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bubbleyumss · 3 years

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The Scorch - LOKI- BUCKY mini-fic.

Hi there! I haven’t posted any written works on here for years, so forgive me that my first one back may be a little rusty! I just want to share a small fic I wrote with some of you, hopefully you enjoy.

So its after Endgame, lets forget that Loki dies thanku v much, and Steve doesn’t have his ending either. It’s a lil messy as I’m not great with crossing storylines, I usually just insert the reader into already written ones.. This may eventually lead to a split off between Loki and Bucky, the reader will have to choose who they want! But for now, it’s very Loki based. Lmk if u like, and any suggestions on continuing. Thx:)

Warnings - Violence/use of blades/knives and fire/scalding/burning.

Word count - 4K

It was unimaginable that we would all make it back from Thanos's army, but we knew it was nothing short of a miracle and we were all insanely grateful for this. Tony wasn't the same, his body was withering faster than it would have done before, but he knew that this was nothing that he couldn't seek to fix, seeing as his mind was as quick witted as ever. Barton took off back to his family, bringing Natasha with him for some much-needed time off, though Nat was never one to back down if there was a mission that was needed to be handled. This was the stage that I was at these days.

I hadn't joined the team too soon before the snap, but when I did, I had already lost those dearest to me, finding my home within the Avengers compound thanks to Tony. Though I hadn't seen much of him through the years after the snap, as I was tasked with tailing Rogers, he had always told me that I was welcome at his cabin table with his wife and daughter, making his family such dear friends of mine.

The Avengers compound was my home now, even though Tony had permanently retired from the team, there were a few of us that still worked under Fury, choosing to live there so that we were safe. The Vision and Wanda lived here for now, until such a time that their new home was built, the Captain, Bucky and Sam dropped by from time to time, acting like they didn't want to be a part of any team but always finding themselves socialising happily when they did. Same went for Nat, as she found comfort in Bruce's room sometimes, much to the pretended ignorance of us all. Thor stopped by often, claiming that Norway may be good for comfort, but sometimes he needed the discipline to get him back in his head.

It was on one of these trips that he decided to bring the newest member of the team, his brother, Loki.

"You've got to be kidding me." Steve said, standing with his arms crossed in the lounge. Steve, James, Nat, and I sat within, prepping me for my next assignment in Argentina. "No way is he joining the team."

"Last time I checked you're not even on the team yourself, Captain." He raven-haired man smirked, glancing to me, then back to Steve. I had heard of Loki, mainly from Thor, but it was clear that everyone had some sort of opinion of him, and the majority of it was bad. I had always been intrigued, as before I joined the team, I was hardly the golden child, which was how I came onto Fury's radar in the first place, so I knew what effect the evil expectations had on a person.

"Not officially." He responded, looking down to Nat, "But there are people on the team that will have an issue." Loki then looked to Nat, eyebrows raised, expecting her to agree and wish for him not to join.

"Oh, come on, comrades, Loki is different now, trust me!" Thor smiled, clapping his brother on the back, much to his annoyance, "He's still miserable as ever, but he will fight with us, not against us."

"Fury clearly trusts me enough to allow me to join your little club." He smiled, raising his hands, "I just wish for the place to stay, since my home was blown up and the new home smells of cod." He sneered, looking at Thor's disapproving face. I looked to the faces on those who sat before me, knowing that they all were only here part time either way, realising that perhaps I should speak. I stood, making them all turn to me, Loki's eyes set on mine full of intent.

"Well, I think we should give him a shot." I shrugged, "I was allowed even though I burnt down a city or two, so, I don't see why not." I smiled at Steve, then down to Nat, all showing equally unamused faces, Bucky's especially. It was always odd looking at his face and remembering our past, though in times like this I could see his anger as a simple ruse, knowing that he agreed with me wholeheartedly. "He can come with me to Argentina, as a test run." I suggested, making Bucky scoff.

"No way." He muttered.

"Yeah, I agree, that's a terrible idea." Steve shook his head. I could feel a sense of anger boiling inside me, which wasn't unfounded; they often looked at me like a younger sister, just as they did with Nat, but I supposed as they knew her for longer, they knew that she could handle herself. I could too, they just hadn't seen that yet.

"Tough. He's coming with me." I replied, defying their looks of shock. "God of Mischief, you're with me. Argentina, small hydra starts up, do you think you can handle it?" I had made my way to him at this point, only within a couple of steps of him. He smirked, and suddenly I lost all confidence I had started out with; his eyes looked me up and down, drinking me in in such an intimidating way. He was a god, far more powerful than me, and for whatever reason I really wanted to know him better.

"Of course."

As much as I started out wanting to side with the God, one jet ride with him and I already regretted it. I decided to try and get to know him, to ask him some questions about himself, only receiving sarcastic remarks as his responses. I had asked him of his time in New York, though supposing that it was a sore subject I opted to talk about his powers and what he could actually do, as I had only heard, though when he told me that it was nothing that would interest a human, I grew inpatient. He wished to play around, not to let me know him at all, and so I decided to just stop talking.

"Your eyes, do they relate to your talents?" He then asked after nearly half an hour of silence. I nearly completely ignored him, feeling that similar rage that I had attempted to defend this guy, and all he repaid me in was rudeness.

"Kind of." I replied, not wishing to talk any more.

"Well, they are beautiful." He commented, taking me by surprise. This of course wasn't the only compliment I have ever had on my eyes, the gold sheen often took people by surprise, but why on earth did he think that it was appropriate to say now?

"Why won't you answer any of my questions about you?" I then asked, taking the attention off his own question. He was silent for a minute, "I took a chance taking you along, I could have said no."

"Don't act like you have done me a favour, I could find somewhere else to live if I needed to." He scoffed, angering me further. My knuckles tightened around the jets steering, trying to keep it together.

"I have done you a favour, you clearly want in this group or you wouldn't have shown up." I retorted, "Is it so bad that I want to know you a little more? We're both the odd ones out-"

"You do not know what it is like being me." He interrupted, gaining his own anger now, "Do not pretend you do, you are just a human with some magic tricks." I watched from the corner of my eye as he rolled his eyes, slouching back in his seat, "Tricks that I have not even seen, by the way, so please try not to need saving too much while we complete this mission."

I closed my mouth, not wishing for my anger to get the better of me just yet. I knew that I had to contain it and utilise it for the mission, so that I didn't have to rely on Loki at all. I felt a sudden rush of wanting to prove the god wrong.

"I really wanted to like you; you know." I said through gritted teeth, thankfully seeing our landing destination only a few miles ahead.

"And I knew that I wouldn't like you." He replied, his smirk heard through his words.

We stood either side of a large brick gateway, glancing behind it and trying to determine the best course of play. It was just a small branch of Hydra still floating around, those that had disappeared in the snap and had returned in a way to start up their resources again. There was a group of maybe fifteen men surrounding the compound, this compound that really was in the middle of nowhere and took us all of thirty minutes to sneak up to the gate, I looked over to Loki.

"You shapeshift, right?" I whisper-shouted, remembering Thor's stories of his brother turning to a snake. He nodded, face screwed, "Get one of those uniforms, take me in as prisoner." I suggested, watching as the cogs then whirred in his mind. "It's the easiest way." I tried to prompt him further.

"I don't like easy." He responded, then beginning to smirk, "I want to see your tricks." He motioned his hand to the gate, wishing for me to go in first. I furrowed my brows, allowing his arrogance to make my anger grow.

"Oh man, I really don't like you." I growled, coming to smirk after however, "But, if you insist."

I reached my hands over my shoulders to take a hold of my swords, watching Loki's eyes watch me as I pulled them in front of me, allowing my eyes to glint and set both blades alight. It was true that I had turned cities to ash before, and now it was clear to him that I had seriously and literally burnt them down. I turned, running as fast as I could into the sandy compound, managing to get near to the centre before any of them managed to turn their guns to me; before two of them could I allowed for my leg to spin out, spouting flames from the pad of my foot, catching the three that stood closest to me. They fell to the floor, rolling to get the burning away from them as their comrades began to shoot; I spun my swords in a way to deflect those bullets that came for me. Knowing that I couldn't stay on the ground any longer I pushed my legs, flinging me up about ten metres, coming down behind two of them and slicing their backs with my blades.

I could hear the fast footsteps of one of them attempting to come from behind, though he was stopped as I pointed my blade towards him, watching as the flames that encased the metal emerged from its tip to then surround the man. I smirked; it had felt good to get back in the action. I turned, quickly throwing one blade into the chest of another, running towards him and retrieving it from him before I spun the other, throwing those bullets back towards two others. I turned to look as two had retreated within, presumably to warn the others that worked inside; at this point I wondered if Loki had disappeared, or if he was simply lying-in wait for me to be done, either way, I heard the steps of more men barrelling towards me at pace. I threw my blades at two of them to my sides, one going through a chest, the other a stomach, leaving the last man coming for me head on.

He threw the first punch, easily missed by a duck to the right, and with only a knee to the stomach and an elbow to the back, the man was on the floor. I knew that these new hydra agents weren't going to be up to scratch, but I found it almost insulting that they were so terrible at fighting. I wrapped my hand around the man’s neck, picking him up to that his toes only touched the floor; I smirked, feeling the palm of my hand grow hotter and hotter as the man began to shout. Suddenly, the feeling of cold metal against the back of my head alerted me to the fact that I had missed a man, something to do with the distraction of fun that this had given me. I dropped the man to the ground, noting the boiled skin in the shape of my hand.

As I turned, the metal of the gun was dropped, as was the body of the man holding it. As his body fell, I saw the gold knife that was planted within his back slowly disappear, looking up to see Loki's smirking face as he walked towards me.

"See, if I was not here, you would have been dead." He raised his eyebrows, stopping short of laughing in my face. I growled, turning to retrieve my blades from the bodies nearby, dousing them before attaching them back to me. I looked around, seeing the scattered bodies, some still on fire and some not, but none remaining alive. "Nice tricks." He then said, trying to act as though he meant it. I rolled my eyes.

"Come on. We need to get whatever information we can."

It was one thing hearing of the powers that Loki possessed, and another to actually see them in action. The duplication, meaning one moment I thought I was talking and looking at the real him, only for it to vanish before my eyes and reveal he is several feet away from me. He had finally used his shapeshifting ability to change into one of the guards like I had suggested, letting himself into a room with ease before shooting down those inside. He seemed to like watching me watch him, I would stand back, impressed, after he would use his powers, and he would smirk at me once his show was over.

The control room was last, requiring us to actually fight together rather than one by one. I hadn't thought it would go as well as it did as he seemed to be someone who preferred to work alone, but as we fought it seemed we worked around each other well, him throwing his punches, grabbing a hold of an officer, and holding him up for me to burn.

"We seem to work well together, you and I." He said, panting once the last body had dropped. He smirked, having a look of surprise on his face.

"Or more I work well and you're a good sidekick." I shrugged, moving to the control computers where the officers from before had attempted to erase their hard drive. "They didn't manage to wipe it." I sighed a breath of relief, knowing that our fight hadn't been for nothing.

"Sidekick?" He questioned, coming to my side as I inserted the flash drive given to me before the mission.

"They have more start-ups." I then said, taking his attention away from me and to the screen. There was correspondence between them, showing at least five different locations to which, their information was coming or going. He leaned over, getting a better look, though as he did, I could suddenly feel his presence beside me. The smell of leather and whatever cologne God's now wore entered my nostrils, taking my brain away from what was before me. I thought Loki attractive, of course, but there is no way I could think of him in any other way than an annoying tagalong. not right now at least. "Brazil, Tunisia, the Ukraine." I sighed.

"Does that mean that we will have more missions together?" He then asked, attempting to sound disgusted. I rolled my eyes, trying not to smirk.

"No, it means that I will have more missions. I'm definitely not bringing you along." I scoffed, snatching the flash drive from the computer once it had finished downloading. I stood straight, only then realising how close he was to me. His eyes bore down at me, amusement shining within.

"That's good to hear. I don't think I could take any more of your little bonfire powers." He contested, trying not to break from his egotistical character. The hints of a smirk teased at his lips, and if the smell of burning flesh wasn't surrounding us both, and the urge to punch the smugness from his face wasn't growing in favour, I would have said we were having a moment.

"Let's get going then. Got to get you home so you can brush up on your magic act." I smiled a wry smile, pushing past him in attempts to leave. Though, the moment I came to the threshold of the door, I felt the searing burn of a blade being pushed through my chest. A soldier had stood by the door, waiting for his opportunity to strike, and finding it when I never bothered to check before stepping out. I dropped to my knees immediately, watching as a series of knives were then thrown into the chest of that very officer, forcing him to drop dead before me.

Loki suddenly came behind me, on his knees also, holding me up against his chest in a panic. He thought I was truly dying, and so I couldn't let this moment go by without playing him at his own game. I allowed myself to lean back, pulling the knife from my chest and throwing it to the floor before I looked up to him, taking in his look of worry.

"You can heal, right? You can heal..." He began to stutter, becoming even more shaky when I slowly shook my head. "No, you can't die, I-I will be blamed, this will be my fault." I scoffed, coughing as I did.

"You'll be blamed? Wow... you really do only care about yourself." I muttered, voice getting weaker as I spoke. "You can't even admit that you'd be sad if I died." I tried to muster a laugh, allowing it to make me cough further and forcing his grip on me to become tighter. His scent was intoxicating, so much so that I thought he must have done some magic to make it so; though what struck me most was the small flickers of green in his blue eyes, they were beautiful.

"You can't die." He then smiled, "I would have no one to vouch for me anymore." He whispered. This took me by surprise. My vouching for him must have actually meant something to him for it to affect him in such a way, though when thinking about it, I may have been the first one to do so in a very long time.

"You deserved the chance, Loki." I shrugged, wincing as the pain was still within my chest, his eyes held the torment that I was now putting him through, probably bringing up bad memories, I needed to bring this to an end, "I'd vouch for you again, you know... even if you don't like me." He chuckled.

"Of course, I like you," He smiled, "I wouldn't save the life of just anyone." The moment the words left his lips I sat myself up, wiping my chest of the dried blood from the knife. I heard no sound from him as I stood myself up, only turning to look at him when I had reconnected my swords to my back. He remained on his knees on the floor, looking up at me incredulously, noting the smirk on my face and trying to stop one coming to his own. "You weren't really dying?"

"Oh no, it takes a lot to kill me." I waved my hand dismissively, letting a smile grow on my face. It was only a second before he had gotten to his feet, placing his hand firmly around my neck and pushing me back against a wall.

"Not anyone can trick me." He growled, his voice hinting a slight tease. I smiled in his grasp, slowly raising my core temperature, and simply watching his eyes to see when he would notice. His hand gripped a little tighter and his eyes squinted, waiting as long as he possibly could before removing his hand in pain, blowing on it when he did.

"And not anyone can threaten me, your majesty." I smiled, "Time to go." I then suggested, turning away from him, and exiting down the corridor. His footsteps were quick to follow, coming to my tail as he sighed.

"So, what's the protocol for leaving? Do we just let the bodies be found?" He then asked, finally asking something about how we did things around here. He really did want to be a part of the team, and in reality, I was certain that he would fit in quite well. I smiled again, turning to him once we were facing the exit.

"Really Loki? Why do you think Fury sends me on these missions?" I asked, placing my fingertips to the wall. I started walking towards the exit, allowing my fingertips to dance along the wall, setting it alight in their wake. He followed close behind, the both of us only stopping when we were a few metres outside of the building, I looked to him as we relished in the spiralling flames, "Bonfire powers is pretty accurate, honestly." I shrugged, watching his smirk emerge.

"I am what some people call a 'mutant'. Nothing gave me my powers; I suppose I've always just hand them." I shrugged, "I burnt down my family home. Killing my family when I was five. I didn't know what I was doing." I didn't know why I suddenly felt the urge to tell Loki my whole life story on the jet ride home, but I think it had something to do with the fact that he had fought for me and with me, and that while he thought I was dying he really did try and make me feel better. "Then there were three foster homes after that that went down in smoke... a similar start up like that one was the only ones who took me in."

"Hydra..." I heard him whisper.

"Yes." I sighed, "But... I didn't need the brainwashing like the Winter Soldier... I did everything I did voluntarily." I coughed, shifting awkwardly. I knew that my story wasn't palatable to normal people, but as Loki wasn't normal and had enough blood on his hands for the both of us, I felt he could be trusted with the truth. "Fury said it was either work for him or be locked up somewhere. So." I shrugged. There was a long moment of silence, one, I assumed, because he wasn't sure as how to respond.

"I was forced into the New York invasion." He then said, breaking through the silence in one swing. "My brother doesn't even know the whole truth." He sighed. I glanced to him, his eyes remained forward, face stoic, "Thanos held me for months, training me to lead the Chitauri, though the training was simply torture and mind games."

"You were being controlled by the mind stone too..." I whispered, more to myself, but he had heard it. He looked to me, eyes soft, nodding. "Wow."

"If I didn't, he would have killed me, destroyed the Earth, and Asgard. I couldn't allow for that." He then sighed, sitting back in his chair, "There, I answered one of your questions. But you only get one." I scoffed.

"I tell you how I killed my family, and you think that answering one question makes up for that?" I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to stop my smile as he nodded. "What will it take for you to open up a bit? If we're to go on all of those missions together you're going to have to at some point." I raised my eyebrows, watching as he tapped his chin.

"I'll tell you what, I'll answer one question each time I save your life." He smirked, "I'm sure I'll have answered all of your questions before the summers end."

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floosies · 4 years

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bury a friend: The Story of Noctua

pairing: steve rogers x possessed!oc x mcu!au

summary: there have been sightings of a dark creature who vanishes with night and in the mornings only remains of once living people are found scattered in open fields or forests nearby.

warnings: mentions of abuse, mentions of attempted suicide, violence, gore, cursing, mentions/scenes of sexual nature.

Please read with discretion. 18+ content.

A/N: This is my first attempt at something more dark. It’s been in my brain since hearing some of biilie’s works and quiet frankly I want to venture into new territory. However, I understand the severity of some topics that I will write about. If you or someone you know is in need please look at these resources

Tags: @indecisivedolly

Series Masterlist

Part 5: Cold, Cold Heart

It took some time before they let the man get out of the room. His mind was steady fast on her. Was she dead? Why did he care? She was no better than him, and murdered people for sport. Still he raced to the med bay, with hopes she was doing well. When neared the entrance he found Steve waiting there, his face full of concentration. “What’d they say?” The look he gave his friend made Bucky’s heart drop.

Ruth was a little girl that greeted all the creatures of the woods. The kindest soul anyone could ever meet. It was what Tenebrae admired about her. What her parents saw from the great beyond. A kindred spirit with good intentions. Yet, here she laid feeble and fighting to wake up. She wouldn’t give up, especially since she only just discovered her freedom to be herself.

“Cho, you’re joking right?” It made sense, but a part of Bucky seemed to be in disbelief. The doctor shook her head though, “this girl seriously malnourished, under weight, and has serious bone damage. I’m surprised she’s alive.” It was reaching nightfall, Steve was still hoping she’d wake up. Outside the door of her room was the elderly man from the previous night, “Tenebrae right?” He smiled at the boy, “Bucky. How is she?” The being could read the anger well on the boy. “How could you let that happen to her?” With a look of shock he mockingly answered the boy, “I thought she was a monster? Is that not how you viewed her?” Of course this took him aback.

Steve heard the voice of someone else, he left the room to see the two men standing in silence. “Sir? Can I help you?” The elderly man looked at Steve, but Bucky answered, “it’s the Tenebrae thing.” “I am not a thing, I am an entity.” Being ever polite Steve asked why he had returned, “she is like my daughter. I must check on her well being.” A scoff arose from the one armed soldier at the very comment, “she’s malnourished, and has multiple bone fractures. How caring.” Because of its human form, it could finally express emotion, “those bone fractures came from a terrible early childhood. Or had she not mentioned what drove her to nearly kill herself?’

The silence was not one of awkwardness nor anger, but of guilt. The entity explained her misfortunes. How she would still smile and try to make those wretched people love her. How they did everything to try and break her. Explaining why all the rotten souls were killed, and how she cried after kill out of guilt. Steve wanted to cry, ever the sentimentalist. “So when you go and call her a monster remember that she is very aware of her impending flaws soldat.” The elderly man whispered something and then disappeared.

She woke up in the middle of the night, she knew where she was even if she had never been through the whole of the compound. There were so many floors to go through, this time she’d found a room filled with records and a great gramophone. She found an old french record that made her smile. It didn’t take long after to sense she was going to have company. She had already guessed who.

He walked in with an urgency, “Doctor Cho said you’re malnourished and fractured everywhere.” He then proceeded to take seat, “well I’m still alive though.” The record play in the background, “did you know those people weren’t your real parents.” Her puzzled look was a quick indicator that this was new to her, “the spirit thing told us about your upbringing.” There was no time to react, her palm left a burning sensation his cheek. Her eyes began to brim with tears, “you are an empty shell of man. Your soul is rotten, if you still have one. You vicious, cold blooded, cumberground.” “Cumberground?” She went to strike him again, but his metal arm gripped her wrist. “You serve no purpose, you merely exist to take up space. That is what you are.” She spat at the soldier.

“You’re no one to talk to me like that-” “someone should! I have done nothing to you. Yet you belittle me and glare when my presence is near.” His heart was racing, “why do you let me? Why don’t you kill me?” She pushed herself away from, “kill you? Kill you?! Do you hear yourself?! Are you mad? You must be absolutely insane! Why would I ever wish death upon anyone?” Was she serious? “Your history says otherwise-” “those heathens hurt children, women, other men. They suffered their endings because they were awful people. I’ve witnessed them in the midst of their horrid acts. I’ve seen the lives that were destroyed because of the scum I kill. You think I kill for sport? I live with each and every memory, the agonizing screams as they try to ask for forgiveness. It aches my heart sometimes, but they were merely trying not to pay for the injustices they made on the feeble.”

There was only the sound of her sobs for a moment. He quietly asked, “so why do it? If it pains you?” She looked at him, the blue in his eyes was like the ocean in late summer, their gaze was content on her. “I do it because I know the pain of being taken advantage of. I nearly lost my virtue out of forceful brute from someone who was supposed to care for me. The reassurance that someone else doesn’t have to feel the pain I did is why I continue.” She paused for a moment before continuing, “if I had died like I’d planned I would have never been able to save any of them. I cherish the fact that have been given a second chance. You may not, but I do. A fear lives in me, one that makes me believe this may all be taken away from me and I’ll have to live in the horrors of my past. So I carry on as best as I can. I am a kind soul at my core, but I will not live to please anymore.”

His mind was rushing with many thoughts, she could not read all of them. Perhaps she should have stayed in that bed, “when we were in the alternate past and I saw that Kennedy was alive. I realized that it meant I was dead, there was a comfort in that.” Here was the glimpse into the fragments of darkness that haunted him, “to find comfort in one’s own demise is a feeling I longed for. Your past does not define you. It should not guide who you are now, you do not have to be cold, the best thing would be to look forward.”

The record was ending, “when the old man explained your past. I thought of my own pain. I’ve been seeing you like they saw me. It’s easier to see everyone as your enemy when you’ve been made to believe that for so long.” She listened, not sure what would come from it the next day. He was really just a scared boy, filled with paranoia and insecurity. When he began to sob, she made him sleep, presenting him a sweet dream. Something comforting from his past.

Her room was in the same state she left in. Despite the softness of the linens and the cushion of the pillows, an unsettling feeling sat in the depths of her heart. How would the days work now? Would his glares and harshness continue? She decided on not erasing his memory of their conversation. Fatigue soon answered for her, and soon she was in her dream land as well.

Steve went to look for her in the morning, she wasn’t in her room or in the med bay. She was gone. He called Tony, “what do you mean she just disappeared?” The billionaire’s voice came from the cellphone, “I don’t know. I’m searching everywhere-” FRIDAY’s voice interrupted the conversation, “she’s in the basement kitchen.” A sigh of relief erupted from Steve as he went to the elevator down to the basement.

As the elevator opened, he looked over at the kitchen area of the basement. She was sat next to Bucky, they appeared to be in a deep discussion. “Sorry to interrupt, I couldn’t find you in the med bay.” She smiled at the golden haired man, “I apologize for not advising you about my whereabouts. Could some breakfast make up for it?” He smiled at her, “sure.” Bucky just sat there for a while. He listened to his friend make the young witch laugh, somewhere in his heart he was a bit upset that she was happy in Steve’s presence.

So much so that he didn’t hear her talking to him, “you alright Bucky?” Her voice was so soft, “yeah? Yes. Sorry what was the question?” She giggled, “Steve and I were wondering if you wanted to come grocery shopping with us?” There was this gleam of hope in her eyes. Her doe like eyes, the ones he’d seen before he fell asleep and dreamed about the first time his ma took him to Coney Island. He agreed to go with them though, he had to ask her more questions about how she did it. If she could bring back more of his memories, if she would help him find himself.

#sorceress #witch #oc!female #steve rogers #Bucky Barnes #Captain America The First Avenger #mcu #mcuedit #Avengers #chris evans #Sebastian Stan

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bleeding-antlers · 4 years

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Havoc Runs in the Streets of the Undead

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21416617/chapters/51026374

Zombie Apocalypse AU Chapter 1 of ? (more to come)

Word Count: 3104

Keenan thought his morning couldn’t get any worse. After the end of the world spiel came to be true, he’s been bought with a terrible fate of disastrous nights and having his attention alerted at all times. When the sirens blurred out of people’s televisions, phones and radios, it really was doomsday. Everyone was rushing for safety, even though there really wasn’t an escape from the brain-eating undead, there was nothing to stop them from still following your aroma and never quitting their gruesome behaviour, and soon enough, you’ll starve due to the lack of equipment or eventually give up on life whether if it’s getting bitten, losing a loved one or accepting your dying fate by another tribe of survivors. Though with Keenan’s knowledge from video games and fiction novels, he was prepared, yet at the same time he felt as if he could be jumped from behind any minute. He’d been a lone-wolf. Hunting down crashed and emptied stores to find a resort to hide in or get at least some extra food for when he’s on the road. Already, he lost some of his partners, some that he thought would survive the apocalypse, but as soon as hell broke loose, he was very wrong. He witnessed undead teeth biting down onto someone’s arm, shoulder and leg. He witnessed blood being spattered and brain matter smearing onto the paved roads. It was a catastrophe, his eyes were conceived from sin of bloodthirsty survivors and torture. He saw everything with his two pupils, and trauma would seep through his dreams, leading him back into reality as a sweaty, dirty mess of a man.

It's already been months when hell came to earth, and Keenan funnily enough hasn't died from dehydration yet. With him always being on foot, he was a lost cause. If he couldn't find any resources in the morning, he might as well throw himself in a swarm of zombies. It's been extremely hard to find a good source of canned food and water, the lakes that had surrounded the city here and there, were parched from the sun being closer to the Earth's atmosphere than it had been in past years. The only way to get water now is through the Army's base, yet doing so is a risk. With the government going insane and the American soldiers hiding away from the public eye with closed doors, there was no use trying to fight with them. It was only Keenan and the world to survive. His instincts of being on foot and in the wild has pumped up his mind with knowledgeable thinking as well as being lucky to find pots already filled with cleansed water, and bottles still lying around from littering.

Keenan had been walking for a bit, his legs feeling numb from never stopping ever since he woke up. He needed to find an abandoned store, or maybe he'll be a blessed soul from the unknown God this time and find another survivor's base he could sneak into. All his priorities was led by the need of more snacks he could rummage and jumble in his backpack for later. He was certainly running low on resources and if he were to have it all gone, he will be dead meat for the zombies that roamed the cracked streets.

Sweat dripped down Keenan's forehead, his tired eyes squinting through his glasses in the distance of the road he were following. He couldn't see anything that popped out to him, only a few dead zombies and humans laying on the ground, already decomposing. They aren't fresh, which didn't bring Keenan interest anyways. The sun was beating down on him, the beams of rays showering the top of his head with heat and his whole body sticking against his clothes. God, only if there was a pool in the apocalypse. He'd be running happily into a child's pool just to have a quick bath in cool water, but that was all his imagination; his wish for the current moment, but of course it couldn't come true even if he prayed to whatever God or Goddess that resembled his need of thirst. Though, either way, Keenan would still be stuck in dreadful heat...

An exhausted sigh escaped as he slowly came across an empty vehicle. It didn’t seem all that messed up, actually, it only had a few dents here and there and only rust was overcoming the car. It was in good condition, at least from being in the apocalypse.

With curiosity getting the best of him he inched closer to the vehicle, peeking inside to see if anything was useful for Keenan's trip. He scanned his surroundings first, checking if any undead was close by and could potentially grab him off-guard, but his survival instincts was with him today, at least for the moment. The brain-eating creatures were nowhere near him unless you count the ones who are on the ground, a second time being dead.. thank God. Though, with superhuman vision, you could definitely see them in the distance, but of course, they had no potential of coming close to Keenan anytime soon.

Rummaging through the car, with a swift and slow opening of the door, he pushed himself into the front seat with his knee balancing on the ripped chair's cushion. It seemed like someone had already camped out in the car. There were blankets laying in the back seat and semi-fresh cans of soup were already opened and thrown at the cars floor. It gave an idea that whoever was here, has been resting in the vehicle very recently. A hand combed through his hair before he crawled more towards the back, his long limbs kept getting caught on the exterior of the car, his legs hitting the shift stick and his head bumping into the ceiling every now and again. He cursed under his breath at his given height. Being so tall in a small car wasn't a wise choice. He could've opened the back door, yet, he didn't think that far ahead. He was too much in a hurry to get something that's useful, and already witnessing that someones been camping here, he might as well start rummaging the already beaten-up car to more of a wreck. A slender hand whipped inside the ripped cushions, searching within them to see if the person that once was here had stored any goods in them, and thankfully enough there was a fresh batch of bagged nacho chips in the middle seat.

“Ooh yeah, mama, some delicious fucking food.”

Grabbing the crinkling bag with one free hand, he turned his shoulder so his backpack could slide off and sit up on the backseats. He opened the bigger pocket and smoothly stuffed the nacho bag into the bottom of the pack and zipped it back up so he could save the snack for later when he rests in his own little nest. While only finding one piece of food, he found some lingering bullets splaying on the cars floor. It wasn’t blown opened yet, so Keenan took the advantage to sneak the bullet cases into his pocket. He rarely ever used his pistol as the bullets he found was for his type of weapon, but in any dire situations, he thought it might be a smart idea to just keep the extra casings. He didn’t want to risk it either way.

Keenan thought he’d still look around the carpeted floor for anything that sparked interest, or was another item he could stuff into his backpack for future trips, but as his head was tucked under the front passenger seat, seeking underneath the chair, a creak of the back side door opened, and a new presence was behind him. Keenan had caught a pit of saliva in his throat when he gulped after hearing the creaking, as he knew then and now, that the owner of the nestled area in the car had returned, and yet had found another survivor lingering in his safe area, digging his nose into the other person’s belongings.

A gun cocked and landed its nuzzle on the small of Keenan’s back as he slowly lifted his head up and put his arms up as a subconscious sign of acquiescence.

“I want you to back the fuck up, slowly.. And out of my fucking car, or you’ll have to deal with your brains being blown right here, right now..” The anonymous voice bellowed in Keenan’s ears, a shiver going down his back as the tiny hairs stood up from his arms, giving him goosebumps by how the other spoke to him. It wasn’t surprising though, for someone to talk so blunt and stern to a guy who’s just been caught rummaging through the other person’s place.

“Okay, okay..” Keenan obliged with the other and slowly started turning around to step out of the vehicle, but the gun that was on his back rammed harder into his spine by Keenan’s movements. He jumped from the impact, and instead didn’t turn his body. He crawled basically backwards out of it, his shoes finally hitting the concrete of the road and being able to stand up straight again.

“I.. I cause no harm to you, I didn’t know the car was still in use, I’m just simply trying to seek for some food, I didn’t-” Keenan’s apology was cut off by another jab, a wince being pronounced from the impact as well as his hands going up again.

“I don’t want your dumb-ass excuses. Now.. give me a reason why I shouldn’t just end your life here for ruining my shit, or leave you to rot like the rest of the fucking undead here?”

Keenan slugged down a gulp as he tempted to move his head to get a view of the person who was threatening his life. With his glasses catching some of the sunlight that glistened in the background, he saw some features of the other male. He had red hair, just as bright and vibrant as the dusty dusk when the moon starts to arise for nightfall. He had glasses on as well, maybe more square than Keenan’s and his facial features wrinkled from the stern frown that the other pasted onto his lips.

“L-Look… Like I said, I mean you no harm, and I’m willing to give your stuff back as long as you drop your gun and..” Keenan sighed when he got shoved by the nuzzle of the pistol, almost hitting his chin on the car’s roof from the slight shove, “Fuck. Okay, here.. I can, I can give you more than just your stuff. I can give you… my water and some of my own food if you just let me go.”

A hesitant pause was punctured in the summer breeze. Dust from the distanced desert blew past both of their heads as the pistol that had been pushed in his back lowered down and released him from the man’s hold. A deep exhale that Keenan didn’t know was holding escaped as he slowly turned around to properly view the other male. He was actually quite taller than himself- maybe by two more inches- but either way, Keenan was still slightly tilting his head up to meet the other person’s eyes.

The gun was put back into his holster as he crossed his arms, still having a grim expression to his features, but Keenan might’ve well ignored that factor for now. Especially since he was the one to get caught, and deal with the consequences. He was actually pretty surprised that he was able to get out of it safely, but… have to get rid of his essentials.

Keenan grabbed his backpack quickly from the seat he previously put it on and opened the pocket once again, letting out a deep sigh as he noticed that the bottle he had said to give was close to empty. A nervous chuckle was heard from him as he looked over to the redhead and brought out the plastic, beaten up bottle. A distasteful look was then present from the other’s face, a roll of his eyes as he roughly grabbed the bottle that crinkled in his hold.

“Hey, hey look- I didn’t know there was so little left, I can always refill it, don’t worry, but-” Gesturing with his hands in a nervous factor, the redhead just huffed out a small snicker as he threw the bottle pasted Keenan and onto the car’s floor.

“You’re really making a fool of yourself, huh?”

“What..?”

A hand was brought onto Keenan’s shoulder, putting pressure on the muscle before letting go and moving towards the back of the car, “First you go looking in my little area, and now you’re making excuses again. How long have you been living like this?”

It was now Keenan’s turn to scoff and cross his arms together, “Why does that have to deal with you? Clearly I’ve been living. Maybe not as smart, but still. I’m not in a distraught situation every time. You’re the one to make assumptions.”

“Hm.”

Keenan rolled his eyes and made his way to the redhead, his eyes fixating on the other’s as he squared his shoulders, “Just hear me out.”

“I’m listening…”

A hand went up to his hair and combed it back, wiping some sweat from his forehead before speaking again, “I’m just in need of some snacks and better equipment to stay for the night, and to finally see a survivor that isn’t dead on the ground, is really surprising to me, but just because I stole a bag of chips doesn’t mean i want to harm you.”

The other male’s eyebrows furrowed and then settled as he kept on listening to Keenan speak, he seemed to be interested this time to what he had to say, and with the amount of commotion he had already sparked from the other from gunpoint, he wasn’t all wrong on his reasons. Hell, even himself needed the same things the other wanted. So, with his shoulders not seemingly being so tense anymore, he rested and snuggled his hands into his jean’s pockets, having a more relaxed but still tough stance towards Keenan.

“Maybe, even with you and I finding each other in this fucking hellhole, we could stick as a team? See, you’re way more tough than I, you have that badass look and shit, and how you put that fucking gun to my back... Honestly, that could be handy if we stay together in the apocalypse.”

Silence spilled over themselves once again, a lingering quiet moment peaked as they both tried to find another way to continue on with their conversation, but Keenan said most of what he wanted to say, and whether or not the other thought it was a smart idea or not, has yet to be shown from the expression of the redhead, but the man just sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he turned his head to the side, averting his gaze from Keenan to think about what he had said. It was as if he was tentative on the idea, thinking maybe it wasn’t a good thing to do or maybe it was, though ever since the beginning of this nightmare, it has been awhile since both of them seen a surviving human.

Another sigh but heavier spilled from the redhead’s mouth and a furrow of his bristling eyebrows, he faced back to Keenan, placing his hand on top of the holster where his gun laid upon, drumming his fingers in an un-rhythmical beat when he began to open his mouth to say his opinion on the situation, “Maybe you’re right, but it doesn’t mean i’ll go easy on you. Just because we’ll be sitting as a… ‘team’ I won’t play all soft and friendly on you. It’s only for surviving longer in this shitty place.”

Keenan hadn’t smiled so wide in so long, he was bubbling with anticipation and joy after hearing the other agree on the plan. “Fuck yeah, ah- ahem, yeah yeah, of course, I won’t play soft on you either, hell- because we’re a great duo now, you won’t have to live in that small fucking car of yours.” Keenan gave out a quick chuckle, gently placing his hand on the trunk of the car, leaning against the car.

“By the way… I believe we should give each other an introduction.” Keenan moved his other hand up to his chest, laying it against his beating heart as he bowed his head in a proper greeting, “I’m Keenan, and you?”

“...Jared.”

Jared was still his skeptical self, even when saying his own name, he kept on looking at every inch of Keenan with his eyes narrowed to see if anything threatening could quickly happen if he turned his back against the other, but from the sight of it, he was nothing he needed to worry about. He wasn’t a flesh eating zombie, he had no desire to stab Jared in the throat to steal the rest of his stuff. Keenan was just a simple man, wanting to survive the apocalypse as the same goes with Jared, and that’s what they both needed to do. Jared wasn’t a people-person from the start, but if they were to continue on with their journey on killing and hiding from the walking dead, he might as well start being one. It’d be more of an awkward situation if he kept his strict demeanor at play when they really could become a powerful duo.. As Keenan blatantly mentioned before.

The brunette lifted himself away from the trunk and started to move over to the side door of the car. The side where he got caught, grabbing his backpack once again, this time, not needing to take stuff out of it and shuffled it onto his back.

“Why don’t we head back to my hideout. It may be a little longs away but it’ll be cozy. Grab whatever you have here since there’s more room for us there than.. Being in that thing,” he pointed inside the car’s back seats, scoffing jokingly as well as Jared chuckling. That brought a small smile to Keenan’s lips again, “By the way..again, I have to ask, how the fuck did you fit in that thing?”

“Oh, you don’t want to know.” Jared answered, already grabbing equipment from the vehicle, “It’s hell to get in, hell to get out as well, but once you’re in.. it’s different, I guess.”

Maybe being with Keenan in the apocalypse wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

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violetren · 5 years

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I gotta wonder what it's like to be the companions in DQ IX.

'cause unlike the other games in the franchise where you meet and recruit fully fleshed characters that exist in the world, in DQ IX you go to Patty's Party Planning and put out an ad.

Then you build the companion just the same as you built your player character and off adventuring you go. Friends in arms that don't talk or have any connection to the world or story beyond fighting beside you.

So imagine from their point of view...

You answer an advert calling for a fighter, or a priest, or whatever and meet an adventurer who is still a little green looking, but has more experience than you, and willing to pay for your gear, for your room and board, and even for a church service should the worst happen. They’re earnest about helping, and seem to really appreciate the little every day things. The very image of a small town hero, except sometimes, sometimes you catch them looking up at the sky with a wistful expression, like they’re homesick or something.

So you follow them around and life's pretty great. The work is hard but they keep their promise to keep you prepared, giving you items, making sure you have not just serviceable gear but the best of whatever kingdom you're in. There is some awkwardness when they start talking to thin air in graveyards, or after talking to someone whose relative has just died, but when they suddenly know where to find missing belongings, and obscure clues, you decide to wave it off.

Speaking to the dead might not be normal, but it always leads to helping someone, and if that weren’t rewarding enough, a lot of the people you help give you actual rewards. Money, items, gear, or even information that helps even more people.

Then one day your boss starts talking to someone named Stella. Everywhere. After talking with clients, or informants, after seeing something interesting nearby, or even just out in the field impromptu of nothing having back and forths about which monsters drop which items. You get the impression that this Stella must be quite the character by how often your boss looks disgruntled, or amused, or often a mix of both in quick succession.

You ask one day why Stella hasn’t moved on like the others. Your boss winces and then patiently explains that Stella isn’t a ghost but a faerie, and an unofficial 5th party member. It sounds insane, but you’ve been with them for a while, and whether its true or not it hasn’t compromised their abilities, or the standard of security and comfort you’ve grown used to travelling with them.

Until they walk you to the middle of a forest path and start assessing a fallen tree, talking about whether it has the power it needs, and something called benevolessence. You start sharing looks with your fellow hires wondering if maybe it is time to move on when suddenly your boss ushers you all towards this fallen tree, and the weirdest thing you’ve experienced since you started travelling with this stranger who stares at the stars like they’ve touched them, and who touches the names carved into the base of village guardian statues with a near nostalgic smile.

They usher you towards a fallen tree, and between one breath and the next you end up standing in train car and there is a tiny flying woman smacking at the controls cursing up a storm when they don’t respond.

You assume this is Stella but neither she nor your boss pay you the slightest bit of attention as they puzzle stuff out.

Then Stella turns into a little ball of light and hides in the collar of your bosses shirt, and your boss ushers you back outside, declaring that you’re all gonna go fight the mysterious knight that manged to run rampant through the kings castle. The knight that fought through the commander, and all his men, that witnesses said looked like a possessed corpse.

No biggie.

Not much actually changes. You train. You get resources together. You fight. You win. Your party is now hailed as heroes within the kingdom.

The next time your boss ushers you into the train, it shudders. Stella still doesn’t pay you the slightest bit of attention as she curses at the controls some more, and then demands that your boss head over to the next kingdom and save more people because apparently that’ll make the train fly.

You figure, flying train? Why not? It’s already invisible from the outside after all.

So you go to the next town and there is an honest to the Almighty plague going through the town. Except the plague isn’t a plague it’s a curse, and you don’t even have to listen to the half conversation happening nearby to know Stella and your boss are gonna jump right into solving it. You’re already making sure you have antidotal herbs in your bag. You don’t know what good they’ll do against a curse super virus but it’s not like you’ve got much else.

The pattern holds. You prep. You fight. You win.

This time you go around and check everyone that was hurt by the curse, taking the Dr guy that helped rebuild the seal while you fought the embodiment of the curse, making sure everyone is ok.

Then it’s a long trek back to the invisble train.

This time it lights up when you all step inside. You’ve never hear Stella so excited as she ignores you. Your boss is obviously excited too.

You’re not even sure if they meant for you to be on board when they take off. But you are. And you watch out the window as the train begins to levitate, and then fly, the forest, the kingdom, your home and everything you’ve ever known stretching out beneath you, and then so much more. The world laid out beneath you.

It’s extraordinary.

But not as extraordinary as what you see next.

The world tree. The place departed souls return to when they die. The center piece of your worlds mythology, religion, and culture. And beneath it a citadel. Partially destroyed but still magnificent.

You’re in heaven. Or as close to it as anyone who is still living can be. And your boss just strides out into that citadel like they belong, Stella safely tucked away in their collar. They don’t ask you to follow, but you do because how could you pass up the chance not to?

There are guardians, Celestrians, literal angels, everywhere, and they embrace your boss like they are family. No one speaks to you, and you wonder if its because they consider you beneath them, or if you’re as invisible to them up here as they are to you down there. With nothing better to do, and too scared to wander around unless you literally get cast out of heaven you stick close to your boss, listening to how the place ended up in disrepair, and why your boss doesn’t have wings, and all about how some magic fruit is gone.

You stand vigil as your boss prays for their wings to come back and get front row seats to the story of the vision they had after they had passed out praying. A story of a force that wants to destroy all mortals, and a force that wanted to defend them, and how they’ve been tasked with finding the missing magic fruit.

Filled with purpose your boss marches back to the train, which as it turns out, is golden up here in kinda-heaven, and you scramble to stay with them, not wanting to risk getting left up there with a bunch of angels that seem to see right through you, literally. Inside Stella seems to be having a small freak out.

It’s becoming increasingly clear that Stella isn’t actually the driver of this train, but the boss either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as they fill her in on their new quest. Stella is all too happy jump onto the plan, clearly hoping she’ll find the real driver somewhere along the way.

And just like that you’re off.

You don’t land where you took off. Instead you land near a big blue tree on a totally different Island. You follow your boss, and climb down from the train. Down the tree to the ground, happy to have solid mortal soil beneath your feet again. When you reach the bottom your boss has already walked up a small hill and is surveying the area, seemingly enjoying being back in the mortal world too, even if there is still that same old wistfulness behind their refreshed determination to go out and do something good.

They turn to you as you join them on the hill and smile, greeting you with a “long time no see.”

You shake your head but smile back. They might be The Hero, but you have a feeling they’re gonna need all the help they can get, and if you’re the one fighting at their back well then doesn’t that make you a hero too?

You gesture for them to lead the way, not point hanging around when you’ve got a world to save.

#chirping wren #dq ix #dragon quest sentinels of the starry skies #dragon quest #dragon quest ix

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projectfaust · 4 years

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Concerning Not-So Satanic Panics

A panic is defined as “sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior”. The word is derived from the Greek panikos, in turn taken from the name of the god Pan – known in part for causing terror among populations. The Ancient Greeks would attribute events that imparted confusion and terror, having unknown causes, towards Pan. As those who choose to walk the Left Hand Path, we should all be well versed in the role panic has played in the history of our emerging philosophy. Throughout the 1980’s and well into the 1990’s, millions of people were suddenly gripped with irrational, terrifying thoughts of children being abducted and tortured in highly organized and fiendish plots of Satanic conspirators. Accounts of these abuses were both horrific and comically implausible yet these beliefs persisted for almost two decades, impacting the lives of thousands in varying degrees of destruction. The ingredients that were required to start this panic still exist in the minds of society today and we will likely see a resurgence of this irrationality around Satanism in the years to come. This article however is about a different kind of panic, the not-so Satanic kind.

On an almost annual basis, the world has seen itself be gripped by panic. Viruses like H1N1, SARS, Ebola, West Nile, Zika, Nipah (to name a few) have whipped the world into a series of short lived frenzies. When no microscopic murderer is in the spotlight, we are never left with an empty plate of panic. Ranging from complete economic collapse to apocalyptic calendars and dictators with big red buttons – man’s desire to be scared out of its wits is one that can always be fulfilled. Those charged with filling our plates do so gleefully, watching the clicks, likes, and dollars pour in and fill their social and financial coffers. An old saying of the media still holds true, “if it bleeds, it leads”. Fear and panic sells, this is always worth keeping in mind for those who strive for rational self interest.

During these panics, we find society in the place it is most comfortable – a place of binary options and polarization. You either take the position of believing that there is nothing to worry about whatsoever or that the end is inevitable and nigh. Social media and increased media consolidation (and competition) serve only to accelerate this march towards two lines. Adding that misinformation spreads faster than most plagues and what you have is a psychological environment that’s primed for panic. The reality of course lies in between these binaries, the often overused and misunderstood third way. As we look out on the panicking and relaxed masses respectively, one should clearly see that in the majority of situations our answer to continue our vital existences lies in the middle.

We are a fundamentally vulnerable species. There are countless ways that we could be wiped off the planet either by our own accord or nature’s. We often focus on our own vulnerabilities and look to strengthen them, but we must look through the same lens at humanity. With the acceleration of urbanization and a supply chain system based on a ‘just in time’ production and delivery schedule, there are many things that can and will go wrong. We should not bury our heads in the sand to this fact, after all Satan represents “undefiled wisdom instead of hypocritical self-deceit”. For the majority of our species’ existence, the battle for food, water, and shelter consumed much of our time. We find ourselves living in the age of excess and plenty but one should never forget that we have only checked into this hotel fairly recently. With this in mind, responsibility to the responsible would support having a standard supply of food and essentials to cover any extenuating circumstance that would leave stores empty and government response strained and sporadic. Most experts recommend a supply to carry you and your family through two weeks of downed supply lines.

Many people take this kernel of rational preparedness and then proceed to spin the dial to a deafening maximum volume. So before you run out and buy a shipping container to convert into an underground bunker (a terrible idea, by the way) or stockpile years worth of food and water, remember that Satan also represents “vital existence instead of spiritual pipe dreams”. If one invests a significant amount of their time and resources into preparing for the apocalypse, that is their prerogative. Most will realize sooner or later that they cannot adequately prepare for even a fraction of every eventuality or they will go broke in the attempt. Some will choose to spend their days in this hotel preparing for the day they check out – which is a terrible way to spend a vacation. By always keeping both eyes fixated towards the end, you forget to live in the present and enjoy the many fruits on offer. While I can only speak for myself, vital existence is not compatible with constant focus and fear concerning a potential doomsday around every corner that may never come.

What concerns me more than any virus or missile is the human animals’ response to the fear of them. Man truly acts like just another animal, and in situations of panic can turn him into the most vicious animal of them all. We are quick to dismiss the advice of individuals who have spent their lives studying specific problems only to adopt the views of whatever post or image is trending in our social circles. This year, COVID-19 seems to be what we have been given to chow down on on our panic plate. This is not to underplay the potential seriousness of this virus. While information changes and grows on a daily bases, it would appear that this strain of coronavirus is set to continue to spread with a lethality rate higher than common influenza but a far cry away from historical death knells like the Spanish Flu or the Black Plague. Any virus that has an aggressive transmission rate which seems to be affecting societies most vulnerable is something to be taken with a degree of seriousness. Unfortunately, we seem to be acting like this is a week or two long event instead of a season – which many experts believe it will become. Far more dangerous than this virus are the fights among shoppers and the straining supply chains we are seeing around the world. With many emergency and basic essentials being produced in highly centralized areas of the world, perhaps the most long lasting symptom of this particular panic will be a reassessment of how and where we procure these things we need to live, but probably not. Panics of all colors and creeds are both frightening and yet exciting. Challenge yourself to rise above your amygdala but check in on it from time to time.

Be rational, not insane.

Indulge in being prepared instead of abstaining or being compulsive.

Follow experts, not prophets.

And finally, in the name of Satan, wash your hands.

#satanism #coronavirus #covid19 #pandemic #covid-19 #satan #magic #withcraft #churchofsatan #antonlavey #lavey

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roominthecastle · 5 years

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For someone who hasn't seen TBL since... early season 4? (and even then only watched a couple episodes) could you give me a quick rundown of what I have to know in order to watch the beginning of season 6? If that's too much hassle I understand but I thought if anyone can put that car crash of a show into a sorta sensible summary it's you.

“car crash of a show” well, that is… too real. like you can’t help but stare and wonder what might emerge from the wreckage. :)

Thank you for the vote of confidence, I tried my best to recall the main events from each season. If something important is missing or I misremembered, hopefully somebody corrects that in a reply or a comment, and you will be able to see those, too.

(putting the rest behind a cut bc length)

Alexander Kirk is the latest contestant of the increasingly crowded “who’s your daddy” competition. He was in love w/ Liz’s mom, has a life-threatening blood disorder, and a pathological fondness for kidnapping. He takes Liz and Agnes to her childhood home that triggers some vague memories of Katarina. Kirk is sure he is her father and has a DNA test to prove it. Liz also finds Katarina’s journal in which Katarina mentions how she was assigned to honeytrap Reddington.

Meanwhile, Red uses Mr. Kaplan’s connections to learn where Kirk keeps Liz and Agnes, then tips off the task force. Despite feeling betrayed by the fake death stunt, they roll out to rescue her but Kirk gets away and they take Agnes, too (they play hot potato with that poor kid). Red takes Mr. Kaplan to the woods and shoots her for her betrayal. But she survives the headshot (not unprecedented as we learn later that she survived a head injury before and has a metal plate in her head) and is nursed back to relative physical health (but apparent psychological unwellness) by a hermit in the woods. For now, nobody else knows she is alive.

Kirk is trying to find a cure. Tom and Liz keep failing in their side-mission to get Agnes back, but Red uses Kirk’s doctor to track him. This leads him to a trap but Liz tips him off just in time. This is the first time (IIRC) that Red hesitates to trust her (kinda understandable since he’s still reeling from the fake death thing) and he almost dies as a result. Then Liz lures Kirk, gets Agnes back, but Kirk collapses and is hospitalized. He needs a donor to survive. Liz volunteers bc getting answers trumps everything. Red tells her that the DNA test proving that she is Kirk’s daughter was faked and it gets confirmed bc Liz is not a match, she can’t save him. Kirk’s goons rescue him from the hospital and Liz is taken again. Red volunteers to trade places w/ her and even manages to secure the cure for Kirk to sweeten the pot. Liz is released but Kirk, now aware that he is not the father, tortures Red. He demands Red confess that he (Red) is Liz’s father, which he finally does under insane duress, then whispers sth to Kirk that convinces him to let Red go. We still don’t know what he whispered or where Kirk is now, but this is the end of the first big arc of S4.

Liz gets her FBI badge back thanks to Red applying pressure and securing a presidential pardon. She and Tom try playing house and keep failing bc Tom will never be what she wants him to be: his meek teacher cover role from S1. Red looks for and finds a new cleaning crew but what he did to Mr. Kaplan is eating at him. Dembe gets worried about his mental state and tells Liz what happened to Kaplan, which drives Liz further down the “blame Red for everything” path but they continue working together. After Kaplan recovers, her revenge mission kicks into gear and the various ways in which she tries to dismantle Red’s criminal empire is the second big arc that lasts until the end of the season.

Kaplan tries to strip Red of his resources and connections. Her methods range from clearing out his back accounts to trying to sabotage the Task Force. She goes as far as poisoning Red, for which she tries to frame Dembe to destroy their relationship but Dembe (w/ Aram’s help) proves he didn’t betray Red and their bond becomes tighter than ever. Then Mr. Kaplan unearths 86 bodies (including Diane Fowler’s, so Cooper & Co. now know Red killed her), which launches an official investigation that threatens to expose the Task Force and its ties to Red. Mr. Kaplan also meets with Liz, tells her about their past connection (in a flashback episode, we learn that she worked for Katarina as Liz’s nanny and she handed her off to Sam after the fire, then started working for Red at his request), and tries to convince her to turn on Red but Liz refuses.

Meanwhile, Ressler is trying to get justice for the murder of Fowler’s replacement, Reven. He knows Hitchen (the National Security Advisor) killed her but he has no solid proof. Mr. Kaplan reaches out to the doctor who tampered w/ Liz’s memory when she was a child, and hires him to mess w/ Ressler’s head, planting fake memories and almost driving him to kill Hitchen. He is stopped in time, the doc is captured and he tells Liz he was also hired 2 years ago to take away some of her memories again (concerning Red) at the request of a man they both know, but we still don’t know who this person is. Red denied it was him and I, for one, believe him.

Red decides to set a trap for Mr. Kaplan, playing on her blind fixation on Liz. He hires a blacklister to kidnap Liz, feeds clues to Kaplan that lead her to where Liz is kept. Red tells Liz he is willing to refrain from killing her (Kaplan) but if Kaplan doesn’t stand down, she has to die. When she walks into the trap, Red offers truce. Mr. Kaplan refuses, the FBI also shows up, there’s a shootout and Mr. Kaplan escapes. Red visits Dom bc he needs a key he hid on his property and tells him his granddaughter, Liz, is alive. Then he meets with Kaplan, offers her that key to a remote and secure paradise in exchange for ending this war but she once again refuses. The agent investigating those 86 bodies shows up but Red escapes and Kaplan agrees to testify in exchange for immunity.

Red and Ressler reach out to the blacklister who cleaned up after Hitchen and use the evidence he kept to blackmail her into scrapping the inquiry concerning the task force, Red, and those bodies. Vague national security excuse works every time. Liz reaches out to Kaplan and they go on a drive. Kaplan promises answers but Red and his men show up and she commits suicide by jumping off a bridge. Her death triggers a protocol to release Red’s secret, aka the suitcase w/ the skeleton in it, that lands in Tom’s hands but for now nobody knows he has it. Ressler visits Hitchen and accidentally kills her when they get into an argument, so he calls the blacklister that previously cleaned up after her to clean up after him now. Cooper runs a DNA test on a sample from an old bloody shirt in evidence that belonged to Reddington, compares it to Liz’s sample and tells her it’s a match. Liz tells him she ran a test too, soon after Red showed up in her life, but never checked the result bc she was afraid to know. She now confronts Red w/ the news and he neither confirms nor denies, just lets her hug him - which is their basic dynamic in the first half of the next season.

Most of the first block of this season is about Red trying to rebuild his organization from scratch in various ways - first as a bounty hunter and then once again working w/ the task force. He seems to enjoy the freedom that comes w/ hitting rock bottom. Liz helps out, too, acting jarringly happy. Meanwhile, Tom decides to keep the suitcase a secret from her and asks Nik to help him identify the human remains inside. He also steals Liz’s ID to be able to access official databases and they reach out to another guy to have the bones DNA tested. Then Nik is killed when he goes to get the results and the skeleton gets taken.

Still not knowing about Tom’s involvement or the suitcase, Liz asks Red to help find Nik’s killer and Red soon discovers that Nik was working with Tom and that he had the skeleton. Tom tracks down the girlfriend of the guy who ran the DNA test to ask for help finding him. She helps, they find him, but then all of them get captured by a US Marshall named Garvey who is v much interested in the skeleton, too, bc he has a very personal ax to grind w/ Red. Tom escapes and he takes the skeleton. He calls Liz and tells her to meet at home but reveals nothing concrete, so you know he is not long for this world. That’s where Garvey and his men find them. He stabs Tom and Liz gets badly injured, too. Red and Dembe come to the rescue and take both to the hospital.

Tom dies, Liz is in a coma for 10 months and struggles a lot after she regains consciousness. She asks Tom’s mother, Scottie, to look after Agnes, makes Red promise to keep working cases with the task force and to not follow her, then moves to a remote cabin in Alaska where she saves a witness from the bad guys who want to silence him by killing them all in a Home Alone meets The Shining manner. After this, she decides to return to find out why Tom was killed and get revenge. She works this case separate from the task force.

The blacklister, Prescott, who cleaned up after Ressler last season starts blackmailing Ressler, threatening to reveal that he killed Hitchen if Ressler doesn’t derail an investigation. Ressler refuses but with Red’s help they manage to arrest Prescott who then intends to deliver on his threat. Red kills him and removes any implicating evidence. So Ressler goes to Cooper to deliver his written confession but Cooper says he will hold onto the letter as long as the task force is up and running bc none of them are who they were before, each of them has a letter like that, so to speak, but the work they do here is too important. They will hold each other accountable after it’s done.

Liz is investigating on her own. She tracks down one of Garvey’s goons and ends up killing him when they get into a fight but she also learns that Nik was helping Tom. She then dissolves the body Stewmaker-style but leaves a piece of evidence behind by accident, so she also breaks into the evidence room and steals it to cover her tracks. She draws the attention of a detective in whom she later confides about looking for Tom’s killer and even shows him the Post Office. Red helps out w/ her investigation, too, they both want the suitcase back after all. Liz confronts him about his motives (saying he only wants to keep his secret, nothing else matters) and responsibility in Tom’s death. Red tells her Tom died bc he didn’t heed his warning and that this secret is something he has to keep, so he isn’t telling.

Liz finds some notes among Tom’s belongings that eventually lead her to Dom. She doesn’t know he is her grandfather, he doesn’t tell her, but they talk. Dom denies being a spy code named Oleander (from Tom’s notes) but tells her he used to work as an analyst and came to the US after the Cold War (he really is Oleander, tho). He also tells her he knew Katarina well but doesn’t reveal their connection other than “we worked in the same building”, and he refuses to say anything about Red.

Red learns that whoever killed Tom and took the skeleton has law enforcement ties and Liz decides to rejoin the Task Force but only to up her chances at capturing Tom’s killer. This reinstatement requires a psychological evaluation and Liz goes a few rounds with Dr. Fulton who later turns out to be a serial killer killer/vigilante. Liz corners her at a crime scene but then lets her go bc she might need her help one day, and Fulton green lights her official reinstatement.

With the help of the detective she confided in, Liz finally identifies Garvey as Tom’s killer but Garvey kills the detective. They wanna take Garvey down by proving he is not only a murderer but also has ties to drug trafficking. Liz also approaches a woman Garvey keeps visiting in a diner and tells her everything, hoping she will flip on him. This is when the woman reveals she is Jennifer Reddington whom Garvey has been protecting from her father for decades. Red wants to kill Garvey but he cannot do that as long as he has the skeleton, so he kidnaps him. Then Garvey escapes and goes to the diner. Red and Dembe follow him there. Garvey shoots Red. Liz and Dembe shoot Garvey. Garvey later dies in the hospital w/o revealing anything.

While recovering, Red uses one of Garvey’s goons to track the skeleton to Costa Rica and learns that it’s in the possession of another enemy of his, Sutton Ross. Liz follows Red and wants to find the remains first. Ross is captured by the Task Force. Liz offers a secret deal and he agrees bc he was tasked by Garvey to reveal the skeleton’s secret bc Jennifer deserves to know the truth. Together they put on a show for Red: Ross escapes, takes Liz hostage and then pretends to torture her to force Red to give up his secret. Just when Red is about to break and reveal it, the Task Force storms the place and captures Ross again. Red doesn’t seem to know he has been played but he takes the skeleton, shoots Ross, then walks away. He takes the remains back to Dom’s place where he burns them. Dom warns him that Liz is not gonna give up. He is not wrong bc it is revealed that Liz was not only working w/ Ross, she now also knows the remains belong to the real Reddington, so Red is an imposter and not her father. She vows to find out his real identity and then destroy him w/ the help of her half-sister, Jennifer.

Oh and Samar and Aram’s relationship takes a few turns over the season as well. They start dating and then Aram prepares to propose, which ends in a fight and an almost break-up. Then Samar gets abducted by a blacklister and the last thing she says to Aram is that she would have said yes. She also ends up in a coma but regains consciousness at the end of the finale, so their engagement is now official.

#apicturewithasmile #the blacklist #long post

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thievesgambit-a · 5 years

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legally? we must five times kissed ororo munroe or be arrested

closed meme / @fierceststorm

THE FIRST TIME. The first time? Remy remembers the first time like it’s yesterday–remembers meeting Ororo like it’s yesterday. He remembers what he had been commissioned to steal and exactly what the house looked like. He remembers the fights and saving the girl (younger than he was used to, though). Mostly, he just remembers how scared she had been. He almost never sees Ororo afraid. Even today, the fear–the uncertainty–in her eyes as a child strikes him to his heart. She looked lost, alone, and unsure of what remained for her after the danger was gone. It reminded him of himself, frankly. He had left behind the Guild, had left behind Sinister, and told himself he would never get close to anyone else–for his sake as well as theirs–ever again, but the slightness of her shoulders against the open air pained him.

“Don’ worry, petite,” he said to her, grinning wide, picking her up, and pressing a kiss onto her temple, “you can come wit’ me! Dere be cities to pillage an’ all dat–it’ll be fun, I promise…”

THE SECOND TIME, Remy was low. Being back with people again grated him the wrong way. None of them trusted him for shit, talked down to him, treated him like he was an idiot, and more or less made it clear that he wasn’t wanted here. The only good thing about the mansion was the availability of the Danger Room and the opportunities to blow things up incessantly–although if he even did that too much, Scott would bark at him for using up too much resources.

The only reason he hadn’t robbed them blind, kicked Wolverine and Scott in the face, and let the place catch fire was because Ororo was there, and Ororo vouched for him, and Ororo wanted to be there. Remy couldn’t fucking imagine why–they were giving her shit for letting him into the X-Men too, and she was shouldered with work, responsibilities, burdens, and questions all along the way. Remy wanted to give them a piece of his mind whenever they spoke to Ororo like a moron. Hell, they could say what they wanted about him, and he’d sit still for her benefit, but if they started talking to her like that–well, if she didn’t give him pointed glares or steadying touches as she passed by to keep him down, he probably would’ve been kicked out.

“Let’s just leave, Stormy,” Remy leaned against her door frame, appearing unannounced and without permission. He doesn’t need it–not with her. Not with each other. He lit a cigarette (at this point, he smoked inside just because he knew it annoyed Xavier) but stayed outside the confines of her room.

“De last mission was a shit show an’ you know it,” Remy continued, scathing. “An’ you don’ even deserve any of de shit dey’re givin’ you fo’ it. Why we even here, Stormy?”

She didn’t reply, just sighed at her mirror and pressed her face into her hands. Immediately, the energy he had committed to ranting was redirected. He tossed the cigarette and embraced her in three strides.

“You wouldn’ need t’worry about anyt’in’, ’Ro,” he said as she leaned into him. “I can pack all our t’ings an’ we could be out of here whenever–you just say when, and it’s done.” He kissed her cheek, soft and tender. “T’ink about it.”

THE THIRD TIME, Remy was showing off. He couldn’t drop into Wakanda unannounced–first, because its security was insane (not that he’s saying he couldn’t do it, but there were other reasons too–), and second, his sister was the queen of the country and would be in a tight spot if her older brother was caught breaking in. So he did the next best and obvious thing: he stood outside the border and poked at the entrance until they let him in.

No one really appreciated his etiquette, but he got escorted to the palace in the end anyway–somehow. He didn’t use his hypnosis on them, either–he swears!

“Stormy!” Remy practically squealed when he saw her there. He broke free of the restraints on him without even trying and closed the gap between them in perhaps four excited bounds. From nowhere, he materializes a wide array of jewelry and fabrics. He had missed her wedding and needed to make up for it.

The guards did not appreciate his attitude towards the new Queen of Wakanda. Immediately, weaponry was pointed at him. Ororo just waved them down; she was trying to hide it, but when Remy laughed and leaned close and casual on her shoulder and threw and arm around her, she cracked a grin. He pressed his temple against hers as he showed her some of the wares he had brought her. He made comments about every single one he showed her: this one would look good with the shoes she bought the year before, this one would look good with that one hair thing she likes wearing, this one would look good with this fancy ass dress she has on right now–nice color choice, by the way–never mind, this looks shit, he knew he shouldn’t have taken this one–he throws what’s probably worth a conservative eight hundred American dollars over his shoulder with scorn–

A throat was cleared. Remy and Ororo looked up to find the king himself had made an appearance to see what the commotion was. Ororo greeted him, and Remy inclined his head a little and waved his hand in a casual salute, but the arm around Ororo’s shoulders doesn’t move. He doesn’t miss T’Challa’s eyes drifting towards Remy’s hand drifting close to Ororo’s neck.

Ororo introduced Remy to T’Challa, and Remy put on his most winning smile. T’Challa did not look very enthused. He tried to ask Ororo for something–something that would require her to move away from Remy. Ororo coolly told T’Challa she would attend to it in the morning; her friend was here. Remy’s grin only grew. He recognized that tone of hers. He was planning on playing nice since he was her husband, but if T’Challa wasn’t treating her well, anyway…

“Yeah, Monsieur Roi, un ami be here,” Remy said smugly. He planted a quick, casual kiss on Ororo’s cheekbone and spun her around so she could guide them to her room–and T’Challa’s, obviously. “Maybe I show you what I got to you en privé, déesse…”

THE FOURTH TIME, he was late. He’s always late. He’s never hated himself more for it.

He didn’t call ahead to say he was coming, but Ororo must’ve heard Remy’s motorcycle pull up, because when he arrived, everyone told her Ororo had locked herself in her room and was refusing company. Beast even tried to stop him–something about Ororo just needed space right now. Remy just snorted and shoved Hank out of the way. As if he could tell Remy anything about Ororo that he did not already know.

Ororo didn’t let Remy in through the door, as everyone promised, but that didn’t deter Remy. If she really wanted to keep him out, she would’ve locked herself in the Danger Room. He picked the lock on her door in about two seconds before walking right in like he owned the place.

She was lying in bed, back to him. The doors to her balcony were open–of course they were. She would want to feel the wind. He fell to his knees at the side of her bed and murmured his apologies–apologies about how he is late, about how he couldn’t be there, about how this even happened. If she wanted anything–needed anything. If she wanted to scream, she could. If she wanted to run away and never come back, she could. If she wanted to throw a fit and hit him, she could. That’s what he was here for. Anything–anything. Just say the word–anything. Please. Ororo knew he’d do anything for her.

She asked him to close the door. He did. She moved a little to the side of the bed to create space for him–an unspoken invitation. He sat down in the empty space. Eventually, she turned around and laid her head in his lap. He had not seen her look so defeated in some time. He wordlessly drew his hand over her hair. Ororo clasped his free hand in one of her own. The vice grip was the only betrayal of her state. He guided her fingers to his lips and kissed them.

“Anyt’ing you wan’,” he murmured into her knuckles. “I ain’ goin’ anywhere dis time.”

THE FIFTH TIME was the happiest day of his life. He was about to marry the love his life surrounded by people he considered his friends and family. A few years ago, he wouldn’t have even thought this was possible–Hell, he wouldn’t have even bothered to try and believe this was possible. For someone like him, he was certain there was no chance at happiness.

Remy was called out for. He turned from the people fussing over his suit to find Ororo standing at his shoulder, radiant. His smile only grew that much more. His Stormy–his déesse, his sister. Without her, he wondered where he would be right now. Even when he was sure he was beyond redemption, beyond hope, she pulled him back. Ororo believed in him, even when no one else would.

“Ororo,” Remy said to her fondly, expression practically tender. Few people could ever claim to earn such a look from this King of Thieves, but for Ororo, he gave it willingly. “Walk wit’ me?”

She accepted, of course. She was the one that guided him down the aisle, arm in arm. He was shaking, and she could feel it–probably the only one there that could tell, really. She put a soft, steadying hand on his elbow. He focused on that pressure all the way to the front. When they arrived, he caught her hands in his own before she left.

“Ororo,” he said to her, smile soft, “ma déesse–truly. You know I love you” He pressed his lips into her fingers. “T’ank you.” He did not need to tell her what for. She smiled and kissed his brow.

#fierceststorm #❛ ♦ ⁞ you get my calling card? — answered asks #i literally just rbed this meme for jojo #❛ ♠ ⁞ you gonna make me kiss and tell? — drabbles #❛ ♥ ⁞ the one who stood by you when no one else would — fierceststorm #i have no idea if remy ever actually dropped in on wakanda but i decided that he did

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miximax-hell · 6 years

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Hey, guys! It sure has been long since my last new miximax, hasn’t it? The worst part is that I haven’t even run out of ideas--I’m just too bad and lazy to bring them to life properly. That’s what I get for never practising. Don’t be like me. Be like my coworker, who is a 3D artist and has decided to devote one day a week to practising HARD no matter how busy or tired he is, because he doesn’t get to model too often at work and he doesn’t want to get too rusty. Now that’s a good example to follow.

Today’s miximax is a bit of a surprise, as it’s the first time I’m giving a new miximax to a character who canonically got one in the games and the anime. Or, well, it would be a surprise if you hadn’t read my Characters tab, but I’m sure you have ALL done that. So, rather than a surprise, it’s more like an “oh, finally.” ww

While I most certainly have nothing against Shinsuke’s real miximax nor Liu Bei, I think he was lacking something rather important. And, all things considered, I felt like the best candidate to fill in for this position was Cao Cao. The name might ring a bell, but you might not be completely sure about whom I’m talking about. To refresh your memory, I’ll simply say that it’s the guy Zanark first miximaxed with. Yes, when he had that cool Keshin and the white hair. Yes, the evil man.

...Raptors! RAPTORS! NO, RAPTORS! LISTEN TO ME BEFORE YOU COME AND RIP MY NECK OFF WITH YOUR FANGS AS YOU SHOUT, “SHINSUKE WOULD NEVER MIXIMAX WITH THAT GUY.” OKAY?! PLEASE!!

So, as usual, you can listen to me under the cut.

Have you put down your torches and pitchforks, you stereotypical rioting citizens? Yes? Good. Then, let me explain this carefully. I swear it will make much more sense when I’m done.

First, let me explain why I think Shinsuke needed a new miximax and why Liu Bei alone simply doesn’t cut it.

For a second, and even if it’s my least favourite season, let’s think about the first season of Go, when Shinsuke was introduced to us. Even though he’s been consistently used as a goalkeeper in Chrono Stone and Galaxy due to the potential Sangoku and Endou saw in him (and his Keshin), he was a defender when Go started.

And I’ll go even further: Shinsuke has always had block hissatsus in every game he’s been featured in, even when he was actually labelled as a goalkeeper (aka, in CS and Galaxy). In fact, in the first game, he doesn’t even learn goalkeeper hissatsus throughout the story--he only gets God Hand at a pretty high level, way after completing the main campaign. Until halfway through Chrono Stone, and having been Raimon’s main goalkeeper since halfway through Go, he didn’t get his first catch hissatsu. And even though he has been in every single Strikers game, he only became able to play as a (reliable) goalkeeper in the last game. Until then, he was nothing more than a defender or a midfielder at most.

All these are cold, hard fact that I simply can’t ignore--blame it on my compulsive behaviour. Regardless of what his Keshin is best at, no one can question that, much like Endou, Shinsuke can function both as a field player and as a goalkeeper, and whether he should play in one position or the other should heavily depend on the situation.

It doesn’t, though.

Shinsuke is strong because of his goalkeeping resources. Sure, his natural abilities help, but those same abilities proved themselves useful in the field as well, so that’s hardly a valid excuse. However, the main difference between Endou and Shinsuke, and what makes putting Endou in the field MUCH more useful than doing the same thing with Shinsuke, is what Endou adds to the team by being able to move freely. Endou is a good player, but, most importantly, he performs roles no one else can perform in his team. He is part of many, many strong hissatsus that can lead the team to victory; he is the only libero the team has, and his natural strength and experience as a goalkeeper make him a force to the reckoned with when it comes to blocking opposing shots with his Megaton Head. In other words, he is not replaceable, as no one can do what he does quite the way he does it.

Shinsuke, on the other hand, while he has the uniqueness of his insane jumping skills, feels quite lackluster in comparison. He can use Kattobi Defense to block opposing shots, sure, but Kariya’s Hunter’s Net or Kirino’s Deep Mist do this too. He can use Buttobi Jump to block shots with his own shot, but he is completely outclassed by Tetsukado bby’s much stronger Dead Straight--and even by his own Kattobi Defense, really. He could use his Keshin to defend in a pinch, but its hissatsu is exclusively for goalkeeping, so Kirino, Kinako or Tobu would do a much better job at it. He doesn’t even have a Soul, so he can hardly compete with Earth Eleven players either. And considering Liu Bei is a goalkeeper, mixitransing really doesn’t help him all that much either.

In order to become a truly relevant defender again, Shinsuke must spice things up big time. He doesn’t just need something/someone as wonderful as his first miximax--he needs even more than that. He needs to kick it up a notch and get on everyone’s level fast and effectively if he is to put up a good fight. And, with goalkeepers as extremely strong as MamoDai (I’m totally not biased here ww) and the fact that they never know with whom they’ll be paired in a match, the more roles Shinsuke can effectively perform, the better.

Now, the question is: having every universe in existence available, why would Shinsuke settle for Cao Cao, who is the direct enemy of Liu Bei, whom Shinsuke comes to deeply admire? (And, most importantly, why give Cao Cao to Shinsuke when there’s a perfectly perfect Zanakurou lying around?)

First of all, let’s look at Cao Cao as an Inazuma character. You can do so too here. If you take a quick look at that page, you can see that, in the games, Cao Cao is a scoutable character. And not only that, but he’s a defender, so we’re doing good so far. ww

Cao Cao doesn’t have any exclusive and super cool hissatsus in the game, but he does have an exclusive and super cool Keshin: Gouriki no Genbu. You’ll remember it, since Zanark made use of it. Quite the odd choice, since Zanark is a forward and both Cao Cao and his Keshin are defenders, but that plays even more in our favour, as it wouldn’t be a good match for Zanakurou either. ww With the extra strength of a historical figure as strong as Liu Bei, and with a second and all-mighty Keshin at his disposal, Shin Cao suddenly becomes a much more interesting option. Good enough to scratch that itch in my head that repeats over and over, “HEY, IF A MIXIMAX WENT EVENTUALLY UNUSED THE ANIME/GAME, YOU OUGHT TO USE IT AGAIN. OTHERWISE, I’LL KEEP HAMMERING YOUR BRAIN WITH THIS NAGGING AND UNSHAKEABLE FEELING OF LACK OF ACCOMPLISHMENT.” Man, ain’t it fun!

Now, let’s remember one thing. In this project, the vessel chooses their aura, which means that Shinsuke would have to want Cao Cao in order to miximax with him. Which takes me back to those raptors who almost killed me before I even started talking and their shouting: “SHINSUKE WOULD NEVER MIXIMAX WITH THAT GUY.” As much as I and the itch in my head want it, it needs a certain degree of logic.

Let’s be historically objective for a second here. Winners write history. So they say, and they are completely right. Not to start a fire here, but if the N*zis had won (won’t risk being filtered because of this), we would all be N*zis now, and those who weren’t would be treated like N*zis are treated now. That’s just how it is. But that didn’t happen, and now we see those people as pure evil. I’m not saying that hatred isn’t justified--I’m just saying that things could be extremely different if the outcome had been different. Are we good, raptors? Are we friends? You won’t rip my neck off? You won’t call the cops on me? Good. Then, let’s move on.

Historically, Liu Bei and Cao Cao were, indeed, battling it up during the Three Kingdoms period. The most popular, although fictional, depiction of this period is the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one of the 4 great works of classical Chinese literature (the other 3 being Journey to the West, Dream of the Red Chamber and Water Margin). In this novel, Liu Bei is depicted as the hero, and Cao Cao is depicted as the evil villain. This depiction can be seen in Chrono Stone too, as Raimon takes Liu Bei’s side and portrays him as a goody-two-shoes, while Cao Cao is so evil, cruel and tyrannical that Zanark starved for and stole his dark power.

However, prior to this less-than-positive depiction, Cao Cao was, and I quote, “praised as a brilliant ruler and military genius who treated his subordinates like his family.“ Not so bad, huh? And even more so when you consider that Liu Bei was one of Cao Cao’s generals and he betrayed Cao Cao out of the blue--and with great violence, at that. It’s all about points of view, as usual. When war happens, there is hardly ever a battle of light versus darkness. One party is not usually vastly morally better than the other. Chances are that, if war happens, both parties will believe they are fighting for what’s right, and history will ultimately grace the winner by saying they were right. Whether they have ulterior motives or not (and they usually do--greed is practically omnipresent where there’s war) doesn’t change the fact that they believe they are doing the right thing while the other party is wrong.

If Shinsuke were to see that not everything is black and white, which Inazuma is usually all about (”you thought it was pure darkness, but it was me, *+*+*Complex Character Development and Grey Motivations*+*+*!”), and tried to see things from Cao Cao’s perspective, he would probably find a ruler whose wits can compare to Zhuge Liang’s, who is caring and loyal to his people, who was so widely revered that he was given an important title after his death, and who possessed abilities that, according to our standards, are the polar opposite of evil and wrong-doing: martial arts and poetry. He would find that, while Liu Bei is righteous, hot-headed and charismatic, albeit a bit on the overactive side, Cao Cao is reliable, serious, intelligent and strong, although somewhat on the darker side (as depicted in the Inazuma universe, at least). Kageyama showed us that having darkness within you doesn’t make you inherently bad, though, so... there’s that.

Not only is Cao Cao Liu Bei’s polar opposite, but Shinsuke’s, too, and that allows for very, very interesting dynamics--especially when you compare how Shinsuke acts depending on whom he uses upon mixitransing. As such, Shinsuke gets a genuinely evil look in this case, but that’s just to match his actual in-game look and supposed attitude. But, well, those things come into the personality and design sides of this blog, respectively so they are matters I won’t discuss this time.

Okay, raptors, I’m done. If you’re still thirsty after all of that, come and get some of this.

#Nishizono Shinsuke #Inazuma Eleven #Inazuma Eleven Go #miximax #mixi max #info #settei #reasons behind the miximax #Shinsei Raimon #Chrono Storm #Earth Eleven

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Snowpiercer Season 2 Episode 1 Review: The Time of Two Engines

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This Snowpiercer review contains spoilers.

Snowpiercer Season 2 Episode 1

Upon leaving the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked about what the new form of government for the United States of America would be. Franklin’s response has remained a famous example of the clever inventor’s wit and wisdom. Franklin replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.” The fledgling country, so recently freed from British rule and still coming to terms with what it was going to be, faced a multitude of threats, both foreign and domestic. The fledgling revolution on Snowpiercer, still patching wounds and cleaning up blood, faces a more immediate, grave threat in the form of Big Alice, Mr. Wilford’s personal train, latched onto the tail of Snowpiercer like a 40-car parasite attempting to wrest control from the people who just wrested control from Melanie Cavill.

There’s rarely a great time to suspend democratic rule and fight off a resource-rich dictator, but in the immediate wake of an insurrection, suspending democracy is not a great way to engender support, even if it’s necessary that there be quick, decisive action by leadership to combat the Wilford threat. The sick car is still filled past capacity with wounded when Wilford starts making demands for seemingly insane things: beer, eggs, one hen, morphine, boots, and so on. Unfortunately for Layton and his cadre, Wilford literally has them by the tail, and Big Alice is more than a match for Snowpiercer’s eternal engine. If Wilford wants to drag humanity to hell by dragging Snowpiercer to a halt and letting everyone freeze to death, he can do it, so his crazy demands must be agreed to.

But that doesn’t mean that Andre Layton, father of the revolution, isn’t already working on a plan.

One of the great strengths of Snowpiercer as a television property is the size and competence of its ensemble cast. With great character actors like Mike O’Malley and Steven Ogg filling out the cast, it’s easier for lead performers like Jennifer Connelly and Daveed Diggs to do their thing, knowing they have solid performers to bounce off of. When you add Sean Bean to an already loaded cast, well, it’s adding to an already potent mix, even if it’s pretty clear how a character will end up if Sean Bean is cast to play him.

Snowpiercer Episode 10 Review: 994 Cars Long

By Ron Hogan

Snowpiercer Season 2 Trailer Reveals Sean Bean’s Role

By Alec Bojalad

Jennifer Connelly’s Melanie Cavill wasn’t evil, just cold-blooded and trying to hang onto a train with multiple competing elements all trying to wrest power from one another, from the revolutions in the Tail and Third Class to First Class scheming for control and power over the rest of the train due to their economic clout. At least, with Wilford around, there’s someone out there who can unify Snowpiercer in an us-versus-them scenario with Big Alice. Assuming, of course, that Wilford isn’t able to somehow tap into the lingering distrust and hurt feelings of First Class in some way, but bringing the whole train to a halt to make demands isn’t a way to make friends with anyone on the wrong end of Big Alice’s engine.

Daveed Diggs is in fine form, as usual, but he’s mostly reacting to things being thrust at him, trying to meet the needs of the various factions on board the train while keeping peace and preventing any other outbreaks of retaliatory violence; Layton’s ex-wife Zarah (Sheila Vand) is nearly caught up by a couple of vengeful tailies until Ruth (Alison Wright) steps in. But, the focus is less on Snowpiercer and more on the situation on Big Alice, where Jennifer Connelly’s Cavill and Sean Bean’s Wilford engage in a war of wills and words, with Melanie pushing back against Wilford at every turn, when not attempting in vain to reach out to her daughter Alex (Rowan Blanchard) who has been poisoned by the influence of Wilford and her mother’s seeming abandonment.

It’s familiar territory, as far as sci-fi stories go, but Christoph Schrewe handles the performers with restraint, and goes big on the action sequences when the Snowpiercer militia takes the fight to Wilford’s train. It’s quick and dirty, without being too gory, and while the Doctors Headwood (Sakina Jaffrey and Damian Young) edge a little bit too far into mad scientist territory for what has been a fairly grounded show, it’s an indulgence the show has earned by having so much focus being placed on the mundane problems of surviving only with what can be grown in a train car. If there are cold storage boxes to put people to sleep, then why wouldn’t there also be mad scientists inventing crazy wound-healing synthetic skin goop? And, from all appearances, someone almost certainly immune to the cold due to weird science reasons.

One of the most prominent elements of the first season, hit over and over, was the importance of sustaining the ecosystem. If, for example, a freeze kills all the cows, then that puts a damper on the supply of methane and manure to grow crops and provide heat via gas. Having a second train clamp onto the back of Snowpiercer won’t do anything to calm the situation, and Wilford’s repeated insistence that he’s willing to kill the whole of the human race to get what he wants is made perfectly clear in Graeme Manson’s script. It builds neatly off of the chaos at the end of the first season and transitions it not into a hot war, but a cold war between two trains that, thanks to Melanie’s quick thinking, have to learn to get along or else they’ll all die together. Wilford, for all his delusions of grandeur and dictatorial sway, probably doesn’t want that. He’s worked too hard to keep alive, and he’s worked too hard to make sure people think of him as a god to lose all of his worshipers due to hubris or incompetence.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

And yet, what sort of god would lose a micturation contest with a bunch of stowaways and the ungrateful people who stole his train right out from under him? Wilford only thinks he’s in charge, and Snowpiercer might fight among themselves, but they seem to be willing to unite against an enemy trying to wipe them out in a fit of pique. If you build the world, then I guess it’s your perogative to try and destroy it, too. Just don’t be surprised that the people who stole a train, then took over a train, will fight to defend said train to the death.

The post Snowpiercer Season 2 Episode 1 Review: The Time of Two Engines appeared first on Den of Geek.

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#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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batwayneman · 7 years

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Accomplice

Chapter 3

Buildings had started burning down around the city.

It wasn’t unheard of for structures to catch on fire, especially in the older, poorer parts of the city that hadn’t had their electrical systems updated in decades. They were lucky that there hadn't been any casualties so far, but Jim didn't trust that luck to hold. And after three buildings burnt down in under two weeks, even their passive commissioner couldn’t ignore it anymore.

After all, it was hardly in the best interests of the mob if their buildings started going up in flames.

Jim didn't envy the officers assigned to the very public case. Arsons were notoriously difficult to solve, as most clues burned up with the building. With no witnesses coming forward, all the detectives could do was interview the owners of the buildings and hope that the fires were connected, and not randomly chosen locations.

Or, that’s what the officers would be doing, but the people who were assigned to the case seemed content to just wait until the next fire came in and hope for more clues then.

They didn't have to wait long.

Jim had just started going through his paperwork for the night when Bullock pushed his way into Jim’s office.

"C’mon, we gotta go." Bullock threw Jim's jacket at him.

Jim caught it, standing up from his desk. "What?" He asked anxiously.

"Lopez needs us on Stonehill Road," Bullock replied, watching Jim shove the papers that he had been working on into semi-neat piles.

"Would it kill you to explain things all at once?" Jim glared at him over his glasses as he slipped his jacket on and grabbed his keys.

"I was trying to be discrete, because she wants us to look at evidence about the Bat infestation before the assigned officers show up and fuck it up," Bullock said cuttingly, as he stood beside Jim as he locked his office door. "But if you want me to explain that to everyone..."

"Alright alright," Jim grumbled, as Bullock smirked. "But I'm driving."

Once they were in the car and on their way across the city, Bullock began to speak again.

"Lopez called me a few minutes ago. I guess she was on patrol and a call came in for a fire alarm. When she got there, everything was under control. The arsonists were all unconscious."

"The Batman." Jim confirmed.

Bullock nodded. "And she wants us to come look at the scene before anyone else gets there."

"Wait- Is she by herself? Who was partnering with her on patrol?" Jim asked.

"It was just that dipshit Porter. I guess he left as soon as he saw that everyone was tied up. The shift was almost over."

"Fucking moron," Jim muttered fiercely. Porter wasn't known for his brains or morals, but to purposely leave a police officer by themselves, at the scene of a vigilante attack, was truly incredible stupidity.

Jim wasn't surprised by the incompetence anymore, but still found himself disappointed.

Bullock looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "The firefighters should be there, she won't be by herself," he said, correctly reading Jim's worry.

Jim didn't reply, except by speeding up the car.

Sarah was waiting outside for them when Jim skidded to a stop.

The building hadn't burnt to the ground, nor did it have any burn marks on the outside, like the others had had, but it still stood out on the quiet street. It was a newer building, or maybe an older one under renovation. The exterior was clean, and looked out of place without the grime coating it, or the graffiti on the sides that its neighbours wore.

As Jim stepped out into the street, he was taken aback by the thick smell of smoke that was dense enough overpower the familiar smell of Gotham's smog that would only get worse as the spring turned to summer.

He must have made a face at the smell, because Sarah smiled a little as they walked over to her.

"We have a lot of smoke, but no fire. Well, there was a small one, but it was out when I got here. The firetruck just left," she said, pointing down the street with her thumb.

"How many suspects are there?" Jim asked as he walked past her to hold open the door for them. He didn't bother asking if she had checked the building for Batman; they all knew he would be long gone by now.

"Five. Three males and two females, all pretty young. In their twenties and early thirties, if I had to guess."

The scent of smoke grew worse as Jim stepped inside the building. The only light came from their flashlight beams, and meagre streetlight from the windows.

In the dim lighting, he could see that it was completely barren, with no furniture or decorations on the white walls. The only furniture were two chandeliers; one on the ground, and one attached to the high ceiling.

Jim took a few more steps into the building. There were stairs against the right-hand wall, leading up to a landing, and then to the second floor. At the base of the stairs was the pile of Batman's victims, which was creating a weird shadow-puppet on the wall behind them. Jim could see even from across the room how still they were; how deeply unconscious. No one twitched as Jim shined his flashlight over them.

It felt like a ghost town, despite being a brand new building. Between the white, barren walls that revealed nothing, and the acrid smell of smoke that spelled of recent disaster, Jim felt like he was intruding, like he was trespassing on someone else's tragedy.

Jim had been a detective long enough to be very good at ignoring that feeling.

Their footsteps echoed as they made their way towards the bodies.

As Jim got closer, it was apparent what the source of the smoke was; the wall beside the suspects, though covered in a fine white powder, was clearly charred. He vaguely recognized as the powder that came from fire extinguishers from some long outdated training.

"Batman the firefighter," Bullock grumbled under his breath.

Jim turned his flashlight to the suspects, shining his light over each face. Most showed evidence of their recent fight with the Batman; one's nose was slowly leaking blood, and a brown haired man had a mighty bruise forming on his cheekbone.

"Don't worry, they’re all alive, I already looked," said Sarah.

Jim froze.

It hadn’t even crossed his mind to check for pulses. It seemed natural, already, after just over a month of Batman being active in Gotham, that his victims were left injured, never dead.

Sloppy. Stupid, he told himself sharply. He was acting like a rookie that he hadn’t been for ages, letting himself make assumptions like that.

"What's that?" Bullock asked, interrupting Jim's mental scolding. Jim's gaze followed Bullock's flashlight beam to what looked like a pile of papers on the ground.

Sarah walked over and carefully picked them up. Her eyebrows furrowed closer and closer together as she scanned the first page. She quickly started rifling through the other pages.

"What is it?" Jim asked, walking over to stand behind her. He caught a glimpse of the name 'Garfield Lynns' printed on the top of the page next to a picture of the brown-haired man before Sarah flipped the page.

"It’s… a profile on all of the suspects."

"Lemme see," Bullock said, walking over. Wordlessly she split the pile in half and handed some to him.

"No, wait, these ones are different," she said, flipping more rapidly through her half now. She froze at one page, biting her lip. She looked over her shoulder at Jim.

"This looks like evidence that links them all to some online chatroom."

"A chatroom? For what, planning the fires?" Jim asked, confounded.

"I guess!" She said, throwing both hands in the air and spinning around to face him. "What the hell is this? Batman's a hacker now?"

"There's crazy details in these profiles too," Bullock said slowly. "This is more than a quick search, this is..." he paused, searching for the right word. "This is insane," he finally said.

They all stood there for a moment, silent.

Before this, Batman was someone running around Gotham at night beating up criminals. He had been a threat, but only a physical one. Now, apparently, he was running in-depth analysis and had the resources to tract online, hidden chatroom activity. What else could he find online? Bank records, hospital files, insurance information.

Police data banks.

Batman certainly wasn't trying to hide his activities online; causally printed the evidence out and left them next to the unconscious bodies of the arsonists. He felt no fear at letting them all know exactly what he could do.

Jim cleared his throat, trying to get the familiar taste of fear out his mouth. It didn't work, and instead spread from his throat, prickling down his neck and through his arms before settling heavy in his gut. He has worked in the GCPD for years, trying in vain to help the crime capital of America, while trying to tread water against the flood of corruption that was always threatening to drown his city. But at least with them, he knew what he was fighting. Batman was an unknown, a mysterious presence that Jim didn't know how to deal with.

“Shit,” Jim said, with nothing else to say.

"I want to go through these files some more, see if I can find any discrepancies," Sarah said.

"I'll help, I've been on my feet all day," Bullock said. "Or do you want me to help look around?" He directed the question at Jim.

"It's fine." Jim replied. He had never minded looking at a crime scene by himself, having got in to the habit for when he was working with careless partners. Bullock was far from incompetent, but it would still be nice to look around without his inevitable chatter in his ear.

Sarah nodded in thanks, and walked over to the wall with Bullock, to sit down and spread out the pages.

Jim shined his flashlight, looking around the room for somewhere to start. Normally he would start at the suspects, and try to work backwards. But...

But something about chandelier on the floor stood out like a beacon in the night, so he walked over there first.

Jim had first thought that it had been abandoned there, left to be installed on the ceiling another day, but as he got closer he could see the damage. Some of the arms on the chandelier had cracks where they rested on the ground, and several had actually broken off from the main structure. It must have fallen from a considerable height to maintain so much damage, even if it was made of cheap material. It would have made quite the noise when it hit the floor.

He shined his flashlight up to the ceiling, but he couldn't see from his angle if the chandelier had fallen because it hadn't been installed properly, or if it had been meddled with.

Meddled with.

Somehow.

From the ceiling.

Jim spun the flashlight in his hand absentmindedly. He supposed that it was possible that the chandelier fell after it was attached, by itself, but his instincts told him otherwise.

Presumably, it was Batman who had caused it to fall, as he hadn't noticed any wings on the tied up suspects, nor were there any magic carpets around.

Lots of the criminals had described Batman being able to fly or turn into smoke, but Jim hadn't put much stock into the rumours; thinking it was too outlandish even for Gotham.

But someone had reached the ceiling to meddle with the damn thing, and there were no damn ladders around.

Suddenly, he noticed that his knuckles were starting to ache, and consciously relaxed the hand holding the flashlight. The beam of light bobbled slightly, and just barely out of the corner of his eye, he saw a glint of light. He froze, adrenalin spreading throughout his chest in a wave.

Walking towards where the reflection of light came from, he felt the familiar excitement of discovery rise in him; the rush of finding clues and putting them together. He kept moving the flashlight back and forth, scanning, until-

There, lying innocent on the ground, was a black object. He took the last few steps up to it, shined his light on it and stopped dead.

In the centre of the circle of his flashlight beam, was the unmistakable shape of a bat. It looked to be made of metal, though most of it had been coated in something to make it more matte, less reflective of light. It was lucky that Jim had seen it in the first place.

Here, at long last, was physical proof that Batman really existed, and wasn't just a ghost story in the minds of Gothamites.

He knew, knew, that he shouldn't touch it, that tampering with evidence was exactly the kind of incompetence that he regularly complained about, but he was drawn to it; desperate to touch it, to hold the proof that the Batman existed beyond just the stories of criminals and tormented civilians.

With steady hands he bent down to gently pick it up, barely touching it with his fingertips.

The bat-thing was thin, though it had surprising weight to it. Around the outside of the bat, the border had been tapered into a even thinner edge. He put the flashlight in the crook of his neck, freeing his other hand to test the sharpness by brushing it with his thumb.

Razor. It was razor sharp.

It might have actually been sharper than his own razor.

Jim found himself barely able to contain a hysterical giggle. How convenient it was; how very considerate, that Batman was apparently so committed to maintaining his brand that his weapons were modelled after himself.

It certainly made it easier to recognize who it belonged to.

Jim let his breath hiss out through is teeth, trying to refocus himself.

What was the bat-knife, an obvious weapon, doing in the corner, away from all the action of the fight that had happened on the other side of the room? And none of the criminals had the kind of gashes this...bat shaped ninja star would make.

He looked around the room. Sarah and Bullock were still working on the files, kneeling over the pages they had spread out on the ground.

He turned and headed towards for the stairs that lead up to the landing above their heads. He hoped that there would be a better vantage point from higher up, the help him make the connection between the pieces. The bat-knife hung heavy between two of his fingers as he walked.

"You alright Jim?" Bullock called as he got closer. Jim must have had a weird look on his face.

"Hang on." Jim didn't wait to see Bullock roll his eyes before he walked up the stairs two at a time.

From the landing, which was closer to the ceiling than it was to the floor, the building looked even more lonely. Shining his flashlight across the room, he could still make out the chandelier on the floor. He was closer to the other chandelier from this spot, the one still on the ceiling. Turning his flashlight on it, he saw, with another rush of adrenaline, that the chandelier wasn't bolted to the ceiling, like he assumed it would be.

It was hanging from wires.

The assemblers must have wired them before, but left screwing them into the ceiling for another day. Which meant...

Jim looked down at the metal bat in his hands, then shined his light to approximately where the fallen chandelier had once hung. He could just make out the ends of cut wires, hanging from the ceiling.

Grinning smugly, he let himself slump against the wall. So then, the Batman had thrown his bat-shuriken to get the far chandelier to fall to the ground, that's why it was in the corner. The sharp weapon in his hands had never been used as a weapon in the first place.

And Batman hadn't had to fly to meddle with the chandelier, and Jim could feel vindicated that he didn't have to believe in men that can fly.

He rubbed the hand that wasn't still clinging to the bat-knife down his moustache and chin. Dropping the chandelier must have been a distraction then, to take the arsonists attention away from the fire they were trying to set.

But, no, that wasn't quite right. If all the arsonists were focused on setting up their fire, as they usually were, then there would be no need to distract them. Jim looked down at the suspects, who were all still unconscious. He narrowed his eyes.

Had one of them been guarding the others? If someone was armed, that would be more than enough reason to want to cause a distraction before swooping in. And if Batman was well known enough that some civilians knew about him, then surely people actually planning crimes would know about him too, and want to arm themselves.

"Bullock!" Jim hollered, leaning over the stairs to look at him below.

"What?!" Bullock yelled back.

"Could you go look around the room for a gun?"

"Why don't you come down here and do it?"

"What, you seriously can't scan a floor by yourself?! It'll take one minute."

Jim heard Bullocks angry grumbling and heavy footsteps, and knew he was going to look.

"Did you find anything Sarah?" Jim called down, shining his flashlight like a spotlight over where she was working.

"Nope! It all checks out perfectly!" She sounded very upset over the perfect paperwork.

Jim could barely keep himself from fidgeting while he waited for Bullock to return. He knew that this was what had happened, he just needed the clue, the last bit of evidence to solidify the story.

Unable to wait any longer, he called out again. "Find anything Harvey?"

"Would you hold your damn horses? I'm coming," came Bullock's exasperated voice from across the room. Jim smiled.

"Here you go, your highness," Bullock said with a little mock bow, coming back into the view of Jim's flashlight. He was carrying some kind of assault rifle, though Jim was too far away to tell which model it was. In his other hand he was dragging a plastic gas can, which a large dent in the side of it.

Jim thought back to the man with the huge bruise on the side of his face. Had Batman actually hit one of the arsonists with their own gasoline canister?

But the gun. The proof that Jim was right. A thrill of understanding, of having put the puzzle back together unfurled in Jim's chest.

He could practically watch it play out. Batman had been here, on the same landing Jim was now standing on. The arsonists were all clustered around the wall, hungrily watching as their fire grew. Except for the one, who was facing away from the fire; on lookout for the Batman. To distract the gunman, Batman threw the bat-shuriken, severing the wires and sending the chandelier crashing down. While they all spun and looked, Batman came down, like the demon they all said he was, and knocked the gun out of the criminals hands. He had probably kicked or thrown the gun across the room, just to keep it out of the fight. Probably knocked the gas can away during the fight too, to keep it from exploding. And then-

Well, Batman would have done what he normally does; beat up the criminals, tie them up. He had put out the fire, and left the arsonists for them to deal with.

"You almost done Jim?" Sarah called, breaking him out of the scene in his mind.

"Yeah, I'm coming down," He replied, adjusting his grip on the bat-ninja star, so that it wouldn't spin and slice his finger.

At the base of the stairs, Sarah and Bullock had gathered all the pages of the report back into a neat pile again.

"Anything interesting in the report?" Jim asked.

"Jim. The level of detail was absurd. He had studied the chatroom for so long that he figured out their motive. I guess they thought they were real smart in trying to 'stick it to the Man' by but their method was to burn the new developments around the city out of spite, so they were mostly just shooting themselves in the foot," Sarah said.

"What about you? You find anything?" She asked dejectedly, not excepting anything new from the vigilante who had left them so little to go on. Bullock came closer, looking at Jim.

"Actually..." Jim said, and told them how he had found the bat-throwing knife, and put the scene of the the fight back together.

When he had finished, Bullock let out a long string of heartfelt curses, took his flask out of his pocket and took a swig, walking a few paces away.

"Can I see it?" Sarah asked hesitantly, holding out her hand.

Jim carefully lay it flat in the palm of her hand. Similar to how Jim first reacted, she carefully traced the outline of the bat.

Her brown skin, already pale in the harsh light of the flashlights, became even paler. She met Jim's gaze, her eyes wild. "This could kill someone."

He nodded. He had been trying to not dwell on it since he first discovered it, but the edge was easily sharp enough to seriously hurt, or kill someone. As reluctant as he was to share the evidence with the rest of the police force, this was too dangerous to keep a secret.

Still, he couldn't help but notice that it had been thrown away from people, so that it couldn't possibly have hit anyone.

"There is no goddamn way it's the same person," snarled Bullock, walking back over to them, staring at the bat in Sarah's hand. "One person? The man who can throw a sharp, fuckin', fuckin' BOOMERANG and hit a wire, and regularly beat up criminals at night, is supposed to be the same person who can hack into chatrooms and make profiles on people?! That's more than one person. 'The Batman' is probably a whole team of people!"

Bullock, chest heaving, took several deep breaths, trying to calm himself. He took another sip of his flask. Sarah and Jim were quiet, used to Bullock's frustration.

"That would make sense," Sarah agreed slowly.

Jim pursed his lips. "Maybe," he finally said, though he didn't agree. He had a feeling, with no real proof, that Batman was one person. As much as it made sense to have a whole team of 'Batmen' working the city, it seemed unlikely that a larger group would be as effective at leaving no trace, that not one person had made a mistake. But he didn't want to disagree with Sarah and Bullock now, when they were all riding the high of finally having physical proof of Batman.

One of the bound arsonists groaned faintly, and shifted slightly. The three of them turned to look at them.

"We should head out," Jim said, "So you can call it in before they wake up."

"Yeah," Sarah sighed, running a hand through her hair. "Thanks for coming out to help guys," she said, with a small smile on her face.

"Aww, don't worry about it Lopez," said Bullock, starting to walk away. "But you do owe us. Big time."

Jim looked at Sarah, who rolled her eyes. "Thank you Jim."

"It was nothing. Don't let them take that thing though, I want to look at it later," He said, nodding at the metal bat in their hand.

"I won't. They'd probably accidentally kill themselves with it anyway," she said, smirking slightly. She waved at him to go as she pulled out her radio and officially called the station to report the crime.

Jim and Bullock waited in the car, parked around the corner, until they saw the backup arrive, then started driving back to the station.

Jim didn't say anything in the drive back, and neither did Bullock, both thinking on what they had found at the building.

As exciting as it was to finally have real proof of the Batman, it was shadowed by the encompassing feeling that Jim was totally, wholly, out of his depth.

The Batman could take out a whole slew of criminals with ease, and find enough online evidence to create complete profiles and tease out a motive.

How on earth was Jim supposed to keep up with that?

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4

AO3

#batman #bruce wayne #batman fanfiction #batman fanfic #jim gordon #mine #accomplice #forgot to post this whoops

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humanityfyeahguy-blog · 7 years

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Terra Invicta

The Krask Empire is relentless. They take what they want, enslave who they will, and crush any resistance raised against them.

This was known throughout the galaxy. The Krask Empire controlled more space than any other species, and it seemed every day that they announced another conquest, another planet added to their vast empire. Some accepted their dominion more quickly than others. The peaceful, sociable Dreena bowed down almost immediately, and were rewarded by mostly being left to themselves. Many were taken, used as couriers to support the infrastructure of their empire, but the rest were left to govern their own planets, so long as they paid the heavy taxes levied and complied with any Krask instruction without question. But others resisted more strongly. The quick-witted Thrak, with their adeptness for technology, fought back for weeks before accepting the inevitable, and were quickly pressed into service as factory workers. The militant Gomag, strong and tough, held out for almost two months. But eventually, the constant losses took their toll, and the broken remains of their people bowed down to their Krask overlords. As punishment for resisting the inevitable, the Gomag were cast out from their own home planet, deported to provide hard labor on distant mining planets.

Not all of the galaxy had yet fallen under the dominion of the Krask, but most only considered it a matter of time. The question that lurked in the minds of all planetary leaders was not if the Krask would come for them, but when. Many would suffer nightmares of those bloodred ships appearing in the sky over their home, particularly those right on the borders of the Krask Empire, such as the Droff and the Bhura.

And so, when the ever expanding borders of the Krask Empire overtook a small yellow star with eight or nine planets, little attention was given. The race that lived there had nearly finished colonizing the habitable parts of their own system, and plans had been made for peaceful first contact when they started venturing outside it. But alas, they did not seem to have progressed quite quickly enough for that, and their first contact was to be with the Krask. A few xenologists shook their head-equivalents in pity, hoped there would be enough pieces left over to study their culture later, and put the matter out of their minds.

It came as little surprise when the Dreena couriers started reporting that these “humans”, as they called themselves, were resisting. Most did, at least at first. But the surprising thing was how well they were doing. Out of morbid curiosity, sensors were turned to the star system, “Sol”, to observe the inevitable bloody conquest. Luminal delay to observation vessels a few lightweeks away allowed reconstruction of some of the early events of the war.

True to form, the Krask had announced their presence by obliterating one of the smaller colony worlds, and immediately transmitting a demand for unconditional surrender and fealty. A dozen battleships and several support craft settled into orbit around “Earth”, the third planet and the humans’ homeworld, and waited for a response.

The fleet burned.

An enormous salvo of hundreds of nuclear warheads, fully enough to glass the entire planet launching them had they been aimed there, were launched. Defensive Krask lasers destroyed many before they could strike, but there were simply too many. All twelve battleships were destroyed in mere minutes, with many of the smaller vessels lost in the swath of destruction. But those ships that survived the opening salvo, however, were not destroyed with a second. Instead, human ships were seen attaching to them, and not long thereafter the Krask ships appeared to have had control taken from them by the humans. While boarding parties were not unheard of, challenging the Krask in close quarters combat was seen as a fool’s errand. And yet these humans had not only done so, but apparently won, after wiping out the rest of their battle fleet.

The Krask were furious. Official announcements, of course, simply painted the humans as stubborn but doomed, soon to realize the magnitude of their mistake. But never before had the Krask so thoroughly underestimated the resistance they would face. Never had one of their fleets been so thoroughly defeated. Never had their pride suffered such a blow.

Even with superluminal technology, assembling a new fleet from the nearby garrisons and traveling across interstellar distances took time. Nearly a year passed before the second fleet, easily an order of magnitude larger than the first, arrived at the Sol system. And when they arrived, they immediately found that the humans had not been idle.

They were wary not to approach any major planets too closely, of course, having learned their mistake last time. But now the humans had fielded warships of their own, and most disturbingly, they used many of the same technologies as the Krask, apparently reverse-engineered from the captured ships and put into production in an absurdly short period of time. This time the nuclear salvo came from the lead ships, and while not nearly as devastating as the first, still took its toll. The humans never fought head-on, instead striking quickly and then retreating, dealing far more damage than they suffered. Missiles with advanced warheads disrupted sensors, leaving the ships all but blind. Mines left floating in the void magnetically adhered to hulls before detonating. Hypervelocity kinetic rounds launched from extreme distances struck without warning. Several human ships, damaged beyond repair, were able to steer themselves into collision courses and take another Krask ship with them.

Even with the massive size of the Krask fleet, the call for reinforcements came quickly. The humans were outnumbered and outgunned, but for every ship they lost, three Krask fleet lost three. They had to know how impossible the fight was, they couldn’t not, and yet they fought on. Ships were mobilized from all corners of the Krask Empire. This human system with its stubborn defiance had dealt their pride an unforgivable blow, and they intended to have vengeance. Hundreds of vessels of all sizes made for the Sol system at top speed.

Eventually, the sheer weight of the Krask fleet began to shift the tides of the war. The humans were building more warships nearly as quickly as they were being destroyed, but against the numberless Krask they finally started to lose ground. The Jovian colonies fell first, ships forced to retreat and leave the fighting to the ground forces. And yet, once again, the humans put up an incredibly strong defense. After orbital bombardment destroyed most of the defensive structures, the Krask shocktroopers expected an easy conquest over the remaining civilian population. But they met resistance from all points, even from the civilians who clearly had no military training. Rumors circulated of not only men, but also women and even children taking up any arms they could find to cause as much damage as possible in any way conceivable. Power plants were sabotaged, supplies were poisoned, and leaders were assassinated.

The Jovian colonies eventually fell, and then the cities of Mars. The Krask were slowly, inevitably taking ground, but they paid for every inch in blood. When the last of the human warships fell and the Krask finally began landing on Earth itself, they thought that victory had been within reach. The colonists had been fighting for their lives, their families, and their homes, and had put up an incredible resistance through sheer determination. But the inhabitants of Earth were fighting for the very survival of their species, and their resistance could only be described as insane.

Every base the Krask established needed to be under constant, vigilant guard, lest human saboteurs infiltrate the compound to wreak havoc. Every supply convoy needed an extensive escort to prevent opportunistic attacks, and furthermore they needed to stop regularly to scan for any traps laid in their path. While the colonies of the other planets, lacking terraforming, had only so many places for the humans to retreat to, their home planet had no such restrictions. When the cities were lost, the humans fought from the hills, from the forests, from the caves. At least one group even managed to stage attacks from an underwater base. The resistance was unprecedented. No other species in the history of the galaxy had continued to fight once they realized it was hopeless. But the more hopeless things were for the humans, the harder they seemed to fight, and the more devious and horrific their methods became.

Years stretched by, and the resistance finally slowed. A guard’s slipup could easily result in hundreds of dead Krask, whereas a lucky shot might kill one human, but the Krask simply had the numbers to endure the losses and the humans didn’t. Finally, after six months without a single incident, the Krask war-leader declared that the humans had been hunted to extinction. It stood atop the ruins of a human monument, and broadcast a live message throughout the galaxy, proclaiming victory and promising that any other race to attempt such resistance would be similarly crushed.

The live feed briefly showed the war-leader and its entire retinue being engulfed in flame before the explosion destroyed the holocameras as well.

Across the galaxy, the human resistance had captivated, horrified, and finally saddened the countless sentient species observing them. But at the same time, even in their twilight hours, they also inspired them. The vaunted Krask Empire, with resources utterly dwarfing this single system, had nevertheless failed as they never had before. Thousands of their warships had been lost, billions of troops lay dead, and they had so little to show for it. The humans may have been dead, or nearly so, but they alone out of all the races of the galaxy had died unconquered.

Whispers circulated throughout the Krask Empire as well. The Dreena couriers, behind closed doors, shared the truth of what happened in the Sol system, not the dressed up propaganda distributed by their Krask overlords. One race had actually weakened the entire empire. Many of the outer colonies were shorthanded on their overseers, with so many resources drawn into crushing the humans. And for the first time in centuries, when the slaves raised their eyes to their masters, they felt not fear of their whips, but hatred of their cruelty.

The Thrak were one of the first to resist, albeit quietly. In their factories, they started creating tiny flaws in the technology they produced. Everything would work fine when tested, but under extreme circumstances- such as combat- they would fail, often spectacularly. Soon after, the Gomag work crews started resisting, making sure lone overseers met with “accidents”, until there were so few remaining they could overwhelm them with simple weight of numbers. And always, the subservient Dreena would quietly pass along any information they thought could help, whenever the Krask weren’t paying much attention.

Outside the empire, a great many civilizations turned their attention to the Krask. Their borders, unprecedentedly, had stopped expanding. No other planets had fallen under siege since the campaign against the humans. When the Dreena traveled out to deliver the standard threats and ultimatums, they started passing along another message. An impossible idea.

The Krask were afraid.

They may have defeated the humans, but they had cost themselves dearly by doing so, and most of the troop still on Earth were convinced there were still a few humans lurking in the shadows somewhere. Their enslaved races were becoming more and more unruly, less inclined to follow orders they had formerly obeyed without question. They had to divert more and more of their strained resources to prevent uprisings from causing too much damage, and with so much of their infrastructure built on now-unreliable slave labor, their economy was beginning to collapse.

It was the Bhura, proud and honorable warriors, who took the next step. Right on the borders of Krask space, they had known their time was limited, and had hoped to at least cause some damage to the Krask before being defeated. But now, they saw how badly the Krask had been weakened, and formulated a new plan. They gathered fully ninety percent of their military forces, leaving only the barest defenses around their worlds, and made an uprecedented move. They launched an attack against a Krask world.

They suffered heavy losses. Even struggling though they were, the Krask were still a mighty military empire, and mounted a formidable defense. But with no reinforcements coming, and attackers that for once outnumbered them, the Krask were forced to call a retreat. And for the first time in history, the Krask Empire’s territory shrank.

Emboldened by the Bhura’s success, others near the Krask began launching their own attacks. Not all succeeded, but many did, and even those that did not cost the Krask resources they could not afford to lose. Slowly, their once mighty empire crumbled, their eventual defeat now just as inevitable as their victory had once seemed. More and more races joined the effort, even those who would otherwise have been hostile to each other joining forces to defeat their shared enemy.

Today, the Krask Empire is no more. There are still isolated pockets of Krask, pirates who raid and pillage to sustain themselves, but they are at best a nuisance, only a danger to the most remote and minimally defended colonies. In an odd way, the worst conquerors in history became instrumental in establishing galactic peace, as shared enmity of the Krask allowed otherwise bitter enemies to learn to work together. But none of this would have ever occurred had the humans of Earth not put up an impossible defense against an implacable foe, and showed the galaxy that they were not nearly so invincible as they claimed.

To this day, a memorial stands on the planet Earth. Much of the planet has been reclaimed by the wilds, as none feel worthy to claim the planet as a colony. But in one corner of the world, surrounded by the ruins of one of the largest human cities, stands an enormous obelisk painstakingly engraved with the names of all known humans who died in the war with the Krask. Inside it is a digital archive of all the information we have ever been able to gather about them. The humans are gone, but even though they will never know it, their heroism gave the galaxy a future free from tyranny and subjugation, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten. An honor guard, comprised of volunteers from every military in the galaxy, stands ceaselessly vigilant over it.

The humans are gone, but we will honor their memory for eternity.

#unconquered #invictus #science-fiction #space #fiction #blog

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gamehackercheats-blog · 7 years

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