#oc fusion x listener
Text
Vania [Vanilla and Anti's fusion] + playlist
🔪 When You're Good To Mama - Queen Latifah
🧁 Bust Your Knee Caps - Pomplamoose [Yanderecore]
🔪 Talk - Salvatore Ganacci
🧁 Teeth - Lady Gaga
🔪 Jealousy - Marina & the Diamonds [Jealouscore]
🧁 Scream - Besomorph
🔪 Mz. Hyde - Halestorm
🧁 Sweet Tooth [Cover] - Chloe Moser
🔪 Cult Leader - KiNG MALA
🧁Get On Your Knees - Nicki Minaj
All songs belong to their creators
Picrew belongs to the creator
Antisepticeye belongs to Sean McLoughlin aka Jacksepticeye
#yandere pastry chef oc#my oc#oc fusion#oc fusion x y/n#oc fusion playlist#antisepticeye#jacksepticeye ego#jacksepticeye antisepticeye#I love her/them so much!! 🥺💖💚#antisepticeye fusion#warning: knife#yandere oc fusion#oc fusion x listener#music#playlist#oc playlist#minors please dni#ageless blogs pls dni#picrew#She's a gentle sadist and a brat tamer 😌#Of course she'll sleep with you but don't expect to be leaving in the morning#You're hers now ♡
2 notes
·
View notes
Photo
GOTENKS GETS A GIRLFRIEND
Comic from an entire year ago (April 2022) that I just never worked on and finished until now...!
Basically HE MEETS A WEIRD GIRL AT THE SKATEPARK! Lol. I promised that I would never post about her until I had pics to post and you have no idea how many times I had to bite my tongue.
More info about her + the whole situation + additional and old pics under the cut! BUT It’s really long so you can just appreciate the comic on its own if you’d like.
(Yes the first page is very deliberately mirroring the infamous “Ariel Gets Legs” comic.)
Hi c:
So this was a year ago so let’s see what I remember.
Basically it was March 2022 and that’s springtime for me and the sunshine was starting to affect me. And I was listening to Owl City because that’s the kind of springtime it was. And I was listening to “Deer In The Headlights” by Owl City and I Locked Eyes with my Gotenks figurine and I ... had a vision. This IDEA sprang FULLY-FORMED from my head like the birth of Athena.
You see, watching DBZ, I got the impression that when Goten and Trunks were fused, they didn’t really remember what it was like after. Mainly I think this was from the way that after they unfused, everyone was like OMG YOU GUYS DID IT, and Goten and Trunks looked at each other and were like “...we did?” But I remember a few times just getting that impression.
I think however, that canonically, if that were ever the intention, it fell off quick for convenience's sake. And we don’t really get much implication on the retention of a fusion’s memory one way or the other anyway. BUT, the idea that they don’t remember much was a first impression that stayed with me.
So this idea sprang fully-formed from my head, in the unabashed high of March sunshine and Owl City, in which Gotenks gets a crush on a girl at the skatepark. And Goten and Trunks, who have less than half a memory each, have to piece this together bit by bit. (For example, it starts because often times when they unfuse after Skatepark Funtime, they note feeling a shred of something residual and Odd - anxiety, embarrassment, affection, adoration, discomfort, self-consciousness, anything and everything of that nature. And eventually, they work up the courage to mention it to the other, and they start solving it from there.)
In my head it would be a long and sweet fanfiction on the internet posted by a wholesome individual who would have a presence on fanfiction.net / deviantart / youtube for like 8 years until just dropping off and moving on to bigger and brighter things ... YOU EVER SEE THAT ? Someone who is just COMMITTED to their OC x Canon and they’re friendly and prominent in their own corner of fandom and they do it for years? Yeah. Yeah that was the vibe of this.
I’m not going to be that person and put in the time for that though so just imagine it in your head pls...
The whole point of all of this was definitely just to be so sweet and wholesome. You could replace this post with clipart of the sun and that would get the point across more succinctly I think (seen below)
Anyway.
Now, The Girl. From the beginning I didn’t know how to go about her personality. Should she be rude and rough and disapproving of Gotenks, like the song that sparked this? She would certainly fit into the franchise. Should she be so so sweet like the sunshine that’s feeding this? Maybe she likes the fact that she and Gotenks both have two-toned hair. Or should she be something in the middle, or something else entirely? Maybe it depends on whom she’s talking to?
I figured that if she was sweet, there would be a scene where Trunks is at the skatepark alone and he ends up running into her. He thinks that she seems familiar, and something in him takes pause. She tells him that she’s seen him before, but doesn’t he usually have a buddy with him? He says “Yeah, my buddy Goten-” and she chirps up excitedly, interrupting - “Gotenks?” He stutters a bit, corrects her - “similar name, yeah, but no..” - and at her moment’s sadness and the tug in his chest, it all clicks in his head.
Otherwise, though, I never formulated a concrete idea.
The thing is I accepted early on that her character was fluid, as in, she would be whatever I needed her to be. I bit the bullet early - “yeah, she’s a fan character made to be the girlfriend of a canon character, yep, this is what’s happening.” So I didn’t stress over how she should turn out, just that, as a yarn-spinner, I’d have yarn to spin. HOWEVER, as I’ve brought this concept back a few times throughout the past year, a semi-static characterization has formed. More on that + her design later.
SO. GOTENKS. THE ACTUAL STORY. From the very beginning it was simply this - Goten & Trunks like to go to the skatepark as Gotenks because it’s wild and reckless fun. They don’t remember much, but they do retain the manic glow of someone having just indulged in their favorite activity. Gotenks SHREDS ! He’s SWAG!! King of the park, man!!
However. There comes a day where he meets a girl who makes him Shut Up. Gotenks, who is always confident and rambunctious, actually becomes stricken speechless. Hence the reference to “Ariel Gets Legs.” So whether she treats him well or not, we have this story where he becomes subdued and shocked around this girl at the skatepark.
I also had this reeeaaally cute idea that I haven’t drawn yet where his Kamikaze Ghosts act as his inner voice and give him away. He gets nervous around her and just starts coughing, and coughing and coughing and then he HACKS up a ghost who looks at her and says. “WOWIE ZOW! Hottawhat MOMMA! Hoo wow now THAT bird’s got FEATHERS!” and just weird antiquated shit and Gotenks has to stand there and try to get it to shut up without touching it and causing an explosion (and usually those ghosts are his Guys like his Gang like his Lackies his Toadies usually they do what he tells them to do and they make for some swag epic effects when doing shows at the skatepark yknow. But now they are Ruining Everything!!!)
An early concept would be that they meet because he Eats Cement at the halfpipe and she’s there to clean up the mess because his decommissioned cadaver is Blocking The Lane (previously posted pic for reference:)
EARLY and never-before seen pic for reference:
Anyway. So let’s talk about her design
I could have designed her Any Way I Wanted but I followed my heart ... and my heart wanted to make a character based off of a Bird. DON’T ASK ME WHY.
I really like Dark-Eyed Juncos because they migrate to where I live during the winter and I think they’re so sweet. However at this time I had given the Junco schtick to a different OC of mine so I went .. “Ok. What if I used the Yellow-Eyed Junco instead?” Now that was the right move. Pictures of Yellow-Eyed Junco from google Below:
AREN’T THEY CUTE ?! :D
Most of this OC’s colors are actually directly lifted from the bird itself.
And her design definitely has bird inspirations, like her fluffy goddamn dress that looks like it’s stuffed with feathers, and her spiky two-toned ponytail meant to summon to mind a bird’s tail, and of course her pointy nose.
Here’s another drawing from the time where I was wanting to doodle hair more akin to that which you see on characters like Bulma and Arale (I actually referenced some pictures of Arale in the early design phase)
I still use this picture as a color ref. And her dress just looks so so soft here. I love it a lot.
Anyway. So her NAME.
I thought about this one for a while. I knew that her name ought to be a pun, or just otherwise stupid and goofy. I cycled through a few ideas. I didn’t want to be too unorthodox, but in the end I followed my heart and did a REVERSE-PUN:
Her name is Junco.
This is a real Japanese name.
She is, like, the only character to have a real and conventional and normal name.
However, she is based off of the Junco bird.
Her name is pronounced like the real Japanese name though, not the bird.
Jokes on you, asshole.
Runner-ups were “Plum” from “plumage” and for the color of her dress, and the different names for the bird in different languages.
Anyway. So, JUNCO. What’s her deal? To start, as a character, she has bird motifs, and all bird puns are applicable, even if not applicable to the yellow-eyed junco specifically (for example, wayward quotes from her about eating bugs or seeds, or her lexicon containing words like “preening” rather than “bathing,” is valid and likely.)
I think at the beginning I thought that she had a mom whom she lived with and who would pick her up from the park but at some point that dissolved. For all intents and purposes she’s just been Singular. Individual. Independent. TBH I think that she’s been damn lonely.
At some point the vibes became that she, for whatever reason, is alone. She didn’t migrate when the rest did. Maybe she’s waiting for them to return, maybe they never will. But when everyone else goes home at the city-imposed skatepark curfew, she’s the last to wander away and hoist her board into a tree or on top of a streetlamp somewhere and watch the starless sky.
Gotenks’s reality as a fusion factors into this - he too has a time limit for her, and she’ll never understand what dictates his capricious comings and goings.
As I mentioned, there are lots of branches to this story tree, but whether she likes him or he likes her or they have a rivalry of sorts until coming to hold hands, the trunk of the story is always that they are both weird kids whom no one else understands.
What’s come to be, and what I’ve been able to articulate clearly only recently, is that Junco and Gotenks bond in the way that two lonely and traumatized kids do. I can’t explain it, it’s just the vibes native to their story.
But of course, what’s ACTUALLY native to the story is that there are fusion shenanigans with Gotenks’s Cinderella-esque time-limit and this girl at the skatepark who loves him/hates him/befriends him and they know each other intermittently throughout the years and it’s a super sweet & wholesome story and it’s dripping with playful drama and sunshine and they race each other on their boards to “Loaded (George Noriega Radio Edit 2)” by Ricky Martin ..!
And yeah following the events of the above comic she probably keeps the truck to his board + his skate tool + the screws and she uses them to line her nest (other items in her nest include a cartoonish decrepit wood stove and a copy of “Waking The Tiger” by Peter A. Levine.)
ALSO: The world of potential surrounding the idea of if/how she finds out that Gotenks is a fusion, how she feels about Goten & Trunks, ETC ETC is .. largely untapped because it’s just not my focal point. But there is lots to say, and I have thought a lot about it before, and if I play my cards right I’ll get to post about that later.
Sorry for the extensive text with minimal visual incentive. I’m hoping to post more pics of them soon when I make them/finish them, but in truth I tend to abruptly come in and out of fascination for this concept, so if I never ever post about it again don’t be surprised. :(
And the thing is last year I posted a lot about Gotenks At The Skatepark and I truly did have myself a bit of an obsession (to the point where I tried to pick up the hobby myself) and that all started with this one random idea of Gotenks meeting a girl at the skatepark .. What a nice thing. Truly one of dballzposting’s few wholesome moments. It was nurturing for the soul.
Thanks for reading. Stay gorgeous out there
75 notes
·
View notes
Note
your ocs music tastes are so cool! im glad to see a japanese jazz fusion mention :Dc (my fave jp jazz/punk band is midoria so far!) does francesca have a fave riot grrrl band?
This is an awesome question thank you!! It’s always hard for me to put down specific real life bands white whale fall characters would listen to because 1: I don’t know all the music in the world (I wish I did) and 2: I’ve never nailed down an exact date it’s super vague but white whale fall takes place maybe somewhere around the late seventies. So that cuts out a lot of music that I do know!! Also ashamed to admit I haven’t actually listened to a ton of riot grrrl. I’ve listened to a lot of stuff that influenced the movement and WAS influenced by it- but I wish I could name more actually self identified riot grrrl bands I like -_- I will say an era appropriate band that Francesca would definitely love is x ray spex. I started writing/concepting wwf at a time that I listened to x ray spex a TON and they’re very connected to Francesca in my mind. X ray spex was the earliest influence I can think of to write characters who were in a band and also they are the reason that band has a saxophone in it!
#‘also riot grrrl was primarily a 1990s thing’ shhhh don’t worry about it. it’s alternate history furry earth world I can be vague with it#also MIDORI MENTIONED!!!!!!!! i love midori hi lol#ive drawn francesca in an x ray spex shirt once. this is real and canon#I could probably talk a ton more about x ray spex influence on wwf but I don’t feel like it. germ free adolescent is such an amanita song#though it’s like the song that created her as a character. she’s the germ free adolescent#if I could animate a whole thing there would be a trailer for wwf animated to germ free adolescent. it’s THE wwf song#in my mind.
2 notes
·
View notes
Text
ch.14: The Siren
Story Masterlist
Fandom: Sailor Moon (Crystal)
Rewrite of season 2, AU-ish in that there’s new OCs and the fusion of plots from the manga, crystal and the og series
Pairings: Eventual OFC x OMC, Usagi x Mamoru
Taglist: @ocappreciationtag @arrthurpendragon @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @foxesandmagic @kmc1989
"No, go left! Sailor Venus take the route towards the central and - no, wait! Take a right!"
"WHICH IS IT!?" came the roaring voice of Sailor Venus over the comm. system.
Azula blew some air out and rubbed her face. She splat a hand on the monitor and gazed at the screen again. Street security cameras allowed her to see where the blonde Sailor Scout was headed - along with the others - but Azula was still having trouble locating the precise location they were searching for. Thankfully, Luna hopped onto the stool beside hers and Artemis took the other on her left. The two cats started directing Sailor Venus towards their assumed location.
"Thanks guys," Azula said to the two cats afterwards. "I'm a bit...under stress…" Her blue eyes gazed over the multiple tabs opened on the computer. Some belonged to Koan, the Black Moon Clan, Chibiusa, Senka, Reign...it was way too much for one person.
"Don't worry, we're a team after all," Artemis reminded.
"Well this team needs to find our newest member who seems hell bent on dominating animals everywhere," Azula leaned back in her chair.
Sailor Siren was definitely awake and causing havoc in her disoriented state. They hadn't been able to capture her yet but since she had practically every animal worshiping the ground she walked on, Azula theorized by finding where the animals were disappearing to they would then find Sailor Siren.
"Azula, we're here, but there's nothing," Sailor Mars and Sailor Mercury reported from one location across the city.
"It's just business as usual," Sailor Mars added.
Azula zoomed in on their location and confirmed this was the case. Animals were still freaking out but people were going on about their business like nothing.
"Azula," Sailor Jupiter reported in, "we've got the same thing over here with us. Are you sure this is the place?"
Once more, Azula set to work. "Yeah, it's where the traces were leading to. Hold on, let me—"
"Azula!" Sailor Hemera called in.
"What!?" Azula snapped under the pressure.
Sailor Hemera snorted. "Cracking under the pressure already?" Azula groaned and muttered under her breath but otherwise continued to locate them.
Sailor Hemera was crouched over a rooftop overlooking the mall. Her sister, Sailor Asteria joined her.
"Don't mess with my human," Sailor Asteria scolded lightly.
"What?" Hemera gave her a weirded look.
Asteria faced the city, completely calm. "I adopted her. She's my human pet—"
"No I am not!" Azula shouted through their comms., absolutely offended with what she was hearing. "I am not your human pet! Would you quit saying that!?"
A smirk spread across Sailor Asteria's lips hearing Azula ramble on about how offensive it was to be called someone's pet. Sailor Hemera gave her a look. "You're awful," she couldn't help chuckle.
"Guys!" Azula suddenly called, serious now. "An unidentified figure has been spotted just a corner from where Sailor Asteria and Sailor Hemera are at. She's causing quite the havoc…"
Sailor Hemera straightened and listened up for any strange noises. Sure enough, there were shrill screams of humans. "Oh Sailor Siren…"
The two Shadow Scouts ran towards the noises and were of course the first to get there.
A tall, blonde haired girl was laughing in the air as dozens of pigeons pecked at numerous people. "I can make it all stop, petty humans, so long as you kindly direct me to Princess Reign."
"The same story, I see," they heard Azula through the comms. "She's radiating a lot of energy just like you did, Asteria."
Both Shadow sisters gazed at their third comrade from a rooftop. Sailor Siren was by the far the tallest of the four Shadow Scouts. Her blonde curly hair swooshed in the air. There was no recognition of herself within her light blue eyes. But for her comrades, she remained the same youthful beauty she had been back then; Sailor Siren lived up to her mythological name.
"Siren…" Sailor Asteria cautiously stepped towards Sailor Siren, her hands making a gesture she was no enemy. "It's us," she nodded to Sailor Hemera just a step behind, "We're your comrade sisters, remember?" Sailor Siren's eyes flickered from one Shadow Scout to the next. "I know you're confused but you have to calm down. You're overflowing with power and you can get hurt."
From the base, Azula watched intently. "Hm, that's the first time she speaks with actual kindness," she murmured to the cats with her.
"I heard that," Asteria scolded.
Sailor Siren balled her fists on her sides. "If you were truly my comrades you would have already scoured this planet for Princess Reign! There would be no human left in existence! It's their fault after all!"
"Siren, please," Sailor Hemera begged. "Let us take care of you right now."
"Ha! I am going to search every last corner of this planet for Princess Reign! And if I have to I will ask help from Obscurius!" Sailor Siren held her arms to her sides. "Their gifts will help me find the Princess!"
From the base, Azula reacted to those words. "What kind of people are Obscurians?" she looked at Luna but the purple cat had no idea either.
In the streets, Sailor Siren still could not be coerced. She was throwing punches at Sailor Asteria who only deflected them with her own fists.
"Sailor Siren!" Sailor Hemera shouted and, at the same time, flung forwards her golden boomerang.
Sailor Siren growled when the boomerang smacked her on her forehead. Sailor Asteria whirled around, furious for Hemera's move. "What the hell was that for!?"
"She was about to punch you!"
Sailor Siren used the sisters' quarrel to introduce her own attack. She began to whistle a soft, rhythmic tune that froze both sisters in their spots.
Azula squinted her eyes at the screen. "What are those two doing?"
The two Shadow sisters were beginning to fight against each other. They threw punches, dodges, kicks, everything but their attacks.
"Oh you've got to be kidding me!" Azula groaned and reached for the comms. "She's living up to her Siren name," she mumbled just as she got in contact with the other Scouts. "Girls! We've got a situation! Sailor Siren is hypnotizing Sailor Asteria and Hemera into fighting against each other. They could seriously hurt each other!"
Sailor Venus arrived first and threw her love chain to capture Sailor Hemera. Sailor Jupiter grabbed Sailor Asteria back and kept her still.
"Use the sedatives!" Azula shouted.
Sailor Mars whipped out her sedative but Sailor Siren landed in front of her and kicked it out of her hand. Before Sailor Mars bad the chance to react properly, Siren backhanded her to the ground.
"Sailor Siren, we're your friends!" Sailor Mercury attempted to reason with her.
"I don't have friends anymore!" Sailor Siren roared and went to punch her next. "I only want to find Princess Reign!"
"Well you're not going to do it that way!" Sailor Mars rubbed at her chin as she got up. "Burning Mandala!"
Sailor Siren backed from Sailor Mercury and had to duck to avoid the fire. Slowly, Sailor Asteria and Hemera came out of the trance Sailor Siren put them in.
"We will not stop until you come with us!" Sailor Venus warned.
Sailor Siren backed a step, one hand towards them. "I will find Reign." Sailor Mars prepared another attack with her paper slips, something Siren picked up on. "Don't get in my way! Sonic Scream!" Sailor Siren then released a high pitched scream that echoed in every corner of the street. Everyone collapsed to their knees, hands clutching ears to drown out the awful noise in the air.
Even Azula had to take measures by turning off audio to avoid bleeding in the ears. Sailor Siren proved to be a deadly opponent.
~0~
Five sedatives were dropped on a circular table in the Moon base following a bumpy match.
"What even is Sailor Siren?" Azula rubbed a finger in her left ear as if Sailor Siren was still screaming. "How could she possibly be a good Sailor Scout?"
Asteria was quiet and serious. She wasn't too pleased their friend had ran off but even she knew it wasn't their fault. "Sailor Siren was a deadly Scout back in our days. Her songs hypnotized those in her way and she could make them do just about anything. But nothing was more powerful than her Sonic Scream."
"Was this just with humans or with animals?" Minako inquired.
"Back then it was just humans."
"The excess power is probably letting her songs reach animals for the moment," Ami theorized. "This is more dangerous."
"I can't believe Shadow housed this sort of Scout," Rei mumbled under her breath. She could still feel echoes of pain jabbing at her chin from the backhand Sailor Siren had given her earlier.
"Our powers do not make us evil," Meroko frowned. "Sailor Siren was a kind Scout. Her sole purpose was to make sure people in Shadow never harmed Reign."
"Look, whatever she did then does not matter right now," Makoto interrupted the small lecture. "She's out there putting people in danger and we need to stop her."
"But how do we sedate her if we can't get near her?" Minako huffed from her spot. "One song and we're all going to fight each other."
Azula tilted her head in thought, her finger tapping against her chin. "What if we create devices to block out her voice?" Everyone in the room turned to her for a better explanation. Azula uncrossed her arms and went on to elaborate. "We send in only a few of you guys to meet with Siren, but we send you with devices equipped to block out her soundwaves. That way, one of you could use the sedative and put her down."
"Could we really do that?" Makoto looked unsure of it but Ami seemed more inclined with the idea.
"I think we can," the blue-haired girl nodded. "There's already devices like that in regular stores. All we would have to do is amplify the effects."
"We can do that, no problem," Azula grinned.
"Alright, so we have the new plan. Who's going to inform Usagi?" Meroko asked but Asteria huffed.
"You mean little miss Moon Princess who's overly irresponsible she couldn't even come to help us today?"
Azula rolled her eyes at the girl. "Calm down Star Queen. Usagi got roped into babysitting Chibiusa. She couldn't very well leave the little girl on her own right? Now that would be irresponsible."
Asteria huffed again. "And the Prince?"
"Him...I have no idea."
~0~
Have a safe return, Sailor Hemera,' Princess Reign waved goodbye to her sunny Scout. Sailor Hemera gave her traditional bow before exiting the Earth palace and headed back for the Shadow Kingdom.
Beside Reign, Endymion appeared with a studious expression. "It's odd for Sailor Hemera to visit the kingdom."
"Well, Asteria is on guard right now and I suppose mother sent Hemera to see how I was doing."
"And to see if I was keeping my word in protecting you."
A light smile slipped through Reign's face, not that Endymion would see due to the enchantment on Reign. "I could not lie about that. My mother knows I am a danger to myself and the world. She has to be sure that I am guarded at all times."
"And yet, even then, you refuse to have my Generals accompany you."
Reign sighed and leaned over the balcony to stare up at the shiny Moon in the dark sky. "I wish to be free, Endymion. You granted me a little bit of it. Please don't take it away from me."
"I only allow it because you're within the palace. But you know that if you were to ever want to leave the palace you would need to be accompanied."
"Me? Leave? Never," Reign said with utter regret. "It is my fate to stay locked away forever. Even when the world looks so beautiful…"
Endymion assumed she was watching the Moon. She often expressed (to him and Serenity) wishes of seeing the Moon Kingdom, or just about any other kingdom. "Maybe one day…"
Reign shook her head. "Mother would never allow it. My existence must always remain a secret. Even my sister planet probably doesn't know about me."
"Obscurius?" Endymion recalled the planet similar to Shadow.
"Mhm. Their people are the only people who can match Shadow's gifts and abilities. I know they have a royal line, rules and laws...but I think they are free unlike my people. It's my fault, like always."
Reign expressed herself with utter sadness. Endymion hated that he could not do anything to help his friend. She didn't deserve to live the way she did: feeling like a burden.
Mamoru blinked out of his memory trance. He looked down at the mug of coffee he'd been nursing. He didn't even realize at what moment he had began to remember. The images just came to him without warning. But with each new memory, he felt like he began to know Reign even more. The sense of friendship was strong, along with lingering feelings of pity and sorrow for the girl. It was clear that Reign never got to leave Earth and travel.
But he was curious about her abilities. All day he'd been getting blips of memories concerning Reign and her abilities. Mamoru knew of her healing abilities, agility and illusion tricks, but he wanted to know more. He was sure Reign confided in him about those abilities, he just needed to remember more.
"Reign, please, talk to me…" Mamoru whispered, for some reason believing this would help him. He couldn't explain it but he felt like Reign was close to him. Something within made him sure of it.
~0~
Usagi thought she was loud up until she met Chibiusa. The girl screamed and yelped at least twice as loud as she would. It was why the knocks on her front door took at least five minutes to get noticed. By the time Usagi went to answer, Azula was mad with impatience.
"Do I need to get a bullhorn or something to get your attention?" the red-haired girl demanded with a frantic tapping shoe.
Usagi sheepishly rubbed the back of her neck. "Sorry, Azula. Chibiusa is just too loud!"
Hearing her name, Chibiusa poked her head out from the living room. "I am not loud! You're — hi Azula!" she beamed at the sight.
Azula gave a small wave with her free hand. "Hey, Usa."
Chibiusa beamed at the new nickname. "You can call me that all you like!"
Usagi growled at the girl for her uber kindness at Azula. Chibiusa always yelled at her for the littlest of things.
"Usagi, I came to talk," Azula pulled the blonde from her thoughts. She motioned to the notebook in her hand, indicating to Usagi it was theory time.
Usagi brought Azula into her living room and warned Chibiusa to stay out of it. The pink-haired girl of course huffed and muttered a few words here and there but ultimately entertained herself with some television in the room. Her LunaP ball mildly bounced beside her on the couch.
Meanwhile, Azula and Usagi sat on the ground with a coffee table between them. Azula had opened her journal which was full of notes and diagrams. Usagi had to rub her eyes from so much color.
"Is that a family tree?" she pointed at a purple square encasing the name 'Reign'.
"Mhm," Azula nodded. "I wanted to map out the Royal Shadow line."
Usagi saw 'Queen Nyx' written inside another purple box with a line going down to Reign. Next to Queen Nyx was another square, presumably Reign's father, but was intentionally left blank.
"So the Royal Shadow Line has a very long lifespan," Azula remarked. She dragged her finger down the Queen's and princess's names and onto the four Shadow Sailor Scouts. "These people lived for centuries but I suppose the oldest was Queen Nyx. Though since there's no real truth of her ending we can only presume she's actually dead."
Usagi squeaked at the prospect. "You think the Shadow Queen still lives?"
Azula gave a small shrug. "Maybe. Only Sailor Circe knows what truly happened to the Shadow people, after all."
"I don't know…" Usagi said quietly. "It's already a wonder of how Reign survived…"
"Well, that's because your other mother knew Reign needed to exist in order for the Shadow Dominion Gates to remain closed. She reincarnated Reign for safety." Azula passed the next page of her notebook to reveal notes on the previous Queen Serenity and Queen Nyx. "Which means that Queen Nyx had to have held some communication with Serenity. I also believe Queen Nyx communicated with Obscurius, the sister planet of Shadow."
Usagi furrowed her brows. "But Meroko said that planet was destroyed."
"Doesn't mean they couldn't build a new one. That's what I came to talk to you about, actually."
"What?"
Azula passed the next page, and at the top of the first page was 'OBSCURIUS' written in black. She pointed a finger at the name. "Sailor Siren mentioned this planet. She mentioned their people and their gifts. She said they could help find Reign. Usagi, you wouldn't happen to remember anything of this planet?"
Usagi blinked out of surprise but she ultimately thought about it. Her memories of Reign were still scarce. She knew Mamoru remembered far more than her but perhaps she did know something about Obscurius.
From the couch, Chibiusa pretended to be watching the television but she was way too listening in on the conversation. She didn't know they were barely looking into Obscurius. Mommy said never to divulge information, she remembered. Timelines are sacred, she told herself.
"I'm only thinking that maybe finding this planet, their people, would be key to finding Reign," Azula shared her thoughts. "It's obvious they still live today."
Chibiusa began biting her lip to keep quiet. They're making it too hard for me...
"But how?" Usagi asked. "We already have enough people to search for and that hasn't been easy."
Azula sighed. "Yeah, I know. This is stupid. Sorry." She closed her notebook and frowned. "I don't have powers so I like to think myself useful by making all these notes and theories."
"And they're great!" Usagi didn't hesitate to exclaim. "You're amazing at this. You give us new ideas."
"Just not the one I had about letting humans have their Crystals taken, huh?"
Usagi sheepishly smiled. "All your other ideas are amazing."
Azula laughed. "Fine. I'll take the compliment." She began to get up from the floor and gathering her things. "I have to go. Ami and I are making devices to help us fight Sailor Siren."
Usagi was in the dark about the new plan, Azula remembered then. "Did I forget to mention? Sailor Siren has a killer voice, literally. Girl can scream and hypnotize people. She had Sailor Asteria and Sailor Hemera fighting each other. It's actually less hilarious than one would think."
Usagi blinked. "What!?"
"Ami and I are going to make devices that will allow the girls to drown out Sailor Siren's voice. That way we can sedate her and bring her in."
"Sounds good. I'm in," Usagi stood up but Azula refused it.
"Are you kidding me? The last thing we need is a rogue Sailor Moon on us. It's better if you stay out of this one, Usagi. Trust me."
"But…" Usagi bit her lip, nervous of the idea.
Azula put a hand on Usagi's shoulder. "Believe me, it's better this way. Rei will come over here later today just to make sure you're protected."
"But what about the others—"
"They will be fine," Azula assured. "We'll keep monitoring them from the base. But seriously, please, stay in doors. You too Chibiusa."
Chibiusa pretended to come out of her television moment. "What?"
"There's going to be a new Sailor Scout in the air today and it's better if you stay in here with Usagi."
Chibiusa nodded her head obediently, once again causing Usagi to growl. All day it had been a battle just to get Chibiusa to clean her room. Maybe Azula should take care of her, she thought. No point in making Azula suffer, she later added with a smirk.
~0~
On her way to the base, Asteria found Azula buying a milkshake in the café shop. Of course unable to resist, Asteria walked in to join her. "I thought you were supposed to be in the base already?" the platinum blonde inquired.
"I needed to replenish my strength," Azula responded.
"Humans require more than sugar, no?"
Azula rolled her eyes and thanked Unazuki for giving her the milkshake. Just as she turned, Asteria noticed the notebook Azula was cradling in her free arm.
"Oh, what's that!?" Asteria plucked the notebook from Azula's hands, ignoring the protests of the redhead.
"Give that back!"
Asteria did no such thing. She headed for a circle table and took a seat to better read the notebook. With a roll of her eyes, Azula followed.
Asteria had already found the profile on her by the time Azula joined her. "You're good at storing information."
"Thanks?" Azula dumbly responded with. With Asteria she could never be sure if a compliment was actually just a compliment and not a setup for a harsh insult.
"You got this wrong though," Asteria tapped a small note on the side of her profile. "While I don't own any powers of the sun, I am also descended from their people. Hence why Meroko and I are twins."
"It was like...two a.m when I wrote that," Azula huffed and sipped from her milkshake.
"Overall" — Asteria passed through the pages of the notebook, eyeing them carefully — "this is actually really good. That's why you're my favorite human." She looked up with a wide smile.
"Would you quit saying that?" Azula hissed. "I'm not your pet."
"No, pets wouldn't talk so much," Asteria agreed, ignoring Azula's scowl.
"How about you make yourself useful and tell me everything you know about Obscurians," Azula surprised her with. If Asteria was going to stick her nose in her notebook, then she would help too.
Asteria blinked, surprised for a second before making a face. "Why would you wanna know about them? They're dead."
"Are you sure?"
Asteria didn't like the sharp stare she was getting from Azula. It made her squirm a bit. "Of...course I am."
Azula didn't think so. She cleared her throat and moved her milkshake a bit to the side. "When death came for you all, where were you, Asteria?"
"I was on my way to relieve Meroko and guard the barrier."
Azula made a mental calculation of where that would put each of the Shadow Scouts during the final hours of their previous lives. "So then, Meroko was barely getting to the human Kingdom trying to save Reign, you were on your way to the barrier dividing both the human and Shadow Kingdom, and Sailor Siren and Sailor Circe were left in the Shadow palace with the Queen."
Asteria followed as much as she could but she truly understood no point. "So?"
Azula shared a small laugh. "Then you don't know what happened in the Shadow Kingdom. You don't know what led to your millennia sleep. Queen Nyx had to have contact with Queen Serenity and Obscurius in order to put you, Sailor Siren and Sailor Circe to sleep."
Asteria looked at the redhead with horror. "What—"
"You said Queen Nyx had been growing ill which probably meant her powers were diminishing. What's to say she didn't have help from Obscurius?"
"Where is all this coming from!?" Asteria nearly shouted.
Azula sighed, she too frustrated with the lack of answers of the mysterious planet. "I just want to know more about Obscurius."
"It's dead," Asteria spat. "It's been dead since the Sailor Wars, alright? Their people fled before ours did. We were lucky enough to find safe haven on Earth but who knows where Obscurians ended up. They're most likely dead, Azula. Give that up."
At the moment Azula felt like there was nothing left to say during that moment. She gave a small nod and bring her milkshake back in front of her to finish.
~0~
There were four sets of hearing devices sitting between the girls in the base. Usagi and Mamoru, however, were not present.
"Okay," Azula picked up a pair. The silver devices were like earplugs but were silver metal. "So these things work like any other Bluetooth devices. You just-" she plugged one into her ear and then the next, "-put them on and then I'll activate them from here." She gestured to the computers behind them.
"And you're sure it'll work?" Rei picked a pair up.
"Ami and I worked on them," Azula pulled the devices from her ears. "They of course work."
Ami blushed at the compliment and chuckled. "We're confident."
"Good because it looks like they'll be needed soon," Luna called from the computers. "The monitors are picking up Sailor Siren's location again."
The rest of the girls ran towards the computers to see for themselves.
"What's she doing now?" Makoto dreaded to think of the humans succumbing to Sailor Siren's voice.
Azula helped Luna get into the security cameras of the street Sailor Siren was and allowed the others to see the new Shadow Scout raging for Princess Reign's safe return. Azula groaned and sat on a stool beside Luna's. "Girl doesn't take a break."
"We should go," Meroko told her sister. The two sisters returned to the table and picked up two hearing devices. Along with them went Minako and Makoto.
Ami took the stool next to Azula since both would be commandeering the mission this time. Both girls got ready as the others started heading out.
Sailor Siren was indeed out and about causing havoc. She had several of the humans aching on the ground, forcing traffic to stop. Others were at her beck and call crashing things.
The blonde was happy.
"Terrorizing innocent people is not the Sailor Scout way, Sailor Siren!" Sailor Venus forced her to stop and turn.
Sailor Siren gazed at the four Sailor Scouts standing across her. Her gaze lingered on the two Shadow Scouts but did not react. "You think I do this because I want to? Of course not. I do what I do to find Princess Reign. Hand her over safe and sound and I can make all this—" she waved a casual wave at the destruction around her, "—go away."
Sailor Jupiter sighed. The story was getting a bit tiresome. "We don't know where Reign is but we're searching for her."
"They are right," Sailor Hemera stepped forwards. "Siren, we're your comrades, remember?" she gestured to herself and Asteria. "We swore to protect Reign above everything."
Sailor Siren seemed to consider the idea of seeing her comrades again but it faded all too soon. "Tricks will not deceive me."
Sailor Asteria took her turn. "Siren, you know Queen Nyx allowed us a peaceful sleep until Reign would reawaken in a new time. Hemera was reincarnated. It's us. Don't you feel it?"
"Enough!" Sailor Siren gave a loud shout.
'I think she's about to go opera on you guys!' Azula warned the girls through the comms.
Heeding the warning, the four Scouts activated their devices and Ami boosted the signal from the base. Sailor Siren lurched forwards with a killer cry that forced all the humans save the Scouts to get on their knees and cover their ears.
"Ha! It's working!" Azula intently watched the screen in front of them. "We are good!" she laughed. Ami agreed with a small chuckle.
Luna and Artemis were much more focused on the work. Luna used her paw to turn the communication on through the activated devices. "You must sedate Sailor Siren fast!"
Sailor Jupiter took her chance first and fired with a thunder attack. Sailor Siren was struck by the lightning due to wondering how they had survived her scream in the first place. She was blasted against the top of a car.
Sailor Venus ran forwards. "Venus love me chain!" her golden chain threatened to capture Sailor Siren but the Shadow scout rolled off the car first. "Damn!"
Sailor Siren jumped back on her feet and began her deadly scream. As soon as she did, Ami and Azula activated the hearing devices. Both girls, and Luna and Artemis, watched with a bit of nervousness as the screams' vibrations rippled through the street.
"It's working!" Sailor Jupiter was the first to notice. Her voice rang perfectly in the others' ears thanks to Azula's tapping.
"Well don't waste time! Get her from behind!" Azula was quick to advise.
"Glimmering Boomerang attack!" Sailor Hemera threw her golden boomerang and struck Sailor Siren on her back, causing the latter to tumble forwards in the ground. "Venus! The chain!"
"Venus love me chain!" Sailor Venus successfully wrapped her chain around Sailor Siren. "The sedative!" she quickly looked around for the needed tool.
Sailor Asteria dropped beside Sailor Siren. "Don't worry, Siren, you'll be better after this," she promised the struggling Scout and plunged the sedative into her arm.
Sailor Siren yelped at the initial pinch but slowly fell under the effects of the sedative. Her head lulled to the side and her body went limp. From the base, the group cheered. Their plan had worked.
"Yes!" Azula high-fived a chuckling Ami who hadn't expected the action. "Boom! That's how we do it! Told you my plan would work!"
Luna punched a paw on the comm. system to communicate with the others. "You better bring Sailor Siren in so she can rest. We'll have to keep her down until the excess of her powers fades away."
Azula snapped her fingers and looked to Ami again. "That is gonna require some math. Care to join me? And by join I mean help me," she cheekily smile.
"Of course," Ami once again chuckled.
#ocappreciation#ochub#allaboutocs#sailor moon#sailor moon crystal#sailor moon fics#sailor moon crystal imagines#sailor moon imagines#sailor moon ocs#sailor moon crystal fics#oc: azula keena#fic: reign from the shadows
4 notes
·
View notes
Text
Waiting for Blossoms | MULTIVERSE
Waiting for Blossoms | MULTIVERSE
Link to fic: https://ift.tt/RytTbBh
by PierreAndHisBaguette
How doth one write a summary?
A tale of heartbreak and happy endings. Slice of Life.
(The Majority of these characters are OCs. Anything else belongs to their original Creators.)
I originally wrote this with a friend, but since we're no longer talking (kinda just drifted apart, nothing bad I still think good of them) I did change the name of their OCs and some aspects about them. However, the OCs (KAMEKO, OSE, CHIHARU, EMIKO, and AHAN) still belong to my friend, so I take no credit for them! If the person I'm talking about happens to read this and get offended, I will gladly go back and change whatever you want or even add the characters back with their original names. I just really wanna post this fic since I worked super hard on it and would still like to give my friend a little bit of privacy by changing the names. Does that make sense? Anyways.
Also the MC is kind of cringe ngl but he's literally 15 and a spoiled rich kid so...
Words: 1503, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English
Fandoms: Multi-Fandom, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), 鬼滅の刃 | Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (Anime), Hunter X Hunter, Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler, Death Note (Anime & Manga), 외모지상주의 | Lookism
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi
Characters: L (Death Note), Park Hyung Suk | Daniel, Kim Kimyeong | Jake, Jang Hyun | Eli, Lee Eun Tae | Vasco, Jin Ho Bin | Vin, Choi Soo Jung | Crystal, DG (Lookism), Vivi (Lookism), Lee Jin Sung | Zack, Kim Mi Jin | Mira, Kim Yui, Park Ha Neul | Zoe, Undertaker (Kuroshitsuji), Pro Heroes (My Hero Academia), Hero Public Safety Commission (My Hero Academia)
Relationships: Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight, Kaneki Ken | Sasaki Haise/Kirishima Touka, Uta/Yomo Renji, Kochou Shinobu/Tomioka Giyuu, William T. Spears/Grell Sutcliff, Hong Jae Yeol | Jay/Park Hyung Suk | Daniel, Kim Mi Jin | Mira/Lee Jin Sung | Zack, Undertaker (Kuroshitsuji)/Original Character(s)
Additional Tags: Original Character(s), Major Character(s), Developing Relationship, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Friends to Lovers, Friends to Enemies, Enemies to Lovers, Family Issues, Daddy Issues, Gender Issues, Gay, Gay Panic, Gay Pride, Lesbian Character, Modern Era, Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Fluff, Mother-Son Relationship, I Wrote This While Listening to Mitski's Music, Teen Angst, Teenagers, Hurt, Trauma, Multiverse, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Explicit Language, Triggers, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Child Abuse, Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Sexual Abuse, Verbal Abuse, High School, Japanese Character(s), Implied Sexual Content, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, why are all the characters men?, Slice of Life
via AO3 works tagged 'Kurapika/Leorio Paladiknight' https://ift.tt/Tr3XSyU
March 10, 2024 at 07:24AM
0 notes
Note
Prompt: “I wish he’d teach me how to play mine.”
I found ⬆️ as a random tag related to I don’t know what, and it just made me blush with all the mental images of things OC could be requesting Rob teach them how to play.
Character: Anybody but Roland and Ivan, cuz they’d be too easy and where’s the fun in that. Also, I hate the theramin. And 80s fashions.
* This is not my gif and I could not locate the gif maker for proper credit*
How to Play: Rob x Fem!Reader
Thank you for the request. Your requests are the best! :)
Warnings ⚠️ Public Smut, Food, Puns, Fluff
——————————————————————————
Rob had a penchant for quirky restaurants. Over the past few weeks he had already taken you to an Asian fusion bistro with live performing aerialists and a farm to table establishment that encouraged diners to help with a few farm chores before being seated at their table. This place was tame by comparison, merely specializing in themed soups.
There was a lull in the conversation and Rob started giggling.
“What is it?” His laughter was contagious.
“Listen,” he said leaning in.
“What, I don’t-“
“That’s the sound of fifty people trying not to slurp their soup.”
You smiled, noisily consuming your noodles in defiance.
“Enjoying the ‘PHOMO?’”
“It’s pretty good. How’s yours? What did you order again?”
“I’ve got ‘Won Ton Desire.’”
“These names. I swear.”
Rob continued to peruse the menu. “Tomatotally Awesome? Chick Send Nood(le)s?”
“Yeah, some of these are really stew-pid.”
“Are you proud of yourself for that one?”
“This restaurant was your idea, remember?”
“If you’d told me where we were going, I might have reconsidered.”
“Take Our Broth Away is the hottest spot in town right now. There’s a waitlist a mile long. I had to pull some strings.”
“I’m gonna pull your strings!,” you quipped back.
“Ooh, Please elaborate.” Rob smirked, resting his chin in his hands.
The waitress came up to your table. “I just wanted to check on you two. Enjoying your soup? Can I get you anything else? For dessert we have a lovely cold strawberry and fresh mint gazpacho.”
“We’ll take it! Two spoons, please.”
The dessert, essentially a fruit smoothie in a bowl, was heavenly, the best part of the meal. Your spoons clinked as you scuffled over the elegant portion.
“I heard you play the spoons. It’s like an Irish folk music thing, right?”
He narrowed his eyes at you, passing the silver utensil between his lips and pulling it out clean. “Bet you think I wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I know you would. I’m counting on it,” you teased.
Rob collected another spoon and licked that one clean as well. Then he stood up, rolled up his sleeves and put one leg up on the chair. This was getting serious.
He threaded the instruments between the fingers in his right hand. He slapped them rhythmically against his jeans, his dominant hand alternating between cupping them and gently tapping them together. It was an oddly pleasant sound and he looked hot as hell doing it. This man could make anything look sexy.
Other couples started checking out the strange music coming from your table. He couldn’t resist improvising a few cheeky song lyrics. His singing voice was average, but his charm could make a herd of stampeding buffalo stop and swoon.
Rob signed a few autographs and posed for a couple of selfies. After a while the fans dispersed, returning to their tables. Alone again, you settled back into your secluded table against the wall. “Well, now. That was entertaining.”
“I aim to please.”
“Mm. I wish you’d show me how to play.” You brushed your skirt away from your leg and parted your knees just enough to give him the message.
“We’re not talking about music anymore are we?” Rob leaned in and stroked the length of your bare thigh. You shook your head coyly. He cradled your face in his hand. Nuzzling your cheek into his palm, you stared up at him, your eyes posing a challenge.
Rob quickly adjusted the tablecloth to give you a few more inches of coverage on the side facing out. Then he brushed his hand over the little strip of cotton which held your forbidden fruit.
“Is this what you want?, he whispered.
“Ah...ha.” You inhaled nervously.
He hooked his finger under the fabric and rubbed his knuckle against your clit.
You bit your lip to suppress any sound from escaping. You were normally not this sensitive, but just the possibility of getting caught electrofied your senses. Every clink of plates and distant muffled voice raised the intensity. It was masterful the way he remained so poised above the table and angled your bodies so it just looked like an intimate conversation to the casual observer.
“The waitress could come round the corner any second with the check,” he said, slipping a finger inside you. You gripped his shoulder to steady yourself. He used his thumb to roll your clit in a slow and steady circle.
“Ahh.” Your head tilted back. Rob gently guided it back. “Look at me. Focus on me,” he said.
He held you in his green eyed gaze, encouraging you.
He added another finger and together they curled and flexed inside you, his thumb bearing down, relentlessly manipulating your swollen aching clit. You sat there helpless, a dribbling mess. “Oh fuck,” you whispered as the flood endorphins erupted from your core. You shuddered and sighed, clinging to Rob for stability.
“So, how are we doing?” The waitress returned. She noticed the overwhelmed look on your face. “Oh, hon are you okay?” You didn’t know what to say. You hid your face with your hands.
“She is just a little overwhelmed and I haven’t even gotten to the big surprise yet.” Rob winked at you.
“Oh, well, I’ll give you some privacy.” She smiled, probably assuming you were flustered by some big romantic gesture. She left the check, then disappeared. Rob paid for the meal, tipping generously.
“Nice cover, but now you’ve got me wanting another surprise.” You went in for a kiss.
“Oh but there is another surprise,” he assured you. “Now, let’s go home, so we can do the weird stuff.” You laughed. “Wait, you forgot your key,” he added, jingling the thing a few inches from your face.
“That’s not my...Oh. Rob, what did you do?”
“I got a little place. I’ve decided to stick around for a while.”
You lunged at him and threw your arms around his neck. It was a surprise, one you had been hoping for. You held the key triumphantly. “This night just keeps getting better. Now, tell me more about the weird stuff…”
@salvador-daley @super-unpredictable98 @bubblyani @helena-way07 @chipster-21 @punknatch @zombiedixon89 @ringpopdust
#rob x reader#robert sheehan x reader#robert sheehan fanfic#fic request#robert sheehan smut#Robert Sheehan request#funny Robert Sheehan fic#Robert Sheehan imagine
124 notes
·
View notes
Text
2020 (Fanfiction) in Review
Whoo boy, kids, strap in for a long one. I think a fair chunk of these I just UPDATED this year as opposed to writing from scratch, for the record, but pretty sure that still counts. Also if any of this is inaccurate, I apologize, I just filtered on AO3 and did my best from there.
Also-also, we are definitely gonna read-more this. We are DEFINITELY. There is . . . there is a whole lot of fic linked under here, haha.
fics written this year:
.
MCU
do you wanna be my sidekick, sidekick for ZepysGirl (Winterfalcon/Barbershop Quartet A/B/O)
I think I know why the dog howls at the moon for ZepysGirl (Barbershop Quartet)
I said you’re holding back, she said shut up and dance with me for belladonnaprice (Bucky/Peggy/Steve A/B/O)
people were mean to you, but I always thought you were cool for beckyh2112 (Steve Rogers & Scott Summers, X-Men fusion)
ready or not, here we go anyway for Zephrbabe (Wintershieldshock A/B/O)
we can take it if you just take my hand for untamedphoenix (Wintershock A/B/O [sequel to don't wanna break your heart, wanna give your heart a break])
hey I just met you, and this is crazy for untamedphoenix, Zephrbabe (Wintershock A/B/O)
I'd like to tell you everything I see for beckyh2112 (Darcy-centric, Slender Man fusion)
pack up, don’t stray (oh say say say) for ZepysGirl (Natasha/harem A/B/O)
.
YOUNG JUSTICE
you found me when no one else was looking for Okapi_chan (Superman & Superboy, background Supermartian)
when I was a boy for seagrey (Supermartian)
.
ORIGINAL
to the victor go the spoils for dancinbutterfly (OC/OC, A/B/O)
.
ATLA
rumor has it for Prim_the_Amazing (Zuko-centric)
you make a really good girl (as girls go) for Prim_the_Amazing (Azula/Yue)
when it comes to luck you make your own for Prim_the_Amazing (Azula-centric)
Avamorphs continuations (mostly gen, Animorphs fusion)
home is where you go when you’re alone for Redrikki
step one you say we need to talk for kaos_sparrow
do you believe that we are all innately good for Museflight
you are any way the wind blows for MirandaTam (Ty Lee-centric)
does the pain feel better when I’m around? (Sokka/Zuko A/B/O)
push and pull (mostly gen)
storm (Bato/Hakoda/Kya)
snow (Bato/Hakoda/Kya)
spark (Ozai/Ursa)
Jetko Renaissance Week (Jet/Zuko)
that unwanted animal wants nothing more than to get out (Jet/Zuko)
give me back my heart you wingless thing (Jet/Zuko)
our lives have come between us (Jet/Zuko)
I’m not listening when you say goodbye (Jet/Zuko)
if I were someone else would this all fall apart (Jet/Zuko)
we are all walking each other home (Jet/Zuko)
we ain’t got much to say (before I let you get away) (Jet/Zuko)
.
OVERWATCH
mad elephants continuations with dancinbutterfly (A/B/O)
bittersweet creature with dancinbutterfly (R76)
tell me where have you been with dancinbutterfly (McCree & Mercy, McCree & Jack)
I get by with a little help from my friends (McCree & Mercy)
if you don’t wanna talk about it with dancinbutterfly (R76)
the past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore with dancinbutterfly (McCree & Jack)
either you’re a blessing or a lesson (McCree/Genji, McCree/Hanzo, McCree/Genji/Hanzo)
give me back my young brother, hard and furious (Hanzo & Genji)
.
WORLD OF WARCRAFT
as long as we’re together, does it matter where we go? for beckyh2112 (Marius Felbane/Tehd Shoemaker)
.
LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
a fever you can’t sweat out for beckyh2112 (Kegan Rodhe/Ryze)
.
GOOD OMENS
anathema device, professional descendant and amateur book-burner (Anathema/Newt, Ineffable Husbands)
.
STAR WARS
like my father before me for beckyh2112 (Luke & Vader)
.
LEVERAGE
every election is determined by the people who show up for Miss_Bubblegum (Hardison/Parker/Eliot)
.
THE WITCHER
hey, hey, hey, come pollinate me (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)
I'll give them shelter like you've done for me (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer, A/B/O)
it’s a long way forward (so trust in me) (Jaskier/Geralt)
have you noticed I’ve been gone? (Jaskier/Geralt)
I know words won’t be enough (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)
I could never find the right way to tell you for circa1220bce (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)
the courting jewelry A/B/O (Jaskier/Geralt A/B/O)
you wear nothing but you wear it so well (Jaskier/Geralt)
in your eyes, love, it glows for dancinbutterfly (Jaskier/Geralt)
tied up and twisted the way I’d like to be for adptt12 (Jaskier/Geralt)
you are in my blood (Jaskier/Geralt)
if you understand (Jaskier/Geralt)
wanna hold him, maybe I’ll just sing about it for Anoke (one-sided Jaskier/Geralt)
can you help me unravel my latest mistake (Jaskier/Geralt)
yeah you need someone to sing you to sleep for ragequilt (Jaskier/Geralt)
you must be new I guess, at least you’re new to me for Squiggly_lines (Jaskier/Geralt)
best friends means you get what you deserve for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier & Geralt)
it takes some time to get anything right for spinningjenny (Jaskier/Geralt)
I’m the plans that you made (but fuck all your plans, I’m bored) for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt A/B/O)
whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about for Prim_the_Amazing (Geralt/Yennefer, Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)
make it easy (Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)
you met me at the perfect time for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt, Jaskier/Melitele)
the thing perhaps is to eat flowers and not to be afraid for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt, Geralt/Yennefer, Geralt/Jaskier/Yennefer)
some people talk to animals; not many listen, though for Prim_the_Amazing (Jaskier/Geralt)
.
Takeaways from reflecting on your kick-ass writing, or kick-ass lack of writing, during a year more focused on survival than perhaps any other: Oh my god, I wrote so fucking much, hahaha. Like daaaang, self. I almost wanna add up the word count and see what it is but I’m not patient enough to sort it all out, hah.
.
Most surprising fic you wrote this year: . . . hmmm, probably “you make a really good girl (as girls go)”. That one’s gotten a REALLY good reception that I was REALLY not expecting and I continue to get people who are hype for more of it swinging by to say so.
.
How you grew as a writer this year: I got faster, I think, and less obsessed with perfectionism/fussing around on the details. Also I continued to be ever-more shamelessly id-driven in my writing, my true ultimate goal as a writer.
.
What’s coming in 2021: God if I know, you guys. God if I know. Hopefully more Push and Pull and Avamorphs; maybe a little bit more “I’ll give them shelter” and handmaiden!Anakin; MAYBE even the end of Clay Kids. This is all wild, wild guessing, though, because lbr, I write exclusively based on a) what other people ask for and b) whatever random bout of inspiration has struck me at the time. There is very little predicting what will result from this combination.
.
tagging: @asukaskerian, @darkpuck, @beckyh2112, and anyone else who wants to play.
39 notes
·
View notes
Text
CURSED: CHAPTER ELEVEN
“All is fair in love and war”
Kai Parker x OC!Mack Grace
Series synopsis: "We're both cursed, in a way."
We all know the story of Kai Parker, but he once lived in a very different life. Do you ever wonder what that life looked like?
Chapter summary: werewolf shit, guys
Warnings: death, blood, violence, swearing possibly
Masterlist | Series Masterlist
MACK clutched her head in her hands, her back resting sharply against the car wheel as her chest rose and fell rapidly, her lungs struggling to keep up with her breaths. Tears streaked down her face like paint and her eyes were swollen with fear as she stared down at his body.
Ben's head rested sickeningly in a pool of deep crimson, his eyes frozen open like a deer in headlights, unblinking and unflinching. His nose was bloodied, his clothes scuffed and ripped and his chest looked nauseatingly con-caved. Mack chocked backed sob, covering her mouth with her hand. The more she stared at him, the more the reality sunk in.
She killed someone.
She killed him.
Someone she new, someone she once loved. She killed him. Someone who was worshiped at her school, someone whose name was on every certificate, every trophy. Someone who new her mum, her dad her sister.
A demented scream ripped from her throat like a banshee, her vocals straining to make a sound that sinister and that piercing. She kept going. Her world collapsed, crumbling like sand around her until only grit remained. She would go to jail. She would be sentenced to death. She would have to leave her dad. She would have to leave Kai. Mack's thoughts swooped through her like vultures, praying off her emotions like they were merely insignificant worms or insects.
The tainted sound stopped at the feeling of warm breath tickling against her ear. Welcomed hands on her shoulders. Comforting words whispered by a soothing voice.
"Shhh. Shh. Sweetheart, I need you to listen to me." Kai cooed gently, tucking some hair behind Mack's ear and tilting her head to face him with his finger and thumb on her chin. "No one is going to find out, okay? Just - just do exactly as I say." Kai's blue eyes were so calming, soft okie the ocean - blue and dazzling with sparks of hope like the theory of salt that littered wave tops and swells. "Can you do that for me, sweetheart?" He persisted and Mack managed a nod. "Good."
Kai stood up again, moving from his crouched position in front of Mack and over to where Ben's body menacingly taunted him. Kai scrunch up his nose, gathering saliva at the back of his throat before spitting over Ben. He hoisted the boy's body up, as arm under each armpit as he dragged Ben into the tree line that outlined the small road like thick, black marker in a child's painting. Setting his body down at the bottom of a tree, Kai sprinted over to his car, opening the door and flinging the glove box open.
He rummaged through it, tossing unwanted items on the seat like a scene out of a movie. That was until he came across what he wanted.
A small teddy-bear. Small enough to fit in the palm of Kai's hand; stuffing bursting through the seams, button eyes clinging on by strangled, old threads and ears half ripped off. He enclosed his hands around it, eyes rolling back and a small groan passing his lips as the glow emitted an orange hue. A warmth spread throughout him, filling his veins like a drug. Kai missed this feeling, the feeling of magic running through him. The adrenaline was heavy now, coursing through him just like the magic and aiding him as he ran back to Ben as fast as he could.
He bent down beside the body, arms held out and palms hovering over the torso and he muttered incantations and Latin phrases.
Scatters of ash floated upwards as spread densely to the sides, flaking off like tissue paper. The embers scorned the sides, titian hues edging them and creating a malevolent glow around them. When the ash cleared and the air thinned, clearing of magic, only an empty spot of grass that boarded the broad roots of the tree remained, all evidence of Ben's body disintegrated and nestling into the forest floor like any other leaf or decaying plant.
An abrupt grunt brought Kai back to present, making his head turn suddenly in the direction of Mack.
"Kenz?" He asked tentatively, but was merely met with another grunt, "Kenz, you're really scaring me." Kai said as he made his was round the car until he was face to face with her.
Then the screaming started. Mack collapsed to the floor from where she'd managed to stand to, her leg snapping in an unnatural manner. Then she jerked to the left, another scream ripping from her throat menacingly as her bones seemed to crack and break - her body distorting into a creature. Kai's head tilted to look at the moon, hanging mockingly, a full, bright, Pearl-white circle in the dark, spotted sky.
A sharp gasp pierced through the air, Kai's breath turning into a small cloud of icy white. It was a full moon. He looked back to make quickly, her form now hunted over, resting on all fours with her head dipped.
Mack's head rose from where it's been bowed, her eyes glowing with an intense fusion of gold, pain and fury. Her top lip pulled back threateningly, unveiling a pair of fangs which protruded uncomfortably over her bottom lip like small knives. All trace of Mack was gone, besides her hair and torn-up, blood-splattered clothes. A feral growl tore from her and Kai's eyes widened, his mind finally processing the situation in full.
And that's when he ran.
Kai ran, fast. As fast as he could; along the tarmac road, his converse crunching against the gravel grossly as he sprinted back to his Jeep. Looking back, Mack no longer chased him. No. It wasn't Mack - it was a monster. It's fur ran silky over its skin, dark silvers mixed with blacks, whites and yellowy-browns, it's eyes burned gold and it's ears stood to attention in the bitter wind whipping around them. It's paws were huge - as big as Kai's feet, maybe even bigger, and it's tail was a swooshing sweep of death behind it. Kai swallowed thickly, his hand resting on the door-handle now, tugging desperately and flinging the car open wide.
He clambered in, slamming the door just in time as the wolf scraped its claws down the side of the door. Kai winced at the screeching sound, cringing at the thought of the huge scratches that would be there now. He desperately tried turning his keys in the ignition but it cut short. He tried again and again, the sound of her clawing at his door making the desperation grow stronger.
After a short while Kai gave up, slumping into his seat and burying his face him his hands and hoping that she'd soon leave.
Mack didn't. She remained relentless, scratching and scraping at his car all night long. Kai can't remember when, but at some point he must've fallen asleep, as the whole world went black and all nosies were drained out.
...
The pale sun peaked over the trees, illuminating the dark road with a creamy-white light that shone over the sticky tarmac and leaves and grass glistened with the morning frost. Kai sat up slowly in his seat, groaning at his aching body and slowly peering out the window. Nothing was there. She had gone.
He slowly opened his car door, climbing out the black jeep and wincing at the damage done to his vehicle.
Long, jagged lines of scratchy sliver-grey were clawed down the doors, over the bonnet and the windows were scattered in lines of blue where the panes had been scraped. As he wandered around the car, Kai stopped in his tacks upon seeing Mack sprawled out over the floor, her shaking, naked frame shivering in the frosted grass. He rushed over to her, grounding slowly beside the girl and quickly shedding his coat. He spread it over her, pulling Mack's head into his lap for a moment and stroking her hair calmingly. When she didn't stir, he gently collected her into his arms, walking cautiously over to his car and placing her in the back seat. He looked at her, sighing as pressing a quick kiss to her forehead.
While he drove back to Mack's house, Kai's divers gripped the steering wheel tightly and his thoughts spiralled. Could he ever look at her the same? Of course he could, she was his best friend, his... well, friend. The girl he lo-
What? He didn't love her. No. He just cared deeply for her, felt hurt when she was hurt, wanted to cry when she cried, felt immense joy when she was happy, could barely stand to spend more than a few hours away from her, not touching her, not kissing her-
Holy shit. He loved her. He was in love with his best friend, his fuck buddy. Kai's mind was sent into overdrive, his senses buzzing off adrenaline, but they were soon interrupted by a low groan from the backseat. He looked back slightly, keeping one eye trained on the road ahead of them.
"Rise and shine, sweet cheeks." He quipped cheerfully, smirking as Amelie sat up, the coat falling from her chest and giving Kai a perfect view of her breasts from the rear-view mirror. He whistled and she frowned. "Fuck, you have nice tits." Kai grinned and Mack's eyes widened. She instantly reached for the coat, pulling it up over her chest and holding it there with one hand.
"Kai!" She exclaimed as he started to laugh.
"It's nothing I haven't seen before, sweetheart. And it definitely isn't something I wouldn't mind seeing again." He mentioned with a wink and she scowled at him. Then her eyes finally caught onto the scratches and scraped littering her shoulders, her legs, her feet, her hands. She gasped, holding her arms out in front of herself and examining her hands. The coat dropped again and Kai went back to his marvelling. Mack soon realised, pulling it over herself again.
"Stop doing that!" She said and Kai chuckled.
"I'm not doing anything, sweetheart. You can't blame your own...clumsiness on my intuition to see you naked." He smirk and she stuck her tongue out at him. "I'd be careful if I were you, babe, or I might get you to put the tongue to a better use." He winked and she gasped again, slumping back into the seats and crossing her arms over her chest.
They pulled into her drive, Kai stopping the car and walking round to Mack's door. He opened it, scooping the girl into his arms and kicking it shit with his foot.
"Kai!" She screamed, giggling as he walked with her in his arms. "Put me down!" She demanded, hitting his chest with her fists and kicking her legs.
"And let your dad think I'm less than the gentleman I made myself out to be last night? Nuh uh, babe." He quipped and Mack huffed, settling into his arms and he blindly opened the door to her house.
"You're back." Ian sighed, standing swiftly from the couch and crossing over to Kai, patting him on the shoulder and thanking him. "You're a good kid, thank you so much for helping us." He said in Kai's ear as the boy let Mack down and she scrambled off to her room. Ian sighed again, sitting down on the sofa and patting the spot beside him.
Kai tentatively sat beside him, kindly refusing when Ian offered him a beer, saying it was too early. They sat back against the cushions, a silence filled with awkward tension settling over them.
"Look, I'm guessing you saw...her." Ian started, gesturing towards where Mack had scurried off to.
"Yeah." Kai said bluntly.
"And you're still here?" Ian prompted and Kai nodded.
"I'm not exactly...human, myself." Kai admitted and Ian's brow raised.
"You're a wolf?" He asked and Kai shook his head with an amused smile. "There's other supernatural creatures?" Ian pressed and Kai smiled.
"Yes, I am a siphon." Ian pulled a confused face, "I'm a witch that doesn't have any powers of their own - I can only draw from other magical beings." Kai explained and Ian nodded slowly.
"Hey, Kai, do you wanna maybe go out? I need some fresh air." Mack called, rounding the corner and walking into the living room, now clad in some jeans and one of Kai's sweaters. He grinned at her, pleased to see her earring his clothes.
"Sure, Kenz. Do you want to start up my car? I'll meet you out there." He suggested and she plodded off. After the sound of the door slamming reached their ears Ian turned to Kai once again.
"If you plan on hurting my daughter in any way, I will kill you." He whispered and Kai smiled. "Got it?"
"Not like you'd stand much a chance.." Kai mused. "But yes, I understand and I have no intention of letting anyone or anything hurt Kenz. I promise." Kai replied and Ian smiled.
"Now go, have fun, keep my daughter happy!"
#smut#image#images#elena gilbert#stefan salvatore#the vampire diaries#chris wood#damon salvatore#kol mikaelson#tvd#chris wood images#chris wood x reader#chris wood image#chris wood smut#kai parker image#kai parker x reader#kai parker fanfic#kai parker
20 notes
·
View notes
Text
This Week in Gundam Wing June 28 - 4 July 2020
Here’s this week’s roundup!
Remember to give your content creators some love! And join in on the events at the bottom!
~Mod Hel
PS. So, I’m really bad at checking my email... I really need to get better at it. Some of these (which I’m sure will be new to a lot of you) are from long before this last week... whoops.
Fanfiction/Snippets/AU Ideas:
@bobo-is-tha-bomb
Five dates with Mister Handsome https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622383229580771328/five-dates-with-mister-handsome
1xReader (gender unspecified)
reader-insert, second person POV, fluff, romance
He was sinfully good looking and he had agreed to five dates with an idiotic drunk who claimed one single kiss was worth five dates. You couldn’t help but wonder why.
@coffeetailor
Emergence (Ch. 11) https://archiveofourown.org/works/13322880/chapters/60710743
Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy
Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Quatre Raberba Winner, Trowa Barton, Chang Wufei, Sally Po
Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, borrowers fusion but don't call them borrowers, disturbing themes like people trafficking from the bad guys, Size Difference, Will probably be a series, alternate canon events, Macro/Micro
When the war ended, things went a little strange. First, Duo vanished after never having let them see him in person. Then, years later, a tiny race of people are discovered. And that's just the start of things.
Fun Curses with Catboys https://archiveofourown.org/works/25047898
Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell
Chang Wufei, Duo Maxwell
magic transformation, Size Difference, catboy, Anal Sex, Post-Canon, Magic, wufei's a wizard, thar be porn
When Wufei leaves the Preventers, Duo goes snooping and finds out some things about his favorite (crush) loner. Like his hobbies in gardening, rare book collecting, and… magic? Probably shouldn’t have touched that, Duo. Good thing it’s a fun curse, and there’s a sexy wizard around to help out.
@chronicwhimsy
Strangers (Ch. 6) https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357013/chapters/60473569
Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell, Background Quatre x Relena, Background Heero x Trowa - Character
OC - Oliver McGann
Long Lost Twins, this was meant to be hijinks but then I got reminded these boys have Issues, Pining, Duo is a stressed-out jerk who needs a holiday, Post-EW, Frozen Teardrop can do one, sex in later chapters because this is me who are we kidding
If you said the word "brother" to Duo Maxwell, he'd think of the other pilots.
If you said, "no, your long-lost brother" to Duo Maxwell, he'd think of Solo and be very confused.
If you said, "no, your twin brother you were separated from at birth, and he's now working with the Preventers as a lawyer" to Duo Maxwell, he would go and punch his doppelganger.
Duo Maxwell isn't good at dealing with things, but unfortunately this particular thing isn't going to go away that easily.
@destinysblackrose
It Takes a Legend... https://archiveofourown.org/works/25012021
Relena Peacecraft/Heero Yuy, Relena Peacecraft & Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell/Hilde Schbeiker
Heero Yuy, Relena Peacecraft, Trowa Barton, Duo Maxwell, Duo Maxwell Jr., Hilde Schbeiker, Chang Wufei
Angst, Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Slice of Life, Duo's going to have his ribs broken, Gundam Wing children, #fatherhood, Fatherhood, Father's Day, Crass Humor, teenaged boy humor
“Listen, I can’t possibly imagine what it’s like to be you. You never had a childhood. And you never had a father—”
“No,” Heero shook his head. “I didn’t. I trained to fight, to kill from…as far back as I can remember.” The visible side of his mouth, from Aidan’s vantage point, turned down.
“It’s why,” he paused and picked up a wrench from the open drawer. “It’s why sometimes...I’m, I’m at a total loss…” He dropped the hand holding the wrench to his side. Aidan could see his knuckles change color where he throttled the metal implement.
“Your mom is so much, better at these things… At being there for you.”
@doctormegalomania
Introspective https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622202012283584512/introspective
Implied 1x2, implied 3x4, implied past 2xH, past 1xR
self-exploration of gender identity and sexuality, reference to past sexual situations (non-explicit), candid conversations
Heero gives some thought to his sexuality.
Your Body’s Poetry (Ch. 20) https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438891/chapters/60737623
Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei/Original Female Character(s), Relena Peacecraft & Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell/Original Male Character(s)
Characters: Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Sally Po, Relena Peacecraft, Lucrezia Noin, Zechs Merquise, Hilde Schbeiker
Past Relationship(s), Slice of Life, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn, Developing Relationship, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence
Long after the wars, long after peace is established the Gundam Pilots discover one immovable fact: Relationships are hard work.
@duointherain
Beneath: All Those Sounds https://duointherain.tumblr.com/post/622765434690781184/beneath-all-those-sounds-11
Notes: The boys are 35. They are married and they live in Seattle. Heero is a physician and a research scientist. Duo is a stay at home dad and a best selling novelist. They have twins who are spending the holiday with their grandmother Maureen and their godmothers, Rey and Precious.
It didn’t take much. Neither of them said anything. The fireworks exploded outside their house, somewhere down by the water, far enough away that it was just a soft little press against the windows, against their souls.
Left on Read https://duointherain.tumblr.com/post/622787629087440896/fic-left-on-read-1
Duo Maxwell had decided, several years before, that he didn’t much like Preventers. At the time, he hadn’t know what he did like either. The therapist that Quatre had talked him into seeing had told him this was normal. Trauma would leave a person with little self, especially if the trauma had happened early and consistently. He had said quiet loudly, that day that he had plenty of self, everyone thought so! He was loud and brash and brave and drank too much, and had more lovers than she’d probably had in her whole boring life
@lemontrash
The Morning Brightens https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622390770875465728/the-morning-brightens
4x5
established relationship, coming out fic, fluff
After a night of not sleeping on it, Wufei discusses something important with Quatre.
@lifeaftermeteor
Pride https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622300166716833793/pride
1x2
pride parade, slice of life, fluff, asexual duo
Duo has only recently come to terms with his asexuality. It took him a long time to understand it, and even longer to embrace it as inherently part of himself. To celebrate, Heero takes him out onto the streets for New York City’s Pride.
@relenaforpresident
Just Love: Queerness in Gundam Wing https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622292634598293504/just-love-queerness-in-gundam-wing
No ships but reference to both 1xR and 1x2
non-fiction, personal essay, self-reflection, gender, queerness, fandom
A personal essay on how the Gundam Wing series and fandom community helped me change my personal beliefs on love and gender.
@simulacraryn
Donguri https://archiveofourown.org/works/24733540
General Audiences
Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Heero Yuy, Odin Lowe
A short piece about Odin Lowe and his young protégé. This is an excerpt from a longer (discontinued) 2009 fic I once posted on ff.net ("Kaifuku"), but it can be read as a standalone piece.
Heero’s Inheritance https://archiveofourown.org/works/24658531
General Audiences
Heero Yuy, Odin Lowe
Illustrations, Headcanon
Just a short headcanon about Heero's past. Illustrated work.
TheManwell
A Season for Vengeance (Ch. 10) https://archiveofourown.org/works/22508074/chapters/53785717
Explicit
Trowa Barton/Duo Maxwell, Solo/Heero Yuy
Trowa Barton, Duo Maxwell, Catherine Bloom, Cathy's son (OC), Cathy's husband (OC), Heero Yuy, Zechs Merquise, Quinze (Gundam Wing), Solo (Gundam Wing), Nichol (Gundam Wing), Lucrezia Noin
dude in distress, Trowa for MVP, things that go boom, Backstory things, modern day AU, Sequel, alternating pov, Trowa POV, Duo POV
It's been over a year since Duo and Trowa escaped the pain and betrayal and danger of their pasts, went off the grid and started building a new life together. But when Duo's birthday comes and goes without a single obnoxious message from his older brother, they know something is wrong. It's time to break cover and check in. The only problem is that Duo's brother works for a powerful government agency, so making that call will put Duo and Trowa on their radar...
Fanart/Crafts/Photo Manips:
@antarespromise
https://antarespromise.tumblr.com/post/622394387634257921
Quatre Raberba Winner, fanart
@bettertasting
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622198278449168385/title-proud-artist-cindy-bettertasting
Gboys Pride Banner, @wingqueero, fanart
@bobo-is-tha-bomb
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622296415384764416/title-in-the-name-of-justice-and-love-artist
Pride Leo “In the name of Justice and Love”, @wingqueero, gunpla
@coffeetailor
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622303966073683968/title-special-delivery-artist-coffee
Duo/WuFei, @wingqueero, fanart
@daddywarbats
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622213395485229056/title-just-gals-being-pals-or-not-artist
Hilde/Relena, @wingqueero, fanart
@deathscythehell
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622209566153818112/artist-tami-deathscythehell-description-one
Duo/Quatre (best dads), @wingqueero, fanart (comic)
@deejayers
https://deejayers.tumblr.com/post/622482172907077632/and-wing-is-complete-talk-about-a-monster-this
Wing, gunpla
@gundayum
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622439861179351040/hi-all-gundayum-here-im-gonna-try-and-not-make
Important Thank You, and some partied out WuFei, @wingqueero, fanart
@gwfrozentears
https://gwfrozentears.tumblr.com/post/622495742005772288/por-siempre-mi-pareja-favorita
Heero & Relena
https://gwfrozentears.tumblr.com/post/622493743305621504/he-comenzado-a-dibujar-nuevamente-inspirada-en-el
Heero
https://gwfrozentears.tumblr.com/post/622494840371970048
Heero
https://gwfrozentears.tumblr.com/post/622499630050066432
Heero
https://gwfrozentears.tumblr.com/post/622548456296300544
Heero
https://gwfrozentears.tumblr.com/post/622507185094721536
Heero/Relena
@lokineko
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622205797731123200/title-quiet-happiness-artist-lokineko
Trowa/Heero, @wingqueero, fanart
lotopauanka
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622288883271467008/title-just-married-artist-lotopauanka-social
Heero/Duo, @wingqueero, fanart
@oekakimemo
https://oekakimemo.tumblr.com/post/622350648656134144/20200630-traditional-painting
Relena Darlian/Peacecraft, fanart
@page-of-wands11
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622379476560609280/title-colourful-kiss-artist-page-of-wands
Heero/Duo, @wingqueero, fanart
@seitou
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622394541550534656/title-pride-walk-artist-seitou-seitou-social
Pride Walk, @wingqueero, fanart
@tatakaumono
https://tatakaumono.tumblr.com/post/621743027371819008/happy-24-day-pride-dont-tag-as
Quatre/Duo, fanart
@theboringbluecrayon
https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/622387009366982656/title-family-pride-wip-artist-blue
Trowa/Quatre & Family, @wingqueero, fanart
Photosets/Gifsets/Screenshots/Manga Pages:
@bobo-is-tha-bomb
https://bobo-is-tha-bomb.tumblr.com/post/622708372721025024/never-though-they-would-come-in-but-here-they
GW OST CDs, photo
https://bobo-is-tha-bomb.tumblr.com/post/622456639940919296/always-nice-when-the-mail-man-stops-by
gw artbooks, and other merch, photo
@cuteciboulette
https://cuteciboulette.tumblr.com/post/622269950937186304/another-extract-from-the-cover-of-the
Heero/Duo, doujinshi “Toki no suna” by Sango Show cover
Fandom Discourse:
@2pcb has created a wonderful discord for gw artists who would like monthly prompts to get those creative juices flowing! DM them if you’d like to join!
@hanryuu would like to know whether anyone has translated the Blind Target drama cds. If you have any information on that we would be grateful!
Quotes:
@incorrectgundamwingquotes
https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/622379465062924288/duo-why-do-bigfoot-hunters-try-to-lure-him-with-a
Duo, Trowa, & WuFei
https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/622560690151047168/wufei-we-can-talk-about-normality-until-the-cows
WuFei, Heero, Trowa, & Duo
https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/622470062887075840/heero-run-thisdoesntbothermeexe-brain-file
Heero
Calendar Events:
@gwcocktailfriday
Cocktail Fridays!
Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.
Here’s the prompt for Friday, July 10th! https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/post/622719166375493632/raspberry-mango-sangria-yield-1-pitcher-prep
In need of FALL/AUTUMN prompts!
@gwoc-october
GW OC October 2020!
Help pick out prompts!
https://gwoc-october.tumblr.com/post/621130082429337600/hello-gundam-wing-folks-thats-right-gw-oc
@seasons-of-gundamwing
Voting Results: https://seasons-of-gundamwing.tumblr.com/post/622566396369485824/looks-like-well-be-doing-a-hilde-week-thanks-to
Summer of Hilde!
In need of prompts! https://seasons-of-gundamwing.tumblr.com/post/622567839387271168/summer-of-hilde-prompt-call
@wingqueero
Gundam Wing Pride Party 2020
Come check out all the amazing works! https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/
22 notes
·
View notes
Text
Ends of the Earth | Chapter 2
Fandom: The Mandalorian
Pairing: Mando x OC
Read on FFN or AO3
Summary: When Sinead's husband is ripped from her, she escapes the Hutt Empire and goes on a quest to find him. Since being a runaway slave in the Outer Rim isn't exactly easy, she makes the Mandalorian an offer he can't refuse and soon they travel across the galaxy, looking for her missing husband.
Chapter index
Chapter 2 - The Deal
“There we were, cruising over Utapau, waiting for orders from those kriffin’ bastards. The boys were gettin’ restless, but I say to them, I say, you lads have been beggin’ me for a break for months, and now you turn tetchy for a little downtime? I told ‘em just kick back ‘n relax, n’ rake in the creds while the client figured out what to do ‘bout us.”
Sinead rested her elbows on the bar top, watching the Zabrak slam back the remainder of her mug, slamming it on the table. “And did you?”
“Kiff no. Those rhukis tried to stiff us until we caught ‘em, that is. They went on sayin’ that on account of ‘em not needing us after all, they shouldn’t ‘ave to pay us.”
“Can’t imagine that went over well with the boys.”
The Zabrak barked out a laugh and slammed her fist on the bar between them hard enough to make the crockery rattle. “The lads don’t like it much when clients don’t keep their promises. As I see it, we was just getting some justice.”
“Balance in the galaxy, and all that,” Sinead said, filling up the Zabrak’s mug with a frothy green concoction.
“Knew you’d get it.” The Zabrak grinned, flashing a row of yellowing teeth filed to a point.
It was late at night, or as late as it could be on a space station that used artificial light all hours of the day. The star it orbited hung almost dead in the vacuum, a white dwarf, gone before the first sentients even started dreaming about space travel. Its cold light did nothing to warm up the planets left circling it.
Sinead had been on the space station for almost a month. Not long after gaining her freedom, she’d discovered that while convictions were all well and good, it wouldn’t keep her from starving, and she’d found herself working in one of the two cantinas aboard the station. This one was less frequented, which suited Sinead just fine. Sometimes, when a big starship docked, the place would flood with spacers, but curiously they rarely came back.
“What’s next for you and your boys?”
“Eh, some rich fella from the Core wants us to lug his cargo halfway ‘cross the galaxy. All perfectly legal, of course.”
“Of course. I’m sure all your other stories were perfectly legal too, right?”
“That’s right.” The Zabrak tapped her nose. “You’re a smart one.”
Sinead winked at the captain, before cleaning up the bar and discarding the empty bowls in the kitchen.
When she came back, the Zabrak got up and tossed a couple of credits on the table. “Thanks for listening to an old spacer’s stories,” she said. “Really warms a girl’s hearts.”
“My pleasure. You’re quite the storyteller, you know that?”
The Zabrak barked out a laugh and reached over to slap Sinead on the shoulder. “Always knew I picked the wrong line of work.” She grabbed the rifle that leaned against the bar. “See ya around, kid.”
The Zabrak left, her long coat swinging behind her, and Sinead was left to her own devices. Two Niktos were the only patrons left in the bar and they sat together at a small table, heads bent low over their meals, and only muttering a few words between bites.
The station was originally a scientific vessel, orbiting the very star it was surveying. Sometimes before the fall of the Empire, the scientists left and not soon after enterprising spacers moved in, turning the station into a decent halfway point between nowhere and nothing.
Once Sinead grew adequately bored staring into thin air, she grabbed a broom from a cupboard and started sweeping. The maintenance droid was down something that happened surprisingly often in a place frequented by mechanics and pilots.
Five years she’d been free. Five years and every clue, every lead on Kyen fizzed out before she had the chance to grab it. The last one in a long line of disappointments ended with her nearly getting caught by a band of privateers, and now it hovered just out of reach.
She wondered if she had made a mistake breaking away from the rebels. Their attack on the Imps saved her life, but fear of retaliation made her split as fast as she could, although a few months later, that wasn’t a concern anymore; the Empire shattered, and whatever was left was too preoccupied picking up the pieces. That left the Hutts, but as far as she knew, they thought she was dead, and she wanted to keep it that way. Now she just hovered in place, waiting for a new opportunity to-
The door swished open, and a cold blast of air hit her. She turned around to face the new patron.
His armor glinted in the harsh light.
Bounty hunter.
Mandalorian.
Her body reacted without input from her brain. She swung the broom at his head.
The Mandalorian ducked, and the broom sailed over his head; as it came around again, he grabbed it and wrenched it out of Sinead's hands, and it clattered on the ground.
The Niktos jumped up so quickly that their chairs fell backward, blasters pointed at the Mandalorian, with his own blaster trained at them.
Reason clawed its way through the fog of fear. "Are you a bounty hunter?" Her voice sounded loud in the tense room.
The Mandalorian cocked his head to the side and looked from Sinead to the Niktos. "Not right now." His voice was hoarse and sounded exhausted, but that could just be the voice modulator.
Sinead took a step back and sent a look over her shoulder at the Niktos, begging them to stand down. They shared a look, yellow teeth bared but lowered their blasters slowly.
She looked back at the Mandalorian, his blaster aimed directly at her. "I'm sorry about that," she said, giving him a weak smile. "We've had some problems with bounty hunters."
The Mandalorian kept staring at her, or rather, she assumed he kept staring at her, as his helmet gave absolutely no indication. Eventually, he lowered his blaster, but kept it at hand, presumably in case she started swinging the broom again.
He looked like he was about to leave when the bundle tucked safely into the crook of his arm started moving, and a small green hand appeared from between two folds.
Sinead watched in wonder as some fabric was pushed to the side, and two big, dark eyes looked out at the world.
The Mandalorian sighed and finally returned his blaster to its holster. "You got any food?"
Sinead tore her eyes away from the little creature. "Uh, yes. There’s yvum soup on the boiler."
"One bowl then." He sat down at the table nearest the door, keeping his back against the wall where he could see the entire room.
The Niktos sat back down, but their food remained untouched as they looked warily at the Mandalorian, whispering among themselves.
Sparing one last look at the little creature, Sinead went into the tiny kitchen attached to the cantina and filled a bowl with yvum soup, a gelatinous substance made from boiling the hell out of whatever meat was available. Thick and brown, it looked like mud and smelled like it too, but the few people brave enough to frequent the cantina weren’t the kind to complain.
When Sinead returned to the Mandalorian, he had removed the little creature from its cocoon and placed it on his lap so its little green head could see over the table.
Sinead left the bowl in the middle of the table, and the Mandalorian pulled it toward him. It didn’t take long for the child to start slurping down soup.
"Thank you," the Mandalorian grunted and tossed a couple of credits on the table.
That surprised her a bit as most cantina patrons didn't seem to know basic manners if it hit them with a broom.
Sinead was putting the credits away in a strongbox beneath the counter when she heard the kid coo softly. Looking over the rim of the counter, she saw it sit up in the Mandalorian’s lap. It looked like nothing she'd ever seen before, so small and soft in the Mandalorian's arms. Its floppy ears lifted curiously whenever the old station made a sound.
Grabbing the broom from the floor, Sinead started sweeping again as an excuse to get a better look at the odd pair. The little one's eyes followed her movements around the room as it slurped the remaining soup. It looked young and old at the same time; its head was covered in fine white hair.
The Niktos left, staring at the Mandalorian as they walked out, and he looked right back, his body shifting slightly, ready to spring into action.
When it became clear that Sinead couldn't continue sweeping a clean floor, she moved to the counter and grabbed the lockbox to count out the credits for her shift.
The kid slowed down eating and was looking around the room with curious eyes. Sinead burned to ask what species it was, but it was clear that its guardian wasn't in a talkative mood.
He said he wasn't a bounty hunter right now. Could he become one again for the right price? She’d met a Mandalorian once, a long time ago, and it was clear they were capable warriors. Plus, she had an ace up her sleeve.
Besides, she was curious about the little green guy.
Sinead's shift ended just as the Mandalorian was about to leave. She watched as he swaddled the child and left the cantina, moving surprisingly quiet for a guy in heavy armor. She waited until he was out of sight before hurrying after him, keeping close to the wall.
The space station was as dead as it was going to get with only a few ships docked. The Niktos were sitting around what looked like an unholy fusion between a Y-wing and a B-73. Sinead's steps sounded loud in the relative quiet.
The Mandalorian disappeared through the door leading to the docking bay.
She slipped through the door and almost collided with the Mandalorian, who stood tall and intimidating, the lighting behind him making him look like a shadow.
"Why are you following me?"
It took Sinead a second to find her voice. "You said you were a bounty hunter, right?"
His voice modulator rustled when he sighed. "I'm not after anyone in the station if that's what you're worried about."
"I'm not," Sinead said. "I want to hire you."
"What?"
"I want to hire you."
The Mandalorian paused, then shook his head and started walking. "Not interested."
Sinead hurried to keep up with him. "I can pay you."
"I'm not with the Guild."
"Wonderful, I'm not asking the Guild, I'm asking you."
"And my answer is no. Stop following me."
They were close to what Sinead assumed was the Mandalorian’s ship. She didn’t recognize the model, but it looked old. It had definitely seen better days.
Sinead bit her lower lip and jumped in front of the Mandalorian, forcing him to stop.
"Move." The command came out harsh and uncompromising.
She moved, and the Mandalorian passed her, his cloak fluttering behind him. She watched as he neared the ship, and she rubbed her jaw as thoughts fell over themselves to get to the forefront of her mind.
She took a chance.
"Does the Nau'orar mean anything to you?"
He stopped in his tracks, his shoulders tensing as the seconds passed by.
"How do you know about that?" He turned to look at her.
"Maybe we should take this somewhere more private."
... ... ... ... ...
Since there were no proper seats in the ship, except for the bunk, which seemed like a bad choice for prefect strangers, Sinead was left standing awkwardly near the bay door.
The Mandalorian stood by a small cot that looked so out of place on the ship. He'd put the child down to sleep, but the little guy evidently knew something was happening because he stayed wide awake, looking from one human to the other.
"Speak."
Sinead resisted running a hand through her hair. The Mandalorian stood unmoving, watching her.
"I need you to find a man who-"
"How do you know about the Nau'orar?"
Straight to the point, then.
Sinead paused and gave the Mandalorian a searching look. Maybe this was a huge mistake.
With a sigh, she produced a small holoprojector from her pocket and threw it to him.
He caught it and turned it on. A blurred hologram of the whip appeared above it, turning slowly on its axis. Even with a cheap holoprojector, the whip looked beautiful.
"I acquired it some years ago-"
"How did you get it?"
Sinead’s jaw clenched, and it took everything in her not to snap at him. Still, she figured that the truth might speed things along. The Mandalorians and the Empire were hardly friends.
"I stole it from the Empire five years ago. The details aren't important, what is, is that I have it in my possession, in a safe place. It's yours if you help me find someone."
"It belongs to the Mandalorians."
Sinead shrugged. "Look, I agree with you, and I would've given it back to its rightful owners if it didn't happen to be an excellent bargaining chip." She gave him a small smile, hoping that he wasn't about to throw her off the ship.
On the bunk, the kid cooed softly, and Sinead smiled at it.
The Mandalorian looked at the hologram for a long moment, his hands clenching and releasing. At last, he sighed deeply. "Who do I need to find?"
"His name is Kyen Beck. He was a slave on Sriluur until they moved him off-world, possibly to a facility on Siskeen.”
The Mandalorian cocked his head to the side. "It's a long way to go for a maybe."
Sinead ignored him. "This isn't a Guild job. I have no puck or fob, or whatever it is they use, but if you do this, the whip is yours."
The Mandalorian still didn't seem convinced. "He's a runaway slave?"
For one dizzying moment, Sinead’s chest felt too tight to breathe.
"He's my husband."
The Mandalorian stiffened and looked away, down at the child who watched their conversation in fascinated silence. He sighed deeply. "I'll look for him, but I can't make any promises."
Sinead let out a deep breath, her knees going weak with relief. Finally, she was doing something.
"Where was his last known location?"
Sinead wet her lips and swallowed. "I talked with someone who escaped from Sriluur two years ago, told me that he'd been shipped to Siskeen with some other slaves, but she doesn’t know exactly what happened."
"And you trust this information?"
"More or less."
The Mandalorian fell silent for some time. "You said she escaped two years ago. Why didn't you just go by yourself?"
"I'm not exactly welcome in Hutt space at the moment." She smiled bitterly. "I tried other bounty hunters, but they didn't really ... work out."¨
He was going to ask her if she used to be a slave. Would he take her back to the Hutt’s instead, taking the easy payment? While her bounty was void, she was sure whoever inherited Slezza’s throne would be glad to see her.
The Mandalorian, to Sinead’s surprise, nodded curtly and moved to the side, effectively ending the conversation. Sinead wasn't done, though.
"When do we leave?"
The Mandalorian froze. "When do we-"
"We leave? I'm coming with you."
"No, you're not. I work alone." He crossed his arms across his chest.
"Not this time. He's my husband."
"You can't-"
"I can read star charts, I can fly, I know how to fight-"
"A broom doesn't count."
Sinead huffed and narrowed her eyes. "There isn't much to go on. I know my husband, I know what he'd do, I know how he looks. Sooner or later, you're going to need me."
"No. Deal's off."
Shaking her head, Sinead took a deep breath and grit her teeth. "Fine." She started toward the door. "You're making a mistake. The Nau'orar does belong with the Mandalorians, but I can't force you."
The kid made a whining sound as the door opened, and its big floppy ears drooped down.
She had made it down the ramp when the Mandalorian appeared in the doorway.
"The ship leaves at 0700." He sounded unsure even as he said it.
Warmth radiated through Sinead's body and she felt weak in the knees. "0700. I'll be there."
The Mandalorian nodded curtly and started to raise the ramp.
"My name is Sinead, by the way," she yelled, just as the ramp closed.
Finally, after 5 years, she was doing something. She had a good feeling about this.
<- Previous chapter - Next chapter ->
#the mandalorian#din djarin#the mandalorian x oc#mando x oc#din x oc#din djarin x oc#fanfiction#ends of the earth#oc: sinead
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Jackson [Archie & Jasper's fusion] sings this about Y/N. [This is also what their singing voice sounds like.]
youtube
[Song belongs to Nico Santos]
#my ocs#yandere pyromaniac oc#male vampire oc#my ocs x y/n#ocs x y/n#oc fusion#oc singing voice#ocs x listener#my ocs x listener#This song also works for them and Archie having Hanahaki for you :)#minors please dni#ageless blogs pls dni#music#oc fusion x y/n#Youtube
0 notes
Text
Was tagged by @acidmatze
Oof haven't done one of these in a while!!
The rule is to tag 9 people you wish to know better
Top 3 Ships: Gonna include OCxCanon, too, bc listen. OCxCanon or OCxOC is just about all I do anymore.
OC/Canon:
1. Twice/Haru [OC] (BNHA)
2. Fatgum/Eii [OC] (BNHA)
3. Lucio Morgasson/Bri [OC] (The Arcana)
Now strictly for Canon:
1. Rupphire [AKA Garnet] (Ruby x Sapphire) - SU
2. Bispearl [I like to think their fusion is Ammonite] (Bismuth x Pearl) - SU
3. Connverse (Connie x Steven Universe) - SU
Last Song: Under Pressure by David Bowie featuring Queen.
Last Movie: Uhhhh, I think it was The Green Mile?? My memory is shit, but, I'm pretty sure that's the one!
Currently Reading: Hrm. I guess it would be Authority by Jeff Vandermeer, but I haven't touched it in months bc of my suspected ADHD. It's hard for me to read anymore and bc of the virus, I haven't talked to my psychologist enough to discuss how to get past that.
What food are you craving: I'm literally always craving sushi. All the time. Take me to a sushi bar and I will eat everything. Especially the deep fried rolls this place in the town over does, they're SO fucking good...
I tag:
Uhhhhhh, idk.
@kenmagoesblep @harudemuri @themultishipperchild @symbiotic-paradox @merry-go-sorry
5 notes
·
View notes
Photo
Ch.11: Goodbye, Reyna
Story Masterlist
Fandom: Sailor Moon (Crystal)
Rewrite of season 2, AU-ish in that there’s new OCs and the fusion of plots from the manga, crystal and the og series
Pairings: Eventual OFC x OMC, Usagi x Mamoru
Taglist: @ocappreciationtag @arrthurpendragon @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @foxesandmagic
In the base, Meroko stood beside her sister, Asteria, in civilian forms and listened as Asteria relayed how it was she came to be after thousands of years.
"Queen Nyx had felt Princess Reign's death the moment it happened but instead of telling me and the rest of the guardians to retrieve the body...she said we had an important mission to do," Asteria's pale face was partially hidden by her blue and silver-tipped hair falling over her shoulders. "She said Princess Reign had done her duty well even in death and that it was now up to the rest of us to follow in suit. Sailor Circe, our magical guardian, used her teleporting powers to send our people to our sister civilization who had found a new planet to live on and then Queen Nyx, uh, she...she used the last of her powers to put me and my two other guardians in cryogenic stasis on Earth."
"So you've been sleeping for thousands of years since then?" Azula crinkled her nose at the thought. She loved sleep as much as the next person but that was too much.
Asteria nodded. "Queen Nyx said that Princess Reign would be reincarnated by the grace of Queen Serenity, along with my sister—" she put a hand on Meroko's arm, "—because it was imperative that the Shadow Crystal remain protected. Since Princess Reign would one day re-awaken, she would need the rest of her guardians with her."
"But then that confirms that your Queen had contact with not only your sister planet but also with Silver Millenium," Usagi noted. "She knew my Mother…"
"And once upon a time you knew Princess Reign," Asteria said with obvious disdain. Since she had learned that the Moon Princess had also been reincarnated, she hadn't really wanted to speak with any of the girls and much less Usagi. "And then you let her die…"
"Hey," Mamoru cut in before Asteria would go further, because he had no doubt she would, "That is something you're gonna have to stop saying."
"Truth hurts? Not my problem," Asteria shrugged her shoulders. "The only reason I'm here explaining everything to you all is because my sister made me. I, frankly, would rather us work alone than join forces with the lot that killed my Princess."
"I'm sorry about that, really," Usagi wanted to be believed so badly even though she herself couldn't remember this Shadow princess. It was hard trying to picture this entire story without the proper memories. She hoped the memories would start coming now that she was learning about them.
"We don't know what exactly happened," Mamoru added on. "No one does except Reign herself and until she joins us and explains everything, we're not going to blame anyone."
Asteria crossed her arms and looked to the side. Mamoru remembered the girl to be much more stubborn and challenging than Sailor Hemera. Even now, Asteria remained the same.
"Asteria has agreed to the terms of our accordance," Meroko spoke up. "We'll work together to find Princess Reign and defeat Senka and then afterwards we'll leave to find the rest of our people."
"We can get to work on that then by cross referencing any sorts of jewels in the area," Azula thought out loud. "It's a stretch but it's a start."
Asteria scoffed at her. "You believe my Princess would let her Crystal hide in plain sight?"
"Well, Usagi's crystal hid inside her body so unless you find Reign this is all we have right now," Azula retorted within the second. She wasn't here for snappy attitudes, especially with the girl who had stabbed her with literal stars.
Asteria released a breath and looked at Meroko. "I'm hungry. Could we go to that cafe shop you talked about in the morning?"
Meroko nodded and told her sister to start heading out first. When Asteria was out of hearing shot, she addressed the group. "I know Asteria is…"
"Snotty? Rude?" Minako finished for her and yelped when Makoto elbowed her. "What?"
Meroko sighed. "I know it's difficult for everyone, alright? But Asteria has been asleep for thousands of years and this is a new world for her to get used to. To say, she refuses to adopt a human name."
"The name she lives by is the least of our problems," Rei pointed out. "If she doesn't work with us then finding Reign, the Shadow Crystal and defeating Senka is going to become a lot more difficult."
"And it doesn't help when she keeps throwing the death of Reign in our faces," Makoto huffed. "Especially to Usagi."
"Are you sure Princess Reign truly died because Serenity?" Ami asked curiously. It was a whole story to learn once they all regained their memories, and as such they had some doubts.
"Yes, I know she did," Meroko nodded. "I was guarding the barrier when I heard the humans' uproar. I didn't make it to Reign on time but I did see Prince Endymion's lifeless body on the ground while Reign and Serenity ran off."
Usagi leaned on Mamoru for some support because she truly did not remember anything about Reign and the guilt was getting to her. "I just...I just remember taking my own life...that's all…"
"But if Reign ran with you...and she died first...wouldn't that sort of imply she died trying to protect you too?" Azula tapped her chin with her finger. They all knew the story about how Endymion had given his life to protect Serenity. That made sense given their relationship. Reign, however, had no reason to do the same for Serenity, as terrible as that sounded.
It was an idea that not even Meroko had thought about, judging by the horrified look on her face. It would mean that their belief about Reign's death was completely wrong. "Why would she do that for a girl she didn't even know?"
"Because maybe she did know Serenity…" Mamoru said before he could even begin to think about the meaning behind his words. He needed to start to remembering faster.
~0~
"This is...pie…?" Asteria jabbed her fork into the piece of cheesecake in front of her.
Meroko sat across her in their booth and smiled. "Yes. It's a popular dessert and a good one if I say so myself." She grabbed a nearby fork and dug it into her own piece. "Azula introduced me to it."
Asteria stopped her fork just inches from her mouth. "You seem to be a little too warm with these Silver Millenniums."
"Actually, Azula is the only normal human in the group so you can eat that slice calmly."
Asteria never liked jokes much. Thousands of years wouldn't change that. "Hemera you do remember that they are the cause - both Silver Millenniums and humans - of the death of our Princess?"
"Yes, and believe me I've been just as angry as you are right now. But I learned that these people can be trusted," Meroko argued logically. "The more time you spend not cooperating with them, the more time we'll have to work with them. Think about that for a moment, will you?"
Asteria didn't have to think long to know Meroko was right. "Fine. I will be...more civilized. But I don't like them."
"Well you don't have to. You just have to work with them." Asteria finally tried the cheesecake bit on her fork and immediately "mmd" in delight at the flavor. Meroko chuckled at her sister. "Good, huh?"
"Maybe these humans aren't all that bad," Asteria dug her fork into the cheesecake again. "So tell me about Senka. What's going on with her?"
Meroko forgot how straight-to-business her sister was. "Well, she's getting stronger. She's taking energy from the humans to reclaim her figure. She's almost there now so I assume afterwards she's going to start really searching for the Shadow Crystal."
"Good luck," Asteria said in-between bites. "Queen Nyx made it clear before we were all put to sleep that Princess Reign had hidden the Crystal well."
Meroko trusted in her Queen's words but couldn't help wonder how it was that Reign had hidden the Crystal in her final moments. She looked around before she spoke again because this time it was a much more dire question. "How do you think Senka got out through the gates of the Shadow Dominion?"
Asteria paused her eating for a second. "Well, with Princess Reign's death, the Gates must have suffered a severage due to their linkage and it provided Senka a tiny hole to get out through."
"If there's a hole, no matter how small, then we need to fix it," Meroko then whispered again, "Can we get to the Gates of the Shadow Dominion?"
"No," Asteria shot the idea down on the spot. "Of course we can't. Only Princess Reign knows the way. We don't know anything about the Gates."
"And Senka, obviously," Meroko mumbled.
"Senka is a dangerous creature and we cannot allow her to continue searching for the Shadow Crystal."
"Asteria, the last times we've seen Senka she said...she said something odd…"
"Like?"
"That she's 'meshed' by the greatest soldiers. What does that mean?"
Asteria gulped and put her fork down. Her pale face had gone even paler. "I don't know as much as Circe did about the Shadow Dominion, but I do know this: Shadows in the Shadow Dominion can sometimes merge to create a stronger being. Those Shadows could be the souls of Sailor Guardians or other warriors, dead or alive from this world."
Meroko's eyes widened. "So we could be fighting a culmination of the best warriors in the universe? Asteria, how are we going to defeat them?"
"We can," Asteria assured her. "Princess Reign can use the Shadow Crystal to seal Senka away. I have faith in her, don't you?"
"Of course," Meroko leaned back against her seat and thought about Princess Reign's task to put Senka down. The girl was in for a rude awakening.
~ 0 ~
"I can help too, Rei!" Reyna laughed delightfully as she ran across Rei's shrine courtyard to gather a dust pan. "My Mommy says I'm a good helper! I can do lots of stuff!" she snatched the dustpan off the ground and ran back to where Rei was already brooming. While Reyna began listing the many things she could help out with, the rest of the girls watched from the sides with fair amusement.
"Where did she come from again?" Minako asked Azula who was lying down on the ground with her arms tucked behind her head.
"From the sky?" Azula replied and moved one arm over her eyes to shield them from the sun.
"No, seriously," Minako said again.
"I am being serious," Azula's voice sharpened a bit. "She literally dropped from the sky and nearly crushed me to the ground."
"She can't weigh that much," Usagi chuckled with a hand in front of her mouth. "She's only five."
"And mega annoying!"
"Aw, I think she's kinda cute," Makoto watched as Reyna helped Rei collect the dust.
"But it would be helpful to know where it is she's from," Ami looked up from her book. "Has she said anything to you, Azula?"
"You'd be surprised to know that despite the big chatterbox Reyna is, she hasn't said a word about her home nor her parents." And that drove Azula mad. Every time Azula would ask Reyna about her parents and home, Reyna would change the topic. "You'd think if my daughter were missing I'd go out and look for her or something. Or even put up missing daughter posters."
"Maybe they don't know she's gone," Usagi shrugged.
"Well, she fell from the sky so...I doubt she came prepared," Azula sat up and stared at Reyna. "But then...where the hell is she from? She's not a regular child, that much we know." She gestured to herself as living proof of Reyna's special abilities. She'd spent time at the hospital for her injuries - something that had been explained to her dad and sister as a mere consequence of being at the wrong place at the wrong time - and then suddenly Reyna got the idea to 'help' and somehow the little girl had healed Azula in minutes. It was an odd thing but Azula couldn't say she was mad about it. "And she knows about Senka, I know she does."
"All this Senka stuff is confusing," Usagi released a bit breath. "It would definitely help if we could get something out of her. God knows Mamoru won't say a word to me about it."
"To be fair, he probably doesn't even know himself," Azula leaned back on her hands. "He said that the memories aren't coming back fast enough."
"Well that's what he's doing today, apparently," Usagi muttered. "Trying to remember more. You'd think he'd want to spend more time with me since I have my memories back.'
The rest of the girls laughed at the blonde. Hearing their laughter, Reyna came scurrying up to them. There was a smudge of dust on her cheek and on her left knee. "What's funny?"
"Oh, Usagi having problems with her boyfriend," Minako sobered from her laughter first.
"Ew, boys," Reyna crinkled her nose. "Did you know boys can make you sick?"
"Are you talking about cooties?" Azula looked at the others girls. "That's still a thing?"
"It's true though," Reyna assured. "My cousin told me."
"Your cousin wanted to fool you,' Azula clarified. "And props to her because looks like she did it."
Reyna frowned at her. "My cousin wouldn't lie. Lying is bad."
"I know lying is bad," Azula mimicked her tone. "Doesn't mean people won't do it."
"My Mommy doesn't lie!"
"Kid, I'm sure she does—"
"No, she doesn't!" Reyna stomped her foot.
Ami cleared her throat to prevent Azula from further arguing. She flashed a gentle smile at Reyna who was busy glaring at Azula. "Reyna, what's your Mommy like?" Azula snorted but Makoto elbowed her on the side and motioned to stay quiet.
"My Mommy's the best," Reyna said, her mood instantly changed. "She wears all these fancy dresses and she's really pretty too. Everyone loves her but my Daddy loves her the most. And then me!"
Ami hummed, showing she was acknowledging Reyna's explanations. "And what do your parents do? What's their jobs?"
"Um…they look after people. They love doing that. One day, I want to do that too."
"What's your Mommy's name?"
Reyna suddenly went silent. "I don't want to talk anymore," she stated so plainly and hurried away.
"And that is what I have to deal with everyday," Azula gestured after Reyna who'd taken to collecting leaves off the nearby grass.
"Other than the fact she's hiding what she knows about Senka, she truly does seem harmless," Ami concluded and opened her book again.
"Uuuh, are we forgetting the fact she hypnotized my Dad and my sister into believing she was another member of the family?"
"Where'd she get that sort of magic?" Usagi tilted her head and watched Reyna. The child seemed normal at first glance.
"I wish I knew," Azula muttered. "I just don't get why she's here, you know?"
"Mhm," the girls felt her frustration and together they gazed upon the mysterious little girl who was having the time of her life picking up brown crunchy leaves off the ground.
~ 0 ~
Azula made it a habit of startling people when they were sitting alone. This time her victim was Mamoru at school, but she was mighty disappointed to see her presence wasn't even noticed. He was staring off into space and she was sure it had nothing to do with Usagi.
"Okay, what thy hell, are you doing?"
Mamoru came out from his thoughts and gave her an odd look for her choice of words.
"I just had a Shakespearean lesson."
"You paid attention?"
"Oh, funny," Azula went with it for a moment. "But not as funny as watching Asteria trying to figure out how to do calculus."
Mamoru wished Azula could at least keep it serious with Asteria since the girl was trying to handle being a human at a human school. "How's she doing on her first day?"
"Right now, a bit better than you. What were you thinking about?"
"Honestly," Mamoru sighed, "I'm trying to remember things about Reign. I haven't had anything new in a while now."
"Why don't you ask Meroko or Asteria for help. I mean, if anyone can talk about Reign I imagine it'd be her followers."
"I'm not sure if Meroko and Asteria are up for conversing…"
"Mm, wouldn't be so quick on that judgement," Meroko was coming up behind the bench Azula and Mamoru were sitting on. Asteria was right behind her sister. "Whaddya need, prince?"
Mamoru was by now better used to Meroko's way of being and merely ignored her in that aspect. "I want to know more about Reign. I want to remember more."
Meroko looked over to Asteria because out of the two, Astera would remember more. "What? I'm just supposed to tell you everything I know?" asked the pale girl.
"That would be really helpful," Mamoru kept his kindness in check. Asteria was harder to deal with than her sister but being snappy as she was wouldn't help anyone.
"He can use his abilities to go into your mind and see things you've lived through," Azula explained.
"I'm supposed to let you wander in my mind?" Asteria asked with wide, alarmed eyes.
"Just the memories of Reign."
"Asteria…" Meroko gave her sister a significant look, reminding her of their previous conversation concerning the team.
"Fine, what do I have to do?"
Mamoru stood up and gestured for her to give him her hand. Asteria rolled her eyes and stuck out her right hand. He grasped her hand and focused on the right sort of memories he would be requiring. Asteria released a small gasp when she felt his presence in her mind.
A woman dressed in a purple sparkling gown stared out her open window to her kingdom. There were phenomenal silver lights tonight. "Tell me, Asteria, what is Shadow celebrating tonight?" Her soft voice asked of the other woman in the grand bedroom.
Sailor Asteria remained by the doorway of Princess Reign's bedroom, her usual post during the day. "I believe it is the Harvest today, Princess. Many of the locals like to give thanks to the Gods for allowing us another year of prospect within our hidden kingdom."
"It looks beautiful from up here," Reign mused at all the silver lights now mixing with purple, twinkling from the Kingdom.
"I shall go call upon Sailor Siren to look after you until my sister arrives to take up post," Sailor Asteria began to open the door of the bedroom when Reign turned around.
Of course when she did, Sailor Asteria could not look Reign directly. The enchantment that kept Reign's identity a secret allowed for no one to see her. And so, Asteria missed the curiosity etched across Reign's face.
"Do the humans celebrate the Harvest like we do?"
"I do not think they do, Princess," Asteria paused for a second to think. "I believe they celebrate something of a new year but...certainly not the Harvest."
"I wish I could see for myself," Reign lamented her reclusive status. It was no fun being locked away every day, but no one seemed to really get that.
"You must stay in the Palace for your own safety, Princess," Asteria reminded before she walked out of Reign's bedroom.
Both Azula and Meroko knew for sure Mamoru had seen something. Mamoru slowly let go of Asteria's hand and looked away to process what he'd seen.
"That ability is a complete invasion of privacy," Asteria clutched her hand to her chest, looking almost mad Mamoru had been able to see something.
"Oh shut up," Azula told her with a wave of a hand, ignoring Asteria's glare. "Mamoru, what did you see?"
"Reign...and she was…" he tilted his head and stopped talking for a minute. "I just can't see her face."
"Well of course," went both Asteria and Meroko.
"I know," Mamoru sighed. "Because of the enchantment placed on her."
"That's inconvenient," Azula frowned. "But, I suppose, strong since it remains cast even in memories."
"I hardly find precautions for our Princess amusing," Asteria said curtly.
"I'm just saying..." Azula rose up from the bench and crossed her arms, "How could you swear eternal loyalty and protection if you never knew what Reign looked like? I mean, you didn't know her."
"It was the only way to keep her safe!" snapped Asteria. "You don't understand the danger Reign poses if she exposed herself. The enchantment law was placed after the Forbidden Soldiers' uproar."
"Forbidden soldiers?"
"It's a whole other story but it was a massive threat for Reign and so after the guardians were cast away, Queen Nyx declared that Princess Reign's identity should be hidden, even from us."
"This is crazy," Mamoru shook his head. "How are we supposed to find her if no one knows what she looks like?"
"Princess Reign holds the Shadow Crystal, and so if we find the Crystal we find Reign herself," Meroko replied. The bells chimed signaling it was time to return to class and for Mamoru and Azula it was time to think about the newest details of Reign.
~ 0 ~
"Hey Luna," Usagi entered the base under the arcade and was unsurprised to find Luna hard at work on the command station. "What are you doing?"
"Oh, same as I've been doing since Senka's first appearance, searching for valuable information on Shadow and the Shadow Dominion."
Usagi sighed. "I've tried my hardest, Luna, but I can't remember anything about Princess Reign. I know Mamo is having the same problem."
"Usagi you may have never even met Reign," Luna stopped working for a second. "You can't remember things that never happened."
"But if this princess died because of me, the least I can do is remember her," Usagi crossed her arms. "Where was she from again?"
"Shadow. It's a planet off in a different galaxy that was destroyed long before you were born," Luna went over the facts they already knew. "Both it and its sister planet were destroyed in a war and it led to Shadow's movement to Earth."
"And they just hid like nothing…"
"Well, we now know that despite the hiding, Queen Nyx of Shadow held contact with Queen Serenity and its sister planet apart from the Earth Royalty."
Usagi crossed her arms and thought about the idea of having a secret world living right under their noses. She didn't have a long time to think about it when an alarm went off from the computers. Luna quickly stopped her work to see what the alarm was for.
"It's Senka, she's attacking the flower shop down Tutter Street!"
"I'm on it!" Usagi exclaimed and hurried out.
~ 0 ~
Azula truly wondered how much more of Reyna's chatterboxing abilities she would be able to take. It was a whole mixture of things Reyna would talk about, ranging from her favorite thing to eat all the way to what kind of ice cream flavor she would like to be.
"Oh my God if I buy you an ice cream, will you stop talking?" Azula finally snapped and stopped walking just to ask.
Reyna giggled and nodded her head. "My Daddy says that he used to talk a lot when he was younger."
"God help your mother, then," Azula muttered and began to walk again. She was mildly surprised when Reyna easily slipped her hand into hers just to walk together.
The two were forced to stop when they saw the evil shadow once more raging in the air.
"Not her again…" Reyna very quickly whimpered at the sight of Senka. "When does Sailor Reign defeat her?"
"What!?" Azula gaped at the question and, consequently, missed Senka's attack coming her way.
"Watch out!" Reyna acted and pushed Azula to the street, her small body falling over Azula's.
A street pole had flown just over them and came crashing down over a car parked on the sidewalk. Azula breathed hard as she realized that Reyna had quite literally saved her life.
"Are you okay?" Reyna climbed off Azula and grabbed her hand.
"Y-yeah, I...you saved my life…again." Azula could not stop blinking. Reyna cracked a small smile.
"No! No! Let me go!" cried a girl. Azula and Reyna saw a young teenage girl being lifted into the air by Senka.
"What delicious energy you give me," Senka laughed. Now it was easier to see her figure. It almost looked like Sailor Moon had never attacked her in the first place. "You are enough to complete my figure once more!"
"Halt evil spirit!" Sailor Mars stood tall and proud across the street. ""Agent of Love and Fire, the pretty sailor suited soldier Sailor Mars! In the name of Mars, I will chastise you!"
"You again," Senka growled. "I have grown stronger since the last time we met and I assure you this time, no silly moon stick will stop me."
"Well, we'll just see about that," Sailor Mars promised. "Burning Mandala!"
Senka dodged two of the fire blasts but intook the last two. She yelped with pain but this time held her ground. A bigger surge of energy emitted from the human in her grasp and she laughed an echoing laugh. "Mysterious masked kiss!"
Sailor Mars was victim to several shocks of black thunder-lips. She screamed and fell to her knees.
"Senka!" Sailor Hemera was running towards the scene.
Sailor Asteria didn't bother calling out. She got straight to business and threw forwards her silver star tattoos. Senka dodged them and let go of the human who fell down with a thud on the roadside. Her next victims were unthinkable. Her black tendrils reached out to take Sailor Mars into her possession, followed by Sailor Hemera and Sailor Asteria.
"NO!" Azula cried out and scrambled to get on her feet.
Senka turned around, her entire figure beginning to glimmer as she the final energy she needed to be fully restored. "Shall you become my next prey, dear?"
"Let them go!" Azula pleaded but Senka did nothing. The three Sailor Scouts writhed in agony as their energy left them.
"Azula, we have to go!" Reyna sounded like she was begging for them to leave. She was terrified and Azula knew it but she couldn't bring herself to leave her friends behind. "Reyna," Azula bent down in front of the girl, "I know you and I don't see quite eye to eye but in this case just listen to me. Run home, okay? Run home and you lock that door."
"But I-I don't know…" Reyna's eyes filled with tears. Her breathing hitched as she neared to cry. "I-I want my Mommy...my D-Daddy…"
"Yes, okay, yes, I get that! But you have to listen to me!" Azula shook the girl. "Run! Just ru- ah!"
Senka had reached out to grab her as well. "Show me your Crystal!"
Azula felt a cold surging through her body as she was taken away by Senka. It was all a bit fast. She could hear Reyna crying and her friends' painful shouts yet she herself couldn't really muster a sound.
Reyna furiously cried in her spot to where a purple glow began to surround her. It drew the attention of the incoming Sailor Moon and the other Sailor Scouts.
"What's happening?" Sailor Jupiter could only wonder.
"Whatever it is... it's not our priority," Sailor Venus pointed at their friends up in the air.
"Mercury Aqua mist!" Sailor Mercury covered the area with her thick, frosty mist. "You get the girls and we'll get Reyna!" she motioned to Sailor Jupiter and herself.
"Venus Crescent Beam!" Sailor Venus shot directly at the tendrils holding Sailor Mars, Asteria and Hemera. The three were let go but Azula was still in Senka's grasp.
For Senka it did not matter anymore because now she had her true form. She was a light-skinned woman with long, flowing black hair. It appeared there was an M-shaped crown sitting around her face. Her outfit was a pitch black dress with a short skirt and a sleeveless top; it almost resembled a familiar uniform. A gem at the middle of her chest shined in various colors. There were thick, black bracelets sitting on both of her wrists, however one bracelet had a green gem at the center while the other had a purple gem. She held onto a fierce-looking black staff that looked like it would cause mega trouble if used properly.
Azula was arching backwards as an illuminating white glow started at her chest. "Show me the crystal!"
"Magic chain sniper!"
Senka was surprised by two purple and silver metal chains that snapped at her like lassos, forcing her to drop Azula. Before Azula could crash on the ground, Tuxedo Mask swept in and caught her.
"I almost forgot how evil and persistent you were," boomed a sharp voice.
"That...voice…" Sailor Asteria groaned.
"Is it really…?" Sailor Hemera twisted in Sailor Jupiter's hold to see who the new woman was.
Reyna had even stopped her crying to see, because she too recognized that voice. Uh oh, she was in trouble. "C-Circe!"
An older version of Sailor Circe rose in the air with the same purple glow that surrounded Reyna's form. Her green eyes glared at Senka. "You will never win this battle, Senka. Know that." She pointed one finger at Senka and uttered, "Magic sparkle venom!" a black beam of energy shot from her finger and hit Senka square in the chest.
The woman screamed in pain and ultimately faded away, but everyone knew it was yet another temporary situation. Sailor Circe lowered herself to the ground just as Reyna zoomed towards her.
"Circe!" she cried in a mixture of happiness and tears. She wrapped her small arms around Circe's legs.
"Reyna, you know better than to time travel," Sailor Circe bent down in front of the girl. "Your mother and father have been going crazy looking for you."
Reyna pouted. "I thought I was supposed to come."
Circe raised an eyebrow. "Now why would you think that?"
"The voices in my head told me."
Circe only had a moment to react to that before she was ambushed by the other Sailor Scouts.
"Circe! It's you!" Sailor Hemera was being supported by Sailor Jupiter.
"We didn't feel you awake," Sailor Asteria had Sailor Venus helping her stay on her feet.
Sailor Circe pursed her lips together with an unusual grave face. "My fellow guardians, it is I, Sailor Circe, but not the Circe meant to awaken." Reyna turned around at the push of Circe. "I am from the future sent back here to retrieve Princess Reyna."
"Princess!?" this time Azula was the one to gawk. She had Tuxedo Mask helping her stand but she was sending deadly eyes at Reyna. "You know, that makes a lot of sense. You time traveled you little brat and you didn't even time travel correctly so that you wouldn't crush people!"
Sailor Circe put a comforting hand on Reyna's shoulder. "Time Traveling is forbidden and Princess Reyna here, knew that. I am sorry for any disruptions she may have caused but I will be bringing her home now."
"I'm sorry," Reyna apologized to the entire group in such a child-like voice that the group just couldn't be angry with her.
"You didn't do anything wrong," Sailor Moon smiled at her.
"I loved the stories about the Sailor Scouts," Reyna started smiling widely as she remembered the stories everyone at home would tell her.
"Yeah? Say, who was your favorite Sailor Scout?" Sailor Moon innocently wondered.
In her excitement, Reyna didn't think twice in answering with, "Sailor Reign!"
Everyone's mouths dropped.
"Reyna!" Sailor Circe at once commanded silence from the little girl. Reyna quickly covered her mouth with her hands and looked down at the ground. Sailor Circe gazed at the others who were either trying to process or waited for an explanation. "You must understand that we are not allowed to disclose anything from the future. Reyna is still learning that."
"But she said...Sailor Reign…" Sailor Mercury said, "That means...Princess Reign is also a Sailor Guardian."
"It makes sense if she's the Guardian of the Shadow Dominion Gates," Azula inputted her thoughts.
"We must get going," Sailor Circe motioned Reyna to take her hand.
"Wait, Circe," Meroko stopped her for a moment, "If you're from the future...that means we find each other again…?"
Sailor Circe flashed a smile at her younger versions of comrades. "Indeed. Sailor Siren and I will soon make our returns. Save our Princess," she parted with those words. She took out a silver key, with its handle in the shape of a heart, and raised it over her head. "Guardian of time! Tear apart the sky and open the Door of Space-Time to us! I call your true name, the almighty god of time, the guardian of time's father, Chronos! Guidance to us! Protection to us! The path of light to us!"
A great blinding light ruptured from the sky and engulfed Sailor Circe and Reyna together, and after it was gone, so were the two. The rest of group was left in different stages of shock and confusion, but the one thing they shared was the idea of Sailor Reign and what that indicated.
~0~
Sailor Circe and Reyna had appeared in a cloud-like environment with white mist covering most of the area. Circe was gripping Reyna's hand as she led the girl towards the appearance of a silver door.
"The Queen and King were very distraught about your disappearance, Princess," Circe was saying. "They have most of our Sailor Guardians searching for you."
"I'm sorry. But the voices in my head told me I needed to go back in time," Reyna insisted.
"Okay," Circe stopped walking and turned to the girl. She bent down in front of Reyna and looked the girl in the eyes. "You're going to have to tell Sailor Circe about these voices."
Reyna pouted but she did go on to explain. "There were many voices but they all said Sailor Reign was in trouble. I had to go back in time to the 21st century."
"That doesn't make sense, though…" Sailor Circe thought for a second then raised her two index fingers. "Reyna, Sailor Circe is going to see those voices in your head, okay?"
"Mhm," Reyna closed her eyes and let Circe complete the task.
'The one they call Sailor Reign needs help. Only you can help her.'
A floating figure hidden behind a purple cloak flashed in Circe's mind.
'You need to go back in time...help the Princess...before it's too late!'
Sailor Circe gasped as she let go of Reyna. She gave the girl a long, alarmed stare until she finally straightened up on her feet and took Reyna's hand. "We need to get back home right now."
But both Sailor Circe and Reyna returned to a very different kind of home.
A dark, silent one.
#ocappreciation#ochub#fd: sailor moon#sailor moon#sailor moon crystal#sailor moon fics#sailor moon imagines#sailor moon crystal fics#sailor moon crystal imagines#sailor moon oc#sailor moon fic#oc: azula keena#fic: reign from the shadows
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
A New Normal
For Better or Worst: Chapter Two
Featuring: Sam Winchester x Emery Simmons-Winchester (OFC)
OCs: Emery’s TAs Penelope, Hector, Morgan and Jasper.
Season 14 AU
Word Count: 3382
Summary: The new couple completes their soul oaths and reality sinks in. A different kind of life awaits them, together.
Warnings: Could be considered dub!con smut, but the intention and consent is clear. Hints of infertility. This is the longest chapter for a while. xoxo
Read Chapter One First!
^*^*^
“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.“ Colossians 3:14
Wedding Night
There had been no cocktail hour or reception. Once Sam had kissed Emery and they signed the marriage license, with the organist and caretaker as witnesses, they simply gathered their things and went home. Bandit was somehow waiting for them in the backyard, which was perfectly fenced for pets and privacy. The bungalow Sam had woken in, was a three bedroom, with plenty of space for both of them to feel comfortable. They changed out of their formal wear, separately, and went out to eat, each insisting the other pick the cuisine. Sam drove, which was still an adjustment for him, but it allowed Emery to search for restaurants. He kept glancing over at her, a weird feeling of satisfaction flowing through him as he watched her. She was smart and beautiful, and she was his.
It was a bit of a head rush for her, to be honest. Emery hadn’t been in a relationship in years and suddenly she was seated beside her tall husband with his long hair and five o’clock shadow debating about what to have as their first meal together. Who wouldn’t be slightly frazzled?
“Okay, we’re just going to find the closest place, and if it’s packed, we’ll go to the next one,” Emery announced as they chewed over their options. Sam had pulled over because he was driving in circles and didn’t know how to navigate the downtown quite yet.
Sam smiled and nodded, bottom lip popping out in consideration. “Sounds good.”
They found an Asian fusion place on 6th, it was barely four in the afternoon and therefore nearly empty. They got a table near the windows and took turns people watching. The older waiter smiled knowingly at the fumbling pair. “First date?”
“Uh, yeah,” Sam chomped his teeth in chagrin.
“Shut up Sam,” Emery corrected him. “It’s our wedding night, don’t listen to him.”
The waiter laughed, patting her hand. “We take good care of you. Congrats.” He had a bottle of Sake delivered, on the house, before the appetizer arrived. Emery toasted Sam and he raised his eyebrows just before she downed her entire glass, winking at his frozen face.
Emery had gotten comfortable on the ride home, resting her hand on Sam’s thigh and head on his shoulder, despite the space between seats in their hybrid. He felt tight around the collar and kept turning the defrost on and off, the winter air fighting against his growing body heat. He killed the engine, and waited for her to move first, but she just looked up at him, a tipsy smile breaking apart her soft features.
“Hey, so,” she inhaled over her bottom lip before continuing. “Um, I think we have to, ya know. For everything to be official. And, it’s—it’s been a real long time. And I know I just met you and we’re married. Yay! But also, scary—you know?!”
Sam nodded, letting her ramble, taking her hand from his lap, brushing his lips over her knuckles. “Emery? It’s okay. I’m not going to put any pressure on you, besides the whole wrath of heaven thing—” Sam smirked, before he pulled their hands over his heart. “I swear.”
She sighed, face falling nearly into a full swoon before she leaned up and kissed him. Lips slipping before Sam caught her and pulled her closer. Bandit, naturally, broke the moment, barking as a pedestrian crossed behind them where the sidewalk met their driveway. The newlyweds broke apart with a shared chuckle.
Later on, after overthinking, some feet dragging, and a skin care regimen more detailed than she had ever attempted, Emery walked into the bedroom. Sam was stretched out, above the covers, on what was quite possibly the largest bed she had ever seen in person. He wore a plain gray tee shirt and matching black and gray pajama pants, while nose deep in a read-worn hardback with one arm crooked behind his head. Emery herself had gone causal as well, forgoing the lingerie set that was not so subtly hanging in her side of the closet, instead she chose a simple oversized shirt that fell to her mid-thigh.
In all fairness, the delay and Emery’s nervousness wasn’t because she was self-conscious; it was just a lot of pressure. She took a deep breath, and another for courage.
“Hey—” Sam’s voice, still fresh to her ears, but reassuring all the same.
“Hey back,” Emery slipped forward, slow and steady, looking down her nose at his book.
“I hope you don’t mind, I’m sort of used to the left side?” Sam sat up, setting the book on his side table. Emery chuckled as she plopped down onto the cushioning bed top, curling on her side to face her husband, head propped up by an elbow.
“This bed is humongous, I don’t think I’ll even notice you there,” she fell back, kicking out her hands and feet. Suddenly she brushed reaching fingers, threading together in centering connection. She pulled Sam over in mock tug-of-war.
“I think you’re gonna notice I’m here,” Sam countered, eyebrows pitching suggestively.
“Is that so? Oh no, do you snore?!” Emery accused.
“No, at least I don’t think so,” Sam laughed, brushing her bangs back as he leaned in to kiss her forehead. “Don’t usually sleep that deeply anyway.”
“Yeah, sleep is overrated,” Emery agreed, eyes locking onto his shadowed hazels, a near mirror of her own. The quiet of the house echoed their conversation, hushed and buzzing, she wasn’t sure what was felt or heard, it was, just building.
“Tell me about it,” Sam whispered as he took her face in his broad palms, mouth claiming hers in hungered culmination. It was a calm tide, shifting and adjusting as they learned and shared one another. Her soft hands roamed his chest, sending chills as she smoothed over his tattoo. Soon, Emery was straddling Sam, her clothed heat stoking his desire with each gentle roll of her hips. She purred appreciatively as he nipped down her neck, mouth latching over her dark nipple. Memories flooded her, and she shook them away, hours of exhaustion and desperation with her son at her breast. Thoughts that would do her no good in the here and now.
Emery slid back to the comforter, pulling Sam’s shoulder with her, hoping he’d take over. He did, gladly. His hands quickly freed them of the last of their pajamas. Rough fingers smoothing over her tawny thighs.
“Do we need—” Sam started, but she shook her head almost regretfully.
“No, I can’t- it’s okay. We’re fine,” Emery answered without explaining.
“Well, okay, then.” Sam kissed her again, letting his tongue dance away from hers until she was writhing underneath him, knuckles barely brushing her folds. Sam noted every quake and quiver, wanting her ready. Needing her wanting.
The waves pitched and they moved to keep up, with each other and inevitability. Sam dragged his teeth down the valley of her chest, tasting the salty spice of her skin before diving into her heady juices. He teased her hood with the tip of his nose, tongue flicking out, drawing the most sinful exaltations from her. He worked her open, learning her body, bare and blemished with untold stories, yet perfect all the same. Once he added a third finger, she started to retaliate, carding her fingers through Sam’s hair as she nearly sat up, bending with the blossoming pleasure.
“Sam. Saaaaaamm. Sam!” Emery demanded.
“Not yet, Baby, you’re so close,” he shushed her, nuzzling into her thigh before returning with impossibly slow and wide strokes of that tongue. That damned tongue. He was right, but she didn’t know how she could get it out, let it go, or reach it. Everything ached with intensity, and as soon as one would snuff out a match, she barreled down that hill. Sam’s lips and fingers pushing her over and through as heat and sound merged into thought ending euphoria. Sam crawled back up his wife’s body, her blissed out and thoroughly worked over body.
“Oh, I could get used to that,” Emery giggled, kissing him firmly, before breaking off into a pleased groan. Her knees notched around Sam’s waist, as she played with his hair, a mixture of mischief and pride pulling at his features.
“It’ll be even better next time; I’m a fast learner,” Sam reassured her, and probably himself. She couldn’t imagine the learning curve after that presentation. He slowly laced himself with her desire, hard and ready at her core. This was their final hurtle, the last promise, the bow on the knot of their deals. Sam kissed Emery’s cheek, and eased inside her, the sizzling pressure, hot and tight over every inch of him. She whimpered and Sam froze, waiting for her to look back at him. The briefest flash of gold circled her pupil as she locked onto his stare. She saw a similar gilded magic “C” cord through the inside of Sam’s multifaceted irises, knowing it was done. They were permanently bonded, body and soul.
“Wow,” Emery gasped, a breath more than a whisper.
“Yeah?” Sam grinned, breaking the awe with a chest deep laugh before getting to work.
“Yeah,” Emery answered, pulling her knees back, giving Sam depth and space. He braced a hand over her shoulder, keeping her bent beneath him and he hammered into her. Her smooth wetness making his blood sing. The sweat beaded on his neck, his lower back and down his tummy, every inch of him flushed with effort and pleasure. Sam groaned as his balls hitched, he exhaled trying to hold out. He slowed his thrusts, meat of his hand falling over her mound. Emery bucked against the weight of his hand, earning a calculated shove back, losing her balance, her legs fell back down.
They broke apart, electric and panting. Emery rolled to her knees, as Sam’s hands found the delicate catch of her love handles, centering himself. He filled her this way, deep and fast, chest to back, palm over hand. Trembling and overwhelmed, the pair crashed forward. Sam’s solid weight just enough pressure to keep Emery alert, to balance the aftershocks. With the satisfying wedge of his fingers through hers, they drifted off. Naked and bound.
Magic comes with a cost and a spell that binds one being to another, soul deep and unwavering takes an immense amount of energy. Energy that the casters didn’t have to spare, therefore the newlyweds woke a day later than they expected to. Sam groaned and rolled away from the cool fingers splayed across his chest. He felt his brain thud through his head like a marble in a maze, his every joint ached. Everything came rushing back like every whiskey fueled night rolled into one debilitating hangover and subsequent walk of shame.
Sam met Bandit in the kitchen, doing a double take before the inquisitive boy approached to sniff him out. This should have been the reassurance Sam needed, but his natural instincts left him to distrust the entire situation. Even the affection of a good dog was more than he was used to and therefore something to take with a grain of salt. Sam let the dog out and walked the yard, ensuring the fence would keep the dog in without a leash. Their breaths puffs against the biting chill in the dawn air. Sam was happy they weren’t going to have to keep him penned inside when they went to work.
Work; Sam Winchester had a job waiting for him Monday morning. He was going to be in the archives of the local college, which he was oddly grateful for, familiar toils in an unfamiliar setting was better than nothing. He made his way to the blessed coffee pot, his stomach growled, and he replied under his breath, “yeah, yeah.”
Upstairs Emery stared at the ceiling, the morning light casting streaks of color through the accent windows that met in the corner of their room. Their, shared, as in both hers and his. She had a roommate, an actual partner, a husband now. This deal was as complicated as it could get. The reassurance of the angelic influence had run dry; she felt very much trapped. And ashamed. She shuffled into the adjoining bath and tossed her pajamas into the hamper. The massive shower tried to make amends for the drain on her soul and resolve, jets coming from the walls at amazing angles, hot water pelting against her exhausted body. Her hands brushed past the places where Sam had held her, pinned her, pleased her. She knew it was a means to an end, sealing a deal and starting fresh. But Emery needed this to work. She had to go forward doing good with her life, otherwise, everything, every choice and every memory was all in vain. She finished her shower and decided to make breakfast, everyday needed a solid foundation. Every agreement needed a stepping off point.
Two Months Later
Emery dragged her feet on Thursdays. She had office hours starting at ten, otherwise nothing until her one and three o’clock lectures. Sam never did, he was up at six like always. Bandit loved the early mornings jogs and Emery liked taking over Sam’s side of the bed. The weather had finally turned into a promising spring, bringing damp feet and panting breaths home with her two boys. Well, two of her boys. She lay in the cocoon of blankets as she heard them in the kitchen. Soon Sam would be back to wake her up, sweaty and insistent. She kept her eyes shut tight, waiting for her good morning kisses.
“You are such a faker,” he teased, falling to her hip, caging her in with his arms.
“Five more minutes,” she pleaded, turning her face into the mound of pillows.
“Let’s go Doctor Simmons, you have students to teacher,” Sam ruffled her hair, earning himself a good swat.
“Hey, that’s Simmons-Winchester to you, punk,” Emery sassed, finally facing Sam. He had leaned in, hovering with a look of an unexpected tenderness.
His deep voice came out in a breathy whisper, “if you get up now, we can share a shower.” The hairs on the back of Emery’s neck stood up at his offer, heart beating just a hint faster. Something had shifted in the past few weeks; they had become cohesive, and as insatiable as true newlyweds. Most importantly: Emery felt that Sam had started to truly trust her, and she had started to lean on him in return.
She raised her eyebrows as she replied, “you just want me to shave your back.”
Sam chuckled. “Guilty— it’s just so much—” Sam broke off, “you know what, never mind.” He gave her a sad smile and squeezed her thigh through the comforter before standing to head to the bathroom.
“Whoa, hey, what are you hiding Mister?!” Emery threw the covers back and chased after him, giggling as he turned and scooped her up by the legs, strutting into the bathroom before kicking the door closed.
“Your nails, I love feeling them, and it’s not the same if I’m all wolfish,” Sam whispered into Emery’s ear, feeling her shiver from the stimulus. He loved watching her react to his every tease and taunt.
She groaned, grabbing his face in both her hands. “Fine! Asshole. But you better make it worth it.” She was pointing a finger at his agreeing puppy dog face now.
“Don’t I always?” Sam challenged, walking straight into the shower stall, fully clothed and dropping Emery in a huff on the cold tile.
Emery arrived at her first lecture a mere ten minutes early, greeting her TA’s as they sorted through last week’s essays to return. One of her freshmen had kept her hostage with worry over their coming midterm exam. She tried to placate the overachiever, but school was still life or death to these kids, if only they knew what those terms truly meant. She felt a tension in the air and tried to sense what was going on amongst the grad students, but unfortunately, she had given up that ability in pursuit of her deal with Naomi. Instead, she went for the obvious.
“So, what’s going on guys?” Her smoky voice catching their attentions.
“Papers. Just alphabetizing papers,” Jasper replied, overenthusiastically. Emery gave him a knowing look, gauging the other three’s sheepish expressions more harshly.
“Sure, okay, but apparently Morgan and Penelope are on the outs? Is that what’s going on? Because it’s not the time or place for your personal drama.”
“Sorry, Dr. Sim-Win, it’s just—” Penelope implored. Emery held up her hands silencing the blonde before she got the full run down.
“I have the spreadsheets with the grades here, why don’t you post them for me, Hector?” Emery gave the remaining TA’s a cool stare before walking to the lectern as the undergrads started trickling into the hall in a post lunch haze.
It was Sam’s turn to cook, allowing Emery to take her time at school, going over her notes for an inter-departmental meeting the next morning. Joining the school for the spring semester left her jumping through hoops to catch up and network. It was hard learning everyone and everything over from her previous position, luckily the material she taught rarely changed; the blessing of being a History professor. Sam usually worked until six, even though most of his team left on five on the dot, no questions asked. He told her he liked being alone with the stacks, the quiet was comforting.
She checked her watch before closing the spreadsheet she had been zoning out over and headed down to the library that housed the archives. She had started parking in the lot on the far end of campus, even on days when they didn’t drive in together. It was an easy routine and it kept her from circling campus trying to remember where she had parked. Not that she would do such an airheaded thing, more than twice. There were only a handful of faculty cars remaining as she pulled out of her spot, hoping Sam had enough of a head start on dinner; she was famished.
Bandit greeted Emery at the backdoor, barking over the music Sam had blaring through the house. She left her stuff in the breezeway and snagged the leash before settling in.
“Hey, fifteen minutes tops!” Sam called over his shoulder. She gave him an answering wave as the dog dragged her back outside, the lingering spices had her stomach growling. The music had been turned down and the table set by the time Bandit had let Emery drag him home. They ate themselves stuffed; the meal was a Jambalaya-like concoction with homemade bread. Sam had enjoyed cooking in a way he never had before, because on some level he was still used to being on the receiving end of a homecooked meal. It was nice to be able to experiment with the cuisine, besides, Emery only had about a three-meal repertoire.
Later on, the couple sat in bed, watching their latest show on their wall mounted flat screen. Bandit curled at their feet until it was time for light’s out, when Sam would let him out one last time. In the interim, Sam checked the windows and doors, ensured there were guns accessible on every level of the house, though he wasn’t sure he would fire one if he had to. As soon as the dog was back inside, Sam set the alarm. Upstairs, he soon shut the bedroom door, leaving Bandit alone to roam the house.
Emery snuggled against his chest and sighed in an exaggerated contentment, lips drawing up in a mischievous smile. Sam kissed her hair and shook his head at her intentions, smirking knowingly.
“We’re in this together, for better or worse,” she promised, like she had the past sixty-odd nights.
“For better or worse,” Sam agreed with a goodnight kiss. As he lay there in the darkness, feeling her shift against him, he was stunned by the comfort and ease he felt with Emery. He didn’t know what he would do without her now and he certainly didn’t know what he did without her before.
^*^*^
Read On: Below the Surface and in the Wild
#for better or worst series#sam winchester fanfiction#sam winchester x ofc#sam x emery#s14 au#simwin#sam winchester smut#spn smut#arranged marriage au#unbreakable vow like spell#sam fanfic#sam winchester fic#spn fanfic series
33 notes
·
View notes
Text
'Kay, so, my other idea. You wanted this, too, right? No? Too bad.
I told you I had more. So I'm giving you the more that I have. ☆*Note, this AU has already been started. We only have one of the character concept designs done, but still.*☆
-------------------------------------------------
So. Another crossover AU. Uh. Yeah. Sue me. So how this one came to me, was basically I was listening to the Undertale soundtrack while doodling some Countryhumans. I think you know where this is going. So, I came up with a Countryhumans/Undertale AU.
Is there a storyline yet? Noooope. Will there be one soon? Probably not. Since everybody who was helping me with this has stuff going on right now. But basically, you take a country. You take your headcanon personality for them(since there really aren't any canon personalities for any of them). You take a Sans. Whatever one you want. It could even be an OC. Doesn't even have to have an AU. If it's personality matches with the country, then bam, match made! I hope you understood that because my tired brain can't explain it any better. Actually, maybe an example will help.
Okay, so we've got Cross figured out. [That boi belongs to Jakei95. I think. Correct me if I'm wrong please qwq] So, Cross(this was partially just a little but based off of my own headcanons for Cross) is a quiet boyo, who, most of the time, just minds his own business. If he's passionate about something, then he makes a really big deal out of it(like the X-Event]. Now, for the country. Russia. Yep. Russia. Hear me out though. Russia is, quiet. He minds his own business. There's certain things he will make a big deal about. That's rare, but it still happens. So.... Cross and Russia!
As to what we'll be calling this AU, I'm not sure. I also don't know what I'll be calling the... "fusions" of the country and the Sans. I don't know what else to call it.
If either of the AUs I've presented gets finished(as in, an actual storyline, and an actual cast instead of just one or two people) I might make a separate Tumblr for each of them. Just so it's easier to keep track of what's what.
And, if you want to help with either of the AUs, let me know! I'd love to hear some ideas!
-----------------------------------------------
So, that's all! Have a good night, guys! Or, day. Or morning. Or afternoon. Whatever time it is for you guys. Adios!
1 note
·
View note
Text
Risky Business
Summary: The Frosts practice risky corporate strategies while visiting an old wartime ally and business rival at his secret research facility in Flushing, Queens. Several days later, Emma and Elias decide to insure a potentially auspicious business asset as they inspect the aftermath of Natalia's visit to the great city of New York.
Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Mutant!OC (Enemies to Friends)
Word Count: 10,374
A/N: Thanks for reading! Feedback is always appreciated.
“I wonder what the homeowners insurance rates are like in the area?” Elias mused aloud to his mother as he drove his white Ferrari 275 GTS convertible northbound down Whitestone Expressway.
He glanced to where Emma sat in the leather passenger seat of his roadster. Her long ash blonde hair was piled atop the back of her head by a handful of hairpins and sheer willpower, and it was tucked behind a satiny white polka dotted headscarf that was baby blue on one side and canary yellow on the reverse. The sunlight glared off the reflective lenses of her 18 karat gold-plated Cartier sunglasses, danced down the sleek powder blue leather of her Tibetan lamb fur-trimmed coat, and reflected off her high-waisted dove-white palazzo pants. She idly thrummed her French manicured fingernails on the door panel as the clement mid-March breeze gently tugged at the fur of her coat and the ends of her hair.
“This munitions plant of Howard’s has not been officially operative since October of 1945, so I cannot believe it would be as exorbitant as you imagine it being,” she said as Elias steered onto Exit 14 and coasted along the off-ramp. Emma cast her attention down to Flushing Creek below them as they crossed it. “I remember when this place used to be beautiful. Marshes, water fit for swimming, greenery as far as the eye could see.”
“I only ever remember this part of New York, borrowing the language of Fitzgerald—damn the oleaginous toad and his puerile, psychologically vacant writing—being but a great valley of ashes,” Elias recalled, his pale eyes flickering along the industrial landscape. “I can still taste the bitterness of char on my tongue from when we used to go this way to visit clients and investors in Port Washington.”
“I should have had you a century sooner so that you could have seen this place before humanity ruined it, darling,” Emma sighed wistfully as she turned her focus back to the road upon the off-ramp’s termination on the other side of Flushing Creek. Elias merged onto a road that he drove along until he came to the turn lane for Linden Place. When the traffic light changed to green, he made a right onto Linden. “Did I ever tell you that, after we read it, I burned the signed copy of The Great Gatsby that Fitzgerald gave us?”
“What?” Elias snorted in delight, his gaze skimming over a bowling alley, an endless stream of brownstone apartments, a hotel painted one shade darker than his convertible, and aging townhouses as they traversed Linden Place. “Mother, you didn’t!”
“I did,” Emma grinned. Elias’s shoulders shook with laughter as he turned onto 32nd Avenue. “I packaged the ashes and had them shipped to his doorstep.”
Lined with rundown graffiti-littered red brick warehouses, grease-smudged automobile shops, and dirt-stained brownstone apartments, 32nd Avenue stretched on for several blocks before it culminated in the bustling intersection of 32nd and College Point Boulevard. Beyond the intersection lay a long strip of land along the eastern bank of Flushing Creek where the Queens-based Stark Industries munitions plant loomed like the carcass of an aged grey beast.
“Well,” Elias said after a beat of driving in silence. “That explains it.”
“Explains what, darling?”
“Why I could never find that bloody book when I tried to burn it myself.”
The sound of Emma’s laughter, so very much like the musical sound of frozen rain tapping on a windowpane or like the crystals of a ballroom chandelier tinkling above a grand ballroom, bubbled from her throat to rest upon her son’s ears. With a wry grin, Elias came to a stop at the intersection at the end of 32nd Avenue and flicked on his blinker. As he waited for the traffic light to change in his favor, Elias and Emma observed through a steady stream of traffic the seemingly abandoned Stark Industries plant where Howard’s people made munition, missiles, and napalm for the U.S. government during the Second World War. Unknown to virtually everyone, though, was the fact that life still teemed within what externally seemed but a carapace of a place that had seen far better days. Hell, Elias and his mother had only uncovered the hidden purpose of this low profile location of Howard’s through some good-natured corporate espionage.
“Can you feel the guards?” Emma leaned forward in her seat, tipping her sunglasses low and casting her icy eyes along the bank.
A long compound of connected buildings encircled in barbed wire and chain link fencing, the Stark Industries munitions plant stretched from 32nd Avenue to 34th Avenue under the shadow of Whitestone Expressway and alongside the brackish waters of Flushing Creek. Despite it being widely believed to have been left unused since the end of the war, as a neighbor, Elias personally felt that nothing would delight him more than to look out his window every morning as he listened to Don McNeill’s Breakfast Club on the radio and know that he was only a single deviant spark away from a conflagration of God knows what kind of explosive that could still be lying around in Howard’s old plant that would force all of Flushing to be evacuated and consequently send everyone’s property values plummeting.
Regardless, neither Elias nor his mother had to rely on their telepathic talents to grasp that if there was ever a reason for America’s middle-aged and infamously overt Mustachioed Casanova to operate with what scant subtlety he possessed and work out of what appeared for all intents and purposes to be a deserted factory instead of one of his more highbrow and cutting-edge locales around the world, it must have been a good one. Naturally, Elias and Emma could already confirm that what Howard was hiding behind the thick concrete walls of his plant did indeed necessitate a certain degree of… well, subtlety, especially considering the oft apocalyptic tensions between the United States and the U.S.S.R. that had only been exacerbated since Elias and his mother (and the rest of the Western World for that matter) had lost Kennedy to an assassin in Texas a year and four months ago. The last thing Howard would want the public hearing was that he had been working alongside a Soviet, let alone an authority on electromagnetism and fusion reaction that was formerly on the KGB’s payroll, since 1946.
“I can sense the guards,” Elias nodded as the light turned green and he made a left onto College Point Boulevard. “Twenty-five professionals hired from a private military company as well as a team of Stark Industries scientists.” Elias drifted into the lane closest to the razor-edged enclosure surrounding the munitions plant and eyed the locked gateway up ahead on the side of the road. “I do wonder why Howard chose to hire PMCs to serve as guards instead of capitalizing on his position as one of the directors of S.H.I.E.L.D. to staff this facility.”
“You can ask him soon enough, darling; he’s working alongside his boffins and the Soviet as we speak.”
“Splendid,” Elias’s irises silvered as they remained trained on the road before him.
He reached out with his mind and caressed the fragile psyches of every single one of Howard’s PMCs, his influence casting far and wide throughout the plant and shimmering in the atmosphere over the factory like a great steely net before ensnaring the pliant minds of the hired guards in his telepathic grasp. Twenty-five budlike brains burst into open-petaled blossoms for Elias, proffering to him all their knowledge and skills and secrets for his use. Twenty-five sets of eyes extended Elias’s sight to all reaches of the building, no dark corner left unseen, no act left unwitnessed. From the former warehouse-turned-state-of-the-art security and surveillance station to the long production lines remodeled into a number of high-tech laboratories, Elias saw it all. With hardly half a thought, he compelled two PMCs posted in the security and surveillance station to begin redirecting the incriminating gaze of any security camera onsite that even held a fraction of a chance of capturing Elias and his mother on film, and he urged another pair of guards to rush to the gate.
“Such a peculiar place for a weapons factory,” Elias said as he pulled off College Point Boulevard and drove up to the gateway just as the guards were so generously slipping loose the final lock and pushing the gate open. When Howard’s two PMCs were safely out of the way, Elias eased his Ferrari forward into the compound and parked it at one of the loading bays. “I suppose we cannot judge Howard too harshly, though; we do have that one electronics factory in the urban heart of Tehran.”
“Oh,” Emma sighed longingly while she slipped off her designer sunglasses and set them on the dash. “I miss Iran, darling—the cuisine is scrumptious.”
“Now that you mention it, Mother, I could go for some of the stew we had last time; you know, the one with poultry and pomegranate syrup that was served with white rice. Khoresh-e fesenjān?” A pair of guards jogged to Elias’s roadster, Heckler & Koch handguns holstered at their hips, and opened the driver’s and passenger’s side doors with all the grace of well-trained valets. Elias slid out his car, tossed his keys to the guard nearest him, and patted him on the chest. “Be a dear and make sure my baby does not get hurt while we are gone, sweetheart; I just waxed and detailed him all by hand this morning, and I swear that if someone so much as puts their oily finger on him, I will damn well but a bloody dent in them and you.”
“You and your cars,” Emma snorted at her son as the second guard offered her his hand. She took his help graciously and rose to her feet before eying the vacant loading dock. “I’ll give Howard this much: he’s committed to the act of making this facility appear too ignoble for use by one of America’s most illustrious billionaires since the likes of Rockefeller, Carnegie, or us.”
Elias’s mother was far from wrong. The concrete loading bay which had once been a continuous sheet of smooth grey was pocked with potholes and had been reduced to cracked rubble in spots, allowing weeds to grow up from the earth and color the dreary ground. Faded newspaper shreds were caught in the links of the fencing and waved like banners in the breeze, empty aluminum beer cans dotted the lot outside the munitions plant like curious metallic flowers, and shards of glass lay hidden in the dirt like jewels waiting to be polished. The metal loading dock doors were streaked with rust and decorated with the most sophisticated of urban artworks. Though he was being unfairly sarcastic, some of the graffiti actually impressed Elias, such as the hyperrealistic rendition of Rosa Parks and Dr. King standing hand-in-hand or the art-nouveau depiction of Erik Lehnsherr’s helmeted profile in shades of oxblood and aubergine with the phrase “No more hiding, no more suffering” arcing around the crown of his anti-telepathy headgear. Elias shook his head. To a degree, Erik was right, and Charles was no different, and yet… their philosophies were two vastly disparate kinds of extremism.
Turning away from the graffiti and walking to his mother, Elias nodded at a nondescript side door: “According to Howard’s watchdogs, that is one of the two entrances to the renovated laboratories. There is another around back. Both are heavily fortified, but I have guards ready to let us in on my command.”
Emma looped her arm through her son’s: “Shall we?”
With the minds of Howard’s PMCs at their disposal, Elias and his mother made quick work of navigating the plant, which was as slovenly and slipshod on the inside as it was on the outside for much of their trek through the mechanized wasteland that was the vast majority of Howard’s secret facility. Just when Elias had been beginning to feel like he was going to need at least three separate highly thorough showers to disinfect himself of the dirt and dust, he and Emma stumbled upon the portion of the plant which had been remodeled for scientific study. Hidden behind a set of biometrically locked blast-proof doors, stepping into Howard’s laboratories was like stepping into a different plane of reality where grey grittiness and squalor were but distant dreams of an epoch long lost to the sands of time. Elias actually had to squint against the fluorescent lighting reflecting off the blinding sterility and brilliant whiteness of the renovated assembly line-turned-research center.
“Bloody hell,” he cursed under his breath, uncertain himself of whether he was more stunned by the drastic change of scenery or the glaring lights.
Blinking as his eyes adjusted, Elias quickly scanned the former factory floor while his mother telepathically cloaked them from mortal sight, molding the multicolored psionic energy in the room into a frigid white dome of power that swirled and glittered about herself and her son like a localized snowstorm. Austere walls marked with windows of reinforced glass, diagram- and equation-littered chalkboards, and machinery of the highest caliber—well, in the United States and not owned by Frost International, anyway; Elias had seen better in some of his and his mother’s own facilities and in Wakanda, but that was another story. Men in lab coats buzzed and droned about like studious bees across the room, arguing and hypothesizing and collaborating. Some pointed fervently at schematics sketched upon the chalkboards. Elias followed their gaze to see repeated figures appearing at least once on each chalkboard in the room: an all too familiar crystalline, cube-shaped vessel of unimaginable power and limitless energy and some manner of largescale toric…thingamabob?
“Do you see this?” Elias telepathically queried his mother as he walked past several of Howard’s scientists to inspect an unmanned chalkboard. “These equations? The schematics? Howard’s finally using his research on the Tesseract.”
“A few of the finer details regarding the physics are off,” Emma paced after her son and narrowed her sapphire eyes in scrutiny at the chalkboard. “Are these people not supposed to be the best scientific minds Howard has to work with?”
“Well, yes,” Elias conceded. “But that wasn’t my point, Mum. This torus-shaped device, is this supposed to be a...” He examined the equations and chemical reactions plotted about the diagram, his mind processing the data far faster than any of Howard’s supercomputers. “God in Heaven, it’s a prototypical energy source based off the Tesseract.”
“Well, Howard did drunkenly confess at the international Hellfire Club soiree of 1953 in Los Angeles that he believed the Tesseract could be the key to indefinite sustainable energy,” Emma reminisced as she smudged out an incorrect coefficient, picked up a nearby piece of chalk, and corrected the error. “But this blueprint doesn’t make sense to me; if the core truly burns isotopes of palladium like it says, then he’s making a cold fusion reactor of some sort, one that depends upon a palladium-103 and palladium-107 radio-isotopic decay cell to produce an electrical current.” Emma traced the stream of chemical equations with the piece of chalk pinched between her fingers, and Elias did the same with his eyes. “But how is Howard reconciling the balancing of the protons between the isotopes? Palladium-107 releases an electron via beta decay when it turns into silver-107, therein causing a neutron to turn into a proton.”
“And palladium-103 produces rhodium-103 via electron capture, taking an inner electron into the nucleus, combining it with a proton, and creating a neutron,” Elias nodded eagerly, pointing to the reaction in question on the board. “The electrons would balance the resulting atomic nuclei. If he’s aiming to create energy, there would, in effect, be no net flow of electricity, which means—”
“Howard has found a way to utilize the beta decay of palladium-107 ions as an electron source for palladium-103—”
“Thereby producing an electric circuit between two different radioactive isotopes!” Elias pointed to the diagram of the torus-shaped reactor, taking note of the band-like segments sketched intermittently along the ring of the apparatus. “He must be using electromagnets in the actual reactor, then, to ionize, control the electron transfer, and manipulate the radioactive decay of the palladium-103.”
“I must admit that it’s an ingenious attempt to replicate the Tesseract without causing the kind of destruction that the Tesseract itself is capable of wreaking,” Emma canted her head in acknowledgement and set the chalk down after correcting another numerical error. “The use of palladium, of course, as Howard likely knows, is dreadfully subpar and causing most of the complications he’s running into. He may be limited by the technology of his time, but vibranium would do wonders had he the resources, although I suspect from this data that he has already crossed that bridge and considered it a fruitless path to follow. The poor man likely still thinks that he used the last of this world’s vibranium cache to build Captain Rogers’s shield.”
Turning his searching gaze to the laboratories once more, Elias spotted Howard across the room. Elias himself vaguely recalled being 47—the year was 1891, Benjamin Harrison was the President, the Gay Nineties were treating Frost International rather well, and the suffrage movement was picking up speed around the world—but unlike Howard, Elias’s 47 years had not looked so… timeworn. The nearly ebony hair on which Howard had prided himself in his youth had faded in color, having greyed at the temples, and had receded back from his creased forehead. Small lines likewise furrowed the once tight flesh at the corners of his eyes and mouth, and his tanned skin was beginning to show the telltale signs of a man who had spent his lengthy bachelor years lazing in the sun with a drink in hand and women queued up for his affections when he wasn’t tinkering in some lab or fleeing the United States on charges of selling weapons to Russians.
Some things had and would forever remain the same, however. He was still trim, wore his signature mustache, and refused to don a lab coat in his own facilities where he demanded everyone else be dressed to strict protocol. Despite his wife’s laboring to make an honest man of him, Howard Stark’s psyche also still reeked of lifelong duplicity and self-interest behind the showman-playboy persona he wore like a second skin and clung to like a lifeline.
Alas, the prices one must pay to climb the menacing American ladder as the son of immigrants, the son of Jews, in an increasingly xenophobic and intolerant country. Though Howard may not have been one of Elias’s favorite wartime allies or business rivals or people in general, he admired the man’s will to claw his way out of the oppression and baseness of his childhood and clamber to the acme of American society. For someone whose father had been a fruit vendor and whose mother had made shirtwaists in a factory, Howard had risen from rags to riches, a regular American Cinderella sans bespoke crystal footwear.
“Do we feel like extending an olive branch before we neglect to tell Howard that Natalia is on her way with another K.G.B. agent to snatch his ex-Soviet colleague?” Elias asked his mother.
“Personally?” Emma turned on her heel, wound her arm through her son’s again, and walked them back to the center of the room. “No. Do you feel the need to do so?”
“I’m indifferent.” Elias admitted, his eyes trained on the future abductee, a pale and dark-haired giant of a man—Anton Vanko, mid-forties, defected from the U.S.S.R. at the end of World War II and sought asylum in the United States thereafter—as he conversed with Howard. “Vanko is…” Elias narrowed his eyes and honed in on Vanko’s mind; the Russian was hiding something, something which had been weighing upon his psyche for years—“Vanko is—no, was a spy. He just went rogue on the U.S.S.R. a week ago.”
“That certainly explains why my better judgment barred me from trying to steal him from Stark Industries and employ him as a lead scientist at one of our labs the second he stepped foot on American soil.”
Elias nodded slowly: “That also explains why the K.G.B. is sending Natalia and another agent to abduct him, then; his original defection had been a ploy, but this time it was too authentic for their liking.”
“Fickle as cats, the K.G.B.,” Emma snorted, and with a dismissive flick of her wrist, the swirling psionic energy shrouding them from detection dissipated into the rafters high overhead.
As per custom to those who are unused to the tricks of telepaths or the talents of superpowered individuals in general, the sudden appearance of two natty blonds from seeming nothingness not only caught the attention of every single person in the room but also gave them each quite a start. One man flinched so hard that he tripped over his own feet and nearly fell upon a rather fragile and highly expensive apparatus beside him. A thunderous silence descended upon the factory floor for several fleeting moments as all eyes then turned from Elias and Emma to Howard, whose composure had slipped seconds prior and whose visage revealed an array of rapidly shifting emotions: astonishment melted into fury which chilled into leaden recognition that in turn grew buoyant and became a sort of curiosity tinged with tones of uneasy caution and an almost fond exasperation.
“How—?” Howard began, shattering the tense quiet.
“Your security team are gentlemen, Howard,” Emma offered the man a charming smile and little else. “They were only too happy to open any door we wanted.”
“They’re also getting fired,” Howard muttered before jamming his hands in his pockets and striding toward Elias and Emma. His scientists scrambled to return to their studies as he walked by. Vanko’s gaze lingered on the Frosts until Elias caught his eye and the alleged ex-Soviet turned his back to the unfolding scene in the center of the old assembly line. “This is private property, you know. It’s also a top-secret facility that I’ve gone to great lengths to secrete.”
“Truly?” Elias shifted his attention from Vanko to Howard, whose nostrils marginally flared as he came to a stop before the Frosts. “We had no idea, sweetheart, I assure you.”
“Glad to see you’ve still got your scintillating wit and suavity,” Howard sighed heavily through his nose. “Since I assume you have my security team firmly under your thumbs, there’s no point in throwing you both out, so how can I help you?”
“Oh, Howard, darling,” Emma unlinked her arm from her son’s and patted Howard’s cheek, “as if you could even think of tossing your two dearest corporate competitors and most valued S.H.I.E.L.D. consultants aside like they were nothing more to you than trifles.” A single fluting chuckle escaped her, and she shook her head, patting Howard’s cheek more sharply this time, the smack and suction of flesh audible with each strike. “Now, my dear, let us get down to the brass tacks; we have simply missed you and the wonderful brain housed in that skullcap of yours so dearly that we came on a social call. Indulge a pair of old friends, won’t you, Howard?”
“The day that Emma and Elias Frost swing by unannounced for a ‘social call’ without a hidden agenda or twenty is the day that I drop dead,” Howard snorted, shaking his head in amusement as Emma’s hand fell back to her side. “Why the hell not, though, I guess? We can gab—it’s bound to be more interesting than anything else I had planned for the day.”
~*~*~*~*~
“The bar is serving scotch on the rocks today, ladies and gents,” Howard cast a glance over his shoulder as he poured his drink into a crystal tumbler filled with ice chips. “Any takers?”
Elias examined the renovated foreman’s breakroom that Howard had made his personal office and all its ascetic décor: “More of a martini man, admittedly.”
“I too appreciate the offer, Howard dear, but I don’t drink that scotch,” Emma said as she idly inspected Howard’s cluttered desk before taking a seat in one of the man’s high-back leather chairs, conceivably the most extravagant furnishing in the room. Crossing one leg neatly over the other, she turned her wintery eyes then to Howard’s back.
“I think I recall you saying something like that at my first Hellfire Club party,” Howard hummed in thought as he capped his scotch decanter and set it aside on the bar behind his desk. He turned to face the Frosts as Elias moved to stand beside his mother, shifting his weight so that he leaned casually against the back of her chair. “Boston, spring of 1941, the New England branch’s annual gala. Sir John Braddock, Warren Worthington II, Sebastian Shaw, and I were there to be inducted. I was in the midst of speaking with a friend—”
“Hugh Jones, the head of Roxxon Oil Corporation and the man who you would later make a cuckold, you mean,” Elias reminded with a smirk. Without so much as a look in his mother’s direction, he accessed the psychic link between them and telepathically queried, “Are you ready?”
“I’m entering Vanko’s subconscious as we speak, darling.”
“Yes,” Howard cleared his throat, “thank you for jogging my memory, Frost.” Flicking his brown eyes between Elias and Emma, he continued: “And then all of a sudden, the real celebrities of the party show up—Club Royalty! Let’s see, Ned Buckman was the Black King at the time, and he introduced himself alongside you two and a pretty blonde piece of arm candy, his Black Queen. Paris Seville, I believe—”
“And then you revealed yourself to be highly intoxicated and a spoiled lothario riding into the Hellfire Club on a tide of entitlement if memory serves me correctly,” Emma smiled affably. Her glacial blue irises froze into a tundra white color defined from the off-white sclera of her eyes by a wire-thin ring of silver-cyan, and she telepathically said to her son, “The replication of Vanko’s knowledge on electromagnetism and fusion reaction has commenced.”
“Ah, yes, well…” Howard frowned, none the wiser to his sudden development of a case of something akin to acute induced visual agnosia thanks to Elias. With his parietal lobes temporarily impaired in such a way, Howard may have been able to see the piercing eyes of the two blonds visiting him, but he was ignorant to the fact that those eyes he beheld were no longer the jewel blue he was accustomed to observing; rather, they were psychically charged and colored in shades of white and silver. “Those were quite the days, weren’t they?” He took a long sip of his scotch and said, “Thank God people change.”
“People do change…” Emma said with a sigh, thrumming her manicured nails on the plush armrests of Howard’s chair in displeasure. Elias felt his mother sneer psychically before she said to him, “So, not only is Vanko an ex-spy, but he is also riding off of Howard’s coattails. For a so-called fusion reaction and electromagnetism genius, he certainly does not know much more than you or I, darling.”
“Does that then make us among the world’s foremost experts on fusion reaction and electromagnetism?” Elias asked his mother with a playful lilt. “I think it should.”
Emma offered her son a fond smirk before turning her attention back to Howard: “Despite the perhaps unwarranted verbal lashings, Howard, it is good to see you.”
“Yes,” Elias nodded his agreement even though it was not entirely the truth. Like Howard had earlier stated, the Frosts had possessed ulterior motives for their visit today prior to finding out Vanko was a largely hopeless resource for further scientific insights. Perhaps, though, he could still be of use; corporate intel and Stark secrets were just as desirable as knowledge of advanced physics and chemistry, after all. Of course, Elias and his mother could have mined it all direct from the source himself, but psionically parasitizing people who could be considered friends mayhap crossed the already tenuous and hazy ethical line all psychics perpetually toed due to the nature of their burdensome gift. “We missed you at the last three Hellfire Club annual galas.”
“Emma, Elias,” Howard’s eyes flickered to the drink in his hand, the ice clinking softly in his glass. “You know as well as I do that I’m trying to put my days of debauchery behind me. I’m not quite as young—or romantically available—as I used to be.” He chuckled, “And besides, the environment towards the end of my partying days with the Club was always so tense when I was sober enough to sense it.”
“In sooth?” Elias tilted his head as though ignorant to what Howard spoke of. It would be… beneficial to hear Howard’s perspective on the noted and dangerously authentic tensions within their Hellfire branch.
“Yes, in sooth, Shakespeare,” Howard scoffed. “I swore sometimes that you two were going to tear Shaw and his friends apart. Isn’t the Inner Circle supposed to get along? And also, what’s up with the Hellfire Club coordinating the Cuban Missile Crisis and trying to spark mutually assured destruction?”
“That was all Shaw’s sect,” Elias withheld a snarl. “Trust us; we had no idea the Black Court was going to do something so gauche and nihilistic behind our backs.”
“Moreover, Howard, don’t be daft,” Emma rolled her glittering snow-colored eyes. “From your time as a director of S.H.I.E.L.D. to your own experiences as creator and chief executive of Stark Industries, you know how it is to work alongside people just as headstrong as yourself. Also, when have you ever known the upper crust to ‘get along’?”
Though his mother was making generalizations to dissuade Howard from probing further into the dynamics of the New England Hellfire Club’s Inner Circle, the man was not inherently wrong in his assessment. There had been a time when the Inner Circle had run like a well-oiled machine (with a little bit of psychic policing as the lubricant, admittedly, though that was beside the point). However, that era of esprit de corps had come to an abrupt and bloody conclusion at the onset of the Second World War when Elias and his mother had been called to Europe to assist the Strategic Scientific Reserve in their mission to combat the forces of HYDRA ravaging the European, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern theatres.
While Emma and Elias had been offering their services in whatever manner best helped the S.S.R.’s early war efforts—whether that be telepathically spying on, psychically lobotomizing, and/or brutally assassinating Nazis and fascists—Edward Buckman, the Black King at the time, had been charmed by Sebastian Hiram Shaw’s ambition and ruthlessness between the sporadic home visits Elias and Emma were able to make. Naturally, it was while they were across the pond that Buckman had idiotically decided to mentor Shaw for a leadership position in the Club. Buckman, the heedless oaf, may as well have signed his and his lover’s own death warrants.
In August of 1943, Shaw, a closeted mutant and the CEO and founder of a weapons manufacturing company slightly less impressive than Stark Industries, had betrayed Buckman. Shaw had the Black King executed alongside his Black Queen and lover Paris Seville at her coastal Rhode Island estate and had the murders pinned on one of Seville’s maids with whom Buckman engaged in highly inappropriate relations on the side. With Buckman and Seville six feet under and Elias’s and Emma’s North American presence growing scarcer the longer the war raged on, Shaw had secured almost complete control over the New England branch of the Hellfire Club. It did not require an overly active imagination to grasp how unfortunate such a situation and the innumerable unseemly alterations to the Club Shaw was able to churn out in Elias’s and Emma’s absence turned out to be for all parties involved, save perhaps Shaw himself and his closest allies. Their time would come, though; in fact, it was coming, burgeoning on the horizon like a radiant dawn.
“So,” Elias felt the gears turning in Howard’s mind, felt him prepare to again press the issue of the Inner Circle, and cut him off. “How is Maria?”
“Good, good.” Howard accepted the conversational redirection. To a point. “She more or less banned me from ever attending one of your Club parties again.”
“A pity,” Emma remarked without much conviction. Howard, bullheaded as he was, was blatantly not letting talk of the Hellfire Club drop so easily. Emma heaved a prolonged psychic sigh, “I suppose this is the price we must pay for making an unannounced visit and lying about why we truly came.”
“We might as well let him jabber on,” Elias returned. “It will give you more time to root around in Vanko’s skull and see what kind of intel he had been sending the K.G.B. before he decided to quit and practically ask for them to send Natalia after him.”
Out of some quasi-Pavlovian reflex Elias occasionally acted upon at the mention of Natalia, he unconsciously glanced to his right arm. Beneath the silk sleeve of his dress shirt, the young woman’s Parisian parting gift remained on the far side of his bicep—a surprisingly clean silver-pink line spanning the muscle, the remnant of a wound bone-deep. He could have healed the scar much in the same manner he had psionically regenerated the damaged tissue and lost blood, but he had decided to keep it on a whim. Elias could not quite explain it, but in the moment and even now, it had felt and still feels wrong somehow to will it away with no more than a bat of his eyes.
It could be a result of his growing… fondness of Natalia. Receiving a live stream of updates on her without cessation through the psychic tag he had anchored deep in her psyche had certainly warmed Elias to a strange partiality from his initially scientific curiosity and pragmatic mindset concerning how the U.S.S.R.’s premier Black Widow might best operate as a pawn for him and his mother’s far-reaching ambitions. Though it was difficult to describe what exactly Elias felt for Natalia after she had unknowingly been a constant fixture in his mind for well over a year, he did hold for her a great deal of sympathy—or maybe empathy since he vicariously felt her suffering? Irrespective of sentiment, due to the bond that Elias had psionically forged with Natalia, he had gained a wealth of superliminal and subliminal knowledge from the young woman and likely knew her and the Red Room just as intimately as she herself did at the current moment.
Formally recognized in the U.S.S.R. as an invitation-only and little-known girl’s boarding school and ballet conservatoire named the Red Room Academy for the Advanced Education of Exceptional Young Women, the Red Room was in reality a remote espionage training facility for vulnerable and easily-acquired orphan girls across the vast U.S.S.R. As for the historical particulars of the facility and the Black Widow Ops Program instituted there, Natalia was not exactly well-versed. With a little digging and conversing with old former S.S.R. associates who had infiltrated the Red Room Academy in 1946, Elias and his mother were able to piece together some of the information beyond Natalia’s grasp. The Red Room itself was the brainchild of Russia’s Department X, a covert deep science and espionage government agency created by Joseph Stalin after the Great War to ensure that the Soviet Union would become the world’s leading superpower by having better weapons than both its enemies and allies combined. Despite founding the Red Room sometime in the 1920s and crafting the Russian Assassin Program—the Black Widow Ops Program’s precursor—to train young girls as elite spies and assassins who would grow up to hopefully be some of the U.S.S.R.’s greatest operatives, Department X produced rather unimpressive results. It was not until the final years of World War II when Department X experienced some form of smashing success—likely the replication or development of a variant of Erskine’s Super Soldier Serum paired with advancements in the field of psychotechnics or the acquisition of psionicially gifted assets—that inspired an overhaul of the previously middling Russian Assassin Program, thus birthing the Black Widow Ops Program which would go on to garner additional victories for the Soviet Union.
What Natalia did know about the Red Room, though, was all in lived experience, which was without a doubt just as crucial as the more historiographical information Elias and Emma had managed to uncover. At any rate, Natalia’s intel was by far more likely to be of immediate practical use. Located among the pine woods and swamps of northwestern Byelorussia, the Red Room was hidden well enough from public sight that evidence of its crimes against humanity could be buried in the winter snow or tossed into the nearby marshy lowlands for the forest’s resident scavengers to consume and thereby conceal. The facility’s inhuman abuses were many, though brainwashing, torture, murder, forced human experimentation, and the training of child soldiers certainly topped the list.
While Natalia’s childhood had been spent mastering the art of killing and weaponizing her budding femininity and learning the manifold ways to destabilize governments, other girls her age had been able to be carefree and happy in the summer years of childhood. Laughing, singing, playing, things that Natalia had never known, that she may never know. Such youthful innocence should not be a privilege for those able to afford it, and the fact that it indeed was an honor rather than a God-given right on this depraved chunk of rock floating in an unforgiving universe made Elias’s blood boil in his veins and gave him rash notions to astrally project his consciousness halfway across the world and psychically assassinate the monsters responsible for ruining the lives of little girls like Natalia.
“You doing fine over there, Elias?” Howard’s voice cut through the fog of fury that clouded Elias’s mind and brought him rushing back to reality. Howard’s gaze was wary, his hands wrapped carefully around his now empty tumbler.
“Lost in thought, Howard,” Elias forced a laugh and a tight-lipped smile. “Forgive me for my preoccupation.”
“No need for apologies,” Howard said with a much more reassuring smile than Elias’s. He cleared his throat awkwardly, his upturned lips slipping in mild concern. “Is it Rogers and… Barnes?”
“Uh…” Elias blinked, thrown. Emma tensed in Howard’s chair.
"Howard—” Emma warned at the same moment that Howard set his tumbler aside and said, “This month marks the 20th anniversary of Rogers’s flying the Valkyrie into the Arctic and Barnes’s—”
“I may be a centenarian, Stark, but my memory has yet to fail me,” Elias lightly quipped. He swallowed, his throat growing thick with the melancholy that had been intermittently afflicting him for days, though, admittedly had receded since he and his mother had decided to investigate Howard’s secret research facility. “James—” Elias frowned. No one had ever referred to James by his first name other than Elias himself, James’s second-generation immigrant mother Winifred, and his headstrong Romanian grandmother, and that is how the man had liked it. “Buck would have been 48 years old on March 10.”
Emma reached up for Elias’s hand, holding onto it tightly: “Why don’t we talk about something else, darling? Something like Howard’s laughably short-lived career as a film director or when Peggy knocked him into the Thames on V-E Day for trying to kiss her and how he would have drowned had he not been fished out by a group of frogmen.”
Elias squeezed his mother’s hand, grateful, but sighed instead, “I have missed him every day since 1945. Steve too; he was a remarkable man and one of the best friends I have ever had.”
“I…” Howard scowled, shaking his head. “I hate this time of the year. Reminds me of all the ways we could have done things differently back then. Reminds me of how the world lost some of the greatest men and left profiteers like me behind.”
“Howard, you are hardly to blame for anything that happened during that odious chapter in the text of human existence.” Emma massaged the bridge of her nose wearily. She always got weary when speaking of the war.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty for helping to produce weapons of mass destruction, Emma, for working on Project Manhattan and making that godforsaken atom bomb,” Howard admitted in a rare moment of incisive and brutal honesty. “You know, my greatest creation was Captain America; he was the only thing I made that genuinely saved lives, directly and indirectly, instead of outright claiming them.”
Elias, in an even rarer moment of empathy, pursed his brow: “Oh, Howard...”
“What do you think this Earth would be like had Barnes not fallen?” Howard asked, his gaze faraway. “Had Rogers found some way to save the day without sacrificing himself in the end?”
“Thinking like that will not bring them back,” Elias pushed himself upright from the back of the chair his mother sat in, feeling the need to put his body in motion to better occupy his mind and the darkness which eddied at its outskirts. “But if you want my God’s honest opinion, I would have dragged Buck home from the war after the Commandos came back from their mission to capture Zola and returned him to his family like he wanted the whole bloody time he was overseas. He would be safe, happy. Likely a mite more rotund and softer in spots, but still as handsome as ever.” Elias exhaled heavily through his nose as he felt his voice begin to falter. He paced across the room, examining the sparsely decorated walls to distract himself. “As for Steve, well, he and Peggy would have gone dancing. Courted. Maybe married and had a few kids as obstinate as both of them.”
Elias turned and saw that his mother’s eyes were on him. They were no longer glowing white with telepathic power. Instead, they were just their regular pretty blue and so profoundly sad. He averted his gaze.
Howard broke the silence: “You really loved Barnes, didn’t you?”
“With every aching fiber of my being.”
~*~*~*~*~
Shutting the passenger’s side door of his mother’s porcelain white Aston Martin DB5, Elias flipped up the wide collar of his Burberry peacoat against the frigid early morning drizzle sailing near-horizontal on the wind. The soft wool brushed the stubble of his jaw, reminding him that he needed to shave. Or maybe not—he could raise a neatly trimmed beard like he had in his twenties and thirties; full facial hair was slowly coming back into fashion since it had silently grown passé in the decades following the Civil War. He adjusted the brim of his beaver-fur fedora as a gust of wind tried to snag it from atop his head. He shoved his leather-gloved hands in his coat pockets, pushing all thoughts of grooming and haircare aside for the time being, and glanced around the lot surrounding Howard’s Queens-based research facility which had officially lost its top-secret status as of Natalia’s visit to it less than twelve hours ago.
Although he had remotely kept tabs on Natalia and her activities from the previous night via the psychic tag embedded in her psyche, Elias had to give his favorite Slavic spider a hand upon observing the physical aftermath of said nighttime activities. She had indubitably left a message. Grey plumes of smoke yet curled up into the cold rainy sky from the half-melted and warped remains of the warehouse where Howard’s security and surveillance station had once been located as well as from the ragged hole which had been blown in the graffiti-laden exterior wall outside the part of the factory where Howard’s laboratories had been. The smell of ash still hung heavy in the air, and a vaguely chemical odor slithered beneath the burnt scent, only detectable when the breeze happened to propel it in the right direction from the assembly line laboratories. Half-singed papers, broken lab equipment, and strips of metal rested upon the cracking concrete like fallen corpses before the plant’s newfound sharp-edged maw while literal blackened corpses littered the hard earth near the burnt warehouse. Picking through all the detritus as they slipped into and tramped out of the hole in the factory wall and the warehouse’s writhen skeleton was a team from Damage Control, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s official cleanup crew that assessed and controlled messes like the one the K.G.B. had left behind for Howard to find.
“What happened here?” Emma, in a dark trench tied loosely about her waist, a matching bucket hat, and white André Courrèges go-go boots, walked around her British grand tourer after locking it to stand beside her son.
“What you see before you is the result of the foolishness of another of the field chaperones the K.G.B. seems so insistent upon pairing Natalia with following the events which transpired in West Berlin and Paris.” Elias swept his gaze around the wrecked compound and inspected the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they went about their work with antlike efficiency. “While Natalia cleared the way for her K.G.B. babysitter, a veteran agent named Boris Turgenov, and then permanently took down the surveillance system by setting off high-grade explosives in the warehouse, Turgenov made his way to the labs. Howard was not onsite during the attack, but what PMCs remained from Natalia’s initial strike evacuated the other scientists and got them to safety by the time Turgenov broke through the lab doors—”
“And found Vanko still there?”
“Precisely,” Elias nodded. “Vanko refused to let Turgenov haul him back to the U.S.S.R. where he would be exterminated, tossed into the Siberian wilderness to fend for himself, or brainwashed into servitude, no doubt.”
“And the gaping hole in the factory wall comes in where?”
“Vanko and Tergenov scuffled. Vanko pulled out a highly unstable and untested ray gun of some sort that he and Howard had recently designed, fired it, and blew up not only Turgenov but also part of the factory wall and himself.”
“So Vanko is dead?”
The sound of wet concrete chips and glass crunching underfoot filled the silent compound as Elias and Emma impassively watched the Damage Control team clear the area, rolling charred corpses into body bags, sorting through seared and water-damaged classified research notes, and lugging damaged laboratory gear into S.H.I.E.L.D. cargo vans pulled up in the loading bay near where Emma had parked the GT she had fallen in love with after having seen it being driven by Sean Connery as James Bond in Goldfinger last year.
“Vanko was admitted into the ICU at Queens Hospital Center when first responders found him pinned under a massive slab of the collapsed wall,” Elias said. “He’s in critical condition and is suffering from… a lot.”
Taking a moment to parse through the colorful threadlike psionic signatures and layers of psychic imprints left along the bank of Flushing Creek, Elias found a trace of Natalia’s psyche almost immediately. Claret red as the blood she spilled or the hair framing her pale face and redolent of new leather, spring lilacs in full bloom, and scouring soap, it was a thing to which he had become accustomed over the years. He knew it like the back of his hand, and it was because of this that Elias had to suppress a troubled sigh.
It was changing, displaying telltale signs that Natalia’s Black Widow conditioning was deteriorating and had been doing so in an insidious manner for some time now. As best as Elias could tell, the only perceptible effects of the conditional degradation were still relatively minor: implanted Red Room memories and obedience were grudgingly shifting like once-settled tectonic plates encrusting the slumbering superdense core that was all that the Soviets had attempted to repress within Natalia as it turned fitfully in its dwindling sleep. The vague sense of wrongness that she had experienced intermittently a month after Elias had first planted the anchor had now become something akin to her new understanding of personal normalcy, and the corrective switches wired into her programming which set Tchaikovsky to thundering in her skull whenever her psyche deviated from the preset Soviet standard held for Widows before righting the abnormality were so eroded that they only flipped once every week or two.
This provided Elias with only an infinitesimal amount of comfort despite the fact that these results were the slow-growing fruit of his psychic anchor and his mother’s further splintering of Natalia’s conditioning in the middle of Paris’s leading military museum as he had kept the Black Widow preoccupied with his testing of her potential as an asset to be added to the Frost’s arsenal. Verily, the Frosts had wanted this to happen, had caused this to happen, and yet… Elias could not shake the niggling concern that wormed in the pit of his stomach at the thought of how his and his mother’s manipulations might impact Natalia should the K.G.B.’s psy-ops agents or her brutal handlers finally discover that the U.S.S.R.’s best Widow was compromised in perhaps the most compromising of ways. It was a reality that would precipitately come about if Natalia’s conditioning continued to flag at the rate at which it had been and the Frosts did nothing to either stop it or further secrete it. Given the circumstances, though, secreting it was going to prove to be an increasingly difficult option that would call for a drastic decision should Elias and his mother wish to circumvent future resource-draining complications.
Emma reached out and touched her son’s arm, shaking him from his thoughts: “Where is she now?”
“Preparing to land in Moscow from a nine hour flight aboard a small Soviet jet,” Elias honed in on his psychic connection to Natalia, and he saw her piloting the private aircraft through the heavy steely clouds of the Russian countryside. “When she lands, she will refuel and rest for a few hours before returning to the K.G.B. outpost in Novosibirsk where the Widows are all stationed.”
“We’re not letting the K.G.B. realize what kind of state Natalia’s conditioning is in and losing nearly two years of work and a potential asset,” Emma reassuringly squeezed Elias’s arm through his thick peacoat with her gloved hand as the concealed front entrance of Howard’s facility opened and Howard himself stepped out into the gloomy morning weather. “What would you like to do?”
“Go over the specifics later,” Elias said as Howard’s eyes turned to the Frosts, his countenance inscrutable. He was in his shirtsleeves, the cuffs rolled up to his elbows, and his tie was thrown about his neck more like a lariat than a necktie. “Summarily, to remove the Soviet psychics from the chessboard; they’re nothing but a nuisance at this point and present little reason to keep around any longer.”
Innocuous as it may seem when thusly phrased, that was the drastic decision: ridding the playing field and the K.G.B. of its psionically gifted agents. With them out of the picture, the risk of Natalia’s psychic developments and waning mental programming being discovered would be diminished by a factor of fifty. Bloody hell, maybe a hundred. However, what it really meant was the lobotomy or extermination of each and every agent under employ by the Soviet government who was in possession of a telepathic or empathic talent. To think that lobotomy would be the more merciful of the two practices was the misconception of a fool, though; the K.G.B. would kill the lobotomized psychics the instant the agency had no use for them.
As Howard approached Elias and Emma with a stack of crinkled schematics in his hands, Elias felt his mother give him an assenting telepathic nod. She understood quite well what he had meant. Neither of them were exactly strangers to dirtying their hands when the situation called for such direct action to be taken to protect their interests. Truthfully, they had dirtied their hands for much less. To do what Elias had in mind was not a delight nor would it be taken lightly, but it was going to occur regardless.
“You came,” Howard said as he paused before them.
“You called,” Emma replied. “Before I would typically even commence my morning toilette.”
“My apologies, Ems.”
Elias and Emma frowned in unison: “I beg your pardon?”
“Can we walk and talk?” Howard checked as he squinted up at the dreary sky, his upturned face collecting raindrops. Before either Emma or Elias could give their affirmation, Howard was on the move, brushing by them to hop into the back of a nearby black S.H.I.E.L.D. van. Emma and Elias shared a look before trailing after Howard, coming to stand outside the cargo van as his voice echoed out to them: “Were either of you responsible for exploding my warehouse, blasting my labs to bits, or hospitalizing my lead researcher by dealing him life-threatening injuries?”
“Howard,” Elias responded with equal parts cautionary deliberateness and affected woundedness. “You think so lowly of us.”
“Not at all,” came the man’s muffled reply and the sound of papers being shuffled from within the van. “I’ve always admired the both of you for your self-serving and scheming natures, really.” Elias blinked, uncertain how to interpret that comment, while Emma stared impassively at the vehicle. “I just want to know if this is some sort of corporate rivalry thing spurred by the sight of what my team was working on three days ago when you two stopped by for a visit.”
“As much as we would love to live up to your oh-so flattering expectations of us, Howard,” Emma rested her hands upon her hips as her stare crystallized into incisive ice, “it is with great regret that we must inform you that we are not the bombardiers for which you are looking.”
Howard was silent for a long moment, the only sound escaping the nondescript cargo van being that of the man’s sorting through salvaged materials and paperwork. The upturned collar of Elias’s coat tickled his cheek as a strong burst of wind whipped across the lot, carrying with it a storm of ashes. The knotted belt of his mother’s trench slipped loose and the long panels of fabric billowed around her in a most dramatic fashion, revealing the pleated white velvet mini dress she wore underneath. Arms still akimbo, Emma made no move to reclose her long coat.
Finally, footfalls. Howard stepped out of the back of the van and down to the concrete lot to eye the Frosts critically. Elias’s left eyebrow arced high on his forehead of its own volition, questioning and challenging and drolly entertained all at once.
“So,” Howard nodded tightly before crossing his arms over his chest, “the miscellaneous charred body parts scattered about Vanko’s lab don’t belong to an agent you hired to infiltrate my factory?”
“No, Howard,” Emma said coolly. “They do not.”
Silence. Rivulets of cold water trickled down Howard’s face. His pressed white button-up clung to his slender frame, dangerously close to being translucent if not transparent in some places.
Elias cleared his throat: “The man’s name was Boris Turgenov.”
“What?” Howard’s bushy eyebrows furrowed.
“The owner of the miscellaneous charred body parts,” Elias said. “His name was Boris Turgenov, a veteran agent of the K.G.B.”
“He was on a mission to procure his former Comrade—id est your ex-Soviet friend Dr. Anton Vanko,” Emma added. “Turgenov was to drag Vanko back to Rodina for cognitive recalibration.”
“How did you—?”
“We read the psychic imprints Turgenov left on this place in the short time he was here,” Elias explained, slipping a gloved hand out of his pocket to gesture to what Howard would perceive to be empty air. Of course, it was far from vacant; vibrant wisps of psionic energy drifted about, threadlike psychic signatures unspooled in the rain, and thoughts lapped like waves out from the ocean-deep or puddle-shallow minds of every sentient being surrounding them from Howard to the ant scurrying by his polished leather shoes. Sensing Howard’s confusion, Elias elaborated, “Yes, Turgenov may be dead, but he was not always. If you would like to cut straight to the pith, anything with a neuron produces psionic energy and leaves a nearly permanent residual trace of that energy wherever it goes. It is but a matter of tuning in to the proper frequency, I suppose, to be able to interact with it.”
“Huh,” Howard scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I always thought psychic mumbo-jumbo was more… well, mumbo-jumbo.”
“Yes, well, you would be wrong,” Emma said with a tap of her foot that suggested she was growing tired of the conversation. “Can we help you, Howard, or did you request our presence just to accuse us of arson and murder face-to-face?”
“That was actually about it,” Howard shrugged. “I appreciate the K.G.B. lead you two gave me, though.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked between the two blonds before him before asking, “While you’re both here, can I pick your brains?”
“It is much more likely for us to pick your brain, Howard,” Elias’s lips curled into a small smirk. “Ask whatever you would like.”
“Why do you two think the K.G.B. wants Vanko?”
“Why would they not?” Emma responded flatly. “Not only is he an expert in his scientific fields of study, but he has also worked alongside the famous Howard Stark, one of America’s brightest technological luminaries.”
“That must have tasted bitter on your tongue, Emma,” Howard chuckled without much enthusiasm.
“I did say ‘one of,’ my dear,” Emma flashed a feline grin.
Howard hummed in response, his forehead creased from the ponderous weight of his ponderings: “There’s not a snowflake’s chance in Hell that a single K.G.B. agent, no matter how much action he’s seen, could pull this op off. No human could have.”
Elias’s jaw clenched almost imperceptibly. Emma tilted her head slightly, her long hair spilling over her shoulder.
“Turgenov must have been some kind of metahuman,” Howard theorized. “A mutant or enhanced individual.”
“He got himself blown up, Howard,” Elias laughed dismissively. “He must not have been that good.”
“Fair enough,” Howard conceded. “I just thought… I don’t know. The Soviets have a history of metahumans.”
“I think that you mean they oppress and systematically murder mutants who fail to offer themselves up as tools and weapons to the government,” Emma said pointedly. “If that is indeed the Soviet history you are referencing.”
“That,” Howard nodded, “and Soviet attempts to make the perfect espionage agents and assassins. Black Widows, they call them now, but I thought they were an exclusively female force.”
“Your dream, I imagine,” Elias jabbed good-naturedly to keep Howard talking. As one of the three co-directors of S.H.I.E.L.D., it was possible that Howard may know something about the Widows that the Frosts had not yet picked up from the anchor in Natalia’s psyche.
“At one time, yes,” Howard snorted, shaking his head. “Now, not so much.” He paused, eying the Frosts briefly. “I admittedly don’t know much about these Widows. Intelligence gathering, spycraft, and espionage is more of Peggy’s area, but I do know that they’re out there and that they’ve got some kind of alternative Super Soldier Serum coursing through their veins.”
“Has S.H.I.E.L.D. managed to capture one of these Widows?” Emma asked. “Studied them to see how the U.S.S.R. miraculously created a strain of Erskine’s serum?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Howard’s shoulders fell as he sighed. “Widows are slippery and typically too dangerous for most of our agents to even attempt to tackle head-on, but Peggy and the Howling Commandos—” He paused, looking quickly between Emma and Elias before amending himself, “Dum Dum’s post-war Howling Commandos, that is, encountered a Black Widow in training back in 1946 in some Byelorussian boarding school-military base-mad scientist’s lair called the Krasnaya Komnata—”
“The Red Room,” Emma said under her breath.
“You know of it?” Howard was not surprised.
“Only in hushed whispers,” Elias lied. “We never knew what or where it was.”
“They apparently indoctrinate and desensitize girls from an early age to train them to be elite operatives,” Howard accepted Elias’s dishonesty and spoke on. “Peggy and the Howlies saw some disturbing stuff there despite it appearing to be abandoned. They found a girl, nine or so, supposedly left behind in the Soviets’ rush to save their skins from being discovered. Looked real sweet with her pigtails and alligator tears until she stabbed Dum Dum, snatched his revolver, and shot and killed one of the Commandos recruited after the war before she clambered into the ventilation ducts and got away. She popped out of the vents later in the mission, killed an S.S.R. agent, shot one of the other new Commandos in the leg, and still disappeared in the end.”
“Bloody hell,” Elias muttered in disbelief. Dum Dum had not exactly elaborated upon that information when the Frosts had inquired about the 1946 Red Room raid he had co-led with Peggy.
Elias wondered if the girl the S.S.R. and the Commandos had encountered could have been Natalia. No, the ages were wrong; Natalia would have only been four at the time of the S.S.R.’s storming of the Red Room. That fact, however, did not divorce the image of a young Natalia with her red hair twisted into pigtails hacking apart and shooting men over thrice her size and age from the mental picture of another orphaned Russian girl met during the S.S.R.’s 1946 Soviet raid doing just the same.
“Peggy and I ran into a proto-Widow on numerous occasions back in the late-40s who was trained in the Red Room before they developed their variant of the serum,” Howard confessed. “She was in her early twenties and absolutely stunning. Also extremely lethal. I can hardly imagine what she would have been capable of had she been hopped up on some knock-off Erskine biochemical treatments.”
“Anything,” Emma wrapped her coat about herself and knotted the dangling belt about her waist before looking over to her son. “She would have been capable of anything.”
#Black Widow#Natasha Romanoff#Marvel Fanfiction#Original Character#Mutant#Elias Gideon Frost#Natalia Alianovna Romanova#My Fic#My Masterlist#Thawing#On Ao3#Marvel#Emma Frost#Howard Stark#The Hellfire Club#Historical Fanfiction#Steve Rogers#James Buchanan Barnes#Captain America#Wakanda#Vibranium#My Series#1960s#Erik Lehnsherr#Charles Xavier
1 note
·
View note
Last Seen Blogs
instantcreatorneckhuman
Lidyabet 328 Yeni Giriş Adresi | Lidyabet328
idolisnotdead
終 The IDOL iS NOT DEAD Archives 終
makochosen
beware the full moon.
kazuxiao
inherently unjust destiny