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veotis-the-jewel-of-the-ocean · 6 years

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☾♔; 31.07.2018

☾♔; Tasha

☾♔; @veotis-the-jewel-of-the-ocean

☾♔; @serveorburn

☾♔; mod(s): @livesinabluebox @sighsethereally

▬ Set Requirement: Doesn’t matter, just make sure it has your faceclaim. Other than that, make whatever kind of thing you want! Square, rectangle, moodboard, magazine cover, whatever you want my nerds!

♛ Daenir Échon ♛

pronounced: Day-nir

♛ B A S I C⠀S T A T S ♛

▬ Full Name: Daenir Échon

▬ Nickname(s): Dae

▬ Title(s) and/or alias(es): The High Sorcerer

▬ Age: Roughly 27 summers give or take a few years

▬ Gender: Male

▬ Species: Witch - Isahor

▬ Occupation: Sorcerer of Veotis {currently} // Assassin/Witch Hunter {formally}

▬ Kingdom of Birth: Calia

▬ Kingdom of Residence: Veotis

♛ P H Y S I C A L⠀A P P E A R A N C E ♛

▬ Face Claim: Matthew Daddario

▬ Hair: Black

▬ Eyes: Blue-Grey

▬ Height: 6 ft 1

▬ Body: Scared perfection

▬ Any Scars/ Marks?: Several scars over his body, the most prominent of those are the shiny silvery marks around his wrists

▬ Any Tattoos/ Piercings?:

- A black and white dragon entwined over his heart

- Black wings across his back

- Protective runes across his ribs

- An unknown symbol on his upper left thigh

- A magical brand on his neck given to him by his mother

▬ Other: Nothing for now

♛ P E R S O N A L I T Y ♛

▬ Overview: Headstrong, stubborn and full of snarky wit and dry sarcasm, Daenir prefers to push people away to keep them from getting underneath the shields he has perfected over the years. Whilst generally he looks out for himself and acts like he’s been put out when people gather for his attention, underneath all those layers, Daenir does enjoy helping people. Due to years of abuse at the hands of his father, and the years of his imprisonment thanks to his mother, Daenir is known by the court to suffer moments of mental instability. Despite this, the King and the Advisory Council hold the man in high esteem due to his years of service to the kingdom and former apprenticeship to Master Cedric. Deanir is a warrior and most of the time is known to have unshakable focus in all of his tasks with little to distract him. His singular drive is to do better for the world he lives in even if he can only do it one bit at a time.

▬ Strengths: His stubbornness - but it can also be a weakness; his inability to give up on someone or something; his desire to make things safer for witches

▬ Weaknesses: Hates, and I mean HATES dark places, has to sleep with the fire going due to his imprisonment; extreme awkwardness in social situations; overuse of his powers can result in severe dehydration, often occurs when he spends too long in combat; inability to share his feelings to avoid being called weak

▬ Habits and Quirks: Daenir has been known to spark when he is annoyed or frustrated, likewise he can lose control of his lightning based abilities when in a state of arousal

▬ Likes: Hot places, warm weather, soft music, reading, painting, drawing, being left alone when he needs to be, gardening, tea of all kinds, libraries, old stories, archery, horse riding, knives, outsmarting stupid nobles, Aldir and Ryo, his apprentice and likewise his former teacher, spicy food {the hotter the better}, traveling

▬ Dislikes: Animals that have no point, being called damaged, being coddled - he is NOT a child, foolish religious people, having other’s ideals forced onto him, discrimination, fighting for the sake of fighting, moronic little assholes, people who use position to gain what they want, bullies, being touched without permission, flirting {if you want someone, just fucking tell them stupid}, sweet food, cold weather, snow, parties

▬ Hobbies: Painting, drawing, collecting old tomes, pissing off his parents, building models, gardening, brooding spectacularly, outsmarting stupid nobles

▬ Character Tropes: Dark and Troubled Soul; When Dad Met Mum; Abusive Parent; Byronic Hero; The Quiet One; The Wild Card, Parental Issues; Parental Abandonment; Daddy Issues; Mum Is A Bitch {if that is not a trope is bloody well should be}, Big Brother Instinct; Bi The Way; Archer Archetype; Death Seeker; Jerk With A Heart of Gold; Friend To All Children; Tall, Dark and Handsome; Tall, Dark and Snarky; Badass Bookworm

▬ Additional Information: Will literally lose his shit at being called an animal. Daenir spent twenty years of his life being likened to an animal by his father and his mother, the first one to treat him as an actual human being was Cóven VI

♛ A B I L I T I E S ♛

▬ Pyrokinesis: an ability often associated with war. Most witches born in Veotis are born with an affinity for either earth, air or water, Daenir’s ability with fire is frightening and at the same time another way to show that he is not a Veotis native.

▬ Electrokinesis: Daenir barely has a grasp on this ability as it is. It is mostly responsible for the tangled, chaotic mess the sorcerer calls hair. He can create, shape and manipulate electricity

▬ Hardening: This skill is inherited from Daenir’s father, whilst he hates the man, the skill itself allows him to turn his body into a living weapon. There is one weak spot but Daenir has only told one person and that is the King

▬ Armed and Unarmed Combat: the skill is self explanatory but Daenir excels more with knives and the bow than he does with a sword

▬ Able to fumble his way through any conversation with a shy smile and incomprehensible mumbling

♛ F A M I L Y ♛

Fucked up. There is no other way to describe it. Feredir and Malrin consummated their love to hate your guts relationship after a drunken encounter in the middle of a storm. The Witch Hunter stole away with the child when he was barely a week old and turned him into a weapon that hunted his own kind. Feredir wants his weapon back, Malrin wants her son dead, Daenir just wants to train his apprentice, keep witches safe and stay loyal to the king.

▬ Feredir Havel || 49 || Father || Karl Urban || Witch Hunter

If ego had a proper name it would be Feredir Havel. He is a prideful, manipulative, charismatic man who takes pleasure in twisting others to his cause. He dislikes witches and the freedom they have, often taking great joy in killing or imprisoning them.

▬ Malrin Échon || 46 || Mother || Charlez Theron || Head of the Witches Guild

Meaning lady crowned with gold. Malrin is the Head of the Witches Guild and seen as the most powerful witch in Veotis second to none until Daenir comes into his full power. She dislikes the fact that he can outdo her in just about anything without trying, the fact he spent the better part of six years actively killing and hunting his own kind might have something to do with it. Malrin cursed her son to hear the dying cries of those he has killed for the rest of his days

▬ Caladwin Échon || Deceased || Sister || Kaya Scodelario || Witch

She’s dead, nothing else to say

♛ B I O G R A P H Y ♛

Born the only son of Feredir Havel and Malrin Échon, Daenir spent the first years of his life being nothing but a tool to his father’s endgame. Feredir and Malrin consummated their love to hate your guts relationship after a drunken encounter in the middle of a storm resulting in the birth of Daenir a month earlier than normal. When he was barely a week old, Fereldir had his hunters kidnap his son and bring the baby back to Calia where he would spend the next fourteen years being raised as an ‘unofficial’ weapon to hunt his own kind.

Daenir committed his first hunt when he was a few months shy of fifteen, whilst it was widely known that the hunt went spectacularly wrong in every way possible, the truth being much bloodier than that. False intelligence was given which resulted in the death of a young witch and her parents, an act that would only serve to fuel the boy’s hatred of his own kind {and come back to haunt him years later}.

Whilst Feredir kept up his charade as a respectable Witch Hunter who kept to the law, he continually sent Daenir out into the world in order to rid the world of ALL witches. This carried on until Daenir was eighteen and came to the attention of his mother, now head of the Witches Guild in Veotis. Daenir killed the wrong witch who happened to be his half-sister and ended up spending the next year running from the wrath of his own mother, a woman he didn’t even know.

The hunt ended back in Veotis in the heart of the Aedis Forest where Daenir was taken down by the combined effort of the entire Guild. A curse was laid upon Daenir to hear the cries of his victims until the day he died, and then he was locked away into the darkness of Aedis Prison with a single warden who would be rotated by Malrin every month. Whilst the woman didn’t want her son to die just yet, she didn’t want him to be free to go about his life like he hadn’t caused harm to his own kind. That was her revenge for the death of her dear daughter.

When Cóven and his royal guard found the prison hidden in the Aedis Forest, Daenir was near feral from being chained and locked away for so long. With the assistance of Cedric Ebe, Cóven was able free him from the magical bindings and take him back Aecor and the Summer Palace to try and help bring him back from insanity, helping him heal along the way.

With the assistance of Lady Helaena from Astronia and her apprentice Lady Everleigh, Daenir was able to come back to the world a bit at a time until his mind could function properly. After four years in darkness, he found it hard to trust anyone, first opening up to Cóven and then Cedric after he took up an apprenticeship with the Royal Sorcerer. The feeling of trusting someone was so unfamiliar but the knowledge that he actually belonged somewhere was something that Daenir accepted even if his mind told him no.

After meeting his mother in the middle of an Advisory Council meeting, Daenir was forced to come clean with his past, he half expected to be thrown back inside the darkness of the prison and his own mind. Instead of rejection, Daenir found acceptance from both his master’s and soon found himself inheriting the title of Royal Sorcerer when Cedric decided to retire. During the years he has been active in his current role, Daenir has taken to trying to right many of wrongs committed in his earlier years and bring peace to the world a little bit at a time.

♛ O T H E R ♛

▬ Has a pet Nyrk gifted to him by his father when he was a child. Aldir {named after the God of War} is incredibly aggressive to everyone but Daenir and the King. Ryo, a rare Panthera in Veotis, was a gift given to him by the former King, the beast is loyal and far more friendly than his counterpart Aldir

▬ Daenir is basically Fenris and I will fight you if you say otherwise

#veotis #daenir Échon #tasha's work

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violetren · 7 years

Text

A Guide To Understanding Dreams With Aliens

Twenty pages and change, that is to say, 8861 words, of Supercat dream sharing throughout the years. Cat’s perspective. I’m going to go pass out through the rest of day three so I hope it and day four a relatively shorter than this once I flesh them out so that I can get back on schedule. Please enjoy this now complete submission for Supercat Week Day 2.

Official summary: Snapshots of dreams shared between Kara and Cat over the course of their lives up until their meeting in real life

AO3 link ~here~

FF.net link ~here~

Or read it here on Tumblr.

At six years old, Catherine Grant didn’t understand dream sharing.

Well that wasn’t quite right.

She knew it was a special kind of dreaming that helped people find their soulmate. The person who would love them most in the whole world.

She just didn’t know why those dreams were supposed to be better than the dreams she already had. Dreams about marshmallow dragons and firefly stars were pretty great.

Her papa was very certain that it was only because she hadn’t dream shared yet. He said that once she’d shared a dream with her person, she would understand exactly why everyone said it was so wonderful. For now she just had to wait for her person to start dreaming louder.

At fourteen years old, Catherine Grant still did not understand dream sharing. Or rather she didn’t understand why everyone was so obsessed with experiencing it.

Well that wasn’t quite right.

She understood, as much as such things could be understood, that dream sharing was a psychic event that would take place between two people when one or both parties was having a particularly vivid dream.

She understood, that people only ever shared dreams with one, seemingly random person somewhere around the globe, throughout their lifetimes, and that was what made people soulmates.

She understood, that after sharing even just one dream people who had never met before could identify in person someone they had shared a dream with, and that the science on the subject, as speculative as it was, seemed to believe this was because the dreams somehow altered people's brains on a level that they had not yet discovered how to detect.

What she didn’t understand was why everybody ignored the fact that a vivid dream didn’t mean a good dream. She had waited her whole life for her soulmate to start dreaming louder, as her papa used to call it. Now she’d give anything for them to be quiet again.

Her papa had always told her that dream sharing would be a wonderful experience. Her papa had been wrong.

There was nothing wonderful about the dreams she had begun experiencing.

She could never manage to make out any details. Only the overwhelming combination of pain, sadness, and loss that made her chest tighten until it felt like she couldn’t breathe. That, and the distinct sense that what she was experiencing was somehow separate from herself. Like she was the first and loudest echo to ring out after clapping her hands over a well.

Every night for the past week she had woken up with an anguished scream on her lips, drenched in sweat, and fighting her way out from under the oppressive feeling of her blankets.

Which was how she’d ended up sitting in the office of her mother's therapist. Her mother didn’t appreciate being woken by her daughter's screams, just because her soulmate was apparently leaving their subconscious to deal with their problems instead of facing them head on. Her mother’s therapist, was exactly that. Her mother’s therapist, and addressed Cat, and her feelings on the situation all of once, and only to tell her how people should feel about the situation she found herself in. Which was apparently to be wary and judgemental of her soulmates apparent inability to work through their emotions in their waking hours.

That night in her bedroom Cat had three things she hadn’t had in the days before.

A dream journal, to record both her shared dreams, and her personal dreams, in order to deconstruct them later, so that she might learn to lessen their intensity.

A prescription for sleeping pills, that would supposedly disrupt the signals in her brain and lessen or maybe even put a stop to the dreams when taken.

And finally the knowledge that she would never be able to trust in anyone to look out for her, but herself.

At eighteen years old, Catherine Grant did not understand how her soulmate could have been having the same nightmare every night for the last four years.

After scouring every academic text on the subject however, she was determined to change this.

It had taken four long years of practice but Cat was now quite sure she understood how to manipulate her dreams. Not that she could be sure this would let her help her soulmate. At the bare minimum however it would let her get a full night's sleep, instead of being projected into wakefulness by grief that wasn’t her own.

That at least she had grown sure of.

When she went to bed each night she followed a fastidious routine. Recreating the same conditions she went to sleep under each and every night seemed to help her find her focus when she began to enter her soulmates nightmare. Which was important. Her dreamself would never be able to reach out to her soulmate if she allowed herself to be overwhelmed by their grief.

Tonight was no different. She brushed her teeth. She washed her face. She set a glass of water by her bedside table, next to her dream journal. She double checked the temperature on the thermostat, and then double checked her alarm for the morning. Finally she would dim the lights to their lowest setting without turning them off, and she slip into bed at exactly nine o’clock.

After that she would take slow measured breaths, counting them out carefully to keep other thoughts from intruding. Every fourth breath she would remind herself. She’d know when she was dreaming. Sleep would follow soon enough.

As always the first thing Cat noticed was the just how confined she was. The small space made even the air feel heavier, which always came in stark contrast to the purposefully light blanket Cat slept under. Her awareness would extend from there.

She was confined because she was in some kind of pod that looked like something out of a science fiction novel. The pods appearance and her presence in it never felt unfamiliar, but it did feel strange. As if she had been in one before but never for this purpose. This makes her feel scared.

It was usually around this time that the sound of the pods engines would reach their loudest, which meant the pod was about to launch. Every time just as the momentum would hit, she would try to turn in the too small a space to catch one last glimpse of the people outside of the pod. She never saw them.

Instead she would see the view of a city, even more fantastical than the interior of her pod. A city of intricate spires of glass and metal, their twisty design sparkling in the red light, that was bright enough to make her squint. As she watched the ground at the base of the spires would split with a crack loud enough to be heard over the hum of the pods engines. Fractures would spread, along the ground, and up the side of the buildings. The first spire begins to crumble just as the pod enters a layer of smog. She never sees it hit the ground but she knows it must and that knowledge pains her.

When the pod breaks through the smog, all she can see is the sky. Dark space, interspersed with thousands of stars, creating constellations Cat would never have dreamt up on her own. Out of all the things she’s seen up to this point, this moment is always the first time she realises that she is sharing in her soulmates dream instead of having a dream of her own. Cat only gets a few moments of this almost peace to prepare herself for what is about to happen.

The planet behind her exploding.

Hearing the ground crack apart hundreds of meters below her had been loud in the way that was like hearing a fireworks display from across town. Hearing the entire planet explode was more like a clap of thunder ringing out at the exact same time lightning struck. It was a terribly overwhelming sound that sent a shockwave through your whole body.

Cat clung hard to her sense of self when the shock wave struck. She focused hard on imagining that it sent her flying, just as surely as it pushed the pod she occupied. Willing the impact to help her subconscious push beyond the boundary of her soulmates point of view and allow her gain control of her dream body.

It worked. She was always a little surprised when it did. During months of attempts she’d had a very small margin of success.

When the energy of the shock wave wore off, and the pod began to drift by its own power, Cat was on the outside looking in. In some ways she wasn’t sure this was better. The only things that existed now, were Cat, the sleek silver pod, and the small figure huddled inside of it, made barely visible from the light of the pods display. Everything else was nothingness. Literal nothingness. As if they were so deep in the black spaces between the stars that the stars had become hidden from view.

The first time Cat had made it this far she wasn’t quite as in control as she had thought. Her mind had told her she was in the vacuum of space, and she had woken up choking from trying to take in too much air to save herself.

The second time Cat had managed to remind herself that it was only a dream and that she could breathe in space if she wanted to. However it had taken up entirely too much effort to do anything other than drift alongside the pod and stare at the person inside. As best as she could tell that person was the dream form of her soulmate. A girl maybe twelve or thirteen years old, heaving sobs into her hands, so violently that Cat was sure she was also hyperventilating. Cat wanted to hug her, to offer her any comfort at all really. But she had no idea how to push herself toward the pod, never mind open the alien contraption. Her own frustration had woken her.

The third time hadn’t gone much better, but it had been better. Cat had taken the time to examine her surroundings, not that there were any, and to try to help the girl in the pod by practicing the same measured breathing she would use before bed. The hope had been that it would take care of making sure her mind knew she was breathing, as well as help the girl find some calm. She liked to think that this had been something of a success. The girls sobbing had lessened in intensity. She still cried hard, but at the very least it looked like she was able to take in air between each heart rending sound. Cat had stayed floating and breathing by her side until her alarm had dragged her back into the waking world.

There had been many times after that, where all Cat could do was breathe, and float there. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t seem to just will herself to move forward. Not without an experience to liken it to.

This time however, Cat had a plan to try and get the damn pod open so that she could try talking to the girl for once. It had taken a week of researching how astronauts prepared for life in zero gravity, and then another three of working a few trips to the pool into her weekly routine, but Cat was determined. If she could convince her brain that it was possible to breathe in nothingness, she could convince it that she could move through the nothingness like swimming too.

All she had to do was get close enough to the pod to grab on and find a latch. Or at least tap on the glass, and hope her soulmate would notice the intrusion. Anything would be better than nothing.

She took a minute to hang there, and be sure that both she and the girl had some control over their breathing before she tried. She swung her arms as if she were pulling herself through the water in a lazy breaststroke form. For a panicky moment her brain took the metaphor to far, and space flooded her lungs as if it were water during her inhale. Cat dropped her arms instantly and slammed her eyes shut. Forcing herself to remember the easy, oxygenated, weightlessness she had been experiencing just a few seconds earlier, and then exhaling.

It felt like breathing out underwater. Like there were bubbles rising over her face. When she tried inhaling again however, she found it just as easy as before. Reopening her eyes, Cat felt a surge of satisfaction.

She was closer to the pod. Reaching out she could just barely find purchase with her fingertips. That was all she needed.

Cat pulled herself forward until she was practically hugging the nose of the pod. Then she pushed herself up the nose until her face was level with the girl still crying inside. The effort left her panting like she had just climbed the rockwall at the gym. It was annoying to Cat that her dream form wasn’t much more athletic than her real form, but she suppressed that annoyance in order to once again even out her breathing.

Now that she was closer she could see much more clearly how her own breathing was helping to ease the girl's own laboured breaths through her tears. It was comforting to get confirmation that she had been managing to help, at least a little.

After a few minutes, when she had gotten the girl as calm as she thought she could manage through breathing alone, Cat finally tried knocking on the glass.

The girl in the pod flinched but didn’t look up. Perhaps she thought it was debris, Cat thought. After all she had never seen the girl look up to find out that there wasn’t debris around to hit her.

Cat knocked again, this time trying a patterned knock instead of a plain one.

The first wrap of her knuckles on the glass made the girl flinch again, but Cat saw the way her head tilted ever so slightly when she discerned that the sound wasn’t entirely random. Cat repeated the pattern twice more and finally the girl looked up.

Out of all of the ways Cat had been left feeling breathless in this dream reality, none of them could compare to the dizzying feeling of looking her soulmate straight in the eye. Everything about these dreams existed in shades of red, and silver, and black. Her soulmate's eyes however were the deepest, bright blue of the sky on a summer afternoon. They shone, not just with tears, but with wonderment, as she stared at Cat and realised she wasn’t alone.

Cat felt frozen watching as the girl reached out to press her own hand on the glass underneath Cat’s own. She saw the girl's lips move, but couldn’t make out the words. Then just before their hands could align, the dream began to fade. One of them was waking up, and for once it didn’t seem to be Cat.

In the end she followed her soulmate into wakefulness, trying in vain to connect their hands through the glass, even as their minds pulled them further apart.

When Cat woke up, she was sitting in bed, one hand outstretched towards someone who wasn’t there. She mumbled out a curse for having come so close only to have her progress halted at the last possible moment.

She heaved a sigh, and then reached for her dream journal. At the very least, she had a lot to write about.

At nineteen years old, Catherine Grant finally understood what made her dream sharing so different to the experiences of everyone else she knew.

Her soulmate was an alien.

It was absurd, and impossible, and made entirely too much sense for her to deny.

It had taken months after Cat had made that first attempt at reaching out to the girl before they managed to interact without accidentally jolting one another into wakefulness. Every time they went through the process the girl was calmer. The planet still exploded, and Cat still felt her heartbreak every time, but when she floated, or swam, herself to the pods window afterward she found that it took less and less time to ease the poor girl’s tears.

Cat couldn’t be sure, but she thought that perhaps her soulmate was making efforts to try and reach out to her too.

Then one night, almost a year to the day since Cat had first tapped a now customary rhythmic knock against the pods window, she discovered the girl was waiting for her. Those beautifully blue eyes of hers still glittered with tears, but she wasn’t crying the way she had done in the past.

Cat had beamed, proud of the girls progress. Eagerly she had pressed her hand against the cool glass that separated them. There was a moment where the girl hesitated. Cat waited. She watched fascinated as the girl gathered herself. The rise and fall of her shoulders cluing Cat into the way she was breathing. She was using the same timing Cat used before bed. The same timing she used when trying to calm the girl. Warmth swirled in Cat’s chest that her soulmate had learned the technique for calming herself just by watching.

Finally, looking marginally more content, the girl brought her hand up to rest opposite Cat’s, and look of intense focus causing a small crinkle in her brow. Without warning the cold of the glass melted away and their hands touched.

Cat gasped in delight.

Her soulmate meanwhile looked panicked. Her other hand flew to her neck, and Cat, having experienced it before, instantly understood. Adjusting to having air in space took getting used to.

The edges of the dream had begun to fragment but Cat wasn’t about to give up. She interlocked her fingers with her soulmates and squeezed hard.

“Breathe, okay?” She said, drawing the girl into a floaty standing position with her. “Just breathe like before.”

The girl squeezed her hand in return, but there was confusion in her eyes, like she couldn’t understand what Cat was saying.

“Here like this,” Cat said, even though she was quite certain the girl couldn’t understand her.

She took and exaggeratedly deep breath and then gestured for the girl to do the same. Around them the dream seemed on the brink of disintegrating, but Cat forced herself to breathe to their normally calming timing.

It was just when she’d thought they’d have to try again another night, that the girl finally took a large gulping breath of air. It took another couple before the dream began to stabilize again, and another half dozen after that, with Cat carefully dictating the pace, before the girl's posture began to relax.

When she did relax, she looked around the nothingness. Her brow crinkled again at the lack of any kind of view, and she mumbled something under her breath.

Cat frowned at that. She was close enough to the girl that she had still been able to hear the sounds she had made clearly. The problem was they didn’t sound like any words she had ever heard before.

“What was that?” Cat asked, hoping that if the girl said something again that she might be able to pick up something familiar.

The girl had mirrored her own confused frown right back at her, and repeated what she had mumbled before, but louder.

Repetition didn’t make the words anymore recognizable. If anything it just made the words sound even stranger. The cadence, and the breathy way she rolled her R’s were like music, but not anything Cat had ever heard before.

The girl spoke again, saying something different. There was a questioning upward lilt to her voice, and even though Cat couldn’t recognize any of the words, she knew what was being asked. She knew the girl was asking her name.

It was disconcerting to know something without knowing it, but then over the years Cat had learned to accept that there was very little about dream sharing that wasn’t disconcerting at the end of the day. So she answered.

“Cat.” She gestured to herself just in case, but from the understanding in the girl’s eyes she needn’t have bothered. “Cat Grant.”

“Cat,” she said slowly. As if she were tasting the way the word sounded on her tongue. Cat just nodded. The girl smiled seeming pleased that she had gotten it right.

“Kara,” the girl said next, gesturing to herself as Cat had done before. “Kara Zor-El.” She punctuated the ‘El’ by tapping on the glyph stitched into her white dress, an ‘S’ inside a diamond.

“Kara,” Cat said, experimentally, deciding for the moment to focus on the first part of her name as Kara had done with her. She could ask about the second part, and the glyph on her chest later. The beaming smile she received in return let her know she had gotten it right. “It’s nice to meet you Kara.”

Kara laughed, the sound so pure and light compared to the sadness Cat could still feel throbbing in her chest, and returned the sentiment in her own language. Once again Cat took a moment to marvel at the way they seemed to understand one another even while they couldn’t understand the words themselves.

Then the dream wobbled, for lack of a better word. Like everything Cat could see, and even Cat herself were made of jelly and someone had nudged the plate. Kara looked alarmed by the sensation, but Cat knew what it was.

“I’m being woken up,” she explained, giving Kara’s hand a comforting squeeze on reflex. “But I’ll come back eventually okay?”

If the crinkle on Kara’s brow meant anything, if most certainly wasn’t ok, but she nodded as if it were any way.

The world wobbled again.

The last thing Cat heard before she woke up, was Kara telling her they would see each other again, in that language like music.

The first thing Cat did after silencing her alarm clock, was write Kara Zor-El in large lettering on the cover of her dream journal.

That she stood in the office of Perry White, the hand she had extended to hand him his coffee frozen as both she and Mr White paused their usual exchange to stare in awe at the television in the corner. Watching as a man in a blue, with a cape of red, lowered a damaged plane to the ground near Metropolis’ busy airport. It’s not the seemingly impossible feat that ultimately results in Cat dropping coffee all over her bosses desk. It’s the golden glyph emblazoned on his chest.

An ‘S’ inside a diamond.

Cat is twenty four and filled with self loathing, because she feels, for the first time, like she understands how Kara’s parents could have put their daughter into a tiny tin can and launched into the void with no guarantee she’d be safe.

For the past five years Cat and Kara have been sharing their dreams, and using them to talk to one another. Not everyday like they did when Cat was a child. Not since Kara had started practicing a technique her aunt had taught her called Tarukor. Whatever it was it didn’t really translate, but Cat gathered it was some Kryptonian method of lucid dreaming. It hadn’t taken Kara long to get a grip on it after the first time they had spoken.

Cat’s dreamself has aged with her physical body. Kara’s had remained the same thirteen year old she had always been. Only her ever developing abilities with Tarukor marked her growth.

This meant that their meetings didn’t always start with an exploding planet. They still did occasionally, if Cat and Kara went without sharing a dream for too long, but mostly Cat would find herself being pulled into recreations of places on Krypton. Once or twice Kara even managed to recreate a market place she had visited on a world called Starhaven.

It also meant that Cat and Kara had learned a great deal about one another. They still didn’t really speak the same language. They had both picked up words here and there that didn’t really translate but still came up regularly enough, but mostly they relied on the dream logic that whatever they said would be understood by the other and it worked for them. Cat was able to talk about life on Earth, about her mother’s grouching, about Lois Lane stealing her articles, about Clark, or as Kara always referred to him as, Kal-El. She had done ever since Cat had told her that a man at her work had started flying around with the same glyph on his chest as the one Kara wore.

In return Kara would share stories of growing up on Krypton, which had of course meant they had eventually confronted the exploding planet in the room. How Kara’s parents had put her in a pod meant to arrive at the same time as Kal-El’s, and how her later launch had been disrupted by the force of the planet dying behind her. They talked about how Kara was trapped floating in the Phantom Zone. Then they had both cried, knowing there was nothing either of them could do to try and get her out of there.

They had cried about it more than once in fact. Cat had lost count really, but there was one moment other than that first time that Cat could recall. They had been in a recreation of Kara’s aunt's kitchen, and Kara was staring fiercely at a illuminated panel on the wall, trying to remember the exact code her aunt used to enter into the machine to make it produce a special treat that wasn’t on the list of available options. Cat had been recalling to Kara the latest interview her cousin had given to Lois Lane, in which he had spoken of his Fortress of Solitude.

Cat wasn’t sure how the words translated to Kara, but she had giggled when Kara had let out a small snort at name of her younger cousins stronghold. Apparently it was as ridiculous in Kryptonian as it was in English.

She hadn’t really planned to say it, or even thought of it before, but as she told Kara what Kal-El had said about keeping remnants of Kryptonian technology in his fortress, the question had popped to mind.

“What if I told Kal-El we were soulmates and that you were here in the Phantom Zone?”

The dream had rippled, the homeliness of the kitchen temporarily becoming the weightless black of the Phantom Zone before right itself as Kara turned to look at her.

“It’s not as if we have better options.” Had been Kara’s reply. It was a yes of a sort. Cat could sense as much. She could also sense what Kara was too afraid to give voice to. The fear that telling her cousin would make no difference in their situation.

They had cried again that night curled up together on a kitchen floor that no longer existed, and Cat had listened as Kara had unravelled, raging at the unfairness of being forced to pin her hopes on the grown man who was supposed to have grown up relying on her. Raging at the parents that had sent her to care for him in the first place only for her to end up trapped, while he got exactly the kind of life they’d all hoped he would, with no idea that she was supposed to have been there.

By the time Cat’s alarm had woken her that morning Kara’s anger had been depleted, and Cat had even managed to coax a laugh out of her, telling her about the antics of clumsy Clark, menace of The Daily Planet, cleaning crew.

Kara’s anger at being sent away, even if she vaguely understood it had been her parents attempt to do what was best for her, was something Cat had never forgotten. Cat had been angry too. She could never have imagined what it would be like to give away a child for the child’s own good.

Now she understood, and she had no idea how she could face Kara, with her new found empathy for Kara’s parents.

She supposed that In a horrible way it both helped and weighed her down that Kara didn’t know Cat was a mother now. She was too ashamed to admit to her now much younger soulmate that she had found some physical comfort with another person. It had been a doomed alcohol driven affair, that had started when Clark had told her that finding Kara in the Phantom Zone might take decades, if it was even possible at all, that had ended with Cat taking a year long break from Metropolis under the guise of scouting sources of income for the empire she planned to create. In reality Cat had hidden away in her father’s old hunting cabin in Virginia, so that she could go through her pregnancy without needing to face Clark’s disapproving stare.

She hadn’t planned on Adam, but she loved him with everything she was. Being ashamed of him, wasn’t the reason she kept him from Clark and Kara. It was fear that telling the Kryptonians about him would make them reject her. She had just been coming around to the idea that it would be worth it if it meant getting to spend more time with her precious boy, when his father had sued her for full custody.

She had fought it at first, thinking it was only about how few people she had shared his existence with. Then his father had slapped down a piece of paper outlining how many hours she was working a week in order to get her budding company off the ground. She had signed the custody deal right then and there. As much as she loved Adam, she didn’t want to be a workaholic ghost of a mother like her own had been. Adam deserved a parent that would be there for him, without business deals and long hours constantly taking time away from him, and that was his father.

So Cat had given him up.

And now she sat only a picture and his first baby blanket for comfort as the only proof he had ever lived in her house. She clutched the baby blanket in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other. On the table sat a framed photo of Adam, standing holding the sides of his cot, and small bottle of prescription pills.

For the first time since she was fourteen, Cat took the pills that would block her dreams.

She knew she’d have to face Kara again eventually, but tonight couldn’t be that night.

Cat is thirty six years old, and for the first time in twenty two years of dream sharing, it is her nightmare that brings her and Kara together in the dream realm.

The old fashioned, but extremely basic and plain nursery room, that Cat’s mind has conjured based on faded memories of pictures she had once seen of her very first bedroom, is a lot more understated than Kara’s exploding planet. That doesn’t make the panic attack she’s having in the middle of it feel any less intense. The more she panics the more the room degrades. Cobwebs, dust, mould, and paint cracks, all multiplying with each gasped sob.

Cat had told Kara of her pregnancy from the very beginning this time, unable, and unwilling to re-live the fears and doubts she had felt with Adam. Kara much to her surprise had been ecstatic. She was of the opinion that the ability to create and nurture life without the help of something like the assurances of perfection given by the Kryptonian Codex and Birth Matrix was a mark of great strength and bravery that bordered on sacred. Cat had redoubled her resolve to never tell Kara about Adam if she could avoid it.

Kara has been her rock throughout the pregnancy. This time around the father of her child was far less involved and Cat was glad for it. Her empire was still young, but it was stable enough that she could be the kind of involved mother a child deserved, and she wasn’t going to let anyone stand in the way of her being just that. However it helped a lot to know that there was someone willing to be there to give her emotional support throughout. Even if Kara couldn’t be there to visit the doctor with her, or rub her swollen feet at the end of a long day, Kara was very much involved in the pregnancy.

She would have Cat spend entire dream meetings, attempting to materialise copies of real world items. Like the printed copy she had been given of her sonogram. Or the two bassinets Cat was trying to chose between for the nursery, so that she could offer up opinions to help Cat decide. Normally they both agreed whichever choice Cat had an easier time materialising was probably the one she should go for, but there had been some disagreement over what colour onesies Cat should buy.

Kara liked the green ones, mostly because the whole colour was a novelty to her. Green had been kind of scarce on Krypton, and didn’t come in many different shades. Cat had prefered the yellow, mostly because yellow things had duckies, while green things had frogs. Duckies might not have conjured the most hygienic picture in Cat’s mind, but they were orders about the slimy pictures that would come to mind when she thought of frogs.

A nursery that looked nothing like the one, she was sitting in the middle of.

But would it stay that way? Or would Cat fall into old habits and let it fall into disrepair with her precious baby inside it? She was a workaholic after all. Hailed as a cold hearted bitch by all who knew her. What business did she have trying to raise a baby on her own? She was due to give birth any day now, and suddenly all of the ways she could fuck this up, felt very, very likely to happen.

She didn’t notice when Kara arrived. In fact she didn’t notice Kara at all until the girl took her hand and forced Cat to look her in the eye.

“You need to calm down :zrhueiao,” she said softly. The whole sentence was of course in Kryptonian but :zrhueiao stood out, refusing to translate. “Breathe with me :zrhueiao. Breathe and then tell me what’s worrying you.”

Kara started breathing then. That same old pattern Cat used to use to calm her. The one Cat had never stopped using to fall asleep. She breathed and she held Cat’s hands tightly enough to help ground Cat, her thumbs stroking over Cat’s knuckles soothingly.

It took a while but finally Cat’s panic started to become something more manageable. The deterioration the room had already gone through stopped but it didn’t reverse. That didn’t matter. What mattered is that Kara was there, and Cat could breathe again.

Kara was there, and Cat didn’t have to do this alone.

“Talk to me :zrhueiao,” Kara said, shifting from her crouched position in front of Cat, to sit on the floor beside her. “Tell me what all of this is about.” She waved her hand to gesture at what could now best be described as a shell of a nursery.

“You know I’m due to give birth soon, I think I might have even had a contraction or two today,” Cat said, her voice croaky from crying. “I realised tonight before I went to bed, just how many ways I could mess this up.”

“Oh, Cat.”

There isn’t pity in Kara’s voice. Only understanding. Guilt stabs at Cat’s heart. Kara might understand her worries about not wanting to be like her mother. She doesn’t understand that Cat has already messed this up once before.

“Cat you’re the most loving person I’ve ever known,” Kara says earnestly. “There’s no way you could not love your child. They’re going to grow up everyday knowing exactly how much you cherish them.”

Cat doesn’t say anything. She does indulge the smile Kara’s faith in her summons to her lips, and when Kara sees it her face lights up in a smile as well.

“Now :zrhueiao, why don’t you help me make this room look like something more fitting for your child?” Kara jumps to her feet, looking every bit the excited thirteen year old, even though her manner of speaking sounds so much older.

“For instance, what is that?” Kara gestures to the peeling drop side crib in the corner. “I thought we agreed on something more like this.” She flicks her wrist at the nightmare crib is replaced with a beautiful carved sleigh style convertible crib.

Cat feels a delighted laugh bubble up, and hoists herself to her feet. She is, in this particular dream as heavily pregnant as in reality, but she’s grown much more accustomed to traversing dream spaces than she once was, so it doesn’t hinder her movements all that much.

“And see here, what colour are these walls,” Kara asks, her confidence buoyed by Cat’s laughter. “Are they even a colour?”

“You know, I’m not sure they are,” Cat said, letting Kara’s energy envelop her and raise her own.

Cat flicked her wrist and the walls changed from cracked and dusty beige to a light olive green. Kara claps, at the new colour.

“Much better :zrhueiao,” she says, with a broad grin.

“What does that mean,” Cat asks narrowing her eyes playfully. “:zrhueiao?” She knows her pronunciation isn’t quite there. It has one of those funny ‘R’ sounds that sound breathier in Kryptonian than Cat has ever heard a human achieve, and has since learned from Kara, never will hear a human achieve. Something about lung capacities, and how Kryptonians have an extra muscle they can control when they exhale.

Kara blushes. Just enough that Cat’s interest jumps from passing, to pointed.

“Kara,” she says, dragging out the ‘ah’ sounds warningly.

“It’s,” Kara pauses and mumbles what Cat is sure is a Kryptonian curse word, “it’s a term of endearment, it means something like dear one, or precious one. It’s only used between partners. Like, romantic ones.”

Cat feels her jaw drop. Kara for her part has turned the colour of her planet’s soil.

“I know I’m stuck as a kid so it’s not really right, but there it's the closest Kryptonian gets to that ‘soulmate’ word you use,” Kara says hurriedly. “It’s not like I think of us as being married or anything.”

“Good,” Cat says, and she hates how sharp her voice sounds. Hates how Kara flinches. “Not that I wouldn’t be honoured, but for all you might have matured mentally over the years, you are still a child Kara.”

“I know that,” Kara says quickly.

“When your cousin finally finds a way to get you out of the Phantom Zone, you’re going to have to wait at least ten years before it would be even acceptable for us to attempt a relationship like that,” Cat continued. “Depending on how old I am when you arrive, we may even have to wait another five or ten years after that. There are laws here Kara, and social pressures that could ruin your life on Earth if we’re not careful.”

“I get it Cat, I do,” Kara says, her tone a little moodier. Whether it’s from the conditions Cat just laid out, or the melancholy Kara get’s from time to time when they talk about her one day escaping the Phantom Zone. Like she doesn’t think it will really happen. “I won’t call you that again, until ten years after I leave then.”

The dream wobbles.

Cat frowns. She isn’t waking up.

“Kara, please don’t wake yourself up, I don’t want to end our conversation on such a serious note,” Cat says reaching to take Kara’s hand. Kara surprises her by lunging at her hand like it’s a lifeline.

“Cat, I’m not waking myself up, something is waking me,” Kara says her eyes wide with panic. “Cat there shouldn’t be anything around to wake me up!”

Panic runs down Cat’s spine and she holds both of Kara’s hands in her own, as the dream wobbles again.

“Cat!”

“Kara!”

Cat jolted awake in a sitting position, clutching her swollen belly, biting back a scream.

Awkwardly, and cursing reality for being so much less accommodating of her desire to move, than the dream realm, Cat rolled out of bed and onto her feet. She snatched her phone off of the bedside and frantically tapped in the speed dial for Clark’s emergency line. He answered on the second ring.

“Cat, it’s 4am, what’s going on?” He asked, sounding sleepy. Super hearing and speed was great for answering the phone at all hours, but it seemed to do little to actually wake him up. “Is it the baby?” His second question sounded much more alert.

As if his question was an invitation Cat felt a contraction begin.

“No, the baby is fine,” Cat said, through gritted teeth. “Clark, something is wrong with Kara, something woke her up!”

“She’s in space Cat, sometimes debris is gonna hit, the ship is made of a near unbreakable alloy, and it has sensors to move it out of the path of anything too big, I’m sure Kara is fine,” Clark said, a condescending level of calm in his voice.

“She’s not just in space, Kal-El,” Cat spat out, through the jolt of another contraction. “She’s in the Phantom Zone, there isn’t anything to be debris, so swap into your flying pyjamas, get your ass to your stupid fortress, and don’t come back until you find out my soulmate is safe.”

Clark had learned long ago never to argue with Cat when she broke out his Kryptonian name. He sighed like a ten year old being told to go do their chores, but promised he was getting changed right then.

“Thank you, Clark,” Cat said, right before hanging up. She was sure he’d complain about the abrupt end to the call later, but for now she had bigger problems.

Another contraction hit, and Cat felt her water break. She bit back the swear words that sprung to her tongue and dialled 9-1-1.

“I’m gonna need you to slow down a little sweetheart,” she said to the baby in her belly. “I would much prefer to get somewhere they can give me an epidural before going through this again.”

She didn’t get there in time for the doctor to think an epidural would be safe. But amidst fears of the cord having ended up around the baby’s neck, she did end up getting given a general anesthetic for her c-section.

The drug residue, and the interrupted of sleep from waking to feed Carter regularly, kept her from dreaming for the next few days. She was worried for Kara, but she knew that Kara would get mad at her if she prioritised trying to sleep long enough to check on Kara, over getting Carter onto a regular feeding schedule.

When Clark appeared in the doorway of her hospital room during one such feeding, Cat felt a twinge of bittersweet amusement that he turned as red as Kara had the night Cat had gone into labour. He stayed just long enough to tell her Kara had somehow made it to Earth safely, sometime that morning, and to offer his congratulations, before he claimed to hear a robbery taking place and left.

“Did you hear that, Carter?” She had asked him as he suckled at her breast. “Kara’s finally home.”

Cat was, well, Cat was old enough that she had officially stopped counting. She knew of course, but to admit it to herself even in the privacy of her own mind would give the horrid little voice in her head, the one that sounded far too much like her mother, the ammunition it needed to start tearing her down. So Cat had not given a number to her real age since she was forty, and she had sued the pants off of any publication that dared to print it.

At an age too unpalatable to speak, Catherine Grant didn’t understand why it was so damn hard to find a competent assistant.

Well that wasn’t quite right.

She knew why it was hard. She had developed some very high standards for the people under her direct employ. After all she had to make sure no one unseated her as queen of all media, and still be home in time to spend a reasonable amount of time with her son, and get enough sleep to share a dream with her soulmate at least once or twice a week, since they still hadn’t met in real life. Something that was entirely Cat’s fault. After spending so long trapped away from the rest of the world, Cat wanted to make sure she experienced as much of a normal life as it was possible for a superpowered alien refugee to experience before she got caught up in the media storm of being Cat Grant’s soulmate.

However she had been meticulous about the rules she set for her assistants to make sure she didn’t technically overwork anyone and hand them a lawsuit against her. She refused to consider it her fault when idiots that the human resources department sent her couldn’t adhere to these rules.

Which was why she felt no sympathy towards the blubbering woman heading towards the elevators now.

“Where is my 10:15?!” She shouted into the bullpen. She had been planning to fire Glenda? Georgia? Whoever, since last night, and had lined up a few interviews for right after the firing. The first of which was going to be eliminated if they didn’t show up within the next minute.

She was just gearing up to shout again when she caught sight of the young female figure entering her office. Pretty figure, but horrible fashion sense. She’d distract the rest of the staff on at least two levels and that was all Cat needed to know. She didn’t give the girl a chance to say hello.

“For god's sake, I thought I told them no more millennials,” she said, beginning to turn her chair to her wall of screens.

“You of all people should know I’m more mature than I look :zrhueiao.”

Cat spun her chair back to her desk so fast she almost overbalanced it. She caught herself by clutching the desk, and stared up at the girl standing before it. This time she brought her eyes all the way up to her face, to find a familiar teasing grin. Bringing her eyes up further she felt her breath leave her body, just the same way it did the very first time she had seen Kara’s eyes in their shared dreams.

“You’re early.”

Of all the things she could say. Of all of the things she had planned to say when this moment finally came. You’re early wasn’t anywhere on the list. It had been a very long time since anything had ever happened to make Cat want to melt through the floor. Of course the only person that could make her feel this way again would be her soulmate.

“I thought we agreed ten years,” she added, trying to make her previous statement less random sounding. It worked, kind of. She sounded dazed. A far cry from her usual confidence.

Kara laughed and rolled her eyes. The sound probably attracted the eyes of people outside the office. People didn’t laugh in Cat’s office. Not the way Kara did, with actual joy in their voices. Not unless you limited people to mean Cat, and Carter.

“That depends on where you measure from Cat,” Kara said, her eyes sparkling playfully. “And besides I’m only like a month off, by the time anyone labels us as anything more than hashtag friendship goals, I’ll be well over your ten year rule.” Cat gave a half shrug of acknowledgement.

“Wait. No. Dammit stop confusing me. Why are you here now, why couldn’t you wait another couple of months?” Kara raised an eyebrow at her.

“Confusing you?” She asked giving her best puppy dog head tilt. “What’s confusing about me wanting to spend time with my soulmate now that we live in the same city Cat?”

Cat swallowed hard. She didn’t know if she was swallowing back an angry remark, or forcing down attraction at the way the pose showed off Kara’s neck and jaw. She decided it may have been both.

“Since when do you live in National City Kara?”

“Since Midvale isn’t exactly overflowing with job opportunities for freshly graduated journalism and business majors,” Kara answered, smartly.

“And you applied for a job here, as my assistant?” Cat’s hard tone was meant to let Kara know exactly how foolish she considered that idea. Kara just laughed again.

“That was actually just a dare from Alex, neither of us thought my resume would make it through the screening process, she says hi by the way,” Kara reached up fiddle with the corner of her glasses. Cat is didn’t know if she wanted to kiss or kill Clark for encouraging Kara to keep the damn things after she stopped needing their lead lining. “Although.”

Kara let the word trail off.

“Although what, Kara?”

“Well it’s just Carter, did mention you’d been going through assistants pretty fast lately, and I do have a degree that covers administrative work.”

“There are rules about soulmates working under one another, Kara,” Cat said, frowning.

“Rules don’t say we can’t, just that we have to report our connection to human resources, and that you can only suggest promotions and raises that must get approval from a committee before being put into action.”

Cat tilts her head, studying Kara with a deliberate intensity, looking for any sign of indecisiveness.

She doesn’t find one.

“I’m not a nice boss Kara.”

“I saw the crying woman, :zrhueiao, I kind of got that.”

“And you wouldn’t be able to keep calling me that while we’re at work.”

“Of course not, Miss Grant, I understand this would be a professional environment.”

Cat found that she was quite glad to be sitting down at that statement. There was something in her that took great pleasure at being called Miss Grant by Kara, who had always been so strictly casual with her. She she herself back to the present when Kara cleared her throat lightly. She couldn’t be sure exactly what look she had been giving Kara, but she had a pretty good idea, and the fact that she had let that side of herself out at work made her ears feel as hot as Kara’s looked.

“You know I don’t call people by their names until they do something particularly exceptional,” Cat said, hoping to cover her slip to anyone who might be watching from the bullpen as a thoughtful pause instead.

“So long as it’s only during office hours.” Kara smiled, and Cat smiled back for a short moment before clearing her throat and pulling on her Queen of all Media mask.

“Very well then, report to the eighth floor and tell them you start tomorrow morning, Keira,” she said in her bitchiest C.E.O tone. Kara’s smile just widened. “And do be sure to tell them about that other detail.”

“Of course Miss Grant, thank you for this opportunity.” Kara held out a hand for a handshake. They both knew it wasn’t really something Cat did, but it was an acceptable action within the context of their meeting.

Cat shook her hand, feeling the warmth of Kara’s skin in the real world for the first time, and couldn’t help the way her Queen of all Media mask was pushed away by her overwhelming need to smile. They both lingered with their hands joined just slightly too long, until the phone on the desk outside Cat’s office began to ring.

“Well, chop, chop, Kiera off to human resources you go,” Cat said slamming her walls back up.

“Of course Miss Grant,” Kara said, with what Cat was sure was a measure of mock seriousness.

Cat pretended not to notice, and turned her chair away from the bullpen to stare up at her screens.

“And Kara?” She whispered, sure Kara would be listening. “Come by my apartment tonight? Carter would for you to be there for family board game night.”

It was a needless excuse for what she really wanted to say, but wasn’t going to tell Kara ‘welcome home’ anywhere that she couldn’t also hold her soulmate close when she did.

A text alert came through a moment later.

“I’ll see you at home Cat.”

#supercat week #supercat #cat grant #kara danvers #fictions #supergirl #chirping wren

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tokupedia · 7 years

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Kamen Rider 45th Anniversary File: Wizard

2012:

The Metal Heroes Series celebrates its 30th anniversary with a mini-revival in the form of a film crossover with Gokaiger and a Gavan movie! Kenji Ohba returns as the legendary Retsu Ichijouji and a new Gavan appears: Gavan Type-G! Gavan also gets a crossover tie-in with Go-Busters to promote the Gavan movie! The Metal Heroes Space Sherrifs also crossover with the Kamen Riders and Super Sentai in Super Hero Taisen Z in 2013.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME! Power Rangers terms seep into Super Sentai with Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters, a series that tried to do some new things including a two front battle with the villains both on the ground and in a separate MegaZord.

The Symphogear Series debuts with its first season, showcasing superhero Magical Girls of a musical nature. Aoi Yuki (aka MADOKA!) , who would later be in Kamen Rider, is the main hero Hibiki Tachibana! (Ha! Tachibana!)

The Zetman anime debuts, featuring a hero called Alphas who is inspired by an tokusatsu-styled anime show.

Smile Smile Smile~ Smile PreCure! debuts and airs on the Sunday kids block with Go-Busters and Wizard. It features everybody’s favorite tokusatsu fangirl and the fandom’s unofficial mascot Cure Peace! Cure Peace’s voice actress would later go on to voice Sailor Mercury in Sailor Moon Crystal!

Ultraman Saga debuts in theaters featuring some members of AKB48 and a new fusion Ultra: Saga. A fusion of Zero, Cosmos and Dyna.

The first Super Hero Taisen film is released, in celebration of 10 years of Super Hero Time.

Takeru Satoh, aka Ryotaro Nogami from Kamen Rider Den-O steps into an awesome role as Kenshin Himura in the live-action Rurouni Kenshin movie! This is a great film, that it is- gozaru!

Cyborg 009 is revived in the film continuation 009: Re Cyborg. One perk of this film was minor changes to the 00 Cyborgs such as 003 seemingly gaining technopathic abilities and 005 trading in his stereotypical tribal marks and mohawk for a full head of hair and his markings being red “veins” that glow when he turns on his super strength. Both of these aspects would carry over to yet another incarnation.

During the time of Wizard, Japan was in pretty bad shape. It had been hit by a nasty earthquake and tsunami and Fukushima was now the location of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl and became a ghost town.

So after the tragedy, when it came time to choose the theme of the next series, Tsuyoshi Kida decided on one: Hope and overcoming despair. And given how the previous Rider was a mechanical marvel of science, the staff decided to go full opposite and have a Rider who was pure fantasy based by having a wizard as the hero.

Kamen Rider Wizard saw a few changes, the transition from the use of Panasonic Varicams to Arri Alexa HD cameras for the cinematography, more CGI use including a few of Wizard’s forms that were fully CG. This series is also the last fall series to be premiered in September, as the staff decided to push for an October scheduling to extend the show and plug more merchandise. (In this case, the Legend Rider Wizard Rings) It also continued a trend from OOO that fans either love or hate: a “singing” Rider belt that plays a catchy tune with each form change.

But the biggest one that resonated with fans was a positive and progressive milestone, for the first time in the franchise’s history, an openly gay actor would be working on the series. Kaba-chan is also now retroactively the first transgender actor in Kamen Rider, as she transitioned from being a man to a woman after the series ended. Its certainly more progressive than western superhero movies were on that front until recently. (Ex.”Have you ever tried..not being a Mutant?”) .

Naturally, the LGBTQ community of the fandom were happy about the hiring as were activists who knew of Kamen Rider and this bit of news was featured in various articles on the web and drew praise on some forums. *Kuuga thumbs up*

We also see a more western inspired series in terms of mythology. Wizard’s dragon is European style in motif rather than Asian, the monsters are named after beings from myths and stories and have traits of those creatures in some cases. The myth of the Philosopher’s Stone is also referenced, which has an FMA bent to how it is made.

This also marked the first televised debut of a (sorta) original Female Heisei Kamen Rider...that actually lives! Granted, she does get taken out of play sometimes, but at least she survived! Though future installments of the franchise unfortunately would not be as kind (*fingers crossed for Poppy to live*).

We see how skillfully detailed some of the costumes Blend Master and PLEX would make, as the designs of the Wizard suits are fantastic. Wizard himself is very photogenic for a Kamen Rider, with a gemstone/wizard motif mixing primary colors with black and silver and a flashy leather duster coat. The gem on his face combined with the silver trim make out the “face” of the Rider and the wrists and ankles break up the black on the arms with gemstone wrist cuffs and anklets.

Sejii Takaiwa really gets a workout this season, as the Wizard costume is light enough for him to do flips, twirls and acrobatics and pull off some impressive moves and he even dual wields swords and does double gun kata this season. (He even shoots the guns Gangsta style again like he did in Den-O)

Having a magic motif, Wizard gained powers that no other Kamen Rider had ever used before as spells. Also, there are donuts, lots and lots of donuts. This is very important to know.

This series is brought to you by the magic of Plain Sugar.

There seems to be some love outside Japan for Kamen Rider Wizard in media, as a member of the Marvel Comics art team drew one of Wizard’s magic circles in a comic!

But now let’s show the Ringed Mage of Hope. Its Showtime Da!

youtube

WIZARD! PLEASE!

RIDER RIDER RIDER!

(Mr. Soma, ringed mage extraordinaire circa 2012)

Real Name: Haruto Soma

Haruto was traumatized as a young boy when his parents got in a car accident and he was the sole survivor. Before his parents died in the hospital, he was told by his mom and dad to never give up hope and be strong.

He tired his best to live up to that and got a shot at being a pro-soccer player, but left the profession when his friend Kazuya got hurt because of him and because what happened next the following day.

Later the next day on March of 2012, he was an unwilling participant in a mystic sacrificial ritual called the Sabbath during a solar eclipse. In a moment reminiscent of Go Nagai’s Devilman, Haruto feels a demonic force emerging and nearly destroys him but his hope and determination to live drive the creature, known as a Phantom, back into his body. Most of the people around him though were not so lucky as they died immediately from their despair overwhelming them and spawned Phantoms of their own.

This re-ignited Haruto’s survivor’s guilt and out of nowhere comes a white wizard who congratulates him on surviving after saving him from a Phantom, carrying a girl named Koyomi. The white wizard offers him a contra-er, I mean belt and the power to save people from the Phantoms and asks to care for the girl in his stead.

Six months later, the Tokyo Police are investigating a crime and happen upon monsters in a warehouse. One of the officers, Rinko Daimon is saved by Haruto who transforms and drives them off. (Daimon...DIAMOND! I just got that. Oh, the terrible puns.) The Phantoms were targeting Rinko as she is a Gate, a human with latent magic potential that can create another Phantom if they fall into despair. Haruto defends her again from the Phantoms and destroys Rinko’s Phantom by going into her Underworld to keep it from getting out. But as a side effect, she cannot utilize magic and is now an ordinary human.

Later, Haruto saves another Gate called Shunpei who is overeager to become Haruto’s apprentice as he has wanted to learn magic ever since he was a child. He ends up joining the group and Rinko takes an interest in Haruto’s activities using her connections with the police and communications with Section Zero of Japan’s National Security Agency.

Haruto goes around helping Gates find their hope again and in one holiday episode we learn how Santa Claus operates in the Kamen Rider Universe. (It is implied by the fact he can enter Underworlds that Santa is a wizard!)

Haruto faces some hardships as he further battles the Phantoms, but presses onward as the Final Hope of Magic and humanity, Kamen Rider Wizard!

Powers:

Agility, skill in kicking style combat and acrobatics (The kicking fighting style due to strong leg muscles from his soccer training).

Quite a lot of them actually via spells cast from the Wizard Rings:

Super Strength (Varies: Capable of becoming a buff Hulk-sized Wizard with the Excite Ring to holding a HUGE MEGAZORD SIZED AXE in Infinity form).

Skilled Marksmanship and Swordsmanship including dual wielding. Gun armed with silver bullets that can bend their trajectory to hit the target. Given the bullets are silver, yes, he can potentially kill werewolves as a bonus. Weapon can gain elemental augmentation to enhance attacks.

Strom creation: capable of creating gusts, hurricanes, thunder storms and blizzards. Capable of using wind energy to hover or propel himself in the air. Can generate massive bolts of lightning to shock his targets extra crispy. Freezing ability.

Creating localized seismic events and mystical terrakinesis (able to hurl boulders at targets, create sand or stone traps to hold enemies in), gravity distortions. Subterranean drilling.

Disguise generation or wardrobe changing.

Shield generation, varies in strength depending on what elemental form Wizard is in and how much mana he has left.

Size manipulation: Able to shrink in size to about half an inch or smaller. (A first in Kamen Rider, as J just shrunk back to normal size.) Capable of enlarging his arms to knock back waves of enemies or make his blade Zanbato sized.

Knockout spell

Light generation to blind foes or use as a way to navigate dark areas.

Create chains to bind enemies or use as a safety net.

Temporary cloning of both himself and his gear.

Elastic limbs

Creates holes for enemies to fall into/alter the environment (Ex. have water from a tank pour onto a monster) or for a quick getaway.

Noxious stink fumes.

Enter mirrors like Ryuki does

Time travel, maximum effect seen is 5 years into the past. Exact limit unknown.

Teleportation

Summoning familiars to aid him.

Astral projection of his Rider form to defend his own Underworld

Portal creation, mostly utilized to grab things Haruto has left behind (like his donuts) or for handy storage of his gear in a pocket dimension to call upon when needed.

Rider Finisher spells

Flame and Water Generation

Water gel form like Black RX Biorider form.

Wings, Claws, Tail and fire breathing dragon head via merging with WizarDragon.

Can create Christmas joy by restoring gifts (temporary power given by Santa)

Summon other Kamen Riders to his location immediately in an emergency.

Weaknesses:

Despite the awesome power he wields, Haruto’s spells are governed by mana. Based on early episodes, the mana of this series operates under a kind of Equivalent Exchange methodology. Use a spell, it drains the body’s energy to create the mana to cast it. The stronger the spell or the more spells are used, the more energy the caster burns unless they “level up” thier magic by training their bodies and gaining more power from the Phantom inside them or external mystical devices enhancing the magic.

As such, Haruto needs to eat high calorie foods or high sugar foods such as donuts to keep his metabolic rate stable enough to avoid going into shock or simply passing out. Resting does help too, so Haruto is a heavy sleeper when his mana runs dry. Mana can also be siphoned away from Haruto if a spell is used or some apparatus capable of such is present. If his mana gets low, his spells are not as effective and weaken and eventually the Wizard Driver will stop working

If Haruto’s spirit is broken and he falls into despair, he risks his Phantom getting out and that would result in him dying and the WizarDragon wearing his flesh as a suit to blend in until his next meal. (Though that danger is no longer 100% present as the two have made a mutual agreement and respect one another after the birth of Infinity form).

If his Underworld is entered by a Phantom or other mystical being, his powers could be destroyed if Dragon dies. This would render him Muggle and thus able to be killed as he would have no magic to defend himself.

The Wizard Driver can be jammed by sticky substances or prevented from being used by binding Wizard’s hands away from the Hand Author buckle of the belt.

The Wizard Rings are sometimes fickle, as some of them have spells that can be only cast when the target of the spell is wearing them (ex. Sleep Ring). The Rings are also somewhat fragile, as a Rider Punch can break them if Wizard isn’t careful. This puts a disadvantage to Wizard as he can only use grappling, spells and palm strikes in close combat and must compensate by using his weapons and legs. (Though the Dragon forms make up for that as Land Dragon and Infinity Dragon use claw attacks.)

Haruto was shown in the Wizard finale special as unable to defend himself against the super speed of the Worms, meaning speedier enemies or Riders such as Kabuto can possibly outmatch him.

Last is a more psychological one, Haruto has an acute case of survivor’s guilt that does affect him, but in a mostly positive constructive way. However, he does have weaker moments where his failure to help someone can weigh heavily on him (Ex. Koyomi), even distancing himself from his old life before becoming a Kamen Rider.

Gear:

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/WizarDriver

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard_Rings

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard_Ring_Holder

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/PlaMonsters

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/WizarSwordGun

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Machinewinger

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard_Ring_Box

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Drago_Timer

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Magic_Stones - Not really part of the gear, but an essential for crafting new Rings to cast new spells.

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/WizarDragon

Signature Finishers:

Kick Strike: Wizard’s Rider Kick, comes in various elemental forms but mostly the same as wizard does some flashy acrobatics or jumps to execute the kick after charging power from the magic circle under his feet. A variation called the Strike End utilizes WizarDragon transforming into a giant flaming clawed boot and Wizard kicking it to smash his foes with the force of a meteor.

Slash Strike: Standard Rider Slash. Variants involve using elemental power, enlarging the blade with the Big Ring or cloning the WizarSwordGun for a double slash. The Dragon forms enhance the power of these attacks.

Shooting Strike: Standard Rider Shooting attack. Can be augmented with elemental power and can be used in a double shooting attack if Wizard could pull off scanning both WizarSwordGuns. The Dragon forms enhance the power of these attacks.

Dragon Breath: Flame Dragon’s finisher, a Rider Shooting attack. Wizard Flame Dragon scans the Special Ring and WizarDragon’s head on his chest comes alive and the Rider flies up and rains a massive burst of flaming dragon breath upon his foes.

Dragon Sonic: My personal favorite of the Dragon finishers. Wizard uses his wings and super speed as Hurricane Dragon to creates a powerful gust of hurricane wind around the enemy, lifting them into the air, he then scans the Thunder Ring and repeatedly zaps lightning bolts at the target then fries the Phantom with one huge skyscraper sized lightning bolt.

Dragon Smash: Wizard Water Dragon freezes his target with the Blizzard Ring, then skates to it with an ice magic charged Dragon Tail and uses the tail as a sword to slice the enemy in half.

Dragon Ripper: Using gravity manipulation via the Gravity Ring, Wizard Land Dragon pins down his foe and then slashes them with the Dragon claws.

Dragon Claw: Double Rider Slash with the Dragon Claws.

Strike Dragon: Wizard combines the elemental powers of his Dragon Forms into one shot as the magic of fire, water, earth and wind hit the target and then Wizard flies at super speed and kicks the enemy so hard they go FLYING INTO THE SUN. The downside is using it and All Dragon form depletes Haruto’s power really fast so the attack must connect or else he will be defenseless.

Dragon Shining: Wizard Infinity Form charges a massive amount of mana into the AxCalibur, which makes the axe grow to gigantic size. Wizard then goes into a leaping swing to cleave the target.

Shining Plasma Strike: Wizard Infinity Form hits the Hand Author repeatedly and then throws the AxCalibur and uses his magic to manipulate its movement to repeatedly strike the target. Its movements in this attack are almost similar to Den-O’s Extreme Slash.

Infinity End: Wizard’s ultimate Rider Kick. Using the power of Infinity Dragon form’s wings to propel the kick, the skull of WizarDragon appears on Wizard’s right foot and “bites” the target before it hits. There is also a spinning kick variation and an enhanced version when he goes to Infinity Gold Dragon form.

Finale DA!

Enemies:

Sou Fueki

http://kamenrider.wikia.com/wiki/Sou_Fueki

Aka The White Wizard aka Wiseman aka Kamen Rider Wiseman

A former physics professor who was desperate to save his little girl after she got sick, but his daughter died and he refused to accept it. He then turned away from his scientific profession and became obsessed with the occult and experimenting with it. He seems like a benevolent benefactor to Haruto as the anonymous white wizard, but he has much more sinister motives in mind for Japan and their magic users. He also pulls the strings of the Phantoms posing as their leader, all the while he does not care about them and simply wishes to restart his own plans.

As seen in his re-apperance in a Kamen Rider Ghost spin-off, he is a father who loved his kid a little too much and refuses to let her go and move on, as he proclaimed the whole world could be sacrificed of human life just so he can have her alive again. Ghost, being a hero who values life, was disgusted by Fueki and gave him a proper beatdown with the help of Wizard’s power in the form of an Eyecon.

Phantoms:

Phantoms are demonic beings that reside inside humans called Gates, individuals who possess the potential to use magic. The Phantoms goal is to try to create more of their race by repeating the process that created them; putting a Gate at thier absolute lowest by taking away thier hope and leaving them in soul-crushing despair and depression.

This will cause the unborn Phantom to emerge from the Gate’s Underworld and kill them, with the Phantom then replacing their host’s control over their bodies, wearing them as flesh suits to hide among people until they need to change into monster form. However, if a Gate overcomes their despair and gains hope, the Phantom will be sealed back in and the Gate will have the power to use magic as a mage or wizard. Otherwise destroying it and the Gate’s magic potential is the only way to keep it from coming out. Some like Wizard’s WizarDragon are more benign after they are sealed again, though in Haruto’s case it was because he proved to his Phantom that Hope is more powerful than Despair.

While Phantoms have a clear goal, some have personality quirks that make them either uninterested in the mission or do things in a manner that go against what they were assigned to do. (Including the really dangerous ones like Legion)

Aside from Wiseman, there are three generals:

Medusa

Phoenix

Gremlin

To ensure they stay on task, the Phantoms are given Ghoul grunts to dispose of interference or aid in the endeavor. (Fear and intimidation also help as motivators for them to work)

Phantoms are mostly extinct thanks to Wizard, but he remains vigilant as Gates are still out there. In times like these where it seems Hope is in short supply, he must prepare for any Phantom that comes. (or an evil Pac-Man)

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