#she doesn’t lie to either of them she gave them plenty of clues it’s not her fault they both failed that insight check!
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Karlach strikes me as someone who would absolutely play meddling matchmaker for her friends.
Hear me out: a few years have passed post game and her engine is now fixed. Maybe she’s dating Tav. Maybe she’s dating someone else. Regardless, she sees her best friend Wyll in need of a date for a party and starts scheming.
Because Wyll, she has the perfect person for the job! They know how to navigate a high class party situation. They’re good at small talk. If Wyll wants to persue anything, they’d want to take it slow. And they absolutely do not give a shit about who his father is and won’t be weird about it, or the horns!
Wyll is like “sure sounds great” and waits outside a bar when they’re going to meet up (cus he does want to meet them first), and hears behind him.
“I should have known she was up to something.”
And it’s just Astarion standing there and Wyll is like “you know what, I should have figured this one out when she said we had to meet after dark.”
(Karlach either outright told Astarion what was up or she told him “I have a friend who needs a blind date who will respect your boundaries and in return you can steal from the nobility all night with an open bar” and he was like SOLD).
#bg3#bloodpact#wyll ravengard#astarion ancunin#karlach cliffgate#she doesn’t lie to either of them she gave them plenty of clues it’s not her fault they both failed that insight check!#also like she did offer to tell them if they really wanted to know given their history so they’re not mad about it#this doesnt even have to be a ship thing she’s objectively correct it is a perfect date senario
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Do I think that Mor and Eris are mates?
No.
Do I think that they’re rejected mates?
Also no.
Eris doesn’t seem to have any sort of hidden anger towards that incident centuries after. That’s the first clue for me because we’ve seen how long Rhys carries anger towards the people whom he believed done Feyre wrong and the reaction from Helion regarding the dangers the LoA was under, especially when Feyre implied that he did nothing to help. Eris felt remorse for what he had done rather than anger for how her family treated Mor.
It shifted in ACOSF when both Rhys and Mor started trusting him completely, even confusing Cassian about their change in attitude. Cassian acknowledged that Eris had delivered everything Rhys had asked for, even going so far as to offer Rhys to look into his mind. Considering Mor does have the power of truth, she too doesn’t seem to see any ill-intentions from Eris.
Based on what we know about Eris, my headcanon is that getting Mor out of her engagement was one of Eris's earliest schemes, and it had cost the both of them plenty. What happened to Mor was meant as a message to keep Eris or both in line, knowing the consequences if Eris had touched Mor. Eris mentioned that he was sorry for that day, so it made me feel that he underestimated either Keir or Beron. I think Mor found him responsible, and Eris is telling her that she knows the truth of what happened during that incident.
The other clue is Eris's motivation to remove Beron as the High Lord of Autumn rather than removing Keir as Steward of the Court of Nightmares. Eris moved to protect his mom against Feyre's attack during the High Lord meeting, and Helion spoke about how his mother's behavior has changed. Considering that they were all stuck Under the Mountain, and the Lords of Autumn and Day were forced by circumstances to share the same space, it might have motivated Eris to protect his mom further. Beron is also the last of the original High Lords, no longer aligning with the push for equality that the newer High Lords strive for.
“We don’t know why they exist, but do you not find it strange that two out of the three have underground palaces carved into them?”
“I’d hardly call the Prison a palace,” Cassian cut in. “Just ask the inmates.”
Eris gave him a mocking smile, but continued, “Unsurprisingly, the Illyrians were never curious enough to see what secrets lie beneath Ramiel. If it, too, was carved up like the others by ancient hands.”
Eris knew how to counteract daemati abilities. He possessed information that he used against Keir to delay him from entering Velaris. Eris also appeared concerned about having all the Dread Trove items in one place. I wonder what other information he possesses that might be of interest to Rhys, given this observation.
Every action Eris takes isn't for Mor's benefit; it's for his mom and the country. This aligns with Rhys's goal for a better world, and Feyre recognizes their similarities in wearing a mask. Helion specifically mentioned that it was LoA's choice to stay with Beron. Eris would have given a similar line if it were the case.
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Finding out You're in the Fatui
Characters: Jean, Childe, Keqing, Albedo, Diluc, Xiao
Diluc:
Whatever way he finds out he’s very upset; he trusted you, he fell in love with you yet now he finds out you’re with the enemy? He’s fearing that everything that’s happened between the two of you was a lie, that you just used him until you got what you needed. His brain is just in a storm of thoughts
He wants to believe that you’re good at heart, that all of this was because you didn’t have much of a choice. He’s going to ask questions, but more importantly he will offer you a way out: abandon the Fatui and just live with him he will vow to protect you and even find a safe area to work if employment was a concern of yours
If you accept his offer he’s glad that he didn’t have to lose you, he loves you too much and it’d be just too sad for him to have to cut ties with you especially since you’re the first one he’s felt such strong feelings for
But if you refused and you made it clear that you willingly joined the Fatui, he’s absolutely heartbroken. He’d probably start crying out of how painful the reality of the situation was and try to beg you to leave and stay with him. He does not have the heart to even consider having to fight you, he didn’t want to harm you yet here you were showing a completely different side to you that not even he caught onto
Xiao:
He is enraged at the new information when he finds out. He curses himself for being so blind and having trusted you as much as he did. How could he be calm about this; you played a hand in the fall of the archon he served under, the archon that saved him from his horrible past and gave him a new purpose in life. How could he ever forgive you for such a betrayal
Though he refuses to bloody his hands with those of mortal blood, he will lash out and attack you. His heart hurts as how could he let this happen, he loved you yet was this the world’s way of punishing him for his past he could only wonder
If you plea to him to listen to your explanation he’s conflicted; you were either telling the truth or you were lying to just buy yourself some time… But he stopped and kept a safe distance from you as though you hurt his trust in his heart he still very much loves you so if there was a glimmer of hope that you can be saved he would be willing to listen to judge for himself. His expression softens when learning that you essentially got forced and trapped into working in the Fatui and at that point he is willing to keep you with him which mainly consisted of you living at the Wangshu Inn with him
However if you confirm that you’re in the Fatui of your own choosing he’s hurt, but he’s already withdrawing his own emotions so it didn’t get in the way of his duties. You’re no longer the mortal he fell in love with, you were just another mortal trying to use him for your personal gain. He’ll warn you to never to return and that you are no longer permitted to call out his name because from that moment on you were enemies
Albedo:
Deep down he didn’t want to accept the possible fact you were potentially bad. There were small things you did or said that made him slightly skeptical of you yet he overlooked them because he was in love with you, there was something that always made him so curious and so fascinated with you. You never judged him, you were patient with him, as you even put yourself at risk with plenty of his experiments
Of course this conversation was in the privacy of his lab in Dragonspine, surely there was no need to have a big scene be made especially when he wanted to simply hear what you had to say for yourself. He’s very composed and calm for someone who’s feeling this pain in his chest at the fact that you’ve kept this from him for so long
If you were truly innocent it saddens him to hear how you were stuck paying off a debt that wasn’t even your own and that was the only reason why you were stuck in the predicament that you’re in. Surely there had to be some way to hide you from the Fatui right? Maybe not up there in Dragonspine since there were already so many of the agents scouting the mountains, but maybe he could ask Jean if you could stay with him; however, that then led to another possible problem. If he tried to explain the details the fact that you were associated with the Fatui, Jean might just want to arrest you for interrogation which he might have to simply keep that knowledge to himself for the sake of your safety
But at any time you're telling your story he will call you out on something if he feels you weren’t being truthful. Hearing that you were a third generation agent he came to understand that it was initially a family legacy to uphold; rather unfortunate but oddly enough he still didn’t look down on you for that. Of course he’s unsure of what to do as things are surely to be complicated now, but how could he come to really see you as the enemy when he loves you
Regardless of the case, he will continue to stay with you; however, he’ll take a few precautions to insure his own safety. He won’t be sharing details of things he’s working on, no more asking to help with experiments (unless they’re just something mundane and nothing too serious), but other than that he just can only hope that you will continue to be truthful from there forth
Childe:
You are his favorite and it’s very obvious to everyone in the Fatui. You are just about the only exception out of all the agents that he will go a little bit easy on when it comes to missions not going accordingly. He love you to bits and surely made sure that you knew he was serious about your twos relationship
You are not allowed to go on missions with the other Harbingers, Childe is very keen on having you accompany him and only him on missions. He also personally sees to your training because he sees the potential in you and it just seemed like the other agents who are in charge of training don’t seem to up to the level that best benefited you
You get spoiled a lot, he also makes sure to always praise you after any mission or task you do: you had a minor task to go collect a debt? Childe will tell you a job beautifully done. You were away on a big mission that had to do with looking for evidence of the whereabouts of another archon? He’ll tell you how proud he is and how much he loves you. He will make a request the Tsaritsa to bestow a delusion onto you; cuz surely if one of her Harbingers is speaking so highly of someone truly they are worthy of her gift
There was already so much to love about you already but ever since he found out how good you were with his siblings he knew that you were the one for him. He can trust you to look after his siblings to keep them safe since they already know that you are his significant other (but of course have no clue either of you work in the fatui). You two are in Liyue and Teucer suddenly appears out of nowhere: you’re already prepared to take care of and look after the younger brother. Childe just loves how good you are with him and it shows how much Teucer likes you too. Childe only wish that he could marry you the next day (something he says often to you)
Jean:
Needless to say she was distraught when she stumbled upon you speaking in a hushed tone with La Signora in the dead of night in an alleyway during her patrol. She didn’t know what to think but of course she wanted to confront you yet she’d stay hidden and wait till you were alone which didn’t help her spiraling thoughts wondering if you had been with the enemy this whole time and what the two of you had was just pretend to you
The moment the coast is clear Jean will come out of hiding and stand tall with her arms over her chest though the expression on her face does not match the rest of her body language. She knows she should keep this professional without getting her emotions involved, but how could she not when it was you; you were her lover so naturally she can’t help it
You knew you were in trouble as you could have hightailed it the other way, but you knew it would only make matters worse though also even if you had run now you’d have to face her eventually so what was the point. You answered whatever question she asked you; Though Jean did have a slightly difficult time being able to tell when certain replies you gave were possibly a lie. It pains her to have to consider breaking up because she did love you yet how could she love someone that could pose a great threat to her home that she’s sworn to protect; would probably have you put into custody for a while just to fully ensure that you weren’t just a spy or scheming behind the knights of favonius’ back
You of all people did Jean not expect to have such a high standing in the Fatui; you weren’t just some agent to be stationed there, you were a younger sibling of one of the harbingers overseeing everything the agents did. It made everything all the more painful for Jean as she thought she finally found someone who understood her and loved her despite her business along with her flaws, but she started to doubt your relationship. She’d have to take you in for further questioning to see what information you’ve leaked out, but when you made a run for it Jean knew she should chase after you yet… She let you escape, she didn’t want you getting hurt as for this one time will she let you do so; however, if you two crossed paths again unfortunately you’d give her no other choice but to warrant your arrest
Keqing:
She’s surprised at the fact that you’re associated with the Fatui, but of course she’s going to act as if it doesn’t bother her or hurt her in the slightest (though we all know just how badly she’s hurting on the inside). She knew it was too good to be true that you so happened to share the same ideologies and that you got along so beautifully.
She has put so much trust in you that she’s brought you up to the Jade Chamber with her to have peaceful tea time dates a couple of times before its destruction. Yet you made her look like a fool, as even if you never intended to hurt her or betray her, Keqing takes it very personally even if her love for you runs deep
Regardless whether or not you were good of heart that was trapped serving the Fatui or truly was lying about everything and using her that whole time she will coldly cut you off. She’s putting on her tough act saying how she simply cannot love a traitor that has put liyue in harm's way
It’s not until she’s alone or possibly just with Ganyu that Keqing breaks down into tears sobbing over her heartbreak. Nothing hurt more than letting you go, how she wanted to give you that second chance, but she couldn’t let love cloud her judgement, as maybe one day in the future you two could be together, but for now she’d need time to heal though she probably never really gets over you
#genshin impact fanfic#genshin impact#childe x reader#genshin diluc#genshin jean#genshin keqing#genshin xiao#genshin albedo#genshin childe#tartagila#diluc x y/n#albedo x y/n#jean x y/n#keqing x y/n#childe x y/n#xiao x y/n
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Temptation
Pairing: Neville Longbottom x McGonagall!Reader
Pronouns: She/Her
Word Count: 4k
Request: “Could you maybe do a Neville x reader where the reader is McGonagall's grandchild?”
Summary: Neville had never experienced temptation, till it walked by him in a pleated skirt.
Warnings: Suggestive thoughts???
A/N: I won’t even lie, this was very self indulgent. I didn’t mean to write this much but oh well! Also I noticed I read the prompt wrong and wrote this for fem reader so I apologize anon. I still hope you can find joy in this!
Temptation. Temptation was a word Neville knew well. He had heard it many upon many times. From his peers, and even some of his teachers. However, he never really understood what it felt like to experience it, to have it coursing through his very being. Well, that was until it came knocking on his door or, to put it more precisely, walking by him in a (y/h/h) robe and vanilla-lavender perfume. He didn’t expect it to have such a beautiful laugh and he certainly didn’t expect it to be McGonagall's granddaughter! No matter how many times he had heard it described to him and how many times he had heard the feeling be recited to him like one of those shit muggle pop songs, it still didn’t prepare him for the real experience itself.
Could she be anymore perfect? Anymore graceful, anymore well, tempting? She was the kind of beauty that he read about in books and the kind of beauty he saw when he looked at all the flowers that bloomed within the greenhouse. He watched, observing her beauty as she walked. His face flushed softly as he saw her eyes light up, head facing straight ahead and shoulders held high unaware of his eyes of adoration upon her. His gaze was then shifted to her hair. The way the light reflected off of the (h/c) strand made his heart race! Next was one of his favorite things, her smile. Her smile was enough to brighten anyone's day! Well...it most certainly brightened his that is. His eyes fixated on her legs, the soft sheen they held. ‘God they look smooth, like the softest of pillows, the smoothest of silks, the fluffiest, puffiest of clouds. I bet the-’ he was broken out of his thoughts as she came to a stop in front of her grandmother which made him a bit queasy to his stomach. If only McGonagall new about his thoughts...wait did she? She could be using legilimency on him this very moment and he’d have no clue. What if she was, what if she-
He jumped, squeaking softly as a hand came down hard on his shoulder causing his body to tense. And his gaze to shift to the source of the force relaxing when he saw it was Dean.
“Hey Nev, what are you doing just standing here? Oh I see what it is!” He exclaimed smiling at his lanky friend, watching his eyes flicker back and forth between in front of him and back to himself. Neville gulped, tugging at his sleeves a bit as his shirt suddenly began to feel constraining.
“Y-you do?” he asked nervously. His throat began to feel smaller. The problem with Neville’s little…’temptation’ was that he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had feelings for people before. He had his fair share of crushes throughout the year. But she was different. See, he wasn’t the first one to notice how beautiful the girl was. Heavens no! Quite a few of his peers had noticed just how breathtaking (Y/n) was but once they saw the last name that was attached to her, that was more than enough to turn them the other way. However, the connection to her grandmother not only put up an invisible force field for suitors, but friends as well. He found himself feeling sorry for her often, he could only imagine how lonely she was.
“Yeah, I do. You were waiting for me to find you so you could help me with my herbology homework! Man Nev, you’re such a good friend.” he said. Neville rolled his eyes noticing all of Dean’s missing coursework for herbology within his hands. As much as he loved his friend, he also couldn’t deny how unbelievably idiotic he was. Although he was disappointed in how irresponsible he was, he was also relieved he hadn’t noticed what had actually had him standing there lost in his thoughts. “Oh and I also saw you staring at McGonagall junior. I don’t blame you mate, she’s bloody fit. Have you seen her in that skirt she wears to Hogsmeade? It makes me just wanna-” Neville smacked his friend on the back again ignoring his groan of protest. He began to walk off leaving Dean confused. Neville noticed the lack of his friend's presence near him causing him to turn around.
“Do you want help with your herbology work or not?”
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(Y/n) sat with Luna in the courtyard, watching as her friend picked at the wildflowers twisting them and molding them into a flower crown. She sighed once again as she continued to ramble onto her. “I don’t know Lu, he’s just so cute! I wouldn’t even know how to approach him. Besides, he probably wants someone from his own house and year, yknow?” She said as she glanced at her preoccupied friend. “Are you even listening to me?” she huffed frustratedly. Luna looked at her, rolling her eyes at her a bit.
“You’re only a year below us (Y/n), you talk about him as if he’s an old man! Besides, the whole different house thing would only matter to him if he was a Slytherin. Neville doesn’t care about little things like that.” she took the completed crown placing it on her friend’s head as she smiled at her. “Yknow, for someone at the top of your year you’re quite daft.” Luna said nonchalantly, causing her friend’s eye to twitch. One thing (Y/n) would never get quite used to is her friend’s ability to tell people the truth as if it were nothing. Luna squeezed the girl’s soft (s/c) hand before smiling at her. “Besides, you’re beautiful! If he doesn’t want you, I know there are plenty of guys who most certainly do!” (Y/n) felt herself get quite shy at her friend’s words, rubbing at the goosebumps that were forming on her arm. But, she was right. She couldn’t let her thoughts of if or if not a guy liked her get her down.
“Hey (Y/n), have you ever, yknow, actually tried TALKING to the guy?” Ginny asked, smacking on the taffy she had been eating. The (e/c) eyed girl felt herself getting flustered once again.
“W-well, the short answer is no. Don’t look at me like that! I’ve TRIED. Every time I try something comes up! I’m either almost late to class, one of his friend’s comes up to him, or I have to do something for my Nan! It’s a lot harder trying to talk to someone when you don’t have any classes with them..” she said as she began to pout, reminded of her failed attempts to speak to the awkwardly charming boy. Ginny popped another taffy in her mouth, processing her friend's words before smirking a bit.
“Just leave it to me, I have the perfect plan! Don’t you worry a single little hair on that pretty head of yours.” she said, causing both of her friends to side eye her both with the same thought in mind: ‘Oh Merlin, what is she thinking now?’
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Well, what Ginny had been thinking wasn’t too bad but, (Y/n) was still quite nervous as she sat here. She was thankful Ginny hadn’t trapped them in a 1 on 1 situation or did something fucking stupid such as locking them in the room of requirement together. No, instead she had gathered her and Neville’s shared group of friends and decided to have a picnic together whilst everyone else was at Hogsmeade. Luna had asked the house elves to spare some of the extra food they had from lunch which they gave to her kindly considering how sweet she was to them always.
Even though all of their friends were there, she still found herself being nervous which is why she still sat on the blanket with Hermione as Ron, Harry, and Dean picked on Neville lightheartedly by splashing him with water, Ginny and Luna challenged each other to different swim challenges, and Hermione read a book, relaxing comfortably under the shade of the tree. She sighed to herself, hugging her legs closer to her chest as she brought her face to rest upon her knees. She let her eyes wander back to Neville, a smile gracing her face as she observed him. She never got the time to just watch him in a natural environment. Every time she saw him, he was always so jumpy or nervous, awkwardly engaging in conversation with people who usually just wanted herbology help or needed advice on how to care for their plants. But now, watching as he smiled and laughed with their friends she realized just how infatuated with him she truly was. She took in the way his hair looked wet, his usually wavy hair drooped, water dripping from the strands. She smiled, noticing the way his crooked smile looked when he was his happiest. She began to get flustered noticing the way his arms had a bit of definition to them which (Y/n) could only assume came from all the heavy lifting he did for Professor Sprout in the greenhouse.
“You should join him. Sitting there and wondering what could be isn’t gonna get you anywhere.” (Y/n) gasped a little, whipping her head around quickly to look at her friend whose eyes were still fixated on the book in her hand, flipping the pages delicately.
“H-how did yo-”
“How did I know? You’re so predictable. Plus, you’re a little chatterbox. The only time you shut up is when you look at him.” Hermione giggled, finally peering at her friend over her book. She closed it and set it down on the blanket before taking off her cover up. She held a hand down to her friend. “Well, are you coming?” (Y/n) looked up at her friend, biting the inside of her cheek as she thought about it before nodding, letting Hermione pull her up. She began to take off her own cover up before taking a deep breath. She looked at her friend and they began walking towards the lake.
“I’ve never seen ‘Mione in a swimsuit before. She looks...like a girl.” Ron said to his friends as they watched the two girls near the lake. His friends all responded in some form of agreement. He turned to look at Neville, smirking as he saw him staring at the girls. “It looks like you agree don’t you, Nev?” Neville shook his head, a light blush coating his cheeks. Unknown to his friends he wasn’t looking at Hermione though, he was looking at her.
“Yeah, she’s quite beautiful.” This didn’t go unnoticed by Ginny though who smirked, deciding to turn things up a notch.
“Hey, why don’t we all play some chicken? There’s enough of us!” Ginny said, beginning to walk over to the guys with Luna not too far behind her. “Unless you guys are scared, you know I’m the chicken champion so I wouldn’t be surprised if you w-”
“Don’t be ridiculous Gin! You know for a fact I’m way better than you, I proved that when you came to my place last summer.” (Y/n) said giggling at her overly confident friend. She tried sneaking a glance at Neville but found she had been caught in the act as Neville was already staring at her. She looked away quickly rubbing the back of her neck. Wait, why was Neville already looking at her?
She shook herself out of her thoughts as they all began to pair off for chicken. The (h/c) haired girl went to approach one of her friends but found that Ginny and Harry already paired. She quickly tried turning to Hermione who made her way over to Ron. She sent one last pleading glance Luna’s way but the girl simply smiled at her before walking over to Dean. She felt her heart race at what she already suspected to happen. “I-I guess it's us, Nev.” she felt herself growing a bit insecure at having to sit on the boy’s shoulders. Although she was short, she didn’t have as small of a frame as her other friends did. “L-listen Neville, if I’m too heavy or too much for you to lift don’t even worry about it! I have no problem bei-”
With all the courage Neville could muster, he took a deep breath diving under water before rising up with the girl on his shoulder as his large hands gripped at her thighs making sure she was sturdy on his shoulders. She shrieked a bit at the unexpected gesture, gripping at his hair a bit. Holy shit was his heart racing. Had he really just done that? What had gotten into him? ‘Don’t back down, Nev! Say something cool, say something cool!!’
He cleared his throat some, before patting her thigh with his hand. “You’re fine. Y-you don’t weigh much of anything.” He said. She felt herself relax some, hoping he couldn’t feel the goosebumps on her thighs. However, Neville’s thoughts were far from the goosebumps. He couldn’t help himself from thinking that they were just as soft as he had imagined them to be. He was in deep and he knew it. “L-l-listen (Y/n), I-”
“Alright who’s going first? Me vs ‘Mione maybe? Come on Harry, move faster!” Ginny said. (Y/n) found herself trying to stifle a giggle at the sight before her. Ginny was tugging at Harry’s hair and yelling at the boy as he argued back. She couldn’t contain herself at the sight, she began to laugh trying to make sure she didn’t fall off Neville’s shoulders at the movement.
Neville however was so entranced at that sound. He found himself wanting to be the person to cause that melodic giggle to come from her every time. “They’re so cute aren’t they?” she asked as he hummed in agreement. “I’d love to have something like that.” she mumbled to herself, however Neville had heard.
-------------------------------
Ginny was on a win streak, she had beaten Luna and Dean, and Hermione and Ron. She was feeling confident as she banged on her chest cheering which reminded (Y/n) of a muggle movie her aunt once showed her. She had been absentmindedly petting Neville’s hair, running her fingers through it as she swirled it around her fingers. He hadn’t minded though, his face was flushed a bright pink and he was much too scared to say anything, worried that if he did he would end up waking up in his bed and it all would’ve been a dream. He heard his favorite voice pull him out of his thoughts.
“We’re up next Nev, think we’ll win?” she asked as she leaned over, her face appearing in front of his upside down. He jumped a bit, pulling his face back and tightening his grip on her legs.
“C-careful (Y/n!) You might fall if you’re not!” he said, staring into her eyes. God were they beautiful.
“I doubt it, I’ve got you holding me up. I trust ya, you wouldn’t let me fall.” she said giggling as she leaned back up, her lips accidentally brushing against his nose and forehead on the way back up which has caused both of them to freeze up and a silence to fall upon the two. Their eyes both watched as Luna fell off of Dean’s shoulders again as Ginny cheered at another victory.
“But to answer your question, I think we’ve got this in the bag! Let’s do this!” He said as he waded over to them. She smiled at his enthusiasm as they looked over at them. She looked over at Luna who gave her a wink causing her to grow shy once more.
“Ah a new challenger approaches!” Ron exclaims, his eyes drifting to the pair. Neville glared at Ron a bit when his eyes lingered on the girl above him’s figure for just a tad too long before he cleared his throat.
“We’re gonna kick your ass, Gin! Prepare to get that gorgeous red hair of yours soaked! Isn’t that right, Neville?” She asked looking down at his head as he nodded along. “Consider this a rematch to last summer. I’ve come to snatch my crown right from off your head.” she said placing an invisible crown done on her head laughing as Ginny scoffed at her actions.
“Bring it on (y/h/h)!” She said as Harry began to walk over to her. The two girls both began to approach each other with looks of determination in their eyes. Neville let his eyes wander to the water watching the girl’s actions through the water.
“Beautiful..” he muttered in awe as he gazed upon her affectionately. Although he was nervous, he was even more so nervous of letting her down. He tightened his grip on her plush thighs as a determined expression made its way to his face.
Ginny and (Y/n) both began pushing and tugging at each other trying to get each other to fall. And (Y/n) did have to admit, it was no easy feat considering how tone Ginny was from quidditch practice and how out of shape she was herself from all those late night cake sessions with the house elves but it didn’t deter her at all. She continued to push and shove at Ginny. If she could only get a better grip...she didn’t have that much time to do so as the redhead girl gave a particularly hard push causing the girl to almost topple over. Almost being the key word. Neville gripped at her a bit harder at her as she went backwards causing her to fling forward with quite a bit of force. Using said force to her advantage, the (y/h/h) girl was able to push Ginny, sending her and Harry falling in. They both cheered Neville spinning around with her as they laughed before he felt something tug his leg sending them both flying into the water.
Neville resurfaced, spluttering a bit as he shook his head a bit. “Sod off, Harry! You’re a sore loser!” He exclaimed laughing with his friend. He turned to his side remembering the (h/c) girl. He watched as she resurfaced and took a gasp of air. His breath hitched as he watched the way she pushed her hair back, chest on display behind her swimsuit. God was she gorgeous.. He shook himself out of his thoughts, pushing some of her hair behind her ear that she had managed to miss. He watched as she looked away from him shyly muttering a soft thank you towards him.
They went at it for a bit more, the girls all determined to at least win one round. At some point, Ginny even put Harry on her shoulders and as it turned out, he was way worse at chicken than she was. Even Luna had somehow managed to beat him. But as they all went on, the group grew hungry and decided as the sun would be setting soon, it’d be a good idea to eat like they originally planned. They all gathered around on the large gingham blanket and once again, her friends turned against her leaving the only spot available for her next to Neville. However, unlike last time she decided to take full advantage of the situation. She feigned a shiver, catching his attention as she hoped.
“A-are you cold, (Y/n)?” He asked, eyes full of concern.
“Yeah, just a bit Nev!” she smiled back at him, popping another grape into her mouth. Neville looked at her blankly for a bit before deciding to give into his temptation. See, the thing with Neville wasn’t that he was scared. No, in fact he had had his fair share of flings during his time at Hogwarts unbeknownst to his friends. It's just, she was different. He made his heart race in different ways and gave him goosebumps on his arms and back. She made his brain short circuit from the mere sight of her. However, he knew she would not be single forever. He wasn’t oblivious to the lingering looks his friends had been given her throughout the night and he certainly wasn’t going to stay in the same lane as them. So, without a second thought he grabbed her with ease sitting her in his lap, the soft skin of her waist meeting the soft skin of his arms as he pulled her into his chest. (Y/n) felt her breath hitch slightly, as her own set of goosebumps started to form.
“Is that better?” Neville whispered softly to her as his chin came to rest on her shoulder. She turned her head slightly, her lips slightly brushing against his freckled cheek due to their close proximity. Instead of responding, she simply nodded still in a state of shock. Was this really happening? Her (e/c) eyes came to meet Ginny’s who simply smirked, sending her a wink before she went back to her conversation with Harry. None of her friends seemed that shocked at the position they were in. (Y/n) found herself a mix between relieved and offended that no one was surprised.
Although (Y/n) hadn’t noticed anything, the clenched fist and furrowed brows of his own friends did not go unnoticed. He felt himself smile internally, Neville 1 and the others 0. He caressed her skin lightly as if she was made of the finest of porcelain that would break from even a bit of pressure. The Gryffindor boy felt a surge of confidence within himself as goosebumps formed under his fingertips. He was knocked from his thoughts as a ripe strawberry was pressed against his lips, turning his attention to the (h/c) haired girl. He slowly took a bite from it, pink lips wrapped around the red fruit. He hummed constantly as he pulled away. (Y/n) moved back slightly to look at him, giggling at his red stained lips as the juice rolled down his chin a bit.
“Hey, you’ve got a bit of..” she trailed off giggling more as she motioned towards the juice. “One second, I’ll get it for you.” she murmured, reaching for a napkin. Neville pulled her back causing her to give him a confused look.
“No need.” he whispered, pulling her forward, pressing his lips against hers. The kiss was a mix of everything at once. Passion. Hesitance. Desire. And oh, he couldn’t forget his little friend: temptation. He pulled her closer, settling his large hands at the base of her spine right about her rear as hers wrapped around his neck. The girl’s fingers twirled the hair at the bottom of his head trying to distract her from the tingling sensation she felt all over. Neville nibbled at her lip a bit, biting it as he pulled away. “T-this is probably the wrong time to ask but, are you seeing anyone?”
-------------------------
The next week, Neville found himself in that same spot in the hallway that he was in the previous monday. His thoughts drift to the angel known as his vice, his temptation. He watched as her smooth legs made their way down the hall, smile on her face as per usual. However, this time he didn’t have to crave to be the one those eyes were lighting up at. He didn’t have to crave to be the one that oh so beautiful smile was caused by, because he was. He held his arms open with a smile, stumbling back a bit as the (y/h/h) jumped in his arms. He caught her, twirling her around as they both laughed before he placed her on the ground grabbing her hand. Neville placed a peck upon her cheek, nothing but adoration in his eyes. He gulped slightly, sweaty palms as they walked by McGonagall but he found himself relaxing when she sent a wink his way as she gave him a smile of approval.
Although temptation had originally showed itself on his doorstep as a visitor in his home, it eventually developed into something more and became a welcome resident in his home. Temptation was no longer temptation, it was love.
#Neville Longbottom#neville x reader#neville x you#neville longbottom x reader#Harry Potter#harry potter imagines#neville longbottom x you#neville x y/n
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What are your thoughts on Tuello being Serena’s baby daddy? I read a theory where someone said it was Fred’s and proof that Gilead’s methods are working. Do you agree?
I’m sorry it took a while to answer this, it’s a great question!
Short version is: based on the way their relationship has played out since the first meeting, I think it’s Tuello’s. While not impossible that Gilead’s “clean air and water” did something I think it’s a stretch to say it reversed being sterile.
The long version is really long so I’ll break it down into key points.
Point A: Why I don’t think it’s Fred’s
He openly admits to Serena in season 3 that he thought she might leave him for someone more capable of giving her a child. He more or less admits to being the infertile one, and I’m inclined to believe that. We don’t know if the woman there before June ever conceived a child (and possibly miscarried) but it seems unlikely. June also never became pregnant by Waterford, nor did Serena in all their years of pre-Gilead marriage.
I also believe the “clean air and water” is a pretty but pathetic lie to justify their way of life. Nick mentions early in the series that the chicken had high levels of dioxin and to avoid it. The colonies are apparently radioactive enough to make skin peel off in sheets and yet women are released from them back into service around the general public. Radiation that powerful has to have some kind of half life that can be spread by close contact or touch. (Even touching food and putting it back on a shelf for someone else, etc.) Anyway, all this is to say that the food in Gilead is still contaminated, as are other things. The cleanest lifestyle imaginable and most intuitive and accurate tracking of hormones won’t cure infertility in most cases. It’s again, not impossible, but given all we know, very unlikely.
Point B: Context clues between Mark and Serena
A lot of this is speculation because the writers have intentionally woven in some mystery, but regardless…
Tuello gives Serena a way to contact him after their first meeting, with a note that says “in case you need me.” This very well could’ve been kindness from a man who believed she was in duress in Gilead. But, it gave Serena an avenue to speak and connect with him even off screen. There’s a lot to their relationship we clearly haven’t seen, given the tone of their conversations. We also know Serena Joy is a master manipulator when it comes to getting what she wants. People see the version of her she wants them to see. Tuello could’ve easily been deceived into thinking she was strictly a victim and, from there, talked her through emotional fragility or plans to get to Nicole.
One thing leads to another and suddenly you have Tuello blindsided by the idea of Serena leaving Canada with Fred.
“Explain that to me.”
“I don’t think I have to.” She says, but not with the same arrogance she had for the rest of the conversation, beforehand. She was confident and cocky when she said Fred would be addressed as commander or the meeting was over. She knew they held the cards and she relished that power. But when Mark is speaking to her from a more vulnerable and clearly confused place, her tone changes. Not necessarily softens but becomes distant.
The only thing I can compare it to is the scene in the Winslow house when Serena tells June seeing baby Nicole changed everything for her, and she now wants her back. The same tone she uses when she says “then what’s there to talk about?” She uses again when she says, “I don’t think I have to.”
She knows there’s reason to feel guilty, and just pushes it down both times.
Point C: Serena would sleep with Mark.
I think another big hang up for people who believe the baby is Fred’s, is the idea that Serena would commit an act of infidelity. She’s been hurt tremendously by Fred’s cheating, to the point they’re clearly trapped in a loveless marriage. She’s a devoutly “Christian” woman inside and/or outside Gilead. Plenty of people think the writers are leading us on with Tuello or that the feelings between them have never led anywhere due to Serena being married, and regarding faithfulness in that marriage as something of utmost importance.
I wouldn’t say that’s impossible either, but the inconsistency of Serena Joy’s morals are a huge hallmark of her character. Infidelity wouldn’t be the first sin she committed while condemning other people for it. She uses Gilead’s laws and her own spirituality when it’s convenient, and discards it when it isn’t.
This is a woman who told handmaids they should have been stronger, and immediately crumbled when she lost “her” daughter. This is a woman who said Eden, a child, should have been smarter, and then got caught forging documents and lost a finger for reading in public. She doesn’t think the laws, even of God, apply to her, except when she stands to gain something from them. Moral high ground against another person, immunity from sin and suffering, etc. etc.
Serena was instrumental to the foundation of a country that kidnapped children, raped, tortured, and dehumanized women, among so many other things. She was a devout follower of Gilead’s teachings until they started to also oppress her. Was fine with ripping children away from their mothers but not with losing “her” child. She betrayed what she once swore was her core belief system, meticulously, while throwing Fred to the wolves. She should have done that, by the way, he deserved it. But the point is, I do believe she’s a person capable of stepping out on her marriage, and will even go so far as to say it was a marriage in word alone by then.
Edited to add: Serena’s conversation with Fred in the church is also insightful. When she tells him “they could make me a handmaid” it’s important to realize what that would take. Handmaids aren’t usually women who’ve committed treason, but sins of the flesh. (Treasonous men and women usually go straight to the wall.) She probably told Fred of the affair, and he either swore secrecy to have a son in the end, or planned to use it to screw Serena over later like she screwed him at the Canadian border. Anyway, thoughts, I have many.
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On the Scarlett Sea Part 2 / 2
A ~Pirate~ Metamy Fanfic - [Link to Part 1 & Synopsis] - [AO3 Link]
In collaboration with @mmm-asbestos & their pirate Metamy AU
Happy 2021 everyone ❤ ❤ ❤
Part 2
There was no natural light to be found in Amy’s room even in the morning. The ship was incredibly quiet as it sailed on calm waters with its skeleton crew. This combined with the lack of any sort of alarm made it very easy to sleep- maybe too easy. CLANG, CLANG, CLANG! Amy had no idea what time it was and felt disoriented and started when she awoke in the dark, unfamiliar room. CLANG, CLANG, CLANG! The metallic pounding on the door would have sufficed to wake a village.
“Alright, I’m awake… Hang on…” Amy turned on a small desk lamp and stumbled through the dimly lit room to its door. Little more light entered the room. “Where…” she nearly missed the small robot that had awoken her until he tapped her leg. “Oh… which one are you?” she squinted.
“That would be H1.” Metal Sonic stood just down the hall with arms folded neatly behind him.
Amy turned her attention to him groggily. “Why did you wake me…”
“You’ve been in there for 16 hours. I thought you might be dead.”
She blinked at him incredulously. “What time is it?”
“About noon, local. Would you join us on the main deck?”
“Why?”
He stood stoically, looking apathetic. “Aren’t you bored?”
“Are you?”
There was no response from Metal except a mechanical scoff, as if letting out steam. He turned back upstairs without another word. Amy grumbled something under her breath and took her time getting ready with whatever she could find in the room. When she emerged, H1 was still standing guard in front of her door, staring up at her blankly. She stepped around him awkwardly, his gaze following her as she went. Okay, less cute...
The midday sun left Amy squinting on the upper deck. She found Metal Sonic standing nobly right at the bow, watching the seas ahead. Might as well…
Amy came up next to him, mimicking his stately pose. “I had to sleep in this dumb outfit, you know.”
“You really must stop being so irritating when I cannot properly roll my eyes at you.”
“Pft-” Amy tried to hide a snicker. This amused Metal. “So… No clue how far this treasure is, huh? I wonder how long it’ll take.”
“I estimate no more than 12 days; That is how long it takes to navigate to the border of this sea at our velocity.” He glanced down to find a grouchy look on her face. “But… may be quicker.” Unless it’s in a different sea entirely , he kept to himself.
“Great,” she sighed. “So, what do you plan to do for up to 12 days?”
“Hm…” Metal brought his thumb and forefinger to his chin. “... we could spar.”
She whipped her head around to face him. “Again with the swords? What’s with you?”
He shrugged “I learned about the art while researching pirates. I believe I’ve mastered it but I would like to try with a worthy opponent.”
Now it was flattery. He really was impossible to understand. “Well thanks, but I don’t know the first thing about sword fighting- and it sounds like you don’t, either.”
“I assure you, I know plenty ,” he challenged, looking directly at her.
“You can’t learn how to fight by reading about it,” she scoffed.
“Well, perhaps you can’t…”
She raised a brow. “You know, you’re really gonna have to get used to ‘organic’ limitations soon. Unless that’s not really what you want…”
Metal could see that the girl was still doubtful about his intentions. She was unexpectedly clever- he supposed exploiting her kindness would only go so far. Perhaps he should try to limit himself for the time being. “You misunderstand. I am capable of mimicking movements as part of my programming. I don’t usually use weapons and simply wanted the ability to defend myself once I gave up this body.”
“Right…” If it was a lie, it wasn’t a bad one. Maybe he really was bored. “So is there a way you could teach me without all the sharp bits? Something tells me only one of us would get injured, and I’m no mechanic.” A sly smile found its way onto her face.
Now that was an amusing reaction, he thought, if only because she was so quick on her feet. A low snicker radiated from Metal as he beckoned her away. “We shall use the prop swords… for now.”
The pair soon took to the main deck with its wide-open space. Amy did what she could to tie the ridiculous skirt up at her waist and out of the way. Then, Metal Sonic tossed her a cutlass which held a surprising amount of weight when caught. It looked just like a real sword.
“Uh, are you sure these are props?”
“They are real antique swords, but they have been dulled. I assure you they won’t break your skin… Unless I want them to.”
It was hard to tell if he was joking. Ignoring it, Amy jumped out, holding the sword ahead of her with her feet spread. “Well, this doesn’t seem so hard.”
“That is because your stance is appalling.” Metal came up next to her, demonstrating the “proper” way, his pose looking much the same as hers. Her confusion was evident as he described the stance. “Keep your back foot out at a 90-degree angle… sword arm bent at 45 degrees… your feet really should be 91 centimeters apart-”
“Okay, you need to stop throwing random numbers at me,” she pouted.
“Alright…” Metal dropped his sword. With his hands at his hips, he took another look at how she posed. Then he kicked her back foot into the right position.
“Hey! You could be a little more gentle, you know.”
“Very well,” Metal made an exasperated motion as he moved behind her. Amy tried to follow him with her eyes but he grabbed the top of her head and turned it away. “Look forward. Now…” He extended his reach around her, using his hand to lift her elbow slightly. She shuttered a bit at the cold touch. “Does it feel a bit heavier now?”
Amy cleared her throat. “Ah… Yeah, a little.”
“One more thing,” he grabbed her other arm by the bicep, pulling it back toward him forcefully. “Keep this behind you, unless you’d like to lose it.”
A slight gasp escaped her lips at the abrupt movement. She tried to remain unphased. “Okay… Now what?”
He pulled away and stepped to her side. “Try a lunge. Extend your sword.” Amy lifted her elbow, fully extending her sword arm forward. “Good. Now, push off with your back foot to lunge forward.” She did as instructed, jumping forward slightly. “Again- Keep your back foot at the correct angle this time.” Amy’s eyes rolled in her head as she tried the motion again, focusing on keeping her body aligned. “Better… Try it as one swift motion.”
Awkwardly, Amy pushed her sword hand ahead and propelled herself forward all at once, losing her footing slightly. “Ugh! Wait-” Taking a deep breath, she tried the move again. And again. And again. Metal patiently watched her determination as she became slightly better with each thrust. It was so amusing to see the sheer effort it took her. The 16th time was the charm, as she was able to lunge swiftly without losing her footing. “Ha! How was that?”
“... It was fine. Anyone can do it once, though,” he derided.
“Hmph. Let’s see how many more I can do, then.”
To his surprise, Metal didn’t seem to get bored with such basic practice. Her tenacity was enjoyable to experience and she took instruction well, even if she stumbled. Metal moved on to demonstrating how to parry and eventually had her practice the motions together. Around two hours into practice, he came up in front of her, pointing his sword. “Not bad. Why don’t you try to parry an actual lunge?”
“Actually, can we stop for now? I kinda haven’t eaten anything all day.” Amy stood naturally, holding the sword down in front of her with both hands. She went from threatening to sweet in a second.
“Oh- Yes,” he brought his sword down to his side. “Of course. And I should check that we are still on course.” She handed him her cutlass hilt-first but he refused it. “Try carrying it on you. I’m concerned you may forget it’s not as easy to summon as your usual weapon.”
“Pft- You’re concerned about me? That’s new,” she smirked.
“Do not confuse it with amity,” he said flippantly, walking off toward the helm. “You know where the galley is.”
“Whatever, weirdo…” Amy affixed the dulled sword to her waist by the side, undoing the ties that kept her skirt girded around her hips. How anyone got things done with such a cumbersome garment, Amy did not know. The choice of theme still didn’t make much sense to her.
-----
“That should do it,” Tails closed up a hatch on the ship’s engine. He gave the operator a thumbs-up and before anyone knew it, the loud humming and rattling indicated that it was once again fully operational. Some of the crew hung around, cheering, as one of the cameramen leaned in close to the boy.
“Color me impressed.” Rouge sat atop a stack of crates watching the operation. She now wore a much more official-looking fitted navy pantsuit and captain’s hat. “All fixed in under 24 hours! Any chance you’d like to become a permanent member of the crew?”
“Thanks, but I have my own crew,” Tails laughed.
She pouted with a slight sigh. “Suit yourself…” She hopped down from the stack of crates, floating her way up toward the stairs. “I’ll let the crew know we’ll be moving soon. Everyone here, back to your posts.” The cameraman scrambled to shift his focus and follow her up.
A few of the crewmates patted Tails on the back and congratulated him as they got ready to return to their posts. Tails made some small talk until they’d all filed out a few minutes later.
Knuckles stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders. “Finally, we can get a move on. Do you think we’ll catch up to Amy and Metal?”
Tails nodded. “It’ll take a couple of days, but yeah- this ship’s faster.”
“Amy’ll have to hang on ‘til then…” Knuckles held up the compass that Rouge had recovered- it was identical in size and shape to his except that it was gold rather than brass. The arrow pointed in the same direction, though the inscription on the back was different. “ The time has come to find me- it is my turn to bleed. -Scarlett .” The boys found it kind of creepy, but it seemed to serve the same function so it was good enough.
“ Attention all crew: the ship is now fully operational. We will be setting sail in 30 minutes. ” Rouge’s voice was heard over the intercom.
“That’s our cue- come on.”
-----
Back on Metal’s ship, Amy sat on the edge of her seat. She’d brought her lunch back up to the deck and got comfortable under the roof of the helm watching H3 and H4 work. The two little robots ran from task to task, tying various knots and doing whatever one does on an antique pirate ship, sometimes stacked on top of one another for height. Amy clapped in amusement any time they finished something, much to Metal Sonic’s annoyance.
Once they were done, the pair scrambled up the stairs to the helm and gave their master their signature salute. “Very good. That is all for now,” he told them. Rather than scurry off, H4 threw his arms in up, catching H3, who balanced on his brother’s hands with his own.
“Oooh!” Amy clapped and giggled at the silly display while Metal groaned. H4 tossed the other in the air and switched to a handstand himself as H3 landed, their soles connecting. Then H3 rolled into a ball and his brother spun him on the soles of his feet. Amy had burst into full-blown laughter. “Wow, you guys are talented!”
“That’s enough,” Metal interjected. He was authoritative but not harsh in his tone. His henchmen complied, both standing back up on their feet. They waved to Amy as they scuttled off to the lower decks.
“Those guys are fun- did you teach them that?” Amy wiped a tear from her eye as the laughter subsided.
“ No. They were programmed to entertain for some reason. It was not my doing.”
“Well, they’re pretty good at it.” Amy leaned back in her chair, taking a sip of iced tea she’d made to go with her meal. She fanned herself in the heat. “Hey, are they gonna do the same?”
Metal was examining his sharp fingers, having found a scratch in the chrome paint job. “The same what?”
“You know, the same wish. To be organic.”
“What- oh, no,” he shook his head. “They are not the same as me. Or should I say, I am not the same as them…”
“How so?”
Metal had to be careful with his words. “Well… their AI is very simple. They are trained in certain tasks and to look for the right reactions in others as they do so. They’re quite simple- no real ‘emotions’ to speak of.”
Amy placed down her glass. “But you have feelings?”
“They are… simulated. But yes, I suppose you could call them that.”
“Huh. And I thought you operated on blind rage alone,” she chuckled.
Turning to her, Metal leaned an elbow on the railing to his side. “More like… spite.”
“Ha- is that what you feel for Sonic?”
“You could say that.”
The surroundings grew quiet in the absence of Metal’s minions. There was little noise but the gentle swaying of the sea and perpetual whirring from his turbine. Amy closed her eyes and listened as the sails waved in the wind, leaning back so the breeze sailed through her hair to cool her down. The air moved across the soft locks that flowed from her quills. She gently swiped them away when they blew over her face, her sleeves billowing lightly. When her eyes opened, she found Metal staring at her rather intently.
He turned his head away, looking back toward the wide-open deck. “Shall we continue our lesson?”
It was strange, the way he looked at her. She could almost swear there was a yearning in his gaze. She began to seriously consider that he could be telling the truth about his intentions. “Sure, just give me a few.”
Amy hardly noticed how much time had passed during the impromptu “training.” She found that it was much more enjoyable than she anticipated; learning a new skill was fun and Metal Sonic was a surprisingly effective teacher. There probably wouldn’t be time to become proficient at it, but learning to wield a sword was probably at least more entertaining than lounging around the ship most of the day. Still, as daylight dwindled, she was exhausted from the constant exercise and was ready to break for the day. Metal Sonic, for his part, didn’t ever seem to slow down, and was now demonstrating how to perform some combos.All part of being a machine , she supposed.
“Hey, it’s fun watching you and all, but I’m really tired.” She stretched her arms up warily. “Can we stop?”
Metal stopped his demonstration and stood upright. “Hm- Yes, it has gotten late. Will you continue tomorrow?”
Why did he look so excited about teaching her the ropes? Amy wondered how he normally spent his time if he found this to be so entertaining. What else was she going to do out at sea? “... Yeah, sure. It’s fun.” Her smile was sincere this time.
“... Indeed. You don’t learn as slowly as I thought you would.”
“Gee, thanks,” she chortled. “I’m gonna freshen up.” Amy tied the practice sword around her waist and mocked a salute at Metal. She saw his shoulders rise momentarily as if to give her a single laugh. The scenario still felt strange, but Amy was remarkably calm- relaxed, even- as she returned to her temporary accommodation. It was dark by the time she felt ready to leave her room again. It was too early for bed and there was nothing to do, so she returned to the main deck with her lantern in hand.
It was empty. No henchmen, no Metal Sonic- just the swaying ocean and sound of her heeled boots against a hardwood deck. She wondered if she’d have experienced such tranquility while traveling with her friends. Tails’ boat was so much smaller and the three of them already felt like they crowded the space. She missed them. They must be so worried…
Unsure of what else to do, Amy laid down on the bare deck to stare into the dotted sky. It was cold and hard and a bit damp, but the stars overhead were so vibrant she swore she could almost reach out and touch them. She passed some time finding any constellations she could identify in the summer sky.
At the sound of a door creaking open, Amy turned her head toward the captain’s quarters. Metal Sonic stood in the doorway, catching her in his gaze. Only yesterday the sight would ignite Amy’s battle instincts; now she just remained still and silent. There was no reason to fight. It was odd.
Metal looked into her eyes for a minute until she turned her face back to stargazing. His heavy, metallic steps echoed across the empty deck as he approached her. He was otherwise quiet. Metal loomed over her for a moment before joining her, laying next to Amy on the wooden floor and wondering what was so fascinating about the night sky. The way it illuminated out at sea, far from the light pollution of Eggman’s airship and other hiding places, was unlike anything he had seen. He could see why she was so interested.
Amy started giggling after a minute. It was so absurd! They’d normally be trying to rip each other to pieces, but here they were stargazing together.
Metal turned to face her. “What is so amusing?”
“Nothing… Just that, this reminds me of before. Back when you couldn’t talk and I couldn’t fight- you’d kidnap me and we’d just sit there without a word.” The memories weren’t the most positive, but the idea was laughable now. She smiled.
“Ah- yes. Well, I can talk and you can certainly put up a fight now.”
“Yeah,” she giggled. “I had to become strong ‘cause… Well, I was looking for my own freedom, I guess. Like you.”
So she was really beginning to believe him after all. Metal thought that should have been an accomplishment, but his body failed to produce a positive response in his program. What should have translated into pride instead felt like... guilt? That was new. “Did it pay off?” he asked after some silence.
“Well, I got kidnapped again but other than that,” she shrugged playfully.
“Yes, that was… unideal.”
“I get it,” she sighed. “I probably wouldn’t have helped you otherwise. No offense.”
“That is understandable.” Metal turned his attention to the glittery sky, mapping the stars. He was never very interested in it, but he recognized all the common constellations- although they didn’t make sense to him. “Tell me, can you identify constellations?”
“Yeah, I know a few.” She pointed up toward a cluster of stars. “Like… Hercules. It’s pretty prominent this time of year, and it’s easy to recognize.”
“I am familiar with the legend, but this set of stars does not resemble a man…”
“Oh! You gotta, you know, connect the dots.”
His optics allowed him to do that automatically, placing lines between each of the stars in the correct order. The constellation resembled a square with a line coming from each corner, but not a mythical hero. “They are… just lines.”
“Hm… I guess that one’s pretty abstract. How about…” she moved her pointer finger across her vision. “Cygnus. It’s a swan.”
“I have seen swans. This does not look like one.”
“You gotta use your imagination a little!” She scooted closer to him, holding out both hands in front of his face. “See how it kinda looks like a cross when you connect the dots?”
“Yes...”
“Okay. So, the shortest side of the cross is the tail, and the opposite part is like a long neck.” Amy traced each of the stars as she addressed them. “So then, where they cross…”
“Hm… Wings?”
“Yeah!” She giggled. “See? Not so hard.”
It was not how Metal would have chosen to depict a swan. The dots and lines that made up Cygnus were only conceptual, after all. “Perhaps I’ll understand better once I accomplish my goal…”
“Maybe,” she sat up. “Don’t worry if you don’t, though- most of them are nonsense; It’s just for fun!”
That seemed even more pointless. He sat up as well. “I do not comprehend it.”
“You will,” Amy assured. “Things don’t always have to make sense, you know?”
He found some understanding in her words, although “sense” it did not necessarily make. It was amusing, though, he admitted to himself. “I suppose I will.”
They sat chatting a while, Amy trying to explain the meaning of various constellations, Metal doing his best to imagine the abstract figures she described. As clouds moved in and the sky became less visible, the topic moved on to Metal’s interest in pirates. He spoke at length about the life and history of Captain Scarlett and her elusive treasure.
“According to accounts, she used the mirror to become the ‘greatest pirate alive’ and gathered most of her riches during this time. Soon after, her wife, Beryl, became ill and was unable to travel- that is why there are so many letters between them. After Beryl’s death, Scarlett disappeared. It is not known what happened to her or her ship- she likely became shipwrecked and drowned.”
“That’s so sad,” Amy commented. Her eyes were slightly misty.
“Well, piracy had its hazards. Still does. I have a book-” Metal turned his head away, looking intent.
Amy tried to see what he was looking at. “What is it?”
“I hear thunder…” A few seconds later, Amy heard it, too, as a light drizzle began to fall upon the deck.
“Oh, I don’t want to get wet again-” she sprang up.
“To my quarters, then.” Amy sprinted to the safety of the double-doors while Metal followed behind slowly. He was listening for further thunder and determining wind speed. Going in after her, he called to his henchmen, who were sitting at his table playing cards. “H3, H4- Lower the sails. I need to steer.” They both clinked their claws against their heads and jumped past him to start the task.
“Is everything okay?” Amy shook a bit of rain from her hair.
“A minor storm. Stay here.”
Although she had seen many badniks in and around water, Amy worried the rain could affect him. “Will you be alright?” They were both a bit surprised at her question. There was an unexpected tenderness in her concern.
“Yes,” he responded softly. “I am built to withstand worse.”
Amy nodded and he closed the door behind him. It was just her and H1 in the room now. He sat at the table still, cards in hand, and turned up to look at her. She smiled awkwardly, remembering this was the one who was hanging around in front of her room all morning. He patted the chair next to him, inviting her to join.
“So… What are we playing?” He stared at her silently. “Oh, right- you don’t talk. Uh… Go Fish?” H1 gave her a quick, violent nod that made his joints squeak obnoxiously. “Okay, okay! I’ll set up.”
They got two rounds in, H1 pointing at the deck whenever Amy needed to “go fish.” He won the first set but she bested him in the second, and they were now playing to break the tie. The storm outside was intensifying, heavy rain pounding on wood and thunder growing louder.
Amy was studying her cards closely, trying to decide which pair to go for next, when H1 sprang up, making a bee-line for the double-doors and running out into the open deck. “Why did he-” She gasped as her chair slid back and several pieces of furniture were pushed to one side. It didn’t last long as the ship rolled the other way, causing her to crash back into the table with an “oof!” That was more than a bit worrisome. She listened as the thunder and rain grew louder, the ship continuing to sway. Then, a huge crack of thunder boomed in her ears, followed by the sound of splitting wood. Amy quickly made her way to the main deck to see what was happening, immediately being pelted by rain and seawater.
The lower yard perpendicular to the foremast was cracked and practically broken in half, being held together only by H4’s coiling grip. She saw H3 pulling ropes, weighing down that side of the lower foresail to reduce stress on the beam. Metal Sonic was barking orders from the quarter deck above. Amy ran up to the helm just as H1 propelled himself in the opposite direction, toward the bow. His one glowing eye blazed when he spotted her.
“What are you doing? I told you to stay inside!”
“Don’t you guys need help?” Amy held onto the railing as the motion caused her to slip and slide on the wet floor.
“H1 is hoisting the jib, there’s nothing more to do but steer. Get inside, now!” Just then a towering wave came up to their port side. He was sure Amy’s featherweight would be blown off-board if she left the helm now. “Argh! Come here-” Metal steered in the opposite direction, trying to ride it out without capsizing. As the boat rolled, Amy stumbled to his left side and he pulled her in, putting her between himself and the wheel. He held her by the waist with one arm while the other remained affixed to the steering device. “Don’t drown!” he barked.
“What-”
The wave swallowed the elevated deck, leaving Amy and Metal completely underwater momentarily. Metal’s heavy body remained unmoved while her feet were swept off. She’d have been washed away- or at least violently slammed into the railings and water-logged- if he hadn’t affixed his iron grip around her. As the water passed over, Amy sputtered, having swallowed a huge gulp. A whining set of beeps came from ahead of them.
H3 was pointing up frantically, indicating that the top corner of the sail had torn off the yard by the rope. The sail flailed wildly around him until he took hold with both hands again, stabilizing the bottom once again. If the sail ripped any further off the mast it would fold over and become worse than useless, sending the ship to one side with its imbalance. He would send one of his henchmen up if they weren’t already securing half the mast.
“Damn that torn sail,” Metal cursed under his breath.
Amy coughed into his chest in front of him. “Tell me how I can” cough “help!”
He took to his mind frantically, calculating out all the different scenarios in which they would survive if the vessel capsized. He wasn’t too worried about his crew; they could take a beating and were waterproof. But the girl… Whether he kept her by him or sent her away, she had little hope of survival if the ship went down. Their only hope was to hold on and reaffix the sail.
Reluctantly, he made the decision. “The sail needs to be mended. Steer.”
“No!” cough “I can fix it-”
Another wave was about to wash over them. “Shut up and take a breath this time!”
Amy was just able to take in some air before they were engulfed by saltwater for a second time. As it cleared, Metal glanced back at the torn sail. He could fly up and do what he could to reaffix it, but steering the ship and knowing when and where to turn was a lot harder than it looked. He was able to calculate the safest angle with which to navigate into the waves and keep the vessel balanced. Someone without any knowledge on the subject, however...
If she could get high enough, Amy wouldn’t have to worry about being washed off the vessel so long as he kept them upright. “Can you climb?” he asked her.
Pushing her wet hair out of her face, Amy answered. “Yeah!”
“Take that rope and climb up the mast- reaffix the sail by the eye. Here, use my sword to cut the rope. Do you understand?”
Amy nodded. There was determination in her eyes as she took his sword and booked it to the ratline.
“Hurry- Before another wave hits.”
She climbed, struggling against the wind as it vibrated the taut ladder. Water weighed down her long skirt as she went. Once at the top, another wave washed over the main deck, causing the vessel to roll once more. She held onto the ropes for dear life, unsure of how to get to the end of the adjoining yard. Amy turned her gaze in every direction frantically- how do people usually get up there? I could shimmy , the thought, but what do I hold onto?
Despite Metal’s ability, the ship was difficult to control without the proper sails. He felt uncharacteristically apprehensive watching Amy climb as he steered between waves, as if ready to lunge for her if she were to fall. Another wave was now threatening to roll the vessel from the starboard side, so he did his best to focus on steering.
Glancing down, Amy got an idea. She wrapped an arm through the tightly woven ropes and used her free hand to pull out the sword, then promptly sliced through the top of her skirt, revealing the black half-slip beneath it. It was easy to tear off from there and use as an impromptu support system. Amy tied the length of maroon fabric to the yard above her, leaving some room between it and the knot. She hoisted herself up and carefully made her way across the beam on her belly, twisting and dragging the fabric with her. Once she reached the tear, she said a prayer and dropped her body down onto the circle of hanging fabric, hoping it would act as a hammock to support her while she worked.
It wasn’t perfect, but it held. Amy couldn’t believe how high she was, supporting herself with only a bit of fabric on some creaky wood. She was able to do as Metal Sonic had instructed, hanging precariously from the beam and taking hold of it when she felt too much turbulence. Once she’d replaced the rope through the eye of the sail, it was just a matter of getting back down.
A melodic set of rings and tones came from below her. Amy smiled when she spotted H1 on the crow’s nest some feet down. He reached up, uncoiling his extendable arms to pick Amy up and lower her to him safely. “Oh thank goodness,” she threw her arms around the little robot and hugged him close. “I thought I was gonna die up there!”
The vessel was noticeably more stable now that the jib was functioning and the mainsail was secured. Amy heard a whistle and noticed Metal Sonic signaling for them to descend. Climbing down the ratline proved much faster for Amy without the deadweight around her waist, and she rushed back to the helm to see what else needed doing. H1 was already working to tie up the broken beam.
“How are we doing?” Adrenaline rushed through her as she asked.
Metal was taken aback by her excitement; She really seemed to have a knack for putting herself in danger. “Better…. Good work.” He noticed the change in her wardrobe then, but said nothing.
“Oh, it was easy,” she lied. “What else do we need?” They rolled again, listing starboard, and she grabbed onto his arm for balance.
He acted quickly in bringing her between him and the wheel again. “Nothing. We- I need to steer us around the storm.”
The proximity was slightly discomforting now. Amy flushed as she turned away from him to look toward the bow. But the constant motion didn’t allow her to leave his side just yet; They swayed backward while climbing another wave then leaned forward as the vessel crashed down over it. Amy couldn’t stifle a yell when the ship descended, Metal pulling her closer to him still. He wouldn’t admit how much alarm his body was producing as he saw the high chance of tipping forward. The ship’s boom was dunked under the waves momentarily until the entire vessel tipped back, balancing itself like a buoy.
Amy was shaking. Her heart was ready to leap out of her chest, sure she’d be unable to maintain her balance had it not been for Metal’s support. Any rosiness in her cheeks quickly vanished to stark white and she remained speechless in her panic. Metal looked down at her in front of him. He realized he was still clutching her to him, but didn’t ease his grip. He told himself it was in case another wave hit.
They continued to sail over the stormy waters, but it appeared after a few minutes that the worst was behind them. Metal loosened his hold around Amy as her heart rate leveled and her breathing went back to normal. The rain began lightening up, no longer showering the deck. It was a light drizzle by the time either of them found anything to say.
Amy inhaled. “That was… A lot.”
“Yes…” he turned his attention to his minions, who were securing the sail back to the mast. It had been repaired to the best of their abilities with as much rope as they could tie around it.
“So… This ship. It’s kinda falling apart.”
“That appears to be the case.”
There was an awkward silence between them. Amy was still sandwiched between Metal Sonic and the ship’s helm. Now that the shock had faded it was uncomfortable again. “I’m gonna… Step aside…”
“Of course-” Metal removed himself from behind her, taking some steps away to free her. “I did not expect you to do so well.”
“Yeah, thanks.” Amy rung out her locks. They were both soaked, but her clothes were heavy with all the water.
“You may change in my quarters- if you need to.”
“Got another fun outfit planned for me?” she mocked.
“Yes. Come,” he stepped down from the quarter deck toward the captain’s quarters.
Amy scoffed. “I was not being serious.”
Metal addressed the henchmen as he passed. “H1, H3, H4- you did well. We will complete repairs tomorrow.” They all saluted him, and as soon as he turned away, moved on to high-fiving each other noisily. The doors were held open to his room and Amy passed through.
Much of the space was in disarray. The chairs were in different corners of the room, half of them toppled over. The screen had collapsed and any books that lined the shelves had flown off and lay open or bent on the floor. Amy was worried what state her room could be in…
“Well, this is…”
“A mess,” Amy interrupted.
“That is a fair assessment.” Metal made his way to the far corner of the room, bringing the screen upright. “At least this is functional…” He pointed a hand to it, inviting Amy to use it.
Amy was weirded out again by his interest in her attire but was even more uncomfortable in the drenched outfit she had on. She made her way to change while Metal Sonic hung around the room, picking books up from the ground. He’d left her another period-accurate garment to dress up in. The sight of the long-sleeved white nightgown annoyed her at first, but she was glad she at least had something comfortable to sleep in.
When she stepped out from behind the screen, Amy made her way to pick up the floor mirror. It was cracked at the top from having toppled forward but was otherwise functional. She looked ethereal in the white gown, even if it was a little costumey.
“I hope it is to your liking,” Metal said as he approached her. “I understand you were uncomfortable resting in the other clothes.”
Amy had forgotten that the first thing she’d done that morning was to complain about the outfit to him. “I’m surprised you cared to remember.”
“I have ample memory storage; I do not forget.”
“But you still cared.” She smiled up at him.
“... I didn’t want to hear your whining.” Metal stepped away, continuing to tidy up his quarters from the whirlwind.
“Sure.” Amy pretended to study the dress in the mirror, actually watching Metal in its reflection. It was all so elaborate- the ship, the costumes, the sword fighting. What was the point of it all? “Hey, Metal… How come you’re so invested in this pirate act? It seems kinda…”
“Illogical?” He did not turn to look at her.
“I was gonna say inconvenient, but…”
“Hm.” He straightened up the last chair. “I suppose I just wanted something to control,” he shrugged. “It seemed on-theme.” It wasn’t a lie.
Amy had no idea what to expect but the answer still shocked her. It was becoming difficult to doubt him when she realized that she could relate. He really did have nothing to gain but his autonomy. “I understand,” she said simply.
Metal made to return to the deck, holding a door ajar. “Perhaps it will pay off for me, as well.”
“Yeah,” she smiled.
Amy gathered up her wet clothes to dry in her room. It was hard to tell how long she’d spent on deck chatting and then weathering the storm, but she was exhausted- and hungry. She was lucky everything in the kitchen was bolted down but felt less so when her suite was in complete disorder. For once, she didn’t care- simply plopping herself on the mess of sheets and pillows that she could gather atop the plush mattress.
-----
“I am… so sore.” Amy lay on her back directly on the cool wood of the quarter-deck, groaning. “Everything hurts. And it’s sooo hot...”
The ship swayed slightly on the calm water, as Metal turned the helm sharply. “I suppose that means you are too weak to train, then.” He watched the compass eagerly. They had been blown off course by the storm the night before and the arrow was constantly changing direction now.
Ignoring his little insult, Amy darted her eyes up at him. “Is that all you think about?”
“What else are we to do?” He made a frustrated, metallic ring as he turned the ship in the other direction. “How does this ridiculous thing work?”
“How should I know…” Amy yawned. “You seem too busy steering to train me, anyway.”
“H1 can take over once he’s finished with the sails. I suggest you get ready.”
Amy clicked her tongue at him, crossing her arms over her torso. She rolled her head to the side, watching the horizon pass them by. “When you have muscles, you’ll see…” But he was right, there was nothing better to do. It made her think about what her friends might be doing then. Would they catch up to Metal’s ship? She dreaded confronting them at sea, having to convince them of Metal’s plan. Even if they were worried, Amy would rather deal with them after the fact, asking them for forgiveness rather than permission.
Metal stared down at Amy. For all the spying and research he had done on Sonic and his friends, Metal was still astonished by her bravery and tenacity in the face of danger. Looking back on their early meeting, he always categorized her as a weak, defenseless being. Even as Amy had grown strong over the years, this was the first time Metal experienced her pluckiness on its own, unadulterated by the presence of her teammates. It impressed him more than he cared to admit.
The maneuver she’d pulled climbing up the mast had left Amy with a pretty noticeable wardrobe change, too. The short half-slip she wore under the layers of scarves at her waist allowed for her usual mobility; he was almost excited by the prospect of sparring with her now that she could move more freely. Her boots and stockings were in full view and the oversized frills of her blouse were more striking now. Metal had found the billowy ankle-length skirt fetching in its historical context, but now she looked...
“Couldn’t we do it at night when it’s not so hot?” she interrupted his thoughts.
“I am not looking forward to becoming as sensitive as you,” he quipped, getting his mind off Amy’s appearance. “But fine.”
The compass appeared to stabilize again. When he set off to research pirating, Metal failed to realize the amount of waiting involved on seafaring adventures and began to wish he’d commandeered a faster ship. But, at least the company was good.
It was more than Rouge could say for her guests. “Look, I appreciate your help fixing the ship and helping us navigate around that storm, but I’ve been hired to recover whatever’s on that island!”
She and Knuckles argued over the fate of “her” treasure for hours. “I’m telling you I just want one thing!” he asserted.
“And I’m telling you I can’t just hand you an artifact when our funding is on the line. There are legalities-”
“Since when do you care about what’s legal? This is more important than that!”
Rouge huffed, plopping into her desk chair with folded arms. “Maybe if you just told me why you’re after it I could talk to my patrons about-”
“No! No one can know what’s in there!”
“ Stop interrupting me! ” Rouge’s wings flared out behind her as she slammed her hands down on the desk. The two glared at each other, neither relenting until a knock came at her chamber door.
Tails pushed it ajar with sheepish caution. “Uh… Am I interrupting?”
“... You’re fine,” Rouge sighed in exasperation. “Sit.” She rubbed at her temples, taking a breath. “I just want to know what we’re after so I can help. Can one of you please explain what the fuss is about?”
“Come on,” Tails nudged Knuckles. “We’re on the same side…”
Knuckles groaned under his breath. “Fine.” Rouge leaned in to listen, resting her wary head in her hand as he continued. “We’re after a Knuckles Tribe artifact known as the Stone Mirror…” He explained some of its history and how they knew that it was buried among Scarlett’s treasure.
She waited until he was done, and then slid her chair back, pulling a large scroll from the top drawer of her desk. “I’d like to show you something.” Unrolling it revealed a copy of the same map they’d used to navigate, stitched-together from a set of letters written by Scarlett. “These letters were addressed to Beryl over the course of several months- she and Scarlett were married. It seemed Scarlett wasn’t too eager to reveal the location of her stronghold, even to her wife. Some say she sailed there alone after, well…” Pointing to one of the letters at the bottom, Rouge read some of its contents aloud.
“ I am sorry for how my selfish desire has destroyed our happiness. You slit your palm and gave your very blood for me, and in my deception we were cursed. It was the mirror that took your health, and my guilty action that will take you if we do not act. These riches were meant to be your assurance in case of my demise; Instead, I must seal away all that I have earned in the hopes of saving you. There is no time to waste coming for you- Please find me. Love, Scarlett. ”
She set down the scroll. “Earlier in it she writes about meeting some mystic that gave her information about a mysterious mirror and its curse. Something about lying toBeryl?”
“So she mentions it…” Knuckles pondered. “Legend states you need a blood sacrifice from someone else who’s ‘willing and knowledgeable about your intentions.’ Basically you lie and the other person gets cursed. Guess she found out a little too late.”
Rouge sat back in her chair, staring down at the collection of letters. “It’s well recorded that Scarlett recounted making some wish to become a great pirate. Historians just attribute it as a tall tale. Shame about Beryl, though,” she sighed. “In any case- this ‘Stone Mirror’ sounds dangerous.”
Knuckles nodded. “I don’t know how he found out, but I’m assuming it’s what Metal Sonic’s after.”
“... Okay. We’ll create a diversion to snatch up the mirror before the cameras can record it. But we’ll have to beat Metal Sonic there.”
The three of them nodded in agreement- Knuckles promising to find a way to destroy the dangerous artifact. And if they ran into their unexpected enemy at sea, there would be no choice but to subdue Metal Sonic before he could get his hands on it.
-----
Three days went by and there was still no sign of this mystical secret island, orany land for that matter. Actual pirates may have had work to do, but Metal Sonic’s three henchmen seemed to do the all work of a full crew in a quarter of the time. It left Amy and Metal with very little to do other than practice their swordsmanship and chat late into the night.
Amy picked up swordplay like it was second nature. It helped that there was little more to do, but she’d never had issues with swinging a weapon around. After a fourth day of practicing she was getting the hang of perrying against Metal Sonic and was serving combos that would give any other beginner a run for their money. Though she complained of sore muscles and exhaustion constantly, Amy fought against it nevertheless, advancing far quicker than either of them anticipated. Metal was forced to admit that he found it admirable- though he didn’t express it out loud.
Metal, for his part, found himself appreciating Amy’s companionship. Her witty nature complimented Metal’s droll quips, and she found it funny that he put so much effort into his tough pirate charade. He didn’t have anything to counter with when they’d shot back petty insults at one another and she’d finally burst into laughter, remarking on how insistent he was on appearing superior. Metal supposed she had a point, getting his own chuckle out of it. Amy continuously commented on how he would feel differently when his body was organic as if to test him. Of course, Metal played along, but each time he did, there was a nagging twitch in his mind.
The guilt Metal felt over manipulating Amy was beginning to weigh. For years, he’d waited for this kind of opportunity to get the upper hand on Sonic, to become something that not even his rival could imagine. Metal wasn’t sure what form he would ultimately take when he finally got hold of the Stone Mirror, but it was so far from the average organic being that Amy imagined for him. “I wonder what color your eyes will be,” she had mused aloud during an evening conversation- what a wholesome thought compared to Metal’s. He said that he hoped they’d be green like hers and got a laugh over her flustered babbling.
Out of all the things that could go wrong with his plan, feeling remorse was not something he prepared for. It’s not as if he’d ever felt guilty for acting in his own interest in the past, but Metal realized that he’d never worked with someone on a team as an equal, either. There was a sense of kinship between them that grew from fighting against the harrowing storm; They both quickly became comfortable in the other’s presence, as if having been friends for years. That was a first for Metal.
But he couldn’t let all his plotting and past failures go to waste. Metal wasn’t about to let one of his former enemies sway his plans. Amy was nice to have around but there would be others; this was the only time he’d get this opportunity.
But I may as well enjoy myself, he thought. After four days at sea spending most of Amy’s waking moments together, Metal had grown to enjoy their time together; It was a shame it wouldn’t last.
On day five, they met in his quarters while Metal dug around for another sharpened sword. He tossed props aside from a closet as he searched.
Amy stood at the shelf on the opposite end of the room, perusing through a book. “What are you looking for?”
“A sharpened sword,” he answered plainly.
“You have a sword… And claws...”
“It’s not for me- Ah, here we are.” Metal turned back to her, a sheathed sword in one hand and a long, red garment draped over the other. “H3 does find the strangest places to store things…”
Putting the book down, she spun to him curiously. “What’s that?”
“I missed seeing you in red,” he said in the most pompous tone he could manage, holding it out to her.
She took it with a smirk. “Another skirt?” Amy unrolled the garment, revealing a long, notched jacket with gold piping that framed it intricately.
“No, something more fitting this time.”
She threw it over herself excitedly. Belting the jacket at the waist, Amy smiled at her reflection. “Oh, it’s pretty. And way more functional,” she giggled, turning her friendly countenance to him. “Thanks.”
“I thought you would feel that way.” Metal unsheathed the sword and handed that to her as well. “Now we can really spar.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Seems kinda dangerous…”
“Hmph- I doubt you’ll land a hit,” Metal replied confidently. “And rest assured I will stop before the blade touches you.” He pointed the weapon at her theatrically.
Amy rolled her eyes. “It’s lunchtime- I’m taking a break.” She snatched the weapon from him, hanging it gingerly around her waist and making her way down to the kitchen. She was surprised to see Metal Sonic tagging along behind her. “You hungry?” she smirked.
“Something like that…”
She snickered a bit, not sure what to make of the comment but finding his presence enjoyable nonetheless. Amy got to work preparing her lunch while he observed her from across a high table, his cutlass drawn up to his eyes so he could look past it at her dramatically. She glanced at him with a scoff. “Making sure it’s sharp enough?”
“I can assure you, it is.”
Amy stuck out her tongue at him, sitting down on a tall stool to eat her lunch. “You are just as cocky as Sonic…”
Even if that was true, her comment irritated Metal. He sauntered around the table to her side, the sharp point of his weapon aimed at her. She didn’t appear phased. “I doubt that Sonic knows much about swordsmanship.”
“He’s apparently pretty skilled at it, actually,” Amy said, taking another bite.
“Seriously?”
With her mouth full, Amy shrugged. Metal lowered his sword, pacing around to her other side and looming over her shoulder. She continued to ignore his taunts as she ate. “I’m gonna grab some water…” Amy stood, continuing to watch him out of the corner of her eye. Turning back, she heard him speak again.
“En garde,” he announced with a lunge. The tip of his sword stopped just shy of her chest.
Glancing down at his weapon, Amy returned with a sweet smile. “Aw, how am I supposed to take you seriously if you won’t follow through?” She looked back up at him with doe eyes.
Metal met her soft gaze, locking his vision on her endearing face. “Well, would you like me to-”
Before he could finish, Amy had drawn her sword and gone for a parry, knocking his blade to the side. Then she lunged, closing the distance between them and bringing her weapon over his head. He swung his sword back up, blocking the hit. “Hmph! You’re just as impatient as Sonic, too,” Amy smirked.
“Argh!” Metal pushed her sword off and away from him, brandishing his in a ready position. “Will you continue to compare me to that imposter when I am organic?”
Amy held the same pose, teasing by twirling her weapon around in circles. “Depends. Are you gonna keep letting your life revolve around him?”
“Hm- How else would you and I get to spend time together?” Metal lunged, backing Amy against some kitchen equipment until she countered his attack with her own swing. She ducked underneath his next attack and backed away.
“You wanna hang out that bad?” she giggled. “Maybe just ask me out to coffee.”
“Oh,” Metal approached her slowly, his sword still drawn high. “What are those called again?”
“What are what called, weirdo?”
“Let me see…” As he continued his approach, Amy backed out through the kitchen door and into the narrow hallway. “Oh, a date ?”
Caught off guard, Amy lowered her weapon momentarily. He did the same as he neared her, their eyes locked. “Th-That’s not really-” His sword was upon her again a second later. She dodged, not having time to counter the sudden attack.Should’ve expected that, she thought, planning her next move.
But there was little time to think as Metal lunged toward her again, swinging from every direction as she struggled to block with her sword. They continued down the hall, clinking and striking their weapons together. Amy was just managing to remain defensive; he wouldn’t give her an opening.
Finally, Amy got in a parry after ducking from one of his swings and rolling behind him. When Metal turned back around, he narrowly avoided a swing that passed just under his chin. He sprung back. Out of striking distance, they both stared at each other, Metal holding his weapon down by his side. He was surprised that he didn’t feel the need to hold back more, feeling somewhat proud of Amy’s progress. But he wouldn’t let her know any of that.
“Ready to give up?” she teased.
He drew up the cutlass again, taking a step closer. “How easy could I possibly make it for you?”
Rather than fall back, Amy took his challenge and moved in his direction. “I don’t know… Looks like you’re having a pretty hard time to me,” she sneered. She was having more fun than she expected.
“I could say the same!” He rushed her then, Amy countering the next few swings.
Suddenly, they were each backed close to a wall as they stood in tandem in the narrow hallway, Metal just in front of a set of doors. As he swung again, she dove under his attack and through the double-doors. When the room came into full view, Amy looked on in awe. It was a grand ballroom, elegantly decorated in white and champagne- presumably for the wedding that was meant to be held there. Metal nearly landed a hit on her while she was distracted, but Amy seemed to be a master at dodging his lunges.
“Don’t get too distracted,” he taunted her.
“Hmph!”
Locked in battle, they continued moving down the length of the ballroom, circling around the winding rows of banquet tables and chairs. Metal was coming at Amy in full force, giving her little opportunity to counter. He could see her growing more tired now, her heart rate increasing exponentially as her breathing became more shallow. Taking advantage of this, Metal increased his speed and continued his swings, varying the direction so she couldn’t duck behind him again. They fought their way to the front of the room where the space was more open. Footsteps clicked as they stepped across the hard dancefloor that spanned from wall to wall at the front of the ballroom. Soon, Metal had completely backed Amy into a wall as she panted.
Amy realized that she was, perhaps, a bit too confident. Even if she were to get to a point where her skills surpassed his, Metal Sonic couldn’t tire in battle as fast as she would. She had to find a different advantage.
When she tried to perform an unexpected lunge, his sword made contact with her own so harshly that she lost her grip. It clanged to the ground next to her. Metal used his forearm to pin Amy to the wall by her chest.
She let out a grunt as she clashed with the wall behind her. Panting, Amy glared up at him in exasperation. “Are you satisfied now?”
“I am… impressed.” Metal cocked his head to one side, observing as her chest heaved under his grip. “But I knew you wouldn’t best me so easily.”
“Really? I thought you had more confidence in your teaching skills. I know I’m a great coach...”
Metal stared on at her curiously. “Is that so? And what do you teach?”
Amy gestured to the floor with her eyes. “I taught Sonic how to tango pretty well-” She was cut off as he pressed his forearm against her more firmly.
“Hmph- if you think that will distract me-”
“Hey,” Amy’s face softened into a smile as she interrupted him. She reached a hand up, taking hold of Metal’s lapel. He glanced down at the gesture in confusion. “You wanna know how else you’re like Sonic?”
“... Do tell.”
“C’mere.” Amy held an almost saccharine expression as she gently tugged his collar toward her.
She hardly had to pull as Metal allowed himself to be drawn into her. It may have been a ruse- he was fairly confident in that- but he was greatly interested in what she had to say as she lifted her chin to speak into his ear. Metal remained vigilant as Amy continued.
“You’re really cute,” she whispered.
Staggering back, Metal fixed her eyes with his. She twinkled back at him. “What do you-”
A sharp blow to the side of his head sent Metal off from atop Amy and to the ground. He lost command of his sword just as her enormous hammer came into his peripheral view. Of course - the thought ran across his mind as Metal landed on his side noisily. Amy sprinted to snatch his sword from off the ground as he readied to come back on his feet- but her boot heel was upon his chest before he got any further than facing her. Metal’s heavy body banged on the hard dancefloor as she pushed him down under her foot. Amy stood over him with his own sword pointed just under Metal’s chin. She was grinning from ear to ear as she watched his broken eye illuminate for a moment.
Metal would have been furious if she’d looked malicious, but her sparkling grin was so… cheery. “It’s cute that you think you can beat me so easily!” Amy laughed with genuine amusement as she removed her boot from his body.
His left eye now flickering again, Metal could only manage to glare for a second until he found himself chuckling as well. “That was most certainly cheating…”
“Didn’t know you had such strict rules.” Beaming, Amy allowed the hammer to disappear from her grasp and offered Metal a hand up. The lights in his left eye sputtered out again as he stood. “Hey, I almost fixed your eye! Maybe another wack will do it,” she smiled.
“Somehow I doubt that.” He hadn’t let go of her hand, instead using it to jerk her toward him. “But perhaps you could show me your little dance now?”
“Ah… I don’t know if you’d really enjoy it.” Amy offered Metal his sword, holding it between them.
He took it from her gently and slid it down by his side. “Won’t you indulge me?”
Her cheeks flushed lightly. Amy had just said it to distract him; she could teach, but she suddenly felt flustered in such close proximity. “Well… Maybe-”
The room shook then. Metal kept Amy from losing her footing as the ship rolled unexpectedly. They gave each other a look of concern.
“Is it another storm?” Amy asked.
Metal shook his head. “No- come to the deck, don’t forget your sword.”
He was floating out the door before Amy could find the words to respond. She followed him, picking up the weapon she’d dropped to sprint down the hall and up the long staircases.
“Surrender Amy Rose and the artifacts at once!” Rouge was flying above her deck speaking into her megaphone with Knuckles, Tails, and her crew on deck below. Her ship floated across from Metal Sonic’s as cameramen focused on both of the captains.
Metal stood nonchalantly with his arms crossed behind, amplifying his voice to speak. “I can assure you she is under no duress.”
Knuckles had managed to snag a megaphone of his own and was now putting the full force of his voice into it. “Then where is she?!”
Metal squinted at the rumbling noise, his receptors vibrating uncomfortably. “Argh- You do not need to yell into that, I can hear you just fine.”
“Tell us where she is now!” Knuckles was getting ready to threaten him as Amy busted through to the deck. The three henchmen burst through just behind her.
When she spotted her friends, Amy’s face lit up and she ran to the ship’s railing. Metal remained in his stately pose behind her in an attempt to indicate that there was no threat. “Guys!” Amy waved, “I’m okay!”
Leaning close to the rails, Knuckles yelled into his megaphone again. “We can’t hear you-”
“Knuckles, that’s enough! I can hear her just fine so shut up,” Rouge snapped down at him. He crossed his arms irritably, grumbling. “Amy,” she continued, “we’re here to rescue you; are you hurt?”
Waving her hands in front of her, Amy answered as loud as she could. “Rouge, I’m fine! Are you guys okay?”
“Us?” she looked puzzled, “You were the one who was kidnapped...”
“It’s okay, I’m, uh…” she turned to beckon Metal, who looked almost bored at the turn of events. He approached her slowly, keeping an eye on the others. Once he was within reach, Amy clung to his arm in a friendly gesture as his expression became nonplused. “I’m helping Metal! Let’s team up!”
He whipped around to her with reproach. “That is not part of the plan!”
“Plans can change,” she responded in a low voice before addressing Rouge again. “Let us aboard and I’ll explain!”
Completely perplexed, Rouge didn’t know how to respond. Knuckles was shouting at her to repeat what Amy was saying and Tails began to call out to her as well. “Don’t move,” Rouge directed a command at Metal with a glare before floating down to the others. “What do you two want?!”
Tails pushed Knuckles aside in order to get a word in. “We’ve detected an island 30 naughtical miles from here in the direction of the compass- there’s no other land within range. It has to be the place. We can be there in the next couple of hours. We need to get Amy back ASAP.”
“We’re that close?” Rouge glanced back across the way to the other ship, where Amy and Metal appeared to be… arguing? Their tones were too hushed to decipher the speech, but neither was fighting the other. Though they both waved their hands around in apparent annoyance, Amy held him close to her without any resistance. Rouge didn’t know what to make of it. “She said… she’s helping him.”
“Helping Metal Sonic?” Tails looked just as confused now.
Knuckles butted back in, shoving Tails aside. “She said that? What’s his game?”
“How should I know?” Rouge brought her hands to her hips in frustration. “She said she wants to come aboard to explain.”
“That sounds like a trap!”
Rouge nodded in agreement. “But it’s the only way to get her back peacefully. We’ll just have to be ready for him.”
The boys each nodded in reluctant agreement. Rouge took a breath and quietly signaled her crew to be on alert. Approaching the side of her ship, she called out to the others. “You may board. We will extend the bridge.”
Amy and Metal paused their arguing to come to her attention. “Don’t you-” he started before Amy interrupted him.
“No need, we’ll fly over!” She faced him. “Come on, let’s go.” He glared at her with resentment, worried he’d just be ambushed and forced to engage, putting his plan in jeopardy. Amy tightened her grip on his arm and lowered her voice. “I’ll hold on to you so they don’t attack.”
His glare softened. That should work , he thought with some remorse. He wished he could feel more positively about tricking Amy so well she was willing to risk her safety for him. When Metal nodded, she climbed into his arms readily. She really held no doubt in him.
“You three,” he told his henchmen, “... be on alert.” H1 shot forward, standing on the ship’s railing and pointing ahead. “... Yes, I suppose I should bring one of you. Move.” Metal could the others’ clinking salutes as he and H1 lifted off, Metal flying over the sea carefully with Amy. A cameraman on a lower deck followed their path while another stood near Rouge, recording their landing. The little minion stood readily by Metal’s feet as the crew took steps towards them, encircling them steadily. Metal gazed around at them but did not move.
Knuckles came the closest. “It’s time to drop her,” he demanded.
“Very well.” Metal lowered Amy to her feet and she quickly wrapped herself around his arm, taking a step in front of him.
“I’m okay, Knuckles. I’m gonna hang onto Metal for now, okay?”
“Why? What is this?” Knuckles was shouting again, continuing his approach. “Did you do something to her brain?”
Metal scoffed, standing his ground. “What exactly do you think I could do?” A camera came up close to the side of his face while a mic loomed above. He turned his head sharply, his single blazing eye catching the crewmember off guard. “Is there something I can help you with?” The cameraman scrambled back, making himself scarce.
“Metal, just ignore it,” Amy tugged on him while his eye rolled around his screen.
“Alright,” Rouge’s assertive voice cut through the crowd that was quickly forming in front of them. “Everyone back off, you’ll hear my signal if I need you. That goes for you, too, Knucklehead. Move!” As her crew dispersed and the cameras backed to a safe distance, Rouge stood some feet in front of them. “So you made friends with Metal Sonic? I’d find it cute if I wasn’t still bruised from his last attack.”
Amy chuckled awkwardly back at her. “Yeah, well… you look great in your new uniform.”
“Hmph.” Rouge cracked a smile as she saw Amy there, protecting her unlikely friend from attack. It was almost sweet. “Well I’m relieved you don’t look too bad yourself. Cute jacket.”
“Thanks, uh… Metal picked it out,” Amy smiled.
“Really?” Rouge turned her attention to him. “Charming. Now what is it you want?”
When he didn’t respond after a few seconds, Amy cut in. “Metal has a… request. For the Stone Mirror.”
“What?!” Knuckles came booming back, stomping his feet.
Rouge held her arm out in front of him with a brief glare, then continued. “We’ll talk in my quarters. No cameras. Come on,” she turned on her heel and beckoned for only Amy and her “friends” to join her. They all followed behind Rouge awkwardly as the crew murmured around them, cameras following their every move.
Rouge locked the door behind them once they were in the privacy of her office. Then she faced Amy and scolded her. “You cannot go around mentioning magical artifacts in front of the crew. Why do you think you were all after it in the first place?”
Amy shrunk back, still clinging to a silent Metal Sonic. “Sorry… You’re right…”
Rouge sighed with exasperation, sinking into her chair. “Will you all sit?! You’re making me anxious.” As everyone complied, Knuckles most reluctantly, Rouge addressed Metal Sonic with some sarcasm. “I would love to hear what you have in mind for the mirror.”
After some seconds of silence, Amy nudged him. H1 climbed up the chair legs to sit in his lap, staring up at him. Metal shot them each an irritated look before starting. “I would like to use the Stone Mirror to become… organic.” He’d lied to Amy so easily, but was almost embarrassed to show such vulnerability with the rest of his enemies.
“Organic?” Rouge massaged her temple. “I don’t even know what to say to that. And Amy, you believe this?”
“Doesn’t matter if she believes it or not,” Knuckles butted in, “there’s no way Metal Sonic’s getting his hands on the mirror!”
Rouge nodded. “Unfortunately, I’m inclined to agree.”
Amy ignored Knuckles and spoke to her instead. “For the record, I do believe him. And I think it’s a good reason to use the mirror.”
Rouge shushed Knuckles before he could start again. “Amy… There’s something you should see.” She opened the top drawer of her desk and retrieved the same copy of the map she’d shown Tails and Knuckles. “I’m sure you know about Scarlett’s treasure and her letters to her wife, Beryl.” Metal’s piercing glare was already scanning through the text in the letters as Amy nodded. Rouge explained the entirety of the Stone Mirror’s curse, blood sacrifice and all, as Amy listened in shock.
“Amy,” Rouge’s tone softened. “This is a big risk for you…”
“Look, this thing cursed Beryl because of her wife’s dishonesty.” Knuckles got up angrily, pointing a finger at Metal Sonic. “Are you really willing to risk that for him ?”
“ Oh, ” Amy lowered her eyes in thought, her grip on Metal’s arm loosening slightly.
“The only way to lift the curse was for her to give her own blood and leave everything she’d gained behind; Hence why she sent for Beryl to meet back with her on the island. She tragically passed before making it off the ship.” Rouge stood from her desk and circled around to the front, facing Amy and folding her arms. “And I’m sorry to say I don’t trust Metal Sonic as far as I can throw him.”
The new information shouldn’t have changed Metal’s plan. He was willing to do anything for an advantage against his nemesis- or so he thought. But now, spending a few days with one of his enemies was enough to sway him? He supposed he could get The Doctor to sacrifice for him- he would revel in the opportunity to take Sonic down... No, he thought, I can’t let her get in my way. It wasn’t as if she’d be safe from him when he finally transformed into whatever monster he could conjure. And yet…
“If I may,” he spoke finally, placing his claws softly over Amy’s hand as it held his forearm. “Your blood will not be necessary. Someone else can take the burden.” He turned to Rouge. “I am only asking for use of the artifact to fulfill my wish.”
“Fat chance,” Knuckles interjected. “I still don’t believe you’re telling the truth- no way I’m letting you turn into a monster again. No deal.”
“Knuckles…” Rouge strode over to him. “Can I have a word, privately?”
He raised a brow at her but agreed. “... Fine. Tails, keep an eye on Metal Sonic.”
“Sure?” the boy looked at his enemy, sitting calmly with one of his best friends at his side. He hardly looked threatening.
As they stepped out, Amy faced Metal again. “Who’s gonna help you if I don’t?”
“... I believe The Doctor will be willing.”
Tails looked at them skeptically. “Eggman knows you wanna do this?”
“No,” Metal replied, once again carefully curating his words so they did not sound suspicious- or make him feel any worse. “He has few details of my plan. I am not sure how he tracked us a few days ago, but I do not believe he will deny me. I wanted to complete the task independently, but I will do what I must.”
“Well I’ll help you if he won’t,” Amy assured.
“Amy, you’ll die if he’s lying,” Tails shot back.
She scoffed as if it didn’t matter. “We’ll all die if he’s lying.”
“How is that better?! How can you be sure he’s telling the truth?”
Amy paused. She felt his steely fingers on her and focused her ears on his gently whirring engine. H1 looked at her from Metal’s lap expectantly. It wasn’t clear to her just why she’d grown to trust him so quickly, but she knew in her heart he would do the right thing. “Because he wants someone to kick his butt at sword fighting,” she smiled. “I’ve gotten pretty good at it the past few days, you know.”
Metal could no longer look at her. He removed his hand from atop hers and sat silently, trying not to let the guilt overcome him.
Tails’ face contorted. “What are you even talking about?”
The door cracked open then, Rouge stepping back inside. She addressed Metal Sonic directly. “We will allow you use of the Stone Mirror,” she began. “Knuckles will take it immediately after. No one on my crew is to know about it- we’re after the treasure only. We expect to come up on the island in the next hour, so get back to your ship and wait for a tow.”
“That soon?” Metal asked.
“Yes. You are not to step foot on land in order to avoid suspicion. We’ll recover the artifacts.”
“... Very well. Let us return, then.” He removed H1 from his lap and rose, Amy’s fingers slipping away from him.
“Amy’s staying with us,” Knuckles called from the door.
Amy’s cheeks puffed indignantly. “ Amy’s going where she wants. I’m staying with Metal.” She stood and pushed Knuckles out of her way, taking her leave.
Metal thanked Rouge and went past the others without a second glance, his lackey scurrying behind. There was no doubt they were plotting something against him, and Metal was determined to make it onto that island and get his hands on the mirror himself- by force if necessary. He would do anything. Almost anything .
The second Amy and Metal stepped out, a set of cameras once again bombarded them. It assured they went away and off the ship quickly so Metal Sonic couldn’t hear what was being discussed in Rouge’s quarters without them.
Inside, Tails got up from his seat. “Are we really just gonna let Metal Sonic use the mirror?”
“Absolutely not,” Knuckles shot back.
“But Amy doesn’t need to know that yet.” Rouge leaned back on the front of her desk pensively. “We’re getting ahead of him so he can’t threaten us with whatever he wants to do with the mirror. No doubt Metal Sonic will get... forceful.”
“Stubborn girl,” Knuckles grumbled. “It’d be easier to keep her safe if she’d stayed here…”
“Arguing with her would blow our cover; and she can take care of herself. Let’s just be ready for whatever he throws at us.”
Tails’ ears drooped slightly. “I wish Sonic could help us, he’d make quick work of Metal…”
“Who needs him?” Knuckles puffed his chest out confidently. “I’m bored of watching them fight anyway!”
-----
Metal and Amy stood at the bow of his great ship, the breeze blowing through Amy’s hair gently. She leaned forward, looking into the horizon, waiting to spot land. They were moving a little faster now as Rouge’s vessel towed them across the sea. Metal stood next to her watching the compass intently. They continued on the right path. It was minutes away now.
Suddenly the hidden inscription on the back made a lot more sense. He shone a pale violet light over it and read- The Mirror’s bloodlust was nothing to me, for I’d have bled myself dry for you. It didn’t just seem like useless theatrics, but the caring words of someone willing to sacrifice for another. What Metal didn’t understand, however, was how Amy was so ready and willing to do the same for him. Worse than deceptive, it felt undeserved.
Spotting his intense concentration on the compass, Amy spoke up. “Crazy how Beryl gave everything to Scarlett like that, huh?”
Metal did his best to shake his head clear of the guilt. “Yes. I suppose she cared for her.”
“That’s an understatement,” Amy chuckled.
“Is it? Then... what is it you feel that makes you so willing to do the same for me?”
Amy swiveled over to look at him directly. He stared down at the compass, not meeting her gaze. “I guess I think it’ll be good for us both.”
“How can you be so sure? Are you convinced I will immediately betray The Doctor and join your team?”
“I guess not…” Amy frowned at the thought. She knew it was an unrealistic expectation, though she remained hopeful he would change for the better somehow. “But I think we should all be free to make our own choices. Maybe you’ll make some good ones.”
“I am not so sure…”
There was a drawn-out sigh as she leaned her back in contemplation. Amy couldn’t help but see the good in people, and when she looked at Metal now, she saw more than a lifeless machine. There was passion in his voice and enthusiasm in his demeanor whenever they indulged in his interests. There was a small sparkle in his eye when they spoke. She had seen him joyful, and concentrated, and playful, where all she would have previously associated him with was rage. But more than that, Amy felt a connection, like perhaps this was something they were meant to do together. How else could they have become such fast friends? Friends, she smiled at the thought. It filled her with optimism. She rolled her head back on her shoulder to look to him again, their eyes locking this time. He’d been staring- it wasn’t the first time she noticed, but he didn’t dart his eyes away this time.
Softening her eyes, Amy looked at him dreamily in the late afternoon light. “I think you’ll do what’s right for you. That’s enough for me.”
Seeing that honeyed expression and hearing such genuine words, Metal never regretted anything more than he regretted bringing her along. I should have just worked alone, he scolded himself. How could he have miscalculated the outcome so terribly? In his mind, Amy would reluctantly agree to help and he’d otherwise use her as a shield against her friends’ attack;. Nothing prepared him for feeling something toward her. There was a kinship, a bond that quickly formed like puzzle pieces fitting together. They managed to just… click. There was no room in his plan for that. But he was so close…
“I do not believe your friends have such faith in me,” he said finally.
“Yeah, I kinda got that feeling. I think we’re gonna have to sneak onto that island first if you want a chance at the mirror.”
That was nothing short of surprising to hear. “You would deceive your friends?”
“It’s for a good cause- they’ll forgive me. You’ll see.”
For the first time in days, land came into view on the horizon. It was a lush green island with little more than a tall mountain rising from its center. It was tiny even as they approached. Metal and Amy exchanged looks as they spotted it.
“Looks like this is it,” she remarked. “Just a teeny island with a little mountain…”
“It appears that way.” He scanned as far as he could zoom with his optics, getting a closer look at the landscape that was still some miles away. “That, however, is a volcano.”
“No kidding...” Amy glanced around the side of the vessel. “Is there a boat around here? We need to sneak ahead if we want to reach the treasure before the others.”
“I have a better idea...”
As Rouge and her crew were making preparations to dock, Tails spotted something flying in the distance. A look through his binoculars revealed H3 and H4 flying in tandem at full speed, apparently trying to get ahead of both ships. “Hey, those are Metal’s lackeys over there.”
Rouge ripped the binoculars from his hands. “They’re trying to get ahead of us, then? We’ll see about that. Tails, come with me; Knuckles, maybe you should pay our friend a visit.” Knuckles nodded as the others both kicked themselves off and toward the flying robots.
They caught up to them quickly and tried to block their way, but were soon engaged in battle. H3 and H4 used primarily evasive tactics and steadily drifted them in the opposite direction of the island while Knuckles made his way across Rouge’s ship and over to Metal’s.
Knuckles climbed over the tow rope that connected the ships and landed on deck with a shout. “Metal Sonic! Call back your minions, now!” Not hearing an answer, Knuckles stomped across the hard floor until he found the entrance to the captain’s quarters just below the helm. Not one to wait for invitations, he made quick work of the door with his fists. He punched through the splintered wood, finding Metal Sonic sitting across the room, the back of his captain’s hat visible over the winged armchair that faced away from the door. “I said call them back now!” Metal did not respond. “Did you hear me? And where’s Amy?!” Knuckles marched over to the chair, swiveling it around to face him. “I said-”
Instead of Metal Sonic, Knuckles was met with H1, who quickly ambushed him with his long rope-arms, holding him in place. “Damn you little-” Knuckles continued to struggle against H1, his master nowhere to be found.
“Well done, H1,” a shrill voice chimed from the door.
Knuckles twisted his body around clumsily to look. The rage in his eyes grew when he saw him. “Eggman!” Knuckles yelled just as his voice was swallowed up by H1’s coils around his mouth.
Meanwhile, Metal carried Amy swiftly over the water, floating quietly close to its surface. They stuck near the side of Rouge’s ship until they snuck ahead of it. The pair managed to make it to shore well before Rouge’s crew as she and the others remained distracted with Metal’s henchmen. They booked it across the sandy beach and onto the greener area, searching for another clue as to where exactly they’d find the treasure.
“Okay… what now?” Amy’s eyes darted around the scenery looking for any hint of a hidden treasure.
Metal looked to the compass that continued to point northward. “This way,” he instructed, accelerating into the small forest of palms that surrounded the volcano’s base with Amy on his heels. They ran deep into the tropical thicket as the sky above changed hue, the sun nearing the horizon. It wasn’t long before they reached a black stone wall overgrown with moss.
“Looks like this is the end of the line…” Amy ran her hand along the wall in search of another hint.
As Metal approached, he found the hand that held the compass was repelled, as if an invisible force pushed it away. Intruiged, he held out his other arm, feeling no such push. The device’s hand spun left and right wildly as he waved it in front of the wall. “Interesting…” He placed a claw on the wall, scratching at it. He was able to make a mark on its surface with little effort. “This is some kind of volcanic rock. It repels whatever this is made of…”
“Really? Must be why it points in the other direction?” Unsure of what else to do, Amy pulled the little crystal spyglass from her pocket, looking through its eyepiece. She scanned the wall up and down, the atmospheric light turning deep red as it had just before they’d set sail together. She stopped, finding a small spot that glowed faintly. It was a small divot in the rock. “There’s something here...” Amy pawed at the vines that crept up its surface, scratching off years of moss that had grown over the glowing spot.
She finally revealed the formation under all the greenery. “Oh! It’s shaped like-”
“Like a heart,” Metal interrupted, shining his own violet light upon the small heart-shaped crater. He approached it slowly, eyes fixed on the compass. Its rapidly twisting arrow straightened as he neared the spot. The correctly pointed side of the arrow indicated straight ahead. Reaching out, the compass practically jumped out of his hand from the magnetic pull as he moved to place it in the glowing divot.
To their left, the rocky base of the volcano rumbled. They whipped around to find a wall shifting, vines and moss tearing apart as a stone slab lifted off the ground to reveal a narrow entrance to a hollow cave within.
“Well that seems like a pretty clear path to me,” Amy grinned. But it was short lived as a sudden explosion boomed from the direction of the beach. Worried for her friends, Amy looked at Metal with concern. “What was that?”
Metal was just as shocked. “I don’t know…” He raised his eyeline to scan the sky, seeming to spot something not far away. Why here? He asked himself as he recognized the round figure.
“Why are you here?” he amplified his voice to The Doctor.
“To help you get the Stone Mirror, of course!” he called back giddily. “I’ll be happy to give you what you need! What form are you taking?” Another silhouette came into view above not far from them.
Metal shot a glance back at Amy. “When did you call him?” She stared up at Eggman with confusion.
“I didn’t,” Metal responded. Before he could think of what to tell Amy, he watched as H1 hovered down next to The Doctor, his arms still tangled around an enraged Knuckles. But Metal didn’t call for H1, either- which could only mean it was The Doctor’s doing. “Is this how you found me?” Metal growled, incensed at the realization.
“Wasn’t H1 useful?” Eggman cackled. “I know you wanted to work on your own, but aren’t you glad I was watching now that you need me?”
Metal was within reach of completing his mission on his own terms. The sight of his master infuriated him, his determination to succeed without The Doctor's help returning in full-force. He’d convinced Amy, he’d made it to the island- he was going to complete his objective. Why should he feel guilty about that?
“I don’t need you!” he roared. “I have everything I need!” He accelerated toward H1, grabbing the smaller robot by his shoulders as Knuckles uttered muffled curses while they flailed around in mid-air. “ Double-crossing heap of scrap metal! ” Metal’s voice rang out with a harsh mechanical twinge as he took hold of either of H1’s arms and swiftly ripped them out of their sockets, dropping Knuckles a few feet to the ground. As H1 kicked his feet around helplessly, Metal grabbed him by the head and catapulted him out of sight, far back in the direction of the beach.
His eye radiated a fierce, burning glow as he whipped around to face Amy, who looked horrified at his actions. “We need to go, now!”
“What? But what about-”
“Go!” Metal extended his arm out, shoving Amy through the cave opening.
“Metal!” Eggman shouted, “What’s gotten into you? That’ll take me all evening to fix!”
Ignoring him, Metal flew back toward the opening as Knuckles began to slip away from the heavy uncoiling tubes. “I’ll leave you to deal with him, ” he called back to The Doctor. Once inside the cave, Metal shot his arm out once more, grabbing and ripping the compass from its spot in the wall. The limb retracted back past the opening just as the stone wall fell back into place, narrowly avoiding crushing his hand.
They were swallowed in the pitch darkness of the cave. Metal illuminated his thermal vision in search of a path ahead, but was met with Amy’s panicked eyes first. Unable to see, she groped around for a wall to follow until Metal grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him.
She did not look the slightest bit relieved. “Metal! I can’t see anything…”
“I can guide us; let’s go.”
“Wait- what was…” he saw her glance back toward the direction of the cave entrance unhappily. “I mean, wasn’t that kinda harsh? What you did to H1…”
“Perhaps- but he was a traitor as far as I’m concerned.”
“Yeah, but, you really seemed to hurt him...”
The clock was ticking and there was only so much time before the others would come after them. “He will be fine,” Metal grumbled impatiently, starting forward.
Amy let herself be pulled along, but she wasn’t dropping the question. “It’s just… is that really the kind of person you want to be?” Amy quickly remembered how she’d thought of Metal. She had forgotten how absurd it was that she’d agreed to help him and how he’d coerced her into it to begin with.
“I’ve been betrayed, how would you have liked me to react?”
“Were you? It really sounds like Eggman was trying to help you-”
“I don’t need his help!” He cut Amy off. Her eyes cast down anxiously and Metal registered the doubt and unease in her face. She almost looked sick, stumbling in the dark and frightened by his violent reaction. He knew she was right to feel that way, but his mind was made up- he would do whatever it took to use the Stone Mirror without The Doctor’s help. And Amy had to be willing, so something had to be said to assuage her. “I can’t be indebted to him any longer. I need to do this alone.”
“But you can’t do it alone, Metal, that’s the point!” Amy’s hands fumbled over his arm until she reached his shoulder, facing up at the single glowing eye, the only thing she could see. “I know you wanna be independent, but we all depend on people. Don’t you think he cares about you if he’s willing to give you this much freedom?”
In a way, she was right- but without knowing the truth, Amy would never understand. Metal highly doubted The Doctor would actually help if he’d really wished to become organic, but he could not deny his master’s well-meaning interest. They had the same goal, after all… Metal just knew he could accomplish it without him. Perhaps then he could feel as if he were an equal in his empire and not just some high-ranking lackey. But how much of that could he really tell her?
“It is different… He created me, and he can control me. I cannot escape his shadow.”
“Is having flesh and blood really gonna change that?”
“... I do not know.” Any illumination provided by Metal’s eye turned to darkness. To Amy, it looked like he’d closed his eyes, though he continued to lead her forward without issue. He just wanted her to look away, making the guilt easier to beat down- but she held her ground. Metal continued, turning his face from her. “I believe that changing my form will give me some sovereignty, making me more respectable in his eyes... It is complicated.”
“I know.” Amy looked for the red LEDs to come back on so she could look Metal in the eye, but they remained out. “But I think you can accomplish that as you are.”
Metal stopped as they approached a wall. He could still see Amy looking lamentful in his peripheral vision, her hand in his as the other clung to his shoulder assuringly. This must have been where the treasure was stored, but he wasn’t sure he could still bring himself to deceive her. He made himself visible to her again, shining his red light on her face. He felt her exhale, as if relieved, when he did. “Are you… still willing to help me?”
A small smile spread across her lips. “Of course. I just wanted you to know that I think you’re capable, you know?”
Perhaps secretly, he’d hoped she would refuse. But there was no turning back now. “I believe we are here...”
“What is it?”
“A door… without a handle.” He stared at the wall head, a smooth slab that extended from the floor to the ceiling of the cave. The shape of a door looked to be carved into it, a circular cavity in place of where a doorknob would be. Words were painted in a neat script following the shape of the hole, appearing to have faded over the decades. “There is a bore hole. It reads, ‘For my greatest treasure: my gem, Beryl.’”
“Oh, ’cause Beryl is named after a gemstone, right? Pretty romantic,” Amy teased, wanting to lighten the mood.
“It is… clever.” Metal examined the hole in the door, measuring its diameter and determining its depth. Amy knelt ahead of him, her hand sliding off his shoulder and reaching out to the wall. She ran her fingers blindly along its surface in search of a clue. He watched as she felt around the great stone barrier, apparently determined to do whatever she could to help. With Amy’s other hand still held in his own, Metal led her to the carved edge of the doorframe. “This is the door,” he said, her fingers tracing down the groove in the stone. “And the bore hole.” He pulled her hand to the spot in the door where one would find a doorknob.
Amy placed her palm over it. “It’s kinda warm,” she remarked, feeling as balmy air flowed through from the other side.
“Yes,” he agreed, hesitantly pulling away.
“ My gem, Beryl, ” she repeated. “Hm…” Fumbling around her pocket, Amy pulled out the spyglass and held it up with the bluish crystal at the end. “Does this look like beryl?”
Metal’s hard claws clicked against the crystal as he held it between his thumb and forefinger. “It does… how theatrical.” There was amusement in his voice as he realized. “Shall we?”
Amy nodded, beaming with excitement. She brought the eyepiece end up to the hole in the wall, letting Metal push the crystal into the divot until it clicked. Pulling herself up by his arm, Amy gave him an encouraging nudge. Metal paused. He stared down at her a moment. “Go on,” she insisted with a smile.
Before they could move ahead, however, a sliver of orange light entered through the floor of the stone corridor. Looking back, Metal and Amy found the door to the cave once again rising, Rouge’s silhouette just illuminated in the late sunset as it rose. Knuckles and Tails weren’t far behind her but neither Eggman nor any of the henchmen were within sight. “This is the end of the line!” she commanded, stepping into the cave.
Metal and Amy shared a brief glance, and she gave him a single nod. “Do what you have to, but be careful, okay?”
If there was a time for Metal to reverse his decision, it was now. But though he hesitated, Metal returned her nod and turned to face the cave opening. The cavity in his chest began to glow with a white light that quickly brightened, luminous with energy. “I suggest you remain where you are,” he warned Rouge.
She stepped back slightly with a gasp, unsure if she could block his attack. “Amy, call him off before someone gets hurt!” she demanded.
Amy shook her head desperately. “Just stay back!”
Knuckles came charging in then, his eyes ablaze as he rushed past Rouge and started down the length of the corridor. Tails made a fruitless effort to stop him but was quickly pushed out of the way.
Rouge yelled, following after Knuckles. “Don’t!”
The compression chamber in Metal’s chest was charged, brilliant with energy. He turned his head slightly to Amy. “You stand back as well,” he advised. Not letting Knuckles get too close, Metal levitated a few inches up and aimed his chest engine up toward the cave ceiling. Rouge just managed to tackle Knuckles to the ground as Metal’s laser fired into the stone ceiling, causing a pile of gravel to rain down between them. Metal shot himself backward and away from the falling stone. As his feet hit the ground, he forced Amy to the wall and stood between her and the collapsing ceiling, blocking the stray debris with his body.
She shut her eyes and used her arms to shield her head, but Metal didn’t let so much as a pebble past his frame. As the dust cleared, Amy peeked up. Metal towered above her crouched form, only his glowing eye once again visible in the darkened cave as it stared down at her. Amy hid her face, slightly flushed from the excitement- and the proximity.
Metal pushed himself from the wall, offering her a hand. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine,” she squeaked, accepting the boost. “What about you?”
“No sustained damage.”
They stared at each other for a moment, once again hand in hand. Metal listened to her quickened heartbeat and observed the warmth surrounding her face. Amy panted lightly. She looked especially radiant in his thermal vision, her cheeks illuminated bright red. “Thank you,” Metal blurted out.
She looked at what little she could see of him with wide eyes. “What… what for?”
He wasn’t sure. “For… everything.”
“Well,” Amy slipped her hand away from his gently. “Don’t thank me yet. We’re almost there! Oh-” she hopped past him and lifted her voice, hoping it reached the other side of the debris pile. “Are you guys okay?”
There was a short pause before Rouge called back. “You’re lucky no one’s hurt!”
Amy released her tense breath. “Thank goodness! I’m sorry, we’re going to the treasure room now!”
“The what?!”
They could hear Rouge cursing from across the heap momentarily. Then Metal could just catch Tails utter something before their voices quickly faded away.
“I think we should hurry,” Amy said, hurrying back to his side. Metal simply nodded, reaching for the eyepiece in the wall.
The crystal spyglass turned like a knob in a door. Metal pulled it open and was immediately greeted with a burst of hot air that shot past them, the stone door acting as the only barrier to keep them from being scorched. As the air passed, the enormous chamber beyond became illuminated with torches lining the walls. On the farthest wall, a thin stream of magma flowed down the height of the farthest wall, making the space sear with radiant heat.
Standing ahead of her to look past the door, Metal cautioned Amy. “We are here. But for some reason Scarlett decided to store her treasure in a magma chamber.”
“That’s… terrifying. What else is in there?”
Metal stepped from the back of the stone door, standing in the entrance of the mysterious chamber with its seemingly magical torches and streaming lava. And then there was the treasure; Mounds of sparkling gold coins that glittered even in the dreariest of light were speckled with ingots and gilded statues all across the dusty ground. The center of the room was covered inches deep in jewels, silvery blades buried within the treasure to their gem encrusted hilts. Within it, on a platform mounded with riches, sat an ivory casket, its edges shining with golden filigree inlaid with rubies and sapphires. And finally, atop it all sat a simple stone box, its dull surface clashing with the glimmering room. “What we have been looking for,” Metal said with more lament than he intended.
Pushing past the door, Amy stood next to him and took in the magnificent sight for herself. She gasped with awe, her wide eyes shining with a golden halo in the warm light. “It’s beautiful,” she sighed. Amy stepped inside, giggling. “Rouge is gonna freak!” The balmy air was stifling, but she ignored it and moved ahead, approaching the room’s center.
He followed her in cautiously, kicking random bits of treasure aside. “Be careful, there could be traps…” He watched as she pushed ahead, seeing her trod through the thick blanket of coins that littered the ground without hesitation. She fanned herself and pulled on her blouse collar uncomfortably, but headed straight for the macabre chest that sat in the middle of it all. There was no uncertainty in her stride- Amy was determined to help Metal in any way possible. He didn’t expect that to be so devastating.
Amy made her way up the elevated platform, standing on her toes to reach up to the top of the casket. There was an inscription on the lid of the stone box that sat on it. “ DO NOT OPEN,” it read. Raising a brow, Amy leaned in closer to find additional words on the front. “There’s an inscription on here…” She read it aloud: “The box reads, ‘In this casket lies Beryl, all I loved besides the sea. In this box, my remorse. Leave this cursed object where you found it; The remainder of this wretched treasure is yours. Scarlett.’ Oh…”
Reaching her side, Metal stared at the inscription that just reached his eye level.Remorse, he repeated to himself silently. “I suppose this is what we are here for.”
Amy sighed. “Yeah, I guess we should do this quick,” she reached out to the box.
Metal thought about stopping her, taking her hand and pulling it away from her cursed fate, but he did not get the opportunity. Something suddenly came crashing through the rocky wall of the chamber, chunks of stone booming as they scattered to the ground.
The cavern rumbled. Amy held onto the edge of the casket for support while Metal stabilized himself and turned his vision to the crash site. The bow of a metallic ship had pushed its way through to the cavern, its steely peak unaffected by the collision. As the rubble settled and the early moonlight seeped in through cracks, Eggman strode out onto the deck with a cackle. “What do you think of my new ship?” He extended his arms proudly. “She floats and flies!”
Metal was fuming. There he was, pushing past his immense guilt and moments from fulfilling his goal, only to be interrupted by The Doctor once again. Amy could sense his anger. She quickly found her balance and lifted her hand to his shoulder, trying to give him a reassuring look. He tensed up but did not look in her direction.
When neither of them responded, Eggman continued. “Don’t you like it? I thought we’d get you a better pirate ship for your-”
“Why do you insist on interrupting me?” Metal cut in bitterly.
“Oh come now,” The Doctor continued, “We’re on the same team! You made it this far- don’t let your pride get in the way,” he warned.
As he leaned forward on the bow of the ship, H3 and H4 popped in from the crack in the wall, squeezing their small bodies through the narrow space. Everyone watched silently as they flew crookedly toward Metal. They were scuffed and scratched, one of H4’s arms missing as the socket sparked out weakly. They landed on either side of Metal, clinking their hands to their heads weakly. “Yeesh, what happened to them?” Eggman asked with a grimace.
Clearing her throat, Amy cut in. “Look, I know you wanna help, but we have this under control. So please leave before someone gets hurt!”
“What?” he chortled. “Do you still believe Metal wants to be, what was it- ‘organic’? Ha!”
“Be quiet!” Metal spat back, his voice cutting into a dissonant metallic ring. Amy drew back her hand as she recoiled from the harsh noise.
“ Oh ,” Eggman snickered at the realization that Metal was trying to protect the girl. “Very interesting! But no need to keep up the charade, just grab her along with the mirror so we can get out of here.”
Looking between Eggman and Metal, Amy took several steps away from the robot. “He’s not lying, is he...?”
Metal stared back at her blankly. She would never help him now- his self-reliant plan had no hope of succeeding. If only he hadn’t hesitated…
“Well, hasn’t this been cute?” Eggman cackled cruelly at her fear before addressing his creation once more. Lowering his brow, The Doctor’s demeanor quickly became more serious and authoritative. “Metal, you need me in order to complete your objective. Time for action!”
He was right. Finishing the mission the way Metal had envisioned was out of reach, and Amy would never trust him again. All that was left to do was complete his objective. “It will be easier if you surrender,” he threatened her, narrowing his vision.
“ Of course you were lying.” There was bitterness in Amy’s voice as they glared at one another. She was trapped and outnumbered, but she wasn’t one to go without a fight, and he knew that. She took her gaze around the room frantically, surveying her surroundings. Just as she was deciding her next move, Amy spotted something red in the corner of her eye. She quickly shot her glare back at Metal Sonic, inching away from him.
Knuckles had slipped in through a crack in the stone, quietly scaling the wall near Eggman’s ship. Amy also spotted Rouge and Tails hidden in the ship’s shadow by the cave floor. Rouge brought a finger to her lips as Amy saw her. She knew that Metal would sense her friends if she didn’t keep his attention, so she kept talking. “Why’d you teach me how to fight if you just wanted me to surrender?”
“If you think you will best me in a real fight, you are mistaken. Give up before you get hurt.”
“Hmph! You were gonna kill me anyway- or were you just gonna let the curse do the work?”
The question lacked an answer. For however determined Metal was to get ahead of Sonic, he didn’t want to have to do it at Amy’s expense... Yet there was no calculable scenario in which he would defeat his rival where she wouldn’t intervene. There was no choice but to destroy her, too- whatever he did would only delay the inevitable. “Does it matter?” He took an imposing step toward her.
Amy reached the end of the long casket, turning the corner and putting it between them so Metal faced away from Eggman- and her team. She knew it wouldn’t hold him for long. “So I guess wanting to be friends was a lie, too…” There was genuine lament in her tone, her eyes squinting back sorrowfully. Amy couldn’t believe she’d let herself become attached to Metal- and in such a short amount of time. Whatever connection she’d felt was as good as severed now.
Metal stopped his advance, standing across from her. “...I never said that.”
“You sounded pretty eager to ‘spend time together,’” she quoted him.
“I…”
A loud ZAP was heard behind Metal. He quickly whipped around to find Knuckles falling to the ground before Rouge swooped in to catch him. “Did you really think I wouldn’t put up a barrier? Come now!” The Doctor laughed as he pulled out a small remote and the invisible barrier flashed around the ship. He pressed a button that sent at least a dozen sword-wielding badniks jumping off the deck and after Tails, Knuckles, and Rouge.
In the confusion, Amy jumped up to snatch the entirety of the stone box from atop the casket. Upon pulling down the heavy container, an ivory switch came up from the casket with a distinct CLICK . The cavern immediately began to rumble, Amy attempting to circumvent the treasure-topped platform and run back toward the direction of the ship in all the chaos.
Realizing this, Metal addressed his minions. “You two block her- the box is mine .”
Amy ran, struggling to keep her balance on the shifting cavern floor. Metal quickly propelled himself after her, reaching out with a clawed hand. Thinking fast, Amy tossed the solid stone lid back at him, hitting him square in the forehead. “Augh!” he groaned as he was knocked off route. As his henchmen closed in ahead of her with arms extended, Amy charged directly at them. Just as they reached out to stop her, Amy hit the ground and slipped between them, scraping against the hard floor. H3 and H4 collided with their arms entangled as she hurried to dust herself off and continue forward.
The cave trembled as the single thin stream of magma at the far wall thickened, now forming a pool on the cavern floor as its exit overflowed. A crack near the chamber entrance also burst open, sending boiling lava spewing over the door from which they had entered. Amy pushed forward through the surrounding heat, lugging the heavy weight toward the direction of her friends- and the oncoming battalion of badniks.
But Metal was quickly upon her again, his eyes blazing with the left flickering wildly front the blow to the head. Knowing he wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice, Amy instinctively ducked as he approached her. The hefty container slid in front of her and Metal lunged for it, snatching it off the ground to remove the artifact he’d been after- But there was nothing inside except dust.
Peering back at Amy, Metal found its rocky handle in her grasp. She had picked up the Stone Mirror- a simple rounded hand mirror with a handgrip and no discernible features other than its distinctive lack of any actual reflective surface. Amy was turning it back and forth in her hands, wondering if this was really what they’d been looking for. It resembled a hand mirror in shape alone, failing to function as an actual looking glass.
Ahead of them, Amy’s friends were already taking on a troupe of robots. After giving one a swift punch to the head that knocked it clean off its body, Knuckles caught sight of Amy- and the Stone Mirror. “Amy- don’t let him get his hands on it! Destroy it!” he called back, just dodging a swing from another badnik.
Hearing this, Metal tossed the useless box aside and flung himself at Amy once more, drawing his sword. As he brought his weapon down over her, Amy held up the mirror at both ends, blocking his attack with its handle. His sword made contact, but bounced off as he hesitated at the last second. Drawing her own sword, Amy pointed it at him sharply. “I’m not going down so easy!” She lunged at him, managing to push to the side as she changed direction toward the pooling magma at the other end of the chamber.
“H3 and H4, corner her!” Metal commanded. The henchmen had just managed to detangle their limbs. H4 launched himself forward at her while H3 came up on the other side.
The heat thickened as she approached the impossibly hot lava, panting and sweating, struggling to run ahead. Metal Sonic was faster than her and closed in quickly behind. Amy could already see H3 and H4 cornering her into the far wall. Rather than wait to be trapped, Amy swung her arm and pitched the mirror fiercely toward the magma. H4, however, threw out his remaining arm, catching it before it made contact with the boiling pool. “Take it back to The Doctor,” Metal instructed him.
“Crap!” Amy cursed. She spun around and pointed, calling out to her friends. “He’s got the mirror!”
Unfortunately for the little robot, the damage he’d sustained made it impossible to fly straight, and he struggled to avoid obstacles. This made it easy for Tails to fly by, grabbing the Stone Mirror to try and pry it out of H4’s tightly clamped claws. Not having another arm to entangle the boy with, H4 swung the coil around wildly, trying to throw Tails off like a mechanical bull. Seeing this, Metal ordered H3 to help his brother and the minion quickly wobbled off.
Eggman watched in frustration as it all unfolded, most of the robots lying in a heap of scrap at the base of his ship. “This is getting boring,” he yawned, and he flipped another button on his remote that sent out another wave of badniks. “I’ve had enough of this; go after the girl! Make it quick.” He wanted to draw the others away from the ship for a quick getaway once the mirror was secured.
Knuckles groaned in annoyance at the new wave of badniks. “I’ll deal with them- help Tails grab the mirror,” he yelled to Rouge through fierce swings of his fists. She nodded and shot herself toward the battling minions.
Meanwhile, Amy was cornered- Metal Sonic ahead of her while searing magma pooled behind her. “Surrender!” Metal commanded, pointing a steely claw at her while he held his sword down by his side.
“Never!” She had no choice but to get out of the way as lava threatened to melt her boots clean off, so she lunged at Metal Sonic with her sword, putting her full force into the attack. His stance quickly changed and he blocked her attack with his sword.
Metal attempted to counter, but Amy kept after him, swinging at him so furiously that he couldn’t get an attack in. “You lied to me!” she screamed out, her eyes brimming with fury.
“Argh- I did what I had to!” he spat back, holding his weapon against hers.
She gripped her sword fiercely with both hands, pushing against him. Angry tears formed in the corners of her eyes. “I thought we had something!” she wailed. Metal’s guilt bubbled to the surface and he faltered momentarily, giving Amy a chance to push his weapon away and plunge toward him. Metal lost his grip and the sword clattered to the ground away from him.
Amy’s lunge would have impaled him through the chest if it wasn’t for the interference of one of Eggman’s badniks. The robot cut ahead of Metal, blocking her swing. As Knuckles struggled to keep them all back, four more of the rotund bots arrived, surrounding Amy and Metal. She brandished the weapon in front of her frantically, pointing it from badnik to badnik. “Rouge,” she called, “Use the sword!”
Metal’s sword had landed just below where she and Tails struggled against H3 and H4. She kicked H3 aside and shot down, seizing the sharp weapon from the cavern floor. “Tails- move!” she warned. The boy quickly propelled himself away as he saw her aiming the sword at H4’s remaining arm. Rouge flung it at the robot, slicing his hand off at the wrist, sending his clamp-like fingers falling to the ground with the Stone Mirror still in its clutches. “Hold them off!” Rouge caught it mid-flight, clamp and all, and got moving in Amy’s direction with the intention of tossing the artifact in the magma and picking her up on the way back.
“Metal,” Eggman howled from a speaker, “Stop that flying rat and retreat with the mirror at once!”
Giving her a final glare, Metal lifted off the ground. “I wish you’d given up,” he told Amy before thrusting straight up to intercept Rouge.
“Why do you care?!” Amy‘s chest heaved, her weak hand wiping the sweat from her brow as the group of badniks slowly pushed her closer and closer to the bubbling magma behind her.
Rouge wasn’t fast enough to dodge Metal Sonic. All she could do to keep the mirror out of his clutches was to hurl it in the direction of the lava pit just before he made contact with her, sending her plummeting to the cave floor- without the Stone Mirror in hand.
As if slowing time, Metal shot his gaze toward the mirror as it fell. His systems worked at lightning speed to determine its velocity and the likelihood that he could catch it before it was destroyed. Metal was tough, but not indestructible- he wouldn’t survive a plunge into the magma. But it was when he was calculating the possible outcome, already drilling his body through the air and down toward the sizzling pool, that he spotted Amy Rose cornered by badniks against boiling magma, mere feet from being pushed into it.
Suddenly, there was a second option to his trajectory. It was her or the Stone Mirror. Save Amy Rose, or be closer than he’s ever been to fulfilling the very objective to his existence. Why was it a question? So much as considering her over his purpose went against his plan, the very core of his programming; And yet, he had already decided the moment he saw her in mortal danger. Before he could comprehend why, Metal had already shifted his flight path.
Amy was panting and swaying, dizzy from the intoxicating heat of the cave. Her vision was blurry and wet with tears as she fought off the attacks from several opponents at once. If they didn’t end her, the magma would. One of the badniks lunged at her while she parried another and she was sure she wouldn’t be able to dodge in time. Just as Amy thought she would have to say a final prayer, Metal Sonic landed between her and the robot, arms outstretched to form a barrier between them.
The sword-wielding badnik stabbed its weapon forward with no time to stop before the sharp end impaled Metal through the chest. The sword cut into his turbine, causing sparks to fly out as the engine sputtered. He heard the devastating sound of the Stone Mirror falling into the magma next to them, watching it sizzle from the corner of his eye as it sunk in. There went everything he had worked towards- yet this regret was so much less than the remorse he’d felt betraying Amy.
“Metal!” Amy gasped.
“You scrap-heap!” Eggman shrieked at the badnik whose sword was stuck in Metal Sonic’s engine. “When I’m through with you-”
There was no time to finish the statement. Glowing-hot lava began to burst from cracks in all the interior walls as the cavern quaked. Gravel fell from the ceiling as the space began caving in. “Retreat at once!”
All of Eggman’s remaining robots dropped what they were doing to run, leaving Knuckles free. He spotted Rouge crawling across the ground and Tails kicking H3 away from him a final time. Knuckles ran to Rouge, supporting her as she stood. “Where’s Amy?” he asked frantically as they struggled to stay upright on the unsteady ground.
Rouge turned her head back as Tails joined them. “Oh, no…”
Metal gripped the hilt of the sword that stuck out from his chest and quickly drew it out, tossing it to the side. The increased lava flow had left them completely surrounded on a precarious island that would soon be inundated. In her surprise, Amy shook the daze from her head. The tears that had welled in her eyes overflowed as she looked up at him in shock. “You- You came back!”
“I am as surprised as you,” he said, drawing her close to him as the boiling magma rose around them. “Hold on.” Metal lifted them off the ground, faltering as he did. His engine stalled, causing him to hover up and down unexpectedly until they finally passed the pooling lava, crashing onto the cavern floor. They were past the immediate danger, but Metal could no longer fly. As Amy stood, he found that his legs had given out as well- only enough power left to operate his upper body. He ordered his minions over hurriedly. “H3, H4, I need you here.”
The little robots did their best to fly over, dodging falling pieces of the stone ceiling. Metal was taken aback by their appearance. “H4? Where’s the rest of you?” The minion shrugged with what was left of his right arm, only the long coil hanging down from its socket. Realization set in for Metal. He looked back at Amy’s panicked face. “H3 cannot carry me alone. I will have to stay. You go with him-”
“No!” Amy shook her head furiously. “You can’t!”
“My weight exceeds his capacity-” Metal tried to explain.
“Don’t be stupid!” She grabbed hold of one of Metal’s arms, dragging him across the floor at a surprising pace.
Her strength was impressive, but they would never make it out before the chamber caved in at this rate. “We are too slow! Just leave!”
“I won’t!” Amy struggled. “H3, a little help would be nice!”
He and Metal exchanged glances for a moment. Metal quickly realized the stubborn girl wouldn’t be leaving him behind. “Well, help her!” he commanded.
H3 obeyed, swiftly grabbing his master by the other arm and dragging him along. They moved at a running pace now, nearing the half-collapsed wall from which Eggman had crashed his ship.
“Amy, what are you doing?!” Knuckles called out. He’d handed Rouge over to Tails to fly out with and now ran alongside her and Metal.
“Just shut up and run!”
As they all neared the threshold and The Doctor caught sight of Metal Sonic, his ship began to back out from the wall. “Hurry!” he yelled at them as it floated back.
The ceiling was falling down behind them, burying the chamber and all its treasure under mounds of solid stone and liquid earth. The entire cavern was seconds from collapsing. Tails was the first out with Rouge in his grasp while H4 and Knuckles followed closely behind. Finally, Amy and H3 dragged Metal past the cave’s external wall as the entirety of the cavern came down behind them. Stones boomed, pounding to the floor in the direction they’d come from. The crashing stone wall rattled and broke the ground outside, lurching everyone forward and away from the entrance with a gust of wind.
It was a rough landing, but the side of the volcano they’d come out from faced the sandy beach. Knuckles groaned, spitting sand out of his mouth after landing face first. Tails came down, landing softly beside him with Rouge. He set her down on the beach and collapsed onto the soft ground, exhausted. Eggman’s steel ship floated above them as he hung over the rails looking relieved. Metal’s henchmen floated about for a moment before a faint beeping drew them away into the palm tree thicket nearby.
Amy couldn’t bring herself to sit up. She lay in the sand, sweating and heart pounding, staring straight up at the night sky as the adrenaline subsided. Metal’s half-functioning body was strewn beside her face-down. He pushed himself from the sand, flipping over to look straight up. Metal fondled the ground desperately, leaving drag marks in the sand with his sharp claws until Amy’s hand happened upon his, locking their fingers together. He relaxed, relieved to still have her by his side. It was the least he could hope for after giving up his plan to save her, he told himself- but he knew it must have been more than that. They sat in silence for just a few moments.
“... It does look a bit like a swan,” he muttered, staring into the starry sky. Cygnus was in full view over the island.
Amy couldn’t keep from snickering as he spoke, noticing the constellation suspended above them. “Guess you didn’t need to be organic to see it after all- ow! Laughing hurts...”
“Seeing as I am still mechanical, I’m afraid I cannot relate…”
She burst out in laughter, holding her ribs with her free hand. Amy’s shoulders bounced, highlighting the dull soreness in her arms from having dragged Metal’s heavy body across the collapsing cavern. “Don’t start-” she giggled. It always seemed to amuse her when he made those snide remarks.
Some yards away, Rouge sat up, holding the back of her head. “There goes my treasure… Is everyone alright?”
Tails flashed a lazy thumbs-up as Knuckles stretched beside her. “I’ll live,” he remarked gruffly. “What could those two be laughing about…?”
“Who knows?” she grumbled. “A bit cheery for a pair who just cost me my treasure.”
Quick footsteps were heard from the far side of the beach. Rouge’s crew and a set of cameramen were hastily running to meet with her. She sighed. “Back to work, I suppose.” As they stumbled near, Knuckles came to his feet and gave her a hand up. Tails dusted himself off groggily and joined them. The trio were surrounded by sailors and cameras soon enough as Rouge immediately began giving orders, playing up the authoritative remarks for the cameras.
Down the beach, Metal’s minion’s floated near him, H3 holding H1’s sparking body in his arms. Metal pushed himself to sit up, looking at the dismembered robot with remorse. “Perhaps I was a bit harsh…” He took hold of H1 as the metallic husk beeped intermittently and automatically, not appearing to be active.
Pulling herself into a sitting position, Amy groaned. “Is he gonna be okay?” she motioned to H1.
“Yes… I can repair them all. We will be fine.”
Eggman hovered down in his floating Eggmobile, coming to a landing and jumping out to address his creations. “Metal! What happened out there? Is your turbine functional?”
Metal glared at The Doctor for a moment. The lights in his left eye flickered weakly every time he moved his head. He believed he should have been furious, but he had neither the energy nor any strong feelings against his master in that moment. “No,” he responded simply.
“You sure did a number on him,” Eggman said, referring to H1 as Metal held him. “Well, we’ll get ‘em next time… Here, charge up so we can go.” A battery pack was quickly hooked up to Metal’s back, steadily providing his body with the power to operate his legs. Amy watched fondly as Eggman doted over him, a sly smile appearing on her face. The Doctor noticed her peering. “What are you looking at, you pest? You should consider yourself lucky to be alive-”
“That is enough,” Metal said plainly. “Give me a minute…”
“... Fine,” Eggman relented. “I‘ll make preparations to ‘set sail,’” he snickered, getting back into his hovercraft and floating away to the flying ship.
H3 and H4 sat in the sand by Amy and Metal, patiently waiting for him to regain his energy. As The Doctor’s attention turned away from him, Metal pulled the charging cable out from his back and connected it to H1’s body. The narrow strip of light that formed his visor powered on as Metal held him in front of his chest.
“You are quite the little spy…” Metal stared at H1 as he activated, the small robot bobbing his head around as if nervous. “... Very good work. I shall keep you around.” H1 stopped his frantic movement, tensing up for a moment before relaxing. Amy giggled as Metal set him down in the sand between them, reaching out and straightening the bandana around his neck. Metal turned to face her so their eyes met. “Thank you for bringing me with you. I am not sure my body could have been recovered from all the rubble.”
She was beaming warmly. “Well, you didn’t let me die in the end, so…” she gestured vaguely. “Call it even for now.” Amy winked.
“Hm. For what it’s worth, I was not going to permit you to sacrifice yourself. Though I cannot comprehend why…”
“Oh thanks,” Amy snickered through her sarcastic response. “Well, even though you lied… I think I believe you,” she shrugged.
Metal never felt like he needed to justify or excuse anything that he’d done in the past; He only ever did what he had to in the name of completing his objective. And though he resented losing this opportunity, the guilt he felt from lying was somehow much stronger. “Yes, well- I have never apologized for anything in my entire existence, but… I do regret that. I am sorry.”
“Really?” She ran a finger through the sand, leaving faint lines. “Ah, at least I got a sword lesson out of it ...I’ll think about forgiving you,” she responded with a coy smile. Metal Sonic was a bit of a mystery, but she could sense that he was apologetic in saving her and as he reactivated H1. She felt it was genuine, though she promised herself to keep him on his toes if they ever say one another again. “Anyway, don’t you need to charge, too?” she asked.
“There is enough for us both. In any case, I can spend a bit more time with you this way.”
She grinned playfully. “Yeah, too bad we’re in no shape for a dance lesson.”
“I suppose not... Perhaps next week, then.” He forced it out indifferently, but there was hope in his response.
It was unclear whether he was just teasing her. Amy flushed suddenly, turning her gaze away. Nothing could have been stranger than feeling this fondly toward Metal after the emotional roller coaster of the last several days, but the idea of being that close again didn’t sound so bad to her now. Only time would tell how the unusual new friendship would play out from opposite sides, but Amy was more than willing to find out. “Yeah, I guess that’ll work,” she responded finally, smiling back up at him. She couldn’t help but think that he’d be grinning back if he could.
-----
“ The treasure has been… compromised, ” Rouge explained. Footage of her on a beach played on a small hand-held tablet. She was wearing a scuffed-up navy suit but stood with confidence and authority. “ There were some… complications. It may be too dangerous to excavate. ”
B-roll of the surrounding area played as a news anchor reported the story. A dark, tropical beach with a mountain at its center. A pile of rubble surrounded by crew members as Tails pointed at and discussed various spots. Rouge storming off the beach as Knuckles followed after her angrily.
Sonic watched the morning news in awe. He’d been lounging groggily near the Master Emerald when he sat up at the appearance of his friends.
“ … and perhaps most strangely of all, the missing historical ship, the Royal Fortune, was found drifting just offshore. She appears to have sustained some damage over the week or so since she went missing. Her disappearance seems to be related to the notorious Dr. Eggman. ” As an announcer spoke, the recording showed a short clip of Metal Sonic and Amy chatting at the bow of the now-anchored ship, her leaning over a railing nonchalantly and giggling while he stood in a stately manner, his gaze fixed on her. Amy then ducked out of the shot when she spotted the camera. Metal Sonic turned to face it directly, glaring with his left eye flickering eerily. The shot quickly panned away.
“Is that…?” Sonic’s jaw dropped as he watched the clip, unable to fathom just what kind of adventure they’d ended up on. Seeing Amy lounging around with Metal Sonic on a stolen vessel was by the far the strangest, but everyone appeared to be safe and would likely be returning soon, so there was no need to worry. “Heh, can’t wait to hear about this.” Sonic went back to his leisurely position as the story ended, grinning over the unexpected footage of his friends and eagerly waiting to hear about all the fun his team was having without him. Still, he doubted it would be enough to get him tagging along on the next seafaring adventure.
-----
wow so that ended up being like twice as long as intended~ i hope yall enjoyed it. meant to have it up earlier but. that’s life.
this is of course part 2 to what i was working on for @metamy-ship-week
a very very very special thank you to @mmm-asbestos for inspiring this fic and brainstorming the story with me. i am incredibly thankful to have worked on something with someone who inspires me so much ❤ i had a great time
happy new year friends~ i hope 2021 treats you all with kindness.
#reblogs appreciated#metamy#metal sonic#amy rose#metal sonic x amy rose#sonic fanfiction#sth#MetamyShipWeek2020#metamy ship week#pirates
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Watch the 2024 American Climate Leadership Awards for High School Students now: https://youtu.be/5C-bb9PoRLc
The recording is now available on ecoAmerica's YouTube channel for viewers to be inspired by student climate leaders! Join Aishah-Nyeta Brown & Jerome Foster II and be inspired by student climate leaders as we recognize the High School Student finalists. Watch now to find out which student received the $25,000 grand prize and top recognition!
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Face Me
Gif credit: @haloforsam
Dean Winchester x Reader
Words: 3673
Summary: The Winchester brothers are recruited by a former girlfriend of Dean’s to help with a haunting problem. As the case intensifies, Sam and Dean uncover the ghost’s origins and the reader’s dark secret.
Notes: Welcome to the Winchester October Take Over! As always, as this month progresses, let me know what you think and buckle up for plenty of Winchester angst. This was totally inspired by Becky Barnes from the Starkids musical Black Friday. This is very very intense, but I hope you guys like it.
Special shout out to my amazing beta reader Sarah, @suckmysupernatural . I love her so much and honestly, she’s helped me so much in getting these imagines out for you and she has some absolutely killer writing of her own!
Warnings: Extreme domestic abuse, violence, death (like I said, it’s intense so please please read only if you are comfortable)
Want more Supernatural? Find it HERE
-
It wasn’t a call you ever thought you’d have to make, but as police swarmed around you, you lifted the phone to your ear. You thought you had calmed down enough to speak, but as soon as you heard the voice on the other end, you felt the whole situation crash into you again, along with so many feelings you’d kept locked away in your heart.
“D-Dean?” You sniffed, feeling your stomach drop as they brought the body out the front door, sealed up in a bag. “Oh god.”
“Who is this?” Dean’s voice was gruff and tired. You must have woken him up.
“I’m sorry. You probably don’t remember.” You started to regret calling. After all this time, you couldn’t expect him to come racing to save you. Dean was quiet for a moment.
“Y/N?” Sam stirred awake and gave his brother an inquiring look. “Y/N, is that you?”
“Dean, I-” You tried to catch your breath. “I need your help.”
“What happened? Are you okay?”
“Something… something killed Danny.” Or someone.
“Are you still in that same sleep town in Nebraska?” That’s all he needed to know. No details, no suspicious activity. You were in trouble. That was enough for him.
“You know me. I never go anywhere.” You winced, thinking about the last time you saw Dean Winchester. There was a loud shuffle as Dean started to pack his things, motioning for Sam to do the same.
“We’ll be there by morning.” You uttered a tearful thanks and hung up.
“What was that about?” Sam asked, climbing out of bed and grabbing his duffle bag.
“You remember when we were in Nebraska for a few weeks trying to find that coven of witches?”
“The ones that were using high school kids in their ritual? Yeah.” Sam recalled a fiery English teacher that Dean had dated for most of their time there.
“Y/N’s brother is dead.” Dean said somberly.
“The one that bought us drinks after we saved some of the kids?” Dean nodded. “Damn.” He was a good guy. “She thinks it’s our kind of thing?”
“I don’t know. Y/N’s one tough broad, Sammy, and she-” The sound of your trembling voice echoed in his head. “She sounded scared.” By the look in his eyes, Sam knew how important this was to him.
“Then what are we waiting for?” He zipped up his duffle bag and threw it over his shoulder. “Let’s get to Nebraska.”
-
You spent most of the night answering police questions and carefully watching the windows. He was in there somewhere. Waiting for you. Once the ambulance and the police were gone, you didn’t dare go back inside. Instead, you curled up on the porch swing and broke down. This was your fault. Danny was gone and that cruel smile was burned into your brain. He was coming for you.
You must have fallen asleep because the bright morning sun and the low rumbling of an engine pulled you out of your nightmare. You’d never been so happy to see that beautiful car.
Sam got out of the passenger side and you slowly walked towards him. You had to restrain yourself from just crashing into him to be safely wrapped in his arms.
“Your hair’s different.” You noted with a small smile. He pulled you into a hug.
“I’m sorry about Danny.” He whispered, pulling back to give you a sympathetic smile. Behind him, his brother waited anxiously, straightening the sleeves of his jacket. He hadn’t changed at all.
“Dean…” You gasped, memories flashing through your head faster than you could register them. The first touch. The feeling of his flannel wrapped around your shoulders. Your last kiss.
“Hey.” He greeted. Neither of you moved. You just looked at each other, both wanting to say something but not having a single clue as to what.
Suddenly, it hit you. What might have been. How different everything would be. Danny would still be alive. When your eyes started to fill with tears, Dean enveloped you in his arms without a second of hesitation. Feelings he had tried to forget came rushing back, but he tried his best to ignore them. That’s not what you need right now. So he pressed a soft kiss to your forehead.
“I’m sorry, Y/N.” He wished more than anything that you had reunited under different circumstances. He knew how much your brother meant to you. He ran his hands down your arms. You felt like ice. “Jesus, Y/N, you’re freezing. What, did you sleep out here or something?” He quickly shed his jacket and draped it over you.
“Why don’t we head inside?’ Sam suggested. “Talk about what happened.”
“No.” You responded a little too quickly, earning a strange look from both Winchesters. “Why don’t we talk down at the diner? Breakfast’s on me.” They exchanged a skeptical look, but agreed nonetheless.
People were already whispering when you walked in. Word traveled fast. As uncomfortable as the stares made you, anywhere was better than home.
“Hey Josie, can I get a few cups of coffee?” You asked the only waitress who wasn’t too busy gossiping about you. She gave you her usual smile.
“You got it, sweetie.” At least you still had one friend. The three of you picked a booth, Dean sitting on the other side and Sam sliding in beside you. He put a hand on your arm.
“Can you tell us what happened?” You tried to ignore Dean’s worried gaze and took a deep breath.
“I’ve been living with Danny for a little over a year now.” Just tell them. Just tell them. “After Isaiah left, I needed a place to stay.”
“Isaiah?” Dean stiffened. You couldn’t look at him.
“My husband.” Both Winchesters froze.
“Oh.” Was all Dean said. You set down your coffee mug a little too fast and the hot liquid splashed onto the counter.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter.” You tried to clean up the mess with your napkin, your voice sounding more flustered than you intended. After all this time of keeping the secret, why was it so hard to lie to them? “He’s gone now.” Sam was the first to speak.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was so sincere, you felt yourself choke on your words, the emotion becoming too much.
“What matters now is destroying what killed Danny.”
“Do you have any idea what it was?” Sam asked. Dean seemed very interested in the inside of his mug. You wanted to tell him the truth, but the words caught in your throat. “Y/N?”
“I don’t know. One minute he was fine and the next his head was cracked open.” You closed your eyes, remembering that awful scene. You felt a hand rest on top of yours. Dean had reached across the table, his warm touch giving you enough courage to keep going. “The police can’t figure out how anyone else got in the garage, what the murder weapon was, or anything that could give me an answer. So I called you.” Sam and Dean exchanged a look.
“We’ll do what we can.” Sam promised you and Dean nodded.
“And we’ll fry this son of a bitch.”
-
Without a good enough excuse not to go back, you took Sam and Dean to the house. The police had cleaned the scene so you were able to get in. Dean stopped by the garage and laughed softly to himself.
“Still working on the bike.” He mused. You smiled slightly.
“He finished restoring it last year.” That motorcycle was Danny’s prize possession. A 1984 Disc Glide Harley Davidson. It was one hell of a bike. He had been washing it when he died.
“So… married.” Dean blew out a long breath. You looked away.
“After you left, Isaiah was… the normal I thought I needed.” You almost laughed. How wrong you were. “And then after a couple months he was… different. I guess I was too.” You thought of every red flag that you had missed, every great big warning sign you chose to ignore.
“Ah,” Dean nodded. “Normal.” You looked at him, shaking your head.
“I was wrong.” He read the glint in your eye that you had tried to hide. Your ex scared you.
“What went down between you?” His question wasn’t out of plain curiosity. He knew there was something you weren’t telling him.
“He started vanishing into the beds of barmaids and the occasional tennis coach until he didn’t come back.” You shrugged, hoping that he would buy the lie. He didn’t, but he didn’t ask you anything else.
“Hey guys, I think I found something!” Sam shouted from the living room. He was holding up a picture of you and Danny from a couple years ago. It looked fine. “Check this out.” Sam turned the farm around, revealing the words scratched into the back of the frame. Your heart stopped. Face me.
“Face me?” Dean read. “What the hell does that mean?” He and his brother both turned to you.
“Does this mean anything to you, Y/N?” Sam asked. All you could hear was Isaiah’s voice.
“Face me you stupid bitch!” You instinctively pulled Dean’s jacket tighter around you even though you knew they couldn’t see what you had hidden under your shirt.
“Y/N?” Sam repeated. Both brothers were staring at you waiting for an answer.
“You know Danny. He used to get in bar fights all the time. Maybe one of them died and wanted to get revenge?” You wouldn’t have believed it either . Dean ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.
“Look, we can’t help you if there’s something you aren’t telling us.” He snapped. “What the hell is going on?”
“My brother is dead, Dean!” You shouted. And it was all your fault. The two fell totally silent and you tried not to cry again. “Sorry. I’m just… tired.”
“Maybe you should just take it easy for the rest of the day. We’ll go back into the history of the house and see if there were any violent deaths.” Sam suggested sweetly.
“Don’t leave me here.” You pleaded, grabbing Dean’s hand. “Please don't leave me alone.”
“Hey, it’s okay. I won’t.” Dean assured you. What the hell was going on. He briefly turned to his brother. “Sammy, why don’t you head to the library and I’ll take Y/N to the motel?”
“I’ll call you if I find anything.” Sam gave you one last concerned look before heading out. Dean gave your hand a reassuring squeeze.
“Let’s get you out of here.”
-
The motel room was relatively nice compared to the other places they had stayed. You sat on Dean’s bed and took off his jacket.
“Here. You probably want this back.” You held it out, but he shook his head.
“You can keep it until we get this son of a bitch.” He pulled up a chair across from you and you couldn’t help but check him out. Those muscles under his shirt, his perfectly messy hair, his unreal green eyes. He really hadn’t changed at all.
“Do you ever think about it?” You blurted suddenly.
“Hmm?”
“About how we said goodbye?” Dean looked at the floor.
“Sometimes.”
You had thought about it nearly every damn day for the past three years. After facing the witches, it was time for Dean and Sam to move on to the next hunt. Dean had fallen in love with you, which was not something he usually allowed himself to do. You knew that you loved him and it scared you. The man hunted monsters, for god's sake. So when Dean asked you to come with him… you said no.
“Look, Y/N, I don’t hold anything against you.” Dean started, “I mean, we’d only been together a couple of weeks and you were still teaching and, you know, I had just killed a bunch of witches pretending to be lunch ladies.
“Dean.” You crossed to him. “Not leaving with you… It’s the biggest regret of my life.” Dean stood, eyes intense. YOu weren’t sure who kissed who first, but just like that, the years melted away. You quickly threw his jacket over the chair and Dean lifted your legs up around his waist as he backed you towards the bed. His jacket joined his jacket.
Dean’s hands slipped under your shirt, just grazing one of the lower scars on your back. You panicked and pushed away from him.
“Wait.” You gasped, catching your breath.
“What? What’s wrong?”
“I can’t.” Too many questions that you didn’t know how to answer. “I’m sorry, Dean. I can’t-” Seeing how upset you were, Dean tried to relax, putting his hands on your shoulders.
“It’s okay. You’re tired. Today has been pretty crazy. How about you rest?” He was being so sweet, which just made you feel worse for keeping things from him.
“Will you lay down with me?” It seemed like such a juvenile question after literally tearing his shirt off. Dean just smiled.
“Yeah, of course.” You both got under the blankets, keeping apart at first. You moved closer and he wrapped his arms around you, your back pressed against his chest. “Hey Y/N.”
“Yeah?”
“Sam and I are gonna keep you safe, okay?” His breath was warm against the back of your neck. “You can trust us.”
Dean knew that you were hiding something. Something that absolutely terrified you. He felt the marks on your back before you pulled away. For now, he would let you sleep. Hell, he could use a few hours himself. But sooner or later, he would find out the truth. He just hoped that it didn’t destroy you first.
-
You slept without nightmares. It was so unfamiliar after so many sleepless nights that even as the afternoon light streamed through the windows, you slept more peacefully than you had in years. It wasn’t until you felt a rush of cold and turned around to cuddle closer to Dean. Your eyes fluttered open and you screamed. The spirit stood over Dean menacingly with a stone raised over his head. Even though half of his face was bashed in, you could see Isaiah’s furious scowl.
“Dean!” You cried. Dean woke up and looked over his shoulder as Isaiah brought his hand down. Dean rolled out of the way, both of you tumbling off of the bed.
“You cheating whore!” The apparition shrieked. Dean pushed you behind him and you screwed your eyes shut. “Look at me when I’m speaking to you, Y/N! Face me!” He reappeared, standing over both of you and raising the jagged rock over you.
“Get down!” Sam burst through the motel door and fired two salt rounds into the ghost. Isaiah vanished. Sam hurried to his brother’s side. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Dean stood, eyes burning into you, demanding answers. “What the hell just happened?”
“I’m sorry.” You let terrified tears stream down your cheeks. “I should have told you. I should have told you.” Sam helped you to your feet, trying to calm you down.
“Y/N, who was that?” He asked gently. There was now way to hide anymore, but you just stood there. Dean’s anger disappeared, connecting the spirit’s words and your fear. He cradled your face in his hands.
“Sweetheart, we can’t help you unless you tell us what happened.” He tucked your hair behind your ear. You tried to pull yourself together.
“It was Isaiah.” You sat on the bed and pulled your knees up to your chest.
“Your husband?” Sam asked. You gave them a weak nod.
“He didn’t leave me. I tried to leave him. He hurt me. He kept hurting me.” Every cut and every bruise stung now as if they were fresh. Dean gripped the back of the chair. “I told him I wasn’t going to let him hurt me anymore. He got so mad…” You gulped and turned around. You slowly lifted up the back of your shirt. Your back was a jagged puzzle of scars, some small and some stretching across your skin.
“Oh my God.” Sam gasped. You kept your back to them, unable to look them in the eye.
“He pushed me out of a glass door.” You pulled your shirt back down and wrapped your arms around yourself. “Our yard opened out to the river where there were some trees. So I just ran.”
Dean closed his eyes, the entire scene playing out in front of him. The blood soaking the back of your shirt. Your crying pleas for help. It haunted him. He somehow felt like it was his fault. Like he should have been there to protect you.
“I ran and I ran, but everything stung and it was hard to see straight with the pain. He caught me and shoved me to the ground. I was screaming, but nobody came. He wrapped his hands around my throat.” You sank further into your nightmare. “I grabbed a rock and hit him over the head. I just kept hitting him and hitting him and hitting him.” Your body shook as you cried. Nobody said a word for a long while. You were grateful.
“Y/N,” Sam sat down beside you. “You didn’t have a choice.”
“I shouldn’t have fought him, Sam.” You exclaimed. “If I hadn’t fought thim, none of this would have happened. Danny would still be alive.” Dean pushed the chair aside and crouched down in front of you, making you face him.
“None of this is your fault.” He said sternly. “Not what he did to you when he was alive and not what he’s doing now. Do you hear me? It’s not your fault.” He pulled you to him and let you cry into his chest, gently stroking your hair to sooth you. He looked at Sam intensely. “We’re burning this son of a bitch tonight.”
-
In order to find the body, you had to go back to the river. As you lead Sam and Dean through the grove of trees, Sam asked more questions.
“It’s been a little over a year since everything happened, right?” You nodded. “Why do you think he’s back now?” You shrugged. You had been trying to figure that out too. You suddenly remembered a conversation you had had with your brother.
“It’s because I’m leaving.” Of course. If you were gone, Isaiah wouldn’t be able to exact his revenge. He may have been tied to you, but he was also still tied to his body. Dean joined the conversation.
“Leaving?”
“Yeah. I need to get out of this place. Get away from everything that happened here.” You sighed. “I guess Isaiah had other plans.”
“Where will you go now?” Dean glanced over at you with a flicker of hope in his eyes. Before you could respond, you reached the North Platte and the tree you buried the body under.
“This is it.” You forced yourself to stay calm as the memories flooded your head. Dean gave you a reassuring nod. “No one ever came looking for him.” It was kind of sad. Everyone in town just assumed that he left you and he didn’t have any family to worry about him. “I couldn’t bury him very deep with my back cut up like that, but I couldn’t bring myself to just throw him in the river. Monster or not, he was till my husband.”
It was late evening now so you didn’t have to worry about anyone stumbling upon the scene. The boys started digging, that lump in your throat getting bigger and bigger with every inch. Once the body was fully uncovered, you made yourself look at him. Sam and Dean stood on either side of you.
“Alright Isaiah,” Dean started, lighting a match. “You’re not gonna hurt her anymore.”
Both Sam and Dean were flung backwards and you felt icy cold hands wrap around your neck.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Isaiah hissed in your ear. He flung you into the tree, hitting your back hard.
“Over here you freak!” Dean fired a salt round, but missed. Isaiah knocked him to the ground, slamming a rock against his temple. Sam rushed to help his brother and Isaiah simply raised his hand, throwing the younger Winchseter into the river.
“Stop!” You tried to scream, but it just came out as a wheezing gasp.
“We’re going to be just fine, Y/N.” Isaiah sneered. “Just as soon as you face me and learn your lesson.” He hit Dean again, this time knocking him out. You reached into your pocket.
“Face this you son of a bitch.”
You threw your lighter onto the body and watched it go up in flames. Isaiah raised the stone one last time before burning away. You ran over to Dean, your back aching with every movement.
“Please please please.” You begged, holding his head in your hands, his blood oozing from his temple and onto your palm.
“Y/N!” Sam called out, crawling out of the water. “Dean!”
“Come on Dean.” You cried. “If you wake up, I’ll say yes this time.” You leaned down, pressing a desperate kiss to his lips.
“That’s gotta be my favorite way to wake up.” He teased, his green eyes slowly opening.
“Shut up.” You shook your head and laughed, pulling him into your arms.
-
Sam packed the last bag into the trunk and gave you a small smile before getting in the passenger seat. Dean had his arms around you, his hands soothingly running up and down your back.
“I guess this is goodbye.” He sighed dramatically. You rolled your eyes.
“I’m going to be right behind you.”
“I don’t know if I can wait until we get to the motel.” He gave you a cheeky grin and pulled you into a passionate kiss. He went to the car and you revved Danny’s Harley to life. Dean pulled the impala out of the driveway, you trailing on the motorcycle. You followed that beautiful black car down the open road, ready to face anything.
-
General Tag: @rae-gar-targaryen; @takemepedropascal; @childhood-imagination; @mylovegoesto;
#dean winchester x reader#abuse warning#sam winchester#dean winchester#supernatural#supernatural imagine#jensen ackles#winchester take over
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Hi there may I request C for the soulmate Alphabet between Sabo and the reader, please? Thank you very much! Stay awesome!
Yes you may, my dear! I hope you enjoy this! I had a blast writing this and I think I may have gotten a little carried away. Oops!
Warnings: None
Synopsis: Stars have their matching pairs, why can’t they? Distraught by his own overthinking, Sabo ventures out into the night and discovers a sight, a person, a being that captivates him. A life devoid of color, they seemed to be the only bright spot for him, but would that brightness fizzle out?
“Is the world supposed to be like this?” Sabo asked as he looked out at the sky while his closest friend, Koala laid next to him on the ground. Koala glanced over at him and sighed, she knew what he was going on about again, this seemed to be something that was really common among them as of late. The older they got, the more concerned Sabo became with soulmates and the possibility of finding his own.
“Colorless? I don’t know, how do you know that it doesn’t really have any color? I can’t imagine what colors look like… it must be wonderful,” Koala sighed as he looked over at her best friend and pouted at him some more. “You’re too obsessed with this! You’re only twenty two, you don’t need to be that obsessed with this already,” Koala stated as she went to sit up and moved to lead the way back inside of hideout. “We have plenty of time, how many times have I had to tell you this?” she asked.
“I mean, it’s because I am twenty two, what if I never find my person?” Sabo asked with a deep frown on his face, he disregarded what Koala said and it frustrated her. Koala offered him a sympathetic look but didn’t know what else to say, so for now she remained silent and went inside with him. The entire night Sabo was restless and unsure about his situation, he wasn’t able to sleep and soon gave up on that. Instead of pacing around his room like he did most nights, he deviated from his routine and left the hideout to be out in the night air. He wasn’t wearing his hat or any of his formal attire, he looked relaxed and at peace. He left the hideout and ventured a little further out until he was standing next to a tall rock. Strange, it felt out of place but he didn’t question it and instead felt himself drawn to it. He climbed up the rock and went to look at the sky some more. The stars mocked him, twinkling and dancing on their eternal ballroom. Sabo envied them, he wanted someone to have that same feeling with one day, was he just really unlucky? As he let out a sigh, he heard another one right behind him.
“It feels lonely out here,” A voice whispered in the night air. Sabo tensed and felt for his pipe, but he realized too late that he didn’t have that to defend himself. While he had his devil fruit abilities, he wanted to avoid using them for now since he wasn’t as experienced with it just yet. “The wind is cold no matter what season it is… everyone seems to have someone to be with except me,” they softly said as they continued to stare up at the vast expanse of stars. Sabo didn’t look behind him, he didn’t want to aggravate anyone and for sure didn’t want to get in a fight now. Besides, the more the other person talked, the more he began to sympathize with them.
“I hate the stars,” Sabo suddenly said, “Do you always feel like they — “
“Come in pairs? I do, I know they do,” They softly said as they reached their hand up and tried to touch one of the stars, it was impossible. “I wish I could dance again,” They whispered. Sabo frowned and tightened his grip on his pants, what did they mean by dancing?
“Dance?” He decided to ask.
“The stars dance together, that’s what my mother told me. When the stars for older, they would be able to go out and dance with the other stars until they found their matching star, the one that made their flame burn bright, made them see the rest of the universe,” they shared. “When I asked her what she meant, she would just smile and say these strange things. Purple, pink, red, yellow… I don’t know what that means,” They said as they pulled their hand back down and hugged themselves. Sabo felt something tense inside of his chest, he found it rather ironic that the thing he compared the stars with seemed to be the thing the other person imagined. The sun began to rise, and Sabo heard his new companion’s voice hitch. “I need to go,” they suddenly said.
“Wait, why?” Sabo asked, and just as he turned around, he found that they were gone. All that he saw that was left was a trail of glittering, fine white dust which slowly dissipated into the air. He watched the dust leave in amazement, as the moment the sun rose, the dust seemed to vanish as well. Even more perplexed, Sabo ventured back inside and got ready for the day and continued with his training. When it was the afternoon, he went to spend some time with Koala and talk to her about what he saw, or well heard the night before.
“What?” Koala said in disbelief as she sipped her tea, she didn’t seem to be enjoying the beverage, but drinking it now seemed only appropriate.
“That person disappeared into dust, you know I wouldn’t lie to you about this,” Sabo pointed out.
“I know that, that’s why I’m confused because I don’t know what any of this means,” Koala frowned. “Oh! Maybe you need to see that person again! Do you think they’ll show up again tonight?” She asked.
“Tonight? I’m not sure, but I suppose there’s no harm in looking,” Sabo sighed. With that, the day rolled into night and soon Sabo was rolling out of bed to see if he could find out more clues about his mysterious new friend. He haphazardly fixed his hair and grabbed his pipe this time before he ran out of the base. He went to the same rock and sat down where he was the night before. He softly panted and tried to catch his breath as he looked around the expanse of the grounds and waited for the stranger to appear.
“Hello,” He heard whispered in his ear, he gasped and quickly tensed and tried to look back, but when he did, no one was there. “You’re making my nights less lonely,” they confessed, Sabo turned around again but he wasn’t able to figure out who was talking to him and it was slowly frustrating him.
“Who are you?” He decided to ask, but he was met with silence.
“You wouldn’t believe me,” They said after a minute. Sabo didn’t look behind him this time, instead he just sighed and shook his head and tried to understand why he wouldn’t believe them. Maybe they were hiding themselves for a reason, Sabo just had to trust them. “Stars are the most beautiful creatures in the world, they are often seen as being vain and narcissistic but that’s far from the truth. Most stars are sad,” They shared. That peaked Sabo’s interest, why did this person know so much about stars?
“Why are they sad?”
“They’re alone for most of their lives, you either have to wait millions of years to settle with a star you may be unhappy with, or some take a risk,” They shared. When Sabo turned around again, he managed to catch a glimpse of something captivating. Tears flowed like mini stars and onto the rock. He could only see their back but he was instantly captivated. “Some take the risk and try to find their star on earth and become a fallen star, they’re never able to come back home. It’s a risk most don’t take but…” Sabo watched as a hand moved to wipe away the tears and he could feel them smiling without even seeing them. “What seems worse? Settling for someone you don’t truly love or not being able to go back home because of love?” They asked him.
“I don’t have a home to return to,” Sabo shared as he looked down at the rock. Where the tears landed, small imprints of stars engraved the material. “But settling for someone I don’t really love seems even worse. Especially when I won’t ever be able to see the colors because of that,” Sabo shared. They looked down at their shoulder, they seemed tempted to look back at Sabo but refrained for now.
“Colors? What’re those?” They asked. Sabo’s eyes widened and a small smile came onto his face. Without realizing it, he began to go into depth about what he heard about colors and what they were all supposed to mean. Sabo was animated and excited as he shared his theories on what colors were and they listened, equally as fascinated as he was. When was sun was rising again, they tensed and looked over at the large star.
“It’s time for me to go,” They quickly said.
“Will I see you again tonight?” Sabo asked.
They softly smiled and looked at the emerging sun, “Always…”
A new pattern began to form as the weeks passed. Sabo would sleep for a few hours before he would venture out to the rock to talk about colors and the stars with his new friend. They began to grow closer and soon they were all Sabo was able to think about. Their soft laugh, their warm presence, the fantastical dust they left behind when they had to leave when the sun rose.
“Why do you leave every morning?” Sabo decided to ask again after a few weeks. They sighed and looked up at the night sky, they seemed hesitant to begin talking. Sabo was about to take back what he said but, he was surprised to hear them talking instead.
“The sun doesn’t like me,” They mumbled. “I made a deal with the sun to be here, and until I finish what I am set out to do, I can’t be in the sun,” They softly shared. That only confused Sabo, the male frowned and tried to wrap his head around what they were saying before it just clicked.
“You’re a star?” He asked, he wanted to be wrong, he wanted to think that all of their knowledge on stars was just myth and that none of this was real, the gravitational pull he felt towards them couldn’t be real, right? This didn’t mean they had to be a star, right? None of this made sense to the poor man and soon he began to feel overwhelmed by all this strange information.
“I am,” they finally admitted. “A fallen star,” They shared, that had Sabo’s full attention. “My deal with the sun was dark and frankly, unforgiving. Until I fall in love and find my soulmate, I won’t be able to have my face seen and I can’t be in the sun. And if I can’t find him, then I’ll be forced to burn out and be eaten by the sun,” They said as they moved to hug their knees close to their chest. Sabo was confused and unsure about how to process this information. He was shocked and devastated at the same time, how could something be so cruel to someone as innocent as them?
“So you came here from the stars to find love? You can never go back?” Sabo asked them.
“Yes,” They said as they looked up again, Sabo watched as they began to cry again and something painfully tightened in his chest as he watched.
“Did you find that love?”
“Yes.” There was no hesitation, the tears seemed to flow more freely and within a second, they looked back over at Sabo for the first time. Sabo’s bright eyes were met by eyes that rivaled the stars. They were glimmering and sad, radiant and shining, words were failing Sabo as he took in the pitiful sight. But as he stared, his vision started to morph into beautiful purples and blues. Their eyes reflected every color and he wad captivated by who he was looking at. The features of their face became more prominent and he found himself reaching out to feel if what he was seeing was real. They were so bright and beautiful that it terrified him, was this person really meant for him? Was this what color was supposed to feel like? Look like?
“You… You’re the one for me, aren’t you?” This seemed too good to be true, Sabo was hesitant and pulled back. He was more overwhelmed, all these colors, this intense feeling in his chest, all he could compare it to was death.
“My star…” They breathed out as they looked up into Sabo’s dazed eyes and found themself being pulled in closer. Sabo looked down at them and decided to take a chance for himself now. Maybe this chance encounter was for a reason, maybe fear was actually good for them.
“Your star…” Sabo breathed out before he leaned in softly kissed them. Their heartbeats both started to slow down until they moved in unison. They both closed their eyes in the slow, gentle kiss and savored the ethereal moment. When Sabo pulled away, they were both dazed and smiling at one another. Their hearts started to dance with one another and they both were lost in each other’s eyes as the sun slowly began to rise. They both felt as if they were dancing with one another on the ballroom in the sky, their hands were intermingled and the sight in front of the two of them seemed celestial. They looked over at the sun, and away from Sabo after a moment and warmly smiled, they felt like the sun was giving them its blessing and for the first time, they were able to feel the warmth of the morning on their hands. Maybe the sun wasn’t so cruel, they thought.
Red, orange and yellow, the hint of pink in the sunrise and on their cheeks was something he would remember forever.
And maybe the stars weren’t so mocking, maybe they were compassionate enough to bless him with his own star to cherish.
Purples, blues and indigo, the fading colors drifted under the horizon to sleep for another night. And in their sleepy gaze, Sabo found himself falling even harder for them.
“My star…” They both said with love struck smiles on their faces, they instantly knew that this connection was raw and real, it wasn’t lonely anymore. They could finally dance together in the colors of the sky.
#one piece#one piece writing#one piece x reader#one shot#one piece sabo#sabo x reader#op sabo#sabo#revolutionary sabo#one piece fandom#one piece fanfiction#fanfic#fandom#op fandom#op fanfic#one piece fluff#sabo fluff#taking requests#reader#request#requests open#one piece requests#sabo request#one piece au#soulmate#one piece soulmate
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Party Mask
Whoops my hand slipped here’s another one :)
Amaya doesn’t like parties but she supposes she’s glad she was at this one
Amaya + William fluff
Amaya has no clue how she allowed Mimosa to get her to tag along. Gatherings like this usually spelled trouble and over the years she’s been a Magic Knight not once has she attended knowing how rowdy they were- courtesy of her Captain’s hangover rambles.
With a sigh she lifted what she hoped was a stronger drink to her lips. She pulled the cup away from her lips that wasn’t the nicest beverage but at least it was alcohol. Who knows maybe she’ll forget she was ever here. Wouldn’t that be a miracle?
“Hi Amaya!” Asta exclaimed as he and Yuno noticed the woman sitting by herself in the corner. Her table really only had her glass, William’s glass and Mimosa’s food for safe watching.
“Asta! Shh I don’t want people to spot me.” She hushed playfully. The magicless boy laughed.
“Why at the party if not to party?” Yuno asked.
“Mimosa.” She answered. “I don’t like parties I think they are a waste of time. So I’m compensating.” She waved her half filled cup around. It wasn’t really a lie she did think parties were nonsense but they also scared her, reminded her of her life in Harlow Manor.
“Klaus said you didn’t often join gatherings of any kind especially family ones.” Yuno said.
Amaya’s nose scrunched.
“I have a brother that’s it no other family and he’s busy.”
“I’m sorry he didn’t mean that to sound blunt. Do you want company?” Asta asked. Amaya gave a soft smile.
“If you two were of drinking age maybe.” She laughed. “Go mingle and make friends it’s good for you.” She dismissed them with a smile.
Her silence didn’t last long as someone new sat across from her. She sighed heavily hoping that was enough to get that she doesn’t want to talk.
“What’s a beautiful lady like you doing here on your own?” No apparently not. She glared at him, blond hair, cocky grin. Mantis cloak.
“Watching her Captain’s drink.” She grunted.
“You should be up partying.” He suggested.
“No.” Her eyes locked with his nearby Captain.
“Come on-“
“Jack!” She motioned for him to come over.
“Hello Amaya. Is Sekke bothering you? Kekeke.” He laughed. Sekke as she now knows went white as paper- she almost laughed.
“Yeah can you make him fuck off.”
“Go.” Jack said with a crazed grin. Off the bug went.
“Thanks Jack.” She said tilting her now empty cup towards him in appreciation. He laughed (keke’d?) and ruffled her hair. She scowled. “We’re friends but that doesn’t mean you can mess with my hair.”
She was quick to let the scarlet tendrils fall before gathering them to the side to make a quick braid making the Green Mantis Captain laugh once more before walking off- something about pissing off Yami.
Please. She hoped no one else would come over- maybe William? Yeah and he can tell her to go home considering he hasn’t been drinking maybe he’ll wisen up and they can go. No her Captain hadn’t looked at her all night par dropping off his drink a few times. She pursed her lips in annoyance she just wanted to leave.
“You’ll get wrinkles if you keep your face like that.” Vanessa said. “What’s wrong Dawnie?”
“I wanna go back to my room.” She grumbled drowning herself in the new drink Vanessa brought.
“Alone?” She teased. Amaya snorted.
“Yeah and who’d accompany me Ness? You?”
“Darling if we swung that way I would.” The women fell into a fit of giggles. Amaya sighed again.
“Seriously though I don’t want to be here.”
“I said that the first time we met.” Vanessa quipped. “You turned to me and said that’s nice but right now it doesn’t matter because you’re here anyway.”
Amaya groaned at the memory. They’d met during a mission where Yami had convinced her to join Vanessa, himself and Finrall on a mission to collect missing people from giant spider caves. The red head shivered not and entirely pleasant memory.
“Don’t use my words against me.” She pouted.
“Come on why don’t you just leave if you don’t want to be here?”
“Captain Vangeance-“
“What happened to William?” Amaya shot a look. “Okay sorry continue.”
“-has to know I’m leaving if I do. Plus I’m still watching his slowly emptying glass… I’m on my seventh and he’s on his fourth.” She huffed.
“Remind me why you aren’t the vice captain?”
“Perfect pretty boy Langris gets whatever he wants.” She joked. “I’m happy to fill in I don’t know about permanent vicing.” She shrugged honestly. The new liquid was stronger, it burnt her throat.
“It’s good right? Nicked it from the Silva table.”
“Fuck it’s strong. It’s good remind me to hunt it down next time Klaus’ group does something destructive with yours.”
“As long as I can join-“
“Definitely.”
“Vanessa stop fraternising with the enemy!” A drunk Magna exclaimed making the women laugh. “Oh it’s just Ama hewwooo.”
“Hello.”
“I’ll leave you and your drink be to take care of this.” Vanessa snickered.
“Good idea.”
Alone again. Really she couldn’t decide if she liked the company or her thoughts better either way she still had a drink in her hand. Her silver-grey eyes scanned the room, everyone else seemed to be having fun unlike her. She just couldn’t get passed her mental block of everything that happened when she was younger- maybe one day she would- stop. She shook her head this isn’t the time or place to think about that.
Yuno seemed to be having a good time with Asta being the brothers they were it was nice to see them behaving civil sometimes. Mimosa was with them playfully smiling and talking to Asta- Amaya smiled at that she knew the girl had a crush on him and it was sweet really. Noelle was nearby doing whatever that creepy angry-jealous stare was towards Asta. Amaya frowned at that. Klaus was drowning himself in snacks surprisingly which made anyone who knew him well stifle their laughter. Langris was glaring at his brother from across the room and Amaya felt the urge to mess with him crawl it’s way up her spine.
Her eyes scanned the room again this time her brows furrowed where did Will-
“Enjoying the gathering?” Amaya jumped almost spilling her drink with that. Her free hand was pressed to her heart. Purple eyes stared down at her with a mischievous glint. He knew he’d startle her.
“Not particularly if I’m honest.” William tilted his head to the side clearly a brow would be risen if he didn’t wear his mask. “Don’t like parties. Never have.”
“Why is that?”
“Nothing party pleasant.” She shrugged nursing her drink awkwardly.
“Well I’m partial to leaving if you are?” Her head snapped towards William who offered his usual kind smile.
“Please.” She breathed before quickly chugging the remains of her drink,
“Come along then.”
“So.” William began making sure Amaya was settled in the broom with him. “Why did you tag along if you don’t like parties?”
“Mimosa convinced me and being a noble takes the magic out of parties.” William paused and turned his head back towards her. Out of the five years they’ve known each other not once had she mentioned that. He considered themselves friends.
“A noble?”
“Huh? Why so shocked I thought the name Amaya Harlow was pretty obvious.”
“I apologise but no.”
“Oh. That’s fine it’s not worth worrying over I’d rather not be associated with it. I’m just Amaya Captain.”
“William please you’ve known me long enough to call me that.”
“What? Does Captain and sir not float your boat?” She teased. William’s cheeks flared thankfully his mask hid that- he hoped. “Plenty other names, leader, boss, hmm.”
“Stop your teasing.” He ushered only making her laugh more as her arms tightened around him.
“William?” He hummed in response, “Why are we going back to the base by broom?”
“For one you’ve been drinking and don’t trust you won’t fall asleep outside and I want to show you something first… if you remember it that is.” He joked.
“One- that only happened once and I’m not even drunk thank you. Two- Depends on if I find it worth remembering.” She said, her chin resting on his shoulder as she watched the trees wave in the breeze. She hummed softly, a lullaby her nursemaids sung to her and her brother. William smiled as he flew them behind the base to a small clearing. Amaya’s eyes narrowed, she trusted her Captain without any doubt but she was confused as to where they were going.
“Here we are.” He said allowing her to get off the broom and step towards a rose bush.
“A rose bush?”
“Amaya we’ve been friends for a while yes?”
“Yes. Why?” She turned around moonlight catching the scarlet braid. William bit his lip her wide silver eyes watching him carefully. Slowly he reached for his mask.
“I trust you, just as I trust Yami, Fuegoleon, Julius and Marx. So please allow me to show you what’s behind the mask.”
“William- you don’t have too.” She said brows furrowed. He smiled that kind smile, the one that always comforted her, as he lifted the mask away and dropped it beside the broom.
He shut his eyes not daring to see any pity or shame or disgust. Amaya stepped towards him. Eyes taking in each mark and shape, the colour of his hair and where the scar stopped.
“This is worth remembering.” She whispered. Slowly William opened his eyes, fear still lingered in his as they connected to her calm ones.
No pity.
No shame.
No disgust.
She seemed happy if anything. With a delicate hand she traced the edge of the scar.
“You truly believe that? Do you not find it hideous?”
“William with or without the mask I trust who you are as a person. A scar doesn’t make a difference, whether an injury or curse they only thing that matters is you.” She smiled. “I have my own scars that I keep hidden, that I worry people would judge so I understand in some way.”
“Thank you.” He whispered. Amaya pulled him in for a hug, he hurried his face into her neck while she trailed her fingers soothingly through his hair.
“You’re not hideous either William Vangeance. In fact I find you rather handsome and I’m sure many would agree.”
“Don’t tease me Ama.” He grumbled into her neck. She only laughed at his retort.
“Make me.” She said. William’s arms moved from around her waist, hands settling on her hips before settling his forehead against hers.
“So I’m rather handsome am I?”
Her face bloomed a pretty shade of pink.
“I see how it is you tease.” She snickers stepping out of his hold.
“I’m the tease?” William laughs in surprise.
“Oh yes keeping such a handsome face from me it’s quite teasing.” She said eloquently. William’s face flushing more. “Now that I’ve seen it I’ll be in shambles without it in my life.”
“Now that’s being dramatic.”
“Is it? Oh Captain my poor heart cannot take such a handsome man hiding himself from me whatever shall I do?” She announced dramatically. “I simply cannot stand it. Captain I think I might just faint.”
“Amaya I’m warning you,” William joked. Taking a tentative step forward he saw the gleeful look on Amaya’s face.
“A warning gods my body cannot take it, take me into your arms my dear captain for I shall die a happy woman to see your handsome face as I perish.” She stepped back again the grin somehow widening as she did.
“I believe you had plenty to drink Ama-“
“Don’t look at me like that I can’t stand it too handsome I shall go! It was nice knowing you world for my eyes have been blessed.” The scarlet haired woman continued to tease before dashing to the side of the clearing towards the base. William was quick to pull his mask back on and rush after her. Amaya’s laugh echoed through the small thick of trees making William grin.
They reached the base with Ama giggling as she stopped in the garden for a moment, William was quick to trap her in his arms and spin her around. A simple caught you hung in the air as they giggled.
After a moment they paused and she looked back at William. She pouted.
“Aw you put it back on.”
“I’m not quite ready for anyone else to see.” That seemed to appease her as her fingers danced along the intricate design.
“Captain? Amaya.” Within a flash they were apart.
“Oh hello everyone what are you doing out here?” Amaya asked as innocently as possible.
“Coming home from the party.” Langris said with a scowl. “What we’re you doing with the Captain.”
“She fell. She did get quite drunk I was just keeping her steady.”
“Yeah what Wi-The Captain said.” Amaya cringed she hoped that was kind of plausible. It definitely wasn’t. “Captain, I should head to my quarters now thank you for keeping me from falling. Mimosa shall we?”
“Okay Commander.” Amaya’s nose scrunched- she told Mimosa and everyone to only call her that during missions…
“Goodnight everyone.” Amaya waved feigning a slightly drunken walk.
Mimosa giggled to Amaya about how cute they looked making the twenty-five year old blush, William however wasn’t so lucky with the light teasing. Yuno found it most entertaining.
“So should we tell everyone Amaya is off limits now?”
#black clover#black clover oc#black clover oneshots#black clover fluff#black clover william#william vangeance#amaya harlow#william & amaya
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Spiderman has allergies?
Febuwhump Day 24: allergies
Read on AO3.
________________________________________________________
“Peter’s here!” Pepper called up to him from downstairs.
Tony finished putting his laundry away. He’d become so domesticated ever since Morgan was born and he complained about it even though he secretly loved it. His family was the most important thing to him now. He smiled at that thought. If the Tony from twenty years ago could see him now.
“Do you want some pasta honey?” Tony heard Pepper ask as he made his way down the stairs. “I just finished and there’s plenty left over.”
“Um maybe just a little? Ned and I had lunch before I left.” Peter answered and there was something about his voice that made Tony frown.
“Hey kid.” He greeted as soon as he came into the kitchen and found a seat next to Peter at the counter.
“Hey Tony.” Peter responded and again there was something off about the way he sounded.
Pepper finished dishing up the pasta for Peter and slid a full plate across the counter to him.
“Thanks.” Peter said, always with the perfect manners. Thank god Morgan was picking up on some of that. The instant the thought passed through his mind, he felt bad. Peter’s aunt had died in a car accident in the intervening five years between the snap and its reversal, and of course Tony had taken him in, but improving Morgan’s manners definitely wasn’t worth the loss of his kid’s mother figure.
“Are you hungry?” Pepper asked him as he watched Peter dig into his pasta. When he looked over at her, she arched an eyebrow at him, so he knew the question had only been a courtesy.
“I’m starving.” He nodded. It wasn’t a lie. He’d only had coffee for breakfast.
“Where’s Morgan?” Peter asked and Tony finally put his finger on what was wrong with his kid’s voice. It sounded nasally.
“She spent the night at friend’s house. Tony’s going to pick her up this afternoon.” Pepper said.
“Wow that’s…” Peter let whatever he was going to say trail off.
“That’s what?” Tony asked.
“Brave? I mean I always thought you were kind of a helicopter dad…”
Tony raised his eyebrows at him.
“…so that must be hard for you?” Peter finished.
“No. It’s fine.” He denied and Pepper snorted as she handed his plate of pasta to him. Peter didn’t need to know the details of the hours long discussion they’d had before agreeing to let Morgan stay overnight at her friend’s house, Pepper being for it and Tony being adamantly against it.
Peter smirked and went back to eating. Tony took a few bites of his food but side eyed the kid, trying to figure out whey something wasn’t right about the way he sounded. Had he broken his nose and it healed wrong? It looked fine.
Peter finished his plate of pasta in record time. “Thanks Pepper.” He said as he got up to rinse his plate and put in the dishwasher.
Tony took another bite of his own food as his eyes narrowed. Peter’s sentence had come out sounding more like ‘Danks Pebber.’
“You’re welcome.” Pepper said automatically but then shot a look over at Tony. She’d obviously caught on to Peter’s weird voice too. He gave her a subtle nod.
“So Pete,” he said as he finished his own meal, “what’s new with you?”
“Nothing much.” Peter shrugged. “Ned got a new pet.”
“Uh huh.” Tony frowned at him. “Why do you sound like your nose is broken?”
Peter rolled his eyes and started walking away toward the couch. “It’s not. I’m fine.” Even though it came out sounding like ‘It’s nob. I’m fibe.’
Tony put his plate in the dishwasher and followed Peter to the couch. “Ok then, if your nose isn’t broken, why do you sound all weird?”
“Allergies.” Peter answered as he flicked through the different channels on the TV.
“You?” Tony asked sarcastically. “Have allergies?”
“Apparently.” Peter shrugged, unaffected.
“Even with your spider powers?”
“Apparently.” Peter repeated.
“Seems a little odd.” Tony opined. “Are you sure you’re not sick?”
Peter shook his head and denied, “I’m not sick.”
“How do you know?”
“I think I would know.” Peter said, arching an eyebrow at him. “Like I’d feel bad and I don’t, so it must be allergies.”
“Uh huh.” Tony nodded. “Sure. You’re not sick. Nothing’s wrong. You just have allergies you’ve never had before.”
“I haven’t been sick since the spider bite either so why would that make any more sense?”
The kid had a point there. After coming back from the snap he’d lived with them for almost a year and he’d never gotten sick, although that could’ve been luck. Now that he’d gone off to college and lived with Ned, Tony worried.
“Ok so you sound like your nose is broken because of allergies…” He still couldn’t bring himself to truly believe it.
“That’s what I said.” Peter huffed.
“You sure you don’t want to get some rest? Or I could get you a juice box?” He offered.
“I’m not sick!” Peter protested.
“All right whatever you say.” Tony let it go but watched Peter like a hawk for the rest of the weekend, but Peter never gave him any indication that something was wrong.
**********
“Tony!” Peter yelled. Tony jerked his head up and smacked it on the bottom of Morgan’s bunk bed that he was in the middle of putting together. He rubbed his scalp and brought his hand away, looking at it. No blood. Well at least he hadn’t cracked his head open.
“Tony?” Peter called out again.
“Up here!” He answered.
“What are you doing?” Peter asked a moment later in the doorway.
“Trying to put this bed together.” Tony complained.
“Looks easy.” Peter laughed.
“It’s not.” Tony said, dragging himself out from under the bottom bunk.
“Need help?” Peter offered.
Tony narrowed his eyes at him. The kid’s question had come out like ‘Neeb helb?’
“Are you still sick?” He asked.
“What?” Peter frowned. “No. I was never sick in the first place. I told you it was allergies last weekend.”
“And what? It’s still allergies?” Tony asked skeptically as he stood and brushed the dust off his clothes.
“Yeah.” Peter answered as if it was obvious.
“How the hell does Spiderman have allergies?”
“No clue.” Peter shrugged. “I used to have asthma and be deathly allergic to peanuts before the spider bite, but ever since I got my powers, I’ve never needed my inhaler and I eat peanut butter all the time without any problem. It’s so good!”
“What?” All of this was news to him.
“Yeah. Didn’t you know that?”
“No! How would I have known that?”
Peter shrugged. “I don’t know. You always say you know everything, so I just assumed.”
“Don’t be a smart ass.” Tony complained as he reached out to press a palm against Peter’s forehead, still not believing all this allergy talk.
Peter immediately jerked away. “I’m not sick!” He insisted, sounding annoyed. Well, he wasn’t warm at least, so whatever it was, it wasn’t serious enough to give him a fever.
“Hmm. So if it’s allergies, why haven’t you taken anything for it?”
“I did! I tried Zyrtec but that was useless with my metabolism and the same thing with Flonase.”
Ah. True. Tony hadn’t considered that.
“And you’re sure they’re not working because you’re actually sick?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “I’m sure dad.” Peter said the last part sarcastically but Tony’s heart still warmed. Peter only ever called him that in jest or when he was being sarcastic, but Tony appreciated it every time all the same.
“Ok son.” Tony ruffled Peter’s hair. “But if this doesn’t get any better, I’m calling Bruce.”
“God you’re so extra.” Peter complained but Tony could see he was smiling.
Tony smiled. “Maybe. Now, do you want to go to the garage and work on those suit upgrades I was talking about?”
“Um duh. Do you even have to ask?”
Tony shook his head, equally annoyed and amused in the way only Peter could make him, but they headed down to the workshop, and the rest of the weekend Tony didn’t notice any red flags besides the congestion causing Peter’s voice to go all wonky, so he didn’t say anything.
**********
“Hey Toby?” Peter’s voice rang throughout the cabin from downstairs two weeks later.
Tony met Pepper’s eyes across the bedroom and they both raised their eyebrows at each other at the obviously persistent voice issue.
“I’m upstairs!” He called out.
“This has gone on long enough.” Pepper whispered to him, aware of Peter’s super hearing. “Figure it out.”
“Already on it boss.” He said and walked out of the room, meeting Peter in the hallway at the top of the stairs.
“What’s up kid?” He asked as he studied him for any sign of illness. Peter’s eyes were bloodshot and his nose was red with a darkened line across the bridge of it, something he’d never seen on him before, but otherwise he looked ok.
“Nothing.” Peter shrugged as if everything was all hunky dory even as he reached up to swipe at his nose.
“Nothing.” Tony repeated skeptically.
“Yeah. Why?” Peter’s brow furrowed.
“Because you look like an extra for a zombie movie kid!”
“I do?” He sniffled.
“Yep. I’m calling Bruce.” He said, already pulling out his phone to text his friend.
“No!” Peter protested, snatching the phone out of his hands.
“Hey.” Tony warned. “Give that back. You remember our deal? I told you two weeks ago that if this didn’t get better we were getting Bruce involved.”
“I never agreed to that.”
“Well too bad because this looks like it’s getting worse and you haven’t said a thing about it.”
“Because I’m fine! It’s just allergies.”
“Give me my phone.” Tony ordered as he held his hand out expectantly.
Peter eyed it for a moment and Tony lifted his eyebrows, daring Peter to test him, before Peter sighed and slapped the phone back in his hand.
“Fine, but if you do call him and make him come all the way up here, you’ll be wasting his time because he’s just going to tell you the exact same thing I’ve been saying.”
“Yeah, we’ll see.” Tony said doubtfully, already typing out a message to his friend. Bruce was nothing if not prompt. He responded less than a minute later.
“He’s on his way over.” Tony held up the phone screen for Peter to see, but his kid just rolled his eyes and pushed past him.
“I’ll be in my room if you need me.”
“Resting? That’s a good idea. You should rest.”
“No. Doing homework. Not resting. Because I’m not sick! It’s allergies!”
Tony hummed in disbelief but let Peter go, wincing as he slammed his door shut behind him.
Pepper peaked her head out of their bedroom. “What did you do?”
“Nothing.” He held his hands up innocently. “Bruce is on his way over.”
Pepper smiled. “Ah. Good.”
He nodded. Now he just had to wait for his friend to tell him he was right, and then they could finally fix his stubborn kid.
**********
He wasn’t right.
“He’s not sick.” Bruce said.
“What?” He asked in shock.
“I told you.” Peter said and way too happy about it.
“Then what is it?” Tony looked down at where his kid sat smugly on the couch.
“It looks like allergies.” Bruce shrugged.
Tony blinked as Peter barked out a laugh. “Ha! That’s what I kept saying and he wouldn’t believe me.”
“Didn’t you used to be allergic to everything under the sun? Before the bite?” Tony asked, none of this making any sense.
“I mean that’s kind of an exaggeration, but yeah, I guess.” Peter shrugged.
Tony shook his head and turned to Bruce. “So if all his previous allergies went away after the bite, then how on earth did he suddenly develop allergies again? And to what? Does this mean his other allergies are back too? Do I need to hide the peanut butter?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “I had peanut butter toast for breakfast this morning so I’m pretty sure that’s still safe.”
“It’s probably environmental.” Bruce explained. “Those allergies are mediated through different pathways.”
“Ok, but that still begs the question, why now? And besides, it’s the middle of winter, what kind of environmental allergies could he be getting into?”
“You’d be surprised.” Bruce said. “There’s still dust mites, mold, pet dander—”
“Wait.” Tony held up a finger and then looked down at his kid accusingly. “Didn’t you say Ned got a new cat a month ago?”
“Yeah…”
“It’s the cat. It’s got to be.” Tony said, finally happy to have an answer. That hadn’t been so hard to solve. Actually it’d been surprisingly easy. He frowned before asking Peter, “How did you not figure this out?”
“I knew ok! But what was I supposed to do? Tell Ned that Fluffy had to go?” Peter threw his hands up in the air.
“Fluffy?” Tony made a face.
“He’s a rescue. I can’t ask Ned to kick him out when he just found his new home. How do you think that would make him feel?” Peter said, sounding way too emotionally invested for this to just be about the cat. “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Tony cleared his throat. He’d had almost six years with Morgan to get used to showing emotions, and he’d gotten much better, but he still didn’t love doing it in front of an audience.
He knelt down so he was face to face with Peter, clasping his knees. “I get it kid. But you’re clearly suffering. And Fluffy’s a cat, not a human.”
Peter pursed his lips and Tony could tell that his current argument would get him nowhere.
“Ok, how about this, what if we find Fluffy a new home that’s just as nice. Or better?”
“Um, I might have an idea.” Bruce interrupted and Tony and Peter both turned to look at him. “I could probably synthesize something that would work. It just might take a couple days.”
“Ok.” Peter agreed readily.
Tony sighed. He never liked the idea of pumping new drugs into his kid but he trusted Bruce. “Fine. But if it doesn’t work, we’re going to have another discussion.”
“Fine.” Peter said begrudgingly.
Tony stood and clapped Bruce on the back. “Thanks big green. You’re a life saver.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I have to make it first. And we have to see if it works.” Bruce hedged.
“I’m sure it will.” Tony didn’t have any doubt. If Bruce thought he could make something that would work, then he’d end up making something that would work.
“Hey uh Dr. Banner, how strong can you make it?”
Bruce’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Like can you make something that will still work even if Fluffy sleeps on my face?”
Bruce and Tony shared a look.
“He’s your kid.” Bruce raised an eyebrow at him even as he tried not to laugh.
Tony just shook his head and walked away, muttering, “I can’t believe this.”
“What? Where are you going? Tony!” Peter called out after him.
“I’m going to go call Thor and see if he can put in a word with the big guys upstairs about getting my kid some common sense.” He said, only half kidding.
“Hey!” Peter protested.
He smirked when he heard Bruce say, “Well, he’s not wrong.”
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Blue Eyes Part 33
Summary: After the Garrison is shot up, the youngest Shelby daughter finds a new home in London. She strips herself of her last name and tries to live a peaceful life far away from her brothers’ chaos in Birmingham. But fate leads her right back into it after she runs into Alfie Solomons.
Part 33: Ella struggles to maintain her new family life and deal with her brother.
“Pretty innit? Nothing prettier than a fully lit menorah, well ‘cept your mum.” Alfie chuckled. He was holding Sofia so she could see the menorah.
It was the eighth day of Hanukkah but the mood was a little less than celebratory. There was still an anti-Semitic fascist still roaming around London and Tommy Shelby was still at Margate.
Alfie was happy to spend the holiday with his new little family. The twins would get to experience the holiday for the first time, he could spoil them with gifts. But with Tommy sulking about there a damper over the home. Especially since Ella was so worried about her brother.
He was significantly less explosive than when he showed up looking to put a bullet in his head. Still, he needed some talking down when he seized up into a panic attack. Any little thing could set him off. A loud noise or Alfie muttering something under his breath.
But there was an upside. Tommy hardly slept so he would look after the twins if they woke up in the middle of the night. For the first time in months, Alfie and Ella could finally sleep through the night, which was a blessing.
Still, Alfie didn’t want to spend the holiday with Tommy. He didn’t appreciate the intrusion, especially the way Tommy had arrived.
Ella wouldn’t turn her back on her brother though. Not when he’d helped with the adoption and not when he made sure she was taken care of in her time of need.
Looking a bit weary, Ella came into the sitting room where Alfie and the twins were. Ezra was sat on the floor near Cyril who was watching him carefully. The little boy was playing with a toy car that he’d got on the third night of Hanukkah. He clumsily pushed the car back and forth, enraptured by the black painted wood and little wheels.
Alfie loved how easily distractible they were. Anything eye-catching or with a pleasing sound could turn their heads and keep them entertained for a good while. Sofia especially liked to play with the metal tags on Cyril’s collar. The bullmastiff tolerated her, letting her jangle them about, tugging and pulling at them as she pleased.
Now she was captivated by the silver menorah with the hypnotic way the little flames on the candles flickered back and forth. She still hadn’t quite grasped why Alfie wouldn’t let her grab a hold of the candles. He’d made the mistake of leaving the menorah on a lower cabinet. Sofia had just started to pull herself up with the aid of furniture. She’d grabbed the base of the menorah but Alfie managed to grab her before she pulled it down on herself.
Lesson learned; the menorah was placed on a higher spot.
“Hi, my loves.” Ella cooed and bent down to kiss Ezra’s cheek. The infant giggled and kicked his feet happily. “Sofi-girl what are you and daddy doing?”
Sofia gurgled and pressed her cheek into Alfie’s shoulder.
Ella leaned into Alfie’s side. “It’s so pretty.” She sighed softly at the glowing menorah.
“Want the kids to open their last gifts?” Alfie wrapped an arm around her waist and kissed her hair.
“Actually, I was hoping you’d go talk to Tommy. He’s outside smoking.”
Her husband sighed and hid an eye roll from her. “El, he won’t fucking listen to me. You know he won’t.”
“Language.” She reminded him with a frown. “And he will talk to you, he asked for you to come out and talk to him.”
Alfie grunted. “Will it make you happy if I do?”
“Yes.”
“Alright.” He handed Sofia to her. “Only because you asked me to, ain’t doing it for his benefit.” He muttered and went to grab his coat.
~~~~~~~~
“Bloody cold out here, mate.” Alfie stepped outside in the garden where Tommy was stood.
“Ella doesn’t want me smoking in the house.” He replied quietly.
“Yeah, well.” Alfie shrugged and buried his hands in his pockets. “Stinks up the home, don’t it? Not pleasant.”
Tommy didn’t reply, he just kept taking drags of his cigarette and looking out over the empty road.
Not wanting to stand around in the cold waiting for the man to speak, Alfie cleared his throat. “El said you wanted to talk to me?”
“When you were shot, you said they put you on drugs.”
“Yeah, heavy shit. Barely conscious most of the time, s’pose it were good. Didn’t want to feel that sorta pain.”
“Did you…did you see things when you were taking them?” Tommy’s eyes didn’t look over at him.
“Like hallucinations? Yeah, weren’t sure if I were awake or not sometimes so I can’t remember if they were dreams or I were just that fucked up. Ella don’t really talk ‘bout it.”
Tommy reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial. He turned it around in between his fingers a few times before handing it over to Alfie. “Makes me see things.”
“Weren’t aware you were recovering from being shot in the fucking face. Or wait...was that just me?” Alfie took the bottle and uncorked it. He sniffed it but there wasn’t much of an odor. “Morphine, innit?”
His brother-in-law nodded. “I’ve lost control, Alfie.”
“Yeah, what gave it away, aye? When you were asking me to kill you? Or when you were asking your sister to kill you?”
Tommy dropped the butt of his cigarette and stubbed it out with the heel of his shoe. “I knew a long time ago. Been trying to keep it together for everyone. The family, the kids.” He wearily rubbed a hand over his eyes. “But I can’t anymore. Don’t want to fucking wake up in the morning. I just want to be numb. I can’t fucking stand any of it anymore.”
“Tom, I hate to be the thorn in your side, but this is your doing.” Alfie kept the vial in his hand, he wasn’t comfortable giving it back to him. He’d seen what morphine did to Shelbys and it wasn’t pretty.
“You don’t think I fucking know that, Alfie?” Tommy snapped venomously.
“Oi, you wanted my opinion, so you fucking shut up and listen to it or I’ll go back inside and spend the holiday with me family. You’re lucky I ain’t kicked you outta my fucking house already!”
Tommy frowned like a bratty child. He took a deep breath, the exhale materializing in the frigid air in front of him. “I know I got myself into this mess. But I told myself-when I was about to be buried alive in France, that I wasn’t going to be buried again. I would keep fighting until I found a man who I couldn’t beat.”
“Think you’ve found that man?”
Tommy was quiet for a long while. Almost to the point that Alfie thought he was high and had drifted off into a hazy, drugged up bliss. But he finally piped up again. “I have one foot on a land mine.”
Almost instinctually, Alfie looked down to see that he was only speaking metaphorically. The ex-Captain didn’t take land mines lightly. He’d seen plenty of legs blown off by the weapons.
“Either I stand on it until I’m exhausted and drop. Or I try to step away and risk being blown up.”
“Your family is surrounding you,” Alfie responded. “So, whatever move you make, you’re putting them at risk as well.”
“Not unless they’re moved out,” Tommy replied and tilted his face up to the gray sky.
“What you on about now?”
“I have connections in America and various places around Europe. Connections Mosley probably doesn’t know about. If I can move everyone to safety then he won’t have anything against me. He won’t be able to use anyone I care about. It’ll just be me and him. He can as he pleases to me but I’ll go down with a fight.”
“Keyword, probably. Tom, you’ve no fucking clue what that man is capable of. I know you don’t. None of us do. Even if you move all of us to fucking Australia you think that’ll really stop him? ‘Sides, what makes you so high and mighty that you think you can uproot everyone from their lives?”
Tommy pursed his lips together. “I’m brainstorming, Alfie. I think I’ve made it fucking clear enough that I’ve no clue what the fuck I’m going to do.”
“Evidently.”
“Oh, fuck off, Alfie.” Tommy shot back. “You have a better idea?”
Alfie raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re looking for other people to dig you out of your shit? Tommy, me priorities lie with me wife and children. That ain’t gonna change for you or for anyone else.”
“Even if they’re being threatened by the man who tried to kill you?” Tommy questioned. “The man who has to issue with killing anyone? He has no morals, Alfie.”
He scoffed. “Oh, so now you’re trying to get me to be involved ‘cause I’m scared? I’m dead to him, Tom, what do I hafta be scared about? He thinks El’s in America, we ain’t got nothing to fear.”
“He knows she’s not in America.”
Alfie lost his temper. He grabbed Tommy by the throat, dropping the vial of morphine, letting it roll down the garden path away from them. Alfie slammed Tommy up against the side of the house, digging his fingers into his throat. “Fucking what!?” He demanded.
Tommy pried his hand away. “There’s a black cat, Alfie!” He shouted hoarsely. “They’ve been leaking everything to Mosley. I can’t trust anyone that’s why I’m fucking here!”
Alfie’s blood boiled. “Then I’ll fucking kill whoever it is.”
“Be my guest. You’ll have to find out who it is first.” Tommy shoved him away so he couldn’t attack him again.
It should’ve been clear that it was a tactic to get Alfie on board. Tommy needed another strong player. Someone who was thinking a bit clearer than he was. Alfie huffed angrily and paced a little bit, roughly running a hand through his hair. “Fuck.” He growled. “So he’s gonna come after her?”
“I don’t know what he’s planning,” Tommy admitted. It had been something alarming when Mosley casually mentioned how Ella must be enjoying her time on the English coast. Tommy corrected him but the man simply chuckled and asked if he looked stupid. The situation was left at that. Tommy nearly lost his mind right then and there. He was so close to strangling the man and facing the consequences. If he was hanged, so be it. But then he remembered his children. His wife.
Tommy sighed and shook his head. “I need help, Alfie.”
“I’m dead, mate.”
“Then I need you to be resurrected.”
~~~~~~~~~~~
“Yes, those are your presents, but we’ve got to wait until daddy comes in from talking to Uncle Tommy.” Ella was sat by the window with Ezra and Sofia. Ezra was tugging at the neatly wrapped present that was lying in wait. He whined and tried to pull the blue and silver ribbon off the box.
“Ah, ah, ah, no.” Ella picked him up and cradled him close. “Gotta wait for daddy. Patience, chavi.”
The front door opened and Tommy and Alfie came back inside. A cold burst of air traveled down the hall for a moment.
“Alright, then let’s open presents.” Alfie walked into the sitting room. Sofia squealed happily and reached toward him. “Hi, sheifale.” He picked her up and sat down in his armchair.
Ella saw Tommy pass by the doorway. “Tom?” She called after him. “Come sit with us.”
He paused in the hallway but shook his head to himself. “Need to make a few calls.” He replied and went to shut himself in Alfie’s study.
Ella looked to her husband. “Did you talk to him?” She asked quietly.
He only nodded and leaned down to pick up Sofia’s present. “Want to open this?” He prompted her by tearing a bit of the paper off.
Sofia smiled and did her best to rip the present open. She managed to unravel the ribbon and became infatuated with it almost immediately. Giggling, she pressed it to Alfie’s face.
“What’re you doing?” He chuckled and tried to take the ribbon from her. “Let’s see what you got for Hanukkah.”
But Sofia decided she was uninterested in the gift, waving the ribbon about in her pudgy fist.
Ella smiled. “Maybe we should just buy her ribbon next time.” She teased and handed Ezra his present. “Here, love.”
Their son was a little more impatient and tore open the present. Delighted, he pulled out the teddy bear with a blue button nose and a matching ribbon. Ezra gurgled happily and hugged the bear close to him.
Ella kissed his forehead. “You like it?”
Alfie finished unwrapping Sofia’s present for her. A matching teddy bear with a yellow ribbon instead. “Lookit, see that?” He propped the bear up to face his daughter. Sofia grabbed the bear’s snout but decided the gift’s ribbon was more fun. She tossed the bear to the side and continued flailing the ribbon about.
“Glad you like it.” Alfie sighed and kissed her cheek.
Ella laughed and smoothed back Ezra’s hair. She couldn’t help but think about how happy she was. Tommy would heal. Things would be okay. They had to be.
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#alfie solomons#alfie solomonsxoc#alfie solomons x oc#alfie solomons imagine#tommy shelby#peaky blinders#peaky blinder imagine#peaky fookin blinders#peaky blinders fanfiction#fanfiction#ofc#oc#shelby sister#shelby oc#shelby ofc#season 5#ocs#tom hardy#tom hardy character#tom hardy fanfiction#cillian murphy#cillian murphy character
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RWBY Grimm Guardians Arc 3: Separated Union Ch 9
Side JNPR: Reunions
Welcome back to Separated Union! Here’s the special chapter, Side JNPR and here, Jaune, Nora, Ren, and Oscar talk about the current events and a certain red-head returns.
This takes place a few hours after Side Red III, so it is around lunch time.
As usual, please give constructive criticism and enjoy.
Disclaimer: Still own nothing.
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(1:38 PM)
Oscar walked into the hospital cafe, sighing. He hadn’t realized how much he had been missing his own mother while he was visiting his aunt. The farm boy also noticed Jaune was deep in his thoughts as well, given how the younger teenager accidentally walked in on the blonde talking to one of his sisters on the phone. Speaking of the blonde, Jaune was sitting at a table by himself, rubbing his eyes. He looked...fairly exhausted. Both physically and mentally.
Oscar sat in front of him, asking, “Maybe a dumb question, but are you...doing alright?” “Not really, to be honest…” Jaune said. “Ruby and her mother’s interactions, as well as your interactions with your own mom remind me how much I’m...missing my own family back at home…” He rubbed his back, “I have a few sisters, as I’m sure you know by now. Also got a nephew...” The blonde chuckled, before sighing, “I know they’re safe right now, but...what if I need to be there for them when they need me the most?”
“The world’s getting more chaotic.” He explained. “More Grimm are showing up, forces that are bigger than us are targeting us and the academies; we are heading into dangerous territory.” Oscar nodded in agreement, before Jaune continued, “I...feel like I...need to be there to protect them. I know they can probably keep themselves safe, but…” “I already...technically lost someone I cared about… Almost lost another. I don’t want that to happen again.” He said.
Oscar knew that one of the people Jaune was referring to was Ruby. He assumed the blonde was also referring to Pyrrha. “How long until…?” The younger teenager asked, before the blonde shook his head. Jaune sighed, “No clue. Ruby and Summer did it to save her and not even THEY know when she’s come out.” He took a deep breath, before sighing again. “Gods, I hope it’s soon. The last thing I want right now is for her to be lonely.” He said. “Especially right now…”
Ren and Nora eventually joined the two, sitting next to both Jaune and Oscar. “How’s Ruby’s progress?” The blonde asked. The ginger shrugged, “Hard to say. She says she’s well, though I’m not sure if Oscar’s mom believes her.” “That’d be accurate.” The youngest of the group chuckled. “She has a way of knowing when people lie about their health.” Ren chuckled, “Yeah, that sounds like a mother… From what Ruby’s been saying, Summer’s also like that.”
“Thank gods…” Jaune sighed with a smile. “Speaking of which, how is Ruby’s mom?” He then explained, “She...seemed to be stressed a bit earlier when she asked for Ruby’s uncle.” The green clad teenager nodded, “She had a lot on her mind. From what little she said, she’s...been having nightmares again. Ruby too.” Ren then explained that Summer had a very important catch-up conversation with Anna. “I won’t ask her what they talked about…” He said. “But I did ask Ruby’s uncle why she needed him.”
“He said ‘She’s talking to Ruby’s dad about herself’.” The green clad teenager said. Oscar raised an eyebrow, “So...does that mean Ruby’s mom doesn’t need to hide her identity anymore?” Ren shrugged, “Hard to say, really. Though...from what could tell, she seemed...happy telling Ruby’s dad. Like her anxiety was dissolved.” The group nodded, before falling into silence. They...really didn’t want to talk about Pyrrha currently. Especially when there was no guarantee that they’d see her in their lifetime...
As if on cue, Qrow then walked in and stood next to the group’s table, saying, “Sorry for the intrusion, but Ruby’s on her way. Thought I’d let you know.” “Just...don’t freak out…” He chuckled, receiving confused glances from the group. “How come?” Oscar asked. “Why are you walking around!?” Jaune asked suddenly, queuing the group to turn towards Ruby...holding Summer’s arm as she attempted to stay standing.
“Dr. Pine suggested that I should walk a bit.” The young leader said with a sheepish smile. “Mom insisted on helping.” Both the blonde and Ren sighed with relief, before tiredly chuckling as Ruby glared at them. “You know damn well I’m not insane.” She said loudly, receiving a laugh from her uncle. “I tried telling her that I was probably not ready.” “To be fair, you are doing quite well.” Her mother said, smiling, only for it to fade as she lifted her daughter in her arms, while Ruby’s legs began buckling.
“Was…” Ruby corrected, giving a slight groan. Summer gave her daughter’s abdomen a quick once over. “Is it from your legs?” She asked, receiving a nod from the young leader. Ruby sighed, “I’m okay. Just weak in my legs… Not sure if they’re numb.” Summer raised an eyebrow, “Can you feel them?” Her daughter nodded, “A bit, yeah. Little chilly though…” ‘Well, there’s a good sign, at least…’ The elder Rose thought, sighing with relief. She then said, “Want me to get you a wheelchair?”
Ruby nodded, “Please.” Setting her daughter down in one of the chairs, Summer went off to find Anna and get a wheelchair. Sighing, the young leader pulled her legs to her chest, saying, “Sorry for making you worry there, but I promise I’m healing.” She took a deep breath, before admitting, “Unfortunately, my sleep patterns are NOT.” “Ah...so that’s why you’ve been looking drained.” Ren stated. Ruby grunted, “It’s been getting pretty bad recently.”
The group went silent as soon as they heard a rattling. Jaune then noticed that his shield had come off and had fallen to the floor...even though he was sure he had it secured to his back. A tired, yet genuine grin formed on Ruby’s lips, “Looks like she’s finally waking up, huh…” The blonde turned to her, “How do we know if Pyrrha will...remember us?” Ren and Nora turned to face the young leader, only to see a tired, regretful expression. “We do not.” She said.
As soon as she said that, a mix of yellow, red, and orange energy, in a form akin to that of fire, burst forth from the shield. It then swirled, forming a human body, hair, clothes, and armor, before stopping as the energy dissipated, revealing the form of Pyrrha Nikos, now on her knees. An uneasy silence settled as Pyrrha opened her eyes, taking a look at herself first, before observing her surroundings. “Am I...alive?” She asked, hesitantly. “Or are you all...dead as well…?”
Jaune and Ruby both let out a shuddering sigh as smiles formed on their lips, their right hands over their hearts. The redhead raised an eyebrow, concerned as she asked, “Is...everything alright?” “You’re here…” The blonde said, gently hugging his partner. “So yeah. Everything’s fine at the moment.” Pyrrha cautiously returned the hug, as if she didn’t know if this was real or not. “Where are we, Jaune?” She asked. “Mistral International Clinic.” Ruby answered. “I...kinda got screwed up…”
Pyrrha sighed with a smile as she and Jaune stood up, “I hope you’re listening to your doctor and taking care of yourself.” The younger girl nodded, “Yes, ma’am.” The redhead sighed, looking at her friends. “Looks like I have a lot to catch up, huh?” The newly revived teenager chuckled. “A little.” Ruby smiled sheepishly. “Mom will help out with what happened after…that…” Before Pyrrha could ask what she meant by “that”, everyone turned to the door as a chuckle was heard.
“Well, look who’s finally gotten out of bed.” Summer smirked, entering the cafe with a wheelchair. “I trust you’re feeling well?” The redhead nodded, smiling, “I am now. Thank you, Ms...um…” The former STRQ leader chuckled again, “You may call me Ms. Summer if you want. Finally told Ruby about me, so no need to hide it any longer.” She then put her cloak on Ruby, before lifting her and placing her in the wheelchair. Pyrrha nodded as Summer rolled Ruby up to the table, “I see. Thank you then. Both of you.”
She then raised her arm, “If I may ask, what did you mean by…’that’, Ruby?” Everyone froze, before sighing in unison. “Beacon’s been...practically destroyed.” The young leader admitted. “We...didn’t lose, I think. But we definitely...didn’t really win either.” Summer placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders, saying, “We had to make a forced retreat.” “From what we know, none of the Grimm got outside of Beacon and the teachers are still active.” She explained.
“So why are we in Mistral…?” Pyrrha asked. “Ozpin had me do some investigating, due to Cinder’s forces being in Beacon.” Qrow explained. “Right now, the trail leads here.” He then raised a hand, “If you are wondering, yes. He’s still alive and currently speaking with Ruby’s doctor, Anna Pine.” The redhead sighed with relief, “That’s one less thing for me to worry about.” An amused smirk formed on Summer’s face, “Nah, you still got plenty to worry about and look after, thankfully.”
“I’d rather worry about a lot of things, instead of blindly think that everything’s going to work out.” She mumbled, unaware that Ruby and Qrow heard her. Her daughter began rubbing the taller woman’s hand as a means to comfort her. The redhead then turned to Oscar, saying, “I see I have a fresh face to meet.” “That Oscar Pine. Met him when we first arrived in Mistral.” Ruby chuckled. “He’s my doctor’s son.” The youngest of the group rubbed the back of his neck, shyly saying, “N-Nice to meet you, Ms. Nikos.”
An amused and flattered smile formed on Pyrrha’s lips, as she said, “Just Pyrrha is fine. It’s nice to meet you too, Oscar.” Summer hid her face in her daughter’s hair as she silently laughed, before whispering, “This kid is too fucking cute. I want to adopt him.” “You could ask Dr. Pine to be Oscar’s godmother.” Ruby whispered back excitedly. “His mom might kill me if I asked.” The former STRQ leader chuckled. Oscar then stood, “I’ll be right back. Mom needs to know that she might have another patient.”
The group chuckled as Summer ruffled the youngest member’s hair as he passed by. After he felt the room, the redhead said, “He’s a cute one. Like a little brother.” “He really is like that.” Jaune smiled. Pyrrha sighed, “It’s good to be home.” She looked at herself once more, noticing that she was armored, looking more like a spartan. She then asked, “Is the...new get-up normal?” The former STRQ leader nodded, “For most Weapon Spirits like us, yes. Arktis...or rather, Willow Schnee is the same.”
“Weiss’s mom, right?” Pyrrha asked, receiving a nod from Summer. “I think it suits you.” Jaune said, observing his partner’s armor. Nora grinned and nodded, “Ditto.” Ren smiled, nodding with a hum. The redhead blushed with a flattered smile, before feeling her partner’s hand holding hers. Squeezing Jaune’s hand gently, she then asked, “Well, would you like to tell me what’s been going on since getting to Mistral?” The group nodded, with Jaune saying, “Sure, though it...might be a little long.”
Pyrrha just chuckled, “That’s perfectly fine with me.”
As Pyrrha began catching up with her team, Qrow looked at Summer, whispering, “Can we talk in the hall? Please?” Raising an eyebrow, his former leader nodded, kissing Ruby’s forehead before following the former bandit into the hall. “What’s up?” She asked. Qrow sighed, “First, I need to apologize. For eavesdropping on you and Ruby last night.” ‘Ah...so that’s who it was…’ Summer thought, before saying, “Well, please explain your reasons and I will.”
Nodding, the former bandit said, “Which brings me to my topic. Firstly, you two need help.” “I’ve spoken to Anna about it when getting the wheelchair.” The taller woman said. “Believe me. I know we do.” Qrow nodded, hoping his sigh of relief went unnoticed by his former leader. “Secondly, you need to see and visit Tai and Rae.” He said. Noticing the tired and annoyed expression on Summer’s face, he added, “Summer, it’ll HELP you. And them as well, if I may add.”
The taller woman raised her hands in mock surrender, “I know, I know…” She then sighed, sitting on the floor. “There’s one problem with that…” She said. Qrow nodded, “I’m aware. You can only really see Tai, as you know where he lives.” “Yang...might be able to help you with Raven.” He said, only to receive a shaking head from his former leader. Summer sighed once more, “Tai won’t talk to her about her mother.” ‘Of course, he won’t….’ The former bandit thought, rubbing his eyes.
“Do they even want me back?” Summer asked. “I’ve been...technically dead for almost 12 years now.” Qrow sighed, sitting next to his former leader as he said, “You know both of them missed you. Raven wants nothing more than to be by your side again and have us safe.” He felt the taller woman lean against him as he continued, “Tai nearly fell apart when he heard about your....’death’.” “Yang told me...” Summer mumbled. “Also said that you were able to help him get back on his feet.”
“Probably one of the only good decisions I’ve ever made.” The former bandit said. “I know Raven, you, and Tai would argue that I’ve done more good things.” “Because you HAVE.” Summer said. “You’ve realized that your tribe was awful and left. You’ve been a great uncle for Ruby and Yang. Hell, I think you’ve done more for Tai than I ever could...” “You flatter me, even though I don’t think the last two are true.” Qrow chuckled softly.
“Raven would say the same.” The former STRQ leader said. A small smirk rose to Qrow’s lips, “Yeah, she would. Much like how I tell her how many good things she’s done.” “That’s something you two need to work on.” Summer said. The former bandit hummed in agreement. The two sat like in comfortable silence, before Qrow said, “I’d be honored to be your brother-in-law.” A warm smile formed on Summer’s face as she chuckled, “Thank you, Qrow. I’d also be honored to be your sister-in-law.”
Chuckling, the former bandit patted his former leader’s shoulder, saying, “I’m going to get some coffee. Want some?” Summer smiled, “Please.” Nodding, Qrow went back into the cafe as the taller woman sighed with a tired, yet content smile on her face. Ruby then wheeled herself out, saying, “Mom, do you have my scroll? I need to text Yang, Blake, and Weiss, please.” Standing back up, Summer raised an eyebrow, “How come…?”
“I was thinking about possibly setting up a virtual meeting.” The young leader said. “Both as a means of checking up on each other and figuring out what to do next.” Nodding, her mother handed her the scroll, asking, “What time?” “How does the day after tomorrow sound?” Ruby asked. Summer nodded, smiling, “That sounds good to me. Though check with your sister and team first.” Her daughter nodded, before tilting her head. “Your right eye looks different.” She said.
“Like...your iris is silver again, but your sclera is red.” She explained. Summer raised an eyebrow, before Ruby took a picture with the scroll and showed it to her mother. Sure enough, the elder Rose noticed her right eye had changed. It was still Grimm-like, but it had her silver iris once more. ‘How the hell did THIS happen?’ She thought. ‘And when? Not to mention why...’ “I’m going to ask Anna about this later...” Summer said. “Right now, setting up that meeting is more important.”
Ruby nodded in agreement, before sending a group text to her sister, Weiss, and Blake...
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And that’s it. I REALLY tried to make this good. I really did. I had plans on bringing Pyrrha back, but this was hard to do. Though I hope it was worth it in the end.
Pyrrha’s new appearance is INSPIRED from this lovely artwork by Razenix-Angel on DA: https://www.deviantart.com/razenix-angel/art/Pyrrha-Nikos-armor-guide-581087124
Anyway, next will be the end of Side White, where Weiss becomes VERY vocal about her decisions.
#rwby#rwby au#grimm guardians au#rwby fanfiction#ruby rose#qrow branwen#Summer Rose#jaune arc#lie ren#nora valkyrie#pyrrha nikos#Oscar Pine
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The Ship of Monsters
Check me out, I’m being topical! I had another review almost finished for today, but when I saw the news I knew I had to set that aside and find a movie about life on Venus. This one is a ridiculous Mexican film starring Lorena Velazquez from Samson vs the Vampire Women (looking only slightly less like Cher) and one of those amazing cardboard robots you only get in the very worst of late 50’s and early 60’s sci-fi.
An atomic war on the planet Venus has killed off all the males, so an expedition is sent out in search of replacements, consisting of a native Venusian named Gamma, her Uranian navigator Beta, and their robot Tor. After promising the Empress that they will bring back only the most manly of men, they wander the solar system a while collecting creatures with penises before an engine problem forces them to land on Earth. The first human they meet there is Laureano Gomez, a singing cowboy with a well-earned reputation for telling tall tales. One might assume one could predict the rest of the movie from there… but then Beta turns on Gamma and reveals that her true mission all along was to conquer a planet to feed the vampires of Uranus!
I gotta say… I did not see that coming.
The Ship of Monsters is supposed to be a comedy. It’s seldom funny when it’s trying to be, although it mercifully avoids being the kind of desperately unfunny a lot of bad comedies are… possibly this is because it’s in Spanish, and by the time I’ve realized something is stupid there’s another subtitle to distract me. The jokes, such as they are, are pretty standard. Tor the robot was created by an alien race, who were aware of Earth but never bothered exploring it because they thought the inhabitants weren’t very intelligent. Laureano is in the habit of telling ridiculous stories to his drinking buddies, so of course when he claims the Earth is being invaded by space monsters they don’t believe him. That sort of thing. The movie is much funnier when it’s just showing us absurd situations, but to nobody’s surprise, The Ship of Monsters is at its funniest when it’s trying to be serious.
This hilarity comes in many forms, covering just about all the possible bases for a dirt-cheap 1960 sci-fi film. We have spaceship sets made of cardboard, covered with buttons that don’t actually press and levers conveniently placed so people can bump into them during fight scenes. We have Tor, with his tin can body that’s always a little dinged up but never in the same places, giving us clues as to what order the scenes might have been shot in. He also has wiggly spring antennae and makes a little whirring noise every time he moves. We have space babes in silver bathing suits and glittery high heels. Vampire-Beta, sporting plastic fangs that look like they came from the bottom of a cereal box, could be the female counterpart to the guy from Dracula vs Frankenstein, and the puppet used to represent her in flight is nearly as bad as the one from The Devil Bat.
The ‘monsters’ of the title are a bulging-brained Martian prince, a scaly cyclops, a spidery creature with venomous fangs, and the mobile skeleton of what appears to be a *damn worwelf (he tells us that his race has Evolved Beyond Flesh... apparently not Beyond Bones, though). The costumes are all terrible, particularly the warwulf puppet, whose backbone extends into his mouth and who has to be carried around with his feet dangling in any shot that’s not a close-up. It’s nice, though, that a little imagination went into them, and somebody gave a bit of thought to the idea that a monstrous appearance is relative. The Martian tells Beta that he admires her ambition and might even marry her if she weren’t so ugly by his planet’s standards.
At the end, naturally, this alien invasion is defeated by Laureano, his twelve-year-old brother, and a cardboard robot, while Gamma just stands around and screams. With a movie like this I expect nothing less. The denouement contains my favourite intentional joke in the whole thing, in which Gamma stays on Earth with her True Love, and Tor the robot takes his, the Jukebox, back to Venus with him! Tom Servo would have given a speech to congratulate the happy couple, and I can just see him breaking down into happy tears before he got five lines in.
(The wirwalf skeleton is not present at the climactic fight, by the way… no explanation is offered, and I strongly suspect that they broke the puppet trying. I rather enjoy this omission, because it lets me imagine him getting lost or maybe buried by an enterprising dog, and finally finding his way back to the landing site only to learn that they’ve left without him.)
I called Laureano a cowboy but he only has one cow. Her name is Lolobrijida and she is the very first time I have ever seen a movie spur a hero into action by killing his cow. She gets a proper Teenagers from Outer Space death, with her skeleton left behind propped up by metal struts like a dinosaur in a museum!
I also called him a singing cowboy, which he is – there are several songs, including one in which he tries to explain to Gamma and Beta what ‘love’ means. The songs have pleasant but forgettable Mexican pop melodies, and none of the lyrics make a whole lot of sense. Being translated over-literally from Spanish probably didn’t do them any favours (my own Spanish tops out at yo no tengo dinero), but I still can’t imagine that the What Is Love song clarified anything.
Laureano himself comes across as kind of a fool, but he’s not actually a full-on idiot, which is quite important. If he were the kind of one-dimensional ‘comedic nitwit’ embodied in characters like Dropo, or the janitor from Reptilicus, he’d be insufferable. Laureano is no genius, but he’s got personality traits besides being stupid – he cares deeply for his little brother Chuy and for his animals, and he doesn’t treat Gamma and Beta’s appearance as two women for the price of one. Very quickly he decides that Gamma is the one he loves, and he sticks to that, doing his best to let Beta down gently even when she offers to make him a king. He’s also smart enough to trick Beta into dancing with him so he can steal the device she uses to control the rocket and Tor, and to listen to Gamma when she tells him about the various monsters’ weaknesses.
Gamma and Beta, on the other hand, don’t have a lot to them besides the basic fact that Gamma is the Nice One and Beta is Evil. Gamma starts out in the story with a strong sense of duty, and it’s a bit disappointing to see her abandon that because of Tru Luv. I would have liked the ending better if she’d taken Laureano home with her so that the two of them could be the Adam and Eve of the new Venusian race. Meanwhile, Beta shows no sign of any loyalty except to herself and her own ambition. Her original mission, to secure Earth as a blood supply for the Uranians, falls by the wayside as she decides she’s going to conquer and rule the planet herself.
So The Ship of Monsters isn’t exactly a feminist manifesto, but neither is it complete misogynistic garbage like Project Moon Base. The whole premise, after all, rests on a planet of women being able to develop space travel all on their own! This is a fairly surprising plot point, because in many ‘planet of women’ movies like Fire Maidens of Outer Space or Cat Women of the Moon, the ladies need the virile Earth Men to come to them.
There’s also a little bit of actual science peeking out of the cracks. The moment for launch of the rocket from Venus is determined by when ‘the elliptical orbits coincide’. Launch timing is, indeed, a delicate art depending very much on what’s orbiting where. There’s also the moment when, trying to land on Earth, Gamma and Beta worry that the friction, combined with our oxygen-rich atmosphere, will set their ship on fire. This stuff is pretty impressive coming from a time when the moon landing was still nearly a decade away. There are even a couple of scenes in zero gravity that honestly aren’t totally terrible. I mean, I’ve seen better, but I’ve also seen much, much worse.
There’s also one weirdly prescient moment when Laureano, telling one of his silly stories in the pub, describes being surrounded by dinosaurs – only to get a laugh a moment later when he mentions that they had beautiful plumage. I’m not sure whether this is meant to be a joke in that Laureano is exaggerating an actual encounter with an angry bird into something more fearsome (I think we’re to assume that the whole story is totally made up), or whether it’s just supposed to be funny that Laureano thinks dinosaurs had feathers instead of scales. Either way, it’s the equivalent of the moon Fornax in Menace from Outer Space being so reminiscent of Io. There’s no way the writers could have known that, but it’s interesting nonetheless.
The Ship of Monsters is very cheap and very dumb, but it’s good fun for those of us who like crummy old alien invasion movies, and I recommend it to anybody in that demographic. As for actual life on Venus… I feel like a lot of the people getting excited are too young to remember when Bill Clinton told the world that we had totally found life on Mars. Humans have been discovering life on other planets for about two hundred years and every single one of those ‘discoveries’ has turned out to be either a mistake or an outright lie. We have plenty enough to panic about this year without a Venusian invasion.
#mst3k#reviews#episodes that never were#the ship of monsters#cows in fridges#60s#tobor is robot spelled backwards
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Nightwing BTHB: Serum Injection
Stars: Done. Moon: Requested. Eye: Next
Summary: Thirteen year old Dick wakes up in the clutches of owls; a group of people insisting he belongs to them.
He thinks different.
[anon requested teen Dick Grayson being found out by the Court of Owls and kidnapped by them]
WARNINGS: GRAPHIC descriptions of blood and injury, non-consensual drugging, BRIEF THOUGHTS OF SELF HARM (but for only like a small paragraph), implied sort-of major character death, guys I really mess with Dick in this one. I’m pretty sure most of you reading this already love whump and violence but I still need you all to keep safe. Love you all! Let me know if I missed any triggers, I’m pretty sure I pinned down all the major ones though.
AO3 link
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Dick shivers and curls up tighter against the corner of his small cell, clutching his left wrist and trying not to bend his spine too much because of the whiplash crawling around in his chest cavity. He hopes Bruce is okay… Dick doesn't remember much of the circumstances of his kidnapping, but he does remember driving home with Bruce from school when all of a sudden his guardian went taunt like a bow string before swerving off the road into a ditch just a few miles from the manor.
Next thing Dick knew, he woke up in this small room that can't even really be called a small room. It's more like a closet. A long rectangle that if he lays one way he can lay flat on his back, but won't be able to spread his arms out as much. The door to the room is on one of the short walls, looking all ominous with small gaps between it and the doorframe, the lack of door knob, and it's marble sheen. The floor and walls are marble too, and the ceiling looks rocky like granite. A single bright light shines above him, easily illuminating the small space, leaving the only things shadowed be the top corners where four different cameras hide.
Dick can't tell if those cameras can record audio or not. They can definitely visualize, the lenses are clear enough to see, but otherwise Dick isn't as studied in camera technology like Bruce is; he can't just look at them and immediately know what they are, when they were made, the company that made them and it's CEO, and who invented that particular model. He'd have to get up close and personal with it and hold it in his hands and perhaps have a monitor to his side to use the internet to help him out.
But right now, the thought of moving sends pangs of pain down his spine and in his neck. He's had whiplash before. You don't go on high speed chases in the Batmobile and not end up with whiplash at some point or another. Robin has been a part of his fair share of spectacular crashes… through crashes in the Batmobile are usually cushioned by millions of dollars of technology Bruce invented to make the effects of whiplash little to none. Crashing the Batmobile is tame when compared to a Mustang. Lot less support, a lot more broken metal, and a whole lot more seatbelts crushing your lungs as you catapult in every direction before you finally smack your head on the dashboard and pass out.
So Dick stays sitting, scowling at the door and rubbing his wrist. He doesn't think it's broken, just bruised, but it hurts just enough that he definitely doesn't plan on moving it any time soon. If he wasn't close to shivering in this room, he'd have ripped off a section of his shirt by now to wrap it, but alas… he's cold. And it's not broken so it can last without a brace or anything for a little while longer.
He just hopes his abductors reveal themselves soon and they tell him what they did with Bruce. Maybe he's just stuffed in a room somewhere different until a ransom is paid and then Gordon and the cops will storm in here and save them. Dick's been kidnapped plenty of times, and in all kinds of ways too. He knows how this goes. He'll be fine as long as he acts like a scared, thirteen year old Dick Grayson and not Robin the superhero. As long as he whimpers and cries and weakly and sloppily tries to struggle, he'll be okay.
He'll be okay.
He just hopes Bruce is too. Dick can't imagine what could happen to make the man just swerve off the road like that.
There's a scraping noise, a heavy door opening against solid ground, and Dick's snapped out of his thoughts. Instinctively, he curls up tighter, wincing as the back of his neck protests with a stiff yet stabbing pain and a wave of light-headedness washes over him. He keeps forgetting about the egg on his temple. The concussion from his most recent face-meet-dashboard episode. He's poked and prodded at it perhaps a half hour earlier, but he isn't completely out of it and it just hurts more than anything, but right now it makes it really difficult to completely focus on the forms of people who are standing right outside the door… just standing there, staring at him.
They… don't look like a typical "Dick Grayson" kidnapper. Or well, there's a couple different kinds of Dick Grayson kidnappers. The kinds of people Dick finds himself often in the clutches of are either high end, prestigious assholes who have a grudge against Bruce for some reason or other, or down on their luck thugs who want a quick buck. These people standing before him? They look like Robin kidnappers.
Meaning they're dressed in costumes and giving off a very… very dangerous vibe.
Dick immediately takes stock of them. Three are dressed similar to each other, in dresses or suits or gowns, their faces all covered by an eerie mask that looks like it could be based off an owl. The fourth guy though… he's the one who's giving Dick major red flags. He's muscular and taller than the others and his costume is black and leather and terrifying to look at. There's a hood pulled over his face, shaped like an owl who got steampunk goggles somewhere and that also gave off the shivering effect of light reflecting off of nocturnal eyes.
These look like genuine bad guys.
One of the masked ones steps forward, a woman in a low collared pink gown with lace lining the sleeves down to the middle of her forearms. Her blonde hair is all done up behind her, beads lining the braids until it all sits in a nice and perfect rose-shaped bun at the top of her head. She crosses her arms around her chest, and even with the mask Dick feels like she's studying him like he's a mouse in a glass cage.
"This is the Gray Son of Gotham?" She asks, clearly referring to Dick which throws him off for a number of reasons.
Normally, when he's kidnapped as Dick, people don't normally ever call him by name. First or last. It's always "brat" or "freak" or "that Wayne [insert "brat" or "freak" here]. It's something they do to lie to themselves that they hadn't just kidnapped, tied up, and locked up a kid. Calling him Wayne also makes it clear that they couldn't care less about him personally, they just want Bruce. They don't care that he's just a ward and that Bruce Wayne isn't his dad. They don't care about these things because he may not be adopted by Bruce Wayne, but he's definitely an easy-access key to his bank account.
But these guys called him Grayson. And not even Grayson, but they said it weirdly with an oddly purposeful space and a title added at the end. He wonders if it's a reference about how Bruce is normally jokingly known among the high class citizens as the White Knight of Gotham—a play on words to Batman's take of the Dark Knight of Gotham despite how they don't even know the half of it—but he doesn't get a chance to wonder long before the scary owl guy steps forward, looking directly at Dick with his shining eyes.
"It is, my Court," he says and Dick has to suppress a shiver, "he has finally returned to where he belongs, just like I promised."
"Hmm," the woman says, still staring at Dick as she brings a silk gloved hand to her chin in thought. "And you will take personal responsibility over his education?"
"Education?" Dick asks before he could think better of it. The cold air in the room becomes icy as every person's attention seems to zero in on him. Then, without any prompting, the fully costumed man suddenly strides forward and Dick almost doesn't have to fake a surprised yelp as his upper arm is easily grabbed, fingers wrapping around his limb hard enough to definitely leave bruises as he's forced to his feet; the grasp on him unrelenting as his arm is held higher than his head, forcing him to his tip toes.
Dick goes to wrap his hand around the grasp in an attempt for freedom, but he's painfully reminded of his injured wrist and all he can do is hold it to his chest as he tries to yank his arm out of the grasp on its own power. It doesn't do a thing, in fact the man's grip just tightens heartlessly.
"Of course, my Court," the owl man says, voice silky and dangerous, "I will see to all his education, starting now."
Dick cries out as his bad wrist is grabbed and held just as tightly.
The man bends to get in his face, those horrid eyes glowing dangerously and setting something nervous and scared aflame in his gut. "Lesson one: you will not speak unless addressed and given permission to speak. You will treat the Court with respect. Understand?”
Dick can only nod even though he has no clue what's going on or who these people are, but the nod seems to be enough because he's released. He gasps and scrambles backwards until his back meets the far wall, holding his pulsing wrist to his chest and blinking viscously to staunch the tears caused by the pain.
The owl man straightens with a suffocating aura of intimidation.
"I will turn him into the best Talon this Court has ever seen," the man says, voice prideful and boding ill-will. "We will not let you down."
"We will allow you to train him," the woman says, sounding pleased, "but know if he doesn't show his worth within the week, you both will be severely punished."
Dick feels a shiver go down his spine. If he could see the look on the owl man's face, Dick's sure a smirk would be sitting poisonous on his lips. "Trust me, my Court. He will surpass me. I will make sure of it."
-o-o-o-o-
Want more? This is but a small 1-2k of a 16k one-shot. Read the rest on AO3!
#dick grayson#nighting#court of owls#talon dick grayson#batman comics#fanfiction#fan fic#bad things happen bingo#jin writes#whump#angst#ao3 link
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Josh,
Sorry it’s been a while. Life has been... intense. The good news this week is I got my first offer to study medicine! I’m going to be a bloody doctor! Knowing you, you’d have joked that you’d still earn more than me in a computer science job, but luckily I’m not doing it for the money. I’m so excited to start already, but also a little nervous. It’s gonna be a whole new city, a whole new course, a whole new group of people. I’m definitely ready for it but just...wow! I can’t believe it’s happening!
However, in other news my faith in humanity has done all but recover and the squad we used to have is definitely dead as a dodo now. Or dead as you I suppose (I had to sorry!). Long story short, me and A are understandably at risk of serious illness if we catch Covid due to our underlying health issues, so the government advice is to shield. This basically means staying inside, avoiding all shops etc. even if they’re open and just generally doing everything remotely. E is perfectly fine with helping us with this and I will always be eternally grateful to them for that. ID, however, had other ideas.
She started by making excuses for breaking the rules, “it isn’t sustainable to shop online”, “I keep forgetting”. Then she tried to lie to us despite us showing her scientific articles to the contrary, “it isn’t even that much of a risk going into shops”. Finally, she admitted that she just couldn’t put someone other than herself first, although of course she never said it in so many words. She told us she “never agreed to shield indefinitely” and didn’t deny wanting and intending to break other shielding (and lockdown) rules too (As if we ever agreed to being chronically ill in a pandemic). We know her friends are having regular, illegal house parties and suspect she wanted to go to those too.
The stress alone from anticipating the risk she would be when she moved back in was too much. Somewhat ironically, given my low mood was due to my wanting to remain healthy, it had me contemplating suicide.
Ultimately, we told her (politely) to fuck off and find somewhere else to live. She did, but only after we agreed to pay the rest of her rent for the contract she has here. Paying 400 quid a month just to be safe in our own home, that’s what life has come to.
Are you surprised, Josh? I like to hope that you would be, because knowingly being friends with someone so selfish wouldn’t make you look too good either. And yet, by the time this happened I wasn’t shocked. An encounter earlier in the year made me aware she had clearly been complaining about me to her newly acquired, questionable group of friends. Plus she made no effort to maintain friendships with me, A or E, even when she knew we were struggling for several reasons. Part of me wants to think that she changed. That she used to be someone worth being friends with and that life just twisted her. But honestly, the fact that she stood by her girlfriend in first year after she was transphobic towards me and told me to take my life, that should have been my first clue. I guess I was too willing to overlook things and see the good in people. What I’ve learnt from this is that there’s a difference between being good and being neutral, not actively malicious, but never willing to put others first. ID is definitely the latter.
The thing is, it doesn’t hurt. In a way it just confirmed what I’ve already been feeling throughout this pandemic: that people don’t give a shit about disabled people. That people don’t give a shit about me. Honestly, I’m numb to it. I hate it, it angers me but I think my body shields me from the pain that it could cause because I simply wouldn’t cope.
I have to admit though, I don’t think I’ll ever get my head around it. How can people just be so inherently selfish? It genuinely just confuses me. Surely it’s just against human nature, we’re a social species after all. Part of me wonders if it’s from years of wealth and privilege. But I mean, we used to tease you about your parents having a wine cellar (I mean a fucking wine cellar!) and you didn’t turn out an utter cunt. Granted, we never asked you to put your life on hold to keep us safe, but I’m pretty sure you would have done it. You gave a shit, you had a soul. Fuck knows what ID sold hers for.
Anyway, that’s my update for now. One good thing happens and plenty of shite follows. At least life is consistent with that (joking- I’m begging for it to change)!
Love always, Josh,
C
#c rambles#c talks#life#medical school#medicine#graduate medicine#medicine applicant#lockdown#shielding#coronavirus#covid19#news#depressed#depression#suicide#suicidal#suicidal thoughts#suicide prevention#mental health#mental illness#mental health awareness#grief#grieving#mourning#bereaved#bereavement
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Moshing
so i read this post by @lllluka and it totally gave me flashbacks to the one time I was at a concert and threw myself into a mosh pit, so I felt like I had to write something for it in like an hour lol, hope you guys enjoy!
This had to be the most painful looking experience Marinette had ever witnessed.
She was sitting on a picnic blanket a bit away from the main crowd near the front of the stage, watching with horror-filled eyes as the crowd slammed into each other over and over again in time with the blasting music. People were jumping up and down, running into each other at full speed, and Marinette was pretty sure she could see some blood on the grass beneath the crowds feet.
Beside her, Adrien was watching the crowd with an identical expression. Neither of them had ever been to a real metal concert before, and it was… an experience to say the least.
The music was great, that was a fact. Marinette loved this kind of music, and hearing it loud enough to burst her eardrums just made the experience all that much more enjoyable. The only part she was iffy on was the mosh pit writhing in front of the stage.
“Doesn’t that hurt?” Marinette asked after a moment, turning to where Luka was sitting on her other side with a worried frown.
Luka shrugged. “It can, but it kind of just depends on how willing you are to shove people away from you. Plus, it’s a huge adrenaline rush, so you really don’t feel any pain because you’re so filled with energy.”
“Huh,” Marinette turned to look back at the crowd, noticing how every person in the pit seemed to be having the time of their life.
“It’s a lot of fun, Marinette!” A small voice quipped from in front of her. Glancing up, Marinette looked to Rose, who was giving her a sweet smile.
“Rose? You’ve moshed before?” She asked, raising an eyebrow at the tiny girl.
Someone snorted behind her. “Rose is literally the only person in Kitty Section who likes throwing herself in the pit,” Ivan explained, wrapping an arm around Mylene as he spoke.
Beside her, Adrien gasped. “Rose? You go in that thing?” He asked, staring at the girl with a mixture of admiration and terror. “Have you ever gotten hurt?”
Rose giggled. “Yeah! It’s a lot of fun, honestly. I know it seems scary, but trust me once you’re in there you’re not thinking about anything else except how much you want to move. And yeah, I’ve gotten a few bruises here and there, but nothing terrible! It’s totally worth it in my opinion.” Rose then turned back to look at the crowd, and Marinette noticed it was slowing down as the song came to an end. “Speaking of, I think I’m gonna hop in there right now! Does anyone wanna join me?”
Marinette and Adrien shared wide-eyed looks before they both shook their heads. Luka laughed, and Marinette turned to give him a fake glare.
“Why don’t you go in there, Luka?” Marinette asked, the challenge obvious in her voice.
“Nah, not my thing,” Luka said with a shrug.
“Juleka?” Marinette then questioned, turning back to glance at the dark-haired girl.
“No way,” Juleka answered, her bangs swaying as she shook her head no.
“So Rose is just going in there by herself?” Rose didn’t seem concerned about this, but Marinette was worried the small girl might get crushed by the crowd and no one would be able to find her.
Suddenly, a booming voice shouted from behind.
“OF COURSE NOT!” Whipping around, Marinette was met with the manic grin of Anarka Couffaine, who was making her way to the group with her hands on her hips. When she walked up to Rose, she threw an arm around the blonde’s shoulders. “I’ll be goin’ in there with Rose! She’s the only one of you kids who can keep up with me!”
Okay, that wasn’t a surprise.
“Marinette! Adrien! Do either of ya want to join us?” Anarka then asked, her eyes glittering behind her glasses.
Both shook their heads no, and Anarka shrugged. “Your choice. If ya change yer mind, feel free to hop in!” With that, she and Rose headed to the crowd just as the next song began to pick up.
“I hope they’re okay,” Adrien said quietly. “Father always said heavy metal concerts were dangerous.”
“Wait then how are you here right now?” Mylene asked.
Adrien smirked, and Marinette felt her cheeks heat up at the sight. “My father doesn’t know I’m at a heavy metal concert. He thinks I’m working on a school project with Alya.” It was true. Marinette knew Alya and Adrien had taken several pictures together at Alya’s house before the concert so that if Adrien’s father asked for evidence that he was there, Adrien would be alright.
From their blanket on the grass, Marinette couldn’t make out a ton of detail in the mosh pit, but she could spot Rose’s short gold hair near the center of the pit. Every few seconds, she’d get a glimpse of Anarka as well, who was even further in the center than Rose was. Both seemed to be having the time of their lives, and as the minutes passed, Marinette’s fear waned.
The music was back and louder than ever, and the beat was infectious. Marinette’s foot tapped in time with the beat, Luka patted out a rhythm on his thighs, and Adrien hummed along. It was a cold fall afternoon, and Marinette tilted her head back to take a deep breath of the crisp air.
After a few minutes of just listening and enjoying, Marinette pulled out her phone to add this to her instagram story. She loaded up the app, and was about to click on the ‘add to story’ button, when she noticed the first post in her feed and frowned.
It was Lila. The picture she posted was a selfie with Jagged Stone, who looked like he’d rather be anywhere but taking a picture with the brunette. Lila was smiling brightly and holding up Jagged’s latest album, and Marinette was going to just click away before she noticed the caption.
Had a great time seeing the private Jagged Stone concert last night! It was great to catch up with him, and he even said I could design his next album cover! Love you, Jagged!
Marinette blinked. That was in no way true. Lila had zero graphic design experience, and even if she did, Jagged would never have offered to let her design his album cover. He’d already talked about letting Marinette design it again, considering how well-received her first design was.
Even though she knew it was a bad idea, Marinette grit her teeth as she clicked to the comments. There were choruses of you’re so cool, Lila! And omg I can’t believe I know someone who’s friends with Jagged Stone and You’re gonna do great, Lila!
Marinette hated this. She hated how Lila could lie about anything and get away with it. She noticed how Lila didn’t tag Jagged Stone in her picture, probably to minimize any chance of him seeing her lie and calling her out on it. This was so unfair.
It was a familiar anger that came over Marinette the longer she stared at the picture. She wanted to comment something to call her out, but she had no evidence to back up that she was lying. Her hands curled into fists, and she knew she needed to calm down soon.
The song changed again, and Marinette looked up to see the pit still going crazy. Everyone was bouncing and shoving each other, and in that moment, nothing sounded more enjoyable to Marinette than getting to shove a few people around while listening to her favorite kind of music.
“I’m gonna go in,” she said without thinking.
“What?!” Adrien gasped beside her. She turned to meet his worried gaze, and while normally she would melt at a look like that from him, right now her sole focus was on getting in that pit.
“I’ll be fine, don’t worry,” she reassured him. Next to her, she felt Luka rest a hand on her arm.
“If you need anything, text me and I’ll run in there,” Luka said quietly.
“Thanks Luka, but it’s just a mosh pit. I’ll be fine!” She said, even though she had no clue how this was going to go.
Getting up before she could psych herself out of it, Marinette pocketed her phone and made her way over to the edge of the pit. The music was much louder closer to the stage, and Marinette could feel the bass reverberating in her bones. She saw a mix of teenagers and adults, most of them much taller than her, all shoving each other and bouncing around like it was the end of the world. Marinette craned her neck and was able to to spot Rose and Anarka still jumping up and down near the center.
Taking a breath, Marinette reminded herself she’d jumped off the Eiffel Tower plenty of times before, and pushed her way into the fray.
The minute she stepped inside the pit, Marinette was swept away. She was being shoved at all angles, and her vision was spinning as she tried to keep up. She jumped up and down, trying to look for where Rose and Anarka were, but she couldn’t stay in a single place for more than a second to look. The music was pounding in her ears, and she was being pushed from side to side so fast she could barely breathe. Her heart was pounding and she felt terrified, but… it wasn’t bad?
Deciding to try and focus on the music, Marinette felt a hand shove her forward, and she stumbled before catching herself. Straightening back up, she barely had time to take a breath before she was being pushed to the left. Then the right. Then forward. Then backward. Every second she was being shoved by someone. It was dizzying.
Marinette then remembered why she came into the pit, and when Lila’s smiling face came into her head, she felt her anger return. She got shoved again, and this time she shoved back. She wasn’t looking at who she was pushing, and it didn’t matter. The music was blasting and Marinette was dancing and holy shit Rose was right this was fun.
The writhing mass of bodies was like one being as the crowd swelled and ebbed in time with the music. Marinette didn’t think, she just moved. Her heart was racing, she was covered in sweat, and she couldn’t stop smiling.
The song slowly came to an end, and the crowd calmed down. Marinette was breathing heavily, and her entire body was already sore, but she felt better than she had in days. She waited for the music to pick up again so she could go back to her dancing, but there was only quiet.
“Okay guys!” The singer suddenly announced from the front. The crowd perked to attention, and Marinette looked to the long-haired man with the microphone in his hands. “I want the pit to split down the middle. We’re doing a wall of death!” Suddenly a deafening roar of cheers erupted from all around, and Marinette glanced to the other people in confusion. What was a wall of death?
Suddenly, the crowd split and Marinette felt herself being pushed backwards. Her half of the pit all lined up along one edge of the circle, and her eyes darted around as she tried to find where Rose and Anarka had went.
Then, there was a hand on her arm, and Marinette turned to meet Rose’s sweet smile.
“Marinette! You decided to join us!” Rose exclaimed excitedly.
“Uh, yeah, I thought it looked fun,” Marinette said, laughing awkwardly. “But, um, what’s this ‘wall of death’?”
From behind Rose, Anarka chuckled. “Oh dearie, yer gonna see in a minute. Just follow our lead, when we run, you run!”
Marinette’s eyes widened as she turned to see the other half of the pit, and the music picked up once more. The energy in each side of the crowd seemed to grow with each passing second, the other concert-goers tapping their feet or bouncing a bit as the chorus drew closer. A part of Marinette wondered what the hell she was doing, but she’d been having fun so far, so hopefully this wall of death didn’t turn out too bad.
Back at the picnic blanket, Tikki was sitting in Marinette’s purse, watching the wall of death form with wide eyes. Human music traditions certainly had gotten… stranger in the past few centuries. She just hoped that Marinette didn’t come back with a black eye.
The beat drop got closer, and Marinette felt her heart rate pick up. She glanced to Rose, who gave her a thumbs up, and her breathing quickened. At the front of the crowd, the singer held a hand up as he sang the last note of the verse.
And then, the hand dropped, and Rose grabbed Marinette’s arm before sprinting forward.
Everything in the crowd was such a jumbled mess of pushing and shoving and dancing, and Marinette couldn’t tell which way was right and which way was left as the crowds slammed together. At one point she felt an elbow hit her face, but she was too hopped up on adrenaline to even mind it.
By the time Marinette made her way out of the pit, all thoughts of Lila were erased from her head. All she could think of was how much fun she just had, and also how ready she was for a nap. Somehow, Rose and Anarka were still going.
The girl approached the picnic blanket again, and Marinette gave a shy wave to her friends as they all stared at her in shock. As she got closer though, Adrien gasped and rushed forward.
“Marinette you’re bleeding!” He exclaimed. Marinette’s eyes widened as she tried to figure out where she’d gotten hurt, but she didn’t even get a chance to ask where before Luka was right by her side.
“I’m bleeding?” She asked as both boys gaped at her.
“Yeah, your nose,” Adrien said quietly, reaching forward a bit with his hand before pulling back. Reaching up with her hand, Marinette wiped at her nose, and was surprised when a bit of dried blood showed up on the back of her palm.
Luka rested his hands on her shoulders and peered close to her face. “Did you get hit in the face?”
“Yeah, someone did elbow me in the nose, but it didn’t hurt so I just figured it was fine,” Marinette said with a shrug.
“Here, I have tissues,” Adrien said, rushing back to his messenger bag. He pulled out a small pack of kleenex and handed it to her, and Marinette blushed as she took it from him.
“Thank you,” she muttered, bringing the tissues up to wipe at the dried blood on her upper lip. Beside her, Luka shifted and threaded an arm around her waist, and led her back to sit on the picnic blanket.
She sat in between the two boys, ignoring their identical worried expressions as she finished cleaning the blood off. She was probably going to be covered in bruises tomorrow, but for now she felt fantastic.
“How was it?” Adrien asked after Marinette had cleaned herself up. “I watched you in there and it seemed terrifying.”
Marinette laughed. “No, Rose was right, it’s super fun.”
“You enjoyed that?” Luka asked, the surprise obvious on his face.
Marinette nodded. “Yup! And after I take a breather I’m gonna go back in there!”
Both boys immediately shook their heads. “No way,” they said in unison.
This made Marinette frown. “But-”
“Please don’t go in there again, at least not today. You got hurt,” Adrien said softly, resting a hand on her shoulder.
Marinette’s breath caught in her throat, and she felt a warm hand take hers.
“It’s your first pit, Marinette. Don’t push yourself,” Luka said, squeezing her hand.
With both boys looking so worried about her, Marinette’s face was practically on fire.
“Well… alright then.”
Marinette spent the rest of the concert squeezed in between Adrien and Luka, and she had to admit, she wasn’t that disappointed about not going in the pit again. Though the next time she went to a metal concert, she knew exactly where she was going to be.
#hi welcome to i cant write anything short with reese#miraculous ladybug#my writing#my fic#adrienette#lukanette#drabble#kitty section
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