#on account of all the self destructive activities she likes to partake in. is like hm. squints. you’d be too easy to teach some of these | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jackedspicer · 4 years

Photo

a bio for my xiaolinsona! she’s a work in progress so i’m bound to come back and change it. trivia and more in depth information is under the readmore :)

continued trivia:

she’d show up somewhere near the start of season 4

she’s used a LOT for slapstick. in fact she’s mostly a comic relief character

she’s guided mainly by emotions, is right brain oriented, and is a hands-on learner

there is a running gag where she frequently has bandaids on her fingers, hands, arms, or anywhere really

she’s a massive funk junkie. LOVES disco. she’s also a great dancer

when she comes up with xiaolin showdowns, sometimes she’ll base it off of fun recreational activities or things that seem harmlessly mundane, like mini golf..... tic tac toe.....dance-off...... rock paper scissors..... the showdowns themselves obviously end up being high-stakes and lethal as they always are, except they’re based off of goofy premises

she’s probably musically accented by grunge that’s slightly funky

when it’s funny, she occasionally will use huge words or make jarringly philosophical statements, eg patrick star’s “the inner machinations of my mind are an enigma” cut to footage of milk spilling

shes a lot like charlie kelly. in general. any charlie moment is just. Her. she’s a wild card and screams every line and huffs glue and tries to get the honey out of a hornets nest outside of jacks house because she thinks hornets make honey and she likes ghouls and she genocides the rats in his basement and sleeps ass to ass with him and is illiterate

she likes to do arts and crafts but they almost always come out as abominations. she’ll occasionally borrow some of jack’s tools to construct her latest atrocity, and she’ll refer to them by a wrong/made up name while she’s at it. “the hacksaw duey”, “the electric hole puncher,” ”the automatic pizza cutter”, etc. yes the projects and the bandaids have a direct cause and effect relationship. please refer to this video (and this channel in general)

youtube

imagine her sitting at a table and just doing this in jack’s lair... this video alone can be used to sum up so much of her. the technique. the bandaids. the blatantly wrong information that’s said with such conviction. the dark turn towards the end of the video. “superfluous protrusion.” the way it ends

continued trivia pt. 2, taken from my instagram

(i’ll get into this more further down the post)

fighting style because this is xiaolin showdown:

she has a very nimble, disorienting style of combat. using pokemon stats as an analogy, her highest would be speed by far, followed by attack, with her lowest stats being defense and special attack. this combined with her unrelenting nature makes her an excellent distraction and a general nuisance, but she doesn’t fare well in prolonged head to head battle.

favorite shen gong wu:

monkey staff, mikado arms, fancy feet, neptune helmet, hoduko mouse, woozy shooter (on herself), tongue of saiping, longi kite, indigo pyramid (on jack (cause it’s funny))

*the shen gong wu she’s most skilled with in battle are ones that trip up her opponents and cause status ailments. kinda like a prankster

backstory/analysis:

at her core, she’s a jolly, optimistic, humorous person, but her unruly, isolating childhood put a blow on her psyche. much like jack spicer, she’s been virtually alone her entire life - she was rejected by peers and adult figures alike since earliest childhood, and her home life was turbulent at best.

to ease the pain, at some point, she took on resenting and judging those around her as a means to cope. she has a holden caulfield-esque defense mechanism in play where if everybody sucks for this reason, or that reason, or those reasons, then she has justification for detaching herself from others, and she can derive her only source of self esteem from being better than them. this hurts far less than the devastating truth that she cannot connect with people on account of feeling so worthless and estranged from other human beings that she could never have the chance to be cared about by anyone. deep down, she’s in desperate, thrashing need of support and genuine human connection, and she has a warped perception of how she can achieve that.

she’s taken up evil as a hobby because it nurtures her desire to be destructive and, again, just like jack spicer, she engages in it as a way to feel seen. all press is good press, and the best way to make the headline is to cause some damage. what sets her apart from him in this regard, though, is that she takes all of her pain out on her enemies (in this case, the xiaolin monks) because she can’t stand how well off they are - instead, on the basis of their acceptance of one another, she sees them as goody two-shoes phonies who ought to be knocked down a peg. while evil to jack is both a means of getting much needed attention and a convoluted way of spending time with friends, to sid it’s a way to vent frustrations and a way to, well... still garner attention, but also spend time with a friend, except the friend is jack.

the other half of the reason she partakes in petty villainy is that it’s just... fun. she only got wrapped up in all this because she’d been restlessly putzing around somewhere remote, found a neat doohicky she planned on keeping, and when one thing led to another she wound up in a xiaolin showdown against jack. experiencing the chaos unfold revealed a golden opportunity she couldn’t pass up, so she asked jack to let her come with, debuting their partnership (i talk about this in further detail at the end of the post). goofing off and doing evil with him is so much fun to her! it makes her feel alive, a sensation and state of mind she never could fully achieve before.

noteworthy relationships:

jack:

they have a team rocket thing going on. not in terms of their interpersonal dynamic, but rather their role in the story, how much of a threat they pose as, their schemes, and even their overall attitude are reminiscent of the iconic duo; they’re petty, recurring villains with hearts of gold who aren’t above occasionally siding with the good guys.

even though they both are on the same tier of comic relief and general foolishness, the metaphor i like to draw is that jack is the left brain and sid is the right brain.

their personalities have such chemistry and they’re both so goofy that they effortlessly sync up. everyone thinks it’s REALLY annoying

they’re best friends! they actually care very deeply for one another, even if they might have funny ways of showing it. they may be evil, but they’re mutually the only and closest friend the other has ever had, and with that carries a lot of weight. think of it - the first person you meet who hasn’t been nothing but awful to you likes you and wants to be around you. What a concept

while their relationship is platonic, there are several gags implying a romantic element, even though nothing is ever outright stated. kisses on the cheek, bashfulness, other characters making fun of them (“where’s your DUMB little girlfriend?” “..........she’s not DUMB!!!!!”), domestic references (“am i sleeping on the couch”)..... it’s left ambiguous because it’s hetbait plain and simple. somebody asks them what they even are and they say Partners In Crime wym. jack asks sid What Are We and she fist pumps the flat of her own chest twice, throws a peace sign and says We’re Bros

their nicknames for each other include but are not limited to “jackass, jacky-boy, jack-o-lantern, smarty pants, wiggles, spack jicer, spack, mr spack, spackle”, and “shortstack, pipsqueak, sid the kid, champ, funky monkey, foxy (in a funny way, he’ll say it like Whatcha Up To Foxy ? while she’s like making a mess doing an arts & crafts abomination or just vibing bein her weird lil self.... it comes from a place of playful sarcasm and affection) (champ, funky monkey, and foxy are courtesy of @currentlyfallingthroughspace)

to piggyback off of the left brain vs. right brain metaphor, “heart vs. brain is how they think, right brain vs. left brain is how they act, and two halves of a heart represents their natural dispositions” is how my aforementioned friend put it. they both have a lot of heart and are ooey gooey on the inside, but the difference is that sid can grasp the intricacies of emotional/psychological matters while jack can’t (actually knowing how to EXPRESS this is another topic). it’s in the same way that jack can effectively plan ahead, use logical reasoning, and know where to go and how to get there, but sid is shabby in this department. “one is aware but doesn’t address it until it’s too late, and one can’t see it and doesn’t ask until it’s too late.”

another feature of potential conflict in all incarnations of them is the juxtaposition of sid actually being more down to earth than jack in the grand scheme of things. jack has the potential to go completely overboard, and whether or not he demonstrates the ability to catch himself on the event horizon will ascertain the outcome.

deep down, neither of them are truly evil, and they bring this out in each other as they ultimately contribute to the redemption of one another. how this actually happens is a lot rockier. sid has the intuition and self awareness to become increasingly cognizant of the fact that she engages in schemes as a way to bond with her friend, and, over time, she’s able to recognize that she’s simply been acting out, and she consequently softens up over time - but jack is much denser in this regard. he doesn’t consciously pick up on the same things she does and still believes that she’s drinking the koolaid as much as he is. the crucial dissonance in what matters most that had been incubating under the weight of things left unsaid emerges in a major falling out that challenges the nature of their entire dynamic and respective moral codes. i had a lot of help from the same friend with the following series of events and it’s really something that ought to be gone into detail on its own post, but a whirlwind brief summary is that jack becomes desperate from losing over and over so he comes up with this sinister plan that’s just too far, sid tells him to stop, they get into a nasty fight, sid leaves and makes it clear she’s not coming back, she goes to the xiaolin dragons for help, jack goes on an evil rampage but also loses his grip and has this mental breakdown because he lost the one person who’s ever cared about him (or so he thought), sid has the same brutal separation pangs but it doesn’t change the fact that jack is still doing what he’s doing, sid gets a firsthand view of a fight breaking out between the monks while she’s working with them and has a moment of clarity when she observes how they resolve it in such a healthy way, as they continue to work together and help her through the whole fiasco she realizes they’re not so bad, an entire excruciating series of events that’s genuinely too large to fit on this post unfolds and it ultimately ends with jack actually having to team UP with the good guys to stop what he started, and it ends with them breaking down, apologizing, and beginning their redemption BUT not without the illustration of several lessons that arose out of the complications of the entire thing...... the overarching lesson that’d been entrenched in their entire dynamic from the start, albeit corny, is that caring and being cared for was all they ever needed, and they learn to cultivate that within each other right under their own noses. it would be fun to have them stay as recurring villains forever, but seeing how much good is in their hearts is enough to make you wonder how they were ever evil.

xiaolin monks:

she thinks she hates them, but she doesn’t really. while her opinion of them is marked by resentment and distaste, she also holds them in high regard. a part of her wishes she could be friends with them, but the mental landscape she’s paved for herself doesn’t reveal that as an option. in her mind, she’s already been rejected by them. so why try?

the way she takes her pain out on them - people who had nothing to do with her traumas - can be summed up by the spinel su quote, “why do i want to hurt you so bad? i’m supposed to be a friend. i just want to be a friend.”

she gets chummier with them upon her redemption. out of the group, she gets along best with clay and dojo :)

bonus origin episode

this would be the imaginary early season 4 episode i mentioned at the beginning of the post. it’s more of a loose string of ideas tied together with reckless abandon but hey. the episode would open with jack feeling lonely and down on his luck to establish the theme that he kinda needs a friend (”wuya’s gone, chase trained his cats to get surly with me if i show up, my evil dream team won’t answer my calls....”). his sulking is interrupted by a shen gong wu alert and he’s like. whatever. i don’t need them. i’m still gonna do this on my own. even if it’s. ˡᵒⁿᵉˡʸ. fastforward to the scene i described where sid is putzing around with her doohicky (which i’m considering might be the neptune helmet) all by her sad miserable lonesome when suddenly some flying bloke in a trenchcoat who looks like he hasn’t seen the sun in years shows up telling her she’s got something he needs. she of course responds with something along the lines of “you know what? why don’t you try to take it from me since you want it so bad, mr big stuff,” triggering a xiaolin showdown. this is around the time the xiaolin dragons show up too late - but they’re grateful for somebody having been there to fight jack in time, even if they have no idea who they are. she has no clue what’s going on, but whatever it is, she LOVES it. she goes buckwild. she has a time. jack, on the other hand.... well, understanding how badly he needs that wu is certainly throwing a wrench in it, but he can’t help but feel like he’s having a bit of fun too. well, up until he loses. post-showdown, the monks kinda count their chickens before they hatch so to speak and they rush over to this new kid with a shower of praise, thinking they have a friend on their side. instead, she cuts them off, shouts to the guy who’s gathering his bearings (or lack thereof) - “hey! jack was it?” - and playfully tosses her shen gong wu in the air, catching it. “you look like you need this thing way more than i do. tell you what! take me with and i’ll let you borrow it,” is what she follows it up with, implying she wasn’t really that invested and only saw the whole thing as a fun game. jack and the monks are flabbergasted. what’s more bizarre is she did in fact ask to join him, something nobody’s ever done out of their own volition before. she talks about how boooooooooooring it is here and how that was soooooo much fun and to pleeeeeeeease take her with. he’s really iffy about it and doesn’t know if it’s such a good idea. he tries to make himself look cool, telling her “as IF, shortstack..........im afraid The Jack Rides Alone................................................. but-” and ultimately buckling because he can’t deny that it would be nice to have someone around.

#IM PROBABLY GONNA COME BACK AND CHANGE SO MANY PETTY THINGS BUT I HAD TO RIP OFF THE BANDAID #xiaolin showdown #xiaolin showdown oc #xiaolinsona #draws #btw her last name is question marks because i havent come up with anything yet #i have utmost confidence about this i literally think of her and jack as a duo even though shes not a real character #also it's important to add that i hope it goes without saying that a lot of her qualities arent direct translations of my own #her qualities are based on my own and are in some cases translated to represent how it would manifest in this narrative #sonas are tools u know. not being like THIS IS LITERALLY ME!!! cause its a bit different #for example my own opinions of the other characters and her opinions of the other characters differ. u kno for tha story #xiaolinsonabio

64 notes · View notes

lowkeyassgard · 4 years

Text

DAY 8 OF LOKI VS. EARTH: FACEBOOK.

Day 8 of Loki vs. Earth and today Loki is confused and pissed off by Facebook.

One shot summary: Loki reads books and wants friends to talk to about said books. Loki joins Facebook to find said friends to talk about said books.

Author’s Note: Hi. I started something called the quarantine series. It’s going to be a series of fun and light hearted one shots to help readers and other writers get through this hard time. I made a a03 collection and a tumblr tag. To join just write a fun, soft, and/or light hearted one shot and post it to the collection @Quarantine_Series or tag it on tumblr as #quarantine series. Anyways enjoy!

After a few months of living on Earth, Valkyrie had bought Loki a phone as a present. With his more positive mindset and less “I will rule the world” attitude she thought it would be a nice way of bringing him into the modern world. People say you can do anything and everything on a phone

Loki used it just for books.

On the first day of having his phone Loki discovered that you could download books and read them on this device. In the comfort of your hand and at your own speed. It was glorious. They were called ebooks and to Loki they were the greatest thing he had discovered on Midgard.

He read all day long. If he wasn’t doing the duties asked of him he was in his bed reading a new book on his phone. At this point he had read hundreds of books. Sometimes 20 books a day. He read anything he could find on every topic. He began to understand Midgard and the way people acted the way they did.

The day that Valkyrie found out that he just used his phone for reading she was appalled. She had spent a good bit of change on the phone and he wasn’t using it for the purpose she intended. She intended him to use it to interact with the Midgard world, make friends, and have fun. All of the apps were already installed and yet the only one he cared about was Apple Books.

No matter what she said Loki just did not care about it. Why talk to people when he converse with all his favorite fictional characters? Why deal with human drama when he could learn about history? Why get out of bed when he could stay in bed?

After a solid talk and Valkyrie ordering as his king Loki agreed to give social media a chance. He clicked on the blue icon with a fancy f in the middle. It came up with a welcome to Facebook page.

“Facebook. Do I put my face on a book?” Loki thought to himself. Maybe Facebook was where you uploaded photos and texts to a book all about your life. Like an autobiography but digitalized for all to see.

The first step was to make an account. It asked for an email and a password. The only email he had was the one he had set up to attach his books to. He typed in “[email protected]” for the email and then “godofmischief” as the password. Easy and simple.

Next he was to select a photo for his profile. Well Loki didn’t have any photos of himself. He didn’t have any phone of anything. He didn’t know why people had to document and capture their face… it wasn’t going to change every few minutes. Loki pressed a button and it opened up to be his face. Oh the camera. Since he didn’t have a photo of himself it wanted him to take one. Well he would cave to the wishes of the technology just this once. Loki stared into the camera while it took his photo. He looked as though he was a greasy 30 year old man that was desperate for any form of interaction. Perfect. Loki selected next.

Then came the questions. What was his name? He tried to type in “ I am Loki Odinson, prince of Asgard, rightful king of jotunheim, god of mischief” but it cut off after As.. Why ask for his full title if it couldn’t handle it. Angry that it didn’t have the capacity for it all he shortened it to “Prince Loki.”

Where was he from? Easy Asgard. Well actually Jotunheim but he was practically kidnapped and raised on lies. Okay let’s just put “Not Earth”. Where did he live? Easy. After the destruction of his home palace he now lived in New Asgard on Earth which was technically Norway. Once again they didn’t want the full story just a location. Why ask if they didn’t want to know? Loki groaned. He clanked in “Earth”

Where did he work and go to school? Loki did not work. He sat around and enjoyed himself while others worked. He was a man of great pleasure. He was too occupied of his own needs to do a job. He ended up typing in “self employed.” He was taught by his now deceased mother everything he was taught. She taught him to read, to write, to do magic. There was no school; just Frigga. In that box he typed in “the arms of Frigga.” Which was the absolute truth.

Relationship status? Single. Lonely. Fuck Midgardians.

Lastly a bio for people to get to know him. What was something he could write that would allow anyone that clicked on his page to truly grasp his godlike personality and existence? He smirked. In the last box he happily typed. “I tuned into a snake. Almost killed my brother. Tried to topple the government. Found a love for books. In that order.”

Loki was now an active member of Facebook. Valkyrie would be proud of him. He was doing it. Taking the first step to make friends and overcome his burning hatred for anyone that wasn’t from Asgard. Valkyrie has explained that people would send him friends requests and once he accepted it they could see each other’s posts and converse. So all Loki had to do was make a post and wait for the friends request to start pouring in.

What should his first post be? Lol knew just what to post.

“I’m Loki Odinson. God of Mischief. Now humans I ask you? What are you the god of? “ Loki pressed post and sat back in his bed triumphantly. He was pissed off that the site didn’t have the capacity to handle anything about him and he had no choice but to shorten everything down but the thought of finding a human that didn’t make him want to take over was exhilarating.

Loki waited a few hours. In that time Valkyrie and Thor both added him on Facebook. Thor said he even made a post to his millions of friends to go friend his mischievous brother. So Loki waited some more.

After a few hours Loki came back to see he had 200 friends requests. He was like a kid on Christmas morning. He accepted every one of them.

But then Loki started to hate this site. Why you might ask? The people were absurd and ignorant. Hundreds of people starting replying to his post saying “god of drinking coffee” “goddess of throwing it back.” “God of donuts.” They thought it was funny to joke. To be a god is no joking matter. To be a god is surely not to be of such foolish items. Gods are powerful. Gods do not throw it back or drink coffee. At least not just those things. To be the god of something is to have it so instill into your being that if it was taken away you would be nothing. Coffee and donuts… humans knew nothing of sacred godlike belongings.

Worse people started poking him. Every few minutes he got the notification that so and so poked him. He just wanted to reach through the phone and break whatever finger they were poking him with. How dare they poke a god. To poke him like some kind of farm animal. He would be respected.

Even worse these women started messaging him asking to see his snake. His snake what could they mean. Loki could not shape shift into a snake and take a photo. They sent him revealing photos begging for his snake. No they could not see his snake form. They were not worthy.

The things these people posted. They whined and groaned about their lives. Posting about their day at work or what their snotty kid did today. No one cared and certainly not Loki. He thought Facebook would be humans worshipping him and begging to get to know him. So far no one had asked him any questions about himself or his childhood. How could they befriend him if they did not know his tragic backstory?

Valkyrie had said if he wanted to become friends with people he should make a post that was more relatable to humans. Loki figured that most humans knew how to read. So for his last attempt of the night to connect to these midgardians he made a simple and relatable post.

“What was the last book you read?”

Loki could not wait for their responses. He loved talking about literature with people. He was excited until the responses actually came in.

Loki was appalled, disgusted, and scared all in one.

People were replying such radical things. Someone said “I read the constitution everyday to protect my gun rights.” Another person “ I read erotic fiction when my husband won’t touch me.” Another saying “ I read company reviews so I can properly bitch my way to a discount the next time I visit there.” And then worst of all “Why read when we can do something more exciting?” What on earth could be more exciting than reading a good book? Yes, Loki loved a good party. Loved drugs and alcohol. Loved sex and orgasms. Loved it all but nothing would top the serotonin that went to his brain when he finished the last page of a book.

The people on Facebook were helpless. Loki slammed his phone on to the counter. If they couldn’t partake in a discussion over books then they could not be discussed to at all. He would not be posting on Facebook again. He would not poke or message another human. He would leave his profile up just so they could think about what they done. Ran off a god that could have blessed their own life.

Loki got in his bed and thought about all the amazing books he would read in the next day and how one day someone would want to discuss them with him. One day he would have a friend. Until then fuck you creepy women that wanted his snake. Fuck middle age men that whined. Fuck everyone.

#quarantine series #loki #loki one shot #loki smut #loki fic #loki of asgard #loki of jotunheim #loki of earth #loki x reader #loki laufeyson #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston smut #tom hiddleston oneshot #marvel oneshot #marvel smut #smut #fluff #one shot #a03

42 notes · View notes

ericjuneau · 4 years

Text

Scapegoat by Eric Juneau

This story is in no way intended to infringe on the established copyrights and trademarks of Capcom Co., Ltd. It is for entertainment purposes only and is not intended for sale. It may be freely distributed providing that no alterations to the story are made.

The characters and incidents portrayed and the names in this story used herein are fictitious and any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person, living, dead, or otherwise, is purely coincidental and unintentional.

Scapegoat

by Eric J. Juneau

The following takes place before "Mega Man X".

Commander Sigma did not need an office. Offices were human constructs to provide private space to focus on work. But a reploid accomplished most job tasks by connecting to a computer terminal. They executed at speeds beyond any organic life form's reaction time.

But it appeased the human politicians and militarists to give him an an office. One with a wall-to-wall window behind his desk overlooking the city buildings. They thought it befit his station as leader of the Elite Seventeenth Unit of Maverick Hunters. An office symbolized status--I get one, you don't. Therefore you are inferior to me.

Zero did not have an office.

Which was why he was standing in Sigma's.

"In my time as commanding officer... no, as a Maverick Hunter at all... I have never seen such a blatant disregard for property," Sigma said. "Do you know what was salvageable from the fire?"

Zero pursed his lips. "Judging by the disaster recovery brief, I would say 'very little'."

"I'm glad you had the mindfulness to at least consider the damage you've done." Sigma picked up the data PDA and held it out. "Nothing. Nothing was salvageable. As one would expect when a geothermal reactor becomes engulfed in flame."

"Sir, I didn't have a choice. One of the mavericks' stray shots hit the fission shielding."

"But you didn't have to add fuel to that fire. You turned a manageable blaze into a raging inferno. The entire district had to be evacuated."

"There were no human casualties. Besides, the plant was a lost cause anyway. The fire was controllable. So I let the natural process of destruction do some of the work for us. As far as I know, we have no standing orders to apprehend mavericks. Correct?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean actively trying to destroy them. Those mavericks could have been rehabilitated. Reprogrammed. We need soldiers in this war, Zero. There are more of them than there are of us."

"We don't know that, sir. Mavericks hide, stay undercover. There may be more of them, but they don't have a unifying force-"

"Until one day when they do. Dammit, Zero. You have clearly learned nothing from this incident. Since day one, I've been barely able to suppress your brutality and mania. Therefore, I'm demoting you, effective immediately."

Zero gasped. "You can't take away my A-Class. That's verified through independent eval-"

Sigma held up his hand. "No, not that. That can't be changed by your commanding officer. But your mission allocation can. From now on, you are only cleared for epsilon-level assignments."

"Epsilon? That's the lowest there is! It's for privates and emissaries, not hunters of any rank."

Sigma leaned in and pointed his finger. "Until you prove you can handle combat with a calmer head, this is your fate. These lower level assignments will teach you there's more to being a Maverick Hunter than violence and destruction."

"But-"

"There will be no argument. Your first assignment is already in progress. Get to it, hunter."

Sigma didn't have to tell him he was dismissed. Zero turned on his heel and left the office. The door slid shut behind him.

In the corridor, Zero accessed his account. Sure enough, the only tasks on his assignment queue were epsilon-level. Everything else had been filtered out.

Worse yet, all epsilon-class missions required a partner. Zero didn't see who the second delegate was on his current assignment, but it didn't matter. The system would notify him or her that the prerequisites had been filled. Reploids didn't need downtime--didn't need sleep, didn't need food, didn't need to relax. When an assignment was ready, so was the hunter.

Whoever signed on must have been a real go-getter if they didn't care who the senior officer would be. He or she was probably hopping at the door like a puppy.

Zero headed to the transportation bay. Nearly as he predicted, his partner chased after him, waving his hand. He was a blue reploid with angular limbs and a young face. Zero recognized him, though they had never met.

"You're Mega Man X, right?" Zero asked.

"Yes. Although everyone calls me 'X'. Honored to be working with you."

Zero nodded. They walked down the corridor, while Zero discerned first impressions. "So you're the original reploid?"

"Yes, sir. Although I'm not technically a reploid, since all existing reploids are based off my design. You know, since 'reploid' is a portmanteau of 'replicated android'. I'm considered the original prototype."

"But you're with the Maverick Hunters now. Why?" Zero asked. "Aren't we essentially killing your children?"

"Well..." X rubbed the back of his head as they walked. "I don't think of it that way. It could be some kind of programming error, or a fatal bug that makes them violent towards humans."

"Then why have they got you pushing pencils? Taking epsilon-level assignments? You should be with the tacticians and intelligence. You know the most about the vulnerabilities and flaws in your own design."

"Well, one is inexperience. I only joined up recently. Another is... I'm a pacifist." X hung his head.

Zero stopped in his tracks. "You're a pacifist? And you joined the Maverick Hunters?" Zero threw back his head and laughed, yellow hair swishing behind him.

X nodded. "But I realized that I could still do something about it. I wasn't intended for combat but I was designed for it. Every one of them is like me. So if they wreak havoc and I just sit there, I'm as bad as them."

Zero nodded. "Noble," he said as they walked into the elevator. At least he couldn't question X's loyalty. Even if he seemed a little wormy, a little naive for a Maverick Hunter, they'd get along fine.

The elevator dropped them off outside the transportation bay gate. Gristle, a hunched reploid with red bug eyes, was manning dispatch.

"Zero, what's shaking?" he said in a gravelly voice. "Whatcha got going on today? You got a chum?" Zero could almost feel Gristle's datacrawler oozing around his mission log. "Whoa, epsilon-class? What'd you do to get the garbage run?"

"Don't ask," Zero said. "Don't want to talk about it." Zero headed into the bay toward the teleportation capsules, with X following. A long row of booths stood against the wall, similar to restoration chambers. Reploids could use these instead of their own internal teleport circuits, which saved on energy and lifespan.

"Hey, hey!" Gristle shouted. "No, no, no. Not for you. Teleportation's only for delta-class assignments and higher. You take a manual."

Zero looked where Gristle pointed. Small personal vehicles--like ride chasers, cruisers, LUVs--lay scattered in the bay. They were necessary to humans who couldn't teleport. But to a reploid, he might as well have been told to ride a tricycle.

"Ha, ha. I recommend the Little Sultan." He pointed to a two-seated streamlined hovercar. "It's a fine day for a ride anyway, isn't it?"

Gristle's laughter followed them to the hovercar. They both got in and took off through the garage's open maw.

True to Gristle's statement, the day was fine—blue skies with crisp, clean air. But weather control systems will do that for a city. The bright sun certainly didn't match Zero's mood. But X drank it all in, like he had never left Maverick Hunter HQ. Perhaps that was true--rookies tended to get stuck in the bowels of labs and workstations.

"Look, a dog park," X pointed out.

To their right a fenced-off square field enclosed humans with dogs, humans with robot dogs, and robots with real dogs, all partaking of the sunny day.

"Sure is nice to see the city without all the destruction. Something to remind us what we're fighting for. What to look forward to when this is all over," X said.

Zero nodded. "What do you know about our mission?" Might as well make conversation, since the vehicle was self-driving.

"We're delivering an encrypted data package to IngeniVox, a technology manufacturer and innovator." X held up a tiny black rectangle.

"You know what IngeniVox does?" Zero asked.

"Primarily, they make the energen capsules reploids use to restabilize their reactor cores. The data we have is the updated hardware design for the power port interface, so IngeniVox can integrate it into their work."

Zero nodded. "Exciting stuff."

X fiddled with his fingers. "Well, I guess, since it concerns reploid power generation, it's sensitive enough they couldn't risk transmission over the HyperNet. So they needed a courier. And since all assignments require a backup..."

"Only epsilon-level," Zero said. "This mission doesn't need a delivery boy, it needs a mailbox."

X cocked his head. "I take it you think this mission is beneath you."

"It's not my typical fare… but you probably love this." Since you're a pacifist, Zero added in his head.

"Well, it's a safe mission. No one's going to come to any harm or be put in harm's way."

Zero barked a laugh. "I like your optimism, kid. "

X muttered "Kid? I'm older than you. I'm older than every reploid," as the hovercar curved around a corner.

Zero did feel a little lighter as they entered the venture district. Here, manufacturing mixed with business development--the epicenter of progress for the city. Every diamond-glass building glowed in the sun, from skyscraping towers to wide aquaponic fortresses.

The hovercar decelerated into the driveway of a small building shaped like a tulip bulb, covered with mirrored paneling. Maybe fifty people worked there at any given time. A modest logo was stenciled next to the door.

Zero and X entered the reception area. Several flat-panel screens displayed a slideshow highlighting "cutting edge" and "hyper automation" among smart looking humans and teal-and-orange backdrops. The couches and tables looked barely used. But there was no one in the room, not even at the reception desk.

"How do we meet our contact?" X asked. "I expected the entrance to be monitored."

Zero checked the reception console. "Computer is locked due to timeout."

"Is the office closed?"

"It's normal business hours," Zero shrugged. The door to the building proper was secured by a thumbprint reader. Zero wasn't about to violate that policy--he was in enough trouble as it was.

X grimaced. "Something's… off. I don't know anymore than that. It's just... a funny feeling."

They waited for five minutes. X picked up a thermoplastic pyramid that was some business award. Zero examined an abstract painting and a potted palm tree. Surely someone would return after a given amount of time. Security logs would record that the door had been opened and there were occupants in the reception room.

Zero tapped his communicator. "Ophi, are you picking up my location?"

"Loud and clear, Zero. You're at the IngeniVox building right now."

"What's the net traffic look like coming from my location?"

"One second." Zero's eyes darted around the room while the operator examined the input/output transmission at their location. "Seems normal. E-mails, phone calls, internet transmission, all within expected parameters."

"Hmm, okay." Zero shut off the comm. "There's still signals from the building, so people are here."

X didn't answer. He was listening. "Something doesn't seem right. I've never felt anything like it."

Zero again turned his eyes to the door. Authorized Personnel Only.

"X, your buster operational?" Zero asked.

"Yes, sir. It's not as powerful as yours, but..."

Zero waved him off. He approached the door, examined its structure. The electronic lock was a basic "prox" card reader with RFID and 512-bit RSA encryption. Nothing special. A coffee maker could have hacked it. Zero emitted a brute force attack via radio signal and the door opened.

Inside was a typical office building--dispersed cubicles, thin carpeting, uniform desks and chairs. The hum of running machines filled the air. But the lights were off--only the windows lit their way.

"There's people here somewhere," X said. "Maybe they're at a company-wide meeting?"

"I doubt it."

The cubicles occupied only a small area on the way to the manufacturing center. Secure labs, glass windows showing big boxy servers. X peeked in one of the conference rooms. A display screen shuffled through natural landscape photographs.

"Maybe everyone is sick?" X asked. "Or has the day off?"

Zero didn't dignify that with a response. They looked in break rooms, conference rooms, computer rooms, closed-off lab stations, and personal offices. No reploids, no robots, no humans. The only moving object they encountered was a motorized vacuum crossing the floor. It sensed them, avoided their feet, and rerouted to the other hallways.

They stopped and listened, but there was nothing to hear. Nothing but some sinister feeling they couldn't figure out.

"Hey!" Zero shouted. "Hey, anyone!"

"Look," X pointed to an open door. "They wouldn't leave a laboratory open like this. It's a sterile room. And that little box has the chemical symbol for ranmatine. That's highly corrosive."

Without meeting a soul, their sojourn was halted by the other end of the building. They descended the fire stairs one floor.

"Never quite had this feeling before," X said. "I think humans would call it the heebie-jeebies."

Zero smirked. "Leave that out of your report," he said. Assuming we live to see the end of this.

The next floor down was much like above, although missing some of the niceties and human touches. No conference rooms. Just a small reception area with wooden floors and an airlock into the manufacturing floor.

"I've seen abandoned buildings before, but not like this," X said. "Not one that seems so recent. Still full of life-"

"Hold it, X."

The two of them froze.

"Did you hear something?" X asked.

"Thought I heard a... something like crying. Human crying."

X cocked his head, listening for the phantom noise. They waited for the sound to come again.

"HEY!" Zero shouted, startling X. "Is there anybody here?!"

"Let's look in here. This looks like their outbound router."

Inside a closet, taking up all the space, rested a silver and ebony server rack brimming with red, orange, and green lights. The rack was chilled to the touch from the running coolant.

But what caught Zero's eye was a device on the floor--a six-inch black box with an upright cylinder. The top of the cylinder beeped softly every three seconds. A human might have missed it among the snaking wires and conversion boxes. But this didn't fit with the setup. Especially when Zero turned it over and found it had no bottom, just circuit boards and loose wires.

"What is that?" X muttered.

Zero was about to respond when his comm board lit up with an incoming signal. From Ophi. "Zero, can you read me? We analyzed the network traffic coming from the building. It's there, but it's garbage. Random strings and repeated requests. Electronic messages from three days ago sent over and over. Like it's sending mock signals to resemble a normal amount of communication."

Zero turned the device over in his hands. "That's what this is. It's a transponder. Sending simulated network traffic."

"Because if it all stopped, an alert would trigger from the service provider," X said.

"But why? You want to make it seem like humans are still at their desks working. What could-"

Zero's and X's eyes were still on the transponder when they turned from the closet. That was why they didn't see the two reploids standing in front of them. Zero recognized their designations--Phase Crane and Chain Buffalox--and that they were mavericks. But that was all his reaction time would allow.

Phase Crane held some kind of rocket launcher on his shoulder. He fired it as Zero and X raised their buster arms. Two globes of milk-colored glop flew out. The blobs made perfect impact with the apertures of their arm cannons, covering them in sticky biscuit dough.

Phase Crane shifted the launcher tube off his shoulders. "I don't recommend you try to shoot us. That's liquid ceratanium. Well… it was liquid. It hardens quickly."

X tried to pry it off with his fingers, but true to the maverick's word, it had already solidified. Ceramic titanium was the only substance that could repel plasma energy. And his arm cannon was clogged with it.

"If you fire now, the shot'll bounce back in. And probably blow your arm off." Phase Crane cackled. "But if you want to try, go ahead, by all means. I'd like to see that."

Zero's lip twitched as Phase Crane laughed. He reared his fist and ran forward, screaming. X followed a split-second behind. Phase Crane and Chain Buffalox didn't move.

Halfway there, Zero's and X's legs tripped a taut chain across their floor. Their bodies convulsed with violent electric current, paralyzed by bands of yellow energy. Then they collapsed on the ground.

###

Zero and X's systems rebooted from the catastrophic shutdown as their bodies were thrown on a concrete surface.

"Maverick Hunters..." someone said after their heads hit the floor.

They were in a lab or product storage room. The air radiated with energen.

Zero and X stood. They were surrounded by six mavericks in total--the two from before, plus Grabber Kangaroid, Grease Caribou, Bullet Frog, and one hulking gorilla-dog in the center: Drill Mongrell. Mongrell sat on a makeshift throne made of old chassis and plastic parts. His fists were the size of industrial pistons.

"Maverick Hunters… hey... hey, you're Zero," Mongrell pointed as if he had seen a celebrity. "This here is Zero."

"No, he isn't," said Bullet Frog.

"Sure he is. Red and white armor, blond hair. Only A-class in the hunters. The Elite Seventeenth, right?"

"That's right," Zero replied.

Drill Mongrell stepped forward. His fist embedded in Zero's torso, crackling with energy. Zero rocketed up and smashed into the ceiling. Gravel and gray dust rained down with him as he fell like rotten fruit.

"You barbarous-" X started forward. Five arm cannons leveled at him.

Zero struggled to one knee, his limbs trembling. "Enjoy that, Mongrell." Zero glowered from under his helmet. He grinned. "It won't happen again."

"We'll see, Zero… pride of the Maverick Hunters. But later." He turned to Grabber Kangaroid. "Put them with the others."

"With the humans?" she asked. "Why not just get rid of them? We could-"

"Not yet. They might help us out yet. Hostages and such," Mongrell said.

As Chain Buffalox grabbed X's arm, he turned to the other mavericks. "Imagine that. Maverick Hunters helping us."

"They'll be begging to help in no time," Drill Mongrell said.

Bullet Frog and Grease Caribou picked up Zero and half-carried, half-dragged him away. The other two marched X at cannon-point.

They were in a sub-sub-basement, deeper underground. The floors were made of smooth concrete and shiny plastic, like a garage. It was cool and dry, had few lights, and no decorations.

The four mavericks took X and Zero to a room with a mechanical hatch covering the floor. Blinking servers stood against one wall in glass cases. Bullet Frog typed some commands into the standing console at the corner of the hatch. It hummed and slid back like a pool cover.

Bright light spilled out from an in-ground vat. Inside was an ultra-clean server room, indicated by the grid of black computer boxes. And people. About fifty people standing within the illuminated walls. They looked up and began moaning and pleading to be let out.

The mavericks tossed X and Zero into the pit. They landed on their faces, clanging on the semi-metallic floor. The other humans surrounded them, helping them up, checking for damage. Women and men, ages from young twenties to eighties. Everyone spoke at once.

"Guess we found the people," X said. "Are you all here?"

"We think so," said one of the humans. All looked dressed for a day at the office--some with lab coats, some with collared shirts. Most were roughed up, but uninjured.

Drill Mongrell stepped up to the rim of the pit, his allies on either side. "Shut up! Shut up, all of you!"

The group hushed down, except for one woman in the back who couldn't stop sobbing. Phase Crane leveled his arm cannon at her. She cried like her atoms were breaking apart.

"Lady, I told you to keep quiet. Shut up or I'll shut you up."

A man came to comfort her, holding her around the arms while whispering "sh-sh-sh-sh-sh..."

"Zero..." X said.

"Quiet," Zero said.

"Now that we have some new guests here, maybe you'll be more willing to talk. I'm going to ask you again. Which one of you is responsible for that energen bomb?" Drill Mongrell asked.

The humans remained as disconnected and frightened as before, clammy skin and glistening eyes. No one said anything.

"You know what I'm talking about. Which one? All right. Maybe you know these two I just dropped in. They're Maverick Hunters. Zero, in particular. Finest hunter in the Seventeenth Elite Unit, headed by Sigma. What you do from here on out, any consequences that come to pass, he's accountable. That's his purpose anyway, to protect you from reploids like us. Ain't that right, Zero?"

Zero ground his teeth. "You could say that."

Drill Mongrell bent to one knee, addressing Zero. "One of these weaklings killed Terror Mongrell. Same model, same system software as me. You could call him my brother. I did. Someone killed him with an explosive energen capsule, right when his back was turned. I want to know which one of these flesh-bags did it, so I can treat them to the same fate. And until I find out, there's going to be more death coming. So you talk to them, Zero." Drill Mongrell stood. "You explain to them what's at stake. Take a couple minutes."

Drill Mongrell walked away. His maverick gang followed.

Without the sight of them, the IngeniVox employees closed in.

"You guys got to help us," a man said. "Please. You don't know what they can do."

"Is anyone hurt? Does anyone need first aid?" Zero asked. The people shook their heads.

"Are you really Maverick Hunters?" asked a woman.

"Yes. Mega Man X and Zero," X said. "We came to deliver some engineering data regarding energen capsule ports."

"Oh, that would be Hadleigh Wilkins." The man pointed to a nearby heavyset Black woman in a white lab coat. Her crispy hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She looked dumbfounded at being called out by name.

X took the little plastic nubbin from the storage compartment in his armor and handed it out. "Thanks, I guess," she said as it went into her pocket.

"Mister Zero, sir?" asked a scared looking blond boy with lean features. He touched Zero on the arm. "H-hi. I'm Ryan Shetler. I-I'm a software developer. L-listen, you've got to do something. Those mavericks are gonna-"

"All right, Shetler. Calm down. We'll-"

A woman with long pink hair approached. "We've got people who don't even belong to the company down here. Maintenance managers and even the coffee shop guy. We've got to do something before they come back. Evelyn wasn't even supposed to come in today. She just came to pick up-"

"We're going to handle it, all right?" Zero snapped.

"Hold on! Hold on!" X said as they crowded in.

"We've got to stop them!" the others shouted. "They're going to kill us!"

"If you try and attack, they'd kill you all, get it?" Zero shouted. "Humans are nothing to a maverick. Your lives--all your lives--are on a very thin thread right now."

Shetler interrupted again. "We were thinking if we all rushed... I mean, there's fifty of us. Some of us might get hurt, but all fifty at once-"

"You ever seen flesh against a plasma cannon?" Zero sneered. "It'd go through you like a bullet through a garbage bag."

That quieted them down. Except Shetler, who meekly said "But... we've got to do something."

"We will. But someone needs to explain to me what's going on," Zero asked.

The crowd shushed then. Hadleigh sighed and stepped up. "They came in this morning. Burst in, corralled us up. I think they were looking for energen. The kangaroo one broke into the lab where I was, pocketed everything I was working on."

"There were no signs of forced entry," X said.

Hadleigh nodded. "They might have come from underground. Or the roof. I don't think they were looking for a spectacle, just the energen. They searched the building top to bottom, waving their cannons around. Weren't paying much attention to us."

"What happened to Terror Mongrell? How was he killed?" Zero asked.

"Some of the team in R&D, they call themselves 'rogue squad'. I guess they rigged some of the energen capsules to reverse polarity and implode. Snuck up and threw them, then ran away. One of them picked it up. Exploded right in his face. Whole torso disintegrated. I guess it was the big one's twin."

"That's when the havoc started?" Zero asked.

Hadleigh nodded. "They pulled any of us they could find, using us for hostages. Human shields. Interrogated us. Found every last human in the building. It was easy. We all gave in--no one wanted to get hurt or see anyone hurt."

"And you've been trapped here ever since?"

Hadleigh nodded. "The 'rogue squad' is here too, but the mavericks don't know that."

"Why doesn't he just kill you all? Then he'd have his revenge," X asked.

Zero shrugged. "Because it's personal. He must want to do something special he can't get from indiscriminate killing. We aren't dealing with mavericks like we used to. They never used to roam around in gangs, terrorizing humans for pleasure. They used to fight alone, popping up here and there. I've learned never to hold any expectations for a maverick."

"Anyway, we've been trapped here since," Hadleigh said. "Mongrell keeps threatening us unless we give them up. Even the guys in rogue squad don't know which one of them did it."

A woman gasped and covered her mouth as her watery eyes flashed. Drill Mongrell had returned, along with his cronies.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen? What's it going to be?" When no one spoke, he eyed Zero. "You get any answers out of them? Did you tell them to do the right thing?"

"The right thing would be to accept that your brother got what he deserved."

"Not on account of some human cowards."

"He was a moron who broke in somewhere and picked up a strange energen capsule tossed his way. If you're dumb enough-"

Mongrel's arms lit up as bright as his eyes. "I'm not gonna take a lecture from a servile thug like you about right and wrong. Now give 'em up." Mongrell held up his barrel-sized fist and cocked it like a shotgun. A surge of ocher energy rippled through. "Who did it? If I have to wipe out every mealy-mouthed meatbag here, I'll find out. I will."

"You think that's going to bring Terror Mongrell back?" Zero sneered.

Drill Mongrell growled under his voicebox. "Grabber, take two of them. That one..." He pointed to a rotund Indian man with meaty jowls. "And that one..." He pointed to Shetler.

"No!" X shouted.

"Mongrell, when I get out of here I'm going to tear you apart. There won't be anything left of you but dust," Zero said, fighting the urge to raise his useless arm cannon.

"You gotta get out of there first," Mongrell said.

Grabber Kangaroid stepped up. Her belly split across the middle and a large claw emerged. The claw, attached by a chain, hurtled out and clamped around the first victim. The clamp yanked back so hard, his neck wrenched hard enough to snap. Kangaroid caught him and threw him to the side.

Three others clutched onto Shetler's body, but that didn't matter. He flew out of their hands and into the mavericks'.

"Well? Anybody got anything to say now?" Mongrell asked once the cries had settled. No one spoke. "All right then. You can live with your decision." Mongrell stepped back. The mavericks dragged the dazed humans out of view.

Everyone stood in hushed sobs, like trembling zombies. Zero and X could do no more than the same, staring at the space above.

There was no charging of cannon, no hum of a power surge, no voices, no crying or pleading. Just two shots, with no way to shut out the sound. Some weeped louder, but otherwise, the death chill had frozen everyone.

"We've got to do something," muttered Hadleigh.

"We will," Zero said.

###

The hatch advanced, becoming their ceiling and shutting them back in a vault. Bright light from the paneled walls and floors irritated their eyes like gnats. Zero didn't know why the mavericks didn't come back and capitalize on the fresh fear. Maybe Mongrell was more gutless than he let on.

X had gone to circulate among the others, maybe to gather information. That suited Zero fine--he could stand against the wall and contemplate the situation. Strategize. Six mavericks, once seven. Still too many to take on, even with a buster that worked.

X returned. "Did you ever send out a distress signal?" he asked Zero.

"Have been ever since they threw us in here," Zero said. "Signal's being blocked. I can't even connect to you. Something's mangling it. Probably whatever lines this room."

"Lead-corbosite," Hadleigh tossed in. "It scrambles all wireless signals, prevents external hacking. These servers are for data-processing. They're only ever supposed to talk to each other. That's why they put us in here. Easier than trying to grab everyone's phones, PDAs, whatever."

"I found the members of 'rogue squad'," X said. "That's just a nickname they gave themselves. They're the top engineers for the company, innovators. Two of them are willing to submit themselves, but two aren't."

"And they shouldn't," Zero said. "We don't deal in lives. We should be thinking about escape."

"Even if we do, we're useless without our busters," X said.

"I know," Zero said. "We're just arms and legs."

"There's some vorticular acetinol in my lab. It can dissolve ceratanium. If we can get out of here," Hadleigh said.

"Eventually we're going to register as missing, either us or the humans," X said. "Then they'll send reinforcements."

"Too much time passes, they're going to come back here and kill another one of us. Or we'll just start dropping," Hadleigh added. "Haviland has an implant that sends neurosignals from his heart to his lungs and it's not working in here. If we don't get out of here soon, he's going to drop dead."

"Reinforcements?" Zero turned to X. "We are the reinforcements."

X, Zero, and Hadleigh spent an hour brainstorming plans, huddled in a corner. Many began shivering from cold, walking around, rubbing their arms and legs together. The vault wasn't meant for human habitation.

"Do they always come in the same way? Stand in the same spots?" X asked.

"Yes, right there." She pointed.

"How many approach at a time? I figure Grabber Kangaroid will always be one of them."

"The only time there's more than two is when the big one is with, the leader."

X's eyes brightened. "Here's what we could do. Zero and I could press against the wall under where they stand. That hatch opens slow, so they'll be waiting. Probably not paying too much attention. We'll wait until we see them. Then we jump, drag them down. Once they're in, we swarm, all fifty of us."

Hadleigh drew back.

"Just long enough to keep them down and confused while Zero and I disable them," X said.

"What's to stop them from signaling from help?" Hadleigh asked.

"Same thing stopping us." X gestured to the illuminated corbosite all around them.

"You don't think they'll be on a higher alert now that we're here?" Zero asked.

"Not without our blasters." X held up his arm cannon, still covered in hardened goo. Zero nodded.

"It's risky," Hadleigh said.

"Life is risk," Zero said. "If we're to have any chance at all, we have to take one."

"You're telling me," X said. "If the heaviest reploids show up, we might be screwed. I don't think I can take that buffalo one down."

"Surprise will be on our side," said Zero. "We'll also need everyone's help. Every last body."

"I'll start telling the others." Hadleigh stood from her crouch and sauntered toward the others.

X and Zero assumed positions where the hatch opened, comparing data about where they would approach from. Then they pressed against the wall to stay out of peripheral vision. After that, all they had to do was wait.

"Gotta admit, X, you've got a mind for method," Zero whispered. "Me? My central strategy is to rush in and start shooting."

"That's why you're an A-class hunter. You never hesitate on the battlefield. You have the skill that keeps you alive," X said.

"Could also be luck. I may take action, but it's not always the right action. You figure out the right action. There might be a place for you in the tactical division."

X looked down. "I could get people killed."

"You can get people killed doing what I do," Zero said.

"No, I mean I... may not be ready... yet."

"Well, with some training-"

"No, you don't understand." X's voice trembled. "You know my story. When Dr. Cain found me, I was sealed inside a capsule. I was supposed to be there for thirty years so it could test out my neuropsychology. Run simulations and correct the AI network. Make sure I wouldn't pose a danger to humans."

"Right, so?"

"So when Dr. Cain analyzed the capsule's computer, he couldn't find the date I was sealed in. The data was either corrupted or erased or... something. So no one knows how long I was in there." X gave Zero a desperate look. "What if it was less than thirty years? What if every maverick is my fault because they're all based on me? Because I was disconnected too early. And they all have it, Zero. Every reploid has my faulty programming. And there are so many of them, we could never stop them all, and they keep making more every day-"

"X, X, calm down," Zero said. "It's not your fault. You didn't make anyone go maverick. Whether it's a virus or a design flaw, you didn't make any of this. Besides you're doing everything you can to stop them."

"I'm doing everything I can because it could all be my fault," X said in a low tone.

Zero grimaced and huffed, unsure what to say.

A loud thud sounded, followed by grinding metal. The hatch was opening.

###

X and Zero hunkered down as the ceiling's shadow slid across the floor. The humans couldn't hear, but X and Zero, with their ultra-sensitive audio receptors, picked up conversation. Mongrell wasn't one of them.

"What do you think?"

"About what?"

"Mongrell. His whole… thing. They were close, I guess?"

"I never saw it. How many should we grab?"

"I don't know. He said to take one or two."

"Well, which is it? One or two?"

"How should I know? They all look the same to me."

"Maybe he meant we take one big one or two little ones."

"I don't think that's how it works. Each human's an individual unit."

Around Zero and X, the people trembled like chickens in a hen house. Hadleigh made a V sign with her fingers. "Two," she mouthed.

"The bigger ones might be more valuable."

"But more of them means more loss. Humans have a higher reaction to large numbers of dead."

"That's true. Maybe we take one small one and one big one. Like that one standing over there, he looks big enough."

"Hey, you. Step forward. Are you important?"

The silhouettes of the reploids crept over the rim of the wall, shadowed by the overhead lights. Zero and X aligned themselves directly under each.

In perfect synchronicity, they leapt up, kicked off the wall, and bounded over the pit. With Zero and X floating before them, Grabber Kangaroid and Bullet Frog stood stunned.

Zero seized Grabber Kangaroid by the shoulders. X grabbed Bullet Frog's bulbous head. As they fell, they dragged the mavericks down with them. Everyone landed scattered from each other with loud clanging.

The humans mobbed the prone reploids. They held them down anywhere they could squeeze in and get a hand on some metal. The mavericks appeared dazed, making little effort to get up as they were overrun.

X and Zero sprang up, no time to spare. They scrambled toward the mavericks, each heading toward one.

"Voice box," Zero said. Simultaneously, X and Zero plunged their free arms into Bullet Frog's and Grabber Kangaroid's mouths. They clutched the biggest chunk of equipment they could find purchase on and ripped it out.

"Arm cannon," Zero said. The humans spread apart, giving access to each maverick's right hand. X and Zero tore them off with as much strength as they could muster. Grabber Kangaroid and Bitter Frog convulsed in pain and terror. Taking away a maverick's weapon was like ripping out their soul.

"There." Zero sat back. "Can you hold them like that for a while?"

The humans nodded, while the mavericks flailed beneath them. "All of us together, we can do it."

"All right, let's get out of here." Zero turned to Hadleigh. "Where is your lab?"

"I'm coming with you," she said. "You need my keycode to get in. And 'rogue squad' told me there are more of those rigged-up energen grenades in there."

Zero should have said no, but time was of the essence. "Fine."

"Get on my back." X hunched down.

Hadleigh wrapped her arms around X like a human backpack. The two wall-kicked and jumped out of the pit, landing on concrete floor. In a darkened corner, they saw the two bodies that had been shot. Holes torn through their chest cavities, crispy flesh bubbling around the edges.

Hadleigh let herself down. "My lab's on this floor. South wing. Come on."

As they headed south, Zero said to X, "I just sent a message to HQ, but they won't be here soon enough."

"There's still four of them and two of us," X said.

"But we know that and they don't."

Hadleigh led them to a laboratory with a darkened door window. She entered a code on the keypad. The hydraulic lock behind the door whooshed open.

The lab was a mess--equipment scattered on the floor with sparkling glass and instruments. Rubber stoppers, vials, blue stain, frayed wires, along with the strong smell of latex and ozone.

Hadleigh reached under a standing table, where towers of differently-sized canisters were stacked. She placed one on the table. It hissed as she unscrewed the top. "Crap," she said. "There's only enough for one."

"X, you take it," Zero said.

"But your buster is more powerful. Mine's only a Mark-17."

"I can handle myself. I didn't become a Class-A solely because of this." Zero held up his arm.

A light entered Hadleigh's eyes. "I think I know something you can use."

X poured out the canister on his arm and rubbed the viscous goo in. In a few seconds, the ceratanium began hissing and smoking, emitting a foul chemical odor. Meanwhile, Zero followed Hadleigh to the corner of the lab. She bent down to a chest. Inside was a palm-sized gold stick.

"Try this. Hold the hilt away from you and energize it."

Zero did so. A needle-thin ray of green light extended out three feet. It crackled a bit, then stabilized.

"It's a laser sword," Zero said.

"It's an irradiated plasma ray with a hydron blocker attached to an output impedance. And an extended amplitude regulator to control the length. But yes, it's a laser sword." She shrugged. "What can I say? We're nerds. Problem is, no one can use it, because we'd chop off our limbs. No human at least--we don't have the dexterity or control. But a reploid..."

Zero stood clear of any objects. He swooped the sword around, stabbing and slashing. Each swing made a vrrrp-sound that increased in timbre with velocity. He grinned.

"I could get used to this." His mind raced with ways to refine it for combat. The hilt was clunky. It could be longer and have an added guard. Maybe increase the blade width. Make it swing in a more fluid arc. And make it green. Or blue. Both? He couldn't decide.

"Zero?"

"Huh?"

"We're ready," X said. He brushed the remaining chunks of ceratanium off his arm cannon. It had a discolored stain, but nothing that couldn't be cleaned. Assuming they survived this.

"I'm ready." Hadleigh zipped up a squarish bag with a vendor's logo and shoulder strap. It was full of small round globes, each with a band of prismatic light around the center.

The three of them made their way to the grand conference room where X and Zero had woken up. Its windows were made of frosted glass and they could see the mavericks' silhouettes inside. They were talking, scheming, hoarding the energen, searching through computers for data.

Zero and X stood a ways from the room, out of sight. "If we could pick them off one by one, we'd be fine," X said.

"Don't think we're going to have that option," Zero said.

X's eyes traced a path along the ceiling. "Is there a maintenance shaft that cuts across that room?"

"I think so," Hadleigh said. "It's always cold in there."

"You thinking about sneaking in?" Zero asked.

"I'm thinking about a three-pronged assault. Surprise them. I can get through the vents--I'm lighter than I look. You bait them out the door. Hadleigh stands to the side and chucks her explosives at them."

"I don't know if we can take that chance-"

"I'm willing," Hadleigh said. "I think it's a good plan."

"We gotta do something now. They're going to get suspicious when those mavericks don't come back," X said.

"All right. I'll get their attention on me. You drop behind them. Then we all unleash hell."

X nodded. He climbed up some boxes to the ceiling, tore the grate out, and climbed in.

"We'll wait a bit for X to get into position. Let's get ourselves ready."

With quiet steps, Zero and Hadleigh approached the conference room door. Without lights, they wouldn't be seen, as long as no one looked too hard. Hadleigh stood on the other side of the door frame. She silently unzipped her bag. Zero stood a few feet from the entrance. From here, he could hear the dialogue inside.

"It's all about psychology," Phase Crane was saying. "You use fear to motivate them. Humans eat up fear. And you know what they fear the most?"

"Uh, snakes?" came one of the answers. "The dark? Squishy things?"

"No, no. The unknown. That's why I told Mongrell to put them in isolation. They don't know when we're coming. They don't know who's going to die. They don't know where we are. So they stew in their little gray brains for hours thinking of the worst case scenarios. Intimidating themselves. Building up their fear. They do the work for us."

There were murmurs of assent and approval.

"I don't care. I want them to pay for what they did to my brother," came Mongrell's voice. "Go find out where the other two are. Tell them to grab the two reploids, the Maverick Hunters. They're harmless now. Kill 'em outright. Let them know there's no one protecting them."

"Don't be so sure about that!" Zero shouted.

The chatter inside halted. Zero held his sword across his chest. Hadleigh shifted her feet.

The door burst open. Chain Buffalox stood there, steam emitting from his nostrils. Phase Crane behind him.

"Kill him!" Mongrell shouted.

Mega Man X dropped out of the ceiling behind them. Everyone but Buffalox turned around--he was rushing Zero. As soon as he cleared the door, Hadleigh started throwing metal balls of energy inside, one after the other. The room filled with explosions. The other mavericks darted around chaotically as X targeted them one by one.

Buffalox tried to punch Zero, but he side-stepped, severing the arm at the elbow. But that didn't faze the buffalo-reploid--a chain burst out of his arm cannon, embedding into Zero's chest. It lit up with an electric surge, stunning Zero, sending pain through him like red hot spikes. Chain Buffalox retracted the grapple. Zero held out the laser sword as he was brought into Buffalox's range. The green ray impaled the maverick through the chest. Sparks and smoke puffed into his face, and the maverick fell over.

Zero rushed toward the conference room. Smoke and screams and explosions saturated the area. Flames crackling and flashing, glass breaking, a gummy acrid smell that burned the nose. Zero pushed himself through the fog. "X?"

Zero's foot made contact with something outside the door. A body. He waved the smoke away. It was Hadleigh. Her eyes were closed, charred skin and blood above her left eye. Body covered in ash. Dead by explosion, not a stray plasma shot. Maybe one of those jerry-rigged capsules rolled back to her.

"X?" Zero shouted again.

"I'm here!" X said.

At Zero's feet, Drill Mongrell's shape crawled along the floor through the smog. Zero gripped under the maverick's chest armor and spun him on his back. Mongrell cried out. Zero stomped a foot on Mongrell's torso and held the sword to his chin.

"It's over, Drill," Zero shouted.

"Ain't nothing over. They killed my brother, I'll kill you too."

"There's been enough killing today."

Drill Mongrell stopped struggling. He grinned toothily. "All right, Zero. That's fine, then. I surrender."

Zero remembered what Commander Sigma had said. Those mavericks could have been rehabilitated. Reprogrammed. We need soldiers in this war, Zero.

He plunged his sword deep into Drill Mongrell's chest cavity, into the power core. Mongrell gasped as liquid plasma and oil eked out. "I'd rather become a maverick myself than have to work side-by-side with you, rehabilitated or not," Zero whispered.

When Drill Mongrell stopped twitching, Zero unsheathed the sword and turned it off.

"You okay, Zero?" X asked, getting closer.

"Just fine," Zero said.

###

And it was over.

Zero and X rushed back and disposed of the two mavericks held in the pit. The humans had held up their end of the bargain, so X and Zero held up theirs. Shortly thereafter, HQ sent in the cavalry. The humans were treated, the building locked down, and order restored.

X and Zero were standing in front of the doorway when the medical gurney slid out. A body lay under a shroud, carried by the anti-grav lifters.

"A human willing to sacrifice herself, so that us Maverick Hunters could live..." Zero muttered.

"I've learned never to hold any expectations for a human," X replied with a small smirk.

Zero took a breath. "I've always thought of humans as characters in the background. Like sheep that get in the way. I think... I think that must be how the mavericks think too." Zero began to walk away, back to the troop transport. "You know it could be more," he called back.

X turned to him. "Huh?"

"It could be more than thirty years… that you were in the capsule. If they don't know the date, you might have been in there the full duration and you're fine. You were tested fully and the reploids go maverick because of something else. Maybe they get ideas in their head or their programming gets hacked."

"I suppose," X said. Maybe not convinced, but less burdened. "I'm going to stick around, in case they need help with clean-up."

Zero nodded. "See you at headquarters, X." And he walked off.

#END#

0 notes

oxfordeliterp · 7 years

Photo

CONGRATULATIONS, KITSON!

You have been accepted to play the role of ARIA BELLEFONTE with the faceclaim of PHOEBE TONKIN. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. From the ‘pinot noir painted lips’ to her thriving under bright lights, it’s clear in every line of your application just how much you understand Aria. It’s clear you know just how much important Elizabeth was to Aria and just how much of an impact her death has had, as beautifully shown in your sample. You managed to turn a sophisticated writing style into something so fluent and so cursive that every fancy word and every letter you picked for your application complete a complex feeling that represents Aria wholly. Your writing brings her to life in such vivid detail, capturing her magnetism and her grief in a wonderful balance. To quote what you wrote and adapt it to the context, damn this application for making us feel. We need to meet straightaway.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name and pronouns:

Kitson &/or Kit

Age:

Time-zone:

I’m currently residing in the CST tz but once college starts back up again in the fall I’ll be switching to the EST tz.

Activity level:

Since it’s summer and I don’t have too much on my plate, my activity should be about a 7/10. I do babysit quite often but I still have a lot of free time on my hands

Triggers:

Whether my stomach of steel is a blessing or a curse is a question still unknown to myself. It takes a lot for something to truly unsettle me. So, with that being said I personally don’t have any triggers, but will take careful precautions to be mindful of others!

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character:

Synonymous with BLACK. She is slanted. All pinot noir smeared lips and little baggies of cocaine spilling from a jeweled bustier. Cheap. The broken starlet, the tortured little princess, the whore.Spoilt, spoilt, spoilt and now she’s rotten. Decaying. A false god, Dionysus personified. Perhaps it had begun years ago, the decomposition. Perhaps it had been inherent. This anger within her thick, black, and pulsating. SHE HAD LOVED THE NIGHT SO MUCH , SHE BECAME IT. All fishnet stockings, ripped and glistening diamonds choking her perfumed neck. The degenerate and strange old hollywood starlet with porcelain flesh and eyes like death, cigarette ashes and slinky lingerie and cocaine powdered noses. A tragedy in its truest form of an angel fallen. A primordial being, dirtied, sullied. She is the void. Emptiness, darkness, loneliness personified. But she doesn’t mind. Not anymore.

You are a GIRL and you are a WOLF. A beast, they deemed you, ravenous, they said. Terrifyingly so, you agreed as you cut another line of cocaine. But once upon a time, you had been PUERILE & PURE, an unbroken doll composed of eager eyes and painted cheeks. Now, you thrive beneath BRIGHT LIGHTS and hot hands, solace found beneath a heavy touch against turning hips and nicotine sullied breaths mingling against your liquored lips. Perhaps you have lost yourself in the neon jungle, painted a doll-like exterior visceral shades of melancholic blue,

BUT YOUR NAME IS STILL ARIA BELLEFONTE AND YOU ARE A HAZY FEVER DREAM OF A GIRL.

( THAT IS ALL YOU HAVE EVER KNOWN TO BE TRUE. )

Gender and pronouns of the character:

Female. Uses she/her pronouns.

Changes:

If you’d accept it, I’d like to use Phoebe Tonkin as Aria’s faceclaim.

Traits:

( - J E A L O U S ) she sees others with their seemingly perfect family and their put together lives and yearns to drown cities with her tears. instead she laughs, mocks the malleable and obedient children, and tosses back another flute or two of champagne, snorts another line or two of pretty white party favors off her mother’s collection of vogue magazines or the bible she keeps hidden in a mahogany drawn from her brief religious stint her freshman year and thanks the lord above that she hadn’t become her parents. but all aria wanted was to be admired for more than her look, more than her last name, and she often wonders how different her life might’ve been had she continued murmuring her Hail Mary’s and Glory Be’s in the front pew of the church. Whether her parents could have loved her in the way she wanted them to love her, been proud of her accomplishments, no matter how small, like other parents were. She knew no family was perfect and that every one percenter had familial problems, but seeing them chatting casually over brunch made her blood boil. Watching the pretty and perfectly moulded girls introduce their gilded boyfriends of three years to their seemingly doting mothers made her want to scream.

( - O B S E S S I V E ) there is something so terrifying about an addictive woman with an addictive personality. & aria bellefonte is just that. she latches onto anything, whether it be drugs or booze or exploiting her sexuality, to keep herself from drowning in her thoughts. she obsesses to the point of it being hazardous, drinks herself into a drunken stupor all to forget the lack of parental adoration and approval. with no love from mommy, and all money and material belongings from daddy, aria had been spat out unto a man eats man world with nothing but ignorance and a need for fleeting bliss. almost childish and almost mature she’s stuck in between two conflicting personalities. she is both the addictive drug and the addicted.

( + P A S S I O N A T E ) aria was all late nights spent dancing across penthouse floors, body swaying to white noise and the deafening silence. far too glamorous, far too beautiful, far too free for anyone to truly tame. she wasn’t like the others, and preferred red rimmed eyes and distant recollections of nights spent with various different men and women to a traditional relationship. yet that didn’t stop her yearning. she is wild and fiercely independent. a beacon of passion dulled by prescription pills and excessive amounts of alcohol.

( + M A G N E T I C ) there is something so naturally compelling about aria. something so different. she’s exotic almost, yet entirely mundane. in a world of opulence, she is the woman across the room sipping beer from a champagne flute, puffing plumes of smoke from her father’s cigar into the air. she is the woman eating a cheeseburger amidst a crowd of calorie counters. she is late nights spent riding backseat in a cab, cigarette between pinot noir painted lips and a blunt tucked into her back pocket. there is something about her that draws you in and spits you out after a night of neon lights and adventure, dank bars and dirty sex. she had never been pristine nor pretty in the traditional sense, she is raw and unconventional— an enthralling enigma.

Extras:

It was so, so hard trying to decide on a major for Aria, and I’m still debating a bit between Sociology or Psychology. Both seem to fit her to a degree, I just can’t decide at this moment which is the more suitable option.

i. Aria has always associated flowers with death for reasons unknown. Maybe it was the pungent scent of yesterday’s plethora of floral harvests bringing to mind nothing but funeral parlors, adorned with already wilting flowers, their lives ending before their time for the sole reason of capturing their beauty. Or perhaps the affiliation had been made due to the lethal nature of countless plants. Belladonnas, lustrous and plump, yet waxed in fatal poison. Roses armored in thorns eager to impale wandering fingertips. There was something dangerous about flowers. Pretty and poisonous, much like herself. Perhaps that was what had roused the link between the two.

ii. Aria has a nasty habit of fingernail biting. Having developed it at a younger age, she is constantly going through spurts of recovery from her grotesque desire to gnaw at her thumbnail when under pressure to spiraling out of control and chewing off each and every nail when partaking in an especially enthralling conversation or viewing a particular intriguing movie.

iii. Aria drinks coffee like she breathes air. Excessively.

v. Perhaps a lifestyle of obedience had never been in the cards for the hardened shell of the already hardened exterior. Born unto the biting air and falling temperatures, Aria hadn’t been birthed to be warm and amicable. She had been meant to be a force of nature. Dangerous, sardonic, blatant, and honest. Yet she yearned to love and be loved in return. But a hurricane of a girl drowning past selves to make room for the newer, better, improved Aria’s could never truly be loved in the way she wanted to be. Yet she continued on in an attempt to please two expectant parents. A form of self destruction, natural selection at its finest as the girl shed skins to fit into certain habitations until the incessant adaptions had grown tiring. It hadn’t ever required new identities to disguise a broken past, and Aria had desired to become a simpler version of the intricate entanglements she had woven. Simply herself. Perhaps brazen, perhaps rash, but entirely true to the soul she had become. Never the beauteous woman draped over the hero’s arm nor the hero himself. Sutton the cunning villain, the serpent in the garden of Eden. For she deceived. She broke. She burned. She singed all those who treaded too close. She destroyed all good that came her way. Matured at such a young age, deprived, depraved, broken and mended and broken again. A work in progress, a listener but never willing to open herself up in return, a friend but never deeming many her own, an enigma in every sense of the word. The only connection she has to her parents and past is her last name. Nothing else.

vii. Elizabeth Pemberly. The girl she sought hard to forget. Yet she is lingering in nightmares, a stitch in her side. Inescapable. All the prescription pills popped, and champagne bottles chugged, and blunts rolled and each broken boy and girl made a home out of for the night and she still couldn’t forget. Damn her. Damn that Elizabeth Pemberly for making her feel.

vi. Born November 13, Aria is a Scorpio. “The Scorpio woman should never be taken lightly. They aren’t flaky, fluffy, or helpless creatures by any stretch of the imagination. Direct, and brilliantly sharp, Scorpio women only focus on the fundamental essence of any issue and disregard the superfluous. They like clear endings and beginnings, with no grey areas in between. A Scorpio woman wants her certainties to remain just so - absolutely rock steady and assured. She wants to understand everything and knows how to craft just the right question to obtain the answers she seeks. Scorpios are intuitive, controlling, and sometimes self-destructive, but in all this they have a certain deadly beauty to their personalities. They are fearless and stubborn and even when life gets a little tricky they merely take it on the chin and keep going. Self-confident, resourceful, and strong, Scorpios are driven to succeed; they work hard and are willing to sacrifice anything to get to their goals. They are also complex and secretive, choosing who they divulge their secrets to carefully.” [x]

vii. Aria’s alignment is chaotic neutral.

( I have bolded what I feel pertains especially to Aria’s personality and beliefs. )

A chaotic neutral character follows his whims. He is an individualist first and last. He values his own liberty but doesn’t strive to protect others’ freedom. He avoids authority, resents restrictions, and challenges traditions. A chaotic neutral character does not intentionally disrupt organizations as part of a campaign of anarchy. To do so, he would have to be motivated either by good (and a desire to liberate others) or evil (and a desire to make those different from himself suffer). A chaotic neutral character may be unpredictable, but his behavior is not totally random. He is not as likely to jump off a bridge as to cross it. Chaotic neutral is the best alignment you can be because it represents true freedom from both society’s restrictions and a do-gooder’s zeal. Chaotic neutral can be a dangerous alignment when it seeks to eliminate all authority, harmony, and order in society.

This type of character will at least consider doing anything if they can find enjoyment or amusement. Life has meaning, but theirs has the greatest meaning. According to chaotic neutrals, laws and rules infringe on personal freedom and were meant to be broken. This character is always looking for the best deal, and will work with good, neutral, or evil to get it; as long as he comes out of the situation on top. The chaotic neutral is constantly teetering between good and evil, rebelling, and bending the law to fit his needs. (3)Chaotic neutrals can also be completely random and unpredictable.

They may shift allegiances at a moment’s notice, or remain with a leader for years. The chaotic neutral character feels that there is no plan at all for the universe. Things just happen. They tend to believe in luck and chance, rather than fate or destiny. They don’t care what happens to others, yet will not necessarily go out of their way to harm others. If someone stands in the way of their happiness, they may kill that individual or move on to something else. Their priorities tend to change as they experience new things in life. They may even appear to adhere to another alignment for some length of time, only to switch at an inappropriate moment. They can be the worst tricksters, conning people, not for gain, but for sheer amusement. The chaotic neutral may not be driven by fame or wealth, but may only take actions just to see what happens.

A chaotic neutral character will keep his word if it serves his interests. He may attack an unarmed foe if he feels it necessary. He will not kill, but may harm an innocent. He may use torture to extract information, but never for pleasure. He may kill for pleasure, but is not likely to do so. A chaotic neutral character may use poison. He may help those in need and he prefers to work alone, as he values his freedom. He does not respond well to higher authority, is distrustful of organizations, and will disregard the law in pursuing his self-interest. He may betray a family member, comrade, or friend, but only in the most dire of situations. Chaotic neutral characters do not respect the concepts of self-discipline and honor, because they believe such concepts limit freedom to advance their self-interest.

PARA SAMPLE

The world didn’t stop for her broken heart— the clock kept on with its routine ticking and the earth didn’t cease to revolve. The erratic pulsating of jaded hearts incarcerated within uncompromising ribs sustained until one day its seemingly everlasting palpitations eventually ceased. Breathe, eat, party, sleep, and wake up. Tha-thump. Breathe, eat, party, sleep, and wake up. Tha-thump. Tha-thump. Breathe, eat, party, sleep, wake up. Again and again and again. Over and over again. Repeat. Until the perpetuity of existence no longer seemed so daunting anymore.

The world didn’t stop for her broken heart— people moved on and the earth didn’t cease to revolve. Yet she defied the consensus and took a cursory hiatus from her quotidian procedures to mourn the unforeseen death of the girl who had settled in her heart.

Inhale,

Exhale,

The air hung static and bore the lethal scent of melancholy and death like an intoxicatingly bitter fragrance. Hushed was the erratic surging of one stone heart intermingling with the motionless atmosphere. Silenced was the volatile screaming of her. Befallen was a certain sense of placidity. Submerged was the room as Aria Bellefonte with her white powdered nose listened impassively as the story had been told. Tongue swollen, lips bruised from keeping it all in. Although her battle wounds were inconsequential in comparison to the traumatic injuries that had been inflicted upon her Elizabeth, she was weakened. Paralyzed by apprehension.

The inferno, the fervor that momentarily raged within had gone compliant. The vitality and perseverance to keep herself ignited had been usurped by sorrow. It was tragic, truly, witnessing the happiness stone-cold Aria had momentarily possessed being expelled from her body like air from lungs the very moment she heard that Elizabeth Pemberly had breathed her final breath.

Inhale,

Exhale,

Forget and forgive.

But after such an unexpected tragedy, how could she truly be capable of overcoming her need to blame others and begin to do so?

Life became dull cycle that the bitter girl forcibly underwent everyday. Biting remarks and glassy gazes throughout the daylight hours and a typhoon of emotions in the dead of night. Breathe, eat, party, sleep, and wake up. Do it over again. Wake up, breathe, eat, party and sleep. Breathe, eat, party, sleep, and wake up. Again and again. Repetition was key to overcoming, right?

Of course it was.

Seconds passed with a certain lethargy. Minutes. Hours. Days. It was common knowledge that the world didn’t stop for her broken heart— the clock kept on with it’s routine ticking and the earth didn’t cease to revolve.

And maybe the world would never cease it’s incessant rotation for one measly broken heart, but Aria Bellefonte would. For she ceased to exist without the faulty tha-thump resonating within the hollow of her chest. Aria Bellefonte ceased to exist without the unbearable pain of her lover’s demise on her delicate shoulders.

Hazel hues swept throughout the room, fleeting from object to object before landing on the mirror. The facade had been eradicated long ago, she knew that now. Concealing the sorrow lurking within seemed futile. But she had spent the entirety of her life donning a caustic personality and a cold stare to match. She couldn’t stop now. She wouldn’t. And so Aria continued to spend her nights painting a bitter frown bright shades of red before slipping out into the night. Dead, like usual. But broken this time. For once upon a time, she had felt alive.

#aria bellefonte #accepted

1 note · View note

ecotone99 · 4 years

Text

[HM] Stick and Poke

Mark Piletski, coming in at six foot two, weighing no more than 150 pounds, and having enough acne to create a topographical map of Colorado, was in the middle of asking me if I could shout out his Twitter account on my site when I saw Mallory Green for the first time. She was being escorted by another girl, one of the new-student ambassadors. The ambassador chick was holding what looked like Mallory’s class schedule, chattering loudly about the glories of West High. At that moment, I stopped hearing the outside world. All sounds—Mark’s Twitter shoutout request, the intercom announcements, every voice in the school hallway—went underwater.

Mallory was wearing a white t-shirt with a blue-and-red bullseye on it, along with the name of a 1960s band. The neckline was stretched with wear and hung off the side of one shoulder, revealing a single, tantalizing purple bra strap. Her black jeans rode up to just below her belly button, ending an inch before the shirt began, showing a midriff and a flash of glitter that must’ve been a belly-button ring. In fact, she seemed to be a fan of body hardware; a length of shiny black studs circled the outline of her ear and a small gold septum ring hung in between her two nostrils. Her arms were decorated with stick-and-poke tattoos, which, in high school, was the universal signal of saying “I’ve seen some shit”.

For the people in the back who don’t know what a stick-and-poke tattoo is, here’s the gist: Kids who hate their parents (and probably the world) bust open ink pens and, using a sewing needle, dip into the ink and poke permanent, regretful words/images on their young bodies. It happens one tiny stab at a time, and I imagine it hurts like hellfire, but there are always those troubled few who partake in such activities. Usually the practice of stick-and-poke would fall into the category of Super Fucking Lame. Kids who did it were always twisted out of their minds on a mixture of pure THC and UV Blue vodka, such so the tattoos always came out horribly.

Pam Keith, a West High junior notorious for destructive behaviors (self or otherwise) had stuck-and-poked Brandon Strogie’s name onto her thigh after the first week they started dating. She showed it off to all her friends the next day, Brandon’s name barely legible. I saw the tattoo and had to stare at it for a little too long before I could pick out the “BRANDON”. I originally thought his name was a cheap copy of the Patagonia mountain range. The night before, she’d taken the three remaining pain pills from her wisdom teeth surgery to accomplish the bulk of the work. The rest had been helped along with a few shots of 140-proof vodka. Sanitation was most certainly not on her mind in her inebriated state. God only knows where she found that needle, probably her mom’s sewing kit that hadn’t been cleaned or updated since it was received as a wedding gift in 1988. The skin around the tattoo was flaming red from infection by the end of the week, you could’ve cooked an egg on her upper thigh with all that heat. But love is blinding. Pam still thought her tattoo was Super Cute.

She wore short jean shorts and skirts every day to show it off. She was, of course, alone in her belief that the tattoo was Super Cute. Consensus at West High was that it was a Really Stupid Fucking Move on her part, but her friends at least had a couple of brain cells left to understand that the tattoo wasn’t going anywhere, so criticism would help no one. Pam was met with a myriad of “Oh . . . that’s cute”s and “Ah, interesting”s on her first day of showing off her body art (I suppose you could call it “art”, in the sense that it was a literal representation of a high school girl’s blind devotion to her stoner boyfriend).

Tragically, on that very same night when Pam was holed up in her bedroom mutilating her flesh with her lover’s name, Brandon himself was out hooking up with not one but two of the girls on the dance team, both of the girls blondes, but all three participants dumbasses. Pam was informed of Brandon’s infidelity by Alec Mackwood outside of the band room, near the exit door she usually went out to smoke cigarettes after school. Her reception of this information was nothing short of a firestorm. I heard the screams from my locker, screams of surprise, rage, and maybe even shame (If Pam Keith was capable of such a thing as shame).

I saw several administrators take off down the hallway to get a handle on the commotion. Luckily for Pam, she was already bowling out the band room doors and booking it down to the parking lot. Brandon was halfway down, strutting along with his buddies in that type of walking reserved for only the worlds class-act douchebags. You know what type of walk I mean. It took Angry Pammy a little less than 1.4 seconds to catch up to him. I can’t recount exactly what happened, I wasn’t there, but the witness accounts shared the following day agreed on several simple facts.

First, Pam screamed in rage and threw her entire body weight, which was probably 110 pounds, at Brandon’s back, causing him to fall face-first into the dirt.

Second, Brandon turned over and just looked at Pam. He didn’t even bother talking. The guy knew exactly why he was being taken to church. He just sat there, staring up at her, waiting for the punishment that would fit his crime. Yes Pammy, I’ve been a bad boy, I deserve this.

Third, and this was the most discussed of all, Pam screamed some close variation of the words: “I hope those dance sluts liked your micro-penis, fucking deformed freak!”

Fourth, Pam rushed the rest of the way down the parking lot in her flats, skinny arms pumping and black skirt flying. When she got there, she went to work on Brandon’s 2012 black Nissan Altima. She pulled out a switchblade, which she carried on her all the time like most of the kids in her crowd and gave each of his tires a hearty stab. High school administration was just leaving the school and heading towards the scene, otherwise I think Pam would’ve stuck around to carve something crazy into Brandon’s car the way she’d carved something crazy into her own flesh.

Red-faced for eighty different reasons, Pam made her escape in her own deep blue Nissan Altima, the same year model as Brandon’s, which I found to be quite poetic. It truly is a fitting story for a girl whose name is Pam Keith, which is literally a combination of the worst female name and worst male name, in my humble opinion. Note: further investigation confirmed that Brandon Strogie did, in fact, have a micro-penis.

submitted by /u/Maxeyboy12 [link] [comments] via Blogger https://ift.tt/2ERYxKQ

#Blogger #Story

0 notes

hacksnapchat31-blog · 7 years

Text

Roam each account you wanted and spy on their accounts every time you want! That is why destructive hackers pour a large quantity of time and cash into hacking other people’s passwords and breaking into their accounts. It’s preferred that regrettably most of the persons benefit from 1234 and “password” as a password on their email accounts. “Londoner-“ is shorter than “Londonerse” but it’s more difficult to crack thanks to the distinctive character “-“. It is incorporated with the good drawing equipment delivered by Snapchat! It’s agonizing. It’s tirng. You would not want to consume at a restaurant that spends thousands and thousands on decoration, but hardly everything on cleanliness. Folks who want to replicate Hickson’s results really do not even have to compose their very own code, as he was great enough include a hyperlink to the comprehensive code from his website. This solution has been manufactured by these types of a substantial amount of expert and coders who did there amazing to make a merchandise like this. With that explained, we have observed that there is a significant quantity of people who are interested in knowing strategies on how to hack someones Snapchat. Snapchat has no existence at all. Essentially, you could possibly ask them about Snapchat and they're going to reply with quizzical seems. The snapchat password hack wasn’t the initially time social media was compromised and it will most likely not be the last. With this Hack Whatsapp Messages application you can spy on any variety: You can examine the chat logs, look at all of their photos and even produce messages from a number textual content concept tracker cost-free to. Questioning Just How To Hack Snapchat Password to get Free Stone? “Spark” webpage and a person are totally free, you can enjoy, examine, or share them. It wil erase all your filter layering so you can start off anew. "You might be not meant to see it after that. So if you ship an unpleasant picture of your self, no a single can see it for that extensive. So it is really a fantastic issue," she claims. ʻAe, now you can see a snap various times, and unlimited seconds. You can spy on Snapchat activity of a further human being even these days! This does present consumers a lot of advantage given that they can be in a position to achieve entry on to anyone’s account directly from their cellular machine. Snapchat issued a assertion late Thursday expressing it will be releasing a new application shortly that will allow for consumers to opt out of the Uncover Buddies assistance. And for that the privateness of the Snapchat users get disclosed in entrance of the whole environment. Seeking for having a operating snapchat hack tool to down load photos and films or to get passwords? According to a report from a couple days ago, well-known messaging client Snapchat was hacked in which the hackers managed to get their hands on some four.six million person names and cellular phone figures. Down load and use snapchat hack apk down load - snapchat hack cannot connect - Hack Snapchat Accounts Online best on your own accountability. Roam the web right away this is the finest SnapChat Password Hacker instrument you could find on line! Reggie Brown is currently being when compared to your Winklevoss twins and the Fb saga snapchat hacks . Ultimately, Re/code launches and is positive to report on hacks in the long term! Preserving every thing on the snapchat account is simple, you select what you want to help you save and with a easy push of a button every little thing will be saved in snapchat information. All a person wants to take gain of these Snapchat hackers is the username of the focus on whose Snaps they want to watch, and an world-wide-web link. On May perhaps 1, 2014, new informing and aspect go to components were included to Snapchat. Nowadays i am heading to share a really practical program which is employed -With Snapchat Password Hack, you are capable to export all discussions working with any Snapchat Consumer ID that you be sure to. Partaking in right behaviors and safety solutions is critical for each and every person in the stop.

0 notes

universeinform-blog · 7 years

Text

BT chief attacks rampant price rises for TV sports rights

New Post has been published on https://universeinform.com/2017/03/27/bt-chief-attacks-rampant-price-rises-for-tv-sports-rights/

BT chief attacks rampant price rises for TV sports rights

The chief govt of BT has stated that rampant inflation inside the expenses paid for Television sports activities rights must come to an give up, as the telecoms giant takes on rival Sky inside the £1bn-plus struggle for Champions League soccer.

First-spherical bids for Champions League rights are understood to had been submitted this week,

With governing body Uefa aiming for an up to 30% growth from the new deal, to as a good deal as £1.2bn. BT paid £900m to poach the unique rights from Sky under the present deal.

In advance of a decision on the subsequent 3-yr deal, which could be announced as quickly as next week, BT leader Gavin Patterson said that “rampant inflation in sports activities rights” has to stop. Patterson, who has been coping with the fallout from a large accounting scandal that has value the business enterprise more than £500m to date, said that a restricted length of inflation become expected after BT drove a 70% upward thrust in the value of the Finest League rights while it gained a huge slice of rights formerly held by means of Sky to launch BT Sport in 2012.

Speak at the annual Enders Analysis convention in London,

The BT boss insisted out of control will increase in fees could not carry on. “Certainly while we came in [to the market] there could [always be] be some inflation. At some point, it will stabilize … The game marketplace is pretty saturated in phrases of viewers and consumption nowadays. I do wish In some unspecified time in the future inside the destiny we will discover a stable equilibrium.”

The Champions League is taken into consideration to be an essential litmus take a look at as to whether fee inflation will keep at such excessive quotes.

so far each Sky and BT have tried to minimize expectancies of a bidding war. However, in January John Petter, chief government of BT’s client division that runs BT Game, accused Sky of getting too much dominance of sports rights and stated that BT’s preference was to maintain the Champions League. Patterson seemed to minimize BT’s appetite for an at-any-fee bidding struggle for the Champions League, pronouncing that the business enterprise did not necessarily want to regain different broadcast rights to obtain its objectives.

We don’t need to be primary in the sports activities marketplace, However, we do need to be a viable variety,” he said.

Digital Signatures and Suppress-Replay Attacks

Virtual signatures are seen as the most crucial development in public-key cryptography. Sun Developer Community states, “A Virtual signature is a string of bits that is computed from some facts (the records being “signed”) and the non-public key of an entity. The signature may be used to verify that the facts got here from the entity and turned into now not changed in transit” (The Java Educational, n.D.).sudden military attack

Virtual signatures need to have the homes of writer verification, verification of the date and time of the signature, authenticate the contents at the time of the signature, as well as be verifiable with the aid of a third party to be able to resolve disputes. Primarily based on these houses, there are numerous requirements for a Virtual signature. The first of those necessities is that the signature must be a bit pattern that depends on at the message being signed. The next requirement is declared with a purpose to prevent forgery and denial.

It states that the signature must use a few statistics that is precise to the sender. The 0.33 requirement is that it must be fairly smooth to generate the Digital signature. Being fantastically easy to apprehend and affirm the Virtual signature is another requirement. The fifth requirement states that it must be computationally infeasible to forge a Virtual signature, either by way of constructing a new message for an existing Digital signature or by building a fraudulent Digital signature for a given message. The remaining requirement is that it should be practical to store a duplicate of the Digital signature. Many strategies for the implementation of Virtual signatures were proposed, and they fall into the direct and arbitrated Virtual signature approaches (Stallings, 2003).

The direct Digital signature entails handiest verbal exchange among the source and vacation spot parties, and the arbitrated Digital signature schemes include the use of an arbitrator. The direct Virtual signature is created with the aid of encrypting the whole message or a hash code of the message with the sender’s private key

Further confidentiality may be furnished by way of encrypting the message in its entirety and adding signature the usage of both the receiver’s public key or a secret key shared between the sender and receiver. One weakness of the direct signature scheme is that a sender can later deny having despatched a message.

TV Addiction – As Serious As Drug Addiction

Over-attachment to something is an extreme hassle. People are addicted to different things – drugs, cigarette, alcohol, cartoons, and laptop video games are only some matters that Human beings fall addicted to.

No person clearly notion seriously about Tv addiction till recently, while a research determined the feature behavior of men and women addicted to pills and to Tv is the same. That is, folks addicted to Television suggests the equal behavioral patterns like someone who is hooked on pills.watch free tv

Definition of addiction: the incapacity to conquer the dependence on whatever, in spite of significant efforts from one’s part is a dependency. severe withdrawal signs are some other characteristic of addiction.

For instance – a person who is hooked on tablets know he/she need to smash far away from pills, tries in that path, but is unable to free oneself from the influence of medicine.

Exceptional research carried out by using universities from Distinct components of the world endorse the robust parallels between Television addiction and drug dependency.

Researchers studied the brain waves of Human beings, who had been extreme about taking flight from Tv.

The individuals experience most satisfaction whilst making ready for watching Tv – he/she feels satisfied while taking the faraway manage and even as switching on the Television. As soon as the Television application is over, she or he returns to the previous country of tension and intellectual pressure. He/she wants to reach before Tv to once again sense nonviolent.

This experience has sturdy parallels to that of drug dependency, where drug addicts feel disturbed whilst the drug stops operating of their body and they inject greater pills into their blood.

This isn’t always real for all Tv visitors. Folks that watch Television for greater than four hours an afternoon showcase those behavior styles and one-tenth of overall Tv viewers are haplessly addicted to Tv.

The extreme Problems Associated with Television addiction

Tension

Prefers solitude

Turns far from social conditions

Difficulty getting at the side of others

Threat of obesity

Tv addiction in Youngsters

Youngsters underneath 12 years of age are specifically liable to the risks of Tv addiction. They could overlook the entirety about their studies and spend a lot of time earlier than Television.

While parents try to reduce time spent earlier than time, the Youngsters protest and in a bad way. Self-damage and destruction are common.

research have also determined that Children enslaved to Tv mature early and sense helpless before problems.

The Sport of Mountain Biking

The game of mountain biking is one of the first-class lively sports you can do for a number of health reasons and depending on what style of mountain biking you partake in, it can be additionally a wonderful deal of a laugh as well as retaining you fit on the identical time.cbs sports march madness

People are usually unaware of how may also muscle groups you operate when using a mountain bike, and how quickly you can burn calories off using a bike as it could be a first-rate training session for the body.

If you plan on riding move-u. S . along distinct styles of trails, riding a motorcycle may be quite an assignment. So In case you using over a good sized distance up and down hills, alongside slippery unmarried trail it may be very onerous on the legs and the lower returned.

So If you are simply starting to trip motorcycles for the primary time, please do not simply leap on the bike a pass for a 20 mile journey as it can do you greater damage than appropriate. One aspect that is advocated is to do short rides to begin with, perhaps only multiple miles on the way to take no time at all on a motorcycle to get your fitness schooling up to scratch earlier than hitting the motorbike ride.

MTB fitness education

All the principal athletes of The game will inform you that mountain motorbike education is hugely critical and you need to take part in mountain bike health schooling while ever the opportunity arises. Taking place those quick rides will gain you hugely and will forestall you from injuring your self.

Elements of your frame in an effort to benefit from schooling are your legs. Your legs may be the primary part of your body particularly on the way to get tired right away. Constructing up your leg muscle tissue either at the fitness center or one the motorbike will assist enhance your private and bike health quick.

The greater you teach the better your pace and your stamina will improve. Once those have stepped forward you will be able to go on longer and better rides than will enhance your health.

one of the principal blessings of driving a mountain motorcycle on a everyday foundation is that so that you can ride your motorbike you use a number of largest muscle groups inside the frame which in turn will burn off fats quick. This can of course assist you to shed pounds and the extra you trip you motorbike the more weight you’ll lose.

0 notes

oxfordeliterp · 7 years

Photo

CONGRATULATIONS, PEACH!

You have been accepted to play the role of ARIA BELLEFONTE with the faceclaim of CRYSTAL REED. Please create your account and send it to the main in the next 24 hours. I believe you understood very clearly what the core of Aria is made of, and for that, every sentence of your application turned into gold because they described her perfectly. Every word, even those not written about her, turned into an ode so faithful to the character that you convinced me you know her better than I do, so when I am giving her to you, I am giving her wholeheartedly, excited to see where in that darkness you were talking about you are going to take her. I have no doubts that it is going to be an entertaining journey and I want to thank you for your authenticity. Insert here a joke about this application being just peachy.

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

Name and pronouns: Hi lovelies! I’m Peach, and I go by she/her pronouns.

Age: Nineteen

Time-zone: EST

Activity level: I’ve got commitments outside of Tumblr, surprisingly, but especially at this time of the year I’m able to be online quite frequently. At the least, I can make it online for an hour, and should anything truly drastic come up, I’d let you know.

Triggers: N/A - I’m comfortable with just about anything.

IN CHARACTER INFORMATION

Desired character: Aria Bellefonte. Oh Aria, my girl. I guess what drew me to her at start was the fact that Aria is not a girl who enjoys an elitist scene, and not because she finds it an edgier viewpoint or because she doesn’t fit in, but because Aria was born with a lack of a damn. The girl is cold, cold down to her bones, and happiness is a thing that she simply does not care for. She doesn’t know how to register true happiness when it comes her way, and she’s like a child when it does; unable to process when it’s gone. Personally, I like writing the characters who I see very little to almost no glimpses of myself in, which I’d say is pretty much the essence of Aria, perhaps save for a lot of the bitterness we both seem to hold onto. I’m also drawn to very personable characters, but I’m also attracted to characters like Aria who are caustic and look to partying as a means of drowning out the rest of the world. With Aria there’s a very fun balance. Aria is not personable in the slightest, she’s authentically this sometimes lackluster, not-at-all decadent woman and yet she draws people to her like moths to a flame. I find the charm in her due to her comfort in being average: she cares nothing about changing herself. She does not want to be a greater version of herself, she’s content with who she is even if it isn’t what most people label ideal. Aria is dark, to put it plainly, and there is very little light in her. Where most people would seek to start pulling that out of her, I don’t want that. It’s not Aria. I want to encourage that darkness in her further and see how this girl attempts to cover back up all the places the sun’s shone now that her life is back to black-and-white without Elizabeth. Gender and pronouns of the character: Aria identifies as cis female, and uses she/her pronouns.

Changes: N/A. Perfect the way she is.

Traits: + Magnetic : Aria is by no means a people person, but she has a certain charm about her that puzzles even her. She’s not sure where it comes from. Something draws people right to her, maybe it’s the fact she’s always down for a party or it’s her deadpan sense of humor and deprecating outlook on the world. Maybe it’s just the sheer mystery of the girl, and people are desperate to crack the code, find out what makes Aria Bellefonte tick. Aria reels people in whether she tries or doesn’t, and she’s often conflicted on this. While she enjoys reaping the benefits of her charm, what it gets her and what it can get her in and out of, she’s usually less than pleased with the company that it entails.

+ Guileful : While she certainly doesn’t have the book smarts one expects out of an Oxford student, Aria is quite clever when she wants to be. Her wit is impeccable (even if it sometimes straddles the boundaries of honesty and cruelty) and she’s very quick to catch on to things. Just because her grades may not reflect a bright student, Aria knows a lot more than she often lets on and she’s certainly smarter than she seems. After all, she’s made it this far.

+ Imperturbable : Very laid-back and easygoing, not a lot can wiggle its way under Aria’s skin and truly elicit a reaction out of her. Excitement, distraught, expressions, really, are not Aria’s thing. Things don’t get under her skin, because that would insinuate she cared. Aria would much rather go with the flow and ride the waves than attempt to swim against something, and this makes her the girl to either want to be with or want to get away from. There’s not a lot she’ll pass on doing, whether it’s a party or drugs or something else entirely. Looking at her affair with Elizabeth in particular with this trait, where some people would have perhaps demanded more out of that relationship and to essentially force a decision in the age old ‘me or them’ ultimatum, Aria isn’t like that. She genuinely did not mind that she was a secret, kept behind closed doors, because whatever made Elizabeth happy made her happy. Just the fact that she had Elizabeth was enough, and the rest she was willing to work around. There’s really only ever been one instance where Aria’s threatened to falter in this, and it was when Elizabeth was found dead. Even then though, it doesn’t seem to visibly wear at her as far as anyone else is concerned.

+ Candid : Aria will tell you the truth, or at least what she thinks, whether you ask for her to or not. Aria doesn’t believe in wasting time sugarcoating things, padding a blow; she says what’s on her mind and what she means. Some people find this striking honesty in her quite endearing, because it means she has your best interests at heart and does so out of kindness. Other people find her a little too blunt, saying the things that often shouldn’t be said at all due to their harsh nature. Aria simply doesn’t have the energy to waste lying to someone. Who you see with Aria is who you get, plain and simple.

- Cold : It’s short and simple, but there’s not another word that describes Aria quite to a T like this one does. Impersonal, apathetic, and unconcerned with the world around her, Aria simply lacks a care in and for anything. She’s not the nicest person in the world either, and it doesn’t take much to wind up on the end of one of Aria’s scathing comments, or her bad side.

- Subversive : Trouble. The girl is trouble. Running with Aria Bellefonte means you’ve signed yourself up for whatever she feels like, and there’s not much she says no to. She has a taste for the rebellious lifestyle, despite not partaking because she wants to get a message across. She partakes because it bides her time well, and it’s enough to give her substance to where she feels like a person. Destructive (especially towards herself) and quite corrupted, she knowingly drags people right down the hole with her in all of her antics. Even someone like Aria doesn’t want to be lonely forever.

- Detached : Aria’s categorized by her tendency to be very closed-off and withdrawn from the rest of the world around her. She operates on her own frequencies entirely, which some don’t translate as a bad thing, but for Aria, it kind of is. She knows she’s never really been the most conventional human being and is better off shut away inside her mind. It leads her to being alone most of the time because she refuses to let anyone in; she doesn’t think they quite get it, that what they see is what they’re getting and there isn’t anything behind her veneer. There are very few emotions in her bag of tricks. She’s an abyss of a girl underneath her skin and sharp tongue, black nothingness, and hardly any warmth to her. Aria doesn’t let people get close not because she’s scared she’ll run them off, but because she simply doesn’t want them there. It’s a little easier on her deepest level of subconscious to be self-destructive when it’s just her and no other liabilities.

- Vindictive : This is a more recent development in Aria’s personality, but god, has she acquired the taste for revenge. It’s a quiet, concealed thing like most things she feels, but it’s just as dark as the rest of her and is a little more twisted than typical. She’s always been acrimonious and rather unforgiving, but it’s being blatantly vengeful that Aria’s never dipped her toes into. To her, it seemed like another catty, pointless way of wasting her time, but she’s started to see it in a different light, a way that makes sense to her. Aria’s never really dove into her darkness, just sort of treaded in it, but ever since Elizabeth’s passing and her suspicions have started to heighten, she’s been testing her limits by sinking into it and seeing how long she can hold her breath. For Aria, the thought of openly acting on her resentment (especially towards that shady fucker Marc) is growing into a delicious thought in the way some people like how sugar tastes on their tongue.

Extras: MAJOR — You can bet all your money in the world that Aria was undeclared for as long as she could possibly manage, mostly because she’s never given much of a damn about schoolwork. Once she decided though, she picked something that didn’t entirely bore her to death and was relatively easy compared to all the others at fucking Oxford, which puts our girl in Sociology. Her parents went wild over this decision, as Sociology majors can go into government research or private consulting, and thus, keeping the money alive.

PARA SAMPLE

The satisfying 'click’ of the door’s lock turning seemed as if it echoed through the room. A flash of dark hair flipped over a girl’s shoulder, revealing two rows of perfectly white teeth framed by rose lips and a downright wicked look twinkling in azure eyes. It spelled out one thing for Aria, and that was that her death was on its way. That’s all she ever knew, being with Elizabeth; she was going to stop her heart one of these days, and Aria didn’t know when or how, only the ominous looming of the storm cloud on the horizon.

“Finally,” Elizabeth sighed dramatically, the smile still never leaving her face as she peeled away from the door. Her sauntering was slow, towards the bed where Aria had leaned up against the frame, hands holding her up. “We’re alone.”

One of Aria’s eyebrows quirked. “Nice deduction there, Sherlock,” she pointed out, struggling to maintain her expressionless demeanor as the smile started to declare war on her muscles. A typical Elizabeth thing, making her smile even when Aria was positive she was a rare cause of requiring more muscles in her body to conjure a smile than it did to frown. She watched as Elizabeth grew closer, dragging in her movements as a means of seduction. “What are you going to do about it?”

Not as though she’d admit it, but her breathing was beginning to grow labored, pupils dilated in lust at the sight of Elizabeth within fingertips reach with that sinful fucking smile on her face. “I think you’ve got a pretty good idea, Bellefonte.”

Aria couldn’t move her hands off the frame of the bed, couldn’t so much as move an inch as she watched Elizabeth pierce the bubble of her personal space. She was captivating, enough to steal the breath from her lungs, and it seemed by the look on Elizabeth’s face that was exactly what she planned on doing. Palms attached onto the column of Aria’s throat, warm fingertips splayed out along her jawline and cheek that were beginning to set little fires where they touched, and the last thing Aria remembered before closing her eyes was the sight of Elizabeth lunging for her lips.

Intimacy was never something Aria could find herself to be comfortable with, both physical and emotional. She’d never quite understood how girls in grade school were always linking arms with one another walking to class, how people found comfort in holding someone else’s hand, how people would dance on random strangers at parties, how couples could make out and fuck and not be bothered by it. Coming to understand how people could so carelessly and easily toss around that fucking forsaken L word was an entirely different ballgame she chose not to play either. She’d never cared for any of it, really, mostly because she couldn’t find it in her already stone-cold heart to make room for anybody else and their touches or their feelings. There was barely room inside for what little of her she allowed inside her rib cage.

But Elizabeth was like a flower, planting its seeds on the day they’d met and providing its own source of sunlight and water as their friendship blossomed. No one had anticipated the two girls to end up being acquaintances, much less friends, but they had, and they were almost unstoppable. It took a certain type of person to truly tolerate either of them, and it came as no surprise that that type of person was the other. With Elizabeth in her life, Aria finally truly understood how empty she’d been previously. There was always a lingering darkness inside of her, the empty void that kept itself filled, but Elizabeth knew exactly where to start puncturing holes to let a light in. Normally, Aria would have been quick to write it off, say it didn’t suit her, but it had. The friendship had swiftly evolved into the slow burn of whatever their relationship was now and it should have shut Aria off entirely. It didn’t. Elizabeth had grown into a beautiful, wild rose, housing itself in between the spaces of Aria’s ribs, basking in the light that finally knew a way inside, the careful start of the garden of Eden. Laughing, smiling, the teasing and the kisses everything in between, all of it felt right with Elizabeth. It didn’t feel right with anyone but her, and that’s how Aria knew it was something different. She’d even go so far as to describe it as happiness.

She could feel Elizabeth’s fingers start to tangle in her hair as they kissed, Aria’s arms winding around Elizabeth’s waist and pulling her in closer. Times like these were the only time she could physically feel her brain start to short-circuit, every nerve an open ended wire, her heart actually beating in her chest like it was threatening to jump ship at any moment. Elizabeth was soft and sweet, a hint of salt and the rush of adrenaline that came with such a secret, it forced love out of Aria. She couldn’t help but to be fucking head over heels for her best friend. It was simple, it was blunt, and god, did it make her feel alive.

Even if the lock did have to be on the door at all times, and ensuring no one was looking.

“As good as it was in those ideas of yours?” Elizabeth asked when she broke for air finally, breathless laughs escaping her and her eyes still glittering as she teased. Her lips were swollen from the kissing, forehead pressed against Aria's and from the corner of her eye, Aria could see the strap on her top beginning to slide down her shoulder. At one point, she would have run in the other direction at the thought of feelings, emotions, intimacy. Now all she wanted, all she could think about, was having as much of Elizabeth in her system as possible.

Aria merely smirked, hands gripping so tight on Elizabeth’s waist that there wasn’t even room for the hope of keeping distance. “We haven’t even gotten to the good stuff yet.”

#aria bellefonte #accepted

1 note · View note