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bnha-mcu-requests · 4 years

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A and B are both going to die. B comforts A by telling them they’ll see each other on the other side.

Before starting, I have to say that this has been a hard one to write. I was torn about who I should use in this prompt but I knew that I wanted to write it. I hope you enjoy it and that it pulls on the heartstrings.

Aizawa groaned as he crawled sluggishly back into the land of the living. He immediately regretted fighting so hard to wake up as pain sliced through his body like a hot knife, coming form everywhere and nowhere all at once.

He gasped sharply, lungs just barely inflating under the crushing pressure of - what was that? He forced his eyes open only to wish he hadn’t, coming face to face with a large concrete slab only a hair’s breath away from his nose. It seemed his legs hadn’t received the same mercy, he couldn’t feel below his left knee and for that he was grateful if the fireworks of agony coming from his right knee was anything to go off.

He hissed in another breath, wincing at the creaking of his ribs as the pressure on his sternum increased at the slight inflation. Unable to move his head more that a small tilt, he attempted to look around the small pocket of salvation he was trapped in. It was dark, too dark to see anything really, only the hazy grey outline of more rubble surrounding his prone form.

He strained his ears, trying to listen for any further explosions, and remaining still to see if there were any tell-tale vibrations from shock-waves. It would seem he was in luck, the battle was either over, or too far away to cause him any further immediate damage.

Shouta stiffened. What was that? The small pocket remained silent, it was just his mind playing tricks on hi- there it was again!

A small wheeze. Dread pooled in his stomach, an icy fear momentarily overpowering his pain as his heart began to race, roaring blood making it almost impossible to hear anything at all.

‘H-Hello?’ he rasped, fighting the urge to cough at his dry throat, knowing it would only increase the red hot pain he felt in his chest.

A broken groan was his only response followed by a pained whimper. It sounded young and distressingly familiar.

‘Screw conserving energy’ Shouta thought to himself, he needed to know who was down here with him.

His eyes lit up a comforting ruby, faintly illuminating the dark cave. They fell on the hunched figure half buried under what looked like a steel support pipe.

‘No…’ Aizawa managed, his quirk released, plunging them both back into darkness. He knew that hair, he knew that voice. ‘Midoriya! Kid! Hey, Kid!’ he had to pause for a second to catch his breath, constricted lungs making it hard to talk, let alone yell like he had been attempting.

A pained groan was his only response and for a second, Shouta allowed himself to feel grateful the boy was unconscious, Lord knows that Midoriya would freak out.

‘S-Sensei?’ a cracked - young, so very young - voice called out. Of course he wasn’t unconscious Shouta berated himself, the problem child did nothing by halves and that apparently included being in pain as well.

‘Hey Kid, are you okay? Can you move?’ Aizawa prayed for a miracle, maybe he had seen wrong, maybe the support pillar hadn’t been so flush to the boy’s midsection as it first appeared.

‘N-no. I cn’t feel my legs. Sensei? W-what’s g’ning on?’ the teen slurred. Aizawa tried to ignore the new pain that shot through his heart at the agony and fear that was laced through his voice, at least he was coherent and responsive, those were good signs.

‘I think we were caught in the rubble after the building collapsed, I can’t move either so we’ve just got to wait for the others to come and find us’ Shouta responded, trying his best to sound optimistic, a difficult feat considering the dire situation the two had found themselves in. Harsh, stuttered breaths were his only response and Aizawa craned his head, trying desperately to see the boy, wondering if he was also searching for his teacher in the thick blackout that surrounded them.

Suddenly needing to see the boy’s face, Shouta activated his quirk again, illuminating the wide eyed, scared face of his student who winced at the sudden light. The support beam creaked and seemed to sink further into the boy, eliciting a sharp, muffled yelp as Midoriya bit his tongue to quell the noise. Aizawa shut his quirk off immediately.

How could he be that stupid? Midoriya’s quirk enhanced his own body, it was probably the only thing stopping the beam from crushing the boy completely.

Guilt coiled around his already tight lungs, forcing the remaining air out in a cloud of remorse and regret with no small portion of self loathing. He was supposed to be the adult here. He was the pro-hero and look at him now, causing pain to the very person he was supposed to save. A sudden stab of pain from his knee shook him from his stupor and he focused back onto the situation at hand.

A small ‘Sensei?’ was warbled out into the silence, practically dripping with unease.

‘I’m here Midoriya.’ Aizawa responded, a hazy melancholy feeling settling in his crushed bones at the clear distress the teen was feeling.

The very atmosphere seemed relieved and Aizawa kicked himself again, he was trapped with a kid who was very clearly in a lot of pain and very scared, he couldn’t just check out like that.

He ignored the small vindictive voice that whispered he was in pain too.

‘A-are you okay?’ that tiny, evil train of thought was drowned in the onslaught of emotions that assaulted Aizawa following that question.

‘I can’t move and I’m pretty sure I’ve got a few broken ribs and a crushed leg’ he responded honestly, knowing that the boy wouldn’t be comforted by lies, he needed to know the seriousness of their situation. ‘What about you kid? How are you feeling?’

‘I’m fine.’ the answer was strained and clearly the antitheses of ‘fine’ but at the same time, Shouta couldn’t blame the kid for lying. Acknowledging how much pain he was in, might drive him over the edge into panic, and considering the potentially limited supply of oxygen they were currently sharing, that wouldn’t be good for either of them.

Silence once again permeated the cavity, almost as thick as the shadows choking the air.

Aizawa allowed himself to slip into a hazy head-space, aware enough that he could still hear Midoriya’s shallow gasps but far enough away that the pain was slightly dulled. He had no idea how long they had been down there or even, where they were. The lack of noise implied they were further into the rubble than preferred but how far, he couldn’t tell. To be frank, they were both lucky they had survived.

The blast had been sudden, and large, lighting up the sky in a brilliant flash before everything collapsed in on its self, burying the detonator and a few heroes with it. Judging by the fact that Midoriya was in civilian clothing, it looked like he was caught up in the blast. Aizawa’s heart ached for the boy, it was bad enough experiencing these things while on duty, but on a day off was just horrific.

Midoriya’s breath hitched and Aizawa snapped back into the real world, blanching at the sudden re-emergence of his pain.

‘Kid? You still with me?’ he called into the velveteen black that threatened to smother them both. His anxiety spiked when he got no response. ‘Kid?’ he called out a little louder, hoping, praying he would get a response.

‘S-sensei?’ a choked sob, Shouta’s heart clenched, a growing lump in the back of his throat promising anguish at the child’s mournful whimpers.

‘I’m here kid. I’m here. I need you to keep talking to me? You got that?’ Aizawa couldn’t give a reason for the desperation he felt in that moment, he could chalk it up to innate parental instinct in response to hearing such a desolate cry.

‘Okay’ the boy whispered, and Shouta could only listen to the stilted shuffles, betraying the teen’s halting movements. He was about to ask the boy what he was doing when Midoriya broke the silence himself.

‘Sensei?’ Shouta hummed to show he was listening, the sound coming out more breathless than he intended.

‘I lied.’ Shouta couldn’t help the surprised and somewhat confused grunt at the sudden confession.

‘What did you lie about, kid?’ he finally settled on, ignoring the niggling worry in the back of his skull, shifting slightly to try to avoid the sharp stones that were beginning to cut into his back.

‘I’m not fine.’ a sharp intake of breath was Shouta’s only reply. ‘I can’t feel my legs, I can’t breath. My ribs are crushed and I can feel something in my stomach.’ Shouta stubbornly blinked away the tears that had begun to accumulate.

‘Sensei…it hurts’ that simple admission, laden with tears and brutal honesty stole Aizawa’s breath, leaving him choked up and unable to respond.

‘I’m so tired, and I hurt so much!’ the boy was full on sobbing at this point, harsh wheezing accompanying mournful wails, the plaintive cries of an injured, scared child.

Aizawa wasn’t a parent, he had never wanted to be, but at that particular moment, he would have done anything to whisk the boy away to the safety of his apartment, wrap him in a blanket and promise that he would be okay. As it was, he tried to do the next best thing.

‘I know Midoriya. I know. I’m sorry but you need to stay awake. I’m sacred too and I need you to help me be brave’ he knew he was playing dirty, manipulating the boy’s unhealthy drive to do anything for someone who needed help. At this point though, Shouta didn’t care. If it kept the boy alive and fighting, then it would do for now. They could discuss it once they had been rescued.

As if on cue, a loud crumbling sound echoed through their cramped quarters and Aizawa took a deep breath, unsure if the influx of air was due to the relief he felt hearing voices, or if the pressure on his chest had been lightened some.

He turned his head in the direction he knew Midoriya was lying. ‘Hear that kid? They’re coming for us, we just need to let them know we’re here. Can you hold on for a bit longer?’ he heard a soft sob before a broken ‘yes’ wobbled into the air.

Unwilling to risk using up their precious oxygen supply, well aware that the shifting in the rubble could drastically decrease their already limited amount, he began to tap a rhythm into the metal sheet, the remains of a large sign, the sound echoing in their small pocket and hopefully, out into the rubble for the other heroes to hear as well.

Time passed, Shouta was unsure how much, the only sounds within their shared spaces was the continued, breathless conversations with Midoriya, each slightly more incoherent, and the repetitive clanging of fists on metal.

It was impossible to tell if the voices of the heroes above the rubble had gotten any louder or closer but the continued sounds of moving rubble and cries of relief whenever they found someone was a comfort to the pair. At least it was to Aizawa, the boy was so delirious it was hard to tell whether he had noticed the noise at all.

A small mumble sounded from the lump Shouta knew was Midoriya and he strained to hear what the boy was trying to say.

He almost wished he hadn’t.

‘S’nsei, m’gnna die.’ it was said without sadness or disbelief, as though Midoriya had accepted this to be the absolute truth.

‘No you won’t kid. You’ve just got to hang on a little longer’ Shouta almost spat the words out, needing them to reach the teen, pleading for him to not give up yet.

‘i d’nt wanna die. S’nsei. G’tta take care f’ma Mum’ Shouta didn’t think his heart could sink any lower. How had he forgotten? Midoriya’s mother was probably out there right now pleading, begging, desperate to know what had happened to her son.

‘You’re not going to die kid. We’re going to be saved, we’ll go to the hospital and get fixed up. You’ll see your Mum again and I’ll take you out to the Cat Coffee place I like and we can talk about what happens. After that, you can go back to working for the number one hero spot.’

‘S’nds nice’ the teen slurred and Shouta could almost picture the small smile that the boy likely wore.

They passed more time talking about what they would do once they were out, or rather, Shouta spoke and Midoriya mumbled out semi-audible repsonses.

All too soon, Aizawa began to feel light headed, sweat gathering on his brow as the pain began to creep further up his legs at a snails pace, leaving scorching trails behind it.

Silence once again swallowed the pocket before it was broken by Shouta’s hushed whisper, ‘if you die kid, it won’t be alone. I’ll wait for you on the other side’. Depsite the heavy words, the air seemed lighter, as though a stifling fear had been lifted.

‘Pr’mise?’ came the pained response, weaker now than it had ever been.

‘I promise’. Shouta risked the movement, stretching out the arm that wasn’t still tapping on the metal towards where he last remembered seeing the boy. His fingers came into contact with something soft and curly, Midoriya’s signature green mop of hair. He began running his fingers through the curls gently, all to aware of the tacky wetness that was caught in knots. He refrained from acknowledging what it was.

‘Sensei?’ boy spoke softly but with such clarity that Shouta paused in his ministrations.

‘Can you light up the room please? I’m scared of the dark’

Unable to deny the teen this one thing, he looked up towards the metal pillar and activated his quirk, giving the area a warm, crimson glow. He felt more than saw the kid relax and a content sigh shifted some dust, creating a mesmerising swirl in the dim light.

‘You know what Sensei?’ Shouta didn’t respond, he didn’t need to, Midoriya knew he was listening, ‘It doesn’t hurt any more’

The tears helped to moisten Shouta’s eyes, allowing him to keep them open for longer than usual, something he was both grateful for, and hated.

He kept the alcove lit for as long as he could, continuing the gentle strokes to messy hair. He carried on even as Midoriya stopped moving, head slowly cooling alongside the rest of his body.

He blinked when the cavern was suddenly lit with not the empty red of his eyes, but the bright white of the midday sun, senses assaulted with noise, colour and light. He hadn’t even heard them get close.

‘Midoriya… see, I told you they’d come soon’. The boy didn’t, couldn’t respond. Shouta allowed his eyes to shut, the last thing he saw was the distraught face of a single mother, her agonised scream following him into unconsciousness. Yet another promise he couldn’t keep.

#boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #my hero academia #midoriya izuku #shoto aizawa #mr aizawa #death #major character injury #major character death #story prompt #prompt #bnha izuku #izuku midoriya #bnha fanfic #fanfic

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tomeandflickcorner · 4 years

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Episode Review- The Real Ghostbusters: Knock, Knock

Wow, I remember enjoying this episode to the point that it’s among the episodes I remember the most strongly from the days when I’d watch the show as a kid. But it really holds up due to how fun it was.

Right away, we get an action scene. The Ghostbusters are in the middle of a bust at this bowling alley somewhere. They manage to catch the ghost with relative ease, but not before inflicting some pretty sizable damage to the bowling alley. I’m not kidding, there’s actually a moment where the camera focuses on the fire that the Ghostbusters caused. Of course, the episode glosses over this as we’re never told who is paying for the damages to the facility. Instead, they simply exit the bowling alley to be greeted by the cheers of the crowd. Interestingly enough, when Winston comments how the crowd loves them, Egon voices his doubt, saying he thinks it could be a trap. (What kind of trap would this be, Egon? Paranoid much?)

They eventually make it back to the Firehouse, where they are greeted by a rather sizable mess. It turns out that Slimer has decided to have a huge gorge fest, consuming a sizable amount of food while they were gone. Janine doesn’t hesitate to complain about this, announcing that they don’t need a receptionist, they need a babysitter, and a whole platoon of them. Being true to character, Peter reacts to this with his usual anger. He makes a movement to fire his Proton Pack at Slimer, but Winston and Ray hold him back, giving Slimer the chance to get away. Egon reminds Peter that he can’t go after Slimer, as he’s the only ghost willing to hold still long enough to be closely studied, and that being able to study a ghost is vitally important to the advancement of science and whatnot. On that note, the Ghostbusters decide to retire for the night. But not before they head down the basement to place the captured ghosts into the Containment Unit. Though the odd thing is that they’re acting like it’s some big chore. Peter even briefly argues with Winston over which one of them will do the honors, with Winson insisting that it’s Peter’s turn as he’d already did the dishes. I didn’t realize loading a trap into the Containment Unit was such a trial.

Meanwhile, deep below the city streets, a group of construction workers are hard at work in building a new subway tunnel. As they’re tunneling along with their giant drill, they stumble across this large ornate door. Now, this door is awesome. Especially with the giant demonic looking face adorning it. This door was a personal highlight of the episode for me, and I think I’m sad the door never appears again after this episode. (Though there appears to be brief cameos of the demonic face in the IDW comics.) Anyway, the construction workers all pause for a bit upon discovering this door, with one of them noticing that there’s something written on the door. As they start to try and figure out what the writing says, the demonic face on the door comes alive, declaring ‘DO NOT OPEN UNTIL DOOMSDAY!’ Obviously, this gives two of the construction workers pause, with them thinking it might be in their best interest to turn around and leave this door alone. But their boss insists that they have a job to do, and this subway tunnel must be built, regardless of what some nut door might say. (Dude, a door is TALKING! I get you have a deadline or whatnot, but how jaded can you be?) When the head construction worker orders the drilling to continue, the door lets out a loud growl, and then opens up.

Okay, I realize the door would have been opened anyway if the construction workers did continue on drilling. But the door opened up before the drill even started up again. So….technically, nobody actually opened the door. It just decided to open up on its own under the mere threat of being opened. Kinda a faulty security system there.

Anyway, when the door opens up, the construction workers are all seemingly vaporized, as they completely vanish from sight, and a bunch of poltergeist energy is released. The energy ends up consuming a subway train, forcing it to become possessed. And apparently, so does the graffiti etched onto the side of the subway train, as all of it becomes alive and runs off. This alone is pretty wild, as it results in various illustrations and logos sprouting legs and running about. We’re talking winged eyeballs with legs and arms and a giant green speech bubble featuring the word ‘soon’ bouncing about.

Needless to say, this leads to someone putting in a call to the Ghostbusters’ office, resulting in a pretty good joke from Janine. Something along the lines of ‘Something messed up in the subway? How can you tell the difference?’ That was a clever one-liner, especially considering I’ve been on a New York subway. I can say from experience that you can encounter interesting things there. After taking down the caller’s information, Janine heads up to the Firehouse’s sleeping quarters to inform the Ghostbusters, who were in the process of changing into their pajamas. They do kinda groan at the fact that they have to head back out again, but they proceed to get back into their uniforms. (Random observation here- in a blink-and-you’ll miss it moment, when you see Egon zip his jumpsuit back up, you catch a brief glimpse of what I think was a patch of chest hair. So Egon has chest hair? Not a good or bad thing, of course. But it’s just a bit jarring, since it indicates someone actually took the time to animate chest hair on the character.)

As the Ghostbusters enter the subway system, they quickly find the place covered in in ectoplasm, with Ray noting how it looks as if the whole place is turning evil (something he’s clearly thrilled about). To their surprise, a subway train pulls into the station, despite the fact that they’d been told offscreen that the trains had stopped running. So of course they decide to enter the empty subway train, even though it’s pretty much a dumb idea to board an empty subway train even under normal circumstances. Naturally, as the subway train begins to move, the lights briefly go off, and when they turn back on again, the Ghostbusters find themselves completely surrounded by a horde of skeletal ghosts.

At this point, the episode gives us an extended action sequence of the possessed subway train careening out of control, even to the point of literally jumping out from one subway entrance to another, leaping over the city streets Free Willy style. While the subway train continues on its joyride, the Ghostbusters are busy firing their Proton Packs at the skeletal ghosts in an effort to keep them at bay as the Ghostbusters theme song plays in the background. Eventually, the train ride comes to an end, with the possessed subway train stopping at a shadowy station. When the Ghostbusters exit the train, it instantly deflates like a balloon. Upon consulting his PKE Meter, Egon notes the source of the disturbance is a 10 mile walk from their current location. But before they could begin to search for the origin point, their attention is caught by what appears to be a solitary woman standing at the edge of the subway platform. Peter immediately approaches the woman, offering to help get her out of there, but it’s then revealed the woman is another one of those skeletal ghosts. And then the skeletal ghost woman just kinda….explodes. Okay, that was odd.

Of course, the exploding ghost lady does kinda serve a purpose. Winston, upon backing up from the explosion, trips over a large stone tablet jutting up from the ground. The other Ghostbusters proceed to examine the stone, with Egon noting that there’s something written on the stone in Sumerian. (Even though close-ups of the stone show that the hieroglyphics don’t match actual Sumerian writing. Nice try, show, but I don’t think any ancient civilization ever utilized a skull with a tongue sticking out as a hieroglyphic.) Anyway, Egon, announcing that he can read Sumerian in his sleep, underwater with the lights turned off, translates the writing to say that the tunnel ahead leads to a door to the Nether-Region, and that this door was only to be opened at the end of the world. He goes on to announce someone must have opened the door prematurely. And much like a dam breaking, the flow of poltergeist energy will continue to consume everything. Peter, for some reason, doesn’t seem to understand why this is a big deal, so Ray has to spell it out for him through this whole analogy of stinky socks in a closet. I guess this analogy was put in for the benefit of the wee little kids watching this episode, in case the dam visualization went over their heads. Either way, they determine that all of this spooky ghostly aura that’s consuming the subway tunnels is what was meant to replace everything after the world came to an end. And if they don’t find a way to close the door again, this world of darkness with ghosts taking over everywhere will be the new reality. With the mission clear, the Ghostbusters head further into the tunnel. (And the stone tablet randomly sprouts a face and begins to laugh for no discernable reason other than to further illustrate that things are going to get weird in this episode.)

So the Ghostbusters continue to head down the tunnel to locate the door. Naturally, they encounter some strange and bizarre stuff along the way, such as a stone pillar covered with eyes that probably wouldn’t look out of place in a Jim Henson film. At one point, they witness what appears to be a longboat that is constructed entirely of bones. This longboat is being rowed by a group of human prisoners, with a skeletal figure overlooking their progress while pointing out random things like rocks and dirt like some kind of vindictive tour guide. Oddly enough, the Ghostbusters decide to pretend like they didn’t see this and continue on their way. Which is a bit upsetting, to be honest. I realize the implication is that these people are condemned human souls that are beyond help since we hear one of the people state they’ve been rowing for 500 years, but it’s still a bit disturbing that the episode simply sweeps this under the rug with them never referencing it again. Instead, we get some brief scenes interspaced throughout the episode to show what’s going on aboveground. More and more subway trains are getting possessed by the spectral ghostly energy emanating from the door, and a news report announces that the Ghostbusters haven’t been seen since they first entered the subway tunnels two hours ago.

Eventually, the Ghostbusters begin to near the end of the tunnel. But first, they have to make it through one final section that this creepy-voiced tree thing states is the Place of Lost Souls. The Ghostbusters are informed that all new spirits must make their way through it, and that no living being has ever came out of it in one peace. It then wishes the Ghostbusters a nice day as they press on. (Thanks, creepy tree thing!) The Ghostbusters navigate through the Place of Lost Souls, evading a dark room filled with a large amount of eyes and what could best be described as an Escher style series of paths. Finally, they reach the site of the opened door, where a large glowing core of energy can be seen.

It’s here that Egon reveals a bombshell. In order for them to put a stop to this, they have to actually enter the door and utilize the energy of the door’s Power Core to supercharge their Proton Packs in order to pull everything that was released back into the door. The catch is, if the door closes up again when they’re still inside, they will be trapped there forever. This idea is particularly distressing to Ray, as he’d just purchased season tickets to the Mets. Peter accuses Egon of knowing this from the start, and Egon more or less confirms this, stating that if he had told them the truth earlier, they might not have been willing to come this far.

After a bit of back and forth, though, the Ghostbusters all decide to see this through to the end, crossing the threshold of the open doorway. Upon doing so, they fire their Proton Packs at the Power Core, with their packs in full dispersion mode, wide angle. This results in all of the released poltergeist energy to be collected back up and, upon switching their Proton Streams back into Capture Mode, everything is drawn back through the door. However, as all of the escaped ghosts and such are drawn back into the door, the Ghostbusters also find themselves being pulled inward as well. In a last ditch effort at escaping before the doors can fully close behind them, Ray comes up with the idea of firing off their Proton Packs at the Power Core once again. Only this time in order to launch themselves back through the closing doors. Rather like a rocket being propelled forward by the flames shooting out the back. This ends up working, as the Ghostbusters make it out alive, seconds before the door closes up again. As they dust themselves off, Peter jokingly states that they should do that again. But the demonic face on the Doomsday Door responds by repeating its warning of ‘DO NOT OPEN UNTIL DOOMSDAY!’

With the crisis averted, the Ghostbusters once again return to the Firehouse, with Ray stating he feels like he could sleep for a week. Peter, on the other hand, announces he plans to raid the fridge and eat until dawn. Because saving the world obviously gives you an appetite. Of course, when Peter opens the fridge, he finds Slimer has already consumed everything inside. Naturally, this results in Peter’s renewed ire at the little green ghost, but the others seem to take the knowledge that Slimer just ate all of their food in stride, with Winston telling Peter he shouldn’t take it out on Slimer just because he had a bad day. Egon then points out that perhaps the reason why Slimer eats all the time is because he wants to feel accepted. As the others head out of the room, Egon reminds Peter that Slimer is a ghost who lives with a group of people whose job it is to bust ghosts. He asks Peter how he would feel if he was in Slimer’s shoes.

Peter doesn’t seem to be in the mood to consider this, but later that night, we see him sitting in bed while the others are sleeping, seemingly deep in thought. As the other Ghostbusters continue to sleep, Peter sneaks out into the hall, where he finds Slimer. Covertly, Peter tosses him a rather small pizza, announcing that if Slimer ever told anybody about this, then he would simply deny it. After delivering the small peace offering, Peter goes back to bed, as Slimer remains in the hall, chuckling to himself. And it’s here that the episode ends.

This episode was weird but fun. Sure, it’s a rather simple plot and a lot of the scenes are clearly there to fill in the time, but we get a lot of interesting visuals, so I say it evens out. And in a way, it does serve as something of a secondary pilot episode, as this was the first episode of the show’s syndicated run. So it’s entirely possible that this was the episode that would introduce the show’s premise to viewers who hadn’t been able to watch the first 13 episodes on ABC. And it was pretty awesome to get an adventure with high stakes involved. Not to mention what is quite possibly the first onscreen death within the show, as it’s doubtful those construction workers survived. Though it does beg the question of what happened with the subway tunnel plans. Were the plans at constructing the tunnel completely abandoned after the incident? Or did the construction company simply decide to chart out a different route for the tunnel? Of course, this is a show that’s largely episodic in nature, so all of those questions naturally have to be forgotten after the credits roll.

(Click here for more Ghostbusters reviews)

#the real ghostbusters #rgb episode review #ghostbusters franchise

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rebirthxguardian · 5 years

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Flashback!

[Send “Flashback” to have your muse see one of my muse’s bad memories ]

Heat continued to flare up all around the guardian and the small group of angel soldiers that had volunteered to go with Rosalia, pillars of flames rushing from the earth beneath them even from the height they were at. Another barely missed them from their left, forcing her to erect an barrier around them in fear of another pillar taking them from below.

“Lady Rosalia! If you hold the defense, we can take the traitor, right now!” shouted one of the higher ranking angels that flew nearest her, ivory hair whipping and appearing to have been charred slightly from previous close chances. She looked quite vindictive as she had said this.

“No!” A note of sharpness was in that response. “Aridem is not to be taken on, not at this time.”

“Until when?! You can’t fight!” The weapon that Rosalia held was nothing like the elegant weapon she had at present day; it felt awkward and heavy, one of the swords that the angels would use for their combat. And being a pacifist, she’s never taken up a blade until just recently. “Let us do what we’ve trained to do.”

“I know you can fight, but we are not coming to destroy a random Infernam creature or god.” Even now up ahead, there were several tendrils of energy being pulled from various locations of the world, all heading to one location that was drawing them in. “Stay close!” Banking left, the party followed the guardian’s movements and reached even higher heights where the tendrils were aiming for, going as close as Rosalia would dare until the pillars of flames were constantly strumming against the barrier and forcing her to slow down in order to keep the energy going. “What in the blazes is he absorbing...?”

No one had an definitive answer; no one knew what was Aridem’s plans, so early had he turned against them and had disappeared for well over a year before this event. “This world was going to be condemned anyway! Why would he trouble himself to appear here of all places? He doesn’t need to destroy the surface when the void is far too close in the first place to be worth saving.” This came from another angel, one with light blue hair and darker blue fur patterns all along his body, appearing more feline than humanoid.

“He is taking something before the world is gone. Find the source, we will know what his plans involve.” This was the reasonable course of action. But the angel who challenged her before bristled, turning to throw a sharp look at the young guardian. “Do not question Lady Salri’s orders; we were only to find out what we could before reporting back - “

“Take him out now, and we won’t need to be bothered with the guess work. And that’s what I intend to do, right now. For Lady Ziva!” And just like that, the angel surged forward and burst out from the safety of the barrier; the rest of the squad followed after her, heedless to the flames as they used the thermals to soar over them, heading straight for the figure who watched them in a calm, detached way without pausing in his work.

“Mir’hii, NO!”

Dropping the barrier to conserve her own energy, Rosalia could only surge after them, but they employed wind magic to hasten their flight; she had no similar advantage, and even as she was halfway there, Mir’hii was the first to reach Aridem, launching the first attack. But he barely had to do more than block the attack, blade against blade, not straining against her strength.

“Fool.” Smiling at the angel, the ex-guardian disappeared from view that left the angel to stumble in the air before reappearing overhead. “You can’t stop the void, my dear.” Blade gone from his hand, he would grab the angel from the back of her neck and held her in place; the air would start to shimmer before the colors surrounding him and the angel would deteriorate, pulsing even as Mir’hii struggled to swing her sword back. But suddenly, the sword dropped. The angel was becoming colorless, limp as she’d stop struggling all too quickly. And just like that - her body just simply eroded, her energy escaping to join the growing orb in his hand.

And Rosalia would lock eyes with Aridem as he’d still smile, though the expression wouldn’t extend past his lips. She was still too far away for him to properly speak, but the message was clear as he raised the now freed hand and held it up as though to stop her from coming closer; he didn’t intend to fight her.

It wasn’t to say that this courtesy was extended to the rest of the angels as they surged onto him, clearly outraged and dismayed. By this point, another pillar of flames surged and interrupted the guardian’s flight, forcing her back and crossing her arms in front of her to keep the worst of the heat from her face. By the time she moved around the flames, three angels were missing, and the fourth out of six was blasted with that strange energy he had used before onto Mir’hii.

The energy he had gotten from his association with the entity, the Void. It would do the same as it had before, the angel suddenly limp and lifeless before his form deteriorated, not even leaving ashes behind; all that’s left was the life energy that Aridem directly pulled from him before he was fully gone.

“You’ll be at my side soon enough, little flower!” Aridem whirled around and impaled the dismayed angel that had been stunned from the sight, still leaving the last angel. “But take this message back to Salri; our realm is too broken to be saved.”

The last angel surged forward, too driven now by anger to be bothered with the idea of being erased. Blades clashing, the black-haired guardian chuckled as he continued to parry with one hand, doing it with ease until she slipped up; too much force made her next attack go wild, going past him, He only needed to side-wing slightly and turned the blade around in his hand, stabbing it in a downward motion to neatly slide the tip into her spine --

#.⋇ic;;Answered #//*squints eyes*#//I didn't intend to write this much...#thechildlikeangel

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mockmade · 6 years

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ONE: BEAUTIFUL AND AFRAID OF NOTHING AU: Boarding school Abigail* & Renee

Abigail doesn’t believe in God, can’t remember the last time she did, actually -- but figures that she must’ve because Lucien is a godly man, and she loved ( and still loves ) him enough to adopt it for a little while, at the very least. But if she did, she doesn’t recall what it was like.

She hasn’t believed in God since she noticed the contradiction between having a pious, loving father and the void left behind by some woman or another: maybe she left, maybe she died. Lucien doesn’t talk about it, there’s not a single photo of her mother, no perfume, no dresses -- she has to have her mother’s looks, because she looks nothing like her father.

She, in her fair skin and blue eyes and blonde hair, looks nothing like him -- but for the same shrewd look and the same easy air of amusement they carry around, it would’ve been inconceivable to think them related.

The official reason she gets shipped off to some distant boarding school is that one man cannot possibly play father to so many children while running a business.

Abigail wonders if the real reason is that, maybe, just maybe, she looks too much like the woman who left, too much for her forgiving father to bear. (She figures if someone left her with nothing but a child who looked a shade too much like them, she’d never forgive them, even in death.)

Whichever reason it is, it doesn’t matter, because she ends up in boarding school anyway, ivory rosary beads and gilded cross in hand, a dainty gold cross necklace swinging from her neck, nice, demure Catholic schoolgirl look in place.

One problem: she’s not nice, or demure, and she’s certainly not fucking Catholic. Her uncle Raphael hates her because of it, but she won’t be Catholic just because the family tradition is to be.

And it gives her an edge: she’s not sure how many of the girls here are truly religious, but she’s so aggressively not, and is running the girls top to bottom within her first week there; knowledge is power, and she’s always been obsessed with how the right words act like a key in a lock, or a bullet in the chamber of a cocked gun.

Abigail’s always been more of a suggestion of a girl, a whisper, an insinuation; her presence felt, heard, and known, but wholly impossible to prove -- which is how she comes to causing trouble without ever being caught. The whole school knows it’s her to blame when girls wince at the earnest light streaming in through the stained glass windows during morning prayer, when lipstick ends up on neatly pressed collars, when fights break out of seemingly nowhere. She cannot burn the place down with her bitter longing, but she can facilitate strings of chaos.

The best thing about it is: she only provides the idea, the means for the end she desires, and the headmistress cannot nail her on a single thing.

Which brings her to the current... predicament at hand: she is wholly, completely and irrevocably, involved with Renee Thornton.

It is truly something wretched and wicked, kissing Renee behind a pillar in the chapel is; Abigail’s skin is terribly alive and sensitive as the other girl works straight white teeth over her war drum pulse. They meet here under the shroud of quiet twilight -- it’s true they have roommates, but they’re an easy obstacle for Abigail to remove from the situation, both her own and Renee’s, it’s the sacrilegious appeal of all but desecrating the church that is too much to pass up.

Renee’s kissing her something holy and mean, pressing her into the cold marble of the pillar roughly, and she gasps -- she’s quiet, always is in this kind of context, subdued and muted in a way that no one would expect of her -- and Renee claps a hand over her mouth, hissing something about remaining on brand and not getting caught.

She grazes the palm of the offending hand with her teeth, just a little flash of them, a warning, a futile show of grasping a morsel of control when she has none.

She pushes Renee away from her when a whine starts working its way up from her throat and drops to her knees, running reverent hands up her calves and toying with the hem of her skirt, an errant shaft of moonlight falling over Renee’s shoulder casts her in partial shadow and partial illumination.

Abigail says a little prayer because she’s already on her knees -- and when in Rome, right?

Renee’s gazing at her with some approximation of appreciation; Abigail wants so violently to see a touch of tenderness, but what is fundamentally vicious knows nothing of softness -- and two girls who have carved the girlishness from their silhouettes wouldn’t know gentility if it looked them in the eye.

A clever comment slips from clever lips but she hardly hears it over the pounding of her own heart.

She gets up from where she’s been kneeling, her knees aching in a way she knows will bruise come morning, and says nothing -- even as a barrage of acerbic comments line her tongue. Contrary to popular belief, she can appreciate a few moments of silence, and lets the night swell with things better left unsaid.

She leaves first so that Renee can’t leave her in that cold church; she thinks that the aching of her knees and the clench of her jaw and the buzz of her lips all alone in that draughty old place might be cruel enough to taunt tears from her eyes.

The thrill of knowing you’ve gotten away with something is a heady high, and the fact that Renee isn’t pulled in for questioning that day must embolden her, because Abigail finds herself back in that fucking chapel yet again the following night. But this time she’s a victory prize, and Renee kisses her something fierce, an arrogant and persistent excitement high in her cheeks and those cold eyes.

It bothers her that she’s really fucking attracted to that arrogance.

Renee presses her down into the wooden pews with a new sort of verve, and it’s all she can do to hold on, biting her tongue and praying to the stars for restraint. But apparently, Renee’s decided vindictively that she doesn’t get to be silent, and coaxes more and more from her until her restraint is frayed beyond recognition: she cries into the crook of her arm so loudly that she’s sure it travels down the hallways.

And so she flees, escaping mere moments before someone investigates.

Renee’s called into the headmistress’ office the next morning, and she finds her in the courtyard later, smoking a cigarette. Abigail goes through the motions of pretending, and Renee indulges her for a hot second, before deeming the prize of eking a reaction out of her is far too tantalizing to pass up.

When they pass each other in the halls the next day, Renee blows her a sarcastic kiss with those clever fingers that must still know the curve of her hip and the tremble of her thigh, loitering by the entrance to the attached church, and Abigail goes bright red; judging by the victorious laugh echoing up to the lofty rafters, she sees her flush before she manages to turn away.

And she walks away as if her pride isn’t some kind of limping thing, walks away as if she’s not blushing hard; it’s a familiar dance now.

The close call doesn’t stop her for going back for more.

Her knees are still well and truly bruised, and she refuses to pay this sick sort of penance by continuing whatever this affair is in the church, so she creates a tempting situation to lure her roommate out of their room for the night.

She debates the pros and cons of texting Renee, and writes out the message, determined to delete it, but is too much a creature of whims and impulse to stop herself from sending.

When Renee’s gone, she turns over and tries to go to sleep, with sparks still ebbing away on the backs of her eyelids; her pillows and blanket have a lingering smoke to them, it’s just barely there in a way that makes it smell sweet -- the very same subtle, saccharine hint of stale tobacco smoke that lulls her to sleep cements the very real problem Renee presents in her head.

#( ch: abaddon )#( au: boarding school )#whoops #( she's so hard to please. she's a forest fire; renee )

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fictionadventurer · 7 years

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Father Brown Reread: The Sins of Prince Saradine

When Flambeau took his month’s holiday from his office in Westminster he took it in a small sailing-boat, so small that it passed much of its time as a rowing-boat.

We haven’t started a story from Flambeau’s point of view in a while.

The detective business must be good if he can take an entire month off.

In “The Invisible Man”, Flambeau’s house and office are in Hampstead, a suburb of London. Apparently, Flambeau has moved to a new office in the center of London.

I adore the these opening pages, and I love the atmosphere of the story. I would rank it as one of my favorite Father Browns. Yet before this reread, I remembered absolutely nothing about the plot of the story. I’m not sure I’ll have much to say about this one, beyond ecstatic exclamations of “COLORS!” and “FAIRY TALES!”

The vessel was just comfortable for two people; there was room only for necessities, and Flambeau had stocked it with such things as his special philosophy considered necessary. They reduced themselves, apparently, to four essentials: tins of salmon, if he should want to eat; loaded revolvers, if he should want to fight; a bottle of brandy, presumably in case he should faint; and a priest, presumably in case he should die.

This is my favorite quote in all the Father Brown stories.

Such good characterization and such good humor.

Like a true philosopher, Flambeau had no aim in his holiday; but, like a true philosopher, he had an excuse. He had a sort of half purpose, which he took just so seriously that its success would crown the holiday, but just so lightly that its failure would not spoil it. Years ago, when he had been a king of thieves and the most famous figure in Paris, he had often received wild communications of approval, denunciation, or even love; but one had, somehow, stuck in his memory. It consisted simply of a visiting-card, in an envelope with an English postmark. On the back of the card was written in French and in green ink: “If you ever retire and become respectable, come and see me. I want to meet you, for I have met all the other great men of my time. That trick of yours of getting one detective to arrest the other was the most splendid scene in French history.” On the front of the card was engraved in the formal fashion, “Prince Saradine, Reed House, Reed Island, Norfolk.”

This is a good vacation philosophy.

I’m kind of impressed that not only has Flambeau remembered the card, he also saved it.

(Flambeau, king of thieves and hoarder?)

But really, it’s a terrible idea to send an internationally-renowned thief your address.

I’m trying to imagine how Flambeau convinced Father Brown to go on this vacation. “Hey, Father, come help me find one of my fanboys.” “Okay.”

Also, how does an active priest get a full month of vacation? Priests get a few weeks of vacation time per year, but it seems strange that he’d be able to take it all at once. Maybe he was just there part of the time?

To speak more strictly, they awoke before it was daylight; for a large lemon moon was only just setting in the forest of high grass above their heads, and the sky was of a vivid violet-blue, nocturnal but bright. Both men had simultaneously a reminiscence of childhood, of the elfin and adventurous time when tall weeds close over us like woods. Standing up thus against the large low moon, the daisies really seemed to be giant daisies, the dandelions to be giant dandelions. Somehow it reminded them of the dado of a nursery wall-paper. The drop of the river-bed sufficed to sink them under the roots of all shrubs and flowers and make them gaze upwards at the grass. “By Jove!” said Flambeau, “it’s like being in fairyland.”

COLORS!!!

FAIRY TALES!!!

This is like the best parts of the Orthodoxy chapter about fairy tales. No one conjures a sense of wonder the way Chesterton does.

“All right,” said Father Brown. “I never said it was always wrong to enter fairyland. I only said it was always dangerous.”

Me: *nods furiously*

I love how this story doesn’t even attempt to ground itself in reality. We’re just straight-up in a portal fantasy, traveling to a place where the rules of literature, not of life, take precedence.

It was opened by a butler of the drearier type—long, lean, grey and listless—who murmured that Prince Saradine was from home at present, but was expected hourly; the house being kept ready for him and his guests. The exhibition of the card with the scrawl of green ink awoke a flicker of life in the parchment face of the depressed retainer, and it was with a certain shaky courtesy that he suggested that the strangers should remain.

Apparently he’s expecting the arrival of his two enemies, if he keeps up the butler masquerade. So why does Paul invite them to stay? Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to send them off?

“We have taken a wrong turning, and come to a wrong place,” said Father Brown, looking out of the window at the grey-green sedges and the silver flood. “Never mind; one can sometimes do good by being the right person in the wrong place.”

Father Brown is heavily, heavily intuitive, and never more so than in this story. He was suspicious of the house before they even stepped inside. He has no evidence--he just knows that something’s wrong with the place.

Father Brown’s familiar with how fairyland works. He’s been a fairy tale trickster in previous stories, so this is his native ground, in a sense. Yet because fairyland is familiar, he doesn’t have the same sense of wonder that an ordinary mortal would have. There’s always that sense of foreboding and horror.

For all that, he’s not afraid. He knows that fairy tales can have good endings, as that last, wonderful sentence shows. Fairyland has many horrors, but like Pandora’s box, it also always has hope.

Father Brown, though commonly a silent, was an oddly sympathetic little man, and in those few but endless hours he unconsciously sank deeper into the secrets of Reed House than his professional friend. He had that knack of friendly silence which is so essential to gossip; and saying scarcely a word, he probably obtained from his new acquaintances all that in any case they would have told.

I like this side of Father Brown’s character. He’s a quiet, steady presence in the background, not immediately impressive, but more effective for all that. Quiet people never get as much respect as they deserve in fiction.

“There isn’t a good one,” she hissed. “There was badness enough in the captain taking all that money, but I don’t think there was much goodness in the prince giving it. The captain’s not the only one with something against him.”

Poor Mrs. Anthony. Stuck in this house for so many years with people like that. Is she trying to escape?

The nameless interest lay in something else, in the very framework of the face; Brown was tormented with a half memory of having seen it somewhere before. The man looked like some old friend of his dressed up. Then he suddenly remembered the mirrors, and put his fancy down to some psychological effect of that multiplication of human masks.

I like that Father Brown was wrong, and that there was a good reason he was wrong. The mirrors add to the fairyland feel, yet also serve a practical story purpose.

His face was fastidious, but his eye was wild; he had little nervous tricks, like a man shaken by drink or drugs, and he neither had, nor professed to have, his hand on the helm of household affairs. All these were left to the two old servants, especially to the butler, who was plainly the central pillar of the house. Mr. Paul, indeed, was not so much a butler as a sort of steward or, even, chamberlain; he dined privately, but with almost as much pomp as his master; he was feared by all the servants; and he consulted with the prince decorously, but somewhat unbendingly—rather as if he were the prince’s solicitor.

Father Brown sure learns a lot in only a few hours.

It’s interesting that Paul retains such authority, when he’s the blackmail victim here.

The sombre housekeeper was a mere shadow in comparison; indeed, she seemed to efface herself and wait only on the butler, and Brown heard no more of those volcanic whispers which had half told him of the younger brother who blackmailed the elder.

She’s totally a domestic abuse victim, isn’t she?

The same singular sentiment of some sad and evil fairyland crossed the priest’s mind again like a little grey cloud. “I wish Flambeau were back,” he muttered.

Poor Father Brown. He’s really vulnerable here.

We’ve seen how Flambeau relies on Father Brown. Now we see how Father Brown relies on Flambeau, and it’s a little heartbreaking.

The rest of the story would have played out differently if Flambeau had been with him.

“I mean that we here are on the wrong side of the tapestry,” answered Father Brown. “The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.”

A nice bit of theology.

The prince made an inexplicable noise like an animal; in his shadowed face the eyes were shining queerly. A new and shrewd thought exploded silently in the other’s mind. Was there another meaning in Saradine’s blend of brilliancy and abruptness? Was the prince—Was he perfectly sane? He was repeating, “The wrong person—the wrong person,” many more times than was natural in a social exclamation.

I’m trying to figure out why Saradine reacts like this. He’s not mad. Has he figured out that Father Brown thinks he’s his elder brother? Has he figured out some part of his brother’s scheme? Does he think that Father Brown is hinting that maybe Paul didn’t kill the guy?

He took out of it two long Italian rapiers, with splendid steel hilts and blades, which he planted point downwards in the lawn. The strange young man standing facing the entrance with his yellow and vindictive face, the two swords standing up in the turf like two crosses in a cemetery, and the line of the ranked towers behind, gave it all an odd appearance of being some barbaric court of justice.

This is a splendid image. Shocking and romantic.

The fairy tale has collided with a Ruritanian romance. The swords are like a slap to the face, pulling us out of the dreamy fairyland and into a real world with real life-and-death stakes. Yet a duel to the death is also completely unrealistic and fits in with the fairyland atmosphere.

It’s a strange combination of reality and over-the-top fantasy, and from here, the story has a nightmarish quality.

“Prince Saradine,” said the man called Antonelli, “when I was an infant in the cradle you killed my father and stole my mother; my father was the more fortunate.

My name is Inigo Montoya...

Father Brown had also sprung forward, striving to compose the dispute; but he soon found his personal presence made matters worse. Saradine was a French freemason and a fierce atheist, and a priest moved him by the law of contraries. And for the other man neither priest nor layman moved him at all. This young man with the Bonaparte face and the brown eyes was something far sterner than a puritan—a pagan. He was a simple slayer from the morning of the earth; a man of the stone age—a man of stone.

Father Brown is in the wrong place at the wrong time. If he hadn’t been there, there’s a chance the truth of the matter may have come out. But since they’re both stubborn and contrary, Brown’s presence sparked a duel that needn’t have happened.

“Flambeau!” he cried, and shook his friend by both hands again and again, much to the astonishment of that sportsman, as he came on shore with his fishing tackle. “Flambeau,” he said, “so you’re not killed?” “Killed!” repeated the angler in great astonishment. “And why should I be killed?” “Oh, because nearly everybody else is,” said his companion rather wildly. “Saradine got murdered, and Antonelli wants to be hanged, and his mother’s fainted, and I, for one, don’t know whether I’m in this world or the next. But, thank God, you’re in the same one.” And he took the bewildered Flambeau’s arm.

This shows how shaken up Father Brown is. He’s rarely this expressive. It’s especially jarring in this story, where he’s been in one of his more reserved moods.

They saw plainly the family likeness that had haunted them in the dead man. Then his old shoulders began to heave and shake a little, as if he were choking, but his face did not alter. “My God!” cried Flambeau after a pause, “he’s laughing!” “Come away,” said Father Brown, who was quite white. “Come away from this house of hell. Let us get into an honest boat again.”

There’s no reason for Paul Saradine to reveal the truth, but I totally believe this old monster would do it. Horrible person.

We’ve fallen fully into a horror story now.

Father Brown’s reaction was exactly the same as mine.

“But, however agitated, he was not hopeless. He knew the adventurer and he knew the fanatic. It was quite probable that Stephen, the adventurer, would hold his tongue, through his mere histrionic pleasure in playing a part, his lust for clinging to his new cosy quarters, his rascal’s trust in luck, and his fine fencing. It was certain that Antonelli, the fanatic, would hold his tongue, and be hanged without telling tales of his family.

That seems like a lot of assumptions to make. Especially about Antonelli. I get that he took the law into his own hands and doesn’t need to tell the story of the murder--but why wouldn’t he want to? Even if Antonelli’s going to hang for achieving vigilante justice, there’s no reason he would protect Saradine’s reputation.

But if Saradine was wrong and Antonelli said something, he could always go on the run again. He was already half-planning to do so.

“Laughing, God help us!” said Flambeau with a strong shudder. “Do they get such ideas from Satan?” “He got that idea from you,” answered the priest.

The horror I felt in this moment was visceral.

This is the final horrible touch to cap off the story and tie everything together. I’m a little in awe of how well it worked.

Poor Flambeau. You’ve built such a lovely little life, but you’ll never quite escape your past. It’s still wreaking havoc in the world, long after you’ve left it behind.

“Father,” said Flambeau suddenly, “do you think it was all a dream?” The priest shook his head, whether in dissent or agnosticism, but remained mute. A smell of hawthorn and of orchards came to them through the darkness, telling them that a wind was awake; the next moment it swayed their little boat and swelled their sail, and carried them onward down the winding river to happier places and the homes of harmless men.

It certainly felt like a dream. Chesterton did a fantastic job of creating that surreal atmosphere.

It feels good to leave the horror behind and sail away in peace.

Yet it also seems horrible that the prince and his entrapped wife will live undisturbed. Can’t Father Brown and Flambeau do something? They have no concrete evidence, but isn’t there some way to reach justice?

I suppose we have to trust that things will come out right on the other side of the tapestry.

#father brown reread #father brown #g.k. chesterton #the wrong shape #the innocence of father brown #flambeau

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