.

Full of Surprises, Chapter 4

Maybe, Casey found herself thinking (and she had most days since it happened), the suspension was doing her more good than harm. Maybe it was Liz Donnelly trying to make her calm the hell down.

For three years.

AO3

A/N: Hi! Sorry this one is a bit short, I wrote it mostly in a car and on vacation, and I felt like I'd neglected these ladies too long. Working on three long fics and my novel at once, why do I do this to myself? I hope you all like this one!

Casey showered as fast as she possibly could, having realized that despite their apartments’ proximity to one another, 30 minutes was definitely too little time. Oh well. That’s always been Casey’s way, doing things too quickly, in a rush, not on time.

Maybe, Casey found herself thinking (and she had most days since it happened), the suspension was doing her more good than harm. Maybe it was Liz Donnelly (and Lena Petrovsky, though, Lena never cared about her like Liz did) trying to make her calm the hell down.

For three years.

Oh well.

Casey felt good, felt great even. She was not only excited to go out to breakfast with this beautiful, newly brunette (Casey thought brunette was sexy, not that it applied to her friendships, but it was a truth), new friend of hers, well, not new as in new acquaintance, but this Alex was new and this Casey was new and it was all the newest she’d felt since, of course, since.

No, breakfast, while exciting and delicious and required after that run, was not the only thing that had Casey feeling good. As she was leaving her place, dressed in a pair of bootcut jeans fraying at the bottoms (how, she wondered, with her height) and a cozy wool sweater (another plus for suspension: choosing her own wardrobe), she read over the email again:

Dear Ms. Novak,

Congratulations! We are so excited to let you know that we would like to accept the three poems you submitted for publication in the Fall issue of Arch and Arrow. We feel they are...

Casey didn’t read further, because she didn’t need to (already had, already filled out the paperwork!), for probably the thousandth time since she received the notification last night. Published! She would be published, in a real literary magazine, her first since, oh, maybe the summer before her first year of law school. Even then, she’d only ever entered undergraduate publications, never real things like this. Well. She thought, the monthly readership of Arch and Arrow would likely be no more than in the triple digits, but, oh who cares! Everything in Casey wanted to skip down the few blocks to Alex’s (how convenient, she’d thought when she realized, should she ever need a cup of sugar) but she did resist, public embarrassment being quite the strong motivator. When she rounded the corner to Alex’s place, she noticed she had a waiting text.

Alex: Buzz when you get here? I’m still getting ready.

She buzzed, and Alex let her in. It was funny, she thought, surprising that Alex wasn’t more punctual than her.

Casey had not yet spent much time at Alex’s place. They usually went out, for coffee or drinks, returning to that little library bar more than once; trading favorite places. Good morning, Casey thought, and it was: beautiful weather, a great run, the best news in a while, and of course, a beautiful woman--

Well, she would put a pin in that last thing.

“Come in,” was the reply from inside when Casey knocked twice, so she did. As soon as she got the door open, two balls of fluff came careening into her calves.

“Hello! Hi! Oh you’re just the most fluffiest perfect little,” Casey said before devolving into only noises, holding both cats at once. “Alex,” she said, setting the kitties down, “Have I mentioned how much I love your cats?”

“Yes,” Alex said, much closer to Casey than she anticipated as she stood up. “Every time you see them. Hey, Case.”

Casey’s breath caught in her throat at the proximity. Then her breath caught again when she noticed that her breath had caught. “Hey. Where to?”

“You asked?” Alex said.

“Oh, um, I did, didn’t I. Let’s go to that little diner,” Casey said, referencing where they’d gone together last weekend. “It’s 6:30 in the morning,” she said, omitting where she would usually include a “goddamn,” bringing things off topic as she saw the clock on Alex’s wall.

“And we’re both wide awake!” Alex said, tilting her head upwards. Casey saw her hair hit her jaw just under her ears. “I want diner coffee, as weird as that is.”

Alex led the way out of her apartment, after giving Casey some cat time so she could put a few barrettes in her hair. As they walked together to the restaurant, Alex saw something extra bubbly in her friend. It was cute, Alex thought, how Casey pointed out birds and fun-shaped clouds.

Casey couldn’t hold her exciting news back for very long once they were all settled. Two coffees-- scrambled eggs and hashbrowns for Casey and fried eggs and toast for Alex. The other patrons of the place this early were all kinds, industrial workers, moms meeting friends with their kids, hungover students, fellow athletes and insomniacs. Yet, she still needed some prompting.

“OK, what has you so energetic this morning?” Alex said. She was still rubbing the tiredness from her eyes.

The was all the encouragement Casey needed. “I got an email last night,” she put some hot sauce on her potatoes, “From Arch and Arrow Magazine,” no signs of recognition in Alex, figures, “saying they want to publish three of my poems.” She ended raising her pitch, smiling that dimpled smile that gave Alex butterflies.

Alex dropped her fork and coffee mug, made some excited noises that didn’t quite form words. “Casey, that’s, oh that’s so exciting! I can’t believe I get to be friends with Casey Novak: published author. I can already imagine it being Casey Novak: award winning poet. Wow, Case, that’s so,”

Casey couldn’t stand the praise anymore, her cheeks were heating up and she tried to hide the blush behind a napkin.

“Are you blushing? Casey, you can’t get embarrassed by your own accomplishments.”

Casey blushed even harder. “Evidently, I can and I will.”

Alex flicked a half and half across the table in spite, and Casey caught it before it fell. “Also, when is it coming out so I can buy 10 copies.”

“You’re ridiculous. Also, it’s not 100% finalized so I’m not going to get too excited until it’s actually in print.”

“Stop being humble, Case, this is a big deal.”

Casey shrugged happily, the dimples seemed permanent for the morning.

“It is a big deal. I’m really happy.”

“Does this mean I get to read your work finally?”

This time it was Casey’s turn to wage milk product war.

Alex insisted she would pay the bill, after a few more conversations. Alex insisted they go back to her apartment, wouldn’t tell Casey why. Casey’s heart jumped when Alex opened the door, brushed her back with her hand as she closed it.

“You go sit on the couch,” Alex ordered (Casey found Alex’s demanding nature very adorable). Casey did, and when Alex returned from the kitchen, her jaw dropped. A bottle of expensive champagne were in one hand, two flutes in the other.

“Alex!” Casey exclaimed, “That’s way too nice. And it’s,” she checked the clock, “8 AM.”

“Special occasion,” Alex said, shrugging and smiling. “I think you deserve to be celebrated.”

They enjoyed the, making new conversations and snuggling the cats. Casey felt warm, comfortable, content. Calm.

“By the way,” Alex said, “I’m sending your poems to Liz Donnelly when they come out. Show her what brilliance she’s missing out on.”

Casey threw her scarf at the brunette this time, with no little milk containers to use. Alex just laughed, did not back down.

“I’m really glad I ran into you today.”

“Me too.”

advertising is bullshit. not just for the carbon emissions, not just because they don't work, not just because they gather information on individual users, not just because unbridled capitalism is fundamentally broken without consistent regulations and control, not just because businesses are putting ad revenue ahead of human life.

here's the thing

you ever heard of acorn?

no not the video streaming service

there's an app called acorn that enables short form investment capital. you put in pennies to businesses to financially support them and if/when those businesses are successful then the amount of money you invested gets to be a lil bit more. so it's basically the stock market. you cannot eat the rich if you don't know what they eat. anyway it's a way to make supplementary income that's as far as I know untouchable by the IRS. but that doesn't matter. the thing is that this thing exists.

I can guarantee that 9 out of 10 people reading this has no idea that this app existed. and it's probably because you don't ever see ads for it. they don't really advertise. it seems to be some sort of communal hub for mass mutual financial growth among corporations and investors since that's how stimulating economics works. you don't hear about it on tv, radio, internet, video games, magazines, whatever. so clearly they have a tiny if not nonexistent budget for ads.

gambling ads are fucking everywhere. you got casinos, you got fantasy football leagues, you got horse racing, you got private pools for F1 and nascar, you got lottery scratch off tickets, you got fortnite overwatch battlefieldfront etc lootboxes, you got so much shit shoveled out every orifice of society, media, social media, radio tv websites and magazines. everywhere. they have a huge budget for ads because they are traps designed to steal money from gullible idiots privileged enough to have extra cash. and they take maybe 10% of that and sell out adspace to attract more gullible idiots. it's a predatory business model and it WORKS and it works because people are stupid and they're still clicking on ads and buying lootboxes and scratching scratchoffs and betting on football.

gambling doesn't serve society. it's a for profit model that the privileged elite use to suck up extra cash from sad pathetic losers who chase that high from a squirt of serotonin from hitting three lemons or a solid gold ak47 skin or a jpeg. so they can afford to throw cash away on ads.

but sheena, I hear you ask, what about all of the businesses that DO provide valid services to society?

spotify makes enough money from ad revenue to shill out Premium™ to people who happily vomit up $5/monthly en masse. even though there's plenty of ways to listen to music that a) directly benefit the creator or b) are 100% free.

places that serve food make so much extra money from sales that they can afford to fuck over they're employees by paying them dirt and shill out for ad spaces even though nobody's gonna watch a commercial for red lobster on tv and think OOOHHH I WANT JUMBO SHRIMP and you know why? because people who are rich enough to eat ad red lobster on a whim all have enough income they probably have dvr or Premium™ streaming and don't see ads in the first place. they're gonna spur of the moment think mmm cheddar bay biscuits (because when the fuck has red lobster shilled their delicious biscuits??? NEVER, THEY SHILL THEIR SCAMPI LINGUINI AND L O B S T E R.

(red lobster did not finance this post and you can easily find imitation recipes anywhere on google but damn what tasty cheesy bread).

United States Military spends $100 MILLION dollars on shilling ads to join the army on poor people's tv to boost enlistment for their blood machine instead of the government taking that money and using it to finance our schools. we can literally cut our military budget from $780 BILLION dollars to $779 billion- that's B as in billion- remove all military ads from our TVs and buy new textbooks for every single school in the entire country. I don't know why learning institutions hide knowledge behind class gates and why historical mathematical scientific and artistic groups don't just fucking give copies of one textbook about the subject to everyone, or why the publishing companies want so much goddamn MONEY from FUCKING SCHOOLS for LITERAL CHILDREN to LEARN but whatever I'm just someone who succeeded in high school in spite of its hundreds of open glaring flaws but whatever. anyway the point is the military could give money to groups that want to end wars but no they want poor people with nowhere else to go to oil the gears with their entrails so we can continue bombing the shit out of the middle east to steal their petroleum. and ads is how they do it.

charities who claim to want to help kids with cancer or endangered animals will gladly take vast portions of the money well meaning idiots send in, pocket 1/4 of it, put another 1/4 in the tv commercials, give 1/4 to some female adult contemporary singer who isn't famous anymore to sing a sad song over the sadness porn and then give the remaining 1/4 to people who are constantly failing to cure cancer, save animals, and just give up and join the nonprofit orgs that actually accomplish things instead. if a charity can afford to spend millions of dollars on fuckin ADVERTISING, they're a bunch of bloated and corrupt bastards who shouldn't be trusted with a goddamn penny. their members should be promoting shit FOR FREE if they actually care. not buying ad space on the cw tnt cbs & nbc. unless the businesses DONATE ad space. but they don't do that because all CEOs are evil. lol

what does wikipedia do when it needs cash? it POLITELY ASKS FOR MONEY IN A BANNER IN THE CORNER OF THE WEBSITE. ao3 does it too. and if dumb motherfuckers wanna shit on wikipedia for being the most accurate and communally moderated source of information on the entire internet "inaccurate"[citation needed] or ao3 for being the last bastion of independent fiction against federal censorship whores and virtue signaling white-knight moral guardians who don't actually care about victims of rape and csa "having incest fics", and yet say absolutely nothing to greedy conglomerates who destroy the planet, commit genocide and enslave coastal & island nation child residents, spread eugenics & other evil pseudoscientific propaganda, sexualize infantilize and fetishize women, and let millions die from cancer every day? then they're just as culpable.

fuck advertisements.

unless you're an independent content creator or something in which case that's not ads it's marketing and publicity which is different.

Hello, another anon. I read 123 and was taken aback by the bad memories. But it surpsised me to see that Sokka still feel bad about it. It was wrong but to me Sokka never was the guy who would just sleep around just to have fun and show "manliness" with everyone. With a strenger especially. Or would he? Imean you know him better of course:). But that situation was completely different he couldn't even think straight. Poor guy still feels bad. What do you think about his act back then?

As a writer, as much backlash as that particular decision has garnered me, I stand by it to this day and I see no reason not to: Sokka, at the time, isn’t in the right state of mind, like you said, and his feelings for Azula aren’t yet at the stage where he truly loves her, not as he does after all the ordeals they face together later in the story. He does have feelings for her, is very much attracted to her, but he hardly knows her properly at the time: he thinks she’s manipulating him, playing with his feelings to her benefit, pretty much. And in a rebellious bout, like many of those we see from him through the story, Sokka decides he won’t let her walk all over him anymore.

This, of course, backfires because Azula is actually far more human, and way more attached to him, than he knew. His remorse for his mistakes is genuine, and pretty much everlasting because, in a reckless bid to protect himself from her, he ended up hurting her far more with his actions than she hurt him with that spiteful comment after their first kiss (which is what drives him to think she was just messing with his head). So yep, up until chapter 123, Sokka is still regretting what he did, even though Azula doesn’t even hold it against him anymore by then. He hates having hurt her, for he knows he misjudged her and jumped to the wrong conclusions about Azula without giving her a chance to explain herself, without offering her the benefit of the doubt if just for a moment. The more he grew to love her in later chapters, and the more he understood her as their bond deepened, the more he hated himself for having hurt her when he did. Therefore, at the point where you’re at, where it’s safe to say he knows her better than anyone, he is all the more unforgiving of himself because he genuinely loves her now, willingly, with eyes open, completely aware of who she is and what’s in her heart, and he trusts her with his life. He’s all the more protective of her now and truly hates that he hurt her so badly when he did, despite even Azula thinks he ought to be more forgiving with himself.

Now, though... one thing I do want to say, that I think some of the people who are bothered by this situation kind of have glossed over before, is that Sokka actually isn’t 100% in control of the situation in the pub. For starters, he may not be drunk to the point of incoherence but he’s not of the soundest mind either. He’s also still really angry and bitter about how things went down with Azula, and mixing that with the drunkenness couldn’t possibly yield a positive result. Furthermore, and I’d say most importantly... June wasn’t just some eyelash-batting fangirl like Hina who was starstruck by Sokka: June saw a guy who didn’t look completely repulsive, talked to him about his problems and offered a solution for him that she made the most of.

My point is... June was the instigator, not Sokka. June has agency of her own as a character, and she is responsible for what happened just as much as Sokka is. Hadn’t June showed up when she did, talked with him and suggested her twisted idea, Sokka wouldn’t have been likely to sleep with anyone at all that night. Would this have been better? Possibly. But what June did was poised with one very specific, even outright-stated-on-text purpose in mind: for Sokka to unleash his frustrations and, if it didn’t work (which, let’s not forget, it didn’t), for him to start wrapping his head around the fact that he might be in love with a woman he didn’t want to be in love with. Without June’s meddling, some of the heartache wouldn’t be quite so painful and there’s no denying that. But without it, Sokka probably would have refused to accept he had feelings for Azula, he might not have confronted her that night and even if he did, the outcome might not have been the same: there’s a chance he wouldn’t have grown to understand her any better, that he would have taken even LONGER than he did to realize Azula wasn’t just messing around with him, that she actually cared about him. And if it feels the story is already ridiculously long, just imagine how much longer it could have been if he had spent longer than two chapters refusing to understand that Azula actually wanted him the same way he wanted her :’) 

Point being, there was a storytelling purpose to this development. And it wasn’t a pretty development, why lie, but it was, I believe, a necessary one considering the circumstances of Azula and Sokka’s partnership: they did start out as enemies. They were reluctant allies working together with their own agendas later on. They probably wouldn’t even have thought of each other as friends even at their early scene together in chapter 26. There was very little trust between them -- Sokka especially distrusted Azula --, and they hadn’t learned enough about each other, they didn’t understand each other enough yet, to have a decent relationship with each other. While this was a harsh setback to their partnership, it’s ironically also a way to kickstart it: at chapter 30, after Azula breaks down in tears in his arms, Sokka FINALLY gets it: she wasn’t messing around, she genuinely was interested in him romantically. And after this, he changes. After this, he’s no longer as merciless towards Azula as he was before. He no longer judges her so harshly, and he makes efforts to understand her. Why? Because of everything I’ve said up here :D

So... “Sokka never was the guy who would just sleep around just to have fun and show "manliness" with everyone”? Why, no, I wouldn’t think he would be that kind of guy, and that’s not how the story ever portrayed him either. Some people may have that interpretation of him, but I, personally, don’t. And I’d think Gladiator should speak for itself, it’s certainly on me if it doesn’t, but to put matters into perspective, if I had been writing Sokka as the kind of guy you described up there, he wouldn’t have been so horrified in the aftermath of his encounter with June in chapter 28. I don’t know if I failed to portray it right, but all along, the idea was to show that he didn’t enjoy what happened between them at all, to the point where June was even exasperated over his apologies and remorse (I even talked about how Gladiator!Sokka hadn’t ever truly enjoyed sex until he had it with Azula on this other ask, which I answered recently). 

As for showing off what he’d done as if it were a sign of “manliness”, well, if he thought sleeping around was a badge of honor, he probably would have boasted about it at some point through the almost-100 chapters between the big debacle and the chapter you’re on right now. Heck, he probably would have flirted with every woman in sight and tried to sleep with them without a care in the world if he was the kind of guy who thinks sleeping around makes him a manlier man. Instead, he only feels guilt, remorse and shame for what he did. He takes zero pride in his actions that day and constantly talks about it as one of his biggest mistakes. Once they ran into June in the arc you’re on, he kept falling silent and deferring to Azula’s judgment in every regard except for when it came to her threats to “torture” Jeong Jeong’s goons, because he believed that if she still felt any resentment towards him over their crisis with June, it was warranted and no less than he deserved (despite, as is revealed later, Azula was blowing matters out of proportion for more complicated reasons than Sokka realized at first). Does that sound like a guy who’s proud of his actions, who thinks it reasserts his masculinity somehow to have gotten involved with someone on a very questionable whim...? I honestly hope it doesn’t.

Now, as the one-track-mind shipper I am...? You can bet I absolutely didn’t enjoy writing that scene, not in the least. Ironically, Sokka’s trick to keep going (imagining June was Azula) was also my trick to keep going: the reason that scene’s writing was ambiguous, as though he were having some sort of hate-sex session with Azula when it’s NOT her, was because it was the only way I could get through the scene at all. So, as a writer, I stand by what I wrote. As a fangirl with too many feels, I hate the scene despite understanding why it was necessary :’) I don’t think I’d ever admitted that before, but it’s the truth. Part of a writer’s job includes working with elements and situations in a story that you might not be comfortable with, that you absolutely wouldn’t condone or approve of (I mean... slavery in general?? I write about it, doesn’t mean I support it in any capacity even if I think it’s believable for Ozai’s Fire Nation to enslave people...), but that are part of the story nonetheless. 

Storytelling can be done for fluffy and happy reasons exclusively, and there’s a lot of fics that are like that, but Gladiator is a fic with a huge plot comprised by a ton of tinier plot threads, dealing with serious subjects and themes of many sorts. And if I’m going to do it justice, I can’t shy away from the darkness of my characters, the terrible mistakes they can make or the hard-earned redemption they can obtain after working their asses off to amend them. Azula’s decision to turn Sokka into a slave could be judged just as harshly as Sokka’s mistakes have been judged by many readers, and she should be condemned for it on the same capacity, if not more so: there’d be no story altogether if she hadn’t made this mistake, however. They both have wronged each other, it’s the truth, but they have done their damnedest to atone for their actions once they truly understood how wrong they were.

I don’t think highly of myself as a writer these days, haven’t in ages, but I know I’d think even less of myself if I only ever played it safe and stuck to the storytelling beats everyone demands and expects from stories. The majority of Part 2 is, in fact, a gamble I silently made with Gladiator’s readerbase to find out what would happen if I didn’t simply fall into the typical structure expected from stories like mine. What if I actually show my readers what a solid, healthy, strong relationship between Azula and Sokka works like in practice, instead of immediately resorting to tearing them apart barely a few chapters after they got together for conflict’s sake?

... Of course, that particular experiment didn’t have an unanimous result either, and just like chapter 28, I may have alienated thousands of people by making the creative decision I did for the entirety of Part 2. And yet the story, in my personal opinion, wouldn’t be half of what it is if I’d made a different choice! Sooo... *shrug* what can I tell ya, Anon. Writing is hard. Writing means making tough choices your readers won’t understand sometimes. Writing means making yourself cry happy/sad tears at 2 AM because you nearly killed half of your OTP and it’s tearing you to shreds deep inside :’D and while I categorically refuse to say I’ve made all the right choices for Gladiator, I think the story would be infinitely lesser than it is if I wasn’t willing to give my characters hardships and complications they can learn to overcome, no matter how painful they might be.

(Otherwise, heh, there would be no Part 3, soooo...)

Guiding Light turns two years old today!

It’s crazy to think this all began only a couple of years back... and also hilarious it falls on the same day as “International Mystery Dungeon Day” over on Twitter. More after the cut. This is gonna be a long one, so I appreciate anyone willing to read this. ^^

For a long time, I had been a casual consumer of fan fics. It started in the late 2000s when I was in a Spyro craze thanks to the more story-driven Legend of Spyro trilogy. I had an itch that I needed scratched and FFN fulfilled that to some extent. I also looked at some Mario fics, including Paper Mario: The Temple of the Sun, which I greatly enjoyed and thought did a good job adapting the formula that made Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door so beloved and putting a unique spin on things.

But it was until the early 2010s that I actually started getting back into Pokémon games with Gen V. After Emerald, I fell out of touch with Pokémon for a time. When Gen VI came around, I dipped my toe into the fandom through Twitch livestreams, but also through reading a few anime-based fics that are very long and still going, even now. 

At the same time, I ended up buying PMD: Explorers of Sky... and damaged my cartridge before I could properly finish the game with my Vulpix/Riolu team. So, I watched cutscenes for what I missed on YouTube, then got Gates to Infinity and, later, Super Mystery Dungeon and had fun with both of them... though more for the stories and characters than the actual gameplay. Truth be told, I don’t care much for roguelikes at all.

It was during the gap in time between Super’s release and the first official footage of Sun & Moon in mid-2016 that I found myself hit with a recurring thought: “What if someone made a PMD story where the hero and the partner are forced to fight one another with the fate of the world at stake?” I wound up (loosely) brainstorming an idea for a PMD story revolving around an antagonistic Hoopa character who would use its ring portals to collect entire communities, including the Pokémon living in them... all so that he would never be bored. This would lead him to “collect” the partner to add to his “toys,” so when the hero shows up, he’d sic the partner on them.

But that was as far as I got with the idea. I ended up graduating college and took a job with late evening hours. It left me pretty tired and exhausted and unmotivated to do much of anything. I withdrew from the parts of the Pokémon community I was involved in.

Then the Generation VII games came out and, while divisive in the fandom, I found myself really liking some of the concepts. There were so many times when I thought, “Gee, I wonder what this would be like if it were in a PMD game?” For example, one of the ideas I had was a sort of edgy rival rescue team akin to Gladion, which would have a Midnight Lycanroc, a Zoroark, and a Type: Null character in it.

So, toward the end of 2016 and early 2017, I started creating an idea for a Choose Your Own Adventure story with the intent of putting it on this really small forum I was a part of. It would be a Gen VII-themed PMD story, but because I didn’t think that sounded interesting enough, I decided that, not only would the human keep their memories, but they would be from the real world and be a major Pokémon nerd. The idea was that the choices the readers made would affect the relationship between the human and partner. I even came up with a point system. The more points the readers earned for their choices, the “closer” the relationship the hero and partner would have and the happier an ending the story would get. If the hero and partner couldn’t stand each other, one of them would likely end up working with the bad guy and winning. If they became steadfast friends, they’d work together to save the world.

Unfortunately, the forum shut down before I got too far into planning it, so I shelved the idea and continued focusing on my job. And things stayed that way for several months, until I ended up getting into med school and scrambling to move.

During the downtime I had when I wasn’t doing moving related stuff, I decided to look at FFN again and found Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Defenders of Warmth. I wound up reading through the entirety of the story quite quickly. I guess you could say it sparked something in my head. The fic itself focuses on what, at the time, was the newest Gen (Gen V). It also has multiple humans and is set on a continent separate from the canon locations (which were just the Air and Grass Continents, since Gates and Super didn’t exist when the fic was written). In short, it renewed my desire to pursue my idea of a Gen VII-flavored PMD story.

So, I set about creating my story outline. It is so... so much different from the actual story, though I’ve gone into that in previous posts (search for #amby answers). Originally, I used Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time as the framework for the fic: an alien invasion in a colorful, comedic world. I took more specific cues, too. Zero was meant to be a (mostly) silent antagonist a la Princess Shroob, for example.

The problem was, I really didn’t have much confidence in myself or my abilities. I’d like to say I was writing for myself, but I really did want validation, too. I think any author is lying to themselves if they say they don’t feel this way at some point. Because of this, I figured if I put the fic on FFN, it would get ignored. The site’s huge! There were, at the time, around 85k fics in the Pokémon section alone. (That number’s since gone up to over 90k!)

Given I had experience with forums, I decided to post it to Serebii, because the fic community seemed much smaller and more open to giving feedback to one another. In an effort to try and, y’know, establish some connections, I actually read other pieces and reviewed them before posting any stories. This also helped me build up a backlog of chapters and prove to myself I enjoyed writing this enough to keep going.

When I finally did post the fic, it was a bumpy start, for sure. I do think I made a lot of mistakes out of the gate, including uploading chapters way too quickly for readers on Serebii to (reasonably) try to keep pace. That probably cost me a few potential readers... or made them silent readers who I never ended up hearing from. Which is why I’m especially thankful to @girl-like-substance (who I can seem to tag, drat) for all of the well-thought-out feedback given throughout the fic’s run. I don’t think I would’ve made such significant strides in my writing otherwise... and there are plenty of long-running fics where the quality tends to stagnate.

In any case... it was thanks to a request from @deliriousabsol to put the fic somewhere more mobile-friendly that I chose to mirror Guiding Light on FFN starting in October 2017. I would’ve kept going on Serebii had she not asked so nicely, so she’s the one you can thank for it showing up there! (She’s a fellow author who does cyberpunk-themed fics and art and her characters have cameoed in the fic.)

And, honestly, I’m just... beyond shocked at what wound up happening to the fic once it hit FFN. Well, actually, for the first several months I was lucky if I even got a comment when I put up a chapter. I’m not sure any of the people who first commented on FFN still follow the fic anymore. I haven’t seen/heard from them at all, so I assumed they moved on with their lives.

In any case, around March of 2018, the word count on FFN passed 300k and... somehow, the fic starting getting more attention. Like, a lot more attention. This was... not really something I was even remotely prepared for.

(Yes, this means there’s gonna be a giveaway. More on that later.) I never would’ve thought I’d reach a number like this. I never imagined I’d meet another PMD author who’d be willing to do a fun collab (thanks @virgil134, Spiteful Murkrow, and Namohysip). I really did not imagine that I’d ever get fanart of characters that I wrote (huge thanks @thebreak-ofdawn, @ask-nicky-and-others, and @cresselia92). I mean, above everything, I not expect the fic or characters to resonate with anybody the way it wound up.

A part of me feels like I don’t really deserve it. I’ve made a lot of serious gaffes with writing this. When initial Serebii feedback had people intrigued by Shane’s jerkass attitude (when I didn’t actually intend for him to come off as a jerk), I dialed things up in the hopes I’d keep their attention. It probably cost me readers. Then there’s the slow pacing of the early episodes and the mistake of making Special Episode 3 as long as it was... which my speaks to my (bad) tendency to give into some of my strongest impulses even though I had an outline I was trying to stick to.

And, I mean, there’s also some of the “shamlessly shameful” stuff I’ve done with the fic. I’m not fooling myself. Guiding Light has grown progressively more furry and, uh, probably fanservicey, too. All the big furbait (and some scalebait) ‘mons are accounted for. There’s a lot more sexual humor when I initially promised myself I would stay away from romance and keep everything platonic. I practically turned Xerneas into waifu bait, if some of these asks are anything to go by. This blog certainly didn’t help in that regard. Maybe I’m just being my usual nervous self? 

I am worried that this fic’s performance has, somehow, affected my thoughts and behavior. There are very popular fic authors who let their popularity get to their head... or chose to open up Patreons (something that makes me uncomfortable) or start doing things like taking commissions for written pieces, which is understandable... though I think it’s an easy way to lose your passion for writing. I guess some of that worry stems from a debacle I learned about on a Discord server I’m in, but that’s not something I’m comfortable discussing publicly. 

And I haven’t even talked much about the blog itself. Like, it somehow passed 100 followers? Where? When? How? I don’t actually draw stuff like many other Pokéasks. And, like, for a lot of folks, I have no idea if they’ve actually read the fic or just check in on the blog. It’s the same with the fic, I suppose. If you’re a silent reader/follower, I would really love to hear from you! I promise... I don’t bite or anything. I’d love to know what (if anything) you’re thinking. And if you’re a blog that’s following this one and we haven’t interacted, please feel free to reach out! It’s honestly hard to tell if people like what I’m doing, so any feedback is always appreciated.

In any case, if I haven’t lost you by now, I guess all I can say is... thank you. Thank you all so much for all of the support... whether it’s on the fic, the blog, or both of them. I really do hope this final episode can meet your expectations. I’ll try my very best to make this an ending to remember. Nothing would make me happier than to hear you guys enjoy it and feel it does justice to the PMD series.

Sorry for all the rambling. The inbox is open again if you’d like to send any messages for the ficaversary. Again, thank you all so much! You’re the best!

📖 Twilight have read and graded all your stories! 📖 

However, since she's a fictional character we'll discard her opinions! I'm the one with the money, so naturally my opinions are the only one that matters.

These are ranked from best to worst and I've scored all entries based on how entertaining (or infuriating) I found them to be. If you got a good score, be very proud! I am not easy to please. If you got a bad score, then it is time for you to go sit in the corner and think about your sins. 👻

First off, the winner and best of the show:

Fic: Love, And Other Felonies Author: PatchworkPoltergeist​ Grade: A+++ Review: This is pretty much a raridash masterpiece. In my humble opinion, it far surpasses all of the fanfics the raridash community considers its cream of the crop. It has everything from great structure, wonderful characterizations and is an overall fun, creative take on the NMM-verse timeline. The world-building and lore is an added plus and a surprise (didn't expect that due to time and theme restrictions). This is an excellent romance fanfic with Raridash at the heart of its story. The two of them share close to every moment together and have to lean on each other as there is no one else to trust in this harsh dystopian world. Watching these two walk on eggshells in a society where freewill and independent thinking is punishable by death is just as entertaining as it sounds!

If I had to critic this, I'd say the story's epilogue threw me off. I feel that too much character development were lost in amnesia world and the romance aspect just didn't fit the bill anymore. Felt forced and awkward.

Runner-ups:

Fic: My Little Confession Author: Pixel Berry Grade: B Review: Very plain and simple, but it works! Story is very brief and the characters barely has any time to be introduced, but it covers the bare minimum and the characters struggles and exchanges are both endearing, cute and wholesome. Equis High seemed like an interesting place and it would've been great if you could've expand upon it. The prompt lean near the end was way too on the nose and really ruined the flow of narration! You should've kept up your integrity and make up your own ending. An epilogue for this wouldn't hurt either since the story doesn't fade out, it just kind of ends... 

Style of narration was very odd and there were several pacing issues, but I feel the creativity makes up for it! These were the kind of stories I was hoping to get out of this competition. ❤️

Fic: Zero-Sun Game Author: Undome Tinwe Grade: C+ Review: This story had some good moments, but the genres stumble over each other constantly. This isn't goofy enough to make it a good comedy and it definitely isn't serious enough to work as a good drama. There aren't any real struggles and Rainbow Dash's character is practically flawless. She knows exactly what say and how to behave in order to get Rarity under her thumb and she can predict events with 100% accuracy, averting every single conflict thrown at her with ease. The more you read, the less intrigued you become. Everything becomes dull up until the ending where everything gets weird. In a story that has references to sex, vice and regicide, giving this story such a cheesy, awkward ending just didn't feel right at all.

You should've gone full comedy and have Rainbow Dash under investigation for being a potential super villain, only for it to be revealed her actions were not a result of amorality but stupidity. Drama could’ve work too, but you'd have to lose the virtual-reality shtick as it sucks away all the tension.

Fic: The Finale Author: Mymysteriox Grade: F Review: This story is called The Finale and as promised by the title, you are indeed dropped into the climax of a big dramatic story, having no clue as to what events has lead up to that moment. Ponies are yelling and crying and then the stage play end. The main characters are real pleased with themselves for performing this amazing play, we weren't allowed to see! The problem with this fanfic is that it is barely anything but a transcript to its prompt. There's no depth, backstory or even introductions. It's an empty shell.

Fic: Every One After Author: AJtheRaven Grade: F Review: This story's attempt at entertainment revolves itself around Rarity and Rainbow Dash being as petty and shallow as possible. In short, Rainbow Dash want a trophy wife and Rarity want an obedient little pupper. These aspirations are forced to the point you wonder why the two of them are an item in the first place. Romance stories who’s conflict are the characters hating each other with the resolution of them kissing and making up in the end are by far the cheapest, dirtiest things in the world. To add on that, it completely fails to utilize the prompt in any creative manner, making this already dull story that much duller. None of the interactions carried any sincerity and every setup was predictable. 

If you had plans to write a story out of pure spite then you might as well have gone full out and write a story where Rainbow Dash struggles to dispose of Rarity's lifeless body after having strangled her to death in a fit of rage. At least that way you could’ve gotten a passing score for creativity.

Fic: The Experimental RariDash Crackfic Author: Mystic Mind Grade: F Review: Every single joke in this are like nails on a chalk board. Rarity and Rainbow Dash serves no purpose to this story and could've been replaced by literally anyone. The narrator/Pinkie Pie is obnoxious to the point you want to bludgeon her to death and the story from beginning to end is nothing but meme characters stumbling around and bumping into each other. I was surprised you didn't include a scene where Discord popped in and start twerking in front of the audience, all while promoting his fortnite centered twitch channel. There isn’t a single redeeming factor in this story... Everything is just nauseating.

This might have been a decent story if it was a straight faced drama, but with what I’ve seen from this story I kind of doubt your ability to write romance stories at all.

Fic: A Marvelous Day Author: ModdieFox Grade: F- Review: This fanfic is a big empty template that someone put a raridash sticker onto. Any character could be switched out and it wouldn't make a difference. There's no story, no build-up and nothing in this carries any weight or consequence. Everything feels hollow and manufactured. A loveless, soulless entry.

This needed to be longer (less exposition, more anticipation) and the narration should've followed either Rarity's or Rainbow's internal monologue about the ups and downs in their relationship that eventually lead them to getting married. Big pay-offs like weddings aren't satisfying if we don’t know the struggle.

Fic: Those Wedding Belle Rainbows Author: Tangerine Blast Grade: G Review: I'm at a loss for words... This is a story that relies itself on the stupidity of its characters to push itself forward. Usually I don't mind stupid characters if it's there to make them cute, but in this fanfic it exist for no other reason than to create unnecessary conflicts. The lack of common sense makes every character insufferable and every action taken and every piece of dialogue spoken are annoying and borders on infuriating. The story has no direction and spirals itself into meandering filler. The author couldn't even be bother to write an ending for this clustergack and instead he just copy&pastes a scene from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean and calls it a day (no, I'm not joking). 

I have nothing else to say other than this is the worst raridash fanfic I've ever read in my life. This isn't your everyday kind of failure... This is advanced failure! This deserves a grade lower than F so I hereby award it with the special rating of G (standing for garbage). Kudos.

Disqualified entires:

Fic: Guiding Light Author: Gesstalt Grade: Disqualified (Doesn't follow a prompt) Review: This story tries way too hard to be poetic and mysterious, but due to its brief length it just comes off as unnecessary filler. It feels like someone opened up a book, ripped out a single page from it and presented it as a full story. Everything is vague and cryptic and you can't make sense of anything. Elements are presented with the implications that they have greater meaning but it never amounts to anything and everything just feels pointless.

Fic: Love Eternal Author: RDFan27 Grade: Disqualified (Doesn't follow a prompt) Review: In this story Rainbow Dash enters Rarity's boutique and stands still. It's a pretty ingenious concept, I gotta say! Think about it, Rainbow Dash likes sports so naturally she likes to move around, but because she likes Rarity so much she's willing to go against her nature and stand still!! It's the peak of romance!!! 

Sarcasm aside, this fanfic fails to be creative at every turn. Stories with this premise have been written over 300+ times, going back as far as 2011. I didn't like them back then and I don't like them now. This story's only redeeming factor is its ending which threw me into a laughing fit, though that wasn't a feat of writing as much as it was timing.

🌟 Those were all the stories! 🌟

Thanks to everyone who participated, hope you all had fun! Sorry if you didn't win, but not everybody have what it takes to be the best. I hope you found my critic helpful and that it'll go a long way to help improve your future stories!

If you found some of these ratings were unfair, tough cookie! This is a contest and it's not my job to hold your hand. If you don't understand the mechanics of basic story telling or just can't be bothered to write a sincere story, then you only have your own incompetence to blame. Get good or get bent, loser! 🎷

Let’s hear another round of applauses for @patchworkpoltergeist​ amazing story! 👏👏👏 Wooooo~ 

Zombies

TW: gore, zombies(is that a trigger?), panic attack (kinda), shitty title

SUMMARY: whats the guidelines 4 dis lmao ima need to fix this later

ADDITIONAL NOTES: the ending is BAD

 the title sucks fuck off i knoww 

yo yo follow the people below (and me cough cough) bc.. Yeet

Beta- @callmekiddo-2 (thank for putting up with my constant grammar errors fam)

Artist- my bro,,, @owlpip (Art links gonna go here when i get them)

WC: 7.3k (really short i knowww)

The sound of rushing water filled the room and the steam from it rose into the air. Small bubbles occasionally flew from the sink, floating away gently, like a peaceful and soft dance. Dan’s hands were covered in suds and began to wrinkle because of the constant stream of hot water embracing them. Dan picked up the last plate and wiped it in a swift motion with his sponge, making a circle of soap that he quickly rinsed off. He set that final dish aside before washing off his own hands and turning the water off. He then grabbed the dish towel and set to work, drying off the dishes. He swabbed the clear droplets of now cold water from each dish, concentration etched onto his face. Once each dish was dried he rushed about the kitchen, putting them all away. He and his flatmate had only been living in that flat for a few weeks and he was still getting used to, well, everything. Due to this, he was sure he had put a few things away wrong. But hey, Phil had asked him to do the dishes, and he did. Kind of.

The padding of footsteps behind him made Dan jump, nearly dropping the rag in his hand. “Fucks sake, Phil,” Dan hissed, throwing his damp rag onto the counter behind him. He came very close to knocking over an unlit candle, “You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“Whoops,” Phil replied, crossing his arms in the doorway, a smile painted on his face. Dan loved Phil, they were best friends, after all, but Phil was probably the least empathetic person when it came to scaring people. He couldn’t care less. Every once in awhile dan would like to hear a, “Oh, I’m sorry, are you okay?” instead.

“You’re an ass,” Dan muttered, turning back to his abandoned rag to put it away.

“Pfft, you know love me,” Phil said. (what should i do here looks kinda lame)

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Dan responded, trying to not smile. Dan and Phil had been best friends for years, hell, they had pretty much grown up together. After being essentially joined at the hip for almost ten years, the boys were pretty much family. They even started going on family holidays together, calling each other’s mothers’ “Mum” the whole time just to spite the other. The two were as close to brothers as anyone could get without the matching birth certificates.

“Thanks for doing the dishes,” Phil said after a minute.

“No problem, but you’re sweeping tomorrow to repay your debt,” Dan countered.

“What? But it’s your turn,” Phil whined. Dan turned back to Phil and shrugged, the smile that had left Phil’s face set on his own.

“It was your turn to do the dishes,” he pointed out, smile widening.

“Fair enough,” Phil sighed, rolling his eyes a little. He didn’t really think it was fair as sweeping was much harder than washing a few plates, but he didn’t say anything. After all, Dan did have a point and it was Phil’s turn to do the dishes. Phil turned and began to walk away.

“You heading off to bed?” Dan called after him. Phil turned, smiling a little.

“What, you want a goodnight kiss?” Phil teased, laughing lightly at his own joke.

“I don’t, but about eighty percent of the internet would want me to,” Dan joked back, causing both to snicker. The shipping didn’t bother the two anymore. After years of thousands of people reading into their every move, it got kind of dull. Of course they made jokes about it, it came naturally after a while. It was apart of life for them, and everyone made jokes about their life. People made death jokes because it was a part of life, they made sex jokes because it was a part of life, and Dan and Phil made shipping jokes just like that because it was a part of their lives.

“See you in the morning, Danny,” Phil shouted over his shoulder as he walked to his bedroom. Phil never really called Dan by the nickname, unless he was in the teasing mood. Just as an older brother would tease the younger.

Dan looked to the clock to see that it read about midnight, which was the usual time for Phil to turn in for the night. As for Dan, he had a sort of reputation to uphold-stay up on the internet for a few more hours until the blinding light of his laptop screen made his eyes red. Sometimes Phil would join Dan and they’d sit on their couch and occasionally tap the other on the shoulder, pointing to their own screen when they found a post they thought would make the other smile. For whatever reason that made the whole experience way better for Dan. Maybe he liked Phil being there because they were best friends, maybe it was just the presence of another person being sat next to him, or perhaps a tangle of both. Dan wasn’t sure. Whatever it was, Dan enjoyed it very much.

Dan soon retreated into his bedroom as wasn’t comfortable with just standing in the kitchen alone. He unplugged his laptop, glad to see it at full battery, and sat down on his bed. In record time, Tumblr was pulled up and he was scrolling through impressive amounts of shitposts and the occasional problematic rant by some self-righteous teen. He only skimmed through the posts, reblogging the few that made him blow a bit more air out of his nose than usual. Years of being a “full time internet homo” had that effect on him, barely laughing, mostly just exhaling more intensely.

One post on his dash stood out to him. Usually he’d scroll through phanfiction, ignoring the ones that seemed badly written by some 12 year old girl in twenty minute. That seemed to be the majority. However, every once and awhile he’d find one so amusing or highly requested he had to read it. Hell, he even found a few really well written ones that almost could be published or poetry. Naturally, when Dan found something like that he just had to read it. In any case, fanfiction was just writing-sometimes bad or… inappropriate writing, but: writing. It was better than getting high or drunk, so Dan figured he might as well support it, even if there were a few bad and emotionally damaging seeds.

The room was almost pitch black. The only sources of light being Dan’s open Macbook and the light peeking in through Dan’s window with the drawn curtains, caused by the street lamps, head lights, stars and moon of the outside world. It made the whole situation seem way more scandalous than it really was. Of course Dan would clear his search history after reading, and of course he’d deny ever reading the fic, and of course he would die if Phil found out, but that didn’t make it scandalous. Okay, maybe it did, but that was only because Dan made it so scandalous, it could be totally innocent and Dan could be open with his dirty little secret. However, that seemed too easy. Dan didn’t get much excitement in his life, so why not act like the whole reading phanfiction thing was this whole secret that was done behind closed doors and drawn blinds in the dead of night? It wasn’t like he secretly got off to it or anything, it just- he was just curious. That was it.

Well Dan being just “curious” lasted all of five paragraphs into the story. Then, he started to enjoy it. He loved the word choice, the characters (even if he was one of main ones), and even the plot. The whole story was based off of the zombie apocalypse and what would happen. Now, since Dan was such a massive nerd, the story called to him. It was thousands of words long- double digit thousands. However, Dan didn’t mind it at all. In fact, that was another thing he liked about it. If he could ignore the fact that it was he and his best friend’s names’, he could actually picture it being a real young adult novel. The writing was excellent and the pace was just right, he could actually see the characters falling in love. Shamefully, he fell in love with the characters as well. He even caught himself wondering why his Phil wasn’t like the one in the fic. If that was his Phil, of course he could be in love with him, the way the shippers wanted. That hit really close for Dan. He loved Phil, of course he did, but as a brother. The Phil in the story, however, he was different. He was more empathetic without being suffocating, he was strong and still sweet. Dan could see the resemblance to his Phil- wait, what? Dan just ranted in his own head about how great this character was, how he could have a romantic relationship with him, and then compared him to his 100% platonic best friend. That had to be crossing a ton of friendship boundaries, even for he and Phil. They were friends. That was it. But maybe it didn’t have to be… No. That was how it was. Friendship, only friendship. Period.

Dan knew that phanfiction was doing weird things to his brain. He knew he should click out, unfollow the person who put it on his dash, delete his search history and never go back. He didn’t though, he should of, but he didn’t. God, how he should of.

Instead of doing what was right, Dan gave into the alluring temptation. That had to be some kind of a sin, right? Imagine Dan being damned to Hell because he didn’t click out of a phanfiction, that seemed to be a very Dan thing to do. Rather this was true or not, it didn’t prevent Dan from reading the fic, and enjoying it. His bloodshot eyes focused on the brightness of his laptop screen and the black words on it in front of him, the rest of the world a massive blur of grays and streaks of white light shining in. Dan continued to read until the whole world went dark around him and he slipped into the warm embrace of sleep.

Dan awoke in a bed that was not his own, a warm hand on his left arm shaking him. Not wanting to wake up just yet, Dan rolled over onto his right side, away from the hand. Doing so, he was met by a sharp pain in the arm he’d rolled over on, which was luckily his right and non dominant arm. He heard a familiar voice, but it seemed distant and echoey, almost like it was at the opposite end of a tunnel. A long, dark, warm tunnel… Dan found himself drifting back into unconsciousness but was pulled out of it by the calloused hand that was still gripping him whilst shaking. Dan decided because of the the sharp pain burning into his flesh and the constant shaking there was little to no chance of getting back to sleep. The pain confused him because it wasn’t the type of pain you got when you slept wrong, it felt as if it was more of a open wound that could quite possibly be infected. Not that it would even make sense to have a sleeping pain in his arm, as Dan both went to bed and woke up laying on his back. As well as the odd pain, the weight of Dan’s laptop was gone. Had Phil came into his room, found the laptop on Dan’s stomach, and put it away for him? Oh no, had Phil seen what was on the screen? Dan didn’t remember closing the tab.

“Dammit Dan! Don’t you quit on me now!” The voice suddenly came into focus, like a camera. Once fuzzy and blurry, then sharp and clear. He knew that voice, it seemed a little worn though, broken from yelling. It was Phil’s voice.

“M’up, I’m good,” Dan slurred, opening his unfocused eyes trying to sit up. Doing so, the pain intensified, burning so fiercely Dan fell back. “What the fuck?!” Dan shouted.

“You got stabbed, idiot, remember?” Phil said, setting a hand on Dan’s chest to keep him down. When the world came into focus around Dan, he saw that the Phil next to him was not Phil. Or at least it wasn’t his Phil. This Phil’s skin was far too tan, his face was smeared with dirt (or dry blood, but Dan hoped it was just dirt), and his hair was way too long, his roots showing way too much. Dan looked at his pained right arm, seeing a white rag knotted around his slightly larger and more muscular bicep that was stained crimson with what Dan knew was his blood.

“Stabbed? What?” Dan gasped, voice coming out breathy and strained. His breathing quickened and he tucked his hands into fists, ignoring the pain caused in his right arm, digging little crescent moons into his sweating palms. He tried to force himself upright but was held down by Phil’s hand, who was ridiculously strong, so much so it was discomforting.

“Dan, you need to calm down,” Phil sternly said. Dan threw his fists at Phil’s hand, which seemed to be crushing. He just wanted to be alone, wanted to wake up in his room to the sound of Phil- his Phil, waking up obnoxiously loud. He didn’t want to be in this strange place with this strange Phil like some strange phanfiction…wait a minute. Phil’s description, his actions, Dan being stabbed- this was just like that phanfiction he fell asleep reading. But that was impossible, and even the idea of it increased Dan’s panic. He opened his mouth to scream at the weird person who was kind of like Phil, yell at them to go away, bring him back to his home, to his Phil, but nothing came out. His tongue felt too big in his mouth and his saliva felt like thick, dry cotton. He just wanted to go home! He wanted to wake up in his bed, yell at his Phil for waking him up so early, catch his Phil eating his cereal- he wanted it to be a weird dream. How could it be a dream? Dan felt pain, that didn’t happen in dreams, did it? So it wasn’t a dream? Did it mean Dan could never go home?

“Daniel!” Phil’s hand pressed harder on Dan’s chest and somehow brought him back to reality, or whatever it was, kind of. “Breathe Dan, breathe.” Dan was heaving for breath, he tried to listen, tried to breathe, tried to do what Phil said, but it wasn’t working. Dan just wanted everything to stop, please just stop. After a few minutes of struggling for air Dan felt himself start to calm down, the shaking he wasn’t even aware of started to slow, breath came easier, until he was only crying, yet another thing he wasn’t aware he was doing. He wiped his now unclenched hands on his face, trying to rid it of tears. He felt stupid, like an idiot. He’d just cried, like a complete child.

“I’m good,” Dan breathed,  relaxing his head on the pillow under it. He went to bring his hands over his face to cover it but was brutally reminded of his injury in the form of a sting.

Dan had never been one to believe in the supernatural or even religion. He believed facts. Yes, a zombie apocalypse was theoretically possible. It was also something religious, to a sense. No, zombies didn’t carry around bibles and sit in pews on Sundays, that just sounded stupid. However, there was three main things religions tended to have. A higher power, the beginning of time being created in a ‘big bang’ sort of sense, sudden and with no explanation besides before mentioned higher power, and, of course, “The End”, or, in other terms, “The Apocalypse”. In a way, it made sense. Logically, life itself had to have a start. Therefore, it also had to have an end. Who’s to say life doesn’t have to follow the same rules it creates, a beginning and and end, birth and death? However, that theory didn’t explain why Dan was magically sucked into some post apocalyptic universe birthed from the brain of one of his fans. That didn’t make any sense. Dan wished he could make it make sense. When things made sense you weren’t scared of them, you could convince yourself it wasn’t dangerous. Dan didn’t have that luxury.

“I think I need some fresh air,” Dan announced, moving to sit up. He, of course, was blocked by Phil’s hand. It was really starting to get annoying, being pinned down. He felt trapped, caged in like an animal, a beast with no humanity. He felt like Phil didn’t trust him, then again, why should he? Dan wasn’t the person this Phil knew, and deep down he thought Phil would know that. Maybe Dan should just play his part, calm this man a bit. After all, why should both of them feel lost? From reading the phanfic he knew how sickingly codependent this universe’s Dan and Phil were, who was he to rip that apart? After all, Dan knew everything the other Dan knew. They acted quite alike - this universe’s Dan and the real Dan. It made sense, after all, this Dan was based on the real one.

“Good luck finding any,” Phil snorted. Dan had almost forgotten he had spoke, so lost in his own thoughts, trapped in the prison of his mind. Phil lifted his hand off of Dan’s chest and instead used it to help Dan stand, which was a difficult task. Soon Dan was upright and he and Phil were heading to the rotted door decorated with metal locks and deep scratch marks, which were pale in contrast to the dark finish of the door. As they walked Dan noticed the many weapons and cobwebs littering the walls of the cabin, he appreciated them, though he had no idea how to use them. Phil grabbed a machete off the wall, very worn and coated in a brown substance that Dan knew was dried blood. Dan hoped he wouldn’t have to see Phil use it.

No part of Dan protested when Phil walked him out, or when held the door for him, or even when Phil rested his hand on Dan’s lower back. He wished he would have, wished he could have made himself. The truth was that Dan didn’t mind. His stomach didn’t drop, his skin didn’t burn or tingle. If anything, Dan felt safe. Warm. Content. Like what was happening was just… right. Was that insane? None of it was right, he wasn’t where he was supposed to be-not by a long run. He was supposed to be home, in bed, eyes bloodshot from his bright laptop screen. He wasn’t though, and that wasn’t right. It would be nice if it was, it’d be nice if his own kind of paradise wasn’t standing there consumed in the feeling of a man he didn’t know, a man that wasn’t real.

When the two exited the shack Dan woke up in they were engulfed by a forest. Shrubs, moss, and mushrooms littered the floor and above the canopy of the trees were so thick you could only catch a sliver of blue when you angled your head right. It wasn’t what Dan expected at all. He expected a city in ruins, bloody human like creatures digging into the corpses of children. The air, however, was just as he expected it. Thick, hot, smelling of rotting flesh, far from the musky, cool breezes a forest should carry. Dan suddenly remembered why everything was the way it was. In the phanfiction Dan and Phil decided to take shelter away from civilization because the cities… they were just as you’d picture. Gray, covered in a thick layer of crimson blood, only populated by zombies or sick bastards that couldn’t care less about you and only wanted your supplies. Evil place, the world had become.

“Zombies aren’t even the problem anymore,” Phil said, as if he was reading Dan’s thoughts. “Hell, they weren’t even the problem to begin with. People were. People created it and let it out. People… People started this mess…” Phil’s voice trailed off meaningfully. Dan understood what Phil meant, thinking back to the phanfiction. The writer had a bit of a prologue before they wrote the story. It described the beginning of the end, in a sense. It was like most starts to fictional zombie apocalypses, new drug that’s not tested enough creates a sickness. That drug was somehow leaked into the water supply and the world got sick, however, a few were immune. The drug was fought by a mutation in the genes of certain people. That gene was the blue eyes gene, which Dan did carry. Blue eyes was a recessive trait that didn’t show in Dan because of the brown eyes trait (a dominant gene) he also acquired. Phil too had this the blue eyes trait but his did show. However, those infected were given the instinct of spreading the pathogen. The only way they could do so when someone carried the blue eyes trait was via injection of contaminated DNA. Basically, if you carried the blue eye trait you were fine to drink, but it could still get the illness if you got bitten.

In Dan’s peripheral vision he spotted movement. He grabbed at Phil for reasons he couldn’t explain nor did he want to try and understand. Phil seemed unphased by this and just shook Dan off. “I think there’s one,” Dan tried to explain, pointing to where he thought he saw movement. Dan swore he saw concern paint Phil’s features for a split second before it was gone, but it was probably nothing. This version of Phil wasn’t the one Dan knew so well, it was a variation of him, but it wasn’t him. This Phil was made up by some teen girl on her laptop at four in the morning, and Dan couldn’t forget that. No matter how real this Phil seemed, he wasn’t.

Dan didn’t have much more time to fuss over his weird feelings for his friend’s character in some story he was somehow a part of (wow his situation was complicated) because they were joined by a freak of nature. The creature burst from the undergrowth, running towards them with a slight limp, arms outstretched and fingers like the talons of an eagle. The creature was just as you’d imagine a zombie; It’s pale skin was almost green but still carried the gray tint of death. It’s features were hollowed out, reminding Dan of one of those before pictures on an eating disorder recovery story. It’s clothes were torn and blood soaked. Gashes covered it, skin peeling away to show bloody and rotting flesh. Around its mouth there was the trace of its last meal, dried blood and chunks of flesh that didn’t seem to be its own. It’s eyes no longer held the glimmer of life and carried dark bags under them, far worse than the eye bags you got after a few nights of restless sleep. Everything about it was horrible and made Dan do a little sick in his mouth. A scream lodged itself in his throat but stayed there.

Phil stepped into action immediately and Dan wished he could say he didn’t find it ridiculously hot. The way he pushed Dan behind him and raised his machete up made Dan audibly gasp. If he hadn’t been so terrified out of his wits he’d consider it a turn on, which was concerning because this was Phil, Dan’s no homo best friend and roommate. Well, maybe it wasn’t Phil Phil, but still. The zombie ran faster and just when Dan was certain they were dead and Phil had no idea what he was doing, Phil surprised him. He stepped forward (towards the terrifying monster, Dan might add) with his left foot, and used all his strength and sung as he stepped, slicing the zombies head off. The body collapsed and the decapitated head rolled away. Dan was certain he was going to actually vomit.

“You’re bloody insane,” Dan breathed, staring at the open eyes and mouth of the head on the ground a few feet away from him. He felt like it was looking into his soul, and it was terrifying.

“You’re welcome, for you know, saving your life,” Phil said, turning to Dan and glaring at him.

“You’re an arse,” Dan spat, angry at Phil and not really knowing why. He had a point, without him Dan would be zombie food. He should be grateful, so why was he angry?

“Excuse me?” Phil’s eyebrows furthered and it seemed like venom laced his words. “You know what? I don’t even care!” Phil let out a dry and humorless laugh. “You know what the funny thing is? For a minute there, I thought you gave a half of shit about me, looks like I thought wrong, you don’t care about anyone. Not even yourself.” Phil growled, pushing his way past Dans and making his way to the shack.

Dan remembered why this was happening. Why he was angry, why Phil seemed like someone shoved a stick in his butt. In the fic, Dan threw himself in danger, went off without Dan and ended up getting hurt, Phil ended up saving him from getting eaten/infected, but still, a few heated words were shared. Before this, they had a bit of a, well, they slept together. Dan knew from the fic that Phil was felt that made the two more than friends, but the fic Dan didn’t think so. The fic Dan didn’t mean to hurt fic Phil he just didn’t think one night changed anything whereas fic Phil thought it meant everything. The whole thing was a mess and Dan was stuck in the middle of it, it was like if The Walking Dead was a gay soap opera. Shaun of the Dead meets General Hospital meets… gay. As for Dan, “not caring about himself” was probablybecause of when Dan got hurt, he wasn’t careful and overall it was like he didn’t care anymore.

Dan was lost in an ocean of thoughts and of course he was so deep that there were sharks. His senses failed him, he didn’t hear the shuffling of footsteps, couldn’t see what was coming as it was behind him, nor did he smell the putrid stench of rotten flesh and despair nearing him. No, all those senses failed him. However, one did not. The final sense, the one that paints a soft blanket or your lover’s hand, was the one that told him. The boney hand lacking any fat and only covered with a thin layer of peeling skin was what told Dan that he wasn’t alone. It pulled Dan back with remarkable strength for a creature with deteriorating muscles. Maybe a scream found its way through Dan’s mouth, maybe it didn’t. Perhaps it stayed lodged in Dan through, glued there by pure terror. Either way, Dan was pulled back and somehow managed to get himself turned around so he was face to face with husking skin and yellow, sharp teeth. It’s breath smelt of rotting teeth and metallic blood. Dan’s whole body was shaking and he could feel death nearing. He imagined a grim reaper lurking in the bushes near by, scythe in hand and dark cloak on its back.

The world was in slow motion, Dan felt every millisecond pass and felt like he could write an entire novel of each passing moment. Dan watched as its yellow teeth neared him, felt his heart beating out of his chest and shut his eyes tight, waiting for death. Dan wondered if this was the way out of the nightmare he had someone gotten himself in. He had heard of death being the one sure fire way out of any dream, maybe it was the same kind of thing. Maybe he would finally wake up in his own bed. Maybe he would finally be able to go hug his own Phil. Dan doubted he would sleep alone in his bed for weeks after this whole ideal, he’d just sleep with Phil. They used to do that all the time, it was just comforting. Dan was sure Phil wouldn’t mind, why would he? He always enjoyed it just as much as Dan did.

There was a swoosh sound in Dan’s ear and then he felt chunks of something splatter all over him. The grip that once help extra tight on his already hurt arm weakened and then slid off. A violent shudder ran through Dan’s body. He opened his eyes and felt tears run down his cheeks. Phil stood behind the limp body of the zombie that had previously been three seconds away from killing Dan. It didn’t even matter that it wasn’t Dan’s Phil, the real Phil. It didn’t even matter that this whole thing was probably some kind of odd hallucination. None of that mattered, because his eyes were Phil’s eyes and if Dan focused hard enough he could pretend this man in front of him was the same Phil he watched from behind a computer screen as a teenager, the one that ended up being his first and only best friend. So, Dan wrapped his arms tight around Phil’s neck and he cried, but he only cried harder when Phil didn’t smell the same as he should have and when he felt way too broad to be his Phil. Still, Phil dropped his weapon and held Dan close and at least that was comforting. This Phil still wrapped his arms tight around Dan’s waist and let him cry on him. Even if this wasn’t the real Phil, he still shushed Dan and rubbed his lower back and didn’t care that Dan was getting tears and snot all over his shoulder.

“I hate this place,” Dan sobbed, and he didn’t care that Phil wouldn’t know the truth behind his words. He didn’t care. He just wanted to be held and told ‘I know, I know,’ even if it wasn’t true. Even if it was all a lie, it was the only lie Dan would let himself believe, just for now, just until he felt a little better. They were both covered in dirt and blood, but that was okay. It was okay that Dan’s wound opened back up, it was okay that he almost died twice within an hour, it was okay that this Phil was in love with not this Dan but a different one, that was all okay.

“Let’s go inside, yeah?” Phil suggested, slowing the circles that he was rubbing on Dan’s back. Dan nodded into Phil’s shoulder and let Phil pull away and guide Dan inside. Phil sat Dan down on the bed. “I’ve gotta go get my machete, okay? I’ll be right back,” Dan nodded even though Phil was no longer looking at him and was already halfway out the door.

Dan’s heart felt sad. It was like a huge cloud of sad decided to park above his rib cage and just sit there. It was like the days when Dan would just wake up sad. Dan wasn’t depressed or anything, sometimes he just had sad days, and that’s okay. However those days he didn’t have any reason to be sad, but today he had all the reasons to be sad. He missed Phil, his Phil. He wanted to hug him, not this store brand version of him.

“Do you need another hug?” Phil asked, frowning above Dan. Dan didn’t even realize he was back.

“Yes, I need a thousand hugs,” Dan breathed. Phil smiled sadly and sat next to Dan, wrapping an arm around his waist. A few minutes passed before Phil spoke.

“You don’t feel the same way about me as I feel about you, and that’s okay,” Phil paused for a minute and moved Dan over a bit so he had more room to sit. “However, I don’t want you to lie and say you do, I can’t handle that. I’m in love with you, and you’re not in love with me, that’s okay, but please don’t lie to m-”

Dan didn’t know why he did it. But he did it. He cut Phil off by sitting on his lap and forcing their mouths together. He didn’t let Phil pull away or object; when he felt like Phil would try and stop him he kissed harder. He did that until Phil set his hands on Dan’s sides and kissed him back. The kiss tasted dirty and wrong and it made Dan’s heart sad even more, but he still did it. Even after they pulled away and caught their breath, Dan’s heart was sad. So, he kissed Phil again. He knew it was wrong and he was just using Phil, but he didn’t stop. He could tell Phil wanted him, he could tell he loved him, and that felt nice. Dan liked to be wanted and loved. He let Phil’s hands learn their way around his body and he forced his brain and heart away and just acted. He traced his hands all over Phil. He let Phil take off his clothes and he took Phil’s off as well, and he let the thing that started the first argument happen again. He let Phil think Dan felt the same way for him, but one dark truth lurked. This Phil was in love with his Dan and Dan was in love with his Phil. Dan didn’t want to believe it but he knew it was true. He wanted this, but not with this Phil.

The only way Dan could cope with his new realization was to block it out. He let fic Phil have whatever part of Dan he wanted and Dan pretended he loved this man. Because the two Phil’s were completely different people, it only got hard when fic Phil did something that reminded Dan of his Phil. That’s when Dan’s heart would get sad again. Dan would block that out too though, and soon Dan hated himself. He hated how naturally deceiving Phil came to him. He hated how no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t bring himself to look fic Phil in the eye because those eyes reminded him of the real Phil. Slowly self hatred and destruction became a habit. Even though the world was full of actual zombies plagued with a cell destroying disease, Dan still felt that the sick monster was himself. Fic Phil still took care of Dan and saved his life almost daily but sometimes Dan wished he wouldn’t. Maybe if Phil was a little late one time then Dan wouldn’t have to be the one to break his heart, it would just be cruel Mother Nature and another case of star crossed lovers.

Well naturally the one wish that did come true during that whole ordeal was the one involving Dan’s own death. Of course. It wouldn’t of made sense for it to be Dan wanting to wake up or not having one useless arm that always hurt and the second he moved it would begin squirting blood, no, that was just too nice of whatever cruel higher power put Dan in that mess. That angsty God just wanted more drama.

It happened when Dan left the wood rotted shack for a little time away from the mess he’d weaved himself in with Phil. Phil ran up and gave Dan a kiss on the forehead before he left and Dan felt he was going to be sick. Still, he smiled at the gesture and gave Phil a peck on the lips and a muttered “I love you”, still holding back his sick. He’d never really been one for mega sappy relationships and it didn’t make it easier that this whole relationship was lacking any love from his part. He wish he meant the “I love you”, but he felt nothing as he said it, only longing for someone who had aspects of this man but who wasn’t him. Dan quickly got out of that hell house of a shack and walked a bit deeper into the forest than he should have. He stood on the ledge that overlooked a gray city and a lake that looked to be covered in a thick layer of dust. He watched creatures that weren’t quite human limp about and tear apart corpses of what might of been a person that might of had a family. Then again, maybe they were the last one of the family and they wished death upon themselves like Dan did. Even if life beyond this wasn’t life at all, even if he didn’t wake up in his own world with his own Phil, maybe that was okay, at least then he wouldn’t have to lie to anyone. No matter what happened after this, Dan never wanted to lie again. Lying was too much for Dan to handle and it was tearing him apart.

Dan had a bit of Déjà vu when he felt the boney hand grab him, digging into his upper arm. He felt it began to bleed but he did nothing, not even scream. Then it dug into his other arm, the healthy one. That one started to bleed too. He felt crimson liquid drip down his body but he did nothing but shut his eyes and wait for the teeth. They snuck into the part between his neck and shoulders, they ripped through tendons and ligaments. They crunched nerves and punctured veins. Then they were ripped from him and took the chunk of flesh with them. The hands digging into his arms also pulled out of him. He heard familiar slicing and he felt his knees give out, he opened his eyes when he felt arms around him. He swore he was going to be sick. It was Phil, and as always, he saved him. Well, not really. Dan looked at him with glassy eyes and smiled sadly. He felt his resolve fading and he slipped into insanity and sickness.

“Do it,” he croaked. Tears covered Phil’s cheeks and it made Dan ache. Even if he didn’t love this Phil, his eyes were still the same three-colored ones of his flat mate and best friend, and those eyes should never cry. Dan wanted to dry his tears but he couldn’t move his arms, they were in too much pain.

“I can’t,” Phil managed, voice breaking. “I just can’t do it.”

“Please, Phil, it hurts,” Dan said, voice dripping with pain. It was like the worst flu ever mixed with open wounds and bleeding out. Phil nodded once and returned Dan’s sad smile. He got his machete and laid Dan down comfortably on a soft patch of grass.

“I love you,” Phil told Dan as he raised his weapon. He was determined to do it quickly and in one even swipe, that would make Dan suffer less, and that’s all he wanted at this point.

“I love you too,” Dan lied. Or maybe he didn’t. Of course he was grateful for this man, he had saved Dan’s life a few times, but did that equal love? Probably not. Still, Dan wanted the last words Phil heard from him to be that he loved him, even if it was a lie. He needed that, so he would give it to him.

Phil raised his machete and one minute Dan felt all his pain, then for a split second he felt incredibly sharp pain in his neck, and then he felt nothing. For a moment there was black, nothingness, but then Dan was opening his eyes in his room, in London. He felt the familiar weight of his laptop on his lap and he didn’t feel any pain. Dan sighed in relief. He got up to go find Phil, needing him right that moment.

The smell of coffee and the clinking of dishes lead Dan to believe Phil was in the kitchen. As he walked into said kitchen he was aware that his suspicions were indeed correct. Phil stood next the a counter in his pjs, stirring a cup of coffee.

“Good morning, Danny Boy,” Phil said when he saw Dan walk in. He took a minute to go back to making his coffee but then he continued the one-sided conversation. “I read last night that more people are killed by donkeys than plane crashes, isn’t that cool?”

Dan was so happy that Phil said it. It meant it was the real Phil, the Phil that he met in Manchester on the train station so long ago. This was Phil. His Phil. Dan had so many emotions that he didn’t know what to do with them, so he cried. He just burst into sobs right there, a few feet from Phil.

“Dan are you okay? Did a family member of yours get killed by a donkey? Did I just bring back traumatic repressed memories from your childhood?” Phil rambled, and Dan just cried harder. “Can I do anything to make it better?”

Dan nodded once. “Hugs, please,” he requested. Phil nodded and abandoned his coffee to wrap Dan up in his arms. Dan cried harder, happy tears, because this was the Phil he knew. He smelled like coffee, liquorice, and apples. He smelt like Phil. His arms wrapped tightly around Dan’s back and made him feel safe. He felt like he could say anything and it would be perfectly okay, so he said the one thing on his mind. “I love you,”

Phil didn’t say anything back for a long few seconds. It stretched out like an eternity, but he didn’t lessen his grip on Dan and Dan was beyond grateful for that. Only sound in the room was their breathing and Dan was nervous about how heavy his was compared to Phil’s, who kept his composure too well for Dan’s liking. Dan expected Phil to reject him or something. Phil didn’t say anything. It seemed like eons of waiting for something-anything. Finally, Phil responded.

“I love you too,” and Dan’s heart stop and he started over analyzing. Of course Phil loved him, as a friend. Friends say ‘I love you’, right? Was it just he and Phil that never said it? Or maybe they did, Dan’s mind was too fuzzy to recall. Well, there’s really only one way to find out how Phil meant it. Dan somehow managed to loosen Phil’s grip on him enough to push their mouths together. Phil didn’t retaliate for a few seconds and Dan thought he was going to die of embarrassment and waited for Phil to again, do something.

Phil did do something. Dan felt the pressure being returned and he actually thought he was literally going to die. He didn’t though and when they had to pull away to breathe Phil hugged him tighter and Dan was glad that Phil’s breathing was just as heavy as his. As happy as he was, Dan was still kind of worried for the Phil in the phanfiction. What happened to him? When Phil finally let Dan go and Dan looked into his eyes Dan felt guilty again.

“I’ll be right back,” Dan breathed, as if he was scared that if he was too loud what just happened with he and Phil would shatter. Phil didn’t say anything but looked concerned.

Dan hurried back to his room and quickly read the end of the fic and almost threw his laptop across the room. The last line was:

“After Dan and Phil shared their kiss Dan rushed back to see the ending of the story he was trapped in, wanting to know the ending.”

And then it ended. Just like that, an open ending. Everyone hates those and yet authors keep writing them. Over and over again.

The end.

Fall of the Champions (Part 1)

@paladinsheadcanons 

Heya! Finally posting part one of that fic following the Seris teaser. It’s pretty much 100% angst, and Zhin-centric, and after that I’m taking a break from writing Zhin (hey mods if you have anyone you want me to write for let me know :D).

Okay anyway...this ended up waaay too long so I had no choice but to split it up...on the bright side, SUSPENSE. :3 Have fun reading my favourite mods. (Seriously though don’t hate me after this.)

Fire was everywhere. Smoke and embers filled the air around them. The buildings of the Paladins base had been reduced to nothing but rubble, destroyed by the onslaught of explosions that no one had been able to see coming.

Zhin was on the run, Sha Lin and Ying behind him, as they dodged the army of armored soldiers that had charged their way into the main base, tearing everything they could apart, shooting and burning everything else. It had been nothing less than devastating, and as much as Zhin wanted to fight back, to get revenge on those bastards that dared to attack the place he had come to accept as a home, he knew it would be suicide to fight. They had no choice but to run.

It had been a simple evening, everyone just gathering to celebrate Zhin’s first full year of being a Paladin. Nobody had expected an attack of any sort.

Everyone had split up after the attack started, Skye giving them all cover as they left the main building with her Smoke Bombs, fortunately without their usual match limitations. They'd agreed to take the hidden flank routes throughout the base to get to their emergency bunker in the woods not far from the base, but without the time to properly plan any sort of group compositions though, it was far too likely that their groups were completely unbalanced and vulnerable. Zhin, unfortunately, found himself in that exact situation. As much as he cared for both Sha Lin and Ying, the three of them were amongst the worst Paladins to be caught in a swarm of enemies. They had to make sure to avoid any such fight if possible.

“Come on, this way!” Zhin whispered urgently as they hurried from corner to corner, Zhin silently praying to the gods that they wouldn't be found. He led the two into a small corridor of one of the few remaining, smaller buildings left in the area, taking them through a narrow passageway.

“Doesn't this lead right to the open arena? That place is too open, we'll be too exposed if we go there!” Sha Lin questioned, his voice slightly shaking. His panic was obvious, and Zhin could also see that while Ying said nothing, the way she was holding her mirror close to her chest, a defensive habit she always seemed to have, was enough proof that she felt the same as Sha Lin did. Zhin grunted in frustration, unable to think of anything to say to quell their concerns.

“There is another passage Skye and I often use along there.” He told them instead, “It leads directly to the woods, and it’s the route the others would most likely take as well. If we make it past the arena area we'll be able to reach it and escape, as well as hopefully meet up with the rest.”

“Zhin that's a really risky move. Are you sure about this?” Sha Lin asked, the uncertainty in his eyes clear as day. Zhin frowned, part of him wanting to yell at Sha Lin for not trusting him, but he controlled himself.

“I've taken this route often and know the way through and through. We can make it if we're fast enough.” He answered with a slight grunt. Sha Lin frowned now, still looking horribly unsure, but before he could say anything Ying spoke.

“Please, we have to try. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can rejoin our friends and find a way to fight back.” She said, a determined glint in her eyes despite her evident uncertainty from earlier. Sha Lin looked at her, his doubt still clearly present in his expression, but after a moment, he sighed and turned back to Zhin.

“Okay, let’s go then.” He said. Zhin nodded, and all three of them readied their weapons just in case they did end up needing to fight back instantly.

They reached the end of the passageway within a minute, and Zhin carefully approached the door. He could hear the sounds of the battle raging on outside, and he felt his stomach turn when he realized how similar the sounds of destruction had been during his time as the Master of the Thousand Hands. A sense of guilt and shame washed over him, but now wasn't the time for that.

“Are you ready?” He asked the two behind him. He noticed Sha Lin gripping his bow tighter, and Ying’s floating mirror trembling ever so slightly, but neither of them let the fear show on their faces anymore, giving Zhin a firm nod each.

“Very well. Do not fall back. Just keep moving and follow me.” Zhin instructed, receiving more nods of acknowledgement in response. With that clear, Zhin took a deep breath, and threw open the door.

Without wasting a second Zhin rushed out of the passageway and into the midst of a fearsome battle. There seemed to be hundreds of soldiers, all wielding a variety of deadly weapons, dressed head to toe in brilliant red and gold armor. Zhin’s blood went icy cold. He knew those colours. He knew who was attacking.

“Move!” Zhin hissed, urging them to move faster. Now that he knew who the army belonged to, he knew more than ever that they had to escape no matter what. However, that was when things truly went wrong.

“THERE HE IS!” One of the soldiers suddenly screamed, “THERE’S THE TYRANT!”

A thunderous wave of battle cries rang out, and all at once, it seemed like every soldier in the vicinity came rushing at them.

“Oh no!” Ying exclaimed as they continued to run, now desperate to reach their destination, but with the sheer number of soldiers present, it seemed impossible to escape.

Then...a familiar voice rang out.

“Good Night~!”

Darkness fell over everything as Midnight engulfed the battlefield, even around Zhin’s group. Wherever Maeve was, she must’ve been close. Before Zhin could call out though, two more Ultimate calls were heard.

“Bringing out the big guns!”

“Here’s the wind-up!”

The sound of Ruckus and Bolt’s powerful Hexafire was unmistakable. Cries of agony from the enemy forces were heard, and amongst those sounds Zhin would hear the fierce firing of Buck’s Buck Wild Ultimate as well. They were pushing back the soldiers greatly, and, intentionally or not, giving Zhin’s group an opening to escape.

“Hurry, now’s our chance!” Zhin yelled at Sha Lin and Ying, running forward.

“W-Wait! What about Ruckus and Buck!?” Ying called, following behind but still looking over in the direction of the sounds of heavy machine gun fire.

“We can’t take jump into that Ying! We have to…!” Sha Lin was shouting back, but just in that moment, the darkness cleared. In his shock, Zhin looked back at the battle, and his eyes widened in horror as he saw Buck make a fatal mistake, using Heroic Leap straight into the air just as Maeve’s Midnight ended.

“Buck! NOOO!” Ying screamed as Buck was quickly shot down from the air, his cry of pain instantly silenced when he hit the ground with a sickening thud, unmoving and bleeding heavily.

“NO!” Sha Lin exclaimed as well, and both of them immediately tried to run for him, but Zhin seized Sha Lin by the arm, his other hand unfortunately still occupied with his sword, rendering him unable to hold Ying back as well.

“You can’t! It’s too dangerous!” He yelled, yanking a struggling Sha Lin back, “Ying! YING COME BACK!”

His calls seemed to fall on deaf ears. Ying dashed into the fight, placing Illusion after Illusion and shattering them all immediately, shooting anyone else in her path as she tried to make it to Buck’s fallen form, but she wasn’t able to do much on her own. Even with Ruckus and Bolt there providing her cover fire, there were too many soldiers for her to take on, even after their allies’ Ultimates massacred the majority of them.

Zhin cursed, releasing Sha Lin and rushing after her himself using Whirl, refusing to let Ying die as well. With the number of soldiers drastically decreased, they might have a chance of escape if he got her out in time. Sha Lin had Withdrawn, going into stealth, and only the few random bodies dropping dead from unseen arrows gave any indication of his location.

“Time to die Tyrant!” Someone shouted behind Zhin all of a sudden, and Zhin turned quickly, immediately activating Billow to avoid a strike from a soldier wielding a massive broadsword. The force of the blow was enough to crack the stone floors of the arena, an Zhin cursed internally at how close he came to being brutally cut in half.

The soldier was far from done though. With a war cry, he chased after Zhin as he tried to fall back, raising his weapon again as Billow faded out. But before he could strike, the soldier was tackled with the full force of Ruckus’s Advance.

“Take that ya whackjob!” Ruckus yelled as Bolt rapidly shot at point-blank range. The soldier dropped dead at once, and Zhin quickly shouted a thanks at the duo, before he turned back towards Ying, who was now using Dimensional Link over and over in a frantic attempt to avoid the gunfire, but her movements had gotten predictable.

“Ying!” Zhin exclaimed as he forced his legs to run, wildly slashing at anything in his way, “Ying get out of there!”

His warning was futile. One soldier dashed to one of Ying’s remaining Illusions, and the moment she teleported over, the soldier fired her gun.

“YING!!” Zhin shouted, fury and horror building in him as he watched the bullet pierce through the corner of Ying’s mirror, and Ying let out a piercing scream of pain as the glass on her vessel cracked.

“HAA!!” Zhin charged at the soldier with Spite, letting his rage take over for a brief moment, as his Ultimate decimated the soldier's form. Maeve Prowled into sight, covered in blood, her eyes wild as she ran straight for Ying, who had collapsed.

“Ying! Ying no!” Maeve cried as she dropped to Ying’s side. Ying was fortunately still alive, but even from a distance Zhin could see that her form was distorted, and parts of her body had cracked like her mirror.

“Let's get you out of here!” Maeve exclaimed as Zhin watched her quickly snatch up Ying’s damaged mirror and Ying herself, before dragging her to who knows where. Zhin grunted as he turned his attention back to the fight, knowing that if anyone could find an escape it was Maeve. He had to trust that she would get Ying to safety.

“You will all pay for what you've done!” Zhin declared, ignoring the small voice in his mind telling him to retreat. These soldiers had crossed the line. Zhin was going to make sure it cost them.

More death to come. ;)

If I Knew Love Was So Dangerous I Would Not Have Loved - Chapter Two - Klaroline Fic

Chapter 2: Chapter One Summary: Klaus learns Caroline is alive but she is no where receptive to his return. A/N: Alright so I want to be clear on a few things. Klamille will not be a thing in my story. At All. Klaus and Hayley never slept together so there will be no baby plot. Secondly, I'm thinking about bringing Katherine into the story but I want to know do you guys perfer Hayley and Elijah or Hayley and Katherine. And lastly, I haven't specified if Caroline was an Original or just a really, really, really old vampire. I intended to make this chapter longer but I'm trying to flesh out this story a bit more and would like your opinions on the matter. All mistakes are my own. Happy reading!! (See the end of the chapter for more notes.) Chapter Text The last person she expected to walk through the doors was Klaus Mikaelson, she was sitting in the back of the club with a few of Marcel’s female vampires when she felt a shift in the air, and her skin humming. It was a sensation she hadn’t felt in almost a century. It was a sensation she only ever got when one man was near, her eyes scanned the bar and the sight of Niklaus Mikaelson had her doing a double take, her son’s cover song of ‘How Do You Like Me Now’ fading into the background as she watched him, stroll closer to the stage, his steps predatory as he stared up at Marcel, his eyes hard and expression a mix of anger and impassiveness. Her shoulders tensed, a rigidness setting in as she watched with bated breath. She saw the barely there double take that Marcel gave when he spotted Klaus but he finished up his song before jumping down from the stage. “Klaus.” Klaus glared at the man. “Marcel” “Must be 100 years since that nasty business with your papa.” Marcel mused. “Has it been that long?” Klaus asked, acting as if that night had meant nothing. Was nothing but a footnote of his past. “Way I recall it, he ran you out of town. Left a trail of dead vampires in his wake.” Marcel continued impassively. “And yet how fortunate you managed to survive.” A spark of hope lit in his chest that if Marcel had somehow managed to survive maybe she did too. “My father, I'm afraid, I recently incinerated to dust.” “Well, if I'd known you were coming back in town, if I had a heads-up...” “What, Marcel?” Klaus stepped directly in Marcel’s personal space threateningly, voice like cool steel. “What would you have done?” Marcel’s guys instantly recognized the threat and moved to flank him. “I'd have thrown you a damn parade.” He grinned fully, throwing his arms around Klaus who matched his grin returning the familiar embrace. Caroline had remained seated, watching the reunion with shrewd eyes but once she saw Klaus embracing her son, she stood up abruptly her chair scrapping roughly against the wood, weaving her way through the crowd and toward the door. “Niklaus Mikaelson. My mentor, my savior, my sire. Let's get you a drink. It is good to see you.” Marcel turned him toward the bar. “It's good to be home.” Klaus lied. It was good to see Marcel but New Orleans wasn’t home. It never was. His home had always been Caroline. Her presence surrounding him had felt like home. “If you’re here..” He trailed off, the question on the tip of his tongue. Caroline? Was she here? Did both Marcel and her survive Mikael’s attack all those years ago. “Is sh-“ he cut off abruptly catching a flash of blonde hair as the bar door swung closed. His head whipped around to Marcel. “Caroline?” And the look that crossed Marcel’s face was all the answer he needed, he rushed out the door without a backward glance, chasing after the blonde. Marcel gave a sigh, tapping his fist on the bar. “Get me a shot of bourbon.” And downed the glass as soon as it was place in front of him. “What’s going on, Marcel?” Diego, one of his more trusted guys questioned, looking toward the door in concern. “Does Caroline need back up?” He didn’t even wait for Marcel to reply before taking a step away from the bar toward the door. Marcel put out his arm blocking him. “Don’t. This is between them.” Diego hesitated but reluctantly stepped back toward the bar though he kept shooting worried glances toward the exit. “Caroline is more than capable of handing herself.” Marcel had noticed his look of concern. “I know I don’t need to remind you of that fact.” Diego knew that but it was an instinct grained in him to want to protect Caroline who was always so good to him and the rest of Marcel’s inner circle. He took his seat back at the bar next to Marcel, grabbing his drink and shooting it back. ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ Klaus scanned the streets for the blonde, swearing that if he was still human his heart would be pounding against ribcage right about now. He caught sight of the flash of blonde hair as she reached the corner street ahead and quickly flashed in front of her, his breath catching in his throat. “Caroline?” His voice choked out, the emotion at seeing her when he long believed her to be dead, clogging his throat. Caroline hadn’t wanted to see him, face him. It was why she had left, just the thought of him had her stomach twisting into fiery knots. He had left her and Marcel for dead at the hands of Mikael without so much as looking back. Caroline stared at him as he stared at her in wonder with a look of indifference, masking the anger churning inside her. “Caroline, I thought you were dead.” Klaus cleared his throat, forcing the well of emotions he was feeling down for the moment. “I can’t believe you’re alive.” “No thanks to you.” She acerbically. It was then hearing her voice for the first time in over a century that wasn’t in his dreams or nightmares, that he could hear the anger, the resentment in every syllable she spoke. It was then that he really looked past the unbelievably welcome sight of his wife features that he had committed to memory, the same features he had been sketching for the last century off memory alone and really looked at her, at her beautiful face that used to be so open and expressive with joy, excitement and light but was now completely indifferent and closed off, guarded and her blue eyes that were bright and full of adoration and exasperated fondness now looked at him with anything but. Her eyes were cold, hard like steel and full of anger and resentment. “I thought you were dead.” He repeated, his hand reaching out to cup her jaw but she jerked back from him before his fingers could so much as graze her skin. “Don’t touch me.” She ground out in an angry hiss. “Don’t you fucking dare touch me.” “Caroline.” His name left her lips like a plea and prayer all in one. A plea for her to understand. A prayer for her forgiveness. “Please..” He was never one to say please to ask for anything, to show weakness but for her he would. “No.” Caroline shook her head, her eyes raging like a storm, her tone livid. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. I want you gone. Leave New Orleans and don’t ever come back.” Klaus clenched his jaw anger hitting him suddenly. “If you think I’m going anywhere without you now that I know you’re here you clearly don’t remember me as well as you should have.” “Oh, I remember you perfectly. I remember a man who abandoned his wife, his son.” She stepped forward into his space, hostility coming off her in waves. “I remember a man leaving two people he claimed to love, his family to be slaughtered at the hands of his psychotic father. I remember a coward who ran the second Mikael caught up to him.” “It wasn’t like that and you know it! You know what he was like!” “So did you and you still left me and Marcel to suffer at his hands like a coward, you abandoned your son. You abandoned me.” His hand snatched out, yanking her to him. “If I’m such a coward why is Mikael now dead at my hands?!” Klaus demanded. Surprised filled Caroline but she quickly covered it. “Let go of me!” She wrenched herself from his grasp, putting distance between them. “So you finally killed Mikael. Congratulations.” She spat sarcastically. “You want a reward for something you should have done from the very beginning.” Klaus shook his head unable to understand how his Caroline, his beautiful, kind, loving wife, who always looked for the best in people became this bitter, angry, full of resentment, spiteful version of her standing in front of him. “What happened to you?” Caroline eyes flickered dangerously. “You. You happened to me. Just like you happened to everyone. You ruin everything you touch and if you stay here in New Orleans you’ll ruin everyone and everything in it. I advise you to leave before that happens.” She took several steps back from him. For every step back she took he followed her. “I won’t be leaving New Orleans without you. Not again.” “I have nothing to offer you.” Caroline gave him a dismissive look. “New Orleans has nothing to offer you. Leave Klaus and never come back. Never step a foot back in New Orleans.” She pushed past him then, her shoulder slamming into his as she continued down the sidewalk. Klaus turned, keeping her in his sight. “As long as you’re here, Caroline, I won’t be leaving.” He swore and it sounded like he was making a vow to himself and to her. “I won’t leave you again.” Caroline stopped but didn’t turn back around, jaw clenching. “There’s nothing left for you here. Not anymore.” And with that she disappeared uncaring of passerby’s who might have seen her take off. Klaus clenched his jaw, heart clenching in his chest before he whirled back around on his heels, striding back to the bar. ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ Marcel had barely felt the air shift before he found himself being turned around forcefully and was confronted with an angry Klaus. “What the hell happened to her?!” “I’m not sure, I know what you mean?” He shrugged Klaus’s hand off of him. “She’s not the same.” “You couldn’t have honestly thought she would be.” Marcel lips twisted wryly. “It’s been a century since you left without her and it change her.” Klaus took a step back his jaw tightening. “Clearly.” “Just give her sometime. She’ll get over it. ” Marcel said dismissively though he didn’t really believed she get over it. Nothing had ever hurt her more than when Klaus had abandoned her. But he didn’t want Klaus hounding Caroline and thought it best to distract him instead. “You know how she gets when she’s pissed. C’mon, I’ll show you around my streets.” ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ Marcel led the way outside and Klaus let him, anything to take his mind off his encounter with Caroline. Of all the ways he had imagine her being alive and reuniting with her it had not gone the way it had. “Although please tell me the current state of bourbon street is not your doing.” Klaus had took notice of all the damn tourist attractions. “Ha ha ha ha! Something's gotta draw in the out-of-towners; otherwise, we'd all go hungry.” Marcel chuckled in amusement. “I see your friends are day walkers.” Klaus commented, eyeing a few of Marcel’s vampires. “Yeah, yeah, I shared the secret of your daylight ring with a few buddies. Just the inner circle, though. The family.” “Tell me. How did you find a witch willing to make daylight rings?” Klaus had to question. It was no secret witches hated vampires. “I got the witches here wrapped around my finger.” “Is that so? I'm looking for a witch by the name of Jane-Anne Deveraux. Has some business with me.” “Looking for Jane-Anne?” A smirk filtered across Marcel’s face. “Then you probably ought to come with me. Ha ha! Showtime!” Marcel had led him to where a crowd was gathering. “How's the family?” Marcel wondered. “Those who live hate me more than ever.” Though now it seem Caroline now had that in common with them. “Forget them.” Marcel dismissed. “If your blood relations let you down, you make your own, huh?.” The family that mattered to Marcel weren’t even his blood family. “You taught me that. And what's mine is yours, as always. Even my nightwalkers, the riff-raff.” Klaus watched as Marcel’s aforementioned nightwalkers, drop from buildings onto the streets below, some leaping from building to building. “They're hardly subtle, are they?” “It's the Quarter.” Marcel turned showcasing a large smile. “Ain't no such thing as subtle, baby.” A woman, caught in the grasp of several nightwalkers was brought forth before the crowd of rowdy vampires surrounding her as she was kept in restraints. “Jane-Anne Deveraux. Give it up for Jane-Anne. Come on.” Marcel focused on the witch. “Jane-Anne Deveraux, you have been accused of the practice of witchcraft beyond the bounds of the rules set forth and enforced by me. How do you plead?” He turned back to Klaus with a showman smile. “Oh. Was that convincing? I studied law back in the fifties. It's all I know. Caroline found it all very amusing.” He turned back to the witch. “Seriously, J, tick tock. You know the drill. How do you plead?” “I want to speak with Caroline!” She demanded, scanning the crowds of vampires. “You think Caroline’s going to help you?” Marcel shook his head. “I’m afraid you’re going to be sorely disappointed.” His eyes sliding a few feet away watching as Caroline emerged from the crowd as they parted, making a wide berth for her. “Caroline, please.” Jane-Anne pleaded when Caroline came to stand beside Marcel. “I didn't do anything.” “Forgive me if I don’t believe you Jane.” Caroline said, knowing for a fact that she was lying and even if she didn’t know she would be hard pressed to believe Jane. “Caroline, I was only doing what I had to.” Jane defended. “We were friends, ally’s once you have to know that everything I have done was for a reason.” She looked at Caroline for understanding but found none as Caroline looked at her in derision. Caroline laughed sardonically. “Everything you’ve done has been for power. And the thing is Deveraux I could never align myself with anyone who has done what you have.” The very thought that a mother could sacrifice her own child for power was disgusting and yet Jane had done it. In Caroline’s eyes she was worse than any vampire in the Quarter. Klaus had barely paid attention to what was happening from the moment Caroline had appeared, absorbed in watching her every move, listening to every word she spoke while drowning everything and everyone else out. He stared at her intensely urging her to just look at him but she was ignoring him completely as if he wasn’t standing just a few feet away. “But I didn’t do anything!” Jane-Anne protested looking at Caroline in betrayal. That's a lie. You know it, I know it, and you hate that I know it.” Marcel declared. “It drives you witches crazy that I'm aware of your every move. That you can't do magic in this town without getting caught. So, why don't we just cut to the chase, huh? You tell me what magic you're brewing. Tell me. I'll grant you leniency. Hey, I am, after all, a merciful man.” Caroline had raised him to be a good man after all. He could still remember her mantra to him since he was a boy. Be better than we are. She had always told him to be better than their family. She still said it from time to time whenever she felt she needed to remind him of the good in him. “Rot in hell, monster.” Jane-Anne spat at him with hate, her eyes slid to Caroline. “And you can join him your just as much of a monster as he is.” Marcel hand snatched out swiping a blade across her throat, slicing it wide open, blood gushing as she choked and hit the streets dead, still bleeding out. As the witch had begun to speak to Caroline with insults Klaus had focused back into what was happening and had watched as Marcel killed the witch without warning. “What was that?” He demanded. Marcel’s eyes slid to Caroline as he answered. “No one speaks to Caroline like that in my presence.” He could never allow anyone to talk down to his mother. Sometimes it was hard to find the good in the world with what he was, what they were but Caroline was definitely one of the good things left this world still had to offer. Klaus despite being able to relate to not allowing anyone to speak down to his wife still felt anger for Marcel’s action. How the hell was he supposed to find out what the witches were plotting against him now. “Besides witches aren't allowed to do magic here. She broke the rules.” Marcel said dismissively. “C’mon, walk with me.” He turned Klaus down the road. “I told you I wanted to talk to her.” Klaus insisted not moving. “What business do you have with a New Orleans witch? Is that why you’re back?” Caroline asked him leveling him with a suspicious look. “If I had known you were here I would have come back a long time ago.” Caroline gave a scoff turning on her heel and disappearing into the crowd. “Caroline, wait.” He moved to follow after her but was stopped by an arm gripping his shoulder. “Give her some time.” Marcel told him, Klaus glared shrugging off his arm. “Walk with me.” He insisted. “Hey, I'm sorry. I got caught up in the show and I let my anger get the better of me when she insulted Caroline. Those witches, they think that they still have power in this town. I have to show them that they don't. I never waste an opportunity for a show of force. Another lesson that I learned from you. And besides, anything that you could've gotten out of her, I can find out for you, and I will. I promise.” Klaus said nothing but didn’t move away from him this time. “Good. Then let's eat, because all that spilled blood makes me hungry.” Marcel declared. Klaus lagged behind as Marcel was leaving, catching one of Marcel’s guys. “Hey. Thierry, isn't it? Any more Deveraux witches where she came from?” ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ Caroline moved through the crowd with ease, finding Marcel back at the compound that they called home, holding court with his men. “I’d like a word with Marcel.” She looked to his followers. Marcel nodded and they excused themselves giving them the room. “Is everything alright?” “Is everything alright?” Caroline repeated, crossing her arms. “You tell me you’re the one welcoming Klaus back with open arms.” “I thought that that might be what this is about.” Marcel gave a nod. “It’s better to play along and keep peace with him then it is to make unnecessary enemies. If Klaus is back after a 100 years its for a reason and we need to find out why.” “I doubt he’s going to come out and tell you.” Caroline muttered. “That would be too easy. So what? You’re going to buddy up to him in hopes of finding out what he wants? What he’s doing here?” “What’s the saying you used to say? ‘you’ll catch more bees with honey than with vinegar.” Caroline sighed irritably. “I won’t pretend like everything is okay. I don’t give a fuck why he’s here. I just want him gone. He left us for dead. He can’t be trusted.” “I’m not saying we trust him. I say we keep him close.” Marcel argued. “I don’t want to be around him.” Caroline spat waving her arms angrily. “I wish he’d fall off the face of the earth, the bastard!” Just thinking of him brought fresh waves of anger to the surface and made her want to lash out, tear something, anything apart with her bare hands. Maybe she could have him hexed with that stupid hunter cursed he had long ago. The very thought had a feeling of twisted pleasure wash over her for just a moment. Marcel clapped a hand onto her shoulder in an attempt to calm her. “And I’m not asking you to. You don’t even have to speak with him if you don’t want to. I’ll deal with him. You shouldn’t have to.” Marcel knew how hurt, how devastated Caroline had been when they were first left behind. She had been a shell of the person, the mother he knew. But slowly in time she had come back to herself a bit jaded and little more concerned and more guarded with her heart than he ever knew her to be, now only allowing a select few close to her. He could count on one hand the amount of people she had allowed herself to let her guards down with. Caroline heaved a large sigh. Sometimes she hated when Marcel was so damn reasonable. Sometimes she wanted him to just rage and let free everything he was feeling regardless of everything else. “I want him followed.” “Done.” Marcel assured her. “C’mon,” he tugged her into his side. “Let’s get something to eat and forget all about Niklaus Mikaelson.” “If only that were possible.” Caroline replied darkly. If that were at all possible she would have done it the moment she realized he had left her behind, discarded her for the sake of saving his own skin, like all their years they had spent together meant absolutely nothing to him. Well if that was case then he got exactly what he wanted. Because anything that had ever been between them meant nothing to her. Nothing at all. A/N: If you guys could let me know if you prefer Caroline to be an Original or a vampire I would really appreciate it. Secondly, I write as I go along so if there's anything you want to see feel free to let me know. I'm open to suggestions if it works for the story. Thanks to everyone whose taken interest in this story.