checkxmaster - Tumblr blog

checkxmaster · 13 days

Note

"A skittish little bastard..." Chad repeated, an amused smirk coming to his face. After a moment he chuckled and admitted, "You're not wrong." But as she went on about the utter lack of camaraderie the clones seemed to have within their own teams, Chad's eyes widened with irritated agreement. "Yes! I noticed that too! God, it's like they could care less what anyone else around them is doing or why they're doing it. There's no syncing, no friendship, no empathy, no solidarity at all. I know you're supposed to stay focused in the field, but that's ridiculous."

Chad shrugged. "I never believed that emotion makes soldiers weaker. That's what I was always told, to keep your head in the game and your heart out of it, but I just don't work that way, and I don't think most soldiers do. I think emotion plays a big role in why you do what you do. If there's no vested interest, no drive, no sense of duty or justice or something... then why are you even a soldier in the first place? And if you can't trust your team with your life, if you don't care about their survival as much as your own, that makes the whole team weaker. I guess I always knew that, but seeing the concept play out right in front of me with those clones... it really makes you think there's something to it."

And that got him a little choked up. J.D. had trusted him with his life, and more than that, he trusted him to remember a simple goddamn elevator code. What had been his job, his purpose that night, if not things like that? And he failed miserably. He got all cracked up like Humpty Dumpty. It should've been me to get pulled into that elevator. I let him down. I let everyone down. Emotions don't make soldiers weaker, huh? Yours did. Chad cleared his throat and blinked several times to get rid of the tears that were starting to sting his eyes. Those thoughts always rose up so quickly the second he started thinking about that day, but considering how close Rain and J.D. had been, putting words to his feelings would do her more harm than good. That and he really didn't feel like getting beat up at the moment. He pinched the bridge of his nose, letting go of the invasive negative thoughts for now.

He was happy for Rain's question, because it got him thinking along totally different lines. "Yeah, it's... a long and stupid story," he said. "I wasn't even in Raccoon. You know I lived in the suburbs, right, I didn't dorm in the Hive? So... after I woke up on the train track, I badly injured but not infected. I guess the antivirus was still in my system from when Matt gave it to me on the train, and whatever that creature did to me didn't convey and further infection. I followed the track to the doors which... should've been sealed, since it was way after our deadline, but... they were wide open. Blood everywhere, steel torn open like it was nothing more than paper. I booked it outta there so fast and didn't look back. I stole one of a few SUVs that was just sitting outside the mansion, drove to my house, got some supplies, and went dark. I stayed in the area, but I didn't want Umbrella to know where I was. I motel-hopped, mostly. It was easily a couple months in between that night in the Hive and when the outbreak in Raccoon happened."

"But then one day, I saw Raccoon City on the news... and I just... my heart dropped. I knew exactly what was happening, and I made just about the dumbest decision ever... and drove back there. I figured I knew what to do, how to help people, how to stop it. I don't know, it was so stupid, but I thought I could help. I got back inside before they sealed off the city. There were uh... I ran into some R.P.D., S.T.A.R.S., and U.B.C.S. personnel there, but... geezus everybody was droppin' like flies. The way the whole city was overrun that night within hours was insane. I was able to jump on Umbrella's communication frequencies and knew what they were planning to do, so I started looking for other ways out of the city. We got out through the sewers, me and a group of others, but... there were nasty things in those sewers too. Not many made it out, and in the end, I guess it didn't really matter..."

Chad trailed off, feeling like his attempts at helping people failed, like they usually did. Instead of feeling good about trying, he only saw the ultimate failure. "After that, everything went to hell in a handbasket, and here we are," he said with a shrug. His eyes lifted to hers, guilt setting in again. "I'm sorry, Rain. If I'd had any idea you were somewhere in that city, too, I would've have just... left you there. Matt too. I had no clue. The few people I knew that I was able to find, people we used to work with or that I knew from meetings and training in the Hive... they didn't make it out. Like I said, people were dropping like flies, whether they were trained soldiers and law enforcement or not."

Of course the universe couldn't just let them go to sleep and have a nice peaceful night's slumber. Chad didn't know why he would even have expected that. He was the most pessimistic optimist ever, always hoping for the best yet expecting the worst. At least, for the time being, it was only one of them. As he dropped back down into the vehicle and secured the hatch, he nodded. "Yeah. With a face only a mother could love," he quipped. "Yeah, we might have some more knocking at our door in a few, depending on how close any others were and what shape they're in."

"Near as I've been able to tell, the undead hunt mostly via thermotaxis," he said as he sat in front of his monitors again and reset the motion detectors. "If their eyes and ears are still intact, sound and movement might also draw them, but predominantly, they move towards heat. It's a passive, internal compass kind of thing, like phototaxis in plants growing towards the sunlight. That's how undead whose eyes and ears have rotted completely away can still find you. They're drawn to heat as a proxy indication for the presence living organisms because the virus needs fresh DNA to continue to evolve, so it's making all its hosts thermotactic to drive its own evolution."

He had no idea how much of a total nerd he sounded like at that moment, but he was just trying to share potentially useful information. "Fun fact, they're also drawn to vehicles with engines that are still hot after you turn 'em off, and things like generators, large lights, even metal surfaces that heat up under sunlight. It's pretty funny to see one of 'em chomping down on and beating the shit out of a broken down soda machine outside a gas station because it heated up under the sun," he said with a chuckle. "They seem to know they shouldn't walk into fire, though. I guess that's a little too hot for them."

"Alright, we'll just stay here, then," Chad said with a shrug. "You've got a point, gas is hard to come by. It's even scarcer than ammo nowadays." He shook his head at the idea of something nastier coming to poke around the vehicle. "I don't think so. I think a lot of those larger, nasty creatures aren't undead, they're mutated animals. They seem to have a lot more intelligence and reasoning skills than undead do. So I think if we stay in here and don't move, we're not gonna draw anything to us because we don't look or smell like food. I could be wrong, but..." he trailed off, sighing as he finished up at the computers and moved back to his bed. "Okay, let's try this again," he said, settling back down to try to get some more sleep.

"The hell is your problem, dude? Did you seriously forget about me? Or what, you think I'm a clone? Be for real."

It was getting dark, so Chad pulled his armored vehicle over to the side of the road and set about preparing to settling in for the night. Over the years, he'd accumulated a lot of tech to help him survive, from computers and GPS, to motion sensors, timers, and alarms. Generators and power storage units were essential, as were solar panels and other methods of harnessing power as electrical grids began to fail seemingly everywhere.

Some of the tech he built himself, having raided hardware stores for parts, and others he'd acquired from abandoned police stations and homes. It passed the time, to sit and occupy himself with building computers, or to set up surveillance systems, or to create spreadsheets to catalogue all of his supplies, and he liked to keep his skills sharp. Why? He didn't really know anymore. Maybe it just kept him sane. He had about a million flashlights, flares, weapons, and a multitude of ammunition types, complete with all the batteries, solar chargers, hardware enhancements, additional parts, and optional adjustments he could store.

Metal boxes, backpacks, and duffel bags were stacked in an almost hedge-maze-like fashion inside the armored vehicle he'd taken over after it had been abandoned by the military. His bed was little more than a shelf nestled into all this organized chaos, but he found it strangely comforting to be boxed in while he slept... especially since he was alone most of the time.

Occasionally he joined up with some survivors, but he found it difficult to remain with them. Their goals were vastly different, with civilians wanting to find somewhere safe to hunker down and barricade, and Chad wanting to keep on the move to see what he could do to screw Umbrella over or help other people.

He'd gotten his motion sensor perimeter up around his mobile home, as it were, and had just taken his nightly dose of painkillers so he'd have half a chance of sleeping. The deep scars from where the licker had grabbed him as well as the pain of a few broken bones that hadn't quite healed properly from being thrown off the train on the way out of the Hive had him pretty much in near-constant pain. He'd learned to live with it, and as long as he was busy and moving, he could ignore it. At night, though, he needed some extra help from good ol' pharmaceuticals. Just over-the-counter, though, nothing too heavy. He couldn't risk not being able to wake up if something significant went down. And absolutely nothing with an Umbrella logo on the bottle.

That was when one of his alarms went off, indicating that something was moving in the near vicinity of the vehicle. "Really?" he groaned, his head falling to the right as he lay in his bed to look at the screen across the way. Sure enough, it was blinking. Sighing, he sat up and typed away, looking at the camera feed indicating movement. To his severe disappointment, it wasn't one of the undead. It looked like a soldier of some kind. "Just perfect," he said cynically. Grabbing a couple guns, he went out to investigate. What he found was... startling, to say the least.

It... it was Rain. His heart began to pound. No, Rain's dead. Don't get fooled again by those stupid clones. Man, they were creepy... Clones of his now-deceased friends and comrades that often times acted nothing like the originals. The Rain ones... were always particularly nasty. He lifted his rifle, leveling it at her. "That's far enough," he said coldly, assuming this was a clone. How can it not be?

But then she spoke, and almost simultaneously he began to notice that she looked a bit older. The clones always looked young, pristine. Swallowing hard, Chad found it difficult to breathe with how vigorously his heart was now pounding, rattling his ribcage. Faltering a little in his resolve, the tip of his rifle slowly dipped a bit and he stared incredulously at her.

"N-no, I-... Of course I didn't forget about you, but..." But you're dead. You've gotta be. Forgetting Rain - or anyone else he'd lost in the Hive due to his incompetence, poor planning, and cracking under the pressure - was never an option. He saw their faces almost nightly in the twisted horrors of his guilt-fueled nightmares.

Chad blinked, not knowing what to do. The rifle lowered just a bit more at the mention of clones. "Yeah, actually, that's exactly what I'm thinking. Wait, you're-... Are you telling me you're not a clone?" Oh, how he wanted to believe that, but he'd been fooled before, almost fatally. "Come on, don't fuck with me..." he said, more with a crestfallen type of exhaustion than with any sort of real intimidation attempt. "If you're not a clone... then prove it."

If this really was Rain, the real Rain, then he was about to feel like a huge jerk momentarily. But if it wasn't... he couldn't afford to let his guard down...

#wanderingaroundwithmysoul #kaplan rp #{ on to the next mission } ʷᵃⁿᵈᵉʳⁱⁿᵍ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

25 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 13 days

Note

Chad always had a way of making his work look like... his work. Unless, of course, he was hacking into a system or otherwise trying to do something covertly. In that case, he might actually try to make it look like someone else's work just to cover his tracks. But for standard, everyday work, there were certain hallmarks he could leave, certain ways of doing things, that always said it was done by him, whether it was all digital coding or actual physical wiring or machinery he was working with. Tony Stark would only be able to claim all the excellent upgrades as his to a point, and then beyond that he'd find it hard to explain why some things were set up the way they were or how they got like that. "Right? I'd like to see him try," Chad said with a little chuckle.

"Well... in Stark's defense... I'm not... technically on the team. Not yet, anyway. I'm here on a probationary basis," Chad explained. "So I don't blame him for being a little wary around me. I'm the new guy, after all, and I did used to work for an entity the Avengers considered the enemy, so... yeah. They're letting me perform some security and functionality upgrades in the compound, but clearance for field work is pending everybody trusting me, I think. That's okay, though. Personally, I like doing stuff like this better than actually being in the field. I can do it if I have to, but... combat isn't something I enjoy. Not like coding or engineering."

On some level, Chad knew Wanda was right about how everything went down in that terrible facility. He really hadn't known what was going on there until he was sent to work there. And then, by that point, it was... do as ordered or die. There wasn't room for questions or dissent. And getting himself killed wouldn't have helped Wanda or any of the other people being kept there as test subjects. But that didn't mean the guilt wasn't still there and that he didn't feel badly about it. "I know. I guess all we can do is move on from here, right? I'm not gonna waste this second chance. I'm gonna make sure I know exactly who I'm working for and why this time."

"Yeah, let's eat," Chad said. "I'm starving. Sometimes when I really get into my work, I lose track of time." He smiled rather sheepishly at that. Forgetting to eat and hydrate was a common occurrence with him, but it wasn't because he was trying to deprive himself or that he had problems taking proper care of himself. He was just a huge nerd who got so engrossed in what he was doing sometimes that the time completely eluded him.

He packed up all his tools and things and replaced the electrical panel, securing it by replacing the bolts that had sealed it before. "There we go," he said to himself as he stood up with his duffel bag of tools and supplies. "The kitchen was... this way, right?" he asked, pointing down the hallway.

“Kaplan isn’t it? I heard your name being mentioned back in the compound. What are you doing here?”

Chad had been shoulders-deep into a waist-level electrical panel in one of the hallways when he heard a voice behind him. Not expecting it, he stood up fast, banging the back of his head on he top of the panel compartment. He yelled in pain, rubbing his head before standing up more slowly and turning around to see who has spoken. Although he didn't really know Wanda, he'd remember seeing her around the Hydra facility. That... made this a little awkward.

"Uh..." he said, trying to push past the guilt of being partially involved at what went on at the previous location. "The uh... The technology here is all state of the art, but it's terribly inefficient. The whole place is guzzling power, and it doesn't need to. So I'm gonna try to reroute a few things to shorten some of the relays and simplify some of the wiring."

Realizing he was rambling, he forced himself to just answer the damn question. "I'm the new computer and security engineer here." He swallowed hard, feeling obligated to apologize. "Look, I'm... I'm sorry for what happened to you at the Hydra facility"

#illbringthechaosmagic #kaplan rp #{ it’s a long story } ᶜʳᵒˢˢᵒᵛᵉʳ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

37 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 20 days

Video

youtube

Chad, why are you with Wanda? In one universe, this is what she becomes. Shouldn’t you be scared? Look at what her zombified form did to her former teammates!

__________

@illbringthechaosmagic

The strange video clip was difficult for Chad to watch, not because he was afraid of Wanda or disgusted by her, but because he felt so badly for her. He only knew what it was like to be infected with the original strain of the T-virus, and that hadn’t been particularly pleasant. Fever, chills, muscle weakness and spasms, a horrible taste in his mouth, racing heart, vision and hearing problems… and the list went on. He could only imagine what it would have been like to fully become one of the undead after death, but… he wasn’t even sure that that’s what he was looking at here.

The concept of a multiverse did have its merits in some schools of thought among philosophers of hypothetical metaphysics, and it was something that interested Chad, but he knew very little about it. Nevertheless, if this was really another version of Wanda that he was looking at, she clearly still had both mental capacity as well as high motor function. Those… simply were not characteristics of T-virus reanimation. The T-virus reanimates dead bodies with only the most basic of motor functions and extremely limited intelligence. The undead weren’t capable of casting magic, mourning lost loved ones, or even becoming angry beyond a vapid, animalistic aggression borne of a basal instinct to feed. This Wanda… clearly was casting magic, angry, and mourning-… well he had no idea who “Vision” was but apparently this version of Wanda had cared for him.

This looked to him more like the result of Las Plagas infection. The undead borne of that infection were stronger, more coordinated, highly intelligent, able to strategize and engage in sophisticated combat, and could experience emotions. That only served to upset Chad even more, because becoming undead but retaining one’s intelligence had to be an absolute nightmare, and he’d never wish that on Wanda.

“No, I’m not scared,” Chad said, taking some offense to that. “Despite what everyone thinks of me, I’m not some spineless coward. Regardless, that’s not going to happen to Wanda in this verse. I won’t let it.” His jaw clenched for a moment with determination before he spoke again. “It’s a really terrible thing to go through, being infected by a virus with these types of effects. Infected individuals are not always responsible for their actions due to the way the virus affects the brain, and undead individuals are sometimes only a shadow of their former selves. Don’t be so quick to judge based on appearances. Maybe her teammates should’ve done a better job of protecting her from infection, did you think about that?” He sighed. “I’m not leaving Wanda because of something that hypothetically occurred in another part of the multiverse. Just leaves us alone.”

#kaplan rp #chad x wanda

1 note · View note

checkxmaster · 20 days

Note

"Well... why not? It's not like we're planning for something to go bad on a mission, right? I mean, we can't live our lives like that... always in fear, always worrying. We should be hopeful and optimistic that we'll be together for a long time if that's what we want." Chad was soon chuckling after he'd said all of that, however. "This coming from a guy who worries about everything pretty much twenty-four-seven," he said, shaking his head. "I guess I'm not the greatest person to try and pitch optimism, huh?" He was trying his best anyway, though, because what he had with Wanda was definitely something worth living for... and he planned to do just that.

He smiled and even began to blush as she cupped his cheek. "I know... I'm pretty cheesy." But when she said she liked his hopeless romanticism, his smile grew. "Yeah? Good, because I don't think I can really turn it off," he said with a chuckle. "There are so many things I like about you. But it's hard to think while I'm staring at your beautiful face." He blushed even darker. "I'm being cheesy again, aren't I? It's true though!"

"Happy New Year Chad!"

"Happy New Year, Wanda!" Chad said cheerfully. "This year's gonna be better than the last one, for both of us. I just know it." He was ever the optimist, and for Wanda especially, he knew she had been through a lot. What he wanted most right now was a new start, and for Wanda to be treated the way she deserved... like the good person she was.

#illbringthechaosmagic #kaplan rp #chad x wanda

9 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 27 days

Text

{out of code} My bad, guys. I spent way too much time on Carlos and Nemesis and didn't have much time to get to Kaplan. I'm still trying to get back into the swing of writing again and my time management skills suck, haha. I'll make sure I write for him next week to make up for it!

#{ out of code } ᵒᵒᶜ

0 notes

checkxmaster · 27 days

Text

“We blocked the noise with the sound of ‘I need you’, and for the first time I had something to lose.” The woman sighed. “But that isn’t - I never had that relationship with Alice, did I? My original did, but I’m just a copy. Fuck Umbrella and fuck anyone who had anything to do with this!”

(I have ThoughtsTM about Rain with Holy Ground by Taylor Swift, so take this starter)

__________

Chad didn’t know what to say. Was there anything he really could say to make any of this better for her? He’d felt screwed over by Umbrella as well, but at least he knew he was himself. Finding out that you were a clone and that all your memories were imprinted on your mind through a combination of brain chemistry and genetics? He couldn’t even imagine what that was like.

“I’m sorry, Rain...” Chad whispered, swallowing hard. Should he even call her that? It felt both right and wrong for him to do so, if he was being honest with himself. “It... it doesn’t make you worthless, though. You’re just... your own person, separate from your original.” He realized how much that probably didn’t help, however. “I am sorry about Alice, though...” Imagine being in love with someone... and it was all just a copy of someone else’s life. It made Chad shudder.

#kaplan rp

0 notes

checkxmaster · 1 month

Text

PSA: Hiatus Extended until 4/2

{out of mutations} My surgery went well, but the surrounding hospital experience was unexpectedly anxiety-producing. More details here if anyone wants to know, but it was far longer and more harrowing than anticipated. The post-op pain is worse than they said it would be too, and I can't take anything for it but Tylenol, so I've just been sleeping and resting a lot. I've also got 240 forum posts to grade for work this week that unfortunately have to take precedence over writing here. I've been trying to work on it all day today, but I just don't have the focus.

In light of all this, I've decided to give myself one more week off my regular rp schedule (always available in my blogs' pinned posts, btw) to take a break and focus on recovery and work. So for this blog, that means I'll be back on 4/3. I'll still leave @tarnishedxknight open, but I honestly haven't even done much over there either because my creativity isn't flowing right now. After one more week, I should be well into recovery, in less pain, done with follow-up appts, and ready to focus back here on writing. I'm so close to being back here with good regularity again, folks, just bear with me, heh.

#{ out of code } ᵒᵒᶜ #tw: surgery

3 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 1 month

Text

PSA: Hiatus until 3/26

{out of code} Hey guys… I was having surgery on 3/29, but it was just suddenly moved up to this Friday, 3/22. I’ve never had surgery before and I have severe anxiety, so this is understandably messing with my creativity and brain to write on here. I’m going to take off this week to have adequate freakout time (those of you with anxiety, you know how it is, heh), and then I expect to be back to normal next week. So I’ll see everyone back here on 3/27, and hopefully my activity will be more consistent for the foreseeable future after that. Thanks for you understanding during this crazy time! <3

#{ out of code } ᵒᵒᶜ

4 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Note

Chad was one of those rare guys who didn't subscribe to toxic masculinity regarding showing emotion or affection. He... liked hugs. He liked to give them, to receive them, and they always made him feel much better. If that made him a wuss or whatever, he didn't care, especially when he seemed to have found someone in Wanda who also liked to be open with her affections. At least, with someone she felt comfortable with. Chad was honored to be that person for her.

"You're gonna always have me too, Wanda. I promise," Chad said with a warm smile. "You know, my grandfather always used to tell me that... sometimes the best things come out of adversity. After all we've been through, maybe this is the good that came out of our adversity, that we found each other." He meant everything he said, but he did chuckle shortly after. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm kindof a hopeless romantic."

"Happy New Year Chad!"

#illbringthechaosmagic #chad x wanda #{it’s a long story} ᶜʳᵒˢˢᵒᵛᵉʳ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

9 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Note

Rain's admission of actually seeing a clone of him confirmed his worst fears. It wasn't like Chad hadn't already assumed, having seen most of his teammates and his boss immortalized as clones already, that there were some of him out there as well, but... hearing it from Rain finally made it real. He shuddered a bit, but then actually chuckled rather cynically. "Well... it's great to know my anxiety is finally good for something after all these years." How odd that one of his worst traits and setbacks would actually help validate his identity. "I guess they figured out how to improve upon the original. Too bad they forgot to put in a soul."

Chad sighed rather sadly. "I'm sure he was in there somewhere, that's the shitty thing. Umbrella's got a few ways of making you comply when you don't want to. They've actually done clinical trials testing out their methods. For someone like him who had an obscene amount of surgery done, I'm guessing he had a neural control chip implanted. I didn't explicitly see anything for that in his files, but I did see that they gave him a retinal implant so they could not only issue orders wirelessly but also send him maps, stats, equip him with combat software, the whole shebang. So adding a control chip wouldn't surprise me."

"For others, they've got this drug that does it. They've even made a delivery system. It's this... robotic... crab? Tick? I don't know what the hell it is, but its legs attach to your chest, right over your sternum, and then it injects you with the drug. It messes with your brain, makes you susceptible to their commands which the robot wirelessly relays," he explained. Sometimes he wished he'd done a little less digging and reading of Umbrella's files. What he found often kept him up at night. "I don't know, there was a whole lotta medical data on it that I didn't understand, but it's about the size of a pear and it has a shiny red shell, so... if you see someone with anything like that attached to their chest, they're likely to be an original person who's under Umbrella's control."

Thinking about Matt gave him pause, though. "I wonder if there could've maybe been a way to help Matt. You know, to disable that chip, if there was one. If I'd been there... if I'd known... maybe I could've..." Chad shook his head. He was doing it again, wandering into what-ifs. "Too late now, I guess," he said, leaving it at that.

Despite that all he got was a grunt in return - about what he expected from Rain, and it actually made him smile - it felt nice to have someone to say goodnight to. Chad had actually been sleeping pretty damn well for the first time in a long time when the motion sensor was tripped. He never quite knew what to expect when things like this occurred. It could be a standard undead person, some sort of mutated creature, or even someone looking to raid his vehicle. Whatever the case, he wasn't about to take any unnecessary risks.

However, with that said, Chad did always make sure, whenever possible, that someone he was shooting was not an uninfected survivor. So once he dropped out of the vehicle and headed around to where he'd seen the figure on his monitors, he turned on a flashlight and held it together with the handgun he'd grabbed. Noting the shabby, torn clothing, the lack of shoes, and the off-kilter way the person was shuffling, he assumed this was indeed just one of the undead. It was just one, though, so he could afford to make sure. "Hey..." he said, trying to get its attention but ready to shoot.

The figure turned at the sound, the sickly pallor of the man's skin and the corneal clouding in its eyes being, for lack of a better word, dead giveaways. It opened its mouth, though... It was much too wide and strange tendrils emerged from it that looked like the mouthparts of an alien or something. "Yeah... nope," Chad mumbled, shooting the person in the forehead. The enthusiastic slithering of the tendrils abruptly stopped, and the person fell over backwards. Cautiously, he went over to inspect the corpse, and once he was certain it was dead, he headed back to the vehicle to climb back inside.

"Well that was gross," he said to Rain, sealing up the vehicle once more. "I think it was one of those mutations you were telling me about before, with the weird mouth parts. I wonder where it came from... and if there are more." He was already starting to worry. "You wanna move somewhere else for the rest of the night, or take our chances where we are? We're pretty safe in here, I mean unless something really big comes along."

"The hell is your problem, dude? Did you seriously forget about me? Or what, you think I'm a clone? Be for real."

If this really was Rain, the real Rain, then he was about to feel like a huge jerk momentarily. But if it wasn't... he couldn't afford to let his guard down...

#wanderingaroundwithmysoul #kaplan rp #{ on to the next mission } ʷᵃⁿᵈᵉʳⁱⁿᵍ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

25 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Text

Sanitation || Resident Evil

#resident evil 2002 #chad kaplan #{ alright… let’s do this } ᵛⁱˢᵃᵍᵉ #{ what was all the shooting? } ʳᵃⁱⁿ ᵒᶜᵃᵐᵖᵒ #{ sorry about the elevator code } = ʲ‧ᵈ‧ ˢᵃˡⁱⁿᵃˢ #{ her defenses were down } ʲᵃᵐᵉˢ ˢʰᵃᵈᵉ

18 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Text

PSA: Back on 3/13

{out of smokes} I wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to take a little break this week from my regular rp schedule tomorrow. I just don't have the brain to write for my RE muses right now. I have surgery and other testing coming up and my favorite aunt passed away yesterday, so my head is not in the game. I spent the entire day grading hundreds of forums assignments for my students and being on the phone with doctors offices trying to schedule or change about eight different appts for this month alone, and for an extreme introvert, that was a lot, heh. I just need a bit of a break mentally, and I hope you will understand. I'll be back next Weds and for the foreseeable future. Nothing I have scheduled overly conflicts with me writing for my Weds blogs for the next couple months. See you back here on 3/13!

#{ out of code } ᵒᵒᶜ

3 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Note

Chad chuckled a little as Wanda seemed to get her back up about Tony Stark criticizing him. She seemed a quite sort sometimes, preferring to stay out of things when they involved her, but when they involved someone else, she suddenly became very assertive. Chad was like that too, under the right circumstances, but standing up for himself wasn't really one of them. "I think he'd like to take all the credit, given his personality, but... after I get done with the security systems in this building, he definitely won't be able to," he said with a little smile.

Chad nodded. He'd noticed that about Tony too, that he was very protective - downright overprotective - of his "toys," as it were. "He is very possessive with his tech. I can understand that, I really can. He's gonna have to give me some leeway, though, if he wants me to do my job properly." Those were just the facts. Chad couldn't overhaul the security and surveillance systems as well as the electrical circuits without screwing around a little with Tony's way of doing things.

"Yeah, but I wasn't in a cell. I had free will to stand up and do something about it, and I didn't." Because he didn't know any better... at first. Over time, he'd felt increasingly uncomfortable with what they were doing to Wanda and her brother, and that made him start to ask questions that were not well responded to. "I was free, you weren't. So the responsibility was on me to change things, and I didn't do a very good job of that." That feeling of being a coward, or at least of not being strong enough, crept into Chad's mind again. It plagued him every time he thought of something, a decision or action he could have taken, after the fact with a much clearer mind. He was very hard on himself.

He was soon smiling again, though, because Wanda had that effect on him. She even had him joking around a bit, which was hard for him to do unless he was perfectly comfortable with someone. "Yeah, of course I'd be okay with that," he said, his smile turning just a little bit shy. "I'm not too exciting of a guy, but I'd like to see the gardens with you, if you have the time."

“Kaplan isn’t it? I heard your name being mentioned back in the compound. What are you doing here?”

#illbringthechaosmagic #kaplan rp #{it’s a long story} ᶜʳᵒˢˢᵒᵛᵉʳ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

37 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Note

It actually meant a lot to hear all that coming from Rain. Anybody could have told him he was being too hard on himself, but like Rain said, she was there that night. If anyone was going to say it was his fault, it'd be someone who had been there with him to see what went down. She also wasn't one given to random bouts of encouragement or sugar coating unpleasantries either, so for her to bother to take the time to say all of this, it must have really meant something. And then there was of course the fact that she hadn't beaten him up yet, which she most definitely would've done if all of this had been his fault.

"I've no doubt you would have," Chad said with a little half smirk and a nod. Fortunately, to date, he'd never been on the receiving end of a beat down from Rain. He didn't envy anyone who had. As she let go of his shoulder and told him to try and see things in a better light or else, he chuckled. "Okay, okay... I'll try." He felt a little better already, if he was being honest, but the rest would take time.

Chad visibly winced as Rain described running into a clone of herself. "That's something I've been infinitely thankful for... never having run into myself. I assume they're out there. Clones of me. Why wouldn't they be? But I haven't had the severe displeasure of running into one yet. It's gotta be a surreal experience. Surreal and shitful," he said with a little huff.

"Yeah..." Chad said, his eyes falling as he remembered the photographs and diagrams he'd seen in Matt's test subject file. "I'm... I'm kindof glad he's dead. I know how that sounds, but... I really don't think there would've been any quality of life for him, any comin' back from... that. I mean I don't think it would've just been a matter of injecting him with the antivirus anymore, he seemed a little beyond that from the pictures I saw. So if there was no helping him, then... maybe he's better off..." It still felt like a terrible thing for him to say about someone who seemed like a pretty okay guy. "If it were me, I wouldn't want that to be my life."

As they settled in for the night and Chad made sure his motion sensing perimeter was up and running, he felt himself starting to relax to a crazy degree. It was like he'd taken a sedative all of a sudden, the combination of his pain meds kicking in and having some much wanted company from an old friend doing the job of a sleeping pill. So once everything was good and the vehicle was sealed up, he got onto his cot, pulling the old but surprisingly soft blanket with its fair share of holes in it over him. "G'night, Rain," he said, closing his eyes.

It wasn't long at all before he was asleep, and thankfully, that sleep was about the deepest he'd had in a long time, so Rain's snoring didn't manage to wake him up. What did wake him up, however, was the sound of his motion sensors going off, detecting movement in the vicinity of the vehicle. And this time it couldn't have been Rain. Chad jolted awake, running on autopilot since this was a fairly regular occurrence. He headed to his computers, typing away, bringing up the video feed from the sensor that had been tripped.

"Looks like just one," he said, in case the alarm had woken Rain as well. He watched the figure lethargically shuffle around for a moment before grabbing one of his guns. "I'll take care of it." Chad moved to do just that, going to open the hatch and see what was poking around out there...

"The hell is your problem, dude? Did you seriously forget about me? Or what, you think I'm a clone? Be for real."

If this really was Rain, the real Rain, then he was about to feel like a huge jerk momentarily. But if it wasn't... he couldn't afford to let his guard down...

#wanderingaroundwithmysoul #kaplan rp #{ on to the next mission } ʷᵃⁿᵈᵉʳⁱⁿᵍ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

25 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Note

The hug really helped. Sometimes Chad felt as if he was too needy or clingy or soft, especially since he wasn't what people usually thought of when they thought of soldiers or commandos. Wanda didn't seem to mind how he was, and if anything, she seemed to like his compassion and empathy. He really felt bad for her, and one of the way she knew he could both make it up to her and help himself overcome his own guilt was to be a friend to her and help her through the tough times.

"Definitely," Chad said with a smile. If Wanda hadn't accepted him, he would've been okay, but he definitely would've been quieter and more isolated. She'd made him a real part of the team, instead of just that guy who fixes the computers and wiring that nobody seems to know. "I know, it just feels that way sometimes. But you've helped me a lot, Wanda. More than I think you realize."

"Happy New Year Chad!"

#illbringthechaosmagic #kaplan rp #{it’s a long story} ᶜʳᵒˢˢᵒᵛᵉʳ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

9 notes · View notes

checkxmaster · 2 months

Note

Chad's guilt had all but eaten him alive over the past several years. It was the first thing he thought about when he woke up, the last before he fell asleep, and it followed him everywhere he went. It never seemed to leave him, and even in his sleep, the nightmares were an indication that it was deeply embedded in his conscience at this point. Having Rain with him again had stirred whatever parts of his guilt he had been able to at least distract himself from. It was difficult for him to simply turn it off.

However, Rain had a very good point. The Red Queen did have access to their personnel files that day. She had them still, in fact. But the point was that she could have taken tactical advantage of the information in those files at any time. Who was to say she hadn't exploited some weakness or other disadvantage Chad had in order to remain under his watchful radar? She'd learned about him and how to elude his typical style of hacking. That didn't make what happened that day no longer his fault, Chad felt, but it did make it seem a bit less like he'd simply very stupidly screwed up. Hearing that the Queen had used that creature in the Hive as a secret weapon against Rain and the others only further confirmed the lengths she went to kill them all that day.

"I guess..." was all he said, though his eyes did look a bit more solid now, less like someone had just kicked his pet puppy or something. "Sorry..." he then apologized, realizing he must sound like a broken record the way he kept beating himself up all the time. It had just become his default existence over the years, unfortunately. "Yeah, I... I know. Oh, they're very convincing, even when they aren't exactly behaving like they should. You see 'em, you hear 'em, and your brain just goes... it's them." He knew all too well what Rain had felt that day. He smirked a little at the Hollywood smiles comment. "Yeah. Too perfect. Almost... plastic."

"Yeah..." Chad said quietly as Rain realized she'd actually seen Matt in Raccoon City. Well, what remained of Matt. Bowing his head almost in a moment of silence for the man whom Chad could only assume was now dead, he sighed dejectedly. "I can't even imagine that happening to me... Being changed that much by the virus..." He shook his head, as if to banish the thought from his mind.

Once Rain returned in one piece and it seemed like they were ready to settle in for the night, Chad returned to his computers. "Go ahead and make yourself comfortable. I'm just gonna check to make sure my motion perimeter is still good. Gotta reset the sensor you tripped before." With that, he started typing away, resetting and securing the perimeter around the vehicle before checking all the cameras. "Okay. We're good," he said, then moving to seal up the vehicle for the night.

Sitting back down on his own bed, he looked over at her. "You want anything to eat or drink before we get some sleep?" he offered in case she was hungry, knowing how hard it was to sleep when your stomach was painfully growling. At her comment about snoring, he chuckled. "I honestly don't even know if I snore anymore, so... good luck with that," he returned.

"The hell is your problem, dude? Did you seriously forget about me? Or what, you think I'm a clone? Be for real."

If this really was Rain, the real Rain, then he was about to feel like a huge jerk momentarily. But if it wasn't... he couldn't afford to let his guard down...

#wanderingaroundwithmysoul #kaplan rp #{ on to the next mission } ʷᵃⁿᵈᵉʳⁱⁿᵍ ᵛᵉʳˢᵉ

25 notes · View notes