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fic-al · 3 years

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Oops hadn’t realized I didn’t post the final chapter on here previously.

Easter Bernie: Easter Sunday.

Here's someone who really loves you. Don't ever go away.That's what these walls would say. (If These Old Walls Could Speak, Jimmy Webb)

“Right over left, round and then through,” Fred repeated again, as he secured Reggie’s tie. “You will get the hang of it, son, easy when you knows how.”

“Thanks Uncle Fred,” Reggie was determined, he would master the tricky accessory by the end of the day. It couldn’t be more of a skill then changing a beer barrel, and he could do that.

“Oh, look at you two, all suited and booted, don’t you look smart,” Violet emerged from the Crown kitchen, wearing the dress and coat she had worn for Chummy’s wedding.

“You don’t look so bad yourself, Violet,” beamed a perfectly groomed Val in a coral trouser suit and cream silken vest top.

“Who has one of those phone things, that takes a picture?” Evie asked, smoothing down a new floral dress she had treated herself to.

“Everyone Evie,” Val laughed, “Except you and Paddy.”

“Must be a pub thing,” added Jack, coming through the door, to cries of dismay.

“Jack, you are in jeans,” cried Vi.

“Talk about letting the side down,” remarked Fred.

Jack looked abashed, but added, “Thought I would stay behind, make sure no-one breaks in and steals all the eggs.”

“Jack, you know Paddy want’s us all to attend Easter Service this morning. If we are having a joint Easter Festival this year, it starts at ten o’clock at St. Preservus,” admonished Vi.

Jack looked at his trainers. That were at least clean.

“Let’s say no more about it, you will have to do,” Evie concluded.

The last member of the party had arrived through the door marked Private, that led to the living quarters of the Crown. Paddy gave a harsh look at Jack, but said nothing.

“You always scrub up well Mr T, you should wear suits more often,” blushed Vi followed by Paddy.

Val brought him back down to earth, “Would you like me to do your hair?”

Paddy gave Val the look reserved just for her and her cheek, the one that kept her quiet for about five seconds.

“Right then, is everybody ready?” another glance at a fidgety Jack, Paddy continued, “Bernie and Tim are meeting us there.”

xxxx

The Crown seven shuffled into the pew at the back of Saint Preservus, led in by Vi and ushered in by Paddy bringing up the rear.

“Hello, I see the naughty pew has been taken this morning,” beamed Peter Noakes, “that is usually reserved for the Noakes family.”

“Have we stolen your seat?” laughed Paddy.

“Don’t worry, this isn’t the Crown, there won’t be a fight,” joked Peter as he and Camilla sat in front with Phyllis accompanying Lady Keville and aromatherapist Jane Sutton. “Looks like that’s the Crown pew this morning,” Phyllis winked at Paddy.

“Shove up!” the southern accent demanded, faintly attempting the local dialect.

“Trixie, that’s the pub pew this morning, come and join us,” Chummy suggested.

Paddy had already shifted for Trixie to sit down,

“I am representing Bernie,” Trixie grinned.

“Trixie is Team Crown,” Val added on the other side of Paddy.

“You ready for today, Trixie?” Paddy asked.

“I think so, I have some understanding of an egg hunt and even the hill rolling, but jarping remains a mystery to me,” Trixie informed him in all seriousness.

Paddy leaned in and kept his voice low, aware of his surroundings.

“Right then, the Crown and Church Easter Jarping Tournament, or as it was formerly known, the Crown Inn Easter Jarping Tournament. It's very easy to understand the rules.”

“I believe you,” Trixie smiled, but did not laugh.

Paddy leant forward in an attempt to not be overheard and Trixie followed him, “It is played in a knock-out format, like the FA Cup.” Trixie nodded she understood, Paddy continued his voice below his usual range. “Each contestant selects a hard boiled egg prepared by a neutral source.” Trixie nodded she was following. “Competitors divide into pairs. One is the holder or Jarpee and the other is the thruster or Jarper. You following Trix?”

“I think so?” she whispered back, her cheeks slightly flushed. Paddy swallowed and continued at the lower vibration.

“The holder grasps their egg with their dominant hand revealing just the tip. The Jarper holds their egg also in their dominant hand. The Jarper needs to know they can make a firm contact with the other egg, so gently rubs the end of their tool against the opponents to ensure the certainty of contact. So the Jarper has one attempt to make a clean strike. You following?” Paddy paused.

“Yes,” Trixie assured in a rather higher pitch than she intended, “It’s very warm in here, or is it just me?” she added removing her scarf. Paddy nodded still sat forwards whispering into Trixie’s ear.

“The pair then swap places and repeat this series of events. Everyone has a turn with everyone else. Once both tips of your egg are cracked, you are eliminated. The winner is the final competitor to have at least one end intact.”

The congregation hushed as Tom Hereward arrived in the pulpit, to start the service, just as Chummy who was sat directly in front of Paddy and Trixie exclaimed a little too loudly, “I’ve never been more aroused.”

Timothy Turner sitting at the organ, couldn’t help turn toward the back of the church to see where all the sniggering was coming from. To be honest, he knew exactly where the laughter was coming from, but he had to look. Lucille, in front of her choir, exchanged glances with him and they shrugged their shoulders. He looked at Bernie, who was shaking her head and glaring at the back of the church. Tom Hereward was looking a little flushed and said, “Shall we begin.”

xxxx

Back at the Crown it was all stations go. Violet gave a wicker basket to Fred.

“These are the onion peel dyed eggs, for egg rolling down Crown Bank. Take them to the back of the pub and remember it is one egg per child.”

“I wondered where that pong of onions was coming from. They do look pretty though, but don’t half pen and ink,” the brewer preferred a more hoppy odour.

“Jack, you take these plain eggs to the beer garden. There is a table set up with colouring pens and markers for the more artistic types. Remember one egg per child,” Jack nodded at Violet to reassure her he had got it.

“That leaves the jarpers for later. The Church are in charge of the Easter Egg Hunt around the village. I just hope they haven’t made it too difficult for the little ones,” Violet took a breath.

“I think it was Tim and Lucille who hid them, so should be all right Vi,” Val reassured with a wink.

xxxx

“So I just drop my egg down the bank?”

“Trixie, you must have rolled an Easter Egg before?” Bernie thought her friend was deliberately being dense.

“You mean one smelling of onions, can’t say I have,” Poplar's latest resident snapped back.

“No wonder we want to shot them away down the hill,” laughed Fred.

“What is the point?” Trixie wasn’t satisfied.

“It’s just a laugh, you race your pals and see how many times you can roll it, before it cracks,” Bernie was losing patience.

“Represents the stone rolling away from the tomb,” Paddy interjected, Bernie made a shocked face and Paddy grabbed her by the waist and said, “What? I am not a complete heathen,” threatening to roll her down the hill.

“So once I have rolled this, I have to go down the hill, retrieve it and if it hasn’t cracked, do it again, until it does?” Trixie said, keeping a wide berth from wrestling Paddy and Bernie, the latter now screaming.

Fred feeling a bit awkward himself with the tactileness of the moment, nodded at Trixie,

“Better get a move on love, don’t want to miss the start of the duck race.”

“Sorry?”

“The duck race down the Tweaven, first duck to Mount Busby wins.”

Paddy interrupted, suddenly letting go of Bernie, who actually did stagger a few feet down hill before achieving traction. “My favourite bit,” he grinned.

“You race real ducks, that is medieval,” protested Trixie.

“This from the Poplar sheep rustler,” corrected Paddy.

Bernie saved the situation and herself from joining the eggs at the bottom of the hill,

“They are not real ducks, Trixie, you know those ones you put in your bath, those rubber ones. You put your mark on one and the first one Reggie spots at the farm, wins.”

“Who has a bath these days? Haven't you all got showers yet?” Trixie was confused.

Paddy huffed. Bernie added, “You might be the one at the farm, waiting for a duck next year.”

“I don’t think that is in my job description,” Trixie added, but she didn’t look convinced.

Fred and Paddy were trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face, “Fancy a pint, Fred?”

“Not arf, Doc,” he replied, already heading for the pub.

“You are all as cracked as these eggs,” Trixie said, delicately tossing her egg southwards.

xxxx

Trixie walked back to the front of the Crown and wondering if she was doing the right thing moving to potty Poplar. She made her way to the beer garden and was surprised to see her new employers surrounded by sticky fingers and loud chatter. Turner Prize nominee Patience Mount, was decorating eggs with the village children. She was helping a few of the Sunday School class with their fragile Easter bonnets, some of which looked more like caps or helmets.

Delia, never far away, stood guard over a cardboard box, where a couple of fluffy yellow chicks were being coo’d over. Phyllis was still accompanying Lady Keville, who had brought a large selection of knitted egg warmers in all the colours of the rainbow. They were showing a group of children how to make the pom-pom version of the tweety little critters in Delia’s box. Lucille had been delighted with these knitted extras, and had Tim yarn-bomb Poplar, distributing them around the village, as part of the Easter Egg Trail.

Trixie was feeling a little bit lost. Bernie had returned from the egg rolling in one piece and was now interrogating Paddy, “What were you all laughing at in church, tell me?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he winked at Trixie.

Trixie grinned, “I feel like a vegan in the hen house. What can I do, to help at my first Poplar Easter Festival?”

“Well, you are good at sales, you can be in charge of the raffle,” Paddy said, as if he had given her the combination to his safe.

Val placed on the bar a huge cuddly grey and white rabbit, holding a large gold foil covered chocolate egg. Trixie forced a smile.

“There are a couple of envelopes there too; Second Prize is a Mount Busby Alpaca Day Out and third prize is a Meal for Two at the Crown.” Paddy announced proudly and Trixie suddenly connected with her new life.

Until Bernie spoilt it, “Fourth prize is an Alpaca Day Out and a meal at the Crown,” laughing hysterically at her own joke. While Trixie, Val and Paddy refused to. Even though Val’s lips were twitching.

Valerie passed Trixie a tupperware box full of coins “A float; to get you started, they always come with notes.” Trixie smiled a little bit.

xxxx

The sun was lowering behind the Cleveland Hills, cooling the Crown beer garden. The last of the tables had been cleared and the clutter added to the recycling bin. Val was taking orders for drinks. The children had all gone home. The Two Loves had taken Antonia back to Bagnall Hall. Trixie sat proudly admiring a brightly decorated toilet roll inner with a bright yellow toy chick with a wonky beak, stuck on the top with blu-tack.

“I can’t believe you won the Egg Jarping, Trixie,” Bernie shook her head.

“Beginner's luck,” shouted an envious Jack.

“Expert training,” suggested Paddy.

“What are you going to do with your trophy, Trixie?” laughed Val

“Put it on top of Bernie’s telly,” Trixie said emphatically.

“That monstrosity is not coming into my house,” Bernie cried in mock indignation.

“Oi, Tim made that,” Paddy yelled.

“About ten years ago, Dad!” Tim blushed in horror. Lucille and Jack’s laughter adding insult to injury.

Tom and Bobby and baby Hereward appeared. It was the first time they had been seen since church. They had been overseeing the egg hunt around the village and offering refreshments at the church, a role Bernie had envied.

“The church is locked up, and the village is litter free,” explained Bobby to Julia who was sipping on a Crabbies’ ginger beer, emphasis on the beer.

“Splendid, everyone has worked so hard today,” Julia commented. “That little one looks tired,” she added, observing a grouchy baby in Bobby’s arms.

“She actually needs changing,” Bobby explained.

Val, who was passing Evie a pint of Easter Egg Ale informed the young mother, “The toilets are just inside Mrs Hereward, the changing facilities are in there.”

“Oh thanks, Valerie,” said Bobby and moved toward the backdoor.

Tom held up a hand, “We should really be getting home, love.”

“Aren't you two stopping for a drink, we’ve all earned it,” asked Julia, taking another sip of her memory.

“No, we better get home and get this little madam seen to,” Tom laughed weakly.

“Be quicker, just to change her here if she's uncomfortable?” Phyllis, sipping on a double brandy, offered.

“I would rather we went home,” replied Tom curtly.

“The facilities here are excellent. I should know, I make sure they are spotless every morning,” Evie’s tone held authority.

“But it is 6pm,” Tom’s voice had a higher pitch now.

“Bernie or myself, check the loos every hour. If you look on the door, we have to sign to say everything is in order,” Val couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

“Look, you’re all very kind, but I don't want my daughter being changed in a pub toilet,” Tom’s voice was adamant.

Evie looked as if she was about to combust.

Julia intervened, “Tom, maybe you should get your family home, we have all had a long day.”

“And confusing. I am sorry, but I really haven’t seen the point of this. We welcomed everyone to church this morning, for the most important date in the Christian calendar, and then chased them all to the pub. Where is the message in that?”

The youth minister's words left the beer garden in a dense fog of discomfort. Julia looked lost for a moment. It was Phyllis who spoke up,

“Today was about community lad, bringing the village and the wider area together. These two buildings have been central to this village for over 300 years. It’s about time they came together.”

Phyllis had given Julia time to compose herself, “We will discuss the issues you have raised concerning a joint festival in a meeting tomorrow, Mr Hereward.”

Baby Hereward was becoming more grumpy, and Bobby was struggling to placate her. Paddy, who had been very quiet through this most recent exchange of views, offered quietly.

“Mrs Herward, your daughter seems very unhappy. Would you like to take her upstairs to the flat? Where you can have ample space and privacy.”

“Lets go Bobby, I will see you tomorrow, Reverend,” Tom nodded at Julia, Bobby didn’t have time to acknowledge Paddy’s offer, as she was pushed by her husband towards the door.

Someone with not the longest fuse in Poplar, had sweaty palms and a racing heart and a mouth she couldn’t keep shut.

“If yer have issues with the joint festival, then that is fine, Mr Hereward, as Reverend Lewis said that needs to be discussed between you tomorrow.” Everyone recognised the north of the border twang. That wasn’t done yet.

“But I have issue with your attitude right now concerning this house, it is so much more than an alehouse, it’s a place where people work, it is a home.” Tom stopped in his tracks, Bernie went on,

“Your place of work just happens to be the House of God. Now we were invited into that house this morning and everyone here, acted in a respectful manner.” Bernie took a breath. There was some awkward shuffling on the garden benches. She was on a roll though,

“You were invited into our home today and I feel you have not returned that respect. To say the Crown isn’t a fit place for a child, maybe you want to take a look at Timothy Turner, he was raised here. Would Mrs Turner have chosen this as a home, if she thought the Crown wasn't a fit place for a child? I think he has turned out pretty OK, don’t you?”

Tim wished at this point, that people would just remember who he was, and not feel the need to check by staring at him. Fortunately Bernie went on,

“Surely what matters is not whether it is a House of Prayer or a House of Refreshment, but a House of Love. And you can take my word for it, for what that may be worth. This house is just that. There is so much love in this house, I am only sorry yer canae feel it.”

Later Trixie said that she started the clapping, but everyone was sure it was Val, followed by Lucille. There was definitely a “Well said lass,” from Phyllis and somebody, maybe more than one, said her dad would be proud. Was there an Amen? The kids just said, “You don’t mess with our Bernie.” Did anyone notice Paddy said nothing, he just beamed with pride. If pride was a signal the Crown was 5G?

xxxxx

“I am barred from St Preservus.That’s the Mission I have offended and the church in one week,” Bernie complained.

There was only her and Paddy now. The sun had gone to its rest behind the hills. They sat on Frank and Peggy’s bench sharing a secret ciggie, Bernie perched on Paddy’s knee.

“Nonsense, Julia totally supported you. It’s Mr Hereward who should be worried and as for the Mission, does that really matter now, Bernie?”

“Mr Hereward is young and idealistic, everything is black and white to him, I used to know someone else like that,” she smiled stubbing out the butt of the fag, they hoped Tim would never know about.

“What happened to her?” Paddy said, turning her face gently towards his with both hands.

“She came home,” she smiled and kissed him tenderly, in a way that she was just beginning to understand.

“Bernie, you know this can be your home, whenever you want it to be, on whatever terms you want.” He looked at her intently. Bernie knew if she didn’t save herself, she would drown in those eyes.

“You know what I do want?” she kissed him on the forehead and pushed back his unruly hair. He just raised both eyebrows saying tell me?

“Are those pink wafers still behind the bar?”

“Go see,” he laughed, helping her off his knee.

Bernie almost ran to the bar. She found a package wrapped in gold foil with a red bow. She ripped open recklessly the carefully wrapped box. Only to find a large brightly coloured tin which read Huntley and Palmer Superior Biscuits. Bernie’s expression looked like it was Christmas, birthdays and Easter all at once.

“Paddy, I bloody love you.”

Paddy smiled, “Happy Easter, Bernie,”

#call the midwife fic #easter bernie #easter sunday #sorry i hadn't realized I hadn't posted on fic-al

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weshallc · 4 years

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Easter Bernie.

(call the Midwife AU/ Crown Jewels Easter Special/ also available on FF & A03)

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE 🐰🐥🐣🐤🦆🕊🦙😘🤗

CHAPTER FOUR: EASTER SUNDAY.

Here's someone who really loves you. Don't ever go away.That's what these walls would say. (If These Old Walls Could Speak, Jimmy Webb)

“Right over left, round and then through,” Fred repeated again, as he secured Reggie’s tie. “You will get the hang of it son, easy when you knows how.”

“Thanks Uncle Fred,” Reggie was determined, he would master the tricky accessory by the end of the day. It couldn’t be more of a skill then changing a beer barrel and he could do that.

“Oh, look at you two, all suited and booted, don��t you look smart,” Violet emerged from the Crown kitchen, wearing the dress and coat she had worn for Chummy’s wedding.

“You don’t look so bad yourself, Violet,” beamed a perfectly groomed Val in a coral trouser suit and cream silken vest top.

“Who has one of those phone things that takes a picture?” Evie asked, smoothing down a new floral dress she had treat herself to.

“Everyone Evie,” Val laughed, “Except you and Paddy.”

“Must be a pub thing,” added Jack, coming through the door, to cries of dismay.

“Jack, you are in jeans,” cried Vi.

“Talk about letting the side down,” remarked Fred.

Jack looked abashed, but added, “Thought I would stay behind, make sure no-one breaks in and steals all the eggs.”

“Jack, you know Paddy want’s us all to attend Easter Service this morning. If we are having a joint Easter Festival this year, it starts at ten o’clock at St. Preservus,” admonished Vi.

Jack looked at his trainers that were at least clean.

“Let’s say no more about it, you will have to do,” Evie concluded.

The last member of the party had arrived through the door marked Private, that led to the living quarters of the Crown. Paddy gave a harsh look at Jack, but said nothing.

“You always scrub up well Mr T, you should wear suits more often,” blushed Vi followed by Paddy.

Val brought him back down to earth, “Would you like me to do your hair?”

Paddy gave Val the look reserved just for her and her cheek, the one that kept her quiet for about five seconds.

“Right then, is everybody ready?” another glance at a fidgety Jack, Paddy continued, “Bernie and Tim are meeting us there.”

xxxx

The Crown seven shuffled into the the pew at the back of Saint Preservus, led in by Vi and ushered in by Paddy bringing up the rear.

“Hello, I see the naughty pew has been taken this morning,” beamed Peter Noakes, ”that is usually reserved for the Noakes family.”

“Have we stolen your seat?” laughed Paddy.

“Don’t worry, this isn’t the Crown, there won’t be a fight,” joked Peter as he and Camilla sat in front. Phyllis accompanying Lady Keville with aromatherapist Jane Sutton. “Looks like that’s the Crown pew this morning,” Phyllis winked at Paddy.

“Shove up!” the southern accent demanded, faintly attempting the local dialect.

“Trixie, that’s the pub pew this morning, come and join us,” Chummy suggested.

Paddy had already shifted for Trixie to sit down,

“I am representing Bernie,” Trixie grinned.

“Trixie is Team Crown,” Val added on the other side of Paddy.

“You ready for today, Trixie?” Paddy asked.

“I think so, I have some understanding of an egg hunt and even the hill rolling, but jarping remains a mystery to me,” Trixie informed him in all seriousness.

Paddy leaned in and kept his voice low, aware of his surroundings.

“Right then, the Crown and Church Easter Jarping Tournament, or as it was formerly known, the Crown Inn Easter Jarping Tournament, it's very easy to understand the rules.”

“I believe you,” Trixie smiled, but did not laugh.

“I think so?” she whispered back, her cheeks slightly flushed. Paddy swallowed and continued at the lower vibration.

“The pair then swap places and repeat this series of events. Everyone has a turn with everyone else. Once both tips of your egg are cracked you are eliminated. The winner is the final competitor to have at least one end in tact.”

Timothy Turner sat at the organ, couldn’t help turn toward the back of the church to see where all the sniggering was coming from. To be honest, he knew exactly where the laughter was coming from, but he had to look. Lucille, in front of her choir, exchanged glances with him and they shrugged their shoulders. He looked at Bernie who was shaking her head and glaring at the back of the church. Tom Hereward was looking a little flushed and said, “Shall we begin.”

xxxx

Back at the Crown it was all stations go. Violet gave a wicker basket to Fred.

“These are the onion peel dyed eggs, for egg rolling down Crown Bank. Take them to the back of the pub and remember it is one egg per child.”

“I wondered where that pong of onions was coming from, they do look pretty though, but don’t half pen and ink,” the brewer preferred a more hoppy odour.

“Jack, you take these plain eggs to the beer garden, there is a table set up with colouring pens and markers for the more artistic types. Remember one egg per child,” Jack nodded at Violet to reassure her he had got it.

“I think it was Tim and Lucille who hid them, so should be all right Vi,” Val reassured with a wink.

xxxx

“So I just drop my egg down the bank?”

“Trixie, you must have rolled an Easter Egg before?” Bernie thought her friend was deliberately being dense.

“You mean one smelling of onions, can’t say I have,” Poplar's latest resident snapped back.

“No wonder we want to shot them away down the hill,” laughed Fred.

“What is the point?” Trixie wasn’t satisfied.

“It’s just a laugh, you race your pals and see how many times you can roll it, before it cracks,” Bernie was losing patience.

Fred feeling a bit awkward himself with the tactileness of the moment, nodded at Trixie,

“Better get a move on love, don’t want to miss the start of the duck race.”

“Sorry?”

“The duck race down the Tweaven, first duck to Mount Busby wins.”

Paddy interrupted, suddenly letting go of Bernie, who actually did stagger a few feet down hill before achieving traction. “My favourite bit,” he grinned.

“You race real ducks, that is medieval,” protested Trixie.

“This from the Poplar sheep rustler,” corrected Paddy.

Bernie saved the situation and herself from joining the eggs at the bottom of the hill,

“They are not real ducks, Trixie, you know those ones you put in your bath, those rubber ones. You put your mark on one and the first one Reggie spots at the farm, wins.”

“Who has a bath these days? Haven't you all got showers yet?” Trixie was confused.

Paddy huffed. Bernie added, “You might be the one at the farm, waiting for a duck next year.”

“I don’t think that is in my job description,” Trixie added, but she didn’t look convinced.

Fred and Paddy were trying unsuccessfully to keep a straight face, “Fancy a pint, Fred?”

“Not arf, Doc,” he replied already heading for the pub.

“You are all as cracked as these eggs,” Trixie said delicately tossing her egg southwards.

xxxx

Trixie walked back to the front of the Crown and wondered if she was doing the right thing moving to potty Poplar. She made her way to the beer garden and was surprised to see her new employers surrounded by sticky fingers and loud chatter. Turner Prize nominee Patience Mount, was decorating eggs with the village children. She was helping a few of the Sunday School class with their fragile Easter bonnets, some of which looked more like caps or helmets.

Trixie was feeling a little bit lost. Bernie had returned from the egg rolling in one piece and was now interrogating Paddy, “What were you all laughing at in church, tell me?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about,” he winked at Trixie.

Trixie grinned, “I feel like a vegan in the hen house. What can I do, to help at my first Poplar Easter Festival?”

“Well you are good at sales, you can be in charge of the raffle,” Paddy said as if he had given her the combination to his safe.

Val placed on the bar a huge cuddly grey and white rabbit, holding a large gold foil covered chocolate egg. Trixie forced a smile.

Valerie passed Trixie a tupperware box full of coins “A float; to get you started, they always come with notes.” Trixie smiled a little bit.

xxxx

The sun was lowering behind the Cleveland Hills, cooling the Crown beer garden. The last of the tables had been cleared and the clutter added to the recycling bin. Val was taking orders for drinks, the children had all gone home. The Two Loves had taken Antonia back to Bagnall Hall. Trixie sat proudly admiring a brightly decorated toilet roll inner with a bright yellow toy chick with a wonky beak, stuck on the top with blu-tack.

“I can’t believe you won the Egg Jarping, Trixie,” Bernie shook her head.

“Beginners luck,” shouted an envious Jack.

“Expert training,” suggested Paddy.

“What are you going to do with your trophy, Trixie?” laughed Val

“Put it on top of Bernie’s telly,” Trixie said emphatically.

“That monstrosity is not coming into my house,” Bernie cried in mock indignation.

“Oi, Tim made that,” Paddy yelled.

“About ten years ago, Dad!” Tim blushed in horror. Lucille and Jack’s laughter adding insult to injury.

Tom and Bobby and baby Hereward appeared, it was the first time they had been seen since church. They had been overseeing the egg hunt around the village and offering refreshments at the church, a role Bernie had envied.

“The church is locked up and the village is litter free,” explained Bobby to Julia who was sipping on a Crabbies ginger beer, emphasis on the beer.

“Splendid, everyone has worked so hard today,” Julia commented. “That little one looks tired,” she added, observing a grouchy baby in Bobby’s arms.

“She actually needs changing,” Bobby explained.

Val who was passing Evie a pint of Easter Egg Ale informed the young mother, “The toilets are just inside Mrs Hereward, the changing facilities are in there.”

“Oh thanks,Valerie,” said Bobby and moved toward the backdoor.

Tom held up a hand, “We should really be getting home, love.”

“Aren't you two stopping for a drink, we’ve all earned it,” asked Julia taking another sip of her memory.

“No, we better get home and get this little madam seen to,” Tom laughed weakly.

“Be quicker, just to change her here if she's uncomfortable?” Phyllis sipping on a double brandy offered.

“I would rather we went home,” replied Tom curtly.

“The facilities here are excellent. I should know, I make sure they are spotless every morning,” Evie’s tone held authority.

“But it is 6pm,” Tom’s voice had a higher pitch now.

“Bernie or myself check the loos every hour, if you look on the door, we have to sign to say everything is in order,” Val couldn’t keep quite any longer.

“Look you’re all very kind, but I don't want my daughter being changed in a pub toilet,” Tom’s voice was adamant.

Evie looked as if she was about to combust.

Julia intervened, “Tom, maybe you should get your family home, we have all had a long day.”

“And confusing. I am sorry but I really haven’t seen the point of this. We welcomed everyone to church this morning, for the most important date in the Christian calendar, and then chased them all to the pub. Where is the message in that?”

The youth ministers words left the beer garden in a dense fog of discomfort. Julia looked lost for a moment, it was Phyllis who spoke up,

“Today was about community lad, bringing the village and the wider area together. These two buildings have been central to this village for over 300 years. It’s about time they came together.”

Phyllis had given Julia time to compose herself, “We will discuss the issues you have raised concerning a joint festival in a meeting tomorrow, Mr Hereward.”

Baby Hereward was becoming more grumpy and Bobby was struggling to placate her. Paddy who had been very quiet through this most recent exchange of views, offered quietly,

“Mrs Herward, your daughter seems very unhappy. Would you like to take her upstairs to the flat? Where you can have ample space and privacy.”

”Lets go Bobby, I will see you tomorrow, Reverend,” Tom nodded at Julia, Bobby didn’t have time to acknowledge Paddy’s offer, as she was pushed by her husband towards the door.

Someone with not the longest fuse in Poplar, had sweaty palms and a racing heart and a mouth she couldn’t keep shut,

“If yer have issues with the joint festival then that is fine Mr Hereward, as Reverend Lewis said that needs to be discussed between you tomorrow.” Everyone recognised the north of the border twang, that wasn’t done yet.

“But I have issue with your attitude right now concerning this house, it is so much more than an ale house, it’s a place where people work, it is a home.” Tom stopped in his tracks, Bernie went on,

“Your place of work just happens to be the House of God, now we were invited into that house this morning and everyone here, acted in a respectful manner.” Bernie took a breath, there was some awkward shuffling on the garden benches. She was on a roll though,

Tim wished at this point, that people would just remember who he was, and not feel the need to check by staring at him. Fortunately Bernie went on,

“Surely what matters is not whether it is a House of Prayer or a House of Refreshment, but a House of Love. And you can take my word for it, for what that may be worth, this house is just that. There is so much love in this house, I am only sorry yer canae feel it.”

xxxxx

“I am barred from St Preservus.That’s the Mission I have offended and the church in one week,” Bernie complained.

There was only her and Paddy now. The sun had gone to its rest behind the hills. They sat on Frank and Peggy’s bench sharing a secret ciggie, Bernie perched on Paddy’s knee.

“Nonsense, Julia totally supported you. It’s Mr Hereward who should be worried and as for the Mission, does that really matter now, Bernie?”

“Mr. Hereward is young and idealistic, everything is black and white to him, I used to know someone else like that,” she smiled stubbing out the butt of the fag, they hoped Tim would never know about.

“What happened to her?” Paddy said turning her face gently towards his with both hands.

“She came home,” she smiled and kissed him tenderly, in a way that she was just beginning to understand.

“You know what I do want?” she kissed him on the forehead and pushed back his unruly hair. He just raised both eyebrows saying tell me?

“Are those pink wafers still behind the bar?”

“Go see,” he laughed, helping her off his knee.

Bernie almost ran to the bar, she found a package wrapped in gold foil with a red bow. She ripped open recklessly the carefully wrapped box. Only to find a large brightly coloured tin which read Huntley and Palmer Superior Biscuits. Bernie’s expression looked like it was Christmas, birthdays and Easter all at once.

“Paddy, I bloody love you.”

Paddy smiled, “Happy Easter, Bernie,”

#call the midwife #easter bernie #happy easter #she has come along way our lass #egg jarping anyone

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hidefdoritos · 5 years

Text

PSA

Please do EVERYTHING in your power to keep your pet from getting fleas.

-Fleas are itchy parasites that make your pet miserable. They are like dirt, but malicious and itchy. The young feed on dead skin cells, and when they mature, they bite a host for blood and lay eggs.

-Your pet is an ideal host. However, the eggs aren't sticky, and they come off your pet and into your house.

-In the house, they will live in every cranny and crevice imaginable. You aren't their favorite blood source, but in a pinch, they will jump on you and bite you.

-The bites itch. And if, like me, you're allergic, they continue itching. I have bites from four weeks ago that still itch sporadically, although they're not as bad as the new ones.

-Benadryl tablets at max dosage and Benadryl gel are the only things that stop my itching. Benadryl doesn't have adverse effects on me, but it does for many.

Identifying

-They're about the size of a fruit fly, but they do not fly. They're small oval dots. They're hard to find because they jump several inches at a time and jump away from you.

-They're hard to see on pets, especially those with dark fur. Check their underbelly, where the fur is more sparse, as soon as you notice them habitually scratching.

-In your house, get down low and watch a light tile or wood floor for black dots that move or are 3D.

-If found on solid floor, press the flat of your index nail on it until it crunches.

-If on carpet/furniture/you, wet your fingers, pick it up, roll it between your fingers until its jumping legs are stuck together, then quickly squish it between the flats of your thumbnails. This is tricky.

-Are weird bites appearing on your feet and ankles? Fleas like feet. It's probably them.

Cleaning

-A flea bomb is the only way to get rid of them, and even then it's not effective on all eggs. It needs repeating every 2-3 weeks.

-Bombs work by releasing a fog and overpressurizing your house to force the fog into nooks and crannies. You have to leave your home for most of a day.

-Adams brand sells good foggers at $10 for a 2-pack.

-Sprays and powders are good between foggings, but they're also expensive.

-Vacuum your whole house. Vacuum all the nooks and crannies and baseboards and under your furniture.

-Vacuum your mattress. Vacuum your upholstered furniture. It may be necessary to tear out your carpet. Fleas like fabric for some reason.

-Flea bathe your pet. Get a flea collar. Apply flea drops to the back of their head where they can't lick. Repeat.

-Spray the yard around your house the same day you fog, and spray your animal's pen.

Flea Hack

-Set out a clear, shallow dish of apple cider vinegar with a flashlight or nightlight shining through it.

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antiques-for-geeks · 5 years

Text

Game Review : Space Raiders

Sinclair ZX81 / Sinclair Research/Psion/Mikro-Gen / 1982 / Originally £3.95

Ladies and gentlemen, we give you the golden age of cover art.

Good artists borrow, great artists steal. A comment that is often associated with the late Steve Jobs about his appropriating the GUI concept from Xerox PARC in the 1980s. It’s not an unromantic ideal - the young upstart company taking a technology from another, bigger organisation that had gold on its hands but didn’t know it.

Except Steve Jobs didn’t come up with the quote. He said as much in Triumph of the Nerds when interviewed. He didn’t claim to be the father of the modern GUI either; he just happened to see the potential of putting a low(er)-cost computer in the hands of the public that had a GUI.

The early days of the computing revolution were a kleptomaniac’s dream; intellectual property was respected, however it was done very much in a homage sense, rather than a paying-a-licencing-fee-and-doing-an-official-conversion sense.

Bedroom coders everywhere were getting in on the action, developing home versions of popular arcade titles, safe in the knowledge that Atari, Taito or Namco would not send the lawyers after them. After all, this was the early 1980s. Most of the time these companies didn’t know the kids were making these clones in the first place.

So, enter Space Raiders published by Sinclair Research. No prizes for guessing which arcade machine is being ripped-off here. It seems rather pointless to go through the gameplay; it’s so famous after 40 years of public consciousness that going through the mechanics of the game would seem a waste of time.

Let battle commence!

This version does not deviate too far from the golden formula. Some features are missing, like the bonus saucer craft that you can shoot. That said, alien ships come down the screen, and you with your moving gun must defend. Clear the screen and it continues. Over and over and over until they finally manage to land or you lose all of your lives.

Or get bored and unplug the computer.

Or stand up, knock the desk causing the memory expansion on your ZX81 to wiggle and the machine to promptly crash.

So, with the game being so ubiquitous, it’s difficult to stand out without ‘ruining’ the pure Space Invaders experience. Also, at the time there was little need to; this game would come at a time when recreating the arcade was impossible on home machinery - the Atari 2600 might have been the reference hardware for the home in the US, but even that could not hope to live up to the experience you’d get shoving small change into arcade machines. Though you could get some distance to replicating the feel by turning the lights off, have your younger brother spit out his half-eaten sweets on the floor near the machine to make the carpet nice and sticky and get your Mum to shout at you “This is a cafe, not a change machine. If you want change for those bloody machines you’ll have to buy something you little prick. They should bring back conscription. You’d learn some proper respect!” each time you ventured from the gloom into the kitchen.

Your shot is the upper case I, the alien bomb is the *. Interestingly neither you nor your foe can fire again until the projectiles hit their mark or whizz off the screen.

While released by Sinclair in 1982, the game is actually the older Space Invaders coded by Mikro-Gen in 1981. That release had the usual (for the time) monochrome packaging and was not available on shop shelves as games would come to be. The Sinclair release sees the title packaged with another, Bomber, a Blitz variant on the B-side of the cassette. Sinclair seemed to have worked with Psion (later of Organiser fame), who developed the ZX Spectrum version of Space Raiders to bring a similar game to the ZX81 at the same time. Shame that Psion did little more than just recycle an old title.

Buying it today

There are two versions - the ZX81 and Spectrum. The covers are more or less identical, so it’d be easy to get the two mixed up if you were not too careful.

The Spectrum version seems to be the more prevalent on auction sites. The ZX81 version reviewed here was not produced in as great numbers and so commands a higher price. Prices do vary from £10 to £50 depending on condition and how gullible the seller thinks people are. Expect to be able to get it for the lower end of these two figures at the present time.

Note that there is a cartridge version for the Spectrum. These are quite rare and can cost around the £60 mark. If you end up with that, well done. Now you just need to find a ZX Interface 2 so you can play it.

Commentariat

Tim : I’m going to be straight with you. This was the first game that I ever played, so my opinion of the game is really tinted. Back when I first got my ZX81, I absolutely loved it and played it for hours and hours. One particularly epic game was played at the end of the day with the prospect of bed-time looming. I made it count, going further than ever before; my parents, failing to understand the seismic nature of what they had just seen, sent me to bed instead of cracking open the champagne.

Playing it again, I can’t pretend it’s not a disappointment; it certainly isn’t how I remember it, but in these situations, it never is...

Graphically it’s not impressive, even for the ZX81; the coders could really have got more out of the hardware especially as game requires a 16k expansion in order to play the game. That said, it certainly plays well enough. It is harder than other Space Invaders clones out there, but it kind of has to be to ensure you get your money’s worth, which probably says more about the higher quality of the opposition than anything else.

The hardness kept me coming back for more when I first had it, but given that it was this, Bomber or the ICL “Fun to Learn” educational series tape that my folks had bought me in the vain hope I’d learn geography from the computer, it was an easy market to please. Now, it can grip me enough to play it, but the longevity isn’t there.

So is there much to recommend it today? Sadly no. A trip down memory lane, but not a particularly good one.

Pop : Ah, gaming on the ZX81… a tricky proposition on the painful and unresponsive keyboard. If you’ve never experienced it, try to imagine using the buttons on your microwave to play your PS4. Luckily this game of space invaders can be enjoyed at a slow pace! I can’t honestly remember if it was this or another invaders clone I played back in the day, but it’s barely passable fodder for the ‘81. Space Invaders is already a simple game, so leaving out stuff like the saucer is and the invaders speeding up as they get fewer is criminal. At least the bunkers are all present and correct. Still, I’d have happily played this back in may games-starved youth. If you’re going to (re)visit the machine today, check out something like 3D Defender or even better 3D Monster Maze...

Meat : Really, have we reached the bottom of the barrel this quickly? In some ways I jest, but really you’d only want to play this for nostalgia’s sake. Given that it needs a 16k expansion to run, I’d want to have something far better than this. Even for the time. It’s not that the aliens don’t traverse the screen properly sometimes. It’s not the missing saucer bonus alien. It’s not the absence of sound (which I can forgive - you can’t magic up sound from a machine with no ability to generate it). It’s not the lack of bitmap graphics. It’s just that in 16k you’d expect them to do something half decent. Like redefine a character set. For heaven’s sake, they could squeeze a game of chess into 1k at the same time, so I expect better here.

There is so little recommend this today. A couple of goes and the fun is exhausted. Unless you are a collector, save your money and head for better titles on the machine. If you really must have a Space Invaders clone from the era, try Avenger for the Vic 20. Hell, even the dull Atari 2600 Space Invaders cart is better than this.

Score card

Presentation 6/10

At a time when a photocopied inlay with a dour pencil drawing was the norm, the cover was incredibly stylish and smart. Seriously, look at it!

Originality 2/10

Sadly it can’t score highly here. Even in 1982 Space Invaders clones were ‘me too’ products.

Graphics 2/10

Uses the inbuilt graphics character set - plenty of scope (and memory) to do something else, even without a bitmap display.

Hookability 7/10

Plays well and draws you in quickly and effectively.

Sound N/A

The ZX81 has no sound output so unsurprisingly, neither does the game.

Lastability 3/10

While it hooks you in, at the end of the day it’s still ‘just’ Space Invaders. While tough, the missing features means there isn’t the depth to bring you back too often.

Value for Money 5/10

Will give you a fair amount of fun, even with its’ drawbacks. Plus there is a second game - Bomber - on side B.

Overall 4/10

You will get some fun out of it on your ZX81 but if you’re emulating, it’s not really worth the effort, sadly. Nostalgia will only get you so far. If you must play Space Invaders on a ZX81, try QS Invaders.

#zx81 #sinclair #sinclair zx81 #afg #antiquesforgeeks #retrogaming #retrocomputing #retro #videogames #space invaders #space raiders #retro review #review

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ursoself-satisfying · 5 years

Note

do you think eugene is maybe scared of long boat trips? i was thinking about it the other day, maybe he plans on going on holiday with his s/o and the only way to go abroad would be on a boat right? but maybe he would get a little (a lot? im not an expert on this) ptsd while being on the boat and his s/o supporting him but not fully understanding because lets be honest, no-one apart from the soldiers fully understand this sort of stuff, and maybe there's another veteran on-board who helps him?

Before we get into it I wanna say I totally agree n that unless u actually have experienced that ur rly not gonna understand what the person is going thru n this applies to all kinds of trauma but just bc u dont understand doesnt mean u cant do ur best to or that u cant still love support n help them handle it n it doesnt mean they're not gr8tful for ur involvement even if u dont understand,, writing for post war eugene is always tricky cus I dont wanna assume ik how any of this goes or the extent of what it entails i havent done this I've barely done any research its heartbreaking tho n unfair n I just wanted to say all that before u get into this cus it's a combo of both asks but also more of a touchy subject than I feel like I've addressed here so that's just a heads up but enjoy!!

Omg eugene my bby

I def think hes still afraid of boats big time,, so when the two of u decide to go abroad for ur honeymoon it's a big decision for u two to make one w lots of beforehand discussions n considering all ur other options but in the end the push of ur families n the pull of the convenience of a boat eases u both into the decision, even tho nothing about it u kno is going to be easy,, Eugene is p nervous cus I mean the nightmares have lessened n u both have been learning how to handle his flashbacks n the like but u had never tried anything like this yet so on one hand it could be a good time to test the waters but on the other hand neither of u have any idea how itll actually go

Even just in the car on the way there he starts to get shakey n then on the dock it gets a bit worse but ur hands r on him somehow the whole time either locked in his or on his leg or arm or stuck in his pocket n that comforts him, ur touch anchors him n keeps him from drifting to worse thoughts it keeps him thinking about u instead,, its till hard tho just thinking about it being back on that boat forcing himself to remember hes going to France n it's not occupied n hes not alone n hes going to get to see the sights w his wonderful wife n thoroughly enjoy those bright French mornings n that it's going to be quiet, no more bombs or raids or alarms just u n him under thin sheets hot n sticky n just together n safe

But first,, the boat

On the boat? It was rough,, every bit of turbulence n every odd sway made him anxious n as much as u tried to entice him to enjoy more of the boats activities like a cabaret show or even just playing some chess out on the deck n tho u could get him out a few times n he did enjoy himself,, he spent most of his time in the cabin trying to ignore the fact he was on a boat at all,, the rest of his time not being coaxed out by u he spent napping in a deck chair w u often lounging beside him n watching over his sleep carefully, also making sure he didnt burn n lathering her exposed skin in sunblock as much as u could as he slept

U two kept busy in the cabin tho I mean it was ur honeymoon after all ;;;))) so he ravaged u as often as he could bc not only were u a comfort but also a distraction,, u did other things as well tho like laying n listening to ur favourite radio shows or playing guitar to him or sketching him or dancing together or once even doing a silly little fashion show where he def tripped after putting on ur heels

He did have a few attacks tho but u had prepared as best u could n even if some of ur cabin took a beating in an outburst u had always managed to talk him down n he spent a lot of time in ur arms

His breakdowns btw would come suddenly when something would trigger him like a sudden movement or a splash against ur window n then he would get angry n scared n become protective of u until his aggression bubbled over into hot tears drowned out by ur soft words of confirmation trying to tell him u were on a modest cruise liner n u were going to Europe n that the guns n the bombs n the tropical climate were all far away n u would pull him into a cold shower w u n he would often (fuck u hard first then) just cling to u n cry until he could calm down n fall asleep n if he stirred in his sleep u would repeat the process until he could sleep soundly

He was gr8tful to finally be off the boat n back on land tho n once in Paris the two of u could rly enjoy ur honeymoon beginning w breaking in ur hotel bed ;;;)))

But then the two of u got to see the Eiffel Tower n the Seine n the Louvre n Notre dame n it was all so amazing!!!! U spent half the time w ur head in ur sketchbook n he spent all his time taking photos of u w ur head in ur sketchbook lol

The photos were brilliant n sweet n excessive n there were def a few of u bare n freshly fucked (pardon my french) w the Parisian skyline out the window behind u, the morning like shining thru ur messy hair like a halo,, but there were also many of him from the perspective of u kneeling over him n many more of both of u playfully holding up the tower or picnicking in front of a cathedral w u plucking at ur guitar or him w a bottle of wine at his lips

It was all v picturesque n romantic n perfect n u thought he deserved nothing less n he thought the same for u ::""))

U spent about 4 weeks there together n he had throughly used his time to fuck u in every way possible n use every toy u brought with but then it was suddenly time to go home n u were concerned about eugene being back on the boat but he seemed less nervous when u got on n he admitted to feeling a lot better after the first trip n this time he actually went out w u n u played board games w other passengers n danced in the halls n sang w the cabaret n he still sunbathed n napped n made love to u n wrecked ur cabin n u still listened to all ur radio shows n drew n sang but ur lives felt more full somehow after this experience

Oh n u def showed off everything u had bought is Paris n as much as he loved that silk dress on u he loved peeling it off u even more ;;;)))

He rly did feel better when u were finally home to ur little cottage for the first time together as a globetrotting married couple ::"")) he felt better that he hadnt handled it nearly as bad as hed expected n urs n his trip abroad left u feeling loved n cultured n more experienced in life plus u both had taken a huge chance n now u were better for it n felt more capable n confident that he was getting better n it was an affirmation that u would take care of him n that u would always be there for him, just as u had said in ur vows ::""))

He was happy to consummate ur new marriage in ur own bed for the first time tho lol n on top of that gr8 feeling it was just gr8 that he felt less held back w u there w him especially after the boat experience

So yeah a quick note I rly do think he would be terrified of ever stepping foot on a boat again n would refuse it n be vvv adamant about not doing it again for a vvv long time but I think he could be worn down n would EVENTUALLY be ok w it but maybe not this fast n tho I dont feel like I go into much detail here he def has a hard time on the boat as well like hes just agitated the whole time n probably was prescribed some medication for it if just some motion or sea sickness meds n maybe anxiety but i would say it prolly makes him drowsy so hes kinda out of it which keeps him calm but doesnt stop certain flashbacks n maybe he lashes out n hurts someone once in a while cus it's incredibly traumatic returning to that environment but anyway yeah he would be v fidgety n not like it but in this scenario hes willing to take a chance given how well hes been recovering n how much he trusts u n how much u have helped him n the option had pull so that's why but rly I dont think irl he would have gone back on a boat anywhere near that soon but this is romantic fiction so ::))

Also I have a v specific image of who eugene is w if u cant tell lol so I'm sorry for that specificity but I'm so whipped for him n his gal I lov sm I hope u enjoy n guys I'm so motivated to finally write out the storyline I have for him I'm gonna finally get out his fic ok I promise

#she has a voice!!!#joe mazzello #not queen #nut #the pacific #eugene sledge x reader #eugene sledge #anon asks #answered asks #send asks #send me asks #asks #anons #anon me too wow #anon #send me anons #anonymous

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tf2workbench · 3 years

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The unique balance of MvM

This Thursday, I released a post about upgrades in Mann vs. Machine. You all seemed to like it, despite the fact that I scrapped several of my ideas right then and there. So for today’s bonus post, I think it would be good to discuss why MvM is the way it is - unbalanced.

You can think of MvM using the rough framework of a Payload or Attack/Defend map. The Mann Co. team is, of course, defending against the robots.

When you’re defending, it’s important that you hold ground; you are almost never going to be pushing forwards to take new areas. This means you are entirely focused on keeping the enemy out. What’s the best way to keep the enemy out? Killing them, of course. (You can also push them away, but that’s less permanent.)

This means that, on defense, you are trying to inflict as much damage as possible on the attacking team in the shortest amount of time (measured in damage-per-second, or DPS). Failing that, you’re forcing them out of the way. If you’re not doing either of those, you’re enhancing your team’s capacity to do those.

On the flip side, attackers need to take an objective, and killing the enemy is secondary. It’s certainly helpful, since dead bodies can’t defend points, but it’s not the name of the game. And to take objectives, you have to be alive. So attackers tend to focus more on mobility and survivability.

You’ll notice that most Attack/Defend and Payload maps are fun to play and have room for each class. In fact, a hallmark of a bad map is where it turns into a damage race with no strategy involved.

Now, MvM is markedly different from those game modes because of a few factors. The first one is the huge number of attacking robots. You need to kill all of them, which means you have to deplete a lot more hit points than if you were facing a team of humans. They’re definitely easier to kill, but by sheer volume of HP, they outnumber you by at least a couple orders of magnitude.

Additionally, bots don’t think (yet), while human players do. These robots will almost always go straight toward the bomb hole. This means you can’t play mind-games against them, and the only lulls in gameplay are when they are dead. The scales are heavily weighted toward damage or something to disrupt the robots’ path - a longer travel time means more time to kill them, after all.

This causes significant class discrepancies, mostly cutting the Sniper and Spy out of the equation. Neither has high damage against multiple targets, and though they do have their uses, they struggle in many missions - they just don’t put out enough damage, and their abilities can be mimicked by other classes. For example, since robots don’t avoid stickybombs, a sticky trap will kill far more than an explosive headshot, and do so just as instantly.

Even in the more popular classes, there are clear hierarchies of weapons to use. As a rather stark example, consider Demoman vs Demoknight: the explosives can put out far more damage to many more targets, even if the shield charge can take out one or two smaller robots. Most of the classes have something like this; you can imagine that the Gunslinger is pretty rare because of the Mini-Sentry’s lack of damage.

Using upgrades to balance this out is quite tricky, because non-damage bonuses have to be very powerful to make up for their lack of DPS; not all upgrades are equal, even with price factored in. Additionally, not all missions have the same cash load, meaning that upgrades are to a certain extent mission-dependent.

Changing stats for only MvM is also possible (in fact, the Phlogistinator and Your Eternal Reward already have numerical adjustments to keep them from being overpowered), but this makes weapons more difficult to parse. Upgrades are more intuitive and let the player make important choices.

So what upgrades am I going to change? You should scroll down, because one minute before I posted this, I posted some potential upgrades for a wide selection of weapons. Check ‘em out!

#tf2workbench #tf2 #team fortress 2 #mvm

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404botnotfound · 5 years

Text

Corrupt [2]

Come, oh bearer mine, and show them that even a rose can be deadly.

SERIES: Destiny WORD COUNT: 6,806 SHIP: N/A CHARACTERS: kel, luke, cayde-6, lord shaxx, eris morn, ikora, zavala, quinn

Almost two weeks later, Cayde’s call comes at an inopportune moment.

Middle of a firefight with a group of Fallen that he’s sorely underestimated, and he makes the mistake of opening the line at the exact time he sees the Captain bearing down in him. Before Cayde can start to speak Kel grunts and calmly says, “one second,” before diving out of the way of a pair of shock blades that descend on him.

Reaching for his belt and one of the sticky grenades resting there Kel rushes forward, ducking underneath the Fallen’s four arms and two blades, not stopping to look behind him as the Captain roars in offense.

An explosion causes the rocks under his feet to shudder. A blink of red disappears from his HUD radar.

The comm line, surprisingly, remains patiently silent.

He takes stock of the enemies left: a dozen Fallen, all of them conveniently grouped up.

Propelling himself forward he leaps from the ground and pushes off the surface of a broken pillar, light roiling around him and shrouding his body in rippling flames—flames that he pulls handfuls of etheric, fiery knives from that fly from his hands too fast for the Fallen to dodge.

Kel lands as those knives erupt around him, and when the dust settles there are no Fallen bodies to be seen. Just ash and smoldering, blackened shrubs.

His fingers flex over the grip of the hand cannon held in them, eyes scan for any more enemies in waiting.

Cayde can’t seem to keep silent any longer. “Was that the trick I taught you? Tell me that was the trick I taught you. It was the trick I taught you, wasn’t it.”

Kel ignores him, glancing at Echo as she materializes to survey the area. “Did you have news?”

“We know how to find her.” Cayde answers without missing a beat or acknowledging the snub.

He holsters Thorn and turns away from the battlefield he’d just cleared, and Echo calls in his ship without prompting. He doesn’t need to hear more explanation than that, but Cayde gives it anyway, voice briefly drowned out by the roar of engines.

Kel wonders if he does it just to reassure himself that Quinn was still alive and they would get her back now that they had a lead.

Luke’s assumption that the Taken had pulled her through a rift into the Ascendant Plane had been correct—and her ghost, after having found a way out of that alternate dimension, had gone on for several minutes about how terrifying it was until Ikora had gently urged it to focus.

Apparently she had managed to turn the Taken’s own paracausal powers against them, tearing a hole in that reality herself. A rip only big enough for Glyph to slip through, allowing it to return to the Tower, frantic and exhausted by the long and rushed journey between Saturn and Earth.

It knew where to enter the Ascendant realm to find her—the tricky part would be hoping they got there quickly enough to keep whatever lurked there from either corrupting or killing her.

Kel’s fingers twitch near his holster and he wonders: were they one and the same?

He wonders: what would Dredgen Yor have said?

He doesn’t dwell on it, spending the entire flight from Venus back to Earth silent and aware of the rising hum in the back of his head the closer he got after days of peace. Like when he had found it, Thorn was eager.

The little girl still appears in the corner of his eyes and tugs on the hem of his tattered cloak, begging for his attention. Sometimes he feels her fingers curl around his own, finding upon looking down that they’ve been replaced by the grip of a handgun that purrs at him to lift the barrel to his chin and pull the trigger.

It’s getting easier for him to recognize the signs and brush them aside, but the visions and whispers had intensified and Kel knows he’s on a short timer. Part of him wants to just toss the damn thing, but the rest of him doesn’t enjoy the thought of what might happen should someone that hadn’t spent hundreds of years practicing intense self-control got their hands on it.

It had already proven itself to be a ticking time bomb for even him—how deep and easy would it sink its claws into someone else?

So, no, he wouldn’t toss the gun and hope for the best, and he had done everything from emptying every round of his rocket launcher’s ammo on it to dropping it in the lava flows of Venus in the hopes of destroying it without success.

The lava flow attempt had left him blacked out and he had woken later with the gun vibrating with furious energy.

That had been the first time Kel had felt true, all-consuming fear since his rebirth, and it was also the moment he realized that Thorn was more than just an accursed weapon in the City’s and in humanity’s history—it was a curse in and of itself.

One that he now held the responsibility of containing.

Eris had said there was a way to silence it, to make it easier to control, but in two weeks he’d had no luck finding how. He was running out of time, and quickly, but he had enough time for this detour. He wouldn’t abandon Quinn. Not when there was a chance she was still alive, not when Gil had given his life to make that chance possible, and not when her bright presence had burned away the shadows of his memories.

When he arrives on Earth he’s met with more greetings that he only briefly acknowledges before moving on. The less time he spent here, the better.

Eris is absent from her place in the Vanguard hall again, but Kel’s steps slow and then stop when he catches Shaxx’s gaze.

From behind their helmets they stare each other down. Shaxx’s fists are clenched tightly at his sides, and Kel sees arc energy sparking around them. He could apologize for what had happened—he had violated the sanctity of the man’s training grounds, unknowingly or not—but it would be hollow and they both knew it.

There was nothing forgivable about murdering one of their own.

“Shaxx.”

The bold greeting sends a fresh ripple of furious static sparking over the titan’s form. “Dredgen.”

Kel can’t put a finger on whether it’s the icy treatment of a stranger he receives or the cold accusation behind the simple moniker, but the painful sting nearly cripples him. The former he had expected, but the latter?

He swallows it down and continues forward as though it didn’t affect him. Though Shaxx looked as though he was ready to intercept him and wanted to do nothing more, the titan remains in place and stares him down as he passes.

Like the last time he had approached the war room an argument is underway, only this time the doors are wide open and the subject, thankfully, isn’t him. Ikora is silent, her hands clasped behind her back, while Zavala and Cayde butt their heads together.

“—I’m going, Zavala. You can run my hunters through Shiro or Marcus while I’m gone, but I’m going.” Cayde says, heated. Not quite as rare attitude for him, but still out of the norm.

“We need you here, Cayde,” Zavala jabs a finger down onto the table in front of him to emphasize the statement, firm and unyielding in everything from his voice to his body language, “let her fireteam run the rescue op and we’ll send a temporary third with them.”

Cayde refuses to concede. “And I need to be there.”

He’s the first to notice Kel’s entrance. His expression shifts to something neutral, but Kel doesn’t miss the quick glance to where Thorn is strapped to his thigh. Cayde’s gaze lingers—and then he gives Kel a nod in greeting. “I gotta be there for more than one reason.”

Kel returns his nod and understands.

Zavala doesn’t look happy about Kel’s presence, but whatever protests he has to it are held in check; he makes no effort, however, to hide his distrust. Ikora just gives him a once over and a long, considering look before lifting her chin ever so slightly in acknowledgement.

Two out of three wasn’t bad.

He says nothing, quietly continuing down the steps and veering off to the side once he’d reached the lowered landing and finding a spot apart from them where he can stand silent and still as a statue. Maybe they could pretend he wasn’t even there.

Distraction put aside Cayde continues his argument. “Only way you’re keepin’ me off this op, Zavala, is by puttin’ a lock on my ship.”

“Which you would find a way to break or circumvent.” Zavala sighs explosively, pushing away from the table and folding his arms over his chest. “This isn’t like Venus, or Mars, or any of our other warzones, Cayde. You’ll be heading into Oryx’s turf, not one we control.”

“I know the risk. It’s worth it.” Cayde replies.

Silence falls, stretching out until Ikora speaks up. “Think of it this way, Zavala: there would be something especially inspiring for our guardians and City to see one of their leaders heading a direct strike into the heart of the enemy. Morale is something we’ve...been seeing a decline in recently.”

She must’ve been taking a backseat to mediate their argument.

Still, Zavala says nothing, leaning forward on the table again and showing his distaste openly. “And if you die, Cayde? If this fails?”

“It’s a risk all of them take every single day. ‘Side from the fact we’re the ones givin’ orders, what makes us so special?”

Kel had already had more than enough respect for Cayde but that simple rhetorical question tips it even higher.

Hunter Vanguards historically had the shortest details—in the years since the City’s beginning, both warlocks and titans had seen less than five leadership changes combined, and hunters alone had seen at least five—that were typically cut short thanks to a stereotypically flighty nature that usually got them killed.

Cayde was the ‘youngest’ of the current Vanguard iteration, and he still knew what it felt like to be one of the rank and file. Zavala and Ikora had forgotten, and both look sobered by the statement.

In the end Zavala relents, and Kel wordlessly follows Cayde from the war room.

Luke is rushing across the plaza when they run into him, apparently trying to get to the war room himself. Cayde intercepts him before he bypasses them entirely, and Kel has to spend a handful of heartbeats carefully controlling his breathing and beating down the rage that threatens to resurge. It wasn’t his fault, he reminds himself.

Cayde and Luke are staring at him when he returns to the present. Luke looks nervous, and Cayde was once again unreadable. He says nothing to it. “Are we going or not?”

He wants Quinn back within the City walls, safe. He wants to strike a blow against the Taken King, retaliation for his lost brother. The sooner he does both, the sooner he can retreat from the remnants of humanity and seek a way to control Thorn’s influence, keeping them safe from the threat it poses to all of them.

He keeps his distance on the flight from Earth to the rings of Saturn, remaining in the middeck of Cayde’s ship and listening while the Hunter Vanguard and Luke discuss their plan with Glyph giving input based on its knowledge of the chunk of the Ascendant Plane they’d be infiltrating.

Luke glances over at him every so often and Kel returns the looks from behind his helmet impassively, saying nothing; like with Shaxx, he knows that there aren’t words to make up for what he had almost done, and he doesn’t expect Luke to forgive him for it.

They journey deep into Oryx’s floating fortress once they arrive, directed by Glyph who had opted to share a ‘backpack’ with Cayde’s ghost, Sundance. Neither of his allies comment on him using Thorn, but Cayde does conspicuously order Luke to fall back and bring up the rear and Kel to take point, keeping himself between the two members of Fireteam Ward.

It was just as well; the proximity to so much Hive power and magic made the black static at the back of his mind roil, so Kel doesn’t mind pulling ahead so his back was to them rather than the other way around.

Pulling an Ascendant Soul from one of Oryx’s many ‘children’ on the Dreadnaught is no simple task but they accomplish it through equal amounts skill and raw determination—there would be no other way to force open the tear that Quinn had created.

Glyph’s directions lead them into a passage small enough all three of them have to duck down to file through. Luke’s vocal disgust about the chitinous growths and writhing hive worms surrounding them allows a brief moment of amusement to push back Thorn’s greedy grasping at his mind.

The passage darkens the further in they move, all the colors reaching his eyes suddenly washing out in shades of dark blues and grays and blacks as though a painter had stripped all of the vibrance from their universe.

The change from the plane of existence they call home and the Ascendant one is immediate and disorienting, as though they’d stepped through a pressurized barrier, the weight of the air around them suddenly oppressive and stifling. His light feels small and choked and he knows that he can’t remain here long.

Already, Thorn is drawing strength from the darkness.

The passage opens up after a ways and all three of them are struck dumb by the void that greets them, littered with cracked stone pathways and floating islands of sand and Hive growths consuming nearly every visible surface.

All around them a howling gale roars, dark clouds twisting and and swirling, obscuring every broken, floating pathway until a blinding flash of lightning within the unnatural storm around them sets the endless horizon alight and reveals them.

Along with the shadows of massive, writhing tendrils somewhere in the far distance within the smoke-like clouds of the storm.

The reports of Crota’s throne world, infiltrated by that six-man fireteam decades ago, hadn’t done this chaotic realm justice. It was terrifying in its seemingly endless, haunting expanse with the storm around them both deafening and silent at once.

He couldn’t see any of Oryx’s mindless army, but he can still feel countless eyes watching them, greedy and hungry, something ancient and eldritch and powerful waiting for them to fall into the yawning abyss below.

Thorn feels abnormally warm in his palm. It speaks to him for the first time in nearly a week, voice almost incomprehensible within the deafening cacophony of echoes that accompany it.

Do you hear it, oh bearer mine? The song. Listen to the song. Hear its truth.

Light-wielders shouldn’t be here. No one should be here. He knows this instinctively, and with a glance at the other two Kel knows that both of them have come to the same conclusion.

And Quinn had spent over a month trapped in this hell. Alone.

A massive, distant roar rising over the silent gale snaps them all of them out of their horrified awe, reminding them of what they had come here for.

Cayde readies his Ace. “C’mon, let’s move.” To the point and devoid of his usual good humor. It’s a testament to the wrong-ness of this place, to the danger of it. This wasn’t a place to underestimate and he knew there was no place for his usual levity and devil-may-care attitude here.

This time he leads the way, Glyph’s nervous voice over team comms telling them that Oryx’s throne world was massive, and it had no idea how much further in Quinn may have traveled in its absence—they hadn’t been able to find somewhere safe to just bunker down, and it wasn’t likely she had found a way to since.

Monsters unlike anything they had ever seen wandered these teetering paths and inexplicable ruins, apparently, and it makes near-frantic emphasis that even if they couldn’t see any now they were still everywhere.

So they moved forward carefully, following Glyph’s direction further into the throne world, all on high alert. Cayde quickly grew visibly frustrated with their slow pace, but with the roaring winds and fog around them they could scarcely see twenty feet ahead, and knowing that one wrong step sent them into a dark abyss that Kel doubted they could survive, ghost or not, they couldn’t afford to rush any more than they could afford to dawdle.

Several times Glyph had to call out for them to abruptly change direction or for them to stop before they walked right over the edge of one of the floating structures they traversed.

Kel had to reach out and grab Luke’s robes one of these times, just barely catching the warlock before he completely lost his footing. By the way he had gone completely still, staring at Kel as he held him over the edge, he’s sure Luke had wondered in that moment if he was going to just let him fall.

Thorn tells him that he should and then howls its rage into his mind when he instead pulls Luke back onto solid ground.

“Thanks.” Luke says, voice shaky.

Kel’s head hurts. “Don’t mention it.”

Twenty minutes pass. Then thirty. Only twice did they have to stop to fend off a wave of Taken-warped thrall, vicious and screeching at them as they scale and traverse the twisting and broken landscape of their King’s territory.

Cayde works flawlessly with both of them as though he’d been part of their team for years, and all the thrall and acolytes and knights unlucky enough to be in their path fall.

They take a moment to breathe after a wave of thrall clear, all acutely aware that they didn’t have many of them to spare. Tick tock, tick tock.

Luke breaks the silence first. “Anyone else a little worried we haven’t seen any of those monsters Glyph mentioned?”

“Think it’s somethin’ we should be grateful for, kid.” Cayde replies easily, flicking his wrist and dropping the empty magazine from his Ace so he can reload it.

“No,” both Cayde and Luke’s attention snap over to him at the single deathly certain word, “it’s not.”

“What’re you thinkin’, Kel?” Cayde’s hand flicks the new magazine into place within the barrel of his gun.

He struggles to find the words he wants to say through the deafening static between his ears. Thorn doesn’t want him to speak at all. “Oryx wants us to keep going. He wants us as deep into his world as he can get us.” He pauses, one of his gloved hands settling on his helmet over the crown of his head; he’s not sure why he knows this. Or how.

His fingers tighten around Thorn’s grip.

“I mean, we know Oryx wants us dead, Kel. Why not just try to kill us here?” Luke asks. He doesn’t have to mention that thrall and knights were hardly a challenge for veteran guardians that had faced them before.

He can’t make the words form, though they’re on the tip of his tongue. He doesn’t know. He does, but he doesn’t.

“‘Cause we’ll be farther from a way to escape,” Cayde supplies, and though there’s something crucial missing from the answer Kel knows that he’s dead to rights, “we find Quinn, he kills all of us at once. If he’s lucky, which he ain’t. This handsome mug ain’t dyin’ today.”

Kel needs to figure out what that crucial missing piece is. He needs to. What was it?

“Question is: why?” Cayde continues, and Kel sees him shift impatiently in the edge of his vision. He knows the answer to this question is important, just as Kel does, but he’s gotten far enough that his biggest concern is finding the woman he still hasn’t admitted he loves.

Listen to the song. You know the words. Let me sing to them, oh bearer mine. Join me, let us sing together.

“I don’t know.” Kel finally says, his tongue feeling leaden within his mouth. And it’s true that he doesn’t, but the melody between his ears is beginning to make horrific sense.

Cayde’s watching him with sharp eyes, likely trying to assess whether or not Thorn was getting its hooks into his head again—but he apparently comes to the conclusion that Kel had it under control, because he turns his back to him and then starts forward, calling for them to keep moving.

Fool.

‘Shut. Up.’ Kel thinks forcefully, his jaw grinding until it’s painful. Miraculously, Thorn retreats to an incessant buzz in the back of his head in response.

It gives him no comfort.

They move forward, minutes ticking by, until the silent thunder cracks and the roaring winds around them are broken by a single, piercing scream that causes gooseflesh to erupt all over his skin. All three of them stop dead in alarm that’s quickly replaced by urgency.

Cayde breaks into a run first, followed without prompting by him and Luke, and Kel can hear Luke muttering a staccato repetition of shit, shit, shit from beside him.

It’s as they round a colossal stone column that Glyph speaks up, having remained silent long enough Kel had nearly forgotten it was there, its voice a shrill, tinny yell of warning over the comms: “Abyssal Knight!”

Barely a second after it yells in warning a massive behemoth materializes right in front of them in an unnatural, crackling storm of something like dust or gravel. It looked like a Hive Knight in shape, but was so huge that their heads just barely reached the height of the bottom of its knees, and its chitin was soot-black and nearly invisible in the inky darkness of the Ascendant Plane.

They notice the massive blade raised above the creature’s head nearly too late.

The shockwave of the blade striking the already cracked and crumbling ground sends all three of them along with shattered debris flying; Kel feels his back slam into the jagged stone surrounding the path, the blow knocking wind from his lungs and stunning him.

On the other side of the path a blast of arc energy sends more debris scattering and Luke stumbles out of it on his knees. A few feet to Kel’s side Cayde crouches almost on his knees as well, feet dangerously close to the edge of the floating path and one of his hands curled tightly around the exposed root of a dead tree.

Shaking the daze from his eyes, Kel lifts Thorn as the Knight raises its blade again.

“Just run, you can’t damage these things!” Glyph yells at them, panicked.

The issue, Kel thinks, wasn’t that they couldn’t damage it—but that they didn’t have the time to figure out how. Was that hubris? He doesn’t care.

Reaching for his belt quickly Kel lobs a tripmine up onto the stone that towers above him, the explosive beeping only once before its sensor picks up the Knight and explodes. The Knight stumbles, and a furious roar that sounds less like a creature and more like a force of nature follows them as they push forward.

“Glyph, where is she?” Cayde slows slightly to raise his gun and fire off a few shots at the thrall that had picked an awful time to come swarming from the shadows.

“Dead ahead, but there’s more knights!”

Poor word choice.

The exo swears, word nearly lost to the horde of screaming thrall blocking their way forward and the heavy, lumbering steps of the Knight giving chase behind. “Luke, we need a path!” Cayde calls out.

Kel expects Luke to let out a whoop and a jubilant ‘let’s rock n’ roll!’, but the warlock is instead silent as electricity flares up around him, flying from his open palms and ripping through the horde of thrall before them.

It’s unnerving to see Luke without the gusto everyone knew him for, but Kel doesn’t have time to wallow in self-loathing at the fact he’d been the one to dampen it.

He and Cayde follow after Luke, single shots from their pair of hand cannons picking off whatever Hive escaped from the warlock’s raging storm. Kel turns around once to fire a shot at the Abyssal Knight still pursuing them, hoping to find some weakness, but the bullet doesn’t so much as cause it to stumble.

Echo beeps at him to get his attention just as he turns away and he pauses, watching as though in slow motion as something incandescent wavers around the Knight’s gargantuan form; an image flashes in his mind of a dead titan in a Crucible arena.

The Knight’s body shifts as it moves to strike down and Kel dives out of the way, rolling back into gear and taking off after the other two.

They can see more of the Abyssal Knights ahead, clear of the screaming thrall that Luke had successfully reduced to smoking ash. Something glows brightly in the darkness of the Ascendant Plane right in the middle of the three monsters, and both Kel and Luke immediately recognize the opaque white shield unique to their teammate.

One of the knights rears back with its weapon and slams it down on the shield, scattering the sound of cracking glass on the wind around them. Quinn lets out a scream of helpless fear from within the shield’s dome.

“Cayde, we can kill these things, do you have a barrage ready?”

“Hold on, what?” Luke demands.

There’s no hesitation in Cayde’s answer. “I do.”

The easy, unflinching trust for him to give an affirmative without even knowing what his plan was, after everything he’d done and nearly done, punches Kel in the chest. He sequesters that feeling for later, a weapon to use against Thorn when it tries to press into the depths of his mind for an advantage.

Nine bullets in Thorn’s magazine. Three Abyssal Knights.

He takes aim—three shots each, a full magazine of hungry, caustic bullets that do exactly as he had hoped they would. The three knights stumble when the rounds chew through whatever paracausal shields they had and shatter them, massive weapons slamming to the ground and making it rumble under their feet.

Cayde takes to the air with his light burning wild and unleashes a barrage of fiery knives that erupt violently over the carapace of the now defenseless goliaths, leaving them to howl as the fire of Cayde’s light rips them to shreds and turns them to ash that’s swept away by the wind.

Immediate threat to the one they came here to save out of the way, the three of them turn for the last Knight still lumbering heavily towards them. Kel reloads quickly and empties the full clip into it, his teammates hailing it with even more the moment its shields are destroyed.

Nothing but the roaring silence of the storm around them follows. It’s a reprieve and nothing more, Kel knows this even without the hissing laughter he hears cut through his thoughts.

Cayde doesn’t hesitate, immediately turning and bolting back for the center of the massive open platform they find themselves on. The opaque shield they’d seen, so similar and yet so different from a titan’s at the same time, dissipates and reveals Quinn lying prone on the crumbling stone within a small divot.

The knights had been hammering at her shield for longer than they’d been witness to, it seems.

He and Luke join Cayde.

“Hey, sunshine,” he’s saying as they approach, Ace gently set on the ground next to him as he reaches for her, “you’re alright. You’re alright.”

It seems more like he’s trying to convince himself rather than her, but Kel doesn’t mention it.

She’s pale as a sheet and there are dark circles of exhaustion under her eyes, that much more pronounced with how white she looks, and there’s a thin sheen of sweat visible over her skin even in the desaturated colors of the Plane.

Her chest heaves with exertion and she shakes with something he can’t tell between weariness or unfiltered relief that they’d found her; morbidly, Kel wonders whether Oryx would’ve become unstoppable if they’d gotten here too late, for he knew now that that is why he wanted all of them here, deep in his realm.

Power feeds power. Blade versus flesh. Blade versus Eternity. There can be no survival without teeth.

Thorn’s laughter grows louder and Kel goes stiff as he fights with himself, suddenly struggling not to lift the barrel of the gun and fire off three very specific shots.

Weight hits him and nearly throws him off balance, and Kel only realizes that someone’s embraced him when the contact somehow pushes the dark static from his mind and leaves his thoughts clear again. He blinks, looking down and seeing Quinn with her arms tight around his back and face pressed against his chestplate.

His throat feels tight; he wasn’t deserving of the silent thank you she was projecting to him, not at all, but he hesitantly wraps an arm around her back in return.

“Can you move?” He asks her, following Cayde’s line of sight when he lifts Ace at the ready. Already the Taken were swarming again. They couldn’t stay here.

She looks like she might pass out at any moment, but when she steps back he spends a moment wondering at the sheer force of will the woman had to be able to keep upright after being trapped here for so long, after an ordeal that must have drained her to the brink.

She nods, pausing when Glyph materializes briefly to shift from Cayde to her.

“Good, that’s good, because there are a lot of bad guys heading our way,” Luke says, already hop-stepping back in the direction they’d come.

“Kel, take point again. Quinn, stick close. Luke, you ‘n me bring up the rear. Move!” Cayde barks out quickly, and all of them—all four of them—take off, hoping that their path would remain clear as they’d made it.

He didn’t hold out hope, knowing that now Oryx had them where he wanted them they weren’t going to leave easy. Part of him wants to argue Cayde’s order for Quinn to stick close to him with Thorn’s possessive, dark whispering growing disorientingly loud and demanding, but he doesn’t.

It was a double-edged sword, grasping at his mind greedily and testing every ounce of his carefully honed restraint, but the only weapon among them that could damage the powerful creatures that he hoped could only exist within this realm.

Instead, Kel took solace in knowing that Cayde still trusted him to maintain his control over something that could be both their and and salvation here.

Taken swarm at them from all sides as they run, the King of this world throwing oceans of screaming and howling thrall and knights and acolytes at them to slow them down and tire them out. To stop them from leaving.

Kel understands now why the disastrous mission that Gil died on went the way it had.

It’s nothing but sheer luck that sees the four of them back to the beginning, back to the passage they’d come through and out of the choking void.

They weren’t safe, far from it—if Gil’s death had told them anything, things were about to get even more difficult.

The moment they’re out of the tight passage and into the cavernous halls and suspended platforms filled with rock and chitinous growths and writhing worms that made up the Dreadnaught, they stop for nothing, slowing only to push back against the waves and waves of enemies Oryx furiously throws at them.

By the time they make it back to the transmat zone and are pulled into the confines of Cayde’s ship all of them are exhausted—though, he imagines, nowhere near to the state Quinn likely is—and Sundance immediately sends the ship into flight away from Oryx and his throne and the Taken.

The ship makes it into hyperspace and it’s only then that all of them allow themselves to catch their breath and relax.

“How long was I gone?” Quinn asks quietly from where she’d collapsed against the hull of the ship, hands hanging limply on the ground on either side of her and legs bent unevenly where they stretch out in front of her.

“Almost two months.” Sundance answers her from within the ship’s systems, her voice soothing and gentle.

There are tears in her eyes. “It felt like so much longer.” She whispers, and then the first sob wracks her body.

Cayde is at her side instantly, pulling her against him and settling his chin on top of her head, jaw lights flashing erratically while they’re caught somewhere between his choking relief and concern. “You’re alright now, sunshine.” He says, rocking her gently while she clutches at him and cries. “You’re alright. We’re taking you home.”

Kel looks away, unable to stop the feeling that he was an intruder to the scene and wordlessly moving for the rear of the ship. He doesn’t belong here with either of them, not while the corrupting grasp of the Darkness claws at him and tells him to just end her suffering.

Somewhere between there and Earth she falls asleep, too exhausted from her ordeal to remain awake, and she stays that way even when they arrive at the Tower and are transmatted down into the hangar. Cayde carries her all the way to the medical ward, Luke and Kel both following and remaining outside while they wait to hear how she is.

The silence between them is stifling.

It’s comfortable enough for Kel, but it leaves Luke twitching and fidgeting restlessly until he speaks up.

“I don’t think even Gil could’ve held up a ward against those things after a month of...all that.” He says, the statement seemingly more to himself than to anyone else, but Kel’s helmet tilts up to him just slightly and the warlock freezes as though only just remembering he was even there.

Kel stares at him for a length, Thorn clawing at his thoughts after hours of silence and telling him to get up, to reach out and strangle Luke for daring to speak Gil’s name. Instead, he nods and evenly replies: “No, he couldn’t have.”

The look of shock on Luke’s face is absolutely worth the pain of acknowledging a still raw wound.

He won’t stay in the City. He can’t. Gil had been the only reason Kel had ever agreed to work as part of a team, the only reason he’d grown to enjoy someone always having his back while he was out in the wild.

He’d miss Quinn. He has to hope she wouldn’t lose the bright personality that had wiggled its way under his skin, and she was one of the few that acutely understood why he found solace in silence and solitude.

Deep down, he’ll miss Luke and his obnoxious, optimistic energy, too; he knows he can’t keep blaming the warlock forever, and it’s only the sharp sting of loss and Thorn’s desperate, hungry whispering that has him pointing the finger of blame in his direction.

Cayde, Ikora, Zavala, Banshee, he’d miss all of them. Shaxx, too, though he’s sure the feeling wasn’t going to be returned.

At least with Quinn back in the Vanguard’s hands, Kel could be satisfied in knowing Gil’s death wasn’t in vain.

Maybe once the wound has healed he’ll come back.

Maybe.

His thumb drags along the grip of Thorn, still hissing at the back of his skull, still urging him to rip open Luke and drink in the light he’ll bleed. It was furious at his careful restraint, frantic that it was being ignored by him ever since the debacle in the war room.

That had been the first time Kel had lost control of himself and snapped in hundreds of years since the phantoms from his first life had begun to plague him, and Kel swears to himself that it was going to be the last.

He speaks with Quinn once she’s awake again, quietly and evenly, just as she remembers.

Cayde stands nearby, unwilling to leave her side and relaying his messages and report to the other Vanguard members through Sundance. He doesn’t mention how close Kel had come to putting down the only other remaining member of their fireteam, nor does he watch Kel like a hawk as though expecting that buried rage to reappear, and Kel appreciates it more than he’ll ever be able to put into words.

She’ll find out, eventually. Luke has too big of a mouth for her not to, and once he vanishes from the Tower he knows she’ll wonder why.

When he leaves the ward and heads back through the Tower he figures it’s well enough that her last impression of him before he left for who knew how long is just the same as before the loss of his best friend ripped open old wounds and nearly changed him for the worse.

She needs the stability right now, and while that implies him needing to stay he knows he can’t. Cayde and Luke were fixed enough points on their own, and they could fill in where he’d never be able to so long as Thorn was at his side.

Eris Morn is out in the sunlight of the plaza for once and Kel stops in his path to stare at her.

She’s watching him expectantly.

“There’s no coming back.” It’s more of a statement than a question. He already knows the answer.

“Not fully.” She says, her head tilting slightly. The answer as well as her covered, glowing gaze are surprisingly lucid. “The corruption digs in, burrows into the fiber of your bones as tenaciously as we cling to this dead rock of a planet. You yet hold the weapon. It is still trying. It will continue. It will get worse.”

Worse, implying that killing another guardian and gunning for his own teammate after only a few weeks with the weapon wasn’t that bad. He supposes, compared to the pain and torment she’d suffered at the hands of the Hive, it wasn’t.

They had stolen her eyes and poured corruption into her veins.

She had stolen theirs in return, and used that corruption to exact retribution in spite of the Light now shirking her.

He nods in response; he can still feel it at the back of his mind, insistent and angry. Whatever evil the Hive had planted in the weapon, it didn’t like being ignored.

Kel glances into the distance, his eyes settling on the gargantuan form of the Traveler hovering over the Last City on Earth. “You said there was a way to sever its connection to the Hive magic controlling it. I haven’t found it yet.”

“Xyor. The moon. Slay her.” She offers him, and he looks over at her, both of them sharing a quiet moment of understanding. As he turns away what she says next causes him to stop in his tracks again. “Perhaps you will get to keep your eyes when she is gone.”

Had she just made a joke?

He blinks at her, and her head simply tilts the other way. “You will also be free of the worm wearing a dead girl’s face.”

Anyone else might have jerked back in surprise, but Kel simply curls his hands into fists at his sides. “How—?”

It’s a stupid question; all three of her stolen eyes blink slowly at him.

“I’ll silence it.” He says after a pause, wondering for a moment at just how wrong he may have been about Eris. “And I’ll make sure it doesn’t dig its claws into anyone else.” He’s not sure yet if it’ll even be possible for him to maintain control of it. But he will.

Her lips twitch into a smile so slight and so brief that Kel might have missed it. “Conviction. Eriana would have liked you.” She says, and as she returns to the Vanguard hall she leaves him with one more piece of advice: “Do not let it consume your light, and you may become something even the Hive fear.”

He watches her leave, then looks up at the silent Traveler in the distance, taking in the sight of it for just one more time.

Echo chirps at him cheerfully, confidently, and Kel leaves the Tower and the City behind.

#v: destiny #c: kel #c: luke #c: quinn leonis #ch: cayde 6 #ch: eris morn #ch: zavala #ch: ikora rey #ch: shaxx

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quirksysaynotoboringgifts · 3 years

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Inappropriately Funny and Hilarious Gag Gifts for Friends

No harm in admitting it! We all have that one friend who, at the worst of times, is endlessly uttering out inappropriate shit. Maybe ‘you're’ one of those mates, in that case, welcome to the club. It’s time to bless your most audacious friend with something wicked, nasty, or just outrightly wrong gift if they have a filthy mind and a zero filter. If you and your friend have a crude sense of humour or share an inside joke, these presents are going to make hilarious gag gifts. Just for your information, all the f*cks are given here.

The most innocent, put-together, moms also have an inner dialog when they talk about their kids. Gift them these ‘I Love My Asshole Kids Oven Mitt’ to sassily illustrate how much they admire their spawn by using this oven mitt while making dinner for them. Their kids might be jerks, but still, they are their jerks, let them handle it with care. Watch out for food and bring on the swears and sass in the kitchen with these funny oven mitts.

There's nothing better than getting something off your chest at some point. So, ‘Just do it’ with the ‘Fuck You Card’. Sometimes you wish to have superpowers, to make somebody disappear. Well, in that case, if there is someone in your life who you love or dislike or can hardly tolerate. Give that person a ‘Fuck You Card’ if they have a little sense of humour to understand your inner feelings. Hysterically mean and funny greeting cards, proving there's still hope to congratulate people with style.

Give your hilarious, quirky, and downright blunt friend a ‘Fuck 'Em Tea Towel’ and let them ‘Speak the Truth’. Why use a tea towel just to serve a practical purpose, just simply use it to say, "Fuck EM", when they say you have an attitude problem. This towel will let them handle any tricky situation with grace, poise, and a hell of assertiveness. Hilarious, snarky, and offensive bits of super-absorbent tea towels for your loved ones.

If sarcasm is the only language that your friend understands then gift them this ‘I'm A Delicate Flower Women's Socks’. Let them proudly wear the sarcasm on their feet with these funny and cynical crew socks. They can nurture the sarcasm emerging inside, with a little bit of water and sunshine to let the people back the fuck off. For those who don’t like cussing... Sow what! Turn sock skeptics into sock-oholics. Immerse yourself in our jam-packed sock drawer filled with super cool and funky socks.

Pulling away from the socks, are you and your friends still stuck in using hand sanitiser or we have moved on from it? Hand sanitisers and hand washing may dry you out, but our ‘I'm a Delicate F**king Flower’ natural hand cream will do the magic. Hands down, as it's aggressively refreshing, lovely smelling, and a bit satire. Do you sense some sarcasm? Yeah me too!!

Does your friend look like a fairy, but acts like a toughie? Give your lovely foul-mouth friend a ‘Please Don't Fuck With My Shit Zipper Pouch’ and make a note to not offend. Well in case they take it seriously, tell them there is "Nothing purse-onal!" A little quirky and humorous zipper pouches for your sassy loved ones because everything is so much better in a pouch.

Do your friends love to drop an ‘F-bomb’ on everyone? Well, don’t judge their turn-ons if they don't judge yours. Let them chew on this 'Not Sarcastic, Just Mean Gum' and spit it out as the slightest breeze might trigger them. After the moment passes, they will probably regret saying this to someone. Whatever!! This is the most flavoured and sticky gift to ‘chews’ for them. Sometimes there isn't a better way to say it, so it’s better to say it with our gums without wasting a breath.

Sometimes you feel you wanna say nice things to your mate, but you can’t? Surprise them with a ‘So Anyway Fuck You Toothbrush’ to make their mornings more hygienic with a little creative cursing. This toothbrush is a hilarious gag gift to get their teeth in action while being kind to their ‘fillings’. We will hook you up if you want unbridled enthusiasm and swear words on a toothbrush!

If being funny and quirky is a crime, then there is no need to put the fun down. Charge your friends with f*cking hilarious and trendy gifts to make them laugh uncontrollably upon receiving them.

#laughter #family #friends #gaggifts #gifts #giftsforall #inappropriate #funny #trendygifts #hardtofind #giftstore #shop

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dragonandtiger · 6 years

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Digimon 00 - Fragments - 34

While the sounds of Factory Town had originally been quite distracting, Ken was so focused on his task that it turned into nothing more than background noise. Sitting on the floor, surrounded by assorted hardware in varying degrees of disassembly, his gaze rarely wavered from what he was working on, save to turn to Ryo’s laptop sitting open beside him or to grab one of the many tools or parts surrounding him. In his lap was a series of circuit boards he assembled together, carefully arranged and tested in one program on the laptop screen while the other showed lines upon lines of code.

Ken spent nearly a minute scrutinizing the lines etched into the surface of one of the circuit boards and frowned. After grabbing a couple small transistors and placing them just so, he set the board down delicately and turned back to the laptop. Finding the right code took only a few seconds now that he knew what to look for, and after altering it in just the right ways, the world now acknowledged that the transistors were properly fused to the board and aligned with a slightly altered layout of the copper traces.

Wormmon watched in amazement as the circuit board changed before his eyes from one inscrutable thing to another, his eyes alight with curiosity. At first, he had mistaken Ken’s tinkering for play, one that everyone was all too eager to encourage, especially him, by gathering things from around the factory at Ken’s request. However, after he had finished his busywork of arranging parts and tools for his partner’s easy reach, he finally saw just how intense Ken’s expression was, how the child seemed focus in a way that he hadn’t seen in a while. “So what’re you making, Ken-chan?”

Ken made a thoughtful hum in his throat as he added a few more lines of code before it dawned on him that Wormmon had spoken. He blinked and quickly saved his progress before turning to his partner. “Oh! Um. I’m… trying to make a… a communication device, kind of like a cellphone.”

Wormmon stared blankly at Ken. “What’s a cellphone?”

“It’s something humans use to communicate with each other,” Ken said as he looked back down at the device in his lap. “After what happened with Diablomon, we need a way to communicate that won’t be blocked, so I decided to give it a try!”

“That’s amazing!” Wormmon chirped as he clapped his foremost digits together. “You’re amazing, Ken-chan!”

Ken felt a rush of pleasure at the praise, his cheeks tinting. “I… I just figured that I need to do something. It’s not like… I can much of anything else.” He paused before his expression darkened. “Though I’m sure Osamu would’ve been finished by n-”

“So how’s it work?” Wormmon asked, a little louder than he intended, once Osamu’s name left Ken’s lips. Normally, he would be loathe to talk over Ken, but he was determined to keep his partner’s mind off depressing thoughts.

Ken paused with a blink before he drifted away from his unhappy thoughts to his invention. “Well, once I get it fully working, you can use it not only to make phone calls - with video, even - but also send emails. I’m thinking of calling it a… a Digital Terminal, or D-Terminal for short.” He gave Wormmon a sheepish smile. “I-it’s probably not the best name, but…”

“It’s great!” Wormmon cheered, feelers raising high. “It’s a great name, Ken-chan! It’s exactly what it’s supposed to be. A Terminal is another name for a computer, right? And this is like a computer, but you hold it in your hand! And it’s only for people who go to the Digital World.”

Ken’s smile brightened. “R-right! That’s exactly it! And with it, we’ll never be out of contact again! We could even use it as an emergency Digital Gate, if we needed to!”

“That’s amazing!” Wormmon gushed. “We’ll all be able to see each other now no matter where we are!”

“I agree, it is quite an amazing little device.”

Ken was about to respond to Wormmon when the strange voice piped in. He paused and looked up just in time for a metal hand to lash out, striking Wormmon and sending him flying across the room. “W-Wormmon!?” he shrieked as he stumbled to his feet and whipped about to face his partner’s attacker.

The pill-shaped cyborg creature called Nanomon was a strange thing, with a cracked metal chassis that exposed one brown eye surrounded by wrinkled pink flesh. A glass dome full of holes took up the bulk of its head, which doubled as its body, containing a strange contraption with whirring parts and blinking yellow lights that matched its cyborg eye. Six thick segmented cables served as its limbs, the longest two having large hands with thick fingers while the stubbier bottom four ended in stubs with fleshy protrusions jutting out like claws.

One of the hands lashed out as fast as a whip and coiled around Ken, squeezing like a serpent. He screamed and struggled, but could do little more than take notice of Nanomon’s strength and the unhealthy looking flesh that peeked out from numerous cracks and gaps in the metal exoskeleton as the Digimon reeled him in like the catch of the day.

“Finally,” Nanomon hissed. “Another chance to experiment with a Chosen Child.”

“E-eh!?” Ken gawked before he squirmed, kicking his legs. It was ultimately a useless gesture against the powerful Digimon. “H-help, w-w-Wormmon-!” He had precisely zero interest in being experimented on, as he could tell from the way Nanomon was eying him that it would be anything but pleasant.

“Ken-chan!” Wormmon shouted in a panic as he raced back to his Chosen Child. “Sticky Net!”

A spray of sticky webbing ensnared Nanomon’s legs, anchoring them to the floor and stopping the enemy Digimon from leaving. The attacking Digimon glared down at the webs then at Wormmon. “Not this time,” it said, its voice ending in a hiss of static. The empty hand raised, aimed at Wormmon and split apart to reveal sparkling cables and unleash an array of miniature missiles. “Plug bomb!”

Ken’s screams were drowned out by the explosions that followed. Acrid smoke filled the air as the walls and floor blew to tiny pieces of data. He cried out for Wormmon, but there was no response. Even as Nanomon ripped free of the webbing and carried him away, he kept calling out for his partner and craning his head back, but all that remained behind them was silence, smoke, and fragmented data.

Ken could do little more than scream helplessly for his Digimon, tears streaming down his cheeks as Nanomon walked away with him in tow, leaving the devastation behind them.

---

Sorting through the labyrinth of machines in Factory Town for useful parts was something of an ordeal when most pieces were superfluous in their purpose. Still, Ryo felt confident about this stash of circuits he spotted. The tricky part was snatching the circuit boards right after they were rebuilt, but before they were crammed into something else. Fortunately, Nyamon was more than fast enough to dart back and forth along the conveyor belt before one of the many arms snagged her or her prize.

Keiko held still as Ryo carefully placed the next circuit board onto the stack in her arms, making the top of the tower now level with her chin. “Do you think this will be enough?”

Ryo paused to count the stack even as Nyamon returned with a new circuit board. “I’m not sure… Do you think you can carry all those back without dropping them?”

Nyamon flashed Ryo a fanged grin. “Considering I’ll be carrying most of them, that’s not a worry.”

“I shall help as well,” Leomon said as he flexed one arm to emphasize his muscles as the other arm held a heavy bag full of fasteners and miscellaneous parts that hung down past his knee.

FlaWizarmon hummed as he watched the group from across the room, leaning against the wall. He tilted his head, then cast a sideways glance to Witchmon. “Ya think we should mention you can just warp it over?”

Witchmon leaned in to whisper to FlaWizarmon’s ear. “Let them have fun doing things for themselves, dearie.”

Ryo nearly rubbed the back of his neck, but then thought better of potentially getting any hair or oils on his gloves before taking the last circuit board from Tailmon. “I guess over thirty is plenty.”

Keiko nodded and allowed Nyamon to snatch up the bulk of the circuit boards as well as the one Ryo just took. “So what’s next?”

Ryo looked further down the assembly line where Andromon diligently took the newly straightened out squares of metal before they could return to the next conveyer to be rebent. A small bead of sweat formed at the back of his head when he saw that the pile of metal by Andromon more than dwarfed the Perfect level Digimon. “Uh, telling Andromon that’s enough metal for casing and stuff. I doubt Ken’s going to use that much for these-”

An explosion cut him off, one just far enough away that they could feel the faint vibration of it through the floor.

“What the heck!?” Ryo yelped.

Keiko dropped the circuit boards as she ran towards the sound, Nyamon close at her heels and Ryo not much further behind. “That came from where we left Ken-chan!”

FlaWizarmon and Witchmon were similarly already on the move, rushing to follow Keiko. Leomon quickly dropped his own supplies, as even Andromon’s attention was drawn away from further gathering.

It didn’t take long to arrive at the scene, though none of them were prepared for the carnage that awaited them. Rubble was scattered about the area, with electronics mingled among it haphazardly, including Ryo’s laptop and the small handheld device Ken had been working on. Unfortunately, Ken himself was nowhere to be seen.

“Ken?” Ryo called out in a panic as he whipped his head around in search of his best friend. “Ken!?”

Nyamon flicked her ears before she jerked, then turned her attention to the rubble. A small twitch caught her attention and she leapt over to fling the bits of wall aside, revealing a battered and bruised Wormmon.

“Wormmon!” Keiko shouted before carefully scooping Wormmon up into her arms. “What happened? Where’s Ken-chan?”

To their dismay, Wormmon didn’t stir.

FlaWizarmon frowned before he glanced about the room, searching for anything that might tell them what had happened. Unfortunately, rubble couldn’t talk. He grimaced before he turned to Andromon. “Hey, does yer fancy security system include cameras or somethin’?”

The giant cyborg Digimon nodded. “Affirmative.”

FlaWizarmon looked at Andromon expectantly for a moment, only for Andromon to return the gaze with a blank stare. After a moment, the scarecrow quirked an eyebrow before raising both his hands, palm upwards, towards the giant cyborg. “Well? Are ya gonna check ‘em?”

Andromon paused before he gave another nod. “Affirmative.” With that, he turned and trotted over to the far wall, accessing one of the many computer consoles that lined the walls of Factory Town.

FlaWizarmon watched Andromon as he headed off, then let out an exasperated sigh as he reached up to rub the back of his head. “Right then…”

“Robots,” Witchmon sighed out of the corner of her mouth.

Andromon typed at the console, which then began to flash images before him. Everyone watched the android Digimon anxiously as he continued to access the console before finally turning to the others. “The Chosen of Kindness was ambushed by Nanomon, and was subsequently taken prisoner.”

“Nanomon?” Leomon repeated, furrowing his brow.

“Ain’t he that creepy ass mecha Digimon that tried to kidnap Love Darlin’ at one point?” FlaWizarmon asked. “For an advanced robot, he sure didn’t learn nuthin’.”

“I think it’s time for a refresher course,” Witchmon said slyly.

Keiko was in no mood for jokes as she focused her blazing red eyes on Andromon, her voice lowering to a dangerous growl. “Where is Nanomon?”

“He is in the lowest level of Factory Town,” Andromon said as he turned away from the console and faced Keiko. “I will take you to him.”

Keiko’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s go.”

---

Ken had cried all his tears and screamed until he became hoarse, for all the good it did him. Neither did much in dissuading Nanomon from taking him deep within the dark recesses of Factory Town, retreating to a small room the Digimon had claimed for itself. The Chosen of Kindness kicked futilely as Nanomon coldly dropped him onto an examination table before strapping him firmly with metal cables, which were more than capable of holding the small child at bay.

After a moment more of struggling, Ken collapsed against the examination table, gasping for air as he sniffled through his tears. Once he had regained enough of his breath, he craned his head about to try and see what Nanomon was doing, though a part of him dreaded to know the answer.

Nanomon didn’t react to any of the screams, struggles, or even the silence that followed. Its mind was focused entirely on the terminal behind them as it searched for the files it squirreled away in the factory system of the Chosen Children. The first piece of data to appear on the screen was the subject of his last attempt - a girl only a few years older than Ken with red hair. Just the basest of cursory glances told Nanomon that this Chosen Child was a different type than the last subject it examined, but it was keenly interested in knowing what the differences and similarities between them were.

Ken grimaced before he began to struggle again. “Y-y-you’re going to be in s-so much trouble when Keiko and Ryo find me!”

“Are those two more types of Chosen Children?” Nanomon asked, turning about to gaze at Ken with far more interest than the boy was comfortable with.

“T… they’re…” Ken trailed off as he briefly felt himself grow concerned for mentioning them before he gathered his nerves again. He had to have faith in them - there was no way either could lose. “They’re much stronger than you are, and they’ll send you straight to the Village of Beginnings!”

Nanomon stared at Ken for an uncomfortably long time, making the boy squirm what little he could when strapped down so tight to the hard table. After a long moment of watching the Digimon’s mechanical parts whir inside its cracked dome, Nanomon turned back to the computer.

“Preparing appropriate countermeasures,” it said as data flew across the terminal. “There won’t be a repeat of last time.”

“O-o-or you can let me go and not have to deal with it at all!” Ken protested. “It’s your fault, you’re the one causing this to happen!”

“The secrets of the Chosen Children must be extracted,” Nanomon said without looking back at Ken. “Your opinions are irrelevant.”

Ken felt a wave of irritation, despite his fear. “Okay, first off, my opinions are not irrelevant! Secondly, the ‘secrets’ of the Chosen Children are none of your business-”

The sudden press of something sticky against his head cut Ken off with a startled yelp. He squirmed as more were stuck onto his scalp, and only when he saw what was in Nanomon’s hands and the wires attached to them did he realize that the Digimon was hooking up some sort of electrodes meant to scan his brain.

“H-hey, stop!” Ken blurted out as he redoubled his efforts to escape, squirming and kicking his feet.

The only reward Ken’s attempts yielded was Nanomon’s massive hand seizing him by the jaw, forcing his head still so that the Digimon could finish placing the electrodes in the proper locations. His screams, muffled behind the metal hand, fell on deaf ears, and he was only released after Nanomon finished its work.

Panic seized ahold of Ken and he began to try and rub his head against whatever he could in an attempt to remove the electrodes. He didn’t know what would happen, only that he had no desire to allow it to happen.

Unfortunately, Ken was unable to do little more than tug his hair as the glue hung on fast in spite of his efforts. He was ready to rip his hair right out of his scalp if he had to, when Nanomon turned the machine on.

The area around the electrodes began to tingle, though they were only a precursor to the jolt that swiftly followed. Ken cried out in surprise as electricity flowed through his body, the feeling only mildly painful but still foreign and unwanted. However, his cry quickly transformed into a scream when something reacted inside him, a throbbing pain at the back of his neck that spread outward along his spine. His entire body spasmed in a futile attempt to escape the agony, as his head felt as though it was going to explode from the inside.

Mercifully, Ken only had a moment to experience such excruciating agony before everything went mercifully black.

Nanomon turned away from the monitor to the child at the sound of the scream, but there was no concern in its expression, only calculating confusion. “A pain response from a neural scan? That shouldn’t be possible.”

Before Nanomon could hypothesize the cause of such a reaction, its attention was brought back to the terminal when a sharp spark caught its attention. The information on the screen was going haywire, with the numbers fluctuating rapidly in what the untrained eye could only interpret as complete nonsense.

“This is-!” Nanomon barely managed to sputter before the terminal exploded in its face.

Paying no attention to Nanomon as it dealt with the detonating terminal, Ken had at some point stopped screaming. Instead, he stared impassively up at the ceiling with his blank golden eyes, his expression utterly devoid of emotion. After a moment, he lowered his gaze down to the metal band that was holding him tight.

Ken made a quizzical hum in his throat as he tested the strength of the bindings. “How annoying.”

Nanomon didn’t notice the change in Ken, too focused on the damage done from the explosion, both to the terminal and especially to its own body. Its electronic eye sparked from the fragment of metal that pierced it, its flesh eye glaring as it ignored its own pain readings while it focused on turning on the fire extinguishing system before all its hard work went up in flames.

Ken tilted his head to the side before he lifted his hands as far as the straps would allow, wiggling his fingers tentatively for a moment before turning them so that his palms faced upwards. His gold-tinged eyes started to glow and quickly too did his hands, which spread to the metal binding then. The straps twisted, letting out unearthly shrieks as the metal moved and changed in ways that defied physics, spilling out data even as they and the air around them glitched.

Unable to take any more, the metal band suddenly burst in a spray of data, along with part of the table, releasing Ken from his bondings. His movements when sitting up were awkward, almost unnatural, as though he wasn’t used to using his muscles. Once successful, the straps around his ankles were the next to go before he surveyed his surroundings with the same impassive expression, as if he wasn’t the captive of some dangerous Digimon standing only a couple meters away from him. He let out another hum in his throat before he slid off the table and got used to the balance of this body as he got onto his feet, destroying the electrodes attached to his scalp almost as an afterthought.

It was the noise of the metal rending that drew Nanomon’s attention away from putting out the flames. Upon seeing Ken free, it lashed out its arm to seize him. “Halt! The experiment isn’t-”

Ken didn’t so much as look at Nanomon, instead flicking his own hand out towards the Digimon with a flourish. A pulse of golden light erupted from his fingertips yet again, catching Nanomon’s hand before it could snatch the Chosen Child. The second the cyborg Digimon’s hands touched the light, they immediately began to twist and break, cracking and crinkling in all directions as data leaked out.

Nanomon let out an ear-piercing electronic screech as its arm warped until it was a twisted mess of metal and flesh that was completely unrecognizable, its pain sensors overloading. There was nothing it could do but scream even as its arm sparked and eventually exploded into data.

It was only after Nanomon dropped to the ground, clutching its stump of an arm with its remaining one, that Ken finally turned to look at the Digimon. His expression was eerily cold, which only heightened the golden eyes that had replaced his gentle blue. “You’re annoying.”

Those were the last words Nanomon heard before Ken lifted his hand again, gesturing towards the agonized Digimon. It was Nanomon’s turn to scream this time, as the rest of his body mimicked his hand with painful distortions. The Digimon was only able to hold out for a moment before Nanomon exploded into data, leaving nothing behind.

Ken lowered his arm before he let out a small snort. When he had sensed someone scanning his Dark Seed, he had feared that someone had finally noticed its presence after so long. He had rushed to do damage control, but in the end, it was nothing more than a meddler - and an insignificant one at that. “What a waste of time… I didn’t need to bother.”

The sounds of commotion and the destruction of a hidden door drew the attention of the being that possessed the body of Ken Ichijouji. Upon hearing shouts of his vessel’s name, a small smile curled his lips as his ears focused entirely on one lone voice.

“Beloved,” ‘Ken’ purred.

True to the entity’s expectations, Ryo burst into the room, though he was unfortunately followed by the rest of his party - the Chosen of Darkness and her annoying cat, the two obnoxious chatterbugs, the inconsequential toy robot, and the insolent wretch that dared to act as his beloved’s partner. As always, this motley crew certainly knew how to ruin a good thing. However, ‘Ken’ decided to focus more on the Chosen of Miracles and count his blessings for the moment.

With a wicked curve of a smile, a flickering of data and distorted color appeared across his eyes to mask the glowing gold beneath a veil of blue. The puppet master then had this proxy perform his best imitation of an innocent smile.

After all, Zeed couldn’t make the most of his time masquerading as Ken if he was discovered too soon.

“Ken-chan!” Keiko shouted, first to arrive on the scene. Her blazing red eyes scanned the wreckage for an enemy, but upon seeing none, she turned her focus entirely on Ken. “Are you okay?”

“I-I think so!” Ken said, with watery eyes as Zeed channelled his inner childish twerp in a performance truly deserving of an Oscar - every Oscar. “He… that Digimon… he was trying to do something with his computer when it suddenly exploded, and… and then he exploded too! I-I don’t know what happened, but… but I was so scared!”

Upon seeing the tears, Keiko immediately seized Ken in a protective hug. “It’s okay. You’re safe now. Wormmon is okay too, he just needs to sleep for a while, so don’t worry about him either.”

Quite frankly, Zeed couldn’t have cared less about Wormmon, but he wasn’t so amateurish to say that. Instead, Ken gave a sniff as he returned the unwanted hug from the repulsive girl with all the gusto it required to elude suspicion. “I-I’m so glad… I… was so worried...!”

After a moment’s hesitation, Ryo overcame a random - but sadly typical for him - irrational impulse of awkwardness and managed to join the hug. “I’m glad you’re okay, Ken.”

Ken rewarded Ryo by clamping on to him, holding him tight. Zeed noticed with no small amount of pleasure at how warm and strong Ryo felt, especially compared to such a small boy as the one he possessed. The very idea that Ken was able to enjoy such closeness whenever he wished was an offense of the highest order, and a privilege he certainly never deserved. “R-Ryo…!”

Ryo jerked, startled by the unexpected enthusiasm, or how close Ken clung to him. It was far more intense than any hug they had before and it left him feeling confused, troubled, and even more awkward than before. “That… that Digimon must’ve really scared you, huh?”

If Keiko was put off that Ken let go of her so quickly in favor of Ryo, she didn’t show it. Instead she gently ruffled Ken’s hair, her red eyes softening with sympathy. “Ken-chan… It’ll be okay now.”

“Let’s get Ken home,” Nyamon said as she turned to her partner. “I think he’s been through enough for one day.”

Keiko nodded, her troubled gaze never leaving Ken.

Zeed couldn’t have been more thrilled as he clung tightly to Ryo. Though he noticed the awkward stiffness of the Chosen of Miracles’ embrace, he knew that it was only because he wasn’t embracing his beloved with his true body but a wretch that even Ryo knew was unworthy. What had appeared to be a waste turned out to be something far more worthwhile. With none of the idiots nor his beloved the wiser, Zeed was free to use the boy’s body for his own purposes as long as he wished.

And he fully intended to do just that.

---

Although the errand at Factory Town had been hastily aborted, no one suggested when they would try again to continue Ken’s experiment. The fact that he refused to let go of Ryo since his rescue was troubling enough that everyone silently decided to drop the subject and let Ken heal from what must’ve been an overwhelming trauma.

“So, uh,” Ryo said awkwardly as he more hobbled than walked into Ken’s bedroom; it was difficult to walk properly with Ken clinging to his side like a barnacle. Keiko outpaced them both, cradling Wormmon gently in her arms before placing the injured Digimon down onto the large bed. “I’m guessing you’re too wound up to take a nap with Wormmon until he wakes up, huh?”

Zeed glanced over to Wormmon and managed to avoid wrinkling his nose in disgust, instead furrowing his puppet’s brow in concern. “Is… is he going to be okay...?”

Keiko tucked the covers around Wormmon with a delicate touch. “Yes. He just needs to sleep for a while.” She turned to smile kindly at Ken. “Your energy will help him heal in no time, Ken-chan, so don’t worry.”

Ken gave a small nod as he reluctantly removed one of his hands from its death-grip on Ryo’s arm to wipe away tears that didn’t exist. “O-okay…”

Zeed knew that it would take far longer than Keiko’s platitudes implied. With him in control, Ken’s energy flowed directly to him, leaving barely a trickle to Wormmon. It was far more convenient for him - the longer this vessel’s meddling partner remained unconscious, the better.

“How ‘bout we have Bokomon whip us up some grub?” FlaWizarmon asked. “I’m sure a good meal’ll go a long way to help Wormmon recover.”

“Sounds like a perfect idea to me~!” Witchmon said merrily, the cheerful sentiment echoed by a mewl of her ghostly cat.

Ryo rubbed the back of his head as he looked from the others to Ken. “Well… if we were back at my house I’d suggest we play video games until dinner, but that’s going to be kind of hard here, so…”

“Let’s take a bath together!” Ken said, far too eagerly. Zeed had often heard about humans bathing with each other, with their bare-naked bonding under the moonlight surrounded by steam and hot water. It was an opportunity he relished.

Ryo jerked, his eyes wide as he outright gawked at Ken. “Uh, what?”

“We could take a bath together!” Ken repeated, with wide-eyed innocence and a surprising firmness that encouraged no disagreement.

FlaWizarmon gave a blink before he glanced over to Witchmon. “Well, someone’s certainly eager for some scrubbin’.”

Witchmon cackled quietly. “I guess a bath would be good to wash away an awful day.”

“I guess that settles it,” Keiko said as she reached out to ruffle Ken’s hair. “Enjoy your bath, Ken-chan.” Her voice dropped low as she walked past Ryo and took note of his frozen face. “Don’t give that look. You can wear swim trunks, you know.”

Ryo flinched at how Keiko so easily saw through him, then again when she playfully poked his nose. He rubbed it with an embarrassed flushed to his cheeks. Even though bathing in groups was common in Japan, he and Ken were as uncomfortable with it as they came, so the young boy’s sudden insistence was not only baffling, it spiked his anxiety to distressing levels. “R-right…”

While Zeed was appreciative of Keiko’s assistance, he still couldn’t forgive how casually she touched his beloved, acting as though she had any right to do so upon the merest of whims. Still, he was in no position to do anything about it and could only smile vapidly at the Chosen of Miracles. “Let’s go, Ryo~!”

Ryo awkwardly smiled at the eager little boy, reaching up to rub the back of his head. “Ah, y-yeah, let’s… go, I guess.”

---

Ken was positively giddy as he surveyed the bath house surroundings. He supposed it was only natural for the Crystal Tower to have such accommodations. And having an entire floor dedicated to a massive onsen-style bath house were truly accommodations worthy of him, and his beloved.

Ken stood at the side of the massive pool, steam rising upward from the hot water. Faux rocks lined the back edge of the pool, blending perfectly with the meticulously placed tile that framed it. The only thing that was missing was a starry night sky with snow drifting downward, but Zeed was just fine without it. After all, an open air bath meant that others could peek in to spy on Ryo’s naked form.

Zeed was the only one allowed that privilege.

Unfortunately, even Zeed seemed to be denied this day, as Ryo came out to the bath wearing a pair of swim trunks. The sight was enough to make Ken deadpan in spite of himself, his displeasure obvious on his face. Zeed cursed Keiko for that wretched suggestion. Even now, the Chosen of Darkness was the greatest thorn in his side.

Ryo blinked when he noticed Ken’s expression and readjusted his hold on the bucket of bath supplies he held. “What’s wrong?”

Ryo’s words were quick to make Zeed aware of his mistake and he quickly replaced his scowl with a smile. “Noooothing~!” He then hurried over to Ryo, reaching for the bath supplies that the Chosen of Miracles carried. “I’ll wash your back!”

Ryo gave a start, but didn’t have enough time to utter a protest before Ken took the soap and a washcloth from the bucket and proceeded to lather it up as he raced around the Chosen of Miracles. “Ah, um…!”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry~!” Ken said, excitedly. “I’ll be very thorough~!”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ryo asked slowly, brow furrowed with confusion. “You’re acting kind of… hyper?”

Ken paused at that. “O-oh? You think so?”

“Yeah,” Ryo said, running his fingers through his hair. Try as he might, he couldn’t get himself to relax, his gut twisting unpleasantly. He had to keep reminding himself that this was Ken he was with and not some stranger. He trusted Ken. Even when Ken wasn’t acting like Ken. “Is something on your mind?”

“Well, obviously, you are, my beloved,” Ken thought, though he knew far better than to say that aloud. Instead, he gave the Chosen of Miracles the most reassuring smile he could muster. “No, not at all!” he said cheerfully. “I just wanted to make sure you’re all nice and clean, because you’re always helping me!”

Ryo wanted to accept what Ken said at face value, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. It made him want to retreat and hide alone in his room for a while, but he couldn’t let himself give in to what he knew was irrational and selfish. It was weird for him to get these thoughts at any time, but especially when he was spending time with his friend. “You sure?”

“Absolutely!” Ken replied, still keeping his bright smile.

“If you say so,” Ryo muttered. Though he was reluctant to let the matter drop, he couldn’t actually do anything about it if Ken insisted everything was alright. The other boy seemed sincerely happy, ecstatic even. Although that extreme excitement was the reason behind his confusion - and he suspected it might have had something to do with his irrational discomfort - he supposed that he shouldn’t bring Ken down by constantly questioning it.

Ken had an awful day. Ryo wasn’t about to make it harder by abandoning him, especially not because of the unwanted random appearance of that crazy impulse that made the Chosen of Miracles want to run away instead of dealing with people.

Even as Ken continued to smile, inwardly Zeed made a mental note to be far more cautious when around his beloved. It would seem that the other Chosen Children didn’t shower the boy with the praise he deserved, so he was unaccustomed to it. It was a travesty he fully intended to rectify with their lives, but for the moment, he would have to make do.

“Whee!” a high pitched voice squealed a split second before there came a loud splash. The two boys turned just in time to be hit in the face with a surprisingly large wave from the osen pool.

Ryo sputtered and staggered back, wiping at his eyes to clear them. “What the?!”

Neemon surfaced from the massive pool, spitting out a long arc of water before flailing his noodly arms about, spraying water in every direction. “Swimming time! Swimming time!”

Ken jerked and whirled about, startled by the sudden appearance. “What-!?”

“Come on,everyone!” Neemon squealed. “The water’s great!”

Instinctively, Ryo grabbed a nearby towel and tied it around Ken’s waist to preserve his friend’s modesty in case there were more Digimon coming. “Um… maybe you should get some swim trunks on too now,” he whispered.

Ryo’s instincts were proven correct as, even before Ken had a chance to respond, more Digimon started to appear from the changing area. They were mostly around the Child and Adult level, none that the Chosen Children were particularly close to, but recognized as working at Crystal Tower. Soon the bath was filled to the brim with Digimon of all shapes and sizes, turning what was supposed to be an intimate affair into a pool party with high levels of chatter and splashing in every direction.

Despite wearing swim trunks, the idea of taking a bath in front of so many people left Ryo feeling naked and exposed. Although no one was paying attention to them in particular, aside from respectful, cheerful greetings, the size of the crowd made his urge to run nearly impossible to fight.

“Uh…” Ryo mumbled as he shuffled back a step at a time towards the changing room. “…Maybe we should… come back later.”

A slight tremor ran along Ken’s arms before he clenched his hands into fists. What Ryo couldn’t see from his vantage point was the look of pure rage and malice on the young boy’s face, the illusion over his eyes flickering out as glowing gold peeked through while they focused on the Digimon in front of him. Even Zeed himself wasn’t aware of it, as his thoughts only on the Digimon and how they were ruining his most precious moment with his beloved.

He had researched this moment; he had learned all the techniques in preparation; he had watched every single fan service scene in every video game, anime, and light novel available. Yet, now that the moment was here, it was being ruined by worthless drivel that did not even deserve to live, let alone share a bath with his beloved.

For this insult, he would kill them all.

Neemon froze mid-wave as he stared at Ken through inscrutable slitted eyes. The Digimon possessing the young boy didn’t notice, nor care for his sudden loss of cheer.

However, what Zeed did care about was the noxious explosion that followed a moment later as his senses were remotely assaulted over the connection between him and his puppet.

Ken jerked, startled out of his murderous rage by the sudden stinging stench that assaulted his eyes and nose. He clasped both hands over his nose as his eyes watered, the possessed boy struggling to comprehend what had just happened. “W-w-what-!?”

The foul fart fumes transformed the lighthearted revelry into the cries of the damned, as Digimon scrambled in all directions to vacate the area and escape the horrific assault on their senses. The ones closest to ground zero lay floating on the water, unconscious, their eyes spinning into spirals.

Ryo braved the horrific stench, racing back in with held breath to snatch up Ken and whisk his friend away to safety. Only when they reached the exhaust fan at the furthest end of the changing room did he dare to breathe again.

Ken sagged against one of the benches, coughing as he gulped down the untainted air. He had never experienced something so horrible before. For such a ridiculous wretch to put not only him but his beloved through such torture, the Digimon possessing Ken would absolutely not let it slide. I’ll kill that bastard… I’ll kill him… over and over…

Ryo rubbed Ken’s back, unable to offer much more in the way of assistance as he waited for his friend’s fit of retching to die down. Guiltily, he felt more than a little relieved and grateful to Neemon for sparing him from an incredibly awkward moment. There was no way they or anyone else would be taking a group bath in that onsen any time soon.

---

Night could not have come fast enough. Ryo was absolutely worn. Once Ken had recovered from the bathing fiasco, the indigo haired boy had been practically obsessed with doing as many activities as possible, much to his dismay. From baking cookies - which were eaten by Neemon before they could even be baked - to walks through the balcony gardens interrupted by Neemon seeking them out to complain the cookie dough didn’t sit well with him, unleashing another awful fart that made the flowers wilt and forced the boys to run for their sense of smell. There seemed to be no end to Ken’s ideas, or how they could be absolutely ruined.

Although it wasn’t always Neemon who came to interrupt. It seemed as though practically everyone needed to talk to Ryo about something. Whether it was Leomon believing it was time to train, Higashi giving updates on Wormmon’s condition, Bokomon searching for Neemon, or some other Digimon with something else to say, it seemed as though the world conspired against Ryo to drain him of his energy and wear away at his nerves by sending person after person to him who needed his time. Throughout it all, Ken was especially demanding of attention, which, at the end of the day, left Ryo utterly spent.

Dealing with so many people left Ryo sprawled across his bed, his brain completely fried. He felt like just hiding under the covers for the next few days until he could handle being around people again. Even Keiko coming to his rescue by whisking Ken away with some distraction had been difficult in his burnt out state. Still, he felt immensely grateful that she had noticed his distress and realized what to do, even when Ken misinterpreted it as a sign to be even more clingy and talkative.

The silence of the room was absolute bliss to Ryo. He focused on the cool air and the warming blankets, so silky soft against his skin. He thought of shapes and colors, nothing distinct and thus nothing that would add further pressure on him. In the safety of solitude, he could finally give his frazzled nerves a much needed rest.

That was, until he sound the door creak open, seconds before Ken peered his head into the room.

“Ryo, can I sleep with you?” Ken asked, so innocently. He didn’t even bother with a whisper in case the Chosen of Miracles was already asleep.

Ryo felt dread drop into the pit of his stomach like a cold stone, as what little relief he gained instantly evaporated. Inwardly, he screamed in frustration, but outwardly he closed his eyes and hoped desperately that maybe Ken would leave if he pretended to be asleep. He hated having to trick his best friend, but he was absolutely done.

It seemed that Ken, or rather Zeed, wasn’t about to be deterred by such a cheap trick, however. He waited mere seconds for his answer before he crept in anyway, closing the door behind him.

The sound of the door closing eased the tension from Ryo’s body, eliciting a soft sigh. Finally, finally he could have time alone and give his mind a rest. Hopefully Ken would finally go to Keiko now to have fun with her. He simply couldn’t understand why every time he suggested such a thing, Ken rejected the idea immediately. He almost suspected Ken was avoiding Keiko for some reason, but that was too ridiculous for words. If anything, the two usually were inseparable much of the time, to the point it made him a little jealous once or twice. Perhaps then this was karma getting him back for those petty thoughts.

The bed creaked, completely disrupting Ryo’s line of thinking, as it confirmed that not only had Ken not left but that he was climbing into the bed anyway.

Ryo couldn’t help but groan, giving up his sleeping act. He opened his eyes and watched as Ken snuggled up against him without invitation. “Ken? I thought you’d want to sleep in your own bed with Wormmon tonight.”

Ken paused at that before he did his best to school his expression. “It’s just so… dark and quiet, and I’m afraid I might roll over on to him and…” He trailed off, meaningfully.

Ryo sighed, his heart going out to Ken. As he thought, his friend’s excessive energy was related to Wormmon’s comatose state. Despite how he felt, he pulled Ken close into a hug. “Hey… it’s okay. Remember? Higashi said Wormmon will be okay.”

Ken returned the hug enthusiastically, clinging tightly to Ryo. “I know…” It was difficult feigning that he cared about the useless dreck that was the insect Digimon in question, but Zeed was ever a professional. No matter how distasteful, it was a small price to pay for the ruse - and his beloved’s time.

After getting comfortable, Ryo closed his eyes and tried once more to relax. In spite of this strange unease he felt around Ken all day, he had to remind himself that this was his best friend. They had sleepovers before, and they were hardly stressful, once he got used to them. Of course, they never slept in the same bed on those sleepovers, let alone holding each other, but he knew Ken was much more physical with his affection. Compared to the rest of their day together, this was nothing. There was no need to talk or spend energy constantly trying to do things. All they he had to do now was sleep, and he was more than ready for it after today.

Ken watched Ryo as the boy attempted to get comfortable in his embrace. It was so obvious to him that his beloved was stressed, and it was no small wonder why. That awful farting wretch had done quite a number on them both, which he would most certainly pay for at the first opportunity. Between all the drama and chaos, it was no wonder that the Chosen of Miracles was worn so thin. He could feel the tension in Ryo’s muscles that his beloved so desperately tried to force to relax. Even in the dark, he could see the stress lines folding Ryo’s face, painting a picture of exhaustion to rival any of their past battles.

“My poor Beloved,” Zeed thought, with a sigh. “You have to tolerate so much nonsense from the filth that surrounds you.”

This was a problem Zeed needed to rectify. Now.

Or, rather, perhaps tomorrow, Zeed reconsidered as he listened to Ryo breathe. He wished he could feel it directly instead of second-hand as warm, rhythmic puffs of air stirred the hairs atop his puppet’s head. Bit by bit, as minutes passed by, he could feel the tension bleed out of Ryo’s weary body. As long as nothing else happened tonight to interrupt them, he could wait to perform much needed reform tomorrow.

Of course, if that yellow menace appeared one more time between now and dawn, Zeed was going to promptly kill him.

Zeed had no more patience for that wretch, and his beloved couldn’t take another moment of that thing’s nonsense. For now, however, he was content with second hand sensations of warmth, and his vivid fantasies of Ryo holding him close, holding his real body instead of one of his puppets. This was more than enough as he waited for his beloved to recover from such a long day.

For now.

Now that Zeed had the perfect puppet to control, he could afford to be patient. He had all the time in the world to convince Ryo to love him.

---

Ryo was still asleep by the time Ken awoke. Although Zeed felt his irritation renewed when he noted how weary his beloved was and how it was nearing noon, such a thing was only a minor annoyance as he basked in the scene before him. The way the sun leaked in through the curtains, kissing Ryo’s lightly tanned skin and making his brown hair shine was a glorious sight. Although Ken’s body rumbled demands for food, Zeed ignored it as he simply basked in the view of his beloved curled up on the bed, defenses down and utterly, deliciously, vulnerable beside him.

It was a scene plucked directly from one of Zeed’s many fantasies.

Eventually, even such bliss had to end, as a knock on the door disturbed Zeed’s little slice of paradise. At first, he intended to ignore the sound, but, much to his annoyance, the door opened and that little bane of his existence, the Chosen Child of Darkness, peered into the room.

“Oh good, you’re finally awake,” Keiko said cheerfully.

Ken was quick to hide his feelings behind a bright smile. “Good morning!”

“Good morning,” Keiko said as she approached the bed, only to pause as she looked again. “Oh.” She lowered her voice. “Ryo’s still asleep, huh? Poor guy. I guess he got worn out after everyone wanted his attention yesterday.”

Ken nodded, his expression genuinely sympathetic. “Yes, Ryo had a very rough day yesterday…”

Keiko took a hold of Ken’s arm and gently tugged him towards the edge of the bed. “Come on, let’s let him sleep a bit longer.”

Ken hesitated as he felt a flare of irritation, but then followed after Keiko anyway. “Okay…” It was for his beloved’s sake, not Keiko’s, after all.

Keiko waited until after she led Ken into the hall where Nyamon was waiting and closed the bedroom door behind them. “Maybe we should leave Ryo alone today until he’s ready to hang out with us again. I’m sure we could find something fun to do, right?” She practically beamed at Ken, her smile dazzling.

Such an expression might have moved Ken, but it only served to further annoy Zeed.

“I have to go check on Wormmon first,” Ken said, keeping his words measured. Without waiting for a response, he quickly walked away from Keiko, heading back to his room.

The smile faded from Keiko’s face as she watched Ken leave. She didn’t want to believe that he was purposefully avoiding her, but between this and his strange behavior since yesterday, she couldn’t help but wonder if something more was going on. The fact that Wormmon was still unconscious only added to her mounting concerns.

Nyamon’s ears canted back as she watched Ken disappear around the corner at the end of the hall, then turned to Keiko. “What should we do?”

Keiko let out a displeased rumble at the back of her throat as she brushed back some errant hairs that fell in front of her face. “Let’s let Ken-chan get something to eat before we start prying for answers.”

It took a little prodding, but Ken eventually relented to go to the dining room for lunch - or late breakfast, in his case. With only a minimal amount of fuss, soon he was filling himself with food as he sat opposite Keiko and Nyamon at the massive table - far too massive for just the three of them.

“This food is quite delicious,” Ken thought as he neatly cut his cooked sausages into bite-sized bits before delicately skewering them with his fork. Even through a proxy, the food’s taste came through clearly. “At least these buffoons are feeding Beloved properly,” he thought.

Keiko waited until Ken was halfway through the food before she began her probe. “So, how are you feeling today, Ken-chan?”

Zeed felt a bit of dust in his mouth. Leave it to the wretched girl to ruin good food by talking. He wanted to ignore this bane on his existence, but he knew better. “...Better.”

“Really?” Keiko asked, cocking her head slightly. “You seem a lot less energetic than yesterday.”

“I’m hungry, that’s all,” Ken said with little emotion. “You’re imagining things.”

FlaWizarmon furrowed his brow as he watched the exchange from the far wall, leaning against it with his arms crossed. He then turned a worried glance towards Witchmon who returned the look with a baffled expression of her own.

Keiko let out a quiet hum, leaning back in her seat. She took a moment to take in Ken’s closed body language, how he refused to even look at her, and seemed almost distinctly unhappy in her presence. Her eyes skirted past Ken’s head and she brightened. “Oh, good morning, Ryo!”

Ken immediately perked up and whipped his head around, bright eyes searching the doorway behind him. “Ryo?”

A few Digimon froze mid-step in the hallway, halting in wherever they were going to to cast a confused glance Ken’s way. A couple looked at each other or around them, but there was no sign of Ryo anywhere among them.

Keiko propped her arms up onto the table and rested her chin on the back of her hands as she put on an extra pleasant smile. “Gee, it seems like you’re really excited to spend time with Ryo lately, Ken-chan. Any particular reason why that is?”

Ken felt a wave of irritation, one that he couldn’t hide from his face as he turned to stare at Keiko. “Who wouldn’t be excited to spend time with Ryo?” It was more of a demand than a question. He mentally dared Keiko to imply otherwise!

Keiko slowly cocked an eyebrow at such a response. That… was not what she expected. It didn’t sound like the Ken she knew at all. Still, she managed to maintain a smiling facade and teasing tone as she continued probing for the truth. “Especially if they have a crush on him, riiiight~?”

Ken, or rather Zeed, jerked at that as the boy’s face flooded with red. “W-w-what did you say!?”

“Bullseye,” Keiko thought, her eyes narrowing playfully. “It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it? You’ve been following Ryo like a lovesick puppy all day yesterday. And convincing him to let you sleep with him? That’s pretty daring for you, Ken-chan.”

Ken continued to blush as he clasped his hands over his blazing cheeks. “T-that’s ridiculous! P-preposterous! A-absolutely and completely…!”

FlaWizarmon quirked an eyebrow at Ken, both at the reaction and the strange words coming out of the boy’s mouth. However, he quickly pushed it aside to focus on the sudden revelation with glee. “My, my… I wonder what ol’ Osamu’d think of that?”

Ken paused at that, his expression going blank. He had no idea who they were talking about. It had to be a human, given the name, but it wasn’t one he ever recalled coming across. But then, he couldn’t be bothered to remember every inconsequential worm he came across. It wasn’t as if any of them were important - they were, by definition, of no importance.

“Hmm?” Witchmon blinked and cocked her head, confused by Ken’s reaction. “What’s up, Ken-chan?”

Zeed immediately snapped to attention before he did his best to give Witchmon an innocent stare. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Witchmon furrowed her brow. “You kind of zoned out for a minute there. Everything okay, dearie?”

“Of course~!” Ken said, with a bright smile. “I guess I’m just really hungry.”

FlaWizarmon frowned before he glanced towards Keiko, to see her reaction to Ken’s rather strange behavior.

Keiko hid her creeping discomfort behind a smiling mask, her suspicions only growing the more Ken spoke. There was something seriously wrong here. She needed take more drastic steps to uncover the truth, and, hopefully, disprove a creeping suspicion that turned her insides to ice. “Speaking of Osamu, you must be so excited for the upcoming trip to see her. Spending summer with your cousin in Hokkaido will be so much fun.”

Ken kept his bright smile as he turned to Keiko. “Oh, yes, I’m very excited! I’m sure we’ll have a great time together!”

Although Keiko kept her poker face intact, FlaWizarmon and Witchmon couldn’t hide their shock. They outright gawked at Ken then shared a troubled look that silently asked the other what to do. Beside Keiko, Nyamon’s eyes narrowed as her hackles bristled all along her spine.

The Digimon’s reactions were enough to flag to Ken that something was wrong, but he still managed to keep his expression bright and cheerful as he smiled at Keiko.

Keiko continued her own bright facade even as her smile no longer reached her piercing red eyes. “Who are you?”

Ken tilted his head to the side as he fixed Keiko with a puppy-eyed stare of pure innocence, even as he furrowed his brow. “Huh? What do you mean? I’m Ken, Keiko.”

The smiling mask was gone and Keiko straightened up in her chair, folding her fingers on the table in front of her. “What have you done with the real Ken?”

Inwardly, Zeed cursed. However, he still didn’t break his facade. Instead, the concern on Ken’s face grew as he gave a small frown. “I… don’t understand. What are you talking about?”

Keiko narrowed her eyes. “Drop the act.” She held up three fingers. “I gave you three tests and you failed all of them. You don’t know who Osamu is.” Her index finger darkened. “You don’t know Ken’s plans.” Her middle finger darkened. “And Ken isn’t the one who has a crush on Ryo.” Her ring finger darkened then spread to the rest of her hand.

Zeed paused at that as he stared at Keiko, his expression going blank again. He was silent for a moment as he considered the Chosen of Darkness’ words before his facade was finally abandoned, his expression going deadpan with a hint of irritation. “Ah.”

Keiko pointed at the imposter before her as her dangerous aura of darkness spread across her body. “I’m only asking one more time. Who are you and what have you done with Ken?”

Wordlessly, Nyamon lifted her claws to emphasize Keiko’s threat, her eyes focused on Ken as her ears canted back.

Ken let a snort through his nose as he waved his hand dismissively. “How annoying… oh well, I really can’t be expected to remember every insect… or every facet of their short, irrelevant lives.” Seemingly nonplussed by Keiko’s threat, Ken instead reached downward to grab the knife he had been using to cut his delicious sausages…

...And lifted it to point the tip directly at Ken’s neck, hovering an inch over his jugular vein.

Fake or not, Keiko froze at the sight of a knife at Ken’s throat. “What’re you doing?”

Nyamon’s eyes widened as her ears flicked straight up, even as she kept her claws at the ready.

Even FlaWizarmon and Witchmon stopped in their steps, having been circling around the table to either side of Ken in an attempt to flank him. Zeed couldn’t help but feel a flush of smug satisfaction at their horrified and uncertain expressions.

“You asked where he is,” Zeed replied, with an easygoing smile on Ken’s face. “I’m simply pointing him out.”

Keiko understood the implication immediately and was horrified. “H-how? How did you take control of Ken?”

Zeed smirked as he quirked an eyebrow, an expression that in no way belonged on Ken’s face. “Really, now? You ask that so plainly… did you truly think me so foolish as to give away my secrets simply because you asked?”

“Let him go,” Keiko said, though the dimming of her aura gave away how little her threat meant when Ken’s life was hanging in the balance. Even Nyamon lowered her claws reluctantly, her eyes never leaving Ken.

“No,” Zeed’s response was swift, his smirk widening in an obvious taunt.

FlaWizarmon grimaced, clenching his teeth so that his jaw hurt. He didn’t dare move or say anything, not when such a sharp blade was pointed so closely to such a vulnerable area.

“Why you… you…,” Witchmon snarled impotently as her ghostly cat pinned back its ears and hissed at the bodysnatcher.

Keiko dissipated the darkness around her completely, unwilling to risk hurting Ken even to intimidate Zeed. She ground her teeth as anger bubbled hot inside her, but she forced herself to remain calm. “What’s it going to take to get Ken back, Millenniumon?”

A coy smile appeared on Zeed’s face as he idly twirled the tip of the knife just barely above the skin. “Ho… now that, my dear, is an intelligent question.”

Keiko kept silent, her narrowed eyes fixed entirely on the blade dancing so dangerously close to Ken’s jugular.

Zeed hummed thoughtfully in his throat. It seemed that the situation wasn’t a total disaster after all. Even with getting exposed, he still had more than enough leverage to eke out a victory. The question simply remained - what would he demand? The possibilities were endless. “Now, let me see…”

It was in that moment of distraction that Ryo seized his chance and Ken’s wrists, forcing Zeed to drop the knife. “Hold it right there! You’re not threatening my friends, Millenniumon!”

Zeed paused at that as his eyes widened, turning Ken’s head to see Ryo pressed up behind him with only the chair and the puppet he used separating his beloved’s body from his. Just as he began to wonder where Ryo had come from, his eyes slid past his beloved to the doorway directly behind where he sat. The irony was that he had specifically chosen this seat so that he could watch for Ryo’s arrival. If only the Chosen of Darkness hadn’t distracted him, he might have noticed Ryo overhearing their conversation sooner.

Still, Zeed’s surprise and irritation quickly gave way to fondness, as he stared deeply into Ryo’s blue eyes, filled with worry and overflowing with determination. “Ah, Beloved… of course you’d show up now. You have such a knack for appearing at the most inopportune times - for me, at any rate. But that’s just one of the many things I love about you~!”

Although the immediate threat to Ken was gone, everyone still hesitated to make a move, save for Nyamon snatching away all of the cutlery within arm’s reach of Zeed should he escape Ryo’s hold.

“Enough joking around, Millenniumon!” Ryo snapped, fairly quaking with anger. Although he hadn’t heard everything, he knew that Zeed was controlling Ken’s body like one of the many puppets they battled. “Let go of Ken right now!”

Zeed’s smile didn’t waver as he kept his eyes locked on Ryo. “Ah, there’s no need for you to use that name, my Beloved. I believe you have more than earned the right to call me by my name - Zeed.”

Ryo blinked, caught off-guard by the unexpected change in topic. “Zeed?”

“I’ve noticed that you humans have given yourselves names - personal epitates that belong to no one but yourself,” Zeed replied, his voice a smooth purr that didn’t fit Ken in the slightest. “The concept seems so bizarre, and yet… so perfect. And clearly, who is more deserving of such an honor than myself? So I have chosen a name, and I am bestowing the honor if its use upon you.” He paused before his eyes narrowed. “And no one else.”

“That…” Ryo paused, faltering for a moment, before scowling. “That isn’t even remotely the point here! Let Ken go!”

Zeed’s easy going smile returned. “My Beloved, even you must realize that you’re asking quite a bit of me. It’s perfectly normal to be a little greedy, but try to keep things in perspective, won’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Keiko asked, her voice sharper than the knife Zeed had used to threaten Ken’s life.

“Why would I ever give up my ability to see you whenever I wish?” Zeed asked as he tilted his head. “With absolutely no compensation, at that! You’re such a greedy boy, my Beloved~!”

Ryo felt sick to his stomach. “This isn’t a joke, Zeed! Give Ken his body back right now!”

“Beloved,” Zeed drawled his words, slowly. “Do you truly believe I would joke about this?”

The sickening feeling twisted in Ryo’s gut and turned cold. He knew. He knew Zeed wasn’t going to just let Ken go, likely not even after they gave in to whatever terrible demands he might make.

They were completely at his mercy and Zeed knew it.

Keiko slammed her hands against the table as she leapt to her feet so fast that she knocked her chair aside. “You’re not getting away with this, Zeed! If you won’t give Ken back, then we’ll force you right out of him!”

Zeed’s expression deadpanned before he turned to face Keiko, irritation at being interrupted clear on his face.

“And without anything sharp to reach, you won’t be doing any cutting, now will ya?” FlaWizarmon agreed, flashing Zeed a smug grin.

“So you’re out of options.” Nyamon said as she gave a sharp nod.

Witchmon flashed her razor sharp teeth in a smile that held no mirth. “Give up now or just sit back and watch as we cure Ken and kick you to the curb.”

“Hooooh,” Zeed let out a low hum before his smirk returned. “Is that so?” He tilted his head, unable to contain his smugness. “Tell me, do you truly believe me so helpless?” Amusement sparkled on his face at their confused stares. “I may not understand human anatomy, but there do appear to be some things that we share.” In an instant, his smirk turned into a sneer. “Tell me, what if I were to… bite off this boy’s tongue? What do you think would happen first - bleeding out or choking on his own blood?” As if to punctuate his words, Zeed made a show of sticking out Ken’s tongue all the way before pressing his upper and lower teeth down on it, causing the tender flesh to puff slightly.

Everyone froze, the threat rendering them all utterly immobile with fear. In that instant, Ryo felt his heart stop. All of the battles, the brushes with death, the traps, the bombs… the innocent victims caught in the crossfire… those traumatizing near misses flashed before his eyes. When his heart resumed beating at twice the speed, pulsing in his ears like thunder, and the world slowed down as fear and rage overtook him.

“Get out!” Ryo shrieked, throwing all of his emotion into it as a dazzling golden glow flared to life around him. For a moment, he was as brilliant as the sun as he sent that light right through Ken and directly into Zeed.

Whatever response Zeed was about to retort was instantly silenced by a stunned squeak as he felt a powerful impact against his body, as if a wall slammed into him. In an instant, Zeed was thrown directly out of Ken and, back in his throne room. The momentum of that energy knocked his small furry draconian body flying from his throne and rolling across the room like a tumbleweed.

Back in the dining room, Ken’s expression went blank before he sagged against Ryo, collapsing like a limp rag doll.

“Ken!” Ryo shouted in a panic, the golden light now completely gone. He held Ken close until Witchmon pulled the boy away and checked inside Ken’s mouth.

Witchmon sagged with relief. “Good. No blood and everything looks intact.”

FlaWizarmon let out a weary sigh as he pulled the brim of his hat down over his eyes. “Thank the gods…”

Nyamon similarly let out a sigh as her ears drooped before she turned to Keiko. “For the moment, at least…”

Keiko hurriedly rounded the table to look Ken over for herself. Although seeing no injuries offered a small measure of relief, it was nowhere near enough to calm her, and she soon turned to FlaWizarmon and Witchmon with wide, wild eyes. “How could this happen?!”

Only one possibility came to Ryo’s mind, which left his mouth the moment it sprang into being. “Piemon.”

Keiko instantly focused on Ryo. “Piemon…?”

Grimacing as the memory replayed in his head, Ryo lightly tapped Ken’s back just below the neck. There wasn’t even a mark left behind of the injury at this point, but he still remembered exactly where it had been. “That night… that attack. It must’ve done something to him.” He faltered for a moment, words starting to fail him the more he tried to explain what was little more than a gut feeling, and he ran his fingers through his hair as frustration grew. “Maybe… maybe it was kind of worm? The kind of virus program that invades a computer system and takes it over from the inside. Since we’re technically data when we come here…” He couldn’t hide his uncertainty as he looked to the others. “I know it sounds weird, but it’s the only thing I can think of.”

FlaWizarmon’s eyes widened at that, as the revelation not only fit everything in to place but brought a second revelation along with it. “Ken-chan wasn’t Piemon’s intended target, and neither was Lady Keiko.”

“Zeed wanted to control…” Witchmon trailed off as she saw Ryo’s gaze drop to the floor, guilt naked on his face.

Keiko felt her blood turn cold, her hands trembling at her sides before she whipped out her Digivice. “We have to get Ken-chan back to Earth. Now!”

---

Demon knew far better than to look at his master, instead keeping his eyes safely on the far distance as Zeed righted himself from his undignified position on the floor. “Shall you regain control and kill the boy in retaliation for their insolence, my lord?”

Zeed stumbled to his feet and gave a mighty shake of his head before he curled his lips up to bare his sharp teeth. “Yes!” He snapped his jaws together. “I’ll disembowel him in front of that bitch! How dare she-!”

The furred draconian Digimon whipped about to lash his claws at his own throne, which shattered to pieces upon impact. Demon flinched before he glanced at the bits of data as they drifted upwards, misshapen before they dissolved into nothing.

Zeed stood panting, not from the exertion but the sheer amount of anger that sent his fur bristling and his tail lashing wildly about him. He remained like that for nearly half a minute before his anger began to wane as he regained his composure, his tail slowing as well as his heavy breathing.

The mighty child Digimon gave a snort, as if expelling the rest of his anger, before he straightened up. “No.”

“No, my lord?” Demon asked, finally daring to turn to his master.

Zeed didn’t look at Demon as he instead gestured to where his throne had sat preciously. Golden data began to form before a new throne appeared, identical to the one he had destroyed. Once satisfied with the shape of his new seat, he trotted over to make himself comfortable once more.

“No, I won’t,” Zeed said as he slouched back against the plush cushions. “He’s still a valuable tool. I can watch and see what my Beloved is doing whenever I wish. I would be foolish to throw away such an important toy simply because that bitch somehow surprised me - especially since I cannot replace him.”

“They will no doubt attempt to discover a way to remove your ability to control the boy, or take preventative measures,” Demon said.

“First and foremost, I suspect they’ll panic and fling the boy back to Earth, thinking it will place him out of my area of influence,” Zeed said with a small shrug. “Which I’ll allow, for now. Perhaps the false sense of security will make them lower their defenses once more, giving me another opportunity to strike.”

“That may take some time, my lord,” Demon said.

Zeed flashed his general a smirk. “I have all the time in the world.”

#Dreaming To Reality #Fragments #Digimon Adventure 02 #digimon #digimon adventure

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