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Silence — Escape the Nautaloid
Woo, I finally got the chapter written and proofed. If anyone is interested, I will be writing out a combination of all 7 of my concurrent playthroughs (Tav + all the companions) and it is 100% a writing exercise and not because i have brain rot its both. By virtue of having those 7 playthroughs, it means I get to write out the romances between party members.
I'll be cross posting between here (summary and chapter below the line) and on AO3 as it goes. General tags/warnings will be applied to AO3, as well as I'll be doing chapter specific warnings in the notes section. Here will just get chapter specific ones. (Summary below the line).
Word Count: 6.8k
CW for this specific chapter includes: mentions of panic attacks, alien abduction, forced experimentation, graphic depictions of gore, body horror, implied stroke, and concussion.
Excerpt:
It felt as if her arm would be torn from her socket as she fought to pull herself up. Slender fingers curled around the clubbed tentacle, sticky and slick in the worst ways imaginable. Her mind screamed with a million thoughts—not all of them her own—and six lives that forced their way in. They did not supplant will as the mindflayers, but added to its strength; unified by the single desire to survive and live. The hallucinations took hold as dream and thought and reality collided along the Astral Sea.
Hands scarred and beaten and broken and healed haphazardly in service to a loveless god.
The delicate hands that had known no hard labor in his life despite carrying so much.
Hands thrumming with wild energy that threatened to devour his very soul.
Clawed hands of a deadly warrior dedicated to futile cause.
Rough hands of a hero who would make every mistake again if asked.
And burning hands betrayed and cursed by a devil.
Their minds lurched as one with the ship as Freya ripped the last tenuous strand of life it had apart and suddenly gravity made sense again. Her body ripped from the crashing ship along with her new companions.
Summary: Freya lost her hunting partner two years ago. And then again three months later. And another a month later. Now she's pretty sure she's cursed. And being abducted her first day back in training really isn't helping that idea. Now she's trapped, it reeks of Avernus, something burrowed its way into her head, and she has to fight a small army! Even for someone who hunts the monsters roaming Baldur's Gate, this is a little much. Hopefully she can get back home and figure out what's going on before it gets any worse.
CH 1: Escape the Nautaloid
A large crack crawled along the edges of the glass as if it itself was alive, a parasite not unlike her own. Crawling, digging, tearing its way to ruin its host. She could still feel her own. Crawling. Burrowing. Itching. Settling somewhere between her optic nerve and pituitary gland.
The illithid didn’t even disarm her, the smoothed wood of her bow the only thing grounding her from another panic attack—not that it mattered even if they did. All she knew was that horrible clicking at the base of her skull that caused her limbs to seize. Docile as a doll, trapped within her own body. She would have preferred a bed of hot nails or a pair of fangs at her throat. Hells, she would have preferred if they simply ripped her skull open with the horrible slurping she had only read of in books. But that wasn’t the case now.
She jammed the tip of her bow through the broken seal, trying with all her might to pry it just a bit more, to open it just a touch farther. To breathe something that wasn’t so sterile and soulless—even if that meant burning lungs and acrid smoke. What she didn’t expect was the stench of Avernus; sulfur and heat and blood. So much blood.
Freya collapsed onto the floor rather pathetically. The floor was a smooth, strange metal that provided no purchase or traction despite its design that reminded her more of carapace than anything she knew. The sole of her boot slid this way and that as she fought to stand, knees knocking like a newborn deer. She refused to be such easy prey.
But the violent jostling of the nautaloid certainly wasn’t helping.
The world slid and Freya braced herself as best she could. The contents of the central vat sloshed over the edges, burning groves into the leather soles of her boots. It was a creamy sort of color, thick and viscous like porridge. A shame, really. She used to like porridge.
There were people—innocents—trapped as she was. Trapped behind tinted glass held by scaled plates made of crisscrossing membrane and kept alive by things that were more tentacle than tube. Freya doubted the raised designs were simply that. Perhaps they were like veins—carrying within it the lifeblood of the machine.
Men, women, elves, humans, gnomes… She wasn’t even sure if they were alive. What was the rising of a chest and what was the pulsing of the machine?
Even among the roar of fire and the shouts of the blood war, Freya heard the creature’s claws dig their way into the metal of the ship. Crawling, scraping, desperate and dying, towards her. Her body seized; her mind went still. Consumed entirely by a single thought that was not her own.
Feed…
The dying gasp of a desperate animal—if she could even call it that. It was all the mindflayer could think out before a chunk of plating collapsed inward, crushing its skull with a sickening squish…
Do they have skulls? Freya half wondered, gazing at its now flattened head. It had burst, a particularly nasty boil that now oozed out the sides where its brain once throbbed with life. She watched pink slime trickle its way across the rapidly warming metal.
She had to get out of here before the hells melted the entire ship around her.
Freya didn’t want to think of the door, the way it twisted and churned her stomach. The way this ship was almost a mockery of something. Not wholly alien, the designs plagiarized and stripped from nature. It would be better if it was entirely new, entirely unknown. Instead, she was walking through the literal butthole of the ship. The ridiculousness of it all made it all seem worse.
Gods, I hope they aren’t all like that.
But the next room was better. Cleaner. The smell was still stale, purified in a way no air should ever be, but also dotted with sulfur and blood; two things she should never be grateful to have. But her lungs no longer screamed, her eyes no longer burned. Best of all, she knew the bodies were dead.
A goblin laid across the table—though, she more thought of it as an altar with the care and reverence the owner had left his tools. The skull had been torn open with such delicate care; the brain cavity now void of anything she could call as such. The stem had snapped, leaving the ball of grayish-pink tissue to roll about in a pool of its own liquids. A shame, really. It would have made something so perfect…
Freya shook away the thought, refusing to believe it was her own. Instead, she took stock. Even if it was rather… pitiful. A training bow. Blunted arrows. Even her armor was no more fit for hunting than her nightclothes. It was soft, pliable. Something designed for sparring. Yet, here she was, shaking and vision blurring. Fighting for her life.
Free Us.
A distant thought called at the edges of her mind. Not her own—but not a command, either. A part of her softened at the voice. Like a parent hearing a newborn laugh.
Save Us.
Her limbs moved automatically towards the platform and before she knew it, she was standing before a control panel. At least… that’s what she thinks it was. A single, pulsing orb the color of blood. Tentacles protruding from it, reaching for her. Freya reached for it, in turn. It was warm, smooth. A gentle rhythm not unlike a heartbeat. And then the platform moved.
It deposited her only one level up, surrounded by jars and vials and tubes that did nothing but house still-living organs. Hearts and stomachs and patches of skin and brains. So many brains… Samples? Experiments? Aquariums? Terrariums? Either way, there was a primal kind of fear rising up in her at the sight. Something that she was never designed to see—no one was designed to see—and it was put on display as one would a collection of insects. To be pretty and pinned and studied and cherished.
The worst of it all was the twitching form in the chair. Shirtless, scalpless. The only things left of the elf was a blood-spattered body and an echoing voice that in no way belonged to him. Here. We are here. If Freya wasn’t so close, if she hadn’t seen the floating tentacles and the rhythmic pulsing of his exposed brain, she might have mistaken him for a lord sitting atop a throne. A dark, spiked throne of chitin and spines. His head lolled back and forth as if to say ‘no,’ the echoes of his final words still playing on repeat even though no sound came out. No no no no no no no. His mind was gone, his body a husk on autopilot.
We are trapped.
Freya approached with caution; her footsteps as soft as she could make them despite the pounding in her head.
Yes! You came to save Us from this place, from this place you’ll free Us! Please, before they return.
They return, the voice echoed across her mind, consuming all thought and supplanting it with its own.
No brain should move. No brain should twitch, quivering in excitement and anticipation. Freya could not help but study it, the squishing mass of tissue that had swollen to fill the entirety of the cranium. The edges of it were darkened, misshapen and discolored from its beating against the skull that held it. Blood vessels spread out from the center, curling and reaching through to every crevice. It reminded her of trees or vines or winding rivers on a map. It was an image of life itself, now perverted into something slopping and disgusting.
“Why do you sound so afraid?”
The enemy! So many enemies. As if to invoke pity, tears streaked down the elf’s face. A constant, steady stream that washed away the bloody stains. Or worse, there was something left of the man. Left in a silent scream of pain and agony as his very will was ripped and torn by tiny claws.
“You’re past the point of saving,” she pleaded to the man, not the brain. “I can’t—”
The voices drove into her mind like an icepick; a hundred, a thousand, a million of them. Her father, her mother, the children she would hear running between the streets at dawn and dusk, her coworkers chatting it up in the tavern… her partner. Please! We are newborn. Remove us from this body.
Freya grit her teeth against the onslaught. The idea of manipulating her—using pity and memories that in no way belonged to anyone but her—was enough to drive her over the edge. She gripped the brain, digging scarred and callused hands between the squelching tissue and smooth walls of the interior skull. Clear liquid splotched out onto the ground at her feet as her fingers dug deeper, displacing whatever remaining spinal fluid still lingered underneath.
The newborn screamed, piercing and painful. Whether it was calling for help, or begging for mercy, she did not know but it only spurred her on. It, in turn, was clawing at her mind. Digging mental claws, tearing and biting at distant memories she would better preferred stayed buried and forgotten—anything to save itself.
She dug deeper still, slipping deft fingers into the furthest recesses of the skull as she searched blindly for the spot dead center—the dull, constant thud of the heart of a dying man pulsing its way through his arteries and into a brain that was no longer his. Freya tore through the circle of veins with ease, more blood than she always thought possible slopping onto the ground.
And then it was quiet. Sweet, sweet, silence as she tuned out the raging infernos and battle cries just beyond the walls.
Something had torn into the side of the ship long before she had awoken, exposing what could only be described as open bone and straining tendons to the searing heat of the hells. A strangely sweet scent on the air—sickeningly so—as the tissue shriveled and burned and died.
Freya made her way back to the platform, and from there the floor below. She had to get out of here, had to escape. Even if it meant traversing Avernus itself; she would sooner sell her soul willingly than have it forcibly taken.
Carapace-metal turned to squishing flesh. Her boots sunk into the new terrain, a welcome adjustment from having to constantly fight the frictionless surface. Especially as the rush of air nearly knocked her over, the great beating of wings as two red dragons rushed past in a torrent of fangs and claws and fire. They weaved through the air, dodging beams of psionic energy before tearing the canons away and tossing the scraps into the valley below. Even in the hells, surrounded by an ever-burning sky and flying over a river of lava, she could feel the heat of their breath. Her skin crawled at the heat, feeling the memory of her face puckering and scarring over again. A faint waft of oil and a bad memory.
Still, this was not what had Freya on edge. That kind of sixth-sense, the one where the edges of her hair stood on end and had her taking back alleys she normally avoided crawled its way up her spine. The sense of being watched; of being hunted.
Her bow was braced and primed before the Githyanki landed, the roar of yet another dragon soaring overhead. “Abomination. This is your end.” The sword was at Freya’s chest, mere centimeters from tearing through the leather and sinking into her flesh. At the same time, she was mere seconds from releasing the string and sending the arrow flying into the Gith’s eye.
They were at a stalemate, as far as she was concerned. Either run her through and die in the process, or disarm her and give her time to run. Even blunted, arrows could do damage if they were aimed well enough.
The two were on the ground before they could realize what was happening. The pounding, throbbing pain of memories flooding both their minds. Of dragon wings and tearing fangs, of silver swords and poisoned tipped arrows. Of each other as seen through the others eyes.
One tall, one short. One lean muscle and the other strong. The copper skin of a wood elf beside the green and black streaked skin of a Githyanki. Each under prepared, taken by surprise and held and used as nothing more than an incubator.
Both hunters in their own right.
“You are no thrall—Vlaakith blesses me this day! Together we might survive.”
“Then what do you suggest?”
“First, we must exterminate the imps.” Freya looked over the Gith’s shoulder, finding the tiny creatures tearing away at the innards of a fresh carcass. “Then we find the helm and take control. We can address the matter of a cure once we reach the Material Plane.”
Lae’zel took off running before she could even respond, blade arching its way into the skull of the imp. It’s twin set of horns split, the curved bone all but shattering from the force. It gave a short cry, one no more suited for a babe, let alone a demonic creature. There was something almost… excited in her motions. A happiness Freya understood. Of not being stranded and alone in all this.
Freya stayed further back, allowing her new companion to take the brunt of the attacks for her if she was so insistent on charging into battle. The Gith had armor—she could take it. Bow in hand, the weight at least familiar if useless. She drew the string, knocking her arrow with it in one practiced, fluid motion and took aim between its ribs.
Her eyes blurred, limbs shaking, as that thing crawled around inside her. She could not aim, let alone target the weakest points of the imp as it danced around the sky. She doubted she could hit a simple target in her state… Freya shifted her attention, instead aiming for a much larger target than the tiny space between two equally tiny ribs.
The arrow pierced its leathery wing, tearing delicate veins that would leave more bruise than any deep wound. Even still, it collapsed to the ground, the force of the shot sent it tumbling off the edge and into the chasm below. No wings, no flight. And it being a million miles from the ground… The only thing she regretted was losing the arrow, making her already dismal supply even worse.
A beating of wings lost in the torrent of wind; she didn’t realize it was upon her until the blade bit into her shoulder. The curved edge of a scimitar—as long as the imp was tall—narrowly missing her ear. Freya swore, realizing the remaining flying pest was smarter than she would have liked. Her arm was useless in this state. She backed up, feet dragging against the metal so she would not trip and make her situation worse. At least, until she felt her heel teeter on the edge, nothing below but decrepit earth and endless war a million miles below.
It glided forward, beating of its wings matching Freya’s heart. Its eyes burned like fire, but held nothing but cold and pain and promises of a torturous eternity no matter if she lived or died. Closer and closer, perhaps wanting to inch her off the deck of the ship rather than sully its already blood-stained blade. Curved talons reached out, not to strike but to push her that last half-step into the chasm below.
Freya sidestepped the fiend the moment it came within reach, the creature only finding empty air. Horrible screeches of anger, one that made her ears bleed and resolve steel, left behind nothing but an empty promise as the elf drove a blunted arrow into the literal fire of its eye. The blaze turned to a single, fading cinder that could just as easily be snuffed out by a pair of fingers. Its body went slack, crumpling to the ground. If she hadn’t just killed it, she might have mistaken it for a prop or toy of some rich noble who pretended his life was worth more than it was.
“Ugh!” Lae’zel screamed, silvery blade slashing wildly through the air as the final remaining imp dodged between attacks. It taunted her, tongue out blowing raspberries and throwing rude gestures with every missed hit. The Gith was panting, seething, out of breath far sooner than she was used to.
At least Freya wasn’t the only one suffering any ill effects.
Her shoulder screamed with every motion, its tendons now nothing but thin strands trying desperately to hold her together. She knocked the arrow, drew back the string. She aimed, watching as the tip shook with each shuttering breath and the world blurred from a mixture of pain and tadpole. It—the fiend—danced and fluttered as gleefully as a child between each attack. She would never be able to hit it, not with the Gith swinging and the creature dancing… But she had to aim at something.
The arrow went loose, Freya shifting her weight and her aim at the last possible moment to account for herself and prayed to whatever god that could hear for it to miss its mark. The blunted tip veered off course almost immediately, striking the imp through the back instead of the glinting red gem of the Githyanki’s armor. It collapsed, dead.
“Tchk. Perhaps you are not as useless as I believed, after all.” Lae’zel kicked the fiend’s head, confirming its death.
Freya reached down and picked up the scimitar with her good arm, the weight of it unfamiliar and the rapidly heating metal causing blisters where it met her skin. It was another option, at least. And it would have to do—swinging wildly was a better chance to hurt something than her bow. She just had to pray it wasn’t herself.
Or Lae’zel.
The Gith took off running, leading the charge with an eagerness Freya only associated with the apprentices.
Webs of membrane spilled out over the ledges. Of course, she would have to climb in her state…
But the glowing mist of a machine beckoned her. Thousands of thin, strand-like feelers with bulbus tips, a strange blue fluid leaking from them. It smelled of fresh rain and sweet wine, brandy and herbs and the first peeling of a fresh orange. It smelled of her rest periods, the times between hunts when she had herself and silence and possibly her dad as he visited after his own work.
She stepped onto the platform, textured and shell-like and alien even compared to the rest of the ship in its organic nature. The mist surrounded her, the fluid dripping and evaporating on contact with a hiss. There was no pain, no itching, not even a numbness as her shoulder stitched itself together, layer by layer, fiber by fiber. Not even a scar, just fresh, healthy skin.
“Hurry up,” Lae’zel called from the top of the membrane rope. “The Ghaik do not wait, nor do the hells.”
The top was more chitin-metal, seemingly untouched by the heat and the blasts of devils and dragons. Another puckering door that gave way at the slightest intrusion, and beyond it a monolith of spines.
An elf and a human and a tiefling, not bound but held prisoner all the same, slept in some form of deep statis. Each one wearing the same clothes, baring the same crest that itched the back of her mind with its familiarity. A downward triangle, a front facing skull locked in a grimace, and a bloody handprint to cover it all.
Their energy was being sapped, stripped away by the altars they lied upon and fed into the monolith in the firm of twisting, red energy. The interior of it pulsed, spasmed as if it itself was living. Like a leech or vampire, feeding off of the hapless victims. Though it was not lifeblood it stole, but something equally as precious.
Freya just did not know what it was.
The control panel in front of it was comprised of more tentacles and wet tissue. Massive orbs she could only describe as tumors gave a soft glow about them, each one labeled with a strange word she could distantly remember in a book but otherwise ascribed no meaning. She was not sure what was button, what was lever, what was joystick, and what was merely design.
“You!” A panicked voice echoed behind tempered glass from across the room. “Get me out of this damn thing!” A woman with dark hair and silvered armor, bearing religious iconography across her entire being—eclipses and shadows.
“I’ll look around—there must be some way to get this damned thing open.” Freya craned her neck, looking at the pod and its construction. It was wrapped in a strange energy she had not seen before—red with flecks of a golden orange. There was no latch, no lever, not even a hinge to show it was capable of opening… she had pried hers off. Was she truly only alive because of another fluke?
“Tchk, we do not have time. We must reach the helm!”
Freya ignored her companion’s complaints. “The pod’s stuck fast. I’ll look around, there must be some way to get this thing open.”
“The contraption next to the pod! They did something to it when they sealed me in!”
The console was dormant, unlike the counterpart she had previously found. The life thrumming through it was minimal, possibly asleep or dying. Cancerous bulbs only gave a faint pulse in time with her breaths. Freya punched it, her fist digging half a foot into the fleshy gray matter-like tissue before her momentum slowed to a stop. She pulled back, a sticky strand of clear mucus trailing behind it. Ugh.
There had to be something, anything, to save someone. And then there was: an empty socket.
Now if only she knew what was supposed to go in it.
“It’s missing a piece! I’m going to look around, see if I can’t find something—”
“Please!” the woman cut her off. “Hurry!”
Perhaps the next room would have a key or a hatch or an escape. All Freya knew is she could not leave the girl with shadowy eyes. She could not save everyone, but she could save someone.
But, gods, she hated these damned doors.
She wasn’t sure what to call the chamber, a suspended platform above a cancerous mound of sticky flesh. An antechamber? An observation deck? The six thrones spoke of unequalled power and the central pod said nothing but voyeuristic torture. Even the architecture expressed only violence.
At first, Freya mistook the statues for wasps, with their long, curved thoraxes that tapered to an unsettling point. But the lack of legs, of wings, gave her pause. More larva than insect, with the piercing maw of a spider and the thousand legs of a centipede. She could feel it now, squirming and crawling and nestling deeper into her brain. The pointed stinger dragging, leaving trails of pooling blood that blurred her vision and numbed her limbs and confused her mind.
The room was a monument to all things absolute.
Absolute power.
Absolute control.
Absolute perfection.
The two of them stepped over a dead body, a human that looked stronger than either of them felt at the moment. Another escapee, another runaway. A failed one, at that. Clutched in her palm was a single key. Something she was desperate enough to die for… Freya took it, slipping it in her pocket.
Another pod stood front and center. Harsh lines, plated chitin, but it was not pulsating. The tubes that ran in and out were dead and dull, the once living prison now more like stone. The woman inside was trapped, too dazed to realize who she was, let alone the danger she was in.
But she was moving. She was moving and blinking and breathing and—“We have to find a way to open it. Get her out.”
“We will not! Our mission is the helm, not to waste our energy on every ishtik we come across.”
Freya whipped around, trying her hardest to ignore the way the world was suddenly doing summersaults. The woman was fidgeting, palms itching and shoulders pinched and teeth bared in such a way that it betrayed her thoughts. She itched to reach back, pull the gleaming longsword from its sheath and strike through Freya’s body in one swift motion.
But she didn’t.
Her palms itched not from impatience, but from beads of sweat that made Lae’zel too uncomfortable to be in her own skin. Her shoulders pinched not as an enraged animal, but as something cornered. She bared her teeth like fangs only because she had none.
She was afraid.
“One less captive, one less mindflayer. One less threat.”
Her new companion bounced impatiently. “Our mission is the helm. Not this,” she restated. But otherwise, Lae’zel made no motion to flee, or strike, or otherwise betray her.
There was another living module at the far end, riddled with cancerous tumors and sticky tentacles. Freya reached out, tentatively and sunk her hand into the very center of it. She had a vision of it—of reaching into the proverbial lion’s maw and hoping it did not bite back.
A voice, one so distant and indistinct that it could not be understood, echoed in both their minds. To be born, to perfect, to be changed…
The woman in the pod screamed. One that stole her breath and threatened to tear her throat with its intensity—but it was muffled. She beat desperately against the glass as every muscle in her body seized. Her neck strained, snapping violently to the side as her limbs jerked violently in the wrong directions. Her bones snapped, commanded by a higher will to destroy itself in order to be born anew. Violet tentacles tore their way through her throat and out her mouth, choking the last of her life away before consuming her in its entirety. A face, a brain, crawling its way outside a fleshy prison and into the light the way a hatching might break its egg. The woman’s body flipped inside out, destroying anything of her that might have been saved. And then there was a mindflayer.
Dampened behind tempered glass, the woman’s last acts of humanity had been to make sure that her “saviors” knew the pain and torment they had condemned her to. Freya wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or a curse.
“Kaincha!” Lae’zel swore. Freya might have not been able to speak the language, but she understood all the same.
Fuck.
“We must be purified, or this may be our fate!”
“No arguments,” Freya responded. There was no fight left except that of survival.
The two ran back to the previous room as fast as they could manage and gave another cursory glance. To find explosive, acids, poisons, weapons of any kind that may help them survive the waking nightmare they were in.
The same woman from before continued to beat against the glass, desperate for escape as they were. Freya was about to leave her and save her own skin if it hadn’t been for the damned chest and Lae’zel.
The reliquary was odd in its normalcy. Something mundane, inanimate, yet resting atop a nautaloid table as if it belonged. A deep purple, obsidian or perhaps a rough amethyst, and wrapped in gold. And locked. Very very locked. The key clicked in place, turning with no resistance and revealing a meager contents. A few coins. A small gem.
An alien-looking slate.
It called to her; sang in that special way she had come to associate with everything nautaloid. Another key, this one begging to be placed back in it’s socket like the piece of a puzzle. Begging to be made whole once more.
There were no screams, thankfully, when Lae’zel pressed a hand against the button of the central control panel. The sleeping forms feeding the great machine spasmed, purple spikes of energy snapping through the air and piercing the very fabric of their minds. They collapsed in silence, died in silence, and now bleed out onto the ground in silence.
“What the hells?!”
“We dealt with ghaik your way. Now, we try mine.”
“They were not ghaik,” the word felt strange on her tongue, a series of sounds she was not used to stringing together in such an order. “They were people! They were—”
“They were nothing but tralls feeding the Grand Design. Your saving,” she spat the word. “Only invites death upon us.
Lae’zel stalked to the woman’s pod, prepared to continue her slaughter. “No! Please!”
Freya ran as fast as she could, shocking the Gith woman with her speed. She flung herself between her companion and the pod, arms out to protect from whatever attack she had planned. “No more death! No more loss!”
“Then you invite our own! A thrall cannot be shown mercy—”
“A thrall who’s begging to be let out? Afraid to become a monster?” Lae’zel stood speechless. “She is no more thrall than you or I, Lae’zel.”
“I would appreciate it if you did not debate my death while I’m standing right here!”
Freya ignored her, continuing. “She is conscious, and she is talking, and she is as much afraid as you or I.”
“Those worthy of Vlaakith do not know fear,” she spat, but otherwise did not refute the statement. The Gith leaned back on her feet. She did not concede ground but did not advance, either. Freya carefully stepped over to the dormant console, only turning her back to the Gith and the pod when she was forced to.
The slate slid in without effort, locking in place as alien muscles contracted and held it there. The same strange red and golden light emanated from the center of it, as if it had been infected by an equally alien disease. It pulsed, a dull thud that sounded in the back of her head as much as it did in front of her. It was not a mind, but a beating heart… what would happen if she killed it?
The parasite squirmed in Freya’s head as she reached towards the console. She could feel the web of veins in her brain strain and tear as the creature burrowed deeper, contented with the soft warmth of fleshy gray matter that gave way around it. Her vision blurred again, the side of her body suddenly feeling numb.
But then the sensation was gone, the discomfort fading into the dull ache of dehydration and sore muscles, and a new one flooded in. A familiarity of being held, of never quite being alone. An intimate connection that whispered power and belonging and control. Authority.
Freya clung to that feeling despite every cell in her body screaming otherwise. She was in control. Her will would supplant all others.
Even the nautaloid itself.
The pod would open.
She felt the command buzz across every synapse of the living ship at the speed of thought. Processing. Considering. Yeilding.
The pod shifted, the chitin plating parting as the glass slid away on unseen hinges. The woman stood on her own two feet, prepared to take her first steps to freedom.
Perhaps it was the sudden shift in pressure, of stale air being stolen from her lungs and flooding back in with the caustic smell of smoke and antiseptic. Perhaps it was the adrenaline crash, her body realizing that, for a brief moment, she was safe. Either way, eyes rolled back and her knees buckled. She collapsed onto the floor.
“Pathetic,” Lae’zel spat.
Freya ran over, sliding onto her knees in an instant to help the woman up.
“I—I thought that damn thing was going to be my coffin. Thank you—” both of them keeled over in pain, minds lurching into the familiar but unwelcomed dance. The barest glimpses of memory—distant and shadowed as the rest of her—and gratitude and wariness. No one helped without cause, and there was a Gith standing behind both of them.
“She’s an ally,” Freya responded to the question before it was even asked.
“We will take the helm. Escape and cure us of this infection.” As if it was a simple wound to be cleansed.
The woman nodded. “We’ll need all the help we can get. Let’s get off this thing together.” She stood on wobbly knees and took a few tentative steps before a moment of realization came over her. “One moment.” She turned, fetching a discarded pack from the floor of her pod. A red vial, a scroll, and a strange device that she seemed too keen on hiding from her new companion’s watchful gazes. “Lead the way.”
The helm had been right around the corner, a simple right instead of the straight path they had originally taken. “Follow my lead once we are inside,” Lae’zel commanded.
The door spiraled open onto a long interior, the chitin floor melted and burning under the hellish fires of Avernus. Literal devils slashed away at the tentacled freaks—mindflayers. One locked in a deadly conflict, blasts of psionic energy warping the very fabric of reality around them as the devil took stab after stab with a flaming sword. A second combatted his own further back before he was disarmed and forced to his knees.
The alien creature wrapped its tentacles around the devil’s face, forcing the moist appendages down its throat so the devil would choke. A horrible, shuttering noise came from the mindflayer, more akin to a drill bore than anything normal. Blood spirted in wide arches, decorating the alien in a veil of glory as it slurped the brain from its cavity and the devil fell down limp. Freya had never seen one feed before. And, based on her companions’ reactions, none of them had.
Imps crawled their way into the room from between cracks and open windows, like parasites themselves. One, two, three slashes across the Illithid’s body and face and arms. Its own blood intermingled with the devil’s. It did not matter what was what or whose was whose; they both collapsed beside one another in death.
A blast of psionic energy pushed the last remaining devil flat on its ass, buying the creature enough time to survey the destruction around it. The alien’s eyes met Freya’s and immediately formed a mental connection.
Thrall, connect the nerves of the transponder. We must escape. Now. Command. Authority. Pleading. Fear. Desperation. Impotence.
It could only pray she obeyed, its mind immediately dragged to more pressing matters as the Devil stood itself up and cleaved into its side.
“Heed its command,” Lae’zel said. “We will deal with the mindflayer once we are back in the material plane!”
Freya took off running without a second thought. She didn’t even notice the hellish creatures tearing through the corpses before her until the hellsboar took a swipe with its burning tusks. It gouged into her leg, cauterizing the wound the moment it was made. So, she kept running.
An imp erupted into golden flames before collapsing to the ground at a single wave of the shadowed-woman’s hands. Fuck, Freya swore to herself. How could she have forgotten? Maybe she wasn’t as useless in a fight as she thought.
Two more creatures collapsed around her as Lae’zel picked off imp after imp with her bow. Part of Freya hoped the Gith was providing proper cover and not just blindly aiming and praying that she missed enough in the right direction to be useful.
Freya left the cambion devil and the mindflayer in the dust, each step reverberating up her legs painfully with the force of pushing herself faster and farther than she was capable of in the moment.
The two struck at each other desperately, the mindflayer too dazed and weak to be useful anymore. The cambion, on the other hand, was deadlier than ever. Its ever-burning blade tearing through lilac flesh with all the diabolical grace Freya had come to associate with the Nine Hells. The battle was almost laughable—but she was more afraid in the moment of what would become of them if the ship fell before its time.
“Incante!” Freya screamed, a newly summoned hellsboar erupting in golden light before collapsing to the ground, a charred husk of an already charred husk.
She was so close. So, so, so, so, so close to the transponder. To the writhing tentacles that controlled the ship. To home.
With a final scream, the mindflayer fell; useless in death as it was in life. Freya did not have time to survey the scene, to find out who the Cambion would reach for next in its slaughter. She hardly had time to think, being so incredibly close to the end of it all.
The shadowed woman stumbled, the heavy armor she wore suddenly unfamiliar in its weight as the ship lurched. The final master now dead, the ship was dying. The Gith took an unaimed shot, desperate to distract the fiend long enough to buy time. It went wide, a mere nuisance in the way a particularly annoying fly might have been, and the cambion lifted its blade to strike a critical blow. One that would cleave the woman in two, leaving her bleeding out on the floor of the ship until the heated air dried it to flaking clots and empty breaths.
Freya gripped the tentacled arms of the transponder, delicate feelers reaching from the clubbed head. It latched on to her in turn; consuming, feeding on her very will. She grabbed a second one at random, forcing the two ends to meet in the middle. An endless loop, the ship feeding off of its own dying energy. The tentacles went taught as a string. And, like a string, she flicked it. A gentle hum reverberated throughout the ship and the surrounding air.
The ship lurched again more violently than before. The cambion lost his footing mid strike, sending him flying into a curved pane of glass, cracking it, as gravity suddenly had no reason. The blade spun through the air, having been lost in the fiend’s fall. Spinning, flipping one end over the other until it finally sunk with a final thud and though its wielder. Web-like designs crawled along the pane, cracking and breaking until, finally, it shattered and the cambion fell through to its death.
Lae’zel found herself suddenly on the ceiling and then again splayed across the floor. Her weapons scattered to the winds as her lungs protested the lack of air around her. A familiar pain, one she had grown used to in her travels between planes and across the Astral Sea. Her body willed itself to breathe, willing the very fabric of dreams to solidify into oxygen so she would not die. No, in Vlaakith’s name she would. Not. Die.
Freya clung desperately to the tentacles of the transponder, her own lungs burning and her limbs screaming with the strain of holding on in the violent tumble out of Avernus. Gravity ripped this way and that, no rhyme or reason as the ship drove at impossible speeds to worlds unknown. They had to go anywhere, anywhere, but here. Anywhere in the material plane—anywhere close to home.
It felt as if her arm would be torn from her socket as she fought to pull herself up. Slender fingers curled around the clubbed tentacle, sticky and slick in the worst ways imaginable. Her mind screamed with a million thoughts—not all of them her own—and six lives that forced their way in. They did not supplant will as the mindflayers, but added to its strength; unified by the single desire to survive and live. The hallucinations took hold as dream and thought and reality collided along the Astral Sea.
Hands scarred and beaten and broken and healed haphazardly in service to a loveless god.
The delicate hands that had known no hard labor in his life despite carrying so much.
Hands thrumming with wild energy that threatened to devour his very soul.
Clawed hands of a deadly warrior dedicated to futile cause.
Rough hands of a hero who would make every mistake again if asked.
And burning hands betrayed and cursed by a devil.
Their minds lurched as one with the ship as Freya ripped the last tenuous strand of life it had apart and suddenly gravity made sense again. Her body ripped from the crashing ship along with her new companions. She fell a hundred feet, a thousand feet, a million feet to the rapidly approaching beach below, fully conscious yet strangely calm in the face of her impending death. A searing pain in her skull as her brain collided with the interior of it.
#baldur's gate 3#bg3#balders gate 3#bg3 spoilers#astarion#karlach#bg3 gale#shadowheart#astarion x tav#gale dekarios#lae'zel#slow burn#my writing#fanfic#shadowheart x lae’zel#shadowheart x halsin#wyll ravengard#wyll x karlach#gale x lae'zel
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Fools prayer pt8
Part 7 here
Part of this shows Vivec’s perspective from voryns dream visit.
———
Vivec: *tucked into his bed after nerevar finally left him to rest for the evening. His body still sore but healing, though the pain was greatly overshadowed by the immense sense of relaxation and exhaustion washing over him as his aching muscles felt the comfort of a warm, soft, cushioned mattress for the first time in so long*
Ordinator: *steps to his bedside gently taking the now empty teacup from his hand as he ‘begins’ to fade into sleep* did you enjoy your tea, Hla uripe? (Little amusement, insult implied)
Vivec: *so utterly exhausted for a moment he didn’t even register their words* hla uripe?… tea?… I didn’t drink any- *opens his eyes to see himself no longer in his bed, but another he’d once been familiar with long ago… when his reputation was little more than a concubine to the Hortator or whomever would feel the want to have him. The blankets and cushions in shades of dark blues, rich greens, deep reds and warm yellows, and the canopy above lined with glass and carapace lanterns illuminated in a rainbow of colours, all dancing off the thin veils of purple and pink silks, and shining through the heavy smoke of incense in the air* I can’t- move… *turns his gaze to his bedside as he sees a familiar figure from his path step into view from behind the curtains surrounding his comfortable nest* voryn…
Voryn: *golden skin practically glowing in the lantern light as he sits down on Vivec’s beside, a seemingly friendly smile on his face from the red of his lips, but lined with a cruel malice with the sharpness of his eyes as he admires the empty cup in his hand* of course you can’t. I drugged you. You wanted to serve Nerevar tonight, didn’t you?
Vivec: *seeing directly through the illusion before him. Having dealt with voryns tricks long before he’d become dagoth ur and the house of shadow turned his enemy, but deciding to play along to see just how far he’ll draw out this memory and see if he remembers just as much as he does* I did- I do- *catches himself off guard hearing how young he sounds before blinking once more and looking down to see a golden illusion over his blue dunmer half* I owe him my life, every thing I am belongs to him why did you drug me?! My body feels weird! *whines and tries to squirm, not to try and actually move, but to mimic the memory exactly as he remembers, seeing more and more cracks in the illusion as voryns friendly smile doesn’t turn to unfazed amusement, but a dark, cruel grin*
Voryn: shhhh. *leans down gently stroking his cheek* don’t fret. I merely wanted to have him for myself tonight. You serve him so loyally without rest, I thought you might benefit from my little trea-
Vivec: did you forget the part where you allowed the guards to rape me while I lay helpless as you walked away to seduce nerevar?…
Voryn: … *smirks dropping the illusion, his gold skin melting away in the smoke of the incense to reveal ashen grey beneath it, his third eye glowing bright as it stares down at him* hm… you always were so annoyingly clever. It seems not much has changed… except… well.
Vivec: speak.
Voryn: I seem to be overflowing with power with no one to care for, despite the villain you wish me to be. And for all the good you’ve done, you’re scraping for change in the dirt to feed those you abandoned-
Vivec: I abandoned no one! *snarls trying to move, to push him away, to strike him, and failing as his sleeping body refuses to wake for his dreaming mind* All of this! It was all your fault!!! If you hadn’t of-
Voryn: if I hadn’t of what? Vehk?… Ohh right. Become dagoth ur… and whose, fault, was, that? *leans in close as the vision of the bedroom around them gives way to the boiling interior of red mountain and the heart chamber where vivec enacted mephalas orders*
“VIVEC PLEASE!! DONT DO THIS!”
Vivec: *closes his eyes tight wanting to cover his ears as nerevars terrified and agonised cries echo throughout the chamber* n-no- no I I was just-
Voryn: listen to him vivec. Listen to him cry for you. Listen to what you did.
Vivec: *unable to escape the memory as he recalls so vividly in his mind how he cut down the man he’d devoted his life, his heart to* no! No I was only obeying Mephala! She tricked me! She lied to me! I thought I was doing the right thing!
Voryn: you murdered us… you murdered him, when all he ever did was love you. You condemned us to that mountain. You turned me into dagoth ur. You convinced him to leave me with that accursed heart!
Vivec: *sweat pooling on his brow and tears pricking the corners of his eyes as voryns words cut into him like knives and nerevars screams become deafening* IM SORRY!!
*silence*
Voryn: *gaze softening having gotten what he wanted* I forgive you, vehk. *gently smooths the younger mers hair from his face, holding his hand as he watches vivec breath deeply, so close to unravelling in his grasp* you were lead astray by the so called, good daedra… and they only made our sweet nerevar do their bidding further, not only against you, but me as well, and in turn, him too. You know better than anybody their cruelty, you know the pain I’m burdened to carry. No matter how much you may despise me… it is an agony we share… and when at last nerevar is at my side, I promise you, you’ll be taken care of…
Vivec: n-neht?… at your side?… taken care of?…
Voryn: yes, we will bring a new age of light to our people, the good daedra can harm us no f- ARGHH! *falls back in shock as Vivec finally pushes himself from his body and through voryn, right into nerevars mind* neht? *opens his eyes to find himself in the doorway of nerevars room, staring not at the Hortator passed out at his desk, but the golden mask on the floor by his safe*
Nerevar: *jolts up from his desk as he opens his eyes in fright* Ah- wh-what? I- huh- *pauses seeing him standing there* Vehk, what are you doing up? You need to be-
Vivec: *walks past him and his desk to the mask, bending down and picking it up to feel it’s very real weight and cool touch against his hands, sending dread deep into the pit of his stomach knowing that voryn was indeed here.* …Mephala… didn’t lie to me completely then… *looks to him with fear lingering behind his eyes* Dagoth Ur was never the true threat… it was Voryn. *sets it down on his desk and shakily hugs his robe tighter, feeling the shudder of fear and a cold sweat on his brow, even in his dream state* I expect you’re used to him coming to you in your dreams by now?…
Nerevar: *eyes widening in a mix of concern and suprise* he… came to you as well?
Vivec: he… *sighs recalling it* he did… I almost prefer my visits to cold harbour over his presence in my sleep… *meets his gaze as the Hortator stands and grabs his cape as he approaches him*
Nerevar: he didn’t hurt you did he?… *gently drapes it around his shoulders*
Vivec: *smiles from the gesture, his heart feeling a deep warmth that seeps into his soul, that they could return to such friendly, comfortable familiarity so quickly despite all that had happened* no… and I think that’s what scared me so much about it… I opened my eyes and he was at my bedside… he promised I’d be, looked after, when he’d at last he by your side again… so I pushed my way out of the dream and came to find you- *gasps as he’s suddenly pulled back from nerevars mind, and directly into voryns, the taller dunmer holding him prisoner from behind as one hand holds his arms, and the other his neck* Let me go!!
Voryn: Shhhhhh *leans over his shoulder kissing his cheek with a feathery, but firm touch* you’ve always been such a brat, running to tattle on me to nerevar. Can’t you see I’m trying to offer you a gift? I only want what’s best for you and our neht. *slides his hand further around his neck, his thumb and index finger grasping his jaw and holding his head steady* you want to help people don’t you?… you want to look after, your, people, don’t you? You want to be loved by them right? How can you continue doing that as you are now? Desperately hoping your mask will be enough to keep you going forever.
Vivec: *eyes wide as he tries to turn his face to look at him* how did you- ahh- *whines softly as voryn firmly holds his head in place*
Voryn: Because your heart is so, predictable in its kindness. *rests his chin on Vivec’s shoulder, loving how he struggles feebly against his grasp* you’ve seen it yourself, the good daedra have abandoned us, abandoned their people, the temple has become greedy, they abused your gifts, they abused your love. And now they abuse our poor sweet Nerevar as he tries to make everything better, Just join me at my side and we can make it right. Forgive our past and We can bring forth a new era, together.
Vivec: *wanting for a moment to give into him, knowing deep down his words are true. He’s powerless as he is now, and Nerevar is much the same, the temple is corrupt, the good daedra lead him astray, and the suffering won’t stop until change comes… but even then how could he trust him as he is now, after everything he’d done to him, after how sneaky and conniving he’d been with his intentions in the past* …No, I can’t- I won’t.
Voryn: *smirks letting go of his arms and sliding his arm around his waist as he whispers into his ear* perhaps you need more convincing then.
Vivec: I don’t need- *blinks and immediately pushes back into voryns embrace as overwhelming horror and fear shocks him to his very core. The void before him gone and replaced with the burning, crumbling magma of what once was the heart chamber in red mountain. And where the brass tower once stood, now replaced with mephalas still breathing, mutilated body. And from her open rib cage, the heart of creation, no longer just that of lorkhan. To it now bound not only Voryn, but so too now the lady of whispers, the lady of twilight, and the dark lady… the daedras forms and cries twisting in and out of the beating mass as they struggle to break free from their subjugation beneath Voryn Dagoth* wh-what have you done?…
Voryn: I punished them, as they did me. Isn’t it beautiful? Bound to the heart, bound to me, they will finally serve their people… *snickers and sighs fondly* and now, you can’t get rid of me like last time, because if you do. *nuzzles into his ear and whispers with a soft growl* They die with me. *bites his ear hard*
Vivec: *jolts awake and shoots upright in his bed, gasping for air and crying out in a mix of fear and shock, from both voryn, and the two ordinators at his bed side trying to wake him from his nightmare* n-nerevar! Where’s nerevar- *coughs*
Ordinators: shhhh lord vivec please breathe, here drink some water we’ll fetch him for you- where did this cup come from?
Vivec: *eyes wide, staring at the almost empty teacup left behind by voryn, filled with a now sold, black substance, ebony… his blood* v-voryn, he was here- he was here he was actually here nerevars in danger I need to protect him it’s all my fault I should have had more faith in Mephala I failed everyone it’s my fault-
Ordinator: shhh- shhh lord vivec we’ll inspect the area for signs of a break in-
???: Vivec?
Vivec: *turns his gaze to the door looking pale as a sheet, sweat coating his brow and body feeling cold and numb as he realises with mounting horror what his refusal to continue following Mephala had actually done* he actually did it…
we… we can't kill him.
Nerevar: what do you mean he did it?… what do you mean we can't kill him?…
Vivec: the heart… he bound the good daedra to it with him… mephalas plan. My actions… it was all for nothing. *swallows a lump in his throat* It's my fault… I should have never turned my back on her…
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Distorted Mirror throwaway snippets for trashed sequel: Broken Mirror
TLDR: Nonny is sharing the ideas originally planned for Distorted Mirror that was pushed into Broken Mirror, the sequel that will never be
Idk if I blatantly mentioned that originally had a sequel to Distorted Mirror or if it was just briefly mentioned in asks here and comments on ao3, but i never got far in actually planning it out. After all, Distorted Mirror was supposed to be a short oneshot lol, and was supposed to have a oneshot sequel but look where it brought me haha!
Anyways, Distorted Mirror was planned to be a oneshot, yes, and in its planning phase I had some ideas that didn’t really fit in the story outline. So I put the thought aside for a sequel and focused solely on plotting DisMir.
After finishing DisMir… ch.3? I think? I revisited these tossed ideas and tried plotting out how I could fit these and line them with some questions unanswered by the completion of DisMir, because I knew there would be some left since the final chapter’s summary and outline was already planned out.
For example, I pushed Leo’s possible Krangification out of DisMir entirely, hence the repeating notion of Leo’s cautious demeanor about the filtration masks and strike of fear after seeing what Michelangelo did to that infected person. This idea was moved to the “possible” sequel, which explains the snippets I have provided. vvvv (check the Read More)
Following that note, while struggling to fully write out the final chapter of DisMir, I was also struggling to plot out the summary, ideas, and outline for Broken Mirror. It just wasn’t hitting the same way DisMir did, and I didn’t want to force a sequel so I kind of pushed the idea aside to my little mind vault and finished up DisMir.
It would be a little bit of a shame to let these snippets die in my little mind vault, and since I’m not writing anything at the moment, I thought I’d share them. :)
First snippet: possible idea #1 @ 1.4K words
Leo rests his chin on the kitchen table as he stares at the wooden statuette. His eyes stare deep into the wood’s carving that resemble a pair of eyes staring back at him. He hasn’t been able to make sense of the strange markings engraved into the ends and the sides, nor has Donnie been able to make progress.
No matter how long he stares into the statue’s eyes, he still can’t make sense of how this small item is the key to the prison dimension.
This is what kept those… those things trapped for years? This tiny thing? He’d rather believe that the future brothers of his were lying, but he knows better. He witnessed how horrible the Krang are, he even has the scars on his carapace to prove it.
But how does this keep them locked away? And how did his future brothers let it slip away? What happened that they couldn’t retrieve it in time?
How long had Donatello been thinking about this key that he knew exactly how the key got to the Foot Clan’s hands?
What happened to them after he changed everything? Are they okay? How are they dealing with Prime?
A soft knock interrupts Leo’s thoughts, alerting the slider who looks over his shoulder to see Donnie standing in the kitchen doorway.
Leo sits up and turns in his seat to look at Donnie. He whips up a quick smile and picks up the key to spin it in his hand, “Hey, Donnie Boy, what do you need from your new leader?”
Donnie flicks with his thumb a small purple cartridge at Leo, who fumbles with the key before catching the object.
“Had your fun?” Leo asks as he raises a brow and shakes the cartridge lightly. It’s half empty. He sets the key back on the table as he watches Donnie pass by him.
Donnie plops himself at the seat adjacent to Leo and crosses his arms. From the look on his face, it wasn’t easy to decipher the contents of the cartridge, “It’s like… herbicide. I don’t know, it’s a weird combination. It’s got some strange ingredients in it—some I don’t even recognize—but overall it’s a herbicide.”
“That’s it?” Leo asks as he flips the unlabeled cartridge in his hand. An everyday herbicide can kill a possible Krang infection? That’s all he’s inhaling? “Then, can you make another?”
Donnie rolls his eyes and reminds, “I can replicate a herbicide, but this is a different story. Like I said, there’s some other components that I don’t recognize. I get nothing on my scanners but there are some mystic properties in it.”
Leo nearly jumps out of his seat, “Mystic? What kind of mystic? Did you check with Draxum yet?”
Donnie snarls and he narrows his eyes, “I’d rather gouge out my eyes than work with him.”
“Come on, Donnie, we have to know what are in these inhalers,” Leo asks with a smile. He knows Donnie can replicate the serum. He only needs the assurance of having the antiKrang substance.
Donatello told Leo to let Donnie watch over his vitals upon returning. Nothing has come up since he left the future, and Donnie told him that there aren’t any traces of the Krang infection in his system.
But just knowing that there are extras will ease his mind.
“Then you talk to Draxum. If he has the time to research the mystic properties in this inhaler in between the hours of ‘Mystic Class for Mikeys’ and ‘Warrior Lessons for Raphs’,” Donnie says as he crosses his arms over his chest and narrows his eyes at the reminder.
Leo nods but doesn’t say a word in response.
Ever since the initial scare when he was gone, as retold by his brothers when scolding Mikey, the box turtle has been attending lessons with Draxum to properly use mystics. And as excited it makes Mikey, it really takes up a majority of the box turtle’s time. They’ve hardly seen Mikey outside of leadership training, only spotting the box turtle in passing or eating alone at the table before zooming off to Draxum’s lessons.
Although Leo isn’t certain whether anyone else has noticed or if he’s imagining things, he noticed a small hair beginning to sprout on his little brother’s head.
Raph, on the other hand, has been fueled by the fiery passion to become big and strong like his future counterpart. He’s taking fighting lessons from Draxum, usually when Draxum isn’t teaching Mikey.
Donnie rolls his wrist, “But besides that, who’s to say they’ll actually be able to figure it out? Mystics are a finicky source that fails to follow any sort of rules. We can’t even bullshit our way to a solution.”
Leo sighs and leans back in his chair, staring at the key that stares back at him.
Donnie’s right. They need a plan. He can’t go back to the future for a reason that isn’t absolutely necessary. He’s fine. Donnie said so many times.
But the way the key is staring at him doesn’t ease his anxiety.
He clears his throat and asks Donnie for the umpteenth time, “Am I really clear? —of the infection.”
Donnie nods, his voice clear and without hesitation, “I’ve checked every morning and night. I haven’t seen any foreign bodies in your lungs. You’re clear, Leo.”
Leo nods. He feels a little better. Just a little. He never told the specifics behind the Krang infection and what he saw Michelangelo do to that Infected. Donnie is only aware of the infection’s ability to “Krangify”. The softshell doesn’t know the stage where there’s no going back, where Michelangelo burns the body to a pile of ashes. But Leo’s just glad Donnie’s willing to reassure him again and again.
“Thanks, Don,” Leo responds and turns the key away from him.
Donnie nods, “It gives me an excuse to record your—.”
It happens too fast for Leo or Donnie to comprehend.
In one blink, Donnie is about to finish speaking. In the next blink, a blinding light bursts into life on the kitchen table. Then the light becomes a cracked, golden ring. It widens until a figure shoots through the broken opening before disintegrating. The figure, consumed in a multi-colored flame like a meteor, crashes into the stove.
Donnie is quick to grab a ladle from the rack above the kitchen table and point it at the crash site. Leo reaches for a sword that isn’t there.
And the figure sweeps an arm over its body before revealing a teenage, human boy. A boy wearing dystopian clothing, armor plating his chest and shins and elbows, a hockey stick thrown to the ground, black hair held back by a hockey mask, and smelling like iron and smoke. The boy looks up at Leo, eyes wide and beginning to tear up.
His scratchy voice croaks softly in pure disbelief, “Dad…?”
Before Leo can respond, the boy’s eyes flicker to the purple cartridge and they narrow immediately. The boy’s gaze is hardened and he launches himself forward, tackling Leo to the ground.
“What the—,” Leo begins but stops short when the boy’s knee presses on his plastron. He tries to push the boy off with his hand but the boy snatches the cartridge.
The boy breaks open the top of the cartridge and shoves it into Leo’s face. His voice comes out hoarse and demanding, “Breathe it!”
Donnie cocks his hands back, ready to swing a frying pan straight to the back of the boy’s head. But the boy is quick, a metallic arrow is shot from his forearm, revealing a grappling hook. The arrow hits the side of the frying pan, knocking it out of Donnie’s hand and making it fly to the sky and fall directly on the softshell’s head.
Leo glares at the boy for Donnie’s sake, a smile creeping on his face as his foot reaches for the same frying pan. But he stops when a stray tear drops on his cheek.
The boy’s holding back his tears as he demands, “Inhale the medicine, please. I can’t lose you again.”
“Again? Who the hell are you? Where did you come from?” Leo asks as he gives up on reaching for the frying pan.
The boy swallows but doesn’t pull his hand away from Leo, “I’m from the future. I was sent back to stop the invasion, starting with you and the key.”
Leo’s brows furrow in confusion, “What invasion? The Krang? They couldn’t have come back, we have the key.”
The boy shakes his head. “No, not the Krang.”
“Then who?”
The boy doesn’t speak but the answer reflects in his eyes. The blue mask and red streaks stare back at Leo, giving him his answer.
So, Casey Jr would make his appearance not as the baby that played an Easter Egg roll in DisMir, but as the boy we see in the rottmnt movie. (Did anyone notice the little movie throwbacks and Easter Eggs in DisMir?)
CJ Jr returns with a similar mission as the movie, but with a twist. He comes back to prevent and stop a death and catastrophe from the future. The future is overrun not by the Krang, but by the Krangified Future Leonardo Hamato, whose death reignites the flames of war with an unknown enemy (I couldn’t decide on whether to bring a new enemy or bring in the Triceratons, which become a huge predicament in plotting Broken Mirror)
And then we have the other possible time traveler, which follows a near similar plot to the previous snippet. Present!Leo is pinpointed as the beginning of the end, whose abrupt infection ignites a new war. (Again, couldn’t decide if I wanted to bring back the Krang or not)
Second snippet: possible idea #2 @ 414 words
Leo shields his eyes as a blinding purple light bursts from the cracks in the walls. Almost reforming, the walls crumble and bulge before a new shape takes place. It’s like his portals, but purple and reminiscent of Donnie’s mystics.
A large figure collapses through, a cape covering the entirety of the stranger’s body.
But the mystery of the stranger’s identity doesn’t stay for long before they lift their head, revealing a dirty purple mask.
“Donnie?”
Leo’s beating heart from the sudden scare doesn’t slow, as this Donnie is nothing like any of the Donnies he has met before.
This Donnie is large, larger than Donatello. And for a brief second, he believes it truly is Donatello. The same Donatello from the future that believed in him from the very beginning, broke the rules of time travel and warned him of the key.
But one look straight into this Donatello’s eyes tells him it’s all wrong.
This Donatello isn’t missing an arm, replaced by a purple prosthetic. But he is missing an eye, a leg, and a piece of his plastron. He is covered in endless scars, but not a single one reaching his back. He has abandoned the metallic shell, replacing it with a mystic shell. His staff is caked in dry blood and pink guts.
And worst of all, he glares at Leo. A deadly glare that nearly threatens Leo’s life.
“Donatello” rises slowly, using his staff to hold his weight before grabbing the cartridge and shoving it near Leo’s face. “Take it properly,” he orders coldly.
Leo can only stare at this new Donatello in shock. He’s nothing like the Donatello he met. Who is this guy?
“Donatello” nearly growls out, his patience running thin, “I won’t say it twice.”
Leo takes the cartridge carefully, trying not to touch Donatello. He rummages through his non existence pockets before shrugging, he smiles to defuse the situation, “Oops, I don’t have my inhaler.”
“Leo, I don’t have time for your games. Take the your medicine, and give me the fucking key,” Donatello demands angrily, clearing his throat with a painful cough.
“Are you okay?”
Donatello glares again, “Yes. But you won’t be if you don’t take your fucking medicine. You still have it in your system.”
“That can’t be, Donnie said I’m clear,” Leo corrects as he closes his shaking fist over the cartridge.
“Listen to me, you still have it in your system. And you will be the end of us all.”
I kind of liked this idea more as it contrasts how kind and more welcoming to Leo DisMir F!Donatello was to the new timeline-branch F!Donatello who is immediately threatening and hostile upon first meeting.
Imagine being Leo in this position. Reuniting with, at first glance, the future counterpart of your twin who helped you not only accept the heavy responsibility of being a leader but also broke the rules of time traveling to make sure you don’t face the horrors of an—at the time—ongoing war against an alien race. Not to forget to mention who hid the secret of the true reason behind the invasion and the lost key, because that’s how much your twin loves you…. Only for it to be a completely different future counterpart who pins all the blame of a worse future on you.
Sad stuff, but also wasn’t enough to get my writing gears gearing, you know? I needed a struggle for them to go through that wasn’t shallow or easy to wade through. The ideas I had weren’t “enough”, per say.
Anyways, hope you liked these snippets and my little rant. (Definitely not little, but a rant nonetheless) A lot of thought goes into the writing process and sometimes it just doesn’t work out, sadly :(
I think that if I had more inspiration or more of a writing feeling or fuel, this could’ve been done. Maybe I could’ve gotten a plot line started for Broken Mirror. Maybe. Oh well~
#rottmnt#rottmnt fanfiction#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#rottmnt casey jr#rottmnt future donnie#rottmnt Leo#rottmnt donnie#distorted mirror#distorted mirror au#broken mirror#rottmnt leo au
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Perfect Paradise Ch.14:
The Risen are Ridden with Rhythm and Dance
Summary: On the Shadow Path.
-----------------------
"How disturb-ox," Caramba muttered, rubbing the "chin" of his short, round, yellow exosuit.
Looking through the data on his other arm's wrist screen. Caramba paced the length of the Chaos. Occasionally glancing at the waters of the Seine below.
"How did they open a vortex without a Blix?' Carapace asked.
"They didn't," Cece slid down the mast onto the main deck of the Chaos. "The astronomical rings you described are an Aerian dimensional anchor. They must've waited for a vortex to open in the general vicinity of France and redirected it to Paris."
Rena Rouge smacked her fist into her palm. "That's why it didn't close! They were keeping the vortex open because it was their only way back."
"But what were they after?" Carapace asked.
"You have a matriarch in that zoo of yours don'tcha?" Zak pointed out.
"The Blix? Isn't it a bit big?" Rena held her hands up and moved them apart to represent the relative size of the giant jellyfish and the pirate ship.
"Never stopped them from trying before," Cece replied.
"An entire dimension between her and the Triangle and these boneheads still can't leave her alone. Typical," Zak muttered.
"I hear you dude," Carapace said.
"It was definitely one of Caligo's missing ships." Caramba pulled his robotic limbs in and rolled his spherical exosuit towards Cece. Popping back to his feet and showing her his wrist screen. "Look at the engine signature."
"Caligo?" Rena asked.
"Admiral Caligo. He's the only skeleton with an eye patch," Zak explained.
Rena Rouge's brow furrowed. "Why would a skeleton need an eye patch?"
"What's more surprising is that you can detect anything at all, little dude," Carapace said.
Caramba opened the face screen of his exosuit. The small green alien grinned, single antenna bobbing. "Wahoolian technology is far more advance-ox than Earth standard. The only civilization that comes close is- No, I shouldn't say."
"Spoilsport," Rena muttered, disappointed at not getting a hint.
"If my calculations are correct the rate at which viable vortexes are appearing outside the Bermuda Triangle is stabilizing," Caramba stated.
"That's good. Right? That sounds good," Carapace observed.
"It's within expectations," Caramba shrugged.
"Huh?" Rena gave them a confused look.
"Remember when I unlocked the Triangle twenty-ish years ago?" Zak asked.
"Vaguely."
"Vortexes started opening sporadically across the Earth due to so many dimensions of null-time being... Reattached, so to speak," Cece explained. "The imbalance only delayed the stabilization process. Now that Carapace's ward is in place it appears the metaphysics of the Triangle is making up for lost time."
The present members of the Seven C's laughed at what was probably an inside joke.
"Hear that Turtle dude? Progress already!" Zak held his arm up for a fist bump. Carapace obliged.
"However, it does mean that more vortexes are safe to travel through," Caramba said. "Usually exiting the Triangle would send you back to the time and place you entered it."
"But skeletons were never ones for rules," Cece said.
"Neither are we," Zak grinned.
"You think they'll try again?" Rena Rouge asked.
"Unlikely. Timeline pirates have to contend with the temporal authorit-ox of Timesters, your own Bunnyx and the anti-paradox magic of the Bermuda Triangle itself. Coming back is just asking to get caught."
"Silver lining. I'll take it," Carapace grinned.
Zak rubbed his hands together. "Great! Then we're done. And since we're already here might as well go sight seeing!"
"Uh, don't you think an Atlantian and a Wahoolian will attract attention? Paris pretty much assumes anyone weird is an akuma nowadays."
"Rena Rouge is correct Zak Storm," Cece agreed. "We would stand out."
"I've thought of that!" Caramba raised a finger and then brought it down on a device in his hand.
A holographic field spread out from it. Zak's sword vanished. Caramba appeared like a short, pudgy boy in a yellow shirt. And Cece's clothes changed to more surface appropriate attire. Her hair was still pink but the scales on her forehead and the points of her ears disappeared.
Cece touched the invisible fins along her forearms to make sure they were still there. "And this is why Atlantians don't like visiting the surface."
"Aw, c'mon!" Zak wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Already walking down the ramp. "It'll be fun! We can visit an aquarium if you get land sick."
"Very funny, Zak Storm."
Caramba stretched his exosuit arm from the walkway on the bank of the Seine to pat the Chaos' hull. "We'll be back before you know it!"
The Chaos' eyes glowed briefly as he acknowledged their departure.
Rena glanced down at them, still on the deck, and pointed. "Should we?"
Nino waved her concern away. "Ah, let 'em be tourists. They deserve a break."
"I thought you said there were seven of them?"
"Yeah, two of 'em are spending time with family in the Middle Ages and one's in the Golden Age of Piracy. Apparently."
"Shut up!"
"I'm serious! Time doesn't flow linearly in the Triangle. You know that, dude."
"I keep forgetting that they're older than they look."
"Zak and Cece are about our age."
"They look twenty!"
"Yeah, they don't spend much time outside the Triangle... Or at least Zak doesn't. Atlantian dudes do age slower than us."
"I'd be jealous if it didn't come with temporal displacement trauma."
"You still look beautiful, dude."
"I'll have you know that I'm not the type of girl who fools around with another man's husband."
"Ha, ha," but Nino couldn't quite hide his smile.
(Read the rest on AO3)
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Turn Left Ch 17- Strippers and Red Sand and Mercs, Oh My!
Shepard and Garrus take on Fist, and hilarity ensues (death and desctruction of course)
CW: gore, violence, self harm, PTSD, drug use
Relationship: Femshep/Garrus Vakarian
Archive Warnings in author's note
Additional tags: enemies to friends to lovers, slow burn, slow build, alternate universe- canon divergence, detective noir, sex club, anonymous sex, canon temporary character death, murder mystery, drug use, dom garrus vakarian, whump, smut, heavy angst, alien sex, dual pov, an overly sexual elcor named candy, earthborn, ruthless, fake/pretend relationship, dead dove: do not eat, identity porn, minor character death
Detective AU mixed with identity porn mixed with so much whump my fingers are bleeding
(or, start from the beginning here)
lil text blurb:
Garrus stiffened next to her once they reached the Lower Ward. “We’re being followed,” he murmured out of the corner of his mouth.
Shepard didn’t dare look behind her. She’d had the innate sense that she was being tailed for weeks now. Sickeningly, this felt no different-- which meant she didn’t have the spatial awareness she thought she did, or she was just always being followed. She didn’t know which was worse. “How many?”
“Two. Maybe three. Turians, a human to boot.”
“Same turians as yesterday?”
“Can’t tell.”
“Peachy.” Her hand rested on her pistol on her side, wholly dreading being sucked into another singularity field. She tried to take in as much of her environment as she could without moving her head too much. There were vendors all around, people milling about. Sure, there was cover. But the casualties? “There’s too many people here, Garrus. Should we try to shake them?”
“There’s nowhere to shake them. The only shortcut is where Tali’Zorah’s body was found, C-Sec still has it shut down.”
“We’re open targets if we lead them to the Den. No way Fist doesn’t have people patrolling that walkway. We’ll be sandwiched in.”
“I know, I know. Which is a good thing, then, that I carry these on me.” Garrus reached to the ammo compartment on his carapace and pulled out something small and metallic. It strobed slightly in his hands. Shepard felt her mouth go dry instantly.
“What is that?” she spat at him.
“When I give the word, you dive to the side. Got it?”
“Garrus, since when do you carry grenades on you?” Shepard gritted through her teeth.
“Oh, I’m not sure. It might have been since a rogue Spectre attacked a human colony and smuggled geth on the Citadel. Or maybe, because they were on sale. Can’t miss those deals-- buy two polonium grenades, get the third half off. I’ll have you know in my spare time, I love hoarding coupons. I even have a little drawer in my apartment that I put them in, color coded and alphabetized.”
“Are you expecting me to be surprised? Because I’m not.”
#mass effect fanfiction#mass effect#mass effect fanfic#shepard x garrus#shakarian#ao3 fanfic#femshep#garrus vakarian#turn left
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Eventually I will run out of things to talk about. But until then, more trivia. Mostly creatures/bosses.
Prime
I don’t know when you would ever see this normally, but the elevators in West/East Towers (access to Control Tower, the outdoor arena area) have a rather elaborate full mechanism underneath.
Rain only appears in a cube around Samus. This is a metaphor for her life.
For some reason there is collision information at the bottom of Impact Crater - but only the version surrounding the Artifact Temple room specifically. It’s not terrifically accurate to the visual geometry - the ball is rolling quite a bit above the “ground” - but it’s still there... For some reason.............
I'm a little endeared with how Space Pirates look like a completely different species in each game with no explanation whatsoever. Anyway, the ones in Prime have these almost invisible lines of orange hairs on the limbs, which is very charmingly buggy.
Also, this one was kind enough to stand still for a height comparison. (Their AI doesn’t handle noclipping very well - often they just don’t attack when approached from the air.)
...
I spoke a bit ago about Metroid Prime’s additional eyes, which are not very easy to see in game.
They’re actually rolled back into her carapace in the intro cutscene before the fight, so it’s not surprising that you don’t really notice them.
After said intro cutscene, she is fully spawned in the room below and idle animating with no weapons systems active. Kind of a look, honestly.
Back to the eyes. Even if you saw the eyes, you would almost certainly not notice this behavior, but... They’re actually programmed to follow the player’s position exactly. The camera may be down here, but Samus is still in the room above and to the right, so that’s... where they’re looking..............
In later parts of the fight Metroid Prime uses this “tractor beam” attack, which actually emanates from the front two eyes. Somehow, I’m getting Gritty vibes.
...Impact Crater in general has always felt a little rushed to me, like it was thrown together last minute to just finish the damn game. (The boss rooms in particular are... hmm.) I still love it, though.
And there’s still all kinds of details, like these transparent areas with ... creatures? Swimming in them?? In concept art they’re mentioned as protozoans.
Let’s noclip in. They look like microbes or plankton. But big!
In a possible nod to these guys, the core access rooms in Corruption’s Leviathan Seeds have these floating clouds of similar creatures (labeled as “Phazon Cells” in game data). (Well, maybe less a nod and more a flex, really, especially when you consider that these games came out less than 5 years apart.)
Echoes
While I was cleaning up, I found the first of these screenshots I took:
Yeah.
Anyways,
Ingclaw butt.
Absurdly detailed Amorbis butthole. Why?
You ever remember you can bring up a nice, rotateable model in an short idle animation in the Logbook? Cause. You sure can do that in 2 and 3. OK.
Each of Dark Amorbis’ segments is separated by a bright red disc.
Part of the Spider Guardian’s model clips through its head on one side - you can see a little speck of bright red, plus some hairs. Or rather, the outer shell is accidentally concave...?
This only applies in this “swimming”/damage animation - it looks fine when rolling around. Probably just has a vertex off or something. You can’t see it in the fight. It’s fine.
Also, it’s perfectly possible to hit it with gun.
However, only the normal Power Beam shot actually deals damage - other weapons only stun it.
Additionally, while you technically can kill it this way, the normal death cutscene won’t play afterwards. That cutscene is what’s actually responsible for spawning the Spider Ball upgrade, so... No Spider Ball. Kind of defeats the purpose of defeating it, really. You still get a purple credit in Trilogy, at least.
Regular pillbugs have gorgeous spiral undersides.
Echoes’ troopers were less cooperative. They appear to be... big...?
That round thing in her chest (heart?) is visibly beating. Seems like a design flaw, but I guess that’s why this one isn’t a commando.
Speaking of which, these ones aren’t programmed to attack. They’re also quite a bit bigger.
I have invulnerability on when taking photos. Normally, enemy attacks just fizzle out when they land.
However, Quadraxis’ Annihilator shots bounce off of invulnerable entities. This trait is shared with Samus’ weaponry (you’ve probably seen this behavior with doors, or with largely-invulnerable enemies like Quadraxis itself). Maybe its attacks use the same code? Sadly, I can’t seem to get it to aim at the Annihilator door to the temple access.
Sort of an aside, but I feel like we’re missing out on beam deflection puzzles. Bouncing shots off things is fun [citation needed], and it was clearly already possible in the Prime engine... and in Super Metroid, too, weirdly enough. But I guess it’s just never occurred to anyone to use deflection for puzzles? Or maybe that kind of mechanic was deemed too spatially challenging for an all-ages series. It’s never too late though! (I think some SM hacks use it, at least...)
Corruption
Planets, while lovely-looking, aren’t actually spheres. They’re made up of lots of mostly-flat layers...
One time I fucked up the event flags in this game so hard that Unit 217 disappeared. Please use noclip responsibly.
This is where where the umbilical cord of a Leviathan core attaches to the seed. Looks like sliced roast beef.
On Bryyo, in the North and South Jungle Hall rooms (here and here), there is collision information and even some texturing on otherwise inaccessible areas.
Maybe these bits were meant to be accessible at some point...? You can easily jump up to the grates from the bulkhead, you just can’t get up to the bulkhead normally.
The wind turbines (there’s one in the background here) match the Space Pirate design from Echoes.
There’s some weirdass jittery floating things in the Bryyo jungle atmosphere, too. They don’t seem destructible or aggressive. I can’t find anything else about them, though.
Edit: According to @ bearborg, they’re labeled as spores ingame. Probably from the fungi!
Going to upgrade the weird butthole count in this trilogy to “two” with the Korakk Beast here. Sorry.
By the time you fight him, Rundas’ whole body is visibly laced with Phazon hyphae. But there’s even some clustered growths behind his "face”, underneath the PED. I think if you get close enough to him to see these, you probably have other things to worry about... Poor guy though.
The Berserker Lord’s beautiful face, with the distinct horizontal row of eyes confirming that is a heavily modified Urtraghian Space Pirate. Same goes for the Knight, it’s just easier to see with Phazon all over it. I just... really was not sure.
Another “you probably have bigger things to worry about” detail, this spike-filled area in 313′s brain. It’s almost like a sub-brain? Looks uncomfortable.
I tried to get a nice aesthetic shot of the opening cutscene for the Mogenar fight. At first glance, I thought this looked nice. However, upon closer inspection...
Is Samus... hovering?
Yep. The ground is well out of frame in the actual cutscene, so you’d never be able to tell.
I get why the cutscene artist did this - she wouldn’t be in the shot otherwise because the Mogenar is so far away, but actually moving her closer would force an awkward upward angle on the Mogenar. Because it’s, you know, huge. Still, I’m never going to be able to unsee this.
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Character Creation Challenge 2024 - Day 3
Gamma World (1e)
Roona
Humanoid
MS 9, IN 11, DX 16, CH 6, CO 10
HP=30 AC 5 (6 for Carapace, -1 for Shield)
Regeneration, Partial Carapace, Heightened Strength
Poor Dual Brain (D), Radar/Sonar, Molecular Understanding,Heightened Brain Talent
Shield, Longsword (1d8/1d12+4d6)
Roona is a young mutant who'd look fairly normal if not for the chitinous shell covering her back and head. She's usually fairly sensible and cautious except when her Poor Dual Brain takes over which has no access to her regular brain's mental mutations and is terrified of all living creatures bigger than a housecat.
It's presently in control and terrified of the strange young human who's suddenly appeared wearing a hat with a huge feather and carrying a long, slender blade.
Speedy, continued
After calming Roona down and her normal brain gets back in charge, Speedy has a number of adventures with her after which his stats look like this:
Speedy Maledict
After adventuring in 17th Century France for a while, Speedy's stats now look like this:
Apprentice
Muscle 25, Speed 35, Stamina 18, Mental 34, Luck 9, Total 121
Damage 2, Init 4, Heal 2, Power 4, Luck Roll 6, Force 13
Physical 27 (13x2)
Life Points 20
Skills: Pilot-1, Mechanic-1, Street Criminal-3, Unarmed-1, Rapier-1, Theatrical-1, Wilderness-2, Gamma Raygun-1
Powers: Magneto-1
Rapier, Gamma Raygun, Backpack, Mechanic’s tools, 6 pistoles cash, 3 power cells
Let's hope he won't need that Gamma Raygun when the ancient derelict spaceship he's exploring suddenly powers up and takes off – into space!
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Trust Fall | Ch 13a
ARC image by Eury Escodero | gif by @pedropcl
Story Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Summary: Tony/OC, ‘terrorists made us fall in love;’ IM1 timeline. In this chapter, Tony has a moment of fear after they fall to earth, and Emory does her best to support the protagonist.
Length: 2,409
Tags (please don’t hesitate to ask!): @starryeyes2000 @raith-way @arrthurpendragon @starksbf @themaradaniels @chickensarentcheap @tiny-anne
Excerpt:
The two of them work together to pry loose the last few screws that hadn’t been sheared off by his landing. She moves around to check at his back, and Tony wipes the sweat off of his face with his good arm. Seconds later, he feels a cool breeze practically dive-bomb him.
“Haven’t you ever heard of the butterfly effect? I can live with a little sun,” Tony protests. Inwardly, he’s so proud he can barely keep the smile off of his face. This tiny, gorgeous woman is pulling down the sky to help him cool off.
“Hold still,” she says behind him. “Of course I know about the butterfly effect, I’m not a heathen. One of my first crushes ever was Doctor Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park! There.” With that, the metal carapace slides off, and he’s able to rip off the thick leather neck piece and jacket, though he’ll probably put the jacket back on, once he’s a bit less overheated. He imagines it’d be very easy to get burned to a crisp out here.
“Let me guess,” Tony says, spinning around to brush stray sand from her face. With his other hand, he drapes the jacket over his shoulder. “You loved his rock-star cool? Leather and attitude?”
Chapter Thirteen: Big Orange Ball
Tony’s in midair; the whole world is hot and bright, even though they’ve left the explosion-riddled encampment behind them. The harsh sunlight seems to be coming from all angles, beating down from above and reflected off of billions of grains of sand below.
He knows his ETA for reaching the ground is going to be measured in pain level once he lands, but his damned helmet is blocking the view that would let him know how soon. All he can see is Emory’s body falling just out of his reach. She looks like a comet breaking up in the atmosphere, her hair and the loose fabric of her clothing whipping out above her.
Suddenly his view is obscured. He has sunk into a spinning, aerated layer of sand that scours into the suit, forcing his eyes closed for the final shocking whump of landing. It’s not the brutal, tearing concussion he had expected, but it still hurts like hell and rips away parts of the metal suit.
He’s partially buried, but Tony struggles free of both the sand and the fractured pieces of his armor, incongruously grateful that they weren’t able to tighten all of the screws after all.
Emory isn’t visible.
There are divots around him where various pieces have landed, but most contain a chunk of his handiwork; arm components here, an air canister for the pneumatic controls there. Nothing large enough to be a person.
“Emory!” he screams. Sand and fear grits his tone. He freezes, listening. The particulate she must have spun up to soften his landing had been enough to steal his breath, how much worse is it wherever Emory is? She had been so focused on saving him-- what if she hadn’t saved herself?
A memory slams into him, her loss of magical energy in the midst of fear. What if she’s dying, powerless, somewhere beneath him?
He’s the source of at least some of her power, that much he knows. With all of his knowledge, his years of technical expertise, the most helpful thing Tony has right now is his voice.
“I’ll say it, okay? You got me!” he shouts, clutching his right arm in pain after having thrown his arms out in surrender. “I LOVE YOU! Fight! Spin your ass out of there, will you? I’ve got my own problems!” Tony stumbles around, unwilling to accidentally stand on top of where she’s buried. “I love you,” he repeats almost brokenly, hoping to hell she hears him.
The landscape is completely unremarkable, and he’ll probably have to walk a long way to find shelter. He’s not fucking leaving her here to die sunless and alone. He’s not.
“Goddamnit, Emory!” he shouts. If he’d been the one to take the injection, he’d be so full of power from his fear and anger that he could lift the entire weight of sand and find her that way. A breeze ruffles his hair from behind. Tony turns so fast he loses his balance, catches himself on one knee and his bad arm. It doesn’t even hurt, because in front of him is a whirlwind spiraling up from a person-sized crater that hadn’t been there a minute ago.
Emory bursts out and soars up, spinning out of control. At ten feet up she throws her arms out beside her and Tony feels air rushing past him. Seconds later, she freezes in place and starts slowly descending. She’s drawn a great deal of air from around him, and, he suspects, from behind her, slamming them against herself to halt both the spin and the lift. He’s incredibly grateful she didn’t hurt herself in the process, and decides to set aside his criticism of her methods until after they’re fully back in civilization.
As soon as her feet touch the ground she’s running to him. Tony’s about as happy and relieved as he’s ever been in his life-- but he holds out his hands to stop her, fumbling at the searing hot metal at his chest, trying to find the last few screws that are holding it in place around him.
“Not the first time I’ve said this in my life, but I’m too hot to handle,” Tony tells her with a smirk.
“Screwdriver. In your pocket,” Emory tells him. Her red hair is sticking to her cheeks, and he doesn’t know whether it’s because of tears or sweat.
Sure enough, he finds and holds up the screwdriver, which prompts a smirk of her own. The two of them work together to pry loose the last few screws that hadn’t been sheared off by his landing. She moves around to check at his back, and Tony wipes the sweat off of his face with his good arm. Seconds later, he feels a cool breeze practically dive-bomb him.
“Haven’t you ever heard of the butterfly effect? I can live with a little sun,” Tony protests. Inwardly, he’s so proud he can barely keep the smile off of his face. This tiny, gorgeous woman is pulling down the sky to help him cool off.
“Hold still,” she says behind him. “Of course I know about the butterfly effect, I’m not a heathen. One of my first crushes ever was Doctor Ian Malcolm from Jurassic Park! There.” With that, the metal carapace slides off, and he’s able to rip off the thick leather neck piece and jacket, though he’ll probably put the jacket back on, once he’s a bit less overheated. He imagines it’d be very easy to get burned to a crisp out here.
“Let me guess,” Tony says, spinning around to brush stray sand from her face. With his other hand, he drapes the jacket over his shoulder. “You loved his rock-star cool? Leather and attitude?”
Emory’s grey eyes sparkle with impudence as she makes a gesture and rises up on a column of air that sends all the loose fabric in her outfit fluttering. She’s actually taller than he is like this, and he’s pretty sure it’s on purpose.
“Nope, I liked his brain,” she tells him leaning over to kiss him.
I almost lost this woman, he reminds himself. The thought makes him reach for her, but as soon as he pulls her close, the draft of air she’d been controlling wavers, pushing against him until he locks both arms around her stubbornly. He senses her distraction in the midst of the kiss, and then suddenly they’re flying sideways, landing on the sand. Tony hisses.
“Shit, I’m sorry. I really have no idea what I’m doing,” Emory says, scrambling off to kneel beside him.
“Just a little sand burn, nothing serious,” he manages. Emory stands and he brushes the sand off of his pants before he does the same. Oddly, some of the sand is wet. He holds his hand up to show her, and her face pales.
“Shit!” she says, both hands going to the pack buckled at her waist. They’d never been able to weasel water bottles out of their captors, so when the time had come to escape, Tony had done his best to mold containers out of the metal cups they had on hand. Emory pulls the crushed remains of both of their precious makeshift ‘canteens’ from the pouch with a stricken look.
“Making those was a gamble anyway,” he tells her. “Maybe the spill rehydrated some of the beans?”
Emory laughs helplessly and hands them over. Tony does his best to consolidate the little liquid that remains into the less squashed of the two, and tucks it, upright, into the pocket of his leather jacket after putting it back on. They frown at the idea of chewing on the soggy beans smashed into the zippered pouch, and after deciding what to keep and discard (Emory takes off her pants and uses them as a makeshift head covering that also drapes over the shoulder cut-outs on her outfit, and Tony leaves behind the ironmonger suit pieces as unsalvageable), they start walking toward an outcropping of rock. The smoke from their escape is in the opposite direction.
Emory counts to sixty steps five times before she’s able to compress all of the jumbled, elated emotions she’s been feeling into something coherent enough to say to Tony. She stops, and Tony keeps walking a ways before he realizes she’s no longer beside him, thanks to the cloth draped over his face to block out the bright sun.
“You okay, AC?”
She shakes her head, laughing. “‘AC?’”
“Yeah, the cool breeze. I’m telling you, you’d better whip up an NDA as soon as you can, because I’m not sure you want me tattling on you to the Middle East Weather Service or whatever organization is going to be on your ass for all this airflow disruption.”
“Oh, so you love me, but you’ll sell me out to the weather police? Typical billionaire,” Emory says, shaking her head and starting to walk again.
“Honestly? I just want to see if you can tease out any super secret weather tech they might have under wraps,” he tells her conspiratorially, when she’s close enough for him to lean over and say it into her ear.
“You totally want to watch the cage match! This from the person who was basically a human lightning rod not an hour ago? Men!” she groans.
“You love it,” he says smugly.
“I do,” she says, reaching out and grabbing his hand. He squeezes hers and they slog along like that for a while before he lifts her hand to his lips, kisses it, and lets go.
“Too hot, but hold that thought,” he says. “Though, shit, are you even safe to fly in an airplane anywhere near me, or will my personal magnetism send us into a tailspin from all the excess energy with no outlet?”
Emory wants to reassure him, but she’s actually not at all sure what the answer is. Before she can respond, though, he makes a dismissive gesture.
“So we fly back separately, who cares? Once we’re home, my house is pretty remote, right on the ocean. I’ll open up a skylight for you and we can spend a month practicing ramping you up and ramping you back down,” he says, walking backwards so she can see the hungry excitement in his eyes as he tells her his plans.
She’s getting a little tired, so instead of responding, Emory pulls her constant cool breeze from a bit higher in the sky, and Tony actually jumps when it hits him. Her steps feel lighter for quite a while after that.
As it turns out, the beans are more appetizing after a few hours of walking with no food. An hour after that, Emory starts to feel very thirsty, very weak, and very stupid. She bears it silently, listening to Tony humming some of his favorite music until she can barely hold herself up anymore. Great minds seemingly think alike, because right as she’s about to stop, he does, pulling out their meagre supply of water and looking back at her.
“Is it me, or does it feel like it should be about ten PM by now?” he asks.
“I think it wasn’t even lunch time when we blasted out of there,” Emory whispers. Her throat is really dry, her mouth drier than that, and a stab of fear cuts through the dread she’s been collecting in her gut.
“You need to drink this more than me,” Tony says, frowning and holding it out.
Emory backs up.
“No, no, no, no,” he tells her, shaking his head, instantly upset.
“Listen to me,” she says, forcing her vocal cords to make sound, this time.
His tone is curt. “No. I have seniority, and I demand that you drink this. All of it.”
“If we’re talking about cave dwelling seniority, I was awake a full day before you were, you know,” she says. He shakes his head, and Emory wishes she could fly them somewhere safe and just hug this stubborn, brilliant man forever. “I screwed up, okay?. I’m going to pass out, and there’s no point in my drinking anything, at this point.”
“You-- what?” He comes closer, lifts her chin so he can look into her eyes. Tony’s expression sobers from incredulity to fear for just a second before he schools it away, but she sees it.
“I never really tested myself in the cave,” Emory whispers. “Everything was so new, I didn’t think about whether or not there would be a cost.” Her knees start to buckle, and she goes down. Tony catches her with one arm, sinking down with her so that her back is supported. He twists his handmade canteen into the sand so it’ll stay upright, then brushes her sweat-soaked hair back away from her face. Tony’s brown eyes are so vulnerable and pleading that she feels a lump growing in her throat. “I’m sorry,” she breathes. He crushes her to his chest.
“I appreciate the early first act characterization arc you’re going for, here, but I’m no hero, and you’re not going to be the reason I go on a terrorist-slaying rampage,” he says in her ear.
“Hi, I’m the Catalyst for Change, nice to meet you,” she jokes, coughing.
“Yeah, well, that’s shitty writing, you’re the one with the superpowers, here,” Tony tells her. He sounds shaken. “You’ve got to help me defeat the bad guy.”
“I’m kidding, okay? I’m not going to die, Tony. I’m just going to pass out,” Emory says, pushing a lot of her remaining energy into vocal confidence. “And look at you-- you’re worried about me, not about how much it’ll suck to be you once I’m unconscious. That’s growth, right?”
“Hah!” Tony says, triumphant. “That means you have to drink this. Think about yourself, for a change!” He grabs the canteen and pushes it into her hand. She can feel her grip failing and wishes she could figure out a way to still support him, keep him cool, after she’s unconscious. Then, it comes to her.
“Yeah, about that,” Emory says, struggling to sit up and holding the metal container up, over her head. With all of her remaining energy, she pulls down the coldest air she can, swirling it around the container and her hand, feeling the freezing burn of it, until black spots grow in her vision. Tony’s saying something, but the spots coalesce into unconsciousness, and she collapses down, down, down.
Next chapter, Tony and Emory wake up in different states, a fact neither of them find acceptable.
#tony stark x oc#tony stark fanfiction#tony stark x original character#tony stark imagine#iron man fanfiction#iron man#iron man x oc#iron man x original character#mcu#mcu fanfiction#mcu fanfic#marvel#marvel fanfic#tony stark#series: autonomy#ocfairygodmother#fyeahsuperverseocs
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Shelltering Others
Chapter 5: Scales and Balances (Ch. 1, 2, 3, 4)
Nino hangs a sign to tell Chat Noir that he's solved the riddle. But now what? There's still a whole day until Chat Noir will see it. Nino takes some time to think through everything he's been told.
Full chapter under cut!
In the morning, Nino taped a green piece of paper on his window before he left for school. Chat Noir probably wouldn’t see it until his next patrol, and Nino didn’t know when that was. But from what Alya had observed (or was told?), patrols were always after school let out, so for at least the rest of the day, Nino could have a break from the scavenger hunt and Ladybug’s pressure to perfect the art of secrecy or whatever.
Not that Nino had a problem with the mission anymore. In fact, he kind of missed having a new clue occupying his mind. Chat Noir was more interesting than Nino had given him credit for, and Nino wanted to know him better, figure out who he was and be his friend. There was so much for Nino to learn about him!
As a matter of fact, it had kept Nino awake for most of the night. Sure, he’d fallen asleep pretty soon after he figured out the riddle, but for the rest of the night, he kept falling back into disjointed thoughts of Multimouse and Snake-Adrien, secret identities and Ladybug’s rules. And a few sweet dreams of Alya. But when he wasn’t trying to stifle the voices in his head screaming at him about the Miraculous and their secrets, Nino was thinking about what he’d learned so far from the mission.
For example, Nino used to think Chat Noir was on completely equal grounds with Ladybug, even when some Parisians had assumed he was more of a sidekick. But with the information Nino was learning, it was becoming clear that, while the two heroes might once have been equal, there was a divide between them, an imbalance in favor of Ladybug, the new Guardian. Particularly when it came to secret identities.
Nino frowned as he unplugged his headphones and slipped them on over his neck. Ladybug knew the identities of all the temporary heroes, but Marinette had been kicked off the team for revealing her identity in front of Chat Noir. Even if Monarch knew her identity now, that wasn’t any different from what he knew about Nino, was it?
But then, Nino was probably going to be allowed back on the team, and Chat Noir obviously knew who Carapace was. Did Ladybug tell him his identity in trying to convince him to give up on Marinette as Chat Noir’s confidant?
And, come to think of it, what made Nino so much better than Marinette that Ladybug would go against what both Chat Noir and Marinette wanted and insist that Chat Noir reveal his identity to someone else? Nino had proved himself to be reckless, giving up valuable secrets on what looked like whims to outsiders. Yet Marinette hadn’t even told Nino about being Multimouse after getting kicked off the team and losing her identity until Nino told her about his own secret hero identity. Didn’t that make Marinette more trustworthy than Nino was?
But then, she had been personally threatened by Monarch—twice. And it sounded like the second time nearly ended in her akumatization. If Monarch was already gunning for her, then perhaps Ladybug’s reasoning was justified, since her knowing Chat’s identity would put Chat Noir at a greater risk than if a player who looked like he’d been taken off the board knew it.
Nino wished he could see into Ladybug’s brain and figure out what made her tick. The great Guardian of the Miraculous, a teen girl who scared boys into dangerous missions at ungodly hours of the night and followed a set of rules only she seemed to understand. What was guiding all her decisions? Could she still be trusted?
If Nino were Chat Noir, he’d be very hurt by Ladybug’s choice to trust a distant friend and temporary hero more than her own partner, who’d been with her from the start. Chat Noir was always there for Ladybug; she’d never lost him... but was she there for him in return?
Nino shook his head. If Chat Noir, who knew her better than anyone, still trusted his lady enough to give in to her wishes and reveal his identity to a guy who’d almost killed him over a misunderstanding, then Ladybug must be worth his (and Paris’) trust.
But she was not so perfect, it seemed, enough to prevent Chat Noir from moving on to a new love.
Nino wondered how Alya felt about the apparent death of Ladynoir. That had been her favorite ship. Well, that and Adrienette. Adrinette? Marien? Nino sighed and shook his head. The ‘best friend’ ship, call it what you will.
Come to think of it, Nino should really consider warning Adrien about Chat Noir’s impending attempts to woo Marinette outside the mask (presumably outside the mask). He’d just woken up to his feelings, and Nino would hate to see Adrien’s heart broken by Chat Noir sweeping Marinette away from him. But ultimately, the choice would be up to Marinette. She was reliable, after all, and Nino trusted her to handle the situation gracefully. With a Marinette kind of grace. So, with lots of stuttering and clumsiness and innocent charm.
Mouth curving into a fond smile, Nino grabbed his school bag, snatched a chocolate croissant from the pastry box to eat for breakfast (his mom would not approve), and headed out for school.
As he approached the steps outside Francois-Dupont, Nino saw Alya and Marinette crossing the street. They’d been much earlier to school than usual lately, well, at least Marinette had. Alya was almost never as late as Marinette was.
She normally arrived separately from Marinette, too. Nino wondered why the two girls were showing up at the same time in the mornings now. Could it be that Ladybug had told Alya about Marinette’s two threatening encounters with Monarch? Alya was such a good best friend; she would never let Marinette feel alone or hurt after Monarch’s villainous actions. She’d make sure Marinette was safe, maybe have a few sleepovers like she’d been doing and walk with Marinette to school, because she cared so much about all her friends. Nino loved that about his girlfriend.
Giving a quick wave hello, Nino held his bag securely on his shoulder and ran over to Alya, sweeping her into a tight hug as soon as she stepped onto the school’s campus.
Laughing, Alya returned the hug, beaming as Nino brushed a kiss to her cheek.
“Good morning to you, too, babe,” she said, her smile clear in her voice.
Nino grinned as he pulled back from Alya, not wanting to draw attention from the rest of the school.
“I missed you,” he said, slightly out of breath.
Marinette smiled as she watched the couple, but quickly looked away, brushing something out of her eyes.
Nino swallowed. “Listen,” he said, “About last night, I’m so glad we don’t have any more secrets between us. Mostly. But I have some questions I’d like to ask you sometime, about... things I’d better not say out loud.”
Alya tilted her head, a ray of sun glinting across her glasses. “Do you want to meet up during lunch?” she asked. “Because you know we can’t talk about it until then.”
Nino nodded. “That would be good,” he said. “You’re the best, Alya.” He blushed as he offered her a grateful smile.
Walking up behind Nino, Adrien cleared his throat. “Am I missing something?” he asked, breath tickling Nino's ear.
Nino spun around.
“Dude!” he exclaimed. “Twice in two days? What are you, some kind of cat, sneaking up on me like this?”
Adrien blushed and looked down, embarrassed. “I’m just a normal boy,” he said. Then he peered up from under his eyelashes, green irises glinting dangerously. “Unless you decide otherwise.”
Nino stared.
Alya choked on a laugh. “Adrien,” she wheezed, “I thought you were going to be flirting with Marinette if anyone, not trying to steal my boyfriend!”
Mortified, Adrien flushed red. “I’m not flirting,” he hissed ruefully. “Why do people always assume that I am?”
Walking past the boys as she headed into school, Alya patted Adrien on the shoulder. “You’re too smooth for your own good, Agreste,” she said. “You might try giving us poor allos a break sometimes.”
“What’s an allo?” Adrien asked, turning his head to look after Alya as she walked up the stairs, Marinette close behind. (Another new development; her avoidance of Adrien.)
Alya turned to call back, “It’s something you aren’t, sunshine!”
Adrien groaned.
An amused look on his face, Nino bumped his friend’s shoulder. “Don’t sweat it, dude,” he said. “Even I can’t keep up with Alya sometimes. And I don’t know what an allo is either, mon pote.”
Adrien sighed and shifted the bag on his shoulder. “Let’s head inside,” he said. “I can’t believe I was almost late today. There’s a funny story behind that, actually—you know how Ladybug burst into your room the other night?”
Nino nodded, a shudder coursing through his body. “Uh-huh, I can’t forget,” he said. “What are you saying, did she do it to you, too?” Nino joked.
Adrien twitched. “Not... quite,” he said.
Nino almost dropped his bag. Turning to Adrien with wide eyes, he asked, “Ladybug dropped by your house to warn you, too? Dude! I hope she didn’t scare you too much! You told her it was my fault, right? You—what did she say? Are you all right? Talk to me!”
Adrien’s lips quirked up into a smile at Nino’s concern. “She didn’t wake me up,” he said. “She actually dropped by just after Nathalie left, right at my bedtime. It wasn’t too scary,” he assured Nino.
Nino’s shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank goodness,” he said wearily as he and Adrien headed up to the school. “It seems like every hero of Paris is bothering my friends these days.”
“I think you mean bugging them,” Adrien snorted. “But Ladybug wasn’t really a bother; she didn’t take up much of my time. She just wanted to make sure I knew not to spread you and Alya’s secret identities around. She knows Monarch is aware of them, but she’d prefer that no civilians find out about them.
“And she had another question for me,” Adrien said, giving Nino a long, sideways glance. “She wanted to know if you’d told me how things were going with Chat Noir.” Adrien paused, looking off into the distance as he stopped with one foot on the school’s steps. Then he looked back at Nino. “You aren’t... dating him, are you? I tried to think of other reasons she’d ask me about how things are going between you and him, but I couldn’t come up with anything. I have to say, it’s not cool of you to go all Rocketear on Chat Noir for just talking to Alya and then turn around and cheat on her with him, Nino. Not cool at all.” Adrien shook his head disapprovingly.
Nino’s jaw had dropped, and he stared at Adrien in outraged shock. “I’m not dating Chat Noir,” he hissed. “How did you even come up with that idea? I would never cheat on Alya! Just last night we had the most perfect date, and we— why would you jump to that conclusion?!”
Adrien shrugged. “Well, you know,” he said, “sometimes jealousy can come from pretty weird places. Maybe you didn’t want Chat Noir to be in love with Alya because you wanted him to be in love with you, instead. I don’t know,” he said expressively, spreading his arms wide.
Nino’s face seemed to have frozen halfway between shame, anger, and confusion. “I— that’s not— you—” He hung his head and groaned. “I’m not in love with Chat Noir,” he said, looking up with a serious face. “Yes, he is hot. No, I’m not blind. But Adrien,” Nino hissed. “I would never do anything that would hurt me and Alya!”
“Okay, okay, I believe you,” Adrien said, smirking. “But then what was Ladybug talking about?”
Nino huffed and took a few steps up the stairs. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “It’s got to do with my secret mission.”
“Ohhh,” Adrien said, nodding his head to show that he’d gotten it. “That makes sense. Wow, I must look stupid for assuming you were hiding something else! I’m so sorry, Nino!”
“It’s fine,” Nino said, a bit red in the face. “Just never do it again.”
Adrien shook his head enthusiastically. “Definitely not,” he agreed. “I should have known to trust you.”
Nino gave his friend a lopsided smile. “Thanks,” he said. “It’s nice to know you’re still on my side.”
At lunch, Alya and Nino snuck down to the boiler room. It had been seeing so much use anymore that the old spiderwebs in the corner were being abandoned one by one, the holdover creepy-crawlies glaring at the students as they broke into their refuge.
“Okay,” Alya said as she sat on the old desk. “What was it you wanted to ask, Nino?”
Nino walked around the desk and pulled out his checkered detective cap, taking off his usual hat. Pulling the detective hat over his head with practiced ease, Nino crossed his arms and leaned against the desk near where Alya was sitting.
“It’s about Ladybug,” he said. “Now, I know you can’t tell me anything about her identity, and I don’t really want you to. I’m wondering about some of her rules, specifically when they come to Marinette and Chat Noir. I think she’s biased against them.”
Alya stared at her boyfriend for a minute. “You know,” she said ponderously, “I think that old cap of yours is the opposite of a good luck charm. Every time you wear it, you come up with your worst ideas.” She nodded her head, as though she had found the correct answer to all of Nino’s scheming.
Nino spluttered, “It’s not a bad idea! Look, it makes sense,” he said, pulling out a crumpled notebook page he’d scribbled on during class. “Ladybug expected us all not to reveal our identities to anyone,” he said. “If we broke that rule, we risked losing our Miraculous. Presumably that extends to Chat Noir, too, but I’m specifically talking about the temporary heroes right now.”
Alya nodded slowly. “Are you saying you think you and I should never be heroes again?” she asked. “Because that’s what it sounds like you’re saying. Our hero identities are out to at least two civilians.”
Nino shook his head. “I’m not there yet,” he said. “Keep listening.”
Alya gestured for him to continue, crossing her legs at the ankles and swinging them under the table.
“All right. Marinette was a temporary hero once, apparently,” he said, pointing to a hastily scribbled drawing of a mouse and a necklace. “Multimouse. Only she revealed her identity to Chat Noir, and later to Monarch. So, she’s not allowed to be a hero anymore.”
Nino pointed to a different drawing, a coiled snake (or maybe it was just a rope). “And! Adrien was a hero too: the Snake! I’m not sure what his name was,” Nino said regretfully. “I’m going to call him Venerable Venom for now.”
Alya burst out laughing. “How did you come up with that name?” she asked when she was able to stop guffawing, wiping a tear from her eye. “It’s awful!”
Nino jabbed the air near her face emphatically. “I am sleep-deprived and high on caffeine and sugar,” he said. “I thought it was a pretty good name.
“Now! I don’t know why Adrien couldn’t continue on as Venerable Venom, except that Viperion was a better fit for the Miraculous. And originally, Ladybug made it sound like that was why the Mouse was given to Polymouse, too. But that’s not true! Marinette told me the story herself! According to her, Ladybug only took the Miraculous away because she let Chat Noir find out who she was! But!! If Ladybug and Chat Noir are partners, which they have been from the start, then why can’t they both know the temporary heroes’ identities? It doesn’t make sense!”
Alya frowned. “Well, if you think about it,” she said. “Only Ladybug is the Guardian. She’s the only one who should need to know.”
Nino waved his hand in the air excitedly, nearly tossing the notebook paper in the corner. “So why is she okay with letting Chat Noir know my identity?” he asked. “Wouldn’t it be just as fine for her to let Chat Noir have a civilian as his confidant then? And they aren’t her! She has a few good reasons why Chat Noir’s confidant couldn’t have been Marinette—though I say, she could just wait a few weeks for things to die down, and then let her know—but why trust me at all? It’s not like she knows me! Or that Chat Noir does, either! They both deserve to have someone close to them as civilians to keep their secrets. It just doesn’t make sense,” Nino said, crossing his arms in a jerky motion. This time, the freshly crumpled paper did fall, landing a half a foot away from the wall, where a cobweb dangled over the college ruled lines.
Alya’s face made it look like she was watching a train crash in slow motion. That, or she was constipated.
“I think that Ladybug makes the best decisions she can in any given situation,” she finally said, slowly and cautiously at first. “And maybe she’s operating off of who can become the best confidant for her and Chat Noir to inform this decision. Maybe you and Chat will become best friends, given enough time! I know I’m grateful that she took a chance on me,” she offered. “Besides, you not being a true civilian makes it easier for her to trust you. She has to balance so much already; vetting a new person to be Chat Noir’s confidant would take too much time, and if you think about it, it could put his identity at risk. If Ladybug has to observe a whole new friend group, then all she would need to do is stumble across the friend who looks the most like Chat Noir and voilà, she knows his identity. She’s making the best decision she can with limited information. We have to trust her, Nino,” Alya pleaded.
Nino frowned. “I do trust her,” he said. “It’s her decisions I’m less sure of. What makes her any better than the rest of us? She’s only our age.” Last week, Nino had trusted Ladybug enough to akumatize someone in full faith that they would be restored by Ladybug. Now, his faith was being shaken, though Nino didn’t regret his choice to trust the city’s heroes. His trust was just... evolving into a more mature, informed version. Ladybug was just a girl under the mask; Nino couldn’t expect her to be superhuman.
Alya sighed. “I can’t answer that,” she said. “But trust me, Nino, if you knew who she was you’d be kicking yourself for ever doubting her. What Ladybug needs right now is not to be criticized by her only allies; she needs our support. And if you can give that to her by putting her mind at ease about Chat Noir and his safety, then do it. I know you can still back out of your mission,” Alya said. “Chat Noir is more generous than I thought. But please, don’t leave him without anyone on his side. I never knew how alone Ladybug was until I became her confidant, and neither did she. I think Chat Noir could use your support more than even he can guess, Nino. Please give him a chance, give Ladybug a chance to prove she was right!”
Gaze faltering, Nino nodded and slowly looked down. “You’re right, Alya,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry I overreacted again. But really,” he said, “If you can, try to convince Ladybug to share the other heroes’ identities with Chat Noir. That way, she can have even more support from him and bring back some of the balance between the two of them.
“And, maybe after Monarch’s suspicions die down... she could consider having Marinette be Chat Noir’s confidant, too. They both want her to know,” Nino said. “Chat Noir says he’s in love with her, but he can only date her as the boy under the mask. And I know Marinette wants to know who he is, because she asked me to tell her.”
Alya suddenly frowned and hopped off the table. “She did what?” Her eyes bored into Nino’s, and he looked confused by her intensity.
“She asked me if I knew Chat Noir and Ladybug’s identities,” he said, baffled, forced to bend back over the desk by Alya’s sudden proximity but not registering the corner digging into his hips. “She wanted to know Chat Noir’s, especially. But don’t worry, I didn’t tell her anything! It’s not like I have anything to hide yet, anyway.”
Alya smacked a hand to her forehead and stepped back. “I’m going to kill her,” she said, and muttered something else under her breath. “I’d better go back upstairs,” she sighed, exhaustion bleeding into her tone. “I have some problems to work out with my friend.”
Nino watched as Alya strode over to the boiler room’s hallway. “Which one?” he asked, getting no reply from his stormy girlfriend. “Girls,” he muttered under his breath, though he knew gender had nothing to do with this.
Then he looked around for his paper, which he must have dropped at some point. Finding it near the wall, Nino bent down to pick it up, but he saw the cobweb just in time. Shivering, he quickly withdrew his hand and hurried away from the dark corner, rubbing his hand to get rid of the creepy sensation he felt.
#ml fanfic#writing#fanfiction#rosie-b writing#nino lahiffe#adrien agreste#chat noir#alya cesaire#dj wifi#miraculous ladybug#ml season 5 spoilers
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A Twin Thing - Ch. 2
read on A03
Rated: G
Summary: "I felt gross here,” Leo rubs a hand over his chest, “And when I looked up, ya weren't around anymore. I didn't want ya feeling bad by yourself... so I came to find ya. I followed my twin senses!"
Status: Complete
::CH1::CH2::CH3::CH4::CH5::CH6::CH7::
~~
Chapter 2: Six Years Old
“Tello?” the call is muffled from down the hall.
Donatello doesn’t answer, curling tighter in the dark corner between the end of their bed and the wall. The old gameboy propped on his bent knees has long since run out of charge, but he presses the buttons rhythmically anyway. It helps to keep his focus off the chaos of the projector in the TV room playing an old Lou Jitsu film. A faint roar echoes down the hall, followed by a peel of giggles and several thuds as no doubt some things are knocked about the room while his brothers act out their favorite scenes in tandem with the action star on the screen.
“You in here?” the voice is much closer now, just beyond the closed door.
Donnie presses the buttons faster, liking the feel of them as they bottom out and pop back up with soft cushiony clicks.
“Don~bon~” comes the next sing-song of his name.
A sigh escapes him, he hates that nickname. And Leo knows that he does. The door swings open and closed, briefly increasing the volume of the play noises and film from down the hall and making Donatello twitch.
“Donnie, c’mon!” the bed creaks as Leo crawls towards his sanctuary on noisy springs.
Each whine of rusty metal grates his ears and makes his brain ache with disgust. Donnie whimpers and lets the gameboy slide off his knees with a clatter in favor of covering his ears and closing his stinging eyes.
“Donnie?” Leo sounds worried now. A few moments later, his little face pops over the end, red stripes twisting with concern around his eyes as he notices his brother’s posture. “I’ma sit with ya, okay? Wait, lemme just--”
Struggling over the edge of the metal bed frame, he wiggles his little feet as he clumsily lowers himself down into Donatello’s little ‘go away corner’ as he and their other brothers have dubbed it. At the last minute, he slips and falls on his rump with a graceless yelp.
“Owie--” he rubs absently at the base of his shell, but quickly crawls on his hands and knees closer to his brother. His twin shuffles away as far into the corner as he can, eyes shut tight and breathing shaky as his hands continue to cover his ears.
Leo stops his approach, and instead mirrors his twin's position, leaning his carapace against the wall opposite from Donnie in the small space. He wraps his arms around his shins and rests his chin on his knees, legs stretching just enough so that his toes cautiously touch Donnie’s. When his touch is not rejected, he speaks again in a whisper.
“It’s it gross feels time?”
The quietness of Leo’s words encourages Donnie to remove his hands from his ears and he blinks away mistiness from his eyes. Rubbing an arm under his taped glasses, he nods before lowering it only enough to shove into his mouth and bite down.
"Hey, Dee,” Leo leans in close slowly, projecting his movements, and feels out the softshell’s arm where his brother’s beak is now closed around it, "Remember what Raphie says-- just the sleeve okay? Dun give yourself an owie, yeah?"
Donnie adjusts his bite and chews on the cotton of his hoodie sleeve with a nod, rotating his arm inside the fabric to show his brother he has not bitten into his skin. Leo's little chest rises and falls with a sigh of relief and he offers a gentle smile now that they are close.
"Hi," Leo whispers, tilting his head to get a better look at his twin’s eyes.
He doesn't reply except to stretch his toes until they are pushing against his brother’s lighter colored scales and wriggles them quickly. Leo jumps and giggles, squirming and pushing back playfully, but Donnie’s feet are not as ticklish as his twin so he just wriggles his own dark toes harder. It makes the ache in his chest less harsh whenever he can get Leo to laugh.
“N-No more! Don-- Donnie!!” Leo is breathless before Donnie shows him mercy, and simply curls their toes together without moving. The young slider leans back against the wall smiling wide as he catches his breath around one final giggle.
Donnie stares at his brother over the rim of his glasses, large brow creased and saying nothing as he continues to suck on the sleeve of his hoodie. It doesn’t matter. Leo always knows what he wants to say even when he can't find the words.
"I felt gross here,” Leo rubs a hand over his chest, “And when I looked up, ya weren't around anymore. I didn't want ya feeling bad by yourself... so I came to find ya. I followed my twin senses!"
Donnie scrunches his face up in annoyance, mumbling around his sleeve, "Wrr nuh tiinns."
Even though those are Leo's least favorite words, he brightens up at hearing Donnie's voice muffled as it is by the fabric in his mouth. He grins, and tips his head to the side, cupping his ear.
"What was that, twinny?"
"Y'era umm umm," Donnie continues to speak through teeth clenched around cotton. Sometimes when he bites down, it’s just hard to let go again.
"Huh? Sorry, twinsie. Try again later," his mischievous smile only grows at Don's glare. He settles his chin on his knees and goes quiet for a bit, curling his toes against Donnie’s absently.
"Wha’ happened?" He still speaks very softly, studying his twin intently. “Ya feel better now?”
Donnie thinks about it for a moment, then shrugs. He eyes the handheld console on the floor beside him. Leo follows his gaze, reaching forward for it.
It lay face down on the floor, revealing its many dents and cracks. Papa had picked it out of the trash for them, but it hadn’t been working. That is until Donnie opened it up and messed around with the wiring and components. Papa sometimes gets upset when he finds Don using grown up tools, because he doesn’t realize Donnie is careful to look up all the instructions on how to use them first. He reads whole manuals on the fritzy ipad he has to share, even for tools they don’t even own-- yet-- but Papa gets less mad when Donnie uses only manual tools so he tries to stick to those.... When Papa can see him at least.
Leo turns the console face up and tries the power button, getting nothing but a blank screen, not even a blip of power from it. Scrunching his nose, he smacks it against his palm a bit.
“It’s it broke?” the little slider asks, looking up at his brother again, “That got you sad?”
“Nn p’wer,” Donnie mumbles, but doesn’t offer the full truth of why he cannot just recharge it. Mikey had chewed through the power cord last night, and Donnie had not figured out a solution for a replacement yet. Nor had he managed what remained of the precious charge wisely enough to make it last until he could. He squeezes his toes around Leo’s to distract him and gets another slight giggle.
Leo pushes against his feet then pulls free, sitting cross-legged and leaning forward to study him. Red scales shift as his eyes narrow, “Ya always yell at Raphie and me when we break something, but.... If it’s Mikey ya never say.”
Donnie shifts his eyes away and just chews his sleeve. Shaking his head, Leo heaves a dramatic sigh and throws his arms and head back.
“No fair! Twins should get special perception from Donnie getting mad!”
He pulls his soggy sleeve away from his mouth and automatically corrects, “Exemption.”
Leo leans back on his hands and grins at him wide and victorious, “So you do think we’re twins?”
“Not what I said,” Donnie shakes his head.
“Same deference!”
“Difference. And that doesn’t even make grammatical sense.”
“Whahuh? Too many big words, Dee.”
Donnie sighs and rests his cheek on a bony knee.
“Wanna go back to the movie?” his brother suggests gently.
He shakes his head, motioning vaguely around his ears, “Too much.”
Leo nods, tapping his fingers on the ground, “Mmm... wanna pull all the cords in da house and see if any fit the gameboy?”
Adjusting his glasses, he says nothing at first, wheels turning, “I don’t think any will fit... but--”
“Bet ya can make one to fit with what we gots,” Leo finishes his thought waggling his brows.
Donnie gives him a crooked smile as he stands, “What are we waiting for?”
Leo accepts his hand up with a scheming smirk, “I’ll distract Raphie!”
Perhaps Leo is not his twin, but his brother always knows exactly how to inspire him back out of his go away corner.
~~~~
A/N: I write Donnie as being on the Autistic spectrum, and how I chose to reflect that is drawn from personal experience but may not be representative of all who are on the spectrum.
#ROTTMNT#disaster twins#rottmnt fic#tmnt fic#brotherly bonding#Hurt/Comfort#family feels#turtle tots#sticky#fanfic#Series: Wish we had just a little more time...
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Sneak Peek
Freefall Ch 3 (Untitled and unedited)
He follows the scent of fresh air, down a corridor and around a turn and straight into a pair of guards. They’re armed, but he’s faster. He leaps, putting his superior strength into play, passing over their heads and rebounding off the wall. He slams into the first with a fatal crunch. He turns on the second, who barely manages to turn his weapon on him.
John charges the soldier who fires wildly at him. He feels the sting of the bullets as they impact they strike. One takes him in the shoulder, but the rest hit on his carapace and don’t penetrate. He hurls himself at the soldier, ripping the weapon from his hand with a vicious twist. The pain of the gunshot compounds with the pain of the torture and he is filled with a combination of fury and hunger.
With a twist of his head he sinks his fangs into the man’s throat. Blood pours into him and he devours it greedily. Hot and heady it rushes through him. His extremities tingle and his heart begins to race. Warmth floods through him, he hadn’t even realized he felt cold, until the sudden absence of cold overwhelms him. He sinks into it, luxuriates in the feeling.
He feels, and ignores the hands pushing at him feebly, striking at his back and face. He drinks, his strength flooding into him. The hands cease to strike at him and he whimpers slightly as the flow of warmth stops. He drops the corpse, watching it sink boneless to the ground.
He looks at it, pauses, he knows he should feel something. He should be disgusted at having taken a life this way. Except that he is a soldier. He has killed before, and this man was an enemy. The only difference between killing him with a bullet and killing him with his teeth is that now he is stronger and faster for the kill. He licks his lips tasting the last of the blood.
#writing#writeblr#fanfic#writers on tumblr#creative writing#john sheppard#writers#ship dynamics#writing inspiration#sga#todd the wraith#wraith#stargate#stargate atlantis#bug john
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Would Trust You With Everything - Ch 7: Will Wait For You
An Adrino Story - Canon Divergent from Rocketear, S4 AU.
Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
Read on Ao3
Chapter 7: Will Wait For You
Chat Noir hadn’t been by to visit for three nights in a row and Nino was going out of his mind.
The first night had been fine. Nino had known Chat wouldn’t make an appearance having been there the night before as he never showed two nights in a row. Nino wasn’t sure he was ready to face him anyway, having only realized how he felt. He had poured himself into making a Chat Noir inspired playlist. Nino would give it to him the next time he saw him, though he hadn’t decided if he would admit what it meant yet.
The next night, Nino paced back and forth between his bed and the window he now always left open no matter the weather. He wanted Chat to make an appearance, but if he did, Nino wasn’t sure if he could pull off any semblance of acting normal while he also didn’t think he was ready to say anything.
But it hadn’t mattered because Chat hadn’t shown, which wasn’t entirely abnormal, but had become a rare occurrence. Once the clock read just past midnight, he dragged himself to bed, trying to convince himself that he wasn’t disappointed.
He failed.
He also didn’t sleep very much.
Nino had been certain Chat Noir would show on the third night. He never went more than two nights without stopping by. Not anymore anyway. He listened to his new playlist three times in a row before he realized it was pushing eleven o’clock. Chat usually was here by now, which meant he probably wasn’t coming.
Nino’s throat felt tight. Had he done something wrong? And it was hard not to replay every word of their last interaction in his head especially when their last sleepover hadn’t been exactly normal. But Chat had been upset with Ladybug, not with him. The more he thought about it Nino really didn’t think Chat Noir had any reason to be unhappy with him.
But it wasn’t like Nino could ask.
Which led Nino to another chilling thought.
What if something had happened to Chat Noir’s civilian self? Would Nino ever know?
He tore his headphones off and bolted towards his computer. He was being ridiculous. He knew that he was. There were a million explanations for what might have kept Chat away. He clicked onto the Ladyblog anyway, checking for sightings. But the most recent picture in the comments was old. Nino didn’t even have to glance at the timestamp because the picture included Carapace. In the picture, Chat Noir was grinning at him, his strangely feline eyes warm with mirth and what Nino hoped was more than friendly affection, though he suspected it was wishful thinking on his part.
Nino closed out of the tab immediately. He didn’t want to read more into it than was there.
But without the picture serving as distraction, he went back to worrying. He wished he had his miraculous so he could go out for a run, or even go in search of a missing Chat Noir.
Nino also wished he could text or call or something , but he didn’t have a way of contacting Chat, and if someone did send Alya a sighting, she likely wouldn’t post it until the next morning if she posted it at all.
Wait! Maybe she had received something that wasn’t up yet. She would be willing to share with him, right?
He pulled up her text thread. The most recent text was from the day they broke up.
Nino:
Can we get together tonight? Just talk things out?
Alya:
Sure! See you later. Love ya!
He stared at the exchange, surprised at how much it didn’t hurt. But could he really follow that up with his anxious question? Was it right for him to text his ex-girlfriend about the boy he currently liked at all?
He groaned.
Why did the Ladyblogger have to be his ex-girlfriend?!
But then again, if he didn’t have a personal connection with her, he wouldn’t have been able to ask at all.
Nino:
Hey. Have there been any Ladybug or Chat Noir sightings today or yesterday?
Alya:
Yeah. They’re on top of the Eiffel Tower.
His phone dinged a second time as a picture came in. His heart rose into his throat at the sight of Ladybug and Chat Noir locked in an embrace. She was clearly crying.
Nino tried not to jump to conclusions.
Hadn’t he seen Chat Noir and Alya in almost the exact same position?
And he knew almost firsthand that Chat Noir and Ladybug hadn’t exactly been on the same page lately. Maybe they had just reconciled and that was all this was.
And it’s not like Nino had any claim on Chat’s heart. Chat Noir didn’t know how he felt at all and Nino had no reason to think he’d even be interested.
But Nino would have liked to have at least told him. It would kill him to be too late by just a few days. But if Chat Noir finally got what he wanted with Ladybug, Nino wasn’t about to throw a wrench into it.
His phone buzzed in his hand again.
Alya:
Why?
Crap! He didn’t know how to answer that.
OMG! Nino!
And then she was calling him. Fuck! He couldn’t talk to her! He was rubbish at lying. But not answering would also be interpreted as an admission of guilt.
He swallowed, and made himself answer. “Hey.”
That sounded normal enough, right? And if it didn’t, well, at least he had the excuse that this was their first phone conversation since they had ended things.
“Is Chat Noir the friend that you like?” she asked excitedly without preamble.
“What?!” he scoffed, trying for all the fake incredulity he could muster.
“You guys have been running a lot of patrols.”
“No,” he insisted as if that would convince her. “Chat Noir isn’t the friend. Ladybug just said I could keep him company when she couldn’t make it. And I wanted to get out of my own head, you know? Running with enhanced agility was really helpful for that.”
Stop talking, Nino!
She didn’t say anything for a moment. He chewed his lower lip, uncertain of what to say.
“Then why were you asking about where they are?”
“No, I was just… worried about uh… someone getting akumatized.” Why did he say that? He could have just said the same thing as before. That he was feeling restless and was hoping for a patrol. He really sucked at lying.
But she didn’t question him. She didn’t say anything at all. Quiet was never good with Alya. He knew that first hand.
“Alya?”
“Are you okay?” she asked softly. “Did something happen?” And she was asking about his “friend” again. He knew that she was.
“No,” he said firmly. Nothing had happened. And that was sort’ve the problem.
“Did you tell them how you felt and they said no?”
Was she really asking him that?
“Alya,” he whined. “I can’t talk about this. Not with you.” He knew how that sounded. He needed it to sound that way. But he hated it because it wasn’t really what he meant.
“Oh.”
He cringed at the hurt in her voice. It sucked not to be able to tell her things even now. Was this what it felt like for her when she hadn’t been able to tell him her secrets?
“I’m sorry,” he offered.
“No, it’s okay. I get it. I’m just… not used to there being walls between us. And I know I was the one to put them there. I’m sorry for prying.”
He wanted to argue. He loved that she was still interested… still invested in his life. That she was trying to be supportive of his love life in particular.
But he couldn’t because he needed her to stop asking questions.
For Chat Noir’s sake.
God, he was such a goner. Which he had already known, but apparently it was worse than he realized. He buried his face in his hands.
“It’s okay, Al. Really,” he mumbled. “Maybe I’ll be able to talk to you about it someday. Just not yet.” And he really really hoped that that would be true one day.
“I hope so, too, Nino.”
…
Nino fell into his bed the instant he came home from school the next day. Nothing had happened, but everything felt weird , and he was exhausted, having spent the whole day feeling off balance.
Alya was super talkative, gushing to him excitedly about a Ladyblog entry that she was working on just like she used to. They had said they wanted to be friends again, so he wanted to meet her with support and enthusiasm, but he felt awkward now in a way he hadn’t before.
Marinette had been stuttering like normal, but she had been stuttering around Alya , which was decidedly not normal.
And it was weirder that Alya didn’t even seem to notice. She would know what those signs meant better than anyone, wouldn’t she? Was she ignoring it on purpose? But why? Hopefully not for him. He knew that she wasn’t indifferent to Marinette’s possible interest. Should he say something like she had for him?
Then, Adrien was being cagey and Nino was worried something had happened at home, but his friend had been avoidant, unable to look at Nino at all at times, so Nino had to settle for just worrying. Was it just because he wanted to avoid the probing questions? Or had Nino done something wrong?
And now that Nino was home, he was trying so hard not to watch his open window for shifting curtains. He pulled his headphones, turned his back to the window, and hit play on his Chat Noir playlist, wondering if he’d ever get a chance to share it with him and feeling stupidly dramatic for even having that thought.
He lay back, closed his eyes, and let the music wash over him, taking away his doubts, and just letting him ride the journey the music took him on. The only thing that would make it better is if Chat was there to share it with him, but he wasn’t likely to be there until dark.
He had hours to go before that was even a possibility.
But he was wrong. He only made it to the fourth track when an impossibly smooth hand tapped his shoulder.
Startled, Nino bolted upright, only to immediately clunk heads with Chat Noir.
“Ow!” he screeched, pulling the headphones off as he sat up more carefully.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Chat said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I knocked, but you didn’t hear me.”
Nino rubbed at the sore spot on his head. “I wasn’t expecting you this early. I… wasn’t sure you’d be by at all.”
“I’m sorry I disappeared on you. I was–”
“Talking to Ladybug yesterday,” Nino interrupted, trying for an easy smile, but his gut was twisting itself into knots. “Yeah, I saw.”
“You saw?”
“Alya,” Nino said by way of explanation. “Someone sent her a picture. But don’t worry, she didn’t post it.”
“You…” Chat Noir bit his lip. “You asked Alya about me?”
Nino fidgeted with the headphones at his neck, trying to ignore the heat building in his cheeks. “I was just worried. You haven’t stayed away that long since you started coming over every week. And I just–” Nino trailed off with a shrug.
“I’m sorry. I should have dropped you a note or something. I thought—”
“It looked like Ladybug was upset in the picture,” Nino interrupted again. He really should let Chat finish his explanation. He didn’t know why he didn’t want to hear it. But every centimeter of his skin was buzzing with nerves. He needed to keep the conversation on Ladybug. “E-Everything okay between the two of you? You guys are still… friends?”
Chat’s eyes shot towards him, but Nino still couldn’t meet his eyes. He rubbed at his fingernails instead.
“Uh… yeah. Ladybug and I kind’ve made up. Not that we were broken up or anything. Just, you know–”
Chat’s normally fluid speech was disjointed and filled with pauses today. God, why was everything suddenly so awkward?
“But yeah, she and I are really good friends.”
Nino breathed a little bit easier at that label, and then he felt guilty. He wanted Chat Noir to be happy more than anything.
But he couldn’t deny it was suddenly easier to look up at Chat’s face, knowing he wasn’t too late.
He smiled at Nino. “And I think it’s going to stay that way.”
Nino swallowed. Was Chat Noir trying to say he wasn’t interested in Ladybug anymore? Or was he saying that he didn’t think they would hurt each other again? He knew what he hoped Chat Noir was implying.
“I’m really glad that you’re here,” Nino said into the silence. “I missed you.”
“I missed you, too.” Chat Noir slipped onto the bed next to him. They sat side by side, so close their thighs were almost touching. “I wasn’t out last night because Ladybug needed to talk to me. If anything I needed advice from her.”
“Advice?” Nino wasn’t sure what he was allowed to ask here.
“Yeah, about sharing my identity with someone.”
Nino’s heart stuttered in his chest. “What?”
Chat Noir took his hand and thread his gloved fingers through Nino’s. Nino stared at the sight, trying to understand what it meant. “Nino, I need to tell you who I am.”
“W-why?” Nino wasn’t sure why he was objecting. Chat could tell him anything. “I’ve told you it’s fine.”
“Because I just do. You’ll understand when you know.”
Nino waited, barely daring to breathe as his heart thudded so loudly in his chest, he was surprised Chat Noir didn’t tease him. But then, the silence stretched from a normal length pause to absolutely nerve-wracking. Chat didn’t say anything, and a second later he was shaking, trembling in Nino’s hold.
And somehow Chat’s obvious distress seemed to wipe out his own anxiousness.
Nino squeezed Chat’s hand with both of his. “Hey. Look at me.” And Nino’s vision filled with feline slitted green eyes. Nino smiled gently. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Chat shook his head violently. “You deserve to know.”
Nino smiled again. “Maybe. But I can wait until you’re ready to tell me.”
Chat couldn’t meet his eyes. “You’re going to be so mad when I tell you.”
Nino laughed. “Dude! I promise I won’t be.”
Chat tried to pull away, but Nino held firm. “You can’t promise that! You don’t know that!”
Nino didn’t know how to reassure Chat that he meant every word. He would wait. And when Chat was ready it would be okay, whenever that was.
And so he did the only thing he could think of.
Nino leaned forward and kissed him.
He was unprepared for Chat Noir’s response. His breath was hot and insistent, And his lips felt as soft as silk. His claws tightened into Nino’s shirt, kneading like a kitten, and then he started purring.
Nino gasped at the sensation, pleasant tingles shooting down his spine. Goosebumps broke out across his arms and neck. Chat’s arms wrapped around him, pulling him closer, and Nino found himself hoisted up off the bed like he weighed no more than a doll. Maybe he didn’t in Chat’s miraculous strength-enhanced hold.
Nino’s lips parted, and Chat seized on the invitation, his tongue dancing across Nino’s. Chat seemed to breathe in his very essence.
And when Nino had to break for air, Chat didn’t stop. His vibrating mouth trailed from his mouth to his ear, traced down Nino’s jawline, and then moved to his pulse-point. Nino’s whole body trembled at the intensity of it.
He tangled his own fingers in Chat’s hair, caressing over the cat ears that he had been wanting to touch for days and days now, fascinated as they seemed to flutter under his touch. Chat’s purring seemed to intensify under his ministrations, which was a heady feeling.
Nino used his leverage to urge Chat’s mouth back up to his own, so they were kissing and sharing air once again. And just when Nino didn’t think he could handle the pace anymore, Chat pulled back for a gasp of air.
Then their kisses gradually slowed down, and their daring explorations turned into gentle caresses, until eventually only their foreheads remained pressed together, wrapped in one another’s embrace as they calmed down from whatever that explosion had been.
“How long have you wanted to do that?” Nino asked, breathless.
Chat laughed. “I’ve been thinking about it for the last three days.”
“Me too,” Nino told him, kissing him again briefly, but pulling away almost immediately. “I uh… have something for you.”
“What? You do?”
Nino pulled him by the hand to his desk chair to wake up his computer. He then grabbed the wireless headphones that he had dropped on the bed, and placed them over Chat’s human ears, and clicked over to the playlist.
The music was loud enough that Nino heard it through the seal. No wonder he hadn’t heard Chat’s arrival.
“You made me a playlist?” Chat asked, his tone pitched with disbelief.
Nino nodded enthusiastically. “You’ll have to tell me what you think,” he said loudly to be heard over the music.
“I can hear you just fine,” Chat said, pointing to the cat ears. “It’s a super power of mine.”
Nino laughed. “I’m especially curious what you think of the last track. I remixed it a little bit.”
Chat moused over the track list titles displayed on Nino’s computer. “Remix - Sleepover Edition?”
Nino pinched his shoulder with one hand. “Yeah, I uh… it reminded me of our hangouts. There’s another called rooftops that had the energy of patrols. Then this one—“ he said, pointing to the third track on the list, “—is how I feel when you’re here.”
This time Chat Noir yanked him into his lap, and kissed him again. It didn’t last as long as their first kiss turned-make-out-session, but it was just as overwhelming. Nino didn’t know how he was going to handle a boyfriend with super powers.
“You haven’t even listened to it yet.” Nino objected when they broke apart.
“I don’t need to listen to it to know I love it. This is so amazing. I don’t deserve it.”
“Shhh. Of course you do, now shut up and listen to the music.”
Nino kissed him again once, then flipped around, and let his head fall backwards on Chat Noir’s shoulders as Chat’s arms came around his waist as he continued to listen to the music.
This was different, unlike any of their previous hangouts or sleepovers.
But one thing was for sure. Nino could definitely get used to it.
#miraculous ladybug#adrino#adrien agreste#nino lahiffe#hurt comfort#self indulgent#speed write#only write the fun parts#canon divergent from rocketear#my own content#would trust you with everything
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Reversal of Fate (It is Never Easy) Pt. 6
Chapter Title: Fateful Encounters, Fated Mystery
Chapter: 6/??? (Chapter Master List: Here )
Chapter Characters: Jevek (OC), Mysha (OC) Knight Hegemol, Lavender (PV), Unnamed Vessel, unnamed OCs, mentions of Tiso
Chapter Warnings: Death of a creature, talk and description of the infection, description of a character in pain. Lavender is really not having a good time now. Pretty sure if this was in their POV it would just be incoherent internal screams of panic. We also get an idea of what I've been talking about since Ch.1 regarding my stealing and modifying a mechanic/story beat from Limbus Company. It's why Lavender is having a horrible day outside of other things.
Chapter Summary: A light spreads and with a fate changed new meetings happen. Some parts of Fate can not be changed, what will attention create in the path?
Jevek had not been a guard long when the whispers of infection had become more than silly rumors of panicking bugs out in the far reaches of the kingdom. The rumors had made many of his class jumpy and nervous, while the old timers clicked and grumbled while checking weapons. Jevek had felt a fizzle of excitement mixed with that stomach churning fear that came with knowing a fight was going to happen. A feeling he had learned to listen to, even as he despaired at his little brother Tiso seeming to have gotten none of that instinct in his fool head.
Yet, Tiso’s inability to realize dying in a fight was not all there was to life aside, Jevek knew that something bad was going to happen. The fizz creeped up the curve of back when he and his troop were tasked to help move refugees from one of those far off posts and to blockade the area being taken over. Already just the fact that refugees were part of the mission had him tightening the charm his mother had carved so long ago when he proclaimed he wished to join the guard and protect Hallownest. Refugees were not always the most cooperative if they got it into their heads to argue with the guard or that some random trinket just had to be recovered when the orange ooze that bubbled and grew was creeping steadily over a home. Even while the rest of his comrades had whispered in excitement and relief when they had seen the hulking figure of the gentle giant of Hegemol of the Five Great Knights at the front of the company had not settled that feeling.
Something Big was going to happen, and all Jevek could do was hope he came home to tell the tale to Tiso.
They marched on though, feelings of misgiving aside, they had a duty to the people of Hallownest. If nothing else he could tell of the harsh lines and wildness that spread out as they moved further away from the heart of the kingdom. Where the marvels that the Pale King had created were few and rare on roads kept clean of the bare minimum to allow carts to pass through safely. It was a place of wild things and hunters of beasts whose carapaces and skin were used in armor and told in tales at taverns and bars. A place that he knew little Tiso would charge in shield swinging to challenge anything and everything to a fight. He wondered if he was ever that exhausting as a kid.
Then like a shift the air became cloying and choking with a sickly sweet smell and the light changed to an orange tint the closer they got to the little town that had reported sightings of an infection in the wilds out of their town. It was worse then he had imagined when he heard what it did, even as he helped usher the small groups of citizens heading towards them to the back of the procession where those who were tasked with escorting waiting for enough to show before beginning the trip back.
“I know this area.”
The soft cadence almost odd considering the situation had snapped his attention from looking forward to the grasshopper seeming to be almost casually looking around like on a midday stroll. Then again, Mysha always seemed to be calm and placid regardless of the situation. Something that had caught many a drunk brawler off guard when she would calmly walk into the middle of a brawl and clunk heads together. So the casual observation only made them look in question, because aside from that calmness she was known most for only speaking when something was important.
“Why is that important?”
There was barely a rustle and half the company jumped and readied weapons when a tall, but thin bug appeared from seemingly nowhere. It was only the way said bug froze at the sight of them and the little one in a mixture of green and browns at their side huddled slightly behind a leg that likely stopped someone reacting farther then that.
“That’s why.”
They only vaguely noticed Mysha wave lazily at the pair before studying them in curiosity. If Mysha had wanted to warn them of the pair and not in an escort out of here way that would always pique his interest. Though, at first glance the other bug didn’t seem like much, as they anxiously wrung their one hand into the straps of a sturdy bag that seemed to be full of plant matter. The dark brown of the bag was a shock of contrast to the pale purple of the cloak that fluttered around them and barely concealed the battered and well worn nail at their side. Even the trail of delicate silver and purple petals that were painted in a windswept way across their mask from what looked like a branch bursting with flowers that trailed down their head and over one eye socket gave an impression of one that should not have snuck up on an entire company of trained guards. Skittish was the first word one would pin to this bug. Protective another as Jevek watched them all but hide the little one with three horns on one side of their masks in the folds of their cloak when some of them were a bit too slow in resheathing weapons. They didn’t seem all that different from other families that would go out to gather items for the home or profit.
Though, he may have been underestimating them due to that. He had to remind himself that those hunters and gatherers often went into areas even the guard were hesitant to patrol. All in order to keep afloat and avoid the high prices of certain supplies that the capital bugs liked to monopolize. A fact that seemed to be uncommon knowledge from the grumbles of several of his fellows in the group. Already writing the pair off as delicate and helpless as they gained a swagger of arrogance to their stance as they stared at the silent pair. Until Knight Hegemol cleared their throat and all of them turned to listen to the soft spoken Knight. Only he and Mysha seemed to notice how the newcomer all but froze at the sight of the King’s Knight. Which was odd, it was well known that Knight Hegemol was the gentlest of the five Knights, so to seemingly be afraid of him was confusing to say the least.
Then there was movement where there had been stillness and all of them jumped, but before they had even properly seen what was a threat the newcomer was pulling their nail out of the pus filled head of an infected beast with a sickening pop and drip as the orange pooled and dribbled out of the wound and ruptured cysts. The appearance of the beast from the underbrush and the reaction of the newcomer leaving them all a bit flummoxed outside of Mysha who calmly approached the newcomer, skirting the oozing beast with its orange cysts ready to pop. A hand tapping lightly and fondly on the top of the little one's head who seemed to silently giggle before they did a small shimmy and jump. Little wings that seemed of shadow and soft light fluttering as they settled themselves on the shoulder of their parent? Little hands holding onto a horn as the newcomer looked without directly looking at Mysha as she seemed to ask something lowly of them. She seemed to understand the tilts of head and gestures of the lone hand before she nodded and came back. More towards Knight Hegemol than him and the rest of the guard.
“Sir, the infection hasn’t hit the town yet, but it has spread deeper into the wilds then we had known. Evacuating should be easier, so long as none of the citizens have attempted to reach some hidden cache or cave and actually stayed in the safety of the non infected zone as told.”
How did she get that much from a few head tilts and gestures was a mystery. One they may never get to find out as they turned their head to look at the newcomer again in curiosity. Only to feel horror cold and heavy fall like a rock in their stomach as they watched one of the younger guardsmen literally poke a cyst on the beast with their nail with force and little care. They had heard of what happens if the pus touched something living, and oh there were too many clustered near it and he didn’t want to have to fight his friends and comrades because of one stupid mistake…
There was an odd chime sound, metal upon metal clinking and rubbing together and it suddenly felt as if the air had stagnated and froze over as he slowly watched the newcomer double over and seemed to seize up like a great agony was squeezing them into a painful shape. Even as their little one fluttered away in fear and panic as their parent and perch all but collapsed down and into a ball of silent pain. Then the air seemed to rush back in right before the pus could burst and fly onto those that had foolishly gathered around the corpse, and then it was gone. The infection, the corpse and even a layer of the orange tint the air had from the encroaching infection in the wilds. Most of them stood stock still. Shock, surprise, confusion at what happened rooting them all in a wide eyed questioning stare. Except for Knight Hegemol who moved with a speed that one would not expect for someone so large as they quickly but still careful and gentle of their size to others clasped the shaking and silently wheezing newcomer and gently pried them from their curled position to make it easier to breathe. The movement causing wings that were shredded and burned horrifically to flutter for a moment before settling once more in the folds of pale purple.
“Where did the beast go?”
It was whispered but with how still and silent all of them were outside of Knight Hegemol, the heaving newcomer, and the little one fluttering in distress near their parent, it may as well have been a shout. All of them flinched as if a large crash had suddenly assaulted their hearing. The sound and motion seemed enough for the teetering newcomer to shake themself into flinching away from Knight Hegemol as if burned. Snatching up the little one and seeming to just disappear into the wild as if they had never been. The only sign of them ever being there was the lack of corpse and a sprig of star like white flowers that had fallen from the bag of one of the two.
Jevek was more fearful of the openly concerned look on the unflappable Mysha and the the odd look Knight Hegemol had as they starred in the direction the newcomer had fled; all before slowly turning to Mysha and in the usual soft voice he always had when speaking to the troops he said a phrase that for some reason had Jevek wondering what revelation had been reached by the King’s Knight in that moment.
“Guardsman Mysha, when this mission is over, please remain after. We need to speak about the one who just left.”
#Blue writes#Reversal of Fate AU#RoF AU#Hollow Knight#fanfiction#Lavender is not having a good time at all now#hk hegemol doesn't know if they want to be right on what they think is going on
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Whispers of Distant Souls - Ch.5 sneak peek (#2)
“Wake up, guys, Blue’s awake,” Leonardo said as he pulled Purple to lean on his side. He reached for Orange but when Red’s embrace tightened around the box turtle, Leonardo resorted to picking up the snapper.
Red’s eyes snapped open and widened as his feet dangled for a few seconds before he was lowered to the ground. Completely caught unawares, he stood frozen as Leonardo picked up Purple to lay out the softshell on his carapace. Leonardo pat Red’s head then ruffled Orange’s head to wake the box turtle.
“Blue’s awake, go check on him,” Leonardo repeated as he picked up the tray and led the way to the medbay.
Oh goodness, the peepawification has begun. The Dad in him is starting to adopt the turtles./hj
F!Leo got buff because he knew the day would come when he gets transported to the past and has to father five teens and one teen/young adult and that he would have to be able to carry all of them, especially Raph /j
#whispers of distant souls#rottmnt#rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#rottmnt future leo#rottmnt fanfiction#future leo au#future leo returns to the past with casey au
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#miraculous ladybug#ml spoilers#mledit#miraculousedit#ch: carapace#ch: chat noir#ch: chloe#s4#4x24#ours*#day*
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