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sunflowercakemix · 4 years

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Chuuya Nakahara x fem/Reader

/Part 3

/Part 1

Chuuya P. O. V

The days to come have grown to be full of twist and turns for Chuuya's behavior. Now instead of rushing straight to his apartment after work he would now pass by the bakery where Y/N worked. It felt so easy to talk to her whenever they got a chance to hang out. Of course her treats were another part of the appeal.

He once stopped at the bakery when she wasn't working there and it didn't taste the same.

Sometimes when the stress and worry from the mafia became too much. Chuuya would walk by the bakery where he would see Y/N listing to music as she cleaned before locking up for the night. They way her h/c tresses would sway, her crooked dance moves and the peaceful joy she carried made him stay and watch for a while before he would leave so she wouldn't see him.

The rush he once felt when driving his motorbike was now replaced with a rush when he saw her e/c eyes glimmered when she talked about baking.

,, One day I'm gonna open my own bakery! Just you wait and see!" she would say her voice rich with passion.

She was sunshine in a bottle and he, a mafioso, drawn to it.

Reader P. O. V

Who knew that all it took for me to start liking closing shifts was a short read head man.

I didn't even realise before how much more free time I had to experimente in the kitchen at these shifts. That's why was now using that time making a special treat for Chuuya.

It wasn't rare to hear him gush about wine. So I decided to surprise him.

Decorating a pastry with a strong scent of wine I heared a jingle from the bell signaling a customer.

,, Chuuya?" seeing him at the door made me smile ,, Just the man I wanted to see!"

,, Eh?!" comes from him

,, You know where to wait I'll be right back!" I yell out as I run back to the kitchen grabbing the plate.

As I walked back I saw him sitting at the table, taking of his hat and ruffling his hair. " Damn boy, that was hot!" I think "Snap out of it Y/N" I yell in my head.

,, Since you said you love wine soo much I made this for you~" I place the pastry in front of him.

,, You made this for me?" he asks.

,, Nooo, it's for Santa. Of course it's for you silly! Now try it I want you tell me if it's good"

He smriks ,, I'd be more surprised if it wasn't"

I raise an eyebrow hoping to distract him from the blush he caused on my face.

He takes a bite. Closing his eyes he licks his lips ,, What did I do to deserve this? This is amazing!"

,, Im really glad you like it!" I respond.

Happly I watch the street through the shop window when Chuuya suddenly speaks up.

,, Hey. Would you like to go somewhere after you lock up?" he shyly asks between bites. A single butterfly flutters in my heart ,, S-sure!".

I look down at myself ,, You just gotta give me time to tidy up. I look like a disaster. "

,, Oh, of course no problem" he swallows another bite. I get up from the table and go to change from my work chlotes. As I opened a door to the staff room I hear footsteps running towards me only to see Chuuya who starts yelling ,, We need to leave NOW!"

,, Huh?!" he grabs my arm and takes me to the back door to the back ally. "This shit again? " I think.

Chuuya crouches behind a trashcan pulling me with him. ,,I saw that Port Mafia rat go this way" echoed near us. Then everything clicked ,,You're with the Port Mafia?!? " I whisper yell.

,, Ssshhh I'll explain everything later. Just please stay here, I don't want them hurting you!"

My jaw drops until I hear a loud bang wich made Chuuya leave me behind to step in front of the shadow yelling.

Chuuya P. O. V

I step out to see the acid controler in front of me. "Good.." I think. I can beat him this time, I can't let him hurt Y/N.

,, You back for more?!" I say as I activate my ability.

,, I should be the one asking you that!" he shouts sending a wave of acid at me.

I dodge and start attacking him, mindfull of the place where I left Y/N. It seemed like I was about to corner him when I heard shuffling in the back. Worried I turn to look, only for my attention to be snapped back by a loud bang.

I turned to find Y/N beating the living daylights out of the acid controler with a trash can lid.

,, Y/N WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?! "I yell.

,, TAKING OUT THE GARBAGE!" she yelled knocking the guy unconscious.

,, And you... "she pantted,, Owe me answers"

- || -

,, So you're with the Port Mafia?" Y/N asks softly.

There's no point in lying now. ,, Yes. I am"

I hear her swallow and my heart shatters "Crap she's scared" I think.

I finish tying up the acid guy so I can look at her. She's starring at the ceiling.

,, Are you scared?" I ask

,, I don't know... I mean you were with the Mafia when we met and if you wanted you could have killed me way before. But now that I know..... It's just the good I see in you doesn't match with the force I saw you use"

My chest clenches ,, I would never hurt you Y/N and I think you know that" I take a shaky breath ,, I didn't tell cause I know how dangerous this job is. Getting you involved would either scare you away or end up getting you hurt. I'm sorry"

,, See that's the Chuuya I know! The loving and caring one, the one I just saw can't scare me when I know what's on the inside"

,, So you're not gonna run away from me?" my throat shakes

,, Unless you try to kill me!" she smiles weakly. Stepping closer she wraps her arms around me. Her light and warmth getting into my veins making drops of tears in my eyes forcing me to blink them away.

My body clings to her. To her sofftnes and shaking from all the fear. To the familiar scent of her kitchen making me dizzy.

Reader P. O. V

I couldn't say that I wasn't living on needles after learning that Chuuya was in the Port Mafia. But knowing about it made our relationship soo much easier. He opened up to me about more of things I never dared to ask. It made me fonder of him even more than before.

That explains why I agreed to go on a date with him. "I'm felling badass" I thought to myself "I'm going out with a mafioso"

Me and Chuuya met near the city center. And wow he looked handsome in the evening glow.

He saw me and greeted me with a smile. ,,Thank you for agreeing to this"

I wave him off ,,Oh please, the pleasure is all mine!"

I look him in the eyes ,, Really though, thank you for asking me out". The look he gave me made me blush.

,, Shall we go then?" he asked.

,, Yes please!" I answer laughing.

- || -

Laughter escaped my chest as I walk next to Chuuya. After such an evetnfull day I didn't think this could get better.

I stopped laughing when I saw Chuuya give me a deep look. ,, Is everything ok?" I ask concerned.

,, You said you have a fear of heights, right?"

,, Yeah... What of it?" as I said this his eyes light up. ,, Follow me!" he said as he started running.

,, Huh?!" I yell as I run after him trying my best to keep up with his fast pace.

I stop when we reach a tall building. Panting I look around until I hear him from the roof.

,, WHat the...." I breath out

,, COME OVER HERE I REALLY NEED TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING!" he yells. I enter the building to find the closest lift to get to the roof top.

The second I got there Chuuya grabbed my hand ,,Do you trust me?". Now I was scared. He didn't wait for a reply instead a red glow stared appearing around me making me weightless.

,,HOLLY SHIT!" booms from my mouth as I get higher. I close my eyes and tense up, scared out of my mind.

I keep like that until a familiar voice crackls in my ear.

#anime #nakahara chuuya #Chuuya x reader #Bungou stray dogs #Bsd

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ayakomspacekru · 6 years

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The Wreck of Our Hearts

I run. My feet pace forward; trough shadows and thick smoke. Past trees and grass and everything that lives. Dead flowers lay everywhere beside my racing feet, as if the forest of Beacon Hills was a graveyard, which it kind of was. So many people had died here, many of whom were probably buried here, for all I knew.

It felt as if my feet weren’t even touching the ground, but rather flying through the air. Like I ran so fast my feet couldn’t even stay there. My feet. My head. My soul. It all floated in the air.

Heart pounding to the beat of the rain, I ran in zigzag past everything standing in my way. Grass. Bushes. Trees. Flowers. Nothing mattered anymore. The only thing that mattered was to get away from them.

It started as a whisper. My name. A slow, silent whisper that may have heard like a love song or a soft whisper of a loved one, if it wasn’t for the fact that I knew better. I knew who called my name, and I would not fall for it. Never anymore.

As I kept running, my feet curled into each other while in full speed, and I ended up falling. My head banged into the ground, so hard blood started peeling down, forming a circle of red, thick liquid. A trace. My blood. They would find me.

Tears ran from my eyes. This was not how it was supposed to end. I was supposed to live my life. A nice life. I didn’t care what life, just if I was happy. I started thinking of everything I was supposed to do. I was supposed to go to school and get my dream job, and then I was supposed to handle everything thrown at me after that. That was all I needed. All I had ever asked for. And now I wasn’t going to get that either.

Then a word popped into my head. A meaningless word for most others. A word no humans seemed to use about each other, but the word I used to summarize my best friends. The word that meant something more than friends or family. It meant we were united. One. Bound together for eternity. It was the promise that we would always stay in each others’ hearts even after death, and the promise that after death, we would miss each other as if a part of our hearts was gone. Pack. The word that used to mean so much to me, but that now seemed meaningless. Forgotten in the millions of other words in a world of different words and languages. And it wasn’t just the word that was forgotten. I was too.

Behind me, I could already hear The Ghost Riders get closer. They had taken everything from me, until nothing even mattered anymore. They had hunted me into the woods at night after having the worst day of my life. And now they would erase me and make me one of them, A Ghost Rider. Every shred of hope vanished before my eyes and turned into nothing but dust and shadows.

The horses of the riders were neighing as they came nearer- and the closer they got, the more my heart pounded. The more tears streamed down my eyes. I closed them. Prayed. Begged. Cried.

Nothing.

I started to remember back when I was reading about The Wild Hunt. They would erase me, which they had already done. Then they would hunt me down. And then they would end me, and in my place there would be a soulless creatures whose only purpose was to hunt for more souls just like mine. And then I started to think about the riders who were hunting me. Had they been just like me once? Would I become like them? Just the thought of it made it feel like a thousand daggers were thrown into my back.

My eyes were still closed. I waited. There was no need to fight back. The Wild Hunt always won. They would win now too. -Goodbye, I whispered into the air, not only to my pack, but to my family and the town and the word and life and everything in-between. I knew no one would miss me or ever know, but I still said it. But no one cared.

Suddenly, someone gripped my arm. The Ghost Riders. I closed my eyes even further. It was over. I was ready for the darkness to take me when a familiar voice shouted for me to open my eyes. And they shot open.

-Liam?, I blurted out, both confused and filled with the biggest amount of joy I had ever felt. -What are you doing here?

Liam smiled slightly before his face turned neutral again. -Saving you, of course.

My heart almost stopped beating for a moment. He remembered. He remembered! I couldn’t believe it.

-How did you…? I mean…, I stuttered, not sure how to say the words I was looking for out loud.

-Because I would do anything to protect you. I always will, he replied. Suddenly, it was as if the world stopped around us, and there was nothing or no one else in the world but me and him, and maybe the starlight and the moonlight on the sky and the image of the night sky dancing over the soft water of the river se could only hear in the distance. It was us and the trees above us. It was his bright blue eyes, shining as bright and beautiful as the ocean, and I felt like I could drown in them if only I stared too long into them. And then there were my brown eyes, like the color of sweet morning coffee and the bark of the trees around us. Dark blonde, short hair and dark, almost black long hair. Different in every way, but still so alike.

I smiled. He smiled. A step closer. Two steps. Three. Warm, fuzzy cheeks. The beating hearts of first love, the one you only experience once and want to savor every moment of. His lips. Mine. Inches away. Then closer- closer, until they collided like a constellation of two stars who only now dared to show themselves to the other and explore the world. His lips were soft against mine, and tasted like the salty flavor of tears and at the same time as sweet as the roses he gave me just dayd before this all happened. Like salt and sugar and roses and lilys. And when he pulled away, my fear did too.

After what may only have been a minute, but felt like an eternity, I could still hear the riders come for me. I panicked again. They would come for me. But him? No, not him too.

-Get away from me, I said.

-What?, he replied. Confused.

-Go! Run! They’re gonna take me, Liam. Don’t let them take you too. You can’t be taken too, I begged.

He shook his head. -No. I won’t leave you. Not now. Not ever. Not when you’re in danger.

I shook my head too. -You can’t stay. We may be werewolves, but we don’t stand a chance against them.

He smiled. I frowned. What was happening?

-No, we can’t beat them. But they can.

Suddenly, I heard the roar of our Alpha echo throughout the woods. Red eyes glowed behind trees and a young, muscular man came out behind them, as ready to fight as ever. Scott McCall.

Behind him and the trees, I could see the rest of my pack come for me. All ready to fight. Stiles Stilinski, standing beside his best friend with only a bat in his hands and a witty smile, which probably hid thousands of sarcastic jokes we would hear for forever after tonight. Mostly because he was… well, Stiles.

The other people beside Scott were Malia Tate and Lydia Martin, the werecoyote and the banshee, also known as some of my best friends. And then there was Kira Yukimura, the awesome, butt-kicking kitsune I always seemed to look up to. And then there was Mason and Corey, Liam’s best friends. And Allison Argent with a bow and arrow, ready to aim for The Ghost Riders’ heads for messing with her pack. And Derek Hale, the grumpy sourwolf who caref much more about all of us than he wanted to admit, and his eyes glowed bright blue as he shapeshifted into a black wolf. And then there was Isaac Lahey, the loyal beta who would do anything for us all, even though he was probably more broken and fragile than all of us. And last, but not least, there was Theo Raeken, who was once our enemy, but now an ally. I didn’t know if I could call him my friend or if he was a friend of any of us. He wasn’t really part of the pack, but during the last week it felt like he was. Maybe he was? Maybe he wasn’t? But despite that, he seemed to care. He seemed to want to help. I smiled at them all and whispered into the air. -Thanks.

I took Liam’s hand and let his presence calm me down, like he always did and prayed for us to make it out of here. Because if we did, I would not let a moment pass by anymore. I would tell him how I felt, even though we both probably had made it clear by now. But I still needed to say it.

And then I prepared my fangs and claws, my eyes bright yellow, just like Liam’s. They glowed like most of the others’ eyes. I looked at all of them as The Ghost Riders came out of the woods to take us. My friends. My pack.

The Ghost Riders made their greatest mistake by targeting The McCall Pack. They were dead even before the fight.

After the fight, I hugged Liam closely while looking at the others. I felt all of them close, like I had never lost them. And once again, the word above all words meant something again. And after tonight, it always would. I smiled at them all again. My friends. My pack. My family, all trying to fight past the wreck of our hearts.

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typewriterbot · 7 years

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Down Below

Not every Guardian feels brave.

[word count: 4853]

For such a studious Warlock Jai was often called a fool. Normally he wouldn’t take offense to the insult because were most often times words and thus held no real power to harm him. Sometimes Sadik would grumble at his antics, like the time he glided right to the top of a tree and got stuck; or Ronin would laugh at him, like when he got the tail of his robes stuck in the large circular door leaving the north Tower. Roksana would hum thoughtfully, but never call him a fool, and Apollo-

Well, Apollo called him a fool of a student, but he never took it to heart. Apollo was old even for an Exo, and his memory had been wiped ninety-nine times by the time Jai had met him, far more than Banshee, but maybe a little less unhinged. The old Exo never had much bite to him, his bark was much, much worse, and he only ever got mad when Jai got himself into trouble, which hardly ever happened. He was too careful for real trouble.

But this? This would be a time where he earned the title of “Fool.” An idiot might be a better word for him actually. No one in their right mind would even think about going back down into the Temple of Crota on the moon, alone, to get a piece of crystal that supposedly housed Crota’s soul. He was going off of Eris’s word, something that not many would take at face value because she was just plain creepy, but Jai felt sorry for her.

Eris Morn had nothing. No Light, no Ghost, no fireteam, not even a ship anymore. Just a rock encased in a sickeningly green glowing orb that sang of Hive songs, a third eye that oozed black liquid from underneath her mask, and the memories of her team, her friends (or allies, he was never too sure what Eris’s team was to her) dying one by one trying to get revenge, and kill a terror the likes no Guardian had ever seen before Mare Imbrium. It was the only reason he could give for even thinking about going to the moon alone. Not that he’d tell Eris that; she would despise his pity.

Anyone with more sense than he did would avoid the Temple like the plague when it was him that Oryx was after for helping to kill his son. Even Apollo gave a large berth around the Temple where he would normally not care, going toe to toe with the Darkness as he had always done.

Jai stepped lightly around the mounds of barnacle and bones that have long since been stripped of marrow, doing his best to emulate the silent footsteps of Ronin, imagining the soft swish of his robes as her cloak, quickly entering the Circle of Bones, the first step in going deeper and deeper still into the Temple. His hands clutched at his gun out of nervousness but he made sure not to move it too much and kept his finger well away from the trigger. Hordes of Hive were the last thing he wanted to worry about. The small skirmishes he’d come across were loud enough. The bullets he fired sounded like cannon fire when they impacted against rough, chitinous exoskeletons, and the roars of Knights and the screeches of Thrall echoing off the wall had made his heart race with fear.

“Hold fast to Toland’s journal,” Eris had told him. If Jai had a physical copy of this damned journal Eris coveted so much, he’d throw it over the side into the sick green mist that rose up from the Temple that always carried the faint echo of screams. He had enough of Toland the Shattered. Enough of the Hive and their sword logic, of them pressing their will only for the City to press back and making a continuous loop of we deserve to live played out with Light and Darkness.

Where Eris talked in riddles and circles, Cayde was much more straightforward, and that was a balm to Jai. He didn’t need Hive lore; he needed someone to show him a path he couldn’t see. “Hold fast to your gun, Guardian,” Cayde said. And so he did.

Jai trekked deeper. Jaspal, his ever-faithful Ghost had read the entirety of Toland’s journal, and was as uncomfortable with its contents as Jai was. “But it is useful,” Jaspal whispered, as if he talked too loud would alert the Hive to their presence despite using the neural-link. He didn’t say anything to that, only sent a withering touch through the link. Jaspal responded in kind.

His Ghost hung beside his head acting as a light to help Jai walk through the pitch-black hallways. All the while, Toland’s recorded voice grated on Jai’s fraying nerves. “A Dreadnaught shields the Hive from the Traveler’s Light.” Yes, yes, he knew that much. No one knew how Oryx and his ilk managed to sneak into the solar system except for the Awoken, but Jai had an idea. He had detached himself, floating uselessly in the Void, mapping the strings that connected everything and nothing, touching on stars that were so far away they were well and truly dead. He had turned his cosmic eyes to the Oort Cloud and reached out with his hands made of nothingness to part the ice, and there he had seen a mass of Darkness. Jai had pulled himself back, terror surging through his entire being, both real and unreal. As he tugged himself through the remnants of the Traveler’s Light, swirling around the threads and headed to where it was brightest, he saw Darkness grow closer and closer to the Solar System, pushing through without a care and forcing itself past planets that have been left to fend for themselves. “Were we to pass through its deepest layers, our Light would be as a dying sun.”

Not so, he thought. A dying sun forged iron in its core, a Guardian forged nothing and the end result wasn’t half as beautiful as the remains of a sun. Just a dead body to be picked away and a Ghost left to die alone. Toland liked to talk beautifully, as if there was more to glean from death than living.

Jai was glad he never met the man.

The Temple was silent and oppressive as he walked through the Chamber of Night, and a disgusting sound kept breaking through his audio that had Jai’s gut rolling. The pathways he took were ones he had taken before, but now it was worse. He didn’t have Roksana or Sadik at his back, stepping lightly despite their heavy armor. He didn’t have Apollo steady and sure beside him, Solar energy tightly constrained but boiling underneath the surface. He didn’t have Ronin ahead of him, clearing a path by moving with feather soft footsteps and wielding a deadly knife in her hand. It was just him, soft and unsure and wanting to retreat to hide in a library until Ikora came to find him. Eris’s next comm nearly made him jump out of his skin and yelp. “If the Thrall still feed, Crota’s essence must endure.”

Well, that explained what the sound was. Thrall were eating, munching away at the barnacles on the floor and Jai felt sick. His knees knocked together, sweat matted his bangs to his forehead, and if he wouldn’t be dead in a second he would’ve pulled his helmet off and threw up where he stood. Jaspal fed comfort through their link, giving Jai’s mind a soft hug that almost felt real, while trilling tones beat back the fear and disgust and desperation that grew at the edges of his thoughts. The tails of his robe barely dipped in the water he walked through, if it was even water to begin with, and his boots barely splashed the surface, but Jai thought that it was loud, too loud, and the Thrall that were eating would hear him and kill him and-

“Jai,” Jaspal whispered. “We’re almost there. It’s all right.” For a moment, Jai could believe that.

He tiptoed past the Thrall and kept going until he reached the last chamber. It seemed larger than Jai remembered. The odd bones still sticking out of the ground were more ominous than before, and the green light was brighter than any other part of the Temple. Jai crossed the bridge and headed straight for the crystal in the middle of the room.

The ground shaking alerted him first. It jarred his bones and made the sick feeling in his stomach worse. He could feel his heart begin to hammer against his chest and for a second he thought it’d be hilarious if he were the first Guardian to die of a heart attack.

A heart attack would be better than this though. An Ogre stomped its way out from behind a pillar at the back of the room. How Jai missed it was beyond him, but whatever fear clung to him was shoved away as his mind zeroed in on killing the terror in front of him. The Ogre roared, calling Thrall to it, and Jai moved his rifle to his back and plucked his machine gun from its place on his left shoulder in one smooth movement.

Jai never considered himself a fighter. He much preferred the company of old books and learning all he could about the Void rather than spending his time firing guns. Not to say that he couldn’t. Proper gun usage was one of the first things Apollo had taught him. How to hold a weapon, how to fire, how to maintain it so Banshee wouldn’t come after him with all the anger a gunsmith could manage. The machine gun was loud, and knocked into his shoulder painfully as he shot at the Ogre before it got too close and he glided away. Thrall screeched after him, rushing to meet him as he landed. Jai threw down a grenade, the explosion knocking him off his trajectory a few feet but at least the Thrall were dead.

His arms were sore. He never could handle extended use of a machine gun. It always felt like he’d be knocked off his feet, and with death towering over him that would be disastrous. The loud thud-thud-thud-thud of the bullets hitting the Ogre echoed loudly in his helmet. Thrall scrambled after him. The Ogre roared in anger, firing Void energy as he glided away. Jaspal pulsed, Light spread throughout Jai’s body and he held onto it tightly. Not yet, not yet, not now.

But soon.

The machine gun clicked twice before Jai realized that he had run out of bullets. He switched weapons, arming himself with his auto-rifle and jumping again, a Thrall ripping his robe with its claws. Throwing a grenade at the Ogre and watching it dislocate its own jaw, Jai breathed.

The Void itself is the unknown. The nothingness and everything that makes up reality and unreality, it exists in between the spaces of atoms, of Guardians, of the planets, of Light and Dark. Jai had seen the Light of Thanatonauts fly through the Void, trying to find meanings and knowledge in things that were there but not before inevitably being brought back to life. Down in the Temple, with Crota’s essence at the edge of his consciousness and the Thrall screaming after him and the Ogre doing it’s best to kill him, Jai reached for their life. He pulled at the Light that coursed through his veins, Jaspal acting as a conduit for it all, and the Void pressed against his skin.

“These are dire times,” Ikora once told him as he focused on his Voidwalker studies. Apollo had threw his hands up when he realized that Jai was poor at using Solar energy and had asked Ikora to step in when she could. She knew the Void better than either of them. “And sacrifices must be made.”

Jai forced the Light into his hands, tugging at the Void and willing it to listen just like he always did. He jumped once more, drew his arm back, and, in the palm of his hand he could feel the pull of the Void mixed with Light, threw as hard as he could at the Ogre.

The Thrall at its feet were disintegrated, but the Ogre still stood.

Jai breathed.

He would die here.

The Ogre stalked towards him as if it knew that he had nothing left to give. A burst of energy erupted behind the Ogre however, and a tether shot out of it, attaching itself to the monster. For a few moments it looked to be in pain, and Jai was disgusted with himself that he even felt sympathy for the thing. Another second and it was gone.

“I believe,” Jaspal said slowly through the comm, “that Oryx just took an Ogre.”

“Not even Oryx can control an Ogre. Unless it’s Taken,” Eris replied. “Now quickly, I need a shard of that crystal.”

Jai didn’t move for a moment, unsure if he would be attacked again if he walked near the crystal, but after a few beats of silence and Jaspal’s incessant tugging at his mind, he moved closer. He held out his hand and watched as Jaspal appeared, twirling his back flanges and hovering over the crystal. His Ghost took more than what Jai would call a shard, but as long as he would be able to leave soon, he didn’t mind. “We’ve got it,” Jaspal said with a chirp, flying back to Jai and disappearing.

“I knew it could be done,” Eris said breathlessly. “And does it still hold the whisper of Crota’s soul?”

It had better, considering what Jai had to go through to get it.

“It appears to be empty.” If Jai and Jaspal weren’t deep in a Hive temple, Jai would have yelled in frustration. Especially at Eris’s “No matter” comment. He didn’t notice her voice dying out.

The comm started to spit static, and the noise left Jai flinching. “… Guardian?” That was Cayde. But what did he say before that? “We’re …-in… …-ou. Gua-…-an can yo-… …-ar…?”

The comm sent one more burst of static through the line before dying completely. Jai felt his heart seize. He was alone in the Dark and in the dark. He had used his Light and it would take too long to build up more. He had just desecrated the crystal of a Hive Prince. “We can’t get a signal out, and something is blocking our transmat,” Jaspal stated.

Screaming filled the air and took Jai’s breath away, heart leaping into his throat and if it hadn’t been for the strap on his gun, it would’ve fallen to the ground. He looked up, craning his neck to see three white glowing eyes over him. The Echo of Oryx was furious, voice booming in the room.

“Infection!” Oryx roared. “Your Light dies here!”

Jai could feel the swirling vortexes of the Taken on the fringes of the Void, ripping through the threads that held the universe together. He was going to die.

“There’s too many of them to fight Jai!” Jaspal yelled over the din. “Run!”

But he couldn’t.

“Jai!” Jaspal shrieked in his head. His Ghost was afraid. More than afraid, Jaspal was terrified and for a split second, Jai was afraid that Oryx would reach into the little pocket of transmat space that his Ghost resided in and pluck him out, ripping the Light right out of him before turning and doing the same thing to Jai and-

Taken Knights moved to surround him, and Jai bolted, tripping over his feet and kicking up moon dust. His guns clacked heavily against his back as he took off running. The garbled cry of an Ogre, the Ogre he just fought and watched get Taken, resounded behind him. Not that Jai really cared at the moment, all he was focused on was leaping and gliding over Taken Hive that wanted to keep him down in the pit of the Temple.

He wouldn’t become another dead Guardian on the moon. He wouldn’t.

Right?

Jai kept running. Past Taken Hive that were fraying at the edges as they imposed themselves on reality, past shadow Thrall that were barely held together by threads of Darkness, past the barnacles, past the fires Taken Knights left on the ground, until he had managed to slide into the hall that would lead him up into the World’s Grave and then shoved himself into a corner. He gasped for breath, hands clutching at the front of his robe to steady his heartbeat.

Jaspal was twirling in his mind’s eye, flashing and expanding his flanges in anxiety as he wrapped himself up in the Light that was steadily reforming in Jai. If Jai weren’t feeling the press of Darkness against his temples he’d bring Jaspal to his chest and hold him. The only thing he could do was keep going. He desperately wanted to get out.

On shaky legs, Jai left the corner he forced himself into, and jogged into the World’s Grave. Ahead of him the large door he entered from was closed, and his stomach dropped as Taken started forming a guard around the door. His rifle found its way into his hands and Jai fired. The four or five Taken were much more manageable compared to the hoards that were at his back not even two minutes ago, and he could feel his confidence in his skills returning. In the back of his mind he could hear Jaspal prod at the dead comm. “Eris?” Of course she would be the first Jaspal asked for considering her knowledge of the Hive. Jai huffed a laugh under his breath. “Cayde? Can you still hear us?”

Silence was the only answer.

“Still no connection,” Jaspal whispered. “This must be how the Hive trapped Eris.”

But Jai wasn’t Eris. He wasn’t as alone as she was; he still had his Ghost.

He walked up to the door and put his hand on it. The scratches in the door snagged on his glove, but didn’t tear the material. Jaspal appeared in a flash and hovered by the giant glowing lock that sealed the door shut. A few trilling sounds came from his Ghost before Toland’s scratchy voice filled his audio.

“It has long been my belief that the binds which hold the greatest Hive terrors could be lifted by releasing the energy stored within their tomb husks.”

Jai clicked his tongue. What the hell was a tomb husk? And how could he possibly release the energy in one? Taking directions from a dead man was far more troublesome than it honestly should have been. The World’s Grave was empty. All the doors closed, moon dust and barnacles collected in the corners. He remembered Roksana talking about a shard of the Traveler being down in the Grave when she went on the Speaker’s orders after coming across a dead Guardian scout and Ronin had been the one to shoulder the burden of walking into the Temple. Roksana had been disgusted with it all, going on a tirade about the Hive and how dare they harm the Traveler like that, as if they haven’t done enough.

Back then Jai could only nod his head, not really understanding the awful things the Hive did, but now, now he knew. His stomach rolled. He walked up a flight of stairs that led to the overlooking platform. In front of the odd terminal was a strange looking ball. Around it were Hive symbols and it reminded him of Eris’s ball that she would clutch close to her chest. “A tomb husk!” Jaspal chirped, ever helpful. Jai took the ball in his hands and walked back to the door.

Well, he had a tomb husk, and it would unlock the door. The question was how did he do it. He held the husk up to his face, turning it in his hands, fingers tracing over the lines that marred it. Whispers filled his audio feed as it always did when he was in some Hive infested place, and he could feel the Taken pressing in on his awareness, Oryx’s eyes burning scathing holes into him as he took his time.

Sighing, Jai sunk his fingers into the tomb husk, feeding a bit of Light into his grasp and rending the Darkness in the husk apart. It only took a few seconds but it felt like it took so much longer until the husk disintegrated and the lock on the door fell away, leaving his Jai’s path open. For a split second he could see a stone suspended in the sphere left behind before it too vanished.

Maybe Toland the Shattered had some useful information after all.

He retraced his steps through the Temple, shooting the Taken along the way and watching as they were sucked away into a nothingness he couldn’t hope to understand. Or perhaps he didn’t want to understand. The screams of the Taken were worse than the Hive, but they died in the same way: with bullets lodged in their bodies.

Though when he came across the Wizard that was guarding the door, Jai was worried about the size of Oryx’s army. The Hive seemed to have an inexhaustible amount of soldiers to use, and if Oryx could fill caverns with his Taken then the City and the rest of the solar system would be in trouble.

The burning worry of whether or not the City could handle Oryx’s forces wasn’t enough to hide his laugh when Jaspal huffed at the door. “Two locks! What door needs two locks!”

Jai quickly found both tomb husks and unlocked the door (and got a little singed by the hidden Knight but as long as he could leave, it was fine). The Temple was eerily silent, he noted as he walked up the stairs. The green mist that hung just below the platform didn’t even give off the heavy weight of Hive magic either. It was disconcerting.

A burst of static left Jai flinching and stumbling. He brought a hand up to the side of his helmet as he heard Eris’s sad voice. “-… …-ing to lose him, just like Eriana!”

Jai wanted to yell, half in frustration, half in desperation. He wasn’t Eriana! He doesn’t burn half as brightly as she did! He wasn’t half as mad as she was! He wasn’t down in the Temple of Crota for revenge; he just wanted information. He just wanted a way to fight and beat Oryx. He just wanted to get out.

He didn’t have someone he loved enough to go on a suicide mission just because he missed them. Just pity for a lonely woman, and the overwhelming sense of guilt that trailed behind him because it was partly his fault that Oryx was in the system at all.

“I’m not Eriana,” Jai said, more to himself than anything.

Jaspal chimed across the neural-link. “You’re not,” he said. “I like to think you’re better than her.”

“Oh, really?” Jai knew he wasn’t in the same league as Eriana and the Exo was dead.

“Yes.” Jaspal pulsed pride at him. “The connection is getting stronger. We should be close to the surface.”

“So, why am I better than Eriana?” Now that Jaspal had said that, Jai wasn’t letting it go anytime soon.

Jaspal remained silent.

“Moody Ghost.”

Jai shook his head and walked straight for the tomb husk at the top of the stairs. Not knowing what would be through the room beside him, he ran, gliding over Taken Fallen (and that was disturbing. When did Oryx Take them?), and unleashing the tomb husk energy before spinning on the ball of his foot, gun in hand, and firing.

He repeated the motions for the second and third tomb husk, running to the door and burning a lock away before dealing with the Taken at his back. Oryx was getting desperate to keep him down here. Jai was too close to the surface to give up though.

“Guardian?” There was Eris again, clearer now, something unknown at the edge of her voice. “Get out of that pit!” Jai bit down a shout of anger. What did she think he was doing? “We must have that crystal or we’ll never reach Oryx.”

The spiraling room that held the Hive seeder was the last part of the Temple he needed to cross in order to leave, and with the Taken so few and far between him and the door, Jai made quick work of sprinting through the room and heading up the ramp that led right to the antechamber.

There was a Wizard waiting for him, and Jai reached for his Light that had been slowly building, grasping at his fear and anger and desperation to get out get out get out-

A Nova Bomb made quicker work of the Wizard than Jai expected, but he wasn’t really going to complain, not with the stars just beyond the door, not when he could see the debris of satellites and dead ships. Jai jumped for the platform in front of him, ignoring the stairs completely, and ran outside.

If the moon had a viable atmosphere, Jai would’ve ripped his helmet off and screamed.

As it was, Cayde’s voice through the comm was a balm on his soul. “Guardian? Is that you?”

“Yes,” Jai rasped. “Yes, yes, yes, yes, I’m here, it’s me. I’m out, I got out, by the Traveler, I got. Out.” Cayde laughed, and Jai could imagine him shaking his head at him.

“Then the Taken King will fall,” Eris said. “Bring me his dead son’s crystal.” Eris being rude and distant was a welcome sound. Though Cayde managed to cover it up by thanking him.

“That’s how Eris says she appreciates your sacrifice,” Cayde told him. “Glad you’re still alive,” he tacked on.

“I’m glad I’m alive too,” Jai replied. He moved away from the Temple door, eyes locked on the distant sight of Earth. The Traveler’s Light was weaker on the moon, but it was more than the nothing that was down in the pit. Jaspal flashed out of transmat space, twirling around Jai’s head then coming to land on an extended hand. “Take us to orbit,” he said. “I want to go home.”

Jaspal chirped. “It seems like when we were down there, we received a few messages.”

“From who?” Jai certainly hoped it wasn’t from whom he thought.

“Roksana for one.” Okay, Roksana wasn’t bad, she’d be frustrated, worried mostly but frustrated, but he could handle that. “Ronin and Sadik left a couple of messages as well.” Ronin only needed to know he was alive (because he was Pack but that was still something he wasn’t quite ready to talk about with her), while Sadik would probably lock him in a library to keep him out of trouble, and with the way that today went, Jai would absolutely let him. “And no less that thirty-five from Apollo.”

Oh.

Oh, no.

“Take us to orbit, Jaspal,” Jai said again, and in the blink of an eye he was sitting in the cockpit of his ship. Here, he took his helmet off, throwing it over his shoulder and listened to it hit the floor with a loud, satisfying thunk. “Put a call in to Apollo, please.”

Jaspal turned his single optic at him like he was crazy, and maybe after that whole debacle, Jai probably was. “Are you sure?”

Jai nodded. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Jaspal flashed once and Jai waited on bated breath for Apollo to respond.

“Jai!” Apollo’s voice was aged, always tinged with static. Underneath the buzz Jai could hear the worry just underneath that bark and he relaxed, sinking into his seat with a sigh. “Don’t sigh at me you damn fool! What kind of idiot goes into the Temple of Crota alone when they’re being hunted?”

“Where did you hear that!?” Jai squawked. Honestly, this was supposed to be a secret mission. Just between him, Cayde, and Eris and no one else. No one else could be a part of this hair-brained scheme to kill a king. It was all on him. And if Apollo knew then he would demand to come along.

Jaspal chimed and brought Jai’s thoughts back around from the darker places his mind tended to wander.

“Don’t change the subject! Now get back to the City so I can yell at you properly!”

Jai chuckled and he instantly began looking forward to staying at the Tower, hands reaching for the controls to steer his ship out of lunar orbit and head for the city. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

“Don’t get coy with me, boy,” Apollo warned. “We’re going to have a long talk about this. You, me, and the rest of the team.”

“Yes, sir.” Jai couldn’t keep the smile off his face. He got out of the Temple. Maybe he was a bit of a fool for going in alone, but he got out.

He survived.

#scrap #this is way too long for a scrap but i have no other tag for my writing #based off of my favorite mission from the taken king #it always spooked me and i hope i wrote it well enough #obviously the dialogue from eris and cayde is from the game itself #as well as some from the ghost #guardian jai #destiny

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alteredphoenix · 3 years

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Untitled BNHA/WoW X-Over [Nagant-centric][WIP]

A/N: This was one of the ideas from a previous post of Nagant-centric WIPs I drafted up a while back. This first chapter is meant to give the reader the impression that Nagant is mute (which she’s not, considering she’s incognito in territory that is decidedly not human in the slightest) in a world that evokes the thought of video gaming narratives from similarly silent protagonists (to be fair, I had Lionhead’s Fable: The Lost Chapters in mind in regards to how story progression is approached).

Sadly this WIP isn’t far ahead enough to the planned second half where Lady Nagant blends in with the crowd as they make their way to Orgrimmar for a speech Sylvanas gives to the demoralized population after the Alliance invasion on Dazar’alor a’la Assassin’s Creed and sneaks her way up into the ramparts where she sets up the Rifle Quirk and pops headshots on Sylvanas and Nathanos. My original intention was to make that scene occur first, and the thought is still on my mind if I should change course and do that or stick with this particular direction the WIP is heading in before seguing into the stealth/assassination sequence. It’s still very early in the writing.

The dust storm is beginning to subside.

The world outside looks like something she would see if she were to step into a brick oven: bright red, with the exception of the sudden cold and barely able to discern anything that had to be shuttered and those that had the tarps hastily thrown and staked on before it rolled in. The window on her left is plastered, and rattling, but she can hear the flapping of the covers all the same. It wouldn’t surprise her if they were to step out and find one or two sheets hanging over the walls, or just straight up gone to places only the wind knows.

The inn is bursting at the seams with people. Mostly soldiers decked in the dark, spike-riddled armor of the Deathsguard; there are two Forsaken seated together at a table with the emblem of the Warchief’s shattered mask propped against the wall. Others are in much brighter outfits: cured leather, sharpened weapons, necklaces and bracelets made from nicked tusks and animal fangs, not covering much in the way of skin. The size of the arms on some of the orcish women are bigger than her head, their hands thick enough to crush it like a watermelon on a hot summer day at the beach.

She looks down as she lifts up a flap of the poncho, puts a hand underneath the waterskin clipped to the belt. It molds into the cusp of her palm, then loses shape. The liquid sloshing around within makes her think of raindrops spilling down glass. From behind the respirator she issues a soft, sharp sigh.

She removes the skin and places it on the table at the same time she signals for the innkeeper—a big, hulking orc-man carrying a tray of tankards—with the other. “Be right there,” he says, and continues on his way across the room. She nods and sits back, mindful to conform her spine and shoulders straight against the chair.

A quick peek down at herself, black dress dusty and poncho sun-bleached, reveals the barest hint of metal resting on the jut of one bony hip. Another glance around the room from the corner of her eye, vision awash in plastic amber shielding, at the patrons making small talk, laughing and drinking and making ribald jokes, eating, some gazing out the windows watching the dust blow by. None are all the wiser.

She tugs the poncho a little closer to herself, covering it up.

“What can I get for ya?” the innkeeper asks, coming up to her in long, purposeful strides. Not at all like the small, lumbering steps a few of the more hunchbacked orcs—and some trolls—take. He’s wiping his hands dry with a dish towel that smells faintly of liquor. When she picks up the waterskin by the neck and gestures it at him, the orc—and she remembers his name to be Grosk—nods sternly. “Just the one? However many you’ve got I can refill for you. Got a couple storage tanks for water, ‘less you’re the type to drink on the go. Not exactly somethin’ I’d recommend in this climate while travelin’.”

A pause, and then she nods. She frees the second skin secreted away beneath the cloak and passes its pathetic, deflated body into Grosk’s hand. He snorts. “Well aren’t you a lucky one. You’d come any later and you’d have probably been caught up in this damned thing. Lo’Gosh must’ve had his eyes on you.”

She shrugs, turning her palms up at him. Grosk chuckles. “Not a follower, huh? That’s fine; the Wild Gods watch all the same. Or whatever it is you follow, I should say. Light, Elune, Mu’sha--don’t matter to me. You get my drift. Anyway, let me fill these for you. Might take a few minutes with all this shit still flyin’ around, but I won’t take too long.”

He leaves with the skins and disappears into the crowd. Once he’s gone she tosses one arm over the back of her chair, stretches her legs out beneath the table, ankles crossed. Her gaze goes back outside, where the winds are less stronger than before and the pane not so irritatingly tremulous.

“Aw fuck, it’s almost over.”

A man and a woman have their attention on the road leading out of Razor Hill. The man is dark blue, tall and slim but not unhealthy, dressed in a combo of loose purple silks over bifurcated chainmail accentuating streamlined musculature. Silver hair falls around his face and neck from a high ponytail that dangles between his shoulder blades. Metal plates cover the long, sloping planes of his ears; his lobes are pierced with six-pointed studs. Propped up against the wall by the windowsill is a long-range rifle. The woman is shorter, more robust, in black and mud-colored leathers that hides every sliver of skin. Only her face is uncovered, the mask down below her chin, revealing off-white skin pockmarked with bits of bone. There is a dull, green glow to her eyes. Her expression, impassive.

The man sighs, cards his fingers over his scalp. “Stars, it couldn’t last any longer, could it? She couldn’t have waited another day.”

“It was going to happen anyway, storm or no storm,” says the woman. “You know the Warchief: she’s not one to dally.”

“Still, a speech of all things? In Orgrimmar? The hell’s she going to say that isn’t different from the others she’s given? Haven’t you heard,” he adds, lowering his voice, “what happened at Dazar’alor?”

“Everyone knows what happened. Word got out from Echo Isles once the transport returned.”

“And is anything even going to change from that? Does Sylvanas even know what she’s doing?”

“That’s a dangerous thought you’ve got going there, friend.”

“It’s a rational thought I’ve got going there. We’re lucky we even have people at all to keep fighting. But something’s gotta give; we’re not seeing the results we’re supposed to be seeing, and people are going to get tired real quick if progress isn’t going to be made.”

“Sylvanas will think of something. A king’s death is not the kind of slight anyone should ignore.”

“Sitting on your ass in the middle of a territory that hasn’t even established itself as an ally to the Horde does not count as being constructive. If she really means to win the war, then she should have done so when Undercity fell. Why even scrape the bottom of the barrel for allies when you have weapons like that?” He bangs his fist on the table. One thin, silver eyebrow, part of the skin pierced with tiny hoops, quivers.

The woman sighs. “I will admit, she should have done so. But the Horde has a...tenuous relationship with chemical warfare. Sylvanas would have never heard the end of it. It was bad enough it had to be deployed in the siege.”

“And necromancy is any better?”

“It is. It would be, if not for blowback she’d receive. We would not be wanting for anything else.” A pause. Then: “At least they’d listen. At least they wouldn’t be pretending they’re looking for answers to problems they’re complicit in.”

#warcraft #bnha #i don't have a title for this fic but the doc title is too long #so let's call this one 'that AU where nagant murks sylvanas & nathanos & mostly averts BfA'#'but shadowlands still happens in a different way & nagant works with lor'themar to repair the damage sylvie & nate caused'#'while also attempting to play peacemaker with the alliance'#'who just murked rastakhan'#'and people are pissed'#'also the jailer's pissed and wants sylvie to get back in the ring & murk nagant so it's a shitshow all around for everyone involved'#wow that's a roundabout way of describing an AU that doesn't have a title yet #fanfiction #preview #mywriting

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ciathyzareposts · 5 years

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Star Control II: Building the Empire

The aptly-named “Orz” do indeed make me want to kneel down and bang my head against the floor.

If I do end up running out of time and having to start over with Star Control II, at least I’ll get to revise my decision to name my new alliance “The New Alliance of Free Stars.” I didn’t realize I’d be giving that name to everyone I meet. Next time, I’m going with “The Empire of Chester.”

The Empire is growing. In contrast to my last session, where I didn’t seem to make much progress, I did nothing but accomplish things this time around. It began with a slight rewind. After I reloaded from my fatal (for him) encounter with the Shifoxti rogue ship, I was back at starbase. I returned to Delta Gorno, but by way of the Melnorme ship at Alpha Centauri, where I sold a heap of biological data and now had enough credits to actually start buying things.

No rainbow worlds yet, though.

When dealing with the Melnorme, you can buy a piece of technology, information on current events, information on alien races, or historical information. You only get to choose the category; they choose the next item to give to you. I altered among the categories and ended up obtaining/discovering the following:

A schematic for blaster weapons twice as powerful as my current ion-bolt guns

A schematic for faster lander speed

In addition to the Shofixti warrior I’d already met, there’s another solo warrior out there plus several females in the menagerie of the Vux admiral Zex. If I can bring the females to the two males and things work out, there will be millions of new Shofixti within a few human generations. The Melnorme recommended that we adopt an approach of insulting the Shofixti and then fleeing if attacked.

The Ur-Quan are presently at war with a race called the Kohr-Ah, which are not the alien probes, so I was wrong there. The major fighting is in the middle of the galaxy. The Kohr-Ah seem to be winning. Their war has caught the Zoq-Fot-Pik in the crossfire (something I’d already heard from that race).

The Ur-Quan are part of an ancient alliance of races called the “sentient milieu.”

The blobbish Umgah, one of the races in the Ur-Quan hierarchy, renowned for their sense of humor, has begun screwing with the Ilwrath (the spider-like creatures) by using a device called a HyperWave Caster to impersonate the Ilwrath gods, Dogar and Kazon. When the Ilwrath priest caste decried this fakery, the rest of the Ilwrath population slaughtered the priests. If we could get our hands on this Caster, we could effectively neutralize the Ilwrath.

I ran out of credits at this point, but I’d added a few new items to my “to do” list. On we went back to Delta Gorno, where I ran into Tanaka the Shofixti again and this time insulted him. When he attacked, I fled. I re-engaged him almost immediately and noted that I had different insults among the dialogue options, so I figured I must be getting somewhere. He attacked again; I fled again. I think on the third attempt, he realized that the Ur-Quan had never insulted him before, and thus slowed down enough to figure out that we were his allies. Although glad to hear of a new alliance against the Ur-Quan, he declined to join us, preferring to stay and guard his old system. I assume I need him there for when I bring back the Shofixti females.

I’m going to try to get you some company.

Back I went to my quest list. Let’s divert for a moment to note that this is one of the few games of the entire 1975-1992 period in which you have anything like a “quest list.” It’s extremely common now, of course. Fire up any modern RPG, and you’ve got a dozen items on your “to do” list (which the game now helpfully keeps for you) before you’ve left the first town. There are multiple approaches to deciding what item to pursue next, and I’ll explore the consequences in a future special topic entry. Briefly, some of them are:

Gingerly: Do the easiest item (or what sounds like the easiest item) next

Chronologically: Do the oldest item next.

Geographically by Proximity: Do the closest item next.

Geographic by System: Explore the game using a systematic geographic approach (e.g., west to east), solving quests along the way

Consequentially: Do the most important item next.

Comprehensively: Do all the side quests before the next step in the main quest; the side quests are probably prioritized using another approach here

Organically: Do the item next that you’d really do next if you were the character, which probably juggles a lot of these options.

Mercenarily: Do the item that sounds like it will give you the greatest reward next.

Randomly: Count the number of items on the list and roll a die.

Anarchically: Explore the game completely at whim without regard to quests, solving them if you happen to stumble on them.

(Let me know if you think I’ve missed any.)

I find that altering your approach to quests makes a lot of modern games extremely replayable. I tend to play the first time using a “consequential/geographic proximity” combination, meaning I prioritize by importance but pick up side quests as they exist along the route. This ensures that I actually finish the main quest. I don’t want to be one of those people that says things like, “I have 1,200 hours into Fallout 4 and I still haven’t won the game.” I go for the win the first time. The second time, if I’m motivated to play again, I might try a chronological approach to ensure that I explore more of the side quests. Lately, though, I’ve been prioritizing a random approach, such that Irene is sick of hearing me say, “Hey, Siri, give me a random number between one and twenty-five” before heading off to bag a Legendary Elk.

With Star Control II, I’ve been using the random approach, mostly because none of the quests seemed obviously more important than the others. But by the end of this session, I had decided to revise my system and use a geographic proximity approach instead, mostly because I nearly ran out of fuel twice while in the fringes of space.

Still using the random roll, I next chased rumors of an unknown ancient race who used to make their home in the Vulpeculae constellation, in the middle of Androsynth space. I didn’t expect much from the expedition. Indeed, I figured I’d be attacked by Androsynth and that would be the end of it. Sure enough, I arrived to a swarm of ships who immediately started approaching my own.

Well, this doesn’t bode well.

They weren’t Androsynth, though. They were bright yellow things, looking like a combination between a fish and a flower. When they made contact, my translation program warned that it was having trouble with their speech, and it put asterisks around words they weren’t sure about, so in an early speech, we got:

Hello extremely! I hope you like to *play*. Some *campers* are not so good for *games*. . . Who are you? You are not Orz! We are Orz! Orz are happy *people energy* from the outside. Inside is good. So much good that the Orz will always *germinate.* Can you come together with Orz for *parties*?

At first I thought something ribald was going on here, like “parties” meant “orgies” or something. But things didn’t develop explicitly along those lines. The best I could work out from their many lines of only partly comprehensible dialogue is that the Orz come from another dimension, that the individual Orz we perceive are all just “fingers” of a single being (like a happy version of the Uhl from Starflight), and that they destroyed the Androsynth for some unknown reason. (They got mad when I even asked about it.) They also don’t seem to like the Ariloualeelay, whom they suggest are from their dimension, but from “above” while the Orz are from “below.”

Let’s just make sure we agree on a safe word.

Anyway, they seemed to join the Alliance. They let me land on their planets, and they gave me specifications for an “Orz Nemesis” ship that I later had built. Good to know that the Androsynth aren’t a threat anymore.

On one of the planets–the second around Eta Vulpeculae–my scanners picked up energy signatures for the first time since (I think) Pluto. There were a lot of them–destroyed Androsynth cities, it turned out.

As my lander explored these cities, the game again invented names and personalities for some of my interchangeable crewmember-hit points. Their reports together created a kind of mini horror story. It began with “xeno-historian Kilgore” reporting that some kind of land war destroyed the cities but left no corpses. Later, “science officer Bukowski” that the Androsynth had been researching “Dimensional Fatigue Phenomena,” based on their discovery of some Precursor artifacts. They were generating waves that allowed them to see into other dimensions. They ended up making contact with some life form on the “other side,” after which their research degraded into rantings about ghosts and poltergeists before abruptly coming to an end.

Multiple lander reports deliver a growing horror story.

In continued reports from the lander, “Ensign Hawthorne” radioed that Bukowski had continued his inquiry into the Androsynth research project and had himself gone insane, ranting that “they” could now see him and that he had to stop “them” before “they” could see everyone else. Stigmata started appearing on his body, as if he was being cut by an invisible source. The crewmembers on the lander begged to be brought home, and running them into other cities didn’t seem to generate any new reports, so I complied. Lots of mysteries here. Are “they” the Orz? The Ariloualeelay? Some other beings from another dimension? Just who have I allied with here?

That sounds ominous.

On another old ancient ruin, my crew found an “unusual glowing rock-thing” that seemed to make some people sick with headaches and “mental disarray.” It was said to be Taalo in origin, this name appearing for the first time. I assume it’s the name of the ancient race that lived in Precursor times.

Back at starbase, Commander Hayes praised the design of the Orz Nemesis. Later, he reported that the Taalo rock seemed to have something to do with blocking psychic attacks. Those that had become ill were those with some psychic ability. (He referred to them as “espers,” either a reference to 1988’s Star Command, or just a term that’s more common than I thought for someone with E.S.P.)

Adding the Nemesis to my fleet. Now I have four ships that I can’t pilot effectively!

For my last expedition, my random roll gave me the Zoq-Fot-Pik homeworld, which is in the middle of the map but the farthest I’ve traveled so far. I stopped at a few systems on the way to search for minerals and whatever else. I’m finding that I hate planets with a “weather” score higher than 2. I can usually avoid earthquakes, and thus deal with a high tectonics score, but lightning bolts often seem to target my lander specifically, and none of my dodging and weaving helps.

One of the worlds I stopped at randomly was Betelgeuse. There, I was surprised to find a red force field covering a planet and a starbase in orbit. It turned out to be Gaia, the new homeworld of the Syreen, their old one having been destroyed before the events of the first game. When the Alliance surrendered, the Syreen–like Earth–chose to live under a dome rather than serve as battle thralls.

This seems familiar.

In a long conversation with the Syreen Commander Talana–in which the game seemed to delight in giving me boorish, inappropriate dialogue options–I learned quite a bit about the race. They used to live on Syra–which we call Beta Copernicus–before an asteroid impact caused such volcanic upheaval that the planet had to be abandoned. Now, the entire system seems to have been taken over by the Mycon.

The game gives me one professional option and three takes on sexual harassment.

When the Syreen surrendered to the Ur-Quan, they chose the shield but noted that they had no actual planet. The Ur-Quan asked them about their requirements. The Syreen talked about Syra (“about the color of its sky, about the abundant, varied lifeforms, about the fertility of the soil and seas”). The Ur-Quan took an hour, then communicated back with the coordinates of Gaia, which the Syreen found to be absolutely perfect. “We’d been searching for a home planet for seventy-five years,” Talana said, “and in the end, it was our enemies who gave one to us.” Naturally, they were now uninterested in violating their treaty and upsetting the status-quo unless I could give them a good reason, and I had nothing. But I put their old planet on my “to do” list for investigation.

On to the Zoq-Fot-Pik system (ZFP from here on). When I arrived, I found it swarming with Ur-Quan, and before I could escape, one of the Ur-Quan dreadnoughts approached. Our dialogue just consisted of the Ur-Quan captain making threats. In the ensuing combat, I couldn’t do anything. I tried about five times. The dreadnought fires huge metal swastikas or something–I think they’re actually supposed to be autonomous ships–that fly around until they hit something. They have as many hit points as my own flagship. None of my smaller ships lasted more than a few hits and even with my flagship, it became clear that if I won, it would be with about 10 crewmembers left over. I really hope it’s possible to win this game without being good at the space combat.

I missed the shot of the enemy’s projectile. It’s just crashed into my cruiser.

So I ultimately sighed and escaped combat, which leaves your ship immobile for about 10 seconds as it jumps to hyperspace, which is enough time for the enemy to destroy a couple dozen crewmembers. I dodged the rest of the Ur-Quan ships and made my way to the ZFP homeworld, where the faintly ridiculous species agreed to join my alliance.

The Pik is the emotional one.

I leave you on my way back to starbase. The trip to the ZFP system took so much fuel that I have to keep my eye on the gauge as I explore for elements. But I do have to explore because if I don’t, I won’t have any money to buy new fuel when I get back.

Lots of fun and progress this trip, though I’m not sure what it’s amounting to just yet.

Time so far: 15 hours

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/star-control-ii-building-the-empire/

#retro games #dos games #retro #crpg #adventure #amiga #oldcomputers #8bit #16bit #blog #repost

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readbookywooks · 7 years

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8 Boggs appears and gets a firm lock on my arm, but I'm not planning on running now. I look over at the hospital - just in time to see the rest of the structure give way - and the fight goes out of me. All those people, the hundreds of wounded, the relatives, the medics from 13, are no more. I turn back to Boggs, see the swelling on his face left by Gale's boot. I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure his nose is broken. His voice is more resigned than angry, though. "Back to the landing strip." I obediently take a step forward and wince as I become aware of the pain behind my right knee. The adrenaline rush that overrode the sensation has passed and my body parts join in a chorus of complaints. I'm banged up and bloody and someone seems to be hammering on my left temple from inside my skull. Boggs quickly examines my face, then scoops me up and jogs for the runway. Halfway there, I puke on his bulletproof vest. It's hard to tell because he's short of breath, but I think he sighs. A small hovercraft, different from the one that transported us here, waits on the runway. The second my team's on board, we take off. No comfy seats and windows this time. We seem to be in some sort of cargo craft. Boggs does emergency first aid on people to hold them until we get back to 13. I want to take off my vest, since I got a fair amount of vomit on it as well, but it's too cold to think about it. I lie on the floor with my head in Gale's lap. The last thing I remember is Boggs spreading a couple of burlap sacks over me. When I wake up, I'm warm and patched up in my old bed in the hospital. My mother's there, checking my vital signs. "How do you feel?" "A little beat-up, but all right," I say. "No one even told us you were going until you were gone," she says. I feel a pang of guilt. When your family's had to send you off twice to the Hunger Games, this isn't the kind of detail you should overlook. "I'm sorry. They weren't expecting the attack. I was just supposed to be visiting the patients," I explain. "Next time, I'll have them clear it with you." "Katniss, no one clears anything with me," she says. It's true. Even I don't. Not since my father died. Why pretend? "Well, I'll have them...notify you anyway." On the bedside table is a piece of shrapnel they removed from my leg. The doctors are more concerned with the damage my brain might have suffered from the explosions, since my concussion hadn't fully healed to begin with. But I don't have double vision or anything and I can think clearly enough. I've slept right through the late afternoon and night, and I'm starving. My breakfast is disappointingly small. Just a few cubes of bread soaking in warm milk. I've been called down to an early morning meeting at Command. I start to get up and then realize they plan to roll my hospital bed directly there. I want to walk, but that's out, so I negotiate my way into a wheelchair. I feel fine, really. Except for my head, and my leg, and the soreness from the bruises, and the nausea that hit a couple minutes after I ate. Maybe the wheelchair's a good idea. As they wheel me down, I begin to get uneasy about what I will face. Gale and I directly disobeyed orders yesterday, and Boggs has the injury to prove it. Surely, there will be repercussions, but will they go so far as Coin annulling our agreement for the victors' immunity? Have I stripped Peeta of what little protection I could give him? When I get to Command, the only ones who've arrived are Cressida, Messalla, and the insects. Messalla beams and says, "There's our little star!" and the others are smiling so genuinely that I can't help but smile in return. They impressed me in 8, following me onto the roof during the bombing, making Plutarch back off so they could get the footage they wanted. They more than do their work, they take pride in it. Like Cinna. I have a strange thought that if we were in the arena together, I would pick them as allies. Cressida, Messalla, and - and - "I have to stop calling you 'the insects,'" I blurt out to the cameramen. I explain how I didn't know their names, but their suits suggested the shelled creatures. The comparison doesn't seem to bother them. Even without the camera shells, they strongly resemble each other. Same sandy hair, red beards, and blue eyes. The one with close-bitten nails introduces himself as Castor and the other, who's his brother, as Pollux. I wait for Pollux to say hello, but he just nods. At first I think he's shy or a man of few words. But something tugs on me - the position of his lips, the extra effort he takes to swallow - and I know before Castor tells me. Pollux is an Avox. They have cut out his tongue and he will never speak again. And I no longer have to wonder what made him risk everything to help bring down the Capitol. As the room fills, I brace myself for a less congenial reception. But the only people who register any kind of negativity are Haymitch, who's always out of sorts, and a sour-faced Fulvia Cardew. Boggs wears a flesh-colored plastic mask from his upper lip to his brow - I was right about the broken nose - so his expression's hard to read. Coin and Gale are in the midst of some exchange that seems positively chummy. When Gale slides into the seat next to my wheelchair, I say, "Making new friends?" His eyes flicker to the president and back. "Well, one of us has to be accessible." He touches my temple gently. "How do you feel?" They must have served stewed garlic and squash for the breakfast vegetable. The more people who gather, the stronger the fumes are. My stomach turns and the lights suddenly seem too bright. "Kind of rocky," I say. "How are you?" "Fine. They dug out a couple of pieces of shrapnel. No big deal," he says. Coin calls the meeting to order. "Our Airtime Assault has officially launched. For any of you who missed yesterday's twenty-hundred broadcast of our first propo - or the seventeen reruns Beetee has managed to air since - we will begin by replaying it." Replaying it? So they not only got usable footage, they've already slapped together a propo and aired it repeatedly. My palms grow moist in anticipation of seeing myself on television. What if I'm still awful? What if I'm as stiff and pointless as I was in the studio and they've just given up on getting anything better? Individual screens slide up from the table, the lights dim slightly, and a hush falls over the room. At first, my screen is black. Then a tiny spark flickers in the center. It blossoms, spreads, silently eating up the blackness until the entire frame is ablaze with a fire so real and intense, I imagine I feel the heat emanating from it. The image of my mockingjay pin emerges, glowing red-gold. The deep, resonant voice that haunts my dreams begins to speak. Claudius Templesmith, the official announcer of the Hunger Games, says, "Katniss Everdeen, the girl who was on fire, burns on." Suddenly, there I am, replacing the mockingjay, standing before the real flames and smoke of District 8. "I want to tell the rebels that I am alive. That I'm right here in District Eight, where the Capitol has just bombed a hospital full of unarmed men, women, and children. There will be no survivors." Cut to the hospital collapsing in on itself, the desperation of the onlookers as I continue in voice-over. "I want to tell people that if you think for one second the Capitol will treat us fairly if there's a cease-fire, you're deluding yourself. Because you know who they are and what they do." Back to me now, my hands lifting up to indicate the outrage around me. "Thisis what they do! And we must fight back!" Now comes a truly fantastic montage of the battle. The initial bombs falling, us running, being blown to the ground - a close-up of my wound, which looks good and bloody - scaling the roof, diving into the nests, and then some amazing shots of the rebels, Gale, and mostly me, me, me knocking those planes out of the sky. Smash-cut back to me moving in on the camera. "President Snow says he's sending us a message? Well, I have one for him. You can torture us and bomb us and burn our districts to the ground, but do you see that?" We're with the camera, tracking to the planes burning on the roof of the warehouse. Tight on the Capitol seal on a wing, which melts back into the image of my face, shouting at the president. "Fire is catching! And if we burn, you burn with us!" Flames engulf the screen again. Superimposed on them in black, solid letters are the words: IF WE BURN YOU BURN WITH US The words catch fire and the whole screen burns to blackness. There's a moment of silent relish, then applause followed by demands to see it again. Coin indulgently hits the replay button, and this time, since I know what will happen, I try to pretend that I'm watching this on my television at home in the Seam. An anti-Capitol statement. There's never been anything like it on television. Not in my lifetime, anyway. By the time the screen burns to black a second time, I need to know more. "Did it play all over Panem? Did they see it in the Capitol?" "Not in the Capitol," says Plutarch. "We couldn't override their system, although Beetee's working on it. But in all the districts. We even got it on in Two, which may be more valuable than the Capitol at this point in the game." "Is Claudius Templesmith with us?" I ask. This gives Plutarch a good laugh. "Only his voice. But that's ours for the taking. We didn't even have to do any special editing. He said that actual line in your first Games." He slaps his hand on the table. "What say we give another round of applause to Cressida, her amazing team, and, of course, our on-camera talent!" I clap, too, until I realize I'm the on-camera talent and maybe it's obnoxious that I'm applauding for myself, but no one's paying attention. I can't help noticing the strain on Fulvia's face, though. I think how hard this must be for her, watching Haymitch's idea succeed under Cressida's direction, when Fulvia's studio approach was such a flop. Coin seems to have reached the end of her tolerance for self-congratulation. "Yes, well deserved. The result is more than we had hoped for. But I do have to question the wide margin of risk that you were willing to operate within. I know the raid was unforeseen. However, given the circumstances, I think we should discuss the decision to send Katniss into actual combat." The decision? To send me into combat? Then she doesn't know that I flagrantly disregarded orders, ripped out my earpiece, and gave my bodyguards the slip? What else have they kept from her? "It was a tough call," says Plutarch, furrowing his brow. "But the general consensus was that we weren't going to get anything worth using if we locked her in a bunker somewhere every time a gun went off." "And you're all right with that?" asks the president. Gale has to kick me under the table before I realize that she's talking to me. "Oh! Yeah, I'm completely all right with that. It felt good. Doing something for a change." "Well, let's be just a little more judicious with her exposure. Especially now that the Capitol knows what she can do," says Coin. There's a rumble of assent from around the table. No one has ratted out Gale and me. Not Plutarch, whose authority we ignored. Not Boggs with his broken nose. Not the insects we led into fire. Not Haymitch - no, wait a minute. Haymitch is giving me a deadly smile and saying sweetly, "Yeah, we wouldn't want to lose our little Mockingjay when she's finally begun to sing." I make a note to myself not to end up alone in a room with him, because he's clearly having vengeful thoughts over that stupid earpiece. "So, what else do you have planned?" asks the president. Plutarch nods to Cressida, who consults a clipboard. "We have some terrific footage of Katniss at the hospital in Eight. There should be another propo in that with the theme 'Because you know who they are and what they do.' We'll focus on Katniss interacting with the patients, particularly the children, the bombing of the hospital, and the wreckage. Messalla's cutting that together. We're also thinking about a Mockingjay piece. Highlight some of Katniss's best moments intercut with scenes of rebel uprisings and war footage. We call that one 'Fire is catching.' And then Fulvia came up with a really brilliant idea." Fulvia's mouthful-of-sour-grapes expression is startled right off her face, but she recovers. "Well, I don't know how brilliant it is, but I was thinking we could do a series of propos called We Remember. In each one, we would feature one of the dead tributes. Little Rue from Eleven or old Mags from Four. The idea being that we could target each district with a very personal piece." "A tribute to your tributes, as it were," says Plutarch. "Thatis brilliant, Fulvia," I say sincerely. "It's the perfect way to remind people why they're fighting." "I think it could work," she says. "I thought we might use Finnick to intro and narrate the spots. If there was interest in them." "Frankly, I don't see how we could have too manyWe Remember propos," says Coin. "Can you start producing them today?" "Of course," says Fulvia, obviously mollified by the response to her idea. Cressida has smoothed everything over in the creative department with her gesture. Praised Fulvia for what is, in fact, a really good idea, and cleared the way to continue her own on-air depiction of the Mockingjay. What's interesting is that Plutarch seems to have no need to share in the credit. All he wants is for the Airtime Assault to work. I remember that Plutarch is a Head Gamemaker, not a member of the crew. Not a piece in the Games. Therefore, his worth is not defined by a single element, but by the overall success of the production. If we win the war, that's when Plutarch will take his bow. And expect his reward. The president sends everyone off to get to work, so Gale wheels me back to the hospital. We laugh a little about the cover-up. Gale says no one wanted to look bad by admitting they couldn't control us. I'm kinder, saying they probably didn't want to jeopardize the chance of taking us out again now that they've gotten some decent footage. Both things are probably true. Gale has to go meet Beetee down in Special Weaponry, so I doze off. It seems like I've only shut my eyes for a few minutes, but when I open them, I flinch at the sight of Haymitch sitting a couple of feet from my bed. Waiting. Possibly for several hours if the clock is right. I think about hollering for a witness, but I'm going to have to face him sooner or later. Haymitch leans forward and dangles something on a thin white wire in front of my nose. It's hard to focus on, but I'm pretty sure what it is. He drops it to the sheets. "That is your earpiece. I will give you exactly one more chance to wear it. If you remove it from your ear again, I'll have you fitted with this." He holds up some sort of metal headgear that I instantly namethe head shackle . "It's an alternative audio unit that locks around your skull and under your chin until it's opened with a key. And I'll have the only key. If for some reason you're clever enough to disable it" - Haymitch dumps the head shackle on the bed and whips out a tiny silver chip - "I'll authorize them to surgically implant this transmitter into your ear so that I may speak to you twenty-four hours a day." Haymitch in my head full-time. Horrifying. "I'll keep the earpiece in," I mutter. "Excuse me?" he says. "I'll keep the earpiece in!" I say, loud enough to wake up half the hospital. "You sure? Because I'm equally happy with any of the three options," he tells me. "I'm sure," I say. I scrunch up the earpiece wire protectively in my fist and fling the head shackle back in his face with my free hand, but he catches it easily. Probably was expecting me to throw it. "Anything else?" Haymitch rises to go. "While I was waiting...I ate your lunch." My eyes take in the empty stew bowl and tray on my bed table. "I'm going to report you," I mumble into my pillow. "You do that, sweetheart." He goes out, safe in the knowledge that I'm not the reporting kind. I want to go back to sleep, but I'm restless. Images from yesterday begin to flood into the present. The bombing, the fiery plane crashes, the faces of the wounded who no longer exist. I imagine death from all sides. The last moment before seeing a shell hit the ground, feeling the wing blown from my plane and the dizzying nosedive into oblivion, the warehouse roof falling down at me while I'm pinned helplessly to my cot. Things I saw, in person or on the tape. Things I caused with a pull of my bowstring. Things I will never be able to erase from my memory. At dinner, Finnick brings his tray to my bed so we can watch the newest propo together on television. He was assigned quarters on my old floor, but he has so many mental relapses, he still basically lives in the hospital. The rebels air the "Because you know who they are and what they do" propo that Messalla edited. The footage is intercut with short studio clips of Gale, Boggs, and Cressida describing the incident. It's hard to watch my reception in the hospital in 8 since I know what's coming. When the bombs rain down on the roof, I bury my face in my pillow, looking up again at a brief clip of me at the end, after all the victims are dead. At least Finnick doesn't applaud or act all happy when it's done. He just says, "People should know that happened. And now they do." "Let's turn it off, Finnick, before they run it again," I urge him. But as Finnick's hand moves toward the remote control, I cry, "Wait!" The Capitol is introducing a special segment and something about it looks familiar. Yes, it's Caesar Flickerman. And I can guess who his guest will be. Peeta's physical transformation shocks me. The healthy, clear-eyed boy I saw a few days ago has lost at least fifteen pounds and developed a nervous tremor in his hands. They've still got him groomed. But underneath the paint that cannot cover the bags under his eyes, and the fine clothes that cannot conceal the pain he feels when he moves, is a person badly damaged. My mind reels, trying to make sense of it. I just saw him! Four - no, five - I think it was five days ago. How has he deteriorated so rapidly? What could they possibly have done to him in such a short time? Then it hits me. I replay in my mind as much as I can of his first interview with Caesar, searching for anything that would place it in time. There is nothing. They could have taped that interview a day or two after I blew up the arena, then done whatever they wanted to do to him ever since. "Oh, Peeta..." I whisper. Caesar and Peeta have a few empty exchanges before Caesar asks him about rumors that I'm taping propos for the districts. "They're using her, obviously," says Peeta. "To whip up the rebels. I doubt she even really knows what's going on in the war. What's at stake." "Is there anything you'd like to tell her?" asks Caesar. "There is," says Peeta. He looks directly into the camera, right into my eyes. "Don't be a fool, Katniss. Think for yourself. They've turned you into a weapon that could be instrumental in the destruction of humanity. If you've got any real influence, use it to put the brakes on this thing. Use it to stop the war before it's too late. Ask yourself, do you really trust the people you're working with? Do you really know what's going on? And if you don't...find out." Black screen. Seal of Panem. Show over. Finnick presses the button on the remote that kills the power. In a minute, people will be here to do damage control on Peeta's condition and the words that came out of his mouth. I will need to repudiate them. But the truth is, I don't trust the rebels or Plutarch or Coin. I'm not confident that they tell me the truth. I won't be able to conceal this. Footsteps are approaching. Finnick grips me hard by the arms. "We didn't see it." "What?" I ask. "We didn't see Peeta. Only the propo on Eight. Then we turned the set off because the images upset you. Got it?" he asks. I nod. "Finish your dinner." I pull myself together enough so that when Plutarch and Fulvia enter, I have a mouthful of bread and cabbage. Finnick is talking about how well Gale came across on camera. We congratulate them on the propo. Make it clear it was so powerful, we tuned out right afterward. They look relieved. They believe us. No one mentions Peeta.

#Mockingjay

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