Asynchronous
(Rift era, pre-Crisis, not nearly as much sc angst as the gif implies)
Where am I?, Kara thought, her body shaking as she pushed herself off the floor she had apparently crashed into, trying to stand. How long was I unconscious?
Her head was killing her. Pain was a rarity under a yellow sun, and in this case the feeling was hard to shake - it was just all too reminiscent of not long ago, when she was trapped in kryptonite, fighting burning lungs and a blinding headache while fighting heartbreak at the same time.
But she needed to not think about Lena right now.
Kara searched her mind for the last thing she remembered, Brainy’s words transmitted to her ears, telling her about the capabilities of the alien creature she was fighting. The creature was generally docile enough - but in a panic, it would thrash and quake, and it had the unique ability to…
Where… When am I?, Kara thought, looking around at the building whose ceiling she had fallen into. The creature could send her anywhere in time and space - forward or back in time, across the planet or galaxy, it didn’t matter. The good news is that the effect would be temporary in nature, lasting a day at most, before she snapped back into place, something about attenuated vibrations. “Time is like a rubber band,” Brainy had said, though Kara was certain she could hear pain in his attempt to simplify the explanation.
Kara heard the buzz of a portal behind her, the quick cock of a gun. “Don’t move,” came the familiar voice. “These aren’t ordinary bullets.”
Kara turned slowly, deflating under the hard eyes of her ex-best-friend. Lena was tense and angry, her finger resting on the trigger, her other hand on a tracking device. My heat signature, Kara thought, Guess she has kryptonite bullets now.
Lena’s eyes narrowed as she reached to her belt, before tossing vibrant green cuffs in Kara’s direction. “Put those on.”
Kara lowered herself to the floor, taking the cuffs, feeling the burn in her hands. She couldn’t really fathom Lena trying to kill her. But after the disruption of Lena’s Myriad plan, and now being held at gunpoint… “Lena, what are - what are you going to do?”
“How do you know my name?” Lena growled.
Kara’s eyes widened. Anywhere in time and space… “Who do you think I am?” Kara asked.
“Is that a joke?” Lena asked, as Kara’s mind revved into overdrive. “You think you can come back, with cartoonish S on your chest, and we’ll forget the Third Reich?”
Fear sank into Kara’s stomach. Earth X. “Lena, I know this looks like-”
“Through the portal. Now.”
-----------
Kara found herself sitting in an interrogation room.
Her mind was scrambling for what Barry had said had become of Earth X - she remembered that, in the aftermath, the Third Reich had fallen to the Resistance, which was trying to rebuild a non-fascist society. But she knew the balance had to be fragile. The Reich had its proponents.
But Kara didn’t have long to think, before another familiar face walked into the room. “Winn!” Kara said, jumping up.
“Sit down,” Winn growled back.
Kara tensed, shaking off her confusion as she slowly sank to her chair, as Winn gave Lena a skeptical look. Right, he’s not the Winn I know either…
Lena shrugged. “She knew my name, too.”
“You’re both my friends,” Kara said softly, “On my Earth.”
Winn ignored her words, stepping around the table to take a seat at its corner. “We need to know if the Führer is still alive.”
“He’s dead,” Kara said, meeting Winn’s eyes. “As is his wife.”
Winn’s eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“I was sent here by accident,” Kara answered. “At some point in the next day or so, I’ll snap back to my own Earth.” If you don’t kill me first, she thought.
“And how do I know you’re from another Earth?” Winn demanded.
“You met my sister,” Kara whispered, thinking back to Alex’s stories when they were separated on Earth X, years ago. “Alex Danvers. On my Earth, she’s your friend too.”
“You,” Winn said skeptically. “I’m friends with you.”
“I’m not from your Earth,” Kara said. “I’m not asking you to trust me. Just let me live long enough to go back to my own time.”
-----------
Kara fidgeted as she sat alone in the room again - watching, waiting, itching against the bounds of her kryptonite cuffs.
She was certain that Winn and Lena - possibly others - were debating what to do with her. Hopefully they don't just kill me, Kara thought, searching her mind for how she might prove she’s not from their Earth.
But the door opened again.
Lena stepped in quietly, eyes on Kara. But the anger was subdued from before. She was curious. “Lena,” Kara whispered.
The wariness wasn’t gone from Lena’s stance, but she sat across from Kara. “What’s it like, on your Earth?”
Kara smiled. My Lena would be curious about the other Earths too, she thought. “The Third Reich ended in 1945. We’re… far from a perfect world. But we haven’t had the struggle that you’ve had.”
“And you and I are friends?”
Kara’s expression faltered, as she glanced down at her hands. “We used to be. We used to be best friends.”
“What happened?”
Kara bit at her lip, unable to look Lena in the eye. “I betrayed you. You hate me now.”
Lena’s brows furrowed. “That doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that would help your cause.”
“I’m not going to lie to you again,” Kara said. “I’ve done too much of that. The other you, I mean.”
Lena frowned, and Kara could see some of the tension in her body rise again. “What happened to my Earth’s Kara? How did she die?”
“Her heart was dying from too much solar exposure,” Kara said. “I took her up into the atmosphere before her body… it started a nuclear reaction.”
“And the Führer?”
“Oliver from another Earth killed him.”
Lena’s eyebrows briefly raised. “Winn met him, apparently.”
“Yeah. My sister was there too.”
-----------
Kara itched at her bonds again, wishing there was a clock she could check. I don’t know how much time would be left anyway, she thought to herself. But at least I’d know…
She was surprised to hear the door open again. Lena walked through with a cup and some bread, placing both in front of Kara on the table. “You must be hungry,” she said.
“Thank you,” Kara murmured, leaning forward and beginning to eat.
“What did you lie to me about?” Lena asked. “On your Earth?”
Kara swallowed harshly. “I- I kept my kryptonian identity from you. Kryptonians and Luthors don’t get along.”
“Luthors?”
Kara’s brow crinkled. “Are you a Walsh, here?”
Lena nodded slowly.
“Your mother…” Kara asked. “She’s alive?”
Lena’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
Kara smiled. She got to be raised by Elizabeth, she thought. “Are the Luthors alive? On this Earth?”
“No,” Lena said. “Alexander Luthor was the last Führer, before Oliver Queen. There was a power struggle.”
Kara nodded. “You were raised by the Luthors. On my Earth. So when I hid my identity, and became friends with you… you didn’t take it well when you found out.”
Lena looked on curiously. “The secret? Drove me to hate you?”
Kara shook her head. “There were other mistakes I made. In the aftermath. I… hurt you pretty badly.”
“So what did I do next?”
“You tried to brainwash the world.”
Lena’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“To make everyone kind.”
Lena’s brow raised. I guess that resonates, Kara thought. In a world full of fascists…
“I can see the appeal,” Lena said.
-----------
Kara was fascinated. And bored.
Her only company was Lena, on and off. She was grateful when Lena came in with food, and over the moon when Lena came in to exchange Kara’s kryptonite cuffs with far less painful power cuffs.
But her moments with Lena were few and far between given her apparent other responsibilities, leaving Kara staring up at the ceiling for long stretches of time.
She found herself torn, thoughts of “When will I be able to go home?” warring with “I hope my Lena looks at me like that again someday.”
-----------
“Are you happy here?” Kara asked. “Are you- are you with anyone?”
Lena smiled. “I met him a year ago,” she said. “We butted heads on technical projects. Trying to rebuild our society’s infrastructure. But something more came of it.”
Kara smiled. “Jack?”
Lena’s eyes widened, and she nodded. “Jack.”
Kara nodded too. “I’m glad you have someone.”
Lena tilted her head curiously. “Were we more than friends?”
“You and Jack? Yeah, on my Earth-”
“No,” Lena clarified. “You and I. What were we to each other?”
Oh. “No,” Kara said, shifting uncomfortably. “We were only ever friends.”
“Is that all you wanted?”
“I just- don’t think it’s relevant to you-”
“I don’t know what I’m like on your Earth,” Lena said, leaning forward on her arms. “But if someone hurt me so badly that I try to brainwash the world about it, I think that person must’ve meant something to me.”
Kara bit her lip.
Lena’s brow quirked. “If your plan is to never lie to me again, that seems like the sort of thing you should tell me. Other me.”
Kara laughed, her heart twinging with joy and pain. “If we ever get along again, I’ll tell you.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
-----------
“Why are you trusting me?” Kara asked curiously.
“What do you mean?” Lena asked, in a tone that was more coy than confused.
“You just seem less suspicious of me than before,” Kara shrugged. “In the beginning.”
Lena’s lips quirked, taking a moment to consider Kara. She then raised her hand, twisting it slightly, causing a small yellow glow to appear. Kara noted in shock that there seemed to be a glow passing over her own body, too. “What’s happen- what are you doing?”
“Just making your temporal shift visible,” Lena said. “I scanned you after our first meeting. I can’t prove you’re not from this Earth, but I can prove that you’re not where the universe expects you to be right now.”
“I’m sorry, but-” Kara sputtered. “But are you using magic?”
“Lena doesn’t have magic on your Earth?” Lena said.
“I can’t even get my Lena to believe in magic,” Kara said with a laugh. “Rao, this is amazing.”
Kara glanced up, and found Lena smiling.
-----------
“How long have I been here?” Kara asked.
“About 12 hours,” Lena said. “Honestly, I’d let you go. But Winn said it might cause a panic anyway, if too many people see you walking around.”
Kara sat back for a moment. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
-----------
It was at the 17 hour mark - just after Lena had brought in more food - that Kara’s hands began to glow. “What are you doing now?” Kara asked.
“Nothing,” Lena said, leaning forward to eye the glow. “I think you’re being pulled back.”
“Oh,” Kara said, glancing up at the alternate Lena. What should I say? “Thank you,” Kara murmured. “Thanks for being good company.”
“Give me time,” Lena said gently.
“Time?”
“I’ll come to my senses,” Lena said, thinking to herself, nodding. “I- I know there’s baggage. But at some point, I will come to my senses. I’ll come back to you.”
Kara smiled. “I hope so.”
“Good luck, Kara Zor-El.”
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Kara found herself falling. No longer cuffed, no longer in a dark dusty room - but bathed in sunlight and breathing fresh air. Earth-38, she thought gratefully.
She blinked, shooting upwards in the sky again, hearing shouting in her ear. “Kara?” came Brainy’s panicked voice. “Kara, are you still there?”
“I’m here,” Kara gasped, looking over National City.
“Must’ve lost you for a minute,” Brainy said. “The creature is by the arboretum. We’ve finished making the power net, J’onn is flying it over.”
Kara glanced to the north, but her ears were fixating somewhere southeast, locating a familiar heartbeat. We’ll figure it out, Kara thought, clinging to Earth X Lena’s words.
We’ll get there, in the end. “I’m on my way.”
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Hi!!
I am totally obsessed with your fics!!! Your writing 🤌💕
I just wanted to request a fic where the reader is new to the task force but she's experienced and tough. Vibez similar to Ghost to elaborate she's more scary than Ghost cuz of her past maybe she was experimented on or trained brutally....
Reader is working hard to prove herself even if everyone knows she's the most lethal person. So one time she gets injured badly while protecting someone from the 141( probably Ghost 👉👈) and she wakes up has an emotional moment Ghost comes know about her Trauma . More like hurt/comfort....
Happy Writing 💝
Guilt-Tripped
CW: Mentions/references of kidnapping, torture, canon typical violenece
Part 2, Part 3
Hiii Anon!! First off, thank you! Secondly, I am so, so, so sorry for how long this took😭 I did make this a two parter, the first part is kinda like backstoryish and the second part will be the actual story. I was gonna wait until I finished both to post but you have been waiting for way to long so I'll give you the first part now instead of waiting, again I am so sorry! I hope you like it :))
Summary: F!Reader was a part of a special program(LMK if you can guess what it is) and once she was released she joined the military.
WC: 1467
As always, I didn't proof read so lmk if there are any mistakes :3
Life had not been kind to you. Ripped from your family at a very young age, you had never known the type of love and safety a nurturing home could provide. Instead, you grew up in the confines of a Russian base, with cruel instructors and a dwindling group of girls as your only companions.
From the moment you could walk, you had been told you were a weapon. A lethal force to be honed and trained, nothing more than a tool for others to use to further their games. Brainwashed, tortured, and trained into submission, a perfect puppet. Both your brain and body were sculpted into absolute perfection, a rigorous process most people did not survive. By day, they trained to be a lethal force, an unstoppable, unnoticeable, killing machine. At night, you were handcuffed to your bed, listening to the screams of students who did not make the cut.(to this day you sleep handcuffed)
You watched, at first in horror, then with a sense of detachment, as your friendsrivals bit the dust, unable to keep up with what the program demanded of them. It got better as you got older, less girls died from their tasks. But in some ways it got worse. It was a competition now, a fight to see who would remain victorious, to see who would come out on top. It was not a place for friendship and comradery, and you learned that quickly.
You stopped trying to make friends with the other students when you were forced to shoot your best friend in the head after giving her some of your dinner when she was being punished. You were 8. And you stopped trying to even just be friendly with the other girls at 10 years old, when the instructor broke every bone in your hands after your bunkmate framed you for something you didn't do. To this day your hands are not the same, always hurting and forever scarred.
Your world was kill or be killed, and you'd be dammed if you didn't come out on top.
And come out on top you did. You graduated top of your class, a position you had fought and killed for, won through bloodshed and pain. If you had a conscience, it would have been screaming at you for the things you had done to get to the top(You laid awake every night consumed by guilt and grief)
The program was disbanded(re: destroyed) when you hit 18, just two weeks after your 'graduation'. You were given two options: Join the American military, or face a life sentence in prison.
You had a lifetime of sins to atone for, and knew there was only one way to even begin to ease your guilt. Two days later your background was sealed up and you were shipped off to boot camp.
And you excelled. This was nothing to you. What was a six mile run when you used to run until you passed out, then wake up and keep going? What was surviving on four hours of sleep when sleep deprivation had been the norm your whole life? What was any of this compared to what you had been forced to do everyday since you were five?
You scared your instructors. And the other recruits. And everyone else you came into contact with. And you were fine with that. You didn't like when people got close to you anyhow.
Love got you nowhere in the world. It was a lesson you learned hard and fast. You did not care for others, they did not care for you. And you liked it that way. Until you met the 141.
A woman named General Laswell came to you one day with a job offer. Well, not a job offer exactly, but more of a…transfer of positions. A small, (mostly)four-man team that she oversaw.
You had gotten disciplined for beating the ever-loving shit out of a recruit the week before, and Laswell had watched it all unfold. She went back to her office, read your full file, and decided you would make a good fit for John's team.
You took a look at your bunk, at the trunk that held zero worldly possessions, realized there is nothing for you here, and said yes.
Price had not wanted a new recruit, and told Laswell as much. She simply said he had a penchant for picking up strays and left your file on his desk. It took him a week to actually get curious enough to read it. A paper copy, the only one in existence that had your full, undisclosed background. He pretended he didn’t see her smug grin when he hit accept on your transfer application.
You had been trained since youth to fight and to kill, yes, but your true purpose was espionage. You were trained to study those around you, to lie, to mold yourself to the expectations of those around you. You excelled at fitting into your surroundings, at assimilating perfectly with your peers. It was all you were good for, in your opinion. So you asked Laswell for files on your new teammates. And she gave them to you. They were full of gaping holes and redacted information, but there was enough there for you to profile them.
Soap would be the most receptive to you. He most likely would also be the one to not give up in trying to get you to be open with them. Gaz would be receptive as well, but you know that your sealed background would put him on edge, Ghost, well…Ghost was a lot like you from what you could piece together. Yet another person who learned that the world was cruel and unforgiving, who had learned the lesson that love does nothing but hurt. And because he was like you, you knew he would trust you the least.
You felt a small pang in your chest when looking at this masked photo that you hadn’t felt in years. Not quite sadness, but…pity? No. It was different, it was sympathy. It weirded you out.
It was hard at first, joining the 141. You had court-mandated therapy you had had to attend, and you had slowly come to realize that some trust was good, necessary even, for life. You knew you wouldn’t be able to open yourself up to them, that you would never be able to feel the sense of brotherhood you had seen amongst other soldiers, but you wanted to try.
It was harder than you thought it would be. Hard joining men who already had comradery, who had a bond that had been forged with blood, sweat, and tears. men who weren't sure how to fit another person, much less a female, into their group.
As you suspected, Soap was the most receptive. He was fun, you thought. His Scottish accent and affinity for filling the silence made him a very pleasant conversationalist. You didn’t have to do any of the talking.
Gaz was wary of you, but did a good job of not showing it. As you suspected, he stopped inviting you out after you said ‘no thanks’ for the third time.
Ghost didn’t like you. You could see it in the slight tensing of his muscles when you walked in the room, the way his eyes pinched when you spoke.
It was a rough, rocky start, full of distrust and misunderstandings. Everything about you set his senses on high alert. They way you could sneak up on him completely silent, the way you could hold your own when you sparred with him, even the way you moved had his hair standing on end. It wasn’t until a mission that would have ended with Soap's death if you hadn’t risked your life to shove him out of the way that Ghost began to trust you.
And then he began to notice something else about you. And the more he noticed, the more concerned he grew. He noticed the way you threw yourself into battle, what little regard you held for your own life. He noticed how you never instigated conversation, never gave away the slightest bit of information that could be used against you. Noticed that you always wore gloves. In fact, he's never once seen your hands.
His constant observations of you had an unintended side effect. The longer he watched you, the more he realized you were a lot like him, the more he was drawn to you. And vice-versa.
You found yourself willfully seeking Ghost out, willingly sharing information with him. Nothing about your past, no, you would never tell anyone the things you had done. But little things, how you liked the food served this week, how your mission went, that your new pants were really itchy. And he told you things too. Told you really bad jokes, told you Soaps stupid Scottish saying of the week. And slowly you branched out, agreeing to go to the bar the next time Soap asked you, telling Gaz that you liked his new sunglasses.
It was nice, having people who looked at you like you meant something to them. Having people who didn’t know what you’d done, people who didn’t look at you with disgust and distrust. It was nice to have…friends.
So of course everything had to go downhill from there.
End scene :3
let me know what you think!!6
and be on the look out for pt.2, I hope you're ready for a buttload of angst >:)
Also requests are open <3
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What Cyberpunk DeadBoy Means and What it's Potentially Foreshadowing (aka very complicated analysis that makes a lot of sense and could happen depending on how colorpalet is feeling while writing the story)
Now I'm seeing so many people like running around wondering what this event could mean for the future for multiple reasons and like I've made like one post throwing my hat into the ring.
I've been frustrated with people's unwillingness to realise that this comm is prob foreshadowing because this is not the first time Colorpalet has hidden foreshadowing into comms weither subtely or not
Exemple's being :
-Akito's second comm foreshadowing his third event
-Lower's cover art literally foreshadowing what would happen to Mafuyu's phone in her event
-88 vocals being emurui and nenekasa foreshadowing the kind of dynamic the disbandement arc had with nenekasa wanting to move forward with emurui being scared of isolation
-Probably way better exemples that I forgot
I've seen people make Some assumptions which I don't agree with but there is one thing I think is true
There is 100 pourcent gonna be struggle between corporation/reality and WxS.
Purely because that's been WxS's entire theme since the beginning. They constantly bash you over the head with the theme of compromising with reality and the importance of dreams. In fact the pick of Maiki-P is not at all surprising as he basically has the same message WxS has just... well harsher.
The Big thing people have ignored however is by focusing on the lyrics, they've ignored something that's personally to me even more telling and that's the line distribution
We know for a fact colorpalet loves to mess around with line distribution, weither it's to make characters say lines that fit them or to kind of foreshadow their headspace.
Now something Big happens with the line distribution of Cyberpunk Deadboy that i've seen NO ONE notice and that's in the last chorus (that and also Tsukasa's lines which people have pointed out but it works less on it's own which is why I'm gonna analyse his lines afterwards).
This is the only time the chorus is like that, the others have a much more even distribution.
In fact the distribution choice makes it look like the rest of WxS is Talking to Rui.
It's even more evident considering the lines they chose to make WxS sing compared to only just Rui
Emu/Tsukasa/Nene saying kimi (you)
Rui saying boku (i)
Which honestly makes me think this is colorpalet foreshadowing some kind of issue reguarding specifically Rui. Remember Emu's second event ? The story of Rilley whose imagination was crippled by the industry to the point where he didn't really have any artistic vision until Emu's grandpa helped him.
In fact remember how the flashback that showcases that has Rilley working on a film
Now we get to Tsukasa's line which have been pointed out to be kind of sus but it's not just his lines.
Tsukasa refuses to sing with Rui (unless it's a line they all sing together but i consider those exceptions). In fact pretty much everyone has a duo line with each other except those two.
In fact in the section where Rui has duo lines with everybody, Tsukasa is the only one he doesnt sing with and the visuals make it clear that it's something that we're supposed to find strange
And then we of course have Tsukasa's solo lines
Tsukasa is the only one that say "fuzakeruna" outside of Rui (of course ignoring entire group WxS lines) and i've seen some people pointed out how it sounds like he's saying it in response to Rui's lines. Which I agree with.
Then we got his big boy solo lines
These lines will make more sense with my theory/analysis but right now if we go with the idea that WxS in the last chorus were speaking to Rui and Tsukasa in this comm refuses to sing with Rui then this implies those lines are Tsukasa speaking to Rui.
And this is where the insanity begins because people have pointed out a concerning trend with Ruikasa that I know some people use for shipping fuel but for me kinda feels more so like foreshadowing.
IGNORING all the ARG ass weirdness of the Fixer 2dmv, this choice to switch Ruikasa's colors have to mean something in my opinion outside of just wholesome shipping influence especially considering the two songs they do this are less than jovial.
What this kind of color switching signifies to me is that, Ruikasa somehow are/or will switch places.
And with that let me bring back Tsukasa's lines
These lines stand out because Tsukasa before remembering his dreams was extremely shallow only doing things for fame and probably the money that would come with it.
Now if you think about everything I've layed out I think you can gain a pretty clear picture.
Of Rui falling into the trap Rilley did, becoming jaded and losing the true motivation of his dream (or at least starting to have doubts). Becoming stuck with the struggle of managing dreams and reality.
Rui's costume even has a mask which can be a metaphor for his artistic voice and individuality being silenced .
Which now you get into the line distribution where WxS is implied to be talking to Rui.
And you get to Tsukasa, who is refusing to sing with Rui and in fact seems to be arguing with Rui if we really want to overthink it. In fact almost switching their roles from the main story.
Because Tsukasa has grown now and how else to show that growth than to switch Rui and Tsukasa's perspectives/roles.
Now how this would happen really depends since there are multiple ways they can go about it with the time they have.
There is obviously mystery dude dude (who i know now is sakaki) who still gives me bad vibes. However there is actually two way they can make mystery dude trigger this sort of plot :
-Mystery dude is malicious and actively manipulates/confronts Rui to make him rethink his worldview
-Mystery dude isn't malicious but instead is just jaded/has been through a lot of industry bullshit which ends up rubbing off on Rui accidentally
But you can even just not have mystery dude involved with this at all (which i doubt but still) because you know what loose plotpoint is still lingering over WxS, fucking Asahi
Rui still has not talked about Asahi to WxS, in fact Curtain Call ends on an explicit cliffhanger which is never really emotionally concluded (at least in Rui's own events, technically the arc ender did but there are still a lot of loose threads from that arc). Why would Colorpalet make Asahi come back after Rui graduates, they could've just had him disappear into the sunset but instead they hint at his potential comeback.
Unless Rui will be forced to again confront similar feelings he did during Curtain Call this time with possibly an added layer of whatever happens during WxS's freelance arc.
Anyways yeah this is overly complicated but then again colorpalet is not being easy with us so...yeah.
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