#and hundreds of years ago some oracle or something warns him of someone who is destined to end his immortality | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

jupiterdrabbles · 3 years

Text

The Oracle

Chapter One

Word Count: 4.7k~

Rating: Teen

Pronouns for Reader: They/Them/Theirs

Warnings: Vivid details of violence, blood and death.

Parings: Prince Sidon/Reader, Link/Reader

Even after the defeat of Calamity Ganon, the world remained paranoid. So many times had they defeated the evil, and so many times had it come back. The legends melted away after the fall of the champions one hundred years ago, and the citizens of Hyrule could no longer turn to them for guidance.

So, they turned to you.

From a very young age, you always knew something was different. You could never quite place or understand the feeling, but sometimes when making important decisions or choosing what to say, a gentle prodding made its way up your skull. ‘This one! This is right, this is the way.’ Echos of affirmation in an oddly familiar voice that no one else could hear. But, it always seemed to help those in need, so you were keen to listen.

One day, when you were no older than ten years old, your parents had a stranger come into the house. She wore all white, with a thin veil covering her eyes. She met your gaze, and you knew.

You were the same. On some level deep down you resonated with each other. You had something in common that was so engrossed in who you were that it sent shivers through your body. The voice reverberated louder, calling her to you and you to her. She stretched out her hand, palm up, and you put yours in hers. A bright light swallowed you, and everything became clear. You finally knew.

You were an Oracle.

—————

You sat in Hyrule castle, at the left hand of the Queen. Your robes were loose and light, that same white color as the woman who gave you your answer nearly a decade ago. You kept your head bowed as Queen Zelda addressed her court, Link at her right. They were currently discussing the reconstruction of Hyrule, what with a century of abandonment to many of its cities and people. Ever since this meeting had begun, there had been a buzzing in the back of your skull. It spread around your scalp and pulsed at your temples, but you fought back the urge to put your head into your hands. You were currently surrounded by the ambassadors of the different domains and remaining civilizations, you had to remain proper. Besides, it was most likely just a headache from staying awake long into the morning hours with Zelda, reading and studying about the years that had transpired while she was trapped with Ganon, and before you were born.

Zelda often keeps you and Link by her side. While you had known the Queen for a significantly less amount of time than the champion had, you had bonded over the shared burden of having a divine power bestowed upon you from a young age. In your time with Link, he had taught you simple defense maneuvers. As the Oracle, almost all of your concentration had to be in the present, focusing on harnessing any sign or signal you could grab onto to help decipher the coming days or even years. He fretted enough about Zelda not being able to fight on her own, but now that he had two incredibly important people to guard, he felt he was going to have a heart attack. You weren’t given a weapon- many were too heavy or didn’t sit right in your hands, with the added fact that you really weren’t supposed to wield anything that could hurt you in return (keeping your body whole was apparently a big part of the job). Link taught you pressure points and how a two-fingered jab to the right place could bring even Lizalfols to the ground. He promised he’d be at your back in an instance, but it made him and you more confident with some experience under your belt.

The buzzing grew louder and stronger with every passing minute, and you shifted to tuck your feet in on the seat of your chair to ball yourself in tighter. The haze that normally accompanied oncoming migraines wasn’t present, so you shoved it aside and blamed it on exhaustion. You tried to listen past the incessant noise, and to Zelda’s words.

“Even with Ganon defeated, some of the Malice it left behind continues to scorch the land. It isn’t hard to combat, but we will need a large group to cover all of the domains.” Zelda spoke, fingers interlaced atop the table. “Link recommended a force of five for each pool, as some of them can build and expel monsters out of nowhere.” Link nodded at her side, arms folded across his chest. He brought his hands forward to speak, fingers fluttering.

“They aren’t difficult and won’t do much damage to your person- but they are quiet. It’s always helpful to have someone watching your back.” He signed, an interpreter relaying his words towards the other end of the table. The ambassadors nodded, and a Zora woman raised her hand to speak.

“We have stationed guards along different trade routes to ease the journey of the travelers coming to our domain, and there have been reports of Malice pools growing from the ground. I believed they were isolated to the Divine Beasts and to the different shrines and towers. Do you know why they are coming about?”

You looked up to her, and a lump caught in your throat. The way herred scales glimmered in the remaining sunlight was painstakingly familiar, and the more you looked the more the lump grew. It had been the only time you’d raised your gaze the entire meeting, and she- as well as some other ambassadors- took notice. She met your gaze and offered a small smile.

And that’s what did it.

You let out a sharp gasp and clutched at the fabric in front of your chest, all the pain in your head suddenly shooting down to your heart. It felt like something was strangling the organ, a tight grip that squeezed and pulled and hurt. Your vision began to black out as you heard voices all around you. Someone put their hand on your shoulder and another barked at them to stop, leave them be!

The pain in your chest spread through your shoulders and back, down your spine and arms and back up to your skull. Your throat burned like you had been swallowing saltwater and nausea crept into your belly. You saw red, a bright crimson in your peripheral vision fading into blue, into brown. You heard the roar of a Divine Beast and felt it’s anguish. The ground shook with it’s fury and your vision cleared. You looked up and found yourself in the Zora domain, soaked through and surrounded by fleeting citizens. You stayed still, watching in awe as Vah Ruta rampaged through the domain, the marble and stone cracking beneath its feet. It stomped over the throne and it crumbled beneath its weight like a mushroom. The water at your bare feet turned red and sticky with blood, and Vah Ruta turned its massive head to you.

You met its eyes as its trunk lifted high into the air, a ball of energy building between its tusks. You were frozen in place, fear rooting you in your spot as you stared down a machine that easily aided in the defeat of Calamity Ganon. It whirred menacingly and fired at you. The screams and cries silenced, there was nothing left but the beam. Blue and white flooded your vision, then red again. So much red that it faded into black, only two glowing eyes remained. Ganon’s eyes. It gurgled in the silence and unhinged its mouth, pure Malice dripping onto the floor and onto you. You cried out as it burned your hands, and you watched in horror as it spread up your arms and chest. You were covered in Malice- no, the entire world was covered, infected, and dying slowly beneath the surface. And all it took was one pool near the far terminal in Vah Ruta. You blinked the pain away as you traveled with the Malice, one with it now. You saw it tearing apart wires and cogs beneath the surface, reworking the machine to how it saw fit. All it took was one beast, and the world would decay.

Something grabbed your wrist and pulled you from the Malice, and when you crumpled with exhaustion they caught you. They held you and rubbed your back as you sobbed into their shoulder. A hand pressed between your shoulder blades and warmth followed.

Look at your hands, they said into your ear. A girl’s voice, a slight lilt underneath her tone. It’s going to be okay, you can go home.

You brought your hands into your vision, and saw the Malice fading away along with a soft blue light. You peeled away from her shoulder and looked into the eyes of Mipha. Her expression was tense and filled with worry.

If Vah Ruta loses control, then the world will crumble. She spoke softly, taking your hands into hers. I am afraid I won’t be able to calm her, please- tears pricked at her eyes and trailed down her cheeks.

Find my brother.

You open your eyes to find yourself on the floor. The light burned your eyes, and the shape of Zelda above you was blurred and fuzzy. She called out your name in relief, helping you sit up.

“Are you alright- what happened? Do you need a medic!?” She fretted, and you shook your head. Your hands were also shaking, and you would guess your entire body was trembling by the way the ambassadors were looking at you. They stood at a distance, and you learned why as you looked up at Link. He was stood up with his back to you and Zelda, sword drawn and in a slight crouch. You guessed when you collapsed the ambassadors and guards rushed to your aid, only to be stopped when the Champion took your guard. You would have to thank him later, but there were more important matters.

Ignoring Zelda’s questions and worries, you leaned up and grabbed Link’s hand. He spun around immediately, eyes wide. He knelt to your level, hand never leaving his sword.

“We- we need to-“ Your voice shook as you stuttered, and groaned in frustration as the words almost refused to come out of your mouth. Link’s eyes were patient, but you looked down to break his gaze. “Vah Ruta, the Domain- we need to go there, immediately.” You sucked in a breath as you tried not to hyperventilate, panic seeping into your skin as you remembered the blood-slick floors. “Vah Ruta is going to loose control and- and attack the Domain.”

Gasps of shock rang throughout the room, and tension quickly began to build. The ambassadors rushed to speak to each other.

“Vah Ruta? But didn’t the Queen fix it after the Calamity!?”

“My home- my domain! What are we going to do?”

“How is this happening? Is it an omen?”

A Rito ambassador knelt beside Link, who gave him a side eye and clutched the sword tighter. The bird took no notice, all of his attention on you.

“Will the remaining Beasts also rampage? Do we need to be prepared as well?” He demanded, panic thick in his voice. Before you could answer, his panic was well shared.

“The rest of the Divine Beasts?! Oh, Goddess!”

“If Vah Naboris rampages again, Gerudo Town will crumble!”

“Oracle, what did you hear- what did you see!?”

“Please, what is going to happen?”

“Are we doomed again? Is Ganon coming back-“

“Enough!” Zelda cried, standing sharply as her voice cut through the room. They all turned to face her, wide eyed and scared. She took a breath and smoothed out her dress before addressing them again.

“The gift of Foresight is an exhausting one, please allow them to collect themselves before answering your onslaught of questions! Clearly it was a traumatic experience, as they were shaking and sobbing not minutes ago!” She declared, and you felt heat rush to your cheeks. Shaking and sobbing? Oh, what a first impression on some of the most important people in the four domains. Zelda held out her hand to you, snapping you out of your embarrassment and helped you stand. Her hand then came to your shoulder and turned you away from them and across the room. She waved for Link to follow. She held both of your arms as she walked to face you directly, Link at her shoulder.

“Alright,” She said, sighing. “Honestly, they had no right swarming you like they did.”

“It’s alright, your Highness. I’m sure I would do the same in their position, hearing something as startling as a Divine Beast losing control and running through a domain.” You folded your hands and held them near your stomach, trying to ground yourself. “I should go and explain my vision, they need to-“

“No,” Link signed, his first two fingers and thumb pinching together. “They will only stress you out more, you’re already unwell.”

“But they need to know! We need to travel to the Domain as soon as possible!” You furrowed your brow as you spoke. “It’s going to happen soon, and the Zora need to-“

“That’s why I will tell them, and you go rest as much as you can.” Zelda said calmly, rubbing your arm in a soothing motion. “Tell me what you saw, and I’ll relay the information so you and Link can start getting ready. You’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

“You won’t be coming?” Link asked, and Zelda shook her head.

“Hyrule still needs a leader. I can talk to you both through the Slate, and offer any assistance you may need.”

You bit at the corner of your lip. The air felt heavy and your chest was still tight from the lingering effects of your vision. Zelda was right though, as she always was. You needed to prepare.

“...alright,” You whispered, and they turned back to you. “If you’re sure.”

“Of course. Now sit down and give me just a moment.” Zelda led you back to where you were sitting before and you eased yourself onto the cushion. You tucked into yourself as the ambassadors looked at you, feeling like a luminous stone at midnight under their gaze. Zelda gathered their attention and began to explain what would happen, that they should return to their rooms until called down to hear the explanation, and Link stood in front of you.

“You have no reason to be nervous, it will just be me and Zelda.”

“I’m not nervous.” You countered, looking up at him. “I’m just-“

“You are, and it’s okay.” He interrupted, and your mouth clipped shut. “There’s nothing wrong with it, but I want you to know you’ll be safe. I’d never let anything near you that wasn’t welcome.”

“I saw that earlier,” You chuckled, and a soft smile spread across Link’s face as well. “You had your sword out and everything, it’s like you were staring down a hoard of Bokoblins.” You playfully jabbed at his stomach, which he sidestepped with ease.

“It almost was, you should’ve seen the Gerudo. She almost grabbed you herself.” You giggled a little, covering your mouth. When your laughter subsided, you looked at him seriously.

“Thank you. For- for always protecting me. I’m sorry if I put any more stress on you, you deserve a break after fighting the calamity.” He waved you off, scoffing slightly.

“Believe me, this is a vacation. I can’t stand still for the life of me, much less take a vacation. Can you imagine me, relaxing? It doesn’t fit right.” He made a face of disgust and stuck his tongue out. You smiled fondly.

“You’re right, it doesn’t. But any moment you need to take a break or even just sleep in a little longer, do so. I don’t want you burning yourself out on my account.”

“I think I took enough of a nap when I was in the Shrine of Resurrection, don't you think?”

You shrugged, not knowing exactly what to say in response. Link was stubborn, and getting him to budge on anything was hard, but especially hard when it came to his health. You have had small blips of visions where Link was bleeding profusely or otherwise severely wounded but he kept going. You knew he would get nightmares of the calamity as you would get them too. Part of the glamorous life of an Oracle was near magical empathy, you could see and hear what someone was going through and live in that struggle. It wasn’t something you loved, in fact sometimes it felt like an invasion of privacy, but sometimes it led to you helping those you cared for. You had talked to Link about his dreams and he opened up to you a little. The burden was worth it in the end, but you wished you could do more. Link and you continued to chat softly, and soon enough Zelda came back. Her smile was strained, and you swallowed hard.

“So,” She began, clearing her throat. “They aren’t exactly thrilled with the fact that it won’t be coming from you directly, but they will live on” She looked back to where the door was swinging shut, the ambassadors now being escorted to their respective chambers. Hyrule Castle was one of the first things to be rebuilt, and more rooms and space was added for Hylian citizens to seek shelter in while the Kingdom was being rebuilt. It truly was a beautiful building, now that it was reformed to its proper glory.

“Are you ready? We can take this slow.” She asked, and you nodded. She brought out her Sheikah Slate and opened a feature that allowed her to take notes, and looked to you to begin.

“I- I was in the Zora domain. They were all fleeing rapidly, and shoving past me. Normally, when I have these visions, I can phase through what I need to in order to find what I need, but-“ Your hands shook again, and you squeezed them together. “I was really there, I felt them knock into me. It’s never been like that before.

“Many were injured, some were dead, but no one was stopping. I looked up and Vah Ruta was in the domain, thrashing about and destroying many of the pillars and making its way to the throne room, where I was.”

“It wasn’t in the dam anymore? How could that happen?” Link asked, bewildered. You shook your head.

“I don’t know. I only saw it coming towards me, and then it-“ You held onto your neck, pressing into your muscles to ease the tension. “It fired it’s laser- the one it shot at Ganon. I think I- I might’ve died, there.”

Zelda clapped a hand over her mouth. The scalding hot feeling faded back into your chest where Vah Ruta had aimed, and you cleared your throat.

“Then, when the world went dark, I was a part of the malice. I saw it corrupting the inside of Vah Ruta before Mipha pulled me out and healed me. She said she could no longer rein in the Beast, I think she’s been struggling for a while. Then-“ You looked up at Link, who met your gaze with an intense expression.

“Then she told me to find her brother. I don’t know why, but when the Zora ambassador talked about Malice pools growing, that’s what shot me into the vision. I think- I think she’s right. I was a part of the Malice after Vah Ruta shot me, so that means-“

“Others might be too.” Zelda finished. “Those who were slain might have gotten sucked into the Malice and developed with it, that’s why it’s getting stronger.” She faced away for a moment, lost in thought. “This is… worrying, to say the least.” You nodded, and rubbed your face.

“I’m so sorry, I wish I knew more.”

“No, you’ve done so much.” Zelda reassured, taking your hands away from your face. “Without you, we wouldn’t know this was even happening. Now,” She pressed a kiss to your forehead and helped you stand. “Go and rest, I’ll talk with the captain of the guard and the ambassadors. Link,” She turned to him. “Don’t let anyone stop you on your way. Make sure they get to their room safe.” Link nodded in return and took your arm. Zelda waved, and turned to a guardsman not too far off.

Link walked with you, slower than his usual pace to match yours. He brought his arm away from yours for a moment to sign something to you.

“We can’t both use the travel gates at once, so we’ll be going on horseback. It won’t be an incredibly long journey, but I would bring clothes you would be comfortable riding in.” He explained.

“Shouldn’t we leave now? We would get there by noon tomorrow if we went straight there.” You spoke softly, and Link thought for a moment.

“I’m not sure about that. We’ll have to go through a lot of diplomacy as soon as we arrive, you need to be well rested and recovered after what happened.” He said, a frown creasing in his face. “What if you have another vision at the Domain? You’d be exhausted.”

“Link, please.” You took his hand, and moved your veil to look at him directly. Your hair fell from under your hood, and a slight flush moved it’s way up to Link’s ears. You never took off the veil and hood, it was a sign of protection from false guidance or spirits. He’s never seen your face without it. “I won’t be able to sleep even if we wait, let alone rest. I’ll go mad knowing we waited any longer than needed- people are going to die, Link.” You pleaded, and you felt his resolve begin to crumble. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“...fine. Fine, alright. But we’ll be taking one horse so you can sleep on the way, pack only what you truly need. We can get food there during the journey.” You smile up at him, full of gratitude. You lift your hood back up and your face and rush forward to hug him tightly. The feeling is foreign to both you and him, Link not being incredibly touchy and you really weren’t supposed to touch people at all- keeping yourself pure and without too deep attachments that could risk severing your connection to the goddess and spirits.

“Thank you.” You murmur into his chest, and let go afterwards. You adjust your robes, unable to meet his eye. “I’ll be ready in ten minutes, where should I meet you?”

“I’ll come gather you. I don’t think you know where the stables are.” He said, a bit of snark on his face. He was right, you didn’t, but he didn’t have to be smart about it. You shove him off and race to your quarters as well as one can when wearing floor length robes that draped and flowed nearly everywhere.

As soon as you closed your door, you went to your wardrobe. You pulled a pair of trousers that weren’t so loose on you and set them on your mattress, as well as a warm tunic and a pair of gloves. You grabbed a pair of opal earrings Link had given to you a while back, he said they had some sort of magical property hidden within that made it easier to swim and climb in the rain. All of your clothes were some form of white or cream color to symbolize your purity and power, but in instances like this it made it more difficult to have proper outdoors attire. Well, you guess that many people when thinking of an Oracle don’t think of horseback riding and trudging through rough terrain.

You removed your hood and veil once more, stripping off your robe and shirt underneath before your boots and pants. You pulled on the outfit you laid out, replacing your silk gloves with the leather ones and putting the earrings through. Your hood and veil were returned and you got on your knees to reach under your bed.

You honestly had no reason to hide this anymore, you knew only Zelda, Link and the only maid you’ve spoken to were allowed in your room and they wouldn’t judge or criticize you for it, but old habits die hard. You pull the small wooden box into your lap and unlatch it, smiling fondly at what laid inside.

It was a simple necklace on a thin chain and didn’t have much design. You didn’t wear much jewelry, and if you did it wasn’t often, but you almost never wear this for a completely different reason. You’d probably keel over and die on the spot if you lost it, or it was broken. The pendant that lay on the chain was in the shape of a star, four points that thinned out as they went with a small quartz stone in the center. The back of the pendant had your name engraved, followed by “Forever in our sky”. It had been a gift from your mother before you left to begin your training and honing your ability. The teachers and guides had tried to take it from you, saying that you must leave everything behind to serve your greater purpose, but you hid it. You figured your family wouldn’t keep you from serving the goddess and you were right. You clipped it on and slid it beneath your tunic before standing and grabbing your satchel that you came here with.

In it you slid a pouch of rupees, two Hasty Elixirs (Link insisted on you taking them, in case you ever needed to run away from a battle.) and your spare set of prayer robes in case you would need them. You walked over to where your altar table was laid out and gathered the few gemstones that laid out in the corners, as well as the small crystal sphere you would roll between your palms to aid with smaller visions. You looked out over your room to confirm you weren’t missing anything, and slid your boots back onto your feet. You opened the door and was met with Link reaching to knock. You sniggered, and stepped aside. He sat on the bed and you shut the door.

“Got everything?” He asked, and you nodded. He had changed out of his Champion’s tunic and into a red and black one you haven't seen before. A full quiver of arrows and a black bow rested above the darkness-sealing sword. He had a satchel as well, presumably for more arrows or weapons. He always liked to be prepared.

“I left a note for Zelda for when she comes looking for us in the morning. Hopefully she won’t be too angry.”

“She will live on.” You said, mimicking her words from earlier which got a smirk out of Link. He turned and pointed to a trapdoor on your ceiling that you hadn’t noticed until this moment.

“We’ll go through the attic and jump down onto the walkway beneath. There’s an old railroad system beneath the castle that will take us to the main gate and out.” He signed, hands moving almost quicker than you can read. “It won’t be easy.”

“Then let’s get going.” Your voice was full of determination, and you moved a bedside table underneath the trapdoor. “You go up first and then help me, you’re taller.”

“Man, I knew I liked you.”

You clung onto Link’s waist as he urged his horse on over the bridge and into the woods. You looked over the night sky and the dwindling candlelight through the castle windows. “I’m sorry, Zelda,” You whispered, “But I can’t wait any longer.” You put your head on Link’s shoulder and closed your eyes, hoping to catch some sleep before hell broke loose.

taglist:

#loz #loz fanfic #prince sidon #prince sidon x reader #link x reader #botw #botw fanfic #breath of the wild #legend of zelda #prince sidon x reader x link #gender neutral reader #BAMF reader #the oracle

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uwua3 · 3 years

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hello! it's me again!! um.. can i request a day at an amusement park with taichi please? i feel like he doesn't get enough love.

thank you so much for requesting, clover~ ♡ please enjoy this super fluffy piece, just for you~ ´͈ ᵕ `͈ ♡°◌̊ i put lots n lots of #LOVE in it! <3 i love you with all my heart!!!

summary: even cupid deserves love, too!

warnings: bad relationship (slight mention), envy/jealousy, loneliness, misunderstandings

author’s note: happy valentine’s eve eve, my friends! i’m sooo #Happy !! i love valentine’s so much ♡(*´･ω･)(･ω･`*)♡ if you are Free on February 14, i am here waiting with flowers <3 (◞ꈍ∇ꈍ)◞⋆**💐 (please celebrate v-day with me TT) ~ in celebration of my favorite holiday, please smile at this fluffy headcanon of taichi as the lovely, adorable cupid! 🏹💗 i love you all!

word count: 3,567

music: heart attack – loona (chuu)

stupid cupid.

🍁🛹 nanao taichi

every year, taichi spent valentine’s day alone

february 14th was another day of being absolutely single. but, for him, there was nothing better than seeing love in the air

especially as the “cupid” working all february long!

as cupid, taichi looked forward to becoming the epitome of pink & red hearts every year. it was a job no one else except him could do; who else to predict the probability of relationships than the matchmaker himself?

taichi loved love! he always could tell when people had crushes on others growing up like it was second nature. he couldn’t even count on both hands how many successful relationships he’s gotten together

love came easy to taichi. it was everything valentine’s was: floating heart balloons, bouquets of red roses, sights only romance movies would show, chocolates that came in heart-shaped boxes, poems from the heart, and so much more~!

the moment taichi set his eyes on someone, it was like he was the one who loaded the arrow and fired it. he knew who liked who, it was what he did best. his intuition was second to none, he was the amusement park’s cupid

for a month, all taichi had to do was sit at a booth and predict a person’s love life leading up to valentine’s day. it was easy money considering his success rate was 99%!

(we don’t talk about the time taichi accidentally caused a break-up... but, that’s beside the point!) (at least they’re happy now...)

yet, there was one thing wrong: taichi was loveless

despite being made of love, breathing love, living out of love, taichi had never celebrated valentine’s. it seemed like all the arrows missed him completely

taichi had never experienced any of the things that made love love, but that was okay! sure, it was a little lonely seeing happy couples all month but... it was worth it to see the smile on people’s faces! love wasn’t just romantic, platonic love was super important!

still... taichi forced himself to smile to apply the heart-shaped blush to his cheeks. there was a part of him, a hole in his heart, that longed to know what valentine’s felt like

FEBRUARY 1 — taichi fluttered the pair of angel wings excitedly, happy to be back in his valentine’s attire. he couldn’t help but jump up and down, squealing about how good it was to be “back in business”

even without his usual pink & red contacts, taichi’s eyes would’ve had heart-shaped pupils with how much love he had for this holiday season! as he greeted his coworkers for the first time in a year, taichi stood out amongst the crowd of workers listening to their orders for the day

as usual, taichi would be the cupid at a small, glittery booth that was louder than life itself. sure, it was a very discreet and low-budget set up, but it always was a fan favorite to catch this valentine’s season

taichi couldn’t help but run off to his station the moment he was dismissed, his wings flapping behind him and sling of heart arrows jostling. he almost slid past his stool but skidded, luckily landing in the right place with a bright grin on his face

when the afternoon officially began with people beginning to come in to the amusement park, taichi tapped his feet with exhiliration. showtime!

“welcome~! find out your love fortune this valentine’s season!” taichi happily advertised, putting his heart and soul into gathering the attention of the masses. slowly but surely, people began flocking to his side, unable to resist the teen’s infectious love and happiness to be here

it was like taichi raised the bow & arrow and fired into the squad. it captured the hearts of a hundred as people sat down across from him, seeking his love & relationship advice

there was a multitude of ways taichi could make someone’s day. whether it was reading love oracle cards or mixing up candy hearts, taichi loved putting on a show for people to enjoy

during a gap between couple sessions, taichi leaned his cheek against his hand and quietly whined to himself. he had recently just met such an adorable and lovey-dovey pair, even he felt sick with how much sweetness there was!

taichi wished he had that... before looking up. suddenly, his heart skipped a beat

it was like the gods & goddesses of love had heard his prayers because today was the first day he saw you

someone passed by the forming line. you hadn’t even noticed him, but taichi had certainly noticed you. when the moment passed and you disappeared, taichi had to focus before getting back into his cupid persona, smiling charmingly like nothing had happened

but, something did happen. taichi had just experienced love at first sight!

taichi hadn’t even had time to load his arrow before you hit him with his

it’s not like he was going to see you again, though... taichi’s loveless life wasn’t a romance film. nor a sappy piece of literature, unfortunately

though, for once, cupid wished he had someone to share this special month with like everyone else

FEBRUARY 3 — taichi was in charge of the valentine’s decorations comimg up. this was perhaps, the best news he had received in his entire life

there was something about folding a million origami hearts that made taichi’s own heart grow a thousand times larger. it was calming during his breaks to fold and fold again, with no thought process behind a skill that came naturally

as taichi cut the colorful paper into the perfect size with ease, he was humming the latest pop song on the radio before he heard something that made his heart break

arguing?! in the loveliest season of the year?!

taichi glanced around and noticed a distinct couple. the pair was fighting rather publicly despite the other person trying to keep their voice down and calm their partner down. before taichi could turn away and mind his own business, they sighed and turned in his direction

taichi felt his breath hitch in his throat as his hands froze, the paper suddenly bent in his tight grip. it was you, the person from two days ago!

so much for it being an one-time thing... taichi could already feel the butterflies in his stomach just at the thought of this being fate. twice in a row? did this mean something?

as taichi tried to search through his brain for what the chick flicks and rom-coms liked to say, you had already left with the person you were arguing with. as they walked ahead of you, you hung your head low with the shame and embarrassment of public humiliation

for some reason, taichi hated seeing you like that despite not knowing anything about you. he was irrationally frustrated as well; how could anyone just make you sad like that and not apologize?

taichi figured he could do one last love reading for the day

when you passed by his booth, you didn’t notice how taichi had left a surprise in your jacket pocket

you exhaled softly when you arrived home, leaning on the door and closing your eyes. when you put your hands in your pockets, you paused as you felt something between your fingers

pulling it out, you noticed a small red origami heart. inside, was a message in a messy, hurried scrawl

“leave them, you deserve better. be with someone who makes you smile! — cupid ♡”

despite everything, you smiled

FEBRUARY 5 — taichi barely had time before there was a person at his booth: you

before taichi could even process that you were real, you spoke: “i broke up with them.”

taichi blinked. this was the first thing he’d learn about you, and it wasn’t even your name! this type of news usually wouldn’t make taichi feel like this, but he was honestly over the moon. he didn’t need to know anything else to know your previous partner had little to no consideration for your feelings

he’d definitely be a better boyfr—wait, what?!

“oh.” taichi said lamely, but his heart jumped when you laughed. it was a nice sound, one that made him think of giant teddy bears and sugary sweet candy. taichi wondered how hard the arrow hit, it must’ve gotten bullseye

“what’s your name?” you took the words right out of his mouth, and taichi blushed under the attention. despite being the main focus of the valentine’s event every year, it was different coming from you. it was like... you were really seeing him

“cupid, at your service!” taichi quickly jumped into character, bowing with a flourish. if he was in an anime, he’d be sparkling with rose effects right now, taichi thought proudly

but, you didn’t clap or amuse him like his other customers. instead, you observed him with a questioning look. it was like you were picturing him without the valentine’s attire, without the wings, bow & arrow, and glitter across his face

“i meant your real name.”

taichi blanked. you were a surprise; he had never been this speechless in his entire life... it was honestly kinda embarrassing for him, taichi was flustered for once

“but, why do you want to know?”

“because you make me smile.”

when taichi told you, you said it aloud and he finally understood what it meant to have a crush

all it took was one conversation and taichi was head over heels for you

FEBRUARY 7 — taichi had never been a target of love before. no one had ever liked him, nor had he ever developed a serious crush on someone before. he was far too busy fixing everyone’s disaster of a love life, never mind his own!

yet, it was like the world aligned so you two could meet. taichi swore the stars aligned, fate was working its magic so you both would meet at this giant amusement park during the most romantic month of the year

even though it had only been a week or so since taichi first met you, it felt like you two knew each other for your whole lives. after getting over the fact you made his heart beat way too fast, taichi quickly warmed up to you and vise versa

while you only came to actually thank cupid for helping you get out of a bad relationship, you realized you very much liked the person behind the angel wings. taichi was everything you expected and more, with his personality that reminded you valentine’s maybe wasn’t so bad

speaking of, taichi was absolutely in hysterics when he found out your stance on valentine’s

“what?! what do you mean you don’t....” taichi took in a deep breath, as if it pained him to continue. “you don’t like valentine’s day?!”

you knew it was ironic to befriend literal cupid when you didn’t have a taste for romance to begin with, but you tried to hide your entertained expression with a lighthearted eye roll

“i’ve never celebrated it. it seems like a capitalistic excuse to buy a bunch of overpriced stuff, to be honest.”

you physically winced when you heard the crack of taichi’s poor, poor heart. his puppy eyes widened at your revelation and leaned forward, uncharacteristically serious for his cupid persona. luckily, he was taking a fifteen-minute break so the curtains were drawn to hide his immense sadness

“b-but!” taichi spluttered, his brain running a million arguments at once, which was way too fast for his mouth. “it’s valentine’s day! it’s sooo romantic! love is everywhere! how can you not love love?”

you thought about it some more before shrugging, crossing your legs and trying to not break taichi’s heart even more. the poor cupid, it looked like he was going to cry like a baby

“why do you love love then?”

only you could render taichi silent. he had never been truly asked that question before, nor had he reflected on why he was the first person to become cupid every year

when taichi struggled to answer, you waited before he started speaking. it lacked the usual wonder and excitement he always had, it seemed like it was almost... personal

“i love love because... love is who i am. i didn’t...” taichi stopped, as if considering sharing with you before continuing, not giving you the second to tell him he didn’t have to. he wanted to, anyways

“i didn’t have love to call my own, at least, not the way i wanted it. so, i made my own love. i love people, i love the world, i love everything. everything deserves love! just because i love a lot, doesn’t make it any less special.”

you thought taichi would’ve said the expensive bouquets florists made of the prettiest roses. or the largest stuffed animals holding stitched plush hearts in their paws. or sunsets with classical music playing in the background like a nicholas sparks film. not... not that

“okay you sap, maybe valentine’s day isn’t that bad if you like it, then.”

taichi’s wings fluttered and he sat up, a smile upon his face

“i promise, valentine’s day is the best!”

now, that i’ve met you, taichi thought

FEBRUARY 9 — taichi came to work only to find a bouquet of flowers upon his booth. they were the grandest displays of affection yet, with the best-smelling hundred petal roses he had ever imagined

you, on the other hand, weren’t so impressed

“cupid, have you stolen the heart of another?” you said in the tone of a dramatic shakespearian actor, pretending to swoon when taichi hid his face in the flowers

“i... usually get flowers like these when i work, it’s nothing, really.” taichi mumbled, holding the flowers to his chest as a warm feeling spread across his body. he usually never got flowers, this was the first time someone had found his charms alluring enough to gift him such a pricey present

one look and you already knew he was lying. your heart fell a little when you noticed how happy taichi was, but you pretended to not care as you winked at him

“oh~ taichi has a lover now, huh?” he giggled in response, adamantly denying it despite holding the bouquet like it was his most prized possession. you glared a little harder at the red roses more than you’d like to admit

why were you feeling so... jealous? it’s not like you wanted the flowers or anything so—oh

when taichi turned that lovesick gaze towards you, you suddenly felt like you were on a sugar rush

when taichi performed his role better than ever with his newfound love for all things traditionally romantic, you watched off to the side

you reached up to your chest to feel the arrow, but to no avail

have you fallen for cupid?

FEBRUARY 11 — taichi shuffled the cards professionally, but his behavior was anything but that. the last time you had sat on the other side of the booth was days ago, but here you were, waiting for your love reading

when taichi met you, you weren’t a person who heavily believed in love. romance wasn’t something that made you happy nor did valentine’s day make you count down to february 14th like him. yet, you suddenly paid for a reading

you stared expectantly at him, your face once again unreadable and hard to distinguish. even if taichi was friends with you, he never mastered the art of reading you like a romance book. it was one of his most prominent talents, too, so it was strange why he couldn’t

you only showed him what you wanted him to see, unfortunately. regardless, taichi did the whole shebang, theatrics and all even if you had seen it a thousand times by now

“welcome to cupid’s love booth! let me read your love life~” taichi laid out the pink cards in a pretty, attention-grabbing manner before asking you to pick three. you did so relatively quickly, which taichi admired you for (he had once sat waiting for someone to pick, but they had taken nearly ten minutes. there was only so much cupid could do)

when taichi flipped them over, it was surprising, to say the least. of course, you didn’t understand a thing as you waited for him to explain. however, taichi fell quiet, reading the cards with furrowed eyebrows

“awww, come on, cupid, give it to me straight. am i destined to be single forever?” you joked but a part of you worried about taichi’s reaction. even though he wore his heart on his sleeve and always expressed his feelings, he had never reacted this negatively to a reading before

taichi laughed at your joke, but it felt like a customer service one. it seemed strained and before you could ask if he was okay, taichi’s brilliant wink put him back as the amusement park’s favorite cupid

“is there someone you’re not telling me about~? it seems like you have a friend you like, am i right?” taichi had hit bullseye; how did he know just from those cards? you didn’t answer, just offering an innocent shrug as if you didn’t care. you very much did, though

“so i am! i’m seeing that you’ve recently liked them, ahhh, young love~” taichi sighed, as if in love with the concept already. “looks like love’s in the air, my dear, so don’t worry about a thing! they like you back, without a doubt.”

you looked up at this, eyes wide before returning to your nonchalant state. taichi wondered what that could’ve meant even as he tried to maintain his shaking hands

“they do? how do you know?”

taichi held a finger to his lips, as if it was a secret only cupid could know

“shhh, i just know. trust me, they’d be a fool to not like you back.”

you could tell it wasn’t cupid just talking, and you knew what you had to do

“i’ll ask them to be my valentine tomorrow, then.”

taichi’s heart broke but... as long as you were happy, how could he say no?

FEBRUARY 13 — taichi wished he had a valentine. if only you liked him, maybe he would’ve asked you, his first crush, to be his this month (and even longer). but, you were somewhere else, asking someone else to be your valentine

taichi frowned, finding it hard to maintain his happy excitement forever as the line began becoming longer and longer. taichi huffed, looking around as if you’d suddenly appear. but, taichi’s life wasn’t a movie...

“hey cupid, why so sad?”

taichi turned around to see the biggest plushie he had seen in his entire life. it covered your entire frame, with the dog ears flopping over its giant black eyes cutely. in its arms was a red heart with the cursive words “i like you!” in white stitching

before taichi could even react, you peeked over the plush’s shoulder with a slightly embarrassed look

“can you take it already? i’ve been getting weird looks from everyone i’ve walked by.”

taichi took the plush and placed it on the seat next to him, about to speak before you pulled out an even bigger bouquet from behind your back

they weren’t just red roses. they were a rainbow of them, ranging from pink, white, yellow, blue, red, and even black! taichi could barely even count how many there were before you passed it to him, doing your best to not pass out and die from how sappy this all was

“see, these are even better than the bouquet you got last time. i clearly am the better, uh, person for you, you know?” taichi didn’t have the time to respond before you turned around again and presented a display of chocolates, all of them heart-shaped and tied in ribbon

“you like chocolate, right? yeah, of course you do, i also got—” before you could keep rambling, taichi gently held your hand. your heartrate skyrocketed and you froze, unsure of what to do when taichi was looking at you with his heart eyes

“you got all of this... for me?” taichi was genuinely amazed and flattered, a light dust of red across his cheeks at how romantic all of this was. you blushed as well, looking away bashfully

“i mean, yeah. i don’t see anyone else around.”

“but... you don’t like valentine’s day?”

you sighed, knowing the next words out of your mouth are word he’s going to never let you forget

“but, i like you.”

“but... i thought you liked someone else?”

“stupid cupid, i like you. only you.”

taichi stood up, not as cupid, but as himself. when he softly turned your head towards him, he smiled gently, squeezing your hands with all the appreciation in the world

“i like you, too. with or without the romance, i would’ve said yes to being your valentine no matter what you did.”

you breathed a sigh of relief. sure, you didn’t love love like taichi, but... he deserved it

“i have an idea.” you proposed, leaning in closer as taichi awaited your response with bated breath

“you should open a kissing booth.”

“you’d be my only customer.”

“then give me my kiss already!”

FEBRUARY 14 (valentine’s day) — every year, taichi spent valentine’s alone. until, he met you

“stupid cupid, i like you.”

you and taichi were shot by cupid’s arrow this valentine’s day

#nanao taichi #taichi nanao #a3! act! addict! actors!#a3!#act! addict! actors!#a3! actor training game #a3! headcanons #act! addict! actors! headcanons #mankai a3!#mankai company #a3! x reader #a3 x reader #taichi x reader #a3! taichi #a3 taichi

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just-a-random-cipher · 3 years

Text

!Theories about Gravity Falls!

Enjoy Reading:)👁

I recently came to the understanding that some people in the Gravity Falls fandom are slightly confused as to what little the fandom knows about Bill Cipher’s past. Everyone who watches the show knows he comes from another dimension known as the Nightmare Realm, which is decaying and fated to be destroyed by its very own mechanisms. However, given the release of Journal 3 by Alex Hirsch and Disney, and a rather interesting and hidden page on the Disney XD site (found here), Bill’s background is obviously not as simple as him being a megalomaniacal, dimension hopping villain.

Let’s start with the Axolotl.

Most people know this amphibious being from the last few seconds Bill is alive. He says something close to, “Axolotl, my time has come to burn. I invoke the ancient power that I may return.” If you want to hear it yourself, check out any of the YouTube videos on the subject. However, this seems to point out that Bill knows of, or somehow personally knows, the Axolotl. This is where the hidden link comes into play. Below is a picture of where the link leads to.

Take note of the first highlighted section. Dipper is asking what the Axolotl knows about Bill Cipher. Now, seeing as the Axolotl resides in the “time and space between time and space,” it could have the ability to see and know all of what happens in other places of time and space. This would give the Axolotl a distanced, somewhat unbiased view of what happened in Bill’s original dimension.

The riddle that is boxed gives some insight into Bill’s past from what the Axolotl knows. The first two lines refer to Bill - proof of him being an equilateral triangle due to the three sixty degree angles the Axolotl describes.

The third and fourth lines explain what happened to Bill’s dimension. The dimension burned, and he misses it. The “can’t return” at the end of the fourth line seems to hint that he is trying to get back to his dimension, or is trying to undo its destruction. Also note that Bill watched his dimension burn, meaning he was likely already outside of his dimension. Say this was his first time dimension hopping, and his first time leaving his dimension had some kind of effect like Weirdmageddon did on Earth - only, instead of there being weirdness waves that changed the environment, it was something much worse which basically rendered the entire dimension uninhabitable or entirely wiped it from existence.

Moving on, the Axolotl implies that Bill is lying to himself about being happy, and possibly other things. “Blame the arson for the fire” could have several meanings at this point. Was there someone else who actually destroyed Bill’s universe? Should we be blaming Bill because he is the arson? Does Bill blame someone else who is the true arson? Seeing as the word “Blame” is a mere imperative verb that is ordering a person or thing to do something, and there is no other person or personal pronouns given in the sentence, it is hard to say who the Axolotl is ordering. If it was “blames,” then it could be derived that it means “Bill blames” since “You blames,” referring to Dipper and likely the only other person the Axolotl could be thinking of in this context, doesn’t make grammatical sense.

The seventh line seems fairly obvious, and the only questions left are: who is Bill shirking the blame to, and what blame precisely? He has supposedly committed hundreds of atrocities and probably broken all the laws in every universe just to say he did, so is he putting the blame for all of his actions on someone else, or just a singular time where he was to blame?

The eighth line likely connects to Bill’s last moments in Stan’s mind. As stated before, Bill says “Axolotl, my time has come to burn. I invoke the ancient power that I may return.” Notice how Bill uses Axolotl’s name, and later says invoke. Kinda obvious connection there. But also note how Bill says “my time has come to burn.” Now, we do see literal fire taking over Stan’s mind, but we never see him actually burn. Of course, this could also point toward a more metaphorical description or that he just needed to rhyme, just as the Axolotl did in answering Dipper’s question, in order to truly invoke the Axolotl.He could also be referencing that he is dying, and that he probably should have died ages ago with the rest of his dimension which burned, but hey. I look for double meanings everywhere. Especially with Bill Cipher.

As for the last two lines… The fandom can only speculate on it. Bill can only liberate himself by doing one singular thing. And apparently a different form and different time are involved. That could have many different meanings. “Different form” could be physically or mentally - Bill could be a different shape, could be reborn as another species somehow, could reaffirm himself and admit the truth, or he could simply get some kind of interdimensional cold and be “out of shape.” The other half seems pretty obvious: “a different time.” It could be the future, the past, the present, the in between times, or even the second or third or hundredth time he tries to make amends.

A different form and time could also refer to a different universe, which holds a different form and different times, or himself entering Gravity Falls’ dimension and gaining a physical body (new form) and trying to start a new reign in another dimension that (this time) won’t just collapse someday without warning.

Basically, the Axolotl states that (in my own opinion) Bill possibly had a hand in the destruction of his home dimension, but likely tried to stop said destruction and failed. He misses his home and can’t return, but is still trying to find a way back to it. He’s lying to himself and someone is definitely to be blamed for the destruction of his universe, but he won’t admit to it. Bill needs the Axolotl in order to put the blame on someone else, and there is only one way, in another time and another form, that he can free himself from the blame.

Alright. Onto The Oracle. Finally.

In the Third Journal, Ford explains what exactly what happened for those 30 years he was missing. After getting attacked in a 2-D Dimension, he met The Oracle in Dimension 52. She knew all about him and his “mission” to defeat Bill. She was the one who helped Ford get a metal plate in his head. She also was the one who told Ford about Bill’s past.

The first few things I want to go over is the page in which Ford depicts The Oracle. She stands, staring with crossed arms partially obscuring an amulet, in front of what seem to be tapestries of the Axolotl. Bubbles and/or orbs seem to be hanging from the ceiling and rising from the floor in front of the tapestries.

The Third Journal does show that some people in the multiverse know of the Axolotl and the Oracle seems to have some kind of psychic power, evidence when she knew Stanford’s name, his purpose, and what he was destined to do. So perhaps that isn’t as interesting as it first appears. The amulet is also rather intriguing… Could it be in the shape of an eye?

But what about the bubbles and orbs?

I kinda feel like I’m looking too deeply into this, but the only other time when bubbles seem to be important is during Weirdmageddon when Bill uses a bubble to trap Mabel and unleashes weirdness bubbles on the town. It seems somewhat weird that the person who gives Ford all the answers seems to have some kind of connection to Bill - albeit a stretched connection with just these pieces of information in hand. It just seems too much like he’s being used again, which I’ll get into later.

Ford, on some level, seems to notice the connection between the Oracle and Bill. The symbols underlined above the circled Axolotl can be decrypted to read, “The opposite of Bill.” This seems to make sense with what little we know of her. She seems to know all, but never tells Ford that she is indeed psychic or omniscient - notice how Ford states, “Whether she was psychic or had just read my wanted poster is hard to say,” implying that he doesn’t know how she knew about him. She is also noted to be “calm” when talking about her desire to end Bill’s reign. However, Bill seems to believe himself to be omniscient due to his ability to peer into all realms from his Nightmare Realm. But he constantly doesn’t foresee issues - Mabel knocking the safe’s code out of his hands in Dreamscaperers and outsmarting him in Sock Opera, the Weirdness Containment Bubble around Gravity Falls, the dino-arm pulling his eye out, the Stans swapping clothes. He also is known to be rather hotheaded and, as many people in the fandom point out, likely to be insane.

Now, you might be wondering where all this comes into play, right? Well, if you look at the second page, where Ford details their encounter a bit more, he says that the Oracle told him that Bill was power hungry, which caused him to burn his dimension and everything and everyone in it.

That doesn’t sound like what the Axolotl said, right? Which is why people are conflicted on what, or rather who, to believe.

But why would she shape her words into something that Ford could easily misinterpret? Well, first things first: she’s an oracle and prophecies can be easily misinterpreted. But that seemed to fit a bit too easily, so I looked a little harder at the wording of the document and came to one conclusion:

She wants Bill dead and out of the picture.

My reasoning? 1) Look at the line “She spoke of him without anger, but with a calm, steely, clinical resolve to see his reign end.” Pretty straight forward. Ford can tell that she doesn’t like Bill’s reign and will not stop until he is stopped. 2) “She… said I had the face of the man who was destined to destroy Bill.” She said destroy Bill, not Ford’s constant “defeat” that he mentions throughout the series. Destroy means to utterly annihilate, reduce to nothing, ruin emotionally and spiritually, to kill. If this is what she said to him, then she obviously wasn’t just messing around. 3) Ford and her spent the entire night partying after she revealed this. They were partying about someone’s death. Kinda harsh

There is one other point that really hammers it into me that the Oracle was manipulating her own words: her own name. The first paragraph reveals her name to be Jheselbraum the Unswerving. The Unswerving. Which means that once she’s dedicated to something - like destroying a dimension hopping demon by the name of Bill - she will not stop until she succeeds.

Seeing as Ford mysteriously found himself in another dimension after he and the Oracle partied together, it’s pretty obvious that she didn’t tell Ford about him being destined to defeat Bill until that last day. You’d expect someone whom could pull someone out of another dimension into their own, whom knew who Ford was way before they met, whom already had a difficult surgery in mind to aid Ford, and whom was obviously invested in taking Bill down to simply tell Ford that he was the multiverse’s savior, right?

She instead kept it all a secret until the last day, at which point Ford was even more resolute to kill Bill instead of just defeating him and keeping him out of his dimension.

So who do you trust more? Or do you trust no one? On one hand you have a mysterious being that answered Dipper’s question with a riddle instead of a straight answer, and said riddle could be seen in a variety of lights. On the other, you have an equally mysterious Oracle who might have manipulated her words to ensure Ford’s resolve against Bill.

It's just my opinion! So you don't have to say anything about it! :)))

#gravity falls #gravity falls theory #gravity falls bill #axolotl #dipper pines #mabel pines #digital art #drawing #bill cipher

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matrixreimagined · 3 years

Text

Matrix Gift Exchange

I had @thelivemouse! Happy Holidays, friend!

A Glitch in the Matrix; A Flaw in His System

Agent Smith existed in a world of certainty and fundamental truth. The Matrix, he knew, was his purpose. He was its chosen guardian. He existed to stop the chaotic Zionists and their mission of liberated anarchy.

Humans, it seemed, were unable to behave in a manner that catered to their best interests.

And that was why the Matrix existed. The system to govern the humans, teasing them with the illusion of choice, while driving them all to complete their purpose. To power the machines.

There was order in his world.

A reason for everything.

Until there wasn’t.

Smith could find no reason for the abrupt change that he sensed on March 11, 1962. His counterparts didn’t seem to find anything different but Smith knew that there was something wrong in the Matrix. Something didn’t belong.

It was nothing he could recognize; nothing surface level.

But something was wrong and it was distracting.

He checked to see if there was an update he was missing; perhaps there was a glitch in his own software. An easy fix.

But no.

For some inexplicable reason, he was drawn to the Matrix Stats. A program that kept track of everything from the blades of grass within the simulation to the number of programs within the Matrix.

He checked it all but found himself staring at the population. 380,111 new babies had been born on March 11 while some 156, 916 had been taken away, their bodies recycled in the real world to nourish the little ones.

Yes, Smith acknowledged, things were different. But like an update, he learned to adjust. After a while, those little twinges that something was wrong became normal, easier for him to ignore. And that was just what he did.

It would be years before Smith thought about that day.

Year more before he would understand the significance of that day.

Six years pass and Smith no longer gives thought to the odd sensation. Or was it a feeling?

No, he decided, not a feeling.

He wasn’t capable of that. It was not something assigned to anti-virus programs.

It’s a winter day when Hamann and his crew break into an apartment building to free some moron who thought life would be better in the harsh underground city. But Hamann and his crew weren’t as careful as they should have been.

They managed a trace, missed the warning signs of deja vu.

When the Agents arrived, it melted into chaos.

Their potential red pill was killed in the crossfire, along with another from Hamann’s crew.

The rest escaped, running in different directions.

And the Agents gave chase, each in pursuit.

Smith had chased Hamann, following him through the halls. The man burst into an apartment building and jumped through a window to the fire escape. He took the steps two at a time and Smith was gaining on him when a small child climbed between them, looking down at the older man who was running down the stairs.

Smith barely stopped himself from crashing into the child.

Casualties, particularly young ones, were to be avoided by the Agent’s mandate. And while accidents happened, he tried to avoid casualties.

In hindsight, he should have walked around the child and finished his pursuit. He probably would have caught up to the terrorist and managed to put him down before he reached an exit.

Yet Smith couldn’t seem to look away from the dark-haired child, staring up at him with large brown eyes.

“What are you doing on my fire escape?” The boy asked.

Smith scanned the child.

Thomas Anderson.

Date of Insertion: March 11, 1962.

Age: six years.

The date struck him, freezing him in place as he regarded the young child.

A coincidence, he was nearly certain.

The boy was only six. He could hardly be the cause of the discomfort, the strange sensation that had once caused him pause.

Thomas, he thought. From the Aramaic To’oma. Meaning twin.

But humans, it seemed, rarely chose names based on their meanings. Thomas was an only child. There was no twin, no partner of sorts.

Just a lonely little one, as lost in the world as anyone else.

Anderson, Smith noted. Meaning son of Andrew. Andrew, of course, meaning man. Son of man.

Again, highly irrelevant.

Little Thomas might not know it but he was the child of machines, composed mostly of organic tissue but with enough mechanisms that he was no longer entirely human either.

“Sir? What are you doing on my fire escape?” The boy asked again.

A flash of annoyance spread through the Agent and it startled him. Annoyance was intrinsically human and Smith was far from it. As distant as one could possibly be from a fickle thing like emotions.

Before the boy could ask again, he said, “You’re dreaming. Go to sleep.”

“I’m not dreaming!” Thomas insisted, looking angry at the assumption.

“Trust me: you’re dreaming.” Smith quickly walked off, unwilling to stand and address the flash of annoyance, the anger that seemed ingrained in his avatar’s bones. All the while, the thoughts racing through his head.

Emotions are human.

Jones and Brown were down the street when he caught up with them.

“The girl made it out.”

“As did Hamann.” Smith confirmed.

“Their gunner is dead.” Jones stated.

Something sickly starts to grow inside Smith that the confirmation. It was dark and made him uneasy, almost nauseous. Programs didn’t get nauseous, Smith thought, but then, they also didn’t feel.

It should have been me to stop him.

Me.

A personal pronoun, indicating identity of the individual.

Smith was not an individual. He belonged to a tripariate program. A collective with a single purpose: to stop Zionists from freeing people.

They had done their job. Had managed to kill a few Zionists while at it.

The matter of who killed who was unimportant, irrelevant.

So why did Smith feel as though the world was shrinking around him? As if it were becoming infinitely smaller, taking his focus away from the Matrix and projecting it onto himself. And yet, selfishness was inherently human.

The earlier programs could experience things such as emotions. The Merovingian was a prime example of abstract hedonism. The Oracle was known for her compassion towards the humans. Even the Architect was mired with complex feelings towards the slaves, giving him the insight necessary to design the Matrix to suit their needs.

But Agents had no need for feelings.

He ran the possibilities in his mind.

Perhaps there had been a malfunction, in which case, he should report himself immediately and be taken to exile. A new Agent would be created, reprogrammed to fix the inherently human traits that seemed to be prevalent in Smith.

But no, he thinks. Exile does not seem… pleasant.

Self-preservation, however, was a human instinct.

He wondered if it was worse than he initially thought but Smith ignored it all.

He would discover, over the coming months and years, that it was not all that hard to cover up the occasional flash of feelings that rise to the surface when dealing with the Zionites. He did his best to eliminate any sign of the virus within the Matrix.

Years pass.

All the while, Smith feels his distaste for humanity growing. He hides it under a practiced mask if only to protect himself from deletion.

A few hundred people are freed, a few hundred more die.

New captains and crews replace the ones that grow old or are eliminated. Most act in quiet desperation, trying their hands at stealth and trickery, hoping to avoid the attention of the Agents.

And then there was the Nebuchadnezzar.

Led by Morpheus, the entire crew seemed to be operating on a single brain cell.

But then the message came through. A human willing to act as a spy in order to be placed back in the safety of the Matrix. While it wasn’t impossible, it would be a waste of resources to do such. But the human didn’t need to know that.

Instead, they agreed to the deal and were given a name.

The new bastard that Morpheus determined was capable of destroying the Matrix.

“We have the name of their next target.” Said Jones.

And Brown finished, “The name is Neo.”

Neo.

A scan of the information at hand brought him to the owner of the alias. A picture of a tall, clean-shaven man with dark hair and eyes appears, along with a name and a profile.

Thomas Anderson.

For a moment, Smith was aware of his every synapsis. The speed of every thought that went through his program. He could feel his very avatar like a cage surrounding him, trapping him.

Thomas Anderson.

March 11, 1962.

The day the Matrix turned.

Smith had never given any thought to Morpheus’ mission to find someone capable of destroying the Matrix. Smith had deemed it impossible long ago.

But now…

New feelings are creeping in.

While before, Smith found himself riddled with disgust over humanity, frustration at his own limitations, and annoyance in others, he finds something new growing inside him.

A new feeling plotting and working its way through him, consuming him.

Anticipation.

Finding Thomas Anderson, confronting him, capturing him before Morpheus is able…

He doesn't buy into the concept of the One but he couldn't deny that the man was special.

Now was the time for planning. Tomorrow would be the time for action.

And soon, Smith would find out for himself exactly how special Thomas Anderson was.

#smith origin story #ish #agent smith #Hugo Weaving #neo #thomas anderson #the matrix has queue #keanu reeves #the matrix gift exchange #the matrix #pre-matrix #pre the matrix #the matrix short story #the matrix fanfiction #matrix fanfic

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lovelydayintheneighborhood · 4 years

Text

Hanahaki Disease (Jason Todd x FemReader)

Summary: The Hanahaki Disease is an illness born from one-sided love, where the patient throws up and coughs of flower petals when they suffer from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals. It can be cured without side effects only when the feelings are returned.

Warnings: none

Rating: G

A/N: “you made flowers grow in my lungs, and although they are beautiful I can’t breathe.”

This is the first work I ever posted, so I think it’s fitting that it’s the first one to bring back!

It started two years ago, after patrol one night. You were the newest addition to Batman’s unending stock of adopted orphans, and had taken up the mantle of Oracle after Babs went back to being Batgirl. You were listening to comm’s when you overheard voices in the cave. That was odd; it was too early for anyone to be back yet.

As the voices got louder, you recognized them as Bruce and Jason’s. It wasn’t uncommon for them to argue, so you just continued with what you were doing until they reached the cave.

“You’re staying here tonight,” Bruce said. His face was blank but his voice had a hint of the earlier anger behind it.

“The hell I am!” Jason was not so held back. He let his outrage show on his face and in his voice, and reached to put his helmet back on his head.

Instead of fighting back, Bruce let out an exasperated sigh and turned to face the computer screens you were sitting in front of.

“It’s too dangerous.” He entered a code into the keyboard before either you or Jason could move, and 2 inches thick of unbreakable glass sprung up that kept Jason from moving more than 10 feet in any direction. Your jaw dropped. You were astonished that Bruce would go that far, even as stubborn as he is. He turned to you.

“Under no circumstances are you to let him out until I get back.” He sounded like a dad lecturing his children. You guessed that in a sense, he kind of was, but you and Jason couldn’t be further from siblings.

With that, he left a seething Jason in your hands.

“I do dangerous things all the damn time! That’s the way it’s been since the very beginning!” He yelled after the Dark Knight. You felt a twinge of guilt, even though you didn’t show it.

You went back to doing what you were supposed to and ignored his presence. Eventually, he spoke up.

“Let me out.” You turned your head to face him and raised an eyebrow. His arms were crossed and his shoulders were set.

“I will do no such thing,” you countered. “If Batman thinks it’s too dangerous for you to be out there, then he’s probably right.” You weren’t entirely sure why Bruce was keeping him captive, but you didn’t want him hurt. Or worse, dead again.

“I can handle myself. Neither of you get to decide what I’m going to do!” He threw his hands down to his sides in frustration and started pacing the 10 foot radius.

You sighed, and turned around in your wheelie chair. It sucked being in the cave all night while everyone else was a part of the action; you knew.

“I know you think he doesn’t trust you, but he just doesn’t want your temper to get the best of you. He’s afraid you’ll lash out at the wrong moment and get yourself killed.” He narrowed his eyes at her.

“That’s not his place. Or yours. And since when can’t I keep my head, Princess?” Your nostrils flared at the nickname. You whipped around in your chair.

“Since you go after the Joker every damn time he shows up. Since you kill every thug you come across. You’re so damn selfish that you can’t put your own vengeance behind the lives at risk!” You said frustratedly. You hadn’t meant to say that, it had come out unexpectedly.

He was quiet for a moment.

“You really think that, y/n?” He finally said, and looked up. “You think that I do it for the vengeance? For myself?” His stare was intense, and you felt the urge to look away but forced yourself not to.

“I do it for the kids who have to stay on the streets with those bastards at night; for the women who look over their shoulders constantly for rapists; for all the people who have been terrorized by these assholes and can’t sleep at night, wondering when they’ll be back. And no, I don’t kill all of them. I made a promise, and I intend to keep it. But the big guns, the ones like Joker who’ve killed hundreds, probably thousands and aren’t about to stop? Hell yeah.” He continued his pacing after that.

That’s when it became hard to breathe.

You were stunned speechless. Jason Todd wasn’t vulnerable ever, and now you were ashamed you had said anything in the first place.

The comm’s buzzed to life a moment later, and you could practically feel him stop and stare at the back of your head.

“I need backup on Crime Alley. The Joker hired the thugs that were at the shooting as a distraction. He’s planted a bomb somewhere in Gotham and the others are working to find it.”

Everyone else was busy or out of town on other business. You bit your lip and braced yourself for what you were going to do. You could probably get one of the others to go, but he was right; he should be allowed to decide what to do for himself. And you’d forced him to open up, so you felt like you owed him somehow.

“Red Hood will be at your location in approximately 7 minutes.”

“Roger that.”

You lowered the glass shield and turned around in your chair to face his surprised figure.

“Don’t make me regret this, Todd.”

He winked at you with a smirk on his face. “Later, Princess.”

After everyone got back from patrol that night and Bruce had finished lecturing you, you were alone in your room and started having bad chest pains. You blew it off, until you started coughing and blood came up. It could’ve been nearly anything else, but something in your mind told you it wasn’t.

No no no, you thought. Not this. Tears welled up in your eyes, and soon enough petals were coming up with the blood.

————————

Now, it was two years later and the disease had just gotten worse and worse. You made sure to leave no sign of the blood or flowers, and even moved out of Wayne Manor when the episodes became more frequent. You didn’t know how long people usually took, but you didn’t think it would be much longer.

You couldn’t complain too much though, because you and Jason had gotten closer. That was a bonus. By now you considered him your best friend, even if he didn’t in return.

You hadn’t told anybody, and as observant as your family of detectives were, you were sure none of them knew. You were trained by the best, after all.

It was the night before Christmas, and you came over to help Alfred bake cookies. The rest of the family would be arriving soon as well. You felt the familiar rise of pain in your chest, and excused yourself to the bathroom.

The doorbell rang, and you jumped, thinking it was someone near the bathroom at first. You quickly attempted to clean up the blood and shoved the petals in a vase that was on a small table in the bathroom.

You breathed in quickly, the whoosh of air weaving through the flowers in your lungs audible, and then you went back to meet the newest guests.

Cass and Steph had apparently finished their last-minute shopping spree, judging by the bags littering the kitchen table, and Dick was attempting to steal bits of cookie dough behind Alfred’s back, albeit unsuccessfully. When you tried to take a look into one of the many bags, Steph swatted your hand away.

“Hey, no peeking!” She exclaimed. You rolled your eyes.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” you said with a smile playing at your lips. You enjoyed how even though the entire family had all probably tried to kill each other at some point, they really loved each other and valued the things that mattered. You only wished that the one who mattered the most to you valued you just as much.

“Ahem.” Speak of the devil. Jason stood in the doorway, his face oddly blank for Christmas Eve. Even though he was a bit of a grinch, he didn’t scowl quite as much during the holidays.

“Y/n, can we talk?” You raised an eyebrow and followed him out into the hall. He kept going though, and you were even more confused but followed him anyways.

He turned the corner into the bathroom, pulled you in quickly and shut the door.

“Jason, wh-“

“What is this?” His stare was intense, and he was pointing at a flower-filled vase. Your heart dropped. You did your best to keep your face neutral, and looked him in the eye.

“I don’t know wha-“

“Don’t lie to me.” He cut you off again. “The petals in this vase are covered in blood.”

“That could’ve been anyone,” You countered, but you both knew it was absolute bullshit. His brow furrowed, and he was quiet for a moment. You could see the worry in his eyes, and God, did you feel guilty when he looked at you like that.

“Y/n,” he spoke in a soft tone with pleading eyes.

“I’m- I’m sorry, I just can’t-“ suddenly you broke down coughing with tears trailing from your eyes, and grabbed the sink to brace yourself. Your head started spinning, and the sounds around you became muted, but you thought you heard Jason calling your name.

“Y/n!” His hands searched your body, looking for the small words that would tell him who had done this to you, and maybe even save your life.

“Y/n- talk to me dammit!” Seconds later, you felt his hands stop roaming and his fingers tilted your face to his. You knew he was speaking but you couldn’t register his words, they weaved in and out of focus.

“I love you, I love you so much, so much y/n,” you heard him say loudly. “Please don’t go, please...”

Suddenly everything stopped. The world stopped spinning, your ears stopped ringing, you stopped hacking up blood and petals.

You could finally breathe again.

Jason’s eyes were wide and he was staring at you in disbelief. Out of nowhere his arms were wrapped tightly around you.

“Y/n..” he croaked, his voice hoarse. “I thought..” You looked up at him, and your eyes widened as your jaw dropped. Tears were streaming down his face.

“Jason.. I’m so sorry,” you said and leaned into his touch. Your brow furrowed as you went over the events of the past few minutes. How in the hell..?

“Jay?”

“Hm?” His eyes opened to look at you, though you don’t know when he closed them. His breathing had thankfully evened out.

“What.. what did you say? I wasn’t- I’m not sure if I heard you correctly.” You searched his face for signs of something, anything. He took you by surprise by cupping your cheek and pulling you closer, so that you could feel his breath on your lips.

“I love you, y/n.” Then he leaned forward and pulled you into a slow, lingering kiss. You pulled back with tears in your eyes, and rested your forehead against his with a goofy smile on your face. You finally had the man that you had loved for so very long.

“I love you too, Jason.” With that, you pulled him back into a kiss.

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ask-the-phan-site · 3 years

Text

Phan Cam: The Unexpected Heist

>The Hub. After taking the heart of Sheriff Johnson and Oracle and Violet starting college, we finally have time to keep our promise to the Scorchers and Battle Force 5 to help them reopen the portal of Highway 35 and bring back the World Race.

>We were all gathered together waiting for Oracle’s fellow hackers to make contact.

Me and Sophia have made the necessary precautions just in case the Silencerz attempt to trace us if we are caught.

Good, Sage. We’ll need it.

I just hope the Silencerz don’t realize that the ones hacking them are the people they had to deal with in the past.

Don’t worry. Something tells me they never had to deal with a hacker like me before.

Really? What makes you any different?

Oracle: Ever heard of Medjed?

The hacktivist group? Yeah. Why do you ask?

Brace yourselves. I was the founder.

Scorchers and Battle Force 5: (in shock) WHAT!!!?

You’re Medjed? I can’t believe it. I actually followed their work. Though, I thought how Medjed was doing these days seemed a bit odd. Now I know why. Other hackers were impersonating you. But now, I’m meeting the real Medjed!

Oracle: I was the real Medjed. That was a long time ago. I’m Alibaba now. But Oracle is good, too.

RING! RING!

Oracle: Speaking of Alibaba...

Incoming call from three unknown callers.

Oracle: Patch them in.

>Three holographic screens pop open.

Oracle: Hey you guys, long time no see!

Hey, Alibaba! Still rockin’ the headphones! I like that!

Still loud as ever, Yu-ichi.

Somethings never change, huh, Six?

Six: Yeah, nice to see you again, too, Lunch.

So you’re Fu- I mean, Alibaba’s fellow hackers.

Lunch: Yeah, nice to meetcha. You can just call me Lunch.

Six: I’m called Six.

Yu-ichi: And I’m Yu-ichi.

Six: Which is not much of a hacker name since it’s your real first name.

Yu-ichi: But it’s clever. No one would ever suspect that my hacker name is my real name.

Oracle: Okay, guys, stay with me.

Yu-ichi: Sorry. Hey, are the others coming, too? Spooky? Hitomi? And... what’s-his-name? (Gee, it’s been a long time, so I forgot his name.)

Lunch: They’ve been through enough already. Best to leave them out of this. So, why did you bring us back together?

Oracle: Nothing much. Just hacking into a secret organization’s databanks.

Yu-ichi: (laughing a bit) That’s all? That’s like the easiest thing there is. Give us a bigger challenge.

Six: (a little anxious) Get serious. We don’t even know anything about this secret organization.

Oracle: I’ll tell you about it.

RING! RING!

Oracle: Soon. Right now, our next hackers are calling in.

>Another screen opens.

Are we fashionably late?

I think that’s suppose to be my line.

Oracle: Nope. You four are right one time.

Alright! Let’s get this party started!

Hold on, comrade. I get there feeling there are more guests coming.

Indeed there are.

RING! RING!

Queen: That should be him.

>Another screen appears.

Here I am. Did I miss anything?

Queen: No, Forge san, you made it right on time.

Hold on! You’re Forge of the X-Men. Peter told me about you.

For real? Harry, Makoto, and Captain America told me about him, too.

Joker: And Adi told me.

Mixer: (in awe) Holy- It’s really Forge! Dude, I’m one of your biggest fans.

Joule: Come sono io.

Forge: Thanks. It good to meet a fan and a colleague. Un piacere di conoscerti. Y tú también.

Makoto, how do you know Forge?

Queen: Do you remember that Inhuman student from the school festival? The one who said her friend is a mutant? I looked into those students. The mutant student was visited by Dr. Hank McCoy. Forge san just happened to have come with him.

Forge: We wanted to talk to her before she and her friends left for Attilan. We wanted to make sure that she’ll be ready to go up us or her parents worrying about her getting M-Pox if she’s exposed to the Terrigen Mist. We also wanted to let her know that she’ll always have place with the X-Men.

Joker: That’s good to hear.

I thought you left the X-Men so you could do your own thing.

Forge: I still help them from time to time. Mostly with mutants who’ve just come into their powers.

Queen: I know what you mean. I had to go through Scott Summers and almost the rest of the X-Men to contact you.

Forge: And I still can’t believe you decided to ask me and had to go through all that just to do it.

It was either you or the other Forge. The one who still maintains his youthful appearance from being stuck in another dimension for many years.

Forge: Yes, I know who you’re talking about. I’ve met my Fellow Forge many times. A little rambunctious, but he’s a good person. I even asked him with help on some projects. Including this one I’ve been working on.

>Forge hold some kind of metallic helmet along with his phone which had an app open with the lets “c” and “p”.

Forge: I call it Cerebro Portable. Me and my Fellow Forge created it to help telepaths find mutants within a hundred mile radius. Especially ones who just got into their powers. But it’s not finished yet.

Yu-ichi: Really? How so?

Forge: We tried to design it based on the original concept for the original Cerebro. There’s just one problem.

Sophie: And what’s that?

Forge: There are only two people I know who know more about Cerebro than any and that would be the original creators. Professor Charles Xavier, but he won’t awaken from his coma for eight more years. The other is... Erik Lehnsherr.

Magneto.

Forge: That’s right. And I’m not about to go all the way to Genosha just to ask him to help me create something that he, himself, could use to find mutant to recruit into the Brotherhood or his mutant army. So it may be a while. Hopefully Professor Xavier will be awake by then. But for now, I’ll just settle with getting help from my Fellow Forges.

RING! RING!

Forge: Speaking of which.

>Another screen opens.

Sorry for the wait. Just finishing up with Kurt and the others.

Forge san! It’s been too long.

Queen: Yes, it has.

Forge: I didn’t want to leave him out of it, so I invited him to help out, too.

Other Forge: I’m willing to do what I can.

Joule: I think we’re going to have some confusion here.

Six: Yeah, how do we address one of you?

Other Forge: Well, my Fellow Forge came here first, so I guess we can call him Forge 1. I’ll be fine with being called Forge 2.

Yeti: If that works, we’ll take it.

How did you two meet Forge 2?

Queen: (unsure) Well...

Noir: (smiling) I can tell you. It all started...

>Flashback.

>The streets of Shibuya in the summer before the pandemic. A fast car was driving up wildly. Queen and Noir were coming back from grocery shopping... and Noir was behind the wheel.

Haru, please be careful! These eggs are for a special meal Sis is making tonight.

It’ll be alright. I think I’ve had a lot of improvement.

>The car was zooming around while people try to back off. Suddenly, someone accidentally fell into the street.

LOOK OUT!!!

>The car was about to hit the young man on the street... But it didn’t. The car suddenly was floating in the air. Queen and Noir looked to see that the young man they nearly hit had some kind of device that was creating some kind of gravity field.

Wow! Good thing I came here to show my new anti-gravity generator for situations like this. Hope you girls have your reentry cushions checked.

>End of flashback.

Mona: (unsurprised) That makes sense.

Noir: We exchanged information and we’ve known each other since.

Forge 2: And your eggs were even safe.

Forge 1: And how did that anti-gravity generator work out?

Forge 2: They said they’ll thank about it.

Translation: You were rejected.

Forge 2: Yeah, I figured.

Noir: Why would they? It’s a great invention. It really helped us.

Forge 2: Good question. Either because their minds are too slow or small to handle how advanced my inventions are, or... Well, you know.

Vert: Because you’re a mutant. Now that’s just unfair.

Forge 2: Sounds like you know the feeling.

Vert: (a small smile) Let’s just say, I have secrets of my own.

>For a moment, a small light formed in Vert’s hand which quickly vanished just as I saw something move on his back behind his uniform... I wonder.

RING! RING!

Oracle: Sounds like another fellow hacker’s here.

>Another screen opens.

I’m here and ready for anything.

Joker: Glad you can join us, Player.

Wayne: Yeah, how are things back up there, eh? I haven’t been back in awhile.

Player: Well, things are still quiet because of the pandemic. Other than that, everything’s great.

Joker: And speaking of of how things are, how’s Red chan doing?

WARNING: Spoilers for Carmen Sandiego ahead.

Yeah, ever since V.I.L.E. went down in flames and Zack and Ivy joined A.C.M.E., she’s been pretty quite.

Player: She’s fine. She finally found her mom, but she hasn’t said anything else. But I’m sure we’ll learn more soon. For now, I’ll see what I can do. Thanks again for inviting me.

Oracle: We’re gonna need all the hackers we can get.

Yu-ichi: I know. Hackers are getting younger and younger these days.

Six: (whisper) And yet you ack like you’re getting younger and younger... Don’t change, man.

Player: (smiling) Hey, the Spookies. Nice to meet you. You’re actually one of the reasons I was inspired to become a hacker.

Lunch: Really. That’s good. Of course, our reason for hacking is probably much different than ours.

Player: Pretty much.

Wolf: (a bit surprised) Hold on! Spookies? I thought you three were familiar. I should have realized that when you said Spooky, real name Masahiro Sakura.

Queen: Now that you mentioned it, I think I remember my father talk about a case from another part of Japan. I didn’t think much of it at the time and completely forgot about it.

Yu-ichi: So you know about that? I wonder what he’s doing now. He disbanded our group after some stuff happened and he left to find himself.

Lunch: I’m sure we’ll see him again soon.

Six: Same here. I sort of miss him and the others.

RING! RING!

Sophie: We have another one.

>Another screen opens.

I just finished my start-of-term homework, now I’m all free.

Joker: So glad you could join us, Adi. I just hope the Future Avengers won’t be called away anytime soon.

Adi: No, things have been relatively slow lately, so I think we’re good. But just in case, Mr. Stark and Cap want us on stand by.

Skull: I’m sure it’s nothing you, Makoto, and the others can’t handle.

Adi: I’m sure, too.

Joker: Thanks for helping us, little-brother-may-become-son.

Adi: You’re welcome, big-brother-may-become-father.

>I can sense I made Adi happy inviting him here.

Rank Up!

Confidant: Codec

Arcana: 3

Ability: Technical Act Type 2

Delivers the same effect as Technical Act but to a much greater extent.

RING! RING!

>Another screen opens.

All set and ready to go!

*Chirp*

Oracle: Welcome to the party, Conor. You, too, Chim-Chim.

Mixer: Is that a robot monkey?

Conor: Yeah, I’m allergic to most furs, so I designed him.

Forge 2: Whoa! Robotic technology sure has changed since 1978.

Conor: What do you mean by that?

Forge 1: It’s a long story.

There are so many hackers here.

Joker: I know, it reminds me of that movie Oracle showed us.

Oracle: Yeah, Angelina san was a treasure in Hackers Jackers.

Yeah. So, is that everyone?

Forge 2: Not quite. I have a feeling... that we have a couple more to go.

RING! RING!

Mona: You bet.

>Another screen opens.

Have you guys been waiting long?

Oracle: Just a little.

Thanks for inviting us. We’ve hadn’t had much to do since what happened on Eternia. I guess now that most of the evil of the universe, particularly Lotor, has been defeated, business for the Voltron Force has been a bit slow.

Really? That’s a shame. I’m sure something will come up soon.

Pidge: Well, it’s not totally slow. We do get the occasional bully or mad conqueror. Though, it’s not really the same.

Forge 2: Don’t give up. You guys will see real action again someday.

Pidge: Thanks, Forge-Of-My-Dreams. But for now, the only real action we’ve seen is in our dreams. Like how I dream that I’m some kid with heel problem fighting monsters from Greek Mythology or a pirate kid with a very pirate family or some kid with magical slugs.

Joker: That’s all?

Pidge: Pretty much. But I haven’t been having more actiony dreams. There were two others, but they’re gone for some reason. Though, one of them I’m glad is gone. But the other one I really miss.

Forge 2: Yeah, I think I know. But, you still have me... and our last hacker.

Vert: (confused) Our last hacker?

Queen: Vince isn’t the last hacker we’re expecting?

Vince: No, but Pidge says he knows about him.

Then he knows that he’s just as smart as I am.

RING! RING!

That should be him now.

>Another screen opens.

Sherman: About time. We were afraid you weren’t coming at all.

Yeah, I kinda forgot until I took a siesta and these two reminded me. (he nods to Forge 2 and Pidge)

Pidge: You’re welcome.

Vert: (a bit suspicious) You seem familiar... You wouldn’t happen to know a teen alien who sounds like I used to when I was his age and is accompanied by a little alien robot that sound like you, would you?

Hi-Tech Young Man: (smiling) Maybe.

Spinner: Everyone, this is our cousin, Roberto Martinez. We call him Berto for short.

Berto: Hola, nice to meet you.

Six: Great, now we’ve got three headphones.

Hey, respect the headphones, man!

Mixer: Yeah, dude, don’t start dissin’ the phones.

Yu-ichi: Besides, you’re the one whose only mode of transportation is a skateboard... BTW, you still use for that?

Six: (blushing a bit) ... Maybe... Okay, so I’m still a long ways from getting that fancy sports car I’ve wanted. Business at our family’s store is rather slow these days. Even more since the pandemic hit. But I’m not giving up.

Berto: Hey, no shame in still skateboarding at your age. Look at me. I’m close to your age and I still do it.

Six: Easy for you to say, you look like you have a car. Most likely a high tech one at that.

Berto: Ture, I have a couple, but nothing beats a deck. Plus, it’s good for the environment.

Six: I guess that’s good to hear.

Wolf: So, is that everybody here, or are we expecting more?

Skull: Let me check. Yo, is anybody expectin’ anybody!?

Panther: Well, I did thought about asking Tecna for help, but I don’t want to get her or the Winx in trouble with the Silencerz, so she’s out. But I’ll call her if anything happens.

Skull: Then yup, that’s everyone!

Vert: Now that our team’s been assembled, let’s get on it. Now, I bet most of you are wondering why you’re here. Well, for that... I turn things over to my dad. Take it away, pops.

Thanks, Vert. You’re here because we might have a way to bring back one of the greatest inter-dimensional races ever. However, the secrets to that are locked away in the Silencerz’ mainframe. Your mission, should you choose to accept it (I’ve always wanted to say that), is to hack into their mainframe. In the mainframe, you must find a file containing the research data of the late Dr. Peter Tezla. But be warned, the Silencerz will try every hacker defense trick in the book: Firewalls, anti-virus software, encrypted passwords, security algorithms, even their own viruses and malware. If you do managed to get in and find the file, you have exactly 15 minutes to copy it before the failsafe kicks in.

Adi: Failsafe?

Jack: 15 minutes after the file’s been hacked, said file will delete itself permanently to prevent further hacking.

Forge 1: But if the Silencerz try everything to stop us, it’s going to be hard to get past all that. I think this is going to be much different than hacking into MRD tech.

Sophie: Luckily, that’s where I come in.

>The hackers on the screens (except for Adi, Player, Conor, and Chim-Chim) where confused until Sophie vanishes and reappears on the main screen.

Vince: (surprised) Holy!!!

Pidge: (smiling) I had a feeling that was no ordinary girl.

Yu-ichi: Amazing. An AI with it’s own ego... I wonder if I should tell my cousin Tokita about this.

Sophie: I am Sophia, humanity’s companion. I am going to help you all with whatever I can. That includes hacking into the Silencerz’ mainframe.

Mixer: You know, we have an AI of our own.

Sophie: You do?

??-??: A! I! S! H! A! We! Are! AISHA! ... Sorry, I couldn’t help it.

Sophie: So you must be M.A.Y.H.E.M.’s AI.

Call me In-Su.

Oracle: Didn’t I see you as part of an opening act for August Gaunt?

In-Su: With my sisters, yes. But that was a long time ago. I’m with M.A.Y.H.E.M. now. I mainly help Friday, Mixer, Gremlin, Joulie, and Safeword with cybernetic things, but I have done on-the-field missions... If the field is in Cyberspace.

Sophie: That’s good to hear. Nice to meet you. I guess we will be working together. I look forward to our mission together.

In-Su: I so will I, sachon*.

*”Sachon” is Korean for “cousin”.

Conor: Hey, if you’re gonna do something like this, me and Chim-Chim want to go into the virtual world.

Chim-Chim: *chirp chirp*

Lunch: You can do that?

>Conor shows he has some VR equipment.

Lunch: I guess that works.

>Conor connects the VR headset to his computer and Chim-Chim connects to it as well. Within moments, they were jacked in and something appears on the main screen with Sophie and In-Su.

Conor: Alright, all buffed up and ready for action! (begins singing) Here they come. Here comes Conor and his monkey, Chim-Chim.

>We all just stare... Which of us will be the first to ask?

Six: Oh, god. And why do they both of mustaches?

Vince: I’m guessing to match.

Yu-ichi: (smiling) I kinda like it. It’s actually quite clever.

Conor: (satisfied) Ha, I knew it! Take that, Lucy.

Pidge: Go with what works for you.

Jack: True. But remember what I said, the Silencerz will do whatever it takes to protect its secrets. I should know, I used to be the leader.

Vert: I wonder who took after you when you left.

Jack: (looking a bit down) Vert... I think you have pretty good idea.

Vert: I... I see. Well, we’ll still be able pull this off we work together.

We will. We can do this.

Vert: Thanks, Ren.

Jack: Again, I have to warn you, the Silencerz don’t play around. This is your last chance to back out. If you do, I won’t blame you.

>The other hackers were showing some doubt. No doubt they were thinking about what Jack said... However, their doubt quickly fades.

Player: Our friends wouldn’t have called us here if they didn’t we could handle the risk. We trust them.

Safeword: He’s right. They even helped M.A.Y.H.E.M. with a little something. Time to repay the favor.

Conor: Same with me, Chim-Chim, and our friends.

Vince: And us, too.

Lunch: I know this is the first time we’re meeting Alibaba’s friends, but we will help them.

Adi: Me and the other Future Avengers trust Ren, Yusuke, and the others.

Forge 1: We also just met, but we trust you.

Forge 2: Yeah.

Berto: (curious) Espeda, M.A.Y.H.E.M.? Racer Academy? And Arus? Aren’t those the places the Phantom Thieves... You know what? Never mind. I don’t wanna know.

Taro: (smiling a bit) Good. I don’t think you could keep your mouth shut.

Six: Look, what we’re trying to say is that we’re in. We’ll help you.

Jack: (with a look of gratitude) Thank you all.

Taro: Good luck, you guys. The fate of the World Race and Highway 35 is in your hands.

No pressure or anything.

Six: Believe me, we’ve seen through demons in a cybernetic world.

Safeword: Fight an evil organization everyday.

Player: What Safeword said.

Adi: Ditto, with a side of other villains.

Conor: I think we can handle it.

Vert: (smiling) Then let’s get to it!

Oracle: I’ve already got a lock on the mainframe. Ready when you are.

Conor: Ready as we’ll ever be.

>With that, Chim-Chim transforms into a motorcycle and Conor gets on.

In-Su: How are we suppose to keep up with that?

Oracle: Leave that to me.

>Oracle programs something into her laptop and something appears on the main screen.

What in the world!?

Oracle: I hope you don’t mind. I just thought we’d go with something more appropriate. This Johanna pretty much has all the things the original has for extra protection. Sophia, you’re driving. In-Su, I’m adding a side car for you.

>Oracle types something on her computer and a side car appears on Cyber Johanna. Sophie switches to her Phantom Thief attire.

Are you ready, In-Su chan?

In-Su: (now wearing a purple helmet with M.A.Y.H.E.M.’s fleur-de-lis which was blue on it) Ready.

Conor: Then let’s get going!

>With that, Sophie and In-Su get on Cyber Johanna and they, along with Conor and Chim-Chim, ride off.

>A little later, we were at the mainframe of the Silencerz. It was shaped like a giant tower with the Silencerz’ logo on it.

Sophie: This must be it.

Yu-ichi: You can already tell that they’re hiding something here.

Forge 2: And we’ll find out those secrets soon enough. Time to get to work.

Lunch: Let’s see what we’ve got here.

>Lunch begins hacking into the first line of protection.

>Meanwhile in the Silencerz’ Headquarters in an unknown location, an alarm goes off in the computer room.

We have a problem. Call #1.

>Almost immediately, another Silencer comes in.

What is it, #2? What happened?

Silencer #2: Someone is trying to hack into our mainframe.

Silencer #1: So what else is new? Have you got a lock on where the source of the hacking is from?

Silencer #37: (don’t ask, we’re using their numbers) Not yet. We are still trying to find it. But we have got a lock on the hacker’s virus.

Silencer #5: I do not know what to make of this.

Silencer #1: A virus based on a ghost? Then I suggest you try busting it.

>Some of the Silencerz began typing something.

>Back in Cyberspace, the Spookies’ virus was phasing open a way when something appears near them. They looked like four men in jumpsuits curing some kind of large device on their backs that had guns attached to them.

In-Su: (confused) Are those... the Ghostbusters?

Jack: I told you, every trick in the book.

>The Cyber Ghostbusters begin firing at the Sppokies’ virus ghosts.

Conor: Time to go to work, Chim-Chim!

Chim-Chim: *chirp*

>Conor and Chim-Chim begin fighting off the Cyber Ghostbusters. In-Su and Sophie join in as well. In-Su’s dance moves already makes her a capable fighter and Sophie was swinging her yo-yos. After a while, Sophie, In-Su, Conor, and Chim-Chim manages to beat the Cyber Ghostbusters, but they had completely destroyed the Spookies’ virus.

Safeword: Our turn now!

>Safeword, Joule, Mixer, and Yeti, begin typing.

>At Silencerz HQ...

Silencer #20: This does not look right. What do we do?

Silencer #12: Try typing “cookie”, you idiot.

Silencer #1: Hey, be nice. And I do not think that would work. I have seen this movie before. Try regular anti-virus software.

Silencer #20: Yes, sir.

>Back in Cyberspace, the first few defenses have been broken though. Suddenly, a bright light flashes and the virus is deleted.

Forge 1: (smiling) You ready for this?

Forge 2: (also smiling) You know it!

>Forge 1 and Forge 2 upload their viruses.

Forge 2: Scott, this is for you, man.

>The two viruses begin attack the Sliencerz’ other defenses. Vert was looking at Forge 2′s virus.

Joker: Is something wrong, Vert?

Vert: Something about Forge 2′s virus that reminds me of someone... But I’ll think more about it later.

>Back at Silencerz HQ...

Silencer #3: Now we have viruses based on mutants?

Silencer #2: Be nice. One of my relatives was a mutant.

Silencer #1: Either way, we cannot let them through.

Silencer #3: I know.

>Silencer #3 begins programming something.

>Back in Cyberspace, Forge 1′s virus and Forge 2′s virus managed to break through more lines of defenses.

In-Su: It looks like we’re making progress.

Conor: Keep it up, you guys!

>Suddenly, something appears... Something big.

Forge 1: That can’t be good.

Sophie: I can help them with this. Time to show you my own power. Persona!

Pidge: (surprised smile) Whoa! I didn’t think she had one, too.

Vince: But there are robots who do.

Six: I think I read something about that... And dreamed about it.

Berto: Like I said, I don’t wanna know.

>Sophie and Pandora fight the Anti-Virus Sentinels along with the Forges’ viruses.

Player: With them busy, looks like I’m going up to the plate.

>With that, Player begins typing something and a new virus comes up. It looked like Carmen Sandiego, but a little blue.

Player: I hope Red doesn’t get too upset for changing her colors.

>Player’s virus begins using an enlarged version of her laser cuter to cut through the defenses.

>Back at Silencerz HQ.

Silencer #7: They are still coming!

Silencer #1: This is getting out of hand. Have you found the source of the attack yet?

Silencer #37: It is hard to tell. They are coming from multiple sources.

Silencer #1: See if you can find the closest source. We will start there.

Silencer #37: Yes, sir.

Silencer #40: I will deal with the current virus.

>Back in Cyberspace, Player’s virus has cut through more of the mainframe’s defenses and the Anti-Virus Sentinels have been deleted.

Oracle: There’s only a few left. Keep going, we’re almost there!

Adi: I think I have something that’ll move us faster.

>Then, a virus that looks like a queen bee appears with a swarm.

Adi: I got the idea from some children’s show. I’ll tell you more about it later.

>The bee viruses begin helping Player’s virus cut get through more of the defenses along with the Forges’ viruses. Suddenly, something flies up.

Adi: These guys don’t quit, do they?

>The virus swarm fights off against the security algorithms with Sophie, Pandora, and the Forges’ viruses while Conor and Chim-Chim break through the last of the walls.

Conor: Just a little more...

>Finally, the last of the security walls were gone. But no sooner they were, a blast of flames came and nearly blew Conor and Chim-Chim away!

Conor: GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!

In-Su: You mean great walls of fire. It’s a firewall. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.

Pidge: Hold on, I have something that could help you.

>Suddenly, some big gun that resembles a lion appears in In-Su’s hands.

Vince: This wind blaster will help blow out the flames. But don’t use it now. Wait until you’re on the other side of the wall to use it, or you might blow the flames at the files and destroy them.

In-Su: Right. Here I go.

>With that, In-Su dances her way through the flames until she finally got to the other side.

In-Su: Stand back!

>Then, with a large blast of wind, the firewall was out. Conor and Chim-Chim go in.

In-Su: Okay, we’re in.

Jack: Well done, kids! Now, the file you’re looking for is labeled “200335″.

Oracle: We’re searching now.

>Outside the mainframe, the security algorithms were still coming.

Sophie: This looks bad, we’re running out of room. If only we had at least one more to help us.

Berto: Leave that to me! I’ve got the perfect thing!

>Berto then uploads his own virus.

>Berto’s virus assists Sophie, Pandora, and the Forges’ viruses as In-Su, Conor, Chim-Chim, and the other hackers search for the file.

>At Silcencerz HQ.

Silencer #20: Damn! They are in the mainframe.

Silencer #1: You still have not found them?

Silencer #3: We might be able trace them if they find they file they are looking for.

Silencer #1: Then do it.

>With that, the Silencerz begin their work.

>Back in Cyberspace, the Silcencerz’ security algorithms were finally defeated.

Sophie: We did it! Thank you all.

>The viruses gestured a “You’re welcome” to Sophie and disappear back to where they came from.

Vince: That virus of your, Forge 2, it makes me wonder.

Forge 2: Wonder what?

Vince: If... If I should have asked my dream brother from New Olympia to help us, too... Oh well, I’ll ask him next time.

Vince: You’ll have to get through his Big Buddy, Hunk’s dream brother. And I don’t think my own DB would be too happy. Especially after everything that’s happened in recent months. But I’m sure I can talk him into it.

Panther: Dream brother?

Queen: You mean...

My gift of connecting people’s minds and hearts with my singing strikes again.

Conor: Hey, I think we found it!

>Conor, Chim-Chim, In-Su, and Sophie who joined them, found a file that looked like a file cabinet. One of the drawers was labeled 200335.

Jack: That’s it!

Sophie: We found the file. Let’s copy it.

>Sophie opens the drawer show many files. No sooner did she open it, it starts flashing and making a siren sound.

Spinner: (covering his ears) Yikes, that loud!

Jack: That’s the alarm for the failsafe. You now have 15 minutes to copy the file before it deletes itself permanently.

Oracle: Leave it to me. I’ll just use the same program I created to copy Makoto’s Sis’s computer.

Queen: Let’s hope it works on the Silencerz’ mainframe than it does Sis’s.

>Oracle enters the program and it begins to copy the file.

>At Silencerz HQ, the computer room was now flashing and alarms were ringing.

Silencer #3: They are copying the file! Now, if I could just... Got it! I got a lock. The source of the copying is coming from... some town nearby.

Silencer #1: You mean... Handler’s Corners.

>Silencer #1 begins to leave.

Silencer #9: Sir, where are you going?

Silencer #1: (turning back) To visit an old amigo.

>With that, Silencer #1 leaves. Suddenly, the alarm gets louder.

Silencer #20: What is happening!?

Silencer #3: This looks bad. Someone else is in the mainframe. They are also copying the file.

>Back in Cyberspace.

Oracle: This doesn’t look good. There’s someone else here. Someone’s also copying this file.

>Sure enough, something comes out of the file cabinet. It was a little blue bad... wearing a pair of glasses and had the most ugliest comb-over ever.

It’s Strega! What the hell do they want?

Vert: Who?

Taro: Some cult.

Oracle: If they’re also copying the file, then us copying it will be difficult.

Lunch: So, we may not be able copy the whole file?

Yu-ichi: Well that sucks.

Player: I’m sure I think I might help with that. I mean, I can’t stop Strega from also copying the file, but I think I have an idea what may happen and how to solve the problem.

Oracle: I hope so.

Jack: Hurry, only 9 minutes left.

>Oracle’s program tries its best to copy the file which is difficult as the program from Strega (most likely made by Jin) is also copying the file.

Jack: Only 6 minutes.

Oracle: We’re almost done.

>Before we knew it, only 4 minutes left. Please copy it.

>3 minutes. Not much time left and the copying is still going.

>2 minutes. There’s still more.

>1 minute. Almost there.

>59 seconds... Come on. Come on! COME ON!

>10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

FILE DELETED. CONNECTION TERMINATED.

>The main screen goes to static. Then, Sophie is re-projected back with us, In-Su returns to M.A.Y.H.E.M.’s computer, and Conor and Chim-Chim are back in their real world forms.

Panther: Conor, Chim-Chim, are you two alright?

Conor: (a little dizzy) We’re fine. We’re used to this sort of thing.

In-Su: I’m fine, too. My source code is a little frizzy, but that can be helped with a quick fix.

Joule: You’ve earned it, In-Su. Enjoy your nap.

>With that, In-Su shots off for now.

Vert: So, did we succeed in copying the file?

Oracle: Let me check.

>Oracle checks the copied file.

Well, I’ve got some bad news, good news, and some stressful news.

Agura: I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be easy.

Oracle: Bad news: We weren’t able to copy all of the research data. Good news: We did manage to copy most of it. Stressful news: Most of it is encrypted. Until we can decipher the code, you guys are going to have to wait a little longer.

Taro: I figured as much.

Berto: But with all of us, we should be able to crack the code.

Mixer: Afraid you’ll have to count us out. We didn’t tell Persephone that we did this and she’s got a strict policy about messing with organizations other than L.E.G.I.O.N. without her permission.

Yeti: (looking down) ...

Mixer: (panicking) YETI, YOU TOLD HER!? SHE’S GONNA PUT ME ON COFFEE DUTY AGAIN!

Safeword: I see. If that’s the case... I’ll take a double shot expresso.

Joulie: I’ll take a mocha.

Mixer: (shocked) Seriously?

>With that, we bid our M.A.Y.H.E.M. friend fair well for now and they leave.

Conor: Chim-Chim and I have to bow out, too. Speed will be back any minute and I don’t want him to know what we did. I wanna keep it a surprise.

Pidge: Me and Vince have to go, too. I have a few castle defenses to upgrade.

Vince: And I’m on standby. I know business is slow, but Keith says peace time is the best time to prepare for anything.

Joker: Right, see you all later.

>With that, Conor, Chim-Chim, Pidge, and Vince sign off.

Adi: The rest of us will stay and help you decipher the code.

Player: With Red on break, I’ve got time.

Oracle: Thanks, you guys.

Berto: Guess I better let Max, Steel, and Ferrus know I’m gonna be busy for awhile.

Sherman: We’ll back you up.

Berto: Gracias.

Spinner: That’s what primos are for.

>With that, Oracle and our hacker friends begin their work to unlock Dr. Tezla’s research to reopen the portal to Highway 35 and bring back the World Race.

Oracle: But I am curious about one thing: What does Strega want with Tezla’s research?

>Meanwhile in an unknown location...

Crap! Of course the Phantom Thieves would be after this file.

Yeah. Talk about rotten luck.

Uh-huh.

Maybe you should have some kind of alert for them.

Jin: I’ll think about that. Right now, thanks to their hacking into the Silencerz’ mainframe for that file, I only copied most of it, but not all of it. Not to mention it’s encrypted.

I wouldn’t say that. I’d say that you copied plenty. And I’m sure with our new allies’ help, we might be able to unlock all of Dr. Tezla’s secrets.

Jin: Why are we even doing this, anyway? Since when are we interested in a long forgotten and completely no longer popular race?

Takaya: You would be surprised by what one can learn from things like this. After all, there are many ways to achieve your goals. Am I correct?

>Someone comes out of the shadows... in a dance-like manner.

That’s right, ghosty boy. I bet even M.A.Y.H.E.M. couldn’t think of something like this.

Jin: (a bit confused) Even though they were just in the mainframe as well.

Gaunt: A minor mishap. Something we’ll fix soon.

Myles: With a voice like that, it’s hard to say he’s wrong.

Evan: Uh-huh.

Gaunt: (with a small bow) Thank you.

Jin: So, can L.E.G.I.O.N. help with deciphering the code?

Gaunt: Maybe. Even we can’t work miracles that quickly. Just look at me. At first, I was only partially restored. I didn’t even have my-

Jin: (quickly with a frown) Okay, okay, we get the picture!

Takaya: Soon, we’ll gain what we’re after... Soon...

>What will happen next?

NOTE: We apologize if this post is a little long. We thought this would be the end of this heist, but like we said, this post was a little long. The last post for this heist will come soon.

#phantom thieves cam

2 notes · View notes

baobaojng · 4 years

Text

what the water gave me - two

what the water gave me - one, two, three

kim junmyeon (suho) x reader - god!au , paranormal-ish!a

themes: angst, fluff, smut (in the future)

warnings: fic might be a bit graphic, mentions of some characters aren’t historically accurate.

summary: the group of gods had something coming for them, and they did not know what— because of this, you were forced to go back to an old part of yourself you’d sworn to hide away. but of course, everything else would be made complicated when you’d meet the god of water.

wordcount: 4,521

“It’s still a little bit ridiculous that you tried to remove yourself from your old life and end up a physics professor.” Baekhyun chuckled in his seat, earning an eye roll from you.

“Watch it, asshole. I had no choice, I didn’t want to learn different skills so maybe I stuck to something I really knew.” You defended, in your seat - trying to get comfortable in the leather cushion that seemed to rub at the bare skin your skirt could not cover. Junmyeon chuckled softly under his breath, he sat next to you.

“So how did you get the misfortune of meeting Baekhyun?” Sehun wondered aloud from where he sat at their dinner table, a snigger followed from Jongin upon hearing the question. Baek was about to raise up fists but became a good sport and decided upon not hurting the much younger god.

“Project X three years ago.” You answered, then everyone else gave each other understanding nods. It was enough information for them; it was a sensitive topic to hover over.

After the great war hundreds of years ago, their lives were filled with peace. Only minor demons crawling back to bother them, but since they were not much of a threat - they had the freedom to do whatever they wanted. Periods in their lives where they tried their best to blend into normal mundane lives.

Junmyeon very much remembers these times. Yixing enjoyed the remnants of the wars, the desperation for healing had been at its all time high - and nobody could never have found a better war doctor than he. Jongin basked in all the balls he attended, the men and women lined up to watch his quick movements (had they known what he was, they would know he was using just a little bit of his power to make each dance perfect.) Kyungsoo and Minseok took rounds making underground gambling sites, their contrasting demeanors made good business. Jongdae was a popular opera singer at one point, but wore a mask in each performance to mask his identity. Sehun and Chanyeol made business transactions with mobsters, finding humor in fighting and using their powers to just do something. Baekhyun chose an odd path, taking calls from a secret government service that knew they existed, disappearing here and there when there would be an emergency.

Junmyeon on the other hand, kept out of most of the illegal things - still involved in council meetings with anyone who knew of the order of the world. He won the war by ‘checks and balances,’ and maintained that everything be ruled by ‘checks and balances.’ He let the other boys have their fun, trying to keep them in check when there were any significant threats. Junmyeon managed to keep his guard up for years and years and years, having one long term relationship that he broke off for his own good - too scared of how things were becoming serious and he was sure he did not love his lover. He managed to live these years in close (but not really) reclusion, feeling as though he carried the burden of everyone else but it was okay because they had their share of happiness.

Project X was a different conversation, from what Junmyeon knew, this was the last mission that Baekhyun ever accepted from the services. It was the only time that Baek was gone for that long: an entire year without a word to the other boys. For the first time after he came back home, he was a complete shell of himself; he refused to speak or laugh- which alarmed everybody. But no one had known why, for it was not a story for him to tell.

The gods were not dense enough to ask about Project X when you mentioned it, deciding that if Baekhyun - out of all the loudmouths they knew - did not speak a word of it, it was probably too sensitive to ask about.

“About what you saw,” Kyungsoo dialed in first as he took a sip of cold water, “is there really no way in knowing what it specifically was?” He asked you.

“If the spirit were a bit more... How do I say this? Formed? Then I would give a concrete answer, but when it murdered all life there - it did so on its last whim, out of desperation to find a way to grow.” It was the best explanation you could provide them at the moment.

“So this was spirit?” Jongdae clarified.

“Definitely, it did not have any physical form for me to say it was monster or human - but what I saw isn’t enough for me to say ghost, phantom, or demon.” Junmyeon wanted to choke on his water, not that it could kill him anyway. You swore something caught you off guard when Junmyeon reacted, but not in a way that he alarmed you - but for some reason you could feel how nervous he was.

“I wonder how we can know what this is.” Minseok said to pull out suggestions from anyone who had an idea, they were a step closer but here they were again trying to find out what this thing was.

“We’ve been living like humans for so long and now we aren’t sure how to think like gods to resolve the matter.” Junmyeon said, but no one else contested. It was true, the longer they stayed in a form the longer it felt natural for them to live in that way.

“Have you tried casting down spirits?” You asked, and Jongin nodded very aggressively.

“All too much, and none of them have a clue. They just speak too much to ask us for guidance and give no help.” Jongin replied.

“I’m sure rituals are out the door.” Another suggestion from you.

“Definitely.” It popped from Yixing.

“What about...” You extended your words with a hum, “the oracles? Have you reached out to them.” Chanyeol almost burst out laughing, but contained himself. All of the boys looked toward Junmyeon in quiet curiosity of his reaction, they knew if this suggestion came from them they’d get an earful, but since they’ve noticed how Junmyeon wanted to keep each hair on your head perfectly safe— there was no way in hell that their leader would speak to you negatively.

“It could be made possible.” None of you missed the huff in Junmyeon’s voice, he thought the idea was preposterous. “But I cannot guarantee that they will be open to helping us.”

—

“You know that I am a very capable driver. Right, Junmyeon?” You told him when you were getting into the passenger’s seat of your car.

“Yes, I do, but you’ve been awake for only a few moments after your accident and I’d rather you not do anything– uh— straining?” It was honestly a lame excuse for him to drive for you, but he genuinely did care about trying to protect you.

“Only the clairvoyance can strain me, and grading terrible papers from my students.” You tried to convince him despite him already putting the car in reverse.

“I’m just doing this because it’s part of my favor, okay?”

“Favor?”

“I want you to live with us for a while,” he tried not to act as if he actually really wanted you to stay with them - this was a matter he had passed along to Yixing and Minseok to explain to everybody else, but regardless he knew they would have the logic to understand why you had to stay with them, “whatever you saw out there is something we aren’t all certain of, and it could come after you. I’m sure you won’t argue with me when I tell you that you are still unstable with whatever it is you posses, and I will not allow you to defend yourself with the high possibility of harm.” He kept his eyes on the road, trying to avoid your gaze. It would definitely feel like some sort of deep rooted rejection if you said no. “I know you did not want to take part in any of this in the first place, but whether you like it or not I can’t handle the idea of anyone getting harmed because of the problems we’re trying to solve. You’re already a part of this, and the moment your powers burst through we’re sure we aren’t the only ones who felt it.”

“You won’t take not for an answer, so I won’t say no. But I’ll refuse to be a nuisance in the situation. Junmyeon, let me help.” Never in the past two years did you imagine that you’d jump into something like this so quickly, but with this stranger you felt safe - in some twisted way you were ready to dive into cold water if it meant to prove that you had faith in him.

“Only if you let me protect you.” He answered, and you smiled.

Laying a hand to where his free one was, it was another burst of life to you. You could hear the crashes of the sea in your ears and they way the waves would feel against your skin as if you let your hand still on the very surface of the water.

He felt calm.

After about half an hour of driving, you arrived at your house. A suburban home placed in a quiet neighborhood about a few minutes away from the university you taught in— now that it had crossed your mind you had to finish the last three weeks into the semester and take an indefinite leave if Junmyeon allowed, right now there was no bounds in knowing the tricks of harm with time and place. You lived in the house for the best of two years, basking in the quiet and trying your best to constantly rearrange the place and rearrange it again. Although, the different layouts never did make it feel like home: more of a headspace where you can play Tetris with the furniture to keep your mind occupied.

You allowed Junmyeon in, who was quite impressed with the way things were placed. There was no trace of dust, all things kept in precise areas.

“Do you call someone in to constantly fix this place?” He hesitantly placed his shoes by the small shoe rack by the door, keeping himself on his toes in fear of destroying anything.

You laughed at the assumption; were you that bad of a clean freak? “No, I don’t. I simply don’t trust anyone to do that job for me.” A shrug left your shoulders.

“So you mean to say you have all the time in the world to arrange all this?” He tried to crack a joke, his smile forming up wrinkles on his face. How charming, never did you imagine that one of the strongest gods would have crescents for eyes. It took a lot of willpower from holding yourself back from pinching at his puffed cheeks.

“You begin to forget that I can move things without touching them, Junmyeon.” You smirked at him and he shook his head, impressed. He steps on your dark hardwood floors, keeping his focus to the ground where it is completely spotless.

There was a mild confusion somewhere in the air, you had to try and reason yourself out for how confusing this all might seemed. “Baekhyun’s suspicion earlier was true,” you breathed heavy among your words, “I tried to tell myself that I completely shunned my old life back into oblivion, but I decided to become a professor like I originally wanted to earlier in my life. And who would have guessed, a physics professor for an advanced course! Then when I come home to this place every single dragging day I always feel like I’m caged from doing something much better and making a bigger difference, you know?” You look at him, and he looks like a deer caught in headlights - trying to absorb more of you than he possibly can.

You laugh a little to yourself, “I move the furniture around whenever I feel frustrated, and I honestly still feel like this place is a mess even if I rearrange it almost every week.” You point at all the pieces scattered in your living room, but he still looks at you in discomfited fascination.

“You can’t run away from what you are, you know. It’s your natural course of things.” He broke his silence, the words coming off careful with every syllable he pronounced. “These are parts you could have hated, for whatever reason they might have been, but they are parts of you. It’s like a dog running away from it’s own tail, telling itself it isn’t a dog.”

“I’m not a mutt.” The refusal to engage in the sense of what he was saying showed, but you knew you couldn’t argue.

“I’m not saying you are. You’re a telekinetic clairvoyant, and that will be the truth you’ll face until time comes for you.”

“I suppose,” you look straight into him, “but if you had the choice and the power to take all this away from yourself, would you ever want to?” He did not expect you to turn tables on him, but this did not scare him.

“I wouldn’t, I’d never. I’m sure there have been moments where I hated all this responsibility and the conditions I have to follow, but if it meant not serving my purpose for the greater purpose of everything else— it’s enough for me to stay where I am. I couldn’t imagine the boys without me, and I would not want any of them to carry out the burdens I do for them. And this world, I want to see it through every beautiful sunset.”

“If they were taken away from you, would you still tell me these same words?” You whispered, and he looked at you.

“Then I would live for them, even if it would mean without them. I know they would have wanted me to.” He offers a staggering smile, knowing very well that it was easier said than done.

Now, he’d been sitting on your bed for a fair amount of two minutes, and it took you a full ten to convince him that it was okay and this was normal. Junmyeon thought that he should have been more cool about this, but he came off a little bit more awkward and a little bit more childlike. To this, you simply laughed - pulling at his heartstrings and pulling him closer to you, all this without you knowing you had an effect on him. All this without him knowing he had the same effect on you.

Suitcases and boxes had been flying out from the other side of the room, he only watched as they gracefully fell into arranged positions on the floor.

“How long am I there for?” There was a slight appearance from your eyes in the doorway that lead to your closet.

He shrugged. “Think of it as a vacation abroad and a snowstorm is coming.” It was a rough estimate.

“Huge snowstorm?” An array of scarves folded themselves in the air and into a small pile, falling into one of the suitcases. Junmyeon pretending he did not notice, but silently watched in awe.

“Huge.” He answered back, trying to memorize every detail there was to your room when his eyes wandered. It was medium-sized, only white painted the walls - warm lights adding the tinge of color. As you packed your things, you couldn’t help but feel your heart thump every now and then; each frequency to his laughter felt like a dangerous stab to the heart. Early on knowing him as it was, you knew you were drawn to him. A piece of trust contained in your heart, slowly drowning in each drop. You knew he felt it too, you’d go crazy if it hadn’t been true.

But there was danger in the situation, not just the obvious lead you all were trying to chase - but the reckless possibility of anything ever happening. If he had felt this same poisoning grip around his throat, would he be brave enough to do anything, and so would you? Even in your form, you felt you could never catch up to him— a god. The eventual fear crossing your mind and thumping on your head like a snare drum, sharp institutions of crossing boundaries. You were but a gifted human in a room with a god you knew you were shamelessly crushing on.

“That’s about it. I think I’m done.” You clapped both your hands together as you stepped out of your extended dresser, you caught him in his daydream - smiling back at you with sweet ease. That about sealed what you knew you felt about him.

—

When you arrived back at the mansion, all the boys were huddled around the windowsill - playfully scolding each other in quiet attempts of shouts. You witnessed Baekhyun slap Chanyeol’s hand, the taller one pouting out his lower lip like a child and yet Baekhyun acted as if he were more upset anyway. Junmyeon was the first to break the silence, leaving some of your suitcases by the door and making a beeline for everyone else; he knew something was happening. Following right behind him, the first thing you saw was Sehun cradling a baby bird on his two palms - way larger in comparison to the small creature.

And then it chirped, broken and rigid, you could see a tear fall from Sehun’s eyes but not of anger or sadness. One of happiness.

“Hyung!” He looked up at Junmyeon whose expression was frozen, “they started chirping again!” The youngest had his eyes filled to the brim with tears, never forgetting about the fragile animal he was holding.

No one missed the surprise in Junmyeon’s face. “How did this happen?” Junmyeon asked, trying to deeply process his happiness.

“The longer you two were gone, the more Sehun heard chirps. We thought he was being delusional, but one of these guys flew by the window.” Minseok explained, pointing at the animal.

He shook his head, unable to understand just how this was possible. “But you’ve said they’d lost their voice for days on end.” He looked at the youngest, but he was suddenly overcome by his own happiness.

For the first time in your life, you witnessed an act that might have confused you if you did not understand what was going on: gods were tearing up and their arms were finding ways to hug each other despite the odd proportions.

Junmyeon takes your hand without having to think twice, pulling you into the group. It feels warm there, despite being still so foreign to you. You can hear the breaths of laughter, the complaints for everyone to stop squeezing and hovering too much. But it felt different when his hands slide from the clothing that covers your arms, and when his palms met the back of your bare hands your head turns to be able to look at him. This time, when you feel this life surging through you, he is looking back at you with the same amount of surprise. His adam’s apple bobs in his throat, he would have wanted to believe he could delay having to confront this— that somehow he could pretend like his attraction wasn’t real, and he could get to know you as a friend. Maybe he could charge your moments with laughter in between the middle of the madness, and he could ask for you to have a cup of coffee. Maybe in the back of his mind he had plans, he definitely wanted to get to know you better until he could clarify to himself the things he felt and the things he wanted.

Except when your eyes twinkle at him, you can feel each other’s breaths hitch. It was an unspoken consensus that this matter had to be cleared right away, because it affected you both in some way you could not understand.

When Sehun announces he cannot breathe and that he had to let the bird rest by the window, everybody withdraws their arms in laughs. You and Junmyeon snapped out of looking at each other, pretentiously coughing as if to escape the embarrassment.

“So...” He looked at you, then when he felt his cheeks warm up at the sight, he opted for the floor. “About that—“

“Y/N!” Baekhyun disturbed, jumping right in the middle of you and Junmyeon. Baek placed both his hands on your shoulders and found himself in a dumb pout. “I was telling Kyungsoo here you made really good crepe cakes but he just wouldn’t believe me!”

You were a little bit relieved when he came in to the rescue. “What am I supposed to prove?”

The god of light stomped his feet on the ground like a child. “Can you please make some for us?” Chanyeol, who was talking to Jongdae, had overheard this short conversation and was suddenly excited at the mention of food. He suddenly skipped over to see what the short fuss was about, and now you had practical children forcing you to cook for them. Junmyeon still stood awkwardly with his hands halfway stuffed into his pockets, it was going to be difficult to get you alone in this house.

Kyungsoo instructed to you all the different things to use in the kitchen, what to use and where to find them. But it wasn’t like gods actually had to eat, it was when they were in human form that they had to function like humans: occasionally starve, be thirsty, sleep, the works. Otherwise, in their god form, they didn’t really need to keep up with any physical problems; bodies were only vessels of movement that they had to maintain.

You were setting up mixing bowls when you were left alone, the large marble countertop reminding you that this place was awfully large. It was going to take a lot of adjusting, but you already felt comfortable because of all the company you had. There was a soft knock from the entryway, when you were trying to remember your egg and milk ratio, and when you looked up at Junmyeon who came alone you only smiled a little bit at him. You pretended you were too preoccupied with mixing wet ingredients just so you would not look at him for longer than two seconds, you already felt a little tense.

“You’ll have to excuse Baekhyun,” he chuckled awkwardly, the pitch a little too deep to sound like he wasn’t forcing it out of his throat, “this is his way of trying to make it lighter for you and keep your mind off of having to move in so suddenly in the midst of what we’re facing.”

“It’s okay, I think I should know by now; I used to work with him.”

“Oh, yeah.” He scratched the back of his head. When did he turn into such a shy ball? He took a long deep breath, trying to reorient the way the tension in his body felt. “Can I help you here, to, at least, make it easier? You’re cooking for everyone.”

“Yeah, sure.” You bent down to look at the meniscus of the liquid you were measuring, trying to see if it were accurate.

For a while he stood there, looking as you prepared correct measurements to the ingredients. “You aren’t using your..?”

“My ‘powers’?” You used air quotations ironically, trying to lighten the atmosphere. He could only nod, even if you were not directly looking at him.

“There isn’t love there.” The whisk moved on its own for a few seconds until you put it into a halt, then picking it up in your fingers to stir it yourself. “This is food, Junmyeon. I was told before that things you let other people eat should have a little more care in them.”

He couldn’t quite fathom how love could be an extra ingredient by just how you did it manually, “so like skipping everything else makes the result different?” His head tilted, waiting for an answer that made sense to him.

“Somehow, yes.” You shrugged.

“But won’t you get to the same place anyway?”

“If the end goal is to make a cake, then you’d get there however you would.” The flour was measured through a digital weighing scale. “But won’t it just feel different when you went through all that trouble to get where you are? Hard work somehow tastes better. Or maybe it tastes better because this is the closest I can get to feeling humanly tired. I am, after all.” You dumped about two hundred grams into a mixing bowl. This was the closest he could get to understanding, but he still stood there unable to know what to help you with.

“I thought you were going to help me.” You jokingly scolded, and there he was again feeling amazed at you.

“How do you do that?” You finally looked up at him when he asked, a smile forming on his face.

“Do what?” It was your turn to be clueless.

“How can you tell me something so deep then laugh it off like you never opened up?”

You threw a handful of flour to his face, he coughed up in shock. Your ringing laughter strung through him like guitar strings vibrating. “Like this?” Giggles filled his ears, and he took no time to reach for a handful of the powder - taking his turn at throwing it on you. He laughed too, your tummies aching with the childish humor you both possessed in that moment. You tried to hit him with another shot of flour, but he dodged - leaving his sweater dusted in powder. He quickly sprinkled some in your hair for the sake of.

He did not realize it but soon both his hands were sat on the kitchen counter, his arms locking you in a small distance between his arms. You were also to happy to even notice. The laughter died down just a little bit, for it to be fragments of breath being caught. “I don’t want it to feel so tense around you.” You managed to tell him, and he looked at you - face chalked up and everything.

Taking one of your hands to his chest, not even expiring air, just when you said you did not prefer to feel tense.

“Can you feel that?” Each thump from his frantically beating heart reverberated through the rib cage he had animated out of nothing. With you, this was the deepest he now understood and he had felt anywhere near human.

Drowning, gasping for just an ounce of air, you answered him as if you’d run for miles. “Yes.” The words being eaten by the fright of your answer.

Peeking through the large doorways, eight other boys were clustered up - trying to catch a glance of the two of you. Minseok shushed the rest of the boys who were making a little too much noise. When they all settled down a bit, they wanted to piss their pants. Never have they seen Junmyeon this way.

#suho #suho x reader #exo fanfic #exo #exo suho #exo fic #suho fluff #suho angst #junmyeon fluff #junmyeon smut #junmyeon angst #junmyeon fanfic #kim junmyeon

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souliebird · 5 years

Text

[[Kill Bill Sirens]]

It has been one week since Bruce Wayne came to his office and one week is a long time for Timothy Jackson Drake to think.

The next part of the Multiverse Jaytim Series It only took me like 2 years.

Warning: This wasn’t in the original plotline. I was thinking about Tim over the weekend and things just happened and here we are. Let’s pretend I edited this and know whats going on.

It has been one week since Bruce Wayne came to his office and one week is a long time for Timothy Jackson Drake to think.

Alpha has confirmed that someone has been monitoring them; that someone has been watching them with security cameras. Following them. Timothy has confirmed someone tried to, unsuccessfully, hack into his network. He has seen the carefully hidden traces in his bank accounts.

Jason, with too much tension in his shoulders, pointed out the lingering shadows on the adjacent buildings of his home.

The breaking point were the posters asking for information on the Red Hood, with a large reward if it led to his capture popping up everywhere, followed by a news segment.

It has been one week since Bruce Wayne came into his office and that was a mistake on his part.

It has given six days for Timothy to think, and plot, and act.

Timothy may have more anxiety than he knew what to do with, he may have been mostly deaf, and weak, and non-threatening, but there was one thing that Timothy did have.

And that was a flight-or-fight response stuck firmly on Fight.

It has been one week since Bruce Wayne came into his office and Timothy Jackson Drake is ready to take him down.

He has Alpha hack into Wayne Industries network, an easy task as Alpha is already wired in. He makes an appointment for himself with Bruce for nine am, Monday morning.

It is 8:45am and he is riding up the elevator to the executive offices. Alpha has already confirmed the man is in his office.

He steps onto the correct floor and knows he looks the part. He’s in his nicest sweater, nicest slim slacks. His watch costs more than some people make in a year. His briefcase and shoes are Italian Leather.

He is his mother’s child when he smiles at the secretary, “Good morning, I have an appointment at nine am with My. Wayne.”

“Mr. Wayne does not have any appointments this morning,” the secretary replies stiffly.

Timothy tilts his head just slightly, the polite but icy smile still on his face.

He would make Janet Drake proud.

“I am sure I do not have my date or time wrong, ma’am.”

She moves her mouse, clicks some keys, and her eyes narrow just slightly, but then she nods towards the seats along the wall. “Please have a seat, Mr. Wayne will be with you shortly.”

He sits, with his briefcase in his lap and waits. The double doors open within a minute and Bruce is smiling warmly at him. The smile doesn’t meet his eyes.

“Mr. Drake, please come in.”

Timothy gets up and strolls into the office, shoulders back with a confidence that only comes with six days of thoughts.

The door closes behind him.

“I wasn’t aware we had a meeting, Mr. Drake.” Bruce walks back around to behind his desk and sits. He motions for Timothy to do the same.

Timothy does, setting his briefcase by his feet, “We didn’t until fifteen minutes ago, Mr. Wayne. I added it to your schedule.” He waits a beat, then, “Alpha, please black out the room.”

Bruce’s face hardens and Timothy’s confidence waivers. Fear and nerves rush through him and he balls his hands into fists in his lap.

Alpha’s voice in his ear steadies him, “The room is blacked out, Sir.”

“I apologize,” Timothy starts, his voice surprisingly firm. “I did not think you would want anyone to listen in. I know I do not.”

“Mr. Drake, I am not sure what this display is -”

Timothy cuts him off.

Timothy cuts off Bruce Wayne.

“I need you to leave the Red Hood alone.”

Bruce stares at him and he actually does look confused, “I’m sorry?”

Timothy repeats himself.

“I..have no idea who that is, Mr. Drake.”

The act is good, it would fool anyone else. But Timothy knows and he only has so much time before the room is no longer a Black Spot.

“I know you don’t, Mr. Wayne. But you, and Dick Grayson, and Barbara Gordon, and everyone else inside your Family needs to stop trying to find out and leave him alone.”

Bruce’s eyes narrow and Timothy pushes forward.

“Or should I say Batman, Nightwing, Oracle, and the rest of your Bat Family need to leave him alone.”

Bruce’s face changes from something hard to amused, “I do not know what you are talking about, Mr. Drake.”

Timothy straightens his back to the point it's almost painful, “I have known who you are since Dick Grayson was in the pixie boots, Mr. Wayne. I am asking you nicely to leave Red Hood alone.”

Bruce’s face schools into something calm, emotionless. His eyes are hard again. “And if I do not?”

He doesn’t even take a breath. “Then the world will know who Batman is. They will know who Robin and Nightwing are. Who Red Robin is. Who Batgirl and Blackbat are. The will know who Oracle is and the links to the Gotham City Police. I will have it splashed across every major news network before I walk out of this building. Stocks will plummet, Rogues will riot, and so help me, I will let Gotham burn.”

“All for this Red Hood?”

“Yes,” Timothy says without hesitation.

“You realize this will not end well.”

“You threatened my family, Mr. Wayne. I realize there was an accident, that Jason was shot, but I was in danger and he was perceived as a threat. He wants to be left alone and he will be.”

“He is not a hero, Mr. Drake.”

Timothy picks up his briefcase and stands. “There will be an email in your inbox once I step out of this office. You have until I reach the bottom floor to reply ‘Yes’ if you and your Family and all of your associates agree to leave Red Hood alone. If not, you know what will happen.” Timothy takes a breath, then, less firm, less Janet Drake, “He does not plan to stay in Gotham much longer. Once he leaves, I will turn over all evidence I have to you. I understand what will happen to me, but you will not touch him.”

If looks could kill, Timothy is a hundred percent sure Bruce would have broken his no-kill rule by now.

But Timothy didn’t back down.

He couldn’t back down.

Jason was the first person in Timothy’s life to care about him, to look at him and see him, and Timothy was not going to lose that over a lapse in judgement.

And Timothy was so lost for him, so lost for the multiverse jumping vigilante, that he would do anything to keep him happy.

Including, apparently, blackmailing Batman.

Timothy gives his old cold look to Bruce, continuing to channel his mother, then nods, “Bruce.” He turns and leaves the office.

“Black Spot has been lifted,” Alpha chimes in his ear. “Email has been delivered.”

The email contains two photos and a video; two pictures of Bruce with his cowl down at different angles and a video of Bruce removing his cowl upon entering the Batcave, with Alfred walking into the frame before it cuts out.

Timothy knows the consequences he is going to face once Jason is gone. Once Jason is safely back in his own universe. Timothy is going to lose everything, but he doesn’t care because Jason is worth it.

Jason will always be worth it.

His is shaking by the time the elevator doors close, the gravity of everything crashing onto him.

“What the hell did I just do?”

“You blackmailed Batman, sir.”

“Oh my god,” all the anxiety and fear and everything was building inside him and what the hell did he just do? “I threatened Batman. Alpha, why did you let me do this? Oh my god, I’m going to be sick.”

“Sir, I could not have stopped you if I had wanted to. Also, I am going to now point out you have successfully blackmailed Batman because he just replied ‘yes’.”

Timothy falls back against the wall of the elevator, his heart pounding in his chest and his head spinning. “I think I’ve lost my mind.”

“According to the internet, Sir, love will do that to you.”

#jaytim #soulie writes #fanfiction #dc #multiverse series #soft thighs and oversized sweaters #tim drake #jason todd #Alpha is 1 JayTim Shipper

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bestfriendforhire · 4 years

Text

Children of BFFH, Entry 48

Even after a couple weeks with the three brothers on their island, the world held constant wonder for me. We had flown to this city on an airplane in the night, and parts of the city still seemed lively. The view from the air had been dazzling. lights stretching out toward the horizon. On the ground, I could see that many of the streets were lit, but empty. I wanted to explore and learn more, but we were racing the sun. Vampires were always racing the sun. I had learned this.

The blood knowledge granted me was full of facts and language skills, but Vito said he couldn’t share wisdom or understanding through blood. I had no idea what he had meant initially, but Zachary and Papak⁠—Vito’s brothers⁠—helped Vito to show me. I knew dozens of languages, but I could completely miss what was being said if I didn’t understand colloquialisms of the area in which they were spoken. Likewise, I knew what numerous machines were, but I still didn’t understand the details of how they worked. The blood knowledge granted me mental paintings, but I needed experience to relate to the artists’ emotions.

Learning from the brothers was much more fun than the tutors in my old life, strict and impatient if I grew distracted. My old home was probably long gone. My dresses, hairbrush, and lyre certainly were. Embroidery practice wasn’t necessary anymore, though Vito felt I should still perfect my skills just for the sake of having them.

“What’s the matter, child?” questioned Vito as he wiped a tear from my cheek.

I shook my head, saying, “Nothing. Sorry.”

Ariadne hugged me. “Missing us already? We will visit.”

“I was thinking of my mother. I know she’s been dead for hundreds of years, but I feel that I saw her just weeks ago.” I explained, brushing another tear away. I knew Ariadne wouldn’t care about tears in her shirt, but I still did. I lived in a time where fabrics were precious and tended with great care. Ariadne could create new ones in an instant, already cut and sewn. Magic lessons were more important now than knowing how to store my clothes.

Ariadne squeezed me tighter, looking more like a girl my age than an old vampire of considerable renown.

“Never forsake your tears, my dear. Vampires who forget the concerns of mortals don’t tend to live long themselves.” stated Vito, smiling at me like a kindly grandfather. “We’re here.” He announced, though the limousine hadn’t stopped yet.

I looked out and saw a sprawling building, not the biggest I had seen since waking, but certainly quite large. The brothers had spoken of James Michael Somerset III in so many different ways that I had no way knowing what he’d be like. He was rich. That much was inarguable. I wasn’t certain if he was young or old, human or something else. The brothers acted as if he was a younger brother, but spoke of him as someone of incredible power whenever I asked a question. They made jokes about him, but warned never to underestimate him. They were probably confusing me on purpose.

I blinked, and then found myself staring. A young man had appeared at the front of the house. He wore a fine suit, similar to how the brothers dressed, and looked as if he was prepared to wait an eternity for us to reach him. Yes, the limousine was a slow, meandering thing, but the brothers had insisted that acting mortal when observed was paramount for a vampire, lest we draw the attention of a Slayer. I took most of my first week to realize that the Slayers were a family, not a group of vampire hunters, though they apparently did hunt vampires down if the vampires drew their ire.

“I’m sure I’ve told you, Valeria, but you should always expect James to know more than you do. These days, he tends to be more aware than my brothers and me.” Vito reminded me, smiling as he observed James.

When we finally stepped out of the car, James immediately smiled, saying, “Always a pleasure to see you, my friends.” He leaned down to look me in the eye and held out a hand as he said, “Valeria, meeting you is a pleasure as well. I am James Michael Somerset III, and you are quite welcome to live here, though I left discussing your presence with Cosette to Vito and Ariadne.”

Vito was frowning a little when I looked up at him. “How long have you known?” questioned Vito.

“Only three weeks, but I am quite certain that Cosette will oblige you. Unfortunately, I can’t remain to see you inside. I’m actually out on business at the moment, but Mila is ever willing to accommodate your needs.” he told us, disappearing as he said the last word.

“But… I wasn’t even awake yet three weeks past.” I stated, looking to Vito and Ariadne for answers.

“No, you weren’t, but James is James.” replied Vito, still frowning slightly.

“You know there was probably a reason he couldn’t warn us.” suggested Ariadne.

“How could he be out on business if he was here?” I questioned, hoping for an actual answer to this one.

“James is James.” replied Vito with a shrug. “He didn’t run off just now. He either wasn’t really here, leaving an incredible illusion to greet us, or he teleported here long enough to greet us in person. Either way, don’t expect anyone else to pull off such a trick.” Then he muttered in a barely audible whisper “I swear I felt him, so he was probably here.”

“In this household, you’ll be able to be yourself without disguise. Most everyone has magic of their own. Though some are very human physically, others will exceed you greatly. Do be careful not to hurt anyone, or you might see what James is like when he’s in a bad mood.” warned Ariadne.

The doors opened, and a very beautiful maid stood just inside the building. I jumped, my head swiveling back and forth, when I caught sight of our driver stepping out of the limousine. They looked like the same person! That face… “Mila!?” I asked.

“Yes, I am Mila Wilson.” replied the maid as she curtsied. “If you need anything, just ask. I’ll hear and attempt to help you.”

“You’re the oracle of the mirror.” I told her, wanting to be certain.

She smirked. “I’m hardly an oracle, but I am well-connected. My other body will get your bags, so please follow me.”

“Always listen to Mila if she gives you instruction, my dear.” stated Vito as he and Ariadne went up into the house. “Mila takes care of this household and all who dwell here. She’s also the daughter of the brightest person you’ll ever meet, and her daughter is… Well, how is Serenity these days?”

“Exuberant just as often as when you last saw her. I’m keeping her distracted with a project at the moment, so she won’t bother Valeria before she’s moved in.” explained Mila, sounding amused.

Vito nodded and said, “‘Exuberant’ does seem quite fitting for her. Valeria, don’t challenge Serenity at anything until after you’ve gotten to know her. Just as you could accidentally hurt some of the more human children here, Serenity could accidentally hurt you if she gets carried away.”

“She rarely hurts anyone other than herself more than superficially, at least physically. The shock to people’s minds is more often the problem.” insisted Mila, glancing back at us.

“Have there been any serious incidents lately?” questioned Ariadne in concern.

Mila shook her head. “No. The worst we’ve had recently was a visitor who suffered from mild shock after having a snowball fight. Serenity went a little overboard trying to protect her.”

“Snowball fight?” I asked.

“Ah, yes. You would’ve been kept indoors in winter. Rolling small balls of snow and throwing them at one another in a sort of game was common even when you were born. Here, there are probably complicated rules and a great deal of magic involved.” explained Vito.

“Magic more than rules in our snowball fights.” acknowledge Mila, sounding amused.

When I stopped asking questions, Mila started explaining what rooms we were passing throughout the house, promising to show me a map and explaining more once I was in my room. The second floor of the Northwest wing was where Cosette lived, and where I’d be staying if she agreed.

The door opened as we arrived, and a pretty, chestnut-haired woman with deep blue eyes stood there in a lovely, white blouse and a dark blue skirt that barely went past her knees. I knew that this wasn’t considered immodest now, but I also knew my mother wouldn’t have approved, even with the white stockings covering her legs.

Brushing back some wandering strands of hair, the woman said, “What a pleasant surprise! Please, come in.” Then she stepped out of the way, motioning for us to enter.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we felt discussing things with you in person would be for the best.” replied Ariadne, squeezing me by my shoulders after she walked with me into the room. “This is Veleria Cornaro.”

Curtsying, I said, “A pleasure to meet you, Cosette.” I felt nervous, reminded of when mother introduced me to different nobles.

Cosette seemed amused when I met her eyes. Had I done something wrong? What if she turned me away? What would become of me?

“Nice to meet you, Valeria. Care to sit?” she asked, pointing us onward farther into the room.

“Thank you, my dear.” replied Vito, gracefully walking past her and taking a seat on a comfortable-looking sofa. Furniture had changed a great deal over the years, and I couldn’t gauge whether much of what was in here would be considered expensive or not.

Ariadne and I sat next to him, and Cosette took a seat opposite to us on another sofa there. She was well-bred. Her posture as she walked and sat made me certain of it. She was speaking with one of the oldest three vampires and still seemed confident in her domain.

“I accept.” stated Cosette after we sat in silence for several seconds.

Huh? What just happened?

“Are you sure?” questioned Ariadne.

“Yes. Though this is certainly unexpected, You and Vito wouldn’t bring such an untrained vampire here if she did not need someone to care for her. She obviously needs some more practice blending in, although I’d guess her to be at least a couple hundred years old. How did you find her?” questioned Cosette.

I couldn’t figure out what I was missing, but I knew I must be missing a great deal.

“Quite right. She is five-hundred-and-sixty-four years old, but her mind matches her body. Whoever prepared her blood bath was quite skilled, so her body was almost at peak condition within days. There was an accident at an archaeological site, and the worker’s blood revived her when the seal was broken. Highly unusual circumstances. She’s fifteenth century Italian and from a noble family at that. Furthermore, she possesses quite rare magic. Even Ariadne hadn’t seen the like among the fey.” explained Vito as if talking about an enjoyable outing.

I had so many questions. What was a blood bath? Who was injured? What were the fey he spoke of? Would asking anything be considered rude by Cosette?

Apparently reading my worries on my face, Cosette said, “A blood bath is, more or less, what it sounds like, Valeria. A vampire is immersed in blood that was transformed, allowing it to retain vital energy for many, many years. That was primarily used as a way to hide during dangerous years for our kind. Your body drank up the blood and its energy. A more experienced vampire would have been able to completely wake themselves after the blood ran out. Since you were newly turned when you went in, you didn’t have that sort of reflex, drying out till you were indistinguishable from a well-preserved corpse.”

“What seal was broken? Who was injured?” I asked, since she seemed obliging.

Ariadne hugged me again. “One of the workers was struck by a crumbling pillar. The lid of your coffin was broken, allowing his blood to nourish you.”

“And what are the fey?” I asked.

“Magical beings whose blood mingled with that of humans off and on throughout the years, granting magical gifts to the descendents. Some can disappear at whim. Others can control light, sound, or fire. There are fey who change their shape faster than you can change your clothes. Categorizing them all would be tedious, so we tend to lump them together more often than not.” she told me.

“What is your magic like?” questioned Cosette.

Seeing Vito nod, I showed her. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she smiled at me in delight. Maybe she really would accept me.

#Children of BFFH #Children #of #BFFH #Jovial Times #Jovial #Times #Fantasy #Fiction #Story

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mzargentum · 4 years

Text

Sunshine & Lightning

Warnings: None. | OC’s: Muerlinian Zephyr | Word Count: 3,071

A/N: Part one of holiday fic.

A/N: Because of work, it was kind of rushed, but I did my best.

2 years.

This world has been in darkness.

The Oracle has been dead.

And the Prince has been missing.

But to him, he wasn’t just the Prince...

To Prompto, he was his best friend...his brother...

The blonde hunter had never gotten the chance to meet the woman that gave him the opportunity to meet his closest friend...

And that was painful enough without his disappearance.

The world was in complete peril.But in the chaos of it all, someone rose to take her place to the world to heal the wounds the Usurper had inflicted upon them ...a “New Oracle”, if you will.

An Queen, ostracized by most of the world, now a beckon of what the Oracle stood for...her own sister...the Stormsender’s daughter...his beloved Muerlin...

The world had desperately beseeched the aid of the powerful wizard in the depths of the darkness.

The daemons were raging through cities, hundreds were experiencing a fate worse than death. They needed her...but so did he.

Prompto knew there was more at stake than his own sanity despite the fact that watching her venture from this dusty garage nearly tore his heart in two.

“I’ll be back soon, love”, she said to him during their last embrace.

That was 2 years ago.

He replays this in his head every night he is forced to sleep alone.

The ever so faint smell of her hair that lingers on her untouched pillow churning his stomach.

As captain of this HQ, he was always meant to be in tip top performance and always on his toes...but he often found himself looking toward the road. Hoping one day, he’d catch a glimpse of silver.

_____________________________

It was the depth of winter.

The darkness made this time of year more difficult than the rest.

More and more survivors were growing ill throughout the world.

Refugee camps scrambling to look after their wounded beckoning the aid of the New Oracle.

Hammerhead was no exception.

“Sir!”, a hunter shouted toward their frustrated captain.

“What is it?”

“We’ve lost contact with the team Omega on the far west side!”, he explained in a light panic.

“What?!”, Prompto exclaimed. “Dammit! How long ago did they leave the camp?”

“About an hour ago, sir! I’m afraid they won’t make it much longer. They’ll freeze!”, the hunter explained somberly.

Prompto’s technological skills as well as Cindy’s expert mechanics made generating heat less of a hassle, but they could still only do so much with what little electricity they could scrounge up.

“Okay, let’s gather a search party. Take one of the trucks. I’ll grab one of the generators and join you”, Prompto instructed. “We can’t leave them out there!”

“Yes, sir!”, the hunter acknowledged Prompto’s orders before darting off to gather more hunters.

Prompto sighed lightly. This was going to be a long night.

“Captain Argentum!”, a woman shrieked as she ran up to the blonde captain, stumbling into him in a panic.

“Woah, woah!!”, Prompto attempted to soothe her. “What is it?? What’s going on??”

“The generators...”, the woman panted, “...in the barracks. They’re malfunctioning!”

As if they didn’t have enough problems.

Prompto’s eyes widened in terror as he rose his gaze to the barracks.

Some of his top men were in there, sick because of the cold. Not only that, they had grown to become his friends.

The generator was the only thing keeping them warm and despite he and Cindy’s efforts combined, it was only a matter of time before the worst was to come.

“No, no, no”, Prompto muttered in a light panic. “We can’t let them die in there. Do everything you can to keep them in good health”.

“Y-yes, sir!”, the woman stuttered before rushing back to the barracks.

“Talcott!”, Prompto shouted, eyes still glued on the barracks.

The young man jolted at the sound of Prompto’s voice, it was heavier than usual.

“Mind giving us a hand, buddy? We have men out there who need our help”, the blonde grinned at him.

“You got it!”, the boy beamed as he darted toward his truck.

The captain on his heel.

_________________________

With Talcott at the wheel, Prompto and his men made their way to the last known location of their scavenger team.

Prompto in the passenger seat, trying his best not to appear worried, but his kindness and care toward his men made it very evident to the young man.

“Prompto?”

The indigo-eyed man looked toward his young friend.

“Hm?”

“Do...do you think that everyone will be okay?”

Prompto’s brow forwarded.

“I mean...they’re strong a-and you and Miss Cindy can fix the generators again. We’ve got plenty of medical staff to help out too, right? So...they should all be okay...right?”

Prompto smiled at Talcott’s hopeful optimism.

“Of course they will!”, the man chuckled. “After all, they’ve got me as their captain”.

Talcott laughed at Prompto’s lack of modesty. That clearly hadn’t changed.

And that answer seemed to satisfy the lad, but the captain’s worry was still eminent.

The world was wide and vast...and cruel.

Especially during these times.

With all that’s happened, he knew it wasn’t possible for him to save everybody...

...he couldn’t even save Noct.

But regardless, he had to try. He couldn’t let his men down.He couldn’t let them die out here.

Not like this.

After what felt like an eternity driving in the snowy blackness of Eos, the team noticed a group of ice bombs congregating toward the mountains off the side of the road.

Which was odd with them normally being native to Cleigne.

What’re they doing here in Duscae?

“Wait!”, Prompto shouted pointing toward small group, “over there!”

The truck came to a screeching halt once Talcott noticed.

The bombs were swarming a group of hunters laying unconscious in the snow.

“GET AWAY FROM THEM, YOU SONS OF BITCHES!!”

Prompto rushed toward his fallen men, the rest of his team following pursuit, as his trusty pistols materialized into his iron grasp.

Taking aim and releasing a heavy barrage of bullets toward the aggressive daemons.

Unfortunately, causing them to begin detonation.

“Let’s make this quick, everybody!”, Prompto instructed his men as they rushed up to join their now bazooka wielding captain in battle. “We can’t let them explode!”

“RIGHT!”, they all said in unison as the whole lot of them began to pilfer through the army of explosive daemons.

They hacked and slashed through a great number of them, but somehow this battle seemed never ending.

“What’s going on?”, a hunter shouted toward his colleagues.

“It’s like more of the more of them we take out, the more that replace them!”, someone else interjected.

“It’s because of the snow”, Prompto affirmed as he began emptying his rifle toward the icy enemies. “This is where they’re strongest”.

“What do we do?!”

“We win! We can’t let our buddies down”, the blonde captain instructed.

“Don’t worry, guys”, his optimistic smile lighting a fire within their spirits, “we’ll make it”.

This burst of optimism was short lived as the galaxy eyed plebe noticed a bomb wandering away from the group.

In the darkness, it was unclear where he could’ve been going until...

“TALCOTT!!!”

Prompto began to dash over to the boy in the stalled truck, desperately trying to bring it back to life which unknowingly caught the attention of a bomb that was already near detonation.

“TALCOTT”, Prompto shrieked in terror, “LOOK OUT!!!”

Finally catching the young man’s attention, Talcott’s eyes became saucers at the gargantuan monster before him.

Nearly the size of the truck and trembling violently.

Prompto desperately sprinted toward his friend, but knew he was much too far away to reach him in time.

The captain was left helpless as the bomb reached maximum size to detonate and was deafened by what sounded like the most thunderous eruption that he had ever witness in all his days.

The force enough to send him flying back toward the snowy ground below.

And then...

Whiteness.

______________________

The ringing in his ears.

His vision blurred.

Desperately trying to regain his composure, so many voices in his head and what sounded like shooting and flames.

SOMEONE CHECK ON HIM!!! MAKE SURE HE ISN’T INJURED!!!

His brain rattled with the muffled voices. Was he going insane?

THERE ARE MEN OVER HERE AS WELL, ROUND THEM UP AND GET THEM ON THE TRUCK!!!

It was louder.

The ringing was subsiding.

Did this voice in his head have an accent?

He was totally out of it...

“WE MUST BE QUICK HERE!!! MANY OF THEM ARE ON THE BRINK OF DEATH!!! WE CAN’T STAY HERE!!!”

It was so familiar...so...silky...soothing...

“LET’S GIVE THESE ICE-SHITS SOMETHING TO RUN FROM!!!

”Prompto’s eyes widened...it couldn’t be...dammit, he could still barely see, but...

He could at least make out a figure kneeling down beside him.

“Don’t worry, love”, the figure spoke. Clear as day. “I’m here”.

As the blur faded away, Prompto could only believe he was in a dream.

The long streaks of silver...the shimmery bronze cheeks...the warmth of this hand against his cheek...the teal lagoon eyes...

...it couldn’t truly be real...

“...Muerlin?”

That all too familiar smile confirmed it.

“It’s good to see you too, Prom”.

__________________________

Tagging: @completelyinappropriate @digitalkanvas @glacian-apocalypse @aquathemermaidstripper @a-new-recipehhh

#final fantasy xv #ffxv #final fantasy oc #prompto argentum #muerlinian zephyr #cindy aurum #talcott hester #hammerhead #ice bombs #snow

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videogamelover99 · 6 years

Text

Waking Days Ch.3 - Vegas Lights

A/N Guess this is back you guys. I’m so glad you’ve been patient with me for so long, and finally this chapter is out. I’m hoping to get posting at least once a month now. For now here’s this chapter. AU by @doodledrawsthings. Based on @pengychan‘s Flat Dreams fic.

“Please tell me that’s not it.” Dipper knelt down in the grass.

“I’m afraid it is.”

“I doesn’t look too bad.” Mabel said, turning her head with a forced smile on her lips.

“It looks horrible.”

“It’ll be okay.”

Stanford laughed at the twins’ bickering, but the laugh was clearly forced. Over the brief period he and his brother visited Dimension 52 the hole grew even more, now taking on a shifting mess of color, glowing an intimidating red that bathed the rest of the tree in an almost demonic hue. Golden thread wove through both sides of the crevice, the physical representation of the effects of the chronometer. It bore close resemblance to a gaping, bleeding wound, held closed by half-attempted stitches. A leftover memory of Bill Cipher’s terror, not that different from what Ford remembered of the Nightmare Realm. It felt wrong just being there.

The Oracle showed up regularly, if it was just to check up on the rift or on the Pines Ford wasn’t sure, but the being soon became an almost normal presence in the household. The visits of his old friend reassured as much as they troubled the scientist. If anything, he should be glad she had agreed to help, but the frequently worried look on her face made Stanford extremely unnerved. If a being with knowledge of the future wore that look, then certainly things weren’t at all good.

If that wasn’t concerning enough, the way Cipher turned tail and left every time Jheselbraum came around certainly was. Ford would almost feel sorry for him if it wasn’t for, well, everything.

Stan, while quite suspicious at first (‘no, she hadn’t tried to possess me. Do you really think I’d fall for that trick again?’) Had quickly warmed up to the oracle. After trying (and failing) to sell some of his junk to her, the conman had somehow decided she was the next best thing since sliced bread.

…

“I’m rich! Finally!”

It was a cool, misty Sunday morning when Stan suddenly burst through the back door, the poor thing squeaking on its hinges, and tossed a packed-looking duffel bag onto the kitchen table. The other members of the Pines family, who just a few seconds ago were eating breakfast, all stared at the new item in bemusement.

“Uh, Grunkle Stan, what’s with the suitcase?” Dipper finally asked, poking the thing lightly with a finger.

“Ooh, are you going on vacation?” Mabel stood on her chair to get a better look.

“We were on a vacation for nine months.” Stanford pointed out, hardly taking his eyes off of the paperback he was reading.

“Oh yeah, but would you really call battling sea monsters every day a real vacation?” Dipper frowned.

“It is for this family.”

“Okay, no, I’m not going on a vacation, though right now that sounds really tempting.” Stan butted in, reaching over Dipper’s shoulder to unzip the duffel bag. Inside was green, and not the kind you find on trees either.

“Wow.” Mabel whistled appreciatively, looking at the bag full of hundred dollar bills in a newfound light.

“Who’d you rob?” Her brother frowned, peering at the cash with a much more wary look.

“Nobody! Nobody that actually needed it, at least.” the old man shrugged.

Ford finally put down the book, eyeing the money. “This isn’t from that pug trafficking incident you told me about, is it?”

“Hey how’d ya guess?”

“Pug trafficking?” Mabel now looked a lot less awed.

“Hey, don’t worry, Sweetie! I promise no dogs were harmed. Scout’s honor.”

“You were never a scout…” Ford muttered, once again picking up his book.

“So anyway, I’m rich. Who knows what I’m going to do with it?”

“Buy a really expensive perfume?”

“Build a new room for Soos.”

“OOH! Buy a trained tiger!”

“Great pitches kids, but nah.” Stan grabbed one of the handles, pulling the money closer. “There’s one place I’ve been dying to go to. Hadn’t been there since my marriage.”

“You got marri-”

“Anyway, waddaya say, Sixer? Ready for some nightlife? Babes? Action?”

Stanford slowly put the book down, and met his twin’s gaze with his own, steely one. “The universe is falling apart at the seams. Our enemy is living under our roof. And you want to drag me to- to- that-”

“Wow, way to ruin the fun. After thirty years in sci-fi land I’d expected ya to lighten up already.”

“You’re sixty, Stan, not exactly ideal age to go gambling, and we don’t have time for this.” The scientist stood up, tucking his paperback under his arm. “I’m going downstairs to figure out how to save the world. Again. You can do whatever you want.” And just like that, he left, leaving his three family members staring at each other in silence.

“Okay, I coulda handled that better.”

“Uh, Grunkle Stan? Why exactly did you want to take Grunkle Ford to Vegas?” Dipper asked.

“Okay, so, I may or may not owe a giant sum of money to someone-”

“Of course.” Dipper rolled his eyes.

“And gun-slinging backup doesn’t hurt...Also fun.”

“I don’t think he’s the type, Grunkle Stan.” Mabel stated sadly.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

“Bill is.” Dipper mused.

“Wow, okay, no. Could ya imagine having that monstrosity on a road trip? Ugh, I don’t even wanna think about it.”

The girl snorted. “Yeah, I think I can.”

“Speaking of which, where is the little creeper gone?”

“Uh…” The twins shared a look. Mabel shrugged helplessly. “We should probably find him before he burns down the forest or something.”

“Good point.” And with that the two disappeared, leaving Stan alone with an unfinished piece of toast and a bag full of illegal cash.

“Huh. Is that something I should be concerned about?”

Stanley whirled around, bag suddenly clutched to his chest. “Jesus Christ, lady, give an old man a warning!”

Jheselbraum (he got it right, right?) raised an eyebrow, folding her arms and leaning casually on the edge of the table. “Strange, I do not think that man knew his name was going to turn into something explicit. But I suppose it happens.”

“I- what?”

“Nevermind.” The oracle turned her attention to the bag. “And I’m guessing that was 100% legally acquired?” She couldn’t quite hide the amusement in her voice.

“Oh yes. Absolutely.” Stan gave her a sarcastic grin. That grin slipped away quickly, however, as the cogs in his brain began to turn, suddenly giving him an idea as he eyed the woman in front of him. “Say, what’s yer opinion on road trips?”

…

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.” The alien in the shotgun seat shifted uncomfortably, struggling her best to say annoyed. Stan brought the car into the left lane, quickly passing a truck on the side.

“Really? Ya didn’t exactly seem that reluctant goin’.”

“I- We should be working on closing the rift, not, not galavanting on some weekend quest to pay off a guy you stole from.”

“Hey, who said anything about stealing? I was borrowin’.”

“And i suppose the death threats that he leaves in your voice mail are friendly banter?”

“Aw, you’re being sarcastic. And here I thought you were a stick in the mud.”

“...” Nora sat back in her seat, tossing one leg over the other, and stared out the window. Bits of Oregon wildlife flew past them, forrest green melting into a choppy blir as the car flew by at a grand total of 50 miles an hour. The Stanleymobile really needed to upgrade.

It didn’t take long for Stanley to admit the real reason he was reluctant to go alone. Apparently he was completely willing to blow all of his money by himself. No, what got him concerned about bringing Stanford was not company as much as muscle. Owing a lot of money to a crime boss apparently did that to you.

“And what exactly do you want me to do?” She frowned. “Sit there and look pretty?”

“We-ell.” Stan paused, scratching his cheek with one hand, the other resting on the steering wheel. “You can see the future, right?”

“It’s not that simple.” She frowned. “Also sorry for not seeming that excited, but if you were planning to use that to win some easy money, you’re out of luck. My vision doesn’t work that way.”

“And what’s ‘that way’?”

“Complicated.”

“Fine.”

There was silence. Nora didn't really know why she was so antagonistic toward Stanley. So far, the human hadn’t done anything that would deserve it, if the whole using-her-for-gambling thing didn’t count. But there was something in the back of her mind, an itch that was scratching at her, telling her that the man next to her was not what he seemed.

That was truly ridiculous. She looked into his and his brother’s timeline many times. She knew him, just like the rest of the Pines, like the back of her hand. And yet-

Maybe she just wasn’t used to the company. Back in her own dimension, the Oracle had many people with whom she’d conversed. Many came to the mountain to seek her guidance, and the company was always welcome. But there was always some barrier, a wall between her and the other that prevented her from truly- what? Connecting? She was always there to get wisdom and assistance. It was a long time before she could just speak to someone, without needing to be that.

It felt refreshing, but also slightly off-kilter.

“Y’know, that’s not the only reason I wanted to bring Sixer.” Stan’s voice made the woman turn back to him, her thoughts pushed back into a jumbled mess for the time being.

“Oh?”

“He just- hasn’t been sleeping for a while, y’know? And I thought- ‘hey, great idea. Let’s get him to ignore the second end of the world for a while’. Didn’t exactly work, but it’s the thought that counts, right?”

Nora sighed through her nose. “Your brother isn’t like that. You know it.”

“Yeah...yeah.”

“He’s very determined. Very passionate. That isn’t a bad thing.” The woman brought her hands up to fiddle with her pendant, lost in thought. “But it can easily get out of hand.”

“Yeah, I get what ya mean.” Stan frowned, staring straight at the road ahead. “You know, he called me too old to go gambling.”

The woman paused for a moment. “I am one trillion years old, if that makes you feel any better.”

“Huh...wow. Uh...you look younger than your years?”

“Thanks.”

“Though maybe if you stop dressing like it’s the war time…”

The oracle frowned, wrinkling out her skirt. “What’s wrong with the way I dress?”

“Nothing! Way better than wearing a wizard robe, anyway. Just looks like you came straight from the 1940s, is all.”

“Uh huh.”

“Oh hey, by the way, it’s Nora, right?”

“...yes.”

“Huh.” Stan snorted. “Knew a gal named Nora once. Real pain in my ass. You’ve got a lot in common.

Nora rolled her eyes. “Keep driving.”

“Sure thing.”

…

The first thing to assault her eyes were the lights. Hundreds of them, bright neon and colorful, hanging on buildings, advertising food, hotels, casinos. People stood on the sidewalks and threw pamphlets at tourists and passersbys, cards containing contact info of strippers and nightclubs, people yelling, cars honking aggressively, music blaring from hidden speakers, fountain jets raining down, illuminated by multicolor lights. There was so much, too much, it was overwhelming- Nora couldn’t look away. That man on the street- wife walked out on him, having a midlife crisis, taking it out on the girl next to him. The girl- adulterer, before she was even eighteen, raised in the middle of nowhere, wanted a life. What she got was angry drunkards and little pay. The woman on the street, tugging her child after her- married, on vacation, is about to meet her oldest daughter after a year apart. Every person, every place and every conversation had something to offer her, a troubled past, and hopeful or depressing future...She was used to this, used to the rapid fire of her predictions, fates intertwining, alternating, branching out into infinite different scenarios. But there was just so much...

“So, uh, what’d ya think? Worth the trip?”

Nora jumped, whipping around to look at Stanley hero, brother, savior, liar- “Uhh, it’s...something?”

“Come on! City of chance, of risk and it’s ‘something’?”

“It’s just...it’s a lot.”

…

After hustling into the hotel, via underground parking, Stan elbowed his way through the long, carpeted corridors of the hotel lobby, his companion trailing a few paces behind him, looking around at the crowd with wide eyes. The receptionist at the desk eyed both of them with a bored expression. Checking in was the easy part. Trying not to get jumped by a crime boss was another. Stan eyed his phone as he led Nora to the elevators, the bag of cash, discretely covered up by as stack of dirty clothes, over his shoulder. Floor 19 7pm. See me. The vague text sent an uncomfortable prickling feeling down his spine. He’d faced the end of the world, and yet the threat of organized crime still rubed him the wrong way. Call it bad memories. Being stuck in the trunk of a car for 31 hours could do that. He needed to make this quick and high tail outta here. And, Stan quickly reassured himself, he wouldn’t exactly be alone.

Though looking over at the oracle, who now eyed the fancy furniture and decoration with with annoyance, Stan wondered just how much faith he could put in his new inter-dimensional buddy. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, per say, hell, he’d trust her over the angry yellow demon any day. Still, there was something off about her. Something that Stanley’s instincts had to remind him constantly of. Just how much did Ford really know about this woman? And who said she was who she said she was? Call him paranoid, but when was he not? Came with the trade, so to speak.

“So who are you meeting with? And how much can I bet on your survival?” Nora jumped up on the bed, the obscene amount of comforters bouncing under her weight.

“Nice to get some reassurance for once. And couldn’t you just look and see, anyway? Don’t you know the future?”

“I could…” she shrugged, “but it wouldn’t tell me anything. Not really.”

Well that was vague as hell.

The man grumbled, shouldering his duffel bag. “So your one superpower is basically useless. Well why the hell did I bring ya here then?!”

“That’s what I’ve been asking.”

Stan sighed and rubbed his forehead. “Look, just...I’ma go and had ‘im the cash, hopefully won’t get jumped, and you, uh...do whatever you wanna do. I don’t know, watch TV or something.”

“You didn’t answer the question.”

“What question? Okay, bye!”

And he ran out, slamming the door behind him as he did.

…

He did not find the guy. The vague text message was the only thing he got, and after about an hour of scouting the corridor of Floor 19 Stan finally gave up and shrugged it off, deciding that the cash should be good for something, and made his way downstairs for the one thing this place was truly famous for.

...

“Hey buddy.”

Stan scraped up his tokens and grinned at the speaker lazily. “Yeah?”

The man looked like he was in his late thirties, his face still free of any wrinkles. Dark hair framed his long, oval-shaped face, a pair of expensive-looking spectacles sitting on his hook-shaped nose. “I see you’ve got quite a streak going. I won’t bother you, but I was wondering if you’d be interested in a game against me?”

“What kinda game?”

The man grinned, a golden tooth glinting in the dim lighting. “A game of opportunity.”

“Huh.” Stan watched the man grab a free table, sitting down and gesturing at the older man to follow suit. “I think I like ya already.” He sat down opposite. “So what d’ya want to bet on? Start small?”

The man was still smiling, something that Stan would find unnerving without the buzz of alcohol. “Oh no. There’s a loss far worse than money you can recover. Of course, I’d be needing the same in return.” He leaned in closer. “Time is much more precious than money, my friend.”

It was poker. It was literally just poker, and looking back, Stan kinda wished it wasn’t. Looking at a mystical game of chess or some kind of enchanted contest of weirdness would at least be bearable. His ego would still be intact. But poker? No, even the price of what he lost could not compare to just how humiliated he felt losing at the thing he was best at. But Stan lost, and the man just swept up all at chips, the subdued smile never leaving his stupid, pointy face. “Such a shame, really. I had honestly hoped I’d finally found a worthy opponent. You were close, my friend, but them’s the breaks.”

Stan briefly tore his hands away from his face to sigh, looking at everything but the man. “So what? You said we weren’t betting on cash. Just tell me what ya want so I can go already, you sleazy bastard.”

The man’s face warped into something truly sinister, his smirk spreading across his face. “I already took it, my friend.”

Suddenly, Stan felt like he was hit on the head with something impossibly heavy. Everything spun, his limbs felt incredibly weak, and as he stood up on wobbly legs he felt his spine curve downward a lot more than before. His eyesight was just awful, and it didn’t clear even as he rubbed his eyes. The skin on his hands felt thin and papery, and as the man slowly stumbed out of his seat and towards the hotel elevator, he knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

...

While Stanley went off on his quest to pay back what appeared to be the mafia, Nora realized there wasn’t really anything to do for her, not really. Watching television was like subjecting herself to a primitive form of mind-control. She could, of course, meditate, but that grew harder and harder the more time she spent on earth. Everything else was too distracting, too bright and loud for her to find that small empty space to bury her thoughts in. They just came crashing back in after she dispersed them, assaulting her with visions and worries and questions that she, for once, did not want answers to. She’d agreed to come here, why? To get away from Bill, was the immediate answer, but that didn’t work out the way she had wanted it to. Now instead of Bill there was Stanley. Stanley, who argued and made poor excuses and laughed at his won lame jokes in a way that made Nora’s heart ache. It was new, but incredibly familiar, like a case of deja-vu that did not end in a few seconds, but only strengthened every time Stan threw some banter her way. Honestly she’d have preferred Bill sulking around somewhere to this, this open interaction she didn’t have for so, so many years. It wasn’t until Ford’s brother left that she could finally start to sort it all out in her own head.

There was some scrambling behind the door. Nora sighed, opening her eyes. For a second she thought it was the mafia, but as the rest of her five eyes granted her a brief vision, she realized that was not the case. Something was terribly wrong.

The Oracle flung the door open, and a man tumbled into her, almost bringing both of them to the ground. A raspy voice whispered curses under his breath, and Nora finally recognized her human friend. Slowly, she closed the door with her free hand, using the other to help the man onto the bed.

...

“What. Did you do.”

“We-ell, I, uh, hey you know how it is. The city of lights and all that, hadda at least give it a go-” There was a cough, but the voice did not clear up, just as ragged.

“...”

“A-and look, I thought I had pretty good odds, y’know? Been here more than you can count, have way more luck than imaginable, so, y’know…”

“Stanley, please tell me you didn’t make a bet with a god.”

Stan looked to the side, hands fiddling on his lap, and tried to ignore the sudden vicious pain in his back. And the ache in his joints. And the sudden rattle that appeared in his breath. “I can explain.”

Nora glared at him, the pointed look twice as terrifying. “Oh yes please do.”

“So, uh, there was this guy-”

“Oh who am I kidding! I should have known you would do this.” The woman threw her hands up, pacing back and forth in the suite. “I did know you would do this. But I didn’t- I didn’t think this you would be that stupid.”

“Alright, point taken! Now would ya stop trying to insult me every five sec- agh!” The con-man hunched over, his speech suddenly interrupted but a long coughing fit. It tore at his throat and made his chest ache like nothing he had ever felt before. Great. This is how I die. Over a stupid bet.

Wasn’t that how he expected to die, anyway?

The Oracle rolled her eyes, waiting until the hacking stopped and Stan regained his breath. “Right, don’t talk.”

“I got it.” He whined back, his body still fighting to cough up his own lungs.

“So, there was a man? And I suppose he offered you a drink?”

Stan shook, pounding his chest with all the strength his now frail arms could give him. “Was already drunk.”

A frustrated sigh. “And I suppose after you got hammered he offered you a deal?”

“A bet.” he coughed out.

Nora sighed. “But not for money.” She sat down next to him, shoulders hunched over.

“Oh yeah! He said somethn’ all mysterious-y, something like ‘You have-’”

“A loss far worse you can recover.” She finished for him. “I know what timeline this is.”

“Yeah, exactly that...You’re worse than my mother.”

She cracked a smile. “I’m an oracle. I’m worse than anyone’s mother.” Then she frowned. “You look terrible, by the by.”

“Thanks, I kinda guessed.” Stan slowly slid off the couch, straightening his back and heading toward the bathroom at a steady pace. “Well, time to see how well I-”

The scream and crash that came out from behind the door startled Nora to her feet. “Are you alright?”

“I’m hideous!”

“Well, yes.”

His hair was white. Pure white, like a blank sheet of paper or the way the goat looked whenever Mabel was in a mood for playing dress-up. It was still there, thank God, but looked a lot thinner than it did only a few hours ago. The wrinkles that started showing up around the time he hit 40 were somehow only deepened, the now grey-ish skin sagging in places and folding up in others. What was once his face now seemed wrong, an unwarranted glimpse into what he should not be able to see, a punch of an existential crisis right in the gut, a-

“Stanley? Are you alright in there?”

Stan slowly backed away from the mirror, away from- that, shuffling out of the bathroom with more effort than should have been necessary.

Nora stared up at him from the edge of the bed.

“I think I just aged thirty years in one day. And man, I wish that was a joke.”

The Oracle sighed, casting her eyes somewhere Stan couldn’t follow, “You’d bartered on the thirty years you wanted back. And you lost.” She stared at him dead in the eye. “What did you think would happen?”

“I didn’t think anything! That guy-” Stan cut himself off, doubling into a wracking cough that made his aged body hurt in all the places he didn’t know he had.

“Careful, don’t have a heart attack, you’re ninety-two already.” Nora muttered under her breath, and the man wondered if that was a joke, too. “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen.” She stood up, carefully guiding Staney to the armchair in the corner, helping him sit. “You are going to stay here, and hopefully not die by the time I get back. And I,” she stepped back, something settling in her gaze that made the con man shift a little. It was at that moment that he really saw something ancient before him, more ancient than even he felt like right now, and that thought chilled him to the bone. “I’m going to fix this.”

Stan blinked. “Got a plan more detailed than that?”

“Yes.”

“...Care to explain.”

Nora rolled her eyes. “The man that aged you, he’s most likely a lesser god or some kind of spirit. I’ve seen a couple of his type before, but never this bold. Anyway, their ‘deal’ is time. More correctly, lifespan. They barter and bet on the victim’s years, the mortal hoping to gain a few more decades on this plane of existence. Of course, it’s rigged, and the mortal always loses. This kind of gambling, ‘life gambling’, is banned in about 5 billion dimensions. This one as well. Still, I suppose Earth is remote enough to not me noticed by interdimensional relations. Or so they thought.”

“So, okay, he’s some kind of demon life gambler? What’s the point of taking time away though? Does he sell it?”

The Oracle smiled. “No, though that would be a feat to see. They consume it, the life force they take from people. Old gods have so few followers that their powers deplete to almost nothing. The only way they can keep themselves immortal is feeding off regular people.” She shrugged. “Though some of them do it for fun. Life force is still a lot of energy, after all.”

“And you’re- what? Gonna call the space cops on him? Take him for a night on the town?”

“Honestly, who do you take me for?” The Oracle straightened up, turning to head out the door, a smile already forming on her lips. “I’m going to beat him at his own game.”

#gravity falls #fanfiction #human bill au #stanley pines #stanford pines #nora #bill cipher #mabel pines #dipper pines #waking days #i realized there is pretty much no bill in this #instead have some nora and stanley bonding time #yes that title is from p!atd

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yodepalma · 6 years

Text

ignoct week? :D

Title: Blood Will Remember (ao3 link)

Summary: When the invitation to Insomnia comes, Noctis knows the gods mean for him to try again. But this time he knows what to expect, and he’s not inclined to play along.

Rating: ...i forgot to rate it. Teen+/PG-13?

Warnings: genderswap, role swap, eventual canonical violence & death (this is only chapter one)

@ignoctweek Day 3 prompt: Reincarnation AU

These will remain, these will go searching Your veins for life when the flame of life smolders; The night that you two saw the mountains marching Up against dawn with the stars on their shoulders;

The jetting poplars’ arrested fountains As you drew her under them, easing her pain; The notes, not the words, of a half-finished sentence; The music, the silence. . . . These will remain.

-”The Chamber” by Louis Untermeyer

“Of course, the biggest story of today is the Oracle’s visit. The last time Insomnia saw an Oracle inside of her walls was five hundred years ago, and we all know how that turned out—”

“Turn it off.”

The perky reporter’s voice disappears with a soft click, and Noctis sighs as he leans back in his seat. He should’ve known better than to hope for something pleasant to listen to on his drive through the city. There are hundreds of people lining the streets, and there will be more people outside the castle hoping to get a glimpse of him. His skin itches just thinking about all of those eyes on him. Sure, people in the countryside are generally excited to see him, but this is completely over the top.

Well, it’s probably what he should have expected from Insomnians anyway. The gods know his people had never exactly been chill.

“Try to relax, Noct.” Ignis’ hand on his knee drags him back to the present. Noctis takes a deep breath and covers it with his own, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. “We’ll be there in a moment. You must appear unaffected.”

Noctis wants to ask how he knows where they are, but he won’t get an answer. He’s pretty sure Ignis remembers—the evidence is all there, if he looks—but he never talks about any of it. Not even late at night, when he wakes from nightmares and clings to Noctis like he’s scared he’ll disappear.

The car glides to a halt. Noctis looks up and makes a face at the crowd through his tinted windows, because they can’t see him yet.

“Behave.” Ignis squeezes his knee just hard enough to hurt, and gets out of the car before Noctis can respond. Seriously, how does he know?

Waiting for Ignis to open his door gives Noctis a chance to focus on now, so when he reaches out to take Ignis’ hand, he’s prepared for the wall of cheers that assaults him. He puts on his public smile and waves to the spectators, and it isn’t long before Ignis puts a gentle hand on his back and guides him into the building.

“Kinda makes you nostalgic for the Citadel, huh?” Noctis mutters under his breath. Ignis’ fingers twitch against his back.

“Perhaps we can request a tour of the museum before we leave the city.” There’s a bitter note to Ignis’ smile. “You were named after the last true king of Lucis.”

Noctis forces himself not to make a face. He doesn’t want a tour of the Citadel. Who knows what’s been done to it? “Don’t remind me.”

The inside of the castle is blessedly dark in comparison to the sunlight, and their footsteps echo in the cavernous hall. Noctis frowns at the gaudy decorations surrounding them. Absolutely nothing in this place looks functional, all of it golden and useless. It’s hard to believe people actually live here.

“My Lord?” It sounds like a question, but Noctis knows when Ignis is reprimanding him.

“Sorry.” He looks toward the door on the opposite side of the room, where a guard has been waiting for his acknowledgement, and a genuine smile crosses his face. It’s Cor. It’s impossible not to recognize that grumpy face, even with all the hair hanging in his eyes.

“Oracle.” Cor bows at the waist, low enough that Noctis can see that Cor has a ponytail. Noctis bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself from laughing hysterically. He can’t believe this version of Cor willingly grew out his hair. “I’m to guide you and your guard to the throne room for the negotiations.”

“Thank you.”

It’s somewhat disconcerting to be following Cor by keeping an eye on his hair, but Noctis tries to ignore it so he can memorize the way to the throne room. He doesn’t want to get lost if he has to get out in a hurry.

Not that he thinks he’ll need to. It’s just better to be on the safe side, historically speaking.

They stop outside of a pair of ornate double doors, and Cor briefly speaks to the guard. Something about him sparks a brief, vague memory, but he doesn’t quite catch hold of it before the doors are swinging open and he’s stepping inside. Oh well. He can’t expect himself to remember everything.

Cor announces Noctis and Ignis to the king and princess, then walks off to the side of the room. Not where the guards are standing, or even to sit with the nobility, but to stand in the little boxed off area for the press. With Prompto, who’s wearing a very fancy camera and his biggest smile. And—is that Dino? Reaching out to take Cor’s hand? Noctis is so not prepared for this.

Ignis gives Noctis a sharp poke, and Noctis moves forward on autopilot. “Cor is holding hands with Dino fucking Ghiranze.” Noctis whispers to him, because someone in this room should be as uncomfortable as he is right now. Ignis’ lips twitch into a brief frown.

“Try to focus, please,” Ignis says, because he wants Noctis to suffer.

Noctis can’t pout in public, but he doesn’t want to look up either. He focuses on the stairs in front of him instead, watches them get closer and closer until he knows he can’t go any further. He and Ignis stop at the base of the stairs, but Ignis doesn’t kneel until Noctis taps his thigh to let him know it’s safe.

Noctis looks up. Follows the golden threads of the black carpet lining the stairs, takes in the sight of Ravus decked out in black with the glow of the crystal behind him, and his heart aches for a power he’s never touched. He tries to keep his eyes on Ravus, because that’s who he’s here to speak with, but they inevitably slide to the left. To a smaller throne, and the woman who sits like a statue in her elegant black dress. The woman who winks at him.

Luna remembers.

The faintest sound of something tapping against metal brings Noctis’ attention back to Ravus. The king takes his hand off his hip and raises his arms to gesture to the room at large.

“It is my honor to welcome the Oracle of Shiva to our kingdom.” Ravus sounds much less annoyed with life than Noctis remembers, but that may be because he doesn’t hate him this time around. It’s probably weird that Noctis finds that so unsettling. “He comes as a symbol of peace in this uncertain time. We look forward to uniting with Accordo not only to ensure peace for this generation, but also for the generations that will come after us.”

Huh, Ravus is actually good at this king business. Noctis never would have guessed.

The speech drones on for some time, and Noctis just can’t bring himself to tune back into it. Ignis will tell him anything important he needs to know later. Instead he looks over the rest of the nobles, picking out the people who are familiar to him. There’s General Big Nose, looking as full of himself as ever. A few different politicians he never could remember the name of. Helen, who’s definitely noticed he isn’t paying attention and is giving him her Mom Face about it.

Clarus and his wife Ianthe, alive and both healthy by the looks of it. Iris is on Ianthe’s right, barely holding in her excitement, and on Clarus’ left—is Gladio a girl? Same scar, same hair, looks like she could pick Noctis up with one hand and toss him across the room. This life just keeps getting weirder.

Ravus’ voice trails off and cameras start flashing, which means Noctis has to pay attention now. Thankfully he only sees Ravus walking down the stairs, and when he gets to the bottom he holds out a hand for Noctis to shake.

“You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?” Ravus cocks an unimpressed eyebrow at him, and it’s all Noctis can do to keep his own smile from turning sheepish. He hadn’t thought he was being that obvious.

“I got at least the first thirty seconds.” Noctis shrugs and tilts his head toward the Amicitia family. “I was distracted.”

“I see.” Ravus actually does look like he understands. Noctis’ gaze flicks down to his flesh-and-blood left hand and he wonders. “You must be tired from traveling here. Perhaps a few moments in our garden would rejuvenate you?”

“Yes, I think it would.” Noctis looks over Ravus’ shoulder to see that Luna has already left her throne. Has she always moved so quietly? “We appreciate your hospitality, King Ravus.”

Ravus nods and gestures for Clarus to join them. His older daughter follows him, hips swaying as her heels click loudly on the tile floor. Noctis knows he’s staring, but he can’t stop himself. Gladio is a girl, sure, he can deal with that. But she’s also wearing a dress.

He wonders if it’s designed so she can fight in it. No, that’s a stupid question. Of course it is. Gladio would accept no less.

Gladio catches Noctis’ eye and winks. Flirtatiously. Noctis swears if Gladio starts sincerely flirting with him, his soul will just shrivel up and die. For now he assumes it was a hint to stop staring like a creep.

“If you would follow me, Oracle?” Clarus makes a gesture towards a small, dark door in a corner of the room. His smile is polite but genuine, which means he either didn’t notice Noctis staring at Gladio or he’s quietly planning how he’s going to murder Noctis later. It’s always hard to tell with him.

The door takes them to a cramped, curving hallway. The walk feels like it takes forever. Noctis is acutely aware of the low ceiling and the sound of Ignis’ gloved fingers trailing along the wall as they walk. Ignis is probably furious about his gloves getting ruined.

Going back out into the sunlight makes his eyes water, but the view of the courtyard is worth it. It’s awash with flowers everywhere, a sight Noctis isn’t used to seeing in the city.

“Gladiola will stay with you while you walk.” Clarus settles in next to the door they walked out of, standing at attention and smiling again. “I’ll ensure nobody else comes in to ruin your peace. Including a certain photographer.”

“You can’t blame him for trying, dad.” Gladiola’s grin is sharp. “Or for wanting to see me.”

Noctis rolls his eyes and walks away. Gladio hasn’t change at all.

The courtyard is bigger than Noctis expected it to be. Ignis falls behind him to speak quietly with Gladiola, talking about political things that Noctis has no interest in. He makes a face at the sky and wonders absently if they have a fishing pond.

There’s no pond, but the cobblestone path winds around the flowers and bushes to lead them to the tall willow in the center. The ground beneath it is coated in sylleblossoms, but Noctis barely notices them before his eyes are drawn instead to the bench sitting at its roots.

He has no idea what to say. He’s been waiting for literal centuries to see Luna, and now that he’s here all he can do is stare at her. What if he was wrong about her remembering? What if she was winking because he was staring, the way Gladio had? He can’t afford to look insane in front of the princess, not now.

The man standing at Luna’s side notices his stare and reaches for the weapon at his side. Shit.

“At ease, Nyx.” Luna puts a gentle hand on Nyx’s hand, but it takes a moment of the two staring at each other before he backs down. “I am certain the Oracle will do me no harm.”

Luna gets up from the bench and glides toward Noctis. His memories don’t do her justice, but that may be because she does look subtly different. Her face is a little thinner, but she looks stronger. In body, but not in spirit. He doesn’t think she could have gotten any stronger than she was that day.

“Luna…” Noctis can hardly believe she’s real.

Luna’s eyes fill with tears. “Oh, Noctis. It is you.” She takes the last step toward him and throws her arms around his shoulders, burying her face in his neck as she cries. Noctis awkwardly hugs her back and closes his eyes. Maybe if he pretends hard enough, he won’t be crying too.

It’s about damn time the gods let them see each other again.

#ignoct week #ignoct #ffxv #fic post #prompt: reincarnation au

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f4-of-lucis · 7 years

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Oh goodness >w< And since we’re talking about the older version of Iggy, Gladio, and Prompto, I’m assuming that it’ll be the 10 year timeskip of themselves (meaning a Blind!Ignis as well).

This is gonna be really, really long, I tell you XDD Why? Because that’s an amazing idea right there and I over-elaborated the story— perhaps, too much.

I’m sorry it took a while, though!

And because this became a reader-insert, try out the module below :D (NOTE: It might not work on dashboard and mobile, so you might need to be in my actual blog site.)

Your name: submit What is this?

// <![CDATA[ document.getElementById("submit").addEventListener('click', myHandler); function myHandler() { var v = document.body.innerHTML; var input = document.getElementById("inputTxt").value; v = v.replace(/\by\/n\b|$y\/n$/ig, input); document.body.innerHTML = v; } // ]]>

Time and Love don’t go well together, it seems (Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto)

There was once a myth passed around the kingdom of Lucis. An old lore to the commoners; an urban legend to the servants of the Lucian Royal Family— especially those directly connected to the Crystal, such as the Crownsguards.

The myth has varied over the time, but essentially stated the following:

“Every hundred years, a strange phenomenon happens within the walls of the Citadel, home of the Lucian Royal Family. The Crystal— bestowed upon by the Divine Beings to humanity, casts its mystical powers to the worthiest of its protectors.

What happens to the chosen is unclear. Some had disappeared and caused unexplained anomalies, yet some returned with gifts of knowledge of the distant future.

A dangerous power the Crystal grants to the worthy outside of the Royal Family. The reason is unclear and unknown to humanity yet known only by the Crystal itself which shall be recognized by the compelled.”

Sounded like a bedtime story. With the strange phenomenon happening once every hundreds of years, no one had solid proof it actually happens. Not even to the Lucian Royal Family, though they know of its existence.

... Not for long, I tell you (otherwise, this long-ass fanfic/scenario won’t be here XD).

Shortly after the restoration of Light to Lucis and the reclaim of the Insomnian throne, the Crystal had decided to reward its devoted protectors: the three Crownsguard who stood by Noctis Lucis Caelum CXIV, current King of Lucis, since the beginning: Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia, and Prompto Argentum.

With Noctis crowned as the new King, all that’s left to do is serve him— as Crownsguards and as devoted friends. For Noct, it was the end of his adventure. For the three men? It obviously wasn’t. A single night and a dream was enough to spark a new adventure for Ignis, Gladio, and Prompto.

One they wouldn’t expect— not even in their wildest of imaginations.

In the morning following that night, the three men met by the Citadel hall, each not knowing the dream of the other, until one obvious someone spoke up about it. Prompto talked about his dream, which matched with both Gladio’s and Ignis’ own dreams. They were rather intrigued, especially the Crystal were “talking to them” through their dreams.

The morning after the second night was when their adventure began.

Instead of waking up in their respective quarters, the three men found themselves in the Crystal Room, all suited up in Kingsglaive attire. No wonder a certain someone complained about how heavy he felt waking up.

The three were undeniably surprised upon fully waking up and realizing where they were. Ignis didn’t need his sight to know he wasn’t laying down on his bed in his room (like waking up on a cold, hard ground wasn’t enough XD).

It was the room where the Crystal was kept, but something was... different about it. The machines were more sophisticated at best. “What are we doing here?!” asked a slightly panicked Prompto. “We didn’t sleepwalked here, did we?!” he continued. “Even if we did, that wouldn’t explain how we got past the tightly-secure vault!” answered Gladio. “And like hell I sleepwalk!”

Unlike the two, Ignis remained calm and asked, albeit with a slightly louder voice to catch Gladio and Prompto’s attention. “Where are we, exactly?”

“In the Crystal Room!”

And just then, a group of men, presumably guards or soldiers, entered the room. They were of military attire. Neither Gladio nor Prompto recognized anyone in the group.

“These men must be what the Oracle was talking about. Bring them to the Queen”

“The Queen?” Ignis asked, which was met with a quick answer by one of the guards. “Yes, the current queen of Insomnia.”

The three were taken aback. Queen? But Noctis was crowned as King not long ago. “What’s going on?” Well, their question was then again met with an answer as they were escorted to the throne room. The Citadel was similar yet different in more ways than one. Not long after, they reached the throne room.

On the throne sat a young woman clad in an attire visually similar to that of the former King Regis, except it was designed in such a way it was a dress. Her physical appearance uncannily resembled that of Noctis’, especially the eyes. Yet what set the two apart, other than their genders of course, was that the female had a much more gentler face.

“Whoa...” said Prompto with a low voice, bewildered by the sight before him. Gladiolus was just as equally as baffled as the blond man. As for Ignis, well, while he can’t see the very person the other two men were shocked to see, he knew it wasn’t Noctis on the throne. It was someone else.

“Three men clad in Kingsglaive attire... just as the Oracle had said. I welcome you three to “future” Lucis, as you might say.” started the young woman, her gentle voice soothing the three men but still confused once “future Lucis” was mentioned. “Future Lucis??” whispered the blond man to Ignis, to which latter replied with “It would seem we traveled to the future, just as the Crystal in our dreams said.”

The Queen stood up as she introduced herself. “My name is (Y/N) Lucis Caelum, CCXV. Might I ask yours?”

Before answering the queen, the three men were taken aback once again. How far into the future did the Crystal threw them into? CCXV? As in the 215th Ruler of Lucis? They were sure as hell Noctis is only CXIV, the 114th Ruler.

“O-Oh uh, Prompto Argentum, your Majesty.” “Ignis Scientia, your Majesty" “Gladiolus Amicitia”

(Y/N) nodded and wasted no time explaining the situation to the three men. “Allow me to explain the situation. Over a century ago, the empire Niflheim has seized almost all of Eos with the exception of Insomnia, the Crown City. I trust you know of this?”

They nodded respectfully. Of course. The three knew that full well. They were there the entire time it happened to Lucis.

“Niflheim was supposed to annex the entirety of Lucis, had it not been for the intervention of the 114th King of Lucis— Noctis Lucis Caelum, and thanks to him, the Niflheim empire has fallen apart since then. Yet, according to written records in the archive, Lucis still succumbed into years of darkness.”

Iggy, Gladio, and Prompto were there too. Those agonizing ten years of night.

“Fortunately, Noctis seemed to have saved all of Lucis from darkness. He’s indeed such a noble King. But now, I fear the same thing might happen soon. It seems that Niflheim has returned from its ashes. The Oracle has warned me of its coming, and predicted that ‘help will come from time’s past’. I figured it was help from the past, and she was right. The Crystal has taken you from your timeline to aid us and warn you of a coming trouble in your time.”

Their purpose was slowly being revealed to them, just as the Crystal said.

“And so I ask you, Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto. Will you lend us your aid in defending Lucis?”

Who were they to turn down the plea of the Queen and the will of the Crystal?

Prompto Argentum Oh Lord, let me tell you— Prompto fell head over heels for (Y/N) the moment he laid eyes on her. She seemed like an angel to the poor blondie. Anyways, Prompto served the future Kingsglaive, actually being one of the most talented long-ranged fighter. Ten years worth of practice and this was the fruit.

Much to his surprise, Prompto found himself in the presence of the Lucian queen most of the time. Especially during camping. (Y/N) had enjoyed Prompto’s company, seeing how the blond man always seemed to be full of energy, a slight contrast to her more gentle self.

Since he knew that (Y/N) knows they were from the past, Prompto would show the young queen pictures of him and his friends with her predecessor, Noctis Lucis Caelum, much to (Y/N)’s interest in seeing the savior of Lucis during their time.

Alright, the pistol-wielding blondie knew he liked Lucis’ Queen. Like, a lot. Of course, he knew how (Y/N) deserved better. She’s a queen for crying out loud, and he’s just... a commoner. A Kingsglaive, sure, but still just a commoner. Not only that, she’s from the future.

Prompto has the habit of looking at other girls, sure (especially Cindy), but never did his heart completely loved a woman. He badly wanted to stay by her side and make her smile, but Ignis had pointed out (time and time again) that doing so would cause anomalies in the present day. He knew that. He watched one too many movies to know how changing the future would also change the past.

The day before he and his two other friends returned to present day Lucis, Prompto just had to say it.

“(Y/N), you know I have to go back tomorrow, right? Before that, I wanted to tell you something. You’re the most amazing person I’ve met. I mean— you’re really sweet and kind, you know? But your also really gentle and elegant. And you laugh at my jokes. Not a lot do that! And you made me feel like.. I was at your level. You didn’t look down on me. For once in my life, all my insecurities disappeared when I’m with you. You’re...perfect. I-I guess what I’m saying is... I really fell in love with you, (Y/N). I really love you.”

Mustering all the courage he can get from all the deities (thank Bahamut he actually mustered any strength XD), Prompto— as he embraced (Y/N) albeit tightly, gave her a kiss full of genuine love.

Before he left with Ignis and Gladio, Prompto decided to take one last selfie with (Y/N). One that would serve a memento of their bond.

Ignis Scientia He served as the strategist of the future Kingsglaive and royal adviser to (Y/N). The young woman was actually amazed at how well Ignis can do his role perfectly even without his eye sight.

... much more when (Y/N) found out Iggy could cook without his sight.

Ignis found himself cooking for the young Queen once in a while during his free time and camping times for when (Y/N) decides they needed the four of them (herself included) in the field. It brought happiness to the mother hen of a cook, seeing how the young woman enjoyed his cooking.

Often, the two would end up cooking together. Ignis personally enjoyed teaching (Y/N) the recipes he knew, even more when he discovered new recipes as well.

Overtime, Iggy realized he had developed feelings for (Y/N). He knew it was wrong. He’s from the present and she was from the future. The very flow of time separates them form one another. If he decided to stay, time and space will be messed up. Only then he realized the meaning of that one line in the myth: Some had disappeared and caused unexplained anomalies.

Meaning, some of the chosen had actually decided to stay in the future, therefore changing the present forever. Along with this is the series of unforeseen events.

It pained him. Ignis had loved (Y/N), the Queen of future Lucis, but he had to do the right thing. A long time had passed since the three of them left the present day Lucis. They’ve left Noctis far too long. So he decided to return once everything was over.

On the day of their return to present day Lucis, Ignis made sure he told (Y/N) how he felt. How he loved her. How he was truly happy to find a woman who cared for him just as much as he does for her despite his inability to see.

“I’m genuinely happy to have found a woman who loved me despite my inability. I’ve spent the last ten years of my life in darkness, but you came into my life and became my light. I truly wish I could stay with you, but... I can’t. But you must know that I love you, (Y/N).”

Lastly, Ignis cupped (Y/N)’s face with his hands and planted a long kiss on her soft lips (I mean, if he can cook without his eyesight, definitely he can kiss you XD). That was his first and last time he’ll be able to do it, for the woman he loved lived in a different timeline.

Gladiolus Amicitia Similar to how he served Noctis and— in his youth, former King Regis, Gladio acted as (Y/N)’s shield whilst serving the future Kingsglaive. He wasn’t explicitly told to do so, but the man felt like he should. Whether it was his bloodline as an Amicitia or his personal choice that made him do it, only he himself knows... maybe both.

It felt weird at first for Gladio that someone who looked like Noctis acted like Regis. Because the Noctis he knew was a tad bit different from the Prince’s father.

Even with her shield, the Queen still needs to defend herself, and so Gladio and (Y/N) would often train together. The young woman admitted to learning much thanks to Gladio’s training, much to the man’s content. Despite her calmer demeanor compared to Noctis, (Y/N) still had a form of friendly rivalry with Gladio. A proof of a growing bond between them.

As time went by and the tension between Lucis and Niflheim growing, Gladio couldn’t deny he started to love (Y/N). He wanted to continue being her shield, being by her side to protect her, especially with the war drawing closer between the two nations.

Ever since he arrived in future Lucis, Gladio’s been loyal to his duties to protecting the Lucian Royal Family, and (Y/N) was no exception. Perhaps, his want to be by her side was something beyond his duties as an Amicitia.

It was his true feelings. Gladio knew he had to go back to his original timeline, but he also knew he couldn’t just leave (Y/N) without telling her everything he felt, lest he’ll find himself contemplating to why he didn’t.

After the battle between Lucis and Niflheim, the victory of Lucis is ensured and so is its future. During those times, Gladiolus took the opportunity to tell (Y/N) what he needed to get off his chest. He tried to take it lightly... tried. Gladio found it hard to get his feelings off his chest, which is surprising for a confident man such as himself

“You know, (Y/N), you’re an amazing queen. You’ve risked everything for your kingdom, even your own life, so don’t go looking down on yourself, alright? And don’t put yourself in too much risk. Heck I had to save you almost all the time, and I’d stay by your side as your shield if I could, but we all know I can’t do that. Alright, I‘m just gonna say that I love you, (Y/N). I meant it when I said that if I could stay by your side as your shield, I would. That’s how you mean to me, ‘my queen’.”

On the day of his departure from future Lucis, he gave (Y/N) a passionate parting kiss. He loved her, but he knows he shouldn’t further mess up with and time and space. ____________

... I’m sorry it didn’t end a happy ending ; A ;

#final fantasy xv #final fantasy 15 #prompto argentum #prompto #gladiolus amicitia #gladio #ignis stupeo scientia #ignis scentia #ignis #spoilers #ffxv scenario #reader insert

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maxwellyjordan · 5 years

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Ask the author: “The great oracle of American legal thought” – revisiting the life and times of Justice Holmes

The following is a series of questions posed by Ronald Collins to Stephen Budiansky concerning Budiansky’s book “Oliver Wendell Holmes: A Life in War, Law, and Ideas” (W.W. Norton, 2019, 592 pp., cloth: $29.95).

Stephen Budiansky is the author of 17 books of biography, history and science. He was a recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in the Creative Arts in 2011.

Welcome, Stephen, and thank you for taking the time to participate in this question-and-answer exchange for our readers. And congratulations on the publication of your latest book.

* * *

Part of the greatness of a great life, I think, consists in leaving it unadvertised.

— Justice Holmes, letter to Lady Tweeddale, April 4, 1931

Question: Yours is the latest in a long line of Holmes biographies, including those by Francis Biddle (1942, pp. 214), Catherine Drinker Bowen (1944, pp. 475), Mark DeWolfe Howe (1957 & 1963, 2 vols, pp. 663), John S. Monagan (1988, pp. 170), Sheldon Novick (1989, pp. 522), Liva Baker (1991, pp. 783), G. Edward White (1995, pp. 648), and Susan-Mary Grant (2015, pp. 224). Then there are quasi-biographies such as those by Thomas Healy (2013, pp. 336) and Brad Snyder (2017, pp. 824). Since 1942, there have been 5,683 biographical pages printed in books. That, of course, does not include yet more printed pages in scholarly journals or a vast array of commentaries in books and journals or collections edited by the likes of Felix Frankfurter.

What does your biography add to the mix?

Budiansky: Thank you, Ron, and glad to have the opportunity to answer your questions about my new biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes.

My aim was not to treat Holmes either as the celebrity figure of his first biographers or as a dry specimen for scholarly analysis, but to draw a more fully realized portrait of an exceptional life. Holmes’ experiences over his 93 years spanned a period of tremendous challenge and change in American history, from the Civil War to the New Deal. The challenge to a biographer is to bring together his public and private lives, which in Holmes’ case are both of unusual complexity and richness.

There are also three specific areas where I think I was able to shed some important new light on his life and thought. First, thanks to Harvard’s monumental project to digitize his entire archive, I was able to systematically read thousands of important, never-published letters. In particular, his lively and indefatigable correspondence with a dozen or so mostly much younger women friends over the course of many decades is a trove of insight into his ideas and daily life, including occasional misgivings and hesitations that I believe he reveals nowhere else. He writes about his fellow justices, his cases, Washington society; he shares his philosophical musings and frequently humorous observations of the passing scene. In both their text and subtexts, I found these letters to be essential to understanding his character, personality, thought and experiences.

Second, thanks to the tremendous generosity of someone who contacted me out of the blue at the start of my project — Judge Hiller B. Zobel, who served on the Massachusetts Superior Court and who had assembled a remarkable collection of Holmes materials over decades of research into the justice’s judicial career — I was able to be the first biographer of Holmes to make a thorough examination of Holmes’ experiences as a trial judge. At the time Holmes joined the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the justices not only heard appeals but sat individually over many trials — they heard all divorce, murder and equity cases as well as a good many probate and civil actions. Judge Zobel freely shared with me original records he had found of hundreds of Holmes’ trials, and these offer an amazing look at a chapter in Holmes’ judicial career that I think not only has been largely overlooked, but turns out to have been a crucial factor in shaping his judicial philosophy.

Finally, I located in the National Library of Ireland a number of letters previously unknown to Holmes scholars that provide a new perspective on his relationship with an Anglo-Irish noblewoman, Lady Castletown, with whom he is often said to have had “an affair” — though frankly I doubt that.

Question: Official biographies can take a long time. For example, Chief Justice Warren Burger died nearly a quarter-century ago and his official biography has yet to be published. Something of the same holds true with Holmes, whose official biography was never fully completed. Can you say a few words about that?

Budiansky: It was Exhibit A of how trying to restrict access to letters and papers in archives hinders biographers and, perhaps more interestingly, is ultimately self-defeating in its attempt to “protect” the reputation of the subject. Felix Frankfurter was zealous in guarding Holmes’ reputation after Holmes’ death in 1935 and decided that only the official biographer he anointed in 1939 to carry out the task, Mark Howe of the Harvard Law School, would have access to Holmes’ papers. Howe was a prodigious scholar and by all accounts a wonderful person, but his heart was just never in it. He meticulously edited and published Holmes’ Civil War diary and his correspondence with Harold Laski and Frederick Pollock, but could never quite get around to starting on the biography itself. In the end he had finished only two slim volumes before dying in 1967 — and those cover only the first 40 years of the justice’s life, not even reaching his years on the Massachusetts bench, never mind the Supreme Court. After further abortive attempts to have the authorized biography completed, Harvard finally gave up and opened the Holmes papers to researchers in 1985.

So the only thing all this secrecy and exclusivity accomplished was to delay for half a century the first serious, complete biographies of the justice. Hardly a boon to his reputation.

Question: There are some great Holmes lines that, it turns out, were not actually his words. Can you give us a few examples?

Budiansky: Probably the most famous is his oft-quoted assessment of FDR: “A second-class mind, but a first-class temperament,” which he almost certainly never said. He did say something vaguely like that about Theodore Roosevelt, which may have been where the story got started. But every book about FDR seems to repeat it.

Holmes was such a well-known wit that he suffered from the Mark Twain or Winston Churchill syndrome of having just about any commonplace witty saying of the day attributed to him. But his genuine quips were in a class by themselves. Dean Acheson once asked him what old Justice Harlan had been like. Holmes replied, “Harlan’s mind was like a vise, the jaws of which did not meet. It only held the larger objects.”

Question: You write: “[I]t was the Civil War that was his touchstone.” Given that, you dwell on Holmes’ Civil War experience at some length, and impressively so. In what sense was Holmes’ experience the touchstone of his philosophy and jurisprudence?

Budiansky: He hated war, and hated reading about the Civil War, but he always acknowledged it as the great transformative experience of his life. At the Battle of Ball’s Bluff he was struck in the chest, and a year later at Antietam was shot right through the neck. Each time the bullet missed killing him by a fraction of an inch. The experience gave him a determination ever after to face life and the unknown with great moral courage, and the conviction that the only thing you could really do about the human condition, as well as its only true source of happiness, was to throw yourself into your work and just “do your damnedest,” as he liked to say, without worrying about success, failure or saving the world.

He said to his fellow Civil War veterans in one speech that those who “somehow have survived” that terrible ordeal “know the passion and irony of life.” A profound and poetic thought. The war confirmed his deep belief that life is a gamble and there are no certainties; and by the same token it taught him to be extremely wary of ideological certainty. It really confirmed his philosophical skepticism, which in turn was the bedrock of his judicial philosophy. He often warned that law is not some moral abstraction or lofty ideal, but at root a statement of where society will kill you rather than have its proscriptions disobeyed. A brutal realism, but one that underscored the absolute need for tolerance and compromise over ideological zealotry. Before we try to inflict our moral certainties on the world, he was saying, we ought to pause and reflect first that we may well be wrong — and second that certainty all too often leads to violence.

The Civil War also gave Holmes an abiding respect for the so-called common man. He told his friend Harold Laski that the army taught him some great lessons: to be prepared for catastrophe; to endure being bored; and to know that however fine a fellow he thought he was, there were other men whom he might have looked down on had not experience taught him to look up. The lesson that practical ability mattered more than high-minded thoughts or “noble” character was one he never forgot.

Question: “To Holmes,” you note, “the act of writing was above all the act of thinking. Finding the right words was not rhetorical ornamentation: it was the very essence of his work of thinking through a complex legal problem.” Fair enough, and he certainly shaped the law in many ways with his wise words. Then again, many of his memorable phrases do just the opposite: they trade critical thought for the magic that comes from his mantras. On that score, permit me to let the late Max Lerner pose the larger question: “are we in danger of accepting him too uncritically?” Your response?

Budiansky: I certainly agree we should not accept him, or anyone else for that matter, uncritically. But I don’t accept your contention that his memorable phrases were a substitute for critical thought. Their magic is not some slick rhetorical trick, but rather his ability to crystallize in one striking metaphor or turn of phrase a highly complex argument, a beautiful compression of form akin to what only the greatest poets achieve.

But that said, you’re right that in the hands of others his memorable catch-phrases have at times had the effect of dulling careful thinking — “shouting fire in a theater” being the most notorious example, perhaps. Holmes to his credit was well aware of this. He warned, in a really insightful observation, that “the minute a phrase becomes current it becomes an apology for not thinking accurately to the end of the sentence.”

Question: On the matter of constitutional interpretation, you note that Holmes kept the same skeptical “eye on the Constitution that he trained on everything.” By that do you mean that the text of the Constitution was neither seriously important nor determinative for him? What do you mean when you say that, if so, “it is more our loss than his failure”?

Budiansky: He certainly thought that the Constitution was exceptionally important — how could he not — but he was deeply skeptical of attempts to enlist the Constitution as the final word in every partisan dispute. As he often stressed, the Constitution is not a set of “mathematical formulas,” it does not “divide fields of black and white,” it is not the “partisan” of one particular set of economic or social opinions — but, quite the contrary, was meant to be “a frame of government for men of opposite opinions and for the future.”

He loved to twit his fellow justices that he would take any general proposition they cared to offer and decide the case either way based upon it. His point was that in most cases a judgment comes down to specific circumstances, and the broadly worded precepts of the Constitution simply do not take you far enough to determine the outcome of a particular case. In Martin v. District of Columbia (1907), which upheld an ordinance opening private alleyways for public use, he wrote that “constitutional rights, like others, are matters of degree.” Or as he more jocularly told a friend at the time, “I took pleasure in pointing out that a man’s constitutional rights might be a matter of feet and inches.”

He also observed that the worst offenders when it came to reading their own political views into the Constitution were the very judges who claimed to be strictly following its words and nothing else. Anyone who derived a conclusion of “delusive exactness” from the very general language of the Constitution, Holmes pointed out, was perforce bringing in other values and considerations, acknowledged or not. He reported to his friend the Irish historian Alice Stopford Green the wisecrack he had made to his fellow justices underscoring the point: “I took occasion at luncheon to define constitutional law to my brethren as the prejudices of nine old pedagogues read into an instrument that did not contain them, which I hope gave pain.” I think that’s a healthy skepticism we ought to remember, especially in our day when left and right routinely seek to deploy sweeping assertions of constitutional principle or invocations of absolute rights as the unappealable argument on divisive issues.

Question: Professor Thomas Grey tagged Holmes as “the great oracle of American Legal thought.” Judge Richard Posner branded him “the most illustrious figure in the history of American Law.” Professor Albert Alschuler was not so effusive. In his book “Law Without Values” (2002) he wrote: “Despite these hosannas to Holmes, a common theme in writing about him is that he was two people—Jekyll-Holmes and Hyde-Holmes.” What do you think he meant by that?

Budiansky: You’d have to ask him! Alschuler employs a lot of tendentious argument and selective quotation to paint a dark caricature of a psychologically damaged Holmes. I believe he fundamentally misrepresents Holmes’ views about war and the life struggle. Holmes had his human failings as we all do, but he was a man of great integrity, moral courage and personal generosity. He also had an abiding sense of humor about the world, life and himself — something Alschuler seems to have no comprehension of. Humorless academics are not a rare species.

Question: As you point out, in the “1940s and 1950s Holmes’ reputation came under ferocious attack from Catholic legal scholars who saw his rejection of ‘natural law’ … as a dangerous and ‘alien’ philosophy inviting immorality, chaos, even fascism.”

Francis Biddle, one of Holmes’ former “secretaries” (1911–12), was so concerned with such criticisms that he replied to them at some length in his Oliver Wendell Holmes Devise Lecture of 1960 (“Justice Holmes, Natural Law, and the Supreme Court”). Said Biddle: “Our ideal judge will distrust phrases, particularly those that are tinctured with a moral flavor.”

In brief, what was Holmes’ response to his critics? And how did that make him an “ideal” judge?

Budiansky: For the most part he did not respond, though he did write a magnificently dismissive short article about “natural law” in 1918, pointing out the philosophically elementary fact that we are all dogmatic about what is familiar and agreeable to us, yet that does not make our preferences universal, eternal or “natural” truths. I think Biddle’s point was that a judge who can put aside his own even deeply held assumptions embraces one of the most important qualities in a judge — of being able to see both sides of a case without prejudice.

Question: As you portray him, and given his dissent in Northern Securities v. United States (1904), Holmes was no fan of the Sherman Antitrust Act. You quote him as tagging the act “an imbecile statute,” which “aims at making everyone fight but forbidding anyone to be victorious.”

How did that affect Holmes’ reputation in the ideological camps of the day?

Budiansky: He only expressed those views in private, though he also made a point of saying that if “my fellow citizens want to go to Hell, I will help them. It’s my job.” In other words, he would uphold a statute even if it was imbecilic. He did in fact uphold a more clear-cut action under the Sherman Act the following year in Swift v. United States (1905), the Beef Trust case, writing a strong opinion for the unanimous Supreme Court against collusive price-fixing by the meatpackers. But as he complained to his friend Clara Stevens afterward, “I suppose the capitalists think me dangerous and the labor people think me an eccentric slave of capital. Nobody wants a dispassionate man.” He hated being placed by the newspapers and public opinion in one ideological camp or the other based on his decision in a particular case.

Question: Holmes’ subsequent dissents in labor cases such as Lochner v. New York (1905) and Adair v. United States (1908) made him appear to be the darling of liberals. So how liberal was Holmes?

Budiansky: He personally was very skeptical about social and economic reforms, and as much as he enjoyed the intellectual company of young liberals like Herbert Croly and Frankfurter, he was never much persuaded by their enthusiasm for liberal causes. That said, his war experience had left him dubious about “causes” of all kinds.

Yet both from the war and from his time on the Massachusetts bench he also had a genuine empathy for working men and their problems. He believed that since most things in life are an experiment, people in a democracy have the right to try new things even if he himself was doubtful how much good it would do.

Question: What role, if any, did Justice Louis Brandeis (the grand progressive) play in tilting Holmes to the liberal left on constitutional issues?

Budiansky: I’m not sure he did as much as many people think. Chief Justice William Howard Taft grumbled that Brandeis had Holmes under his thumb, which gave him two votes, but that was obviously an exaggeration. It’s true Brandeis at times successfully urged Holmes to file written dissents in cases where he might otherwise have acquiesced in silence to the majority. But Holmes was Holmes, and I don’t think Brandeis really reshaped his fundamental views. There were other more important factors in the 1920s that moved Holmes to the “left” on free speech and upholding the rights of African-Americans convicted in mob-dominated trials, in particular.

Question: You seem to absolve Holmes somewhat regarding his controversial opinion in Buck v. Bell (1927), the sterilization case of Carrie Buck. You point to how Buck’s lawyer helped shape the result in the case and how Chief Justice Taft influenced Holmes’ opinion. Please share with us your take on the case.

Budiansky: I certainly am not out to absolve him for what remains his most notorious opinion, with its brutal punchline, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” But I do think the story is more complex than it is usually made out to be. Unknown to the Supreme Court, the case was exactly the sort of collusive lawsuit that — given several other cases that really provoked Holmes’ judicial ire — I believe he would never have gone along with had he known what was going on. Buck’s lawyer in fact was a close associate of the superintendent of the state mental institution who had championed the Virginia sterilization law, and the appeal had been arranged deliberately to create a favorable test case to have the statute upheld. Much of the factual evidence in Buck’s favor was never in the record, and the constitutional arguments presented by her lawyer were notably weak ones. Taft in his memo assigning the case to Holmes particularly urged him to stress the supposed “imbecility” of three generations in Carrie Buck’s family, which the state argued was decisive proof that any additional children she had would end up as public charges. It’s also often overlooked that it was an 8-1 decision, and that eugenics before World War II had considerable public support in America. Only after the horrors of the Nazi regime did opinion really change.

Question: In your chapter on free speech circa 1918–1919, you write about the impact that the lives of Harold Laski and Felix Frankfurter had on the redevelopment of Holmes’ free speech jurisprudence. Tell us a little bit about that and why you think their experiences were of such great moment to Holmes.

Budiansky: It’s along and fascinating story, but the vicious and anti-Semitic character attacks that Frankfurter and Laski endured at Harvard, coupled with intense pressure from the conservative Boston establishment to have them fired from the faculty for daring to defend free speech for socialists and the rights of striking workers, brought home the price of intolerance in a very personal way to Holmes.

Question: Many years before Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made it into the movies, there was a full-length Hollywood movie about Holmes — “The Magnificent Yankee” (1950), which followed a 1946 play, which in turn followed “Yankee from Olympus” (1944) by Catherine Drinker Bowen. A Kirkus review of Bowen’s book said this: “The Holmes cult is a substantial one.” How would you value Holmes’ reputational stock at the present point in time?

Budiansky: Right now I think he is far less known to the general public than in the heyday of what was undeniably a “Holmes cult” for many decades after his death — today he is to most people little more than a name. I have vague hopes my book will change that. I’m not sure who we could get to play Holmes in the new movie — given his long life, it would take a number of them!

Question: Do you suppose that Holmes, if he were alive today, would have any allies on the Roberts Court? If so, who might they be and why? If not, why not?

Budiansky: You know, even in his time he not infrequently found that his great brevity and vivid way with words lost him the support of justices who initially intended to join his opinion. Were he on the Roberts Court, he would never be able to stomach those 83-page decisions that seem to be de rigueur these days, so I suspect he’d still be the Great Dissenter, issuing a lot of opinions by himself in his inimitable and ever-so-concise voice.

***

Cases linked to in this post:

Adair v. United States, 208 U.S. 161 (1908) Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905) Martin v. District of Columbia, 205 U.S. 135 (1907) Northern Securities v. United States, 193 U.S. 197 (1904) Swift v. United States, 196 U.S. 375 (1905)

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