#i sure hope the sacred timeline explodes at the end

[twh-news]

‘Loki’: Tom Hiddleston on Finding The God of Mischief’s New Family with the TVA

"Maybe there’s more burden and less glory in the purpose this time.”

In the first episode of Season 1 of Marvel Studio’s Loki, Tom Hiddleston’s mischievous scamp is plucked from the Sacred Timeline, brought before a judge at the Time Variance Authority, sentenced to be pruned for his actions, and only saved at the last second by curious TVA Agent Mobius who needs Loki’s help. Loki, being Loki, is less than thrilled about everything going on and in true Loki fashion snarls, “I’m going to burn this place to the ground.”

Fast forward a little bit — one trip to the Void and the end of time later — and Loki’s singing a different tune. He no longer wants to burn the Time Variance Authority and everyone inside its walls to the ground; now he’s trying to save it.

Season 1 ends with Loki arriving back at the TVA but things look much, much different than when he left them. After some painful Time Slipping back and forth, Loki realizes that he’s being transported through the past, present, and future of the TVA…but that’s still not the biggest headache on his hands. Thanks to Sylvie killing He Who Remains, no one is regulating the timelines, let alone the Temporal Loom which is overloaded and very close to bursting. Loki, now more than ever, is under a time crunch to figure out what is happening and stop it before any more catastrophic events take place.

“The stakes are higher, the clock is running down, and reality is going to be destroyed including everyone in it and everyone he loves, so Loki is propelled by this momentum and this urgency to try to put the brakes on the dissolution and destruction of reality,” returning star Tom Hiddleston explains. Not only is he trying to save the timelines, but more importantly, he’s trying to save his newfound family — Mobius, Hunter B-15, Casey, and everyone else at the TVA.

“Loki always struggled with family in the MCU, but he’s found a new family in the TVA,” Hiddleston continues. “In the breakdown of understanding himself and having his sense of self opened up, broken down, and rebuilt by Mobius and his colleagues at the TVA, there’s a new awareness and a capacity to connect with other people.”

It’s a big 180° shift, considering Loki first walked the TVA halls threatening destruction, and now his only goal is to make sure the TVA doesn’t explode.

“He’s a character who, as long as I’ve played him has been searching for meaning,” Hiddleston adds. “Even when he wasn’t aware of it, he was full of grievance and anger and emotional destabilization because he didn’t feel he had purpose or meaning. He was looking for meaning in the wrong places and now I think he’s found a way of giving himself purpose, which is to try to reorganize, to help Mobius and Hunter B-15 and the TVA.”

It’s a major shift for the character as viewers dive into the new season, and Hiddleston knows it, “If Season 1 was about self-awareness and self-acceptance, Season 2 is about taking responsibility and trying to find a new purpose. Maybe there’s more burden and less glory in the purpose this time.”

Either way, Hiddleston is thrilled to be putting back on Loki’s TVA jacket.

“I can’t believe I’m back. Season 1 felt like a new beginning because we were stripping Loki of everything that was familiar to him it was taking him away from, from the timeline and Asgard and Thor and Odin and all the things that I was familiar with. It’s a new beginning, a new story, a new chapter, and hoping that the audience will accept, and you know and be inspired by our new story… Let’s see if we can do it all again but better.”

Editor’s note: The following interview was conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike began on July 14, 2023.

#tom hiddleston #loki #interview #loki series #loki season 2 #article #loki s02 #loki spoiler #spoilers

[nebulousfishgills]

I just noticed

Look at the price on the felled sign:

$6,999.99 Robotic Dogs

Clearly the economy messed up and there was a MASSIVE inflation around 2050

#i sure hope the sacred timeline explodes at the end #because my god #the future isn't looking very bright #movies #marvel #avengers #disney plus #loki #disney + #loki series #tom hiddleston #loki spoilers #loki series spoilers

[toastedside]

For Better and For Worse

Batmom!Reader x Batfamily

Warning: angst, fluff in the end

Note: The last chapter for the miniseries! It was fun writing this, and I know it's been too long since I actually posted the first chapter. But it was fun. Enjoy!

Masterlist, Previous Chapter

Batman landed on his foot silently. His eyes scanned through the warehouse, before him was a gigantic machine with empty compartment that would fit one person. He quickly typed on the small computer on his wrist, sighing silently to himself as he waited for his scanning result to come.

“Batman,” come Superman’s voice through the comm. “Are you in?”

“I’m in,” Batman confirmed. “There’s a machine inside. It looks like somebody deactivated it before we come. I’m trying to transfer their data into my computer to get some information.”

“So Red Robin and Superboy were right,” Superman said again. There was a slight quiet sound of the wind behind him. Batman assumed he was flying as he answered through the comm. “The warehouse is empty as well. I think they had abandoned it.”

“We can’t be really sure about that,” Batman’s let out a huff as his computer displayed the transfer data has been finished. “I’m going to decipher some codes. Keep an eye on possible threat.”

Batman grunted softly as he squatted down to take a better look of the main controller device. It looked unassuming and tame while it was deactivated, but one better look alone could tell him that it would be deadly. He typed an override code on the main controller, his lips pressed firmly together as the machine slowly coming back to life.

From the corner of his eyes, he caught a glimpse of movement that he had known too well. “I already told you to let the League take care of this.”

“Yeah, but it was me and Conner who found it,” Red Robin came into the light. He quickly approached the main controller and eyed it silently. “I have just successfully deciphered few codes that might help. If there’s anyone that could help, it would be me.”

Batman stared at him for a few moments. He weighed his options before let out a tired sigh. Figured there’s no way Red Robin would back out now. “Only to decipher the code. After that you leave the rest to the League.”

Red Robin nodded before he dove in right away into his work. Batman lingered for a few moments to watch, but as the machine starting to wake up more and more from its slumber, he left Red Robin with the controller device as he investigated. He studied the empty compartment silently, taking notes in how the machine was built.

“B, what did you type to activate the machine?” Red Robin called. There’s a slight confusion in his voice that robbed Batman’s attention.

“The code that have been transferred to my computer.”

“That’s not possible,” Red Robin whispered. Now he sounded so alarmingly surprised. “It’s different from what I decipher earlier. B, I think– I think there’s an error in this.”

Batman was about to open his mouth when the machine whirling dangerously. Red Robin quickly tried to type in an override code, but the more he tried, the more the machine whirling dangerously and begun to rattle. He lifted his eyes briefly and saw Batman tried to tame the machine, his shoulder pressed against the empty compartment as he grunted loudly. Suddenly, the whole room was too bright from him to see as a bright, white light coming from the core of the machine shone brightly. Red Robin called for Batman a few times before the machine whirled for the last time and exploded, sent Red Robin flying across the room and the machine crushed underneath the rubbles into oblivion.

=======================================

The footage cut off right away after the explosion, leaving you heaved for a sharp breath as the camera went blank. You could see the reflection of you own face on the screen, how horror seeped right through your skin and welled in your eyes. You were unaware with tears that streamed down your face until you saw your reflection. Behind you was your children, all wide eye from witnessing the footage.

“So that was the explanation for your dislocated shoulders months ago?” Dick asked, his tone was demanding and worried.

“Yeah. I am sorry I didn’t tell any of you sooner,” Tim said bashfully. Cass silently approached him and pulled him into a half-hug. Tim smiled in appreciation. “But did you see the light zapped from that machine briefly before it blows up?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I think that light was what took Bruce away,” Tim said firmly. He had spent so many nights watching the footage over and over again, he practically could recite it in his sleep. “That would explain the lack evidence of his dead body. Besides, if you notice,” Tim pressed play on the footage again, and paused right few seconds before the explosion. “He was already gone when the machine blows up.”

“Are you trying to say that machine was a transfer device?” Damian asked, his eyes watched the paused footage before shifted into his brother.

“Could be. I tried to work with all sources that I have, but I can’t possibly decipher all the codes since the machine blow up before I could transfer everything,” Tim rolled his chair in front of the Batcomputer, his fingers swiftly typed few codes that he had known by heart. The monitor showed a half-finished string of codes. “See. It’s all half-baked. My strongest theory that I can come up with it was the machine use the same technology used for Zeta Beams. More or less.”

“So… B isn’t dead from the explosion, he was transferred into another place before the machine blows up?” Jason asked slowly.

“Another place, another timeline, or dimension.”

“Shit,” Dick cursed. His fingers ran through his hair as he stared into the footage again. “If you were right, then Bruce is trapped and possibly having no idea on how to go back.”

“Call the League,” you finally found your voice back. You were surprised you could muster a coherent sentence with a firm voice. “I know what you’re all thinking. But this is dangerous. Call the League.”

“We have all the sources we could possibly need!” Damian argued. “From what I know, they abandoned the warehouse. The machine could still be there. We just need to salvage some data and move in motion after that.”

“I know that all of you are more than capable, but I am your mother. I have my limit. I have lost my husband; I am not going to lose my children too.” The firmness on your voice left no room to argue. You stared into your children one by one to emphasize your argument. “This is their mission after all. You all will work side by side with them. And none of you will work without them. Am I understood?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Now, let’s go upstairs and eat some dinner. I’ll call Clark first thing in the morning, for now let’s just take some rest.” you ushered your children towards the staircase leading into the house.

Dinner was normal to say the least. But there was a growing tension that everyone had tried so hard not to talk about for their mother’s sake. You practically could see all of your children twitched in impatience and anticipation, all minds already long gone into a battle that still yet to happen.

“We’ll find him, Mom,” Dick said with a kiss on your temple at night before bed. You mustered your best reassuring smile, cradled your son in your arms. For the first time in a long time, you were scared for your children’s life.

Sleep seemingly unwilling to come that night. You spent the night tossed around relentlessly; mind wandered far into all possible scenarios that you could come up with. Was Bruce really out there, trapped in a place he didn’t belong? It had been three months without him, you didn’t want to get too hopeful. But a tiny part in your heart longed to be with him once more and wished to hold him in your arms again.

====================================

“Y/N, it’s so good to see you again,” Diana beamed as soon as her eyes caught your presence. It made her smile, as you walked towards her and quickly accepted her invitation for a hug. “I miss our girl’s night.”

You chuckled at the mention of your sacred night. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve called you sooner.”

“No, no. No apology. I understand what you’ve been through was hard and hurtful,” Diana was quick to squish your apology. “Besides, looks like somebody’s a little jealous that she isn’t invited into our small reunion.”

You followed Diana’s gaze, and a smile twitched at the corner of your lips at the sight of Dinah lurked in the corner. You laughed, gestured for her to come. Dinah came right away, a frown formed on her lips as she crashed you into a bone-crushing hug.

“My God, you have no idea how relieved and happy I am when you called!” Dinah breathed. She patted your back gently.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve called sooner.”

“I am glad either way,” Dinah said as she released you from her hug, but her hand lingered on your wrist before she let out a sigh. “We are here for you, all of us. We always will. And we’ll find him.”

“I don’t want to be too hopeful,” you said sullenly. “But whatever happen, I hope it helps the League to find the trail of whoever responsible behind this.”

The League had been called first thing in the morning, and now you had all of the superhero cramped together inside your house. You watched from the back of the room the briefing that Tim gave to the League upon the lead and dots he had connected in past three months. Your heart sank into your stomach like a sandbag upon watching the footage again where your husband presumed died three months ago.

Alfred came few moments later with a tray full of refreshment. He decided to stay at the back of the room with you, watching all of your children had meeting with the League.

“Even though I have witnessed this thousand time over, it’s never getting any easier,” you sighed as you broke the silence. “It feels like I am sending my children into a suicide mission with no precaution. To save their father. We don’t know the threat that might wait for them out there.”

“We never could shelter our children forever even if we wanted to. They ought to spread their wings out there one way or another. It’s their thing after all, they would never sleep before they find the answer,” Alfred offered a consolidation. “The best we can do is to make it as safe as possible. You have done that.”

You smiled. “Thank you, Alfred.”

==================================

It had been three weeks since the last time you witnessed all of the Justice League member cramped together inside your house for a meeting. Your children had been sent on a mission alongside the League. You couldn’t say you like it, but you saw the childish excitement Damian tried so hard to hide from the thought of fighting alongside the League, and opted to at least look approving. You were proud nonetheless.

The house was a little empty without most of your children’s presence as they’re out for a mission. Spared for Damian who was constantly sent home to attend school. Alfred had helped you to take care of Wayne Enterprise in Tim’s absence as you tore yourself in half between your work in hospital and taking the lead for the company, but it was still manageable at least.

Damian would tell you about the mission progress all the time, which sadly wasn’t much. But they still had baby steps progress nonetheless, and progress is still a progress. They have managed to salvage some valuable parts from the machine, but it wasn’t much of a lead to give them answer.

You get off from your car after you gather some courage to walk into an empty house again. The day had been long and tedious, you had just chewed out marketing department this morning and had to tended some patients in the afternoon. All of your muscles are sore and you wanted nothing but a long hot bath.

The house was empty just as you suspected. But you found a surprise as you stepped into the study room to grab some book to read. The grandfather’s clock was opened ajar, meaning somebody must have went downstairs into the Batcave. It could be Alfred cleaning up, but you found herself going downstairs.

Your eyes widened as soon as the sound of murmured conversations come into your ears. You descended down further; head perked up at the familiar sound you had missed so much. “Guys!” you practically shouted as you ran towards your children. “Oh my God, you’re all here.”

It was Jason who caught you first and welcomed you into his embrace. Your other children soon followed and trapped you in the middle, but you wouldn’t have it any other way. All of your fatigue and stress suddenly lifted from your shoulders now that all of your children are home safe and sound.

“How was your mission? All good? Are you guys safe?” come the string of questions you couldn’t help but to ask. You quickly check all of your children for any obvious injury, and you found yourself let out a long, relieved breath you didn’t realize you were holding.

“We are, Mama,” Jason gently placed his hands on your shoulder to ground you. “We figure we might come home for a little while. It’s been a long time after all.”

“Yeah. I miss your beef stew,” Tim chimed in. “Can we have it for dinner tomorrow?”

“Of course,” you said as you gently cradled Cass in your arms. Cass clung into you like a baby koala for dear life, her nose nuzzled into your collarbone seeking for comfort. It made your heart soared and dropped at the same time, knowing that she found comfort in your presence and the fact that she must’ve had deprived for comfort that she actively seeks for it.

All of you shared blissful moment together, all shared some jokes and recite few relaxed and funny moments happened during mission. You were glad nonetheless, with Cass laid her head on your lap, Damian pressed against your side, and all of your children are here laughing and reciting some stories, you couldn’t ask for a better way to end the day.

The Batcomputer suddenly beeped, alerted everyone that somebody is coming. Dick quickly rose from his seat and take a solemn look to the computer screen. “It’s Uncle Supes and Wonder Woman,” he announced, a little confused at their arrival.

Your heart sank to the bottom of your stomach. Does it mean all of your children had to go for a mission again?

The door to the Batcave opened not so long after, revealed two hero came into the light. All of your children were already on their feet and geared up, ready to dive back into the battle once they’re needed. But a strange expression coming from Diana and Clark somehow told you that it was not a mission.

“Clark? Diana? Is everything alright?” you were concerned. You found yourself pulled Damian into your side and firmly held him, afraid of letting your son go once more.

“Y/N, you might want to sit down,” Clark gently said.

Diana gently took you into her arms and led you into the nearest chair. You were still a little puzzled, your heart racing against your chest. Diana then gently placed her hand on your shoulders, her eyes solemnly staring into yours with an unreadable expression. It frustrated you greatly.

“Diana, what is going on?” you demanded.

“Hold on for a little while. But I need you to sit down.”

“What–” you opened your mouth to protest, but was cut off abruptly at the sight appeared in front of you.

You blinked rapidly, afraid that it was some mind trick that you weren't aware about. You found yourself awestruck, unable to move, but at the same time unable to believe your own eyes. You heaved few heavy breaths that sounded like you were half laughing and half crying, your mouth went agape at the sight alone.

“Holy shit,” you could hear Jason cursed loudly. “Holy shit. It works.”

So it was real, then.

There he was. Your husband. The one and only Bruce Wayne. Completely alive albeit looked a little gruff and exhausted. He had some rough stubble all over his chin, and the usual light in his eyes had dimmed. You could only stare and stare, your mouth let out few incoherent noises that was only above whisper.

Bruce slowly approached you. As if he was afraid, but the corner of his eyes lifted up happily at the sight of you stared at him like a deer caught in the headlight. From this close distance, you could see his eyes glossed from tears that started to well in his eyes. You watched him kneeled in front of you.

“Honey,” Bruce said as he gently took your hand into his. “I am so sorry.”

“Bruce,” you let out a shaky breath, sounded as if you were strangled. Your unoccupied hand shakily covered your trembling lips, eyes widened in disbelief. “Is this… is this really you? Are you real?”

Bruce gently took your hand and placed it on his rough cheek. There was a growing eye bag underneath his eyes. He looked so much older and tired than the last time you had remembered him. “It’s me. It’s me. As real as I could be.”

There are few beats of silence before you let out a strangled cry. You cupped his face with your hand, thumb gently stroking his cheeks. The stubble on his chin felt rough underneath your skin, but you found yourself loving the way it felt. “Bruce Wayne, you little shit! You promised that we will die together when we’re grey and old in our nineties!”

Bruce let out a surprised chuckle. It was warm and familiar, and you had missed it so much. It had been way too long since the last time you heard his laughter. “Therefore, here I am. Coming back to you to fulfil my promise.”

You smiled shakily as you laughed through the tears that stubbornly streamed down you face. You leaned closer to rest your forehead against his. “Don’t pull that stunt on me again.”

“I promised you I will always come back to you. And I do.”

“What happened?”

“The machine that I investigated had sent me into far past. I was trapped there unable to come back home, but I managed to survive. Until I met Barry, he said that he able to finished and decipher all the code gathered and redesigned the machine to bring me back. And therefore, here I am,” Bruce explained. “The warehouse was a trap set up to harm me. But Tim managed to inserted some codes before it exploded, so it sent me into different time instead of kill me in explosion. We figure it was a part of Injustice League’s scheme.”

“All I could think about was you. I worried about you and the kids. Sometimes the only thing that could get me through the day was the thought of that one day I will finally able to come back home to you.” Bruce placed a tender kiss on your knuckles. “You have managed to save me over and over again. Thank you.”

You couldn’t muster up any single words, so instead, you threw yourself into his embrace. Soon all of her kids would join and trapped you in the middle. Although Jason acted as if he hated it, you knew that deep inside his heart he was relieved to have his father back. Dick didn’t even bother to hide his excitement; he was just happy his family was whole once more.

That night, for the first time in forever, the night didn’t feel long and tedious. Or torturous. But neither of you and Bruce could able to sleep in a wink, you and him just hold each other close and greedily craved for each other’s presence. No words exchanged between you and him, however. But you were relieved. You were reunited with your love once more, and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

#batman #bruce wayne #batman imagine #batmom #batmom imagine #batman x reader #bruce wayne imagine #bruce wayne x reader #batfam #batfam imagine #dick grayson #nightwing #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #cassandra cain #orphan #damian wayne #robin #dick grayson imagine #jason todd imagine #tim drake imagine #cassandra cain imagine #damian wayne imagine #fluff #angst #dick grayson x reader #jason todd x reader #tim drake x reader

[iamanartichoke]

Congrats on follower milestone! I greatly enjoy your presence on my dash with your thoughts and witty tags and all :) For the Loki writing prompt, here's a sort of idea or mood or emotion, very vague, but maybe you can make something of it, and if not, totally cool! Prompt: Mobius taking care of Loki.

@humbae Thanks so much for your kind words as well as the prompt! I kinda just took the "taking care of" idea and had Mobius do the bare minimum, bc it's angstier that way, but I hope you like it anyway.

Summary: Takes place immediately after the end of episode 1; Loki has a realization and Mobius kinda maybe cares. Word Count: 1460 Author’s notes: Please forgive the quality, I started this earlier today and wanted to post it before watching the finale, so I finished the last bit of it in a less-than-alert state, merp.

*

“What’s this?” Loki asks. He can’t keep the edge of suspicion out of his voice.

“It’s tea,” Mobius says, as if it’s obvious. He sets the red mug down in front of Loki. “What we normally do is drink it.”

The suspicion doesn’t leave him. Loki eyes the mug, wondering if he’d even be able to tell if Mobius had done something nefarious to it - but, there would be little point in Mobius going to the trouble of intervening in Loki’s “trial” and recruiting him to the TVA only to turn around and poison him so, despite himself, Loki picks up the mug and takes a cautious sip.

“Hope you like chamomile,” Mobius adds as he takes the seat across from Loki. “It’s all I could find.”

“It’s passable,” Loki says, after a longer sip. When was the last time he’d had anything to drink? He can’t remember; the blur of New York shifts too sharply into the shock of the TVA and his brain feels too muddled to grasp onto any specifics. There’s been a consistent twisting in his stomach for days; he doesn’t know how long it’s been since he’s eaten, either.

Mobius is just watching him and Loki hunches his shoulders, a bit defensively. “What,” he says, setting down the mug.

Mobius shrugs. “You’re not the first Loki variant to come through here,” he responds. Before, when he’d been questioning Loki, everything about his posture had been straight and precise; now that the interrogation is over, Mobius has adopted a much more casual stance, leaning against the back of his chair with his legs slightly outstretched. “There’ve been a lot.”

“How many is a lot?” Loki’s mind is still spinning from the revelation that the rogue variant they’re hunting is another version of himself, but the idea of even more being out there just makes him feel slightly ill. There would be a crisis here, were Loki in a clearer headspace - something about how it could be possible for more than one version of himself to exist, and if those versions existed, what proof does he have that he, himself, in this moment, also exists? How does he know he is the real Loki? Is there a real Loki?

Apparently, he is in a clear enough headspace for a minor crisis. He wraps his hands around the mug, waiting for Mobius to answer.

“I don’t know,” is all Mobius says. “I’ve lost count, to be perfectly honest with you. You’re like a bad penny, you know - you just keep turning up. You’re a stubborn bastard, I’ll give you that.”

“Thank you.” Loki’s tone is icy. “So if there are so many other variants, why not prune me? What do you think I can do for you that they couldn’t?”

Mobius looks thoughtful for a moment before he shrugs. “Call it a hunch, I guess.”

Wonderful. Loki’s entire existence rests on this bureaucrat of a man’s hunch. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t find that particularly reassuring,” he counters. “How do I know you won’t simply prune me either once we find this other variant, or once I stop being useful to you?”

“What, whichever comes first?” Mobius’s lips tilt slightly upward. “I suppose you don’t.”

Loki slumps a bit in his chair. He’s still holding onto the mug and, for lack of anything else to do, brings it back to his lips. Chamomile, Mobius had called it. It tastes like honey, with just the slightest tinge of apples, and it makes Loki think of the fruit in Idunn’s orchard, how they melted on his tongue like sugar. He remembers dewy summer evenings, laying in the grass with Thor, each of them with a golden apple’s sticky sweetness coating their lips and teeth.

The back of his throat tightens and he focuses on the tea, blinking hard against the sudden sting of tears. Crying in front of Mobius is not something he wants to make a habit of.

Still - “In the desert, when your hunters set off those reset chargers …”

“They pruned the alternate timeline you created when you took off with the tesseract, yeah.” Mobius adjusts his position, straightening up and leaning forward, elbows on the table. “You - that is, the you that’s supposed to exist - never escaped. Your brother took you back to Asgard.”

“And the sacred timeline continues as it should.” The twisting in Loki’s stomach worsens, and it has nothing to do with hunger. “Which means I can never return to Asgard, because he’s already there.”

Mobius’s forehead creases a bit as he nods. He looks almost sympathetic. “You don’t have a place there, no,” he agrees.

A heavy silence falls over them. Loki doesn’t need Mobius to spell it out any further. Loki, the Loki he is right now, will never see Thor again. Nor his mother, or even Odin … but mostly, not Thor. His brother is the worst kind of gone, because he’s not dead, nor lost. He exists on the sacred timeline, forever separated from Loki, and none the wiser to Loki’s absence. He’ll never know that Loki is gone, because the correct Loki is still right where he should be - rotting in Asgard’s dungeons, perhaps, but home all the same.

Rage wells up inside of him, swift and cutting. He pushes away from the table and jumps to his feet so abruptly that even Mobius startles, but before he can do anything, Loki has hurled the red mug against the wall and it shatters, tea and glass shards clattering to the floor. “It isn’t fair,” he snarls; he pushes his hands through his hair, yanking hard at the strands yet the sting of it barely even registers. "That's not fair."

“Loki -”

Loki barely hears him. He drops his hands and clenches his fists; the rage is pressing against his throat, desperate for escape. He wants to scream. He wants to hurl magic in every direction. He truly wants to burn this place to the ground - the TVA, the timekeepers, and every person within it who is complicit in taking away entire realities with hardly a thought spared to the variants left behind.

He’s breathing hard. The trouble is, all of that anger has nowhere to go. Loki cannot bring himself to explode the way he wants to - with neither his magic nor the ability to set fire to the timekeepers’ hearts here and now, the only other option he’s got is to throw things, and he’s hurled enough chairs for today.

Closing his eyes, Loki turns in a circle, grabbing the back of his chair. Instead of throwing it, he leans forward, pressing all of his weight against it because he isn’t sure he can hold himself up. The effort it takes to keep from screaming is leaving him light-headed. Not Thor. Please, please don’t take Thor from me.

“Loki,” Mobius says again. Loki draws in a breath and lets it out slowly, and then opens his eyes and looks up. Mobius is hovering over him, but somehow he’s less dominating than he’d been before. He seems almost concerned - either that, or just plain tired. “Look, I get it. I get that you’re upset, but -”

“How?” Loki demands. His voice is hardly more than a growl. “The timekeepers made you. You’ve never lost anyone. You’ve never known anything besides this … this nightmare.” Frustrated, he pushes away from the chair and gestures broadly at the room around them. “Don’t tell me you get it.”

Mobius sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. “You’re right,” he agrees, “I suppose I don’t get it. But I can’t change what you’ve lost, either. All I can do is -”

“I know,” Loki cuts him off, and now he is the one who feels just plain tired. Just as swiftly as the rage had crashed over him, it was now receding again, leaving Loki feeling drained and so, so exhausted. “All you can do is offer me opportunity.” Not salvation. Not anything useful.

Instead of replying, Mobius just puts his hands in his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “Why don’t we start fresh tomorrow,” he suggests. “Okay? ‘Cause I can also offer you your benefits package, if you’re interested. Involves a hot meal and a place to sleep.” His lips quirk a little. “No offense, but you look like you could use both, like, yesterday.”

Loki eyes the other man. Mobius’s features blur a bit, and he realizes it’s because his eyes have welled up. He rubs them and then sighs and nods, giving in because what else is he to do? This is what he has been reduced to - powerless, with nowhere else to go, his entire existence contingent upon getting in - and staying in - Mobius’s good graces.

He’ll start with a hot meal.

#charlotte writes #follower celebration prompt series #loki series spoilers #loki spoilers #loki tv series spoilers #mobius dick #loki + mobius (platonic) #validatemepls #NOW i am going to go watch the finale #wish me luck

[cressasdbfanfics]

His Worst Fear

Here is part I of a requested 4-chapter fic I just finished. Story will get updated every Tuesday. 

Blurb: Goku Black discovers how rage affects a Saiyan's power and works to push Son Goku to his limit, making Goku's worst nightmare reality.

Fanfiction.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12453430/1/His-Worst-Fear

Archive of Our Own: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10665318/chapters/23605779

Part I:

Motivations

The seven Super Dragon Balls belonging to an alternate timeline floated in the emptiness of space before me. The time had come to summon the mightiest of the Eternal Dragons.

I chanted in the sacred language of the Kai, "Come forth, Dragon of the Gods, and grant my wish pretty peas!"

In a great flash of light, the Eternal Dragon of the gods took form.

Also using our tongue, he demanded, "State your wish."

I smiled. "Please exchange Son Goku's body with mine!"

A brilliant light consumed me, warmth spreading through from my head to my extremeties, and then faded soon after, the warmth disappearing as well. When the light faded, hair black as night dropped into my eyes.

"It is done."

I touched my new face, tracing the strong, angular features and brushing my raven-black bangs out of my eyes. I smiled, delighting in the sheer power coursing through my veins.

The next step was to ensure the wish could never be undone.

I closed my eyes, focusing on the energy I sought and opened them a moment later under a bright, warm sun, the smells of the lovely green grass and of a nearby forest flooding my sensitive nose.

It was beautiful – or would be once cleansed of all humanity.

"G-Goku!? Is that… really you!? Why did this happen!?"

I winced at the female human's screechy voice, resisting the urge to clap my hands over my ears, learning my eyesight and olfaction weren't the only senses more acute in my new body.

"I don't know! But it's me, Chichi! I swear! It's me!"

I walked toward them. "You are now only Goku in heart to be exact."

It was… a little bit odd to see myself staring at me, the awareness of a mortal looking out through my eyes, but I shoved the thought aside. I held my hand out in front of me, enveloping it in energy and he grabbed his mate and the small human that bore quite a resemblance to my new body and pulled them both behind him, his eyes wide.

He didn't stand a chance against me. I knew that body's capabilities – I was strong for a Kai, but that was only a fraction compared to my new power – and he was aware of that fact.

I lunged and – amazed by my newfound speed – shoved my hand straight through him, his death near instant, life leaving his wide eyes, and he fell limp to the ground as the female human screamed his name.

Smirking, I lifted my gaze to his mate and child. She grabbed the small human and ran. I lunged for them. She tried to shield him and I almost laughed at her futile attempt as I annihilated them, leaving nothing left.

I left that world, that timeline, to its fate – knowing there would be no one to defend it against the wrath of the God of Destruction when he chose to show – and demanded the Time Ring take me to an alternate timeline. One I intended to cleanse.

The one I chose to enact my plan would be the easiest to purge for the simple reason that entities from many years back destroyed many humans already. The signs of the destruction around the globe present in abandoned villages with crumbling buildings and overgrown with weeds and the mass burial plots scattered around the land all indicated by single large headstones adorned with only numbers denoting the humans buried under it and several small shrines.

Continuing my lap around the Earth, it truly was a beautiful planet. Pristine forest, majestic mountain ranges, and green, rolling hills covered in patches of vibrant wildflowers gave way to the deep blue ocean, the pleasant, briny smell reaching my sensitive nose. If left in the care of man, the planet would surely die – one of many reasons my path was righteous.

After admiring nature untainted by the filth of humans, I began my mission. Razing each city went smoothly. The humans quickly began to fight back, but their feeble weaponry was no match for my vast power.

Several cities in, I met a slight hiccup in my plan. A small energy blast took me by surprise, striking my chest and exploding. When the air cleared, a lavender-haired human stood before me.

He took a confident step toward me. "Odd. You look just like someone I've heard many stories about and yet–" he glanced at the pile of rubble around him "–you couldn't be him. He'd never do this."

I smirked. "Ah! So you know of me. I am Son Goku."

He returned my smirk. "I don't buy that for a second."

In an explosion of brilliant golden energy, he lunged at me with unexpected, amazing speed and managed to land a right hook, bruising my cheekbone but I was ready for his follow-through – his right elbow aimed for my nose – and knocked his elbow wide with little effort, creating an opening, countering with my own attack – a jab to his face – which connected, sending him flying but he recovered. He charged me, his blows flying fast enough that his speed would have been challenging in my old body but not in my new one. His was a speed unattainable by humans.

I dodged, blocked, and countered each of the Saiyan's blows with ease. He was frustrated, but I was bored by our skirmish. I had work to do. I sent him smashing into a building with a hard blow to his stomach – feeling his ribs give way under the hit – and then fired a blast to finish him off.

Who was he to stand up to a deity? It was no matter. He merely met his fate a few moments sooner than the rest of the humans in that city.

Destroying that city was as easy as the rest and I moved on. It became clear to me that each city was no different, all wretched places full of yelling, bad-tempered mortals undeserving of the gift of life. With each city, my plan was more and more justified. I had a lot of work ahead of me but someone had to do it since it was clear the other Kais had no interest in righting their mistake.

On the longer flights between distant cities, my mind wandered back to one particular fight, recalling the power he used, the thrill of trading blows. He was the first mortal to display any kind of power. I almost regretted killing him.

My arms crossed, my flight halted a distance above a smattering of sparsely populated tropical islands and the blue-green water that surrounded them. His life was every bit as meaningless, even displaying a familiar dose of arrogance tied to his heritage. Mortals of any breed were all the same in their barbaric tendencies. Mortals with the power to stand up to deities deserved death more than any other.

I shook myself of my preposterous regret and continued toward a new target. Cities first. Then time to annihilate those with the mistaken assumption they were safe in their small, remote towns.

City after city met their ends, the thick black smoke billowing high into the atmosphere. With the first cities I destroyed still burning, smoke soon blanketed much of the region. Unsightly as it was, it was necessary. The burning wouldn't last forever. Once that ceased, the planet would heal and my utopia would finally come to fruition.

While performing my self-assigned task, one thought sat in the back of my mind, ever-present: the fight.

A few lunar cycles had gone by before I made a startling yet delightful discovery: He was alive and he challenged me again and again. Each time, my victory was effortless. That mortal wasn't Son Goku. He didn't possess the power of the gods. He was no match for me. Yet – surprising myself – I anticipated our matches.

Over time, I observed a shift in his behavior. The fights were less and less about defeating me and more and more about trying to draw me away from something. He carefully masked his energy with every defeat, disappearing into the rubble. With the acrid stench of fire burning everything around, his smell was overpowered. I couldn't sense him. My eyes lost him as he slipped – wounded – into the shadows.

I snarled softly in irritation as I landed. A flash of movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention and my head snapped around. A flicker of a shadow. The quiet sound of a latch engaging – almost drowned out by the crackling of nearby fire.

Walking toward the sound, it didn't take long to find a recessed door well disguised by rubble.

I had him.

Probing within with my senses, I found him. His power masked but detectable by his close proximity. Then, another life-force caught my attention, that one unmistakably human.

I blew in the door and a large section of the wall with a blast and darted inside through the smoke, catching the two hidden within by surprise. Dazed as they were, there was nothing they could do to stop me. I pulled the female mortal up out of the rubble covering the floor by her collar.

Trunks settled into a ready stance, his power rising. "Mother!"

The blue-haired mortal shook her head. "No, Trunks! Go! Find hope! I love you!"

'Find hope?'

Odd last words.

No matter.

Smirking down at the mortal named Trunks, a mere fraction of my strength crackled down my arm, and I released it, vaporizing the woman in seconds and destroyed the last remnants of their hiding place.

Trunks slipped away from me in the fire and smoke – no doubt masking his energy. Wisps of energy flowed out of me, snaking into every crevice. With my eyes closed, I detected a small but bright spark of human life. It blazed like the sun in the barren wasteland I created.

It wasn't Trunks', but it would do. I had sensed that particular energy with him before. Wherever I found that bit of human energy, Trunks was never far away. Lifting into the air, I flew the few hundred yards to that energy and stopped. He was in the shadows with the dark haired girl I had seen him with before.

She darted out in the open from her hiding place and sought cover behind a large chunk of rubble. She fired her weak weapon again and again, the tiny projectiles streaking toward me all too easy to dodge, her face twisted into an unsightly expression of irritation – irritation that quickly turned to fear when I fired on her. She had no hope of dodging my blast and she was well aware.

The impressive explosion engulfed her and her lifeless body soared through the air several yards before landing with a thud, her energy extinguished.

She was dead.

I smirked down at Trunks bent over her body, shaking.

"You'll be with the girl soon. Humans deserve death. In death, they will finally atone for their sins and so will you. Today is the day you die!"

Trunks threw his head back and screamed in rage. He kicked into the air straight for me in a blast of energy, the familiar golden aura engulfing him, his face contorted in an ugly display of pain and fury, his power climbing at a rate faster than ever, and then higher than ever, his speed incredible. For the first time in a long time, he managed to land a blow straight to my solar plexus and I flew back.

My stunned lungs refused to work – refused to follow the subconscious reflex of their kind to breathe, my heart pounding in my chest. Seconds later, breathing returned, and I countered, delighting in his newfound power and in the little burst of energy I gained as my body recovered from that blow.

He got lucky. My speed remained unmatched and I countered, landing my own fist in his stomach, feeling as well as hearing several ribs crack under the pressure. Power surge or not, he wouldn't live to see another day. His death was imminent.

I wouldn't let him go right then. Relief in death was far more than that arrogant mortal deserved. I needed him to suffer – to break him – and then I would let him die.

Slamming punch after punch into his gut, his power dropped, the aura dissipating. His hair fell back into his normal shade of lavender. He was barely conscious. One more blast would be enough to finish him.

No more Trunks meant no more fights.

The blast charged in my hand, I hesitated a second too long because he had just enough energy to fire one last blast in my face, sending me careening away.

I recovered in the air and landed, blinking away the floaters obstructing my sight.

He was gone. I knew it before I got there. His energy was gone but there was no body. He was alive and he slipped away yet again.

I sought to finish him off, trying to find him but failed even with my senses as sharp as they were. He was alive. I hadn't killed him. It would take more than that to finish him. I concentrated, trying to find him but to no avail. Then, the noise of roaring engines from behind me and I spun around to see a craft piloted by the purple-haired mortal rising into the blackened sky.

I fired a blast at the craft hovering low in the air but in a flash of light, it vanished. I glared at the spot and did a sweep with my senses again but he was well and truly gone. There was no trace of his energy. He wasn't merely masking his energy in hiding. He wasn't on the planet at all.

A pulsating light on my hand caught my attention. The Time Ring. That pulsating became a single thin beam connecting me to the spot he vanished in. He wasn't just running. The ring behaved like he ran to a different time, reacting to the unnatural disturbance his time-traveling craft created.

A thunder-like crackle and a rip in the sky appeared before me, the thin beam of light disappearing into the center.

Letting my ring guide me straight to him, I was pulled into the tear. When I opened my eyes, I looked out over the familiar dome shaped buildings from where I hovered high in the air, those iterations unharmed. No matter. I could fix that.

I noted the presence of my counterpart, Vegeta, and the God of Destruction with his attendant, but decided I would deal with them later.

The purple-haired pest was first.

He flew up to me, glaring. "Black! What are you doing here!?"

"I came here the same way you did, through the same tear in time. I'm here because of you. I'm here because you called me here – however inadvertently."

Trunks summoned his power with a yell and attacked, but in his weakened state, he did not pose much of a challenge and I knocked him down with a swift blow to his stomach.

My counterpart was next. As our fight progressed, we revealed more and more of our power to one another – until his power went to a level that outmatched Trunks'.

His Super Saiyan transformation offered a tremendous boost of speed and strength. For the first time since taking Son Goku's body as my own, I met my match. I strived for victory, pushing myself to the limits of my formidable power but to no avail. The growing frustration of realizing he was stronger than me.

Then the growing thrill.

I shook myself of that thought, struggling to hold my eventual, inevitable defeat at bay.

That was ridiculous. Mortals were never supposed to be stronger than deities. Yet, Son Goku was. I should have been disgusted. Some part of me was. Another part of me… the dominant part of me was… electrified.

In our fight, I felt more alive, more thrilled than I have at any other time of my life. Killing Son Goku with my own hands would have been a great step toward my ultimate goal of utopia. Fighting Son Goku was the ultimate test of my strength.

I blocked Goku's kick but my whole body was yanked backwards and out of range, giving me no chance to retaliate. I glanced behind me, our fight halting. The tear in time created by Trunks was mending itself and required me to return to my world. I didn't have a choice. His defeat would have to wait for another day.

Trunks and Son Goku stared in shock at a point on the ground. The time travelling craft was on its side, narrowly missed by a blast. I destroyed it and then was yanked into the tear.

When the rip in time deposited me in the atmosphere of my world, I dropped out of the sky and landed on my feet, loose gravel crunching under my shoes. My heart was pounding but not from exertion. I was… elated. In that elation was a drive to push myself to new heights. In my counterpart, I found my challenge, anticipating our next match and his defeat.

Leveling other human population hubs upon my return accomplished my two goals at first, but very soon grew insufficient for the more intense training my body craved.

With a yell, I summoned my power in the middle of the smoking rubble of another destroyed city, blowing it away completely as my massive power exploded around me, blowing out a massive crater. My energy crackled around me and through every inch of my being – formidable but not enough to defeat Son Goku.

I shifted through martial arts forms I observed him using, the movements suiting my body perfectly and melded them into my own forms learned through my extensive training on the sacred world of the Kais. I delighted in my progress – in the increase in my power in just that brief time.

"Black."

Snarling at the interruption, I whirled on him.

Zamasu raised an eyebrow. "Stay focused on the objective, Black. Stay focused on bringing justice to the world."

"I am focused!"

He shook his head. "You've been slacking. I've been observing you from afar. You've been back in this time two full days and have only destroyed a few cities."

"Destroying Son Goku will bring justice to the world!"

"You are correct. But you mustn't forget about the rest of the vermin. I observed Trunks leave on a craft and that your Time Ring reacted to that craft's whereabouts. That was a time-traveling craft then, was it not?"

I nodded once. "It was but I destroyed it while in the past moments before the tear in time repaired itself."

He raised an eyebrow. "Saiyans are a stubborn, battle hungry lot, never backing down from a challenge. They will find a way to return. Until he arrives here, focus on ridding this time of those blasphemous pests."

My eyebrow twitched and I crossed my arms, recalling the interruption of my training. "Fine. I'll destroy cities until Son Goku arrives at our time. But I wont move until you spar with me."

Zamasu's lip curled in mild disgust. "Careful, Black. You're behaving no better than those mortals. And remember, Son Goku is mine to destroy when it comes time to." He sighed, his expression relaxing. "But fine. I will fight you."

After staring in equal portions disgust and ravenous hunger at the mountain of food covering the entire table and my own very full plate for several moments, I ate almost everything in sight, silencing my roaring stomach. I had to admit, the food was quite delicious. Food prepared by a fellow deity was far and away superior to anything I had consumed thus far.

Several plates later, I was uncomfortably full, having eaten a great deal more than I ever had in that form, every serving dish on our overcrowded table wiped clean. I anticipated having that body's vast reservoir of power at my disposal. I was unprepared for the amount of sustenance that power required – the amount only increasing proportional to my energy output.

Zamasu took my last plate from me, his small smile amused. "My, aren't you quite the gluttonous mortal."

Despite his comment being in jest, I narrowed my eyes at him in warning.

His smile only grew.

After eating, an itch to train gnawed at the back of my mind. I stood up from my seat at our outdoor dining table, vaulted over the deck railing of our cabin over looking the forest, and floated in the cool early morning air, drifting backwards. Once a good distance, I summoned my power and released my newly acquired transformation, and – engulfed by my beautiful rose pink aura – worked through several forms, melding Son Goku's style with my own.

After clearing the table, Zamasu stood on the deck, observing me in silence.

I stuck my hand out toward him, palm up, and twitched my fingers in a brief gesture to join me. He obliged and gave me the fight I needed to sate my newly awakened thirst for battle. Fighting Zamasu held the worst of the yearning at bay, but not all of it, for my ultimate prize would be the defeat of Son Goku by my hands.

Whenever he decided to come to me, I would end him.

I occupied my time destroying cities, but it was hardly satisfying since my thirst for intense battle had been awakened.

I charged a large blast, leveling most of a sprawling, ugly metropolis in one fell swoop when I sensed a surge of energy off in the distance.

It had been only a couple days' time. Not a long wait by any means. It was time to test my new transformation against Son Goku.

However, Vegeta was the first to engage me in battle, rage burning in his eyes because I had killed the future incarnation of his wife and critically injured his son. I warned him to learn his place as a lowly mortal. In his refusal, he earned himself impaled by my mighty Split Cut technique. Despite the fact he wielded the power of the gods, he was all too easily defeated and left for dead.

As Vegeta fell from the sky, Son Goku charged me after nodding at Trunks to tend to Vegeta.

Even Son Goku's own usage of the ki of the gods proved inferior to the might of my recently attained Super Saiyan transformation. Not even the combined efforts of Son Goku and Trunks were a challenge. All three met their defeats by my hand and fled to their time.

It was only the next day when an energy surged in the distance and a great pillar of light shot into the smoke-darkened sky – a brief but obvious signal. Son Goku, Vegeta, and Future Trunks had returned.

Moments later, I touched down on the roof of a crumbling tower, smirking down at them.

Vegeta charged me as his power exploded into Super Saiyan Blue, rage burning in his eyes yet again. "I WILL KILL YOU FOR WHAT YOU DID TO ME!"

He was knocked down again and I laughed. "Bruised your pride, have I?"

He roared, firing blast after blast, using the explosions as cover to get in close, but I gave him no openings, knocking him out to the ground once again with a blow to his stomach – one so hard his power fluctuated, nearly losing control of his transformation.

Son Goku and Trunks rushed to his assistance but I would not give them that chance. It was time I finished off Vegeta.

Using one of Son Goku's choice techniques, I landed on a high rooftop and settled into a stance. I cupped my hands together at my side until a brilliant, warm light bathed the area, and Zamasu descended from the clouds, making quite the entrance for the sake of the mortals. I allowed the energy to slip away harmlessly as he joined me on my lofty perch.

Son Goku glared up at us. "Zamasu!"

Zamasu smiled down at them. "Yes. It is I. I will bring you to your ultimate destruction."

Son Goku's glare gave way to a cocky smile. "You can try." His expression darkened again. "Before we get started, there is something I want to know. Tell me… how did you get my body?"

I smiled. "A wish on the Dragon Balls of the gods."

He raised an eyebrow. "You made a copy of me?"

I laughed. "No." I put my hand to my chest. "This is the real Son Goku. It's your body, but the soul that resides within this body is that of Zamasu."

Son Goku crossed his arms. "Clearly, you made a wish to have my body. How?"

I gritted my teeth at his insolent tone, but gave him the answer he desired. "In another time, I wished for my body and yours to be switched."

"Why?"

I let out a bitter, humorless laugh. "Don't you see, Son Goku? I was the one that shamefully lost to you, a mere mortal. I needed more power so I abandoned my old body for yours and the power you possess." I prepared to blast into the air. "Now, prepare to pay for your insolence, mortal!"

A brief touch on my arm stopped me.

I glanced at Zamasu and he shook his head.

Son Goku's frown deepened. "Then… what happened to the me in that time after you stole my body?"

I cracked a smile and held out my left hand. "I killed you with this very hand."

He uncrossed his arms and clenched his fists at his sides. "What time are you from, Zamasu? And Lord Beerus killed you. I saw it. So why aren't you dead?"

Zamasu placed a hand on his chest. "I am of this time. Trunks' time. Or what you call the Future. I arrived here after Black came to me and killed Gowasu. Before coming here, we destroyed every single one of the Kais – including Gowasu of Black's time – to make them pay for their folly and to assume the role of Supreme Kai for ourselves. All of this is made possible by our Time Rings – which prevent us from being affected by anything done to other iterations. All of this is necessary to bring about our paradise."

I nodded to my counterpart. "Shall we, Zamasu?"

He sneered. "Certainly."

With that, we each charged large blasts and launched them at the mortals, beginning the fight. Goku charged, engaging Zamasu with a pointblank energy blast, his head badly damaged. I was unconcerned. Zamasu's immortality meant he healed in moments, Son Goku snarling in frustration.

He'd pay dearly for his attempt to kill a deity. Using one of his techniques, I translocated behind him, catching him by complete surprise, flipping up kicking him down, and he landed hard by his friends.

Vegeta glared up at us, shifting a foot forward, ready to fight. "What paradise is that?"

Zamasu smiled down at him. "One without mortals. None deserve the beautiful gift of life we have bestowed. They're all the same – barbaric, and evil. But none are as awful as humans. Humans must face a heavy penalty before they are driven to extinction. We brought about despair and fear the likes of which they have never experienced. They will never be able to rise again."

I grinned. "The Zero Mortals Plan."

Vegeta smiled humorlessly. "What a dramatic name. All you want to do is massacre mortals."

I nodded. "Yes. And we've killed countless thousands on this world alone – not to mention the others."

The sound of a foot shifting against the roofing and Zamasu said, "And now it's time to erase humanity for breaking the taboo of time travel and the unending violence in wars and in the streets."

The three of them explode into their mightiest transformations with angry roars, charging us as one, resulting in a chaotic exchange of hits from fists, feet, knees, and elbows as the three of them strived to defeat us, but at every turn, they were out-matched, out-paced, and easily overpowered but still we toyed with them.

Toying with them, my mind began to drift, pulling up images of Trunks in his rage when I nearly killed that girl and killed his mother.

Vegeta's anger when I took his ego down to where it belonged…

Their horrified yet angry expressions as Zamasu and I divulged our dream…

Their determination to prevent the inevitable demise of the last humans hidden on that world – determination that was driven by a misguided fury…

Fury.

That dreadful emotion was the root of all of it – one that drove humans to commit unspeakable atrocities against one another.

One that I would use to my advantage.

Firing a great blast on Son Goku, he crossed his arms in front of his face, shielding himself from it, the blast shoving him back in increments of movement. Sending him toward a ruined building and his back met it, his slow backwards movement ceasing and in a last push, he shoved the blast up and out of harm's way.

I gave him no time to move, planting myself inches away from him.

"Aren't you wondering what happened to your family after I took your body and killed you?"

His glare met my smirk, his voice low and hissing between his clenched teeth. "What… did you do… to Chichi and Goten?"

I laughed. "Isn't it obvious?" Charging up my energy blade, I drove it straight through him, pulling a scream out of him, his power fluctuating, his head bowed, and then, leaning in, I whispered directly into his ear, "I killed them as effortlessly as I killed you in my old body. And I'd do it again."

His head snapped up, his teeth bared, his power stabilizing and then growing – even with my blade protruding out his back. His aura flaring up around him, he reached down, and broke the blade as easily as one would snap a twig before throwing his head back in an agonized, furious roar, his power skyrocketing out of control, then moving with alarming speed, landed an uppercut with more power behind it than he had ever used, sending me flying. Despite the gaping wound through his side, his power was stunning, driven to new heights by his fury.

I had my fight, my worthy opponent unleashing his fury in a blitz of powerful hits, and for the first time since attaining my own Super Saiyan transformation… I hurt. And I loved it.

He seemed to find some enjoyment in causing my pain, his eyes hard and cold. Gone was the calm confidence he displayed earlier. In its place was blood-thirst – intense, unadulterated blood-thirst.

He loathed me, channeling that hatred into every single one of his strong hits. Hits that came too fast for me to successfully block – the pain worsening. A fist was driven into my gut with so much force my breath whooshed out, my stunned diaphragm unable to pull air into my lungs, his attack not over yet as fists drove into my back while I was doubled over in the air, sending me crashing to the ground.

Pain that would only push my own power to new heights and it was already working.

He dropped down to stand over me, his face still twisted into a foul display of bloodthirsty loathing, static sparks crackling around him, the first hints of the blast he charged, moments before the familiar glow started down his outstretched hand, the energy gathering into a bright sphere, and then he released it but I was ready, melding my own energy into a protective shield. With his close proximity, the contact – and resulting explosion – was instantaneous.

Despite the smoke hanging stagnant in the air and obstructing my sight, his energy remained hovering before me with his guard down, and I fired a quick blast, delighting in the explosion and pained yell as his energy dropped. I seized the opportunity to charge him, driving my fist straight into his wound and he screamed again as he careened away but I would not let him go, using Instant Transmission to place myself directly above him, flipping down to slam both feet into his stomach, his energy falling.

His momentum forced him through many buildings, and well out of sight – and even just out of sensing range, his energy so low I had a vague sense of life but could not pinpoint his location.

His death was imminent – if I could but find him.

Zamasu joined me in the air – evidently having finished off the others. "Killed him, did you?"

I glanced at him. "Almost." I closed my eyes, extending out tendrils of energy, searching every last nook and cranny in every direction, my complete concentration making my senses far sharper, sharp enough to – "Ah! There he is! Seems you didn't kill the others, either." With that, I touched two fingers to my forehead, grabbed Zamasu's shoulder, and appeared right next to the Time Machine hovering in the air somehow well behind where I had just been.

We couldn't use the Time Rings to get to Son Goku's time. However, there was one other way. The three weak and unconscious energies inside were none the wiser to their stowaways each gripping a leg of the time travelling craft.

While the time machine hovered low in the air a moment, Zamasu and I released our holds and dropped, touching down on the clean grounds of the Capsule Corporation.

A quick sweep of my senses alerted me to a short man with short black hair staring at us, shocked. His energy was inconsequential. Zamasu would take care of him.

I only had minutes in Son Goku's time.

Knowing exactly where he lived, I extended my senses, finding the familiar, weak energies of his mate and youngest child.

I touched two fingers to my forehead and found myself in a small kitchen. A petite woman in a sunshine yellow dress worked at the sink, her back to me.

She turned around, her smile falling into a look of confusion as she eyed me up and down. "Goku…?"

I smiled slyly. "Yes."

She pressed herself into the counter behind her, a suspicious frown on her face.

I took a step toward her and her eyes darted first to one side and then the other, looking for an escape route.

She picked one and darted to my left, but I grabbed her arm and the blood drained from her face.

Light footsteps came into the room and she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head. I already knew who it was.

I turned and smiled down at the small mortal, his eyebrow raised in a look of vague confusion.

His confusion darkened into a slight frown. "Dad…?"

I shook my head, chuckling slightly. "No, young son of Goku. I am Goku, however I'm not your dear father anymore than I am her husband."

Chichi shuddered in my grip and tried to pull herself free, but I tightened my grasp on her arm and she sucked in a breath.

His frown deepened as he reached toward the little black-haired woman. "Hey… you're hurting her! Why are you hurting her?"

My smile widened. "Oh, I intend to do a lot more than hurt her."

Focused on the little boy, I didn't see the hard kick she aimed at my shin. It actually stung enough to nearly make me drop her arm. I was surprised a weak human woman was capable of such strength.

My eyes narrowed as I turned my attention to her and tightened my hold further, stopping just short of causing damage to the bone. "One more move like that and I'll shatter your arm easier than one would crush an autumn leaf."

Tears sprang to her eyes, her face contorted in pain and fear, her breathing shallow and fast.

Goten's energy exploded as he charged me and landed a surprisingly strong right hook on my cheek, making my head snap to one side. "I don't know who you are, but let go of my mom!"

His powerless mother screamed, "GOTEN! NO! DON'T!"

I twisted to the side, charged my Split Cut technique and struck out intending to impale him but he dodged it… partially. The crackling energy blade sank deep into his side. His energy dropped as he screamed, his hair fading to black and falling to its original shape. His small body hit the floor facedown with a thud.

The woman went hysterical, kicking out, screaming in anguish and anger, punching, fighting harder than ever before with a strength I didn't know she possessed.

I smiled down at her as she fought to get free. "Time to summon Son Goku."

Leveling his home sufficed. I dropped her – allowing her to scramble to the bleeding child – and reduced their small home to a smoking crater as she made it outside with the small, limp boy.

It was time to force Son Goku to the pinnacle of his power.

#My fanfiction #GoChi #Goku #Chichi #black goku #Goku Black #Zamasu #Goten #Gohan #Son Family #Unhinged Goku #Goku's nightmare #His Worst Fear #Part I

[zentigration]

Muses:  Kinelly

To give you a rough idea of my timeline let me lay down some anchor points before we begin.  I was born into a cult, I knew about it, no one in our cult was ever shy about talking about it- as long as it was with initiated members.

That was the number one rule of our organization:  initiated members only.

Over the centuries we’ve gone by many names, and always called ourselves the total opposite of whatever public gossips were referring to us as.  We played hide and seek knowingly with the masses, several entertainment empires rose and fell attempting to expose us.  They called it disclosure.  We called it playtime.

Our initiates prided themselves on being first and best at every upgrade to our world culture.  Our leaders turned to the sacred quarks and followed their instructions.  The community had grown into a network of powerful souls working together and freeing themselves of the concept of time by reincarnating through lifetimes of practice.  

I’ve been reminded that you are possibly vaguely aware of reincarnation?   You see my cult, the Condorian, we invented that binary system that just fired in your brain. Heaven and hell aren’t places, they’re playrooms in your imaginatorium.

It’s been decided that stopping to explain an imaginatorium here would be unnecessarily complex. (*SKM Add Link to ‘imaginatorium’ @ald)

I was a fully fledged member of the Daughters of the Flock, the mystical arts side of our order.  I studied the Conscientious Confounding.  I mentored under the author/coach of In Plain Sight: The How-To Guide for Initiates Only.  

We knew the Apocalyps was coming, we had been preparing for it for so long that when the warning was issued and we were evacuated into our hideaways, we had already been vacationing there twice a year.  So the memory of the Apocalypse is blended into a lifetime of privileged family vacations.  I don’t think we even lost power, or anything remotely discomforting during that time.  

There was simply a day where our community sat down as a family and watched a broadcast from the Head Condor.  I was bored and don’t remember much of his speech but somewhere near the end I distinctly heard him tell us that all of our preparation was for now, this moment.

I changed schools that year, but it had been planned for me to begin finishing school anyway, and boarding school was an excellent opportunity to build my family heritage Daughter of the Flock following.  My private tutoring had paid off and in the midst of the crisis at the end of the world, my people were preparing me to secure alliances after the great war.

All I remember of the war was an increase in bots doing chores, the robotics industry was exploding and private enterprises were booming over custom lifestyle enhancers.  My life lost a lot of human contact during that time and was replaced slowly with the cold reflection of technology.

My family was held in high regard, my heritage work bought me a lot of favour from my mothers generation, and my grandmothers generation.  I had a few aunts of renoun as well, and my gift was strong enough that people expected great things from me in my own time and so left me to my own devises.

To look at it from the outside I was cold and numb to the war, uninterested.  I was putting my future into place, as was customary.  The Apocalypse was a  problem for everyone else.  We had prepared, we had listened, and followed direction.  We were living bountiful lives through the end of days and we would be rewarded afterward.  

I was never confronted with the weight of the deaths of millions. If I hadn’t been searching, researching, and uncovering the truth no one ever would have shared the cost of lives in day to day conversation. The war was so far away, so sanitized, and supported by every one of us because we had been taught to beleive.  Have faith in the Emergence, and our place in the future will be secure.  How easily the verses and songs come back to me, even after so much time. During the time of war we were updated in Capitals won, not lives lost. Looking back it feels like a competitive sport score coverage.  The coldness and callus removal of empathy that we were blanketed in during that time gives me pause.  To see the bleakest aspect of yourself, your capacity to casually disregard fellow human life, is to stare directly into your shadow.

But I suppose if you are unfamiliar with your imaginatorium then your dreams must be filled with shadows and emotional turmoil.  (*SKM Link to Dream Journaling @ald)

So my carefully contrived life fell into place and by the time the aeons had settled the new world order and the Condors were firmly established as the aristocracy of the Phoenix clan, the opportunity I had been waiting for presented itself to me.  My story is about the inner workings of my Cult, the opportunities I took, the experiences I chased in order to write them down and offer them to you, so that you may fight this enemy in your battle with the Emergence.

Looking back on my past is a painful endeavour, my indoctrination was cut deep, I felt entitled to know that which others couldn’t because we were so secretive.  They were stupid for not being able to see what we refused to share.  Our pride oozed into everything we did, our callousness made us rough and patronizing.  I don’t think very highly of who I was, and for the inadvertent pain I caused I pay penance daily.

My people are very sure of two things, one is that Art and Science are the Keys to Magic.  They’ve been practicing the Orphic Religion for millenniums and have perfected the Pentaxion Arts.  The second is that the Timelords are our allies, we’ve shared resources, spells, technology, and so many brides that between the Bloodliners 300 families and our Abrahamist Initiates we’re a nearly indistinguishable one family from the next.  When it came to the war I was fortunate enough to be married to a Bloodliner and my cover story of aiding the Apexing was seen as noble and altruistic.  Speaking out about my Cult has been lucrative, even as I broke from there infrastructure and control matrix I had support and resources to draw from, at no point during the Emergence did I suffer or want for much of anything.  Countless numbers of people died and I never missed a meal or slept in anything but a soft bed.  The Emergence was so well calculated by my people that my sanitized life of elite privilege was never interrupted or made uncomfortable.  

I tell you all of this to anchor the story down, firstly to my highly secretive spell casting cult that was wise to the Emersion since the dawn of time.   Secondly to the complete apathy and disregard for human life I witness and participated in.  Thirdly to my people’s blind trust in their alliance with the Timelords, the Bloodliners, and the 300 Families.  We didn’t have a post emergence war plan, and we certainly weren’t expecting an Mass Apex Ascension.  If any of us had known that the Emergence Wavespell would bring the shadow of death as it has I would like to imagine that someone would have done something…

And so I have agreed to share my story from a place of guilt, shame and hope.  Hope that if there’s a chance to build someone’s confidence to take considered and well founded action. I feel as though the hope is self serving and that no one will ever read this, but if you are, and if you do, if the Emergence is coming, if the Cult of Binarism, of good vs bad, happy vs sad, right vs wrong, up vs down, Cult of Absolute Polarity is running your life you must break free and see them for what they truly are:  overlords who see you as playthings, disposable, entertainment.    

#magenta1 zentigration enneadtrecena ennead muses kinelly wavespellofchaos author nanowrimo sci-fi magic

[eddycurrents]

For the week of 27 November 2017

Quick Bits:

Black Magick #9 brings the Hammer into play, while Rowan deals with her latest shooting and evaporation of one of the few leads she had as to what’s going on in the broader picture. It also feels like there’s some problematic workplace religious discrimination coming somewhere down the pipeline. As usual, Nicola Scott’s artwork is stunning.

| Published by Image

Critical Role: Vox Machina - Origins #3 brings together the three main threads of narrative and groups of characters in rather spectacular fashion. Matthew Coville again does a great job of capturing the humour and spirit of the characters, while Olivia Samson art brings them to life.

| Published by Dark Horse

Dark Ark #3 sees everything explode. Who would have thought that a vessel full of monsters could pass the time peaceably? 

| Published by AfterShock

Eternity #3 just opens the floodgates of imagination even further into the Unknown. Matt Kindt, Trevor Hairsine, Ryan Winn, and David Baron are just doing an incredible job with this story. It’s beautiful and rich, taking you further into endless possibilities.

| Published by Valiant

Giantkillers #0 introduces us to Auoro, Arkon, Tulat, and a couple seeming armies of...er...things chasing after them across space and time. Effectively, this is one of those big introductions to a chosen one epic fantasy time thing where we’re only given bits and pieces of what’s going on, but it sure does look pretty. Bart Sears, Tom Raney, and colourists, Nanjan Jamberi and Neeraj Menon, make this look beautiful. It’s the kind of thing that Ron Marz and Sears used to do at CrossGren, which means there are likely to be some good stories ahead.

| Published by IDW / Ominous Press

Hack/Slash: Resurrection #2 continues to be a fun and funny return to the monster killing shenanigans of Cassie Hack. There’s a really nice, well nice depending on how depraved you happen to be, twist at the end on where the zombies are coming from and why that you have to see for yourself.

| Published by Image

Heavy Vinyl (formerly Hi-Fi Fight Club - not sure on the reason for the name change) #4 brings the series to a close. Or rather to a break in story beats. It solves the mystery of what happened to Rosie and advances the relationship between Maggie and Chris, but there’s much more story to tell. I hope that Carly Usdin and Nina Vakueva get to tell it in a sequel, because this series has been good.

| Published by BOOM! Entertainment / Boom! Box

John Wick #1 features some really nice art from Giovanni Valletta. I was previously impressed with his work on an issue of X-Men Blue and was disappointed when he only did the first part of the arc, so it’s nice to see him resurface with this series. He has a style of simple lines and spotting blacks that is rather fluid and works well for a gritty action series like John Wick. Greg Pak also entices us with Wick’s backstory prior to the films.

| Published by Dynamite

KINO #1 reintroduces one of the astronauts from the Free Comic Book Day comic that launched the imprint in Catalyst Prime: The Event, Major Alistair Meath, as it turns out he was in the hands of the Foresight Corporation. Joe Casey sets up an interesting story here, tapping into both the wider lore that’s being established about the shared universe, as well as comics history as he presents an information download into Meath’s unconscious state changed by the Event in the form of a kind of golden age comic. Jefte Palo’s artwork tops it off, nimbly switching gears from the gritty realism of modern day to a more stylized approach for the “training”.

I’ve liked a lot of what this imprint has been doing (particularly Noble and Astonisher), even if I was a bit late into it, but this series looks like it may be one of the crown jewels.

| Published by Lion Forge / Catalyst Prime

ROM vs. Transformers: Shining Armor #5 is an excellent conclusion to what has been one of the best crossovers/team-ups within the Hasbroverse. In no small part due to Alex Milne’s artwork, which has been stellar for the entire series, but also due to how John Barber and Christos Gage have approached this story. You could argue that it’s been a decompressed fight scene between the various factions, but it’s still been dense with the layers of what it means to be a Cybertronian, the mixing of science and magic, flesh and technology that mirrors the Dire Wraiths and the Solstar Knights, as well as revealing why these sides stayed separate in the intervening years before Revolution. It also has been a nice dive into the history of Ultra Magnus, just to tap into some of the broader Transformers continuity.

| Published by IDW

Sacred Creatures #5 is again an extra-sized issue with Klaus Janson and Pablo Raimondi splitting the art duties between them as they weave the story back and forth from ancient Mesopotamia and modern day. And much like the last issue, things are really starting to get heated in the story, complete with a horrific development toward the end of the book. The series was already neat with its premise playing with the concepts of the seven deadly sins, mapping them on to Nephilim, and then throwing in some ties to Biblical stories and history, but Janson and Raimondi have also well tapped into the family drama aspect resulting in a very rich, compelling narrative.

| Published by Image

Spawn #280. Again, the artwork from Jason Shawn Alexander is drop dead gorgeous. Pieces fall again into place as we approach the conclusion to the arc, with some interesting perspective from Cyan.

| Published by Image

Star Trek: Boldly Go #14 starts off showing off the various infinite Enterprises throughout the universe as spacetime seems to be fracturing, then focuses on four main crews--the Kelvin timeline ship, one of genderswapped crew, the one introduced last issue with Spock identifying with his human side and Kirk being raised by Klingons, and one where they all seem to be robots--before they’re intermingled somehow. This is certainly getting more interesting, especially as we see the crews split up and engaging with one another.

| Published by IDW

Star Trek: Discovery - The Light of Kahless #1 sends us back first to the early days following the first two episodes of the series, and then sends us further back to the formative years of T’Kuvma, the Klingon leader who was trying to reunite the houses and remind them what being true Klingons meant. It’s all right, I guess, fleshing out a character that was kind of one-dimensional on the show, but somehow it doesn’t really grab me.

| Published by IDW

Sword of Ages #1 by Gabriel Rodríguez is pretty damn great. For starters, it’s gorgeous. Rodríguez has a style that mixes the best of P. Craig Russell, Walt Simonson, and Hal Foster that you just want to soak in the pages for awhile, aided well by Lovern Kindzierski’s colours. There’s as much magic in the art as there is in the story. This is an interesting approach to blending science fiction and fantasy, with Arthurian myth as a touchstone, and there seems to be immense world-building. The only thing missing to make it perfect is a map.

| Published by IDW

Transformers: Lost Light #11 reveals the depravity of Getaway, detailing what happened aboard the Lost Light after the mutiny. If you thought life cords floating in jars was bad, wait until you learn how they got there.

| Published by IDW

Vampirella #8 begins Jeremy Whitley’s run on the title in earnest as he kicks off a new arc following in the wake of Vampirella destroying Lucifer’s simulated Heaven. Apparently it had some negative ramifications and now the world is a desolate wasteland where no one can die.

War Mother #4 brings a satisfying conclusion to the series, setting up the possibility for what I hope is more to come. Ana discovers the secret behind the Montana’s operating system and it’s a somewhat expected revelation, still interesting though.

| Published by Valiant

Other Highlights: America #9, The Beauty #17, Heartthrob - Season 2 #5, Image+ Volume 2 #4, Jean Grey #9, Jim Henson’s Labyrinth 2017 Special, Kaijumax - Season 3 #5, Kill or Be Killed #14, Lazarus X+66 #5, Manifest Destiny #32, Moon Knight #189, Motor Crush #8, Nights Dominion - Season 2 #4, Old Man Logan #31, Quarry’s War #1, Reactor #1, Rick & Morty #32, Secret Warriors #9, Spider-Gwen #26, Spy Seal #4, Star Wars: Jedi of the Republic - Mace Windu #4, Star Wars: Poe Dameron #21, Star Wars Adventures #4, TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #5, US Avengers #12, Venom #158, The X-Files: JFK Disclosure #2, X-Men Blue #16

Recommended Collections: All-New Wolverine - Volume 4: Immune, Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows - Volume 2: The Venom Experiment, Cannibal - Volume 2, Cloudia & Rex, Conan the Slayer - Volume 2, Daredevil - Volume 5: Supreme, Death Be Damned - Volume 1, Ghost Fleet: The Whole Goddamned Thing, Ghostbusters 101, GI Joe - Volume 2, Helena Crash, Injection - Volume 3, Insexts - Volume 2, Jessica Jones - Volume 2: The Secrets of Maria Hill, Monsters Unleashed - Volume 1: Monster Mash, Silver Surfer - Volume 5: Power Greater Than Cosmic, Star Wars: Rogue One, The Woods - Volume 8

[itsworn]

This Show-Winning ‘Cuda Was Built For Pennies On The Dollar!

Perspective is a funny thing. What seems insurmountable to some can look very achievable to others. Sometimes that has to do with financial means, beneficial connections, or innate talents, but just as often the difference relies upon resourcefulness and the willingness to work hard and learn. It’s all about one’s frame of reference. From the outside looking in, it can be difficult or impossible to tell the difference, though. That’s why it’s smart to never jump to conclusions.

This ‘Cuda—known as Striker—is a prime example. Just look at this thing. Have you ever seen a more high-end, every-trick-in-the book, custom E-Body show car? We haven’t. This isn’t some ordinary show car though. Striker competes at the highest level of the International Show Car Association (ISCA) show circuit against what are arguably the finest built custom cars in the world. Time and attention to detail are taken to extremes here. Judges will take flashlights and mirrors to inspect even completely hidden crevices of a car—things that are behind other panels or are purely structural.

Creating cars good enough to stand up to this level of scrutiny takes time, and time at a shop good enough to build cars like this is not cheap, so it’s not just common, but expected for price tags on these builds to cruise well into the high six-digit range. Actually, that would be a bargain; guys don’t bat an eye at sinking $1 million into a car expected to garner first-place honors. Our favorite extreme example is Ross and Beth Myers’ phenomenal ’36 Ford coupe known as “First Love” that took the Ridler award in 2007. Built by Rad Rides by Troy over a period of three years, the rumored cost to build was just shy of $3 million. Yeah, really. Now that we’ve shifted your perspective a little bit, let’s get back to Striker.

While most wouldn’t call this a “budget build,” to be competing and winning against cars at that level you’d expect that it came at a high cost. We won’t tell you exactly what owner and builder Jesse Matlock has invested in Striker, but we’ll tell you that it’s about a tenth of what was spent on some of its notable competitors. But like we said, from the outside looking in, no one would expect that, certainly not the judges who awarded it the ISCA Street Machine Championship, nor the ones at Mopars at the Strip who awarded it the coveted World’s Ultimate Mopar title. While he had set out from the very beginning to build a car that could win, having done so has left him floored. “Six months ago, I was a nobody in the field,” Jesse told us. “Now, on the car-show circuit, everyone knows this car and my shop. It’s been a wild ride so far.”

While he’s a bit humble about his pre-Striker days, it’s not really accurate to say that he was completely off the radar. Long before Jesse opened his paint and body shop in downtown Dewey, OK, he latched onto a ’66 Satellite when he was just old enough to drive. Jesse fell in love with the angular B-Body, and it made him a Mopar guy for life. In fact he still has that Satellite today and he still hops in it to run around to car shows and cruises. As he was fixing up that Satellite, Jesse knew that this would be his future—having an automotive shop. Or play pro baseball, whichever worked out.

Baseball wasn’t shaping up quite like he would have liked, so Jesse also spent time learning from the best mechanics and metal craftsmen that he could. He didn’t start out with any particular edge, but he was determined to earn one through hard work. By 20 he was managing a body shop and by 26 he was ready to open his own shop: Jesse’s Auto Body. As a way of both fueling his passion and showing off the abilities of his shop, Jesse rounded up a few more Mopar projects and quickly earned a reputation in the region as one of the go-to guys for doing serious over-the-top restorations on E-Bodies.

Back in the early 2000s, when the market for Hemi-powered cars was really starting to explode, Jesse just happened to finish a ’70 Sublime Green Hemi ’Cuda hardtop clone for himself. The build generated a lot of buzz in the Mopar community because it was such a convincing clone that it offered some hope for those lamenting that they suddenly couldn’t afford a factory Hemi ’Cuda. For a whole lot less, customers could now have essentially the exact same car, minus the little numbers on the dash, and 99 percent of the world would never know the difference. Jesse’s phone started ringing a whole lot more because of that car, forcing him to expand his shop to two buildings and concentrate on late-model collision repair and restoration work at almost equal business levels.

Nevertheless, as is bound to happen with repetition, Jesse eventually began to grow bored with building the same cars over and over again, and looking over rows of identical restored cars at shows. He found that his eyes kept wandering over to the radical customs being turned out by famous builders, primarily on the West Coast, and he started thinking maybe he should try his hand at that type of build. Maybe even step it up a notch.

After formulating a plan, the Sublime Hemi ’Cuda clone was sold in 2011 to finance the project and he started looking for the right car to turn into the most radical custom the Mopar world had ever seen. Considering his purist heavy clientele, it’s not surprising that there has been some grumbling about the extensively modified E-Body. Our opinion is pretty obvious, but we would like to take the opportunity to remind everyone that they’re not all sacred. Building custom cars actually saves more cars than it kills. For example, the starting point for Striker was hardly a glorious machine—a friend’s parts car ’71 318 Barracuda that was missing all of the valuable parts and had been sitting in an Oklahoma field for quite a while. Thankfully, Oklahoma is dry most of the year, so the remaining sheet metal was solid and (aside from the hood) everything you’re looking at here is steel.

Back at his shop, the Barracuda was torn completely apart and the unibody set on a chassis jig so that Jesse could set the stance and suspension. Working with Patrick Haggerman, they came up with a unique custom-built 2×4 dual frame system with a triangulated four-link rear suspension and Ridetech Shockwaves supporting a narrowed 8.75-inch rearend. The front suspension began life as an Art Morrison crossmember and tubular control arm kit that was heavily modified so that it could be slammed to the ground with Shockwaves.

A salvage yard Gen III Hemi out of a wrecked ’09 SRT8 provided the basis for the motive power and allowed for a whole lot of test fitting and planning. Working on a seriously hectic schedule, Jesse wanted to debut the unfinished project at the 2013 SEMA show in Las Vegas, so he and his crew spent a lot of hours flailing on the body, fitting it to the suspension, and installing a set of large-by-huge Foose Nitrous II wheels with Mickey Thompson rubber. Even in mock-up form, the ’Cuda attracted a lot of attention from both attendees and vendors. Several vendors saw something special in the works and inquired about getting some of their parts included in the build—something that surprised Jesse. He went back to Oklahoma with some generous offers, but he had to deliver something worthy.

While Jesse’s shop is well stocked, it doesn’t feature any CNC machines, computer aided milling or cutting machines, or any of the big-league equipment you’d expect to be necessary to build something that could compete with cars out of shops like Foose, Ring Brothers, Roadster Shop, and so on.

Other than show-stopping looks, one primary goal of the build from the outset was to create something that would appeal directly to the younger crowd that might feel shut out by the rich guys, and prove to them that it could be done on a very reasonable budget—provided you were willing to work a little bit. Jesse likes to joke that Striker was built “Basically, with ball peen hammers and a screwdriver.” That’s not too far off. While there isn’t a single piece of the body that hasn’t been massaged, reshaped, or re-contoured, it was all done by hand the low-tech, old-fashioned way. Part of that was out of necessity, and part of it was a piece of the plan. From the very beginning Jesse wanted to balance extreme custom work with approachability. Making sure that car was mostly built using tools anyone could afford was a big part of that.

As for those modifications, there are so many beneath the blinding red paint that they can be hard to spot. Every single piece of the ’Cuda has been modified, but yet it still feels like a ‘Cuda. “Every time I did something, it had to complement something else to keep the flow,” Jesse said. We’ll give you a few of the major highlights and then let you stare at the pics and see what else you can find. To start, the rockers were extended two inches to meet the frame rails and then arch inward to form a bellypan that completely covers the chassis. The entire front clip is now one piece and is hinged for easy access to the engine bay, should that become necessary. The front and rear valences are custom-made and molded into the body and bumpers, all the glass is flush-mounted to the body, and the entire body is channeled down over the custom frame. Drip rails, door handles, locks, and side markers are all shaved, and the front fenders are extended down two inches. The engine bay is entirely made from scratch, and Jesse himself designed the most unique hood hinge mechanism we’ve ever seen. Yup, all this and more with general shop tools.

What started as a one-year project timeline grew into nearly six years with things still coming down to the wire for SEMA 2016. The big Hemi fired up for the first time in June 2016, the paint was laid in July and August, and then a rapid-fire reassembly of the entire car was underway with a constant eye on the calendar. Thirty days out from SEMA, Striker was sitting on the ground, it was running, it was painted, but the interior hadn’t even been built. At Fast Al’s Upholstery, Jesse and Aaron Lawrence spent more than five hundred hours putting the interior together, including building the custom instrument cluster. The only stock thing you’ll find in the interior are the door handles.

Jesse and crew did make it to SEMA where Striker was prominently displayed in VDO’s booth and drew awe-inspired crowds all week. Since then things have only accelerated. In addition to winning the ISCA Street Machine Championship and World’s Ultimate Mopar at Mopars at the Strip, Jesse and Striker have logged 102 days of travel and over 18,000 miles to various shows, and they’re just getting started. Jesse wants to hit just about every major Mopar event in the country for the next couple of years, plus they’ll be back at SEMA this year competing in Battle of the Builders, as well as GoodGuys for Street Machine of the Year, and even Hot August Nights. After that, he might go back for a second shot at the ISCA title.

Jesse has to be extra careful for now, but after all the madness dies down a bit, he’s looking forward to driving Striker more. So far he’s taken it to a couple of car shows and taken kids for rides, but he really wants to do more. “It’s my spokesmodel. It’s my car. It’s me,” Jesse told us. “I don’t know what I would do without muscle cars in my life; it’s my therapy. Hopefully I can show kids that they can build something like this, and inspire them to stay out of trouble and get out and get involved.” Was Striker cheap? No, but who says you have to build an ISCA contender? If you can handle a torch and a hammer, and you have patience and shop around carefully, all you need is imagination and a determined work ethic. If you think it can’t be done by the average guy at a pretty basic paint and body shop, you’re looking at roughly 3,600 pounds of rumbling red evidence that it most certainly can.

Builder Jesse Matlock did a host of mods to the ’71 grille, but it still looks very “’Cuda” and would fit in a stock car. The headlights are completely custom and actually made up of four different headlight assemblies.

Aaron Lawrence at Fast Al’s Upholstery did an amazing job with the completely custom interior. Just about everything you see—seats, carpet, headliner, console, dash, sail panels—was hand built and done in a crazy 30-day period. There’s also a complete Kicker Audio System grafted in, and all the gauges are VDO.

That fantastically red paint is a Matrix custom mix. Jesse used MS42 high solid clear for most of the car, but used MS100 Matte finish clear to created the ghosted Hemi billboard.

The fiberglass AAR hood had its framework stripped away so it could mate up with a one-off hydraulic and electrical lift system that actually raises the entire hood straight up at all four corners and brings it up to roof level.

We don’t have dyno numbers yet, but a boosted 6.1 is safely in the mid-500 to low 600hp range. Jesse will play with that more later, but for now, the jaw-dropping attention to detail are what most people looking under the hood are wowed by.

Exhaust passes through the frame and exits through openings in the rockers ahead of the rear tires. The pipes and mufflers are entirely hidden between the floor and bellypan with exit holes for exhaust and heat to escape.

FAST FACTS

1971 Plymouth ’Cuda | Jesse Matlock | Dewey, OK

ENGINE Type: 6.1 L Gen-III Hemi Block: OEM SRT8 Challenger Rotating assembly: stock crank, rods, and pistons Cylinder heads: stock SRT8 Camshaft: stock SRT8 Induction: Magnuson supercharger Exhaust: factory exhaust manifolds are ceramic coated, 3-inch mandrel bent exhaust with Spin Tech mufflers Cooling: custom aluminum radiator

DRIVETRAIN Transmission: NAG1 5-speed automatic overdrive transmission from ’09 Challenger Rearend: narrowed 8 ¾ Mopar with Strange axles, 3.91 gears, and Sure Grip differential

CHASSIS Front suspension: modified Art Morrison with RideTech Shockwaves, Ride Pro and Level Pro system with AirPod Rear suspension: custom triangulated four-link with RideTech Shockwaves Brakes Brembo system from ’09 Challenger (front & rear), stainless steel brake lines, custom undedash brake pedal and master cylinder assembly Chassis: modified Art Morrison and custom frame rails

WHEELS & TIRES Wheels: 18×7 & 20×15 Foose Nitrous II Tires: 26×8 & 29×18 Mickey Thompson

The post This Show-Winning ‘Cuda Was Built For Pennies On The Dollar! appeared first on Hot Rod Network.

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