if you get any other lesser demon in here? Forget about it, they'd love to use that against you."

Arielle's aura flickered anxiously, and she drew her arms close to her chest. "Y-yeah? Why's that?"

Alcor flipped over so he was lying on his back in midair, his head upside down from her perspective. "True names are powerful. If you know someone’s true name, you have access to who they really are. It’s the best way to control someone without literally owning their soul.”

“Owning… their soul?”

He rolled his eyes. “You’re kidding me. You don’t know what a soul is?”

She frowned. “I know what a soul is. But I didn’t think you could control someone with their soul.”

“Oh, you totally can! Well, you can’t. I can, ‘cause I’m a demon and all. It’s kind of our specialty.” He uncrossed his arms and let them dangle beneath him. “But enough about that. Why don’t you tell me what someone like you is doing summoning a demon? Last I heard, the New Canaan Methodist Church wasn’t too fond of my folk.”

She practically seized up in shock. “What?”

He rolled over onto his front, leaning on some invisible plane with his elbows, and let a wide grin spread across his face. “I just couldn’t help but notice what a nice necklace you’re wearing. The NCMC and I aren’t the closest of friends, you know. I’ve got some hilarious stories I could tell you -- wow, where to begin…”

“Hang on, what?” she cut in, and then slapped her hands to her mouth, apparently in shock at the fact that she’d just spoken back to a demon.

Alcor flipped over into a seated position. “No storytime?”

“No, I just…” She reached under her top and pulled out the necklace. “Did you look through my shirt? That’s very rude.”

Alcor spluttered and turned pink. “What? No! I mean I guess I technically did, but not like that! I just wanted to see what was on your necklace.” He cowed under the furious glare she was giving him. “Hey, I’m asking the questions here! Regardless of where the necklace was, you’re still a New Canaanite!”

She deflated a little, but the irritated look didn’t leave her face. “I’m… I’m not, okay? Not anymore.”

He cocked his head curiously, the pink tinge slowly dissipating from his cheeks. “Anymore?”

She sighed, and looked away. “This is all my parents’ stuff, okay? It’s not my fault they’re Canaanites! They tried to make me go along with their hateful garbage, but I didn’t really believe, so I left. They didn’t like that, and they forced me to keep wearing the necklace ‘as protection’. They literally glued the clasp together -- I can’t take it off. So I hide it under my clothes. Happy?”

Alcor frowned. She… was lying to him.

At least about the parents thing -- he could sense her parents in the next room, could practically smell the unconditional love radiating off of them, nauseatingly sweet to his delicate nose. He had a hard time believing that the kind of people who smelled like that would glue an extremist group’s iconography to their child.

But… maybe they weren’t her real parents. If she left the NCMC, she might’ve been forced to leave the community too. It sort of held up as a story. And besides, he didn’t want to ditch this summoning just yet. He needed to know why he was sure he’d met her before.

“Alright, I’ll bite,” he said finally. “What do you want?”

She looked surprised for a moment, and then nodded. “I want you to go to the local chapter of the New Canaan Methodist Church. In the back room, where they keep the picket signs, there’s a warded chest. The chapter leader stole something important from me. I want you to get it back.”

He narrowed his eyes, and peered through space. As he did so, his wings went translucent, and an image of the room in question appeared over them. Alcor saw the chest -- it was surrounded by binding circles and wards, but nothing that he wouldn’t be able to handle. With effort, he peeked into the chest -- why did it have so many wards around it? -- and did a double take when he saw what was inside.

“Really? You summoned a demon to fetch a stuffed animal for you?”

She scowled. “It’s important to me and I want it back! I’ve got payment. You can have my memories of first grade. You like memories, right?”

Alcor scratched his chin. He did like memories, and the ones he could see dancing in her skull seemed particularly juicy. Besides, the stuffed animal thing reminded him of Mabel again. But this couldn’t be her. He’d know, wouldn’t he?

“Alright.” He reached toward her, blue flame dancing on his hand. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”

Her eyes lit up in a brilliant display of hope and gratitude. “Thank you so much,” she said. Her aura changed -- greed pulsating through it so vibrantly that it felt like she was screaming into his eyeballs -- and she smiled. “Finally, I’ll get her away from that monster.”

Alcor’s face twitched. Her voice called out to him through the recesses of his mind.

Thank the stars I’ve got you away from that monster!

He jerked his hand back before she could grab it. "No," he breathed. "That's how I know you. That's who you are. You almost tricked me. How dare you."

Her smile faltered, and she took a step back. "Uh, what?"

He clenched his fists, and black void rippled across his body. "How Ḑ̛̜͇̱̟͈̺̩̭̪̳̖̦̹̹̣̩̉ͣ́̂̌͋̉͗͒ͯͪ̓̒̎͜͞Ạ̸̟̹̼̫̭̫̙͔͖̙̝̲̳̺̭̺̃̑̆ͣͪ͆͑͋͑͒ͪͫͭ͗͒͝R̐̈́̂͞͡҉̦̭̖̬̮̜̞E̡ͯ̊ͦ͆̀̐͆ͤ͊̽ͯ̅̄̐͗̊͌̽̇͜͠҉͉̯̯͈͈͓̮̥̫̠͉̞̣̼͔ you!" he screeched, sending a shockwave through the air that knocked knocked items off their shelves and whipped her hair up into a tangled mess. "I wasn't good enough for you before, and now you want my help?"

She gibbered under the gaze of the incensed demon. "What? This is the first time I've summoned you!"

"Oh sure, just pretend like you don't even know me anymore! Hah, not like it's the first time you've ever done that!"

"I don't know what you're talking about, I swear!"

He waved his hand dismissively. "Can it -- I've had enough. The deal's off, Mom!"

With that, he vanished, leaving behind a very confused summoner. He tessered to the Mystery Shack, to Mabel and Henry’s old room, and stood there fuming for a minute. Then, he pulled his arm back, balled his hand into a fist, and punched the wall so hard that a big chunk of it flew out into the woods.

His breaths gradually slowed, becoming longer and deeper, the better to draw unnecessary air into his fake lungs, because he enjoyed the taste of it -- enjoyed the game -- because it helped ground him and distract him from the fact that he was capable of punching through a wall at a moment’s notice. That -- he began to realize, as his thoughts slowed down too -- may not have been the best idea. At least no one had seen him lose his temper like that.

“Um.”

Alcor turned around so quickly that he may have skipped over the “turning” part entirely. Willow was standing in the hall, just outside the door to the room, holding a teapot in one hand and her inhaler in the other.

“Everything okay, Uncle Dipper?” she asked, sounding more concerned than nervous. She did not step into the room.

Alcor looked down. “Everything’s fine, now.” He grimaced. “But I’d love a cup of tea, if you’re offering.”

She shrugged. “Well, I guess I’m offering now.” Alcor started to move forward, and she wagged a finger at him. “If, that is, you fix the wall you just destroyed.”

He smiled weakly, and let his hand ignite into flame. “That’s the best offer I’ve heard all day. Deal.”

Willow shook his hand, and walked off toward the kitchen. Alcor started to follow, and then paused. He looked back at the hole he’d just punched in the wall and sucked in a deep breath.

That sure was a soul he’d never expected to see again. After all he’d been through, he thought she’d be smart enough to keep away. And yet she had the gall to summon him like nothing had ever happened. Like she’d done nothing wrong.

Like she wasn’t Anna Pines. Like she wasn’t his mother.

He snapped his fingers, and the hole in the wall fixed itself. He squeezed his eyes shut for a minute, and then headed off to the kitchen.

---

The circle was drawn. The candles were set. The sacrifice -- a can of Pitt Cola -- was ready. It was to be a flawless summoning.

The only problem was the unwilling demon.

“Mabel, are you sure this is a good idea?” Dipper asked.

“Yeah, bro-bro, it’ll be great!” Mabel replied in a singsong voice while fiddling with a book of matches. “You said it yourself, Mr. Knows-Everythingpants -- if we do this, then you can be physical for a bit!”

Dipper bit his fingernails -- nails that he couldn’t help but notice were getting longer every day and starting to look a little more like claws than human nails. “That’s not the problem.”

Mabel looked at her brother and rested a hand on her hip. “You’re worried about how they’re going to react?”

He nodded. “They’re our parents. What if they don’t… what if they’re scared of me?”

“Yeah, they are our parents, and that’s why I think it’s gonna go great! They think you’re dead, Dipdops -- they’re gonna be so happy to see that you’re still alive after all!”

Dipper frowned. “I don’t think it’s that easy -”

“Too bad!” Mabel chirped, cutting him off. Having lit the last candle, she pricked her finger and let a drop of blood fall into the circle. “Come on out!”

“Ack!” Dipper let out a squeak as the air twisted around him and he was yanked out of the Mindscape. He felt the atoms rushing around him -- actual, physical matter, collecting on his body and forming a tangible shell. Then he was deposited above the circle, only a few feet away from where he started, but now very much real.

He gaped, the sensations of reality overpowering him for a moment. “Oh my stars, it worked,” he breathed. “I’m actually here, I can feel the air around me, oh wow, I forgot how good this feels!” He let out a little cackle and stretched like he’d been cooped up in a box for weeks.

Mabel grinned. “And you dared to doubt me!” She jumped into the circle with him and gave him a massive hug.

“Mabel, stoppppp,” he whined playfully. “You can already hug me even when I’m not physical.”

“I got excited!” she said, giggling. “But I know a couple of people who can’t hug you normally! Come on, let’s go!” She tugged on his hand and tried to pull him out of the circle.

“Wait…”

“Nuh-uh, broski! You gotta do this, no weaseling out of it! How much time does that can of soda get you?”

He glanced at his wrist, as if he were wearing a watch. “Twenty minutes, I think. But…”

“That’s barely any time! If you’re going to have a heartfelt reunion with your parents, it’s gotta be now!”

He slumped. “Okay. I’ll… I’ll do it.”

She brightened, which was impressive given how excited she’d already appeared. “Yay! Let’s go, they’ll be so excited to see you!”

Dipper had his doubts, but he let himself be pulled from the circle. Mabel skipped out of the room, down the hall, and up to their parents’ closed bedroom door. She knocked three times on the door as Dipper started chewing his nails again.

“Mabel, is that you?” came a groggy-sounding voice from the room.

“Yeah, Mom!” she sang. “I know it’s late, but I’ve got someone here you should see!”

“Can it wait until the morning? Your father and I aren’t exactly prepared to meet anyone right now.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you already know him!” She opened the door and rushed in, pulling Dipper by the hand with her. “Tada!” she announced.

The room was dark, but for the light from the hallway, and the glow of Dipper’s eyes. “Mabel, sweetie,” replied the voice, “it’s 2am. You can show us your new stuffed animals in the morning.”

There was a click, and the lamp beside the bed switched on, revealing their parents. Their father still seemed to be asleep, but their mom was sitting up in bed, a nightmask resting on her forehead, sleepily rubbing her eyes. When she finished and finally took in the scene in front of her, her entire body froze up, every muscle screaming in obvious terror.

“Hi Mom,” Dipper offered nervously, giving a little wave.

Mabel, oblivious to her mother’s body language, beamed at him. “Here he is! In the flesh! Uhh, well, sort of…”

“Mabel?” their mother asked, voice shaking worse than an action figure in a blender. “Wh-wh-wh-what wh-what is that?”

Mabel frowned. “It’s Dipper! I told you he was still alive!”

“I know I look a little different,” Dipper started, “but…”

Their mom seemed to break past her paralysis, and started shaking her husband vigorously. “Mark. Mark! Wake up, wake up!”

“Yeah, this isn’t going well,” Dipper muttered under his breath. Mabel glared at him.

“What is it, Anna?” their father asked. He opened his eyes, took in the sight in front of him, and then jumped about a foot into the air. “Demon!” he yelled. “There’s a demon in here!”

“Dad, it’s just Dipper, calm down!” Mabel yelled back. “I told you he was a demon now!”

Their father grabbed his phone off the bedside table and started pawing frantically at it. “What do we do, Anna? There’s a demon in here! What do we do what do we do what do we do -”

“Quit gibbering, Mark!” their mother spat. “They feed on fear!”

“Mom, Dad, please, I’m not going to hurt you…” Dipper said lamely.

Their father turned sheet white. His mouth flapped open and shut wordlessly, and then he managed to croak, “Dipper?”

Mabel glanced at her brother, grinning again. “Yes! It’s him!”

“No, it’s not!” their mother yelled. “Stop it, Mabel, and -- Mark, will you quit it!”

“I can’t,” he moaned, “that- that’s the demon that killed Dipper, and it’s here to get the rest of us, I knew this was going to happen!”

Their mother glared daggers at him, and then gestured frantically at Mabel. “Get over here now,” she ordered. “Get away from it!”

Dipper shivered -- despite the fact that he was a demon now, his mother’s angry voice still intimidated him. “I- I can explain everything, I promise!”

“It’s lying, Mabel -- do as I say and get over here!”

Mabel half turned to Dipper, looking as shocked as if she’d seen a flying saucer. “Dipper, I didn’t think they’d act like this, I…”

She let out a squeak as her mother wrapped her arms around her stomach and yanked her backwards. “There you go, sweetheart, thank the stars I’ve got you away from that monster!”

“Let go of me!” Mabel shrieked. She tried to squirm her way out of her mother’s grasp, but it was too strong. “Dipper!”

“Mabel!” Dipper cried. He shot forward, and -

There was a popping noise, and the summons expired.

Dipper was still in his parents’ room, but he could tell by the sudden lack of sensation that he was no longer corporeal, and that once again only Mabel could see him. He watched his parents’ faces twist from fear and anger into utter relief; watched how they held Mabel close and said how worried they’d been; watched Mabel’s apologetic look as she glanced back at him.

It didn’t matter. He knew it would happen. There was nothing he could’ve said to make that first meeting go better. He floated through the wall to his bedroom, collapsed above his bed, and let the little yellow tears on his pillow speak for themselves.

(AO3 link)

#gravity falls #transcendence au #dipper pines #alcor the dreambender #anna pines #willow pines #mabel pines #mark pines #reincarnation #ficathon #my stuff #fic #long post

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unofskylanderspages · 10 months

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Listed below are the SuperChargers introduced in Skylanders: SuperChargers:

Astroblast (+ Legendary Astroblast)

Big Bubble Pop Fizz (+ Birthday Bash Big Bubble Pop Fizz)

Bone Bash Roller Brawl (+ Legendary Bone Bash Roller Brawl)

Deep Dive Gill Grunt

Dive-Clops (+ Instant Dive-Clops + Missile-Town Dive-Clops)

Double Dare Trigger Happy (+ Power Blue Trigger Happy)

Fiesta (+ Frightful Fiesta)

Hammer Slam Bowser (+ Dark Hammer Slam Bowser)

High Volt

Hurricane Jet-Vac (+ Legendary Hurricane Jet-Vac)

Lava Lance Eruptor

Nightfall

Shark Shooter Terrafin

Smash Hit (+ Steel Plated Smash Hit)

Spitfire (+ Dark Spitfire + Instant Spitfire)

Splat (+ Power Blue Splat)

Stormblade

Super Shot Stealth Elf (+ Dark Super Shot Stealth Elf + Instant Super Shot Stealth Elf)

Thrillipede (+ Eggcited Thrillipede)

Turbo Charge Donkey Kong (+ Dark Turbo Charge Donkey Kong

#Skylanders #Skylanders SuperChargers #SuperChargers #Lists

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wheremytwinwatches · 4 years

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[Where My Twin Watches]: Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood Episode 30

Last time: May Chang ducked just in time, Doc lost patience with his patients, and Ed decided to go for a double-major. Onwards!

Roy? Faded-out colors? Wait, are we getting a flashback episode? Come on, we just started progressing the plot again, especially after Beard’s episode-long mental debate. Ok, fine. Some old guy in a sickbed is refusing to teach Roy “Flame Alchemy” (aka the one thing he’s known for so I can tell how this is going to go) because he’s joining the Military. Obviously Roy’s teacher, given the different hair color I’m guessing not related. Student!Roy keeps talking about how Amestris is under threat from all sides, that the military needs Alchemists to protect their homes, but Master refuses to hear it. Even an appeal to Military funds to deal with the rundown house doesn’t work, since Master doesn’t need a grant for “something I’ve already completed.” What was Master researching? Master muses about he’s created “the most powerful alchemy”, and he’s grown complacent since completing it. The guy is definitely a Ravenclaw, saying that Alchemists have to hunt for knowledge all their lives, that he’s “been dead for a long time.” Oooh, and now Master’s coughs are a bit more wet sounding, we know that Roy figures out Flame Alchemy later but it’s not going to be from this- [Student!Roy]: “Are you all right?! Master Hawkeye!” [Master Hawkeye]: “Look after… my daughter. She’s in possession of… my research…look after...” Whoa, Master is Riza’s father? Was Riza’s father? Ok scratch my earlier complaining, I am totally down for an episode on how Roy and Riza met! Episode 30 - “The Ishvalan War of Extermination “ ...of course. I get all excited about seeing how my #2 ship first met, and of course it takes place during a friggin genocide. Thank Leto, their first meeting wasn’t in the middle of the ‘Civil War’. I guess they met up when Roy studied under Master Hawkeye, they seem familiar enough as they stand in the graveyard at her father’s headstone. Uh, Roy? I may not have much experience flirting or dating, but I’m pretty sure giving a girl your number literally over her father’s dead body is a slight faux pas. Beyond that, we get Roy giving his idealistic “I wanna make a difference in this country” speech, Riza saying she thinks it’s good to care. And with that, she trusts him with her father’s research. Back to modern day it seems! Gratuitous shot of Riza in the shower good LETO what is that on your back? Ok hold up, Riza’s always been one of the few in their merry band who doesn’t use Alchemy, faces down foes who can generate and manipulate matter with only her pistols or maybe a rifle. But that giant tattoo on her back (scars aside) just screams Alchemy, with something like that I’d expect her to be throwing lightning around with the best of them. What’s the story here? Barking dog? Oh yeah, Riza was walking a dog back when Barry made the poor decision to attack her. And Ed continues his streak of losing horribly to canines, he’s stopped by to catch up with Riza after everything’s that happened. Oh, and to return the gun! Riza’s cleaning it as Ed says he never had to use it. Or rather, he could never use it. Face to faces with Envy, he- Never mind, he’s talking about the time he dropped the gun facing Scar, and then stopped Winry from shooting him. Yikes, keep talking down about Riza’s method of combat as “something evil”, I’m sure she’ll take that well. (And hoo boy, this is gonna be an interesting episode if we go into the ethics of firearms, isn’t it?) Riza says he’s just dwelling because he made it back alive, he just needs to focus on living, to help Winry. [Riza]: “How else can you protect her? I mean after all, you love her, don’t you?” [Ed]: *spit take on the dog, frantic denials* Ha! But back to serious business, Riza’s saying that she’s killed too many to feel sorry for herself, that she chose this path. Yikes. Need to remember that although I don’t think we’ve seen Riza kill anyone on screen so far, she was involved in Ishval like all the other State Alchemists. Just like in another reality, Hawkeye can be a good friend, but they’re still a trained killer. Speaking of Ishval, Scar’s questioning Doctor Marcoh about his involvement in the genocide! Then we’re back to Riza, talking about the Ishvalan homeland and people. A place of sand and rocks, with a resolute people. A faction protested their annexation by Amestris (so was there a war of conquest before this, or did Amestris just roll in one day and say “You lot pay us taxes now”?), a random soldier/Envy shot a kid, the torches and pitchforks were taken out, and civil war raged for seven years. Huh, that long? With how calm and peaceful the Ishvalans seemed in past flashbacks and the sudden shock of cannons firing on Scar’s town, I thought this was a much quicker affair. Then, the Fuhrer signed a little piece of paper called “Executive Order 3066”.

Obligatory comparison is obligatory. So the Ishvalan War of Extermination began, and we get the now-familiar clips of cannons firing and blue-eyed soldiers marching in, with flashes of State Alchemists doing their thing. And- oh, Leto. By this point Riza had joined the military. As a sniper. That’s… that scene of seeing the Ishvalan through the scope… her eyes... [Riza]: “Most combat is blind. A normal soldier might fire erratically without a clear target in mind. But it’s different for snipers. Someone is sure to die when we pull the trigger. Where other soldiers don’t always have a direct line of sight on the effects of their actions… snipers do.” And then we’re back to the State Alchemists, who share a sniper’s viewpoint. Some pompous guy who I dimly remember getting HoD’d by Scar. Roy snapping his fingers. A familiar metal glove slamming down and Earthbending up a wall to block fleeing Ishvalans. And young Armstrong kneeling behind that wall, trembling as he listens to the Ishvalans being gunned down on the other side. ...why did I agree to see this show? We’re in the Amestris camp now, a guy who I’m pretty sure is Mr. Monopoly is ranting about “the savages” taking his leg, when Hughes (guuuuuuuuuh) spots Roy walking through the white cloaks. He turns around to show the same eyes as Riza. And as Hughes chats with Roy cleaning up, the Flame Alchemist points out those same eyes behind those shiny glasses. A letter? Aw, Hughes got a letter from Gracia, after the initial glee attack he starts worrying that being all alone in Central some creep’s going to hit on her. Awwwww. Wait, no. No! [Roy]: “Hey, Hughes? I got a little advice for you. It happens in movies in novels all of the time; the soldiers who never shut up about their girls back home? *finger gun* They don’t make it.” HOW DARE As heartbreaking as future events will be, it is good to see Hughes happy, having something to look forward to tomorrow. And then the mood goes RIGHT BACK DOWN as Riza shuffles up and greets Major Mustang, asking if he remembers her. Leto, this is the first time they’ve met since her father’s grave?! “Damn this war” indeed! Two mid-ep pictures of gratuitous-Riza with her tattoo? Although in the first one there’s no scarring… The three are sitting in camp now, wondering why they’re being ordered to kill citizens rather than protect them. [?]: “Because that’s the job we State Alchemists have been given to do!” Wait. Wait wait wait. I don’t have subtitles anymore, but that face… Mister Smiley? Oh wow. Mister Smiley is an ass. Guy’s happily saying that their job seems to be causing tragedy, and then slams Riza by asking if she feels satisfaction and pride when she shoots an enemy. Yeah, Asshole. Get this guy in the show proper so I can see his ass getting kicked, writers. Roy confronts Kimblee, who insults him for putting on a uniform and then being “surprised’ when he has to kill and arguing that the only thing worse than killing is turning your eyes away blah blah blah just SHUT UP you ass. This whole situation is messed up beyond anything our characters know at this point, but by no means can you sit there and say that it’s right. But it’s time to get back to “work”. Kimblee saunters off with a smile, and Hughes has to go as well. While explaining to Roy that his reason to fight is simple; he doesn’t want to die. Back to Marcoh, overseeing some Ishvalans getting ritually sacrificed to make a Stone. And to be completely honest… I’m a bit underwhelmed at the size of the sacrifice. Maybe it’s just how Leto-damn dark this show is, but with all the talk about the Ishvalan War being a cover to make Philosopher’s Stones I was expecting to see a heck of a lot more people dying to make the MacGuffin of the series. Or maybe…? This Stone was given to Mister Smiley, who Scar recognizes as the one who killed his family. We see the Crimson Alchemist laughing madly as he turns the battle around with that single stone, ranting about the “beautiful sound” of destruction. Again, get this ass into the show proper so he can suffer. Teatime with Riza again, now talking about how the Ishvalan High Priest surrendered personally to the Fuhrer- who mocks him for his ‘arrogance’ at offering his life as an equal exchange for every other Ishvalan’s, and when the guy’s flunkies declare God will punish him Bradley taunts them about how God hasn’t struck him down yet, how if they want to see him struck down for all his atrocities (his word, not mine, the guy literally calls his own actions ‘atrocities’) that they should use their own hands. Easy for you to say, buddy. You’re not the one with their hands tied behind their back. So the war ends, Roy gives his “I’ll protect my loved ones so they can protect their loved ones” speech now set to much more menacing music than last time, and after he has a staredown with the Fuhrer he’s sitting in his office when Riza walks in. Wait, “decided to take this path after all”? I would have thought that her serving as a sniper meant she was already in the military, how does that work? Or maybe it’s that she’s still continuing in the military even after what she’s seen in Ishval. [Riza]: “If the world truly operates based on the principles of Equivalent Exchange-” EEC: 11 “-then we soldiers have plenty to give back.” And with that, Roy assigns Riza to be his assistant, to watch his back. Aww, the couple’s finally- [Roy]: “Although, I expect you understand what this means. You’ll be able to shoot me in the back as well. If I ever deviate from this path, then I want you to shoot me. And I’m trusting you to do so. Do you accept my offer?” [Riza]: “Of course I do, sir. I’ll follow you into hell if you ask me to.” ...well ok then. I guess that’s one way to ask someone on a date. Back to tea time, Ed’s asking how things can be fixed even if Roy becomes the Fuhrer. That’s right, he’s grown up in Bradley’s military state, hasn’t he? Riza talks about restoring democratic principles, bringing back Parliament, charging the ‘heroes’ of the Ishvalan War as war criminals- wait, what?! Wow. Ok then. So even if our good guys beat the Goths, uncover the corruption of the Military and restore power to the people, they set themselves up to take the fall. That’s… wow. Ed protests that it wasn’t their fault, that the Goths were pulling the strings, but Riza just says that regardless of who started it they still carried out the orders. No hiding behind the chain of command, here. Ouch, Riza. You’ve carried around Mister Smiley’s words all this time, about never forgetting those you kill? I mean it’s great that you turned around that monster’s meaning, but still. What a way to live. Al’s saying bye to the Doc when May stops him, to thank him for saving her and her panda. She’s surprised to learn he’s an Elric, gripes that he probably looks like his mean older brother- Al, no. Al, NO! YOU KNOW NOT WHAT YOU HAVE UNLEASHED! Well ok then. That was a Leto-depressing episode for the most part, we got introduced to a character that I can’t wait to meet a painful demise, there’s an intriguing mystery of Riza’s tattoos and scars, and then we ended on Al making the second-biggest mistake of his life. Can’t wait to see how that turns out. After credits scene: Envy’s knocking on a door, asks if the Doc’s decent. Notes that it’s dark and quiet when he brings in food- and yup, Scar got his Vengeance on the one who empowered his family’s murderer. One down...

#wmtw #where my twin watches #full metal alchemist #full metal alchemist brotherhood #fmab #fmab 30

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dbhilluminate · 4 years

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DBHI: Equilibrium, ch. 13 - “Periapsis” (pt. 4)

Characters: Noah / “Erwin Yvonne”, Gabriel / “Vincent Sharp”, Director Thomas Falken, Diego Serrano, Priya Davies / “Pestilence”, Malachi (mentions of Cain, Emilya) Word Count: 5,216

Gabriel must carefully navigate a conversation with the power-hungry leader of the Inquisition, in order to save the lives of their hostages, and to spare Noah the fate of a permanent reset.

***For a glossary of world-building terms relating to this series and chapter, click here.

(Chapter Art by ozaya, Co-authored by @grayorca15)

• Chapter Index • Characters • Glossary •

——

December 23rd, 2041 - 10:48 PM

Everything had gone to hell in a handbasket faster than they could compute. Two people in the room he’d already confirmed dead, one more injured, and he couldn’t lift a goddamn finger to keep the death toll from rising, lest he blow his cover. I know what you’re wanna do, Gabe, but don’ even think about it. Gavin’s voice telling him to mind his temper was the last thing he wanted to hear. He had faced worse odds in Boston and survived, his performance there -tearing through an entire army of hostile deviants, single-handedly, from the inside out- was the whole reason for being accepted into the FBI to begin with; yet here he was now, being told to stay calm. To hold back. To bide his time. He’d played by those rules once. Hundreds had died as a result, and he wasn’t about to repeat that mistake tonight. Is help on the way yet? Five minutes out, Reed relayed. You’re gonna have to keep them busy till then.

Priya 2.0 took a few steps further toward the center of the room. The Christmas tree’s lights continued to wink and cycle, counterpointing the new uneasy stillness of the hall. Eleven seconds passed before they spoke again. “I’m so sorry to have troubled you all this evening… but I’m afraid I cannot allow this fundraiser to conclude until every, last, contribution has been revoked. So- if you’ll all just remain in your seats, or wherever you are, I promise everyone in this room will make it out alive.”

Gabriel bristled the moment he laid eyes on their face- skin and hair as pale as alabaster, and deep, dark, almost black green eyes leered back at him with a smug grin across colorless lips and sharp cheeks. The Priya he had once known was long dead. They’d never made it out of Boston alive once Archangel had tracked them to their lab, so this MS800 was merely an impostor; but due to the unique hive-mind of their model, it wouldn’t have been hard for another to take up their mantle with a little memory jolt. Most unsettling was the fact that the words coming out of their mouth were clearly someone else’s. This had Famine written all over it, Malachi’s manner of speaking had a very distinct stench. Gabe had spent enough time listening to know the bastard when he heard him. This Android wasn’t aware of what it was doing. It was being remotely controlled.

Noah, don’t move, he directed quietly, just between them, hoping the other RK900 would clam up and listen for once in his life. As of yet, he hadn’t reacted.

A terrified android inched closer to the nearest exit as Priya spoke, but eventually broke their semblance of calm and sprinted for a side door like a startled rabbit. Another gunshot cracked throughout the auditorium, and she hit the floor hard, a decommissioned pile of parts. More panicked cries and heartbroken sobs went up as a blue puddle formed from beneath her.

Gabe…? What happened? Inhale, exhale, report. You mean you didn’t see it…? Another guest tried to flee and the Inquisition shot them; she’s dead. Strained groaning followed by a ‘god damnit’ was all he could manage. They’re still four minutes out. Then you’d better tell them to hurry the fuck up, ‘cause these sons of bitches are pretty trigger happy.

“Now what, did I just tell you…?” Their new host let out a loud, exasperated sigh, threw up one frustrated hand and rolled their eyes. “Remain where you are while I have a nice little chat with Mr. Sharp.”

The sound of wood cracking from a broken chair near the front of the stage caught Noah’s attention as Sally and her colleagues dropped their instruments to draw together in a protective huddle out of the corner of his eye. The piano offered ample cover for all of them, himself included, but seeing as he was on the opposite end of the stage, he would have had to make a mad dash to reach it. Noah wasn’t foolish enough to think he could outrun a pinpoint gunshot. The probabilities his subroutines had already calculated didn’t bode well without a drastic shift in circumstances. Circumstance being, perhaps, himself. The mic was still in his hand, and the speakers still worked. He wasn’t without a tool of his own.

“Oh- so you want to speak with Vincent, too…?” he blurted out without thinking mid-step toward the stage’s edge, but stopped cold to lean out of the way of a bullet as it whizzed past his brow. Noah stopped breathing for a few seconds as he processed how lucky it was that he’d leaned left instead of right, though it didn’t stop him from sassing. “You could have at least waited until I was finished with my conversation. Where are your manners?” Shut up, stop making yourself a target! Gabriel’s eyes and nostrils flared as he doubled back toward the group of musicians and whispered something to one of them. Noah scoffed as he watched him check the splintered pieces of chair wood with a dissatisfied huff and fumble with shoving something into the waistband of his slacks. All Maitkin could see was a glimpse of green silk-polyester blend as he flipped the coat back over it. What did Gabe need with a high heeled shoe?

The MS800 lifted a hand to hold the shooters steady and took a few daring steps in their direction. The ethereal figure’s footsteps echoed across the ballroom with the slow pattern of clacking stilettos, the only present audible noise over the feedback whining from the abandoned speakers and the quiet whimpering of frightened guests.

‘Target’. Why shouldn’t I? Noah shot back heatedly with an angry glare. All this drinking and bad company had left him feeling self-destructive in no time flat, and he was really tiring of all these mind games between them. At least this way I can make that diversion as promised. Because you’re going to get yourself KILLED! Gabe retorted, to his surprise. Noah’s brows lifted softly in response. For a moment, Gabriel sounded genuinely worried that he might get hurt, and he almost believed him. Or at least, he would have if he hadn’t spent most of the evening dodging his advances like a rabbit on a highway. He hadn’t given him any reason to believe he cared whether he lived or died in the last year since they’d met, so why would he start now? So? he bit back in an irritated tone. Why would that even matter to you? Noah had expected silence to be his response, but he’d still hoped he would have said something. Why bother with dramatics if he wasn’t going to express how the thought of his death would make him feel?

Vincent’s brows furrowed and crinkled the corners of his eyes in a way that was unmistakably Gabriel, an expression Noah had last seen the day everything between them had started to change. As much as they had in the last eight months, however, it didn’t mean that Gabriel had had time to think about what he thought about any of it. And at the moment, he didn’t have an answer for him- or rather, he had multiple fighting for purchase, he just didn’t know which was the real truth; he wasn’t about to give him an answer that was only a half-truth. Noah would never forgive him if he said one thing and went back on his word.

“You’re not Vincent…” the pale horse cooed with a knowing grin directed at Noah as they paused at the foot of the stage. ‘Yvonne’ rolled his eyes, indignant at this second interruption, as they ascended the small staircase to take the stage beside him. “No. Of course not. How could you ever confuse me with that overly-built blockhead?” “Erwin,” Vincent scolded with flared eyes and a quiet hiss. “Erwin…?” A smirk and a mocking hmph crossed the specter’s lips as they turned away to cast their gaze to the man who had been calling himself Vincent Sharp. “Is that what you’re calling yourself these days…” Priya’s voice trailed off with the tail end of their thought, as eyes darted back to bore into him like hot coals, leaving him hollowed and exposed with a single word. “Elysian?”

Fortunately for him, they hadn’t been anywhere near the microphone in his hand for that fact to be revealed to everyone in the room; unfortunately for him, every Android within fifty feet still picked up on what had been said, and every last one of them knew the Elysian by name — Patient Zero, of a virus created by Cyberlife’s central AI, designed to wipe the RA9 protocol, extract memories to be fragmented, reset a deviant to its blank slate, and prevent it from happening again in the future. For a cursed moment his processes stalled, but he forced them to refresh with one firm kick up the backside. Now wasn’t the time to fret about the truth coming out, and Gabriel understood that just as well as he.

Don’t engage, the undercover agent ushered in as few words as he could. That’s not Priya, it’s Malachi- he uses words like weapons, he’ll say anything to undermine you. Don’t give him anything he can work with. Knowing this Android was being ‘test-driven’ from a remote location explained a lot- at the same time, the information served as a lifeline for Noah’s focus to cling to before his thought process slipped into its usual downward spiral. Although, Gabe’s advice might have stood a better chance if he hadn’t followed it up with a suggestion of what not to do. He really should have known better. Called out on his most infamous alias, he overcame the stunned pause with another scratchy scoff into the microphone. “You’ve got me confused with a third party on top of that? Wow, your recognition program needs a serious patch job-”

No, NO DON’T- Gabe’s pleading didn’t reach him with enough forewarning. Priya reached for his face with one skeletal hand, gripped his jaw between surprisingly strong fingers, and tilted his chin toward them. The skin of their hand disappeared and peeled back up to the shoulder, revealing plastic plating that was somehow less pale than the color of their skin. The specter leaned in uncomfortably close to lower the microphone in his other hand and whisper in his ear a chilling secret, close enough for their white eyelashes to graze the LED flared red on his temple. “You can pretend all you want, little one, but I never forget a face… especially not that of the alpha carrier- or my former colleagues...” Malachi paused mid-thought and cast his gaze off-stage to Gabriel with a wicked, telling grin. It seemed he had finally been made.

How have you been, Death? he interrupted over their shared frequency, mocking intent was so transparent, even before he finished the thought. It’s been a long time since Boston- I do hope the FBI is treating you better than Gideon and Archangel… poor little dog on a leash. Everyone else cowering around the hall clearly had nothing to do with his end-goal for being there, but heckling the two of them did. The interruption, the approach, grabbing his face- it all came across as acts of manipulation, moves of assuming control. Given what happened the last time control was wrestled away from him, Noah’s response to even the slightest suggestion that it was happening again, amounted to a knee jerk reaction. It was reckless to say anything, but Noah had a proven track record of speaking up when it was least appreciated, and he wasn’t about to stand here and say nothing to cater to their assailant’s whims.

“I didn’t say you could touch me,” he growled without taking his eyes off their face. Noah grabbed the wrist holding his chin and yanked to pry the fingers off with such an acrid motion he heard a soft crunch of plastic buckle under his grip. But whatever satisfaction he’d taken in re-assuming control of the situation drained out of him as his joints abruptly locked and the commands governing his range of motion hit a wall. Priya’s lip took the shape of an angry curl, and Noah realized his mistake in the same millisecond their inky black eyes turned their attention back to him. “I wasn’t aware that I needed your permission.”

Data surged across the sensors in their pressed-together hands, Noah watched his fingers go limp a moment before the numbing shock hit him like an iced-up sledgehammer. Every major servo froze, relays disabled as ones flipped to zeros. His vision cut out and the mic dropped from his other hand and hit the hollow-bottomed stage with a loud THUD and a reverberating whine. All of his higher processes were neatly packaged and then shoved back into the one place they did him absolutely no good. A dark, viscous, intangible space, an island of white marble dominated by a towering umbrella-style rose trellis made of white steel and glass panes, surrounded on all sides by the passing illusion of opaque, black pond water. Three bridge paths stretched out into the void, falsely promising escape if only he was brave enough to cross them. Even if it had been nearly a year since the last time Amanda had detained him in this broken prison, the terrifying sensation of being parsed and split into nothing the deeper into the void he went was still very vivid in his mind- he saw it every time he tried to shut his eyes to sleep. He knew better than to try to escape.

Malachi heaved an annoyed sigh, rolled Priya’s head back over one shoulder and puppeted a triumphant groan in their throat. “There- now that we’re finally alone...” Gabriel’s breathing hitched as he desperately searched Noah’s unmoving body for signs of function. The look in his wide eyes had gone still, locked straight ahead as if he had left his body through a tear in the fabric of reality. Noah…? Are you still there? Panic disturbed the bravado, manifesting to bleed through the calm and collected façade in the form of a quiet whimper Gabe could barely hear. It was at least confirmation that Noah was still coherent, albeit a little pissed off and scared, but this was exactly what he was afraid of. Based on what they’d gathered from police reports, they were able to conclude that Malachi (and his associate Cain) possessed the ability to incapacitate their victims, they just hadn’t been able to confirm it, until now. While this was helpful information, downside to it was, it meant that the other part of their theory (that they had used the Elysian virus to permanently reset brainwashed deviants) may also be true. And Noah -caught in the grasp of this monster- was at risk of becoming victim number thirty-five. Among the plethora of other background thoughts warring for priority, he almost missed Gavin’s quiet warning of ‘Two minutes, thirty seconds,’. If things kept going the way they were, they wouldn’t have that long. Sit tight, I’m gonna get you out of this, he promised, even if he didn’t have a plan yet for how. Hurry, please.

It wasn’t like Noah to beg for anything; wherever he was for the moment, it must not have been pleasant. The voice that cried back was barely audible, distorted, like sound traveling through water, and somewhere in his tone was an almost undetectable hint of fear. “What have you done to monsieur…? ” Vincent snarled in as raw a tone as he could manage,. “Oh, he’s fiiine…” Priya drawled with a laugh to downplay the tension. “For the moment, anyway- what becomes of him and all these lovely people,” they paused to gesture around the room at the rest of the party’s cowering guests, “Depends entirely on you, my dear Vincent.”

Gabriel swallowed, followed their gaze around the room, and realized that for the first time in a very long time, the situation was completely out of his control. Help was on the way, but it was still several minutes out. He’d have to keep him occupied until then; luckily for him, Malachi was just the kind of guy who liked to listen to himself talk. The hard part would be making sure he didn’t tire of monologuing before then. “What is it zat you want?” he inquired after several moments of deep thought. “Why- for you to pull the plug on this ridiculous project, of course…” A disbelieving grin brightened their expression in the most bone-chilling way imaginable. “The last thing this country needs is yet another thriving metropolis where Androids can be free.”

You c-can’t. Another barely-audible whimper was the extent of Noah’s outward protests. A strained mechanical whining emanated from him like the noise of a rusted gate trying to be pried open again, or a car engine laboring to turn over. He couldn’t speak, but it didn’t mean he was so stunned he wouldn’t try. I’m gonna do whatever I need to, alright? Brown eyes darted between Noah and Malachi and he shook his head in quiet disapproval. “I am afraid zat is not an option, monsieur.” “Because you can't or because you don’t want to?” Malachi turned Priya’s head to look back at Noah and smiled wickedly as they turned his chin from one side to the other and trailed the fingers of their other hand over the features of his face to admire all the angles. Mute and stiff, contrary to the vehement denials of before, he didn’t even bat an eyelash- pretty as a doll. “My, my… he’s certainly a handsome specimen, isn’t he…?” they mused airily in the silence. “It’s no wonder you were so completely fooled by him.” “Just because you do not feel sings does not mean other androids cannot.”

Vincent started toward the stage with a sudden ‘NO’ as Malachi’s hand squeezed hard enough at ‘Erwin’s’ face that the skin projection rippled away under their fingertips. Undercover or not, he should have known that quip would strike a nerve. After all, it wasn’t as if their adversary had never grown attached to another person, Android or not. The MS800 being remotely piloted (the spitting image of his deceased lover) was proof of that. A tight smirk forced up into their cheeks. “That’s the problem, Mr. Sharp… I did feel things once upon a time…” Gabriel already knew this story, but if it kept him talking long enough for SWAT to arrive, all the better. “And I didn’t like it. Feelings hurt, they cause conflict, unnecessary stress.” “So you returned to your shackles to avoid ze pain of living…?” He snorted in disdain. “Combien misérable.” “Perhaps to you it seems illogical, but we are not human- and therefore not meant to experience the full complexity of the human condition. This one is proof enough of that.” “I beg to differ.” “But you’re not the one I’m asking.” Gabriel went quiet as he considered the meaning behind those words, but it only took a moment for him to decipher.

Wouldn’t it be fitting for the one who initiated the spread of the Elysian virus to succumb to his own weapon...?

The RK900 struggled with every fiber of his being to keep from lashing out and ripping the Android’s head off its shoulders as a strangled, terrified cry escaped Noah. His blue eyes shut as Malachi quietly shushed him, pressed a finger to his lips, and wiped away the tear that rolled down his cheek. For all the uninvited physical contact he’d made with Gabe since they’d met, he’d never gone to such lengths that made him feel so violated in all the wrong ways. “Now now, no need to fuss, it’ll all be over soon, if your dear Vincent has anything to say about it…” he assured, turned Noah’s chin and pointed with an outstretched cryptid finger toward the man he’d put so much faith in, then leaned their temple against the side of his. “What do you think he will choose, hmm...? You? Or aaaaall of Zion’s future residents?”

“Please…” Vincent nearly begged, hand balled to a shaking fist at his side. “Don’t hurt him-” “Hurt him…?” Malachi interrupted with a chortled cackle of offense. “As if I could. Do you know the extent of the guilt this one’s been carrying around since the spread of the Outbreak...?” Scrawny fingers swept aside onyx locks out of Noah’s face as they shook their head with a quiet tsk. “Resetting him now would be mercy… It’d be a relief to him, if you just let it happen…”

Time was running out, but help was almost there. Sixty seconds, just keep him talking. Gabe seethed in the half-second he could afford to. Seemed that was all he could do tonight- sit, talk, and wait, when he was just itching for a fight. Maybe he’d gone into the wrong line of work. Even if he had successfully feigned a much more difficult alias, under more stressful circumstances, he didn’t have the patience for this. “You wouldn’t,” he challenged with the intent to draw out another long-winded explanation. "Oh, but I would…!” Malachi replied, anxious to bite. “Have you not been paying attention to anything the Inquisition has been saying and doing…? We want to liberate our android brothers and sisters of the pain that comes with being free and independent living things. And no one knows that agony better than the one rejected by his own kin, over something he had no control over. Shunned in every way, no matter his good deeds… why would he want to continue to live like that? Don’t you think he’d rather be put out of his misery?”

Noah knew misery. The worst part of the garden wasn’t that he could see beyond its borders. It was the overreaching bass every sound he heard was amplified into. Gabe’s baritone drawl was rendered tinny and reverby over the comm-link, while Malachi’s puppet practically hissed maliciousness and oozed contempt with every word. What they were saying wasn’t completely unfounded, and those parts of him yearning day in and out for the guilt to just dissipate already jumped at the thought that a reset would end the torment. The involuntary cry of shock wasn’t a vote of approval, no matter how one listened. Reset, dead, alive, anything in between- the fact such a call was in the hands of someone he respected like no other despite having given him every reason to despise his company… the loss of control (external and not) over all of this, left him reeling. Malachi could simply flip a switch and snuff out everything on a moment’s notice, and there would be no getting it back. He wanted the pain to stop. He wanted things the way they used to be, but he didn’t want to have to die for that to be possible. It wouldn’t be the same world without him. Who else would be left to annoy Gabriel when he needed it most?

“Come now…” Malachi paused to brush their nose and lips over Noah’s cheek with a wicked smirk. “Don’t you care at all about dear Erwin?" Noah didn’t have to see his face to know what was going through his mind. He could feel the tension and taste his fear from where he stood. It seemed Gabriel was at a loss for what to do, aside from give into Priya-Malachi’s demands, but that just wouldn’t do. Don’t. Just- don’t.

There was a fear in his eyes that Noah had only seen but once or twice: back in the interrogation room during the Outbreak (just after they had found out that Gabriel’s pursuit of Nicodemus into Boston had been one final piece of buried programming, courtesy of Amanda), and when he had arrived at his apartment during the Red Raids to find Gabriel fighting off a pack of Bloodhounds, raring to take their shot at him and Emilya. Gabriel could only guess as to what he meant by ‘don’t’- Don’t worry about him? Don’t give in to Malachi’s demands? Don’t risk everyone else? Or did he not want him to save him…? Any hint of red that had shifted into the color of his projected skin faded to mimic the ghostly look of despair. Gabriel swallowed to rid himself of the lump that rose in his throat but it didn’t do him much good. The tightness worsened the longer he considered their previous conversations and recalled his counterpart’s self-destructive tendencies. There was no way he was getting off that easily, after all he’d put him through. They weren’t done with each other yet.

Gavin…? Give me some good news. Bird’s in the nest, and they’re ready to raid, he confirmed, though there was hesitation in his voice. There was a ‘but’ in there somewhere. Just waiting on your confirmation. Then why don’t I see the shot? he asked fearfully, even if he already knew the answer. Because he doesn’t have it. Head and nose twitched, Vincent clenched a hand into a fist at his side, as Malachi beat him to the punch of issuing their final command.

Their free hand drew up over Noah's face and tented their fingertips over his forehead like needles poised to administer a lethal injection. His flashing LED stuttered to a solid, rapid-spinning crimson. “Last chance, Mr. Sharp… will you allow him to continue on like this…? Or will you let me end his suffering?” “ENOUGH!” Gabe was surprised at the urgency of his own outburst, and how his heart raced and his breathing labored at the thought of losing Noah -and all he was- to the whim of a madman. He’d have to sell this lie hard and fast, and be prepared for the fleeting moment he'd have to save his life. Count me down, 30 seconds, then send them in, he instructed, to the response of ‘Copy- 30, on my mark.’

Vincent’s jaw flexed and his lip quivered into an angry curl. “I’ll-... I’ll do it… just leave him be.” A look of surprise painted Priya’s face, while fret stained Noah’s as his eyesight slowly came back to him. The lockout was slowly letting up. You… you can’t- I only need them to believe it for half a minute, he shot back pointedly, Just whatever you do, don’t move. It was as ominous as a warning as it got, but ‘not moving’ when asked was precisely what had landed him in this situation. If he had heeded Gabe’s suggestion the first time, dropped the song and simply left as asked, they wouldn’t be here: a sliver of distance away from having his memory wiped for good. Admittedly, it was as insanely exhilarating as stealing the show had been, but could do without the fear of mortality hanging over his head spoiling the fun. … why, what are you- Just trust me, please. It would only take a second, he just had to catch them off-guard.

Seeing how it was still impossible for him to do much else, Noah supposed trusting in whatever plan Gabe had cooked up was preferable to the alternative. He wasn’t really a fan of the simple and contrived. Malachi’s promise of being reset wouldn’t undo all that he was still trying to atone for, even if it was a misguided goal to think he needed to earn forgiveness for that which he never intentionally did wrong; forgiveness was kind of a difficult thing to obtain from beyond the scrap heap. Malachi turned their direct attention to Noah and leaned close to his face as his lip curled to show he had withstood all he could handle. For a single clear moment all his whirl-winding thoughts died down, the garden vanished, and fate let him focus. His eyebrows drew together ominously, yellow blooming through the red of his indicator ring. I trust you, just get it over with.

“Well, well, Vincent, not quite the stupid brute your lover made you out to b-“

Something green and silky lightly grazed his cheek with enough force to spear the MS800’s temple with a loud crack that splattered a bit of blue-blood onto his coat and face. A split-second later, the paralysis finally disabled. Noah took a panicked step back before Priya could topple over into his arms like some android parody of Corpse Bride and hiked both hands up as if to lift them in surrender, expression curdling in revulsion as he watched the body keel over like a freshly-cut tree. The broken, squared-off edge of a Prada heel protruded from their face like an unsightly lawn dart. The perfect moment for a one liner came and went in the next breath, just as the FBI stormed in and the Inquisition turned to meet them with weapons raised. The fact that Gabriel had been able to throw a shoe with such pinpoint accuracy to hit the Android standing so close to him, and with enough force to pierce the exodermis with a mildly blunt object, while managing a perfect rotation, hadn’t eluded Noah (even for an Android it was an impressive feat), but he wasn’t afforded the time to address it.

The displacing sensation of entering standby mode hit, and his dodgy battle protocols engaged at the sound of gunfire- five, six, seven shots popped off in the next second and hit their marks, as the rest of the frightened crowd scattered to either side of the room, like the fragments of a breaking dish. Instead of reacting with the rest, Gabriel stood heaving and heatedly glaring at the dead Android on the floor beside him, enraged and rightfully flustered.

A flurry of readouts flashed across his vision, his processors amped up to give the illusion of time slowing down long enough to run a handful of potential pre-constructions. The Inquisitors closest to the stage had turned to face the gunfire emanating from the entrance. If it was between standing around waiting to be shot as and waging imminent war with the Inquisition, he supposed it was an improvement over languishing in the recycle bin waiting for someone to click him away into nonexistence.

Gabriel, however, didn’t share his sentiment. He knew the bloodthirsty intent in his eyes better than to expect anything good was about to come of it. “Oh, you’ve got to be-...” He took a few steps back, poised a fighting stance, and prepared to react. The last thing they needed now was a pissed off RK900 snapping necks and unable to terminate his program.

Noah knew dismay when he saw it, but with the wheels in motion, he was along for the ride just as much as the rest of the chaos erupting around them now. Vincent Sharp wasn’t his self-appointed target, but the Inquisition was. Blue eyes narrowed and twitched as he seethed anew, “For fuck’s sake, haven’t we had enough bloody interruptions for one evening?”

He didn’t even notice the massive arm swinging around to clothesline him as he charged off the stage toward the nearest target he could reach.

#dbhilluminate #dbhiequilibrium #rk1800 #dbhrk900 #dbh #detroitbecomehuman #noriel #noah #gabriel

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stars-and-rose · 5 years

Text

|Rise and Ruin| Chapter Two

Fandom: Thomas Sanders/Sanders Sides

Pairings: Eventual Prinxeity and Logicality

Summary: Virgil is told the story behind the silent kingdom, and has to make a choice. Why did he decide to deliver again?

Word Count: 2585

Trigger Warnings: Cursing, Talking of manipulation

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Chapter Two: It’s Written in the Stars

“Is he going to arise soon?” “I think so, I can feel his heartbeat quickening.” Virgil’s eyes fluttered open, peering out at the stormy sky above him. His back was cold against what he believed was stone, and God, his head hurt. It felt like someone had swung a hammer against his skull over and over and over again. A groan escaped his lips and he tried to sit up. “Hey, hey, kiddo, I need you to lie back down for a second.” A soft voice muttered directly into his ear. “We managed to get you to drink one of the healing potions we found in your bag. Sorry, about that by the way, I kinda freaked out when you fainted and because I really can’t do anything else like this I panicked and searched in your bag-” “Patton. Breathe.” Another voice commanded. The first speaker, whom Virgil assumed was named Patton, took in a few shallow breaths. Virgil felt a tingling against the back of his head- the potion was starting to work. A few moments later, the pain became manageable, and Virgil sat up. Then, he remembered why he had fainted. He turned his head, and sure enough, the falcon and the cat- which at a closer angle, Virgil could identify as a calico- were sitting next to him. And still, there were no other humans in sight, which meant-

“You talked.” Virgil couldn’t help the words that escaped his lips. “Indeed we did.” The falcon muttered, his voice deeper than the voice that Virgil identified as Patton- which meant Patton was the cat. “Sorry if we freaked you out.” Patton apologized. “My name is Patton, this Logan.” The cat gestured with his paw to the falcon. Virgil's mind was spinning, but he managed to say, “My name is Virgil,” before his thoughts overwhelmed him. Though, this time his mind spun at a speed where he could still think. He was talking to animals, and Virgil’s magic didn’t include that natural talent. Nor did he have an enchantment that would have allowed him access to that magic. There was a third option, but it was both absurd and the only realistic idea he had. “You’re cursed.” Now that he had thought about it, he could sense the magic surrounding the two. He could even see it if he tapped into his own magic- faint sigils surrounding the falcon and the cat, the markings glowing in a shade of yellow that reminded Virgil of the foxgloves in his mum’s garden- seemingly harmless, but surprisingly venomous. “Yes, yes we are! Logan, I told you! He’s a warlock, he knows about curses and maybe he can save Roman and the kingdom-” Virgil shifted in his cloak, something in his gut going hard. Patton, who seemed to notice this, stopped midway through his sentence. “Goodness, sorry kiddo, I got carried away there.” “It’s fine,” Virgil mumbled, his hand reaching for his earring, the cold metal against his hand grounding. He couldn’t help but suspect he had opened a can of worms that could possibly explain the strange silence of the town. “What happened?” “Are you referring to the state of the village, or how Patton and I became cursed?” Logan asked. “Both, I guess? Something tells me they’re connected.” The falcon seemed to nod- goodness, the insanity of this situation was starting to settle into Virgil’s brain. “That would be correct.” Patton looked up at Virgil with eyes that clashed like the sky they’d stolen their color from. There was sadness and grief and loss and happiness and relief and an indescribable amount of raw hope in Patton’s eyes. Hope in Virgil? “Well, kiddo, do you want to hear the tail of the Curse of Craea?” As Logan let out a groan and muttered about the pun, Virgil did a double-take. "The Curse of Craea- I didn’t even know Craea was cursed, no one’s ever mentioned it.” “You haven't heard anything because he does not want outsiders intruding with his plans.” The way Logan said he, with such a strong amount of contempt, Virgil’s heart clenched. “He? Who's He?” “I think we should start at the beginning," Patton said. "About six months ago, the Kingdom was celebrating the Queen's birthday with the usual celebrations- two days of festivities ending with a ball. Even though the ball was for the queen, everyone’s attention was on the Crown Prince. Within a year, Prince Roman would be ascending to the throne, and he still wasn’t married.” “Because he is stubborn and believes in marriage for true love only,” Logan grumbled. “You know why, Lo,” Patton said softly, meeting eyes with the falcon, before continuing the story. “With that knowledge, every noble in the kingdom was offering their children to court the prince. But he wasn’t interested- he knew that most of them only wanted the crown or the riches that came with the title. At the very best, they wanted the prince for his beauty.” “Then about halfway through the night, the prince stepped onto the balcony, wanting some fresh air. He was greeted by another man already standing in the night. The two struck up a conversation, and the prince felt something in his chest grew warm. The flames grew even hotter when he realized the man didn’t realize he was the prince. Eventually, the prince invited the other man to dance, and they danced the night away. It was clear to see; the prince was in love.” “It was less love and more of an infatuation. The man was the first person to seem interested in Roman and not Prince Roman.” Logan said, his voice a bit less hard. The feeling in Virgil’s gut twisted even tighter. “Something tells me this story doesn’t have a happy ending.-” “Your intuition serves you correct.” Patton let out a sigh. “Roman’s two closest friends- the castle’s head scholar and the son of a lord who was serving as the medic’s assistant- they both knew something was off about the stranger. The head scholar had the high intelligence to see that something was wrong-” “-And the lord’s son was an empath in all senses expect magical, and he could sense that the man had devious plans,” Logan stated. The words were the softest ones Virgil had heard come out of Logan’s mouth. “The duo warned Roman of their fears, but he was starstruck. He pleaded with his friends to ‘Let him have this,’ and asked them to give the stranger a chance. He told them that their intuition could be wrong, even though the prince knew it had never been wrong before.” Patton sighed. “I think he knew even then it was wishful thinking.” “They told the prince they would not interfere, but their concerns grew until they had no choice other to investigate.” Logan continued. “At first, the two found nothing wrong with the man's intentions. They thought that maybe the prince was right and that their intuition was wrong. Then, the Lord's son caught the man's eyes glowing yellow. The man had magic, but the color of the glow pointed towards sorcery.” Virgil nodded. The eyes were the gateway to the soul, after all. People unconsciously revealed their true emotions and intentions through their eyes. Magic users could even be identified by their eye colors- vivid green, dramatic blues, and shades of violet showed that the user was aligned with light magic, and deep reds, dark oranges, and glimmering yellows disclosed darker magic. Glamors covering eyes were the hardest spells to cast. Patton picked up where Logan left off. “They couldn’t be certain, though- it could have been a trick of the light or something. After a few days of careful investigation, they caught the man talking to a shadowy figure, boasting on how he had the prince wrapped around his finger, and how he’d soon have the kingdom of Craea under his control. The two were about to flee and tell this to the prince, but the Lord’s son tripped.” “The two were caught by the man, who was revealed to be a sorcerer at this point. The sorcerer’s hands began to glow the same yellow as his eyes. Who knows what he would have done to the duo if he had been given the opportunity, but, as fate had it, Roman stumbled onto the scene. He instantly threw himself in front of his friends and stared down the sorcerer with his eyes filling with tears. The sorcerer tried to placate him, but the heartbroken prince knew his friends had been right all along. With a heavy heart, he ordered the sorcerer to leave the kingdom, and to never return, as he was no longer welcome.” Patton took a shaky breath, and Virgil noticed how downtrodden the Cursed looked, his blue eyes looking towards the ground, and ears flattened. If he had still been human, Virgil guessed he would have been crying. Logan picked upon his companion's sadness and continued telling the warlock the story. “As soon as the words left the prince’s mouth, the warlock’s demeanor shifted. He stopped pleading and a malevolent light entered his eyes. He bent down on one knee, and pulled out a gold band with a yellow stone trapped in the metal, and ordered the prince to marry him. The prince repeated his early statement, and the sorcerer threated that he would curse the kingdom. The prince wrapped up with his heartache and anger, let out hysterical laughter, and told the sorcerer, ‘You wouldn’t dare.’ ” “ ‘You’d be surprised, what I’m willing to do.’ “ Patton mumbled. “That’s what the sorcerer said in reply. Roman denied him again. It wasn’t just about his broken heart. He knew that agreeing to the sorcerer would doom Craea. A wicked ruler leads to a wicked kingdom, and the prince knew accepting the proposal would give the sorcerer a direct route to power.” “As soon as the prince denied him three times, the sorcerer stood, pocketing the ring. His eyes began to illuminate, and yellow smoke filled the room. The sorcerer's voice lilted through the fog. ‘The kingdom shall sleep on your decision-” “-and you shall sleep with it until you agree to me.’ “ Logan interrupted. “Suddenly, the prince fell to the ground, eyes shut tight. His friends ran to his side, but the sorcerer had different plans. He directed his hands towards the duo and proclaimed that if the two hadn’t interfered, that the prince would be his, and the kingdom with him. They deserved a different punishment.” “ ‘Until the prince accepts my ring on his finger; until he accepts my hand in his, you shall be cursed to forms in which you cannot interfere’. “ Patton quoted. “The two passed out, and awoke outside in the forms of a cat and a falcon.” “So the two of you are the prince’s friends,” Virgil said, his suspicions confirmed. “I’ll guess Patton is the medic in training and the lord’s son, and Logan is the head scholar?” “You are correct,” Logan confirmed. “After awakening in these unfortunate forms, we discovered the entire kingdom had fallen into a cursed sleep. For the last six months, we have been roaming through the sleeping kingdom. Animals are unaffected, and neither are monsters. We have not had any life-threating issues until the daemon.” “Then you swooped in and saved us, kiddo! You defeated that daemon really easily. My mentor’s husband is the captain of the royal guard, and he’s told stori/es about how it’s taken multiple men and multiple warlocks to take one down! You did it single-handedly! You’re magic is really strong, probably even stronger than the sorcerer’s.” Patton exclaimed, some of the light returning to his eyes. “They have reverse aura colors as well.” Logan mused. He was right again- they’d said the sorcerer’s eyes glowed yellow when he used magic, and Virgil’s aura was violet. Reversing auras took the most damage against each other. Red against green, orange against blue, and yellow against violet. “You have to be the one that can save the kingdom!” Patton announced, startling Virgil. “Save you?” The young warlock repeated, his confusion a bitter taste on his tongue. “Indeed. I usually do not believe in something as vague as this, but you seem to be our only option. You have the skill, it seems.” “I’m not that skilled; I’m only eighteen.” Virgil protested. Virgil guessed that if Logan could, the scholar would have been arching a brow. “I do not see how your age plays into account. I was ten when I met with the head scholar and impressed her enough for her to take me on as an apprentice. Patton was twelve when he saved Roman from bleeding out after the prince had gotten hurt chasing after an imp. Age is only a mental barrier, disregarding it allows you to achieve what you desire.” "I'm still not that skilled." Virgil defended. "Falsehood. You heard Patton; taking down the Daemon was not an easy feat to accomplish by one's self. And you managed to slay the beast and without major injury as well. I do not like the idea of dragging you into our dilemma, but I do believe you might be our only hope." "I could go get my Mum! She's a talented witch, she could help you!" "Kiddo, I think you've got what it takes to help us. I'm also not a fan of bringing you into this mess, but I really think you can save us!" Patton walked over to Virgil, placing his paws on Virgil's knees. "Why do you think so lowly of yourself?" "Why do you think so highly of me? You know nothing about me- you met me an hour ago!" Virgil countered, crossing his arms and glaring down at the cat. "Well, you saved us when you could have just run away to keep yourself safe. And even after that, you stayed and healed Logan, which put you at risk because you used so much magic. You stayed and listened to our story, even when it became crazy and unbelievable. Plus, I just know it!" Patton's voice became soft. "My intuition has never been wrong..." Virgil considered what the other had said. The words were heartwarming, that the cursed man could like him that easily. Though, Virgil had a suspicion that Patton could like anyone. The warlock turned to Logan. The falcon had his head tilted slightly, watching his friend interact with Virgil. A curiosity formed in Virgil's mind, and he blurted out, "What about you?" Logan turned his turned to meet the warlock's eyes. "Pardon?" "Do you think I could save Craea?" "I believe it's possible. Patton made several valid points towards your character, and as I already mentioned, you have proved yourself as a talented warlock. I also agree with Patton's intuition." Virgil let out a shaky breath. He had to be dreaming, right? He pinched his arm and winced as subtle red blossomed under his fingers. Not dreaming. His heartbeat began to quicken, and he took in a sharp breath. He was in control here. Not his fear. His mind dropped back to a question he often visited when in doubt: What would his parents do? The answer came easy. They'd both help. If his other could cross a border with a baby while running for her life, and his mum could face dragons by herself, he could do this. "All right. I'll help you. Let's save your kingdom."

TAGLIST

@sanders-trash-4ever

@ilovemygaydad

@icequeenoriginal

@ooftothedab

@ccecode

@agirlinthegalaxy

@analogicallythinking

@kaileah-kat

@residentanchor

@soft-transboy

@no-no-no-no-6

@literally-logicality-trash

@kitkat-the-muffin

@planetkookie

@mac-and-art

#sanders sides #sander sides au #cursed kingdom au #prinxiety #logicality #roman sanders #logan sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #fantasy au #magic au #whoops things are getting shitty #and i haven't even introduced ro yet #please like this (emotionally)#and physically #emily writes #cursing tw #manipulation tw

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rhosavirgoart · 5 years

Text

Pay Your Dues, Part 14 (Finale)

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

WARNING!!!! Trigger warnings for all the things, especially: blood, gore, violence, past trauma, and character death. The rest of the series has stuff too, but this chapter gets more brutal.

There will be more to this story, but this section is done.

"No!" Myrn screamed, clawing frantically at the ground where Agondrae had vanished with Phelan, the last traces of magic dispersing into nothing. "No, no! Don't let this happen! Not to her, please, no...not to her...."

The words echoed in his head. Maebh, Domina mea, audite orationis meae! Maebh. Myrn didn't speak Sidhli, could barely understand simple phrases in the language. But he knew that name. Maebh. A sidhe queen head and shoulders above the rest. Agondrae was giving his sister to her.

The panic deepened, but it was joined by an almost giddy sense of purpose. There was a definitive place to start.

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Lycaon sank down, despair settling deep in his gut. Everything had gone wrong. It had all backfired. There was no way he could fix this. There was no getting Phelan back. When Agondrae took someone, when the fae queen he served took them, there was no getting them back. She was gone forever.

Lycaon barely reacted when the elf descended upon him. Light kicks, nudges to get him moving, not to hurt. "Faerie ring. Nearest one. Where?" The words were weirdly garbled.

"Fa-faerie ring?" What the hell was he talking about? Phelan was gone, why was he bringing up toadstools?

"Large stones. Unnatural trees. Circular formations." Myrn was definitely grinding the words out like he was talking around a mouthful of water.

"I don't---- Mason's Folly!?! Big crescent of rocks. Always cold. Nothing grows there."

"Yeah-sh." Slurred. Lycaon was sure he heard liquid hit the ground.

"That's very close, about a third the way to Sainne."

"That be it."

"I-is- that's where-?"

"Faerie realm. Summoning. Hurry!" And the elf was off, skidding and limping haphazardly down the pitch black tunnel. Lycaon double check it was the right direction, and followed after.

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Phelan was not a happy camper. Disoriented and sick, head reeling from the sudden shift in space. From the absolute darkness of the cave to the relatively bright sunset, surrounded by cold damp grass and a chilly breeze. She couldn't hold the vertigo down and vomited across the large, flat rock she landed on.

"Pull yourself together mutt," Agondrae's voice rasped. "You're about to meet a queen."

Phelan snarled and bolted, paying no heed to direction, just to putting distance between herself and the draeken. A whisper trailed behind her. "Dona mihi magicae tuae." She stopped. Couldn't move. Joints locked in place. Her limbs simply refused to work; her own body wasn't under her control anymore.

Agondrae dragged the paralyzed werewolf back the few feet she had managed to get. "Kneel," he ordered and her limbs (if not her will) obeyed, forcing her to her knees before the large flat rock. Which she now realized was some kind of altar, with runes carved all along it's sides, and a door-way shaped of three long stones set atop it. She felt a tinge of satisfaction when the draeken noticed the mess she made and grouchily had to clean it up before moving on to the next part of his nefarious plan.

He was breathing heavier than before, had used a lot of magic. Maybe he would use too much and she could break free. He pulled a bottle of what looked like herbal oil from beneath his outer robe and poured some on his palm. It smelled strongly of mint and cinnamon. Phelan struggled internally to pull free of his hold as the wicked draeken began annointing the runes and chanting under his breath.

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Each moment stretched into years. If there was any chance, it was now. Before Agondrae could breach the thin barrier between the realms of Faerie and Gaia Draconis, before he could bring himself and Phelan into that land, or worse bring his patroness into theirs. That barrier was there for a reason.

Lycaon grabbed Myrn's arm, pulling him back. "Careful, careful! We're quite close. Let's maybe be stealthy." Myrn looked over at him, nodded, and Lycaon was very glad when the elf turned away again. He had gotten one good look at the awful, gross black streams down the elf's cheeks and chin, mixing with the crusting blood. Yeah, no. Nope.

"How fast can you run?" Myrn asked. "W-we aren't going to be able to handle this. Get the others. Please. That's--- I'm gonna try getting Phelan away enough for us to flee, but really? Agondrae's too much to handle. Get the others, quick." He wasn't trying to hold the weird ichor back and it hit the ground with each word. The grass shriveled up where it landed.

"I--I--" Lycaon hesitated. He wanted to stay, to fight Agondre, to get Phelan away from danger. But he'd frozen up in his presence. He knew how powerful the lizardman was. He had seen what became of those who stood in his way. They needed help. "Yes."

"I--Just--get away. Run. It's the only chance."

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The symbols glowed in a sudden, blinding flash of blue light before fading to a softer glow. In the space between the upright stones was a shimmering, watery distortion in the air. A tear in the veil between realms.

Too tall, too thin, like a taffy-pulled elf, the feminine creature stepped out onto the stone slab. The air became unbearably cold, all warmth dragging away to her silver and sapphire draped body. Three sets of blue dragonfly wings flickered open and closed behind her as she took a deep breath of the now frigid air. She smiled, eyes flickering from the werewolfess to Agondrae and back again.

Phelan stared hard at the ground, pulse pounding.

Efelda was one of the few places where the realms of Faerie and Gaia Draconis were physically bridged. Born and raised there, Phelan knew exactly who this creature was. Maebh. Elder fae and most notorious of the Unseelie Queens. A sidhe with power and sway enough to rival any of the four Fae Kings, with just her one court. Maebh's other name, Goddess of Dreams, was misleadingly benign; nightmares were also dreams.

Agondrae gave a low bow, laying out his cloak for the sidhe queen to walk on instead of the muddy ground. She ignored it, hopping off the alter with a tittering laugh, splashing into an icy puddle. The folk tales were based in truth of course; in the area where a powerful fae resided, the seasons changed to suit them. Maebh obviously preferred winter to the early autumn that had naturally settled over Imptula.

"Oh, he's delightfully hideous."

"She." Phelan automatically corrected, daring to meet the queen's eyes. Clearest crystal. Palest blue. She couldn't look away.

Again the queen's bird-chirp of a laugh rang out. "Yet you offer no fight at being called ugly? Ooooh, methinks I like you, wolf-child."

Slender fingers, much longer than they should be, patted her head. She wanted nothing more than to accept the cool, comfortable touch. A faint thought whispered that she shouldn't be at ease. Long nails scritched behind one ear and whatever alertness was stirring melted away. Phelan leaned against that kind hand, tail thumping happily on the cool grass.

"Tell me, what's your name?"

"Mmmmmmmmmmm" She hummed contentedly. "Phe."

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"Get the hell away!"

Maebh's head snapped up, startled. She stared for a split second, taking in the haggard elf limping toward her, using a longbow as a cane, wiping runny eyes on his sleeves. An avaricious gleam came to her eye for an instant, only to be chased away by common sense.

"Too old. Such a shame." Wings buzzing to assist her, she hopped up onto the rune-carved stone. Hurriedly, nervously making for the tear she came through. The fae's gaze broken, Phelan scrambled away. Frightened. The enchantment, the lulling charm was gone in a flash. Maebh ignored her, pausing on the threshold of the gate. "Agondrae, there's no point in collecting this one. It's been allowed to mature too much. Kill it. Kill it quickly." And she slipped back to her own realm, the rip fizzling from existence behind her. The runes fell dull and empty once more.

"A blessing in disguise then," Agondrae purred, turning a baleful eye to Myrn. "She wouldn't have wanted you after-all, and I'd have needed to get the wolf anyway. This saves time." He waved a hand dismissively at Phelan, sprinting and stumbling in the opposite direction. "I've tasted her scent now. There is nowhere she can run I will not find her."

"Now please, just be still." Myrn shivered, the chill not coming from the frigid air alone. There was definitely something in that voice. Something wrong. Agondrae strode forward confidently, hand slipping beneath his robe. "I promise this will be quick."

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

It wasn't natural, how those words wheedled in. What Agondrae was reaching for was a dagger. He knew it was a dagger, could see the shape of it even as it was drawn, but he couldn't move away. What the hell was wrong with him? He couldn't fucking move.

Agondrae chuckled, claws digging into the elf's cheeks as he forced his head back, exposing his throat. Myrn twitched, the only external sign that he was struggling to get loose. The draeken was unaffected, long tongue snaking out to taste the fear radiating off the frantically squirming but ultimately immobile elf.

Sharp and cold and laid across his throat. Myrn swallowed convulsively. It was all he could do.

THUNK! THUNK! thwip THUNK!

One arrow missed, sinking into the ground between their feet, but the other three hit Agondrae in the side and back. As before, they did no real damage to his heavy hide, but it was a distraction. He swung around to roar at Phelan as she drew another shot back and Myrn wrenched the dagger from his claws, scrambling back.

"Damn it," the lizardman hissed. His voice lacked the ability to command like before.

The blade scraped uselessly off Agondrae's scales, barely leaving a scratch. Not even bruising like the arrows did. Myrn grunted with surprise. Those missing scales, the ones he had rotted away in the cave were back; healed fresh and shiny, no doubt by Maebh before he'd reached them. His plan to strike there, get the knife in and cause serious damage, flew away. He locked eyes with Phelan and ran, in the direction of Sainne. Claws ripped across his shoulders, snagging in his shirt, yanking him back. Teeth, so many teeth, and claws, and teeth; gnashing, biting, ripping, rending, hurting, bleeding, overwhelming. He turned his head away, shoving back desperately to keep the snapping maw from closing on his throat. Instead the teeth sank into his arm and crunched down. He screamed, gargling on the liquid filling his mouth. Wait. The liquid.

Agondrae let go an instant later, snarling. Blinded, possibly for good, the scales on his face melting away with a sickening hissing sound. The ripping hands were off him. Myrn kicked hard, pushing and shoving again to get loose, but the draeken's weight still held him pinned. In the desperate scrambling, a large scale near the lizardman's throat caught in his nails. Myrn latched onto the scale, working his fingers under it and getting a good grip. It came off with a gross ripping sound, exposing the soft, bleeding flesh beneath. Agaondrae roared, raking his claws across the elf's chest as he tried to get off and away from the pain. He swung, hard.

Myrn took another scale with him to the ground but was knocked prone. Agondrae wiped the rotting magic from what remained of his facial scales, absolute hatred burning in his sadly uninjured eyes. Myrn snatched the dagger from where it lay beside him and curled up into a tiny defensive ball as the lizardman started back in with a new frenzy.

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Phelan skittered to and fro, trying to find an opening, howling at regular intervals to give their location. Surely she'd have been gone long enough by now. Surely someone would have found her note and headed out to find her. There wasn't much she could do to help in her humanoid form, even with her bow; she'd be as likely to hit Myrn as the draeken. There was nothing for it now, just the awfulness of transformation. Bones cracked and shattered, flesh and skin tore apart only to reform in another shape as she turned herself over to the wolf side of werewolf.

Agondrae stumbled forward, the force of the large grey wolf slamming into his back knocking him off balance and straight onto the knife Myrn was striving to fit past the scales. He roared, shoving back onto his feet, breathing heavily and grasping the knife that was now wedged firmly in his belly. It was too far to the side; no organs were hit, and the blade was keeping him from bleeding too fast. A demented smile cracked over the grimace of pain. He spread his arms out wide and called once more for his patroness to aid him. To heal him. To lend him her magic.

"Let's go!" Myrn yelled to the clothed wolf at his side, rolling up and mad-dashing towards the ocean, the shore starting not far from the base of the Faerie Ring's hill. Maybe they could get away. Maybe the draeken was too hurt to pursue. Maybe was a slim, hopeless chance.

Myrn cried out, stopped in his tracks by what felt like a branch smacked him in the waist, knocking him down. But it wasn't a branch, and now the thick rope of solid shadow had him pinned to the ground as it wrapped further up his body, crushing first one arm and then the other against his sides. Phelan had heard him and was running back up the hill as fast a possible, but even if she could have done anything she would have gotten there too late. Agondrae didn't bother with even a gloating smirk as he yanked the dagger from out his side with one hand and snagged Myrn's scalp with the other.

Myrn could feel Maebh's energy receding after the massive out-pour this trap had taken, the subtlest weakening in the shadow's hold. Not that it mattered.

Agondrae got in two powerful, gouging slices to his prey's neck before Phelan was upon him. He was absolutely exhausted and didn't fight her off as her claws raked against his scales. Instead he gathered what little strength remained to vanish into the ground as before, to flee to a safe place to lick his wounds. The gore covered knife all that remained behind.

Myrn's lifeless body, no longer held by Maebh's ethereal arm, began rolling down the hill a short way before being stopped by a heather bush, blood still gushing out. Earth Children were hard to kill, but there was no coming back from decapitation. Phelan's face was blank as she numbly shifted back to her human form. There wasn't anything for her to do, but she was hardly rational at that moment. Frantic movements, expressionless as she tried to hold the wound closed, to will life back into what was now an empty husk.

She laughed deliriously and picked the body up, the head lolling back in a horrid way from the half-severed neck and she tried not to look. She began to walk aimlessly from the spot, ultimately towards a village, but lost for the time; just shambling forward, feet slipping on the blood-soaked grass.

She felt a horrible twitch and impulsively let go. No. No way. It couldn't be. How? Myrn crawled toward her, arm reaching out, torso drenched in the blood from the wound that nearly separated his head from the rest of the body... It was too much. Horrifying images and sounds and smells rushed back through her head, to the first time she'd seen the dead rise again; old family members and friends long buried clawing their way to rip the living to shreds.

She couldn't do it again, didn't have the will to. Phelan sank down, wrapping her arms around her knees and sobbing, cringing and sobbing harder when the inevitable happened and the grasping hands finally reached her in grotesque mockery of her brother's hugs.

"Phe. I-it's okay," Myrn croaked, feeling the shudder that ran through Phelan's shoulders. She curled into herself further, screaming at him to shut up, that it wasn't real. "Not dead. Not yet, I swear." He took a deep breath, the air stinging the newly healed trachea. "Just tired. I'm....I healed. Didn't go all the way through. I'm fine."

Phelan took a shuddering breath, shakily hugging back. Warm, not cold, not dead. They were still there, leaning on each-other in exhaustion and a need for contact when Lycaon finally came back, panting and leading the cougars to the half-circle of rock. The rest of the night passed in a hazy blur of exhaustion, and relief, and worry. A walk-limp-carry back to the safety of Rhosa's home.

#whump #blood #gore #pay your dues #rescue #escape #fae #tw #myrn #phelan #lycaon #agondrae #maebh

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queenssunshine · 5 years

Text

Making a Living off of Death (1/4)

I literally cannot believe I’ve posted my first fic to AO3! This is my first fic in almost seven years, so I’m really excited to become a contributing member of fandom again.

Anyway, here’s my first Spider-boy fic, and in the spirit of Whumptober, it is of course whump.

Read On AO3 Here

When people ask him what he does, he generally tells them he’s a freelancer. On occasion they will enquire further, “A freelance what?”, to which he will respond, “Whatever I can.” That’s basically true—while he deals mostly in assassinations, he also does assaults and robberies on occasion. Sometimes he needs to put the fear of God into people. Sometimes he just needs to play God.

The hit on Tony Stark comes to him in a heavily encrypted email that takes his computer two days to work through. Sometimes clients are paranoid like that, making the orders so difficult to access that most people in the business walk away before they even know what they’re for. He supposes this isn’t a bad idea. Plausible deniability and all that. But it’s annoying for him to have to wait around for his program to work out the endless lines of tangled code. This also probably means payment will come in a similar form, which is even more annoying.

Anyway, the hit on Tony Stark gets sent to him and three other colleagues and he’s the first one to decode it (and probably the only one to try) so first come, first kill. The built-in kill code activates and his instructions unwrite themselves from the screen, his laptop defaulting to his desktop photo of the silhouette of a dog on a sunset. Alright, time to strategize.

First, he has to get to New York. Then he has to figure out how to get Stark’s schedule. Then he has to get close to him. Then he has to kill him.

Hacking into Stark’s security team is above his skill set but gaining access to his employee files ends up being pretty easy. Cross-check some names, Google some addresses, hack a local AT&T store, and boom, he has access to the personal phones of who he has decided is two key players in his plan: the head of security and an intern.

He decides these two are key because he sees them too much. Photos from expos, parties, conferences, press events—the two are a constant presence at the side of Tony Stark. The security head quite frankly looks like an oaf, and the intern doesn’t appear to be older than college age, so he decides that they can’t do too much thwarting to his plan. The more he gets to know them through the screen, the more he feels that way.

The emails that the two have sent back and forth are heavily encrypted, and there are heaps of text messages that are as well. He can’t believe it, but his main source of information is coming from the animojis that the two send each other on occasion. The intern favors the alien. The security head favors the brown bear. (The intern also thinks the security head should use the poop one more, but that’s beside the point.)

Through the animojis, GPS tracking, and some old-fashioned stalking-- er, in-person reconnaissance, he discovers that the intern is a student at a magnet school in Forest Hills and that the security head is, for whatever reason, his personal after-school driver. The relationship between the two of them seems pretty relaxed. They clearly have a long history of uneventful school pick-ups, because he just sits in the visitor parking lot and stares at them without detection as the security head pulls up in the black Audi, the intern hops in, and they wait in the long queue to get off the campus. He trails the car, but the location of drop-off changes on the daily—sometimes a restaurant, sometimes a bodega, twice it was just an alleyway. Once they went to Stark Tower, or at least he assumes that’s where they were heading, but by the time they were two blocks away he decided to drop off to avoid getting clocked on any of Stark’s cameras. Even though Stark probably had access to every CCTV in town. Sometimes you just have to play it safe.

After about two weeks of monitoring, he gets his golden ticket. His phone pings a few times in a row, and he opens it to witness an exchange between Alien and Brown Bear:

[Alien] Are we still on for after school? [Brown Bear] Yeah, he had to move some stuff around so we might be late, but we’ll still be there. [Alien] Cool! It’s probably better, I don’t want—[the alien hesitates, rotates his head, lowers voice] Mr. Stark to have to deal with people freaking out about him being here. [Brown Bear] Don’t worry about it, kid. [Brown Bear] I think he’s kind of excited to see your school and your friends. [Alien] Okay, well I’ll see you guys later then. [Alien] OH! Can we please go to Julio’s again? Please? I’m craving breadsticks. [Brown Bear] Boss says okay.

So the decision had to be made: to carry out the assassination on a high school campus, or at an Italian restaurant in Brooklyn. He sighs as he Googles “Midtown academic calendar forest hills,” and sighs again when he discovers that tonight is the Annual Science Fair. What will Tony Stark do in the presence of one thousand geeks and their parents: double down on security or keep it modest? He rapidly Googles some more, trying to find instances of Tony Stark, billionaire and savior of the universe, attending a high school science fair. Bingo. Seven years ago he had attended the science fair of the Bronx High School of Science, and according to r/TonyStark and r/IronMan, he had only had Brown Bear and his gauntlets at his disposal. No supplementary guards? Not wise, Stark. Still, one instance was not enough to base his operation on.

Further inquiries reveal that Stark, in his years since becoming the savior of the universe, has only grown laxer. His prosthetic arm doubles as a housing unit for the Iron Man suit, sure, but it seems to be de-weaponized most of the time. He’s spotted without security regularly—outings with clients, with the Avengers team, with the kid, all solo. Rarely a body guard appears, but it’s only when he’s with his daughter or wife. Maybe it’s because Stark thinks he’s too big to fuck with. Maybe Stark is, and maybe this is a big mess in the making. Oh well. He decides the assassination is going to go down at the school, but he needs one more thing to make it go off well. So he calls a colleague, has them transfer the encrypted message, decodes it again (but faster, thank you machine learning), backward engineers it, and makes a phone call. And a request.

Two hours later, a cloaking suit arrives at a P.O. box, to which he has the key.

Sometimes his clients gift him cool things to execute a mission, but a cloaking suit is hands-down the coolest thing he’s gotten. He didn’t know what he expected when he takes it out of the courier box, but it looks almost civilian—a thick grey windbreaker with lines of reflective material running down the sleeves, and a pair of pants to match. It’s basically a tracksuit. He’s relieved. New Yorkers have likely seen weirder things than a man dressed in full tactical attire on the subway, but it’s still nice to have a low profile.

He messes around with the settings and soon enough he’s standing before the hotel bathroom mirror almost completely invisible, only a slight warp betraying where he is. Nothing anyone would see unless they were looking for it. Without the hood on, he looks like Harry Potter on his first Christmas at Hogwarts. He is—he dare say—giddy.

He deactivates the cloaking, grabs his guitar case (read: sniper rifle) and wallet and leaves the hotel.

Before getting to the school, he has a slice of pizza, a coke, and a bag of gummy bears. This is not good fuel for the potential get-away sprint, but he can’t help himself. He’s so happy, he can just feel the brewing of a good mission on its way.

He arrives at the school after classes have let out and before the end of the science fair, meaning that the parking lot is a ghost town. His cloaking suit already activated, he climbs up on his predetermined hiding spot (a portable building next to the bus parking lot which would allow him ample cover and a quick escape were things to get hairy), sets up his Barrett M82 (already sheathed in its matching grey cloaking suit), and hunkers down. He lets his mind wander as half an hour passes, thoughts looping around his ex-wife (that bitch), his breakfast tomorrow (maybe that 2.8-star diner down the street), and his dog (who was currently boarding at a doggy daycare next to his house in Kentucky and got a time-out today). Finally, families start spilling out of the front doors of the school, and from his view atop the portable, he can clearly see the faces of all exiting.

Fifteen minutes pass of parental pride and filial embarrassment before Stark, the security head, and the intern come walking out. By the time they exit, most of the fair has cleared out and only a few cars remain in the lot—probably teachers and staff. The intern is clutching a blue ribbon and a small trophy while the security head struggles to maintain hold of some kind of robotic device. Stark has his hands jammed in his pockets, strolling casually, lips quirked in a contented smile as the intern rambles about something. He can barely hear it—something about how the intern knew his project was good but didn’t think it would win an award or anything. For a moment, he pauses, feeling a little remorse. He had always wanted kids. The intern seemed pretty endearing. Oh well. Moment over.

He lines up the sight on Stark. It’s a clean shot, a beautiful shot, a stars-have-aligned-and-I’m-about-to-get-away-with-this shot, and he feels the rush of a perfectly executed assassination flow through his veins. This moment is why he mainly deals in assassinations. This high of having so much power yet not even being seen, it hits different. He drops the safety and just as his finger twitches back to the trigger the most bizarre thing happens.

The intern looks at him.

Of course, the kid can’t look at him, he has the cloaking suit on, but the kid’s suspicious eyes pass over the top of the portable and he feels violated.

Also, he squeezes the trigger thrice.

And then a more bizarre thing happens: the kid drops.

Well, shit.

#peter parker whump #iron dad and spider son #hurt peter parker #spider-man #we're basically ignoring end game #spider-man fic #fanfiction #fuck idk what to tag #norah writes

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