welp, didn't manage to get everything out before season 10 started, but i gotta post it one way or another so here we go! heard there was a fandom swap game going on, wanted to do a couple promts of my own :D

Ghost division 2 – The belly of the beast

2nd story in what will hopefully be a series. Roughly 6k words. Hope you enjoy

:readmore:

Four missiles streaked through the darkness of space from the canadation destroyer as it smashed through the human battle group.

The warship TDF Glasgow rocked as a missile impacted the hull. Point defence had taken out three others but the fourth slammed into the starboard side.

“Damage report!” the captain shouted as he swivelled his command chair to face the tactical officer.

“The hull plating is scorched and buckled, but no internal damage. We were lucky.” The tactical officer replied, shouting to be heard over the various alarms and beeps in the small bridge.

“We cant rely on luck. If we get hit again its your head!” The captain growled. His hair was cut close to his scalp and a sheen of sweat reflected in the bright yellow light on his dark skin.

Tactical officer Rotchford nodded. Her brow furrowed as she quickly typed into her console. “don’t worry I’m on it, I’ve analysed the firing pattern and I can probably take out most of the missiles, its those fucking fighters and energy weapons I cant do a thing about.”

Just as she finished speaking a swarm of small locust shaped fighters buzzed passed the ship, pelting the armour with energy weapons.

Turrets tracked the fighters, spitting hypersonic tungsten shells. One of the Canidation fighters exploded, the rest of the group took evasive action and continued on the attack run through the human fleet.

The ship rocked again and various alarms clamoured for attention. Lights on the bridge flickered.

Captain Conroy nodded and straightened his uniform. He brought up a tactical display on the console built into his chair.

Five Canidation warships had engaged the fleet of seven Terran defence force destroyers and the humans were loosing badly. The Canidations had the firepower and faster ships. Fighters swarmed over the fleet firing kinetic weapons and lasers, some with great effect.

He watched as another of the fleet exploded. That was the second ship they had lost. The battle had been raging for what felt like hours but in reality it was only 30 minutes. The Canidations had dropped out of hyperspace in this remote system to ambush a Human supply run. The freighters had escaped unharmed but the escort fleet couldn’t leave, not without leaving this Canidation battle group free reign to attack other convoys.

“Shit. That was the Newcastle!” the first officer said “Fleet captain Broadie…he was a good man”

The computer screamed out a proximity warning as another salvo of missiles streaked towards them, but true to her word the tactical officers new point defence programme took them all out. She returned fire with the main cannon as the destroyer elegantly swung around, scoring a direct hit to the Canidations engines. The insectoid ship vented atmosphere and appeared to lose power as running lights flickered out and the ship drifted

The other enemy ships moved towards the remaining fleet.

“Scan that ship, is it dead?” Conroy commanded the science officer as the warship rocked under more impacts

“yeah it appears… Fuck” the science officer said as his console went dark and the lights cut out.

A few moments later the ships emergency power kicked in and the lights came back on, but dull red colour. His console lit up. “ yeah its dead. I think. Scans are all over the place.”

Conroy nodded, as the most senior officer left in the tattered fleet he assumed command.. “signal the fleet. Lets get the fuck out of here...but slowly, I want to draw them away from that damaged ship.” He plotted a course that would take them deep into the Oort cloud of this system.

The remaining ships of the Terran defence force broke off the engagement and retreated. Caught by surprise at the sudden change in tactics, The Canidations stopped dead, recalled the fighters then followed, slowly gaining ground on the slower terran warships.

Glancing at his command console captain Conroy opened fleet wide comms. Signalling the other commanders he said “Listen up people. Once we are in that cloud drop sensor decoys try to buy me some time . I’m going to double back and capture that ship.”

The crew looked at him in astonishment

“Damn” said the first officer. “And I thought today was going to be a quiet day.”

************************************

The war against the Canidations had been raging for 3 months, and the Terran empire was losing.

The Canidations ships were more advanced, and they had the numbers. The only saving grace is that the Canidations were fighting two other larger empires. Humanity, as a relatively new race to the galactic stage, hadn’t been seen as a concern. Almost an afterthought.

No one knew why the war started. Canidations were a reclusive species. They had no trade with the wider galactic community, no embassies, no contact at all. No one really even knew if “Canidation” was their species name. They stayed in their home systems, A group of a dozen or so stars a few light years around the Canadathon, their home world.

A decade ago the Canidations has blasted out of their home system with an over powering military force and attacked a neighbouring world without warning. Everything was a viable target to them and they didn’t take prisoners…or at least they didn’t keep them alive for long.

For ten long years they attacked and destroyed any neighbouring species, expanding their empire. The first races, unused to galactic warfare on such a scale had fallen quickly. Other species had tried to build up their own military force but simply didn’t have the infrastructure in place and couldn’t come close to the Canidations speed of production. It seemed like for every Canidation ship that fell two more would take its place.

The Canidations were an insectoid race, they looked like an unholy amalgamation of a spiders body with a praying mantis torso, like an insect centaur. They didn’t seem to capture any world they won, they destroyed it. Left it a lifeless husk, took any easily accessible resources then moved on like locusts. Maybe they would be back to terraform it later, maybe not. No one knew.

The destruction on such a scale seemed senseless, and completely alien. Not even the best human generals, phycologists or philosophers could come up with a reason for this carnage.

What was known was they had a lot of ships. More than every other military in this region of space combined. They had been building up for decades and it seemed like now was the time to unleash their might.

******************************

The Glasgow had ducked behind a dwarf planet in the Oort cloud and waiting while the remaining fleet had drawn the Canidations away, then used a risky in system jump to get back quickly to the battlefield. They had scanned for survivors of the destroyed Terran ships but unfortunately found plenty of debris but no life signs.

TDF Glasgow slowly drew up alongside the crippled Canidation vessel, comms jammers at full power blocking any communication from the hulk. It had been few hours since the shot had crippled the Bug ship, but it was still drifting without any main power, its engines dark and cooling.

It looked like reserve power had kicked in and there was several Canidations on the main hull close to the breach in what looked like dark space suits, although it could have been their flesh. Conroy didn’t know enough about the species to tell. It was obvious the Canidations were trying to repair the damage.

The insectoid ship was large, at least half again as big as the Glasgow and followed an unorthodox design. It was nothing like the sleek Terran ships, whose lines were reminiscent of the war planes that fought in earth’s skies in the 20th century. Human ships were long and sleek, with swept back retractable wings protruding from the mid section to allow atmosphere flight when fully extended. Canidation was bulky, and looked like a flattened pinecone and close range scans showed it be highly modular.

The bridge appeared to be at on top of the bulky front section. Conroy guessed below this would be weapons, crew quarters and the like. Engineering and the ships drive core, and sub light engines must be located in the tapering end. Cannons clustered around the front with turrets in two rows along the top and bottom of the ship.

Conroy assumed there would be about 60 or so crew on board. Terran destroyers had a crew of 30 plus 10 marines. Not good odds Conroy thought.

“Easy to build, quick to swap different sections out if needed” Science officer McCallum said as he looked over the data.

Conroy nodded to Commander Paulson, the first office. “Pauly, get a boarding party ready. Find any intel you can get your hands on but don’t take any stupid risks. Focus on engineering, medical, ship deployments, shit we can find to kill these things.” Looking at McCallum “what do they need?”

McCallum brought up all the information he had on Canidations, which wasn’t a lot.

“Scans show gravity and life support is still active and the ship has atmosphere, although I use the term loosely. Their air is made up of 30% oxygen, 15% Co2, 10% Hydrogen sulphide, the rest is nitrogen, water vapour and trace gasses. Average temperature is roughly 30 degrees Celsius and humidity is close to 70%. Gravity is low, roughly 0.6G. So basically your walking into a hot sweaty hellhole that’ll smell like Satan’s ass. Enjoy” he finished with a laugh.

Paulson looked at the captain “Gee thanks Boss, you give me all the best jobs. Breathing units all round then.” He saluted as he left the bridge.

“Mac…what killed this ship? Did we get a lucky shot?”

McCallum looked over his reading for a few moments. “Yeah, very lucky. Looks like there is a weakness around the main engine core on this ship. Plasma exhaust has weakened the hull armour in a small area right above the main power linkage, its little better than paper. Must be a design flaw…if that shot had hit even a few meters on either side it wouldn’t have made a dent.”

Rotchford laughed. “luck had nothing to do with it. It’s pure skill.”

She grinned

Conroy rolled his eyes.

“Yeah yeah if you say so” he said grinning. Conroy didn’t mind a bit of banter with the bridge crew. He felt it build camaraderie and they all worked better as a result.

Turning to Macallum he said

“Deep scan this bitch, I see what else you can find, anything that’ll give us an edge.”

From over the other side of the bridge the tactical offer said “Captain, I think I’ve found something too. The missiles on the ship are armed.”

Conroy looked over “So?”

Rotchford brushing her brown bangs that had escaped from the severe bun on her head said “Our missiles auto arm a second after launch to prevent any accidents, these appear to pre arm before launch, Probably as soon as they find a hostile ship. Once direct hit could detonate the entire missile battery. The armour is thick but the launch tubes are vulnerable . “

“Comms” Conroy said excitedly “Tight beam the rest of the fleet and let them know what we’ve found…might give them an edge.”

Turning back to tactical

“Why would they do that?”

Rotchford shrugged. “not sure. It does mean the missiles can be fired much closer then we can shoot. Out missiles travel so fast that by the time they arm they’re a couple of hundred kilometres away, makes them useless for close engagements. By pre-arming them they get around that problem. Makes it almost impossible to shoot them down when the bugs get in close.”

Minutes passed slowly. Soon the boarding party was on board a small ship to ship shuttle and on route to dock with the crippled ship.

The shuttle did a quick fly over the damaged section and fired small arms at the Canidations working on the damaged hull, Killing the repair team. The aliens magnetic grips kept the bodies stuck to the hull like bugs splattered by a windscreen.

McCallum looked up “I’ve found something else captain, it wont help us now but I think we can take advantage of it.”

He put his display on the main screen, All eyes turned to it.

“I thought about using some kind of plasma weapon to weaken the armour of the whole ship, and that’ll probably work, we don’t use plasma tech, but I’m sure the weapons experts back home can build something.” He took a breath “Anyway, that got me thinking, Plasma is basically really hot ionized gas. Its expelled as exhausts right away as too much heat inside the ship it bad. As you know its almost impossible to loose heat in space, so we use active cooling systems to…”

Conroy interrupted before McCallum could go into a lecture on the finer points of starship heat management. “Get to the point”

Mccallum looked sheepish “Sorry sir, anyway, the Canidations seem to use radiator panels, they’re well armoured but vulnerable to excessive heat. A focussed laser beam could overload them. If they cant loose heat they’ll cook inside the ships.”

“Well done Mac, get everything we’ve found so far and bundle the data ready for transmission back to HQ”

Minutes dragged as Mccallum compiled the data.

Everyone was on eggshells, watching the boarding shuttle latch on to the Canidation hull and begin cutting through. Tactical constantly scanning for any Canidation ships that might be inbound. Conroy wondered how the rest of the fleet was fairing. The TDF ships were more manoeuvrable than the larger Canidation warships, so as long as they kept in a dense part of the Oort cloud, dodging comets and dwarf planets then the TDF ships should have an advantage.

*****************************

Inside the shuttle the atmosphere was tense. Paulson looked over the assembled combat team. All had breathing units over their lower faces. The units would filter out the harmful gasses and reduce the oxygen pressure to something breathable, but as they weren’t full space suits or fully sealed Paulson knew the stench would get through, he grinned inwardly he hadn’t told the team what the Canidation air was like, he wanted to see the reactions.

The ten member boarding team all had dark grey combat armour, and each carried a small side arm and a combat knife. Eight also carried an assault rifle with enough ammo to take on a small army, the other two combat engineers carried various tools and computer equipment. Their mission was to hack into any systems they could find and mine it for data.

The shuttle bumped into the hull and latched on. A magnetic tube made an air tight seal around the hatch. It opened to show a sold hull. The engineers immediately started cutting to gain access. It was slow going. Armour that can withstand heavy ship weapons wont easily fail to small plasma torches.

Sargent Waltham stepped up next to Paulson. “We’re ready to go” She said coolly.

Paulson nodded. “Get in and secure the area. Set up fire lines kill anything that’s got more than two legs.” He said to Waltham.

She was tall, blonde, very pretty in hard way. People, especially men, tended to underestimate her due to her looks, thinking she was just a made up barbie doll. Paulson had thought the same thing once, until she kicked his ass in hand to hand training. The first round he went easy on her and he was flat on his back in 5 seconds. The second round he went all out, and to his credit, he managed to last a full 7 seconds before she had him pined, face pressed against the floor and his left arm twisted up his back. Waltham, like all the other,s had earned her place in the combat team, but unlike the men she had to continually prove she deserved to be there. This constant striving for perfection had made her one of the best solders Paulson had ever worked with.

The thick hull armour fell inwards with a heavy thunk. The sound echoed around the shuttle. The stench of rotten eggs filler the small enclosed space and everyone wrinkled their noses.

“For fucks sake… is this ship full of farts?” Jones, the lead combat engineer said.

Paulson grinned. “Ok move out. Slow and steady, I don’t want any fuck ups.”

The team moved slowly into the alien vessel. The interior was dark, smelly and hot, lighting was a deep red that cast odd shadows. Paulson didn’t know if this was normal or if it was due to low power.

Waltham took her place first in line as the engineers cleared the hull and opened a portal to the interior of the ship. She directed one of her team , Ramerez, a young marine on his first away mission , hang back and guard the shuttle just encase they needed to make a quick exit.

Ramerez took position just inside the the shuttle door, he pulled a couple of boxes containing emergency supplies across the entrance and dug in.

The rest of the team followed her lead, with Paulson acting as rear guard, scanning the corridor behind him with a quick practiced eye.

One of the marines whispered in a low voice “damn, this is weird.”

“what is? Looks like a normal ship corridor to me” Paulson said

“sir...that’s what I mean. I expected...well dirt..or tunnels like that old movie ‘Aliens’. You know, the one where the dildo bursts out of some guys chest and all these Marines hunt it down? I mean they’re bugs for Christ’s sake..but this just looks normal.”

Paulson shook his head.“Lay off the old horror flicks. Keep it together”.

Looking at a handheld scanner Jones said “looks like there might be a room down the corridor to the right, I’m reading power spikes, it could be a place I can hack into there systems.”

The team crept inward, the low gravity giving them a bounce to their steps. They were searching for a room with a computer access, but all the could see were long featureless corridors. The came to a junction and as they passed a blast of plasma energy almost took Walthams head off. She Pulled back just in time, lightning quick reflexes saving her life. As it was the plasma shot singed her combat helmet.

Risking another blast, Waltham popped her head around then quickly pulled it back. Three Canidations waited around the corner, plasma rifles at the ready for another shot.

Pulling a flashbang from her belt she leaned out and expertly tossed he weapon into the centre of the group, a second later a loud BANG and a FLASH of bright light lit up the corridor. She could hear a smattering of legs as the Canidations fell back. Her and two of her team ran around keeping low and opened fire. The sound of the assault rifles sounded odd in the dense air. the Canidations tried to return fire but there shots went wide, scorching the metal bulkheads, obviously still blinded by the light. The skirmish was over quickly.

The team crept up slowly to the dead aliens. One in the was headless. Its body twitched, a dark yellow fluid pumping from its neck. The other two were still. Red faceted eyes that took up most of the head were dull and lifeless. Mandibles closed tighter than a vice.

Bullets had ripped the skinny top part of one in half, and the others larger thorax between the spiders-like legs was riddled and leaking the same yellow fluid.

The team looked at the corpses, they were…creepy. They unnerved the humans just looking at them. Jones knelt down and pointed something out. “Look, this one has a couple of cybernetic legs. That one has a cybernetic head…That’s so weird. Gives me the creeps.”

Paulson looked. “Why weird?”

“Think of what this means. They use medical tech to repair wounds. Replace missing limbs like we do. You don’t think of bugs caring for individuals I guess. I assumed they would be like a hive, like ants or termites just mindless soldier’s, disposable and replaceable. Maybe they’re more than that.“

One of the other marines, Patel a tall solid build man with a cold gaze said in a whisper “They’re like spiders, I fucking hate spiders. Normal spiders are bad enough but these are super sized fuckers with guns. “

He shivered as a cold chill ran down his spine. Taking one last place at the dead Canadation he walked slowly past, rifle ready for another attack.

As the team moved on one of the corpses stood up with a clatter. It swiped at a passing trooper with its upper limbs, razor sharp claws sliced across his face and chest, cutting flesh and the scoring deep cuts on his combat armour. He fell back shocked. The headless alien thrashed about, seemingly attracted to the noise the shocked humans made. It tried to reach for another one but a burst of fire from Waltham’s rifle tore through its thorax . the alien twitched again then fell back. She crept up, gun ready and kicked the corpse. No reaction. It was truly dead.

Patel looked a mess, his face had been cut to the bone, but he’d live. Two others helped bandage him up.

“fucking fuckitty fucking spiders! “ he shouted and kicked the corpse, holding his wounded face and blood soaked bandages.

“get back to the shuttle” Waltham commanded him.

He nodded, his face screwed up in pain, The bandages soaking with blood. He got to his feet and headed back the way he came.

Paulson looked at jones “What the fuck?”

Jones shrugged “I’m no medical expert, but I guess a head shot wont kill them. Maybe they keep their brains in there ass or something, I guess the head is just for eating and seeing.” Pointing to the Canidation with the cybernetic head “Maybe loosing the head for them is just like loosing an eye for us? Or maybe they’re like cockroaches. We should drag these things back to the shuttle. Medical back at HQ would have a field day.”

Paulson nodded “team, forget headshots, aim for the centre mass.” He directed a couple of team member to take the most intact body back to the shuttle “Keep it under guard…just in case”

The diminished team made there way deeper into the ship. Paulson was aware of the time he was taking, he knew The Glasgow couldn’t wait forever, but he wanted more than a few dead bugs. Soon they came across an empty room. The door was closed but a kick and a shove and it slid back into the wall. The team entered. Looking around, there was a lot of electronics that Paulson couldn’t guess the function off. Jones quickly set up his scanner. Pulling open a panel he found circuit boards. After quick scan he attached a lead from his scanner to one of the chips.

“If i can hack this, this should give me access” he worked quickly The rest of the team took up positions around the door. Paulson moved to the back of the room and signalled Waltham.

“thoughts? He said after she walked over

Waltham shrugged “they don’t seem too tough. Decent weapons though.“ she pointed to the plasma rifle she’d captured.

“hows things between you two?” he nodded to Jones

Relationships were against regulations but as long as it was discreet no one really minded. It could be lonely in deep space.

Waltham smiled. “he’s sweet, like a puppy. Always eager to please. But utterly fearless too. He could be a great soilder, but likes his gizmos too much.”

“Yeah jones is a good one.” Paulson agreed. He’s been friends with jones for years. They grew up in the same town went to the same high school, and went through training together.

Minutes ticked by. Jones had attached a large data cube to his scanner. He came over to the pair while the data downloaded “. I can copy the full ships hard drive. Shouldn’t take long. There’s not a lot of data, mainly seems to be the ships opperating system. Seems pretty basic. I did find something interesting though, I found ship schematic. We’re not far from a path to fire control. Its down the end of that corridor out there. “

Paulson thought for a second. “no, we have enough we need to get back”

Just as he said that his communicator beeped. It was the shuttle “Sir, get back here we need to go! A Canidation warship is on approach, ETA 7 minutes!”

“Ok people pack your shit up, we need to get out of here! Double time!”

The team grabbed there gear and quickly made there way back into the corridor. Several canidations ran down the steel hallway, the hack had triggered some kind of security protocol. These Canidations didn t have weapons but they moved so fast in the lower gravity that the quickly closed the distance, soon it was a melee, claw against fist.

****************

Alarms cried out for attention on the bridge of the Glasgow. A Canidation warship was closing in.

“eta?” asked Conroy. His calm voice a counterpoint to the frantic activity on the bridge.

“roughly 7 minutes until weapons range. I’ve contacted the shuttle”. maccalum replied.

Conroy nodded. Looking at the helmsman her said “keep that bug ship in between us. We’re smaller and so keep us in its shadow and hopefully they won’t get a weapons lock.”

Nodding, through helmsman fired up the thrusters.

“’ll try time get a target lock on the missile batteries.” Rotchford reported as she programmed the ships turrets.

Captain Conroy starred at the main screen, his fingers tapping a rhythm on the arm of his command seat.

Paulson tried to get a clear shot as a canidaton reared up on its four rear legs. It brought its full weight down on Waltham. Its mandibles opened and snapped closed right over her head. Only her quick thinking and combat helmet saved her from decapitation. She ducked her head and trusting the hardened carbon nanotube and ceramic construction she head-butted the bug right in its open mouth. Mandibles crunched against the helm. The force of through blow and the weight of the bug staggered her for a second, but years of hand to hand training came to her and with a twist and a flick she grabbed the alien and slammed it against the bulkhead. The lower gravity and adrenaline giving her almost superhuman strength.

Her combat knife flashed on the low light as she stabbed the mantis like torso. There was resistance then with a crunch she forced the blade through the carapace. The bug shuddered and wrenched. Flailing its limbs then it was still.

The skirmish was over as quickly as it started. Looking around Paulson shouted “sound off”

A chorus of voices said “here” or “i’m good”

A few troopers took minor injuries but no fatalities.

They sprinted down the corridor. The sound of gunfire brought them up short. The bugs were trying to capture the shuttle. Paulson knew if they lost that they were dead.

A scream echoed down the steel corridor. One of his men had fallen. Canidations pressed on.

“We need a distraction” Paulson shouted to Waltham over the blaring alarms.

“i have an idea. Hold here for a few seconds”

With that she sprinted back the way she came. Moments later an explosion rocked the ship. The lights and gravity cut out, then seconds later they came back on. The unprepared soilders hit the ground but were quickly back on there feet, the Canidations were not as lucky, they were a tangle of legs and claws further down the corridor.

Seizing his chance, Paulson shouting a battle cry and his boarding party fell in the bugs from behind. The battle was short and brutal but they pushed through just as Waltham returned. Her hair was burned and armour scorched.

“What the fuck did you do?” shouted Paulson

“I overloaded that plasma rifle and tossed it in the fire control room. I think we need to get out of here, that room is burning and it’s right next to the missiles”

Once everyone was on board the hatch slammed shut and the shuttle detached then raced back to the Glasgow, just as another explosion ripped through the Canidation warship. A series of smaller explosion’s rocked the ship them with a blast like a supernova the power core blew up. The shuttle was caught in the fireball but escaped with minor damage.

Paulson looked at his and bruised team as the shuttle pilot plotted a course back to the Glasgow.

Paulson pushed one of the Canidation corpses to the side, making down room in the small shuttle. He sat next to the body of a young man, almost a boy. Ramerez. It was his first tour, he was 18 and fresh out of boot camp. Ramerez had taken a plasma blast to the chest. His armour was burned through. Mercifully he had been killed instantly.

************

Conroy watched as the Canidation ship exploded. The shuttle streaked towards the hanger.

“well... shit” he said “get the shuttle on board and get ready to bug out”

calls of “aye” and “yessir” Echoed around the bridge..

The Canidation warship closed in, spitting fire and death at the Glasgow. Point defence destroyed the incoming missiles but the ship rocked from impacts

The Glasgow returned fire, turrets pounded the underside of the Canidation ship as it passed overhead passing through the expanding could of gas and debris.

The helmsman kept a steady course until the shuttle was back in then started evasive manoeuvres, he would have to hold the ship steady for a few moments to allow the hyperdrive to spin up, but the Canidation ship was not making it easy.

“Shuttle is on board. Prepare for Jump in 3...2...1...”

The ship lurched to the side and spun almost 90 degrees, crew members were thrown around the bridge like sticks caught in a hurricane. Alarms blared.

The main lights were down, red emergency lamps cast an eerie glow. Groans came from the crew

Rochford pulled herself back into her seat. Blood running from a head wound. She checked her console “sir..the hyperdrive core has been hit. We’re venting plasma and atmosphere...main power is down. Weapons down....the Canidations are coming around for another pass...”

Before Conroy could respond an explosion tore through the bridge as a missile impacted the armour surrounding the command center.

A ceiling panel that had been knocked loose earlier in the fight fell with a resounding crash pinning Conroy to his command chair and knocking him unconscious. Bones snapped under the force of the impact.

Rochford as the most senior officer left standing opened ship wide Comms “all hands. This is commander rochford. The captain is incapacitated abandon ship. I repeat abandon ship”

She moved as quickly as she could to try to help Conroy, Macallum was at his side trying to move the panel. “mac..leave him. We need to go...” she grabbed his arm “come on...move it soldier” macallum looked at the damaged viewscreen. The Canidation ship was baring down. Any second now it’s main cannons would finish the job. They were out of time.

White hot plasma blasts leaped from the Canidation vessel tearing across the cold black darkness. Promising death to the Glasgow.

A flash and a massive lurch pulled maccalum and Rotchford off their feet, but it wasn’t a weapon impact. It was the lurch of a gravity field forming a few miles away as a ship dropped out of hyperdrive.

A dangerous and potentially fatal move – a single miscalculation could have dropped the new ship right on top of them - but it saved the Glasgow. The rest of the fleet, the few ships that remained had jumped back to help. The TDF New York had jumped In front of the plasma blasts. Taking the hit that would have finished the Glasgow off. It opened up with its main cannons, rail guns blasting the armour above the Canidations missile batteries. Another Terran defence force ship TDF Cardiff jumped in behind and opened up on the bugs with everything it had. The Canidation vessel was powerful, but it couldn’t withstand the combined firepower of the vengeful human warships.

Explosion and explosion, hit after hit. The Canidations withered under the combined firepower and with a final flash it vanished as it’s fusion plant exploded.

The TDF Glasgows communication system beeped for attention. Maccalum moved slowly across

“This is captain Yoshimoyo on the New York. Prepare to receive medic and engineering teams. Your information won us the day Glasgow. All Canidation vessels have been destroyed. This is the first human victory in this war...”

“This is science officer McCallum. “thanks for the help. That was a risky move I owe your helmsman a beer. Captain Conroy has been injured. We don’t know how bad, the ship has taken heavy damage.

*****************

Weeks later Captain Conroy stood in front of admiral Wong.

Conroy had spent most of the time unconscious. His injuries sever, but with advanced medical skill, talented doctors and a dash of luck he had made a full recovery.

“Captain” the admiral began “I’m glad to see you’re back on your feet. I’ve out an official commendation for yourself and your entire crew. The information you fought so hard for will prove invaluable in this conflict”

Wong continued “The data contained ship specifications, technical manuals, training documents and recent fleet movements. With that information we’ve managed to push the Canidations back in a number of theatres , you and your crew have saved thousands of human lives. We all owe you a debt captain.”

“Thank you sir...i'm eager to get back to the Glasgow sir, to get back in the fight.”

The admiral shook his head

“I’m afraid not Conroy. The Glasgow was heavily damaged and will require months of repairs and refit. We can’t have a seasoned crew out of action for so long. You and your crew are being reassigned.”

Wong passed a pad to the captain

“Our newest, most powerful warship. The TDF Lucifer. You’ll be part of a task force – the ghost division. The Canidations are throwing more and more ships against us, and while we’ve slowed the advance to a crawl we are still loosing. You’ll go behind enemy lines and fight a guerrilla war. Do everything you can to bring the bugs down. Everything is a viable target, including the Canidation homeworld. Teach them to fear the wraith of Earth.”

End

THE・Rarest Bakugou

Given Bakugou-kun's description as a "juvenile delinquent" (Horikoshi sensei uses the term 不良少年, or furyou shounen, meaning juvenile delinquent boy), it's expected that he wouldn't conform to standard. So obviously, it's not possible to find Bakugou-kun wearing a tie properly................

What is up with this perfectly tied nonsense right here?!

Bakugou-kun, I thought I knew you!!! THE LIES! THE BETRAYAL!!!

But, it's probably just a fluke. You didn't mean it, right Horikoshi-sensei?

WTF?! WHY?!!! Horikoshi-sensei?!

Yep. Contrary to expectations, Bakugou-kun wearing a tie correctly only ranks at Ultra Rare status: difficult to find, but not impossible.

So, what's rarer than a tie-wearing Bakugou-kun? Go Beyond, Plus Ultra Rare Bakugou!

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In fact, it's even harder to find Bakugou-kun wearing a tie improperly. Given proto-Bakugou's loose tie design, I would have expected that to be the likelier delinquent-esque tie option. But I've only seen Horikoshi-sensei draw him like this once:

(Horikoshi-sensei's one year celebration illustration. This is still fairly early in the publication.)

On top of that, Bakugou-kun consistently wears his uniform tie-less and with at least one button undone on his shirt collar. His pants are always slung low on his hips and legs bunching up at his feet (except when he had to wear jeans for Best Jeanist). You can even see panels where Horikoshi-sensei drew in the rips at the hems near the heel where they drag on the ground.

So why the inconsistency, Horikoshi-sensei? I see you over there, stop pretending you didn't notice. I know you're paying attention.

Horikoshi-sensei gave proto-Bakugou a loosened tie, so what is the reasoning for taking Bakugou-kun's tie away?

Some No-Tie Theories

Fan Theory #1: HE DOESN'T KNOW HOW

//Like Midoriya-kun, Bakugou-kun came from a middle school with gakuran uniforms. They never learned how to tie them. Midoriya-kun messes up his tie, while Bakugou-kun doesn't even bother to try.//

I actually think this is the least likely reason. Bakugou-kun was designed to be a naturally talented genius. I think this applies to anything he wants to do. If he does something, it's always perfectly done.

Bakugou-kun can (and does if you look above) tie it perfectly when necessary.

CONCLUSION: If Bakugou-kun doesn't do something, it's completely out of personal preference or because he doesn't see a reason to.

Fan Theory #2: REBELLIOUS NATURE

//Bakugou-kun is a delinquent and maintains that image because he thinks it looks cool. Or maybe he is rebelling against fashion designer parents. Either way, because of his family background he knows how to tie a tie, but wants to be a rebel.//

I'd give partial points for this one. I'm pretty sure he wears his pants loose at least partially because he thinks it looks cool. However, Bakugou-kun's parents were noted to be designers and not specifically fashion designers.

Despite appearances, this is the kid that sleeps at 8:30pm, doesn't break school rules, and yells at his friends for smoking.

He zips up the collar on his gym track suit all the way. Both the summer and winter versions get the same treatment. He doesn't feel the need to "make a statement" by wearing his track uniform incorrectly. Outside of class, he can and does sometimes wear his track jacket unzipped, but during class he always wears it properly.

So then why does Bakugou-kun refuse to wear the band T-shirt and Christmas party Santa outfit? Because he isn't cooperative. In Ultra Analysis, his Cooperativeness Stat was the lowest rank: E.

CONCLUSION: Bakugou-kun may be non-conformist and uncooperative, but he isn't a rebel.

Fan Theory #3: TRAUMA/PTSD

//This is one of the more popular theories. Between Dabi grabbing his neck, the Sludge Villain and being restrained at the School Festival, our boy has been through the wringer. As a result, he just doesn't like stuff around his neck because it gives him anxiety.//

The Western Fandom is definitely concerned about the mental health of the kids. But I don't actually think this is the reason. Not that I don't think they all need some therapy and self care, especially right now, but there just isn't evidence for this specific trauma in Bakugou-kun.

He wears scarves and even turtle necks without a problem.

On top of that, Bakugou-kun ALSO unbuttoned the top button of his shirt and gakuran in middle school; even from before the Sludge Villain incident. There isn't any evidence Bakugou-kun changed his dressing habits due to trauma. He wore a scarf to the entrance exam for UA, too.

CONCLUSION: Bakugou-kun has ALWAYS worn his shirts with the top button unbuttoned.

These 3 theories are inadequate, too. Even if they did explain the reasons Bakugou-kun doesn't wear a uniform tie, they don't factor in the reasoning for why he DOES wear his other ties properly sometimes.

HC#1: Bakugou-kun's preference

Bakugou-kun doesn't seem to care about his image and how "extras" see him. Even during the press interviews after his hero debut, he wore the same style of open collar look. He's not shy about being nude or taking his shirt off.

But what he hates is being uncomfortable.

He is "explosively brawny". Just look at how thick Bakugou-kun's neck is when compared to Midoriya-kun's. It isn't just that Midoriya-kun is supposed to be scrawny, but also that Bakugou-kun has a thicker than average neck.

Bakugou-kun doesn't like to button up his shirts all the way because it's uncomfortable. It's reasonable that he zips his track suit and everything else up because those are looser at the neck or made of stretchier materials.

As for why he doesn't wear the uniform tie at all... Don't forget Bakugou-kun is a perfectionist and a bit of a neat freak.

He always tucks his shirt in. For the band performance he wore a collared black dress shirt. From what we saw of his room, it's minimalist and clean. I don't see him wanting to look like a slob.

A sloppy loose tie would probably irritate him more than just not wearing it (which is even funnier when you think about Midoriya-kun's chonk tie. It probably makes him want to strangle Midoriya-kun, or maybe just tie it himself...)

Bakugou-kun has difficulties compromising when it comes to his high standards. So if he has to wear it, it's going to be either 0% or 100%.

HC#2: Explosiveness

Why draw Bakugou-kun with either 0% tie or 100% tie? If Horikoshi-sensei is going for a delinquent image, wouldn't the 50% tie option make more sense?

Taking a look again at Bakugou-kun's profile page, Horikoshi-sensei describes him to be explosive in every way. That includes his whole body being "explosively brawny", but also adds a note that he looks slender in clothes.

Horikoshi-sensei put an effort to make every element of Bakugou-kun's character in some state of either fully compressed or explosive.

His slimming clothes, general appearance and even his speech patterns are highly compressed (blunt/terse) and loud. The extremes of his attitude are compressed too; if Bakugou-kun is not loudly raging, then he's quietly observing.

This contrast is key to his character. You can't explode if you aren't compressed first. It's supposed to be shocking to see how brawny he actually is under his slenderizing clothes. And I always feel shocked whenever I see this kid compressed into a tie.

HC#3: Deku & Kacchan

These two are set apart from the class by design and very much on purpose. Horikoshi-sensei designed them to be at opposite ends of the same spectrum.

If Bakugou-kun has muscular arms, then Midoriya-kun needs muscular legs. If Midoriya-kun buttons up his shirt all the way to the collar, then Bakugou-kun's collar has to be loose. Their designs reflect their connection.

So if Midoriya-kun has a poorly tied tie, the opposite of that is either non-existant or perfectly tied. If it's perfectly tied, he'd just blend in with the class.

The no-tie option just makes more sense.

Plus Ultra Rare Bakugou

Horikoshi-sensei only ever draws Bakugou-kun with a tie in specific scenarios. Costume events that require the neck tie as part of the costume or "fancy" events where everyone is in formal wear. And even in those, Bakugou-kun manages to not wear his tie 90% of the time.

So, I just imagine that when Horikoshi-sensei makes Bakugou-kun wear his tie, he's super grumpy! Just look at his face in every illustration he's wearing a tie in. He's probably hot, uncomfortable, and really not enjoying himself at all.

Ultimately, the "Plus Ultra Rare Bakugou" is a Bakugou-kun who wears the tie and SMILES while doing it.

(Yes, I know that's NOT actually a tie. Shut up Bakugou-kun. You're only smirking in this one because you won the Popularity Poll for the 5th time in a row...)

(Well that's random, you say? Welcome to my blog. Considering the stuff going down on canon, I figured I should give fans, and myself, a break from angst to talk about something silly.

Please note that this applies only to the manga. I've found that the anime isn't quite so strict about how Bakugou-kun looks.

Regarding the headcanons, I just want to clarify that everyone is free to think whatever they like. I enjoy all headcanons and support your right to have them.

I wrote this a while ago and then debated posting it because it's such a huge meta about... Bakugou-kun's tie. I had regrets. But now it's become my new years post. Regrets were for 2020, it's already 2021!

Demons out, fortune in!!! I know it's not setsubun for another month, but 2020 was such a demon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!)

Right of Law, Section XXVIII

(The tension mounting in Civitas Magna finally comes to a head.)

“Testing, testing…”

Zaekura looked up to flip a switch on the radio.  “Hear you loud and clear.  Can you read me?”

“Copy.  Alright, we’ll get this one ready for transport.”

She paused to rub her eyes before turning back to the microscope.  Studying the way the sample moved, she flipped through one of the three open notebooks laid out around her, read over a snippet of text, and then reached for a rack of droppers filled with various solutions.

“Testing, testing…”

“Back at you.”

“Copy.  Packing now.”

Keeping her eye firmly on the lens, Zaekura mixed one tiny droplet into the sample. As it began to react, she quickly switched the dropper to her other hand and began writing down the results, slowing only when the reaction appeared to stabilize.  “No way…”

“Is everything alright?”

With a minor start, Zaekura turned to see Charla there.  “Oh!  Sorry, didn’t hear you come in.”

The radio buzzed.  “Testing.”

Zaekura flipped the switch.  “Yeah, you’re good.”

“Testing?”

“Yeah, copy, I can—”

“Testing?”

“...But, you can’t hear me.”

“Alright, so this one’s busted…”

Zaekura put away the dropper and scribbled something down before turning back to Charla.  “Sorry.”

“I just wanted to check on you,” Charla said.  “You shouldn’t work yourself too hard, Zaekura.”

“I’m not, really.”

Charla crossed her arms.

“Come on, testing the radios is mindless, I have to do something else in the meanwhile.”  She went back to the microscope.  “Plus, I think I…”

The sight that greeted her was unrecognizable.

“...Nevermind.  It’s degraded.”

Zaekura sighed loudly as she sank into her chair.  Charla drew closer, placing her hands on her shoulders and saying, “One of the blood samples from the mutated Vorox?  Are you any closer to curing it?”

“Closer...yes.  Done...no. I’ve tried a few different ways to revert the mutation, but they keep spiraling out of control and wrecking the entire sample.  It’s a really delicate balance I’ve got to find, and even with the notes from the Great Beings’ lab, I just can’t find it…”

The radio buzzed.  “Testing, testing.”

Zaekura started to reach, but Charla hit the switch for her.  “Ah, thanks.  I read.”

“Copy.  Back on track.  Could you hear me before?”

“Yeah, I could.”

“So it must be the receiver...”

Zaekura leaned her head back, now able to look up at Charla.  “Alright, maybe I should take a break.”

“I agree,” Charla said.  “Even genius minds need rest.”

“Pff, genius…”

“Well, you are.”

“Depends on how technical you want to get.”

“And if I don’t want to get technical at all?”

“Then I guess I’m a freaking genius.”

“Hehehe…”

They sat in silence for a moment, broken by another radio test.  After a few more moments of thought, Zaekura said, “Hey, Charla...was it wrong of me to send Hewkii to Civitas Magna?”

Charla tilted her head.  “He agreed to go.  In fact, I recall him being quite fond of the idea.”

“Yeah, but with how dangerous it is, part of me kinda feels like I shouldn’t have mentioned it to him in the first place.  Like maybe I planted an idea I shouldn’t have even considered.”  She averted her gaze.  “I was thinking...tactically.  Realizing that scares the heck out of me.  Putting someone’s life in danger—the lives of that whole team—shouldn’t just be a tactical decision.”

Charla waited a moment.  “You’re being too hard on yourself, Zaekura.  I—”

The radio cut her off.  “Testing, testing.”

She flipped the switch, Zaekura saying, “Uh, yeah, copy.”

“And copy.  Alright, that’s all of them.  I’ll get to work repairing the defects.”

“Okay.  Thanks, Nuparu.”

As Charla turned the radio off, the chamber door opened to allow Krika inside.

“Oh, Krika,” Zaekura said, craning her neck.  “What—”

“Vamprah’s in Civitas Magna,” he said.

Zaekura’s eyes shot wide.  Scrambling out of her chair, she said, “Bad, that’s bad, that’s really bad, is everyone ready?”

“Currently marching—I hope you don’t mind.”

“Nope.  Come on, fill me in on the way.  Charla, uh…”

The Rahkshi nodded.  “I will see to it.”

“You’re the best.”  She rushed out the door right on Krika’s heels.  “Oh, I really hope there’s a chance to stop this all from going horribly, horribly wrong…”

***

Dekar locked the door behind him, immediately checking through the blinds. Hewkii flopped onto one of the beds, saying, “Ah, excellent job today, team!  We made it to the finals!”

“So we should start preparing for whatever comes next,” Dekar said.

“First, we rest.  No point in exhausting ourselves further.”

“I’d argue there’s a point to it.”

“Just a little rest, Dekar,” Hahli said.  “It’ll make it a lot easier for us to think.”

Dekar shook his head.  Before he could voice his thoughts, something began to shimmer in the corner of the room. The three Toa leapt to their feet and grouped together, and soon the light faded, revealing two new beings standing there: one a Rahkshi with blue and green armor, the other…

“Onewa!”  Hewkii came forward to embrace the newly-arrived Toa.  “It’s so good to see you!  How have your carvings been coming along?”

“There’s no time for that, Hewkii,” Onewa said, gently pushing him back.  “We need to be quick.”

“Wait, you know him?” Hahli asked.

“I apologize if I startled you all, but this was the only way to speak with you safely.  I’m from Nynrah—I’m here as part of a strategy to further Zaekura’s cause. This is Nik, one of Bitil’s Rahkshi.”

Nik nodded in greeting.  Hewkii said, “Ah, I’m relieved to hear you’re on our side, elder.”

“Of course!  They destroyed my home, killed my neighbors, all for…”  Onewa sighed.  “No, now’s not the time.  Listen: there’s at least one more Makuta here than we were expecting to find, so we came to be sure you have a way out if things get dangerous.  All of you, hold out your hands.”

The three of them complied, Nik stepping forward to drop a pellet into each of their palms.  Dekar turned it around in his fingers, saying, “I guess they really want to be sure we don’t talk…”

Onewa smacked the side of his head.  “Oh, just listen!  Nik has the power to create these—if you’re in danger, crush it, and you’ll be teleported to his side.  We’ll move out of the city, get as far as we can, and hopefully we’ll all be able to make it to Ga-Koro before anyone can catch up to us.”

Hewkii grinned.  “Don’t worry, Onewa: Zaekura isn’t far away.  Worst comes to worst, we’ll be able to fight our way out.”

“Hmm...I certainly hope so.  Just be careful, Hewkii.  All of you. I hope to see you again.”

With that, Onewa and Nik vanished.  Tucking away his pellet, Hewkii said, “There we go: a plan!  I knew things would work out.”

“They haven’t worked out yet,” Dekar said.  “But, I guess this is better than anything we could have reasonably expected…”

Hahli stared at her pellet.  “I didn’t want to interrupt, but...isn’t he the one from the footage?  The one Vamprah attacked?”

Hewkii looked up.  “...What?”

“You haven’t seen?  Just a bit ago, while we were playing, footage began to circulate of Vamprah attacking a Toa of Stone—I’m fairly certain it was Onewa.”

Hewkii took a moment to process this.  “I see...but he looked fine, though.”

“I suppose,” Hahli mumbled.  “It’s just…”

Dekar stepped forward.  “Even if it worked out, it still happened, Hewkii.  Even if we succeed in broad terms, that old Toa got hurt to get us there—and plenty more might still get hurt in the process.  I won’t argue whether the end justifies the means or not.  But at the very least, you should acknowledge those means for what they are.”

Hewkii stared at him.  Turning to Hahli, he said, “Sorry, what were you going to say?”

She fidgeted.  “Well...I was wondering how the people are going to respond to that footage.  When I looked into it, it seemed like it was already getting a lot of attention; at a certain point, the Makuta and the Great Beings will have to respond to it somehow…”

“As if we weren’t already standing in a powder keg…” Dekar said.  He jumped as the roof creaked.

Hewkii said, “It...it’s going to be alright.  Preparations are in place—the plan will work.  Worrying will get us nowhere.”

Dekar shook his head.  “You just can’t stop being optimistic, can you?”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“Not always.  But at a certain point, you’re just turning a blind eye to what’s in front of you.” Dekar headed for his bed.  “I’m tired of trying to convince you.  When it does finally hit you, all I ask is that you learn from it.”

The conversation ended, leaving the room quiet as the other Toa also sat down to rest.  Hewkii tried to relax, but there was something nagging at him, something that just wouldn’t let go.

Will our success...be built on sacrifice after all?

Up above, the roof creaked again as some invisible body leapt off from it.  It flew to the center of the city, phasing through the wall of Yarion’s tower and finding its way to a chamber that had been fashioned into a forge.  Once inside, Vamprah finally allowed himself to be seen, and waited patiently as Ekimu hammered away at his anvil.  When he finally stopped, Vamprah telepathically communicated all he had heard.

“I see,” Ekimu said.  He then turned back to his work.

At his side, Ahkmou said, “I knew those Nynrahns were up to no good.  We have to take care of them at once!”

“No,” Ekimu said.  “What if someone records it again?  It’d just put more fuel on the fire.  The finals are tomorrow—once those are done, you can do what you want with this city.”

“O-Of course, Lord Ekimu.”

The Great Being paused briefly.  “Hate to admit it...but it might already be too late.  I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.”

Ahkmou shifted as Ekimu continued working.  “Um, if I may, my lord...I find the news that Zaekura is closer than we expect to be rather troubling.  Should we prepare our forces?”

Using his tongs, Ekimu picked up what he was working on: a mask of some kind, similar in shape to a Hau but stretched back, and with additional ridges to its design.  “That’s what I’m working on.”

Ahkmou shuffled back, trying to get as far away as possible from the red-hot mask. “Oh!  I, um, I see...”

Ekimu turned.  “Eliminator.”

The Odinan’s face appeared from the shadows.  “Yes, my lord?”

“I’ll set up a teleportation jammer.  You just focus on your targets.”

“Thank you, my lord.”

“Ahkmou.”

The Toa jumped.  “Y-Yes?”

“There’s a stasis pen on sublevel 15.  Take its readings and report back.”

“Right away, my lord!”  He was gone in seconds.

“Vamprah.”  He examined the still-searing mask, confident the mute Makuta was listening.  “Go get Yarion.”

***

An army at their backs, Zaekura, Krika, and Bitil approached the gates of Civitas Magna flying the flag of Peace.  Clicking his claws together, Krika said, “Must we waste time like this?”

“You’re the one always going on about our public image,” Zaekura said.

“Hrm...I suppose…”

“Don’t lose your nerve now, Krika,” Bitil said.  “The escort we sent will surely keep your artistic followers safe.”

Krika grumbled.  Gesturing to the flag, Zaekura said, “Guys.  Come on.”

They stopped some distance before the wall.  A few guards could be seen poking around, so Zaekura cleared her throat to address them.  She had barely formed a syllable when she saw an Eccentric Boulder being flung over the rampart.  Bitil carried Zaekura back while Krika dealt with the incoming projectile, and with a sigh, the Glatorian nodded.

“Let him know.”

Bitil nodded, turning briefly to the west.  Then, setting Zaekura down, he raised his sword, gave a shout, and led the army in a charge.

Up ahead, Krika vaulted over the wall and fired a spread of light bolts, breaking as many of the defensive weapons setup there as possible before dashing further in.  He cut through the streets blindingly fast, making a beeline straight for Yarion’s tower, stopping only to dodge as something swooped down at him.  Vamprah shattered the concrete where he landed.

“Oh, good—just who I was hoping to see,” Krika said as he took up a battle stance. “I hear you’ve been harming my citizens, Vamprah.  Did you really think I would permit that?”

Vamprah bounded forward a short distance.  When he landed, his long tail whipped forward, forcing Krika to dodge low as Vamprah rushed him.  Krika extended spikes from his fingers, interlocking Vamprah’s own talons, and then grabbed his tail as it retracted, keeping him in place for a point-blank Power Scream.  Vamprah flitted back and shook his head, gliding circles above Krika as the other Makuta watched him closely.

“Nothing to say for yourself?  I suppose I can talk enough for two.  There’s no shortage of things I can say about a monster who preys on the weak and defenseless, twisting it into some game for his own sick pleasure!”

Vamprah scattered small plasma spheres as he circled.  Upon hitting the ground, each sphere expanded exponentially—Krika had to move carefully to weave through the blasts, leaving him little room to dodge as Vamprah sniped him with bursts of laser vision.  He rapidly extended two spikes in an attempt to puncture Vamprah’s wings, but his foe turned intangible at the last second.

“Even if I felt up to it at the moment, trying to reason with you would be a waste of time.  You’ve always loved the hunt, haven’t you—the thrill of violence?  You’d never turn down the chance to hunt new prey!”

Vamprah flapped his wings, amplifying the resulting gust with his Vacuum powers.  Krika flung himself clear, raised his hands to fire back, and then realized Vamprah was already on top of him.  The flying Makuta wrapped his claws around Krika’s head, slamming him into the nearest building, dragging him up its surface as he flew higher; it took Krika a moment to clear his mind enough to magnetize Vamprah’s wings closed. Vamprah angled his fall so that Krika would hit the ground first, and Krika focused his Elasticity powers into his fist.  The impact hurt, but his affected hand bounced up with just as much force, injecting it into Vamprah’s neck and successfully knocking him back.  Krika was too dazed to aim, so he released a volley of Light bolts where he guessed Vamprah would be.

“You know, Gorast may have the worse reputation, but I’ve always felt you were secretly the most cruel of us all.  How eager were you to tear citizens asunder?  I’ll bet you jumped at the order!”

Clarity returned to him.  Vamprah, however, was nowhere to be seen.

“Phenomenal.”

Krika quickly scanned the surrounding area.  It was then he noticed the familiar form of Makuta Yarion approaching the battle.  “Ah, Yarion. Lovely to see you again—it’s been too long.  I wish to have a word with you as well, but…”

He trailed off as Yarion came closer.  Scuffs and grime covered their usually-pristine armor, and in place of their Kakama they wore a mask that looked almost like a Hau yet subtly different. They carried two identical weapons, multibarrel firearms that resembled miniaturized Cordak Blasters, but Krika realized in horror that the guns had been grafted directly into their arms.

“...Goodness.  What happened?”

Yarion silently raised their arms.  The blasters spun to life, releasing a torrent of fireballs that shredded through the nearby buildings.  Krika contorted his body, narrowly avoiding their attack as Vamprah came back into view. He tried to get clear, but flaming rubble was now raining all around him, making it even more difficult to find a safe place to stand for more than half a second.  Vamprah’s attack was precise, nailing him in the chest with laser vision.  Krika stumbled back into the line of fire.  The blasts were just hot enough to overpower his heat resistance, but he managed to free himself quickly...only to be knocked flat by Vamprah’s tail.

As he lay there, Krika grunted.  “Perhaps going ahead was hasty after all…”

While this was going on, the rebel army managed to take the city wall, incapacitating the guards there and making their way inward.  A steady stream of resistance came to meet them.  The Rahkshi busied themselves clearing a path while Bitil stuck close to Zaekura, keeping his eyes peeled; he said, “We just need to reach the arena.  Once we have the team, we pull out.”

Zaekura watched the faces of the people lining the streets.  Many fled in fear, and those that remained looked similarly terrified, watching the Rahkshi march with wide eyes from as far away as they could.  She felt a knot in her stomach.  However, something about it alarmed her.

It’s not as intense as before.  I still feel sick, but not as much.  Why is that? Am I getting used to this?  Should I get used to this?  If I do…

A large screen mounted on a building up ahead displayed a news bulletin, a De-Matoran warning citizens of their arrival and urging them to clear the way. Zaekura’s next step came slower, but then she pushed it from her mind, facing forward again.

“So you’re the one causing trouble.”

Zaekura flinched.  Looking back up at the screen, she now saw an image of Ekimu looking down on her.  Her emotions began to run far deeper.

“You showed up awfully quickly.  From that direction…Artidax?  Is that where you were holed up?”

She said nothing, silently hoping and praying that Charla had finished the evacuation by now.

“The tournament’s almost over.  Can’t this wait?”

Zaekura took a deep breath as discreetly as possible.  “Hey, we offered to negotiate.  Your guys attacked us on-sight.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”  He turned. Zaekura could see the kolhii field behind him, the Hydruka doing their best to take control of the game.  “Guess that prize mask will go to waste.  Unless I can find someone else to give it to.”

“Please, listen to me.  We don’t want anyone to get hurt.  We’re just here to ensure that our people are safe—isn’t that what we all want?”

Ekimu turned back to her.  “What I wanted was to see the tournament.  Looks like neither of us are leaving here happy.”

Zaekura took a moment to glance at the observers: hearing Ekimu’s words, they began to mutter amongst themselves, a confusion subtly taking hold of them. She snapped back as the picture changed. The camera swiveled to show a large cube of blue light, its surface wavering like a stasis field; Ahkmou stood next to it, holding a small electronic tablet.  Zaekura couldn’t make out what was inside.

“Open it,” was all Ekimu said.

Wincing slightly, Ahkmou hit a button on his tablet.  Instantly, the cube disappeared, and a horde of creatures came spilling out.  She couldn’t quite get a good look at them—they skittered past the camera so quickly, obscuring the lens—but soon she heard Ahkmou scream.  Seconds later he came back into view.  Zaekura’s blood froze over.

One of the creatures had knocked his mask off, and now clung to him in its place using its four long, hook-like legs.  Its body was flat and wide, covering his entire face, sporting bony ridges that formed a hideous semblance of a face, complete with two large holes that ran all the way through its body to show Ahkmou’s empty eyes behind it. At his chin were the creature’s own, smaller eyes, as well as sharp fangs that clicked hungrily.

“You don’t want anyone to get hurt?” Ekimu said.  “Let’s test that.  My Skull Spiders can take total control of anyone able to wear Kanohi.  What’ll happen if a bunch of innocent civilians go to fight your army to the death?”

The knot in Zaekura’s stomach grew bigger, reaching out to the rest of her insides and twisting them all into one massive pit of disgust.  “You…!  That’s despicable!  It’s bad enough you don’t care about these people, but you’re even willing to use them like this?!”

“You’ve gotta take full advantage of the tools available to you.  Otherwise, you deserve to lose.”

“Shut up!  People aren’t tools, you sack of trash!  I—”

The screen shut off before she could finish.  Zaekura snarled, and then turned to the Rahkshi.

“New plan!  We’ve gotta contain these Skull Spiders!  Let’s go, let’s go!”

The army stampeded forward.  Zaekura was too focused on their goal to notice the faces of the civilians changing.

“That rotten, no good, heartless son of a—”

Bitil tackled her to the ground.  A bolt of energy lanced through the air, narrowly missing her and blasting apart a nearby wall.  Getting up slowly, Bitil stared into the shadowed alley the attack had emerged from, seeing a purple-skinned face watching him back.

“Ah, great, what now?!”

“Lady Zaekura,” Bitil said, “leave this one to me.  Since I’m able to use Kanohi, there’s a chance I’d be more of a liability where you’re headed anyway.  And there’s something...strange about them…”

Zaekura was back on her feet instantly.  “They’re all yours.”

She rushed off, the face turning after her but stopping as Bitil extended his sword.  “Weren’t you listening?  I’m your opponent.  Makuta Bitil; to who do I owe the pleasure?”

“...My name is Eliminator,” he said.  “I’m who the Keeper sends when other Odinans fail.”

Bitil tightened his grip on his sword.  “Another Odinan...what terrible timing…”

“I’ve never failed to complete a mission, Makuta.  Give up.  If you turn the Glatorian over now, I can put in a good word for you.”

Bitil thought for a moment.

“See?  You’re smart enough to know when you’re beat.”

“You misunderstand.”  Bitil got into a battle stance.  “I was just thinking...the fact that you’d make such an offer must mean you’re afraid to fight me.”  He grinned. “That bodes well.”

Bitil moved to teleport up to his foe.  However, the teleport failed, and he stumbled long enough for Eliminator to strike him with a bolt of energy.  The attack flung him back with tremendous force, half-embedding him in the nearest wall and dazing him for a moment.  When he could think clearly again, Eliminator was nowhere to be seen.

“No you don’t!”

Bitil shot into the alleyway in search of his opponent.  The street was unusually dark, but he was able to spot a crackle of energy up ahead that gave him a target.  Throwing one hand forward, Bitil willed a wall of solid light to appear in Eliminator’s path, but to his surprise, the Odinan continued to barrel forward, darkness seeming to wrap around him, and smashed through the barrier effortlessly.  Bitil grunted.  Activating his Kanohi, he called upon the speed of the Phase Dragon and managed to get in front of Eliminator, knocking him down with a punch wrapped in Light.

“You aren’t getting away that easily, Odinan.  Now--”

Eliminator bounced back with a shadow-cloaked uppercut.  The blow made Bitil writhe, but he stayed on his feet somehow.  Eliminator said, “You’re not worth my time, Makuta.  I’m here to capture the Glatorian first and foremost.”

The alleyway grew darker.  Eliminator took a step forward, energy dancing along his talons, and Bitil held his sword defensively.

“Then again...the shadows really want to watch you die…”

Bitil fired beams of Light from his eyes, landing a direct hit.  Eliminator brushed off the attack.  Dodging the retaliation, Bitil said, “This doesn’t make sense...Shadow and Light are opposites: my attacks should be far more effective!”

He slashed.  Eliminator held one hand out, a force field appearing at his command to block Bitil’s sword.  “Ah yes...that is how it works for your kind.”

Eliminator kicked the instant he lowered his shield.  Bitil avoided direct contact, but the shadows followed Eliminator’s movement, effectively extending his range and leaving a stinging wound on Bitil’s torso.  Backing away slightly, the Makuta raised his sword again, keeping his eyes locked firmly on his target.  He could see now that he had underestimated Eliminator.  If he wanted to survive this battle, he knew he could not do so again.

53 Bederia?

It was all because of that blasted photoshoot.

The day had started normally enough. With the Gym Circuit was currently closed, Bede spent the morning training in Ballonlea Gym. In the afternoon, he headed over to the Battle Tower in Wyndon for a quick sparring session. 

Originally, Leon had requested it as a favour, to keep the wits of his tower trainers sharp, he said. But Bede found that he liked the chance to fight without the limits of the Fairy Gym, especially since it allowed him to use Reuniclus and Gothitelle again, so he started visiting at least once a month. 

Today had been a good day, with him perfecting a new combination attack between Rapidash and Gothitelle. He cleared his battles, healed his Pokemon, and prepared to head back to Ballonlea for dinner.

Only to come dashing back through the staff entrance of the Battle Tower, because—-

“OVER THERE!! HE’S COMING OUT!!!“ 

"BEDE!! LEADER BEDE!!!”

“OH MY GOSH IT’S HIM!!”

“PLEASE CAN I HAVE YOUR AUTOGRAPH??" 

"CAN I HAVE YOUR SHIRT??”

“LEADER BEDE!! MARRY ME!!!”

What was that crowd of girls screaming his name doing outside?

Bede knew he was fairly popular, enough to be recognised on the streets by aspiring trainers and gym challengers, or lovers of Fairy Pokemon. But this level of reaction was usually reserved for people like Leon, or Raihan, or Nessa. 

Not him.

He ought to be flattered. But while a part of him did feel pleased, the other part had been stunned at the size of the crowd. The two seconds he spent at the door was enough for him to catch sight of a line of security guards struggling to keep them from rushing into the tower.

It was, frankly speaking, terrifying.

“Bede? Is… something wrong?”

Bede froze, then closed his eyes. Of course, she would be there today of all days. Slowly, he turned around.

Gloria was standing just outside the door to the ladies’ locker room. She was dressed in casual clothes, with a fluffy white sweater over her dress. Her soft brown hair looked damp, as if she had just come out of the shower. 

His heart did that stupid jumping thing it always does nowadays at the sight of her. Angrily, Bede drew himself up and folded his arms. 

“Oh, it’s… nothing. Just a group of enthusiastic fangirls,” he said with a careless laugh. “You know how it is. People are dazzled by our magnificent battle skills.”

“But… Wouldn’t they normally look for you at Ballonlea Gym?” Gloria asked. 

Bede frowned. She had a point. He didn’t advertise his visits to Wyndon Tower, after all. 

“They’ve been there for the last hour or so,” one of the Tower staff chimed in helpfully from behind the counter. “Apparently, someone saw you enter the tower earlier, and tweeted it, so they all gathered outside to wait for you.”

That would explain half of the mystery. “But… why, all of a sudden?” he muttered. 

“I think this might be the cause.” Gloria had taken out her Rotom phone, and was staring intently at it. She held it out to Bede. On the screen was a digital edition of the latest InStyle Galar magazine, just released several hours ago.

And his face was on the cover.

For the longest time, Opal had refused to let Bede do a proper shoot, despite the many sponsors that sent them requests. Ballonlea’s Gym Leader was an artist, she proclaimed, and something as mundane as product advertisement was far beneath him. 

Not that he didn’t get any photos taken. Bede posed dutifully for magazine interviews, the way Opal trained him to. Dressed in his gym uniform, with Hatterene beside him, and a charismatic smile upon his face. 

But he didn’t do a full photoshoot until two months ago, when Opal’s Kalosian friend Valerie came to visit, and designed a whole set of fairy-themed clothes for Bede to wear. So he went through nearly 20 glittery outfits, and posed with his team, who also got to dress up with glamorous accessories. Hatterene, in particular, absolutely loved it.

Now the photos were out, and obviously, the public loved it too. Enough to come rushing to ambush him, in hopes of getting his autograph. Or his shirt. 

Gloria was smiling as she swiped the screen to look through the shoot photos. “I think I understand why they’re so excited,” she commented. “These photos are wonderful. You look amazing!”

Bede felt his face reddening at her words. Curse his pale complexion. 

“N-Naturally,” he said. “I am Ballonlea’s Gym Leader, after all.”

He had no illusions about his physical appearance. He knew, without a doubt, that he was quite good-looking, with his pale blond hair and piercing violet eyes. He was tall, with slender limbs often described as ‘elfin’. Opal had stood him in front of a mirror often enough to point out what he had (“Magnificently clear skin!”) and what he needed to work on (“Mascara, child!”). He received occasional fan letters every now and then extolling his beauty.

But if he had known that he would get hunted by a frenzied horde just for showing some skin, he would never have agreed to that shoot.

The panic within him was rising, and he took a few gulps of air to steady himself. Gloria was standing right there, and he would rather die than let her know that he had no idea how to deal with a crowd of screaming fans.

How was he going to get out of here without being mobbed?

“Take off your shirt,” Gloria said.

Bede blinked.

Once.

Twice.

“P… P… Pardon me!?” he stammered. What had she just said?!

Gloria pointed at his gym uniform. “It’s too recognisable. We’ll have to disguise you to get you out safely,” she explained.

“O-oh. Yes. Of course.” His heart, which had seemed to stop at the idea of Gloria wants him to take his shirt off, began beating erratically again.

He had to focus. The most important thing now was to get out of the tower. 

Bede paused, looking uncertainly at the sling bag he was carrying. He didn’t have any other clothes with him that didn’t scream Fairy Aesthetic. 

Gloria undid her backpack and dug around in it. Once she had a strange array of fabric in a pile, she held them out to him. “You can put these on instead,” she said.

Bede raised his eyebrows. “You do realise that I’m a lot bigger than you?”

Gloria grinned. “Luckily for you, these are more or less free-size.”

—

Twenty minutes later, Bede slipped out of the staff door with Gloria, dressed in a Pikachu T-shirt and a dark blue drawstring wraparound skirt. A bright red bandana was tied around his head to flatten and hide his white curls, and a pair of large, iridescent sunglasses sat on his nose.

The last straw? Gloria had to hold his hand to guide him, because there wasn’t enough light at night for him to see out of the sunglasses.  

It was humiliating. Utterly humiliating. So humiliating that his face was burning and his heart was beating like a Rillaboom. 

On the plus side, the crowd of fangirls ignored him as he walked past them, continuing to stare hopefully at the door. He saved his complaints for when they were out of sight.

Of course he had to complain. He didn’t like this. Not one bit. 

“I look ridiculously stupid and unfashionable,” he grumbled.

“It’s not that bad,” Gloria said. “More importantly, we managed to get away without anyone recognising you.”

Bede came to a stop, glaring at her. She turned to look at him, her eyes wide and innocent. So obviously straight-faced that he just knew, deep inside, she was laughing at him.

“You picked these clothes on purpose, didn’t you?” he said accusingly. 

Gloria giggled. She squeezed his hand gently. For a moment, she stood close to him, her bright brown eyes turned up to him, her lips curved in an affectionate smile.

“Don’t worry, Bede,” she said. “You’re still beautiful to me.”  

There was only one thing he could say to that.

“O-of course I am!" 

Gloria laughed, and led him towards the Corviknight cab stand. As Bede glanced sideways at her, one thought repeated itself over and over again in his mind.

You’re beautiful, too.

I wrote a oneshot for @adrinetteapril!

Day Six: Aspik and Marinette (several days late lol). Words: 2,528

Summary: A scheme to stop Adrien from figuring out Ladybug’s identity turns into Marinette offering to help Aspik impress Ladybug.

XX

This was a strategic move, not a social visit, Marinette reminded herself, taking a deep breath or two (or several) to calm the familiar swell of nerves in her chest. Now that she was the new Guardian, she had promised herself to stop pursuing Adrien to keep her focus on keeping Paris safe... but that didn’t stop her stomach from tying itself in lovesick knots at the thought of him.

In the weeks since Miracle Queen’s defeat, there had been a sharp uptick in akumas. It helped put people (and Marinette’s own frayed nerves) at ease to give some of the newer heroes regular patrol times. This way, the superheroes could get more familiar with their powers, and the rest of the Parisians could feel a bit safer. Normally, this would have been Viperion and Rena Rouge’s day to patrol, but the Couffaines were in the middle of a well-deserved family vacation. And as it happened, their timing suited Marinette just fine.

The other day, Adrien had run into Marinette walking out of an alleyway that Ladybug had jumped into moments earlier. He hadn’t directly asked her about it as she sputtered something about their latest physics assignment, trying to make him think about anything else, but she could see the gears turning in his head. She needed to throw him off. 

So today, Ladybug had asked Adrien to take another turn with the snake miraculous while Viperion was indisposed. She had stationed him for patrol in the same neighborhood where Rena Rouge would just happen to be perfecting her Mirage by creating visions of Ladybug jumping around the nearby rooftops (at Ladybug’s friendly suggestion), and Marinette would just happen to pass by and offer him a macaron at just the right time for him to see that Marinette and Ladybug were in two different places in the same time and therefore, totally not the same person. It was the perfect plan, really.

And if it also just happened to have the effect of Adrien being impressed by her baking skills, well, that wouldn’t hurt anyone either.

She was surprised to find Aspik pacing back and forth on the bridge where she had left him, shifting his harp from hand to hand.

”Excuse me?” she said, approaching him. He started to wave when he caught sight of her, then promptly dropped his hand, apparently remembering that he wasn’t supposed to know who she was. Adorable!

”Hi,” he said. “Something I can help you with?”

”Oh, no,” she replied. “I just wanted to give back a bit to the heroes of Paris.” She held out the box of macarons she was carrying, inwardly thrilled that she had gotten this far without stammering. “Want one?”

”Thanks! I wish more people showed appreciation with sweets.” He went straight for the passionfruit macaron, as she’d known he would. She couldn’t help smiling fondly.

”I’m Marinette, by the way. I don’t think I’ve seen you before. Usually, Viperion patrols around here on Tuesdays.”

”He wasn’t able to come out today, so I’m covering for him. I’m Aspik.”

He was smiling, but there was something in the tightness of his face, the hunch of his shoulders that told her something wasn’t right. Not to mention, the way he’d been pacing before he saw her. He had been all confidence and charming jokes when she (as Ladybug) had been showing him where to patrol an hour or so ago. Had something happened since then?

“Um, is everything okay, Aspik?” she asked carefully.

His smile faltered. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

Marinette had spent enough time surreptitiously staring at Adrien to know when he wasn’t being truthful, but she couldn’t force him to open up if he didn’t want to. It was better not to pry, so instead, she pressed the pastry box into his hands. “Why don’t you take the rest of these? I already gave some to Ladybug and Rena Rouge, and I don’t feel like carrying them all the way home. Anyway, enjoy being super handsome -- I mean -- enjoy being a superhero!”

She turned to leave, letting her bangs fall over her face to hide her blush. She had been doing so well -- forming complete sentences and everything! And then, she had ruined it. She cringed at herself, hearing Tikki fail to stifle a giggle inside her handbag.

“Hey, Marinette?”

She turned to see Aspik staring after her, looking unsure. “I can’t possibly eat all of these by myself. Can you stay and have some with me?”

This is strategy, she reminded herself sternly, you’re not here to flirt. Even if knowing that Adrien wants to spend more time with you is the most amazing feeling in the world.

She all but skipped back across the bridge to him.

They leaned against the stone guard rail, placing the pastry box between them. “You seem to know a lot about superheros,” Aspik observed.

“My best friend runs the LadyBlog, so I learn a lot about them from her,” Marinette explained (maybe a little bit too quickly). “Plus, ya know, uh, sometimes I give sweets to them when they’re patrolling.”

“That’s really cool of you.” He offered a perfect smile, but didn’t look at her. She followed his gaze upward to where the Mirage-Ladybug was jumping around some nearby rooftops. Alya really was getting good with the fox miraculous, her Mirages getting more detailed by the day.

“What’s Ladybug’s favorite kind of macaron?” Aspik asked.

“Um… strawberry? Or chocolate. Or maybe marzipan. It depends on the day, really,” Marinette concluded, quickly grabbing several more from the box when she realized that the little stack she was already holding matched up exactly with Ladybug’s preferences. “Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” he replied. Was his face turning red, all of a sudden? Oh God, were her macarons giving him some sort of allergic reaction? Marinette was rapidly beginning to panic when Aspik changed the subject: “So, in your expert opinion as the Lady Blogger’s best friend, do you think Ladybug and Chat Noir will ever get together?”

“Oh, um…” she fumbled, surprised by the question.

“I mean, I know that they have to keep it professional and focus on fighting Hawk Moth, but do you think she’d give him a chance after Hawk Moth is defeated?”

His voice was light and casual, but he had started to fidget with his harp again. Why did he care about her and Chat Noir? “I don’t know, maybe. They seem good together when they fight,” she replied, hoping she sounded like she wasn’t close to the situation.

“Yeah, but is he too goofy for her? I mean, obviously his jokes are fire, but do you think Ladybug wants someone more serious?”

“No way,” she snorted, forgetting herself for a moment. “Chat Noir is a goofball, but that’s part of his charm. It doesn’t mean he’s not an awesome superhero and friend. And yeah, occasionally he makes a joke that’s actually funny.”

She stopped short. His face was definitely turning red. For a second, she wondered if he was choking on a piece of macaron and felt a heady thrill at the thought of putting her arms around him to attempt the heimlich.

“Oh yeah,” he said, grinning down at the sidewalk, “Chat mentioned you two have hung out once or twice. He thinks you’re awesome too.”

What? When had Chat and Adrien talked about her? And more importantly, how was Ladybug going to casually ask Chat what Adrien had said about Marinette? She anxiously chomped into another macaron, nearly knocking the whole box off the ledge with her elbow. Aspik managed to catch the box before the macarons met a watery end and handed it back to her, chuckling. For the first time since she had arrived, he seemed at ease.

“I’m glad you came by today, Marinette,” he said. “You made me feel a lot better.”

Her face burned from his compliment. She stayed quiet, knowing whatever she managed to say at this moment wouldn’t be coherent.

“Can I tell you about something in confidence?” said Aspik. 

She nodded, still slightly reeling.

He continued, “I was really nervous about doing this patrol today. I used the snake miraculous once before, and… it didn’t go great. There’s a reason Viperion usually has it. But I didn’t want to say ‘no’ to Ladybug.”

“Why not?” asked Marinette, snapping back to reality. “I wouldn’t -- I mean, I’m sure she wouldn’t have been mad.”

“I know. It’s just that, I really respect her. A lot. I didn’t want to disappoint her.” 

“So… you don’t like being Aspik?”

He sank down to sit on the concrete, back still leaning against the stone guardrail, still watching Mirage-Bug traverse the rooftops. It answered her question.

Marinette sat down beside him, guilt gnawing at her. “I’m sure Ladybug wouldn’t ask you to, if she knew you felt that way.”

He shrugged. “I pretended it didn’t bother me when I was with her earlier. I want her to feel like she can rely on me.” He glanced briefly at Marinette, seeming to weigh how much he should tell her, then he added, “I sort of have a crush on her.”

It was a moment before Marinette could think in words again, a moment more before she remembered how to speak. “Oh. Um. Uh, how much of a crush?”

“A little one. Just, like, a normal celebrity crush.”

Marinette stared at the bricks of the building opposite them, still processing this new information. Aspik apparently took her silence for disbelief. He drew his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on top of them. “I’ve thought about what we would name our kids,” he admitted. “Is that pathetic?”

“How many kids?”

“What?”

“What?” Marinette forcibly dragged herself back into the current moment. “Nevermind, forget I asked that! Anyway, that’s not so bad... Listen, there’s this boy I know, and I don’t think he feels this way about me, but… I’ve designed outfits for our entire wedding party. So, at least we’re in the same boat. Right?”

She had no idea how many of those had come out as real words. Had they just both confessed to each other? Did it count if she was the only one who was aware of it?

Beside her, Aspik cracked a smile. “Maybe we are in the same boat. It’s nice to have some company there.”

No wonder he was so curious about her relationship with Chat. He was trying to feel out the situation. Jeez, it was so insensitive and dumb of her to ask him to patroll like this. She was never asking him to use the snake miraculous again, that was for sure. But she couldn’t tell him that right now, and suddenly, all she wanted in the world was to cheer him up.

“Maybe I could help you impress her,” she offered. 

He lit up. “Really? How would we do that?”

She hadn’t thought that far ahead. So much for strategy. “Well, Alya told me Ladybug is really impressed by, umm…” --it needed to be something that wouldn’t put too much pressure on him, since he was already stressed-- “uh, dancing.”

“Really? I’ve never heard that before.”

“It’s, um, from an unpublished interview.”

Marinette really hoped that sounded believable. It wasn’t exactly a lie about the dancing -- their class had just finished up a ballroom dancing unit in their P.E. class. Even Marinette, with her legendary clumsiness, had loved it… and she would be lying if she said she hadn’t stolen a glance or two at Adrien during those classes, amazed at how he seemed to be a natural at everything he did. She continued, “Yeah, so maybe next time you see her, you could tell her you’re really good at--”

“Can I borrow that for a second?” he interrupted, pointing at her phone, which was resting on her knee. She nodded and nudged it toward him, thanking her lucky stars she had changed her background picture to one of her and Alya the week before. He tapped on the phone screen for a moment, before a tinny melody started floating from the speaker. Marinette recognized one of the sweeping classical songs they had danced to in class. Aspik set her phone down gently on the sidewalk and stood up, holding a hand out to Marinette.

“Let’s do it,” he said.

Marinette didn’t trust herself to speak as she let him help her up and placed her hands on his shoulders. He led her in a simple waltz step -- good enough to impress Mirage-Bug on a nearby rooftop but simple enough that Marinette wouldn’t recognize that they had learned in the same class. If she didn’t already know, that was. He was a good hero. And so cute, so sweet and considerate. So good at video games… Marinette let her mind trail off into a happy daze, hoping the song never ended.

When the music eventually did end, he swept her into a dramatic dip, making her giggle with a mixture of terror and joy. He laughed too, pulling her back to her feet. They both turned at the sound of clapping nearby. Rena had joined Mirage-Bug on the rooftop and was beaming down at them. She had burst into applause and (bless her) had made Mirage-Bug do the same.

Aspik waved up at them, beaming too. “Do you think she liked it?” he asked, softly enough that only Marinette could hear.

“Yeah,” Marinette murmured dizzily, “I’d say Ladybug liked that a lot.”

One of his hands was still resting casually on her waist, and to her shocked delight, he gave her a gentle squeeze. For a moment or two (or several), she allowed herself to lean into him, and to not think about how she could never tell him that she was the girl he loved, or how much Alya would tease her about this in the morning at school, or that she had stepped on her phone by accident. She loved him so much.

But this was a strategic interaction after all and she couldn’t indulge herself forever, so after one final squeeze, she stepped away from him and told him she had to get going.

“Thanks for the dance,” he said, “and for cheering me up.”

“Any time. I’ll, um, put in a good word for you with Ladybug next time I’m handing out cookies.”

“Oh, thanks.” Another blush crept under his mask. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Chat Noir.”

“What?!” 

Had she heard him right? How had she managed to give him the idea that her crush was on Chat? Before she could correct him, a series of leaps had carried him to the top of a nearby building where he was now talking animatedly to Rena Rouge (although not before she noticed that his face had turned an impressively bright shade of pink).

“That was nice of you Marinette,” Tikki said, peaking out of Marinette’s handbag. “I’m proud of you for staying calm.”

Marinette stole one last glance at Aspik and Rena and started back toward home. “Thanks, Tikki. I really wish I could tell him.”

“Maybe one day, you can.”

“Yeah, maybe one day.”

Marinette felt a heartsick pang at the thought of how long she would have to wait until then. Nevertheless, with the waltz still echoing in her head and her own blush warming her cheeks, she couldn’t seem to wipe the smile from her face as she walked home.

CHAPTER FOUR: THE PINK DIMENSION

warning(s): cursing

word count: 1.8k

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AO3

Located near the centre of Taishi, Inarizaki High is the town's pride for its design and prestige. The school used to house the prefecture's royalties and even though it has gone through multiple renovations over the years, its Japanese castle architectural elements are still apparent all over the school's exterior. Apart from its unique structure, academic practitioners from all over the world also flock the institution for its symposiums, which are held throughout every school term to discuss multiple magical subjects.

 The school's main building is its Rectory and it would be the first thing for one to notice even from afar. The elegant white walls are in stark contrast to its black, pointy roof with golden details forged onto it. Other parts of the school have the same colour palette as well. The school would reach its peak of beauty during spring, when the pink flowers of cherry blossom trees planted around the vast fields are in full bloom.                                                                                                                                                                                    

Next to the Rectory, the Potions faculty building appears small compared to it, when in fact, the faculty is the second largest after Pentagrams. Its roof manages to reach only half of the rectory's structure, making it the tallest than the rest of the faculty buildings (the Pentagrams faculty only wins in size, not height). A group of students can be seen exiting the Potions building’s main arch as school session for the day is over, including you and Suna, who are walking together towards the gate.

 The sunny afternoon sky is decorated with puffy clouds, which are moving lazily in the wind's direction. Rays of sunshine threaten to dazzle your eyes but the cherry blossom trees lining up the stone walkway shade you from them. Soft breeze blows some petals into your way as you enjoy the scent of spring that wafts in the air. You are glad that there are no signs of rain at all today since that would meddle with your after-school plans.

 "Gosh, this school is so big, I swear I feel like all of my cousins come here," Suna complains while faking a smile at a first year girl, who is hanging out under one of the trees with her friends.

 "Well, literally everyone in Taishi studies here. What do you expect?" you laugh, attention now directed at him and not the surrounding anymore.

 "For them to go study somewhere else, I guess," he retorts, sliding his hands into his pants' pockets. The smile on his face has disappeared.

 "At least, your sibling is not here," your eyes catch the twins waiting for you under a tree upfront. They also notice your appearance and wave at you two.

 "Oh, shut up. If not for them, you won't have any friends," Suna raises a hand at Atsumu and Osamu.

 "Whatever. You sure you don't wanna come?" you ask Suna one last time before parting ways with him.

 Suna shakes his head, "yeah, I wanna go home."

 "Do you need anything?"

 "Oh, right. Can you get me some stocks? Sparrow and jellyfish," he takes his wallet out to pass some money to you.

 "Won't they go bad before next week's class?" you accept the notes from him.

 "It's already Friday, class is on Monday. I think it would be fine," Suna waves his hand, dismissing your concern.

 "Okay, see ya," you swerve towards the twins. Suna echoes a goodbye behind you and keeps walking.

 "He's really not coming?" Atsumu asks when you are within hearing distance.

 "Yeah, but he asked me to get some stuff for him," you respond before stopping in front of them.

 "Lazy ass," Osamu disses. "Anyway, can I teleport?"

 "Bitch, no," you and Atsumu say at the same time.

 "Your sense of direction is so shitty, it'd take forever to get to Kudo Street," you pull a face.

 Atsumu then adds, "a lot of people are using the travel dimension at this hour. You'll surely hit someone although I don't know how is that  even possible since it's fucking huge in there."

 "But if I don't practise, I won't get better at teleporting??" Osamu argues.

 Atsumu lets out an exasperated sigh, "fine, you can teleport us on the way home. Let's go," he starts walking to lead the way. You and Osamu follow him from behind, heading towards the end of the walkway where the teleportation station is located at.

 The teleportation station consists of five open top cubic spaces lined together, conjoined on their sides. Each cube fits at least five people and has three transparent glass walls with a white marble floor, where you are supposed to draw your pentagrams on. Two auxiliary police officers are on guard to control the flow of traffic, making sure that the students are queueing up to use the cubicles. At the end of the station, you see a group of younger pupils, whom you assume are waiting for their guardians to pick them up because they're not eligible to travel on their own yet. Teleporting licenses can only be acquired once you are sixteen years old.

 You, Atsumu and Osamu get in one of the lines and wait for your turn. Every time a cubicle teleports people, you can hear swooshing noises as they dissipate into coloured light sparks and vanish from sight in a blink of an eye. Before long, the pair of siblings in front of you enter the cubicle you're lining up for and you're now at the front of the line. The elder sister draws the teleportation pentagram, her face scrunched up in concentration, and you watch as she conjures blue sparks on the marble floor.  

 That's when Atsumu drops the bomb on you.

 "You teleport us," he nudges your elbow with his.

 You and Osamu look at him wide-eyed, "bitch, what??"

 "Why won't you let me teleport, if you're letting her?!" Osamu slaps Atsumu's shoulder with the back of his hand.

 "Bitch, I said you will on the way back, didn't I??" Atsumu readjusts his bag's strap that shifted because of Osamu's hit just now.

 "Nooooo, Tsumu-nii channnnn!" you whine with a pout, swinging Atsumu's arm in an attempt to change his mind, "I don't want to teleport!"

 "And that's why you're getting shitty at it," he shakes you off before pushing you into the now empty cubicle, "go."

 "Fuck," you clench your fists but do as you’re told anyway since you don't want to hold the line up with your siblings’ bickering. Plus, Atsumu's right, you haven't been practising ever since you got your license a few months ago.

 Once you, Atsumu and Osamu gather in the middle of the cubicle, you inhale a deep breath whilst recollecting the pentagram shape for teleportation. In order to accommodate the number of people teleporting, your pentagram has to be huge and made to fit the whole floor. This will definitely consume a lot of energy. You sigh at the thought.

 "She doesn't want to do it," Osamu tries again, "let me!"

 "Shut up, Samu. Give her a second. Come on, you're gonna be okay," Atsumu encourages you with a pat on the shoulder.

 You click your tongue at him, "I hate you."

 Pointing a finger out at the marble underneath, you begin drawing invisible lines from memory that transform into yellow light sparks on the floor. It's a struggle but you manage to complete the shape that now surrounds you and the twins. Due to its size, the pentagram's glow this time is almost blinding and the fizzing noise that it produces is loud in your ears.

 "Teleport," you whisper.

 The hissing pentagram then floats and spins around the three of you as it nets your bodies tightly. You can feel its particles squeezing to decompose you into molecules. There is stiffness in your muscles and joints that prevents you from moving. The bright light forces you to shut your eyes while the sound is shrieking in your ears. You grit your teeth together and brace yourself for what's to come next.

 The sensations become almost unbearable. But before it could get any worse, you find yourself already dissipated into tiny yellow sparks of lights, floating in a different dimension that you're familiar with. The pentagram that you drew has turned into a glowing net, holding your and the twins' dematerialised bodies together. Your mind, still intact even though your body is not, notices other nets of bodies swooshing pass by to get to their destinations through the pink abstract space that you're in.

 It's bright here, but not overwhelming. There's no sense of temperature, only the seldom Bernoulli pull by other nets speeding by. You wonder how it smells since you have no nose to take a sniff. Time is not relevant here; you always find yourself arriving at your destination at the same time you left. Often, the only important thing is your sense of direction (of which, Osamu lacks) because the only thing guiding you is a huge ass ancient wooden compass floating in the space above you like a moon (so you feel like it's always following you).

 It's a trippy place.

 You collect yourself, taking control of the net to carry everyone to Kudo Street- which is situated up north. One push is all it takes for you to zoom through the crowd as the whizzing sound of air friction envelopes you. With awareness of the traffic around, you navigate your way carefully to avoid accidents (it gets super messy when disintegrated bodies collide).

 Travelling in the Pink Dimension after school is like walking at a train station during peak hour. Everyone moves at haste in whatever direction they want to. There is not much that can be done to control individuals in a vast space as such. The only rule that applies to travellers is that they have to teleport to and from stations. This is to prevent practitioners from reappearing at a dangerous spot in the  physical world when they arrive at their destinations. If you're found to be teleporting from or to an unassigned place, you'll get a ticket for it.

 You stay on your path while trying to search for Kudo Street's teleportation station that is supposed to be some floating Greek marble vases. You would say it only took you a few seconds to arrive but time doesn't exist here, so when you see ten vases at your two o'clock, you're pretty sure it doesn't matter anyway.

 You choose an Amphora vase that no one was going for and jump into its opening. It becomes dark for a moment before the vase vomits you, Atsumu and Osamu out onto a marble floor, in three pieces. Your brothers stumble a bit before finding their grounds again while you, on the other hand, are bowing down with hands on your knees, panting to catch your breath. You can feel sweat breaking on your forehead and temple.

 "Fuck, you two are SO heavy."

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AO3

A/N: where would you teleport to if you could since Ms. Corona is making all airlines bankrupt?

The Dare: A GNR FanFic

Chapter 31: Earthquakes

Story Summary: A stupid harmless dare, that’s all it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be something they would do, and never revisit. For Delilah, little did she know that visiting the strip wasn’t going to be a one time thing when she made the choice to accept the dare. Life is full of choices. Some choices can mean absolutely nothing, while others can change your entire world. Delilah had heard many rumors about the Sunset Strip or Devil’s Strip. Teenagers would whisper stories about how the Devil walks the streets of the strips without a care in the world. It was known as a place untouched by God. After years of hearing rumors about the Devil’s Strip, Delilah wants to see it for herself. Thus a Dare was born.

Chapter Summary: Earthquake (noun), a sudden and violent shaking of the ground, sometimes causing great distruction, as a result of movements within the earth’s crust or volcanic action.

Author’s Note: Shit’s about to get real

Masterlist

Taglist: @gingerspicetalks @str4nge-haze @queen-crue

Earthquake (noun), a sudden and violent shaking of the ground, sometimes causing great distruction, as a result of movements within the earth’s crust or volcanic action.

While most earthquakes happen within the Earth’s crust, this one happened on the surface. Don’t worry, even though this one didn’t happen within the earth’s crust, it was still just as deadly. Just like any earthquake, it was bound to have aftershocks.

It had been three days since Mags had told Drew about the pregnancy.

Three days since her and Drew stood in the pouring rain.

Three days since he screamed at her and denied it was his own child.

Three days since he shoved her to the ground almost throwing her in the street.

Three days.

Tonya walked into the apartment after covering Mag’s shift at the strip club. It must have been at least 2 AM, she had honestly lost track of time. She unknowingly let a sigh escape her as she opened the rotted door causing the fragrance of whatever Delilah had cooked fill her nose. Tonya still hadn’t made her mind up about Delilah. Of course she was an absolute free loader who had inadvertently been the source of a lot of problems lately, but it was moments like this that Tonya let that slide. Moments where Delilah was there without question for her friend, even though she hadn’t known her for a while. No doubt that Delilah had cooked lasagna by the smell that filled the apartment. Between being their personal chef, cleaning, doing laundry, and taking care of the Mag’s brother’s band she earned her way of off Tonya’s hate list. As Tonya stepped into the living room, her heart ached as she saw the sight that had fallen asleep on the couch.

She placed a blanket over Delilah, carefully grabbing the pens and notebook that she must have been using before she fell asleep. Shaking her head Tonya looked at the sketch of Duff she had drawn. She hadn’t heard much from Delilah about how the boy’s visit to Seattle was going, but she knew it wasn’t going in accordance to plan. Tonya used to compare Steven or Tommy to a love sick puppy, but now Delilah had taken that role from the drummers. Duff had been gone for a day, and she was already missing him like he had left for the war.

Tonya felt her smile match the one that was on Mag’s face. Dried tears had stained Mag’s cheeks, but the smile was a source of hope. A source of hope that there was a place that Mags could imagine where she could be happy.

“Hey,” Delilah’s voice had caught Tonya off guard.

“Hey,” Tonya shot back.

“How was work? I made you some dinner,” Delilah stood up and made her way over towards the kitchen to reheat some lasagna for Tonya.

“Those look good,” Tonya pointed to some sketches that were laid out on the table.

“Thanks, Axl wanted me to draw some new logos or designs while they were out on tour. I think he is looking for some artwork for their new fliers,” Tonya mindlessly nodded at the brunette. Part of her wished that she could draw, but she knew she never had the patience for it.

“Any word from them?”

“Yeah, I talked to Duff a few hours ago. They ended up hitchhiking up to Seattle because their car broke down. They somehow made it, and their first gig is tomorrow so fingers crossed,” Delilah plastered on a fake smile and a happy tone as she spoke to Tonya. When he first called her and said that their car broke down and they were hitchhiking she wanted to beg them to come home. She was worried sick about him. Hitchhiking was so stupid, how could he have been so stupid! She wanted to scream at him, and beg him to come home. She didn’t, she couldn’t. He needed to do this.

“I wouldn’t worry about them Delilah....plus no one would ever mess with Axl Rose. He’s defiantly wound a little different than the rest of us,” Tonya sent Delilah a comforting smile hoping to alleviate her worry.

It was obvious that Delilah was putting on a strong front, but she could tell she was worried. It was clear she loved Duff, and he felt the same way back. Most people girls would whisper on how they would find someone like Duff, but Tonya didn’t. She knew rockstars were only good for one thing, heartbreak.

“Tea?” Delilah quickly pulled Tonya from her thoughts. Without hesitation Tonya nodded her head thankful for the brunette’s help.

“How’s she doing?” Delilah froze as Tonya pulled her out of her thoughts. Both girls barely able to focus this late at night. She was still waking up from her accidental nap, and her mid was still racing.

“Better, but not good. She plans on going to work tomorrow...or I guess today because it like what 2 in the morning?”

“Hmm, good for her. I don’t know if I can keep covering for her...it’s gotten kind of...hard,” Tonya took a bite of her lasagna as she finished speaking.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s Mag’s job? She’s never said anything,” Delilah felt silly as she asked the question. She had known the girl for months now and it had never come up. Tonya sent a sweet smile to Delilah as she watched her cheeks redden.

“She’s a dancer,” Tonya didn’t need to wonder why Mags didn’t tell Delilah about her job. She was probably ashamed or some shit like that.

A silent ohh crossed Delilah’s lips as she stared towards Mags who was currently asleep in the living room. The gears confined to turn.

“Don’t tell her I told you that,”

“Why?”

“She’s worries you’ll judge her or some shit. She’s not proud of it,” Tonya snapped back at Delilah as she spoke.

Delilah remained silent as she stared at Mags who was still asleep.

“A job is a job. I don’t know her story, who am I to judge,” Delilah’s words caught Tonya off guard.

“Seriously?”

“What do you means seriously?”

“She’s a stripper, don’t religious people hate strippers or some shit like that? Don’t they call them the Devil’s mistress?”

Delilah calmly shook her head no. “My parent and other might make a comment about it, but like I said, I don’t know her story. She needs a job to live, so she got herself a job.... Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her. Mathew 7:13.”

“Huh, I always thought you religious folks were a bunch of judge bitches,” Tonya’s comment earned a snort from Delilah.

“Some are, some aren’t, depends on who you’re talking to.” Silence filled the room once again as Tonya continued to eat her lasagna.

“You know, when I was little my mother wanted me to be a nun,” Delilah casually shrugged causing Tonya to almost choke on her lasagna.

“You okay?” Delilah turned to her roommate who was chugging her tea to help alleviate the coughing.

“Sorry...I just...don’t take it the wrong way, but it’s hard to see you, Duff Mckagan’s girlfriend, a nun,” Delilah joined Tonya as their laughter filled the room.

“Crazy right? I wanted to change the world,” Delilah admitted once her laughing died down.

“What are you two giggling about at 2 in the morning,” Mags appeared in the kitchen obviously exhausted.

“Did you know that Del here was almost a nun?” Mags sent Delilah a small smile.

“No I did not! I am horribly offended that I wasn’t told this sooner. Does Duff know?,” she teased back.

Laughter and giggles filled the room, but once the laughter died down Mags spoke again.

“You guys should follow me to the living room, you need to know what’s about to happen,” Mags tone went dark, and a familiar sadness filled her features. Without question, Delilah and Tonya followed her into the living room.

Before she could even begin to tell the story, Mags began to cry. The wound Drew made was still fresh and raw, but she had to tell them. This wasn’t just about her anymore.

(Flashback to three nights ago)

Mags stood waiting for Drew underneath one of the street lights. She was thankful for the water that poured from the sky concealing the tears that had stained her cheeks.

“So fucking poetic,” she mumbled under her breath as the rain continued to pour.

After what felt like an eternity, she spotted a figure that resembled Drew’s walking with an umbrella over his head. That’s when she felt the pit grow in her stomach. She knew this wasn’t going to end well.

“Hey, are you okay?” Drew’s voice was laced with concern as he spoke. It gave Mags hope.

“Yeah, peachy,” Mags sent a sad smile back, earning a confused look from Drew.

“Then why did you call me to meet you here. I have a deadline at the end of the week, I need to get this story out,” Mags jumped back at his sharp tone. She froze as she was finally able to see his dry features. Dark purple circles were painted below his eyes, it was clear he hadn’t gotten any sleep in a while.

“I’m...I’m...”

“Mags, it is pouring rain, spit it out.”

Since the words were failing her, she took the pregnancy stick out of her pocket and handed it to Drew. He remained frozen as he stared at the stick.

Positive.

Holy fuck, it was positive.

Drew couldn’t breathe as she looked back at Mags.

What about his career?

His life?

His actually girlfriend?

What was he supposed to tell his family?

They had been smart.

She was on the pill.

He wore a condom.

Unless...unless she lied to him and she didn’t take her pill.

Was she trying to trap him with a child?

Was she trying to use him because he had a career he was building?

“What the fuck is this shit Mags.”

“A pregnancy test, Drew. What they didn’t teach you that in college?”

“Tell me this is fake!” He shouted back.

“It’s Tonya’s right? We all know she sleeps around! Or is it Del’s? She is dating a wanna be rockstar, so it comes with the territory,” Drew screamed back at Mags making her turn white. For the first time in her life, Mags wasn’t just scared, she was petrified. Her brain lost function as fear took control.

“You fucking bitch, tell me this isn’t yours!” Drew shot back making Mags take a couple steps back.

“It’s mine Drew, I’m carrying our baby,” Mags squeaked, her voice barely louder than a mouse.

“No you’re not. How do you know it’s mine? How many managers or bar owners have you slept with to get your brother’s band a gig?”

“Who...who told you that,” Mags wanted to run, she wanted to hide, but she couldn’t.

“I had to do my research Mags, it’s apart of being a writer. Why do you think I wanted to fuck you in the first place? I heard such great reviews!”

It was in that precise moment that Drew had shattered Mag’s hearts into thousands of pieces.

“Drew...I..”

“You’re all the same. This place really is..” Drew shook his head laughing at his own realization.

“This place is what, Drew? What?” Mags was finally able to find her voice as she screamed back at him.

“This place is without a doubt the filthiest vile place I have ever been, and the people here are so much worse!” He wore a smirk as he screamed back at Mags. One thing was clear to her, he was enjoying this. He was enjoying f ripping her to shreds.

Mags remained frozen at his words causing a larger grin to splash across his face.

“I can see your brain is trying to process this. Good for you for actually using it for the first time in years!” He cheered and clapped.

“You are all the same! You, Trixie, Del, and Tonya. Birds of a feather, is that how the saying goes? You’re all desperately clinging onto something, something so unreal that you will never obtain. You all live similar lives as you drink your ‘sorrows’ and ‘pain’ away. You will live on the strip and you will die on the strip,” he continued to laugh at his comment as if it was some type of sick twisted joke.

“Now you stand in front of me, ‘claiming’ that you are pregnant with my child? Please, I don’t buy it for a second. I’m not some idiot. Now have to go make a lot of edits to the article coming out in two days thanks to this little stunt your pulling. The desperate whores of the strip..has a certain ring to it don’t you think?”

“You fucking bastard,” once again Mag’s voice was not above a whisper.

Drew shook his head and let another chuckle escape his lips before promptly shoving her to the curb. He then smiled as he left her alone alone in the rain with her tears, her only company, falling down faster than the rain that surrounded her.

She loved him.

She truly loved him.

(End flashback)

The small living room went silent as Mags finished telling Tonya and Delilah what had happened.

“That fucking bastard!” Delilah shot a glance towards Tonya unsure if she had meant to say it out loud.

“I just thought you should know before his article comes out. I don’t know what the hell he is going to say about us, but I highly doubt that it will be good,” the tears once again stained Mag’s cheeks.

Without hesitation, Delilah pulled Mags into her arms. While her heart was focused on Mags her mind couldn’t help, but wander wondering if Mags actually slept with people to get her brother gigs.

They had survived the earthquake, but will the same be said about the aftershocks?

People Like US Chapter 3

3. Into the Vault

Previous chapter: Here

“So what’s the plan Ty? Are we really gonna take her in as a janitor?” Troy asked as he snuffed out the butt of a blunt into the balcony’s ashtray. Tyreen hadn’t said much once they’d gotten back to the hotel and he was curious as to what she was thinking.

“Don’t you think that’s an insult to the maintenance crew. You know they’d take it as  the God-Queen thinks we aren’t doing good enough so she sent in a siren” Tyreen pitched her voice up as she did her impression of the maintenance staff. “Besides that’s a waste of a Siren. Imagine how much more influence we could get if we had another siren on our side, under our control. We could get her to do things the war meat can’t.”

“Yeah, I can put a good spin on that. The twin gods in their infinite mercy take in a poor stray Siren. People oughta love it, plus like we haven’t brought someone into the inner circle since Iris and that was what...three years ago now, I’m sure she’d like a friend who's quieter than  Mouthpiece.”  Troy said pulling out his echophone to write a note to himself. “We’re really doing this then? Can’t take it back once we approach her, you know that Ty.”

“We’re really doing this, something about it just feels I dunno...right in a weird way.” Tyreen couldn’t put into words the almost magnetic feeling that drew her to the other siren and she supposed that it was a siren thing, one of the many for which there were no words to explain. She only hoped that what little siren power Troy possessed made him feel the same way.

Part of Tyreen also wondered if perhaps taking in Sloane could solve another issue of theirs, of course she knew Troy could take energy from her, he had been reliant on her for as long as she could remember but what if he could feed on another siren? That way she could get by without having to spread herself so thin looking for enough to leech to sustain them both. It was an interesting prospect that she was willing to experiment with.

“I’ll send word back to the ship, tell the circle what we’re planning. Better to have everyone prepared for a new family member.” Troy remarked closing the balcony door behind him as he reentered the hotel room, now that they had a solid plan it was time to get the preparations in full swing.

                                                            When the twins made their return to Sloane's house they found the other siren waiting for them in the front lawn, sat at her easel painting the tree tunnel they had emerged from. A vine pulled out of the house window a mug curled in its tendril as it came to her side and she plucked the cup from it.  

“And here I was worried the two of you were having second thoughts.” She remarked standing up from her seat as they approached. It was late afternoon and while the twins hadn’t specified when they’d be arriving to make their deal she had almost expected it to be early so that they could just get it out of the way.

“Such little faith, gods always  keep their word doll.” Troy said with a smirk before deferring to Tyreen.

“We’ve decided to agree to your terms Sloane, we will take you into our family and you will serve us in exchange for freedom from this planet. Provided of course that you take us to the Vault  and hand over the vault key.” Tyreen crossed her arms, she was short in stature but her voice and overall demeanor projected the will and intent of her title. Sloane had seen the streams she knew this woman was dangerous and not to be underestimated yet she felt no fear in cooperating with her.

“I assume you want to be taken to the vault key now then?” She asked as she checked the time, they could make it there before the forest got too dark but it would be nightfall by the time they made it to the vault itself.  “It’s a bit of a walk from here.”

“Lead the way.” Tyreen said the pair flanking Sloane on either side as they disappeared into the wilds of Eden-4. As they walked Sloane finally got a good look at Troy now that he wasn’t trying to physically intimidate her, she noted the red looping patterns on his left arm that crept up to under his left eye and the similarities they had to her and Tyreen’s siren markings, but male sirens weren’t possible were they?

“You’re a siren?” She asked her voice barely above a whisper as if she was afraid to make the accusation and be wrong.

Troy opened his mouth to answer but quickly looked over to Tyreen his expression twisting into a slight frown. Sloane was starting to see a pattern in which Troy seemed to not be allowed to voice specific details without some kind of permission from his sister.  

“Not a siren.” He said in a much more subdued tone than she had expected from him “Just a side effect of being born with one.”

Sloane could tell there was much more to that then he was letting on but it was obvious that she wouldn’t be getting more than that out of him at least not now. The twins put so much of themselves on display that the fact that they had secrets at all had seemed absurd up until this moment, granted as far as she knew this was still part of that display.  She decided she would ask no more questions out of a partial fear of asking the wrong one and Tyreen changing her mind about her usefulness.

They stopped as the path ended abruptly at the rocky base of a cliff, face of which was overgrown with vines and other vegetation. Before either twin could ask why they had stopped Sloane reached towards the cliff her siren markings flared with bright blue light as the vines peeled away to reveal  an intricate pattern of Eridian writing  that surrounded a small hole in the formation too clean to be natural.

“What’s it say Troy?” Tyreen asked as she gestured at the writing. He squinted at it his brow furrowed in concentration as he looked over the carvings.

“It’s a warning.” He stated. “About what would happen if the Vault was opened.  Open the Vault of the Aggressor and fire and destruction will follow; says the planet would be scoured to ash the likes of which no one  has seen before.”  

“Well that sure sounds inviting, but nothing we can’t handle.” Tyreen remarked, seeming totally unmoved by the threat of whatever danger lurked inside the Vault.

Sloane however was a little unnerved by the promises of the planet burning even if she did plan to leave it behind by the end of this. She still had her obligations to the Calypsos though so she stuck her hand into the carved hole in the rock, her fingers closing around the object hidden within. Despite it being surrounded by cold rock on all sides it radiated a perpetual warmth that confirmed it was what she was looking for.

“One vault key, just as you requested God-Queen.” She said presenting it to Tyreen. It was a perfect cube of stone with  smaller square channels cut into the sides, it was an unassuming thing considering what it opened.

Tyreen regarded the cube as if it were a precious gem. She took it from Sloane and turned it over in her gloved hand  holding it up in the fading light. “So is the vault far then?”

“No, it’s a brisk walk from here. Shall I take you there?” Sloane asked, hiding the brief hesitation in her voice. It was all so real now, she had only been out to the vault a few times before each to check for meddling. It was all becoming very real now, she never thought she would have to worry about the vault being opened and yet here she was leading the charge to open it.

The entrance to the vault was an unassuming thing, Sloane was pretty sure that was why no one who wasn’t directly looking for it had ever found it. It was a cave situated behind a large waterfall which, while  beautiful to look at, threatened to sweep away those who ventured to close. Luckily Sloane knew the way to approach and avoid any of the danger and the roar of the water was only a distant hum now that they were inside the cave.

Guardian constructs that usually would have rushed to challenge those stupid enough to dare try approaching the Vault were instead destroyed, bound to the ground and sides of cave by thick overgrown vines. Sloane had dispatched them in a fit of fear and desperation when she had first approached the vault years ago now but not before she had learned the hard way that they were dangerous. The vault arch stood in the center of the chamber that had stretched out before them.

“Get your cam-bot ready Troy, it’s showtime.” Tyreen said walking towards the arch with the vault key in hand.

Sloane watched the male twin reach over and press the shoulder of his cybernetic arm a cam-drone deploying from it. She was impressed with how clever a design choice that was as she watched the bot follow after Tyreen.  

“Alright Eden-4, let's see what you’ve been hiding for all these years.” Tyreen cooed as she stuck the stone cube into the pedestal before the archway.

The vault entrance shimmered into existence and no sooner had it opened when a large clawed forelimb shot out from the dimensional gap followed immediately after by a second limb. A large snake like head  joined the collection of body parts and as the rest of the creature emerged from the vault Sloane muttered the only word she felt properly described the creature standing before them.

“Dr-dragon, That’s a dragon!”  

Troy’s prosthetic arm grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her out of the way as a column of flame erupted from the  monster's mouth towards them.  

Tyreen however was ready and a crackling purple orb slammed into the monster’s  side drawing its attention away from them and toward her.

Sloane watched as Tyreen baited the monster around the chamber somehow always managing to slip away before claws or teeth could get close to her. It was like a dance and watching both of them put Sloane into a bit of a trance like state what was only broken when the monster, thrown into the wall  close to herself and Troy by the blast from the other siren. Yellow slitted eyes focused on the two and the monsters fanged mouth opened in anticipation.

Before the creature could strike however thick vines from the surrounding cave walls sprang to life as Sloane reached out with her powers and they coiled around the monsters neck dragging it back to the center of the room and tying it down to the floor. It was a struggle to hold the creature down, Sloane had never used her powers on anything this large before, she tended to be defensive with them. The creature of course was more powerful than anything she had encountered before.

Tyreen seemed to get the message and hurried over to the felled monster which shrieked and pulled against its bindings harder than before as Tyreen’s power, now brilliant red chains of energy hooked into it and drained the very life out of it, leaving only a stone and eridium husk.

“Annnd cut.” Tyreen called, the cam-bot  whizzed back to its master and slotted back into his arm. Sloane fell to her knees panting, she felt overextended and exhausted .

“Hey, You alright?” Troy asked, the concern caught her off guard as she figured they didn’t care about her well-being after all she was a means to an end to them and they had gotten what they wanted, as far as she knew they could easily leave her dead for being foolish enough to have trusted them at all.

“I’ll be fine, I just need to catch my breath.You...You’re bleeding. ” She responded, a glint of concern in her eyes in kind as she noticed blood trickling down Troy’s arm, it seemed he’d been grazed by a rock kicked up by the creature.

Troy’s eyes widened in surprise as he followed her gaze, his metal hand coming up to cover the wound. “Ty, need a hand here!” He called over to his twin who was still staring at her kill with a look of satisfaction.

Tyreen sighed as she hurried back over to them. “Aye manito you need to be more careful, what would do without me.” She chastised taking his hand in hers, he gave a short ‘heh’ at her words but otherwise seemed unphased . Their siren markings flared  in response to contact and the wound on Troy’s arm closed, it would seem that perhaps his markings, whatever they were, were not as inert as Sloane had been led to believe hours before.

“You sure you’re alright? There’s plenty of Eridium around if you need a boost.” Tyreen asked her attention squarely on Sloane now that Troy had been patched up.  

Sloane picked herself off the ground and gave herself a once over. “No, no I’m fine really. I just well, wasn’t expecting to have to deal with something like that.”

“Yeah vault monsters are nasty business, it gets easier the more you deal with though!” Tyreen was oddly chipper about the prospects of fighting more of these monsters.

“Can’t wait you have a look through that footage, bet you I can make some killer edits Ty.” Troy too was very energetic now, both Calypsos seemingly buzzing with excitement.

“Right, thanks for your generous contributions Sloane. Troy and I will escort you back to your house, you can make sure you have everything you want and our crew will  come and grab you first thing in the morning.” Tyreen explained as they made their way out the vault cave back into the cool night air of Eden-4.

Sloane still couldn’t believe this was actually happening, it seemed so fantastic and out there that she was sure if she were to tell anyone else they wouldn’t believe her. After all, she felt she wasn’t anyone special outside of being one of six sirens which when compared to what she knew of the other sirens her powers weren’t even that impressive. Yet she had earned the company of the two most influential people this side of the six galaxies.

It felt like a dream as she stood at her front door the twins behind her seeing her off safely.

“See you tomorrow, welcome to the family.” Tyreen said as she turned to walk away Troy following after. Sloane watched them disappear down the tree tunnel again as she had the first time they’d come.

She walked into her house, the essentials of her life packed into two large suitcases ready to leave come morning. She took one last look from the doorway, knowing this would be the last time she ever walked back into this place as home.

The God Father

Warning(s): none

A/N: Alright so this is a piece I wrote for an assignment a year ago, and I decided to go ahead and post it here because I was so happy with how it turned out (and I got an A!), and part of me wants to write some little blurbs that continue the concept.

Basically this is a fictional piece based on ACTUAL Norse mythology and NOT the Marvel versions. I got the idea for this off the writing prompt tumblr that was along the lines of "you write down Loki as your childs godparent as a joke, but he actually takes it seriously". I loved it so I used it. Enjoy!

PS -- I realized later that it maybe wasn't 100% clear, but Astrid was adopted, hence why she's "old enough" to play tea party, maybe 6-7. Only a handful of days passes over the duration of this piece.

It was all a joke, really. A complete farce, a “good laugh.” At least, that’s what it was meant to be. The Ohlsons had just welcomed their daughter, Astrid, into their lives, and they had crossed all the T’s, dotted all the I’s, but one last question remained: who to appoint as the girl’s  godparent? Erika and Ingrid Ohlson immediately turned to their respective families of course, but almost every option was eventually decided against. Both grandparents were already far up in years; Erika’s parents already living with an in-home nurse, and Ingrid’s own father refusing to ever speak to her. Erika was an only child, so Ingrid’s brother was next to be scrutinized. However, despite being close in age, he still acted a child in a grown man’s body, making poor investments, partying all weekend with numerous friends, moving from girlfriend to girlfriend. Absolutely not someone able to take care of a child (much less himself), and immediately scratched off the list. 

Friends were next, but...... there weren’t many options. The two new mothers weren’t incredibly social people to begin with, and as such only had a select few friends. A few were married with several children already, and Ingrid insisted they not add the potentiality of another child to the mix. Their other friends ranged from being either unequipped to raise a child, too busy with their own specific line of work, or just not close enough to be considered for godparent. Options had now all but disappeared, and the two women had resigned to perhaps just skipping over this particular notion.

About a week later, during an evening of movies and a couple drinks after putting the young Astrid to bed, Erika began giggling to herself, the sound growing to full-on laughter which she hastily struggled to stifle in the small apartment so as not to wake the child. Ingrid, simultaneously confused and curious, glanced over at her wife, a single brow raised.

“What in the god’s names has got you so hysterical?”

Pulling in a gulp of air, Erika turned to Ingrid, tears in her eyes. “Listen, okay, what- what if...... hear me out here- what if we......we......” she could still barely speak from her incessant giggling.

“Dear, please, what is it?” Ingrid sighed, her curiosity starting to eat at her.

“Okay...... okay so......” the woman finally composing herself to a degree. “What if, for just absolute shits and giggles....... what if we named a Norse god as godparent? Like a literal GODparent? Just, what if. For the hell of it.”

Ingrid, the resident librarian of the house, blinked. “You want us....... to name an ancient, all-powerful, Norse god of old..... as our daughter’s godparent?”

“Ingrid, hun, look: we have literally no options at this point. Maybe eventually we’ll have a friend become a better candidate later in the years, and if so, we’ll write them down as godparent instead. But for now..... come on, it’d be funny and it’d be an absolute hoot to see the look on people’s faces when we bring this up,” Erika then smiled more deviously, “plus I know you can’t pass up a good pun.”

Giving a smile of her own, Ingrid sighed. “Alright fine, lets do it. Which god did you have in mind?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Deep in a labyrinthine cave, hidden away from the known world, sat two ancient beings whose existence had all but been forgotten and reduced to mere myth. A restrained fire giant, face scarred, auburn hair now matted and lank, with a monstrously large serpent sat poised above his head. His wife, Sigyn, a goddess in her own right, yet often left out in stories even in the days of old, sat ever faithfully by his side, her own face gaunt, exhaustion and fortitude lining every inch of it. In her own scarred hands she held a bowl aloft as the only barrier between his face and the beast above as venom drip, drip, dripped into the small basin, the sound now akin to what the mortals refer to as a clock, the deity’s only semblance of time. 

The god had long since lost his unhinged anger for this life sentence, had since devolved into simply being..... exhausted with the ordeal. Relieved that his wife remained by his side, but also guilty that she stayed in such a horrid place with such a tiring task despite having no orders herself to be here. He had grown weary, maybe a touch apprehensive, with the smallest hint of boredom even. They had been stuck down here for centuries now. Or at least physically. The god found he maintained his ability to project an astral form of himself wherever he wished, and this is what he utilized to learn of the world through the long years. He only wished he could share this illusion of escape with his spouse.

As the centuries passed, he watched as humanity started to turn from the old ways, began to write off the gods as only myths and legend, not beings worth worshiping any longer for the most part. He watched as the rest of the gods slowly accepted this and drew back into their homes amongst Asgard and Valhalla and even Hel, only sitting back up to take notice if something truly important occurred on Midgard, but otherwise ignoring it, as they themselves were ignored. And why shouldn’t they? There was virtually no point otherwise anymore. But today........ today somehow felt different. The imprisoned god cracked open an eye as something seemed to shift in his awareness. Not...... worship, not really. But..... something new. Someone, somewhere, it seemed, was inscribing him as a guardian. To their child. And for supposedly no particular reason that he could even fathom. This was definitely new. The god began chuckling quietly before he could stop himself, the whole concept incredibly humorous. 

However, before he could share this new discovery, that dreaded time came again when that hatefully small bowl filled to the brim, and Sigyn sucked in a sharp breath as she suddenly flew into motion like clockwork. She rushed to pull the bowl away and dump the acidic liquid before too much harm was caused before she could return to her original post, but it was never fast enough, it was impossible to be. The second the obstruction disappeared, the snake’s venom began dripping onto the imprisoned god’s face, his eyes and cheekbones burning with each drop as if on fire, bellows of pain being loosed from his lungs all the while. His wife returned the bowl to its original position, frantic and remorseful apologies spilling from her lips as always, him waving them off with a shake of his head and a forced smile. Once resettling, Sigyn peered down at her husband with curiosity. 

“What was it that made you laugh so genuinely after so long?”

He smiled once again, remembering. “The gods may no longer be revered as they once were, but.... a fascinating development has occurred in the mortal realm: I have apparently been named as guardian to a young child, for whatever reason.”

The goddess raised her brow in surprise. “Guardian? I mean no offense, my love, but surely it must be in jest? And as you stated, we both know worship is no longer practiced on Midgard, so why this sudden change?”

“No, I agree, I find the whole matter quite amusing. However. Due to the absurdity and the rarity, on the chance that this is meant sincerely in any way, I feel inclined to follow it through.  I am named guardian, I am now bound to comply, I believe.”

A warm smile, the first he’d seen in decades, grew upon his wife’s face, as even her dulled eyes began to slowly light up again at the idea he presented. “Then by all means, you should go. All I ask is for you to bring me back stories of this child when you return.”

He returned the smile, the same genuine warmth mirrored back to her. Letting out a long exhale, the god settled back onto his rock best he could, closed his eyes, and cast out his consciousness to the mortal world, empowered by the promise of new mischief to come. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It had been only a couple days since Ingrid and Erika had filled out the paperwork to appoint their god of choice as the godparent to Astrid. As was anticipated, they were given a strange look from the clerk assisting them when he read the name. “A family friend,” Erika waved him off with a smile. The two new mothers had a good laugh on a the walk home that day, imagining all the potential hilarious scenarios in which to share this information.

Ingrid was playing tea party with Astrid as Erika was in the middle of cooking dinner when their doorbell rang. Intrigued as to who could possibly be visiting them at this time of night, Erika walked over and cracked the front door open, only just wide enough to see the person waiting outside. 

There in the hallway stood a man, nearly six and a half feet tall, with a lean build, and immaculately well groomed and dressed. A tailored suit was his attire of choice, a dark forest green, with gold buttons stamped with intricate designs, and cuff links that resembled a wolf’s head. His long, fiery red hair seemed to gleam faintly in the light as if metallic, the top half of it tied back out of his face, a couple small braids interspersed throughout. The man’s features were both fascinating and eerie, mostly made of sharp angles with smiling thin lips and darkened hazel eyes that almost seemed to flare gold (but it was probably just a trick of the lights). However, the only oddity about this figure was the scarring around said eyes, so faint you could only see it when the light hit his face just right, but still curious to see. 

While the strange man gave a tentative smile and made no move toward the open door, keeping his hands in his coat pockets, Erika had become confused into silence, trying to rapidly figure out just how to ask who the hell this man was in the politest way possible. Ingrid, also interested in who their late night visitor was, quietly came up behind her wife and peered past her shoulder to the figure outside. Ingrid, apparently, was quicker on the draw.

“Excuse me, but who are you? We weren’t expecting anyone this late, we’re in the middle of dinner.”

The stranger smiled knowingly, bowing his head slightly. He raised one hand up toward his face, snapping his fingers and causing a small flame to ignite above his index finger, pulling a gasp from one of the women.

“I do apologize for the late hour, unfortunately the concept of time has slowly left me over the years. But I am Loki of the Aesir, and I do believe I am young Astrid’s godfather.”

Toronto Log Day 1

July 7, 2019

Looking at the date today and realizing that it’s really been a year since my summer holiday adventure feels so unreal but I really am motivated to start this little series here today. A few days ago I made a post asking about who would be interested in reading about the weird things I got up to while abroad and I was so happy when I received some answers - I’d probably write this anyway even without anyone paying attention to it, because this is mostly still a thing for myself to relive all the happy moments, but it’s nice knowing that someone cares.

This entire thing started back in 6th grade when I accidentally started getting addicted to sports of all kinds of forms. Ice hockey has always seemed cool to me and it felt fairly easy to get into it. I don’t know why or how it happened but from day one until today, I’ve always supported the same team in the NHL, despite all the pain it inevitably comes with. The Toronto Maple Leafs just had something about them, looking back I’m pretty sure that this “something” is Mitch Marner, that made me want to get into the sport more. Ever since then, my love for the city started growing and it is still always expanding day by day.

Toronto just drew me in, in a way no other city ever managed to, so when I turned 14, the idea of going on an exchange trip slowly started forming in my head. My English at the time was good for the average 8th grader and I had the best teacher ever that year, who further encouraged me to spend some time abroad - he even talked to my mother about it when she dropped me off for a field trip one day. 

I already knew that I wanted to go to either Canada or Australia, but obviously it’s not the smartest idea to send a young kid on a day-long plane trip on their own and Australia seemed like the smarter option to visit for an entire year instead of just a few weeks during summer break. When I stepped up to info points at a language exchange fair in my Maple Leafs jersey, it was pretty clear where this was going to go. 

The months leading up to the trip were a weird combination of excitement and anxiety, getting a passport, doing a language test, booking a flight. I still remember receiving the email of my eTA being approved barely six days before leaving the country. 

After a road trip from the most Eastern end of Germany all the way to Frankfurt Main, plus staying a night at my godmother’s place, right after the last day of school, the big day finally came. The airport in Frankfurt is the largest one in Germany and therefore quite overwhelming when one is confronted with it for the first time. To make things worse, the police had to close some part of the airport so I had to find a way around that area to get to the baggage drop-off. The lines divided into flights to the US and flights to the rest of the world, so my mom got in line with me and my brother. The worst thing was saying goodbye to them in front of the safety check and I swear I cried harder than ever before.

The fear of being on my own settled slightly after I survived the security check and got in line to get my passport checked but inevitably returned when I noticed that boarding would start soon and I had no idea which gate to go to. The guy behind the counter was really nice, telling me to have fun in school in Canada before I was allowed to leave. I arrived at my gate literally right when boarding started and somehow got to my designated seat without too much trouble. It was my first time ever leaving Europe, ever flying on my own and spending more than three hours on a plane, and I was weirdly hyped. I survived the eight hours on my way across the Atlantic Ocean with some actually tasty food, three cups of coke, half a liter of water and not a single toilet break.

Seeing the CN Tower during the landing approach made me a lot more emotional than I wanted to be. It’s still surreal to think that all of this actually happened and seeing the skyline live for the first time is something I’ll remember forever. It was warm when I got out of the plane at around 6 pm and tried hacking the airport WiFi to text my mom that I arrived safely (it was 12 am in Germany, sorry mom). Going through the procedure of declaring my goods was something new entirely and I guess I would’ve died there if my English wasn’t on a general level of acceptance. The guy filling out my form looked at me like I was trying to prank him when I told him that the only real good I was sneaking into the country was mustard (the present for my host family because my home town produces one of Germany’s most well-known mustards, it’s weird) and he struggled with trying to read my German papers about the travel details but ended up figuring out that I wasn’t lying about staying three weeks to waste my summer vacation in school on the other side of the world. 

I somehow found the woman in charge of coordinating our shuttles to our host families or the student’s residence, depending on where each of us chose to stay, and followed her outside into the mess that was the traffic right in front of YYZ. I met another German girl there and started talking to her for a while until we got scolded for not talking in English. The Italian students continued arguing about God knows what while I tried to calm myself down as I watched an Audi drive by - a bit of familiarity 6.5 thousand kilometers away from home. 

My legs were cramping and my sweatpants started feeling a bit sticky in the unexpected warmth of the evening and when I dragged my way too huge suitcase up the driveway of a house in Etobicoke, not too far away from the airport, it all started feeling a bit too real. My Brazilian host family welcomed me with open arms and to this day I’m glad that I got to stay with them, considering all the horror stories I got to hear the following weeks from other students.

I shared a room with Alicja, a Polish girl my age from Warsaw, who reminded me a lot of one of my classmates at first and turned out to be quite a lot more similar to me in some ways than I would’ve expected. We ate our first dinner together and tried to figure out how the hell to get to Adelaide Street East in the middle of downtown Toronto before I spent an hour trying to understand the TTC and almost getting a panic attack about how to use the PRESTO card, which occupies some space in my wallet to this day.

Luckily, our host mother sent us some directions for the following day and provided us both with a token each to get to school after we exchanged numbers and set up a group chat. We figured out that getting to school would take us an hour and a half at least, so we strategically set our alarms to 6:45 am to catch the right bus at 7:20. I was exhausted when I crawled into bed that night with my left leg still cramping once in a while but not jetlagged at all, which seems concerning in hindsight. I struggled with plugging my phone charger into the adapter plug before plugging that into the actual socket and shivered for quite a while before being able to fall asleep - our air-conditioning was broken for some reason and provided us with true Canadian winter vibes (it’s the only way for me to validate the “I survived Canadian cold” button on my backpack). 

It felt weird, falling asleep in a bed in a country so far away from home with no one I know around, in a comfortable bed with my favorite pillow that I take everywhere tucked under my head. I arrived, finally, after dreaming about it for so long, and despite not seeing literally anything but the suburbs and some streets so far, it oddly felt a lot like coming home.

Into the Void

So. Chapter 1 of the bodyswap to the death AU is here. I can’t lie, this one has a lot of setup. Sorry about that. The next chapter is going to be much more exciting. It centers around Allison, and my Allison is pretty twisted.

Also, I’ve decided to do this as a sequel to Defining Memories so that the group will have a reason to know the first thing about each other. Don’t worry if you haven’t read it, though, all the information you’d need from it is made clear in chapter 1.

Chapter 2 should be out be Friday at the latest. I know that weeks is a long time to dwell on a comedy AU, but I want to finish this and can only write so fast.

---

It was 7:00 pm on a Sunday evening when Joey Drew found himself pulled straight out of his regular life and into a purple, mystic void. Strangely enough, this wasn’t the first time this had happened: about two months ago, he and twelve of his employees had been gathered into a void just like this, then allowed to leave once they had watched each others’ memories.

This was different, though. Then, well, the mystic void had seemed a little much, but Joey had been expecting some supernatural events. You could even say he’d unleashed them. Now? Joey was clueless, and his heart was like a lead hammer pounding at his chest. What had he done?

“What’s going on, Joey?” a voice asked. He turned to see that it was Henry, and the other eleven people from last time were there, too, looking confused and, in most cases, worried. Joey’s throat was so tight that wasn’t sure he could speak. “We’re just here to watch more memories, right?”

Just then, a maniacal laughter emanated from all around them, loud and high-pitched.

Oh, absolutely not! The void mocked. It was jaunty and garbled and high-pitched. I paid you my favour, and you didn’t pay me back. And you didn’t put me away properly, either. So I’ll tell you what I’m going to do: now that you all know each other a bit, we’re going to play a game. You hear?

“Joey, get us out of here!” Sammy yelled. There was fear evident in his voice. “Do it. You know how, right?”

Joey stared vacantly into the void as it laughed and laughed at them.

No one here is getting away until you entertain me. Now, here’s what’s gonna happen. I’m going to take your souls, and put em’ in random bodies. And you’ll want to keep up the performance of being whoever you’re supposed to be, because at the end of the week, you’ll all get a chance to guess each others’ identities. Anyone who can guess more identities than their identity was correctly guessed will be put back into their bodies. Anyone else, the voice giggled, DIES! I’ll give you all, hmm... about two minutes to work out the practicalities. Bye-bye!

The thirteen people got a good look at each other, perhaps so they’d recognize who they were five minutes from now. Strangely, the strongest reactions in the room seemed to be nervousness and stunned shock, most likely because the reality of such a bizarre scenario hadn’t sunk in yet.

After a while, Thomas spoke up on the practicalities of the situation. “Alright. Here’s what I propose we do,” Thomas said, trying to sound perfectly calm. He wanted nothing more than to wring Joey’s neck, but now was not the time. “Let’s all write any important information about how to handle each other’s lives on pieces of paper and leave them taped to our own lockers, or offices, or whatever it is we have. That can include any meds we have to take, how to interact with family members, details about work, whatever. Alright?”

Allison’s sobs were the only answer.

Thomas blinked, and the next thing he knew, he was still hearing those same sobs, albeit in a somewhat deeper voice, but he was in an apartment he didn’t recognize and looking at the face of Sammy Lawrence. Looking down at his own hands, he saw very thin arms coated in inky black gloves.

“Oh, Sammy, what’s wrong?” Thomas cooed in the girliest, most sympathetic tone he could muster. The game had begun.

The next day, the thirteen took to their roles. Thomas hated his new body. Susie hadn’t been kidding about not producing body heat because she was made of ink, and he was freezing cold whenever he was outside of her well-heated apartment. On the plus side, the note said that Joey Drew had her scheduled to do some bit parts for an upcoming episode because he hadn’t been able to find a replacement voice actress yet, so at very least he wouldn’t have to do her usual performances and meet-and-greets as Alice Angel. He barely knew a thing about this studio’s characters, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to sing.

Sammy didn’t mind being Allison too much. He could sing. He had a feeling that living with “Thomas” wouldn’t be such an issue, either. While he was experimenting with his new singing voice the night before, Sammy caught “Thomas” bundling up in a heavy sweater and heading out to stargaze in the crisp night air. “He” walked so delicately when he thought no one was watching, and the way he was holding “his” arms to his heart- there was no doubt about it. This was Susie rediscovering life in a human body. He even caught her feeling her pulse, unaware that she was being watched. It crushed Sammy’s heart to see, but at least he’d figured out an identity.

Allison didn’t like Sammy, and not just because of the air of snobbery she got from him, or all the contemptuous looks he gave to Tom. By his memories, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that he’d had a part in Susie’s death and rebirth. Now that she had his body, well, she’d figure out a way to make things even. She knew she would. And in the meantime, there were certain ways that she planned on taking advantage of it.

Bertrum had ended up the body of the lyricist, Jack Fain. He supposed there were worse things- writing song lyrics sounded like something he could learn. He, like many of the other players, had to ask where his office was. To his dismay, he learned that he had no office: he usually worked in the sewers. Was there anyone in this company who wasn’t either incompetent, a psychological mess, disrespectful, or massively lacking in self-respect? Worse, he had no idea where to put his note, since, as Bertrum could work out ride designs at home and only ever came in occasionally to check on the Bendyland workers or meet with Joey Drew, he had no office or locker. He had to find whoever was piloting his body so he could tell them about the dinner party with the Georgian investors on Thursday evening and make sure they didn’t ruin it. Thus, Bertrum found himself working as close to Bendyland as he could without setting off anyone’s radar, hoping to catch a glimpse of himself.

On the other hand, Jack didn’t mind being Bertrum. He worried about how things were going with his husband and adoptive kids, of course, and the situation was scary in general, but at least his form put him at an advantage. This way he would have an excuse to interact with “Lacie” for as long as he needed to in order to figure out her identity, and wouldn’t need to interact with too many other participants of the game. He could focus on designing attractions that weren’t rides, since he had no mechanical knowledge, and keep his profile down for the week, and he would be just fine, he hoped.

Norman was relatively unafraid. He was Shawn- more or less a best-case scenario. Shawn’s job didn’t require much skill, and he was gregarious enough that it wouldn’t be out of character to interact with almost any of the players. Plus, from years of watching from the shadows, Norman knew almost everyone’s secrets- this was a bloody game and Norman took no joy in that, but it was his game.

Shawn was Lacie. Okay, someone he knew well and who wouldn’t interact with other players much. A fair deal. He could handle this. Thankfully, she had been outside when the transformation had occurred, so no one who knew her personally heard Shawn’s existential screams.

Lacie barely knew Norman beyond his reputation for watching people and rarely talking, but he seemed pretty easy to pretend to be. She had to ask a coworker what her job was, and almost laughed when she got the answer. Much of it was sitting high and mighty above the recording studio, which periodically contained four of the players of the game. She’d been terrified at first, but all things considered, she’d have to really screw up to lose this game.

Joey also thought he had a good deal, playing Henry. Joey knew Henry so well, and already knew wife and his children (they loved their uncle Joey). Heck, Joey had even envied Henry’s home life. And Joey knew how to draw, and how to put on a persona. It seemed like a best-case scenario! That was, until it was ten a.m. and Joey was sick to death of drawing. Henry had an ability to do repetitive work for hours that Joey quite simply lacked, and Joey found himself without an excuse to visit anyone. Often, during his first day, he would just walk somewhere where he knew other players would be, and just stand there, watching, hoping for a clue to anyone’s identity. It was a very un-Henrylike thing to do, but at least it wasn’t Joeylike, either. He was fairly certain that he wouldn’t be guessed for it.

Henry, in the meantime, was thrilled to be Joey. He’d worried himself to the point of vomiting the night before, thinking about how he’d have to contribute to the deaths of others for a chance to see his family again. But now, he was planning- working out misguided, Joeylike decisions that would test the nature of the players, starting with the music department. He was ready to do anything to secure his life, and being someone this powerful could only help.

Grant was in full-on panic the second he was out of the void, and the noise from that brought over a somewhat familiar-looking golden retriever to lick his shaking hand in concern. Grant had moved to another room and shut the door to keep the retriever out. It had startled him enough that he’d almost struck it, and he had no intention of hurting someone else’s pet. As soon as he came down from panic, he realized where he was: Wally’s home. Alright. This could be worse. All he had to do was clean the studio and pretend to be goofy and energetic. For a whole week. He hoped he could keep it up that long.

Wally wasn’t faring much better. He knew he couldn’t handle the studio’s finances, and he didn’t know anything about Grant. Since it had been so long, Wally couldn’t even seem to remember Grant’s memories. The note he’d been left didn’t help. Most of it was pretty mundane: the first two bullet points were about where he kept his medications and a list of scheduled meetings. The next one read,

Do not get help with my job. I have a reputation to maintain. At least, don’t get help with anything too simple.

Not exactly what Wally wanted to hear, but still a clear message. The next point, however, was a lot more cryptic.

Expect a visit at 10 a.m. on Monday. Have the second folder in my filing cabinet (the blue one) out. Have the door closed.

Well, it was 10 a.m., and Wally did have the folder out and the door closed. He heard someone twist the door handle. “Slide it under the door.” Came a deep, gravely, and very artificial-sounding voice.

Wally tried opening the door, but whoever was on the other side of it was holding it shut. Knowing that he needed to find at least one identity to stay alive, he pulled harder, but whoever was on the other side of it was much stronger than him.

“Don’t even think about it. I know exactly who you are, and if you open this door, I will tell the other eleven. Just slide that folder under the door, and keep the door closed for five minutes afterwards.”

Slowly, carefully, Wally obeyed. On the other side of the door, Grant picked up the folder and backed away slowly. He felt sorry for whoever he’d threatened, but these forms needed to be complete before the end of the week, and he was quite sure that Joey would kill him if they weren’t done properly. The second he was around the corner, he collapsed against the wall in relief. Hopefully this would be the most ridiculous thing he’d have to do this week.

“There you are, Wally,” a voice came.

Grant quickly hid the folder behind his back. “Thomas! Uh, hi!” Was that how Wally greeted Thomas? He hoped so.

“Uh, hi. So, your note probably said something about how I’m supposed to teach you to maintenance the ink machine.” Indeed, it had. “Well, that would be pretty useless, now wouldn’t it? Listen, I’ll promise not to try to figure out your identity if you can answer me this: do you know anything about machinery?”

Grant had worried that being caught ten feet from his office would have been a dead giveaway. Maybe “Thomas” was just that desperate. “Sorry, no,” he said.

“Okay,” “Thomas” said. “Guess I’ll just have to teach him next week. Best of luck not dying.” Susie left, making sure to walk heavily, as Thomas would have. She’d just have to make sense of Thomas’ instructions on her own. Maybe calling GENT or getting some books on machine maintenance from the library would help. One week. She had to keep the ink machine, whose pipes and various machinery extended from one end of the studio to the other, in one piece for one week, plus keep up with the pipe installations Joey had wanted. Plus find at least two identities (she wasn’t sure how long she could hide her true colours from “Allison”), and keep her own hidden so that she could survive.

This was going to be a week.

Survey #269

“why aren’t you scared of me, why do you care for me, when we all fall asleep, where do we go?”

What’s your sexual orientation? Bisexual. What are you obsessed with right now? lol y'all know my staple stuff I'm always obsessed with, so two recent ones are Skillet (I've been binging soooo hard) and drawing again! What piercings do you want? A lot, jfc. More than any, I want collarbone dermals once I lose enough weight to where they're prominent. I've been on a goddamn weight loss plateau for two years. What’s your favorite show to binge? None. I generally don't enjoy binging too much. Do you watch porn? No, not interested. Do you have a secret sideblog? lol this survey blog. Do you have/would you get your nipples pierced? No. I very briefly considered getting one pierced, but I won't. Are you angry with anyone right now? Not like... actively. But passively it's there. What tattoos do you want? I refuse to die until I'm P A I N T E D  F O R  T H E  G O D S. Do you like paper books or ebooks better? Absolutely paperback books. It feels more "real," something to dive into, and it's easier to see and understand how far you're in. We talked about this in Writing once, was an interesting convo. Plus the smell of books, aaaaaahhhhh. Do you still have feelings for any of your exes? Yes How many followers do you have? On here? *checks* 265. Do you read erotica? No, I'd feel SUPER uncomfortable. That's why 50 Shades has never appealed to me. Have you ever gotten into an accident with you parents’ car? No. Ever thought of just picking up and moving far away? Oh yes. What’s the wallpaper on your computer? My lock screen is the Halo of the Sun from SH, and my actual desktop wallpaper is my favorite closeup of my late pup Teddy. What is the last thing/person you took a picture of? Probably a stupid Facebook meme to show Sara or something lmao. Name a band/artist you like that isn’t that popular. Otep. Can you lift your significant other (your best friend if you’re single)? I'm sure I could. What is the first vehicle you recall your parents/guardians owning? Mom had a blue/greenish van for most of my childhood, while Dad had this old tan thing that he nicknamed "Frida the Cheetah" lmao. He had that damn car forever. Have you ever seen counterfeit money? Not knowingly. Have you ever lost a pet you were attached to? Well of course. I grew up with tons of pets. What was the most rebellious thing you’ve ever done? Probably texting back "fuck you" to Mom when she was being really shitty when I was having a breakdown. Pick one: laundry, dishes, or vacuuming? I'd pick vacuuming over the others any day. Have you ever moved and had to change schools growing up? No. You are forced to move out-of-state. Where do you go? I literally want to move to Canada. The highway and back roads take you to the same place; choose your route. Back roads, probably. You’re going to be a mom/dad; what do you think/do? Have a fucking panic attack. Are you more likely to give up or persist when you’re having trouble? It really depends on the seriousness of the situation, but in most cases I've actually faced, give up. Do you resemble one parent more than the other? I don't think so. Your best friend needs a kidney to survive; do you give them one of yours? If we're compatible, yes. Name a big life event that has taken place for you within the last 2 years. Nothing because my life is incredibly monotonous and stagnant. Name one difficult lesson you’ve learned. Life isn't fair, and life doesn't care. Name one thing you look forward to as you get older. Hey, let's hope I can be a functioning adult before I'm 70. Do you use your hands when you talk to emphasize what you are saying? Yes. Will you usually admit it when you’ve made a mistake? Yeah. Does stress ever affect you physically? If yes, how? Oh, yes. My stomach will absolutely hurt and I sweat more than normal (I say "normal" because I have hyperhidrosis). Did you have a money box as a kid? What shape was it if you did? I don't remember... I know we didn't regularly get an allowance or anything like that, but maybe I'm sure I stored money I was given somewhere? Has kids TV ever frightened you? As a kid, I both watched and feared Courage the Cowardly Dog, lol. Do you have any potted plants in your house? No. If you were born outside of your era, when would you want to be born and why? Early '80s! What a time for music, metal fashion, and fun. If you ran a store, what would you sell/have? IF I was more knowledgeable on more species, probably reptiles and more proper care materials and give advice that's not shit. Places like PetSmart and Petco just... disgust me. What part in a movie would you love to play? If I was confident in acting, probably the maniac lmao. I've experienced enough Crazy for that. What's the oldest article of clothing you own? I don't really know, but I do know Mom has a lot of my and my siblings' shirts as we've grown up to knit together a blanket one day. Fuckin cute as hell. What piece of furniture have you replaced the most? The couch. What instrument do you wish you could be more than great at? Guitar, with that electric twist anyway. What’s the best part of your favorite movie? When Simba roars atop Pride Rock in the storm and all the lionesses join in FUCK I get goosebumps out the WAZOO. What do you think is the most over-rated candy ever? Twizzlers, disgoosting. If you could only debate two topics the rest of your life, what would they be? LGBTQ+ rights is #1, then... hm... probably the pro-choice argument. Or just women rights in general. Out of your friends, who would you say you are most jealous of, artistically? Oh man, my friend Mini. She drew pretty well when we were young, but her skill like... increased exponentially with time. She doesn't draw in a *style* I'm envious of, but that growth tho. Most jealous of….intellectually? Girt. What is broken that you have, that you wish was fixed? My brain lmao. A famous person you have met? Nobody. Who were the last five people to text you? Dad, Sara, Ashley, Mom, and my grandma. What is your favorite book that you had to read for school? The Outsiders. Think of the last two people you kissed. Who was more fun? I've explained the "idk if *I* ever actually kissed Girt" before, but just for the sake of the question, I'll just count him. I tbh hated it only ever because why were your lips always wet, sir???? The latest person was Sara, and she kissed fine. If your house was burning down and you only had sixty seconds to grab one or two things, what would you grab and why? Roman and Venus because they're family and I adore them. Out of all the concerts you have been to, which band/singer was the best performer? Alice was great! When was the last time you went miniature golfing? For Jason's and my second or third anniversary, so a long time ago. What’s a song you like from a genre you hate? I always answer this question with a country answer, so let's go rap. Hm. OH, probably a Post Malone song. I actually don't mind him. If you had twin girls what would you name them? Alessandra indisputably, and then the other... maybe like, Josephine. Especially as twins, I'd want two gorgeous, less-heard names. What kind of condoms do you use? I don't use any because I'm not sexually active. Do you say years young or years old [ex: 16 years young or 16 years old]? Man, I miss the days I could confidently say "years young," lmao. Do you have any personality disorders? Avoidant, yes. I'm pretty convinced I have dependent PD, too. Do you shave your arms? Armpits, yes, but not my entire arms. What do you dip your fries in? Ketchup or honey mustard. Has one of your good friends ever moved away? Damn, yeah. I particularly remember this girl from elementary school in I think the 5th grade that I was very close with, yet I don't remember her name now. What color car are you when you play The Game of Life? Dude idr the colors at all. Which hair color do you find the ugliest? I've seen it be pulled off, but generally, yellow. Would you date a guy that wears more make-up than you do? Hell yeah man you fuckin strut that shit. Did you ever play M.A.S.H. when you were little? Ah, I remember that! Sure did. If you were getting married, who would be your maid of honor? My mom. If you have any pets, were they adopted from the humane society? No, but I would of course. Do you like home design, like picking out paint colors and furniture? Not any more than the average person. Do you chew gum on a regular basis? No. List all of your features that you have ever got compliments on: Do you mean just physical? If that's the case, hair, eyes, smile, uh... I feel like that's it. WAIT I can't remember who but someone once called my nose cute. Have you ever been in a hot air balloon, and if not, would you ever want to go in one? No; yes. What type of computer do you have? It's an Acer Nitro 5. Is anyone else in the room with you right now? My snake. Do you whiten your teeth with crest white strips? Not Crest, but a different brand, yes. I hate my teeth. Do you listen to local bands? Not really. I will sometimes listen to an old friend's band, at least bits of what they post on Facebook. Nova Mortis, check 'em out if you like pretty heavy metal. Do you have a pool in your back yard? No, but damn do I wish. Do your parents fight? Do they even talk at all? That's why they're divorced. They, especially Mom, avoid doing so whenever they can. Do you drink alcohol on New Year’s Eve? Usually. Do you wear rings? Just one, a friendship ring w/ Sara. Are there any restaurants in walking distance to your house? It'd be quite a long walk, at least by my standards. What was the last picture you uploaded to your Facebook? A picture of Mom and me. Have you ever listened to the same song on repeat for hours on end? YES. When I find a song I really like, I become VERY obsessive. Like I will play it and play it and play it for days. I in general have an extremely obsessive personality. Do you like staying in hotels? I don't have much of an opinion. It's a nice change of space, though. Are musicals interesting or boring? They're cheesy to me. What is your favorite scent of incense? (If you burn it) Okay, HEAR ME OUT. There is legit a kind called "monkey farts" that smells SO FUCKIN GOOD. Jason used to burn incense in his room all the time and that was my favorite one, so I use it now. Where do you normally hang out on the weekends? At home. I'm always at home, regardless of the day. Can you tune a guitar by ear or do you need a tuner? I never could. Do you like love songs? Generally, yes. They're sweet. Would you rather drink 7Up or Sprite? Fun fact: Sprite used to be my FAVORITE soda as a kid. I even had a fuckin Sprite shirt. Now, I hate it. I haven't tasted 7UP in forever. What is your favorite song as of right now? I'm seriously digging Halocene lately, esp their cover of "bury a friend." Have you ever sex texted? This is gonna sound so stupid, but I'm actually not *totally* sure what that is? Just like, dirty talking or like, virtually RPing sex? The former I did when I was fuckin 12 like a goddamn idiot, but not the latter. When's the last time you went out of state? A year and a half (I think?) ago to visit Sara. What was your favorite TV show last year? I didn't *really* have one, at least not actively. Like I didn't devoutly watch anything. Would you know who to talk to if you wanted weed? HAHA I sureeeee do. I wouldn't want any, though. What is your favorite Beatles song? "Hey, Jude." If you could kiss anyone right now, who would it be? I don't want to think about this. What is your favorite energy drink? I don't like energy drinks. Way too intense. Have you ever been to Hooters before? No. When's the last time you tripped? (Literally or, you know) HA, funny I take this survey today because my left foot is either broken or I seriously tore a ligament in it because I fell yesterday. I had to go up a dose on my medication that helps my nightmares, but it's notoriously for lowering your blood pressure, and mine is naturally low. I got up to go to the bathroom and grab breakfast and many times nearly passed out from being so dizzy until I finally fell and my foot bent forward. I couldn't even walk by myself yesterday and am still really struggling today. Our family friend brought the boot she wore when she broke her foot over just a while ago, but if this doesn't help, Mom's demanding I go to the ER. Can you touch your toes? I don't know HOW I can, but I can, I guess from when I did yoga daily and I could pretty much go under my feet. What would you say is the best feeling in the world? Being in love and knowing they're in love with you, too. Have you ever “spoken” to any celebrities via Twitter? No. Do you like croissants? YESSSSSSSSSSS. Do you get a lot of traffic outside your house or not? Yes. Mom explained to me why one day because I'd asked, but idr what she said. Do you eat cereal bars? No, I'm a granola bar person. Would you consider yourself healthy? Uh no. Assuming you could speak and understand the language, would you ever study in a foreign, non-English speaking country? Sure, for like a year or so! Doing that in Germany would be amazing. Are you on any prescribed medication? A lot. Do you know any immigrants? I know an illegal one that got deported. I probably know others. Have you ever lived in university or college accommodation before? No. If you haven’t already, are you scared of leaving home? If you have, do you like it? Very scared. I'm just very dependent and ignorant on how to be an adult. If you could only eat one vegetable for a year (not including potatoes) what would it be? Broccoli. Do you have a certain routine in the bath or shower? What is it? Shave, shampoo, facial scrub, this exfoliating brush for your feet, and then body wash. Is there anything that you loved a year ago but just can’t stand now? Hm. I don't really know. What’s the weirdest meat you’ve ever eaten? I took the SMALLEST bite out of it because I couldn't stomach eating it, but after a lot of convincing I tried a microscopic bit out of deer jerky. If you smoke, what brand of cigarettes do you smoke? If you don’t, have you ever tried? Don't smoke and don't want to. Do you like dried fruit at all? what’s your favorite type? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

some magical princesses.

@loveurn

"do you wanna play at dress up?” 

hanna’s attention grabbed, her hands firmly grasped in jamie’s and the game could go on soon as she looked up in bright eyes, wide and sparkling with all the mischief the world could have encompassed in the warmth of her brown. 

“come now it’s time to play!” 

did it help that jamie’s voice was singing along to the notes of the infamous disney’s song, do you wanna build a snowman? very proudly and like she could have played anna herself in the movie it came from. the very legendary frozen. 

“quit it, we have work to do, tons, loads of wooork!”

well yes. at times, hanna, despite having the name of the most ecstatic of the frozen’s sisters, could be quite a mood dampener. but just like the real anna, in Frozen, had a quirk for bringing the most jovial side of elsa out of her. this jamie, whether in her frozen mode or not, definitely had a knack or two under her sleeves for how to defrost her very own hanna. 

“what if i tell you, there’s this amazing dress, all pastel blue, that would look soooo good your tutor would forget what algebra stands for the moment he takes a look at you in it and i,” jamie only let go of hanna’s hands so she could reverently address herself with her hands on her chest, “your dearest friend, know where to find that blue dress.” 

“you make it sound a pretty dress is only good for boys.” maybe. and maybe hanna looked like she was not liking the idea, but color jamie an idiot if she didn’t know her best friend enough to notice the slight coloring of her face at the underlying intent behind looking pretty. but also, she did have a point. 

“trust me, when i saw that dress i didn’t think of how you’d look good for anyone but yourself and me.” that was the absolute truth. because jamie was the last to think that a girl, a woman, a lady, a little lady could not decide to pamper herself solely for her own pleasure. it was the first idea behind any type of glamor and fashion if you asked her. there was also no lie in her statement that she’d immediately thought of hanna at the sight of said dress that was making her impatient to leave all of these books and notebooks and laptop behind right now.

the aroma in this coffee shop held a lot of good memories and rather excruciating ones, but she could pass it up for the fresh smell of new clothes any day, any time. 

“come on, let’s go, yeah? i am pretty sure it’s a brand new store too!” 

dragging hanna anywhere, especially to go shopping was never a difficult task. today was no different, maybe with a little playful resistance, a roll of her eyes. but her smile was the same one she always gave jamie, the genuine one, that told of millions of other escapades like this one. million others that had given then just the same amount of memories to cherish, this one was just another cherry on top of the many others their cakes held together without so much as a sign of near collapse. 

plus, a little break would help not fry their pretty brains. 

coffee break

not only did the little break help not fry their minds, it also tremendously heightened their sense of happiness. although, that one was always in play where hanna was concerned. she had that about her, once you got past her tough as nails exterior of course. which she wore so well, one might mistakenly think it was more than simply skin deep reinforcement. 

jamie knew better though. jamie had been privy to many facets of her friend that others only wished they had gotten close enough to get a glimpse of. even that tutor of hers. at least she liked to think that she had all of hanna’s quirks all to herself when they were together, otherwise a bit of a jealous streak might start to slightly dampen her humor. 

although that would be short lived, because if there was ever anything hanna could not show jamie but she could show to someone else, then truly, jamie was happy she could do it with anyoen at all. 

“ok, so give us a happy twirl now.” she mimicked said twirl with her finger to properly show hanna where to turn, because jamie was the stylist of the day and maybe, just maybe the shopping trip had been more let’s get hanna to try out as many dresses as possible because she looks amazing in them more than anything else. big maybe. 

but it honestly looked so good, and hanna looked more than happy in it. this was not the pastel blue one, that one had been tried and bought long ago. this one was about the tenth dress? at least it was the one that was making hanna the happiest it seemed and jamie considered her job well done if it made hanna look like a child getting candy for the first time.

that was a feeling every adult needed to get back at the very least once a day. jamie always made sure to get her fix multiple times during the time, she had to keep her serotonin level at the highest of all highs, ok? she was certain this was a princess’ ultimate diet. 

“the material is so good, you wouldn’t even know looking at it.” 

ah yes, of course, fashion designer hanna always came knocking. her fingers touching the hem of the dress, feeling it up all the way to the straps of it on her shoulders. all those frills though, they could look overdone if one went too far with the waves of the bottom of the dress. but they didn’t because they kept the bottom very simple.

it might flow with every of her movements, much like a princess’ dress would, but it went on a bit shorter than what said princesses would wear. it also kept itself firm and didn’t lose any of its details if hanna were to make a sudden movement. 

“all you need is a magic wand now.” jamie said dreamily from where she’d resumed herself to watching hanna comment on the outfit like the professional she was. while also looking literally like she’d come out of a fairy tale. 

“i thought i was a princess?” “yes, a magical princess, they exist no?”

by the look hanna gave her and the light shake of her head, probably not. 

“then we need to make one, in fact,” tempt the silliness out of jamie and though shall have what you wished for. she rummaged through the bag sitting next to her for what she was sure she had, pulling it out with a little victorious sound, a bright big lollipop. now with her makeshift of a wand in hand she held it proudly and drew some invisible lines in the air, “i proclaim you hanna the first of many magical princesses to come.”

hanna laughed through her, “what do you smoke? i want an infinite amount of it.”

to which jamie sighed happily, “that would make two of us, because believe it or not, the brand i smoke is rare and so hard to find. it’s got long black hair, gorgeous cat like eyes, a bit of a crooked smile, a body to kill for. oh no, i think it’s turning a little red right now. oh no, it’s coming close, too close, no, i’ll overdose.” 

held hands or not though, hanna was already by her side and holding her in some bone crushing hug that had them both laughing to the point of almost toppling over the edge of the leathered bench. 

before the end

the day was a successful mission, even by jamie’s high expectations. leaving hanna to her driver was another playful show of, no hanna don’t leave me all alone in this cold. some high pitched singing, many, many giggles later and jamie was home in a hurry to put away all the bags she had in her bags and to get ready for her evening routine. but first thing first, of course she had to pitch in that last bit of natural happy vitamin. 

well, first put the bags together in one spot. second, take a picture. third, send it to sam with a nice caption. 

if you can come by first thing tomorrow, i’ll give you a fashion show.👠👠👠

To Keep You Safe

Title: A guy like you should wear a warning

Chapter: 6/?

Author: hopeless_romantic_spoonie

Summary: Life as the assistant to Tony Stark was busy, but boring. All of that changed when I touched something I shouldn’t have and woke up with strange new abilities. If I thought that trying to figure out my new place in life as an Avenger was tough, I had no idea what was in store for me once I ran into the frustrating God of Mischief, Loki.

Rating: E (later on)

Notes: Friendly reminder that this is un-Beta’d, so please excuse any typos or grammatical errors I no doubt missed during revisions!

Also on Ao3 here :)

Warnings for this chapter: Language, making out

~~~

Thanks to my speedy healing powers I was able to leave the infirmary the day after Loki’s late-night visit. I was still prescribed extreme amounts of rest and a moderate amount of painkillers, so I used the time when the others were busy working or training to unpack the boxes from my apartment and truly decorate my suite. Now that I wasn’t working myself into the ground each day, I had hours and hours to kill. If I was going to be staying here a while, so it might as well feel like home.

I had more in control of my powers so I allowed myself the luxury of putting out my small potted succulents and aloe plant onto the windowsill, having retrieved them from Pepper’s office after she had nabbed them for safe-keeping ages ago. I wanted to replace the duvet with mine from home, but moving up from a meager full-sized bed to a king meant that wasn’t going to work. It was easy to order another through F.R.I.D.A.Y., and a simple plush forest green duvet cover arrived promptly. Steve helpfully reassembled one of my bookshelves for me and put it up next to the couch in the sitting area. I finished that off by filling it to the brim with my extensive book collection.

The last bits of personal memorabilia were my drawing supplies. I hadn’t touched them in years, truthfully not since I began distracting myself after New York with work, but I had little else to do in my free time. I wasn’t allowed to train yet, and my job as Tony’s assistant had already been filled by someone else. Plus, I can only watch reruns of The Office so many times. So, my sketchbooks were scattered across my coffee table, with the one currently in use on my bedside table when I wasn’t lugging it around as I puttered about. A pouch of charcoal was always alongside it, along with a black-stained once-white towel to wipe off my hands.

So, in the interim of getting injured and being allowed to train, I drew. I now had a designated spot on the couch parked in front of the TV that was left open for me to curl up beneath a black blanket, to avoid stains, and draw as I socialized. My sketches started as complete and total trash from my lack of practice, but after a few attempts, my friends went from looking like misshapen cartoon characters to actual people on the page. If you squinted and tilted your head a little. And allowed for artistic license. But it was a work in progress like everything else in my life.

One surprising figure who kept appearing in my sketchbook turned out to be Loki. Whenever I was out of my room, he seemed to be as well. Keeping to the shadows and himself, but still present. His penetrating gaze drilled holes into the sides and back of my head as I went about my day. When I’d look up to catch his eye he stared back unabashedly with that same look of puzzlement that he had worn during our last conversation. Because even though he had been my new shadow, he never approached me, and I couldn’t even begin to think of what to say to him. 'Hey, so, you totally saved my life and now we don’t seem to hate each other and I don’t know what that’s about or what to do about it. So, what’s up? Stalk much?' That didn’t feel right. So I just left it be. If he wanted more answers so that he could wipe the curious look off of his face, it was very clear that he knew where to find me. Even if I couldn’t see him, like when I went on walks with Thor or Sam to keep my strength up while I healed, the small hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I felt his eyes upon me.

And each night, when I would wake screaming and sobbing in bed from visions of the Hydra men I had slaughtered, he was there. After the first night when I sent my trusty ole rock flying at, and then through, his expressionless face and learned that it was just a projection, it became routine. I’d wake up shrieking, drenched in cold sweat, and there would be an illusion of the Trickster God sitting on my couch watching over me. Never talking, never approaching me, just keeping guard over me with a steady gaze. Even though he wasn’t physically there, I knew that he was just on the other side of the wall, having woken from my cries and sending his doppelganger to me. Some tiny part of me took comfort in knowing that I wasn’t alone, and it was that part that I clung to as I fell back to sleep each time. That part only grew with each occurrence of his reliable appearances for my night terrors.

Should I have been more creeped out by it? Probably. This could go into stalker pasty vampire territory real fast. But I was so desperate for any sort of comfort that I began to search for him immediately after I was wrenched from my haunting dreams, a sigh of relief huffing out of my mouth when I saw him sitting at his post. It wasn’t good for me in the slightest to become so reliant on his steady presence, but it helped too much for me to put an end to it. What was it hurting? Besides our sleep schedules, of course. But mine was damned either way.

So, with little else to do, I drew him. If he could be a creep, so could I. I kept him in the corner of my eye whenever I would sit and sketch. And through my workings, I continued the exploration of the distant but oh-so-present god that I had begun in the infirmary. My fingers became familiar with the sharp lines of his cheekbones. The harsh angle of his jawbone. The slant and curve of his lips from the ever-present smirk. My eyes knew the breadth of his shoulders and the lean yet defined muscle filling out his standard button-down shirt. His long, spindly fingers were familiar to me not only from touch but now sight as well. And it was easy to fill my pages with his exceptionally well-proportioned figure while carrying on with everyone else. They got uncomfortable as the subjects of my sketches, but Loki was unwilling to talk to me to voice his opinion. As the only one to do so, he became my easiest muse.

~~~

After two weeks of rest, recuperation, and doodling, I was finally allowed to return to my training sessions with Nat and Wanda. And even in those, Loki lingered at the fringes. At first the others took notice, just as I had long ago, and waited for him to take action or say something or do anything to give a reason for his continued presence. It was one thing to always be about in the living room or grounds but harder to explain when he was always fifteen steps behind me. But when nothing happened and no explanations were given they tuned him out as I had learned to. If he wanted to be the ghost of my life, that was his prerogative. I needed to get my ass back in shape.

This was made all the more apparent as Nat slammed my body onto the training mat for the fifteenth time during our latest training session. My back was becoming far too familiar with the dark mats that cushioned my repeated falls.

“Knock the wind out of ya?” she asked, smirking down at me and offering her hand to help me up.

With a gasp and nod, I took her hand and allowed her to yank me gracelessly to my feet. I braced my hands on my knees, taking deep breaths and blinking the stars from my eyes.

“Tony talked to us and we all agree. We’re not leaving you as unprepared as you were before. So, catch your breath, because we’re not done yet,” she declared, holding out my reusable water bottle for me.

I drank heavily from it and even poured some on the top of my head, relishing the ice-cold water on my sweaty body.

“Then bring it on,” I tossed my water bottle to the edge of the mat. “I haven’t had my ass kicked in enough different ways yet.”

And Nat seemed to take that as a challenge. In the next hour she pinned me, tossed me to the floor, and put me in various holds until I tapped out probably 20 more times. At least.

“Good job, Jen. You lasted longer than I expected,” she praised me, tossing a towel on my prone form on the floor.

After she slammed me onto my back for the final time getting up didn’t seem like it needed to happen right away. The floor and I were good buddies by now and I just wanted to spend some more quality time with it. I groaned wordlessly, swiping the towel from my bare midriff and throwing it over my face. My entire body hurt, but my shoulder was the worst of all. An itchy, burning sensation pulsed with my heartbeat beneath the gnarled mess of scar tissue just to the right of the strap of my sports bra. I scratched at it absentmindedly before standing up, throwing the towel around my neck.

“I mean it. You’ve been out of commission for almost three weeks. It’s hard to get back into it, especially with the God of Ghostliness checking you out the entire time,” she teased.

“Oh no, that was definitely not what he’s doing. He feels guilty and he’s just keeping tabs.” There wasn’t a universe where Loki, Prince of Asgard, would be eyeing me for that reason. “Plus, he probably gets a sick thrill from watching me eat dirt over and over again.”

“I know I do,” Nat joked, linking her arm through mine as we walked out of the gym toward the building housing our rooms. “But really. You’re wearing a sports bra and tight leggings, all hot and bothered from getting your ass kicked, and grunting and huffing and puffing. It’s definitely some guys’ thing.”

I rolled my eyes, not dignifying her speculations with a response besides that. I was an unknown to Loki, that was all. He was such an intelligent person that he probably didn’t like not understanding something, and he just hadn’t figured me out yet. Once he was satisfied with whatever mystery of my character that he was trying to solve he would go back to slinking around the Compound on his own.

That didn’t explain his almost-nightly visits to my room after my nightmares, but I had long ago concluded that I wasn’t going to understand his motivation for that, either. Probably something along the lines of wanting me to shut the hell up so that he could get some sleep. That sounded more like his style.

Nat pulled me out of my thoughts with her suddenly enthusiastic tone. “Hey, before I forget, Sam and I were thinking of heading to the city tonight. Maybe hitting up a club and getting some,” she paused, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively, “frustration out. You should come. After all, you did say you like dancing.”

“I was kidding! Tony asked me how I was feeling while I was in a hospital bed with a hole in my shoulder and brains falling out of my skull and I’m a sarcastic smartass when I'm tired! That doesn’t count!” I exclaimed, laughing as she pulled me toward the stairs. My jelly legs quickly redirected us to the elevator.

“Doesn’t matter. You haven’t left this place in over a month. You need to get out. You’re coming. After dinner you’re coming to my room, I’m throwing you into the slinkiest dress I can find, and we’re hitting the town.”

By that point we had reached the main living room, and she pushed me toward my door for a much-needed shower.

“It’s happening!”

~~~

True to her word, after we’d all eaten dinner I was dragged into Nat’s room. There wasn’t even time to protest as the assassin plopped me down onto her bed, aiming a stern finger at me before going about her diabolical plans to dress me up like a doll.

She went through her clothes like a madwoman, picking out dresses and holding them up to me, then frowning and tossing them aside onto a rapidly-growing pile of provocative frocks. I didn’t blame her for the struggle considering the differences we had. She was a bit bustier and curvier in all the right places than my taller, boxier frame. With my bigger hips, smaller ass, and longer legs, half of the dresses were tossed aside simply because we weren’t looking to get me arrested for indecent exposure.

Finally, after several minutes of searching and a mountain of rejected dresses, she shoved one into my hands. “This is it, I know it,” she exclaimed, shoving me toward the bathroom to change.

I stumbled inside and closed the door behind me, holding in a groan. Whatever she picked I knew it had to be far more risque than anything I’d ever choose for myself. But she got one thing right from the start: the color was my favorite: a deep emerald green. I didn’t see any sequins or sparkles, so that was a bonus. Mimicking a disco ball had never been high on my list of wardrobe choices.

But as soon as I put it on, after first running to my room and back to grab a strapless bra, I knew it wasn’t happening.

The high halter neckline of the dress revealed my fair, only slightly muscular shoulders, and as such, the twisted mess of raised pink scar tissue I wasn’t too keen on revealing. Following the dress down, more of my pale skin was revealed by cutouts on either side of my waist just above my hip bones. I only ever showed my midriff when I was working out, and that was because Tony seemed averse to air conditioning in the gym. This was a lot of skin. Plus, it was a dress and I just really didn’t want to wear one.

“Nat, this isn’t going to work,” I whined through the door, staring at my body critically in the mirror.

“Lemme see, Pebbles!”

Sighing heavily, I opened up the bathroom door and padded out into the bedroom. I even did a little twirl to prove just how much the dress did not work for me.

“I think that Tony is right about the Poison Ivy thing, especially in that dress. Damn, girl!”

“It’s too much, Nat!” I covered the fair skin revealed at my waist to the best of my ability, crossing my arms over myself.

“No, you look stunning! He’s not going to know what hit him,” she gushed, grabbing my hand and pulling me over to a vanity in the sitting area of her room. She pushed me down in front of it and began fussing with my hair.

“But it isn’t too much?” I asked quietly.

“Trust me, you’ll knock him dead,” she promised, twisting my hair into a bun on the back of my head.

Him?

~

One hour later, I looked myself over in the mirror while Natasha quickly got dressed, surveying her handiwork.

After existing in the dress for a while, I begrudgingly admitted to myself that it wasn’t the absolute worst. I still felt a little uncomfortable with how tight it was, but I was given some relief and breathing room with the slight flare of the skirt out from my hips. My dark brown hair had somehow been thrown up into a simple bun with just one long gold hair clip, a feat of epic proportions considering just how much hair I had. A delicate gold arm cuff resembling a snake wrapped around my bicep on my right arm, hopefully distracting from the scarring above it that wouldn’t disappear behind the dress no matter how much I tugged at it. My ever-present thumbprint necklace was completely hidden by the high neckline and collar of the dress. And to complete the outfit, much to Nat’s dismay, I snagged a pair of chunky black ankle boots from my closet. If I was going to be dragged out for a night on the town, I was not going to do it in the scary-high black stilettos she had offered to me. Breaking my ankles would probably put a damper on the evening.

At least my makeup was within my comfort zone. With subtle winged eyeliner, heavy mascara, and berry red lips I still looked like I tried without resembling a clown. As Nat said, 'You, but better.' I think it was a compliment.

“Oh! One last thing,” Natasha cried, popping up from finishing her makeup at the vanity and dashing out of the room. She reappeared moments later with Tony by her side.

“Damn, Poison Ivy. You look fantastic. I didn’t even recognize you.” Tony sauntered over to me, wrapping me in a brief one-armed hug before pulling back and holding out a polished wooden box from behind his back. “I know you may be feeling antsy about tonight, so I sent out for this.”

I blushed at Tony’s compliment and took the box over to the vanity. “Y’all really want that nickname to stick, huh?” I asked, rolling my eyes as I opened the surprise gift.

“It’s an obsidian dagger. It’s made out of volcanic glass, so you should be able to control it with your powers if you get in a tight spot. And that’s a thigh holster. It should work over or under your clothes. The leather is reinforced on the inside, so you can't cut through it. But be careful. That thing is sharp as hell.”

I stared at the beautiful, semi-translucent black dagger and holster nestled in the red velvet inside the box. With a flick of my wrist, the dagger slipped from the sheath and flew into my waiting hand. The blade itself was about the length of my hand, and the handle just long enough for me to comfortably grasp it.

“It’s perfect, Tony, thank you,” I beamed, pulling everything from the box and carefully sliding the knife back into its sheath.

Natasha snapped out of admiring the weapon from afar once it was put away and pushed Tony toward the door. “Now shoo! She needs to strap that thing on and you need to go home to Pepper.”

“You kids have fun! The car is waiting out front! Do something I would do!”

I rolled my eyes with a smile at Tony’s shouted parting words before looking back down at his gift. It was beautiful. And he was right. The heavy dread that had settled in my stomach lightened slightly with the promised protection of the deadly weapon. The slim holster easily slipped up my leg and under my dress, which was just long enough to cover it. When I stood up and looked in the mirror, the extra swing of fabric around my legs concealed it. I had been concerned, since, once holstered, the set-up ran from slightly below my hip bone to the middle of my thigh on the outside of my leg.

“Let’s go, Trouble,” Natasha called, leaving the bathroom and shoving her feet into a similar pair of stilettos to what she had tried to force me into earlier. She was stunning in the classic strapless little black dress that clung to her every curve. I don’t know how she thought I was going to get any attention from whoever the mysterious ‘him’ was that she kept referring to when I would be standing next to her drop-dead gorgeous ass.

We both grabbed our bags on the way out of her room, mine a tasteful black leather square clutch on a long, thin gold chain and hers a bright red clutch with black straps to match her heels.

As we left her room, we saw the third member of our party. Sam was waiting for us dressed to kill in a brown leather jacket, white t-shirt, and dark jeans. He was the embodiment of looking cool without trying too hard.

But to my surprise, another man was waiting for us in the living room. I stopped dead in my tracks when I took in Loki leaning casually against the arm of the couch. The slim black pants, dark gray button-down shirt, and fitted black blazer looked like they were made for him and him alone to wear.

Oh. Him.

The arrogant smirk he normally wore fell from his face as his piercing green eyes blazed a path down my body, lingering on the golden snake bicep cuff and cutouts. The offhand comments Nat had made and her very particular styling choices suddenly made much more sense as I watched Loki eye me appreciatively. I was going to kill her and her meddling ass, assassin or not.

She pushed me toward Loki before walking over to Sam and casually slipping her arm around his waist so he could wrap his arm around her shoulders. I stumbled slightly and turned to glare at her, wishing that that dumb green box had given me face-melting laser powers right about now. When I turned back around, Loki was standing just inches away and was offering me his arm with a mischievous smile.

“You look absolutely divine,” he murmured, taking my left hand and tucking it into the crook of his arm.

“Thank you.” I blushed for the second time that night and lowered my gaze to the floor in front of us.

We followed Sam and Nat silently down the stairs, Loki’s arm tightening to trap my hand securely against his body as we descended together. While my dazzling friends in front of us chatted away excitedly about tonight’s plans, I couldn’t get over my shock to think of anything to say to the prince escorting me to the back row of the waiting black SUV. He took one of my hands in his, the other resting politely on the middle of my back as he helped me inside. After I was settled on the rich leather interior, he went to the other side and gracefully slipped in next to me.

Sam and Nat piled into the row in front of us, letting the driver know that we were ready to go. I fumbled with the seatbelt, my hands shaking and missing the buckle once, twice.

Along with the shock of Loki’s presence on our outing, I was suddenly very aware that this was the first time I was going to go out in public since getting my powers. I thought I had a good grip on them, but what if I didn’t? Would wherever we were going have anything around that I could accidentally use against someone if I got hurt? What if I lost it and used my new dagger on someone? Loki's steady hands covered mine and helped me on the third try, bringing me back to the car and making my breath hitch in my throat.

I pulled away and angled my face to look outside. My heart was threatening to jump out of my chest. Not because of how pleasant his cool fingers had felt on my warm skin, but because I was anxious about being around so many people again. Yep. That’s it. I kept my eyes trained outside the heavily tinted windows for some time, listening to Sam and Nat without actually hearing what they were saying. Anything to focus on besides Loki’s leg that pressed into my own each time we were jostled by the car.

After a few tense minutes, I cleared my throat and blurted out the one thought that wouldn’t stop nagging at me. “Why’d you come?”

Loki’s eyes met mine and held them prisoner in his own with their intensity. “To keep you safe.”

And that was that.

~~~

We pulled up to a stop outside of a busy club, a long line curled around the side of the building as people waited in the chilly September air to be allowed inside. After accepting Loki’s hand to help me out of the car, I stifled a groan at the thought of waiting in such a line with just the short dress I had on to shield me from the cold. Neither Nat nor myself had thought about the weather when she was playing makeover.

But I had not realized the power of who I was with as I trailed behind my friends. Loki, Sam, and Nat strolled confidently up to the bouncer, Nat flashing him a jaw-dropping smile and Sam slipping him an even more jaw-dropping collection of bills. With a satisfied smirk and leering eyes ogling Nat’s ample cleavage, the giant of a man waved us inside.

The thumping bass assaulted my ears after we stepped through the door behind the bouncer. The smell of sweat and mixing colognes and perfumes made me crinkle my nose. Multicolored lights flashed across the club, just light enough to illuminate the undulating dancers in the middle of the room without being so bright that they felt self-conscious. Along the edge against the brick walls were various couches scattered here and there, left in shadow to afford those resting from their revelry a bit of a break from the pandemonium.

Nat didn’t seem to notice any of it as she let go of Sam and grabbed my arm instead. She yanked me from Loki’s grip and led me to the nearest of two dark wooden bars. I looked back at Sam and Loki briefly before I was swallowed up by the crowd. The former was already moving in on a very attractive woman, and Loki remained standing tall and proud where I had left him, alabaster skin changing colors with the flashing colored lights around him. His piercing eyes tracked me until I was out of sight. I turned my attention back to my friend, following in her incredibly steady footsteps for her mile-high stilettos. We both leaned against the bar and she flagged down the bartender.

“Vodka cranberry please, make it a double!” I shouted, hoping that the bartender could make out what I was saying over the almost deafening music. I couldn’t even hear what Nat ordered and she was right beside me. She placed a large bill in his hand after our two drinks were in front of us and shouted something else that I couldn’t pick up.

I grabbed mine and took a drink, grateful to discover that he had heard my order correctly. I didn’t have time to savor the drink, as Nat caught my attention by holding up a shot of clear liquid in front of me suggestively.

“No! I can’t hold my alcohol!” I shouted, shaking my head dramatically at her and attempting to push the liquor back in her direction.

She leaned into me, pushing the shot back into my hand. “Yes! What have you got to lose?”

With a groan, I accepted the shot and hastily poured it down my throat, wincing at the burn of vodka that I felt all the way down to my stomach. I chased it with a sip of my drink. It was a smart move for my taste buds, but not necessarily my liver. Too late now.

Her drink now in hand, Nat grabbed my free hand with hers and pulled me out onto the dance floor. I could see Sam off to the side, getting very familiar with the woman he had approached earlier. Loki was nowhere to be found, but he had to be close. He wouldn’t come all this way just to leave. He was most likely off taking advantage of the inebriated patrons and the dark surroundings, God of Mischief that he was. This was probably his twisted version of a candy store.

I felt the shot working its way through my system, warming my body and loosening up the strangled tightness that had gripped my chest in the car earlier. I could feel the power coursing through my veins, but it wasn’t hard to tamp it down and focus on the buzz in my head instead. Maybe tonight wouldn’t be so bad after all. I allowed myself to give in to the infectious anonymity of the pulsing darkness, laughing and dancing with Nat.

Several songs and one more drink later, I was working my way passed tipsy and toward drunk, and I needed a break. I gestured toward the bar, but Nat shook her head and closed her eyes while she kept on dancing. It didn’t hurt my feelings any. She deserved to let loose just as much as I did and I didn’t need babysitting just to go get another drink and take a load off for a minute. I pushed my way through the crowd of sweaty bodies to the bar and plopped down on a barstool.

I pressed a bill from my clutch into the bartender’s hand when he came around to me, asking for another vodka cranberry. He went off to make my drink, and once he was back and the beverage was lightly grasped in my hand I closed my eyes for a moment to focus on catching my breath.

A cool hand settled onto the exposed skin at my waist and an arm stretched across my back. I opened my eyes to see someone plucking the drink from my hand before retreating quickly.

“What the fuck?” I swore loudly, whipping around to see Loki looking at me over his shoulder as he sauntered away, my drink held tauntingly in his slightly raised hand. He slipped into the crowd and I was just barely able to make out the top of his head among the throng of dancers.

I hopped off of the barstool a little less gracefully than I would have liked. I was at least grateful that I was able to pick my way through the crowd without stumbling into anybody despite the alcohol in my system.

While it had been easy to find him when I had been removed from the crowd thanks to his height, once I was surrounded by people I lost him. A growl of frustration passed through my lips. The God of Mischief was a real pain in my ass.

“Lose something?” The words were passed to me over the din of the club through smooth lips pressed against the shell of my ear.

I turned around to see Loki watching me with a smirk on his lips and mischief glinting in his eyes. I tried to be quick and snag my drink from him, but he lifted it higher so that all I succeeded in doing was looking like an idiot.

He stooped down to speak lowly into my ear again. “Your drink for a dance, little one.”

“Are you serious?’ I shouted, glaring at him as he pulled away. The quirk of his brow signified that his proposal was indeed very serious.

I contemplated just going back to the bar and getting another drink. It wasn’t like I didn’t have the money, with what Tony paid I could retire today and live a modest, but comfortable, life. But it was the principle of the thing that mattered. He was throwing down the gauntlet and I was just stubborn enough and drunk enough to pick it up.

I shrugged my shoulders in light acceptance of his terms and he closed the distance between us to place a large hand on the small of my back. I draped my arms around his shoulders and made sure to press back against his hand as I rolled my body to the beat that reverberated through my boots from the floor.

His pale skin was the perfect canvas for the colored lights to saturate as he stared down at me moving against him. I couldn’t help the smirk of my own as he pulled me closer to him until our chests brushed. I blamed the alcohol and exercise for the cause of my heart beating erratically in my chest and my uneven breaths. It wasn’t the darkening of his eyes as my hips rolled against his. And it was most definitely not the solid muscles that flexed against me with each twist of his body. Nor was it the wolfish smile that pulled on his lips as his hand skated across my back to grip onto the exposed feverish flesh on my side.

He used the leverage he gained from this new position to turn me around so that my back was to his front. I felt every angle of him against me as he pulled me flush against him, from his rigid chest curling into the back of my bare shoulders to his hips grinding deliciously against the padding of my ass. The hand not holding my drink rested on my flat stomach, keeping me against him as we moved together to the pounding bass. My arms reached up above me so that my hands could resume their place around the nape of his neck, consequently opening my body up to him for his perusal.

Surprisingly, he didn’t take advantage. His hand remained stretched across my soft stomach, holding me to him, but the other moved down around me until my drink was poised in front of my lips. Emboldened by the heady mixture of alcohol and his masculine scent surrounding me, I tilted my head forward enough to down what was left of my cocktail after he had seemingly taken his own drinks from it if the low level of liquid was anything to go by. The glass disappeared from his hand, which was now free to trail across my jaw and hook on my chin, turning my head so that his nose brushed against my cheek and his breaths panted out against my sweat-dampened skin.

“You have had your drink. You are free to go.” His words were at odds with his hand, which held me captive against him by digging pleasantly into my hip.

We had fulfilled the bargain that he had given me. I danced with him, and he had given me what remained of my drink. But it sounded like too much work to go find Nat, Sam was most definitely enjoying time with some random beautiful woman, and I had to admit that Loki was an amazing dance partner. Why would I leave him to go dance alone, or worse, have some random brute grind up on me and try to cop a feel? I knew, well kinda, what to expect with him, so I just laughed in response and dragged my nails against his sensitive skin at the nape of his neck.

Over the pounding music, I felt more than heard the rumble of his chest at my actions, and the sound sent chills through me. His large hands took to roaming over my body as we danced, never staying in one spot for too long. Dragging from the outside of my thighs to my hips to brush across my stomach to reach up and trail down my upraised arms and back again, leaving fire in their wake.

I shut down the logical part of my brain that told me that I shouldn’t be enjoying this so much. That this was Loki, the god who hated me and was nothing but his own needs. Future me could worry about that. Right now I was too engrossed in the exhilarating movement of his body against mine to do anything about it. Especially when he ducked his head so that his lips trailed across my bare shoulder. It was intoxicating.He was intoxicating.

“What do we have here?” he purred, voice velvet sin behind me. His hands had stalled their movements on the outside of my legs, and one hand toyed with the edges of my dagger over the fabric of my dress.

I turned around in his arms and moved my hands down to rest against his chest. “Insurance,” I smirked up at him.

He chuckled darkly and looked positively sinister as he loomed over me. “Plan on using it?” he asked, his groping fingers reaching behind me to gather a healthy amount of my backside in their clutches.

I smiled sweetly up at him as I released him to reach behind me and take his hands into mine. “Only if you don’t keep your hands to yourself,” I replied, slipping out of his grasp and walking away.

When I peeked over my shoulder for his reaction, he was where I had left him, watching me stroll away with a predatory gleam in his eye that sent a rush of heat through me. The logical side of me had disappeared some time ago, sent away by the sensual roll of his hips against mine, so I shot him a wink before slipping through the crowd toward the edges of the bar, one of the dark leather couches calling my name.

What the hell was that wink?

I found an empty couch in the shadows and perched on the armrest, taking care to keep my thighs firmly closed together and my skirt draped over the lethal weapon I was hiding. Wouldn’t do for anyone to see anything they shouldn’t. It was much easier to breathe now that he wasn’t holding me so tightly to him, and I bowed my head as I focused on cooling and calming down.

“You need to rehydrate.” The words came from above me as a pale hand holding a glass of water slipped into my field of view.

Like any intelligent woman who had had alcohol in public before, I knew better than to accept a drink that I hadn’t seen made. I lifted my eyes to Loki, expecting to see the same lascivious expression on his face as I had last seem him, but only finding a light concern furrowing his brow instead. But he wasn’t looking at me. He straightened up while I watched him and turned partially around to stare off into the crowd. When he turned back to face me, an urgency had taken over his features.

The seriousness of his expression cut through my buzz and I stood up as quickly as I could manage from my awkward position on the sofa. “What’s wrong?”

He seemed to grapple with something for a moment as he searched my face, indecision in his darting eyes and twitching fingers. When it appeared that he had made a decision, judging by the forced exhale through his nose and his hands reaching out to steady themselves on my waist, he stepped closer and stooped down so that our foreheads were almost touching. “Do you trust me, little one?”

My hands immediately went up to exhibit a light pressure on his chest, keeping him from getting any closer as I studied him. There wasn’t a smirk, mischievous grin, or pleased smile on his face to indicate that he was trying to trick me. The hunger that I had detected in his eyes earlier had been wiped clean and replaced with anxious sincerity. It was startling to see him change so abruptly.

Did I trust him? I mean, he hadn’t threatened to stab me in several weeks, so that was an improvement. And I sure as hell had been dancing with him just a few minutes ago like I did. I had picked to dance with him instead of going at it alone because I knew that he wasn’t going to be a creep about it. But trust implied something deeper. Built on a bond and respect and a mutual understanding. I wasn’t sure if I had that with him. He wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t important, though. And it must be, to cause the visible tension in his body.

“Um, I guess so. Sure.” That was the best answer that I could give him. He was going to have to take it or leave it.

“Then trust me in this and do not hit me.”

“Don't hit-”

My words were swallowed by his lips swooping down onto my own. I froze under the suddenness of it. When I didn’t respond to his ministrations he dragged his lips from my mouth to my ear.

“I’m in contact with Sam and Natasha. They believe that Hydra has tracked us here and is searching for us. Public displays of affection make people uncomfortable. We can disappear as another amorous couple seeking our pleasure in the shadows,” he explained quickly.

Nat had told me about that tactic. It was a common one, easy to execute if you had the wiles or knew your partner in a mission. I certainly didn’t have the first, but I had a bit more of the second now than I did at the beginning of the evening. If Nat thought that it would work now, and Loki agreed, who was I to argue?

He was waiting, tensed, for me to decide the next course of action. He was allowing me the option of going along with the plan or backing out. The very notion that he wasn’t going to force me into an uncomfortable situation after I had shown hesitance was one that I wouldn't have expected from him. He was known for taking what he wanted and begging no forgiveness, not for politely doling out options in times of distress.

My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, gathering the smooth material into my palms. I tilted my head back enough to look up at him and traced the elegant contours of his face with my gaze, taking in the unexpected kindness that warmed his bright eyes. I tilted my face up to him and closed my eyes before bridging the small gap between our lips in a searching kiss.

I wasn’t sure what I expected kissing him to be like, I hadn’t truly thought about it, but it wasn’t this. His lips were so soft and tasted of vodka and cranberries as they worked expertly against me. His hands splayed out against waist and pulled me until our bodies were pressed together from hips to chest. The contact, so easy to facilitate earlier on the dance floor, was now much more charged and it coaxed a gasp from my throat.

That small noise seemed to awaken something within him, and the gentle exploration of my mouth turned more passionate, his tongue snaking out to tease the seam of my lips and beg for entrance. I granted it willingly and melted into him. My body moved on its own accord as he stoked molten flames beneath my skin. My fingers released their grip of his expensive shirt to wind around his neck and tangle in his long black hair. I lightly scratched at his scalp, remembering his pleasure at it while dancing, drawing a low groan from him that shot straight to the heat that was pooling in my lower belly.

His long body surrounded me. He walked us back until I was trapped between his body and the wall, pinned by his leg slipping between my own. When I wrenched my mouth away to gasp for the air that his embrace had stolen from me he took it in stride and moved his scorching lips to caress the delicate skin of my neck.

Just as soon as his tongue snaked out to lave against the pulse that was hammering in my throat, he froze, his once-relaxed muscles tensing against me. His hands left my body to press against the wall on either side of me as he towered over me. As if he could make me disappear behind his lean frame.

“We have to move. Now,” he panted, taking my hand in his and pulling me quickly behind him as we fled the relative safety of the shadows.

He led us to a metal exit door and we spilled outside. The chill of the air soothed my flushed skin and helped clear the haze that had settled over my mind. Loki held my hand behind his back as he looked around the dark alleyway we found ourselves in. The faint bass from the club stopped, and two gunshots reached my ears through the thin door behind us. Screaming patrons poured out of the front of the club. Thankfully they ignored our dark figures pressed against the rough brick wall.

“It’s Hydra. They discovered Sam and Natasha. We need to leave.” He kept his death grip on my hand as he pulled me deeper into the alley and away from the entrance.

“Don’t take another step.” A voice pierced through the screams, shooting ice-cold fear through my veins.

Loki turned around and pulled me with him, keeping his body between me and whoever had spoken. I peered around his shoulders to see two men slowly approaching us, guns pointed at Loki’s head.

Hydra had found us.

A Conceptual Post About Pokémon as D&D Monsters

I know, I know, it’s been done before, but I’ve been having a lot of ideas about D&D lately and it occurred to me that it might be fun to try to adapt Pokemon to the standard dnd setting(s) - that is, not just copying them wholesale as in, “you open the dungeon door and see a pikachu” but taking the concept of the creature and placing it in your world as something that genuinely belonged there. Like, say, You confront your party with a large turtle-monster that sprays high-powered water jets as its primary mode of attack. It’s essentially a blastoise, but that isn’t what it’s called and it doesn’t necessarily have to follow the rules that an actual blastoise would in the pokemon games. I’ve seen pokemon stat block writeups before, but they’re usually pretty straightforward “this is a psyduck” type deals, and what I’m interested in is retooling the monster to fit in a different world (while keeping the core of it intact). What’s it called (if it has a different name)? Where does it come from in your world, and where does it live? If the original had evolutions, does this version? Lots of potential there. To that end, here are a few pokemon that I think have particularly interesting concepts:

Phantump: Honestly all of the ghost pokemon have interesting concepts but I didn’t want to have a disproportionate number of ghost-types so I chose this one. Core concept is a furtive little forest spirit that uses old tree stumps (or perhaps fallen logs) as surrogate bodies/protective shells. Canon lore says they’re supposedly the spirits of children who died in the forest, so take or leave that as you please. Now, none of these suggestions have to look exactly like their inspirations as long as they convey the idea - for instance I sort of imagine these guys as little humanoid figures made of gnarled wood, which also gives me distinct skull-kid-from-LoZ vibes (but maybe that should be a separate post...)

Heliolisk: I don’t really know what drew me to this critter in particular, except that ‘solar-powered lizard that can shoot electricity and stuff’ is just a good creature to put in a made-up world (probably in a desert region). It even has “-lisk” in its name, like the more infamous basilisk, so it already sounds like it SHOULD be a mythical creature. As I’m writing this I realize that it strongly resembles the already-in-dnd shocker lizard, but come on, this thing is way more badass. Also I was just reading about it on Bulbapedia and apparently it can run super-fast? so... that’s in there, too.

Snorlax or Slaking: Look I just like the concept of a big hairy beast that’s super strong but spends almost all of its time asleep. Not even sure that would affect its stats but it’s great flavor.

Zygarde: A host of tiny organisms - maybe even single-celled - which can come together to form larger gestalt creatures (most famously a massive serpent/worm, but even more powerful forms may be possible). Should be a very powerful, possibly unique, individual, since it is a legendary pokemon.

Dhelmise: Sentient algae that uses marine detritus as a ‘skeleton’? The ghost type delivers again! I imagine that before humans were responsible for so much stuff being in the ocean these must have used a lot of animal bones (and maybe some driftwood) instead.

Seismitoad: I think there are already frog monsters with sonic attacks, but that was only half of the appeal for me here, the other half being ‘large bipedal frog’. I hold this as being very different from bullywugs, grippli, or any other amphibian-based humanoids: While froglike, those are all still fundamentally types of people, whereas this beast is first and foremost a frog. A frog that walks upright and has opposable thumbs. This also works with poliwhirl/poliwrath and croagunk/toxicroak, but then the sonic/vibration stuff won this one out for me by a slim margin. (Addendum: I have come to the realization that seismitoad and croagunk don’t actually have opposable thumbs according to their artwork. Whatever, just fudge it.)

Tropius: This one’s just plain weird. Like, almost exeggcutor-level weird (dang, maybe I should have chosen exeggcutor instead. But tropius is less famously weird. Side note: what’s up with pokemon based on palmlike plants?) It’s part small sauropod dinosaur, part banana tree, and while I’m not sure whether it should be classified as a plant or not, I do know that it can definitely fly. Also, it produces delicious fruit you can eat!

Parasect: You probably figured I was going to mention this one. Everyone thinks of paras and parasect when they think of pokemon with weird but cool concepts. MY take is that the fungus could infest different types of giant vermin, perhaps making it the basis for a template. Or not; these are just suggestions. Do whatever.

Larvesta and Volcarona: Maybe I’m just on a kick from all the GKOTM fanart I’ve been seeing, but giant fire-spitting caterpillar + giant fiery moth adult seems like a creature idea worth exploring. Larvesta also takes longer to evolve than any other stage-one pokemon, which I see as representing a long time spent in larval form (or pupated), which in turn resembles kaiju’s long periods of ‘dormancy’, bringing us back to Mothra (as all things must). Also, I think larvesta/volcarona are the only bug/fire types in the whole series so far? That’s nuts to me but it just makes them even more special.

Abra: Honestly the way this guy looks is like 90% of the appeal for me here. Abra looks like an armadillo tried to evolve into a monkey and somehow ended up with psychic powers in the process. It levitates and teleports, and according to the lore it’s usually asleep but thanks to its psychic powers is still aware of its surroundings. That’s right, its eyes aren’t really narrow, they’re just closed all the time. Do any images of abra with its eyes open exist? If they do, are we prepared to see them? As always, don’t feel like you have to give any of these guys evolved forms just because they evolve in the games. I’m definitely not saying this here specifically because I like abra’s design more than its evolutions, no sir.

Pinsir or Heracross: Pretty much the same as with the toads a few entries above. Clearly not people, but just vaguely reminiscent enough to maybe be just a little unsettling. C’mon, I know they’re cute in the games and the show but tell me you wouldn’t be at least slightly perturbed if you saw a real-life beetle the size of a 10-year-old trundling around on two legs. Even if you thought it was rad as hell you’d still get out of there pretty quick if it started trundling towards you.

Slowpoke: Listen if you don’t get the appeal of a semi-aquatic, ambiguously mammalian quadruped that has psychic capabilities but is also comically oblivious to external stimuli then I just don’t know what to tell you.

Barbaracle: Colonial organism sort of like Zygarde, except the individual parts are bigger. It could even be modular, with the various ‘limbs’ combining in different ways, although that could also complicate the stat block.

Gothitelle: Conceptually I suppose this is just another humanoid psychic creature, but a while ago I saw someone point out how its frills and whatnot are sort of reminiscent of a sea slug, and damned if ‘anthropomorphic nudibranch’ doesn’t get my blood flowing.

Rapidash: Pretty simple, a unicorn variant/non-evil fire horse. Who wouldn’t want one of those?

Necrozma: I never actually played Sun and Moon 2, nor did I get too deep into the postgame ultra beast stuff in SuMo 1, so regrettably I missed out on a lot of the wonderful interdimensional weirdness. While each ultra beast is appealing in its own way, Necrozma is practically a Lovecraftian Great Old One already what with how it was once an interstellar being of heat and light but was somehow injured or depleted and has now become a completely different creature that travels from world to world absorbing all light. That’s a pretty raw concept for any story, let alone a cute kid’s game. And it’s always a plus when something can be cool and threatening while still being safe for a G rating! You could also do what SuMo2 did and take your heroes to a world that’s already had its light stolen by the beast, to explore how the inhabitants of that world have been affected as well as show what awaits the heroes’ world... or just as a nice change of scenery. Lastly there’s the possibility that Necrozma must ultimately be defeated not through violence, but by figuring out how to restore it to its original form. It isn’t too often that the cosmic monstrosity could actually use your help, and it might leave the PCs feeling like they really accomplished something epic. Alternately, it returning to its original form also makes a great homage to the multiple forms of every JRPG final boss ever, a trope that has been under-represented in D&D for TOO LONG.

...and that’s it, at least for now. Naturally, there are about a thousand other possibilities, including different ways of interpreting the examples I’ve provided here. I suppose they could also be used for purposes besides D&D, although if you’re going to put any of this in the fantasy novel you’ve been working on I suggest you be extra diligent in obfuscating the creatures’ actual origins so as to avoid a visit from any lawyers. I don’t know if anybody is actually even going to see this post at all, but if it does end up getting around, then I fully encourage all of you to put your own spins on this if you’re inspired to do so! I’d love to see what other people might come up with.