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whumble-beeee · 1 month

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The Man in the Sweater Vest

The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping | Cont'd from Part 7

Content: attempted noncon, threatened mouth whump, disabled whumpee, trans whumpee, scissors, tied up/handcuffs, noncon unshirtening, noncon touch, past captivity references, graphic threats, blood, crapton of whump. As a treat :)

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Excerpt from: The (Un)Official Guide to Hero-Keeping; a self-help guide for villains and bounty-hunters

[Inevitably, there will be disagreements on how you should treat your captured hero. One villain might want to just hold the hero hostage long enough to finish their dastardly plans. Another will want to break the hero’s will entirely! Or anything else in between!

But when working together with other villains, bounty hunters, henchmen, etc, it is crucial that everyone is on the same page about how your captured hero is to be treated, lest your hero end up with a few less limbs than you meant them too, or your months of breaking down the hero's fragile mind is undone by a single nice gesture.

Always communicate effectively, your hero will thank you for it (or curse the day you were born)!]

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Sweater-vest stumbled back, reeling from the punch and clutching his face before pulling his hands down and gawking at the blood staining his hands.

“STAY AWAY FROM ME!!” Stan screamed.

An intense elation washed through his chest despite the surprisingly sharp exploding pain that crackled up the very bones of his arm when he punched the man, and the now freshly ripped open scabs and bruises from where he’d forgotten to account for the handcuffs and yanked on them violently, streaming new ruby red over dried light brown that already carved down his arms;

Because he'd got him. He'd got him! Punched him, made him back off! Stan did that! He'd finally managed to actually do something about the atrocities being committed against him and it was so, so sweet.

Relatively short-lived, though.

Vaughn, the sweater vest man, started to giggle to himself as he wiped the blood streaming from his nose onto his sleeve. Elation gave way to tentative confusion. Then a sinister seed started to take root in Stan's gut, the roots already reaching out and tightening around his body.

“You-...” Vaughn giggled some more. “You– you think–?...”

He started fully laughing, speech overtaken by an apparent hilarity that Stan must’ve just been too shocked by the sudden mood change to understand. He was cackling. Then practically shrieking, crazy, loud, heaving laughs.

He must be crazy.

Insane.

Well and truly insane, the way he was shriek laughing into his shining red-stained hands.

His gaze snapped up to Stan, and Stan could practically hear the horror movie crackling effect with how fast it snapped up, crazy maniacal shudders still overtaking his body, piercing gaze turned wide, animalistic.

“You think you can HURT ME?! HURT ME?! AHAHAHAHA!!”

Suddenly Stan slammed into the wall, cuffed wrists pinned above his head, chest to chest with the crazy man and staring up into his crazy bloodshot eyes.

“You can't hurt me,” he growled into Stan’s ear through gritted teeth. ”I don't feel pain. I carved that weakness out a long time ago, my brain doesn’t register it anymore! And I did it so I could deal with horrible little brats like you–” he slammed Stan's wrists into the wall, “--however I see fit! So I could do whatever I wanted to them. So that even if they fight back, they always, always, always lose.”

He pulled back and leaned into Stan's face, staring the captive directly in his glaringly defiant, wide and shining eyes. Hot shaking breaths misted surprisingly minty breath onto Stan’s cheeks, nearly overpowered by the metallic tang of blood that still poured down his face.

“Always submit. Just like you're going to.”

Stan pulled down hard against Vaughn's grasp, struggling and wiggling and tugging and screaming and kicking and doing every single little thing he could to, if not escape, at least make this as difficult as possible.

“Get away from me!" He cried. "GET AWAY FROM ME, get OFF of me, I’m not gonna let you do this you sadist, you can’t do this to me!! LET GO–!”

A punch to the gut. Stan tried to double over and wheezed as much as he could with his arms pinned up, which delivered him right into another punch to the face.

Then something cool and sharp stabbed into the soft underside of his chin, straining his neck with how far his head pushed back into the wall.

“This is why I like to keep my victims gagged,” Vaughn gritted. “That bounty hunter of yours never does it, no matter how I tell him to. Always has to do stuff his own way, never listens. All he does is talk talk talk, always has a retort for everything. So defiant, and so is every single subject he brings in.”

A dull aching throb emanated from where Stan’s head pressed into the wall. Black spots dotted his vision.

“You–... y-you can't–”

The scissors pulled back and dove toward Stan's mouth, eliciting a loud cut-off scream of revolt as he cowered and squeezed his eyes shut from some vain, animalistic instinct to protect himself.

Then he pried open his eyes again, confused when no cutting metallic pain ripped through the fragile flesh of his face.

The handle of the scissors were fuzzy, too close for his eyes to focus.

They weren’t that far into his mouth.

Just enough that if Stan tried to close it, his teeth would clip on the tip of the metal blades instead.

The scissors lifted slowly, tapping on his top teeth, tilting his head up until he stared into Vaughn’s metallic blue eyes once more.

“I could always prep your throat with these if you like,” he drawled softly, letting go of Stan’s cuff chain and instead lightly grasping his thumb and forefinger under Stan’s chin, forcing his mouth open further. A small sob crackled out from Stan’s throat.

“It would be so easy… I could just–”

The scissors lurched further into Stan’s mouth, and Stan let out another involuntary squeak and an open-mouthed, unintelligible pleading of “no, no, no, no…” as tears started to sting at his eyes.

But he let him do it.

He even still held his arms up, because surely if he tried to fight back now, with the scissors in his mouth quite literally pinning him to the wall… He didn’t even want to think of the consequences.

“Careful, dropje. Wouldn’t want to cut yourself. Be quiet, be still, be good for me, right? You can be good for me? You can finally shut the hell up. No more fighting.”

He let go of Stan's chin and let his hands wander lower, caressing Stan’s sides, the curve of his waist, making his entire body tense and shudder. His breathing turning loud and shallow as he cringed away.

Vaughn just giggled.

“See? Isn’t this better? You’re not getting hurt, you’re doing what I say…” His fingers slipped under the waistband of Stan’s pants again. Slower this time. More deliberate.

It took all of Stan's willpower to not start hyperventilating at what he knew was about to happen. He knew. It was always this, wasn’t it?

Vaughn’s voice lowered as he leaned closer, pressing his body into Stan’s. He could feel the fibers of the stupid damn sweater vest against his stomach, deceptively soft, almost pleasant. The hard blade of the scissors tapped on the tip of his nose. “Because you physically have no other–”

BANG!!

Stan screamed.

Vaughn screamed.

The ghost of the gunshot echoed off the cinderblock walls.

Vaughn also nearly fell backward, pushing off of Stan just in time for Stan to fall to the floor in a duck-and-cover position and pray to whatever gods would listen that his last day on earth wouldn't have been spent dealing with two of the worst people he'd ever had the displeasure of being kidnapped by.

Wait, scratch that, his knee reminded him. He'd had worse.

His heart threatened to jump out of his chest completely, but he finally realized that in fact, he was still alive. So he opened his eyes to what he never thought to be one of the most beautiful sights in the world;

Deeby.

Gun pointed to the sky and streaming a light grey smoke into a small puff of explosion that hadn't had time yet to dissipate.

“What in the ever-loving SHIT are you doing?!” he shouted.

He was completely maskless, face now on full display, fiery eyes matching his equally fiery sneer. The sudden absence of the mask almost scared Stan more than the gunshot, the sight making his heart beat in his throat.

Then, for just a split second, Deeby's enraged eyes met Stan's stare. His eyes scanned down his body, looking him up and down, his face changing ever so slightly when his gaze caught in Stan’s chest. A slight crinkle of the eyebrows, a small tilt of the head. Then his eyes widened in some sort of realization, and Stan felt his heart turn to ice.

Recognition.

No.

He couldn't have realized who he was.

Just because of the binder?!

Stan choked on his own throat as the collar suddenly constricted once more and he was dragged violently forward to his knees.

“Your fucking dog punched me in the face!” Vaughn shouted, jangling Stan around enough that he had to grab the collar just to gain back his breath.

“Just because–!”

Vaughn jolted Stan's collar back hard and cut him off with a violent gag.

“I was disciplining him.” Vaughn narrowed his eyes at the mercenary. “Like we're supposed to.”

Deeby’s jaw set. And still, he managed to find a slight smug smile within his fury. “That why your face is gushing blood, then? Disciplined him too hard?”

Stan didn't even realize when they started, but tears were practically streaming down his cheeks now, chest heaving in panic. “Deeby, Deeby, he was gonna–”

“Shut up!”

A kick this time, straight to the back of his spine, and Stan's throat strained hard into the collar before breaking free of Vaughn's grasp and nearly face-planting into cold concrete. He scrambled to get up, but the same foot planted on his back and slammed his chest right back to the floor, grinding the heel of its shoe into the captive’s spine. Stan clutched at the ground, screams barely bit back by force of sheer willpower.

“Christ, man! Stop it, get off!” Deeby yelled with uncharacteristic urgency.

The force pinning him down suddenly released, followed by the scattered footfalls of someone catching themself from nearly falling over.

Stan just lay there limp. Heaving and shivering. He couldn't move. His limbs felt like heavyweights, the world tilted on it’s axis, and he was sure that if he lifted his head up, he would lose every last morsel of that protein bar he'd shoved down earlier.

But at least now no one was methodically turning him into a fine red mist anymore.

Deeby stood between the two of them like an impenetrable stone wall, hand resting on the unlatched holster of his gun and pointedly ignoring Vaughn’s stuttering disbelief as he patted at the pockets of his jacket, pulling various probably very sharp things out and shoving them into his pants pockets.

Protecting him.

“You– You just–...” Vaughn finally composed himself. “You pushed me off! You're saving him? He needs to be taught a lesson!”

Stan tried to push up despite the dizziness. “Only–... D-Deeby, he was trying–”

“Shut up, Stan, I know, let me handle it! Here.” Deeby slid his jacket off and dropped it practically on top of his captive’s head, never once letting his gaze slip from Vaughn. Stan shakily pulled the brown leather of the jacket over his shoulders before he had time to think better of it, doing his best to just enjoy the show and not think about the implications of what was currently happening.

“Because he wouldn't let you put your dick in him without a fight, right?” The bounty hunter said sarcastically. “Or– or– or because he wasn’t gonna let you mouth-gore him without complaint? Let you ‘teach him a lesson?’ Yeah, I am stopping you. Piece of shit.” The bounty hunter grabbed the scissors off the floor where they landed when Vaughn dropped them after the gunshot. Then he used them to point sharply at the door.

“Get out.”

Vaughn scoffed and melodramatically rolled his eyes.

“You got the message from Lana then? Is that why you're acting like such a belligerent wittle babeee?” Vaughn posited in his most obnoxious baby voice.

Deeby bristled. Stan could've sworn for a moment he could see the man shaking.

“Yes,” he said, slowly. “I talked to Lana. Your useless job is done. You can go back to being an even more useless sidepiece now.”

Vaughn’s shoulders tensed, and he laughed.

“Good! And I’ll make sure to tell Lana all about you taking the side of the disobedient dog of a test subject–”

“Yeah, go cry to your girlfriend about it, he's under my jurisdiction and I'm not gonna let you fuck that up because you feel the need to live out your perverse power fantasy with the helpless people you kidnap and torture. As if it isn’t torture enough to have to be in the same room with you at all.”

Vaughn clenched his fists at his side and forced on the worst imitation of a smile Stan had ever borne witness to.

“You better watch your tone, Deathberry,” he said, sickly sweet voice doing nothing to mask the hissing rage. “I could have you in the same spot as him in ten seconds. Don't ever–” he jabbed Deeby in the chest. “–forget that. You're only allowed to be out here roaming around with your fancy gun and your fancy cowboy boots because you're useful, otherwise you'd be locked up with the rest–”

Vaughn had just started to reach for the holster on Deeby's belt when, faster than Stan could perceive, a flurry of movement between the two men, a cry of surprised fear, the shuffling of feet and spinning of bodies and suddenly Vaughn was pinned back first to Deeby's chest, a wire that Deeby pulled from somewhere stretched taut between his fists and pressing a hard line directly under into the skin of Vaughn's throat.

Vaughn's hands quickly flew up to the wire to try and pull it off his throat, then just as quickly let go when he realized the wire would sooner cut through his hands before it would be pried off.

Stan couldn't help but stare.

“You're just about at the end of my rope, Verhulst,” Deeby growled, accent fully presiding now as he stepped backward and pulled Vaughn toward the door. “Don't you ever put your filthy hands on my gun.”

A slight rasp to Vaughn's voice was the only thing that denoted anything was amiss. “You sure this is about the gun, Deebs? Sure you're not taking your frustrations at Lana out on me?”

“Trust me, if I was takin’ my frustrations at Lana out on you, bud, you'd be dead.”

Vaughn's eyes shot to Stan, and his smile broadened.

“Ohhhh, I see. So what then, you are falling for the captive? I'm sure Lana would love to hear about how you're going soft, how you miss her, and how spectacularly you're failing at finding someone better so you have to–”

A small gurk finding its way from Vaughn's throat as he was pulled to a sudden stop.

“You know what, maybe I am. And maybe you should use your mouth to do something not completely useless for once.” He spun the both of them around to face Stan again.

“Apologize to ‘im.”

What?

Vaughn stared at Stan, apparently more stunned by the notion of apologizing than the motion of having a garot wire to his throat. Stan… honestly had to agree.

“Come again?”

“Apologize to Stan. For tryin’ to rape him. It's the least you could do.”

“You want me to… apologize?? To the test subject? You really are losing it, Deathberry, let me go.”

The wire dug into his throat more. “Say sorry, doctor.”

Vaughn glared at Stan. Stan glared back as well as he could.

“I can't feel the pain of this, you know,” Vaughn's voice came, even raspier. “You're not doing anything.”

“You can still bleed out from a slit throat. Still drown to death in your own blood as it slowly fills your lungs,” Deeby dismissed lightly. “Still bleed out. Very quickly. I wonder what would happen if I hit your carotid–

“And I wonder how Lana would feel about you slitting her head scientist and boyfriend’s throat.”

“Probably call you a little bitch boy for invoking her name every time you need to defend yourself like a spoiled toddler ‘steada bein’ a man about it and defending yourself. Or maybe not. You’d never know, you’d be dead.”

“You wouldn't–”

Deeby twitched the wire across Vaughn's throat and a line of red bloomed across the light tan of his neck. Vaughn's face grew just a little bit paler. He brought his hands up to graze across the wire and felt the warm wetness smear across his fingertips.

“Apologize.” Deeby growled. “Now.”

Vaughn's eyes flitted back to Stan, fully appraising the wonderfully wide-eyed mess he'd had pinned against the wall only moments before.

He narrowed his eyes.

Took a deep breath.

Stared daggers directly into Stan's soul.

“Sorry.”

Oh you bastard.

“Go jump off a cliff!” Stan yelled, erratically reaching into the jacket pocket he'd seen Deeby pull the protein bar out of earlier and luckily finding many more, one of which was immediately thrown directly at Vaughn. He couldn't even attempt to dodge it, and it hit him directly in the chest.

The mercenary let out a singular loud laugh and spun Vaughn back around, letting the wire retract into what Stan now realized was a little housing box on his weird arm sleeve thing and shoving Vaughn at the door as hard as he could.

“Guess he doesn't forgive you. Better luck next time!” he laughed. Stan genuinely thought (and hoped) Sweater-vest would fall flat on his face, but he managed to grab the door and right himself before that happened. Shame.

“Now get out.” Deeby said.

Vaughn glared with a literal snarl, jaw half a second away from cracking in two. Right before he took a slow, deep breath and reset his features to a forced neutral. Then an easy smile. “As you wish, my liege.”

He bowed exaggeratedly low in a show of mock respect, retrieving his scissors from the ground in a surprisingly graceful sweeping motion as he went. Deeby just rolled his eyes.

“Oh, and Stanny?” He drawled, peeking back from the door as he left and pointing his scissors directly at Stan's face with a flourish. “I look forward to seeing you soon~.”

“Get outta here!” Deeby yelled with a threatening stomp toward the door, at the same time Stan stuttered out a very surprised and agitated “In hell!”

The door slammed shut.

Stan could swear he could still hear Vaughn's deranged laugh echoing through the room even as an eerie silence fell over them.

He was finally gone. Finally.

See you soon.

He didn't completely understand why his breath continued to quicken. He'd won that encounter, right? Or… well, Deeby had. But still.

I look forward to seeing you soon.

He felt dizzy. More than the concussion could have caused. This was different, made him feel like he was suffocating, even though Vaughn was no longer here to strain the collar against his throat. Yet he could still feel the knuckles digging into the back of his neck.

I look forward to seeing you soon. In hell.

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#whump #heroes and villains #whump writing #whumper #whumpee #hero whump #defiant whumpee #kidnapping whump #captivity whump #trans whumpee #disabled whumpee #(un)official guide #attempted noncon #noncon undressing #IT'S BACK BABYYYY #GAH I've been so excited to post this #I missed this so much #extra long and extra whumpy for all your waiting #whos idea was it to let me go on an accidental month long hiatus #WHO WAS IT #anyway I'm going into tech week irl for the musical i'm in #so I might not get to the next chapter next weekend #I'll definitely try to tho #I genuinely missed writing and posting this story too. I've got so much more of it to tell #anyway I hope you like this chapter it was a bitch to wring it out of me but I did it #and its glorious #Also vaughn is such a cringefail I love him so much #and we've got some secret hidden Deeby lore sprinkled in there!#making this like an easter egg hunt #did you find it?

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moghedien · 11 months

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they spent the first half of the episode making it absolutely clear that Haruka and Michiru were being chill and looking after baby Hotaru and her dad, so them showing up on the top of the ruins, Michiru playing the fucking violin, and then provoking Usagi and the other girls into a fight is sooooo fucking hilarious

because they knew Usagi was right at this point. They knew she was the messiah, and they knew they were gonna leave this fight by basically swearing allegiance to her. they weren't even bothered by it, it seemed. they had like fully accepted all of this and were ok with it.

but FIRST they were gonna show up and be dramatic haters one last time

#like its sooo funnny because 1) they clearly took that baby and left in secret #like Usagi came out with the baby and then didn't know where it went once Haruka and Michiru approached her #like she thought she fucking dropped the baby in the ruins or something??? and they were just gonna let her think that???? amazing #2) they had clearly been taking care of Hotaru for a few days before they brought her to her dad #and they knew as soon as those two were settled they were gonna go deal with the messiah matter (aka confront Usagi)#and so they had DAYS to plan exactly how dramatic they were gonna be how they were gonna pose what they were gonna say to mess with Usagi #like 'ok we're gonna climb to the top of the ruins and I'll sit there with a rock while you start playing violin'#and they clearly were using like things they thought would get to Usagi to provoke her to fight #and FOR WHAT #the DRAMA OF IT ALL THAT'S WHAT #like they really were just out there like making sure Usagi was willing to kick their asses if need be #and once she proved she would they were like 'oh sweet.' and then left #haruka tenou #michiru kaioh #sailor moon #sailor neptune #sailor uranus

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bumblingbabooshka · 8 months

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'I'm the X' is a banger but let's be real for a second Mr. Spock

#'I'm ready' is also a bop #Christine: Hey I'm gonna take a job opportunity so I'll be away for-#Spock: I will never love again...I can't believe she didn't take our relationship seriously. Not half as seriously as I did...this #is what I get for trusting someone I suppose. My fault. I won't make that mistake again v_v #<- Literally Engaged #saw some people saying Christine is a bitch for 'doing this to' Spock. Which Spock?? The Spock that's engaged?????#Unless he and T'Pring officially broke up in an episode I didn't watch prior to this then Christine could have broken up with him via #a brick through his bedroom window and I still wouldn't be upset on his behalf #bee doodles #EHEHEHHE but it's so funny...I'm the X literally is aesthetically a villain song. Sit DOWN Mr Spock!!!! <3 #Spock: Convinced myself we shared the same feelings...I won't make that mistake again...#Spock when has Christine 'let's keep this secret and casual' ever made you think that??#chrisit*ne/sp*ck is so goofy and so messy HEHEHE wha t are they DOING #anyway please listen to I'm the X by Spock bc it literally sounds like he's about to take over an empire or something #also I'm Ready for if you just wanna have a lil fun <3 #also idk what happened in the season finale I didnt watch it and I won't watch it - something about war v_v #I drew this after watching rhapsody and so thats where I'm drawing from #someone keep Mr Spock off reddit if he finds r/niceguys he's gonna get radicalized

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lord-squiggletits · 13 days

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OH, I am so interested in your idea for SG Tarnma.

Okay so my exact ideas for SG Tarnma vary a lot, because I think there's two different canon varieties of Shattered Glass: the original Fun Publications SG where everything was completely flipped and turned into crack-canon, and then what IDW later did with Shattered Glass IDW1 where it was more or less just role reversal IDW1 with only some "complete flipping" of lore and personality. There's also my own personal Shattered Glass universe that I built for Pay Unto Evil, so I could also answer this question as "what would Tarnma be in the SG PUE universe."

That being said I'll do my best to explain all of the different ideas I've had for SG Tarnma. All of them are pretty different so I'm not really particularly attached to any one, but here goes

Version 1: FunPub complete role reversal style. Pharma was originally a mere energon farmer get it lol and has a very meek, shy, unconfident personality. He got enlisted by the Autobots, but he spoke too quietly when they asked for his name (Farmer), so they started calling him Pharma. Then at some point Ratchet is like "yo I'm gonna make this completely untrained guy do medical operations. No I'm not gonna send him to medical school he can learn on the job!" And so Pharma becomes Ratchet's apprentice and develops even more anxiety from the hundreds of times he murders patients either on accident bc he literally has no medical training, or on purpose bc Ratchet made him. He's literally just trying his best and doesn't even want to be here. Meanwhile, the SG DJD is known as the Decepticon Jokester Division, formed as a sort of circus troupe meant to bring good cheer to the Decepticons in a time of depressing war. The members of the DJD are codenamed after the first cities they toured right before/when the war started. How reluctant medic Pharma and literal clown Tarn meet in this universe is anyone's guess.

Version 2: IDW style. Tarn and Pharma still have basically the same backstories as canon IDW1 except that Pharma is a professional assassin instead of a doctor (yknow, role reversal where Pharma is an expert at killing people instead of healing them). Also this universe's Pharma has the posh and aristocratic personality fandom thinks he has in canon lol. Maybe Pharma finds out about Tarn having a secret t-cog addiction, and he starts bringing t-cogs to Tarn in exchange for Tarn providing him intel (or some other service, idk). Maybe in this universe instead of Tarn torturing Pharma into insanity, Pharma somehow develops guilt for killing people because of Tarn, then defects from the Autobots willingly? Or they kick him out like in canon

Version 3: Pay Unto Evil SG. Tarn and Pharma would have their FunPub style backgrounds (though maybe Tarn's would be slightly more serious) with the added caveat of Pharma having the evil Matrix's mind control embedded in his brain. He still didn't join the Autobots willingly and wasn't even trained to be a doctor. Somehow he and Tarn meet and fall in love across faction lines because Tarn sees how much Pharma is suffering under mind slavery and feeling like he doesn't belong among his cruel comrades. It's a bit of a tragic one though, as Pharma warns Tarn that the Prime can look through his mind at any time thanks to the Matrix. If he finds out that Pharma is Tarn's vulnerability, he could use that against him somehow, or worse, mind control Pharma into trying to kill Tarn himself. They were both devastated when the universe swap happened and they thought they would never see each other again. Though Pharma secretly felt some relief that Tarn was now a universe away and can find someone else to love who isn't a mind-controlled walking time bomb that could try to murder him at any moment.

#squiggle answers #shattered glass #tarnma #these are really rough and most of them i havent even written down or explained to anyone before so #hope any of these strike your fancy. if they do you can ask me more and i'll try to come up with more lore #also to clarify the way the matrix mind control works in PUE's universe is that SG OP is hooked in #at all times. but most of the time he lets his soldiers be or at least only exerts passive mental/emotional control #individual autobots still have personalities they just have little pieces of Primus in their brains watching at all times #hence why sg pue pharma is able to be in a secret relationship with tarn. bc he's forgettable and unimportant #but if sg OP took notice he could definitely reach out #and just mind control pharma to be unthinking and unfeeling and try to kill tarn

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little-pup-pip · 5 months

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could I request a hassel (from Pokemon scarlet/violet) caregiver moodboard?

Absolutely!!

#Woo pokemon #I'll let you in on a secret #I've never played and finished a pokemon game #so this is my interpretation™ based on the wiki page #I hope it's good!#moodboard #sfw agere #sfw interaction only #age regression #agere #sfw littlespace #agere moodboard #pokemon #pokemon moodboard #pokemon scarlet and violet

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solalunar-eclipse · 7 months

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Sonic Boom - S3E13

Chapter title: Schrödinger's Hedgehog, Part 1

Summary: The truth about Shadow is revealed, and some problems are solved…while others are made worse. Will a team of five emotionally inexperienced people be able to do what needs to be done?

AO3 Link

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[This episode begins without any kind of a cold open, jumping directly into the introductory sequence.]

[Shadow is not present in the part with the rest of the heroes, but their team shot is still structured as if he were there, making the absence very noticeable.]

[Instead, he appears in his old villain intro, with just his stripes and angry eyes visible. However, after a second or two, his eyes change into a much more nervous expression, and dart around briefly.]

[Then, the rest of the sequence continues, complete with the episode title at the end.]

…

When Tails had called the others, they’d all rushed into his workshop immediately, fearing the worst. “What’s wrong, Tails?” Amy had cried. Sonic, somehow, didn’t say a thing. Instead, he darted over to Shadow, clearly concerned for his rival-turned-friend.

What they found, however, was something far stranger than what they had expected.

At Sonic’s gasp, all five teammates gathered around Shadow, staring at his exposed hand. It didn’t look like anything they’d seen before—in fact, it barely resembled any of their own, except in general shape.

Starting from the middle of Shadow’s forearm, his black coloration ended and a strange silicone material began. It was a dull and semi-transparent grey (except for his arm stripe, which was pale red), with wires threaded throughout it, weaving around a central piston that extended up into the rest of his arm. His hand was made of the same silicone, and contained five segmented metal bars that extended through each of his fingers in place of the usual hand structure. They ended in five wickedly sharp steel claws that looked as though they could slice through Eggman’s badniks like they were made of warm butter.

Everyone stared until Sticks broke the silence. “He’s been replaced by a robot!” she screamed. “Who knows who they’ll come for next?!”

“Oh, don’t be silly, Sticks. What I want to know is, since when has Shadow had a prosthetic hand?” Amy asked, confused.

Tails frowned. “I don’t know, but however he got it, this is a seriously advanced piece of machinery. It almost perfectly mimics a real hand!”

While Amy and Tails discussed this revelation, Sonic eyed the way the piston in Shadow’s arm seemed to extend past what he could see somewhat suspiciously. Sure, maybe that was how prosthetics worked and he just didn’t know it, but something wasn’t quite adding up to him.

Running on that gut feeling, he pulled off Shadow’s other glove…

…to reveal a second synthetic hand underneath.

A momentary silence fell as everyone stared again.

Knuckles blinked. “So was Sticks right about him being replaced by a robot?”

“I don’t know about replaced, that just doesn’t feel right, but maybe…aha!” Tails exclaimed. “My scanners were calibrated to organic material, not inorganic! Let me try again.”

The entire team waited with bated breath as Tails’s machinery began to analyze Shadow one last time. The loading bar on the screen seemed almost excruciatingly slow as it ticked upwards a centimeter at a time.

And then, there was a map of Shadow’s insides for everyone to see.

It still didn’t make perfect sense, since there were large parts of Shadow simply listed as “unidentifiable material”, but now it was perfectly clear that he didn’t have one (or even two) prosthetic arms. Shadow was, somehow, an android. An android with Ancient markings on some of his frame, to boot.

Tails looked torn between freaking out in shock and freaking out in excitement. “Chaos, that actually makes perfect sense!”

“Uh…what makes perfect sense, bud?” Sonic asked.

“You guys remember how Shadow knew all this stuff about the Ancients—like with your mech, Sonic? Well, a while back, Amy and I discovered that Mighton and Bolts are actually Ancient robots with ridiculously advanced AIs.”

“Oh yeah! Plus, now that I think about it, he seemed kinda awkward earlier when we were all talking about our opinions on robots.” Sonic added.

“So what I think is, since the robots of Roboken are so…lifelike, mentally, why couldn’t the Ancients have made a robot that looks like us as well as thinks like us?” the engineer finished.

“Why would they want to do that?” Amy asked.

Tails shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe just because they could?”

“But how does any of this help us fix him?” Knuckles said, looking upset.

“Because…” the fox said proudly. “I may not know how to fix people, but I sure know how to fix robots!”

The entire team cheered at that, even Sticks.

“Alright!” Tails declared. “Guys, I need all of you to go back to Shadow’s cave and find anything that might help me fix him. Meanwhile, I’m going to hook him up to my computers and see what else I can figure out.”

“On it!” Sonic said, saluting. He rushed out the door with everybody else in tow, leaving Tails alone in the lab.

With an unconscious, highly advanced robot who also just happened to be his semi-friend.

“This is one of the best days of my life.” he whispered.

Fifteen minutes later, once he’d managed to access Shadow’s brain wirelessly, his computer crashed.

(And so did his mood. At least temporarily.)

Tails sighed, rewiring some ports in the back so that all of his various devices could share processing power. Then, he tried rebooting it and reconnecting it to Shadow.

Immediately, he received about twenty different error messages, including a [Files Incompatible: Open anyway?] request.

He selected [Yes] hesitantly, and then gasped as row after row of files filled his screen. Most of them were names he didn’t even understand…because they were all written in Ancient.

Tails scrambled for the original and translated copies of the robot manuscript that Amy had made him, hoping that he could use them as a sort of decoding mechanism for what he saw on screen. Thankfully, they did indeed make it a little easier to understand the writing—and the parts he could read were all incredible.

Shadow had an absolutely insane amount of files just for his sense of smell, let alone his optics and auditory sensors. And that wasn’t even touching his actual cognitive programming.

Once he’d finished geeking out, Tails ran a full diagnostic of Shadow’s body, and discovered the problem. The house had fallen on him in the right position to somehow…disconnect some of his processing capability? It didn’t entirely make sense, and Tails spent the next few minutes deep in thought.

Suddenly, he came to a realization. Very slowly, he clicked on the file labeled with what he hoped was the Ancients’ version of ‘opacity’, and crossing his fingers, he turned the slider contained within most of the way down.

And with that, the entirety of Shadow’s ‘fur’ faded to the same dull, transparent grey and pale red.

Beneath the rest of his silicone body, endless wires and metal framing lay. Even his eyelids were transparent (and Tails thought it was slightly creepy to see him staring blankly through them, if he was being entirely honest). And in the center of his body pulsed a bright blue crystal.

Looking closely, Tails could see that one of the clamps attaching a wire to the crystal had completely broken, leaving the wire detached. He knew at a glance that it wouldn’t match any of the clamp types he had—it was a completely unique make.

Unfortunately, that meant that all he could do now was wait for his friends to come back.

…

The other four were all busy searching through the boxes in Shadow’s cave, hoping to find something that matched what their engineer friend had seen inside him. Nothing seemed to fit the picture Tails had sent, though, and they were all starting to lose hope.

Sonic wandered throughout the cave, past the place where they’d found the mech. Only a little farther along, a rough bedroom was set up, and it made Sonic a little sad to see how poorly Shadow was living even compared to Knuckles these days.

Then, he noticed the corner of another cardboard box poking out from underneath the bed. Scrambling forward, he pulled it out, barely noting the carefully lettered label: Emergency Parts.

“Guys!” he yelled, already digging through the electronics. “Guys, I think I found it!” The others gathered around him just as he held up a clamp triumphantly, and Amy quickly matched it to the picture Tails had sent.

It was perfect.

Immediately, they all raced back to Tails’s workshop, the blue hedgehog making no effort to be gentle as he slammed the entire box down on the table. “Can you fix him?” Sonic asked, looking over at the android nervously.

“I think so?” Tails said hesitantly. “I spent some time searching through his command files and found a couple things that might help.”

He pressed a button, and a section of Shadow’s silicone covering pulled back to reveal his internal wiring. Carefully, Tails pulled out the broken clamp with his fingers (since there was no tool that matched the ones the Ancients had used) and replaced it with the new one. Then, the engineer pulled out some of his most delicate tools and gently reset the wire in its housing.

After a moment of careful inspection to make sure nothing was out of alignment, as well as a quick voltage check, Tails set the silicone covering back in place and sat back with a sigh. “We’ll just have to hope that he’ll be able to fix the rest on his own from here.” he said quietly, watching Shadow’s still body along with the others.

…

>>System malfunction: Corrected_

>>Rebooting_

Shadow gasped, sitting bolt upright.

He took a trembling breath, out of habit more than anything else. Looking around, he saw that he was in Tails’s (currently empty) lab. He relaxed marginally at that—so he was among friends. Good.

…Immediately afterwards, he remembered to feel embarrassed about how easy it was for him to feel safe around the other five these days.

Now then, what was he doing here? The last thing he remembered was saving that little girl from the house, and then everything went dark. As he looked around, however, he suddenly found that feeling of safety ripped right out of his head—

—when he noticed that his coloration had been dialed down to only twenty-five percent opacity. No matter whether it had happened during his injury, or afterwards here in the lab, it meant that the team knew.

As Shadow looked around with increasing terror, automatically running a self-diagnostic, he noticed that one of his clamps was registered as having been recently replaced. That must’ve been what knocked me out, he noted faintly. The most terrible part of all of it, though, was the fact that there were files filling up the entirety of Tails’s screen.

His files. The files that made up the personality of the creation named Shadow.

How long had they been looking through his head?!

Shadow terminated the connection instantly, his eyes flashing with a mixture of hurt and fury. And here he’d thought he could trust these heroes. They’d called him their friend. He scoffed to himself furiously, ignoring the betrayed pain building up inside him. He had been a fool.

And it was then that Tails appeared at the door.

The android bared his teeth defensively, leaping off the table and into a fighting stance.

“Guys?” Tails squeaked. “I…I don’t think Shadow’s happy with me…”

Suddenly, the rest of the team piled into the room, making Shadow take a sudden step backwards.

“You okay, Shads?” Sonic asked worriedly.

“Do you need anything?” Amy added.

Shadow snarled at them, his shoulders hunching. “Liars. Traitors! Don’t bother pretending you all still like me.”

“What?” Tails said, his eyes widening.

“You heard what I said!” he barked. “I know you all rifled through my head like a—a storage cabinet! Did you like what you saw? Was it fun?”

“No! No, Shads, we didn’t look at anything, except what we needed to fix you! We’d never!” Sonic cried, visibly taken aback.

“Sure.” he scoffed. “As if I’d believe that now.”

And with that, he vanished.

…

The team scoured the entire island in search of Shadow, but he was always one step ahead of them. After several hours of searching, they were forced to take a break, regrouping at Amy’s house.

“How does he keep on escaping?” Knuckles sighed, currently collapsed on the couch.

Tails frowned. “As long as his power source doesn’t die, he can theoretically keep going at the same pace for as long as he wants. We just can’t match up to that kind of persistence.”

Sonic began to type on his communicator even more quickly than usual, belying his stress. “Well, we might not be able to, but I know someone a little more experienced than us who could find him.”

“Nobody’s a better tracker than me!” Sticks cried.

“You are the best tracker we have…but you’re tired right now, and we need more people with different skills to find him.” Amy pointed out.

“Fine.” the badger huffed. “So who’s he calling?”

Sonic watched his communicator intently as three flashing dots appeared on the messaging app. “Someone who owes me a favor.”

Several minutes later, Vector kicked the door open. “Never fear, the Chaotix Detective Agency is here!” he cried.

“Agency?” Amy asked skeptically. “There’s only one of you.”

Vector smirked. “Well, sure. Last time you saw me, there was! But I’ve been asking around, putting up some ads on ConnectIn, and I managed to find these guys!” He stepped aside to reveal a chameleon dressed in stereotypical goth clothing and a hyperactive bee.

“He didn’t actually find either of us on ConnectIn.” the chameleon added. “I sought him out, and he just stumbled upon Charmy over there by pure chance.”

“Ohhhh wow, are you guys the heroes Vector told me about?” Charmy gasped, flying all around them excitedly.

“Yeah, they are. But right now we’re on the job, got it, pal?” Vector said, gently pulling the kid back to his side.

“Got it!” Charmy chirped (and then immediately grinned at the team the moment Vector looked away).

“Yeah, so this is Charmy, our resident scout, air support, and mascot,” Vector explained, “and this here is Espio. He’s got some cool ninja skills, so he helps me out too. A lot, if I’m being honest.”

The chameleon promptly turned invisible, making the other five gasp. “So cool…” Knuckles whispered.

Espio then reappeared, now with a slight blush on his face. “Thanks.” he said quietly.

“Now then, just sit back and relax!” Vector said cheerfully. “We’ll find your guy in no time, I promise!”

…

‘No time’ turned out to be exactly three hours and twenty-two minutes. During that time period, Amy managed to stress-bake two batches of banana muffins, Tails and Knuckles half-heartedly played a board game, Sticks was busy hiding the banana muffins in various ‘apocalypse caches’, and Sonic wore a circular hole in the rug.

All five of them nearly hit the roof when the Chaotix called Sonic’s communicator.

“Hey, Sonic!” Vector said. “Listen, we found your guy, but we have one tiny problem.”

“Yeah? What is it?” Sonic asked, his foot tapping rapidly.

Espio appeared in the picture. “He’s camped out in an old Ancient ruin, and he’s switched all of the defenses on. I was the only one who could get within forty feet without laser cannons trying to blast me to bits.”

“And we didn’t sign up to get blasted to bits!” Charmy chimed in.

“I, uh, I hope this won’t affect our payment?” Vector added hopefully.

“No way!” Sonic said hurriedly, eager to get on with things already. “I called you guys in to find him, not to bring him back here. Just send us the coordinates and we’ll call it all square, okay?”

Vector grinned. “It’s been great doin’ business with ya, Sonic! If you ever need something found again, just remember us and we’ll help you out!”

In the background, they could hear Charmy singing something that sounded an awful lot like “Team Chaotix! They’re detectives you want on your side!”

“Thanks so much, Vec. See ya!” Sonic said, signing off.

“Alright.” Amy said, punching a fist into her other hand. “Now all we have to do is get Shadow back.”

“That’s easier said than done.” Tails said, looking nervous. “I just got the coordinates, and this is a temple nobody’s even discovered before. It could be really dangerous.”

“Oh yeah? We can handle dangerous!” Knuckles said cheerfully.

A montage ensues in which the team prepares for the ordeal ahead. Tails gathers up all of his equipment, while Sticks does the same with their homemade monitoring devices. Amy smashes a few targets with her hammer, Knuckles practices his burrowing form, and Sonic adds some extra sports tape to his ankles.

Then, the scene cuts to the team approaching the ruins. They smile confidently and begin to charge in an epic slow motion shot—only to end up screaming and running back in the other direction when the laser cannons start firing.

“Alright, scrap the ‘Epic Hero Entrance’ plan.” Sonic wheezed. “Tails, you go ahead and disable the cannons. The rest of us can wait until you’re done.”

The fox dashed across the field, his tails whirring at top speed. After a few tense minutes, in which he was forced to work while plastered against the wall to stay in the cannons’ blind spots, he stuck out his hand with a thumbs-up as the machinery deactivated.

Knuckles inched out onto the field carefully, and when he wasn’t immediately turned into a scorch mark, the others followed behind him. Tails managed to open the doors not long after they reached his position, and they all braced themselves for the trials ahead.

Next up was a…completely empty hallway?

At least, it seemed that way until Sticks held up their hand, sniffing the air warily. After a moment, they blew chalk dust into the hall, revealing the laser beams that crisscrossed the way forward. Carefully, the badger dodged each and every beam until they made it to the other side, their foot automatically pressing a panel that deactivated the beams.

After that, there was a memory matching puzzle that ended up being solved by Amy, which took her a few tries to get right. As soon as she finished, she did a quick celebratory dance—before remembering that she was supposed to be the serious one, and if any of you think about mentioning that ever again, first remember the ten out of ten targets I hit with my hammer earlier.

Then, they were faced with a few riddles that Knuckles got right with his oddly specific riddling skills, and then (of course) a giant labyrinth with about twenty different hallways spiraling off it in every direction imaginable. Yes, that did include one pointing directly upwards. Sonic sped through each and every path until he found an exit that didn’t lead to a pit of flames, a pit of snakes, a spike trap, a pit of piranhas, or any other kind of murder-inclined pits. Then, he shot off a guided flare that Tails had provided to show the way, and the rest simply followed the glowing trail directly to him.

Carefully, they all lined up, staring down into the darkness ahead. A faint light emanated from the end of the hall, showing them the way they hoped would lead to their missing friend.

[screen fades to black]

[This time it’s Tails complaining. “Aw, come on! Another cliffhanger? We’re almost to the best part!”]

[roll credits]

#sonic the hedgehog #miles tails prower #sonic boom #knuckles the echidna #amy rose #sticks the badger #sonic boom: ancient secrets #sol's fanfiction #i hope the payoff was worth it! a big congratulations to quartzite49 for being the only one to guess the truth...#but i'll ask the same question here that i asked on ao3 #when would you like the next chapter to go up?#would you like it to be posted sooner #but have a longer wait for the one after?#or would you prefer equal spacing?#let me know and i'll take your thoughts into consideration!#and as always #thank you for reading!!

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