#and sometimes titan's helmet have that human faces design

[kaiserouo]

wow hunters sure have a lot of cool looking sets

#or maybe just because i like capes and hoodies #i don't really like robes and titan sets are mostly meh tbh #and sometimes titan's helmet have that human faces design #seriously just don't make helmets have human faces is that so hard????? #btw this hunter kinda looks like a ninja ngl #i don't know what i was doing after the lineart part #destiny 2 #destiny hunter #destiny 2 art #my art

[poorlytunedukulele]

Day 6 - Triad

The triad is a rhetorical form whereby objects are grouped together in threes, with a heading indicating the point of likeness; for example, "Three things not easily restrained, the flow of a torrent, the flight of an arrow, and the tongue of a fool."

The Flow of a Torrent

“Azra.”

The Arcstrider looked up.  Andal met her eyes and saw the confusion there.  He gestured at the report he was writing.  “You’re distracting me,” he explained.

Azra nodded and turned to look back out the Jumpship window.  Andal went back to his report.  It was quiet for a minute, but soon the rhythmic thumping edged back into his awareness.  He cast a glance sidelong at his packmate.  She was sitting stiffly in her chair, eyes locked on the stars outside.  Her leg jiggled up and down in a frantic beat.

He cleared his throat and the shaking stopped.  It wasn’t thirty seconds before it was replaced by a different noise- the sound of a knife popping free from its sheath and then sliding back home repeatedly.

“Jax,” he commanded in exasperation.  “Sit still.”

She complied, lips pressed into a thin line, hands balled in fists on her knees.

Then the cockpit speakers crackled.  “Whoa,” Andal’s Ghost announced.  “Nav’s gone offline.  Radio’s on the fritz, too.” Andal looked at his projection.  It skipped and stuttered.

“Azra?”  Barring some crazy solar flare, the closest probable source of electromagnetic interference was the Arcstrider sitting shotgun.

The young Hunter stood abruptly and strode back towards the cargo hold.  The speakers quieted.  Andal’s projection flickered once more and returned to normal.

He abandoned it and poked his head into the cargo hold instead.  Azra was pacing back and forth, barely making it five steps one direction before she was forced to turn around.  She was fiddling with the straps on her forearm guards and grimacing.

“You alright?” he asked.

“Has it always been so small back here?” Azra asked in response.  There was anxiousness plain in her voice.

“What’s the problem?”

She looked dismayed now.  “We transmatted straight here.  I was still in Super.”  She had been, he realized.  There hadn’t been the usual time to calm down and take stock- their retreat had been more of an escape.  “Things looked pretty bad there at the end,” the Arstrider continued.  “I... went too deep, probably.”

It was easy to forget sometimes that for all the power she had, she was still young.  Sometimes control could only be gained through patience and time.  He reached for her hand-

She jerked back violently, hands up clear in the air, tense.  Her eyes were blue-white with Arc Light.  The hairs on Andal’s arms stood on end.

“That’s not smart,” Azra said.  “That’s really- I’m fine.  Really.  I just need to…”  She tightened the straps on her guards again and grimaced.  “I’m gonna… chill.  Over there.”  She gestured to the back of the cargo hold.

“Punch it,” Andal called over his shoulder.  He felt the ship accelerate as Charin obeyed.  Andal turned back to the Arcstrider, who’d taken several steps backward.   “Alright, kid, we’ll be in Camp in five minutes.”

“I’m okay, really,” she said.  She sounded like she meant it, at least.  “Just antsy.  Can't just turn off the Arc like that.”

“If you say so.”

The Flight of an Arrow

“Tevis!”

The Nightstalker hissed and turned his aim elsewhere.  But there was nowhere else to shoot.  The refugees from the caravan they’d been guarding were just too close.  The foliage was too thick overhead to let a Shadowshot through, the brush off the trail too dense.  He couldn’t even shoot at what he’d aimed at; there were too many people nearby.

Tevis, apparently, hadn’t prepared himself to wait.  He’d seen the Captain and pulled his Bow on instinct.  The shriek of the unspent death in his hands was audible over Shiro and Cayde’s gunfire, rising in pitch even as his head whipped around, desperately looking for an avenue of escape.

There just wasn’t one.  Andal reached the Nightstalker just as he gave up and took the metaphorical bullet.  The Void weapon disappeared from his hands and he fell into a crouch, head tucked in, hands in white-knuckled fists against his ribcage.  Andal himself had eaten Shadowshots before; he knew they could hurt like hell.

The refugees were panicking, even though the Captain and its crew were already dead.  They jostled dangerously close to the Nightstalker.  A concerned woman reached out a hand-

“Don’t touch him,” Andal snapped.  “Cayde, Shiro, get the civilians out of here.  We’ll catch up.”

Shiro was beside them in an instant, like magic, appraising Tevis.  He made brief eye contact with Andal, nodded, and turned back around, issuing orders to the cluster of Humans.

Andal put a tentative hand on the Nighstalker’s shoulder, jerking back with a hiss when Void ripped up his arm like icewater in his veins.  He shook the offended limb and settled into a kneeling position beside his comrade.  Every muscle in Tevis’s body was locked tight.

It was only when the frantic chatter of the refugees faded that Tevis let out the breath he was holding.  It came out a long, raspy squeak.

“Breathe,” Andal soothed.  “You’ve got this.  Just breathe.”

Tevis’s breath hitched, his shoulders shook, but he made no more noise.  He relaxed slowly, by degrees, letting a knee sink to the ground to steady himself, unclenching his hands, letting his shoulder slump.

Finally, Tevis opened his eyes.  “Close,” he panted.  “That was too close.”

He made to stand, shaky.  Andal helped him to his feet, relieved to not feel even a tingle of Void on his skin.  Tevis had things under control.

The two stood a moment as the Nightstalker checked his guns.  Andal only moved when Tevis shouldered the strap of his rifle and gestured.  “Dusk’s not too far off,” the elder Hunter reminded.

“Miles to go before we sleep,” Andal replied.

The Tongue of a Fool

“Cayde.”

“Whaaaaat?” the Gunslinger drawled in fake offense.

Andal pinched the bridge of his nose.  “You really need to learn when to shut up sometimes.”

“Just call ‘em as I see ‘em, bud,” Cayde said easily.  “And wow, it is hard to not see you.  Did you come that big, or you got platforms in your shoes?”

He was speaking to the Exo that loomed over them.  The Titan must have stood at almost 7 feet, though Andal would guess that his armor did add a few inches.  He planted his hands on their table, causing the wood to creak under his weight.  “Do you want to repeat what you just said to my face?”  The Titan even sounded menacing, low and growly.

“I said,” Cayde leaned forward, uncowed, “that’s the most ridiculous-looking helmet I’ve ever seen in my life.  You’re not gonna have any luck wooing that lady with that ugly thing on your head.”

Andal cast a glance back to the table their interloper had been sitting at.  True enough, there was a female Warlock sitting there, face halfway between relief and concern.  Andal nodded at her.  She abandoned her seat and made for the back door.

Cayde just rambled on.  “Though maybe it’s because what you got under it’s uglier.  Hey Andal, bet you a hundred glimmer this guy’s ugly as a Thrall’s butt.  No!  Two hundred.”

Andal sighed and looked mournfully at his drink.  Cayde had obviously seen the Warlock getting uncomfortable with the Titan’s advances, yet instead of checking in with the Warlock or talking to the Titan like a normal person, he’d decided to crow out an insult at a volume the whole bar could hear.

“You owe me a drink,” he accused his Exo companion.  “I’ve barely started this one.”

The Titan drew himself up to his full impressive height, rolling his shoulders.  Cayde reached for a knife.

TYPE: Transcript. DESCRIPTION: Conversation. PARTIES: Two [2]. One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Cayde-6 [c6]; One [1] Guardian-type, Class Hunter, designate Andal Brask [ab] ASSOCIATIONS; Brask, Andal; Cayde-6; The Last City [Earth] //AUDIO UNAVAILABLE// //TRANSCRIPT FOLLOWS.../

[c6:01]: Beautiful night.

[ab:01]: Shut up, Cayde.

[c6:02]: No, really.  Air’s practically balmy.

[ab:02]: I’m sure I’d appreciate it much more if I weren’t in a gutter.  And if I weren’t bleeding internally.

[c6:03]: Hey, isn’t your blood supposed to be internal?

[ab:03]: You realize the hell our Ghosts are going to give us when they get here?  I think we interrupted Charin’s gossip session.

[c6:04]: I saw that guy make like five passes at her.  Wasn’t taking her ‘no’s like he should.

[ab:04]: So you find a way to distract him so she can leave.

[c6:05]: I did!

[ab:05]: Without starting a brawl that leaves us bleeding in the gutter.

[c6:06]: Ah, but where’s the fun in that?

[ab:06]: I hate you so much sometimes.

[c6:07]: You love me and you know it.  I bring excitement into your life.

[ab:07]: I think I lost a tooth.

[c6:08]: Stop moping about that and start moping about the two hundred Glimmer you owe me.

[Silence]

[ab:08]: That guy was pretty ugly, wasn’t he?

[c6:09]: Thrall-butt was too kind, really.

[ab:09]: Fine, you can have your Glimmer.  But you owe me that drink.

[c6:10]: Laaaaaaame.

Whoops it’s 1,500 words this time.  Though I guess it’s a three-in-one, so each one’s 500, so it kind of counts?  Success!

Ao3 Linky

#destcember #destcember2020 #destiny #destiny the game #andal brask #tevis larsen #shiro-4 #cayde-6 #if you don't end up beaten up in an alley somewhere #you've had a boring night

[hypnoticwinter]

Down the Rabbit Hole part 16 (nsfw elements)

“Take a break!” comes the barked command through the squad radio link, and it takes all of my willpower not to collapse onto the fleshy ground then and there. I take the camera slung around my neck and turn it off, telescope the lens back into itself, and then find a nice soft bit of wall to sink into before I pop the helmet and give Elena a weary gaze. She grins at me cheekily.

“How you doing, cutie?”

I barely have enough energy to grin, but somehow I manage it. “God,” I tell her. “I had no idea there was going to be this much hiking.”

I had never thought of myself as much of a slouch as far as physical activity went. I liked keeping myself fit, liked the rush I got after a workout. I did a lot of cardio, a lot of jogging, that kind of thing. Occasionally I’d lift some weights but it didn’t appeal to me as much as just the inchoate joy of moving quickly and feeling air push in and out of my lungs. I had a fair amount of endurance as well; I wasn’t running marathons or anything but frequently I’d end up jogging for upwards of an hour, just for something to do, just to unwind after work or take my mind off something. I’d looked at the several miles we’d have to travel today, down there in the stinking guts of the Pit, and thought something along the lines of ‘no sweat, I’m active, I take care of myself, it’ll be a workout but nothing more.’

Christ.

What neither Peter or Makado had mentioned to me is that if you aren’t travelling in a Made Place down here, in a place that’s been specifically sanitized and reinforced and structured for something the size of a human, something that moves like a human instead of crawling or writhing or wriggling, it is capital-letter Tough Going. Everything down here, down to just the texture of the gigantic veins we pushed through, our suits sopping with nameless excretions and juices, seemed designed to only sullenly give way to us, and that after a great deal on our part to convince it to do so.

Example number one – the tightness of some of the veins is so great that we had to use something called a venterial jack, a pneumatic, hydraulic device that Slate carried slung over his back, in order to force them open so we could pass through. Everyone kept saying that once we hit the organ trail it’d be more open and we wouldn’t have to use it, but in the meantime in some of these conduits Slate would have to get three or four of us to help him pull back the weird, spongy tissue of the sides back far enough for him to plant it there in the middle, and then we’d all back away, and with a thundering sound like a pile-driver it would expand and splay open, pushing the tissue back with such force that at times it would leave a gigantic bruise coloring the Pit’s peach-hued flesh afterwards, and then we’d be able to crawl past it in the newly expanded space perhaps twenty feet or so before we’d have to hit the small trigger on its hull to collapse it, and then lug the thing back up to the front and repeat the process.

Example two – these vents aren’t perfectly straight, flat areas to walk in. They dip and bend and curve; sometimes they roll upwards, great creased crinkles of flesh stretching upwards into a ninety-degree angle. Then there’s nothing to do but get over it somehow, either by pulling yourself up if it’s small enough, or by breaking out the damn rope and pitons and climbing up, and then helping everyone else up after you. Then imagine doing all of this in pitch darkness, the only light coming from everyone’s headlamps. Then imagine that the floor is damp and sticky and squishy and generally revolting. Slippery with fluid at times. Imagine that it groans and writhes and wriggles around you if you manage to unstick your cleats at the wrong time and it bucks and pitches you to the ground. And then imagine that if you do fall to the ground, in the space of time it takes for someone to come and help you up you become covered with all forms of parasites, tiny things ranging between the size of a knuckle and the size of a fist, all urgently eager and hungry. Tiny worms like nematodes, crablike mites, stranger, less defined things that scuttle or slither or undulate off at the first sign of motion but are altogether too eager to swarm over you and excrete digestive juices or sensory pheromones or urine or shit or what the hell ever else.

I ask Elena about them and she explains that the duct that we’re moving through is part of the Pit’s digestive system and that all of these little creatures snag scraps of food whenever it passes through, or sometimes they prey on each other. They evolve quickly, down here in the dark, generations zipping by in the course of a day.

I can see my helmeted reflection in the glossy visor of Elena’s helmet and I shudder. My camera is already splattered with grime, no matter how careful I’ve been to keep it clean. Nothing that interferes with its operation, thankfully; I don’t relish the idea of grappling with the clunky, low-resolution camcorder secreted somewhere in its case in my pack. At least the operation of my DSLR is second-nature to me; at least I don’t have to think about it.

Peter stomps over and sits down next to us. In here, in these wider basins, the little scummy creatures crawling all over don’t seem to venture into the middle, leaving a broad round circle of bare flesh where we can sit without being molested. I’ve already popped my helmet and I keep my eyes on Elena as she takes hers off, shakes her head doggedly, smooths her hair out. She catches my eye and grins, and then flicks her eyes over to Peter.

“Peter, right?”

“Yes,” he says. He holds his fist out and they touch knuckles. A less complicated gesture than trying to shake hands with the suit gloves on. “Sorry I haven’t been around much, I’ve been –“

“Too busy with Veret?” Elena interjects smoothly, and I nearly choke on the mouthful of water I’d taken from my canteen. Peter claps me on the back and grimaces.

“I hoped people wouldn’t have talked much,” Peter says, and Elena laughs.

“Please,” she says. “People are going to do nothing but talk if you’re fucking the boss. I’m Elena, by the way.”

Peter’s blushing. I nudge him. “So you and Makado, huh?”

He snorts. “Slate walked in on me and her, um. Well, you know. In one of the supply closets the other day.”

“And of course,” Elena adds, “considering that Slate is a 12-year-old girl, he ran and tattled to everyone.”

“That’s Slate,” Peter agrees. “When did you join?”

“Three years ago.”

“Huh. That’s back when I was here.”

“Yeah, I was attached to a research team for a while. They were doing some gastric stuff and they needed a diver. Probably why we never met.”

“Makes sense,” Peter nods. Elena’s eyes flick over to me and she reaches out a hand.

“Want me to open that for you?” she asks, and I shake my head. I’ve almost gotten the granola bar open now, but these damn gloves –

“I’ve got it,” I tell her. “I almost –“

“You sure you’ve got it?”

“Shut up, Pete.”

“Here, let me –“

“Fine,” I say, tossing the granola bar to Elena. She strips the wrapper off it with one deft motion and I shake my head. “How the hell –“

“Lots of practice,” Peter says. “So Elena, when you joined, did you…”

As I sit there munching and letting the quiet rustle of conversation blur into the background, letting some of the strength come back into my weary legs, I think for a moment about the fleshy, veined interior of the basin I’m sitting in. There are places in my body just like this, I think to myself. This is just the same as me, writ large. And I’m sure I have parasites just like those squirming things, all the mites and leeches and worms and other tiny things, just even tinier, single-celled or at the very least simple organisms, living inside of me, just like these are.

I put my hand on the floor hesitantly and I swear I feel, just for a moment, the throb of a titan heartbeat somewhere resounding in it like the echo of a vast drum.

“Alright people! Let’s get moving!”

I push myself up, nearly bang heads with Elena. Our helmets are off still so it’s dark, the lights are strobing all around as everyone puts theirs on. “Sorry,” I say to her, but before I can get the word out fully she’s seized me by the shoulders and kissed me hard and deep on the lips, her tongue skating over my teeth lightly before we part, her gleaming grin the only part of her I can really see, and I’m left breathless. For the next fifteen minutes of hiking I can’t seem to wipe the smile from my face.

 * * *

 The first difficulty arises only about an hour after we left the rest site. The vent we were passing through widened out, a sign Elena explained meant that we were beginning to enter the old Organ Trail, sort of a central hiking path through some of the more interesting areas of the Pit. It meant easier going, which I was thankful for; the area had been cleared and levelled a long time ago, back before 2007, and even though some of the built areas had been wrecked by those titan convulsions, now years past, there was still a great deal of flat ground and even in some parts metal platforms and walkways for us to use, which certainly gave my aching arms and legs a little solace.

It happened just at the end of one of those walkways, a short, narrow tunnel through a conic gape of flesh that truncated down from the ceiling like an abraded sphincter. The walkway through it still had age-old hydraulic jacks keeping the fleshy ceiling from collapsing inward on it, and though the Sergeant and Fumi, up at front, showed a little trepidation at the notion of passing through with only those jacks to secure it, there was no other real option; the portable jack Slate had wasn’t strong enough to provide any sort of security, even if we set it up in the middle of the passage at full load strength. Plus, Crookshank had loudly and crudely reasoned, if the fucking thing hadn’t caved in in the last four fucking years, what are the fucking odds it’ll fuck us in the ass right as we walk under it?

Hard to argue with that logic. And, to Crookshank’s credit, the fucking thing didn’t fuck us in the ass, although I couldn’t stop myself from staring up at the bloated, swollen flesh of the ceiling as I passed under it, a tiny ice-cold trickle of fear welling in my gut as I considered the sheer weight that was likely behind that glossy, straining surface. Suit or no suit, that’d kill me.

We hardly make it thirty yards from the ending of the tunnel before Joker tears through the flesh of the trail and plunges down into darkness. Euler actually yelps and we all whip around and see the outline of the pit the robot had fallen through, an irregular craggy chasm of flesh. We make our way cautiously to its edge and peer down and I almost laughed, for there just fifteen feet or so below us is Joker, his head inclined upwards, the running lights on the side blinking anxiously, looking for all the world like a forlorn and anxious dog waiting for its master to come rescue it.

Then all manner of cursing and expletives. It was for all the world like watching the groups of construction workers you’d see sometimes on the side of the highway, about six of us standing around mutely with our arms folded or akimbo, watching, while two others ran about frantically trying to accomplish something. The Sergeant and Euler had another shouting match which ended with the Sergeant throwing up his hands in disgust when Euler explained that the damn thing weighed around five hundred pounds and that nobody had told him to look out for crevices like that. Crookshank was in favor of jumping down and tying a rope around Joker’s waist and then the rest of us hoisting him out that way, but Klaus stops him and tosses a tiny white tab down into the murky liquid pooling around Joker’s feet.

“Acid test strip,” Elena murmurs to me when I shot her a questioning glance.

Nearly a dozen headlamps focus in on the tiny floating strip. Crookshank spits a disgusted curse when it turns a violent shade of pink.

“Good thing Klaus threw that in,” Elena calls, a tiny smirk coloring her words, and Crookshank rolls his eyes at her.

“What’s going on – oops. Sorry.”

Makado’s voice had flourished in my ears, sounding as rich and full in the helmet as though she’d been standing right next to me. Then the transmission clicked off. A couple of chuckles from the rest of the squad and then I realized – she must have dialed to the wrong frequency, spoken to all of us instead of just the Sergeant. He inclines his great slab of a head, one hand pressed to his helmeted ear, nodding occasionally, and then motions to Euler. “Euler,” he says. “Can you make it dig in and climb out?”

Euler stares at him blankly. “You mean into the - ?”

“Yes, goddam it, into the side of the wall.”

Poor Euler. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to. His hands are shaking lightly on the remote and all of us staring at him waiting for him to do it probably isn’t helping. He presses a complex series of buttons, manipulates the joystick carefully, and down in the pit Joker reaches up and plunges his hands into the fleshy wall, using about as much effort, it looks like, as it’d take to push into sand. Joker lifts himself off the ground and then hesitantly pulls one hand out, dripping with gore, and reaches upwards.

“Today, Euler.”

I almost, almost snap something at the Sergeant, but I bite my tongue. Whatever sort of peace we brokered the other night, it seemed like a tentative one, and I’d rather he was yelling at Euler, not me.

Sorry, Euler.

“Hey, Roan?”

I reach down to the radio and click it on. “Makado, what’s up?”

“Hi,” she says. “I just wanted to let you know that earlier today I got a call from our mutual friend Erica.”

I can feel my eyebrows raising of their own accord. “Really?” I ask. “Was she able to get in touch with - ?”

“With her guy down there? No, she wasn’t. She was calling to let me know that she was sorry,” Makado laughs, “and to tell you the same, that she’s sorry.”

“Christ,” I mutter. “Wasn’t expecting that.”

“I’ve already spoken to the Sergeant about it and we’ve decided that on the way back up you’ll make some detours, check some spots that he might be holed up, but since we can’t make contact with him…”

“Right.”

“How are you doing down there?”

“Um. I’m alright. This is a bit of a new experience for me.”

“That’s one way to put it. Getting good footage?”

Me and my camera watch as Joker pokes his head up over the lip of the crevasse. Next to me Elena gives a little whooping cheer. “Yeah,” I say, turning so that Elena’s in the shot. She looks over at me, looks down, the lens reflecting in her helmet, flashes index and middle finger in a v at me. “You could say that.”

“Good. Well, that’s all, just wanted to check in with you.”

“Heard about you and Peter,” I blurt before I can stop myself. Makado grunts questioningly, and I roll my eyes at placing my foot directly in my own mouth as usual. “You know,” I clarify, “in the supply closet.”

There’s a moment of frozen silence and then Makado bursts out laughing. “Goddam it,” she sputters. “Slate told everyone, didn’t he?”

“More or less.”

“That fucker. Well, yeah. We, ah, got a little carried away.”

“I’m happy for you,” I tell her, and I find myself mildly surprised that it’s actually true. “He’s right here if you want to talk to –“

“No, no, it’s okay, I’ve actually been talking to him all day, more or less. Cause, you know, the equipment up here, I can put a direct line in to whichever one of you I like.”

“Right, of course.”

“Well,” Makado says, and I smile softly to myself beneath the helmet.

“See you, Mak.”

“See you.”

The radio line clicks off and then I’m alone inside my own head again.

Joker is dripping with blood now and I make sure I take plenty of video of him; a couple of stills as well, just because it looks metal. Like something straight out of a movie. Then once Euler has checked him over and wiped off the worst of it we go back to trudging down the vent like nothing has happened. Euler takes more care to keep Joker walking in step behind us and though Elena points out a couple of the fissures to me, skin crawling as I examine the thin membranous layer separating them from the air, nobody falls into any more.

Another couple of hours of walking and then another break. I have to go back three menus to check the time on my camera; some of the others’ helmets, I’m told, have heads-up displays on the interior that show details like that; mine either doesn’t have this functionality or it’s switched off so as to not overwhelm me with extraneous visual noise. It’s six in the evening; Elena tells me that the plan is to make it to our stopping point for the day by nine or ten. We’re over the worst of it, she says grinning, and then because we’re towards the back with only Joker behind us to see, she reaches down and squeezes my ass lightly and I respond in the only way I know how, by upping the ante, and reaching for her and groping her taut breasts clumsily through the suit before she spins away from me laughing. I still cast a nervous glance behind and meet Joker’s faceless metal gaze. I peer at him again for a little before I turn back around. I haven’t told Euler yet of what happened in the gondola on the way down but the more I think about it and turn it over in my head the more I’m convinced it must have been nothing. Just a little software glitch of some kind.

It amazes me how easily the fantastic surroundings I’m in become mundane. Just scant hours ago I was nearly getting sick breathing the air but now I’m grateful for it when I pop my helmet and gulp down great lungfuls of it, cloying and organic and thick but not recycled, not passed through a dozen filters before reaching my lungs.

We’re in the Organ Trail proper now, great wide cavities and veins and vesicles and all these other little fiddly medical names that pass between everybody like old friends but which leave me halting. What’s the difference between a vein and a vent? A vesicle and a ventricle? What about an organ and a cavity? I don’t know, and if I asked I’d only expose my ignorance, I’d only be patronized. I did ask Elena a few innocuous questions in that nature but every time she answered me she did so with a smug little smile and it made me feel small so eventually I stopped asking, even though I know she probably didn’t mean to do it.

Break. Another granola bar, another bottle of water. Have to stay hydrated. Sergeant comes around to all of us, makes sure we’re drinking enough. He doesn’t bark at me, he’s – not kind, but not awful. I hold hands with Elena surreptitiously there in the dark and though I can barely feel her through the thick suit, knowing she’s there is a comfort.

I think about Erica’s boy, whoever he was to her. There wasn’t enough of a resemblance for me to think that they were family but obviously she cares about him. I think about him alone down here for almost four days now. I think about how scared I’d be in the same position.

I have to fucking piss.

I get up and Elena eyes me. “Where’re you going?”

“To take a leak. What’s the protocol down here, just squat down and go wherever?”

She makes a face. “Unfortunately. If you’re male you have the luxury of using an empty water bottle but if not…”

“Right,” I say. I’ve gone camping before so the concept isn’t entirely foreign to me but it still isn’t particularly tasteful either. I make my way towards a discrete corner, a little fold of flesh that drapes down from the ceiling like a curtain.

“Don’t go far!” Elena calls from behind me, and I throw her a thumbs-up without turning. It’ll just take a moment anyway. Behind the curtain is actually another corridor – a vent, I guess, is the term everyone else seems to use most commonly. I eye it a little warily before I step forward. It’s dark in there, and I feel a little more exposed than I thought I would as I unzip the bottom portion of the suit and squat down, choosing a dingy little corner, a little wrinkled knot of flesh like the accordion-like joint between the thumb and the rest of the hand.

I do my business quickly and then seal the suit, taking time to check all of the joints like I was shown in the brief training the engineer fitting me had given. I –

Something moves in the vent ahead of me and I freeze. I can’t see it properly, it’s far too dark, but it seems large, larger than I am. I take a hesitant step back, eyes locked on its wavering silhouette, and then I reach down with my thumb along the side of the helmet, carried loosely at my side, and press the button for the headlamp, and it casts a beam of light over the thing, and it is so large, larger than me, towering at least eight feet tall there in the vent, all whipping tentacles and soft spongy tissue. It has wide, strange eyes that peer at me blearily in the sudden light, its long, snakelike, curiously vulnerable-looking body surrounded by a halo of pale venous fronds or tendrils, light pink and throbbing. It reaches out for me and I start to scream but the sound catches in my throat, and then I take a panicked, scrambling step backwards and the cleats dig in the wrong way and I pitch to the ground. I hit hard, knock the air from my lungs, and then I really can’t scream even though my brain has finally caught up with what’s happening and I’m trying to force my abused lungs to work, all I can manage is a little croaking noise.

The thing scuttles closer to me. The tendrils are starting to wrap around my leg and I kick at it and scoot backwards, but they tighten around my ankle and hold me still. I can feel terror inside of me like I’m a cocoon, like it’s clawing at my skin and if it makes a hole in me I’ll disappear, evaporate, vanish, I’ll scream and scream and -

“Roan?” Elena calls. It sounds as though she’s coming towards the coil of flesh I’d hidden behind. “We’re getting ready to go.”

“Help,” I manage to croak, and then Elena bolts around the corner, her pistol already clearing the holster. I feel the tendrils around my leg loosen and then slip away as she marches towards the thing completely fearlessly. She isn’t even pointing the gun at it. She stands up on her tiptoes as best she can in the bulky cleats and stares at it, stares it down, the thing retreating on its millions of whiplike tentacles, before finally it turns tail and flees down the vent, making a noise like pudding being poured into a bag full of live eels.

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter as Elena helps me up. “What the fuck was that?”

“Venous shamble,” she tells me. “Big one, too. Would have stuck a proboscis in you and sucked you dry if you let it. Why didn’t you shoot it or something? They’re pussies, even if you missed it would have run away.”

“I didn’t think of it,” I say quietly, looking at her. I can feel myself trembling with the comedown of the adrenaline and I feel defensive. “I didn’t - I don’t know, I froze up and -“

Elena’s face falls, and then she is crouching next to me and undoing my helmet gently, cradling me in her arms. “It’s okay,” she tells me. “It’s okay, nobody could expect you to do any different.”

I blow a big breath out. “Okay,” I say. “Okay, I’m good.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. Here, come here.”

“What is it?”

“Kiss me,” I tell her, and I see Elena grin.

“We are moving, ladies!” the Sergeant calls from back in the main chamber, and both of us jump. Elena hauls me to my feet and I slot the helmet back onto the neck of the suit.

“Thanks for saving me,” I tell her, and though she rolls her eyes she still smiles at me.

“Why do I feel like I’m going to hear that a lot from you?” she asks, and I shrug and then we hold hands for the next two hours, there at the back with Joker trudging along behind us with squishy pneumatic footfalls, and after long enough of that I finally, finally feel my insides loosen up and the terror that had been lurking inside of me gradually vanish.

The rest of the night passes without incident. We make it to the broad flat exposed bone plate that we’d planned to camp on and Fumi sets up a portable stove and passes around MREs. I get one that’s a vegetable omelet and though Elena offers to trade with me because apparently it is the foulest piece of food science that the US Military has ever seen fit to inflict on its soldiers and I, being a mere civilian, am unprepared to face its manifold horrors, I actually kind of like it, especially once I mix in the little hot sauce packet.

Afterwards, Elena helps me set up the weird hexagon-panelled tent, which I am hopelessly confused by, inside one of the many vents leading to the basin, which she explains is necessary because the tent has to brace against the vent walls in order to keep its shape. Eventually she laughs at me, though not unkindly, and tells me not to worry about it, she’ll set it up. The tents are two-person, and there seem to be a series of accustomed pairs, Fumi and Ellis, Klaus and Slate, Crookshank and the Sergeant. Elena, when I ask her, tells me that she got a tent to herself normally. That leaves Peter and Euler to bunk up together, but they seem to be getting along alright, so that all works out, I suppose. We’ve left Joker there on the bone plate by himself. Euler hasn’t shut him down but put him into some sort of guard mode so he’ll wake us if anything gets into the basin, but Elena assures me that up this high in the Pit nothing noteworthy is going to bother us. The biggest things up here, she says, are the shambles, and they only bother to attack isolated stragglers, things they know they can kill. They’re very fragile, apparently, and know it.

Elena goes to relieve herself and I clamber into the tent, lay out the mats and sleeping bags. I double-check the map on my suit computer, make sure I know which vent leads to the ballast bulb Makado had mentioned to me. Just thinking about it gives me shivers but I resolve not to worry about it until later. Then I strip my suit off and then shrug out of my underclothes as well. My hair is a little lank from being in a helmet all day and although I’ve applied antiperspirant liberally I can’t escape the suspicion that I don’t smell anywhere close to roses.

No matter. I drape myself across the sleeping bags in what I hope is a sexy manner and play with myself lightly until finally Elena unzips the tent.

“Sorry I took so long,” she says, clambering inwards. She hasn’t seen me yet, she’s making sure her pack makes it inside. “Fumi is fucking with the stove and –“

She sees me then and her mouth drops open. I keep my voice low and sultry.

“How should I reward my savior?” I ask her, and she puts the bag down slowly, a grin spreading across her face.

“I could think of a few ways,” she says, her voice low and husky, and then she is crawling over to me. Her lips meet mine and become entangled and she is slipping her suit down around her shoulders with my one-handed help, and then her hands are roaming over my breasts and my stomach and my thighs and the place where my thighs meet, and then what she does to me next makes me stop thinking.

 * * *

 “Mm.”

“That was nice.”

“Here, hold me. Tighter.”

“If I hold you any tighter you’ll break something.”

“Do you ever feel,” I ask, shifting myself slowly around in her arms so that I could face her, “as if you simply can’t get close enough to someone once you’ve just made love? Like, you’ve got your arms around them and you’ve put your leg up over their hip –“

“Like this?”

“Yes, just like that. And you’ve got your face pressed just here into their collarbone and you can feel them breathing against you, but it just isn’t close enough?”

“I know what you mean.”

“That’s how I feel.”

“That tickles, don’t kiss me there.”

“But you have such a nice collarbone,” I tell her. “How can I not kiss it?”

“God,” Elena laughs. “That’s so cute. You are so damn cute, has anyone told you that?”

“Once or twice, but I don’t mind hearing it again.”

“This really is your first time with a girl?”

“Yes, if we don’t count last night.”

“You’re very good.”

“Mm. Call me a good girl.”

“You’re a good girl.”

“Your good girl?”

“If you’d like to be.”

“I think I’d like that.”

Elena reaches up and puts her hand in my hair, holds me closer to her. I feel such a giddy upswelling of joy in my heart and stomach that I nearly start laughing. Elena feels it, some little shake or shudder in me, and looks down at me with sudden concern. “Are you okay?” she asks, and I nod.

“Yes, I’m just – happy.”

We are silent for a long while. I can feel Elena’s nimble fingers counting the vertebrae in my naked back, and her soft tapping touches make me shiver and clutch closer to her.

“Tell me about yourself,” she tells me, and I feel a little irrational stab of fear clench in my gut. “I don’t know hardly anything about you, just that we get on well.”

“Alright,” I say after a moment. “I grew up in Corpus Christi. No siblings, only child. I – “

“Me too.”

“Only child?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

“God, no,” Elena laughs. “I was so lonely as a kid. My family, we lived way out in the boonies in Wisconsin, nobody around hardly. Just me and my folks.”

“It sounds nice.”

“You are not very much of a people person, are you?” she asks. She inclines her head downwards and kisses me on the forehead, and then I manage to scoot myself up enough that she can find my lips.

“What gave it away?”

“Tell me more. You grew up in Corpus Christi.”

“Went to school in Oklahoma. Got a degree in Literature, bounced around for a while doing journalist things. Worked at a television station for a while, ended up here.”

“How the hell did you end up here?”

“Same way you did, probably,” I grin. “Dumb luck.”

“No, really, I’m curious.”

Goddam it, Elena. I cup her breast in my hand. When I pull back from her to do so I can still feel her breathing against my chest, the ocean-swell rise and fall of hers fitting into mine. I run my thumb over her nipple and see her bite her lip, and I smile to myself, trying not to look too self-satisfied. Elena doesn’t let me enjoy it, though; she shakes her head at me and slips her hand over her breast, covers it from me. “Don’t avoid the question,” she says.

Goddam it, Elena.

I shrug, pretend embarrassment. “I knew someone in management who pulled the strings for me. Came in as an intern then got offered a full position and I accepted cause the pay was fantastic. I do clerical stuff, mostly, you know, data entry, office stuff. I was afraid to tell you, cause…”

“Cause why?”

I decide, for once, to tell her the truth. “Because you intimidate me,” I say. I look her in the eyes for as long as I can muster before I shut mine and bury my face in her collarbone again. I lasted about five seconds. Her eyes are ferociously grey. “Because I feel like you’re going to realize that I’m not –“ I start, and then I realize what I’m saying and cut myself off.

“I don’t want to know how that sentence ends,” she says firmly, taking my head gently in her hands and bringing it up to hers. “You lock that down,” she tells me, pressing her forehead to mine, staring at me. I force myself to look at her, even offer her a tiny smile, or at least I try to, but it feels like the same great hand that’s wrenching at my heart is tugging at my lips as well.

“I just don’t – Elena, there’s –“

Where the hell am I going with that? What am I going to say? There’s nothing I can say.

“Shh. Don’t.”

“Goddam it,” I mutter helplessly. She doesn’t understand, I can tell from the way she’s looking at me. Mute sympathy writ large in those wide, pretty eyes. Fuck.

“Look,” she says. “If you’re having doubts it’s, it’s okay. If it’s just sex maybe that’s one thing, but I don’t know if you want to think of anything more, I don’t know how you feel, but if I make you feel bad or wrong or guilty or -“

“Don’t let’s talk about it,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?”

I let out a little laugh, barely a breath’s worth. “I have a lot of things I’m sorry for.”

“Has it been a while for you?”

“How do you mean?”

“Being with anyone, I mean.”

I feel like I’m going to cry. This isn’t going how I wanted it to. I don’t know how I wanted it to go. This isn’t it.

I feel a huge, stupid paroxysm of guilt welling up inside of me. I turn around so I don’t have to look at Elena, so she doesn’t have to look at me. She puts her arms around me, one arm draped across my chest, tucking me close to her, the other slipping down around my hip and pulling me closer in to her. I can feel the tapered v that her hips and her thighs make resting softly against my ass. She’s so warm.

“Roan,” she says. I can feel her lips moving against the back of my neck. “I don’t know what’s happened to you in the past, I don’t know what kind of shit you’ve had to go through. But I promise that nothing you can tell me is going to change –“

She thinks it’s about her. I almost laugh out loud at the simplicity of it. She thinks I’m having regrets, she thinks – she thinks whatever kind of pathetic moral compass I have spinning in circles inside of me is disagreeing with my monkey hormones’ efforts to make me cum. Goddam it.

“I’m gonna hurt you,” I tell her, knowing as I say it that it’s true. “I’m not going to mean to but I’m going to anyway, I’m going to hurt you, I’m going to fuck this up, and I don’t want to –“

“Roan –“

“- and I’m fucking dreading it because the last relationship I was in was not good, and I don’t want to believe that I’ve been changed by it, but –“

Alright Roan, you can stop now.

“- and I’m just scared because I don’t want to hurt you, I don’t want you to hate me, and -“

“Roan!”

I stop. I put my face in my hands. I feel a tiny drop of moisture on my back and I realize that Elena must be crying, and I roll over. “Oh no,” I tell her. “No, no, goddam it, don’t cry, I didn’t mean to –“

“You didn’t make me cry,” she tells me. “I’m crying because whatever happened to you, you didn’t deserve it, and hearing you like this makes me so sad –“

“Elena –“

She hushes me again and for a long, long while we lay there entangled, her lips pressed to my collarbone now, her sweet-smelling hair in my face, and she holds me so tightly that I finally begin to calm down. I think for a long, long while about what I should say, about what I should tell her that might excuse the – the mess I made of what should have been a relatively pleasant evening, but then as her breaths ripsaw upwards into tiny wheezing snores, I realize that it doesn’t really matter.

It takes me about ten minutes to slowly extricate myself from her grasp, to grab my suit and snake my way out of the tent with it in tow. I turn back around to zip the tent back up and I see Elena’s eyes cracked open, watching me, and though I almost jump I give her a soft little smile.

“Where are you going?” she groans, reaching out for me, and I lean back in and take her hand, bring it to my mouth and kiss her on the knuckles.

“I have to take a piss,” I tell her. “I’ll be back soon, go back to sleep.”

She looks as though she wants to protest but she’s too sleepy to do so. She gives me a little smile and then falls back onto her pillow, and I zip the tent up and shrug into my suit quickly. It feels strange and coarse on me, not having bothered to put on any underclothes beforehand, but it’ll do.

Then I turn and make my way as silently as I can towards the dark branching offshoot of tunnel that I marked as the path to the ballast bulb.

Continue with Part 17

Back to Table of Contents

#mystery flesh pit #alt lit #writing #writeblr #thriller #Michael Crichton #horror #caving #disaster #acid

[cynthiaandsamus]

Samus’s Amnesia

After an accident Samus can’t remember her time at the villa and Cynthia has to help jog her memory!

“Cynthia help!” Tifa burst through the Villa’s front door with an unconscious Samus draped over her back.

“Oh dear, what happened now?” Cynthia sighed as Tifa laid Samus down on the couch.

Tifa sounded panicked as she pushed pillows under Samus’s head. “We were playing Flaming Basketball, which is like regular basketball but on fire.”

“I know how Flaming Basketball is played…” Cynthia retorted as she wet a washcloth and put it on Samus’s forehead. “What happened?”

“Well we were playing when Samus got a slam dunk and the hoop came down and hit her in the head…” Tifa whimpered, looking pretty worried.

“You go get the First Aid kit and call the pokecenter, there’s one nearby so they might be able to get here faster than taking her to a hospital.” Cynthia nodded softly. “I’ll stay with her and make sure she’s alright.”

“Alright! Oh geez, please don’t be hurt too bad Samus…” The brawler groaned as she dashed out of the room to get help.

A few minutes of tending to her later and Samus began to stir, holding her head and sitting up with a groan. “Are you alright Samus? You took a pretty bad hit.”

“Huh…? Ahh my head just really hurts… how… how do you know my name?” Samus groaned, looking at Cynthia in confusion.

“Uh-oh… that’s not a good sign.” The Champion chuckled nervously. “You don’t… remember me?”

“Can’t say that I do.” Her eyes narrowed, a stern glance around the surrounding area, inspecting it for traps or weapons.

“Well let’s start with what you do remember… Can you tell me about yourself?” Cynthia sat beside her as Samus sat up on the couch.

The bounty hunter relaxed slightly but was still obviously tense, glancing towards her pistol on the coffee table. “I’m Samus Aran, bounty hunter. I’m… a weapon.”

“A weapon? You think you’re a weapon?”

“The Chozo created three weapons that they hoped would save the universe. The Supercomputer Mother Brain, the unkillable species Metroid, and me, the bounty hunter infused with Chozo DNA and raised and trained by them after my parents were killed by the Space Pirate Ridley… none of these weapons turned out how they hoped though. Mother Brain became a hostile AI that seeks to reset the universe entirely instead of saving it. The Metroids, designed to devour the more dangerous threat of the X Parasites, not only turned on their creators but became a plague upon the galaxy that can barely be kept in check. And me… well I can’t say I’ve exactly lived up to snuff either. “ She clenched her fists with a sigh.

Cynthia gave a worried look as Samus continued. “I joined the Galactic Federation hoping to use my skills to stop the Space Pirates and help make the universe a more peaceful place, but the Federation wasn’t exactly pure of heart either, and I couldn’t abide by their decisions that got my friends killed…” She brought her knees up onto the couch, hugging them into her chest. “Good Soldiers follow orders… Good Soldiers follow orders…” She repeated to herself like a mantra. “But I’m not a good soldier…”

“You’re a person doing your best…” Cynthia put her hand on Samus’s thigh reassuringly. The bounty hunter recoiled from the touch, looking at her with scorn as if it was the first human contact she’d had in years.

“I’ve committed all kinds of atrocities since leaving the Federation too, several bounty hunting missions against the Metroids have resulted in planetary destruction. I managed to save one harmless Metroid but it still fell to Mother Brain in the end, yet another person I got close to whose life slipped through my hands.” She tensed up again. “I tried to wipe out all traces of the Metroids and X Parasites throughout the galaxy and after that… I don’t remember anything.”

“So you don’t remember coming here at all?”

“Here?” Samus’s gaze narrowed. “Why would I live in a place like this? My ship is just fine for my domestic needs.”

“Aww come on, it’s pretty nice here.” Cynthia smirked and chuckled. “I throw some wild parties, invite lots of cute girls, a fun time had by all.”

Samus’s face soured and turned to an expression of disgust as she grabbed her pistol off the table and pointed it in Cynthia’s direction, not at her but enough as a warning. “I don’t know who you think I am but I’m not some lecherous party animal. I am a hunter, I prefer to keep out of the company of others for their safety and mine. So back off, Earth Whore.”

“Okay wow.” Cynthia chuckled nervously, holding her hands up to show she meant no harm. “This isn’t any kind of trap or anything so just relax.”

At that moment their pet Metroid Zebes floated into the room, hearing from Tifa that Samus was injured and coming to comfort his mother.

“A METROID!?” Samus pointed her blaster at Zebes instead now. “I knew it! This IS a trap! You’re trying to soften and confuse me so you can breed Metroids! Posession of a Metroid or Metroid DNA is against Galactic Federation Code CZM-861986, you’re under arrest.” She went to motion and was surprised when nothing happened. “What? Why isn’t my armor coming up?”

The Champion breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh thank goodness, imagine if we had to fight Samus wearing her power armor…”

“Wait no, I figured it out.” A Varia Suit quickly covered the bounty hunter’s body.

“GOD DAMNIT!”

“Die Metroid!” Samus roared, aiming her arm cannon at Zebes. Cynthia’s eyes widened and she grabbed a pokeball off her belt.

“GARCHOMP, PROTECT ZEBES!” Cynthia cried out as a red light emerged from the ball, a large blue dragon appeared between Zebes and Samus just as a beam of ice was fired from her arm cannon. The beam caught Garchomp and hit her hard, but the dragon remained standing.

“I knew it! Ridley your new form is even smaller than before!” Samus snarled from in her suit and fired off another Ice Beam, countered this time by Garchomp’s Flamethrower.

While the two clashed Cynthia leapt behind Garchomp and grabbed Zebes, cradling him to her chest and heading toward s the door.

“Heh, this feels much better, I feel a lot safer inside my armor, I don’t know why I even bother taking it off sometimes.” Samus grinned, pelting Garchomp with ice and dodging the blasts and strikes.

“You hardly ever wear your armor around here! You don’t need to hide from people anymore!” Cynthia shouted, taking off towards the garage, the only place that had a door with even a chance of holding Samus off.

Downing Garchomp for a moment, Samus gave chase after Cynthia. “You don’t know who you’re talking to!” She screamed as they got outside and Cynthia dodged stray ice beams while shielding Zebes. “I don’t know who you’re waiting for but it’s definitely not me!”

“You got that right.” Cynthia’s gray eyes narrowed at Samus as she ducked into the garage and managed to seal the door. Luckily Samus had designed the door herself to be resistant to her missile attacks. The Champion leaned against the wall and sighed, looking down at the petrified Zebes. “She doesn’t mean it hun, she just doesn’t know who you are at the moment. Don’t worry buddy, we’ll get Mommy Samus back.” She smiled down at the gurgling blob before heading into Samus’s ship parked in the nearest section of the warehouse-like garage.

“Let’s see, I know Samus’s doomsday prepper ass has a list of precautions around here somewhere…” She rummaged through the compartments, the dull sound of missiles hitting the garage outside reminding her she was on a bit of a time crunch. “What do we have here…” In the spaceship equivalent of a glovebox Cynthia found a small handwritten list with numbers listed next to emergency descriptions.

“Activate Ship Protocols in case of… Instrumentality, Third Impact, Fourth Impact, Hokkaido Impact, Zombie Outbreak, Mother 4, X Parasite Invasion, Aurum Invasion, Titan Invasion, Cynthia’s PMS, oh gee thanks, ahh here we go: In case of Memory or Equipment reset, activate Ship Protocol 4420120.” The ship’s lights dimmed as the protocol activated just in time as Cynthia heard the garage door explode open and the Varia Suit clad hunter Shinesparking right towards them.

“You’ve got some guts Metroid-breeder, hiding in my own ship like this, now show yourself!” Samus held her arm cannon up, looking around the small ship to try and find her culprit through her visor. To her surprise her ship’s computer brought up a recording and soon holograms of previous events in her lost memories began to play around her.

-----

“Hey, I heard you’re gonna be in the area for a while, wanna stay at my place? Come on I have a great villa. All the gym leaders talk about it as a party place, definitely the place to be!”

“No thanks, I’m not really a party person…” Samus wore her armor but had her helmet off for a moment as Cynthia approached her. She’d apparently contacted her through one of the Smash grapevines and wanted to recruit her to come stay at her villa.

“Awww come on, two badass blondes like us? I bet there’s nothing we couldn’t do! Besides it’s not like you can live out of your ship the whole time you’re stationed here.  It’ll be fine, I promise no weirdness.” This was an absolute lie.

The thinnest of smirks crossed the serious bounty hunter’s face as she looked at Cynthia. “Alright I suppose I could crash at your place for a little while. I’ll pay rent and stay out of your way, no funny business though.”

Cynthia squealed. “Cross my heart and hope to die, struck down by a Decidueye~”

“…okay we’re going to stop doing… whatever that was too.”

---

Samus sighed as she took off her armor after a long mission. It’d taken her forever to start taking off her armor around her Smash colleagues, but now she found herself wearing it less and less around the villa. The missions she was going on were still exhausting but she always let out a sigh of relief when she got back.

“Welcome home Samus!” Cynthia grinned and waved to her from the couch.

“Huh?” Samus blinked, wiping fatigue from her eyes.

“I just said welcome home.”

“Oh… home, huh?”She blinked in confusion for a moment before a warm smile crossed her face. “Thanks, good to be… home.”

----

Zebes’ creation flashed by Samus’s eyes next.

“Cynthia! I got us a pet!” Samus grinned held up Zebes.

“What is that!? Aren’t those things dangerous!?”Cynthia blinked at the Metroid.

“Not this one! It’s a Metroid cross-bred with one of your Tangela, taking away its desire to suck life forces, allowingf it limited shape-shifting capability and giving it the ability for near-infinite pseudopodia extension.”

“…what?”

“ ‘sgot tentacles.”

“Sweet!”

“I’ve named him Zebes, figured it might be the last remnant of my home planet that isn’t trying to kill me, isn’t it great? I’m a mommy!”

---

She watched her memories of when the Galactic Federation came after her for harboring Metroid DNA in her to eliminate the possibility of anyone cloning Metroids from the source of The Baby Metroid’s DNA inside her. She’d initially thought it was best to go with them and eliminate that risk as well but Cynthia and Zebes came after her, fighting their way through Federation headquarters, Cynthia using her pokemon and even pulling off a very strenuous Double Mega Evolution to battle her two commanders before uncovering the plot to use her execution to instead craft a clone army of Samus Arans with the DNA of Metroids, Chozo, Humans and X Parasites to make a galactic army that could topple the Federation itself spearheaded by the man named Cyrus, rescued from the Distortion World by the sentient code of Mother Brain.

She saw Cynthia crying out for her, begging her to let her desire to live burn bright, to not give up on the life she’d built at the villa. It was that which inspired her to fight back against Cyrus while Cynthia defeated Ridley and together they put an end to this heinous plot and finally confessed their love to one another on top of the destroyed Federation Headquarters.

----

“Happy Anniversary Samus! You’ve been here five years now! I’m glad you’re not going anywhere.” Cynthia snickered to herself as all the visitors they’d had since she came walked around the massive month-long party they’d set up to celebrate the anniversary. Lots of colorful characters flooded the villa and the surrounding buildings with raucous noise and joyous laughter.

“Can’t say I expected to stay here this long, but I also can’t say I regret that I did.” Samus grinned, looking at Cynthia.

“Hey I’m always happy to have you.” Cynthia smiled warmly.

“Thank you Cynthia… it really feels like home here, and I couldn’t imagine myself being anywhere else. Before I knew you I felt like I’d been hurt by people far too many times and I thought isolating myself and burying myself in my work was the best way to keep myself safe from people and them safe from me… but ever since I came here I can feel more comfortable around people, I feel like my wounded heart is healing, and it’s all thanks to you. I’m eternally grateful to you Cynthia.” She gave a warm smile

“Oh you dummy…” Cynthia wiped tears from her eyes with a smile of her own. “This is your home, no need to thank me…”

---

Back in the ship Samus was taken aback by all these recordings until she saw one of herself, spliced through various points in time with the same theme, introducing her blonde friend.

“Hello, I’m Samus Aran and this is my landlord Cynthia.”

“…and this is my roommate Cynthia.”

“And my friend, Cynthia.”

“This is my personal dumbass, Cynthia.”

“This is my girlfriend, Cynthia.”

“This is my dumbass girlfriend, Cynthia.”

“This is my… well she’s pretty much my wife, Cynthia.”

Samus couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle at the montage, covering her mouth in awe while watching. Next the holograms showed people, so many people. All kinds of wonderful people that came to stay and play with them, some for short visits, some staying in the villa itself, and some in relationships with them for years.

“W-Who are all these people? There’s so many…” Samus gasped.

“Those are all your friends.” Cynthia smiled from the corner of the ship.

Her face froze in awe. “F-Friends… do I really know all of these people? There has to be hundreds…”

Flashes of shots of Cynthia and Samus goofing off around the villa, playing with Zebes, watching the Alien movies over and over on movie night, cooking for each other, celebrating holidays with friends, raising pokemon, playing games, making friends, making love, living life and sharing it with so many.

The stoic bounty hunter’s face cracked and tears started streaming down her face as she covered her mouth and laughed and cried at the same time, such overwhelming joy overtook her.

“Is this… really my life? Do I… really get to have this?” She asked timidly.

“Mhm…” Cynthia smiled warmly, holding back tears of her own.

“I never imagined… that I’d get to live and laugh and love like this…” Samus’s eyes widened, shimmering full of tears as her power armor shattered away from her, leaving her standing in awe. As she lowered her guard something clicked in her head and it all came rushing back to her for real. “Oh Cynthia… I’m so sorry… Zebes, I didn’t mean…”

She was cut off by Cynthia and Zebes hugging her tightly.

“Welcome home Samus.”

#drabble #writing #fluff #feels #Cynthia #Samus Aran #muses

[newagesispage]

                                                                            JUNE    2020

PAGE RIB

FX and Ryan Murphy will bring us season 10 of American Horror Story next year. The cast includes Mac Culkin, Kathy Bates, Sarah Paulson, Evan peters, Billie Lourd, Lily Rabe and Finn Wittrock. There will also be a spinoff called, wait for it, American Horror Stories. Woo Hoo!!

*****

Reno 911 is back

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I happen to have a clementine in my butt. –Jimmy Kimmel

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NASA got their dragon launch. It is unfortunate that they had to compete with the current cycle.

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Sam Springsteen (son of Patti and Bruce) has been sworn in as a Jersey City firefighter.

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Ryan Murphy’s Hollywood is great. I don’t know how to feel about the fast and the loose and the nice made up endings like Once upon a time in Hollywood.  Will this be a trend??** Another great one on Netflix is, Have a good trip.

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Are there biopics in the works for Michael and Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston, the Bee Gees and Bowie?? That is the word.

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Days alert: Look for Lani to become pregnant. Eli and Justin are both thinking marriage. Claire is back which will bring Shawn and Belle back. Gabi may be kidnapped. Word is that July will have a wedding every week that will lead to a funeral.  Allie Horton is all grown up and heading back with a secret. Will she be like Mom, Sami?? Brady thinks that ruining Titan will get back at Victor. Sonny and Will may get a chance at another child. Eve may be back later in the summer. And, C’mon Xander, do something wonderful to get your woman back. Lucas may be on the way back and Orpheus is leaving. ** Judi Evans (Adrienne) had a serious horseback riding accident on May 16. She had broken ribs, a collapsed lung and 2 chipped vertebrae. The good news was in the hospital they discovered a blood clot so the whole thing saved her life.

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Morton Buildings is being sued by 2 women for harassment and discrimination. One incident claims an employee said, “God created women by lining up all the men and castrating the stupid ones.” Another lawsuit was filed in 2009.**Thanks for the tip, Di.

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If you expect elementary school children to endure the trauma of active shooter drills for your freedoms, you can wear a mask to Costco. –Sara Elizabeth Dill

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House republicans have sued Pelosi to block proxy voting.

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Seth Rogan, Steve Carell and Ben Schwartz are donating funds to bailout Minneapolis protestors after the death of George Floyd.** The country has been turned upside down as another cop kills another black man. No need to rehash, we have all seen it. I wonder if those four horrible cops are proud of what they have done to their city. Could we finally have a tipping point in this time when racism is spotlighted with our racist President? After many incidents in just the past couple of weeks and everyone on edge with coronavirus, it has boiled over. Scary Clown threatens to start shooting as Minneapolis burns down. Burn down a police station, get a cop arrested (finally)? Seems worth it to me. The way the killer looked into the camera as if he was just so proud is gonna stick with us as it should.  ** A CNN crew were arrested live on the air but released later after Jeff Zucker spoke to Gov. Walz.**  Liberate Minnesota was the Trump tweet, well, they are working on it.** I am hearing people saying in all sincerity lately that it is time for the humans to go, we are ruining each other and the planet.

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If you have not seen the Killer Mike speech from Atlanta, you need to check it out.** Netflix, Hulu and Paramount are taking a stand and showing support for the Black lives matter movement.

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John Cusack put out video of police coming at him with batons and pepper sprayed him as he protested in Chicago. More than 1000 were arrested and it continues.** In Flint, Sheriff Chris Swanson and other police put down helmets and joined the protestors. Police in Schenectady took a knee and joined the march. The behavior is spreading and look what a difference it makes, could they be starting to get it?

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Never thought I’d say this but in light of everything that is happening, the DNC made a big mistake in not backing Berne Sanders. –Pete Buttigieg ** Ok, first, of course he is right but you helped set this all in motion. It is a bit late for that …or is it? Biden is not the OFFICIAL nom, the deal is not done yet. Will Bernie jump back in the race?? Perhaps we will soon see BERNE FOR PRESIDENT again.

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American carnage was a self -fulfilling prophecy, alas. –Susan Glasser

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Scary Clown 45 has designated Antifa a terrorist organization. ** There is no legal authority for designating a domestic group, any such designation would raise significant concerns. –ACLU

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In any season, police violence is an injustice, but its harm is elevated amidst the remarkable stress people are facing amidst covid-19. Even now, there is evidence of excessive police initiated force and unwarranted shootings of civilians, some of which have been fatal. –American Medical Association.

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Washington Week had a great discussion about how all the ills in US history have played out in 2020. Impeachment, pandemic, depression and civil unrest are all here at once.

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Word is that Trevor Noah has been proven much more popular than the other late night hosts since they have been at home.

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I predict the picture of the upside down flag with the backdrop of the burning liquor store will be the lasting image of the Trump Presidency.

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This is the Presidency George Wallace never had. –Max Boot

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Spanish flu, Polio, Aids, Covid-19: Why don’t people get any smarter? The masses (and sometimes those in charge) can get it wrong over and over again. From Dr.? Phil and Dr Oz and their cavalier attitude toward death to Rosie wanting her son to take a leave of absence from the grocery store, we just do not learn. Even before that, I can’t forget the woman who wanted to change her vote after she found out Buttigieg was married to a man. Is she even a dem? Do your research people! Respect others, people!! Have compassion, stop being so selfish and use your brains!!** Puerto Rico was a pre curser to the pandemic response.

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Amy Cooper Chris Cooper? WTF? Another liberal who is not really liberal.

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Crime in general is down and police shootings are up. And yes, now the opportunists are out of control and anger is boiling over but protests against police brutality causing police brutality is WRONG!

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Check out the book, What makes a marriage last, from Marlo Thomas and Phil Donahue.

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Ben Taub, Barry Blitt and Colson Whitehead have won the Pulitzer Prize.

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Word is that Nick Cage will play Joe Exotic of Tiger King fame. Of course he will.

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I refuse to wear a mask because God did not have us born with one.- Nino Vitali** How many people have you heard say, “The President isn’t wearing a mask, so I don’t have to.”

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It looks like Apple will partner with Paramount for Scorsese’s adaptation of Killers of the Flower Moon.

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Oh my: Scary Clown is having a twitter feud with twitter!  He has to, of course, lash out and now signs an executive order targeting social media. He is going on about section 230 which gives immunity to social media companies against being sued over content.  It could curb liability protection. Experts say it will only encourage lawsuits because he does not want to be edited.

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If Native American tribes were counted as states, the five most infected states in the US would all be native tribes. –Nicholas Kristof

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Did ya see that Jeff Epstein doc from James Patterson. It is lays blame in all directions. Why does it seem like all these old guys on there with all that money have such yellow teeth?

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Lindsey Graham is urging Federal judges in their mid to late 60’s to step down so they can fill the spots with republicans.

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Richard McGuire tried to live at Disney World in a zoological park that was closed down.

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Caterpillar, Levi, Black and Decker and others have cut jobs but gave millions to shareholders.

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Axl Rose and Steve Mnuchin had a twitter feud.

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China announced plans to introduce a National Security law in Hong Kong. The law enables mainland Chinese National security agencies to operate in the city for the first time. Using a rarely used constitutional method, they bypassed Hong Kong legislature. Since the former British colony became a semi-autonomous region of China more than 20 years ago, they have manages its own affairs. The law will affect media, education, politics and international business. Many acts will now be criminalized. Hong Kong is party to international treaties guaranteeing civil liberties that China is not. The U.S. is urging Bejing to reconsider. Pro- democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong were tear gassed as they yelled, “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times.”

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The Michael Flynn charges were dropped.

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Holyoke soldier’s home in Massachusetts lost 70 souls to Coronavirus. AP photographer David Goldman got a projector and cast big pictures the vets onto the homes of loved ones. Each one had a story including one vet who was sent to Nuremberg to guard Nazis. He claimed to have filled Hermann Goring’s glass with toilet water.

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The swimming Dinosaur, Spinosaurus has been getting a lot of attention.  The Sahara desert which was once massive rivers kept the first intact aquatic dinosaur.  With a snout, teeth and jaw like a croc, it is so far the only known kind of dinosaur that lived in the water.  The 50 foot long bizarre fin-like tail is like a giant paddle.  Paleontologists encourage others to have a look at other fossils to see if there are more.

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Octavia Spencer is said to have been telling everyone she is a year younger than she is. She is turning 50.

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The $69 million ventilator scam. Really? The White House heard from a guy who told them he could supply the product so the WH told NY to order them and stood behind the guy but it was a scam. Scary Clown sure loves his shady people, intentional or not.** A Florida woman, Rebecca Jones claims that she was asked to fudge the numbers to make reopening look better. ** Georgia moved their dates around on a graph to make their cases seem flattened. ** For 17 months, Florida investigated voter fraud for Trump and Gov. Scott. They found NOTHING!!

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Amazon stock price is up 25% yet they have become notorious for the terrible way they treat their workers. Bezos is set to become a trillionaire.

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We have to remember that order comes from chaos. True enhancements can come from large scale crisis. What will we learn from this one? This is a warning!!** Universal health care? No more buffets? ** Prices will probably go up everywhere what with the closings and all the extra cleaning. I hope this means that hotel bedspreads will be cleaned after every stay.  It looks like there may be no cocktails or food on planes.

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Take a virtual tour of the statue of liberty. All the fun without all the swaying.

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Local PBS stations are making it easier to learn. Students will be able to put on a channel for lessons that does not need cable or internet. Woo Hoo!!

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Insiders say that Trump threatened to sue his campaign manager because he did not agree with his assessment and the poll numbers in a 2 day rant.** Just one more example of Scary Clown double talk. Then: Less testing, less positives. Now: So much testing is a badge of honor.**Doctors without Borders are now here, not the third world countries that they usually help, it is US.

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Haven’t we had enough of powerful men being accused? A female Dem candidate would have been nice and Bernie did not seem to have any baggage that way either.

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Will the Senate see fit to ok some more stimulus $? 4 trillion to prop up Wall Street seems per the usual. Enough for them, let’s take care of those small businesses and those really in need.

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Thao and the get down stay down is one of the best in this internet entertainment era.

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Check out Stars in the House with Tony Shalhoub and others.

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The Detectorists on Acorn TV is a great little show!!

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Happy Day! There is a new season of At Home with Amy Sedaris!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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It looks like Pier 1 will permanently close as well as JC Penney, J Crew, Sears and Neiman Marcus.

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Check out the wonderful, This is about Humanity!!

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Have U seen the trailer for The King of Staten Island?? OMG Pete Davidson, Steve Buschemi and Marisa Tomei , just to name a few!! I can’t fucking wait!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Bill Maher looked really high on his 5-22-20 show. This working from home makes him much more mellow!!

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3 Russian doctors treating coronavirus have fallen out of windows in about a weeks time.** Russia boasts that it has more ventilators per capita than the U.S. After they made fun of us, on May 22, the first shipment of U.S. ventilators headed to Russia. They are a gift from Trump and the U.S. taxpayers. –Julia Davis

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State Department Inspector General Steve Linick is out.  Was he investigating Pompeo?  Trump never knows anything about any of it. Why are all the protectors of the rule of law thrown out?  ** Was Pompeo throwing lavish foreign policy dinners with Reba, Dale Jr. and the owners of that horrid chicken sandwich place? ** The clean water rule has been suspended which cuts protections for most of the country’s wetlands.

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The market facilitation program has been helping small farmers over the last few years in a $28 billion bailout. Trump’s sanctions brought this on and the corona virus has made it worse.  Mostly the money has helped bankers and bigger farms. Much like the stimulus $ that was earmarked for small business, there are loopholes that screw up the ‘rules.’ The cap is not being followed like they may say because the $ is going to “investors” in the farm and often not the actual farmer who works on a smaller scale. A small farm run by family members may not get the bailout. It seems to be more important to get a good lawyer who can manipulate the paperwork.  Sad that taxpayer $ is used this way.

*****

Just in time, the Space Force flag and plans for the super duper missile have been unveiled. WTF??

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Paula Poundstone is a woman I knew I liked. She was recently talking about not liking couches. I thought I was the only one, People are always telling me how much they love their couches and I don’t get it.

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Jeff Gibbs and Michael Moore are upset after Youtube pulled their doc, Planet of the Humans. After 8.3 million views, there was a copyright claim by Toby Smith of about 4 seconds of footage.  Now , this is not the first time that Moore has had problems with content in one of his movies.  Many have claimed there is a lot of fiction in this latest venture. I think I would just remove the possible copyright infringement and move on. It can now be seen on Vimeo.

A Florida law that restricts felon voting is found unconstitutional by a federal judge.** The RNC filed a lawsuit against California to stop mailing ballots to registered voters.

*****

R.I.P. Little Richard, Roy Horn, Jerry Stiller, Sam Lloyd, Ann Sullivan, Mike Cogswell, Michael Keenan, Shirley Knight, Irrfan Khan, Hana Kimura, Forrest Compton, Jimmy Cobb, George Floyd, Ken Osmomd, all the corona victims, Lynn Shelton, Richard Herd, Larry Kramer, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Anthony James, Fred Willard and Carolyn Busch.

[changingourdestiny]

Changing Our Destiny Pilot: Part 2

Summary:

Rae meets her new Fireteam members; Blaze, a rebellious Awoken Hunter that lives by the motto 'My way or the highway'; and Adam, a human Titan who has taken a vow of silence and has his Ghost communicate for him. Will they learn to work together, or will they fall apart and be consumed by the Darkness?

Part 1: Here

“S’up?” Rae stared in awe at the Awoken that stood before her. “What? Never seen an Awoken before? I thought you would’ve met Zavala McGrumpy by now.” The Awoken laughed. Rae shook her head as she snapped out of her awestruck state, “Er, sorry! I didn’t mean to stare. I’m Rae.” “I’m Blaisel Kiria. But you can call me Blaze. All my friends do.” Blaze grinned before looking over her shoulder, “Oi, Adam! Hurry up, slow poke!!” Rae looked behind Blaze to see a man with messy blonde hair, green eyes and a metal arm, and was wearing white and blue armour, was casually walking towards the two women. He gave Rae an acknowledging nod. As he did so, a dark blue and silver ghost appeared beside him, “I am Stormbringer. Adam is pleased to meet you. He has taken a vow of silence since his revival so I will interpret anything he wishes to say.” “Nice to meet you!” Rae smiled. “Oi! Don’t forget about me!” An ice blue and orange Ghost appeared beside Blaze, “Hiya! I’m Firefly! Nice to meet ya!” “Hello!” Rae grinned, “Aren’t you the friendliest little thing?” “D’aww! I ain’t that cute!” Firefly bounced up and down happily. “What’s your Ghost’s name?” Blaze asked. “I just call him Ghost.” Rae shrugged as Ghost appeared beside her. “I prefer it as my name if I’m honest.” Ghost added. “Makes sense. Some Ghosts already have a name, but I gave Firefly hers.” Blaze replied, patting her Ghost on the head with her finger. “New friend!” Firefly cheered as she floated over to Ghost, “Hi new friend!” “She’s very excitable.” Stormbringer informed Ghost, “I’m Stormbringer. It is nice to meet you, Ghost.” “The pleasure is mine.” “So, newbie. We were told by the Ikora that you’re our newest member.” Blaze began, “Nice tattoos by the way!” “Oh, um…they’re not tattoos. They’re natural. It’s a long story.” Rae replied. “Eh? I didn’t know humans get markings like that naturally.” “I’m not human. I’m Paragonialan.” “Pair of what now?” “Paragonialan. I’m the last of my kind. I died while trying to get to the Last City via the Cosmodrome…apparently. It’s a long story.” “Well we don’t have time to unpack all that! We’re tasked with showing you around and getting you ready for the next mission! Let’s see if Banshee has any weapons you can use and then we’ll give you the tour, newbie!”

“And your dorm should be right arooooooouuuuund…ah! Here we go!” Blaze trotted down a corridor towards a door, “And I’m right across the way! So if you need anything, just let me know! Adam’s a few doors down.” Adam gave a thumbs up to Rae. Rae opened the door and looked inside. It was a basic room. A bed, a side table with a lamp, a desk and chair, a bookcase, a small box of tinkering tools on the desk, and a wardrobe. There was a door leading to a bathroom by the bed. “You should get some rest.” Ghost informed Rae, “We have to return to the Cosmodrome tomorrow.” “Wha?! We just escaped that hell!” Rae squeaked. “I’ll explain tomorrow. Try and get some rest.” Ghost replied. “I’m with the lil’ guy on this one!” Blaze yawned, “Imma head to bed. See ya, Rae!” Adam waved goodbye as he walked down the hallway. “Goodnight guys!” Rae waved as she went into her room. Rae set her journal and the gun she found in the Cosmodrome on her desk, flicked to a page in the journal, took out the tinkering tools, and began to take apart the gun. “What are you up to?” Ghost asked, curious of what Rae was doing. “There’s a page here saying that I used to tinker with machines back at the tribe. There were even some notes on how to tinker with guns and other machines.” Rae explained, “I saw some Guardians with helmets out in the plaza, so I’m gonna design my own.” “Well, don’t spend too long on it. You need your rest.” “Yes mom.” Rae smirked. “Very funny.” Ghost rolled his eye as he disappeared.

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“There’s Adam!” Rae strolled into the plaza where she was to meet up with Adam and Blaze. Adam was there but there was no sign of Blaze. “Morning Adam! Hey Stormbringer!” Rae waved to the two. Adam waved back with a friendly smile. “Good Morning, Rae.” Stormbringer greeted the Warlock. “Where’s Blaze and Firefly?” Rae asked. “Blaze has a habit of being late for meetups and training.” Stormbringer explained, “I swear she gets it from her Vanguard.” “You mean Cayde?” Rae asked. Stormbringer nods, “Cayde is known for being more laid-back and not as serious as the other Vanguards. One time, Adam and I spotted him being dragged into the meeting room by Commander Zavala by the cloak after sneaking out to Spicy Ramen, which is a restaurant in the City.” “The best restaurant may I add!” The Guardians and Ghosts turned around to see Blaze casually strolling into the plaza with Firefly. “Hi all!” Firefly chimed in a happy tone. “Blaze, you are late. Again.” Stormbringer scolded. “Geez, lighten up! What’s the big deal anyway?” Blaze sighed. “Dunno. Ghost? You there?” Rae called. Ghost popped up beside her, “Always. So about today’s mission. It will be your first mission as a full Fireteam. I was sent a message from Ikora’s Ghost, Ophiuchus. Ikora wants you to use this mission to learn how to work together as a team. As for the mission, we need to return to the Cosmodrome in Old Russia to retrieve some parts for the ship we found. I’ll explain more on the way there.” “Alright. Let’s go then!”

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“So, Ghostie. What’s the story?” Blaze asked. The three Guardians were crammed in the small spacecraft as it glided through the sky. “Don’t call me that.” Ghost glared at Blaze, “Anyway. We were lucky to find this ship. A Guardian can’t do much without one.” “That’s true.” Stormbringer agreed, “We used to have one…until two certain someones decided to show off and crashed our ship on the way back to the City and we had to walk the rest of the way back!” Blaze just whistled to herself as she glanced at the ceiling. “As I was saying,” Ghost continued, “We need a warp drive if we ever hope to fight beyond Earth, and that Cosmodrome is the only place I know where we can find one. We survived the Fallen once, we can do it again.” “Okay!” Blaze grinned, “Helmets on Fireteam…uh…I just realised we never chose a team name…sooo…anyone got any ideas?” The ship was silent for a moment as the Guardians and Ghosts just gave each other confused glances. “Well…” Rae spoke up, breaking the silence, “Paragon, the deity my tribe worshipped was usually associated with a dragon made from the Light. And since us Guardians are Lightbearers…how about Paralight?” “I mean…” Blaze began, “I would’ve gone with Blaze’s Hot-Shots. But that has a better ring to it!” Adam nodded in agreement. “Ok then!” Blaze grinned, “Fireteam Paralight, helmets on!” Blaze held a metal mouthpiece to her face as a silver spiked helmet with fire-coloured stripes, her facial markings, and dark red eyes materialised around her head and she pulled the hood of her cloak over it. Adam pressed what looked like a jade-green visor to his eyes as a simple, round, white and blue helmet formed around his head. “Time to try this out.” Rae muttered to herself. She had used the parts of her old gun, plus some spare parts she scavenged from around the tower, to make her own protective mask of sorts. She placed what looked a pair of dark, metal cuboid headphones on her head and a black and gold mask formed around her face. The mask had her cheek mark on it along with a dark pink diamond between her eyes and dark pink around the clear eyepieces. The gold part on the bottom had two silver fangs painted on with a silver diamond in the centre. “Hey, not bad!” Blaze stared at Rae’s mask, impressed, “When did you put that together?” “Last night. I’m sure I could make it look better if I had the proper supplies. But I only had some scraps, so it’ll do for now.” Rae replied. “Alright. We’re here!” Ghost announced, “Get ready to land.”

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“WHOOHOO!!!” Blaze cheered as she jumped behind a crate, landing beside Rae. “I told you not to run ahead of us! Why would you do that?!” Rae yelled over the gunfire as she briefly peeked out from behind the crate and fired a vortex grenade into the seemingly endless group of Fallen. Adam was behind another crate nearby, firing at the Fallen in an attempt to hold them back. “You guys were taking too long!” Blaze continued. “Because we were working out a strategy to get the warp drive from the Fallen!” “What strategy? We go in, shoot the baddies, get the warp drive, and leave!” “It’s not that-!”

*ROAR!!!*

The two Guardians’ argument was cut short by a loud roar coming from a hole in the wall across the room. “What is that thing?!” Rae exclaimed. “An Archon! Yes!!! I’ve always wanted to take down one of these guys!” Blaze cheered as she reloaded her hand cannon and leapt out of cover, “Time to be the hero!!!”

“BLAZE!!!” Rae called after the rowdy Awoken but to no avail. “It is no use.” Stormbringer called from beside Adam, “There are three things Blaze is known for among the other Guardians: being the main source of trouble, having the worst temper, and never listening to any sort of authority. The only authority figure that usually gets through to her is Cayde, but sometimes she even won’t listen to him. It’s her way or the highway, as the saying goes.” Rae cursed under her breath as she ran out from behind the crate, “Adam, cover me!” Adam nodded in response as he tried to distract the Archon from Blaze. But the fiery Hunter wasn’t having it. “

Hey!

I’m your opponent, you ugly son of a-!”

“BLAZE MOVE!!!” Rae lunged at Blaze, pushing her behind some rubble and pinning her to the ground. “Ack! What the heck was that for?! Get off!” Blaze growled. “No! Blaze I know you don’t like listening to others, and I’m sure you don’t want to listen to a ‘newbie’, but I’m not letting you get killed!”

“What’s he big deal?! Firefly can just revive me like she always does!”

“Have you noticed the giant monster of a Fallen?! What if Firefly gets damaged, what then?!”

Blaze suddenly stopped struggling as she turned her head to look at Firefly who was floating beside her. Blaze let out a sigh, “…what’s the plan?”

Rae looked over at Adam who was still trying to hold back the Archon, “Ok. Hunters are known to be stealthy, right? Adam and I will distract the Archon. While we do that, you sneak up behind it quietly. When we give the signal, you attack him from behind. That way we can beat the Archon without anyone getting killed…”

“And I can still get the winning blow!”

“Exactly!”

Blaze smirked, “Alright then. Let’s do it!!”

Rae got off Blaze and dashed to where Adam was and helped him distract the Archon while Blaze snuck by the Archon. “It’s almost low enough. Just a little longer!” Rae muttered, “Almost…almost…Blaze, now!!!”

Blaze whipped out her hand cannon and began firing at the Archon from behind. However…

*click!* *click, click, click!*

From behind her helmet, the colour drained from Blaze’s face as the Archon turned to glare down at the Hunter, “Uhh, guys? I’m out of ammo!” The Archon knocked Blaze off her feet with its free hands before pointing its gun right at her head. “Blaze!!” Rae cried out as she ran towards her teammate. Adam reached out his arm to try and stop the Warlock but to no avail. Rae leapt at the Archon; her left arm outstretched. Everything seemed to fall into slow motion. Rae felt a surge of arcane energy pulse through her arm as the dark pink markings on her arm began to glow purple as a sphere of energy appeared in her hand and began to grow bigger and bigger until…

*KA-BOOM!!!*

A bright purple light filled the room as a loud explosion sounded through the air. The light faded and Rae was lying face-first on the ground, the marks on her arm still glowing faintly. Blaze was on the ground staring at where the Archon, who seemed to have completely vanished, once was. Her helmet disappeared revealing an utterly shocked expression on her face, “Ok…I officially have a huge amount of respect for Warlocks…” “T-thank you…!” Rae groaned as she picked herself up off the ground, “I didn’t even know I could do that, to be honest.” “That, I believe, was a Nova Bomb.” Ghost explained, appearing beside Rae, “All classes of Guardians have a unique super ability depending on their subclass. Since you are a Voidwalker Warlock, you’re super is the Nova Bomb.” “He’s right.” Blaze agreed as she got to her feet, “Mine is called Golden Gun, which…wait for it…summons a FLAMING GUN!! Cool right?! Oh, and Adam’s is Ward of Dawn which makes a huge bubble shield.” Adam nodded in confirmation. “As interesting as everyone’s abilities are…” Stormbringer interrupted, “I believe we were looking for a warp drive. We should find it before more Fallen arrive.” “Stormbringer is right. Let’s see…” Ghost hovered around the room for a second before darting to a corner, “Aha! Here it is! Let’s get back to the ship.” “You got it!” Rae nodded. “Whoo! Fireteam Paralight, first mission complete!” Blaze cheered.

As the three Guardians approached their ship, Ghost appeared beside Rae, “Rae. I received a message from the Speaker. He wishes to see you when we return.” “I…I’m not in trouble, am I?” Rae asked, nervously. “He didn’t say.” Ghost replied. “#PrayForRae” Blaze laughed.

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Early that evening, Rae walked into the observatory tower. “Whoa…” Rae gasped in awe at the sight of the Traveller. “There was a time…when we were much more powerful...” A calm voice spoke from behind Rae. The Warlock turned to face the Speaker, who was descending down a set of steps, “But that was long ago. Until it wakes and finds its voice, I am the one who speaks for the Traveller.” The Speaker motioned for Rae to follow him to the railing which overlooked the City and the Traveller, “You must have no end of questions, Guardian. In its dying breath, the Traveller created Ghosts, to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon – Guardians, to protect us, and do what the Traveller itself no longer can.” “I…hope you don’t mind me asking, but…what happened to it?” Rae asked. “I could tell you of the great battle, centuries ago…” The Speaker began, walking alongside the railing as he spoke, “How the Traveller was crippled. I could tell you of the power of the Darkness, its ancient enemy. There are many tales, told throughout the City to frighten children. Lately those stories have stopped. Now…the children are frightened anyway.” The Speaker turned to face Rae ad Ghost, “The Darkness is coming back. We will not survive it this time.” “Its armies surround us. The Fallen are just the beginning.” Ghost added. The look of curiosity and confusion on Rae’s face was replaced with a look of worry, but quickly changed to a determined one, “What can I do?” “You must push back the Darkness.” The Speaker replied, “Guardians are fighting on Earth and beyond…join them. Your Ghost will guide you. I only hope he chose wisely.” The Speaker turned and began to ascend back up the steps without another word. “I did…I’m sure of it.” Ghost reassured his Guardian as the two left the observatory, “We’re in this together now.”

As the two approached the Plaza, Ghost made a little beeping noise, “Incoming audio message from Blaisel Kiria.” Blaze’s voice started playing from Ghost, “Hey, newbie!” “Hey, Rae!” “Cayde, shh! Yo, meet us in the City! We’re eatin’ out at Spicy Ramen to celebrate our first ever mission success! Cayde’s buyin’!” “Wha?! Now hold on, I didn’t-!” “See ya soon, buddy!” The audio ended with a beep. “I guess we’re having ramen tonight.” Rae shrugged. “Well, you are. I can’t eat.”

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“Yeah! Spicy Ramen time!” Blaze dug straight into her bowl as the group of Guardians sat at Spicy Ramen. “Ugh! Blaze, can you please not be so sloppy? You nearly got sauce on me!” Stormbringer scolded. “Oh relax! Ghosts are waterproof, right?” Blaze replied, swallowing a mouth full of noodles. “They aren’t sauce-proof! Plus, do you know how hard it is to get rid of the smell?” *Plop!* “Gah! Cayde!!” Cayde had plopped a few noodles on top of Stormbringer, who was clearly not amused. “Nice wig, Storm.” Cayde chuckled. “Lighten up a bit, Storm!” Sundance, Cayde’s Ghost, laughed. “Yeah! We’re celebrating, y’know!” Firefly agreed. “I love how Stormbringer is the only one of our Ghost’s that isn’t like his Guardian!” Blaze laughed, “Cayde and Sundance are mischievous and carefree, Firefly and I are awesome and fun, Rae and Ghost are huge stick-in-the-muds…” “HEY!” Rae and Ghost yelled in unison. “But Adam and Stormbringer…” Blaze continued, “Well Adam’s pretty much a big teddy bear and is friendly to everyone, while Stormbringer’s all serious and can’t take a joke to save his life.” “Blaisel. I appreciate you as a teammate, but you are incredibly annoying.” Stormbringer glared at Blaze. “Well, duh! I’ve had to spend the past few weeks with you, so of course I got it from you!” Blaze smirked. “Oh, shots are being fired at Spicy Ramen! Someone call the Vanguard!” Sundance laughed. “I don’t thing even Zavala could block those verbal bullets.” Cayde chuckled.

“By the way, been meaning to ask ya…” Blaze piped up as she finished her bowl, “How do you know so much of your past, Rae? Usually it’s pretty rare for Guardians to even have a few of their memories, let alone the amount you have.” “You don’t have any of yours?” Rae asked. “Nope. And I don’t really care that I don’t remember my past. Any regrets that may have held me down are out the window. So I have nothing holding me back. But this ain’t about me, back to how you remember your past.” Blaze shrugged as she took another mouthful of noodles. “Well, when Ghost revived me, I found a journal that had a symbol identical to the one on my clothes. And all of the stuff written in it felt familiar. So I was able to piece together some of my past through it. But it only goes up to a few years before I died. So anything past that is blank.” “Cuhd az uh juhnuh tu!” Rae said with her mouth full, “Uh, hod uhn…*gulp!* Cayde has a journal too!” “It’s a mystery why people call you the Gossip Machine.” Cayde rolled his optics. “What can I say? I get it from my Vanguard.” Blaze grinned. Cayde gasped dramatically, “Blaze, I’m hurt! I would never say something like Zavala likes knitting in his spare time.” “Wait, really?” Rae laughed. “Oh, oh! Do the voice!” Sundance bounced up and down in the air. Cayde let out a loud ahem and began speaking in a deep tone, identical to Zavala’s, “Guardian. I am Zavala. I am very strict, and I hate smiling. Hunters are way better than Titans. War. Poetry. Knitting.” Rae burst out laughing, “Oh my Paragon, that’s perfect!”

The rest of the evening was spent chatting, celebrating, and recounting the highlights of the last mission. Despite only being there for a little over a day, Rae was already feeling at home in the Last City. Little did she realise that her little mismatched team of Guardians would be the ones to save the universe…

…eventually.

End of Prologue.

#destiny #changing our destiny #fireteam paralight #rae drakyx #blaze kiria #adam bergfalk #destiny cayde #cayde-6 #ghost #destiny ghost #fallen #destiny fallen

[asktheironfather]

Dragon Slayer

Esarath Ithyllian flexed his mind, sending a command impulse through the Shimmerdragon’s complex crystalline matrix that psychically linked the cruiser’s crew together. He could feel their consciences, their feelings, as if they were his own. Alatair was concerned their heading was slightly off course after passing through that aetherstorm. Injus continued to pamper the starlight engines as she always did, fretting over a hum that was two notes higher than normal. Hysperion, noble and warlike Hysperion, flung himself into the vessel’s weapons systems and dominated them, imposing his will so effectively it was as if Shimmerdragon’s guns were an extension of his own physical form.

Esarath could feel the minds of those not wired directly into the ship as well. The holds and bunk cabins were full of corsairs and raiders waiting for their master’s word to take up arms and seize their next prize. Tonglora Eshin had yet to fail him. She was an astute warrior, if not a bit prideful at times. But she always returned with their bounty. The Aeldari smiled, a common gesture made grotesquely inhuman by Esarath’s elongated features. They would set upon their next target soon enough, and Eshin and her soldiers would be loosed once again.

Captain. Alatair’s voice impeded upon Esarath’s thoughts. We are approaching the designated coordinates. Preparing to exit the Webway.

Esarath felt Shimmerdragon shudder in anticipation, the chip’s collective spirit drive eager for a hunt and a fresh kill. Esarath had to admit it had been too long since they had bloodied themselves. Acknowledged. The reply was casual despite his own rising anticipation.

As Shimmerdragon entered the confines of real space once again, Esarath was able to lay eyes on their target. It was a bulk freighter, blocky and cumbersome. Little more than a floating brick, its blunt prow stretched back to cargo holds laden with resources and valuable materials before engining in an engine block packed densely with plasma vents that were currently cold and inert. The only deformity on the vessel as a small tower that rose atop the ship’s dorsal spine about three quarters down its length. This was the bridge, and this was where the emergency beacon Alatair had picked up emanated from. Eshin. Prepare yourself. He felt the curt, nonverbal acknowledgement return to him as Tonglora Eshin mustered her troops. Despite it all, the ease of their exit into real space and approach to target, Esarath felt a cloud of unease about her. Perhaps it was just the normal pre-boarding tension. Esarath shrugged it off, and turned his attention to prepping their boarding pods.

On the hanger deck, Tonglora Eshin struggled with her own emotions. There was nothing about their current raid to suggest something was off or these untoward feelings were warranted. Yet the unease remained, lodged firmly in her gut like a piece of bad palmsquid. Eshin had learned long ago to trust her gut. Still, she could not refuse Esarath Ithyllian his prize when it was so readily served to them. She placed her helmet upon her head. It sealed with a hiss.

“You’re tense.”

Eshin glanced sideways at her partner Ulianta. Ulianta had come into Eshin’s life after Esarath rescued her from a mon’keigh assault on the Aeldari conclave world of Hythos. They had hit it off remarkably quickly, and been inseparable since. It was nice to have another soul so devoted to her own, but Ulianta could read Eshin too damn well, and sometimes Eshin found herself wishing she couldn’t. “It’s nothing,” she said dismissively. “Just ready for a fight.”

“Do you think we’ll find one?” Ulianta fell in beside her partner as they made for the boarding pods. “The ships seems like a lifeless hulk.”

“Perhaps it is. We could use a bloodless win.”

Ulianta nodded.

Her name was Kyrie. Tonglora Eshin read it in big blocky letters painted on the flanks of her engine cowling. Though Eshin could speak Gothic almost perfectly, she admittedly still struggled understanding its written form. Still, she was confident the freighter’s name was Kyrie, and as her boarding pod coasted along the length of its bulk, she took a moment to appreciate its simplistic grace. She noted, with some concern, that the freighter’s hanger doors were already open to them, and the six boarding pods entered the mon’keigh vessel without a single autoturret activating. The unease in Eshin’s stomach returned.

The emptiness of Kyrie did little to set it right. Eshin had expected resistance, at least on some level. She may not have been a prideful vessel, or an elegant warship, but Kyrie was still large, and the absence of any kind of crew was unnerving. But the corridors and crew compartments were empty, silent save for the footfalls the corsairs made.

Eshin raised a fist, ordering her unit to stop. Vapor coiled about their legs, rising up from grates in the deck like tendrils of the damned, seeking to drag them under. “Why have we stopped.”

Why have you stopped? Esarath’s mental prod came perfectly timed with Dolian’s physical question.

“Caution,” Eshin replied, answering both at once.

“Caution?” Dolian stepped up to her shoulder, the red lenses of his helmet glinting as he scanned the mist. “There is nothing here. We have crossed half of this damn ship and found nothing but silence and d-”

Something flashed in the darkness suddenly, cutting Dolian off as it cut him in half. It was a blade, long and sharp. The edges had been oiled dull, to keep its sheen from giving its bearer away in the lightless black. The Aledari reacted swiftly, and Eshin ducked back in time to avoid the blade’s backstroke. She caught a glimpse of their assailant’s face as she did so.

He was mon’keigh, that much was evident. But he was massive, beyond the stature of any mortal human she’d encountered, dressed in thick armor of dark grey and trimmed in silver. The right half of his face was metal. It reminded Eshin in some ways of the theater masks the dancers and performers of the traveling troupes sometimes wore. She lifted her own blade even as her foe’s sang for her neck. She deflected it in a shower of sparks that made her eyes hurt.

Eshin opened her mouth to shout orders, but her corsairs were already moving. The air filled with hissing blades fired from shuriken catapults. They struck the mon’keigh but, to Eshin’s dismay, simply bounced off his armor. One even struck him in the face, sticking in the metal that made up that half of his head. But it did no good. The human plucked it free between his fingers before spitting Jysa through the chest.

“Tona!” Ulianta’s warning clued Eshin into the fact there was more than one armored mon’keigh in their midst. All were garbed like the swordsman, in void grey armor trimmed in silver that refused to glint. They wielded swords, hammers, and battle axes with brutal efficiency. Before Eshin knew it, half her crew was slaughtered, their blood dripping between the grates in the deck.

Eshin’s vision exploded suddenly, as the swordsman with the half face struck the side of her head with the pommel of his blade. She crumpled like a doll cut loose from its strings. Time seemed to slow as she fell, and, too her horror, Eshin noticed too late the massive figure loom out of the shadows behind Ulianta. The mon’keigh warrior raised his axe, the head forged in the image of a toothed cog, and brought it down, biting deep into Ulianta’s shoulder. It did not stop until it reached her chest cavity, so great was the force behind the blow. Ulianta staggered as the human removed the blade. Blood spurted across the deck in a warm geyser as Ulianta fell to her knees.

Eshin wanted to scream, but her lips would not work. She wanted to rage and shout and curse, but the words stuck in her throat. As she watched her lover topple over and die there was only a single thought pounding through her pain and grief addled mind.

Trap.

 Eshin felt the air driven from her lungs as a heavy boot connected with her chest and flipped her onto her back. Gasping for air, she looked up at the half flesh, half metal face of her initial assailant. He lifted his blade, the tip aimed at her heart. Eshin made a feeble attempt to reach for him, her fingers grasping fruitlessly at his shins. The blade fell, and in a single viper strike, the swordsman claimed her life.

Esarath reeled in his throne. Eshin’s death and the deaths of her boarding party had been so brutal and sudden the psychic feedback lashed at his mind like a flagellant’s whip. Alatair. Even his mind sounded like he was wheezing after taking a shot to the gut. Alatair get us out-

Contact!

No. Esarath’s eyes went wide as Shimmerdragon suddenly registered a contact on her augers. It was huge, easily twice the size of the cruiser, and had just dropped out of the warp right on top of them. Injus get us out of here!

Working on it! Refiring the sublight engines. There’s something wrong with-

A sudden series of thunderous impacts rocked the cruiser’s hull. Esarath felt Hysperion die, and knew it had been an exploding crystal matrix that had done him in without even letting him fire a return shot. The ship captain immediately shifted control of the weapon systems to his own neural load, straining under the new stress. His nose started to bleed, but he ignored it. More impacts struck Shimmerdragon and Esarath understood that the titanic vessel overhead was firing on them.

Boarding torpedoes! Alatair called across the link.

Esarath swore in as many tongues as he knew. With Eshin’s dead there was very little standing between him and boarders. Disconnect. Take up arms and defend the bridge. Protect the ship.

The responses came in slowly, tainted with confusion and uncertainty, but one by one Esarath felt them comply until he was the only soul left in the network. He lingered there, taking his time with the ship. Shimmerdragon seemed to understand what was about to happen. Esarath could feel it pulse, a sad forlorn sensation as it bid its master goodbye. He replied in kind, before disconnecting and letting reality come crashing back against his senses. He found the rest of his crew staring at him expectantly. “Alatair, get a message off to Thalkyr. Inform him of our fate. Let him know a new foe arises. One he has not foreseen. The rest of you, barricade the doors as best you can. We will not die without a fight.”

They did not have to wait long. The sound of whining servos and heavy boot steps heralded their impending arrival and the air reeked of hot metal and lubrication oils. It was offensive and Esarath wrinkled his nose against it. Such disrespect to a vessel such as Shimmerdragon was an affront. He leveled his pistol at the door, ready.

Silence settled over the bridge, eery and oppressive. Esarath shifted, his grip tightening on his sword. Something clunked against the bridge doors, causing the Aeldari to start. Sparks began to fly, spraying into the bridge from between the doors. Then came a thunderous boom and the doors caved inward, flying through the air as if tossed by a giant. Alatair was too slow to get out of their way. He died a smear on the deck.

Esarath had little time to contemplate his pilot’s death. Gunfire echoed through the chamber, deep and throaty. Esarath could see muzzle flash through the smoke and hear the distinctive buzz of augments. He stood and returned fire, keeping himself behind the cover offered by his command throne and trying not to choke on the cloying smoke that filled the air.

To his left, Injus screamed and Esarath saw a grey armored titan appear out of the smoke. It leveled its weapon at her and fired point blank. Injus jerked under the burst before simply ceasing to exists as the mass reactive rounds detonated inside her. The rest of the bridge crew were not fairing much better. Clad in dark armor, their assailants used the smoke to hide efficiently until they were right on top of their prey. Esarath started shooting blindly, filling the smoke with as many shuriken as he could in the hope that he might take one of his opponents down before the end came.

His hope was in vain.

An axe can screaming from the smoke. Esarath was just nimble enough to avoid having his head cleaved from his shoulders with a single swing. Esarath brought his sword up, the blade crackling with energy as he thumbed the power stud. He charged, swinging the sword towards a shadow in the smoke. He allowed himself to smirk. It seemed as if his bravado had caught his assailant off guard.

Esarath’s sword stopped short, striking something hard a few inches from his target. He felt something twist, trying to pry the sword from his grasp. He heard it snap, the wraithbone breaking under immense pressure. Esarath’s jaw went slack.

It came for him next. A vice on the end of a long, articulated steel arm shot from the smoke and clamped down around Esarath’s neck, lifting him from his feet. Whatever had him advanced through the smoke just enough for the struggling Aeldari to see it. It was a mon’keigh warrior, the type referred to as Astartes, or Space Marines. But Esarath did not recognize the hammer and lightning bolt sigil emblazoned upon its shoulder. He was familiar with a number of Astartes iconography, having slipped through the grasp of a multitude of Chapters. This symbol was foreign to him.

Esarath clasped his hands around the metal vice at his throat. He now realized the arm it was attached to extended from the Astarte’s back like a third limb. Blue eye lenses, cold and hard, glared up at him from a helmed face. “What... what are you,” he choked out.

The mon’keigh regarded him in silence for a moment and Esarath thought perhaps he has not been understood. But the warrior spoke, breaking his silence and gifting Esarath his last request. “I am Iron Lord Janus Zebb. I have come to purge this space of your piratical filth, xenos scum. I have started with you, and I will work my way up to your wretched master. These stars do not belong to you.”

Esarath attempted to speak, but there was no more air in his lungs and his pale skin began to turn blue. He felt himself rise and then fall as Iron Lord Janus Zebb lifted him higher, only to slam him bodily against the deck. Pain flooded his senses, and Esarath felt several ribs break. Zebb removed the vice from the Aeldari’s throat, but kept him pinned with a boot on his chest. He applied pressure and Esarath struggled to breath. All he could do was watch as Zebb lifted his cog-toothed axe for the executioner’s blow.

It fell.

And Esarath Ithyllian knew oblivion.

#drabble #[Founding Father: Era- M35] #long post

[epicwolfofdarkness]

Master post of my Genji Headcanons

Copied and pasted from a journal on my DeviantArt that I regularly keep updated/edited. I have a lot of headcanons, so let’s go :D 

First of all: GENJI HAS A FACE. Underneath his helmet visor, his face is still mostly human apart from plating on his chin, which runs along both sides of his jawline. This means that, contrary to a lot of people's headcanons, Genji's face is more or less still mostly human behind his helmet visor (albeit very scarred). His torso is also still mostly human beneath the metal plating, although that is covered in scars too from his wounds and the operation. It is also fused to artificial muscle on both sides, as well as having small metal implants embedded in it.

When Genji was rescued from death by Overwatch, he was rebuilt under the direction of Dr. Angela Ziegler (Mercy). Dr. Ziegler did not rebuild Genji herself - in fact, she was quite opposed to turning his body into a weapon. But under the orders of Overwatch, she drew up diagrams and blueprints for Genji's cybernetics and oversaw his cyberization.

In my headcanon, the first version of Genji's cybernetic body was similar to his final in-game design, except less plated and with more of his original human body intact, though scarred. (Note: see his picture from the "Recall" animated short for a better idea of what I'm talking about.) His torso and his left arm were still intact under his plating, as were his male parts.

When Genji recovered from the initial cyberization process, the head of Blackwatch, Gabriel Reyes, saw Genji as a valuable asset to his covert ops division. This in turn led to Genji being cybernetically modified to better fit in with the rest of the Blackwatch agents. This is why his Blackwatch design is different to how he looked before, with different plating and muscle and his left arm and part of his torso exposed.

Blackwatch Genji wore a different "helmet" to default Genji. It consisted of a removable metal upper and lower part, which concealed parts of his face with only his eyes showing, and was attached to his neck plating. He also had red eyes due to wearing contact lenses which enhanced his vision, instead of having to wear a coloured visor.

When Genji joined Blackwatch, he went on a mission with them to take down the Shimada Clan. This was his Blackwatch initiation, and the mission continued to be an ongoing operation for the whole of Genji's time with Blackwatch.

Genji received several injuries to his human parts while he was with Blackwatch. His left arm was severely injured on one of his missions.

About three years after Genji joined Blackwatch and went on several missions with them, including the "Venice Incident" (Retribution) and making sure the Shimada Clan was well and truly taken care of, the head of Blackwatch, Reyes, changed drastically. He gradually became more sinister and secretive (not helped by Dr. Moira O' Deorain), and tension began to increase between him, Blackwatch and the rest of Overwatch. Genji didn't agree with this. Not enjoying the secrecy, tension and near-criminal activities he was forced to take part in as a Blackwatch agent, and not liking the direction Blackwatch was going in, he returned to Overwatch's general division instead.

After Genji rejoined Overwatch's general division, he was again modified as he was no longer part of Blackwatch. This included removing his left arm, which, although it was his only intact human limb, was severely damaged due to injuries he had received while with Blackwatch. It was replaced with a fully cybernetic one so the organisation could further enhance his abilities. As well as this, he was given more plating than before as a sort of armour, and a new removable helmet with a green visor to enhance his vision, instead of having to wear contact lenses. This is how he came to look like the way he does today.

Genji was 25 when Hanzo tried to kill him, and he was 28 during the Omnic Uprising in King's Row, so that means he stayed with Overwatch for approximately four years.

All the modifications Genji went through during his time with Overwatch did nothing to help his already fragile mental state. Several months after he rejoined Overwatch's general division and helped out with a few missions (including the Doomfist mission), Genji abandoned the organisation and began to look for meaning in his troubled life. Shortly after he left, Overwatch itself was disbanded.

Even though it was never confirmed that Genji returned to Overwatch years later, in my headcanon he eventually became part of it again during the Recall (which eventually forced Hanzo to join as well due to guilt).

Genji sees Mercy as a a close ally and more than just a friend, since she was the one who saved him from death and cared for him when his mind and body were weak. Even though he didn't fully appreciate her work back then, he now loves and cares about her deeply and hopes to repay her for what she did someday.

Genji still has nightmares and flashbacks of his near-death experience sometimes, although they're not as frequent as they were when it first happened. However, they are still traumatic for him to experience.

Genji likes to meditate in times of stress or emotional difficulty as it makes him calm and brings his mind into focus.

Genji still cares deeply about Hanzo and is still extremely loyal to him. He wants nothing more than his brother to make peace with him and be as close as they were when they were younger, but it saddens him to think that'll probably never happen.

When he and Hanzo were younger, Genji liked to annoy Hanzo by calling him "Handsoap" because it sounds like his name. He wouldn't dare try it nowadays though.

Genji has always had a fear/dislike of needles, ever since he was a young child. This is part of the reason why Ana finds it so hard to heal him, since she uses darts to heal people. Genji always tries to avoid her healing darts due to his fear, even when he needs healing. (Note: this headcanon is more gameplay-related than lore-related, but my point still stands.)

Even though he is mostly machine, Genji can still feel pain and is still greatly affected by anything that hurts him. His dislike of pain goes back to when he was human, but even as a cyborg he still feels the same way.

Contrary to what a lot of people believe, Genji can still eat and drink the same way humans can. However, his sense of taste is by far his weakest and as a result, he can't taste things as well as he could when he was human. He never eats a lot at a time due to the fact that he doesn't really need to - his cybernetic body can withstand long periods without food or water, better than the average human body. He mostly just eats and drinks to feel more human.

On the topic of food, Genji still enjoys a good bowl of ramen every now and then.

When he was younger, Genji loved watching anime, cartoons and other TV shows. His favourite shows were (and still are) Naruto, Attack on Titan, Wolf's Rain, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Kamen Rider.

As well as watching anime and cartoons, Genji also loved reading manga and had quite a big collection of it. Most of the manga he read when he was younger was harem or ecchi-themed.

Genji loved playing video games when he was younger. He would often spend hours at the arcade near where he lived, or playing handheld and mobile games at home. Either way, gaming was a favourite hobby of his. For this reason, he gets on quite well with D.Va due to her being a gamer.

The reason Genji had green hair when he was a teenager/young adult is because he lost a bet. When he was 16, a girl at the arcade challenged him to beat her at one of the games, and the loser had to dye their hair bright green. Genji accepted this challenge, but lost. He grew to like the colour of his hair though, and he kept it that way for quite a while afterwards.

Genji decided to go back to his natural hair colour, black, when he was 20 after constantly dyeing it green for four years. He dyed his hair again when he was 23, and so it was still green when Hanzo tried to murder him two years later.

Genji now has black hair for several reasons. First of all, he lost some of it through his injuries and the cyberization surgery. By the time it fully grew back he had just joined Blackwatch. Normally Blackwatch agents would have to get a regulation haircut as part of their induction, but Genji didn't. This is because, at the insistence of Mercy, Gabriel Reyes was fairly lenient with Genji when he first joined (due to Genji's mental state). He made a special exception for his new recruit so he didn't have to go through every part of the induction process. However, Genji was given a rule that if he wasn't going to get his regulation haircut, he had to keep it out of his way by other means and have the green colour removed. (He was okay with this, the old green-haired Genji was dead after all). So, for the duration of his time with Blackwatch, Genji had black hair which he kept gelled back like he did when he was younger.

Even though it was mostly his face that was scarred, Genji also has a scar on the right side of his head from his fight with Hanzo, which naturally parts his hair.

Genji isn't as concerned about his physical appearance now as he was when he was human. He was quite vain when he was younger, but since he became a cyborg and became more humble he doesn't focus on his looks as much anymore. He believes that what's on the inside is more important. However, this doesn't stop Mercy from helping Genji with his appearance sometimes, such as looking after his hair. Genji appreciates this (despite not caring as much as he used to), mostly because he just likes the close personal attention and the feel of Mercy's hands in his hair.

Despite believing that his physical appearance isn't important, Genji still feels slightly self-conscious around strangers (particularly ones who are not familiar with cyborgs). Most of the time he only shows his face to people once they have gained his trust, or when he needs to show someone that he's not a robot. Basically, if he shows his face to anyone, it's a sign that he trusts them.

Genji has to have regular physical examinations and maintenance carried out on his cybernetics. He doesn't really mind either of these too much though, as they are always done by Mercy. (Note: to read more about this, check out my fanfics More Than Just a Doctor and Maintenance.)

Genji still has an old Pachimari plushie from when he was a young child. He used to have quite a large collection of them when he was younger, in various different sizes, colours and themes. The only one he has left is his first one, which Hanzo got for him from a prize crane at the arcade in Hanamura. When Hanzo left the Shimada Clan, he brought some of Genji's remaining possessions with him, and this Pachimari plushie was one of them. Upon joining Overwatch, he gave it back to Genji, who was overjoyed to have it again. It is in less than perfect condition after all these years, with some loose stitching and faded, slightly dirty coloration, but Genji still loves it due to its sentimental value.

Although he doesn't like to admit it, Genji still sleeps cuddling his Pachimari plushie a lot of the time.

Genji actually has shurikens stored in both of his lower arms. However, as he is right-handed, the ones in his left arm are an emergency backup of sorts, meaning he doesn't use them as often as the ones in his right arm.

Genji is actually semi-waterproof. His cybernetic body can withstand rain and he can take showers, but it's still better if he doesn't stay in either for too long. Large bodies of water are a definite no-no. Rain and showers are okay, but Genji can only withstand being submerged in water for very short periods of time. Being submerged for too long can cause serious damage to his cybernetics, the same as it would for any machine.

Due to the above fact about water, Genji really misses being able to bathe in hot springs. He and Hanzo used to do it quite a lot when they were younger.

Due to the physical trauma of his cybernetic augmentation, Genji is unable to grow any body hair on the parts of him that are still human, especially his face. This is part of the reason why his face always looks perfectly clean-shaven (the other reason being that he has plating on his chin, so he wouldn't be able to grow a full beard anyway).

Genji actually has two layers of protective armour that cover his face. The outer layer is his helmet as seen from the outside. The inner layer consists of a snug-fitting visor piece that covers his lower face/jaw and ears (similar to his Blackwatch design). This inner layer offers extra protection to Genji's face and jaw while on missions with Overwatch. The inner visor has an inbuilt listening device, as it covers his ears. It also attaches to his chin plating. (Note: this headcanon comes from the "Dragons" animated short. When Genji reveals his face to Hanzo, he removes the outer visor of his helmet but plating on his lower face is still visible, similar to his Blackwatch design. This can be seen in the picture of his face at the start of this journal.)

Genji doesn't always wear the two visor layers. Whether or not he wears both depends on the severity of the mission or any situation he has to prepare for. This is why he wore both layers when he went back to Hanzo after all those years, as he knew his brother probably wouldn't recognise him straight away and would likely try to attack him. Sometimes he just wears the outer helmet though, as it is more comfortable for ordinary everyday wear or on certain missions that aren't as serious.

Genji can remove several parts of his helmet at a time, as well as removing it in one piece (which he usually does with people he trusts). He can remove the outer and inner lower parts of his visor, as well as the upper part of his visor. Sometimes he prefers to just wear the upper part of his helmet, showing his face, or just the part covering the top of his head. When he is with people he loves and trusts, most of the time he doesn't wear his helmet at all.

As always, more to be added later. :)

#overwatch #genji #genji shimada #headcanons #my hcs #long post

[saltineofswing]

Binary Phoenix

“Who, the guy with the red horns? Yeah, we met him. Weird little fella. Never got his name. Wonder where he is now?” -- Attila-5 to Ikora Rey, after the Towerfall event.

Thanks to @sedimentarydearwatson and @ir-anuk for the use of their characters, and thanks to everyone who’s been reading these fics consistently. Please enjoy!

She knew he’d seen it coming by the calm in his voice.

“So it’s this one,” Euclid had murmured, in an idle moment spent lounging in the shade of trees in the Tower courtyard. They spent their recharge periods together frequently, basking in sunlight to allow the solar batteries in their torsos a chance to recharge. Today clouds had blotted out the sky, and the hubbub of activity had made Yarrow suspicious… but not suspicious enough to end one of the precious few breaks they got to go investigating. Euclid had turned to her, given her hand a squeeze, and got to his feet. “We should go.”

“What?” She’d asked, exasperation and amusement playing xylophone with her throat and mouthlights- akin to a dramatic roll of the eyes, which she also performed literally a moment later as she let him haul her to her feet. “Go where?”

“It’s the end of the world,” he’d informed her softly. Questions and disparaging remarks as to the dramatic mystery of his statement bubbled up in her vocalizer, but they were squelched by a resonating thunder out behind the Walls. The clouds broke, and Yarrow’s mouthlights strobed alarm as the Cabal ships roared towards the Tower. She’d heard Euclid hum, curious, and as he tugged her arm and Blinked with her away from the incoming volley of explosive artillery she’d caught one last, passing comment. “A day or so ahead of schedule, too.”

          *******

“Of the some two-million simulations I experienced during my sojourn on Venus,” Euclid explained to Yarrow, Jolly, Galatea, and a pair of other Guardians as they tromped through a side-alley, “Approximately forty-seven percent of them involved the destruction of the Tower. Of that forty-seven percent, an impressive half of these ‘Towerfall’ occurrences were perpetrated by Cabal aggressors.” Their group paused at the head of the alley, at Euclid’s behest, and Yarrow’s grip on her Pulse Rifle tightened as a Cabal dropship growled past.

“And you didn’t tell anyone about this because?” Galatea grumbled. “The Vanguard, perhaps?”

“Tell them what? ‘Ah, I th-think the Tower will be attacked, only I can’t tell you when, nor where the assault will originate, nor how, nor whom the perpetrators will be with any degree of certainty’. And that's setting aside explaining to them how-how- er- how I ‘know’ that in the first place!”

“Better to have been prepared for it, at least,” the other Titan traveling with them grumbled.

“To be fair, the Future War Cult has been clamoring about having predicted the fall of the city for decades,” countered the other Warlock.

“Yeah, but those guys are crazy!”

“Quit arguing,” Yarrow snapped at them. “Focus up. We have civilians to exfiltrate.”

They bounded across the street and Yarrow did her best to ignore the battle raging overhead; ships in dogfights, Cabal cruisers spitting drop pods and artillery shells down into the City as something aligned itself to the Traveler. She felt them all watching it in solemn silence, allowing themselves a moment of contemplation.

“What do we think it is?” Jolly asked, unusually quiet.

They all glanced at Euclid, who tilted his head slightly.

“... Well,” he mumbled, picking at his gloves. “I-I don’t know, err, h-how to- I suppose it’s- I mean, m-most likely-“

“It’s okay. Spit it out Euclid,” Yarrow said, patting his back encouragingly. She thought she knew what he was going to say but that didn’t make her feel any better about it.

“It’s m-most likely some sort of, ehh, d-device designed to c-cut us off from the Traveler’s Light.”

The implications made her reel slightly. Was that even possible? How could the Cabal do that? What kind of technology even had that kind of power? The Red Legion was from someplace very far away, indeed, if they had so much ridiculous crap none of them had ever seen before. Everyone else seemed to be speechless as well, until Galatea’s chin rose.

“Our Light is not what makes us Guardians,” she said firmly. “This is still our City. It is still our job to protect it.”

Yarrow almost felt like there had never been a time when this many Guardians had been present in the Last City at once. Shamefully she couldn’t even name the district they were now patrolling; she didn’t know a single civilian that wasn’t employed at the Tower.

The city was seemingly in its death throes, and Yarrow couldn’t help but feel stunned as she witnessed the last gasps of a total stranger.

          *******

A Cabal Phalanx’s shield wrenched forcefully from its owners’ hand on a flickering tendril of Void light and careened across the space between two buildings to slam headlong into a Centurion’s jetpack mid-flight. The ensuing ball of fire tumbled down to street level as Galatea and Jolly wheeled out from cover to pepper the defenseless Phalanx trooper with bullets. Euclid flicked his wrist and the sputtering Cabal flew sideways off the roof after its shield.

“Man, when the Cabal say ‘occupation’, they mean it,” Jolly muttered, slapping another clip into her submachine gun. One of the few good things about Shaxx opening up his armory, Euclid reflected, was that Guardians who had appreciation for weapons suddenly had a wide assortment of new toys to enjoy. Like Jolly and Galatea, for example. Jolly had a sidearm at her side and a sniper slung across her back; unfortunately the high-caliber ammunition the sniper required was sparse and hard to come by. Euclid passed her the rest of his ammunition for his submachine gun in exchange for some stray hand cannon ammo she’d come across, and the Awoken Warlock beside him turned with a chuckle to oversee the small caravan of civilians they’d gathered.

“How many of them do you think’ve spent this much time around Guardians before?” He asked, bitterly amused.

“Now now,” Euclid chided mildly as he reloaded his gun. “Not all of us were strangers here, right? I’m, err, s-sure some of us spent quite a b-bit of time in the City.”

The deafening silence from his other five companions made him chuckle uneasily. “… W-well, someone out there m-must have. I mean I’ve heard there are, ah, b-bars and the like that are specifically tailored to Guardians.”

“Anyway,” Galatea interjected. “We’re going to be encountering one of the designated exfiltration zones soon. We should decide who is going and who is staying- we have too many people to fit on one transport.” Euclid patted Yarrow’s shoulder and left the others to figure out their battle-plan- it wasn’t one of his strong suits.

The civilians were wet, tired, and forlorn. Euclid and the other Guardians had been slogging them across the City, up down and around, trying to find an evacuation craft that had not yet departed; he got the impression that it was a long trek for them, but it had only been about a dozen kilometers. Sometimes it was baffling, the differences between Guardians and regular civilians. He supposed it wasn’t their fault; after all, they didn’t have tireless mechanical limbs or armor that injected stimulants into your thigh muscles when you became fatigued, or a Ghost to help your circulatory system cycle unnaturally quickly and efficiently, or-

“M-mister Guardian?”

Euclid did his best not to jerk away as he felt something tug his robes but only half-succeeded, and the instinctive recoil did not seem to do anything for the ardent frown on the face of the child who had been trying to get his attention. He pivoted his body awkwardly to face the small human and crouched down the way he sometimes saw Jolly doing when she encountered a broken shank, to pull it apart for valuables. He was entirely unsure how to handle children; multiple Guardians had explicitly told him that it was probably best he stay away from them whenever possible.

But surely this couldn’t hurt. “How can I help you?”

“I’m tired. Are we gonna make it to the eva-evacliation point soon?”

“The evacuation point,” he corrected gently. “Yes. We are approaching one now. Presuming we arrive and find the exfiltration crews alive and in viable shape, you’ll be loaded onto an outbound transport.”

This did not seem to reassure the child. “But... Where’re we gonna go?”

“I am unsure.” He noted the particularly obvious surprise that blazed a trail across the child’s face. “Standard protocols have not been prepared for a catastrophe of this magnitude, but in similar situations a fallback position- or several- are often set up in designated high-Light-exposure areas outside of dangerous encounter spaces.”

The child was silent, seemingly digesting his words, and Euclid got the feeling many of them had gone over its head. Instead of trying to format an appropriate response it apparently decided to change tack slightly.

“... But you’re not... you’re not scared, right?”

Euclid glanced between the child and the back of Yarrow’s hooded head, wishing now that he had gotten someone else to handle this situation. “Err...” He glanced back at the tiny human and pulled off his helmet, attempting to produce a reassuring smile in his mouthlights that did nothing but gently illuminate the child’s elevated levels of surprise when it realized he was an Exo. “... W-well, of course I am!” He said. “But that doesn’t mean I- oh dear.”

He hurriedly pulled his helmet back onto his head and stood up as the child’s eyes brimmed with tears and it let out a clogged sob, the parents hurrying over firing scathing looks his way as he felt a wash of unease drift over him, and he turned back to the others. He wasn’t sure why, but somehow he knew he’d given the small human the wrong answer.

*****

“FLY FIVE MILES OUT PAST SPLINTERWIND CREEK,” the second Warlock in their group called from the bay of a repurposed cargo transport that was being used to evacuate civilians. “THERE’S A CLEARING OUTSIDE THE RANGE OF CABAL SENSORS WHERE THEY’RE STAGING A SECONDARY FALLBACK POINT.”

“WHAT HAPPENED TO THE PRIMARY?” Jolly called back, cupping her hands over her mouth to make her voice audible over the thundering roar of the cargo hauler’s engines.

The Warlock shook his head, and Jolly winced. Nearby, Galatea was standing with the other Titan, silent and forehead to forehead, neither Guardian apparently fazed by the proximity of their helmets. It was some small Guardian ritual, but Euclid couldn’t begrudge them the scarce moments taken to perform it. His own anxiety was flaring as civilians were loaded onto the ship.

They’d arrived somewhat late. The hauler had been almost full already when they’d gotten to the LZ, and so only about half the civilians in their complement could be squeezed into the ship, packed in tighter than they probably should have been- but there was no time or room for error to find another ship. The two Guardians they had picked up on their way down from the Tower had elected to go with them, in order to keep them safe; as the other Titan caught the Awoken Warlock’s hand and hauled himself up into the ship the Warlock turned back to them. “BY THE WAY,” he shouted, “WE NEVER GOT YOUR NAMES!”

“SAVE IT FOR WHEN WE MEET BACK UP!” Jolly replied, grinning widely. “I’LL BUY YOU BOTH A DRINK!”

“Naive,” Galatea mumbled as she came back over to stand beside Euclid. Yarrow was busy shepherding civilians back towards the City. They’d gotten the coordinates for the next district’s evacuation points and there was, thankfully, one not that far away. “To assume we will ever see them again.” She watched the bay doors close, and Euclid watched her take her helmet off her head. The faceplate was cracked, deeply enough that the internal mechanisms were undoubtedly fried. As she tossed it aside, the ship lifted into the air; Jolly waved after it emphatically with both hands. Her face was impassive as ever as she watched Jolly’s arms fall to her sides, still watching the ship vanish into the smoke and smog. Galatea’s lips tightened ever-so-slightly at the sight of Jolly’s clenched fists, and she closed her eyes with a soft sigh.

“I’ll get her,” she said. “We should get moving.”

“Everybody’s in a bit of a rough mood, but they’re still hopeful,” Yarrow informed him as Galatea strode off to get Jolly. “I am too, for the record. Aster, you got any hard info on our next destination?”

“Not so far off, all things considered!” Aster unfolded from subspace into view by Yarrow’s head, and the two exchanged a brief glance. Even Euclid could detect the faint strain of anxiety in the Ghost’s voice. “I mean, it’s ah... it’s certainly doable! We made it this far, after all.”

“B-barely,” Euclid mumbled sourly. “Th-there have been several instances in w-which our only, ehh, saving g-grace, as it were, has been luck.”

“We got four strapping Guardians here,” Yarrow said, patting Euclid’s shoulder. “I’d say ‘young’ but I know you’re like a hundred and six, and well, I have no clue how old Galatea is.”

“I’m 129.”

“Whatever. Look.” She nodded to her Ghost, who spun out of view, and turned to look at him as Galatea and Jolly approached. “We’ve had harder challenges. Besides; this is what we put on the boots for. If we’re ever going to come back here and stomp these wrinkly toad-headed monsters, we gotta get as many people out as possible. And we will.” She hefted her rifle on her shoulder and turned to look out at the next district. “Don’t worry, Euclid. We’re going to make it.”

*****

“Not going to make it,” she muttered grimly, emptying another clip in her sidearm into a Cabal’s faceplate. “They’re not going to make it.” She could see Jolly cresting the hill as she and her Titan partner brought up the rear of their group; the other Hunter was struggling with her sidearm, and Yarrow saw her drop her rifle, pick up a stone and slingshot it with a burst of desperate golden fire through the torso of one of the Cabal chasing them. Galatea had a civilian under one arm and a shotgun in the other, perched precariously against the crook of her elbow while she jammed more shells into the gun with an animal snarl on her ordinarily stoic and ethereal face. They were moving fast… but they weren’t moving fast enough.

Behind them, the district’s last transport was loading up. All but five of the civilians they’d been guarding were scrabbling unchallenged into the ship, dirty, weary, and finally nearing the end of their long trek. One LZ after another had turned up dry or overrun; and they just didn’t have the time or the supplies to move into the next district over. Already they’d seen artillery shells fall on the City in other districts, passed Guardian holdouts that lay barren under the unstoppable onward march of the Red Legion. To her side, Yarrow heard Euclid let out a tense huff.

“How you holding up, Screwloose?” She called to him, sticking her sidearm back in her belt and dragging her pulse rifle off her back; she checked the mag with a second’s glance and bitterly wished she had about a thousand more bullets before she positioned it properly in her hand. She glanced over to Euclid, who still had a palm clapped firmly over a wound in his side; his mouthlights strobed discomfort, but he flipped the cylinder on his hand-cannon out.

“I’ve been better,” he admitted, “But this is hardly m-my worst day.” The spent casings in his gun shot out and away, and six new bullets filed neatly into the cylinder in its place seemingly of their own accord; Euclid tipped his head sharply and the cylinder spun with a series of soft clicks before he snapped the gun back to the right and the cylinder clacked back into place. He cocked the hammer and turned back to Yarrow. “We need to help J-jolly and Galatea!”

“Easier said than done! You got enough bullets to hold off the Cabal?”

“I’m, err, down to, uhh, m-maybe sixteen.”

“Triffick.” Yarrow’s eyelights narrowed slightly. “I’m almost fresh out on Pulse Rifle clips. Before long I’m going to be down to Sidearm and not much else.” And that was hardly good for a confrontation like this.

She tensed as a pack of the Cabal’s War Beasts came howling towards them, and saw the two straggling Guardians try to hurry the remaining five civilians they were shepherding towards the dropship behind them. Galatea was still loading her shotgun; Jolly skidded to a halt and spun around to her partner, tearing off to intercept the War Beasts. The foremost animal let out a triumphant shriek and tackled her, sinking its teeth into her elbow.

“CARTER!” Galatea roared, dropping the civilian under her arm to try and bring her shotgun to bear- but it wasn’t going to be fast enough, nor would it have the range necessary to stave off the beasts from where she was. Yarrow saw Galatea’s eyes widen in genuine terror, but she didn’t have the energy left to muster more than a few crackling tendrils of lightning.

“Damn it all,” Yarrow grunted; she dropped her Pulse Rifle and snatched Euclid’s Hand-Cannon out of his grasp, drawing a surprised squawk from her companion. She didn’t have time to ask- the weapon burst into flame, and Yarrow leveled the Golden Gun at the beasts about to rip Carter ‘Jolly’ Jackson to shreds. She fanned the hammer desperately, each fiery burst aimed on instinct, and the six slavering beasts fell in six smoldering heaps. Jolly saluted her with two fingers and sped past a thoroughly relieved Galatea to help herd civilians onto the ship. When she went to hand Euclid back his gun she found him hunched over, fingers digging into the seam at his throat.

“Too quiet,” Euclid hissed, fumbling with the clasps of his helmet. “It’s too quiet, too quiet, too- too-“ a seam at his neck hissed as the Obsidian Mind disconnected from his undersuit, and Yarrow felt his other-sight wash across her as the limiters in his helmet shut off. The sudden swell of Light made her drop the hand-cannon in surprise- she’d never have guessed he still had so much power left in him.

Euclid whipped his helmet off his head and tossed it aside; Jolly scooped it up as she ran past, dropping her empty sidearm and clubbing a Psion aside with the obsidian bucket in her hand. Yarrow’s sidearm was already in her hand to cut down the Psion’s Centurion handler with the fullness of her second-to-last clip. Jolly scrambled aboard the transport and climbed to her feet, waving Galatea aboard after her. She pulled the last civilian into the bay and then clasped Galatea’s gauntlet with both hands, straining to haul the heavily-armored Titan aboard. She turned and called something Yarrow couldn’t hear into the dropship, and the engines began to warm up as people scrambled to find seats and strap in.

A trio of Colossi crested the rise and brought their massive guns to bear on the dropship, and their rockets splashed across the ship’s shields. Euclid cast out his arm and threw a Nova Bomb at the rise; it crashed into the chestplate of the lead Colossus and carved a black hole into the world for a moment- but it shrunk and vanished surprisingly quickly for a vortex created by Euclid. Even with so much Light left in him, he must have been growing tired.

“Yarrow!” Jolly’s voice crackled over her comms and snapped her back into focus. “We got everybody onboard. Grab Euclid and let’s go!”

“If those Cabal take the LZ, they’ll turn the ship into slag!” She snapped back, taking a few potshots from cover to keep the incoming Cabal Legionaries honest. “Make sure everybody’s strapped in and ready to go. We’ll- we’ll figure something out.” She clicked the comm off and clacked her jaw shut in irritation. A streak of fire from a Cabal Legionnaire nearly sheared her helmet in half and she winced and threw her now-smoking hood back. When she reached for her belt to find more ammo, a grenade, a knife, anything- she came up empty.

“We can’t hold the line like this!” Yarrow shouted to Euclid, ducking back behind a chunk of rubble big enough to shield both of them. He dropped down next to her with a peculiar expression of contemplation in his throatlights.

“No,” Euclid murmured, turning for a moment to survey the oncoming tide of Cabal with his other-sight. “… No, we can’t.” The staggering reality of facing death- possibly actually permanent death- for the first time struck them both. She knew that not everybody would make it out of this catastrophe. The fall of the Tower. She’d prepared for the possibility of being one of those who were left behind; it hadn’t occurred to her that Euclid might be there with her. Laughable, in hindsight- as if Euclid would ever willingly leave her behind. He turned his head to look at her, seemingly calculating something. He took her head in both hands, and let their foreheads meet for a brief moment.

“COME ON!!” Jolly screamed to them as the transport’s engines spun up from an idle hum to a dull roar. “WE GOTTA GO NOW!”

“It’s the only way to give them time,” he said, his voice so low she could barely hear it. “You know it is. I h-hope you know- I hope-“

She froze a selection of her non-primary functions, letting her optics blink off, and let herself occupy the moment; her hands came up to clasp his shoulders, fingers digging into the seams of his maroon pauldrons, balling in the odd khaki-and-saffron of his robes. He still smelled like his flowers, even after all this time spent away from Venus. “I know,” she muttered back. She allowed herself a moment of sincerely solemn contemplation. “Me too.”

His mouthlights flickered in relief. “G-good.” There was a brief pause as he collected himself. “I’m sorry.”

“What?”

Yarrow didn’t have time to react as Euclid’s hands darted away from her and he shoved her backwards; she didn’t have time to think or process what was happening, but everything seemed sluggish as she continued to move away, away, away- and she realized he hadn’t shoved her with his hands but rather with his Light, and she was hurtling backwards through the air with arms outstretched. When she collided bodily with Jolly time seemed to snap back to its proper progression as the other Hunter let out a heavy ‘Oof!’ and the two were knocked out of the doorway.

She tumbled like a ragdoll into the bay of the transport and rolled back to her feet. She screamed something verbally and with full-throated lights that lit the inside of her visor for a moment before she was sprinting for the exit- but Galatea caught her around the waist. “Don’t be stupid!” the Titan hissed to her. The bay doors were already closing, civilians strapped uncomfortably into their seats.

“What’s he doing?” Jolly asked, panic in her voice as she clutched Euclid’s helmet in her hands.

“Galatea you have a SECOND to drop me before I-“

“Guys, what’s he doing!?”

“Before you WHAT?!” Galatea bellowed, dropping Yarrow and sweeping her arm around the dropship’s stunned-silent complement. Three Guardians, nearly twenty-seven civilians. “You and I both know that if we put up too hard of a fight, the Cabal will call down an orbital strike! Is that what you want?”

Yarrow’s jaw clacked shut angrily as she pushed herself to her feet. “So we’re just going to abandon him?” She shouted back, nearly chestplate-to-chestplate with the taller Titan. “Just gonna say, ‘Oh well! Guess he did his best!’ and let him cark it while we relax in the exfil transport!?”

“You’d just be going to your death!”

“Who CARES!?” Yarrow roared. Her fists knocked against Galatea’s chestplate but the Titan didn’t so much as flinch. “If we’re gonna lose our Light anyway, I’d rather lose it backing him up than moping in some empty warehouse in the Dead Zone! He needs our help!”

Galatea bared gritted teeth, furrowed her brow, but it wasn’t an expression of anger. “So do they,” She implored quietly, desperately, grabbing Yarrow by the shoulders. “Please. I-“

She was cut off by Jolly, standing at the doorway, who had gasped in horror at something outside- they saw her dart forward, but there was a sudden thunderous boom, an ignition of Light like a small sun that quickly spun into a violent purple vortex, and their argument was forgotten as they watched Euclid erupt with power, a Sunsinger and a Voidwalker at once. Yarrow began to move forward again, standing beside Jolly, but this time it was just to make sure she could see him for as long as possible before the bulkhead doors shuddered closed.

*****

As Yarrow careened backwards towards the dropship, Euclid felt as though he’d torn a piece of his internal mechanisms out and sent them with her. He stood as he watched her slam into Jolly, watched the two of them tumble backwards into the bay of the transport, saw Galatea’s surprise fade from her features as she made eye-contact with him. Or, as close as anybody could get, anyway. He nodded, and her face hardened with the realization of his intention. While Yarrow and Jolly were untangling themselves in the back of the dropship Galatea slammed her palm down on the panel beside the doors, and they began to grind shut as she turned her back on him.

It was more affecting than he had anticipated. Euclid hoped Yarrow would forgive him.

Moments later a Cabal slug rifle blasted his head to a thousand discreet pieces.

Before his body had even touched the ground his Light had warmed, sparked, and ignited; the incredible roar of fire and Solar light momentarily eclipsed that of the dropship’s engines as Euclid’s head reassembled itself and a pyre ignited from his collar, engulfing his head in a solar blaze. He pushed himself up with his hands and then rose off the ground without them, drifting into the air and turning to the oncoming Cabal, who had paused in unusual indecision as Euclid’s Light scoured the rubble around him and melted the chunk of metal he and Yarrow had been hunkered down behind.

He held his breath, hands balled into tight, trembling fists as he let every last drop of Light he had in him surge through his body; the fire cooled, swirled, and then leapt violet, the ball of fire engulfing his head becoming a ghostly wisp as Void Light suddenly replaced the inferno and lifted the Cabal’s front line off the ground- alongside every half-melted piece of detritus and rubble in his immediate vicinity. The Void howled counter-clockwise around him and Euclid’s hands snapped open; the foremost Colossus drifting helplessly in front of him dissolved instantly into its derivative molecular components and scattered into the vortex.

He exhaled, and the vortex resolved once more into a raging clockwise inferno that flash-incinerated the rest of the Cabal’s forward line, sending the rest scrambling for cover. Euclid’s extremities tingled, but he felt no discomfort as he dragged the Sun and the Void out of himself at the same time, battering the Cabal’s forces with blooming waves of heat-then-cold-then-heat-then-cold; it left him hovering above a star-glassed crater that superheated and cracked anew when he exhaled the brilliant Sun, and wept molten-hot molecular dust into the hungry dark whenever he held his breath and the Void swept away gravity like a strong causal tide.

Threshers were yanked into the maelstrom and rent asunder, Cabal vaporized or ripped in half or both, and Euclid screamed soundlessly within the wisp as he felt his armor creak and groan, his robes burning to tatters. When the Cabal’s forces had all either fallen back or perished, and the dropship was airborne, he heard something click and buzz in his ear.

“That’s enough, old friend.”

Constant’s voice swept him out of his trance, and Euclid finally collapsed to the ground at the center of a blighted crater.

His optics had burnt out in the extreme discharge of energy. Lights in his mouth and throat sputtered in imitation of a swallow but only about half of them winked on at all. He sighed, his vocals dim and far away. “They made it,” he said; his voice had reduced to a harsh, crackling whisper.

“They did.” He felt Constant spin out into the physical world beside his head and he instinctually lifted his palm, not quite touching his Ghost, to let his fingers curl partway around the crimson shell. “Thanks to you. You did wonderfully.”

His Light was still thundering in pulses out from the middle of the crater, carrying on in aftershocks, a beacon and a warning all at once. As it ballooned outward and upward Euclid could faintly feel something positioned far overhead. He looked up out of reflex, but he didn’t need to see it to know what it was. “How long?” He asked. “Until their artillery is positioned, I mean.”

“A minute,” Constant said solemnly. He felt his Ghost’s segments whir centimeters from his fingers. “Maybe a little less. Euclid, I just-“ The Ghost paused, turned to survey the smoldering and broken skyline of the City. “… You know, I was searching for you for a very long time,” it told him. “I think I was part of one of the earlier waves to be released out into the world.” It stared up to the Traveler, and the machine that was now surrounding it. “I spent a long time looking for the right person.” It turned back to him, and Euclid felt the warmth of its gaze, his Light painting its lower foresegment tipping up in approximate expression of pride. “You are more than I could ever have asked for, Guardian.”

Euclid’s remaining lights flickered out a weak smile. “Thank you, Constant,” He murmured. He let his Light’s tendrils pull back, crossed his ankles, and let his hands rest on his knees. For a moment- just one more moment- he let his other-sight branch outward, taking in as much as he could, and thought of Venus. He imagined the white sand and dark stones in the back room behind his living quarters in a secret part of the Ishtar Academy, the smell of damp stone and old metal, all his maps and books…

“A garden,” he whispered to Constant. “Don’t you think? I think a garden.”

“Yes,” Constant replied, vanishing in a final whisper of molecular translocation. The first sound Euclid had ever heard. “I think so.”

Euclid withdrew. “A beautiful garden.”

The artillery shells fell from sub-orbit and razed the district. Inside the dropship, with both of her hands pressed to the bulkhead, Yarrow felt the swelling pulses of Void and Solar Light gutter and vanish.

*****

"Sight for sore eyes, as they say," Kass calls as the doors to the dropship peel aside to reveal its complement of haggard Guardians and frightened civilians. The presence of Yarrow-15, if not also Jolly and her towering partner Galatea, puts a brass smile on Kass's face. A fighting chance.

She realizes something is off moments later and cranes her neck and also the greedy tendrils of her Void Light, searching for the familiar, eager response and the pair of crimson horns that are never far behind Yarrow in a situation like this. The smile flickers. She notices, now, in the dim, disquiet reaction to her greeting; Jolly's head in her hands, elbows on her knees; Galatea's curt nod (Given, not that unusual- but the grimace on her oft-impassive face is); and Yarrow's strange, stiff spine, the clenched fist at her right side and the familiar black helmet gripped tight at her left.

"Euclid?" She asks, smile altogether gone now. She forces herself out of her stance to step to one side, an artificial performance of an act that tells her something she already knows. Jolly lets out a clenched sigh from behind her hands.

Yarrow shakes her head, jaw tight, mouthlights dead.

#Destiny 2 #Towerfall #Euclid319 #The Write Stuff #yarrow15 #Jolly Jackson #Galatea #Kass

[actionfigureinsider]

It’s that time of year again, kids!  Time for one of my favorite annual rituals; My top ten collectibles of the year.  2016 was a banner year for toys & collectibles.  I think I speak for several of us here when I say that I spent WAYYY too much last year.  But you know what?  We got some amazing stuff!  We crossed some things off the list of “I never thought they’d make that!”  But they did.  And we love them for it.  Without further ado, here’s the list.

10.  Hasbro’s Star Wars Black Series Stormtrooper Helmet

Let’s face it, we ALL wanted one of these as a kid, and despite a few high-priced prop replicas (most of which were slightly off-model), there really wasn’t a viable mass market option available.  In come Hasbro, and delivers a high quality replica for a very reasonable price.  Instead of painting on details, The black “rubber” sections are co-molded, making for a very durable piece.  This one was way better than it had to be, and it sits proudly on display in my home.

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9.  Transformers Titans Return Gnaw

What a fun little surprise this guy turned out to be!  Of all the Transformers I bought this year, across multiple lines and price points, Gnaw turned out to be the most fun.  He’s such a perfect representation of the Sharkiticon from my youth, and he’s going to be hard not to army build them.

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8.  Mattel’s DC Multiverse Dark Knight Returns Armored Batman

As a tremendous fan of Frank Miller’s seminal work, this figure was DECADES overdue.  Some of Mattel’s Multiverse line are hit and miss, but other than the Mutant Gang Leader’s “nipple-gate”, all three of their offerings were stellar.  The Armored Batman, using mostly new tooling, was exceptional, and just a fun version of this beloved character.  Mattel seems to be going all-in on this line, so be sure to grab an extra before they’re gone, as an unmasked Old Man Bruce Wayne swap out head is coming in 2017.

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7.  Funko’s ReAction Aliens 30th Anniversary Box Set

I think it’s fair to say that some of Funko’s ReAction line have been hit and miss.  But when they’re a hit,they’re an outside the park home run.  Jaws.  Alien.  Gremlins.  Dark Crystal.  These were amazing.  2016 saw Funko seize the opportunity to make a set for the 30th anniversary of Aliens, and they killed it.  Retro style 5 POA figures of Ripley,the Power Loader, and the Queen herself hit all the right notes, reminding one of a time of toys past, all while being just great toys.

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6.  DC Collectibles Batman: The Animated Series Harvey Bulloch and Commissioner Gordon

I must admit, sometimes these figures are not 100% on model.  That said, I LOVE collecting this line!  Two of the very finest examples were Detective Harvey Bulloch and Commissioner Gordon.  They brought to vivid life two of my favorite characters who were never made in the original Kenner line.  I mean come on, Bulloch comes with 2 versions of his donut!  The look like they stepped right off the screen.  Give me an Officer Montoya, and my Gotham police force is complete!

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5.  Re-Edit 1/12 Scale Hulkbuster

The Hulkbuster is my all time favorite Iron Man suit.  While we’ve gotten some great offerings from Marvel Legends and Marvel Select, none match the quality and finish of the Re-Edit version.  Let’s run it down:  Super articulated.  Premium glossy and matte Metal paint finish.  Die Cast parts.  Opening cockpit with Iron Man torso inside.  Multiple light up areas.  Yeah, this one was stunning.  The only thing that really keeps it from scoring higher is the prohibitive price.  These aren’t cheap, but you get every penny’s worth of toy.

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4.  X-Plus Gigantic Series 1962 Godzilla

I think those of you who know me, know that I’m a lifelong Godzilla fanatic.  Of all the different versions of Godzilla shown in the films, the 1962 version (King Kong vs. Godzilla) is easily my personal favorite.  It’s so unique and distinct compared to other versions, and this suit was only used one time.  The gigantic series figure by X-Plus stands almost 20 inches tall, and has one of the very best sculpts of this suit ever done.  The paint was near perfect, and the inset clear eye lenses matched the film’s look perfectly.  Shipping from overseas is a bit costly, as the box is the size of a small refrigerator.

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The Top Three

OK, it get’s harder from here, as all of my top three are so close, any one of these could’ve won, as the margins were razor-thin.  At the end of the day, these were my absolute favorite purchases of the year:

3.  DC Collectibles Bat Wing

Wow.  Just wow.  At nearly 40″ long, this toy isn’t for everybody.  but let’s face facts:  The sculpt is 100% on point, the finish and construction are top quality, and the lighting effects are among the best I’ve seen.  It’s just jaw dropping when you see it in person.  It’s got working landing gear, the claw up front, and even the canopy that covers Robin’s seat.  No detail was missed, and at the MSRP of $140.00, it felt like a bargain.

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2.  Funko’s The Dark Crystal

Man, this one was so close to winning.  It hit the nostalgia factor big time.  I’ve always wanted these toys, which Kenner sculpted and hen cancelled.  Along came Funko, and they took their time to do it right, and it showed.  These are just incredible little toys.  I love that I have them so much.  They used replicas of Kenner’s card art, and even replicated the “Build A Crystal” feature.  As of press time, the Garthim is not readily available, as it was part of a set that was exclusive to NYCC.  Word on the street is that it’s a retailer exclusive in 2017, so never fear, your set will be complete!  I could buy three more waves and a couple of playsets for this line.  They’re selling fast, don’t miss out.

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Number One:

Mythic Legions by the Four Horsemen

Man these came out of left field.  For years the four Horsemen have been responsible for some of my favorite prototypes from other lines.  We all are familiar with their stellar work on DC and MOTUC.  This time, they’ve used their imagination to create their own medieval world of sword and sorcery, and the results are glorious.  Great articulation, stunning paint apps, and fresh designs help flesh out this world of Human  knights, trolls, barbarians, orcs, dwarves, and skeletons.

If this was all this line was about, that would be enough, but the Horsemen introduced a unique new form factor for this line.  All of their armor and parts are fully interchangeable.  You can even buy army builder sets that let you customize to your heart’s content.  Once I got some of these and started playing with them, I just couldn’t put them down for weeks.  Building on the first series’ success, additional figures and waves are coming soon, along with bigger creatures, like the new Trolls which are awesome!   Taking everything into account, these were the best toys I bought in 2016.

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…and that’s it for me folks!  2017 is already off to a great start, with toys like Playmate’s awesome Legendary Voltron series!  There’s a new Star Wars movie coming, more fantastic Transformers and Marvel Legends, imports, art toys, and statues than you can count.  It’s a great time for people like us, and until next time, I’ll see you at the stores!

Cap

    Captain Collector’s Best Of 2016 Top Ten It's that time of year again, kids!  Time for one of my favorite annual rituals; My top ten collectibles of the year.  

[nofomoartworld]

Hyperallergic: A Major Collection Considers New Ways to Tell the Story of Latin American Art

No black / No white (no and) installation view. From left to right: Alana Iturralde, “Pottery work” (2017), ceramics; “Boading Balls” (2017), video on loop; Ulrik López, “Paisaje apilado (Piled Landscape)” (2017) (all images courtesy CIFO Collection and the artists; all photos by Oriol Tarridas unless otherwise noted)

Currently on view at the Cisneros Fontanals Art Foundation (CIFO), No black / No white (no and) is the nonprofit’s 2017 Grants and Commissions Program exhibition. It’s also an anniversary celebration: for the past fifteen years, the foundation has granted funds to over 120 artists from Latin America, nominating and exhibiting their work. As such, this show isn’t “curated” in the traditional sense — it’s part showcase, part exhibition and, coincidentally, a mini-retrospective of the work of Daniel Joseph Martinez, a recent grant recipient.

The show’s title comes from a statement by John Cage, written in response to Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings. As Phaidon writer Catherine Craft explains, “Cage viewed the White Paintings less as images that projected the artist’s expression, than backdrops against which the flux of the world might stand out … ” The White Paintings reflected light, converged with their surrounding space; they were not individualistic or personally expressive, but part of an environmental whole. Cage wrote this homage in 1953:

To Whom / No subject / No image / No taste / No object / No beauty / No message / No talent / No technique (no why) / No idea / No intention / No art / No object / No feeling / No black / No white (no and) / After careful consideration, I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing in these paintings that could not be changed, that they can be seen in any light and are not destroyed by the action of shadows. / Hallelujah! the blind can see again; the water’s fine.

From left to right: Daniel Joseph Martínez, “Divine Violence” (2007), gold lacquer enamel automotive pain on panel with matte black hand lettering; “Meinhof” (2016-2017) from the series I am Ulrike Meinhof or (someone once told me time is a flat circle), black & white negative film, Kodax Tri-x to digital print; “I hate white” (1978), from the series beauty beautiful things I continued those are now my most deadly enemies, 1978,  black press type on gessoed canvas

No black / No white (no and) explores that liminality: there’s no black or white here, no transparent messaging. Though many of the works allude to sociopolitical realities and global histories, they’re presented less as didactic truths than as stories to intuit. I was struck by Martinez’s Divine Violence (2007), a series of gold lacquered panels adorned with the names of various political organizations, their aims sometimes contradictory: the Caucasian Front, the Argentine People’s Revolutionary Army, the Stern Gang – Fighters for the Freedom of Israel. Presented together, the organizations feel like an innocuous laundry list, their goals inconsequential. According to a description of the piece, the title references Walter Benjamin’s term for violence of pure means for knowable ends — prescribed violence. The distance afforded by their presentation renders them simple enumerations of atrocities, for which justification is meaningless. They almost don’t feel real.

A self-portrait of Martinez (Self-portrait #9B, Fifth attempt to clone mental disorder or How one philosophizes with a hammer, After Gustave Moreau, Prometheus, 1868; David Cronenberg, Videodrome, 1981), in which the artist appears to reach into his own sliced-open belly, references Gustave Moreau’s painting of Prometheus, the mythological Titan who, in Greek mythology, gave humans fire. Though Prometheus’s intentions were good, he was ultimately punished — fire was used for destruction as well as warmth, fallible and destructive as humans are. I am unsure if Martinez is sacrificing or sharing himself, but it is probably both.

Celia-Yunior, “Colinas (Hills)” (2017), cinder block, vinyl, video (24:42 min)

There’s a similar theme in Juan Carlos Osorno’s Fracasos necesarios (Necessary Failures) (2017), an installation featuring drawings and descriptions of failed, bizarre inventions. Osorno has re-created Ronald Mayer’s isolation helmet, a hybrid of gas mask and knight’s armor crafted in 1926 and meant to block out sound. Per an accompanying text by Osorno, the helmet never sold. Mayer became an alcoholic, dying after passing out and hitting his head on a sink. It’s ironic that his invention could’ve saved him; stranger still that there is an isolation helmet being designed today. None of the inventions seem real; or, rather, they feel hyper-real, truthful precisely because of their distinctly human absurdity.

Juan Osorno, “Casco aislador (The Isolator)” (2017), plastic, felt, copper, acetate, leather.

Katherinne Fiedler’s Erosión, a massive, three-panel video installation, shows the erosion of Peruvian archaeological sites caused by mining practices —specifically the country’s coat of arms, depicted on the side of a rolling mountain in Cuzco. It appears to be shot from a drone, the views sweeping and the symbol fading. Mining practices are contentious; still, the image itself is slow and mesmerizing. Faced with an uncomfortable truth, you’re calmer for it.

Katherinne Fiedler, Erosión (Erosion) (2017), 3-channel video installation, HD 5:07 min

Another, equally beautiful video illustrates a gradual, meditative process, albeit one more benign: in Alana Iturralde’s Baoding Balls, a hand rotates the titular objects in its palm, clinking them together. Placed next to her ceramic pottery and embroidered works, Baoding Balls alludes to the intuitive, calming aspects of a physical practice. Watching the scene, you may recall your own sense of calm. After sorting through inferred, suggestive stories, one must resign oneself to one’s own interpretation, to one’s particular lens. Iturralde’s work is a kind of palate-cleanser: there’s no grey area to glean, no complex story to tell, except perhaps one’s own.

No black / No white (no and) continues at CIFO (1018 N Miami Ave, Miami) through November 7.

The post A Major Collection Considers New Ways to Tell the Story of Latin American Art appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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