Man I adore tormenting dottore as my love language :3
cw: kinda dark? zandik accidentally hurting us because he's hallucinating (IM NOT AN EXPERT I just think it's like. Very realistic if this were to happen)
Anyways, I like to think that Dottore came from a... Rather unpleasant home, and then especially burned his home town along with everyone who has cursed him (except for you ofc)
Still, the memories hasn't left him. It's not like he could, no matter how much he buries himself in his research. Zandik can't heal when he pretends that it's all fine and that dwelling into such emotions would be a waste of time. This proved to be more prominent during his younger days...
One day, I could just imagine, you come home to your shared dorm, all preppy and smiles because you're finally gonna spend time with the love of your life! Only to see absolute ruin of your dorm—everything was a mess, papers strewn every where, couch flipped, drops of his blood on the floor. You panic, wondering if the Matra finally raided your home to arrest Zandik, then you heard him yell—in your bedroom. You run towards it, frantically, and stupidly.
You should've assessed the situation more. Took a deep breath and calmed your mind—but you were striken with anxiety and fear, and when you shouted "what happened here!?" "What did you do!?" at him, you were quickly met with pain you've never felt before.
He had burned you with a torch, and now you're on the ground, writhing and screaming in hellish pain, cradling the parts of your body that was burnt to a crisp. You see him grinning at you, eyes full of satisfaction and malice.
You thought that this was what he wanted all along, that everything was a lie and he just used you for all your worth, and now that he has nothing to use you for, he has decided to kill you.
But you then hear him shout: "Are you proud of me? I've become the monster you've always told me that I am."
Quickly, you realize that he hadn't meant to hurt you.
The scars stayed, much to Zandik's dismay. After treating your injuries, he has resorted to ignoring you for the next couple of days, being mean and insulting you.
Just be patient with him, you know that he cares. And that he's absolutely crushed that he has hurt you, of all people. He didn't mean it, but now you've got painful scars that will ache for a life time, all because of him. All because he was stubborn to heed your concerns. He wanted to burn the past, he really did. To forget and move on. He hated his childhood so much that he's willing to just let it burn into ashes... But he didn't realize if he tried, he'd burn you along with it.
You see him open his mouth whenever he tends your healing wounds, but then close it, biting his bottom lip to keep it from trembling. You see him read books all about treating burn wounds, cook you meals, ignoring his research all for you—his hands shook, eyes dark though glassy. You know he wants to apologize, but then his eyes goes to your scars, sucks in a deep breath, glares at you and walks away.
He's really doing his best to push you away
Zandik cares so much that he wants you to leave him, hate him, for being who he is, for being what he is. But no, you're smiling so softly and reassuring him that you're fine. That it's not his fault, that he didn't mean it.
And he'd yell he did mean it, that you were just lucky to survive (as if he hasn't lost sleep and progress on his research just to tend to you).
It wasn't his fault, you urged.
You remember it all vividly. Zandik knocking frantically at your home, houses ablaze behind him, his body littered with cuts and bruises. People were carrying torches and pitchforks, makeshift weapons and screaming at Zandik to just leave—and with out much thought, you grabbed as much as you could from your room and ran away with him.
You knew he finally snapped that day. Took matters in his own hands... He never talked much about it, but you could assume what happened. And you were certain he had confronted his parents before it all went to shit.
He wasn't trying to hurt you. He never did, and he would never want to hurt you. You were the exception and will always be, he would rather let the world cave in than letting you bleed by his hands. Zandik was lost in his thoughts, drowning in unpleasant memories and his eyes deceived him—he thought you were someone else, and he wanted to hurt them, not you.
JGJGOFHFJDSJS yeah that, he most definitely probably cry in your arms talking about how much he hates ur scars bc he gave them to you...
I would add more BUT IM LITERALLY IN CLASS AND MY PROFESSOR IS LECTURING HELP OKAY BYE SMOOCHES ILY /P HAVE A GOOD DAY CKCBXKCBDJ
Sorry for this I just like. Exploring struggles and menta shit KBcjcjc
MOOT WHAT IS THIS... WHY ARE YOU HURTING US LIKE THIS my JAW WAS DROPPED THE WHOLE TIME ���😭 Okay but real. I have two hcs when it comes to Zandik's parents - they were the only ones who loved him but they died when he was really young, or they really just hated him. I've also heard others say "Zandik" can be used as an insult too? I don't know how true that is though. But yeah I think the latter is more likely to be true unfortunately 💔 Even if they were nice to him it wouldn't be enough to counter a whole town's worth of hatred towards him... yup yup the village definitely got burned down to the ground.
One would think that he wouldn't be affected. But he wasn't Dottore yet. He was merely Zandik at this point. He couldn't just shrug it off and go about his day. He pondered. He thought. He felt. He was still more human, more feeling than he wanted to admit, and he absolutely hated it. Still, he didn't regret it, but the memories would simply not leave his head. It was wholly bothersome. After all, not too long ago he was merely a little boy... a little boy who was deemed a monster, a demon child. All the people, even his own parents who accused him were gone now yet... their voices still rang clear in his head. And of course you had no clue, because Zandik would never speak about his feelings under any circumstance.
OUCHHHH HOW CAN I EVEN WRITE THE NEXT PART?? I CAN'T WRITE IT AS GOOD AS YOU oh gosh I WILL TRY. Ah... coming home to your shared dorm. Thinking it's going to be another regular, good day with you and your lover. But it's not, and when you see your home ransacked of course the first thing that goes through your mind is if your Zandik is okay. Of course you you rush to him and beckon him to tell you what happened as anyone would do. Of course you try to reach out to him. And of course, you didn't expect to be licked with flames by your lover's own hand, not only is your body crying out in pain but so is your heart - did Zandik really not care for you after all of these years? The only one who you treasured above all else... perhaps he never viewed you more than a pawn. But then you hear those few words that make you realize what's truly going on - ah, you understand now.
The logical part of Zandik knew that the scars would remain, but the illogical part of him hoped (to think he was even capable of that) badly that they wouldn't. You wonder what his expression was when he was tending to your wounds - you were asleep at the time - but even if you had seen it you probably wouldn't be able to put it into words... it was expressionless yet also not at the same time. He looked empty, and unfeeling, yet he looked the opposite too. And perhaps you wouldn't believe how tenderly he treated your wounds, from the way he's giving you the cold shoulder now. You wouldn't know the way his hands shook the whole time because he did that to you. The one person who would never, who should have never faced his anger, his wrath. It's all his fault, there's no denying that, he hurt you and now you're going to be hurting for the rest of your life too. The last person, no the only person who he doesn't want to see hurt.
Even now, Zandik doesn't understand you. How the fuck are you more calm about this than he is. He hurt you. He burnt you and he meant it and yet in the aftermath, there's not a hint of resentment on your face and he doesn't understand - he hates it so much, you should hate him, in fact it'd make him feel better if you did because how can you even begin to like him a tiny bit after what he's just done, he's claimed to love you and even in that twisted mind of his he knows that's not what lovers do. He doesn't understand why you haven't packed your bags and moved to another dorm by now, hell why do you try to usher him to bed because "lack of sleep is bad for him" what actually goes through your mind...? What went through your mind when you decided to leave with him too? The villagers weren't after you, just him, you could have had a normal life, but you still decided to go with him... you two had no plan, no money, no real necessities but you gave up everything for him anyway. Sigh...
Ouch... i feel like at some point you would just accept your scars but Zandik? Haunts him more than he wants to admit. Don't get me wrong he still thinks you're beautiful but... you know what I mean. Mhm... imagine the child segment asking you where/how you got the scars from and at the moment you make up the most ridiculous lie because that's all your brain can think of because there's no way you're telling the baby that Prime did it. Oh and the angst if Dottore hears that convo :(
Okay... moving on from that angst... PLS You're hella brave for being on tumblr in class, I'm too scared to open it or write fics in general in fear of someone seeing 😭 Once I accidentally opened my blog on my laptop and I closed the tab at LIGHT SPEED. ILY TOO KAI I HOPE YOU'RE DOING WELL!! ❤️❤️❤️
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STH - Had My Ducks in a Row, Now They're Slowly Falling Out of Line
Notes: I had intended to work on Beyond Oblivion tonight, but ever since I made that post about Metal Sonic calling Tails an unworthy child the other night (and then also made a post about Tangle being a good big sis), I've been thinking about this . . . and so this ended up coming out instead. Originally it was meant to be just Tails and Tangle, but as I finished up their section Sonic's came to mind, so I couldn't resist adding that in too.
Credit for the idea that Sonic has a little unease about Tails making so many weapons goes to @chaoxfix, because that headcanon is just too perfect to pass up. Hope you don't mind that I borrowed it!
Also, this is my first time ever writing for Tangle, so I hope she sounds all right, because I love her to pieces.
Summary: Months and months ago, Neo Metal Overlord called Tails unworthy. And he knows it's stupid to keep thinking about it, but it's been living rent-free in his head ever since. [Post-Chao Races & Badnik Bases, pre-Trial By Fire]
- - -
Tails scowled at the schematic spread over his work bench, and pressed his pencil lead a little harder into the paper.
Unworthy child!
His pencil lead snapped, the crack echoing with the words in his head, and he let his forehead hit his workbench with a groan.
It had been months since that day—months since the battle of Angel Island, though after the Metal Virus pandemic it felt as though it had been so much longer. But it really hadn’t been; everything happened so quickly nowadays, one crisis right after another, that there were times when Tails felt out of breath even when he was standing still. It wasn’t all bad; he genuinely liked adventure, especially when he could help Sonic save the world. But that was the problem, wasn’t it?
He chewed the inside of his cheek, and squeezed his eyes shut.
He had helped, during the battle of Angel Island. No matter what Neo Metal Overlord said, he had helped. He crashed the ship straight into Metal Overlord—he took him down! Sonic was so proud of him. Tails couldn’t say he wanted to do it again (in fact he’d say the opposite since he’d ached for days after that, not that he’d admit it), but he would say, would insist against the nagging voice in his head, that he had helped that time. He’d helped save Angel Island, and the world.
But . . .
But then the Metal Virus pandemic happened. Sonic got infected, and Tails couldn’t help him. Oh sure, he’d come close to working out a cure. But one set of infected Chao had been all it took to sabotage his data and make him lose everything. And though he had managed to retrieve one of the Chaos Emeralds from Zomom with Amy’s help, not only had he not been the one to come up with the idea to begin with, but at the end, all he’d been able to do was cower and hope against hope that Sonic would pull through and save the day. Sonic, who had been fighting off the infection for the duration of the pandemic. Sonic, who was already at the limits of his exhaustion. Everything had fallen to him, again, and Tails had been able to do nothing to help except retrieve one lousy Emerald.
(Well, that wasn’t fair. The Emerald wasn’t lousy. The Emerald helped Sonic achieve Super form, which allowed him and Silver and Metal to save the day. That was more than Tails could say for himself.)
Sonic hadn’t held it against him, of course. Sonic never did. When Tails was too scared of lightning to pilot through a storm, or revealed that a Chaos Emerald was fake and got Sonic ejected into space in a soon-to-be exploded capsule—no matter the situation, Sonic never blamed him. For all his spiky quills, bravado and the way he could snark at their enemies, Tails knew the truth: Sonic was a softie, and way nicer than most anyone gave him credit for.
Tails lifted his head so he could fold his arms on his desk, his chin resting upon them. He laid his pencil in front of him, and gave it a light flick so it rolled up the desk, and then back down to his waiting finger. Another flick sent it rolling up again.
It wasn’t like Tails had accomplished nothing in the interim. He had found schematics to fix Omega . . . even though he couldn’t read them. And Sonic had trusted him to go raid an old Eggman base to try to find the cipher he needed so that he could read them, and that was where they found Belle. And later, when they went to help Amy and the others at White Park . . . well, Tails had gotten kidnapped by Starline and tied to a rollercoaster to emotionally blackmail Sonic. But Rouge had, too, although she’d managed to cut her ropes and free herself faster than he did. But that was all right, wasn’t it? Because then he’d helped her alert the others so they could evacuate the tourists. And though Starline had tried to grab him again, this time Tails managed to protect himself . . . through using Belle’s kicking reflex, albeit without her permission to do so.
Unworthy child!
Tails huffed a sharp sigh to try to dislodge the twist in his gut, and flicked his pencil hard enough that it zipped off the back of his workbench and tumbled down to the floor.
“Whoa, buddy! Is this a bad time?”
“Huh?” Tails sat up and twisted around in his seat, blinking in surprise as he caught sight of Tangle in the doorway of his workshop, her fingers gripping the top of the doorframe as she swung lightly inside. “Oh—no. Do you need something?”
“Nah, not really. I was just kinda bored, and in the area, so I thought I’d drop in.” As she spoke, Tangle skipped over and hopped onto a stool beside Tails’ workbench. It spun halfway around, but she caught herself on the side of the desk, and swung back around to face him. “What’cha got goin’ on?”
“Nothing much.” Tails glanced back at the schematic he’d been working on, a half-finished design for a new rocket launcher. There was no need for it, really, but there wasn’t not a need for it, either. That’s what Tails told himself, anyway, or told Sonic whenever Sonic questioned him about why he was building so many different weapons. Maybe they didn’t need rocket launchers right now, but who was to say what would come in the future? There was no telling when Eggman or Starline or whoever would attack again. It was better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.
Unworthy—!
“Helloooo?” Tangle waved her hand in front of his face, and Tails jumped a little, blinking as he refocused on her. “Everything okay in there? You seem a million miles away, little dude.”
“Oh—yeah! I’m okay,” Tails said, and he forced a bright smile. Tangle smiled back, but not all the way; her forehead was creased, her brows pinched in the middle. “Sorry, I was just . . . thinking.”
“About what?” Tangle asked. When he didn’t answer right away (he was never good at coming up with lies on the spot), she nudged her calf against his shoe, and gave him a cajoling smile. “C’mooon, tell me! We saved the world together, right? A couple different times! You can tell me things. I promise I’ll only beg to try out whatever cool new invention you have up your sleeve a total of three times if you tell me about it.”
Tails couldn’t help it; he cracked a smile, despite himself. “It’s not that. I—the rocket launcher’s not coming along as hot as I’d like. It’s nowhere near testing stages yet.”
Tangle’s eyes lit up. “Rocket launcher?”
Tails cast a glance askance at the schematic. Solar power was the way to go, he thought; there was an endless source of energy right there in the sky, just waiting to be used. But none of the batteries he’d built could build up a charge quickly enough, or hold enough of a charge for long enough, to be used in something like a rocket launcher. He’d been working on solar power batteries since even before Metal Sonic’s coordinated badnik attacks, and yet—
Unworthy . . . !
“Do you ever—” Tails began, then stopped. This was stupid. It was stupid to still be thinking like this. If he told Sonic—
Sonic wouldn’t say it was stupid. Sonic would never say something like that. He’s too—he’s not mean enough for that. Even if he thought it, he’d never say it.
“Do I what?” Tangle kicked her feet back against the leg of her stool, and when Tails said nothing, she swung her tail around to poke him in the head. “C’mon, don’t leave me hangin’. Finish what you were gonna say, I’m all ears.”
Tails ran a hand across the back of his hair, smoothing down the fur Tangle’s tail had tousled. “It’s nothing. It’s stupid.”
“Stupid? From you? Mr Kid Genius? I highly doubt that.” Tangle put her elbow on his workbench, and leaned her cheek into her palm. “Come on, just tell me! Whatever it is, I promise I won’t tell a soul. Cool tail buddies honor.”
It was stupid. There was no way to explain that he was letting something Neo Metal Overlord said rot in his head for months without sounding stupid. But the thing about Tangle—the thing Tails liked about Tangle—was that she was unapologetically sincere. She wasn’t afraid to be enthusiastic about things, or embarrassed even when she was clumsy and made mistakes. She said they were cool tail buddies, but Tangle herself wasn’t concerned with being cool. With being a hero, sure. But not with being cool. And she was best friends with someone who was just as much of a nerd as Tails himself was, albeit about different things. It didn’t matter that Jewel’s wardrobe consisted of nothing but pantsuits and that she unironically loved organizing. Tangle still thought she was one of the coolest people in the world.
So maybe, even though what he thought was stupid, it would be okay if he told Tangle. Maybe she wouldn’t think he was any less cool himself. And she probably meant it when she said she wouldn’t tell anyone; he hadn’t known her to ever lie before.
“Okay,” Tails said at length, and Tangle’s eyes lit up. “But I’m going to hold you to that. If you tell anyone, you’re out of the cool tail buddies club.”
Tangle put two fingers to her forehead, and popped them off in a salute. “Yessir! So, what’s got your tails all twisted? In the bad way, I mean.”
“It’s just . . .” He’d resolved to tell her, but even now, the words felt stuck in his throat. Tails wished he hadn’t flicked his pencil off the desk; he needed something to fidget with. He took a deep breath. “Do you ever wonder if—if maybe you’re . . . if despite anything, you’re just—holding people back? Or not . . . contributing what you should be?”
Tangle blinked, and sat up straight on the stool. “What?”
“I mean—” Tails swung one of his own tails up so he could fidget with the tip; he couldn’t look her in the eyes anymore. “You do your best. And you do contribute some things. But it’s—when it matters, when it really counts, you just . . . fall short. You have to rely on someone else for help, to save the day. And you—no one’s mad about it, and they’d never say it, and you do some things so you know you’re not totally useless, but you wonder if, if maybe . . .”
“If, maybe . . . you made one mistake too many?” Tangle offered, and Tails’ ears flattened against his head, his shoulders hunched as he cringed. “If maybe at first it could be passed off as you just being inexperienced, and not really knowing what you were up against, and so you underestimated the enemy and he got the jump on you because of that. But then later, after you knew better and could be trusted, you still got careless and your zombified best friend got the jump on you and turned you into a zombot, and so she realized she really couldn’t rely on you after all. And so the real reason she left you behind wasn’t because you were working with the Restoration and she felt that your place was with them, but was actually because she felt she couldn’t count on you as her backup anymore because you’d already let her down once, so who’s to say it won’t happen again? And you can’t even fault her for that, because you did let her down once and, anyway, if she wanted you along she would have let you go with her, but she didn’t and that means that if you go after her now, you’re disrespecting what she wants and are just going to get told to go home again because she doesn’t want and can’t count on you at all.”
Tails furrowed his brow halfway through Tangle’s speech, and by the time she was finished, confusion clouded his anxiety so thoroughly he could hardly feel it anymore. “Huh?”
Tangle blinked; for a moment, it looked as though she’d almost forgotten he was there. Then she laughed loudly, and waved a hand through the air as if dispelling smoke from burned cookies. “Just as, you know, a totally random and totally not specific or in any way real scenario.”
Tails frowned. “Right . . .”
“But, anyway. My totally random and not specific or in any way real example aside—am I hearing you right? You think you’re not contributing enough? You?” Tangle reached over with her tail again, and this time gave him a light push on his shoulder. “Have you seen all the stuff you’ve built? You’ve got two whole workshops filled, plus all that stuff at Restoration HQ. You’ve got a crazy amount of inventions! And you’ve saved the world, several times! And you’re only eight! You know what I was doing when I was eight? I was parkouring off cliffs, and not even on purpose. Jewel didn’t get those guns of hers by hauling rocks around her museum, let me tell you. She got them from hauling my sorry butt back up from the cliff I threw myself down for the third time in a week.”
Tails chuckled. “Yeah. But—”
“But nothing.” Tangle flopped her tail on top of Tails’ head, and he brushed it away. “You are hands down the coolest eight-year-old I’ve ever seen in my life. So what if you need help sometimes? Everyone does, and you should know; you help people all the time. So why’s it bad for you to get helped back, huh?”
“It’s not bad. I just . . .” Tails flailed a hand, gesturing to nothing. “I’ve been doing this for a long time now. I just feel like maybe I should be . . . better, by now.”
“Well . . .” Tangle tilted her head side to side, considering. “That’s not a . . . bad thing, maybe. I mean, don’t get me wrong, you’re totally awesome and should have way more confidence in yourself. But if you were totally satisfied, then you couldn’t get even better, right? You’d stop trying. And there’s no way this world would be able to handle it if you stopped trying, so that would be no good.”
Tails gave her a wry smile. “The world would be fine. I mean, there’s Sonic—”
“Sonic can’t invent the things you do,” Tangle said. Her tail poked him in the chest. “Don’t get me wrong, he’s amazing and a hero and we’d all be doomed a thousand times over without him, and if I get to go on another adventure with him tomorrow I’ll have waited too long—but he’s no scientific genius, y’know? But you are, and you’re cool and nice and not evil or bonkers like Eggman or Starline. So we definitely need you in our corner.”
Warmth flooded Tails’ cheeks, and he looked away as he rubbed the back of his neck. “Thanks, Tangle.”
“Don’t mention it, li’l dude. What are cool tail buddies for?” Tangle winked, and Tails felt his smile grow. “So, what’cha workin’ on? You said something about a rocket launcher? Please tell me you have a rocket launcher.”
“Not yet,” Tails said, and Tangle’s shoulders slumped in exaggerated disappointment. “But I have been working on a few other things, like a new set of prototype missile gauntlets.”
Tangle sat straight up in her chair, eyes shining. “Missile gauntlets?”
“Yeah—well, I was thinking about Knuckles, you know? He’s a brawler, so he specializes in close-quarters combat. But Eggman knows that, so if he sent badniks to Angel Island, they’d probably be ones that are built for long-range combat.”
As he spoke, Tails hopped off his stool and crossed the room to the workbench along the back wall, where the prototype gauntlets—having just had the finishing touches put on them the night before—sat. Tangle followed close at his heels, her eyes the size of dinner plates.
“So just in case he gets attacked by long-range badniks and we’re not near enough to help, I figured these might be able to give him an extra boost. They can function like normal gauntlets in close-range combat, but if he presses this button here by curling his wrist—” Tails indicated a button on the inside cuff, “—then it’ll deploy missiles from the knuckles of the gauntlet, here.” He tapped his fingers along small, barely visible missile compartment doors along each of the four knuckles. “Of course, right now each gauntlet only holds four missiles, so it’s not exactly practical for a long fight, and I haven’t figured out how best to reload them, especially since Knuckles isn’t exactly the greatest with technology, but—”
“Those. Are so. Cool!” Tangle squealed, and Tails jumped yet again, his tails spinning this time to keep him a few inches off the ground until his heart rate slowed. “Can I see them in action? Can I try them out?! Please, please can I try them out?!”
“Well, I made them for Knuckles, so they’re a bit big, but . . .” Tails eyed Tangle’s clasped hands, and then her pleading eyes and wobbling lower lip. He grinned. “Gimme ten minute to adjust the size, and then we can go out to the target range out back.”
Tangle let out another delighted squeal, and scooped him up in a bear hug. For the second time in under five minutes, Tails felt his feet leave the ground. “Woohoo! You’re the best, Tails!”
Tails laughed as she set him back on his feet, his own tails swishing behind him. “Heheh, well . . . I try.”
- - -
It wasn’t too uncommon for there to be reports of explosions in the general vicinity of Tails’ Mystic Ruins workshop. Tails was a super genius, but he was a super genius who often worked with explosive materials and way too much electrical charge, and so every now and then, things were bound to get a little explode-y. So when there was talk of an occasional kaboom heard in the Mystic Ruins, Sonic didn’t usually get too worried.
But sometimes it wasn’t just one kaboom. Sometimes it was multiple kabooms. And when those multiple kabooms were accompanied by talks of missiles and rockets and lots of yelling . . . that’s when Sonic’s quills got set on edge.
It wasn’t in his nature to panic right away. Multiple kabooms, rockets, and yelling didn’t necessarily mean that Eggman had decided to strike again, targeting Tails’ workshop directly this time. But when Sonic tried calling and got voicemail—well, that still didn’t necessarily mean Tails was in danger. Maybe he was just caught up in whatever he was working on, and didn’t hear his communicator beep. So Sonic tried again, and once more, got voicemail. And when he tried a third time . . .
Well, he didn’t try a third time. Kabooms, missiles, yelling, voicemail. All four things combined meant it was time to pay the Mystic Ruins workshop a visit.
Fortunately, he wasn’t too far away. He made it to Tails’ home in record time, picking up the pace when he caught sight of the wispy spirals of smoke rising in the sky from Mystic Ruins’ border. As he wound his way through the Ruins, he spied no badniks—but then, that was probably intentional. Ol’ Egghead was probably laying a trap. Not a very good one, considering how fast word spread that something was going down in Mystic Ruins, and how obvious the smoke was visible against the sky, but—
Another explosion rent the air, and rocked the earth enough so that Sonic stumbled as he reached Tails’ front door. Immediately following, he heard a whoop of delighted laughter from behind the workshop.
He blinked, and stood up straight. Was that . . . Tangle?
Seeing as how nothing seemed to be happening inside the lab, Sonic looped around to the back, where Tails’ outdoor testing area and target range was. Upon reaching the back, three things immediately became clear:
One: His ID of the voice he heard was correct; Tangle was indeed in what remained of Tails’ backyard.
Two: Tails was just fine, and not under attack at all. He had his tablet in hand, and was surveying the wreckage with a grin from his vantage point up in the air.
And three: Rebuilding the testing area was not going to be fun.
To say it was in ruins was an understatement. Every single target, from the ones that had been pinned to the trees, to the stationary standees, to the ones that Tails had built into moving tracks in the ground, had been blasted apart in some form or another. There were little embers smoldering in the grass in different parts of the yard. Several trees had been knocked over. A pair of rickies were staring at the carnage with horrified awe from the roof of Tails’ workshop.
Tangle spotted Sonic as he rounded the corner, and while she had already been sporting a manic grin, her smile somehow grew even wider as her hand shot into the air and she waved at him. “Hey Sonic! What’s up?!”
“Seems like that’s what I should be asking you,” Sonic said, as Tails swooped down to land beside him. Sonic raised an eyebrow as he glanced over at Tails. “Some people were saying they heard explosions out this way, so I figured I’d swing by to take a look. Everything okay?”
“Yeah! Tangle’s just helping me test some new gear,” Tails said, as Tangle zipped over to them at speeds Sonic didn’t know she was capable of. She still wasn’t on his level, of course, but he did have to step out of the way as she blazed by, a trail of fire sparking on the grass behind her.
“Rocket boots,” Tangle said, before Sonic had a chance to ask. Her eyes were shining brighter than a pair of suns, and she pumped her fists in front of her. “He made rocket boots!”
Sonic laughed. “No kidding?”
“They’re for Shadow,” Tails explained, and he held out his tablet so Sonic could glance over the schematics on the screen. “I know his are still in okay shape, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be better. And I’ve added extra propulsion to these ones to add more force to his kicks. You know, since he likes to kick people.”
“He does like doing that,” Sonic agreed.
“I mean, who knows when we’ll see him again. But if something does happen, I figure it might be nice to give him a boost. You know, as thanks for helping us out. I’m thinking about making some for his Chao, too, so it can keep up with him.”
“Not sure he wants to be bringing that little guy into battle. Though you never know, maybe Cream and Cheese’ll inspire him.”
“Right? So it won’t hurt to be prepared, just in case.”
“Okay, as absolutely freaking adorable as the idea of Chao rocket boots sounds, I’m ready to try out the next thing,” Tangle said, already slipping out of the rocket boots she’d lit the grass on fire with. “You got anything else, little guy? Please tell me you have something else. You’ve gotta have something else.”
“Hmm . . .” Tails tapped his finger to his chin in thought, and then grinned. “You know, I did finish a prototype for a magnet gun last week. It works by using magnetism to attract and repel metal, theoretically turning anything used against us into possible ammunition to—”
“Is it in the same area of your workshop as the other things?” Tangle interrupted, eyes bright. Tails nodded, and Tangle pumped her fist into the air. “Heck yes! I’m on it!” With that, she turned and dashed back into the lab.
Sonic shook his head, smiling as he watched her go, and then looked back at Tails. Tails was already skimming through the schematics on his tablet again, no doubt searching for the magnet gun’s folder so he could make notes based on Tangle’s tests. Now that he knew the workshop wasn’t under attack, his quills settled back into a more relaxed position, his heartrate returning to its usual fast, but not supercharged. Tails was safe. He was having fun with Tangle. His yard was destroyed, but they could deal with that later. Sonic would help, and he would only be a little melodramatic about it.
But it seemed like everything they had tested so far was some kind of weapon. Even the boots for Shadow—didn’t Tails say something about adding more firepower to them, to help Shadow in combat? And a magnet gun, while it didn’t have ammunition of its own . . .
So much had happened so fast. Eggman had successfully taken over the world, and kept Sonic in captivity for six months, during which Tails was alone. Then not long after that, Metal Sonic had tried to take the Master Emerald, and the world with it. Then there was the Metal Virus pandemic, and the incident at White Park . . .
Sonic loosely crossed his arms, his head tilted as he examined Tails. Tails was still scanning through the blueprints on his tablet, his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.
He was such a smart, strong, brave kid. But he was also, well . . .
“Hey,” Sonic said, and Tails looked up, his ears perked in question. “You doing okay?”
“Huh?” Tails blinked, as though caught off-guard, and for a second—just a second, so quick Sonic almost missed it—it looked like something clouded his eyes. But then he smiled as the door to his workshop opened again, Tangle bounding back out into the yard. “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”
Something was there. Sonic didn’t know what it was, but he did know he didn’t like it. Tails was so smart, and strong, and brave. But . . .
“No reason,” Sonic said. “Hey, doesn’t that new AGES game come out this weekend? How about we give it a spin?”
Tails grinned, and wagged his tails in a hard enough circle that he lifted a little off the grass. “Really? You want to?”
“Definitely,” Sonic said, and he grinned as Tails beamed, and did a delighted little loop in the air.
“All right, I’ve got the gun,” Tangle said, and Sonic took a step back as she hefted a heavy, dark blue-grey weapon in her hands. Once again, her smile was manic; it was not at all hard to believe that she had destroyed all the targets in the yard with glee. “Show me how to work this thing!”
“You got it!” Tails dropped back down to the grass, and leaned closer to Tangle as he started to give her a detailed run-down of the gun: the trigger mechanism, magnetism strength modification slider, the whole works. Sonic shook his head, and as Tangle nodded fervently along with Tails’ instructions, bounded up onto the roof to sit beside the rickies and watch the chaos that was about to unfold.
Tails was a smart, strong, and brave kid. But he also was still a kid. More specifically still, he was—and always would be, no matter how old they got—Sonic’s kid brother.
Tails indicated a hunk of scrap metal on the other side of the yard. Tangle took aim and fired. The magnet gun’s magnetic beam worked as intended; it secured the scrap metal in a vibrating grasp, and propelled it straight back at Tangle at alarming speed. Heeding Tails’ shouted warning, Tangle spun herself in several circles, swinging the scrap metal around her, before she released it and sent it flying. It crashed clear through a tree, and made a strong dent in the tree behind it. Tails, delighted, saved the video on his tablet as Tangle crowed in triumph.
No matter how much he wished he could, Sonic couldn’t stop the bad things from happening. And no matter what he said, he knew he couldn’t make Tails feel like he could slow down on making an armory big enough to outfit the entire world—at least, not for long. But whatever nightmares bugged Tails at night, or spurred him to develop new guns and rockets during the day . . . well, maybe Sonic couldn’t dispel them completely, but a chill weekend of video games and junk food definitely couldn’t hurt.
Tails retrieved the scrap metal and set it out so Tangle could give the magnet gun another go, and Sonic leaned back comfortably against the roof to watch the show.
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i need someone i can yell at about my very niche tma au ;w;
(see me playing fast and loose between tma lore and mdzs canon under the cut wheeee~)
this is part headcanon, part drabble, all-around mess. just dont think too hard about it please
the classification of each entity isn’t fully documented yet, smirke’s 14 doesn’t exist, but each major clan has a specific fear that called their founders. there are also some entities haven’t been identified yet so a lot of fears bleed into each other
they’re still cultivators here. they’re cultivating fear.
golden cores are the physical manifestation of your connection with your god within your body. the more you feed it, the more connected you are to your patron, the more powerful you become.
each clan is a powerhouse to a specific entity but their disciples can be touched by multiple entities (and honestly, i cant make everyone a slaughter avatar) only the sect leader needs to be fully devoted to their fear god
Gusu Lan = Beholding, Qinghe Nie = Slaughter, Yunmeng Jiang = Hunt, Lanling Jin = Stranger, and Qishan Wen = Desolation
wei wuxian was once heavily touched by the hunt. his mother a famous Huntress and rogue cultivator and his father a servant and close friend to the sect of The Everchase
jiang cheng’s Hunt core is slightly weaker but its fine because they are of the same pack. they are partners, brothers in everything but blood, and will hunt down anyone who dares to hurt the other.
jiang yanli isn’t an avatar, not marked by the hunt but touched by the Hive, manifesting more on the love/belonging and family aspect rather than the filth aspect
i have more Thots about the family aspects between hive/hunt and how they are both very possessive on who they call their Persons but expresses it different ways that mirror jyl and jc but that’s for a different post
during their time in the cloud recesses they meet a quiet watcher who wwx immediately zones in on him as his new “prey”.
lan wangji is silent and knowledgeable as is expected from a disciple of the beholding, but there is a certain chill around him that other eye avatars do not have
wwx stalks the poor boy, pounces on him whenever he manages to catch him alone, and is just a general disturbance all-around.
he does not feel the Eyes that sometimes watch him when he is alone.
lan xichen does not need the beholding’s power to see the way his brother looks at the young hunter disciple. he is pleased to feel the cold surrounding the jingshi has lessened. shufu seems perplexed and torn.
wwx’s also has his eye on jin zixuan, the pompous plastic peacock that’s engaged to his shijie. he isn’t actually allowed to hunt him down so he settles on dismembering the lifeless mannequins that he uses as servants.
(playing with the timeline here) they get kicked out when a text is destroyed within the Library Pavilion even though it was just a pornography book (any kind of knowledge is still knowledge) and even though it was lwj who destroyed it (the eye had punished him severely for that).
the desolation!wen are attempting to bring The Scourged Earth into the world. they burn down the cloud recesses “in the name of ‘cleaning up the place’ so that it would be ‘reborn from the firelight.’” ( - directly from the mdzs wiki)
the xuanwu of slaughter is an ancient manifestation of, well, the slaughter and cannot be reasoned with.
(”Lan Zhan, can you See anything?” “No. My connection with The Beholding has been greatly severed.” “Oh. well.. Uh, it’s kinda foggy in here huh? Here have my outer robe, you look kinda cold.” “…Mn.”)
lotus pier burns and jiang cheng loses his core. wwx asks flesh!wen qing for help because only an avatar of the flesh (the boneturner, though that isn’t its name yet) is able to carve open another avatar long enough to take something out and place it somewhere else.
jiang cheng immediately becomes a fully-fledged avatar using wwx’s hunt-influenced core. it manifests as strong bloodlust against the wens, fear of being seen as weak prey by the other clans, (and later, hunting down wwx and other end-aligned cultivators.)
wwx gets thrown in the burial mounds. he is dead for three whole months. and then he wakes up.
his hunter core is gone but that’s fine. he is alive not because he wants to but because he has to. when he is awake, he calls upon the dead to exact his revenge. the wens are defeated and everyone is in frightened awe of the new being that he has unwillingly become. when he is asleep, black tendrils of death plague his dreams. He relives the horrible memories of his own and others’ deaths. sometimes he can feel someone watching him but cannot see them in return.
wei wuxian is alive but he is not part of jiang cheng’s pack anymore. he does not follow them out on hunts anymore, doesn’t even bother to stay within the residences. he isn’t part of their pack anymore, abandoned their patron for something else more powerful, and for what? he feels resentment brewing inside him. resentment and fear.
wwx knew not to trust the polished and waxed faces of the jins. all the wen remnants are non-avatars, barely touched by anything other than the fear the jins had instilled by themselves. they do not deserve this cruelty, to be both entertainment and livestock for the rest of the cultivation world. it is true that death comes for everyone, but wwx will not let these people die at the hands of these strangers.
the wens become touched by the End during their stay in the burial mounds. wen ning, with flute music playing in his head, wins an archery game against Death and finally wakes.
one day a cold mist surrounds yilling when wwx takes a-yuan out on a stroll. He loses him but finds him again clinging to a man in white robes that looks like he wants to disappear. wwx feels himself smile brightly at the sight. (”lan zhan! it’s so nice to see you again! It’s been so cold out today but luckily it’s warmer now!” “Mn.” “You really blend in with the fog with those white robes of yours. it’s okay though because i’m sure i can find you wherever you disappear to!” “Mn.”)
qiongqi path becomes a massacre of plastic mannequins and not!beings. the smell of death and manufactured flesh fill the air like an offering to his unwanted patron, and black tendrils surround wwx and his assailants. It blinds him and he can’t see it, can’t control it, can’t stop it as jin zixuan is pierced through his chest and falls to the ground, dead.
the clans are outraged. they speak in fear of him, they hear of his power over life and death and that he, like the wen fugitives by his side, is trying to bring about his patron into the world. they call for an attack, a bloodbath to take him down once and for all.
and a bloodbath it is. the entire cultivation world against a one-man army. fear rings high in the air and all the Entities are well fed in the aftermath, the most satisfied: Slaughter and (paradoxical to their intent) The End.
later, much later, when the siege is over and nothing is left of his anchor other than a small child marked by death, lwj accepts the punishment lashes and then goes into cold seclusion. the jingshi is completely covered by clouds of fog. no one can See him, the elders only get a debilitating headache when they try to pry too hard. not even lxc, who has become the Eye’s most devoted avatar, can know his brother’s whereabouts. only lan yuan seems to able to navigate through the dense gloom.
the world moves on
jin guangyao’s wide smiles are not conspicuous within the plastic faces and painted lips within lanling jin. If his limbs are too long or if his smile a bit distorted or if he disappears through a bright yellow door and doesnt come back then no one makes mention of it.
No one also notices the webs above them hidden in the high ceilings of lanling jin nor the tiny spiders that skitter around the gossiping servants, spinning and weaving threads of thick silk around them.
it takes years for his brother to come out from the fog and lxc nearly weeps at the knowledge that The Lonely had not forsaken another member of his family. still, lwj has changed. there is a certain chill around him now that persists wherever he goes. though he has always been silent since childhood, his silence now is cold and unfeeling, eyes faraway as if not seeing those around him and only floating through the days. He is not completely alone though and that is enough to alleviate some of xichen’s worries.
time abates some wounds but certainly not all. there is still an empty cold pit in lwj’s chest but it does not bleed as freely as it did 10 years before. Before, he would have readily disappeared into the fog when the elders comes to look for him, now he chooses to disappear from the cloud recesses and absconds into night hunts. he goes wherever the chaos is, seeking (but not willing to hope) that he might find something that can stir the deadness in his heart.
tbc ?
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