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tildeathiwillwrite · 5 days

Text

June of Doom Day 3

"Well, well well..." / Hiding / Ambushed / Stalking

Prompts List | Event Masterpost

Fandom: Original Work

Words: 900

Tag List:@juneofdoom @fourwingedsnake @whumperofworlds @pigeonwhumps @mr-orion

@scaewolf

CW: kidnapping, attempted rescue, recklessness, breaking in, stealth, blood, chained by wrists, injury, gun, gunshots, threats

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Snap!

Caretaker winced at the noise, tenderly lifting their foot to reveal the broken branch, trodden upon in their careless haste to get close to the house unseen. They likely needn’t have bothered, the house appeared to be empty.

But looks can be deceiving.

Especially in this line of work.

Cautiously, paying more attention to where they put their feet, Caretaker crept along the side of the house until they reached a window. The interior was dark, the light from the setting sun illuminating the rough wooden floor, littered with shattered furniture.

Everything within view was covered in a thick layer of dust and grime. It lined up with what the police had said about the place: no one had stepped inside for years since a particularly violent tragedy beset the previous owners.

If what Caretaker suspected was true, however….

Their phone buzzed in their pocket.

Caretaker jumped, their heart leaping into their throat before their rational mind caught up. They pulled the device out to find a text from the officer working with them on the case.

Officer: How’s it look? Caretaker: Empty. Officer: Told you. It’s a dead end. Officer: Get back here ASAP

Caretaker stared at the phone, hissing through their teeth. Seriously? Just because the house in the middle of nowhere looked empty, it didn’t mean it was! For all they knew, this was where Whumpee had been taken! And perhaps the dust was left in view of the windows to keep up the appearance of an abandoned murder house.

They peered back through the window, gnawing the inside of their cheek. If it really was as empty as it looked, then… wouldn’t hurt. And if it wasn’t?

Caretaker: I’m going in. If I don’t text within 10 min, call for backup. Officer is typing…

Caretaker didn’t wait for their response, no doubt an all-caps message about how stupid they were being, with an order to get their ass back to the car. They slipped their phone back into their pocket as it buzzed with the angry message, but they ignored it and hesitantly pushed on the window.

The sash slid up without protest, and Caretaker frowned. If the house had been left alone all these years, how come the window opened so easily? And it was unlocked? Suspicious.

They grunted as they pulled themself up on the windowsill and clambered into the house. Dust rose into the air as they stepped lightly onto the floor and crept through the house, taking care not to make too much noise.

Every room was the same. Shattered furniture, scattered garbage, everything covered in dirt and dust. Disappointment rose in Caretaker’s throat with each room they checked. Maybe Officer was right, and this was a bust….

Their eyes fell on the last door. It was shut, but they guessed it led to the basement. Well, if Whumpee would be kept anywhere….

The door creaked softly as they pushed it open, revealing a pool of light at the bottom of the stairs. Caretaker’s heartbeat quickened. Not so abandoned after all.

They hesitantly put their weight on the first step, keeping close to the wall to decrease the chances of noise. Perhaps some kid had broken in to explore and left behind a flashlight.

Caretaker descended another step. And another. Or maybe they’d left the lights on.

Another step. Or—

Was that their breathing? Or someone else’s?

They steeled themself and reached the bottom of the stairs. The bare lightbulb on the landing didn’t illuminate much of the basement, but what little they saw made their stomach turn.

Caretaker had seen a lot in their line of work. Cheating partners, domestic abuse, child abuse, missing persons’ cases, cold cases, murders. They’d dealt with many a crime scene, almost to the point of becoming deadened to blood or injury.

And yet the sight of Whumpee, dangling from the ceiling by their wrists, the stench of their blood heavy in the air, the sound of their labored breathing, all of it made Caretaker step back in shock, hand over their mouth, bile rising in their throat.

They shouldn’t be alive.

With the amount of blood on the floor and the extent of their wounds, Whumpee should be dead. Blood loss, shock, sheer exhaustion….

Slam!

Caretaker jumped and spun around, instinctively moving to place themself between Whumpee and the staircase. Heavy footsteps descended the stairs.

Thump.

“Well, well, well…” the newcomer said slowly, pausing just above where the light touched the stairs. “If it isn’t Caretaker, the famous detective. Come to do me in, I presume?”

“What the hell did you do to them?!” Caretaker demanded, voice shaking.

Whumper chuckled, a sound that made the hairs on the back of Caretaker’s neck stand up. “Nothing too terrible. They’re alive, aren’t they?”

“Barely!” Caretaker reached for their phone. “I’m going to ensure that you never see the other side of the prison wall ever—”

Bang.

Caretaker flinched back with a cry as their phone was shot out of their hand, shattering on the ground in a million pieces.

Whumper tsked softly. “Can’t have you doing that, little sleuth. Why don’t you put your hands above your head?”

Caretaker gritted their teeth. They had to wait until Officer did what they asked and called for backup. Until then….

They slowly raised their hands.

“That’s a good little sleuth,” Whumper teased, “a good little sleuth indeed.”

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blackswaneuroparedux · 11 months

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Ουδέν εστι θηρίον γυναικός αμαχώτερον.

- Aristophanes

There is no beast like woman so untamed.

#aristophanes #greek #classical #quote #tame #breaking in #femme #womanhood #horse #femininity #strength #being worthy #nature

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spacevixenmusic · 9 days

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Source: Ranma ½ [1992]

#ranma ½ #ranma 1/2 #akane tendo #on the scene #breaking in #what an entrance #I'll break this damn door down

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smoochiesstuff · 3 months

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have you ever been caught masturbating or having sex? if not, would you like to?

i’ve never been caught touching myself before, but the thought of a perverse man watching me touch myself makes me all wet and horny to be honest >.<

i would be touching myself in my room all alone, not knowing someone was watching me from my window and jerking off to the sight of me. then after i cum they would break in, and then pin me down before forcing their cock into my wet cunt and use me until i’m begging them to stop but they don’t (ﾒ﹏ﾒ)

#daddy k!nk #ftm dd/lb #ftm ns/fw #ftm nsft #nsft puppy #trans nsft #dumb puppy #puppy sub #cnc k!nk #cnc free use #cnc stalking #breaking in #send me r@pe threats #r@p3b4it #r@pe play #r@pe threats

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spookyspaghettisundae · 27 days

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Breaking In Was the Easy Part

Shadows kept what shadows veiled.

The security guard’s shoes clapped against shiny, marbled floors. He stopped by one of the tall windows, overlooking the glittering skyline of Rome by night.

He stared outwards. Sniffed. Scratched his butt.

Hiding in the shadows nearby, where this oblivious guard ran risk of glimpsing her from the corner of his eyes, Chloe Grant held her breath. Frozen, still, like a statue, she waited in the dark.

The guard remained oblivious. He continued staring out into the night. He stood there for so long that Grant’s lungs began to ache from holding her breath, and a frustration, welling deep down, started budding into anger.

She had already broken into the building without him noticing. Now, he just needed to get the hell out of her way. Preferably before she needed to gasp for air, or the anger bloomed into fiery rage.

In the drop of a hat, she could have switched his lights off, just like that. The silenced pistol in her toolkit had a bullet with this guy’s name on it. She wasn’t one to snuff out some rent-a-cop if she could avoid it, but he was taking his sweet time.

The temptation to go for the gun rose while the burning in her lungs blossomed alongside her frustration.

Finally, the guard walked on. Disappeared around the next corner of the corridor, descending deeper into the bowels of IntelliTech.

Every shuddering breath hurt as Grant’s lungs flooded with desperately needed oxygen. All her frustration waned as fast as any pain subsided. After all, this guard knew nothing. Probably lived his days and nights, working security here, oblivious to the true nature of IntelliTech.

It was just one of many shell companies used by Celava worldwide. They fronted this IT provider, but all of Spencer’s intelligence pointed to IntelliTech serving as a data hub for the multinational energy corporation.

And this one, single, useless guard—well, he was just doing his job. Not well enough to have noticed the woman who infiltrated the building that night, but doing his job nevertheless.

He’d probably get fired if Grant’s invasion was eventually noticed, but that was very low on her list of concerns.

Once the guard had moved far enough out of earshot, she whispered into her headset.

“Hammy’s gone. What’s it look like out there?”

“Coast is clear,” responded Ruiz via their radio, with a soft crackle of static. “Pretty sure it’s just the one guy on-site.”

“Keep your eyes peeled. I prefer ‘definitely’ over ‘pretty sure’.”

Grant snuck out of the alcove, slipping past one of the ornate alabaster sculptures of Roman deities. She weaved her way past the other divinities, heading in the opposite direction from the security guard who had missed her intrusion.

Much to her relief, most of the building’s rooms and hallways featured clear labels. Big, black print emblazoned on brushed gunmetal plates. She followed their lead, drawing her spiraling path ever closer to the building’s server room.

Minutes ticked as she moved with the quietude of a cat. She kept her eyes peeled for security cameras, shimmying underneath any when their cold, glassy lenses looked the other way.

Ruiz asked via radio, “And you, uh, you don’t think anything’s… off? These guys got a lot of valuable data to keep private here, and security’s a little bit on the sad-sack side, don’tcha think?”

Grant paused, ducking behind a towering potted plant to wait.

To listen.

The guard was long gone, on the opposite side of the building, and unlikely to hear her.

Ruiz wasn’t wrong in his observation. She had thought the same thing.

“Yes and no. I’m guessing there’s some extra bells and whistles we haven’t noticed yet. Some less-than-obvious stuff. All the windows are bullet-proof, and some of these doors are magnetically locked with steel reinforcements. A lot of the premises are labeled, but then there’s some big mystery doors. My guess is, they have something else underneath this building—something that ain’t just plain little ol’ IT, if you catch my drift.”

A long pause.

It felt strange how this liminal space was swallowing all her whispers.

Silence filled the vacuous hallways of IntelliTech.

“You think they’re holding some specimens down there,” Ruiz said.

Grant snuck on. Set her jaw. Through clenched teeth, she replied.

“Almost a one hundred percent chance.”

Another long bout of silence followed from Ruiz. He broke it with a short and ominous remark.

“Switchin’ to point-fifty.”

She paused again, just outside a sealed door, labeled—

SERVER ROOM.

“Jesus. You gonna ready some AA missiles to go with that?”

Grant guided a stolen keycard through a reader next to the door. A red light on the device turned green and the gadget emitted a soft beep, with a loud click-CLANK to follow, as the magnetic seal on the door released, and the door slid open with a soft whoosh.

“Ain’t takin’ no chances tonight. If they got a specimen down there as a watchdog, you just line it up, and I’ll take it down.”

Grant slipped into the server room, where the hum of hundreds of fans filled the air. The whole room vibrated, and the array of server racks, all encased in metal and glass, looked like something straight out of a science fiction flick.

The door automatically slid shut behind her.

She needed access—soon—because all her movements in the building, such as opening these mag-locked doors, were likely being recorded in some sub-system. And registering it to the guy whose card she had stolen.

It had to be a matter of time.

Now locked inside a room where she was permitted to make more noise, she ripped open the zipper on her backpack. Locating the nearest server, she whipped out the device Singh had provided them with for the mission, hooked it up to the system, and booted up the sleek black laptop.

Instead of an operating system’s stock screen to greet her, a sinister-looking and slow-moving loading bar progressed on-display, while the device brute-forced its digital tendrils into IntelliTech’s—or rather, into Celava’s—data hub.

Minutes flew by to the steady whispering hum of computer fans in the room, while Singh’s hacking device worked its magic, and Grant awaited its completion with bated breath.

“How’s it goin’ in there?” crackled Ruiz’s voice via headset, now with heavier static interference. “Security guard’s out on a smoke break. Coast is still clear. If anybody knows what’s up, they ain’t showin’ jack for it.”

Grant shot a glance at the screen.

It had changed already, which she had missed because it looked almost the same: the progress bar now indicated how far the device had gotten in vacuuming up all the data it could access from this data hub.

She didn’t want to envision how expensive the unseeming sleek laptop and its hardware must have been. Then again, Malachi Spencer was footing the bill, and Future Proof’s pockets seemed to run as deep as the Mariana Trench.

“Almost done,” she replied.

79%.

She wished she could scour the data gathered here while she waited.

Grant wondered if Spencer’s suspicion would prove to have been right.

Whether or not Celava was truly funneling personnel and natural resources through the Anomalies, all with a singular and terrifying purpose: to build a colony in the distant past, in some era before the dinosaurs went extinct.

In the here and now, however, Grant only glimpsed a black screen with a white progress bar. Racking up all the data.

93% complete.

Just before her patience could wear thin, a monitor on the wall winked on, flashing brightly with electronic life.

The monitor flickered, yet refused to display any image, staying a darker shade of gray—revealing it had turned on, without casting much light. Speakers behind the device emitted a soft ringtone, like a call or message had just come in.

Then a booming voice spoke to her.

“I am the Operator, and you are very naughty,” spoke a mysterious man’s voice from the monitor’s speakers—with a playfulness to his tone, and a strong British accent. “Cease what you’re doing now, or I’ll be forced to release the hounds. And, fair warning, I do not mean electronic countermeasures.”

She played it smart. Offered no response. Nothing she could be recognized by. Like the ski mask concealing her face, a voice could lead to identification. For now, she preferred to maintain her image as the nondescript cat burglar.

96% complete.

“Not talkative today, hm? You know, the hounds usually make intruders far more chatty. Or, well, screamy. I suspect it will be the latter with you. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!”

He sounded young and mischievous. How much of the threat was empty?

A smirk crept across Grant’s face.

Was this guy for real?

“Hah. Have it your way then. Your screams of terror will probably make for a great feature on our next instructional video. I do love authenticity. Nice never having known ya, I suppose. Ta.”

The monitor deactivated again. The gray glow vanished as its electronic life disappeared.

And nothing else happened.

Asked Ruiz on the radio, “What the hell was that?”

In case anything was being recorded in the server room, Grant stayed quiet. She looked around for bugs, microphones, cameras, anything.

She found nothing.

99%.

A man’s scream reached her, muffled through the mag-locked door into the security room.

Her only way out.

The scream endured, shifting through varying stages of surprise, agony, and horror. It didn’t end as abruptly as it started, instead petering out with indecipherable pleading in Italian, and cutting off after a bout of gurgling noises.

The security guard?

100%.

Keeping her eyes locked on the door, Grant yanked Singh’s device away from the server rack, careless of the cable she blindly ripped out of its socket in the process. She stuffed the sleek laptop into her small backpack and neared the door again.

THUMP.

Something had hit the door, leaving Grant frozen, while her heartbeat raced at a pace of a thousand miles a minute, felt all the way up into her neck, and accompanied by the rushing of blood in her ears.

There was something out there.

Silence. The shuddering breath she dared to take could not have eclipsed any sounds out there, but she felt a presence. The vicinity of something dangerous.

Of something deadly.

There were no other ways out of the server room. The only other door led to a dead end, where Grant frantically looked through, only to find a bunch of clutter in form of cardboard boxes, spare cables, a sink fastened to the wall, and other useless junk.

“Talk to me, Goose,” said Ruiz. “Can’t see anything out here. Guard went back inside, and you’re in a blind spot for me.”

She waited at the mag-locked door. Couldn’t sense any presence there now.

The deadly silence remained.

She swiped the keycard down the mag-lock reader. The device only emitted an obnoxious beep and its red light blinked.

“Uh-uh-uh,” said the Operator from the TV speakers with a mocking, singing tone to it. “I locked down everything. Consider it me doing you a favor, magpie. A sweeper team is on its way to arrest you. They’ll return the hound to its cage before you’re ripped to shreds, and you’ll get to have a nice, lovely chat with a security detail, and then some corrupt police officials, I wager. One day, you might even get a chance to look back at all of this and have a good laugh—that is, from behind prison bars, of course.”

The Operator chuckled with sadistic glee.

Grant’s anger almost gave air to a single swearword, and instead exploded into a strike of her knuckles against the metal door.

The Operator was making perfect sense. Having worked in counter-intelligence herself, she would have run the same kind of ship. Issued the same kind of intimidation and taunts as he was.

She knew better than to succumb to fear, or spiral into inaction, and knew exactly what to try next.

The Operator had responded to her attempt at opening the door with the keycard—he clearly had no eyes on the server room, only on whatever any device was ever telling him. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, he could remotely open and close any mag-locks throughout the building.

She was boxed in now. And she wasn’t going to wait for some sweeper team to capture her.

Thus, Grant acted quickly. Whipped out the tiny toolkit she had brought along for analog intrusion.

She had already been detected, and something was out there—according to the Operator, ready to slash her to ribbons upon contact—so subtlety had just flown out the window. And the poor security guard guy, well, he had probably lost more than his job just now.

Her foldable crowbar snapped into full length after she retrieved it from her kit, and she used it to jimmy open the mag-lock reader.

“You need to get the hell outta there,” said Ruiz, nervous tremors swinging fiercer with every word. “There’s an Apex fuckin’ Predator in those halls. It’s trailing blood all over the place, and I think it’s lookin’ for you. That security guard is toast, and I got no eyes on the AP. It’s too fast, moved into some room. I think it loops around to where you are. Repositioning.”

Metal sheets bent and splintered until she stopped prying at the reader with the crowbar, and ripped off the metal casing. Dexterous, Kevlar-gloved fingers started eviscerating the card reader, splaying out its thin wiring, and trying to make sense of its design.

Closed system. Not anything she could simply override.

Fuck.

The swearword echoed in her brain.

She backtracked into the backroom and pursued plan B.

Her boot crashed down on the ceramic sink with a heavy kick. Upon first impact, a long crack appeared on the wall behind it.

The whole place’s design for doors and locks and computerization was modern—but being situated in the center of Rome, the building must have featured some parts that had never been modernized by its newest owners.

Another kick shattered the sink and water started trickling from a bent pipe.

She grunted and gritted her teeth as she kicked and punched at the wall until she could jam the crowbar right into the growing fissure she was creating, busting her way through the wall.

Her tiny flashlight clicked. She shone its light into the fissure.

Luckily, none of it was solid concrete. Just a bunch of old bricks behind thin plaster and white paint.

“Do you know how to play chess, magpie?” asked the Operator from the adjacent room. “If you’re smart enough—and I truly hope you are—then I’m sure you can play it in the theater of the mind. Or draw on the floor for all I care. I’m sure it’ll buff out, even if you use a permanent marker.”

He didn’t know what she was up to. No eyes on the backroom. No electronics to spy on.

Lucky.

She gritted her teeth again and pulled at the drain pipe in the wall with all her might. The metal squealed, then finally bent before snapping away where it broke. Grant grunted again and yanked a portion of drain pipe from the wall, then used it as a blunt instrument to break through the wall entirely.

She struck and struck away, widening the hole, and hammering the gap. When it found purchase and dug deeper into the fissure, she used it like a cruder crowbar to widen the hole.

The Operator rambled on in his musing, mocking tone. “I’ll even give you the luxury of making the opening move. White pawn on F-7 moves to F-5. You know… a little IT joke on the side?”

There was no way she was going engage.

“Come on, it’s funny!”

Grant continued hammering and striking away, tearing away chunks of red brick and artificial rubble till her black gloves had turned a chalky white, and until the hole had grown wide enough. A different light poured in through a hole on the other side of the fissure.

The ski mask and black attire was soaking up her sweat. She must have lost minutes already. If there was a sweeper team on its way—and she suspected the Operator had been telling the truth—she didn’t have a lot of time left.

Ruiz hadn’t spoken in those minutes. She hoped he had kept his cool, and stayed on position of the eagle’s perch a few buildings away.

She needed the sharpshooter to shoot sharp if it came down to it.

Breathing heavily, she only perceived a deceptive silence from the adjacent room.

Every further attempt at tearing open the wall came easier than the last, with all its integrity having been demolished by her incessant and systematic destruction. Whole bricks clunked down and the rest crumbled, and the drain pipe clanked and clattered when she chucked it aside to climb through the hole, clambering into an open office space.

The Operator was still talking, babbling about Chess moves and other inane tomfoolery, but her own panting, and the noises of fighting her way out of the backroom into the office drowned it all out.

Pressed up against the wall next to the office’s door, she waited again, hoping to hear something—anything—that might reveal the presence of the “hound” the Operator had warned her about.

But… nothing. Not a sound.

This was going to end badly.

She had seen those monstrosities in action before. Silent, agile, fast, and built to kill grown humans in the blink of an eye. Evolved beyond natural evolution, and as Burch had later theorized—maybe designed by genetic engineering.

The Apex Predator was lurking. Hiding. In position to ambush her.

Seconds passed, melting into what felt like an infinity. Time—a luxury—she didn’t have.

Time.

Grant considered retrieving her silenced pistol from her pack, but decided against it. Nine millimeter rounds weren’t going to do much against such a beast.

She opened the office door and crept outside.

Sprays of blood had painted the walls with gruesome splatters. The body of the security guard wasn’t even nearby. Crimson marked where the creature had dragged it along the marbled floors, around the next corner.

Grant scanned every nook and cranny, keeping in mind every single thing that Mischchenko had taught her about predatory wildlife.

Watch for the shadows. Watch for vectors along which an animal can leap. And if it can fly, or climb—such as these Apex Predators could—always look up.

And just as she looked up, following the cue of those teachings, she almost regretted it. Her heart skipped a beat. The gangly, mottled-gray body of the Apex Predator hid just beneath the high ceiling, perched atop one of those statues of a Roman deity.

“Oh no,” said the Operator, pressing out the second word with vicious sarcasm, and his voice now coming from unseen speakers in the hallway. “Quite the pickle you’re in, aren’t you? Wish you would have stayed and played some Chess now, eh?”

Bloodstained claws clicked against the sculpture’s shoulders. A guttural growl from its closed, toothy maw sent shivers down Grant’s spine. It hissed.

The Apex Predator stared at her through its spider-like array of eyes. The brain implant exposed on the top of its skull glowed with a singular red light.

A spiderweb of cracks appeared on the nearby window, and the Predator’s head whipped around, as it snarled at where the glass cracked.

“Run! Now!” shouted Ruiz via headset.

He had shot the window, and the glass withstood his .50 caliber.

Grant needed not be told twice. She dove into the next alcove behind a statue, and the Predator flew past her. Then she zigzagged the opposite way, towards where the Apex Predator had leapt from in its deadly lunge at her.

The creature screeched—turning into an alien and ear-piercing howl—as its claws scraped against marble, and it skidded along the smooth, blood-splattered floor.

Running for her life, she dove around the next corner, and the Apex Predator followed. She leapt over the dead security guard’s mangled corpse, just in time to hurtle through the next door on her way back out, and slam it shut behind her.

The Predator would have caught her, had it not slammed into that same door with the momentum of a speeding truck, and broken the door’s surrounding frame in the process—everything bent upon impact, metal deformed.

Another blood-curdling shriek pierced the night as the Predator pried its way through the door, tearing through the feeble obstruction in its pursuit of the fleshy human in the Kevlar catsuit.

Grant fled through the building, retracing her steps with little thought, and panic driving her running stride.

Glimpses over her shoulder only accelerated her footsteps and supercharged her terror, as the ferocious mutant quickly closed the distance once it had clawed its way through the door, only to crash into the next one she slammed shut in between them.

“Fuck,” Ruiz shouted. “Move!”

Her boots clanked up the metal stairwell as she fled upstairs to the rooftop from which she had gained entry into the building.

And finally, making her heart sink, Grant’s mad dash ended at the mag-locked door she had opened with the stolen keycard.

The red light on the card reader glowed a menacing red, mirroring the red glow on the Apex Predator’s brain implant.

She was trapped.

“Oh, Magpie,” spoke the Operator. “See, I could open that door for you, and set you free… but then I’d also set our little doggy free, free to roam the city of Rome, and feast upon—well, I’m not actually sure how many people it would rip apart in its rampage before we put it down—”

Metal squealed as the Predator pried the door to the stairwell open. The creature peered up to her and shrieked.

With feral fury.

“I’m sure you’re regretting your life choices now, aren’t you. Well, you can’t blame—”

“Get away from the door,” growled Ruiz on the headset radio.

“No!” shouted Grant. “We can’t let this thing out!”

The Predator stormed up the stairs with leaping bounds, skipping entire floors as it flew up the center of the spiraling stairwell.

“Oh, how very noble of you. I tip my hat, missy!”

“Down!” yelled Ruiz.

He was going to do it, one way or another—

She ducked.

The door exploded. Then it exploded again. Two of Ruiz’s rifle shots had blown football-sized holes through it. Funny how the glass withstood more punishment.

Before any dust could settle, the Predator flew over the stairwell railing and its claws cut deep. Grant’s own blood sprayed, shedding DNA that could be traced—the least of her worries now, as the blood drained from her head, and she lost all feeling in her left arm. An arm and hand that refused to obey when—

She ripped the broken door open, and fled onto the rooftop, into the sea of night, where glittering lights sparkled on Rome’s city skyline. The streets bustled with life—life that was threatened to be ended by the creature right behind her—

Grant fumbled and retrieved the pistol from her pack, just in time for the growling creature to follow onto the rooftop where she had emerged. Its brain implant glowed red like a malevolent, cyclopean eye.

It prowled towards her while the pistol slid perfectly into her grip, and she aimed at the Predator’s head with practiced precision.

It had smelled blood, and it was poised to leap again.

To kill.

The pain in her arm screamed as it hung lifelessly from her side, while she stayed silent and aimed with her right.

She aimed.

To kill.

To pull the trigger, as it leapt.

The bullets she released didn’t stop it. Couldn’t stop it. Probably even hit.

The next thing she knew, the smoking, silenced gun was on the rooftop next to her, and she was holding her side, where claws had left a deep wound, and all the warmth escaped her, pumping wet and slick and deathly.

The Predator crumpled to the ground, and echoes of Ruiz’s dampened shots were so loud that she could still hear them, several rooftops away.

Like the .50 had blown holes through the door, it had turned entire chunks of the Predator into a fine red mist. Killed the damned thing dead outright before it could kill her.

Well, almost.

Almost.

Grant slumped from her knees onto the ground, splayed out and with all strength escaping her like the blood.

Ruiz was talking to her all the while. The Operator, less audible from out there, also continued babbling.

Darkness enshrouded her field of vision until shadow swallowed all. And blinking never dispelled it fully. The starry night blended with the darkness of death.

Breaking in was the easy part. Always was, wasn’t it?

Getting out, unnoticed, unscathed—that was the hard part.

Everything hurt.

Guess this is what dying is like.

Losing consciousness, losing time, she didn’t know how long she took to fade away, in and out, until a silhouette rushed to her rescue, towering over her, and joining the darkness in blotting out the glittering night’s sky.

Not the silhouette of Ruiz, that is, but many figures. Men in black jumpsuits, armored, and armed to the teeth with firearms and batons. They sported ski masks like her own, with eyes covered by night-vision goggles.

A whole strike force of hired guns crowded around her.

They lifted her up. Not a damned thing she could have done about it.

They carried her away. Over the crumpled carcass of the Apex Predator.

All the pain went away, flared up, went away again.

Away.

They carried her away, into a blinding bright light.

6 notes · View notes

swiftmitsu · 2 months

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hehehueuh walks in backflips, giggles, breakdances, hits you, hugs you One of these isn't like the other but it's okay

*lipbites*

*leans on wall*

heya there pretty boy

*slips on banana peel—💥”

#mitsuasks #mellybabbles #<3333 #breaking in #hugging you #eating you #shaking you #in that order #*flutters eyelashes*

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paranoia-art · 2 months

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Writing Prompt

Villain: "It's freaking 3 AM IN THE MORNING! Who could be making this noise at such an ungodly hour..."

*Hero clearly drunk laying on broken glass under a broken window.*

Villain: "....OHFORTHELOVEOF--"

#books #writers of tumblr #writing prompt idea #writing prompt #prompt idea #dialogue prompt #story prompt #story ideas #villains lover #villain and hero #hero and villain #drunk #breaking in #lovers #enemies to lovers #enemies to lovers trope

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evilhorse · 5 months

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Ask any Nazi who lives in the ruins of his past!

(Captain America #195)

#captain america #steve rogers #Nazis #ruins #breaking in #jack kirby #marvel comics #comics #70s comics #bronze age comics #madbomb

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oh-zap · 1 month

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Ah, classic Bob.

<-Previous Page | Start Over | Next Page->

Read previous chapters of DooLMooN ->HERE<-

#comics #doolmoon #clay #webtoon #webcomic #indie comics #original comic #webcomic series #webtoon canvas #my comic #breaking in

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badicebreakers · 2 months

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Hi there

This is my very boring, anticlimactic break into the internet. I’m gonna share some of my thoughts and beliefs here because fuck twitter (I’m not calling it X)

Can’t wait!

#new to tumblr #dump #breaking in #internet #hello tumblr #hello world

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dj0rdjev1ch · 3 months

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trying to break in

#breaking in #sweet #cool #crazy #wlw #lesbian

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drmonkeysetroscans · 7 months

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Pardon?

#breaking in

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that1dragonfruit · 7 months

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Blue, the stray I secretly adopted is trying to break in, but because of fleas he can not come in, but that doesn’t stop me from letting him in anyway 😌

(We feed him and give him water if your wondering)

#cat #cute #cute animals #breaking in #stray cat #i love him

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somewhereapart · 1 year

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Breaking In, Ch 53

After a tumultuous two weeks, Regina's back on the therapist's couch. TW: discussions of disordered eating

Regina arrives five minutes early for her appointment with Dr. Hopper on Wednesday evening, giving her time to greet Belle with a smile and exchange small talk about their holiday weekends. Belle had spent hers at the beach; Regina claims to have spent hers “relaxing at home.” Which is absolutely true—she had been at home, and she had been very relaxed.

The receptionist doesn’t need to know that she’d also been very naked and that she’d spent more time getting busy than any sane person would think was reasonable. She’ll save that tidbit for Dr. Hopper.

Along with all the other tidbits—it seems like much longer than two weeks since the last time she sat on this couch. Things with Robin have shifted and settled, her father knows the secret she thought would blow up all of their lives (and has vowed to keep it), her mother is, for all intents and purposes, cut off for another three weeks, Sidney has gone off his rocker, and her work life is in upheaval.

If she wasn’t so determined to wrestle her eating disorder back under control as quickly as possible, she might have a hard time figuring out where to focus this week. As it is, she’s debating whether she wants to discuss some of the other things first, whether it might be beneficial to lead with something less fraught, or if she should just dig in and give the whole hour to the problem on her plate.

She’s still mulling it over when Dr. Hopper opens the door and invites her into his office, Pongo hopping up onto the sofa and settling in just as she does. She gives the dog a little pat on his head as she leans back into the sofa cushions and Dr. Hopper balances his notepad on his lap and clicks his pen to life.

(Continue on Ao3)

#breaking in #somewhereapart writes #outlaw queen #oq fic #hey it's christmas #time for BIn update #i'm gonna try to update more often in 2023 #like maybe monthly #see how i'm burying that in the tags?#oh yeah baby

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coralios · 2 years

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#justice league #unlimited #season 1 #episode 6 #fearful symmetry #the question #dc #breaking in

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naminethewriter · 10 months

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How It All Began

Chapter Five: Library Visit

Masterpost | First | Previous | Next | Ao3

Story Summary: Remus, son of a simple fisherman, had worked hard to become the captain of his own pirate ship. And in his humble opinion, it was going great! His crew was small but reliable and they had just stolen something that could them some nice cash from a military vessel they happened to cross on the open sea. They just needed to hide it somewhere until it was safe to sell. How lucky for them that they come across a nice, uninhabited island.

Little did Remus know just who he would find on that little piece of land and how it would change his life entirely.

Content Warning: Books, Minor Violence, Threats, Piracy, Breaking In

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Remus loathed libraries. He always had. Which kinda sucked because he loved learning, but in a library, you had to be quiet and mostly still and he just couldn’t do that for the life of him. He learned better through listening anyway. So standing in the entry hall of the biggest library he’s ever seen made him feel kind of sick.

The place was huge. Three floors full of books, marble columns supporting the upper floors. The main hall was long and open towards the ceiling, with the second and third floor stretching from balconies on either side about 10 feet apart. It was a pompous place that had already done them a great service, as much as Remus loathed to admit it.

After presenting his crew with the instructions Janus had given them, Remy had supported Remus’ hunch about the ‘Ever-Frozen Isle’, while both Sloane and Missy agreed with Patton on the volcano bit. Corbin had been the one to identify the ‘Mouth of the Ocean’ as a giant whirlpool somewhere in the northeastern seas. Remus had heard about the phenomenon before, the thing was apparently a few miles wide and had swallowed countless ships that were unlucky enough to get too close to its rapids. He just never knew that it was referred to as a mouth, though he could see where the name came from.

So, after they had sold the Admiral’s seal (to Patton’s relief and the crew’s monetary benefit), they set off to Marblerock Port, a huge trading city about five days travel from their location. Once there, Missy and Toby had gone off to party, drink and maybe find some material to fix up their ship (not that it necessarily needed improving, Missy was just a tinkerer). Corbin, together with Sloane and Elliot had gone to the library for further research into their clues. Patton had tagged along on their first day, trying to help out when, according to Corbin, he had seen a worker have a bit of a meltdown when she dropped some books. Always willing to help, Patton had offered to assist her and apparently did such a good job that he was asked if he could come back the next day. Quite a few people that normally worked in the library had gotten sick and they needed to fill their vacancies somehow. Patton had refused at first, but Corbin nudged him to at least consider it and, after consulting their captain, they decided that an inside man could be helpful. So, Patton accepted the job for the few days they planned to dock.

Which turned out to be very fortunate for them, since some of Patton’s new coworkers were quite chatty and with his innocent demeanor, Pat had soon found out that Woodsworth’s book was indeed still in the library’s archive, though under restrictive access.

Why Logan had told them about the book also became clear once Corbin had figured out which volcano the note spoke of: Coal Black Peak, named for its ash covered crater that painted the mountain’s tip black, located about half a day’s journey into Siren territory. They had found it by connecting Glacier Paradise (the Ever-Frozen Isle) and The Swirl of Doom (aka the Mouth of the Ocean (whoever named it had a flair for the dramatic apparently)) on a sea chart. In the middle of that line, they then located the island where Coal Black Peak stood.

Sailing through Siren territory and surviving wasn’t unheard of, but it certainly wasn’t easy or a smart thing to do. If that book Logan spoke of had some information that would help them not anger a bunch of immortal beings known for sinking ships, then it would be worth getting. Which led to why Remus himself was currently standing in the library, along with Remy and Toby. Corbin and Elliot were already inside as visitors, Patton was working, Sloane and Missy acted as lookouts and Emile had stayed on the ship.

The plan was rather simple:

Locate the head librarian that they knew was working the floor today from Patton. Apparently, they were very severely understaffed.

Have Patton, Corbin and Elliot shoo out every other visitor under the guise of 'closing early because of official business.' While only Patton had the authority to do so, Corbin and Elliot could claim that they had been asked to help and if they weren't taken seriously, they could send Patton their way.

Get the head librarian to the back by asking about the history section.

Threaten her with guns they smuggled in to get her to take them to the restricted section and retrieve the book.

Patton and the others make sure no other employees interfere.

Tie the librarian up so she can't call the cops on them, leave her to be found by her colleagues later.

Bail back to the ship and get the hell out of the harbor quickly.

If they are tailed, let Toby shoot them down until they aren't tailed anymore.

Easy-peasy. Trying to blend in with the crowd was super annoying (Remus had to comb his hair – yuck!) but it worked well enough that they weren’t being stared at while walking through the shelves to find the head librarian. Patton had described her as a stern-looking and blunt older woman with gray, shoulder-length hair. She was supposed to be mostly at the front but when Remus and the other two had entered, there was only a young man behind the counter, who was in the process of checking out another visitor.

Remy and Toby had separated from him then. They were still in view, all three of the mulling about close to the entrance waiting for the woman to return from wherever she had gone. Remus idly played with the locket around his neck as he pretended to read the titles of the books in the shelves in front of him. Logan would have probably gotten a kick out of the place. He just found it suffocating. Thankfully it didn’t take long until Remy spotted the librarian first, giving the other two a signal before approaching her with a kind smile.

“What can I do for you, young man?” The woman fit Patton’s description to a tee and her voice just made it more obvious, firm and to the point while remaining appropriate for a library. Remy explained to the woman that the three of them were tourists and very interested in records of the local history, when Remus spotted Patton on the balcony above them. He gave him a nod, which he returned and then hurried off to tell the other patrons to file out.

“Hmph. Finally a tourist with a little sense. You’re actually come to learn something about our history,” the head librarian said when Remus tuned back into the conversation.

“Oh, of course, it’s fascinating,” Toby smiled. To the woman it must look friendly, Remus could see that Toby really just wanted to knock her out and get the whole thing over with. “I’m sure just this building alone can tell an interesting story.” The librarian looked far too pleased about the comment and, predictably, started telling them all about its construction, former uses and the extensive collection it now hosts while leading them deeper into the bookshelves. She was too distracted to note the number of people heading towards the exit.

They arrived at the history section conveniently located close to the entrance to the archives. The woman continued talking, even as she stopped at the relevant shelves. The trio let her. The longer she talked, the more patrons would get out of the building.

“…and I’ve held this position here for the last thirty-four years,” she finished with a smile. “Anyway, enough about me–“ Remus hadn’t even noticed that she had switched over to talking about herself at some point. “It’s the local history you’re interested in. These shelves should contain everything you could want to know about the subject, from out city’s founding to the renovation efforts of the last five years.”

“Great,” Remus said in the fakest happy voice he could muster. “I just have one more question for you.”

“Of course, I am happy to help,” she smiled. She didn’t notice Remy slipping behind her, gun in hand. Toby was next to her, ready to shut her up if she tried to yell. Remus pulled out his own pistol and pointed it at the woman’s chest.

“Would you be so kind and take us to the archive to retrieve Woodworth’s book about Sirens?”

The woman’s eyes were wide as saucers as she first stared at the weapon pointed at her and then Remus’ smile. She tried to take a step back, but Remy simply pushed his own gun against her.

“This doesn’t have to escalate,” Remus informed her calmly. “You get us the book and nobody gets hurt.”

“You—you can’t threaten me!” she squawked. “We are still during opening hours! There are many people here who will notice my absence!”

“Oh, weren’t you informed?” Remus asked, acting innocently. “The library had to close early today. All patrons were asked to leave.”

“As if my staff would fall for such a trick!” Her eyes darted between Remus, his gun and Toby next to her. She hadn’t even attempted to scream yet, Remus had to give her that, she seemed to realize there was a reason that Toby kept his hands free.

“Look,” Remus growled, now growing impatient. “I’m not some cliché villain that will tell you his entire evil plan if you stall long enough. I know you know where the book is. I know you have the key to the archive on you and I know the door down there is right around the corner here. You will bring us down there now, you will give us the book, or I will shoot you and then my crew will burn this building down to the ground, capiche?” Terrified, the woman nodded. “Great. Then, after you.”

Remus stepped aside and Remy poked his gun into the woman’s back to get her to start walking. Flanked by Remus and Toby, she led them to the locked door labeled ‘Archives’. With shaking hands, she pulled out a keyring and opened the door. Behind it was a staircase leading down, wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side. Remus took the lead, Toby put a hand on the librarian’s shoulder and guided her forward. Remy took up the rear, pulling the door behind him but not closing it fully.

When they arrived at the bottom of the stairs, they were greeted by a massive array of books that rivalled what they had upstairs in the open library, though the lighting down here was much worse. With the shelves reaching up to the ceiling it was hard to tell just how expansive the collection was.

“If you think you can lead us around in here in circles to buy time, you should forget it. I know this should take you no more than ten minutes to find and I will keep track of time.”

“Of—of course,” the librarian stammered. “It’s this way.” She started leading them through the bookshelves, Remus taking note of the turns they took and making a show of glancing at a pocket watch he had stolen at the market earlier that day. He usually didn’t bother with clocks. Eight minutes in the librarian stopped.

“It’s here.” She motioned to a safe embedded into the wall in front of them. It was a big iron door that probably had a whole room filled with banned books behind it.

“Well then, open it.”

“It’s— uhm, it’s complicated and I can’t really – well not alone at least – I…”

“Shut up,” Remus growled. “I’m not dumb. And I know you’re not dumb either, so if you really hadn’t been able to open this alone with what you have on you, you would have told us about it upstairs, because if we shoot you right now and leave, no one will know about it until your corpse has already started to rot. So–“ He leaned close to her face and grinned. “Open this door, get the book and stop wasting my time.”

She was wise enough to not open her mouth again and simply nodded, fumbling with her keys again. She had the safe open in less than a minute and Remus motioned for Remy to wait for them outside, he didn’t want to give the librarian a chance to lock them all inside. Remus took a look around the room while Toby hovered over the woman’s shoulder as she located their book. Few of the book spines told him why they deserved to be locked in a dusty room, never to be read, but he figured most of them were there for stupid reasons.

“H—here it is!” Remus turned around to see the librarian pull a book out of the shelves and hand it to Toby, who immediately held it out for Remus to take without taking his eyes off her. She visibly swallowed. Remus took the leatherbound tome and quickly leafed through it. It seemed legit.

“That wasn’t so hard now, was it?” he asked with a grin. Frightened, the woman shook her head. “Good, then let’s get out of here. Toby, keep a hold of her.” Toby did as he was told and Remus left the room, Remy nodding at him as he stepped out before filing in at the back again, gun ready. Remus took the lead back himself, pretty much to show off to the old lady that she couldn’t have made him lose his way down here if she’d tried. Once they were close to the staircase, but not in sight yet, he stopped.

“Tie her up and to a shelf. We don’t need her anymore.”

“You can’t leave me here, I’ll–” she started protesting, but Remus quickly shushed her as Toby pushed her arms together behind her back, firm but not hurtful, while Remy pulled out some rope.

“We’ll make sure someone else will come down here before the end of the day. We just need you to not make a ruckus until we’re far away.” Before she could try and argue again, Toby pushed her down by her shoulder until she sat leaned against the corner of a shelf which Remy then tied her to.

“You are an enemy to academics everywhere,” the woman spat as they moved away from her.

“Me?” Remus laughed. “I’m not the one who locks books away because they don’t fit with the narrow worldview I’ve built myself. From what I understand this book–“ He pat the bag at his side where he had stored Woodsworth’s book for now. “–shows a way to coexist with Sirens, or at least that they aren’t the monsters they are made out to be. But you and your like don’t want to hear that. You want everything to stay the same, to blame them for the shit you do. You piss me off.” Remus spat next to her, making her flinch before walking away, Toby and Remy close behind. Upstairs, they left the door to the archives open slightly and calmly walked out the front door, passing Patton on the way, who nodded at them.

Back in the fresh air, they made their way into an alleyway close by where Sloane was waiting for them. Remus handed the bag with the book over to him and the man quickly left. Sloane was the fastest out of all of them and hadn’t been an active part of the heist, so he was their best bet to transport their newly acquired cargo back to the ship where Elliot, Corbin and Emile should await him. Missy should have seen them leave the library and be on the way back as well and Patton would end his shift and push for someone to check the archives before closing.

Everything had worked out just fine.

Remus loved simple plans. They just worked.

With a satisfied smile, he made his way back to the ship, Remy and Toby by his side, joking about something or other already. Remus was so lucky to have them in his crew. He wouldn’t trade them for all the riches in the world.

~~~

“Jan? I’m back!” Janus was lounging on the ground of his ‘room’ when he heard Virgil calling.

“Wonderful!” he hummed back, using magic instead of having to raise his voice because he didn’t feel like exerting himself. He had gotten a break from doing work for the Council and he fully intended to make use of every moment.

“Still in lazy mode I see,” Virgil commented as he swam in, floating above Janus with a smug smile.

“I am relaxing, Virgil, something you should learn about sometime.”

“Oh, shut it.”

“You came in here to talk to me, don’t blame me that I acquiesced with your request.”

“I didn’t request anything.” Janus, who had had his eyes closed thus far, opened one of them to look at his friend. Virgil didn’t seem to actually be upset though, so he went back to dosing on his moss.

“Then what did you come here for?” he asked with a yawn.

“I thought you would be interested in hearing about what the status of the pirate was.”

“There’s a development? I would have guessed he would take longer to figure things out.” Janus didn’t open his eyes again, but his voice showed his interest. With a grin, Virgil floated down, stopping next to him without actually lying down.

“Oh, on the contrary. Not only is he on his way to the volcano, but he also somehow got his hands on some protection runes that he had his people carve on the belly of their ship. They’re a bit outdated but should let them cross our territory without drawing our kin’s ire.”

“Huh. Maybe he’s smarter than I thought.” Janus’ tone sounded bored and uninterested, but Virgil could see the smile tugging at his lips. He was trying to mask how invested he’d gotten. What else could Virgil do but tease him about it?

“Oh, stop trying to sound nonchalant,” he grinned. “You like him.” Janus sputtered, sitting up and staring at Virgil in offence.

“I do not! He’s filth! A typical human, a violent one at that!”

“Please! If that were the case, you wouldn’t have given him the quest in the first place!”

“I wanted to see how bad he could screw it up! I didn’t think he would get anywhere!” Janus’ protests were weak, especially since Virgil could watch the skin of his right cheek turn red in embarrassment.

“Stop denying it, Bananaconda! You’re interested! It’s not a bad thing.”

“I am not interested! He’s human! I hate humans!” Janus hissed, trying to act offended but Virgil could hear his voice falter. As much as Janus didn’t want it to be true, since he was put in charge of supervising Logan, he had slowly learned that not all humans were bad.

“You’re going soft,” Virgil teased with a grin.

“I am not!” Janus fumed.

“You so are!” Virgil laughed and Janus lunged at him. He dodged out of the way and took off into the tunnels, Janus close behind. As he continued to flee, Virgil wondered what other changes the humans would bring. And while he usually hated change, he couldn’t help but look forward to it.

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