#its a little slower than the first and instead of having any lock mechanism it just kinda resists hard when the blade is right by the sheath | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cant-blink · 3 years

Text

Half-Life, Ch. 8

Summary: The final chapter of the story. Ghidorah is in a fight to the death to decide his ultimate fate. Can he finally be free from Gigan’s terror, or will he fall to mind-control once more?

There’s nothing much that he loved more than a good fight, and seeing the golden dragon across from him was bringing back memories of his old life, back when he was with his Masters.

He remembered seeing this dragon for the first time, with the sole purpose of subduing him to be brought into Nebulan captivity. He remembered the thrill in his chest as he went to make his first strike. He remembered the burning sensation in that same chest when the hydra retaliated with a Gravity Beam point-blank. Gigan has never fought an opponent with such a wild lust for blood and death, and to this day, it remained the greatest battle he’s ever engaged in.

This moment, however, threatened to dethrone that. Because so much more was on the line here, and Gigan knew that there was to be no holding back for either of them. What’s worse, he was in no condition for a drawn-out fight and this could very well be his last stand. But perhaps...

His eye was still fastened on Ghidorah’s middle head. Perhaps he can sneak a strike as his first blow, end it fast and easy. He certainly had the means to pull it off, a technique that Ghidorah was unaware of as far as he knew. He's never displayed it in front of him, so he would have the element of surprise on his side. But such a move would take a large portion of his energy; even at full strength, it was not something he could do with reckless abandon. In a crucial state like he is in now, it was certainly not something he can afford to screw up...

The silence between them was thickened, as Ghidorah opened those three jaws slowly and deliberately. As if testing to see what Gigan would do. Now or never, here goes nothing!

Gathering his energy, he took a split-second to tell his system where he wished to go before lunging forward to lessen the distance. He saw the lightning erupt from Ghidorah’s jaws just as Gigan’s body deteriorated. Not a split-second later, he reappeared behind the dragon, and he wasted no time lunging for him with his claw raised...

And he connected with the wrong head, as Ghidorah’s necks flailed wildly and one of them got in the way of his attack. Although the dragon was clearly taken by surprise, he recovered quickly and his tails slammed into him, knocking him aside.

He fell back to the ground, luckily on his feet but he was inwardly cursing himself. That was a complete waste of his energy and now he had to be even more conservative about how he spent it. It’s okay, it’s alright. He can settle on good ol’ fashion claw-to-tooth combat. Something he knew Ghidorah was no fan of.

But getting close enough won’t be easy as the Gravity Beams were relentless, blasting the air and ground around him in erratic hard-to-predict fashion. The very embodiment of chaos, this dragon, and he loved him for it. Too bad it had to come down to this.

Seeing he won’t be getting closer without getting hit, he shot a Cluster Beam towards the hydra, the red laser colliding with a Gravity Beam to result in an explosion. The cloud of dust whipped from them, blocking the view; normally, Gigan would switch to his thermal vision, but he knew this was pointless against Ghidorah’s cold hide. Instead, he’s forced to go in blind, lunging forward and managing to connect a blade across Ghidorah’s chest.

A snarl erupted from the recoiling dragon, who responded by fanning his wings and flapping them strongly. A powerful gust blew away the dust and began pushing Gigan back. But he kept his footing, leaning against the hurricane-force winds and leaving furrows in the ground. Such power in those sails, he LOVED it! His own sails flattened against his back to help reduce catching this wind, and his claws swung down to stab into the earth.

Ghidorah did not relent and only began flapping faster and harder.

He was blown back far enough and still secured against the increased gale, Gigan shot another laser at the dragon. It was weaker than the last few blasts, as his energy reserves were getting low, and it didn’t make as big an explosion on impact as last time. But it was enough to stop the dragon, and those six eyes glaring towards him seemed to glow through the smoke.

Trying to keep his breaths steady and discreet, Gigan stood back up, his claws crossing in front of him defensively. But the dragon doesn’t push his assault further, yet, and they found themselves in another stand-off.

“Sure you want to keep going with this, Ghiddy?”

No sooner did he say that than the dragon shoots another trio of Gravity Beams directly at him without the wild flailing, and he jumped back out of the way. With a focused blow like that, it seemed like Ghidorah really did not like being called ‘Ghiddy’. Well, he should’ve thought of that before calling him ‘half-life’. He lets out a chuckle at the childishness of it all, trying to ignore the pain slowly starting to creep through the adrenaline.

“You haven’t even seen half of what I can do, babe,” Gigan continued, only somewhat bluffing to buy time to re-coop the energy lost. “It’s not too late to run.”

Ghidorah still doesn’t respond verbally, as he lets loose another round of Gravity Beams directly for him and Gigan jumps into flight to avoid it once more. So damn predictable. But what he didn’t expect was a massive chunk of rock rising from the site of impact, far larger than the boulders Ghidorah had lifted before. It was far too big to get out of the way of, and his visor widened as the wyvern swung it towards him. He grunted at the impact and, knowing the hydra’s intention to crush him under it, managed to salvage enough of his energy to blast it to smithereens just as it almost hits the ground. He’s still subject to its momentum though and he grunted again as his back hits the earth. Fuck, that was way too close but at least he wasn’t flattened.

Power at 10%, his system flashed onto his visor. Retreat to the mothership now. But he had no time to reprimand his system that there was no mothership to retreat to. No, Ghidorah has leapt and those talons dig into his arms and shoulder pads, keeping him pinned onto the ground.

At once, he lifted his tail to stab into him, but alas, he was painfully reminded that his stinger was gone. Really, any movement from his tail brought unbearable shocks of pain through his system. Fuck. He glared up at the dragon; he didn’t have enough energy for another laser blast, and he could see the Gravity Beams building up in those throats.

But he wasn’t out yet, and he opened his own beak and flames erupted from his throat. He knew it wouldn’t do much in way of damage as he really only used this on weaker creatures and their flammable structures. Nonetheless, it served its purpose to startle the dragon and he felt Ghidorah’s weight shift back off one of his arms. He took advantage to swing at the hydra with his freed claw, stabbing into the scales of Ghidorah’s side.

A shriek escaped those throats and the dragon jolted back off of him completely.

The flames escaping his beak petered out, and he pushed himself back up. The two locked eyes and Gigan can see small embers fading off from Ghidorah’s manes. As he expected, the flames did little to actually hurt the dragon.

On the contrary, he took notice that his own vision has grown dimmer, as the generator ran low on the energy needed to keep his mechanical parts functional. This wasn’t good; he needed to stall again lest he starts fighting blind.

Unfortunately, Ghidorah has made it clear that he was not going to entertain another conversation with him. He really should run; both his system and his own organic instincts screamed at him to flee, but instead, he took the offensive and lunged forward recklessly. In response, Ghidorah rose his middle head higher and his two side heads slammed into him.

Dammit...

He was getting slower and the pain was really starting to take its toll, and hearing the snickering from the hydra, he knew Ghidorah was taking notice.

RETREAT! RETREAT! RETREAT! His system flashed onto his visor. Fuckin’- If it would stop wasting energy telling him to run, maybe his weapons wouldn’t take so long to get back online! Or how about using that energy to bring his vision back to normal, that would be great!!

But neither his instincts nor his system were backing down, and after another moment of a stand-off, Gigan lunged forward once more...

... before he leapt up last minute to avoid a Gravity Beam and kicked Ghidorah in his chest, forcing him down onto his back. He leapt off again before any retaliation could be made, his flight-devices activating to let him fly upwards into the clouds.

He knew Ghidorah will never let him get away, but perhaps he can stay hidden in the disorientating haze long enough to recuperate.

Then round two can begin.

The second the half-life flew off of him was the second Ghidorah knew he was winning. Damn coward always tried to run when things turned bad and expecting him to stick around to finish this to the end was apparently too much to ask. Unfortunately for this pathetic excuse for a kaiju, Ghidorah wasn’t one to let things go so easily.

Righting himself, he glared up towards the retreating cyborg and he shot a Gravity Beam. The half-life glanced back and weaved off to the side to avoid it before disappearing into the clouds. Very well, then. His wings fan open and he takes flight after him.

If the half-life thought he can escape, he was even more stupid than Ghidorah gave him credit for. He will chase him to the very ends of the universe if he had to!

Entering the pink cloud of space dust, he lets out a few more Gravity Beams at the half-life’s silhouette, one of them managing to strike one of those sails and causing him to drop a bit. He was flying slower than usual, Ghidorah noted. Normally, both their top speeds were the same; he knew that from past experience when trying to escape the cyborg’s attention in vain. But here, the half-life was so weak that the dragon was actually starting to catch up to him.

A smirk grew on all three of his mouths, his wings giving one last downstroke and his talons rushed forward.

His prey must’ve felt the rush of air and spun around with a shriek, a claw swiping for him and his buzzsaw going off. Ghidorah pulled up at the last second to avoid getting struck and the half-life veered off to try and lose him in the thickest parts of the cloud.

Did he not realize that Ghidorah didn’t need to see him to know exactly where he is? His tainted life-force was faint, but it was still there for his crests to sense.

The impulse to toy with this creature was strong, but he resisted it. The stakes were too high for such games.

Instead, he dove straight towards the cyborg’s life-signature, claws at the ready and wings folded to reduce his own presence. This time, contact was made as his talons latched onto those sails, and his jaws surged forward to tear the membranes. The half-life gave a surprised cry and Ghidorah’s momentum and weight brought them back down to the ground at reckless speeds. The impact was brutal, and it was satisfying feeling the creature’s body take the brunt of it beneath his feet.

He gave the half-life no time to recover as, still latched onto his opponent’s back, the dragon gave a powerful downstroke of his wings to lift them up... before smashing him back onto the ground under his full weight. He did this again, and again, each time getting another ever-weakening cry from the cyborg. He can see more blood escaping the half-life’s mouth, and felt each labored breath the creature struggled to take. He does this one more time before finally stopping, his victim now completely limp.

Stepping off from the cyborg, he glared down at the half-life. That visor was dim and giving the creature a kick onto his back, there was no response. Unconscious again. His impulse to continue the torture was strong, but once more, he disregarded it. He really should end this here and now while he has the chance; he wasn’t keen on finding out whatever other ‘tricks’ this cyborg had up his sleeve.

His left head lowered to grab the creature’s neck, his right head soon following. If he gathers all his energy, he should be able to blast this creature’s head from his body, ending this whole thing once and for all. But as he starts building the energy in his throat, the half-life suddenly gave a jolt out of nowhere and Ghidorah felt a terrible pain in his middle neck.

He knew immediately what happened.

The half-life was only feigning unconsciousness and in a last desperate bid, has stabbed a claw up into his neck. So deep it was that energy from his Gravity Beam escaped from the wound, causing even more pain and damage to vulnerable flesh. It was too late to bring that energy back into its organ, try as he might.

“I’m so sorry,” he heard this strained whisper from the half-life. He felt the creature’s legs and tail wrap around him to bring their bodies together before more horrific pain coursed through him. The chest-saw has gone off, ripping through his scales and flesh and going down to the bone. In retaliation, his two heads that were fastened to the creature’s neck let loose with every ounce of EVERYTHING the dragon had.

The half-life couldn’t even scream.

The buzzsaw came to a halt and in that same split second, something shot out from the creature’s chest and sliced through the remainder of the middle head’s neck.

An explosion resulted from the two Gravity Beams meeting in the center of the half-life’s neck, causing the hydra to release his hold and stumble back. A huge cloud of dust whipped up around the two combatants, and it took time for it to clear and reveal the results of that exchange.

The half-life’s head has been blasted right off, and the now-two-headed Ghidorah felt his heart lift with elation as he watched the creature stumble forward clumsily. One step, two, before he fell to his knees, then onto his side to the ground. The body twitched, claws raking the ground and metallic silver blood spilling out from the remains of his neck. The buzzsaw went off one more time before slowing to a stop.

The rest of the half-life’s body followed suit and fell still. His life-force was so faint to begin with that Ghidorah couldn’t tell if his crests even rewarded him for the kill.

Didn’t matter. The sheer joy coursing through him, knowing he was finally free, was enough to make up for it, and to mask the pain for a blissful moment, before...

His vision began to darken on the edges and his legs felt weak. He fell to his own knees but despite knowing his fate, he lets out a cackling laugh in his remaining two heads.

The half-life was dead; he’s done it! Even at the cost of his own life, his last few moments spent in freedom was well worth it.

But it wasn’t over yet.

Whatever it was that shot out of the half-life’s chest had boomeranged back; he heard them before he felt them, slicing through the base of one wing where membrane met scales and causing it to sag limp to the ground. Still Ghidorah kept laughing wildly, even as his other wing is almost severed in the same fashion. The pain continued as more of his flesh is sliced into before it finally stops in his chest. Looking down, he saw there were razor disks now embedded in his body. To the bitter end, the creature still had surprises.

But despite all of this, the sight of his disemboweled belly, and the loss of his wings, the maniacal cackling from the dragon persisted, only softening as Ghidorah’s twitching blood-covered body finally collapsed to the ground.

A few more chuckles escaped him before fading into silence. His glassy eyes remained locked on the body of the half-life, both their growing puddles of blood meeting between them.

The pain has numbed, and the feeling of irrational happiness overtook him. He recognized this, and he doesn’t fight it as his muscles relaxed. As his vision went black and his crests gave him that massive dose of blissful euphoria for the final time, familiar words played in his mind.

Your name is Ghidorah. You were created to be the ultimate weapon.

The Universe is a terrifying place. It’s filled with violent races that seek to destroy those who only wish to live in peace. You will be the savior that fights for those innocents, that cleanses the universe of those dark forces.

You will make it safer, for all of us.

Safer. He finally understood now.

Every race that dared to use him for their nefarious deeds, extinct by his own vengeful claws.

The half-life, the most despicable creature he’s ever had the misfortune of knowing, dead.

His own life drawing to a close, Ghidorah can rest in peace knowing that he’s succeeded.

#ghidorah #king ghidorah #gigan #godzilla #gigadorah #The End #super anxious of this but so happy i finished a story for once!#i'mma miss writing this #but prepare for more side-stories of these two!! :D

12 notes · View notes

morningfears · 4 years

Text

Dark Blue

Rating: M | This is smut! No one under 18!

Summary: Calum and your older brother were best friends. Although the pair of you got off on the wrong foot, you spent the summer together and fell for one another somewhere along the way. However, when your brother moved away for college, Calum disappeared, too. But a long drive serves to close the distance between the pair of you. | Vaguely Stranger Things AU (it’s set in Hawkins, reader works at Starcourt, mentions Steve, and Calum’s story is loosely based on Billy’s here). Brother’s best friend, car sex, mechanic!Cal.

Word Count: 11k

The cool October air was a welcome sensation after spending the day locked in stuffy classrooms. It wasn’t quite cold enough for snow, nor was it cold enough for heavy winter gear, but the bite in the air was enough to make you not want to linger for long as you exited Hawkins High School. Instead of crossing the parking lot to join your friends by the baseball field, you paused under the entryway awning. The worn white-washed metal creaked in the wind and sent an unpleasant shiver down your spine as you scanned the parking lot for your older brother, Jason. With your car in the shop and him home for fall break, he’d been tasked with picking you up from school and dropping you off at the mall for work. However, his familiar red Firebird was nowhere to be seen and you briefly wondered if he’d forgotten you.

Your disappointment and annoyance only lingered for a moment because the second you spotted the equally familiar blue Camaro, you knew that that wasn’t the case.

The car that had quickly come to be known around town as belonging to a reckless young man with a penchant for heavy music and driving just a little too fast shined like a beacon in the parking lot. Curious freshmen milled about it, walking just a little slower as they passed to glance at the car and it’s driver, before averting their eyes and whispering amongst themselves. You spotted Jason leaning against the passenger door, Ray-Bans shielding his eyes from the late afternoon sun as he reveled in the crowd watching his every move, but he wasn’t the one to capture your attention.

The owner of the car, dressed in a burgundy button-down with a worn black leather jacket thrown over top, was leaning against the driver’s door. He had a cigarette between his lips, rings adorning his fingers that shined in the light whenever he moved his hand, and he looked like he was holding himself back from snapping at the kids who get a little too close to his car. Calum, your brother’s best friend of nearly a year, loved his car more than anything and you knew that it had to be causing him a great deal of pain to let it sit in the dirt and gravel lot of Hawkins High once more.

The car was only a fixture of the parking lot for a little less than a full school year. Calum and his family had moved to Hawkins in October of his senior year and his car spent more time navigating the backroads of Hawkins than it did sitting in the Hawkins High parking lot. Whenever Calum and your brother both attended school, cars parked in the corner of the lot where they could easily peel out the moment the final bell rang, they gathered the attention of almost every student at Hawkins. But when the pair of them graduated in May, it was as if everyone suddenly forgot about the blue Camaro and its owner.

However, you supposed that was the longevity of the high school attention span.

Following their graduation, Jason had gone on to become a full-fledged college student. The maroon sweatshirt, embroidered with the college’s crest, adorned his body and drew the attention of nearly every girl in town whenever he visited home. His visits were frequent, a little too frequent, and you knew that they were mostly just to relive the days when he was king rather than a lowly pledge in a fraternity he didn’t even want to join but you couldn’t really find it within yourself to complain.

Whenever Jason was home, your parents forget you existed for the weekend and dropped the questions about your grades or your future to focus on their favorite child.

Calum, however, stayed in Hawkins.

His parents were, and still are, upset that he decided to forego a college education to work in a garage but Calum remained steadfast in his decision. He wanted to return to California and getting a job was the quickest way to save money for his trip back. He stood by his choice, defended it as fiercely as he could, and took things in stride when his parents kicked him out. He protested at first, claiming that he could handle it on his own, but by June he was living in the bedroom your older sister once occupied. For the first few weeks, he was under the impression that no one knew he was there, save for Jason, and you all let him. Your parents never said a word but your mother made sure to keep things she knew Calum liked in the pantry and stocked the bathroom with a few bottles of his favorite shampoo and body wash under the guise of wanting him to be comfortable whenever he visited.

Calum lived with you until September. It was only when Jason began to pack up his things to move into his dorm room that Calum managed to find a small place on the outskirts of town. He knew that that would be the only way he could afford to get back to California so he bit the bullet and moved into the small house, not much bigger than the one bedroom it contained. And though you hated to admit it, you missed having him around.

When he first moved in, Calum managed to avoid you like the plague. Part of you believed that he was under the assumption that you’d tell your parents and get him kicked out but after it became clear that he was living in your sister’s old room and you never said a word, he realized that you wouldn’t do that to him. When it became clear that he was living with you and not just crashing for the night or spending a little too much time with your brother, your teasing didn’t stop because you knew that would only alert your parents. Instead, you focused on the grease under his fingernails or staining his cheeks. You focused on the small things, ones that weren’t going to draw any attention to anything out of the ordinary, and that’s how Calum knew that even if the two of you hadn’t gotten off on the right foot, you weren’t going to be malicious.

Over the summer, you got used to Calum’s presence. Most days, the two of you were the only ones home. Your brother spent most of his summer driving around with whatever girl that managed to pique his interest that day while your parents worked longer and longer hours in the summer months. Calum, on the other hand, spent his days working at the garage and his downtime sitting in the window, chain smoking and writing, or lying on the floor listening to a new mixtape.

On the days that he would listen to new mixtapes, you would leave your bedroom door open to hear the music he played. There was a lot of rock, a lot of punk that you weren’t familiar with, but you liked it just the same. And when Calum realized, he began leaving his own door open and turning the music up a little louder so you could hear it better.

It was a slow evolution but by the end of the summer, you were often found sat on your bed, book unopened by your side, as Calum sat in the window and smoked. You rarely spoke to one another, you didn’t need to, but you grew used to spending time with Calum and looked forward to spending your evenings with him.

When he left, Calum left a shoe box full of mixtapes on your bed. Some were the ones that you’d listened to together, others were brand new. The new ones contained all of the songs he knew you loved, the ones that made you light up whenever they played, and each had a special, unheard song at the end with a note that read, ‘You’ll like this one, trust me.’

You knew that things would change when he moved out, the mixtapes should’ve given you a hint that things were never going to be the same, but you hadn’t realized that was Calum’s way of saying goodbye. You realized that you wouldn’t see him much anymore but you hadn’t counted on not seeing him at all. In fact, you hadn’t even seen him when you went with your father to drop off your car at the garage. You knew that he was working, you’d chosen a time that you knew he’d be there just to see his face, but you left with the bitter taste of disappointment in the back of your throat as your father chatted about the weather.

And now, as you took in the sight of him, almost entirely unchanged in the nearly two months since you last saw him, the bitter feeling returned. The churning in your stomach was only made worse by the giggling of two juniors beside you. You watched as the one of them caught sight of the guys and bit your lip to keep from commenting as she pulled a cigarette from her pack and stared at the car.

“Look,” the smoker huffed, nudging her friend to capture her attention, “it’s Calum and Jason.”

The pair of them stared at the car, their eyes wide and mouths open, and it was like watching a train wreck in slow motion as the friend shrugged off her jacket to reveal her low-cut top. “They get hotter every time I see them,” she swooned as she tugged the top down just a little lower, the lace of her bra peeking out. “Think we should go say hi?”

“Duh,” the first girl returned as she copied her friends actions and tugged her top down just a little lower. “Maybe they’ll give us a ride home,” she giggled, winking at her friend to ensure she’d gotten the meaning behind her words.

This time, you did roll your eyes as you watched them bound across the parking lot. The girl with the cigarette approached Calum, twirling her permed hair around her finger as she attempted to strike up a conversation. She tried her hardest, making her intentions so clear that even the most oblivious of individuals could pick up on them, and the storm of emotions raged even louder in the pit of your stomach.

You remained under the awning, gripping the strap of your bag just a little tighter, as you weighed the costs of walking to work. Part of you believed that neither of them would notice, your brother certainly wouldn’t, not with the attention of nearly every girl at Hawkins High on them, and you knew from previous experience that they wouldn’t hesitate to leave you if you took too long. However, the mall is nearly two miles from the school and you hadn’t counted on Calum being the one to pick you up so you’d opted for style over comfort when getting dressed for school.

You knew that there was no way for you to get to work on time without them driving you, nor was there any way for you to get there without destroying your feet and freezing, so you heaved a heavy sigh of defeat and crossed the gravel parking lot. You were uncomfortably aware of the eyes on you as you brushed past the freshmen. Those who remembered your brother associate you with him, they knew why you were climbing into the Camaro, but those who didn’t were already sharing hushed whispers as they watched you cross your arms over your chest and wait for your brother to notice your presence.

You could tell that Calum was wholly uninterested in the girl throwing herself at him, he usually was, and it sent your heart rate skyrocketing when he noticed you first. When his eyes met yours, you felt your breath catch in your throat and your cheeks heat and you cursed yourself for being such a high school girl as you watched him drop his cigarette to the ground and snub out the flame. He glanced at your brother, rolled his eyes at the shameless flirting, and nodded his head for you to get in on his side. He turned away from the girl without so much as acknowledging her and opened the car door for you. When you brushed past her, she blinked, surprised and offended, before she glared daggers at you. Once you were settled in the back seat, you shrugged at her, trying your best to hide the smug smile that you felt like she deserved, and bite back a laugh as she stomped around the car to grab her friend.

Calum climbed into the car, slamming the door behind him and revving the engine to gain your brother’s attention. Jason glanced down, grinned at you in the backseat, before he straightened up and pressed a kiss to the girl’s cheek. He said something to her that got a blush and a giggle before he climbed into the car and sent her a wave.

True to his reputation, Calum peeled out of the parking lot far too quickly. You gripped the seat, your nails digging into the leather in an attempt to keep from sliding around the backseat, as you tried your hardest to keep your face as neutral as possible. When your brother first befriended Calum and you found yourself occupying his backseat more and more, Calum always teased you for not being able to handle riding with him. He teased you for the grimaces and faces of displeasure that you often made whenever he drove and took delight in shocking you with his driving whenever possible. Things had changed since the last time you were in his backseat, though, and you had a feeling that he wouldn’t bother commenting on whatever expression you managed to pull. However, you didn’t want to give him any reason to speak to you when he so clearly didn’t want to so you managed your facial expressions as carefully as you could.

Though you’d had nearly two months to contemplate his reasonings, you still weren’t sure why Calum cut contact with you. There was no possible motive that you could think of to explain what made him decide to pretend that you didn’t exist. You left one another on good terms, or so you thought, and you’d spent the summer under the impression that the two of you were at least acquaintances, if not friends. You ended the summer on a high note, far from the bickering duo you’d been upon his arrival in Hawkins, and you hoped that the camaraderie would continue as you enjoyed your time with him. However, as you sat in the backseat, the atmosphere was so tense that you could feel it suffocating you and you regretted choosing not to walk.

Jason, if he noticed the atmosphere, didn’t mention it. Instead, he turned in his seat and grinned at you. “Hawkins High never changes,” he told you, “it never gets old.”

He’d taken to both reminiscing on his high school days, fondly remembering the good times he had roaming the halls of Hawkins High, as well as sharing his newfound college wisdom with you every chance he got and it made you roll your eyes as he began to list the differences he’d found in college. Calum, too, looked tired of hearing all about university life and made a face at you in the rearview mirror as Jason mentioned the fraternity house for what had to be the millionth time. Despite yourself, you giggled at Calum’s reaction and it pulled a small, barely there smile from him before he returned his full attention to the road.

You stared at Calum in the rearview mirror for a long moment, carefully taking in the dark circles beneath his eyes and the curls of his hair, before Jason’s voice cut through the fog of Calum clouding your brain. “I’m serious,” Jason said, recapturing your attention as Calum turned onto the backroad that lead to the mall, “you’re gonna love college, kid. But enjoy your last year here. These are the best years of your life.”

Calum head you mumble ‘bullshit’ under your breath and smiled despite himself. He knew just how much you had always hated high school, many of the late night conversations the two of you shared were spent bitching about work or school, and he knew how much worse it had been for you as Jason’s little sister. You’d dealt with people only wanting to befriend you to get to Jason, you’d dealt with teacher’s having preconceived notions of you because of Jason, and you’d worked your ass off your entire life to live up to the pedestal your parents have put him on, despite his obvious shortcomings.

When Calum met you, he knew that despite the two of you being siblings, there couldn’t be two more different people. You were kind, studious and steadfast in your adherence to rules, while Jason was never afraid to cut class or sneak a cigarette behind the gym. Jason partook in petty pranks like knocking the books out of a student’s hands or throwing wads of paper at his friends while you were the one to help pick up textbooks and sweep classrooms.

Calum took to teasing you almost immediately and your perfect reputation was, in the beginning, the reason why. He wanted to see if he could get a rise out of Hawkins’ golden girl. He wanted to see if he could get you to crack, get you to swear or throw something at him or just display a purely negative emotion, but as the year wore on, that grew old. He no longer wanted to see you angry. Instead, Calum continued his teasing purely for fun. He realized, early on, that you enjoyed trading jabs back and forth. He realized that you enjoyed the mental sparring and kept it up as long as you seemed interested. Even during the summer, when you barely spoke to one another, you traded jabs as if nothing had changed and it made him realize that the two of you weren’t so different.

Despite the initial tension between the two of you, you always cared for Calum just the way that Jason did. You brought him blankets whenever he crashed at your place after a party and distracted your parents long enough for him to sneak out on mornings that the boys overslept. Before he graduated, you spent two weeks helping him study for his chemistry final just to make sure that he passed and would be able to walk with Jason. You’d spent hours making flashcards with the excuse that you could always use them for yourself when you took the class and spent even more hours in his car, hidden from the outside world as you quizzed him.

When he moved in with you, you kept up the care and made sure that he had whatever he needed. You managed to sneak his clothes into the laundry room (although your mother caught on fairly quickly) and took the blame for the open window in Sarah’s room any time your parents asked. You let him borrow your key on nights he would be working late or stayed up far later than you usually would just to let him in the house. Though the two of you spent your nights talking about anything and everything, about your hopes for the future and dreams that would never pan out, you kept your expectations vague. Neither of you ever voiced your thoughts about your newfound relationship aloud and Calum appreciated it all.

However, as the summer wore on, Calum began to see the impact that your spending time together was having on you. He began to see the stamp that he was leaving on you and it made him worry that everyone else would be able to see it, too.

The change in your music taste wasn’t so bad. Several of your friends were into rock music, they liked the guys in tight jeans and half-buttoned shirts, so he knew that the change would’ve come around eventually, naturally. Plus, your brother listened to The Clash and The Ramones before the two of them met. You were bound to be exposed to it someday. However, when you traded in your pink skirts for a pair of acid wash jeans and came home wearing a pair of black Chuck Taylors that you’d bought with one of your paychecks, he began to worry about the influence he was having on you.

But it was only when you asked if you could have a cigarette and spent the night sitting on the roof with him, smoking to the soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac, that he realized just how deep you both were.

You both had carved out a routine, clinging to one another without realizing it, and it scared him. He didn’t want to be the reason that you skipped school or started smoking. He didn’t want to be the reason that you changed your wardrobe from pastels to deep, dark colors or rebelled against your parents. He didn’t want to be the reason that Hawkins’ golden girl became tarnished.

To keep that from happening, Calum did what he had always done best and ran.

He decided that you would be better off without him and his influence. He reasoned that keeping his distance would be beneficial to you both and it had been easier than he imagined it would be now that he had a place of his own and a full-time job at the garage. With you stuck in school during the day and working at night, he was usually able to avoid you even when he did go into town for groceries or a bite to eat at the diner. That wasn’t to say, however, that there hadn’t been a few close calls. The most recent of which, you dropping off your car at the garage with your father, left him ducking into a storage closet and pretending to do inventory until you left. His co-workers found the entire situation absolutely hilarious, Calum Hood hiding from a spoiled princess, but he’d decided he could take the teasing so long as it kept him away from you.

Unfortunately, this was one encounter that he couldn’t avoid. He’d already agreed to spending his day off with your brother, had agreed to going into town and getting a milkshake at the diner or driving the backroads to listen to the newest mixtape he’d made, so he couldn’t pretend to be busy when your brother mentioned needing to swing by the school to pick you up. It meant that he would have to face you for the first time in over a month, it meant that he would be locked inside the car with you until he could get you to the mall, but he decided that he’d have to face you eventually so he might as well get it over with.

It also didn’t hurt that your brother never knew about the time the two of you spent together leading Calum to believe that you’d be far less likely to give him the explosive reaction he once wanted so badly from you in Jason’s company.

The plan that the two of them concocted was simple. They would drop you off at the mall for work and go grab a bite to eat before spending the afternoon driving the backroads that they now know better than the actual roads of Hawkins. Calum imagined that you would be upset with him, imagined that you would at least give him a glare or a half-assed puppy dog pout that he knew worked on every other man in your life, but he was surprised to find that you barely looked at him. One of his co-workers told him that you’d asked about him, casually dropping his name to your father and pretending that you didn’t care when one of the others told you both that Calum had stepped out, while another told him that it was obvious how disappointed you were. Hearing that sent a pang of guilt straight to Calum’s heart and he felt it, burning hot and bright in his chest, as you pointedly avoided looking at him.

He hated doing this to you, hated being that guy even though he swore he’d never lead anyone on, but the moment he realized that you both felt the same things for one another, he felt the need to distance himself. He wasn’t quite sure if you realized it yourself, he knew that you definitely hadn’t caught on to his feelings for you, and he thought that he preferred it that way. Things were easy when you were just friends, teasing one another for the hell of it and sharing conversations without any expectations, but the moment feelings got involved, he knew that it was going to be hell.

He knew that he planned to leave Hawkins the minute he had enough money to return to California. He knew that you planned on moving to New York for college in less than a year. He knew that your days would be numbered before you even began them and that you’d only be setting yourselves up for heartbreak if you were to give a relationship a shot. He also knew that the attention he got, from girls your age and from the women in town with nothing better to do than search for a Madonna-inspired boy toy, bothered you and he would never want you to feel insecure in your relationship.

The last thing Calum wanted was to break your heart and that’s what he imagined would happen if the two of you ended up dating. He also knew that dating him came with a certain stigma that you absolutely did not deserve.

As he was so often reminded, you were the golden girl of Hawkins. Mothers encouraged their daughters to be more like you, fathers encouraged their sons to try and date you. Teachers, despite their preconceived notions connecting you to your brother, learned to love you and any place you’d worked had experienced a boom in business. Calum knew that the golden girl dating a mechanic, one who opted out of college and had a reputation for liking fast cars and even faster women, wouldn’t go over well. Though he was sure your parents wouldn’t have a problem with it, he knew that everyone else in Hawkins would have something to say so he told himself that this was for the best. He told himself that you were better off without him and that you would forget about him soon enough.

He only hoped the same was true for himself.

“Calum, you missed the turn!”

Your voice, tone obviously annoyed and a little harsher than he was sure you intended, brought him back to reality. He blinked, breaking out of the cloud of regret and the consideration of what-if’s he’d been overthinking since he moved out, and swore as he stepped on the breaks. You yelped, surprised by the suddenness of his stopping, and cried out in pain as your shoulder slammed into the back of Jason’s seat. Jason laughed as you groaned in pain, gripping the door handle to keep yourself in place as Calum made what was possibly the most illegal u-turn you’d ever witnessed, and you had to resist the urge to smack him. Calum at least had the decency to look sheepish as you leveled a glare at him through the rearview mirror and he managed to mumble an apology as he took the correct turn and pulled into the parking lot.

He pulled into an open spot close to the front door and stared up at the mall, looming bright and shiny and new in front of him, as Jason climbed out of the car to let you out. He didn’t want to look at you, didn’t want to risk feeling even guiltier than before, but he couldn’t help himself as he caught a glimpse of your waist, skin exposed by your shirt riding up. He thought back to the summer, back to the night you shrugged off your t-shirt and shorts and jumped into the pool without a second thought, and the pang of regret was stronger than any he’d felt in a long time.

He didn’t want to let his life be ruled by fear, nor did he want you to become the one who got away, but he knew that you deserved better. You deserved someone who was going somewhere in life, someone who would make something of themselves. He had no business fucking up your future, not when he’d already fucked up his, so he kept his eyes on the elaborate exterior of the Starcourt Mall entrance as he listened to you and Jason speak.

You adjusted your clothing as you climbed out of the car, moving quickly to avoid the air nipping at any accidentally exposed skin, and wrapped your coat a little tighter around your body. “Are you going to pick me up after work?” you asked Jason as you shifted your weight from one foot to the other, almost afraid of his answer.

“Yeah,” he nodded, laughing slightly as he watched you rub your sore shoulder. “I’m on chauffeur duty the entire time I’m home,” he informed you before he asked, “You get off at eight, right?” When you confirmed his assumption, Jason nodded once more and reached out to ruffle your hair. “I’ll see you at eight, then,” he hummed, a little too happily for your sour mood. “Have a good shift, kid!”

Jason gripped your shoulders and turned you to face the mall entrance before he nudged your back and sent you walking forward. You rolled your eyes at his impatience as you heard the car door shut and the music dramatically increase in volume. You glanced over your shoulder at the pair of them as Calum peeled out of the parking lot once more, tires squealing as he narrowly avoided hitting another car. You watched, unable to tear your eyes away, until his car disappeared around a bend in the road. You heaved a quiet sigh once you were certain they were gone and made your way into the mall.

You took your time, wandering through the newly built megastructure with a weak sense of intrigue, as you still had fifteen minutes until you officially clocked in. Your eyes lingered on the window displays of certain shops, dresses and skirts catching your eye and calling your name, as you attempted to rid your head of any thoughts about Calum. You wanted to forget that you’d seen him, wanted to forget that he still made your heart beat a little too fast and a swarm of butterflies erupt in the pit of your stomach, but all of your efforts were for naught as he was still the most prominent thought on your mind as you enter the small retail shop that was owned by the same couple who own the ice cream parlor you’d worked for over the summer.

Your co-worker, a homeschooled girl who meant well but really had very little experience socializing, bombarded you with questions the moment you entered the shop. You were never late, always there by three-thirty on the dot to spend the extra thirty minutes doing homework before you officially clocked in, so the ten minutes you lost to Calum’s missed turn and your own reluctance to get into the car were more than enough cause for Emily to panic. The first question out of her mouth was, “Is everything alright?” and her tone almost suggested that she was hoping it wasn’t just so she could be entertained.

You fought the urge to roll your eyes as you stashed your bag beneath the counter and grabbed your name tag. “It’s fine,” you assured her as you went ahead and clocked in, despite being a bit early for your shift. She trailed after you as you stepped around the counter and began searching for tasks to keep you busy. As you began folding sweaters and straightening displays, you continued, “My brother and his friend dropped me off. He missed a turn and it took a few extra minutes. No big deal.”

“Friend?” Emily asked, voice clearly displaying her intrigue as she followed your lead and grabbed a sweater of her own to fold. “Do you mean a certain friend named Calum?”

This time you did roll your eyes. You bit your tongue, regretting ever having mentioned Calum to her in the first place, and debated not answering. However, you knew Emily well enough by now to know that she was like a dog with a bone, she wouldn’t give up until you satisfied her curiosity. So, you nodded. “Yeah,” you sighed as you reached for another sweater, “Calum. Again, it wasn’t a big deal.”

Emily snorted a laugh, disbelief evident as she straightened a display of winter gear. “It’s a very big deal,” she insisted as she watched you fold yet another sweater. She moved closer to you, practically stood on top of you, and reminded you, “This is the first time you’ve seen him since he moved out and gave you those super sweet mixtapes.”

You really regretted sharing the detail about the mixtapes as you dropped the sweater you’d picked up and turned to face her. She jumped, startled by your sudden closeness, and took a step back. She smiled at you, unassuming and sweet, and the desire to roll your eyes had never been greater. You managed to keep yourself from making any unnecessary facial expressions or snapping at her as you turned back to the display in front of you. Although you wanted to agree with her, although you would have liked to believe that seeing Calum for the first time in nearly two months was a big deal, you didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. So, you offered a half-hearted shrug as you asserted, “It really wasn’t a big deal. It was just a ride. And it’s not like we owe it to one another to hang out. We’ve both been busy and now that Jason’s gone, there really isn’t much of a reason for us to hang out.”

You kept telling yourself that, kept telling yourself that Jason was the only reason you and Calum ever got so close, but you knew that that wasn’t true. There was something there, something real between the two of you that was simmering beneath the surface all summer, but whatever it was, you were certain that it was the reason Calum no longer wanted anything to do with you.

Maybe he’d come to his senses, realized he could do better than some high schooler who went to bed at ten o’clock and followed every rule to the letter. Maybe he’d realized that you were far too different, too boring or prudish, for a future together. Maybe his feelings were never real but a product of your proximity to one another, completely forgotten now that he no longer shared the same roof as you.

Regardless of the reason, it still hurt and dwelling on the subject only made the acrid bitterness in the back of your throat even stronger. So, before Emily could respond, you changed the subject and asked, “Has it been busy today?”

Business was steady throughout your shift. The holiday crowds had yet to assemble and your patrons were mostly high school students looking to kill time but there was enough for you to do that you didn’t spend the entire shift searching for busy work. You successfully managed to avoid Emily’s questions, dodging her inquiries with the decision to help a customer or grab a box from the storeroom, and by the time the clock struck eight, she’d forgotten all about your encounter with Calum.

As she was the first to arrive, she left before you did. It was your job to close out the register and ensure that everything was locked before you left for the night. You painstakingly ran through your list of chores, making sure that each one was completed and checked off, before you locked the shop and ventured through the empty mall. You exited through a side door, an employee entrance that remained open until the security guard managed to make his rounds and ensure that each of the shops was closed, and you ventured around the side of the mall to the parking lot that you figured your brother would be waiting in.

Again, there was no sign of the red Firebird but the blue Camaro was parked directly under a streetlight. Calum leaned against the hood, boot clad feet crossed and arms folded over his chest, as he stared at the entrance you’d gone into hours earlier. You figured that Jason had found a date for the evening and convinced Calum to pick you up. You weren’t sure how much it took to bribe him into doing this but you were certain that Jason was going to owe him for a lifetime as you crossed the parking lot to reach Calum’s car.

He didn’t notice you at first, not until you settles against the hood beside him, and he jumped in surprise when you greeted him. “Jason busy?” you asked, not bothering to wait for his greeting in return.

“He found a date,” Calum confirmed, rolling his eyes as he did so. He’d always found Jason’s womanizing to be a bit distasteful. There was nothing wrong with having fun and enjoying yourself, however, your brother sometimes took it to a new extreme and it never sat quite right with him. Ultimately, though, Calum knew that he was in no position to criticize someone’s life choices so he never said anything. The only person he’d ever mentioned the distaste to was you and that was only because you mentioned it first.

“Sorry you’re stuck with chauffeur duty,” you sighed as you met his eyes for the second time that day. “Do you know anything about my car? We dropped it off last week.”

“Should be done by the end of this week,” he assured you as he lit himself a cigarette and took a drag. “Mike’s working on it.”

“That’s good,” you hummed, anything to keep the tense silence from enveloping you both, “I’m tired of bumming rides and relying on my idiot brother.”

Calum smiled at this, the first genuine smile you’d seen from him since his departure, and shook his head. “Come on,” he breathed, smoke swirling into the air as he gestured for you to get into the car, “it’s cold.”

It wasn’t that cold, not really, but you imagined that he was trying his best to keep the time spent together to a minimum. So, instead of arguing with him, you climbed into the passenger seat and pressed yourself to the door to keep from sitting too close. If Calum noticed (he did), he didn’t say anything. Instead, he turned the radio down enough to hear the music while retaining the possibility to speak to one another. Neither of you said anything as he pulled out of the parking lot but you noticed that he was driving much slower than you’d ever seen him go. Part of you determined that you shouldn’t ask about it, that whatever his reasons, you didn’t want to know. The bigger part, though, the less rational part that always seemed to win out, told you that you should ask him.

Calum had never been a careful driver, had never even bothered to turn down his radio, and the sudden switch in behavior threw you off.

Instead of outright asking him what he was doing, you asked, “Are you alright?” When he raised his eyebrows in confusion at your question, you shrugged. “You’re going slow, is all. You never drive slow.”

Calum didn’t answer right away. Instead, he kept his eyes on the road ahead of him and did his best to ignore the speedometer and your presence. He hadn’t realized it, it wasn’t his intention, but with you alone in the front seat of his car, he subconsciously lowered his speed. He also hadn’t realized that he’d turned down the music to be able to speak with you even though he had realized he chose your favorite mixtape to listen to.

As Fleetwood Mac filled the car and you stared at him expectantly, Calum nodded. “It’s cold,” he answered and had it actually been cold, you would’ve bought it. He’d skidded on a patch of black ice his first winter in Hawkins and Jason told your parents that the only time he’d ever been cautious was around winter roads. However, it was nowhere near cold enough for the roads to ice and you wanted to point that out but you weren’t sure how well it would go over.

The two of you lapsed into an uncomfortable silence, Calum tapping his fingers against the steering wheel to the beat of the song and you staring out into the night. Something had changed in the air between the two of you. It was no longer as easy as it was over the summer. Instead, your words were clipped and sentences short. Your interactions were those of strangers and it hurt your heart.

You considered the fact that you’d already lost Calum as a friend, considered the fact that he no longer seemed to want anything to do with you, and you decided that nothing worse could come of asking him for closure. Though you didn’t really want to know why he was so distant now, you felt that you deserve an answer. So, you rephrased your question and asked, “Is everything alright with us?”

Calum figured this was coming. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to avoid you for much longer without you seeking an answer, that was just the kind of person that you’d always been, and he’d readily agreed to pick you up when your brother asked just so you could get the conversation over with. He still wasn’t sure what he was going to say to you, he still wasn’t sure exactly what he wanted from you, but he shrugged as an answer knowing that you wouldn’t like that at all.

You tried to keep your voice steady as you shifted in your seat to face him and huffed his name. “We spent the entire summer together,” you reminded him, your voice quieter than you wanted it to be. “We had something,” you sighed, “or, at least, I thought we did. And now it’s like we’re strangers again. You left me those mixtapes and I thought that meant something.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t read into things,” Calum shrugged, struggling to keep his tone neutral as he kept his eyes on the road. “We just spent time together because we were bored. We don’t actually have anything in common that keeps us together.”

“That’s bullshit!” you exclaimed with a frown. “You said it yourself, we’re more alike than we are dissimilar. We go well together, Cal. We worked.”

“We might’ve worked for the summer but that was all it was ever going to be,” he stated as he slowed to a stop at the first stop sign leading toward your home. “I’m sorry that wasn’t clear.”

You were silent for a moment, weighing your options, before you demanded, “Stop the car.”

Calum glanced over at you, eyebrows furrowed and frown prominent on his lips, as he shook his head. “You’re not walking. We’re almost there.”

“Who said anything about walking?” you asked as you crossed your arms over your chest. “We need to talk. Stop the car.” Calum rolled his eyes, used to your dramatics, but did as you requested and pulls the car off onto a dusty side road that barely saw any traffic. He put the car in park and turned to face you as he waited for you to continue speaking. “Tell me that this summer was bullshit, tell me that it meant nothing and that you never meant for it to be more than some flirty friendship and I’ll drop it. I’ll believe you and let it go. But look me in the eye while you do it.”

Calum cursed under his breath and that’s how you knew that you’d gotten him. He’d never been able to lie directly to you, not about his feelings, and he confessed that once after he had too much to drink at a party. He’d told you that he’d spill the secrets of the universe to you so long as you looked at him with those eyes and you’d never used it against him. However, you felt that the situation called for it.

So you waited, arms folded over your chest and eyebrows raised, for Calum to speak. You waited for him to tell you that it was bullshit, that he didn’t feel anything for you, but the words never came. When you relaxed your posture, softened your stance and lowered your brows, Calum shook his head to stop you from pleading with him. “You deserve better than me,” he told you, finally answering the question of why he’d been avoiding you. “You deserve the world and I can’t give it to you. You deserve someone who knows what they’re doing with their life, not some loser who has half a plan and a pipe dream. You’ve got a big future. You’re going to change the world someday and I don’t want to hold you back.”

You were surprised to hear Calum be so negative about himself. While he wasn’t the definition of positivity, he had never been outright self-deprecating. So to hear him think that he wasn’t worthy of you or your affection broke your heart. It hurt to know that the reason he’d pushed you away was because he’d built you up onto a pedestal in his mind, one that you most certainly were not worthy of, and you were at a loss for how to respond.

You knew that you needed to say something, knew that you needed to tell him just how wrong you thought he was, so you spoke from your heart. You didn’t weigh your words carefully, you didn’t hesitate in rambling. You simply began speaking and hoped that it would be enough.

“You wouldn’t hold me back, Cal,” you assured him, your voice stronger than he’d ever heard it. “You are the one person who has always believed in me. No one has ever said that, no one has ever told me that I’d change the world, and you sound so sure of yourself that it makes me want to believe it, too. You don’t push me to be anything other than myself. You don’t measure me in comparison to my brother. You allow me to be me and I enjoy being myself around you. I’m comfortable with you. You make me happy and that’s the only thing that should matter.”

Though Calum’s heart was soaring at your words, he knew that he had to be at least somewhat realistic. He knew that he had to be the one to ground the conversation in reality so he refuted your claim. “But it isn’t,” he sighed, smiling sadly at you. “Happiness isn’t the only thing that matters. And our futures are going to be very different. You’re moving to New York, I’m going to California. We’ll be split up in a few months, anyway, and then we won’t even have our happiness.”

“I’m actually not,” you informed him quietly, dropping your head to stare at your fingernails. “I’ve been looking at schools and the one in New York doesn’t really offer what I want,” you shrugged, not daring to look up at him. “So, I started looking in California.”

“No,” Calum refused immediately, shaking his head vehemently. “You can’t base that decision on me. Your parents, your brother, everyone in town knows that New York is your dream. You can’t change your mind for me.”

“I didn’t,” you assured him quickly. “New York was my dream but that changed before I even met you. I’ve just felt like I needed a plan for so long that I never told anyone I wasn’t sure. Everyone expected me to have everything together, to have a decision that was set in stone, so I pretended like I did. But I’ve been looking at schools around the country since before we met. I looked at a few in the south, a few here in the state, but there’s one in California that’s seemed like the best option for a while now. It’s got everything I want.”

To say that he was surprised would be an understatement. Despite spending the summer together, you never once mentioned your desire to go elsewhere. You never once mentioned you potential move to California. However, as he thought back, Calum realized that you paid far more attention than seemed normal whenever he talked about California. You asked more questions than anyone else and seemed to truly take his words to heart. And now that you’d taken away his strongest argument, Calum could see the future that he hadn’t dared dream about materialize before his very eyes.

He could see you lying on a beach, sunglasses covering your eyes and a book open on your chest, as the two of you spent your afternoons together. He could see the two of you living together, him working in a garage and you going to class and working weekends at a cafe to pay the rent. He could see long nights, listening to the ocean and watching the tide roll in. He could see warm summers and mild winters, far away from the ice and snow of Hawkins.

He could see love and that terrified him.

When he didn’t respond, you continued speaking. “If you really don’t feel anything for me, that’s fine,” you assured him, your voice going quiet once more, “but I know what I want, Calum. I want you and I really don’t care what those nosy ladies in town have to say about it. You make me happy and even though that might not be all that matters in the future, it’s enough for a beginning, isn’t it?”

Calum hated it when you turned your optimism into reason because he really couldn’t argue with something that sounded so sweet. He couldn’t argue with your hope, with your desire to be happy together, so he didn’t even try. Instead, he leaned across the dash and pressed his lips to yours. His hand cupped your cheek, warm against your cool skin, and he smiled against your lips when you leaned into his touch. His kiss was feather light, a barely there pressure meant to convey his feelings for you, and it sent your heart soaring as your eyes fluttered shut. Calum took that as a positive sign and shifted in his seat to deepen the kiss.

The angle at which you were both sitting was uncomfortable. The gear shift was digging into Calum’s stomach, the hand pressed against your seat hurt from holding up his weight and he was contorted into an unusual sitting position that strained his back, however, he wouldn’t trade the moment for anything in the world. The feeling of his lips on yours, the feeling of your fingers carding through his hair and your eyelashes fluttering against his cheek whenever he nipped at your bottom lip, was enough to keep him from complaining. He’d endure the discomfort forever if necessary, just so long as he could keep kissing you.

You were sure that the windows had fogged and that the mixtape was going to end soon but that thought didn’t deter either of you. What felt like hours passed in a haze, you and Calum locked in a searing kiss that set your soul on fire, and the moments that you pulled away to breathe were punctuated with lips pressed against your neck or the exposed skin of your collarbone. Kissing Calum was unlike anything you’d ever experienced and you never waned to leave the moment.

Calum was the first to pull away, his lips swollen and cherry red. You wanted nothing more than to cross the gap he’d created and return your lips to his, however, he breathed a quiet sigh of contentment and glanced at his watch. “It’s getting late,” he reminded you, his voice quiet in the silence of the car, “I should get you home.”

“Or you could get me in the backseat,” you offered with a slight shrug of your shoulders. You knew that your parents wouldn’t be home and even if they were, they wouldn’t notice your absence or would chalk it up to you staying over at a friend’s to study or getting dinner with Emily. They wouldn’t be concerned and they certainly wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that you’re in Calum’s backseat.

Calum seemed to have the same thought that you do, his realization just coming a little slower. However, when he decided that you were right, that your parents wouldn’t notice and that you wouldn’t get in trouble, he contemplated your offer. “We don’t have to,” he assured you, reaching out to brush the apples of your cheeks with his thumbs. “I’m not just trying to get in your pants.”

“I know that,” you reassured him, “if I thought that you were, I’d have made you take me home by now. I want to do this, Calum. I want you.”

He swallowed at your words, heart thundering in his chest as he felt his body begin to overheat. He contemplated for a moment, considered it, before he shrugged off his jacket and nodded. “Get in the back,” he breathed, biting his lip as he watched you shrug off your own jacket before you crawled over the console to settle onto the backseat. He stared at you for a moment, admiring your kiss swollen lips and the content smile that quirked them, before he followed your lead and climbed into the back to join you.

As he settled over you, his body pressed close to yours in the tight confines of his backseat, Calum couldn’t believe he was in this position. He’d thought about it so many times, thought about you beneath him and moaning his name, and it was hard to believe that it was finally happening. You didn’t give him long to dwell, though, as you reached up and tangled your fingers in his hair. He gave in to you easily, allowed you to pull him in for another searing kiss, as his own hands slipped beneath the hem of your top. He’d always loved seeing you in blue, always thought it suited you the most, and he didn’t hesitate to tell you so as his hands brushed your sides.

“You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, his voice reverential as he stared down at you. The awe was clear on his face, his eyes alight with such an intense happiness that it made you want to look away. Instead of responding, you pulled him back in for another kiss as your hands moved from his hair to the buttons of his shirt.

Calum allowed you to unbutton the buttons and tug at the material for a moment, indicating your desire to take it off, before he pulled away and shrugged his arms out of the top. As he did so, you leaned up as best as you could and pulled your own top over your head. He watched, swallowing thickly, as you pulled your own top over your head and tossed it into the front seat. Both of you stared, unashamed. You took in the smooth expanse of Calum’s chest, the tan skin and the few tattoos he kept hidden beneath his clothes, as his eyes roamed your exposed stomach and chest. He could tell that you hadn’t meant for this to happen, the bra you were wearing was one that he recognized as the least fashionable in your wardrobe, but he found it endearing. He liked that he got to see you as you were rather than as a caricature of yourself. But before he could repeat himself, he heard you whisper, “You’re so beautiful, Calum.”

He could tell by the way that you were looking at him that you meant every word. He could tell that you found him just as beautiful as he found you and he felt like his heart was going to burst from happiness as you reached out and brushed your fingers across his heated skin. He allowed you time to explore, gave you the freedom you needed to enjoy the moment, and watched the steady rise and fall of your chest as you traced your name against his skin. When your fingers returned to his hair, tugging lightly at the curls, he returned his lips to yours. His own hands found your chest with your guidance, his hands cupping your breasts through your bra and gently squeezing. His touch was lighter than you imagined it would be, more careful, and it made you happy to know just how much he really cared.

Calum took his time to explore your body, his hands leaving a trail of fire in their wake as he slipped them beneath your body to unclasp your bra. His lips remained on your skin, pressed against your neck or trailing over your chest, as your hands raked down the expanse of his stomach to unbuckle his belt. As his lips lavished attention on your breasts, pebbling each nipple and grinning when you shivered as he blew cool air on them, his hands worked to unbutton your jeans. His plan of slipping a hand into your pants didn’t quite work the way he imagined it would and he frowned at the tight jeans he thought he loved.

“You couldn’t have worn a skirt today?” he questioned, his tone teasing as he helped you shift to tug off your jeans.

“Didn’t know I’d be in this situation or I would’ve worn something else entirely,” you laughed, voice breathless as you press a hand to his chest to stop him from slotting back between your legs. “Yours, too,” you informed him, nodding toward his jeans. When he grinned at you, you rolled your eyes and watch as he shimmied out of them as best as he could.

“This isn’t what I imagined for our first time,” he informed you as he parted your thighs and brushed his fingers across the waistband of your panties. “I imagined it would be nicer, with candles or something,” he continued as you waited, holding your breath, for him to touch you. He decided to have mercy on you, to save the teasing for later, and nudged the fabric to the side. His fingers brushed your folds, delicate and careful as they gathered your arousal, and he bit back a groan at the feeling. You were so wet, just for him, and he was eager to please you. He wanted to make you cum, wanted to make you see stars and cry out his name, so he didn’t tease for long.

He brushed your clit, his thumb barely nudging the sensitive nub, and he breathed out at your reaction. You were so sensitive for him that he didn’t know how long this was going to last. However, he liked to imagine that you’d be more than willing to go for another round so long as he made the first worthwhile.

He knew that you weren’t a virgin, knew that you lost it to that dickhead Harrington somewhere around your seventeenth birthday, but he also knew that that was the only sexual experience you’d had. Calum was careful to move slowly and deliberately as he slipped a finger into your entrance. He didn’t want to hurt you, didn’t want to give you any reason to change your mind about him, so he watched your face closely for any signs of discomfort. Your eyes fluttered shut and your mouth dropped open in a quiet sigh as he slowly worked you open, a second finger joining the first as he began to rub your clit with his thumb. As you writhed beneath him, focusing solely on the feeling of his fingers inside of you, Calum reached for a condom that he kept in the console.

You were so tight around his fingers, clenching around him every time he hits that certain spot, and he knew that neither of you would last long. So when you grabbed his hand to still it, he took that to mean that you wanted to cum with him inside of you.

You watched in wide-eyed anticipation as Calum rolled the condom onto his length and returned to his position between your thighs. He brushed the tip along your folds, gathering your wetness onto the latex, before he glanced at your face once more. “Are you sure about this?” he asked, the tip of his cock aligned with your entrance. “We can still stop,” he assured you.

In reply, you wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him down, your lips brushing his as you whispered, “I’m so sure.” Calum nodded, his eyes focused on yours as he sank into you.

You were tighter than he imagined you’d be, snug and warm around his cock. As he fully seated himself inside you, Calum had to pause to take a deep breath and collect himself. He already felt as if he were on the verge of cumming, already felt spent, and he laughed as he told you, “You feel so good, baby.”

“You feel good, too,” you assured him, your voice breathless and sounding just as fucked as he felt. You’d imagined this before, imagined him taking you in the backseat of his car and giving you the mind-blowing orgasm you’d always dreamt of, and the reality of the situation seemed to be better than anything you could’ve ever dreamt.

Calum remained still for a moment before he asked, “Can I move?” When you nodded, he gave an experimental thrust, both of you moaning at the sensation, before he set his pace. You weren’t sure if it was just because it was Calum and you’d been anticipating this moment for nearly a year or if he genuinely knew what he was doing, but Calum’s pace was perfect. He didn’t set a blistering pace that had you clinging to the seat and waiting for it to be over, nor did he drag out the process so long that you got bored. Instead, he alternated the two and kept you on your toes. He kept you guessing, kept you waiting for the next movement, and it thrilled you as he drove you closer and closer to the edge.

He could feel you clenching around him, could feel you getting tighter and tighter with each thrust, and it pushed him harder as he desperately wanted to make you feel good. He wanted to push you over the edge, wanted to make you see stars and need a moment to catch your breath, and that’s exactly what he did as his thumb found your clit once more. He brushed the sensitive nub, rubbing tight circles in an effort to bring you over the edge, and when you came with a cry of his name, he swore he’d never felt more accomplished.

Your orgasm triggered his own as you clenched around him like a vice and Calum buried his face in the crook of your neck as he stilled inside of you.

The pair of you remained like that for a moment, each of you attempting to catch your breath, before Calum pulled out and shook his head. “Fuck,” he breathed, head still swimming as he helped you gather your clothes and tug them back on haphazardly. He seemed to be at a loss for words and could only repeat, “Fuck,” as he dressed himself.

You laughed at that, laughed at how flustered he seemed, and pulled him into another quick kiss before you sat up and smiled at him. “Yeah,” you nodded, a bright grin on your lips and the marks on your neck on proud display, “fuck.”

“Language,” Calum teased, although he liked hearing dirty words leave such a pretty mouth. “Wouldn’t want anyone to think I’ve corrupted you.”

“We’re well past that,” you returned, just as playfully, as you reached out for his hand. “You’re a bad influence, Calum Hood. Smoking, drinking, driving too fast, and listening to all that heavy metal,” you hummed, your voice carrying a playful lilt that Calum loved to hear, “but I think I can be just as bad an influence as you if I want to.”

“Yeah?” he asked, eyebrow raised, “How is that?”

“Well, I just convinced you to fuck me in the backseat of your car,” you hummed, reaching out to brush your fingers across his chest, “but the night is still young. I’m sure I can be an even worse influence if you take me to your place.”

Calum stared at you, a smirk on his lips and a laugh of disbelief leaving him. Gone was the golden girl and in her place was a goddess, capable of destroying his life and putting the pieces back together even stronger than they were before. He knew that there was still a conversation to be had because his fears still lingered in the back of his mind. However, Calum was convinced that you were on to something. The happiness that he’d experienced with you, the pure joy that he felt whenever you spent time together and the love that he knew you both hold for one another, was enough for now. The future had yet to be determined. It loomed in the distance, scary and uncertain, but Calum believed that he could do just about anything just so long as you were by his side.

_________________________________________________________

Author’s Note: I want to do an actual, actual Stranger Things AU. Like, I would love to take this and either keep going with it (reader teaming up with Steve and Robin to fight the Russians and Cal getting jealous because she and Harrington were a thing once?). Also, I love muscle cars. And this is set in the 80s, in case anyone was wondering/hasn’t seen Stranger Things. Again, you may have seen this but I wrote it and posted it elsewhere because I wanted to try something new. Anyway, enjoy.

937 notes · View notes

wallwriterstuff · 4 years

Note

If you're available I would love to see a Twilight request! The reader has a one or two year old child. She falls asleep with the child in a nearby playpen napping as well. Edward, Jacob or Emmett(Or even the Cullen family returning home from a hunt) arrive and find the child awake, out of their playpen, face covered with marker marks and in the process of coloring sleeping mom's legs. Thank you so much in advance!💖💖

So this took a while because I really struggled to think of a way to write this at first, but I finally got an idea I was happy with because it combines a cute request with some quality Emmett and Rosalie fluff! I hope you enjoy it chickadee :D

Dream A Little Dream

Words: 2756

Warnings: None, just a simple bit of fluff!

Summary: Emmett needs a reprieve from Rosalie’s temper tantrum, so he goes to check on a DIY project, only to find someone else is living their dream.

“C’mon Rose, talk to me, just tell me-“

“Get out Emmett!”

The door had slammed between them before he could dare say another word, but Emmett was nothing if not persistent. He had spent 66 years married to the woman after all and if he had learned anything from that experience, it was that Rosalie’s temperament was as precarious as an unweighted seesaw - he was confident she’d be cuddling him by tonight.

“Babe.” He rapped his knuckles against the door to the garage but the only reply he received was the loud and sudden blast of a bassline from the CD player. His eyes rolled and he puffed out his cheeks, exhaling in a huff and turning away from the garage to leave his wife to cool off. Edward remained seated at the piano, grinning down at the keys while his fingers diligently moved across the ivory keys.

“No, I have no idea what’s wrong with her.” His voice drifted through from the music room, carrying on the sweet notes of the song he’d composed. He hadn’t played for quite a while but it was a nice, soothing change to listen to the melody he plunked out, Alice’s sugary soprano harmonising beautifully with the key he played in. Emmett scowled in his general direction, moving through the house towards the front door.

“Where are you going?” Carlisle’s voice made him stop and turn, his hand on the door handle.

“Out. Rose needs space.” He answered. Carlisle’s brow furrowed, his expression troubled. Emmett couldn’t quite understand it himself. He had never really seen the downsides to vampirism, not when it had gifted him an eternity with his very own angel, not when it came with the added perks of agility and strength and speed he could only have ever dreamed of in his human days. He didn’t have it in to lament for his soul or whatever the rest of them seemed to do. They were vampires, and vampires drank blood – accidents were inevitable. So what if the Swan girl fell prey to Edward’s temptations? They moved on and returned in a few decades when the memory of her had faded, as they had done before and would no doubt do again.

It really wasn’t rocket science! They all knew the laws and neither option was a particularly bad one to him. Either Edward got a good meal, or he had a chance at finding his epic love, his Rosalie, and he might stop brooding for the first time in over a century. Rosalie’s desire to kill the girl was understandable but so was Edward’s urge to protect her, but Emmett didn’t need to be Alice to know there was no future in all the realms of probability that could ever exist where Bella Swan would grow old and grey. Isabella was destined to die one way or another.

“Be safe.” Carlisle’s words made him snort, a smug grin crossing his lips as he opened the door.

“Me be safe? I’m the most dangerous thing out there.” He quipped. Emmett left without looking back. The forest flew past him in what should have been a blur of greens and murky browns, but his eyes saw every detail. Each crack in the bark, the dew glistening on cobwebs, the smallest of insects scuttling up the stems of leaves…it was all a gift to him. He would kill for Rose to see the beauty in it all as he did but she never would. Rose had had all her dreams taken from her by Carlisle long ago, and she was forever going to be bitterly frozen, trapped in her own cycle of self-loathing. He’d burn the world if it put the faintest smile on her face; had taken her to the most incredible places with the most astounding views, bought jewellery so expensive it made even the richest men shudder in disgust at his actions. The one thing that would make his love truly happy was the one thing he could never give her, but he had been thinking of ways to at least soften the heartache.

There was a house (a small ramshackle thing a few miles out from their own sleek residence) that he’d visited once or twice. He’d taken photos and done some minor fixing up of the place, making sure the roof no longer leaked, that the walls were weather-proof and so on. Emmett had laid floors, plastered walls…he’d made the small house viable once more and the only thing he had yet to do was take down a portioning wall between what he envisioned would be the kitchen and lounge space. It would be his anniversary gift to Rosalie, a place she could truly make her own, where she could build her own home. There may not be little feet pattering on the wooden floors, but he could give her two out of three couldn’t he? Renew their vows so they were confirmed husband and wife once more, help build her a home…

He slowed when he neared the site, his nose twitching. Emmett inhaled deeply, an odd mix of smells drifting up his nose. He didn’t remember peonies, and…was that lavender? Emmett approached his little project cautiously, straining all his senses to read his environment, predatorial instincts rising to the surface. A heartbeat, odd rhythm…no, two heartbeats? One slower, one faster, neither the same sort of pace or rhythm as any animal roaming the woods. Humans then? Emmett frowned deeply, struggling to understand why hikers would come all the way out here as he picked his way over the tree roots trying to trip him up, hand dragging over moss covered bark.

A billow of white was the first thing he saw, a sheet in the light breeze. It fluttered, surrounded by bright coloured clothes much too small to be adult sizes, and damp towels. There had been a brief moment of sun this morning but Emmett still had to scoff. Whoever had stolen his project from him was clearly no native to Forks or they’d have known better than to hang their laundry on the line at the slightest bit of sun. Sunshine rarely lasted in Forks. Emmett paused, looking at the fence now enclosing the house he had transformed with his own bare hands. He definitely hadn’t put that up, nor did he recall painting a fence bright green. He hadn’t installed a laundry line either but someone had driven that stake into the ground, the line coming from some sort of contraption nailed into the exterior of the house.

Someone was definitely living in his DIY project, and he was not-

“Shhhhh!”

Emmett was paralysed briefly by the little giggle that followed. It was a soft sound, full of innocence he could never recall having, and it came attached to the sound of scratching and squeaking. His brows pulled low over golden irises, his body moving of its own accord. It had to be a child, but who would leave a child alone in front of their house? Was it even supervised? His curiosity had piqued and though he wanted to be frustrated he just couldn’t be. Maybe Rose wouldn’t ever get to live in this house with him but someone else had clearly made it their home, someone who had achieved the dream Rose had always wanted. He wasn’t quite sure how he had managed it but he had to sigh, because only he could attempt to resolve his wife’s bitter disposition and end up adding to it instead.

He didn’t recognise her. From the exterior alone Emmett could tell that in the few weeks it had been since he’d last visited this place, she’d put a lot of effort into making the house a home. The outside had a fresh lick of paint, the windows clean and windowpanes a freshly painted grey, the front door a bright green to match the fence surrounding the house. A wooden picnic table had been added just in front of the kitchen window, and she was sat folded over with her head resting on her arms, eyes closed and skin peppered with goosebumps. Stray wisps of hair blew about her face as his eyes tracked down her figure, noting the gentle, even breathing and the way her eyes twitched about under their lids in her sleep. Beneath the picnic table was the source of the musical laughter.

Emmett crouched, forearms resting on his knees and lips curling into a small smirk as he watched a curly haired little boy press a marker pen to her leg, scribbling a design into her skin. She didn’t even appear close to waking, but the temperature had dropped and clearly the little boy had escaped from the playpen across from the picnic table, the door open and the locking mechanism snapped, paper strewn about the garden by the breeze. Emmett could see the dirt under her fingernails as he got closer, a pair of gardening gloves on her opposite side. She’d clearly done her laundry and a bit of gardening while the sun was out, leaving her son to play in his playpen, but the little boy had seen an opportunity once she’d fallen asleep and took it.

He had the cutest little dimples when he smiled, green eyes shining bright with mischief. Emmett chuckled lowly, zipping about the garden to clean up the papers he’d spotted before approaching the picnic table and clearing his throat.

“Excuse me, miss? Miss?” he called. Her eyes fluttered open, confusion evident in them for a second before she jumped, straightening in her seat and watching him with wary eyes. Emmett watched her glance to the playpen, her eyes widening. He could hear the way her heartbeat leapt in her chest, the panic stricken expression she wore telling.

“Oh my – no no no –“

“Erm Miss? Don’t panic, he’s under the table.” Emmett smiled, flashing his own dimples in an effort to calm her. He was a naturally unnerving being after all and most humans tended to be either hopelessly attracted to him or deathly afraid – there wasn’t really an in between. She whipped her legs out from under the picnic table, moving so swiftly Emmett was left in awe. She very quickly scooped her son out form under the table and swung him onto her hip, cradling him close and closing her eyes. Her heartbeat began to calm, her breathing growing less rapid now she knew where her boy was.

“Oh god, thank you. I…I guess I fell asleep, the weather was a lot nicer earlier,” She shivered a bit, hand cradling the back of her sons head until he wriggled in her grip. “Not now baby just – really? Oh Damian!” she groaned exasperatedly. Emmett watched amusedly as she licked her thumb and rubbed furiously at his cheek.

“No Mama! No!” the boy cried, squirming in her grip. His face was covered in marker pen, a mixture of blacks and blues and pinks all swirling over his cheeks and down his nose. Emmett couldn’t help but chuckle.

“He’s a real mischief maker huh? He got your leg to.” He informed her. She looked down to her leg with another soft groan, her cheeks turning pink.

“Sounds about right. Have you ever tried to renovate with children?” she questioned, shaking her head. Emmett shook his head, his eyes stuck on the little boy. He shared his mother’s dark hair though not her eyes. Emmett wanted to be upset his plans for Rose’s anniversary surprise had fallen through, but he had been stupid enough to not check the market for this property and it had gone to someone who clearly needed it, though the property was fairly out of the way and an odd choice for a young woman and her child. She seemed intent on making it somewhere nice to live for them both though, and for that he couldn’t fault her.

“Never had any of my own, but your boy sure is a handsome guy. I did renovate this place though, I’m glad it went to someone who needed it.” He admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. Her eyes widened, the surprise in them obvious.

“Oh! It was you! The real estate agent said they had no clue who had started the renovation’s, but it didn’t stop them selling it to me…we didn’t know it was taken.” She bit her lip, hoisting her son higher up on her hip. Damian was still wriggling slightly, looking up at Emmett with wide, curious eyes. It was clear what she was worrying about it, but Emmett shook his head, hands held up before her.

“It’s yours, really, me and my wife live nearby, this was a second property we didn’t really need. It wasn’t like I checked it was for sale or anything either, you won it fair and square.” He promised. The relief was palpable in her eyes as her son squirmed again. She set him down, hand running through his curls briefly before he darted back into the house. She watched him go with a small smile.

“Well I’d be happy to give you the tour of the place, if you like? Show you what I’ve done with it Mr….”

“Cullen, Emmett Cullen.” He introduced himself with a nod, knowing his frigid skin would put her off if he dared shake her hand, and he didn’t want to put her off. Emmett’s brain was spinning a hundred miles an hour, and he was starting to form a plan. Rose might not get to live in the house, but she could spend time perhaps with the one thing she wanted more than anything. Her smile brightened.

“Y/N L/N. Maybe if you give us a little time to clean up first you could drop by later? Neighbours seem rare out here, it’ll be nice to know someone.” She admitted, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear. Emmett tilted his head slightly, glancing up at the house.

“Yeah. Yeah I er, would you mind if I bought my wife to? She had plans for this place, think she’ll enjoy seeing how you designed it for yourselves.” He said. She didn’t hesitate to nod and he tried his best not to feel too pleased with himself.

“Of course!” she agreed, and with a time organised between them Emmett sped off home to barrel his way into the garage. Rose was stuck beneath a car still, her BMW to be precise, though Emmett could never fathom what exactly she found to tune up on that thing – he was sure she spent more time under the car than under him. When she didn’t respond to his tapping on the hood, he pulled on her legs till she wheeled out, her expression sour and a smudge of grease across her cheek.

“Emmett.” She huffed. Emmett grinned down at her, completely unperturbed by her pouty glare.

“Rose. Come on, shower, dress up, do whatever it is you do, we got an appointment to keep.” He told her. Rose’s glare was enhanced by the way her nose wrinkled.

“An appointment? Emmett I swear if you’re trying to get me to go to marriage counselling again-“

“I’m trying to make you smile again.” He groaned exasperatedly. Her expression fell immediately, her golden irises softening from hardened topaz to gooey caramel. Emmett sighed, pulling her to her feet and reeling her in close. She was made for him, her body fit perfectly in his hands, against his. She was his shining light but she had been so dim since Bella had come to Forks.

“Emmett-“

“Rose, babe…I know you. I only have eyes for you. Who cares about some human? This family is immortal, we’ll survive it like we’ve survived everything else that comes our way. For one afternoon, just one, can I please, please have my wife back?” he pressed his forehead to hers, running a hand up and down her back. Rose remained tense for a while, but slowly her arms wound around his torso.

“What did you have in mind monkey man?” she tilted her chin, her lips a fraction of a centimetre from his own. Emmett’s smile returned.

“How’s about I take you to meet a really cute baby?”

By the end of the afternoon, seeing Rose smile at the young boy in her arms while he pretended to admire the newly fitted kitchen in Y/N’s house, Emmett started to understand what made her dream so beautiful, and so painful to wake from.

#twilight #twilight fanfiction #emmett cullen #rosalie hale #cullen family #emmett x rosalie #reader #Emmett is an absolute dumbo but he loves his wife #Rosalie is just stubborn #I bet he's really good at DIY secretly #this man knows plumbing like Mario

62 notes · View notes

that-there-is-a-wierd0 · 3 years

Text

Hi! I was thinkin’ about aewvs and though about a reverse curse AU, in which the curse affects students rather than educators. As such I wrote a little mini fanfic prologue thing :o.

This is technically my first fanfic, although small, but hopefully you like the writing. Thanks and take care!

!!/Depictions of Violence, general violence

The teachers at Infinity School suck.

Angellica huffed to herself as she navigated the restroom wing of the math floor. Tightly holding on to her blue notebook, she mutes the general hum of the students flowing around her, uninterested in their muddled conversation. She instead focuses on the general attitudes from her educators to the students.

The teachers at Infinity School are stupid.

Not that they were bad educators. Many were competent in their respective subject areas, failing to make mistakes. But what she did not like was how the teachers can be complete and utter assholes.

Viktor was the first to come in Angellica’s mind. He is a calm and collected person, and she supposed an interesting one as well. His math problems were somewhat simple and he always urged students to take their time if they got a problem wrong. But when students get more than one problem wrong, he beings to lose his patience rather quickly, calling his students very rude things. She remembers the time that Viktor called her a ‘bitch’ when talking to Laura, not knowing she was around the corner due to forgetting a notebook in a classroom.

Angellica grit her teeth, her notebook close to wrinkling from her tightening grip. She increases her pace and walks through the restroom wing, through the restroom itself, and makes it through Corpus A. From there, she finds herself in nearing the very first classroom from the greeting room, Classroom 0011. While the school day has ended, Angellica unfortunately landed herself in detention after breaking a rule about lock picking her own locker. She had simply forgotten the code, and despite trying to explain this to Laura, she was still tossed into afterschool detention, which lasts an entire hour.

Welcomed by the mechanical shift of the metal door, she drops in her designated seat, her mood ever the worse. Tossing her bag to the seat next to her, she slams her blue notebook on the table and opens it. She stares at the neatly written math problems with scrutiny.

I hate them all.

A moment passes, and Angellica recognizes the sound of the mechanical door opening. She turns her head around, and sees Viktor walking in, pre-occupied with a notebook of his own.

“Oh. It’s you. Of all students I expected to see here, I didn’t expect to see you, Angell.”

Angellica only scrunched her face, making it clear to Viktor that she was not in a talking mood.

“Hm, someone’s particularly angry today.”

Angellica only looks down, appearing to focus on her notebook, but was more dazed than anything. Unconsciously, she is mildly afraid of where this rage came from. But what doubts she has about her own emotions were snubbed by her increasing anger.

Seeing that there was nothing to do in the class, Viktor places his notebook on the teacher’s desk and walks over to Angellica, his strides confident as usual.

Stupid fucker and that piss colored coat.

Angellica refused to look at Viktor, despite him hovering over her notebook.

“I recognize these problems. I gave these to you last week as an in-class assignment. And yet, despite their simplicity, you still haven’t finished them?”

Viktor chuckled lowly, a sarcastic undertone that grates against Angellica’s ears like shattered glass on a chalkboard. He then smiled menacingly, and said with an equally redundant tone:

“Maybe these are the hardest examples you’ve ever seen, bitch.”

Something broke inside on Angellica. A soft slip of patience, and her world came crashing down in a million pieces as her anger consumed her body.

Angellica grabs a lemon berry soda from her bag.

And bashed it against Viktor’s face.

Without him being able to react, it fully clashed with the left side of his mask full force. Viktor falls over to his right, caught ungracefully by the wall. His only response is to blink as he looked at Angellica, unable to generate a response in his shock. Shakily, he gets up and faces Angellica to yell at her.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU!?”

He then makes a move towards the door, but Angell suddenly jumps on top of him from the desk. Angellica is now on Viktor’s back with her legs wrapped around his torso, her fist bashing on his mask from where the soda hit at any chance given.

“ANGELLICA! GET THE HELL OFF OF ME!”

Viktor tried to pry off the kid off his back, but for some reason he could not. Despite their height and weight differences, Angellica was managing to keep her place on Viktor, and actually do damage to him. Viktor shrieks in pain and confusion as he struggles to reach for his back to get Angellica off. He moves straight forward as best he could, and suddenly moves backwards with some momentum to bash her back against the classroom wall. Angellica hisses with the newfound pain, but this only allows her to climb higher, now fully clawing against his face. However, Viktor is now fully able to grab Angellica’s forearms, finally prying her off of his body like sticky glue, and toss her across from where we were standing, that being towards the door.

Viktor is now a disheveled mess, his hair and jacked ruined, his breath ragged and eyes panicked. But now, he only cares about his mask. Panting, he slowly brings an unsteady hand to the left side of his face.

Oh god.

Oh god please no. Not my face, please, please not my face.

Viktor’s mask cracked. It was actually broken. His life source, his only defense, his only was to survive…

Was cracked down the left side of his face.

Albeit, Viktor was glad that he was alive, and this was not entirely fatal on its own…but…Viktor looks at the student responsible, who was just recovering from being tossed harshly. Angellica gets up on fours, her dirty blonde hair covering her face.

“Do you mind explaining what that was, you little bitch!? Just wait until the headteacher hears of this. You might as well stay in detention forever with the little stunt you pulled, you-”

Viktor cut himself off as Angellica raised her head, eyes visible.

Red.

Viktor chokes on the air in his throat. That was not any normal shade of red. That red, such unhinged anger, a bloodlust mixed with a vengeful vermillion. The sin of wrath as it tears the flesh of the unfortunate, the poisonous vines of invasive ivy slowly paralyzing, slowly killing all in its path.

That cursed red…

Before Viktor could finish his terrified thought, Angellica launches herself like a rabid animal towards Viktor, intent to kill him. Viktor, for his own survival, successfully dodges and causes Angellica to bash her head against the chalkboard, resulting in a mild stun. Seizing the opportunity, Viktor makes a break for the mechanical door, it opening much slower than he would have liked. He runs out of the room and jumps to his right, turning and making a break for Corpus B, where Laura’s office can be found.

Angellica had recovered from her head injury long ago, but simply decided to let Viktor escape. After all, where’s the fun in tearing apart your prey so easily? It’s more fun when your victims are scared!

With that, Angellica lets a guttural, disturbed, and perverted laugh from a body that was no longer her own.

This will be very fun, won’t it?

#advanced education with viktor strobovski #viktor strobovski #Angellica #Laura

16 notes · View notes

advernia · 4 years

Text

fic: to be cold like alleyway cobblestones

— just one of the many joys of being young and murderous. - mafia!au: of the things people do in the dead of night.

1: contains death + violence; the former's depicted in one scene only + the latter's all non-graphic, but still tread lightly.

Where are you?

It's not like you wanted to be here, it's more of you had to be here. Yes, here of all places, surrounded by piles of boxes and barrels and warehouses of years know how old. To be drenched in fog and to breathe in the seawater air, rusting copper and thick smoke that passes through your nose now clinging to the back of your throat.

Somewhere in the darkness and under the sickly yellowish lighting there's the shuffle of clothing and thump of shoes on cement. How many are there, it's hard to tell. Your eyes and ears aren't trained for this sort of night life. In fact, not a single part of you is. Maybe that's why you feel even smaller than ever, even when you're standing by in your best leather boots.

It is 10:32 PM.

What is going on?

To be fair, you were expecting this kind of reception. All of you were. That's why there are holsters secured on both sides of your waist and a little bomb nestled in your jacket pocket. That's why you made sure to secure your own copy of the map to drill all the curves, nooks, and crannies of this whole area in your brain hours before the negotiation was to take place. They told you that the memorizing isn't necessary, but you'd like to think that you know better so you practiced 'better safe than sorry'.

Turns out that you're right, and you'll be using that knowledge way earlier than you expected.

It is 10:58 PM.

How did this happen?

Your side could use the classic 'we tried' defense. No, it wasn't a lie or a joke, not even in slightest. You were paying close attention to the conversation, getting all those details in your head while doing your best to observe the surroundings and the non-verbal communication flying about. Gritting of teeth, crossing of arms, stiffening of shoulders, curling of fists. Ah, this wasn't looking good. You can practically feel the air growing stiffer by the minute.

Then some genius pulls out a gun.

It is 11:27 PM.

Why you?

You're stepping on spilt blood, hold the weight of triggers in your hands, hear gurgling cries with the crunching of muscle and bone as accompaniment, and breathe in touches of sulfur and death. You're a pretty thing standing in the makings of a morgue with your skin still unscathed and limbs in all the right positions, eyes able to see and heart still beating. So maybe, just maybe, that's why.

That's why someone's running towards you at full speed, screaming hell's wrath with teeth bared and the sharp tip of an iron blade aimed at your chest.

Shit, a familiar voice hisses. Others follow, but you can't hear what they're saying and suddenly everything's a blur too. The sentiment is fitting, you think. Shit. You're no statue, but your feet are rooted to the ground and you forget how it is to breathe. Shit. Your attacker's coming closer and closer and he isn't stopping for no one, not for you or for anyone else. Shit. Your shaking fingers manage to curl around something solid, and for a moment you think yourself going mad when you actually feel comfort in the touches of cold metal against your skin.

Shit.

When your arms lift themselves up, two barrels are able to take aim.

Shit.

The man and his knife are about to step into your personal space.

Shit.

Your fingers pull at the -

Oh, your lips shake.

It is 12:01 AM.

It is 12:01 AM, and you just killed someone.

........................................................

The third bout that leaves her mouth has lesser chunks and is now mostly saliva. They leave her mouth in lengthy trails, drops falling down, down, down.

Doubled over with her head between her knees, she gasps repeatedly for more air than she really needs and more that she can release in grave huffs. It's almost like she's reminding herself how it is to breathe while emptying the contents of her stomach. Inhale, exhale. Through the nose, then out again. She figures that she must look all sorts of pitiful, some strange girl huffing and puffing with her body dangerously close to the pier's edge.

And while she's watching the remains of her lunch mingle with the sea, the world around her still goes on. Of course it does, because time is not so kind and sensitive enough to stop for every unfortunate soul struck with the impulse to throw up. If it did, then maybe she would go about slower in trying to breathe and getting rid of the acid in her mouth. If it did, then maybe she wouldn't start worrying about the impending blare of police sirens echoing faintly in her ears.

When something warm - a hand - rests on her shoulder, she raises her head slowly before turning it around.

The first thing she sees is a gloved open palm offering a handkerchief. It is pure white. No crease, no fold. The sight makes her lips purse, teeth gnawing at the insides of her cheek. She takes the cloth anyway, with the reluctance of someone who doesn't want their hands to get burned. It's ridiculous. She's ridiculous.

She lifts her head for whoever took pity on her. The ends of her lips pull upwards, urging the shape of a curve. She hopes it looks natural. It feels like it is.

For her efforts, green eyes smile back at her. It's still dark and the lighting around the place is still dim and sickly and the fog doesn't make visibility any better, but she knows those eyes. Most people just call them green, but personally she likes calling them mint. The color, the herb, the taste. A calming cool pastel, a blooming verdant vibrancy, a rush of a fresh sensation in the mouth that lingers long to carve its name on the tongue.

Not too chilling, too cold, too spicy, too menthol-like. There has always been something familiar about those small eyes that has become soothing to her.

"The others have gone ahead. We need to leave too," he whispers. The hand set on her shoulder squeezes gently before moving over to touch her arm. "Can you stand?"

She nods, fingers wiping away the tears that had formed in the edges of her eyes before the handkerchief dabs at her mouth.

"I'm fine," she tries to say, smoothing her voice into something convincing. It doesn't work because the consecutive throwing up session had her throat now running dry and empty. Another thing empty. No food and energy and melody left in her and all that's left behind is a horrid ungodly cross between hoarse and mechanical. Grating and lifeless. Skin, muscle, and blood for a shell but nothing inside. Not the least bit human. Who's going to believe her now?

Even her legs quake when she tries to stand. How embarrassing, her own body won't even listen to her. She's thankful for the hand that keeps her steady, it takes hold of her arm and weight into stride and lifts her up to her feet; not letting go till she's ready and standing upright. The hand goes as far as to smooth the stray strands of her blonde hair back in place, tucking locks behind her ear and keeping them away from her eyes.

How nice. Maybe now she's a bit presentable.

"I can carry you back."

"W-wh-what? Oh no, no, it's okay. It's nice of you to offer. But I can walk, I promise."

A low hum, the peer into her eyes that leaves little space to speak of in between two faces.

"... I'll hold onto your hand to be safe. Is that better?"

Well. Still a bit embarrassing. But maybe she should listen to her shaking knees and stop being stubborn for once.

There wasn't much of her pride worth salvaging right now anyway.

"... All right, then."

........................................................

Car rides can sure brew fun conversations.

"So about the one you killed - "

"The one she shot," the sudden correction is hostile, and it's quickly met with a pointed snort that follows with the turn of the wheel. The van tilts sharply to the left, and through her slightly lowered window, an angry chorus of car horns trumpet their way in.

Watch where you're fucking going, shitty asshole, goddamn kid and other curses also reach her ears.

So much for safe driving.

"Four bullets to the torso, four bullets to the neck - what else is a man going to be but dead after that barrage?"

The facts are laid out by a voice that brought to mind those of television news show reporters: neutral in volume, plain in pitch and timbre, objective in content. She could hear it now: this just in - unknown assailant shoots a middle-aged man multiple times, flees the scene immediately and leaves victim bleeding to death on the pavement; more details after the break. Her eyes turn up to the rearview mirror, finds the driver's gaze away from the road and instead set on her. Silver irises make for pretty jewelry but also sharpened knives, a dangerous mix of allure and pressure. She can't handle it and opts to look away, her insides twisting themselves into knots.

She thinks he hears him laughing.

Beside her, a hiss. "Just because this sorry excuse of a van isn't ours you decide to drive like the ruffian you truly are, how predictable. If you keep going recklessly, we're bound to catch unwanted attention."

"If you wanted to drive so much then you should've said so in the first place, stickler. The police aren't that stupid to prioritize a speeding ticket over a distress call, now are they?"

"Shame on you to assume that there's an extent to stupidity."

The banter would continue to go on without her help so she leans her head against the window, gazing at the scenery outside. A street never dead despite the early hour, cars constantly passing through. Beggars making themselves small in between the crooks of alleys. Drunkards stumbling about the sidewalk. The occasional salaryman making their way home. Teenagers in groups or adults on their lonesome. Bars and convenience stores flashing their bright lights.

Still the same as ever.

"Clean them."

The stern voice pulls her out of her head, and she sees something land on her lap - it's a long strip of cloth and on top of it a thin bottle, transparent liquid sloshing about inside. Right, how could she forget: her hands go to the holsters on her waist and she pulls out her revolvers, cringes a bit when she sees the splatters of dark red across the front sights and barrels.

Ah... those must be dry by now.

She takes the bottle, about to pop it open -

"Again, don't forget to unload them first."

Despite herself, a soft laugh escapes her lips. She glances at him; he who never missed all the small details, he who constantly reminded her of the same thing during these nights. He's watching her with an eyebrow raised, maybe wondering why she hasn't followed his instructions yet.

He's still the same as ever too - it's oddly comforting, in a way.

"I know," she says with a wry smile.

........................................................

When the waves of police cars have gone far far away, they leave their getaway van in some unassuming convenience store parking lot space.

Upon their arrival at the city's center, they split into two groups. Group A reconvenes with the rest of the team; Group B goes back to base.

When they drew straws, she considered being part of Group B a stroke of luck, but -

"So like I was saying earlier, the man you killed..."

They're taking a short break on a park bench, and his sudden quip has her choking on her 250 lin bottled water and it gets everywhere: around her chin, across her shirt, down to her pants. She looked embarrassing, that's for sure; and of course he decides to act like a true gentleman by sitting beside her wordlessly as she tries to get through the worst of her coughing fit, just staring at her with obvious interest.

No pats on the back, are you okays, there, theres - just the chirping of crickets, quiet rustling of leaves, and his soft laughter ringing in her ears.

"Still jittery, huh?"

"If you knew, then you shouldn't have said that in the first place...!"

"Good point."

She flashed him a scowl before letting out a few more coughs.

"Why," she starts a few seconds later, voice warbling at the edges, "do you keep mentioning that man?"

"Oh, just to serve as a usual reminder. I'm sure you know that if you didn't kill him in time, then you would've died."

"... I know."

"You say you do, but it still doesn't give you any satisfaction, doesn't it? Especially for someone like you."

She inhales sharply, hands wringing themselves together on her lap. His pointed emphasis on her state didn't offend her much, possibly because she accepted it to be the truth for some time now: get over it, she told herself multiple times. It comes with the job, it's natural, she sung to herself. You did what you had to do, it was unavoidable, she cried to herself. Those were just the beginning of the many words she'd use the first time, the second, the third, then so on and so forth until she had pushed herself into a cycle of guilt; the next unwanted experience breaking her down just as easy, just as vicious and relentless like the first time she felt blood drown her hands.

It's a terrible, terrible, such a terrible feeling; to be thankful that you took someone else's life just to be able to live one more day longer. To understand that to live; you must plunge a knife on someone's chest, shove poison down their throat, steal the air out of their lungs, and rain bullets on their body.

Eyes close themselves tightly, teeth dig harshly into the insides of the mouth.

If she could wail to the heavens, she would.

... Just where did it all go wrong?

........................................................

2: cleaning tumblr drafts, i stumbled on this and tried to find its main file but... it??? doesn't??? exist??? this was a shame to scrap entirely, so i patched it up the best i could... ran out of steam come the ending tho....（´＿｀） 3: i remember aiming for a no-name drop kind of thing, so i tried my best to hint at who is who solely through description! in order of appearance, alice's companions are mousse (pier scene + hostile corrector), dean (alice's seatmate in the van scene), and dalim (van driver + bench scene) - idk if i managed to pull it off, but dean really got the short end of the stick since his scene's the shortest aha....

#ikemen kakumei #ikemen revolution #ikerev fanfic #ikerev alice #shifting narratives....... working through the transition is fun #now that i think of it this is fic is a chunk of formats i've always wanted to try #tho mafia huh... ugh... i wanna play my piofiore when i get home orz #but wHEN

9 notes · View notes

turqrambles · 4 years

Text

The Five Worst Things About Digimon World

I did it.

It took 20 years but I did it.

I finally beat Digimon World for the Playstation 1, a game that has haunted me for most of my lifetime, and I did it with a Phoenixmon, the reason why I use “Turquoisephoenix” as a handle!

This is who I used to beat the game, named after an obscure Ratchet and Clank character because that’s just how I roll. The final boss battle involved a lot of Prominence Beam spamming and med recovery floppy spamming but I did it fair and square.

Before I get into what I thought about this game as a whole - and I do have a lot of good things to say about this game since I obviously enjoyed it enough to get to the end - I gotta talk about my least favorite things about this game. In a concise, Buzzfeed-esque list because I like writing things in easy to digest chunks.

Because, like most charming yet difficult games of the late 90′s, this game is very flawed and the flaws are pretty annoying!

1. Care Mistakes

The three emojis - Smile, Cool, and Poop.

Okay. This one - my least favorite part in the game - is going to take a bit of explanation.

First off, I don’t actually hate care mistakes existing as a mechanic. I think it’s a cute, virtual pet-y way to add a different wrinkle to evolution requirements, even if I think it’s a bit counter-intuitive to have to suddenly abuse my little companion once they reach Champion just because I want them to evolve into a floating metallic ball with a chainsaw.

My problem with care mistakes is that there’s literally no way of telling many care mistakes you have on your given Digimon.

Literally everything else in this game is concisely recorded and easily displayed on your Digimon’s stats screen. You can see how much your Digimon weighs. You can see their Happiness, their Discipline. How much Life they have left. Their Age. Even how many poops they need to make before they digivolve into a sentient pile of feces.

But Care Mistakes? Naaaaw, you just gotta remember every single thing that you did to your Digimon from the moment it evolves in your fallible human brain. What’s that? A good portion of this game involves grinding in the Green Gym and it’s really easy to make a Care Mistake there without knowing you did so because you mashed A too fast like the stat-grinding numskull that you are? Well, that’s just too fucking bad for you, then! Enjoy not getting some of the best evolutions, you piece of shit. You stooge. You moron!

This game, multiple times: You know who I hate? The player.

Care Mistakes are such an invisible mechanic that, to this day, there are many guides with misleading info about what counts as a Care Mistake and what doesn’t, which...really stinks for a game such as this where you will be using a guide pretty extensively to get the Digimon you deserve. And you know why that is? Because we don’t get any indication as to whether or not some random event counts against you when raising your Digimon.

And honestly, having one of your main mechanics of the game being entirely invisible to the player is a terrible idea. Just put a little number in my profile that says “Care Mistakes: 0″ in there. Let me know this information without guessing.

2. The Glitches

Pictured: Something that will CRASH YOUR GAME if you try it on a physical copy.

Let me start with a disclaimer that most of the glitches I’m going to complain about were added into the game when Digimon World was localized and therefore aren’t the original intent of the developers. There are certain versions of Digimon World that are more stable than others (The English PAL version is the best version to play because of this) and, if you play this game via “certain methods”, there are patches to circumvent some of the bigger problems.

That being said! Boy! Isn’t it ironic that a game where I’m exploring the digital world is plagued with so many annoying, game-ruining glitches? Especially if I’m playing this game on a physical 20-year old copy like a dunce?

“Ohhhh...so Agumon thinks that they can block the Digimon game with their big fat Digimon-blocking head, do they?!”

The NTSC version of this game has a jukebox that will crash the game if you try to use it, keeping you from ever using a bonus feature meant to be a fun little reward for completing a certain dungeon, but that’s not as heinous as the Spanish, French, German, and Italian PAL versions of this game locking a good portion of the game to players because they forgot to make the Agumon in front of Ogremon’s Fortress an object you can interact with.

So that means, if you happened to get this game in one of four lucky countries, you can’t complete the Ogremon mission, you can’t recruit Whamon, you can’t recruit Shellmon, you can’t recruit anything tied to Shellmon’s bulletin board (which means no Vademon or Skullgreymon), and you can’t go to Factorial Town and recruit Giromon, Andromon, or Numemon. Ogremon is a key part of the Digimon World storyline and causes so many different things in the game to change, meaning that it should’ve been imperative to make sure this part of the game works!

But no. Instead this one little bastard Agumon keeps most players from finishing the game, because it starves players of those PAL regions of a bunch of Prosperity points, the main source of progression in this game. That means that Mt. Infinity and the final boss is just that much harder to unlock. It’s doable, but it’s more grueling process.

This really is a problem with the translators and really highlights a lack of general care with testing this game. Why this game was allowed to be shipped with such glaring bugs is anyone’s guess, especially in an era where you couldn’t release any patches over the Internet to fix retail versions.

3. The Monochromon’s Shop Minigame

Ohhhh....this one was so close to getting the top spot. When I first wrote this draft, this was the top spot.

Monochromon was only spared of my true ire on account of the fact that it really only exists for one part of the game (rather than being a constant problem like the Care Mistakes and the Glitches are) and you can easily cheese it by sleeping in front of the store so that you can save scum your way to victory. Like a true Digital Champion!

At one point in the game, you gotta help a entrepreneur dinosaur rhino man make a profit, because he was stupid and put his convenience store in the middle of a giant canyon next to a gaping chasm. So you play a little game of haggling, where you try to ruthlessly oversell a bunch of random items to customers until you make enough of a profit that this talking dinosaur tells you that you passed his secret test of character, abandons his store, and moves into File City.

There’s just one problem with this minigame - everything is decided by RNG.

“Get the hell out of my shop”

This minigame hates you. It wants nothing but to see you fail and to waste your time. The difference in profit margins of the three items (Meat sells for 50g, Portable Potties sell for 300g, and Medicine sells for 1000g) are so stark that, if you get too many customers asking for Meat, you might as well just reset the game and start over because it will be literally impossible to meet the requirement even if you busted the customer’s proverbial balls and squeezed every last bit out of their cutesy penguin faces.

Oh! It’s also RNG as to whether or not your customers will take your asking price or storm out of the store without buying anything!

It’s all the fun of working at retail! In a video game!

4. Three on One Battles

What you see before you is a battle system that is really fun when it’s one vs. one, manageable at two vs. one, and downright unbearable at three vs. one.

The battle system works for the most part. You don’t have full control of your Digimon (and yes, you only have one Digimon with you at one time, so you can never stack the numbers in your favor) so you shout commands at it, commands that the Digimon’s AI are pretty good at following, and hope for the best as you chuck healing items at it.

It’s not the best battle system, but it’s fun. And it definitely reinforces the whole “this is a pet you’re taking care of with its own thoughts and feelings” atmosphere that this game is going for.

However, nothing can protect your Digimon from enemy fire concentrated on them, especially if you did the thing that most players do and equipped your Digimon with the most powerful attacks that also happen to have slower cast times than the faster, weaker attacks.

What then happens is your Digimon’s Health is slowly whittled away as you are powerless to stop it, watching as your digital friend is straight up bullied by enemy Digimon as they keep falling to the ground over and over and over and over again.

The one saving grace is that Friendly Fire exists in this game so that oftentimes the enemy Digimon will damage each other in their mad dash to ruin your day, but that seems more like a band-aid than an actual fix to this system.

5. Fishing Seadramon

“Hi, kid. Let me guess - you also thought you had to talk to the Tankmon in Factorial Town in order to unlock me, huh.”

This one is a lot less of a pain than the other four and it’s only a little annoying but boy...getting Seadramon kinda sucks in this game.

It took me almost a goddamn hour to catch Seadramon. One hour of gameplay devoted to catching one fish. Just like real fishing!

I will say, besides Seadramon, the fishing minigame in this game is pretty competent. It’s just that Seadramon is very elusive, showing up at only two hours in a 24 hour day, and is a very finicky fish that won’t take your bait even if you literally placed it in front of his dumb fish face.

Don’t be fooled by this screenshot. The heart just means you have the right bait. The heart means that you didn’t actually get within range of hooking him.

IT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!!!

Seadramon is also subject to almost as many gaming myths as the Care Mistakes are, due to how elusive he is, but that’s less to do with poor communication (the game does at least explain multiple times in multiple places how to find him) and more to do with the fact that catching him is just such a goddamn chore to do that players of this game always assume they’re doing something wrong.

When in reality, Seadramon is just a picky little bitch.

Next time I discuss Digimon World, I’ll talk about things I liked, don’t worry. I just had to get all of this negativity out before discussing the full game proper.

#Digimon World #Turq Reviews #Turq Plays a Game

13 notes · View notes

ciarawritesmarvel · 5 years

Text

afterglow - steve rogers x reader

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k (if I round up)

Warnings: Some angst, which I know you don’t particularly expect from me, but it quickly dissolves into fluff

A/N: Finally! Here it is, my entry for the wonderful @peaky-shelby‘s gorgeous A Lover’s Challenge. I listened to the song as I wrote this and hope it seems sufficiently inspired by it, the actual song was a little too angsty and I couldn’t bring myself to leave it like that, not when the album itself is so hopeful. Ioanna, I hope you like it lovely, and thank you for allowing me to join your challenge! Without further ado...

masterlist in my bio and tags in the reblog! please drop me an ask to be added to any tag lists!

---

“Fighting with a true love is boxing with no gloves Chemistry 'til it blows up, 'til there's no us”

“Why are you doing this?”

The words hit you square in the chest, a force that makes you want to step backwards, take the space that would give you and use it to think calmly, think rationally.

You do none of this.

“Why am I doing this? You’re the one who’s done this, Steve, not me,” you bite back, words laced with a venom you don’t quite understand. All your heart is doing is screaming at you to stop, to cross the room and fall into two strong arms that you know would catch you. If you look at them, you can almost feel their grip around you, warm and strong and safe and-

Your head stops you. Puts your heart back in its place. You glare at Steve as you wait for an answer.

“But I’ve not done anything, sweetheart!” he was exasperated now, that much was clear, his previous softer tone that had been an attempt to calm you done replaced by hurt words and arms thrown in the air.

“Well if you think that, then this whole conversation is useless.”

It was the only thing you could say. Because Steve had done absolutely nothing wrong and you had no idea what the hell you were doing and why you felt like you had no control over what you were saying right now. It was a wonder you hadn’t started crying yet.

“Y/N,” he was back to that soothing tone again as he stepped towards you and you thanked everything within you for not moving away, “You gotta talk to me right now, because you’re really scaring me. Did something happen?”

What could you say? Yes, Steve, I realised for the first time that I was in love with you and started thinking about what that meant for us and now in a desperate attempt not to get hurt yet again I’m sabotaging everything we have.

“You happened,” you rebuked harshly, “And I’m not sure I wanted you to. This is all moving too fast, Steve.”

He looked pained for a moment before he nodded, lips pressed tightly together and of course he did, because he was too damn understanding at the best of times. You’d should’ve known he’d be too damn understanding in the worst of them too.

“Okay, I get it. I’m sorry. We can go slower,” he suggested and you didn’t miss the desperate note in his voice. Just as your heart was about to take back the reins and jump on him, you opened your mouth.

“Or we can just stop. You’re too much, Steve.”

His face fell. And you felt like you’d just been punched in the stomach. He’d told you multiple times that he worried he was too full on too quickly in your relationship, but that it was only because he was all in. You’d told him you were all in too. Reassured him.

Now you’d taken his heart from your top pocket and thrown it carelessly over your shoulder. It hurt you more than you could’ve anticipated, watching him stare at you like that, knowing just how much he was hurting right now. You didn’t want this.

“Right,” he mumbled, grabbing his coat from your bed where he’d thrown it when he arrived. You thought haphazardly about the fact that maybe if he’d arrived just thirty minutes later when you’d calmed down about the worries of giving him your heart, then maybe none of this would’ve happened.

You could’ve let him in and given him your heart with shaky hands and an unsure smile and he would’ve put it in his own top pocket, tapped it twice for safekeeping and you could have a wonderful night of music and chatter and absentminded touches.

Oh how you dreamt of those absentminded touches.

But it had happened and before you had time to comprehend anything or your heart had time to catch up, your stupid paranoid head had done the necessary damage and Steve had slammed the door behind him on his way out.

You didn’t bother to follow him. Instead you sat down on your bed and willed the tears to come. They refused to allow you any reprieve by falling, however, and you guessed that your heart might have been just slightly angry with you.

Throwing away the only true love you’d ever had wasn’t on the agenda for tonight.

You didn’t know how long you sat there, hands trembling as you picked at your nails, legs feeling numb to movement, head bowed as thoughts drifted in and out of your head. Lashing out was a defence mechanism you hated and yet it was the one you had been stuck with. If you stopped this now, then it would hurt but then it would stop and you would move on.

Right now, it felt like your head had done some miscalculations on how much this would hurt.

It was only when the word mistake was flashing in bright white font in your mind that you heard a muffled voice behind your door and then suddenly Steve was in your room again.

Stupid F.R.I.D.A.Y. Always acting in your best interests.

“Okay,” Steve said, no greeting or anything, and in a way you were glad, because it was clear he was expecting nothing back from you at this moment. You stayed in your position, but with your head raised and wild eyes locked onto his, “I know why you’re doing this. You’re scared. I get it. The past you’ve had, how could you not be?”

Flashes of white rooms and lab coats. Shiny metal and the taste of blood. You blinked. They’d really done a number on you.

“Steve-”

“No. My turn,” he said forcefully but with a kind edge that stopped you from biting back and let you listen, “HYDRA ruined your life. I get it, Y/N. They ruined mine too. But you have a chance now, a real chance, to get some of that life back. With me. If you want it.”

The lump in your throat was large and unforgiving and you were finding it hard to breathe. He was talking in broken sentences, struggling to find the words that he thought might change things, but seeming to find the perfect ones anyway. He was so perfect and he had no idea how exhausting it was.

“It’s okay if you don’t,” he continued, and you realised at some point you were going to have to say something or he’d simply continue forever, “Want that with me, I mean. I just- I think you do. And you won’t let yourself. But you should.”

You kept looking at him, not saying anything, but he could see your gaze softening with each word he said and he risked a step closer, knowing this would use up all his risks and doing it anyway.

When he crouched down and took your hands in his, he cooled them instantly. His were cold and icy, engulfing your too hot, too clammy hands in a basket of ice. All there had been at HYDRA was heat and fire and burning. And the last time you had given your heart to someone, they had burnt that too.

Sometimes you forgot just how cold Steve’s hands were.

His thumb ran well-worn lines into your knuckles. Absentminded touches. He pushed up from crouching to press a known kiss into your forehead before he returned to looking at you. Your eyes were closed. A few tears clumping your lashes, one escaping down the curve of your nose.

And you were concentrating. Really, truly concentrating. Because you wanted to say it. To make sure he knew now, because if he knew now then whatever might happen next or after that could be dealt with, could be moved on with. You wanted to say it.

“I-”

But no. The words got caught in that damn lump in your throat, and it wouldn’t let them past. And whilst this war raged on, a war you expected to last quite some time, you snuck some smaller, less weighty words past the lump and said those instead, hoping that for now they’d be enough, that they’d be enough to win the battle if not the war itself.

“I’ll try.”

Two words that meant nothing out of context but everything within this bubble. Steve finally smiled and you finally opened your eyes. The look on his face told that it was enough. That for now, that was all that was needed.

And though you knew there was still a war to win, you smiled too at the little victory.

392 notes · View notes

noddytheornithopod · 4 years

Text

Holy shit my thoughts on Mind over Mutant got surprisingly complicated so uh here’s a massive discussion under the cut, lol.

Out of all the main post Naughty Dog games... this might be my favourite after all? It’s far from perfect, but I think I had the most satisfying experience overall.

To start, visually everything looks pretty good. Granted I’m using the PS2 version which has a few visual bugs because it was designed for Wii and X360 graphics more, but generally I like how it holds up? Shame 360 emulators aren’t a thing as of now, and I’m not buying some old console just for one game, lol. Speaking of PS2, there’s no Coco option because apparently her moves were too complex for the system, RIP.

To start... yes, fuck the backtracking. It’s perfectly reasonably why this pisses people off. For me, it’s mainly the transition between Wumpa Island and the Ratcicle Kingdom since you have to go through AND back twice, with little variation. Other paths at least have you only needing to retread once for the story or there’s a new extra path in it that unlocks. At least some of the enemies change up I guess? But honestly, I think what bugs me more is that it’s not exactly consistent in its implementation. Because for a while, yeah you’re going back and forth retreading old ground, but then you get the key for the Junkyard on Wumpa Island and you’re just teleported to the Junkyard gate. Same thing happens when you get the Uka Uka bones. And of course, there’s the teleporters to find said bones, which is kind of striking a middle ground. Basically... it’s kinda inconsistent. Tedious when it is, but when you suddenly start to get used to it, you’re given massive leaps lol.

There’s stuff from Titans that was changed that I don’t really understand why? For example, the block with Crash no longer has a dodge, and dodging is now purely responding to mutant attacks. I like the addition to help even out things between Crash and mutants, but why no dodge normally? There’s no board sliding anymore, nothing calls for it obviously so it may have been pointless but it is kinda funny. Also Crash’s glide is replaced with the spin drill, which of course has its uses, but I miss having that glide too (you could have both, maybe the drill is by holding square or even pressing triangle, IDK).

On the topic of Crash, I kinda feel like Crash’s gameplay is oddly sidelined? I think it’s because of the mutant storing. Even if there’s less combat, much of the platforming now uses the mutants, and because there’s only some sections where you have to be Crash, it means you end up being Crash rather sparingly unless you really want to stick to him. Like, mutant storing is a good idea and works with the kind of game, but compare to Titans where even if it was more combat focused, the fact you had to use Crash in more parts meant you end up playing as him more than this game, and thus it feels like he has more of a presence with his own move set.

The combat felt off at first, but I ended up realising it’s because I became used to the Titans system... to start, it’s less intense and slower paced. You’re rarely gonna be swarmed so you actually have a chance against enemies. There’s also the mutant mojo upgrades, which means your mutant actually grows stronger with each upgrade, making combat different each time.

I like how they use mojo... for the most part. I like that the mutants can now be upgraded, and Crash of course grows stronger. My one reservation is that the upgrades don’t feel that diverse? In Crash’s case it’s probably because he keeps most of his moves from Titans, but still, only strength and spin upgrades isn’t the most exciting. Same with the mutants, getting stronger and the occasional special attack boost is cool, but it’s not the most exciting. I guess I need to view it like a Ratchet and Clank situation, because that’s what this is more like... including the multiplier. Including a multiplier with your combo level to make mojo worth more helps a lot with upgrading.

Because mutant gameplay is now more diverse instead of just a few classes that do their job, it also comes across as more inconsistent? I like that there’s improvements like them being able to jump now and more attack variations eg from when you block or jump and hit attack, but I also find some of it a bit awkward. Like, many of these attack variations are cool, but the tutorials give fuck all clues to them, so it’s hard to figure everything out.

For example... seriously, it took me ages to figure out how to use the TK in combat. TK is a pretty fun mutant, but until you figure out how to shoot and combine attacks with their telekinesis, you’re gonna be stuck to slow heavy attacks and awkwardly throwing enemies around.

I also find the Rhinoroller awkward. Because of the new moveset compared to Titans, it’s on one hand less slow, but on the other, it can get pretty annoying to control.

Ratcicle feels kind of overdeveloped. They can freeze stuff AND surf on shallow water. I mean, it’s great, but it kinda makes the other mutants look less exciting, lol. But yeah, one of the best mutants in this game because they definitely thought of much.

There’s a few mutants that are fun to play as like Spike, Sludge, and Battler, but unless you go outside the main story, they don’t really feel like they have much of a presence. The introduction pacing feels off, basically.

Snipe and Stench are back as ranged mutants. Snipe suddenly gets an upgrade and is pretty fun to play. Stench I’m not so crazy about, like now their special attack isn’t ranged anymore so that kinda messes up the gameplay with them, and while the fire rate is improved from Titans, every now and then they do a reload animation which I assume was meant to add detail, but all it does is slow the gameplay down and make the rhythm of firing off.

Magmadon is around, and while they aren’t underused, I do think it’s a bit of a missed opportunity with this game’s increased platforming focus that it doesn’t have any fire/lava abilities. There’s only one place that’s too hot for other characters and thus making them necessary too. Like, imagine if you could use it to melt through ice or even metal, eg a door that must be melted down to progress. Sludge’s shrinking ability is only used like two or three times (and I think only one is mandatory), so I think there’s missed opportunities there too. The shapeshifting and extendable arms stuff could’ve made for some cool mechanics. Adding more platforming abilities for mutants might overcomplicate the game of course, but... still. Especially with Sludge, give them some more use, even for secrets and such. Speaking of secrets... Spike needing to use the special attack on that one spiky part on the way to Mt Grimly is pretty random, huh?

Scorporilla and Yuktopus serve their role as the massive powerhouses (and Scorporilla even gets a beefed up melee combo), though I must admit it’s odd Yuktopus is now demoted to a regular enemy/sub-boss class (seeing two in the minigames was surreal when I was young lol). And I mean, random changes in design and stuff is something I find odd in general. I mean, the returning mutants mostly have improved designs, but for others I’m not as sure on, eg Rhinoroller looking less rhino-y, and Sludge suddenly being a boar instead of an frog or chameleon or whatever it was in Titans. Guess some is NV mutations but whatever, lol.

On the topic of enemy design, one thing I miss from Titans is the colour and outfit variations. Maybe they had less time to do it and at least the single models they get look good, but still, it’s a shame. We do get the hero mutants, but the PS2 version fucks up their looks for some reason, lol (and for some reason their mojo upgrades separately from the standard of their species, which is weird, especially since it’s not counted in the game’s completion).

Grimlys are cool, probably my favourite mutant in the game. Kinda funny how they don’t have a block and instead a lock on function, but it makes sense given they’re meant to be used faster than other close range mutants. But yeah, time slowing is so cool it’s even back in Crash 4 with one of the new Quantum Masks. Really helps you rake up that combo count to get all that mojo too.

The minions are... interesting. They mostly do their job, but then suddenly you have Doom Monkeys and Znu that have these massive stun attacks that can get annoying if there’s a lot of them. Slap-Es can block but as long as you’re not Crash they’re as quick as any others. The Doom Monkeys are less annoying in speech too, thankfully.

I get a few audio bugs. Most annoying of which is being unable to hear enemy conversations. But sometimes I just got sound effects cut out for no reason. On the inverse... some of the mutants are very noisy and need to shut up. Aku Aku also sometimes adds commentary when unnecessary, making him feel a bit handholdy. Yes, I’m going to the damn roller village, be patient, dude.

Probably the thing to impress me most revisiting the game is actually the continuity and worldbuilding. I mean, to start, you have all the mutants becoming free and forming their own societies, only for the NVs to turn them into evil warriors again. Said societies are pretty interesting as well.

Wumpa Island is mostly the same (sans all the stranded Ratinicians gone wild lol), but then you have the Ratcicle Kingdom. A Kingdom formed mostly out of ice, and also near Cortex’s evil public school. Nothing like this was in Titans, so was there always a cold part of Wumpa Island, or did the concentration of Ratcicles allow them to make enough ice to form a cold climate and society despite this being tropical nearby? All the designers and stuff are cool, and some of the characters are quite peculiar (I love that one masochist Ratcicle lol).

Then there’s the Ice Prison and Evil School. IDK how the Ice Prison was made, but it seems like it’s Cortex’s doing since the Brat Girls run it AND Evil School (while also being students?). As one of those lore junkies that headcanons Wumpa Island is the second island from the original Crash games, this fits oddly well, because in Twinsanity Cortex suddenly has a massive floating Iceberg lab. Maybe Cortex also made the school and prison nearby, and the Ratcicles took their Wumpa Island residence and connected Cortex’s base. Yeah, I’m getting crazy with my speculation, but the game letting you fuel this is fun. Also cool how the Brat Girls leave Nina after she loses in Titans and end up as Cortex’s grunts, ironically.

The Wasteland seems new, and I assume it’s the evolution of the Lumberyard from Titans. We also have rhinoroller elders even if it’s only two years of existing lol.

The Junkyard is apparently born out of the remains of N Gin’s weapons factory (I heard somewhere the Weapons factory was apparently on N Sanity Island but IDK if that was ever confirmed, it makes more sense it was on Wumpa Island TBH but if it was imagine all that junk moved there lol, TBH Cortex Island could work for the weapons factory too, it would make things less cluttered and it’s possible there’s still unpolluted beaches but whatever). It’s a pretty cool setting, and the Doom Monkeys being in the remains of their old location but under new leadership (and somehow with rockets removed from their heads... maybe they were merely aesthetic? lol) is nice continuity. Judging from the concept art it also seems to be around that volcanic area in Titans, which makes sense given that had more machinery.

Mt Grimly is completely new. Surprisingly it’s not an evolution of the Uka tree (though there is one creepy tree place with the hero Grimly on Wumpa Island), and as a result it’s much harder to work into my 2nd island headcanon (I mean, at least that island always had a giant tree lol). Cool location, but unfortunately we don’t really learn much about its normal state compared to the other worlds, unless it’s permanently inhabited by evil dudes, lol. Also I still wonder what the heck the Znu and Grimlys are. Are the Znu supposed to be the same thing as Grimlies? Are the Grimlys NV transoformed Znu??? Who knows.

Even the changing enemies in revisiting locations relates to the story. For example, the sludges in the Junkyard will say how Slap-Es and Stenches have appeared from “the sky”. Besides random occasional appearances from different mutants in various locations, you also have the Znu and Doom Monkeys moving out of their home levels to the previous ones after you make it through said levels the first time. I’m very perplexed by the sudden increase of Battlers when you revisit evil school and the ice prison paths though... either they’re also favourites of Cortex, or the Brat Girls disappointed Cortex after he saw Crash break into school and Nina helped him and he... used NVs on them to make new Battlers. Other stuff like Snipes in the Wasteland because of the Snipe hero are clear enough, but this one is... interesting.

There are some inconsistencies that bug me though. For one, it feels like nobody acknowledges Cortex’s blog video. Aku Aku acts surprised that N Brio is back and working with Cortex, and later wonders how Brio gets dark mojo even though Cortex explicitly says he’s using Uka for that. IDK, I guess Aku Aku doesn’t like watching internet videos and expected Crash and Coco to do everything, lol (I mean, he doesn’t really acknowledge it after watching anyway). Also a bit confused on how evil school works... it’s implied the Brat Girls are the main students, especially when one NPC says it’s all girls, but the intro video includes all genders and shows non-Brat Girls so... something’s up (maybe the NPC misheard or the ad was lying and only had girls because EVIL). Also apparently there’s another evil school somewhere besides Madame Amberly’s (is it also public? how is it public, is there a government funding these evil schools? did Cortex declare some regime?).

The humour and cutscenes are mostly pretty fun and there’s many funny moments. There are a few jokes that are... questionable at best (Uka I know you’re evil, but you don’t need to be ableist), and some of it probably seems outdated, but I actually appreciate most of it. The 2D cutscenes in different styles simulating changing channels like you have an NV is cool and has some pretty fun jokes with them, though it does suck you don’t see some character models well if at all as a result. The whole satire of consumerism and the latest tech fads was a nice addition (between this and the different mutant powers and stuff, it’s almost a classic Ratchet and Clank type game), not to mention wild stuff like evil recycling (and I mean, green movements ARE co-opted soooo) and many edgy but still mostly jokes I doubt would pass today.

Bosses are fine. Cortex was fun, but Coco was too easy (plus she’s freed from NV control a bit too soon, they could’ve saved her for the Ice Prison or even Evil School or something to raise the stakes, I mean if you’re not gonna fully commit to playable Coco then you may as well go the N Tranced route). Crunch wasn’t as hard as I remember, in fact he was kinda underwhelming. If anything the Scorporilla and Yuktopus acting as sorta sub-bosses in-story were better fights than saving the bandicoots (also one of the sludges says Crunch is Crash’s brother... confirmed?). Also small nitpick but why doesn’t Coco have her evil model in the enemy profiles, even as she has her boss lines?

Music is legit one of my favourite soundtracks in the series, Marc Baril doesn’t get enough credit. He manages to have such a range and it all works so well even as it has a distinct and fitting style.

Voodoo doll collecting is more involved which is cool, and there’s also golden wumpa now serving as health upgrades because we don’t have lives anymore. Yeah, Titans and MoM did gold wumpa first, not CTR:NF and Crash 4. At this rate I wouldn’t be surprised if it showed up even earlier. Minigames are optional too which means less stress for 100% completion, though there’s also the arena minigames (oh hey, more Ratchet and Clank similarities), and they unlock enemy skins... unfortunately unlike Titans which had skins for every enemy, there’s only a few skins here (one for each world’s games), which is disappointing.

Anyway... yeah. Mind over Mutant isn’t as polished as Titans and is a bit messy and inconsistent in some places (most likely because this game has less time than Titans), and some of the backtracking is tedious, but in general I had a pretty good time with it, and was actually pleasantly surprised by some things.

#crash bandicoot #crash: mind over mutant #mind over mutant

7 notes · View notes

pangolin-404 · 4 years

Text

Delving into what chapter 2 of Bendy: Rewritten (or just the side scroller AU, as a couple people have called it- still working on a vaguely clever name hh) would be like, where there are choices and reactions! More canon divergence! Things set up and hinted at!

The background music changes. No shame to batim's music, I quite like it, but it can be better. Whenever Sammy's around (carrying the cutout, looking over the band room, giving his ritual spiel) a banjo is added to the bg track. The followers get string instruments, more added depending how many are in the room. The sacrifice room is mainly string instruments

Sammy is somewhat a lost one. He loses his buff rights and is a mix of his pre- and post-update designs. I say somewhat because, while he is skeletal, he drips a lot and doesn't really have feet.

Sammy actually has followers. It can be pieced together from notes and dialogue that he split from the Lost Harbor after a close run in with Bendy permanently mangled his body and converted him to worship. He brought a few other lost ones with him (like, only a dozen but a couple died on the way). They wear Bendy masks, too, yet he's the only one wearing pants (mostly to hold his legs together). He also wears gloves to hold his fingers together, and only takes them off for brief periods to play an instrument before having to put them back on. Bendy left him with a lot of lasting damage

They all look the same and they know it hh

He's a proper prophet figure now that people look up to him. If Henry can find them huddled around a statue in prayer or drawing a ritual circle, they will talk about how much hope he gives them and how kind he is, despite how strict or overly optimistic he can be at times.

The followers' opinion of Henry changes with his behavior. Suggest Sammy is nuts? Say Bendy is evil? Drink too much soup? Break cutouts? They don't like that. Ask to learn more, give them some fresh soup, maybe even draw Bendy for them if Henry comes across fresh paper, and they'll appreciate it.

The cutouts are decorated with soup and candles. Drink a couple cans and the followers won't notice, drink more and they'll be upset, drink them all and they'll get concerned. Ink rats will scuttle out of hiding and can be found licking the empty cans.

Oh yeah you think humans were the only thing the ink affected? No there are ink rats and they scuttle around. Sometimes they become an enemy if multiple melt/fuse together and it's just a Lump Of Rat

"Did you drink the soup?" "No, did you?" "We don't have mouths! We can't eat!" "Who drank all the soup then?" "I don't know, but now there are rats everywhere!"

The whole chapter 2 area is bigger, kind of. Lots more signs of being lived in, with offices turned into little bedrooms and such. The followers are shy, though, and lurk behind locked doors, so finding them is tricky. Signs of life are everywhere but finding the life itself is difficult. Finding ones that talk more than a sentence is even harder.

Sammy is unhinged. Well-meaning, but ultimately mentally...cracked. He claims to have visions he interprets, but it's ambiguous whether they're nightmares/dreams or if Bendy's messing with him. He genuinely believes that Bendy will set them free, and he wants the best for his sheep. He'd be amicable if he wasn't trying to sacrifice Henry.

Instead of pressing the switches to open that first door, Henry had to find a pipe valve. A new "mechanic" of sorts is draining flooded halls. Ink pours down from piped above in an unpassable wall, and one or two valve are needed to shut it off completely.

Remember those notes I mentioned earlier? Well, some found around the music department contain buckets of how the followers see Sammy and their situation in general. They range from "oh hey here's Sammy's favorite tune-" to "note: don't play the organ! D:"

It's possible to find old newspapers and comics. Some of the pictures have been carefully cut out and pasted on the walls in various memorials, ranging from Bendy letting them outside to Sammy being "blessed" by the Ink Demon.

Some of the more petty depictions paint Alice as a jerk. She's an angel, he's a demon, so they're opposites. Since Bendy's so great, she must be awful! Rumors of a cruel Alice in deeper levels are hinted at.

The band room is slightly different. The projector's bulb is burst and there's a sticky note on it saying something about how touching it when you're made of ink is a bad idea, and to fix the projector before Sammy notices. Henry has to find a lightbulb and fix it now before he can turn it on.

The fight after opening the sanctuary affects the followers' opinions. They begin to realize what Sammy has in store for Henry. Killing all the searchers make them either makes them wince or frustrated, depending on their view on him up til that point.

I feel like you could probably click/interact with the banister to look over and it shows a still image of the band room below, and it shows whether or not the projector is fixed/playing and also shows any Bendy cutouts that pop up. I tried to draw that but couldn't get the angle I wanted, so

Sammy's sanctuary is like...just a big ol Bendy shrine. It's also where he sleeps, writes songs to Bendy, and where his banjo is kept. He has a Bendy plush on his bed

The further the chapter goes on, the quieter the followers are to Henry. They're gathering candles and offerings of personal belongings. They might be bittersweet, neutral, or glad to be away from him, depending on Henry's actions.

Jack is important to Sammy. They worked closely together and so they somewhat remember each other. He acts as Sammy's personal treasurer and doesn't let go of anything given to him. The first encounter with Jack is relatively the same, with needing to grab a valve from him. However, instead of holding the valve, it's sitting on the box

Henry's notes in his sketchbook also change depending on his interactions with things. If he annoys the followers and develops a bad relationship with them, he'll treat them like blind fools. If he helps them or is generally nice, he'll sound more sympathetic towards their situation and wish them well.

One is in the infirmary, badly hurt, missing a leg, practically a searcher, and delusional after getting just grazed by Bendy's aura. They believe they've been blessed by his presence, despite falling apart more and more by the hour (Bendy and any ink creature do not go together-). Henry can kill them and put them out of their misery, if he so chooses. The others won't like that.

Whether Henry kills him or not, Jack remembers. Getting items from him in the future becomes harder if he's killed multiple times, until eventually he's downright scared (I'll delve into more detail on the mess that is chapter 3). Befriending him completely later in chapter 3, on the other hand, will make the task easier.

Killing Jack triggers a horror vision. Henry briefly becomes unable to move, visibly distressed and looking around until the vision ends.

Not necessarily the sewers you first encounter him in, but close enough. You know you've entered an area Jack's in if there's a random item on a box that's under a light in an otherwise dim ink-flooded room

He goes through 'stages.' First the valve is on a box. Henry tries to grab it, but Jack (moving through the ink) pushes the box away. The methods of dealing with him is a messy web of cause-and-effect, with chances to crush him, corner the box slowly and steal the valve, it rush at it and cause it to slide off, or snatch his hat and bargain. (It's possible to steal his hat, kill him, and then keep/wear his hat, but why would you do that? Jack would forever loathe Henry and later on Sammy may ask for it back)

Nothing will stop Sammy from knocking Henry out. No matter how kind or cruel Henry is to his followers, Sammy will smack him over the head with a dustpan. He can't run, but the man can be sneaky if he wants to be, lurking through shadows and phasing in and out of the ritual portals.

(Clarification: because it would be a side scroller and the player could see Sammy sneaking up on Henry, instead there's a ritual circle on the wall that he'll jump out of when Henry walks past it.)

The sacrifice room is more of a hallway. The followers are all watching from the sidelines, peering through knocked out walls and over makeshift fenceposts. Candles and other offerings are around Henry. Sammy gives his spiel as always, first starting with a quiet "that face..." whispered mostly to himself but then using his Big Loud Musician Prophet voice to put on a show about how grand the sacrifice will be and how happy Bendy will be. The followers get excited for it.

Messy rendition but you get the picture

Sammy enters the room off to the side and calls for the Ink Demon. Ink leaks from the vents, and his aura is making some of the followers unsteady/weak. They become more restless, and unstable, until the calling reaches its climax (Sammy also sounds out of breath and his voice becomes wet and labored) and Bendy arrives out of sight. Sammy is torn apart, as per usual, though it's a slower, more audible mauling, and drags on through Henry's escape.

Some followers flee into the ink, while one or two are liquidated just by Bendy's aura. Others panic and attack Henry when he breaks free, messed up by Bendy's aura and so they resemble searchers.

Whether or not Henry powers through the onslaught or axes the frenzied followers may alter the number of followers he encounters later on, and (combined with how he'd treated them) how they react to seeing him again. "Oh I kind of remember you" vs "I don't blame you for using the axe" vs "Did you slaughter your way down here, too?"

Like in the updated chapters in game, the you can see ink machine lowering past crates/wood boards

Bendy actually pries himself up out of the ink with effort. Like, hands planted on the ground, lurching up, ink sloughing off of him, generally more detailed for a 2D animation.

Boris time! The boy himself peeks out from behind a wall before stepping out of the shadows

Feel free to send an ask for clarification/more detail about anything- I'm happy to go on more tangents!

#rants #batim au #Bendy: Rewritten #batim but it's a side scroller multiple choice game #but not really a game because i'm not a programmer so i will instead share every single choice and outcome #batim

3 notes · View notes

johncribati · 4 years

Text

NOTE: This Hypothetical Byleth moveset has been in my drafts since before they showed up in Smash. You’re just gonna have to trust me there. But I believe that 100% that this would have made a better Byleth than Sakurai could have dreamed of. I just did some minor editing to it to make it presentable.

Byleth for Smash Bros.

Not only would it make the community salty over ANOTHER Fire Emblem Character, but it would give us an opportunity to finally have someone who isn't locked to swords.

I thought at first it would work with a stance system like Shulk, where they would have a standard moveset but be able to swap their weapons out, but I've got one better.

You know how Peach and Daisy's Forward Smashes can be three different weapons depending on the angles? Imagine that, but... All the moves. All their attacks (except Throws) can pull out one of three weapons depending on the input.

Some other things before we begin:

Along with the input gimmick, Byleth can also cancel any attack into another that uses the same weapon.

Unless specified otherwise, Sword attacks are short-range, moderately fast, with middling damage, decent knockback, not much startup endlag. Lance attacks would generally be longer-range and slightly slower to come out than swords, with a Tipper Mechanic that offers more damage and knockback.

Axe attacks are the slowest, but have better range than swords and offer the most damage and knockback, even more than tipper Lance.

Gauntlet attacks are the fastest and most spammable. Almost no startup and hard to punish on whiff, but there's enough endlag on hit (and only on hit) that it's hard, but not impossible, to chase the opponent down with a different type of weapon attack. Byleth would also be the only Fire Emblem character that can cling to walls, using the spikes from their gauntlets

With that being said, let's flesh out this moveset!

Jab

Tap the button for a single quick thrust with a lance.

Double-tap for you two sword slashes.

Holding for a flurry of punches with gauntlets.

F-Tilt

Tap: wide vertical sword slash.

Double-Tap- One-two punch with the gauntlets

Hold- Step forward with a strong upward Axe strike. Big damage and good launch power.

Up-Tilt

Tap- Lance. High launch power if tippered, but thin hitbox.

Double Tap- two Gauntlet jabs upward. Sacrifices range and knockback for raw damage. Can catch taller enemies from the side and good for aerial follow-ups

Hold: Axe swing upward in almost a full circle from back to front. Slow with a lingering High- damage hitbox

Down Tilt

Tap- Sword jab like Marth et al.

Double-Tap- Double Lance jab along the floor. Pops foe upward

Hold- Sweep with Axe, similar to Ike

Dash Attack

Tap- Slashes with Sword

Double-Tap- Lunges with Lance, reminscent of the Soldier's attack animation in the GBA games.

Hold- advances with a flurry of Gauntlet strikes. Runs for as long as you hold, and can be held indefinitely at ledge.

Neutral Aerial

Tap- Top-to-bottom Axe swipe

Double-Tap: Front-to-back sword twirl like Marth

Hold- pulls out lance and spins it for multiple hits. Lasts until the button is let go or Byleth lands. No landing lag.

Other Aerials work on Smash, Tilt and Hold inputs. If you input a Hold, it will supersede the smash or tilt input.

Up-Air

Tilt- the same Sword slash that all the other Fire Emblem characters have.

Smash- lance stab upwards

Hold- Spins axe above like the Ike-copter of days past. Gets a good vertical boost (about body height) the first time, a smaller one the second (about half) and an even smaller on the third (about kneee to foot length). No more boosts after that, but kind of hovers in place for a bit before continuing to fall.

Forward-Air

Tilt- Gauntlet Jab

Smash- triple Sword stab

Hold- Axe slash

Back- Air

Tilt- Spins around with a hook punch with the gauntlet

Smash- Turns around and stabs with the spear

Hold- turns around and flips in the air with the Axe. Reminiscent of the Mercenary animation from the GBA games.

Down-Air

Tilt- Gauntlet. Like Little Mac but actually decent

Smash- Sword slash downward

Hold- Drop downward with the lance, like Toon Link/ Bowser/ Zero Suit Samus. Small earthquake.

Grabs are with one hand and pummels are with the gauntlet

Up-Throw- Tosses the opponent above their head. Input the A button after the throw to stab with the Lance, with a tipper if timed properly. Tipper kills around 110 for mid-weight characters.

Down- Throw- slams opponent into the ground for a bury. Input A to chop them with the Axe before they pop up. Its actually easier to mash out at higher percent, though. Kill throw at about 95 for Mid-weights

Forward-Throw- slashes with a sword.

Back throw- Tosses opponent behind and slams them with the gauntlets.

Neutral Special is a charged move. Involves Tap, Double-Tap, or Triple-Tap inputs followed by a hold to charge.

Hold on first tap- multiple Sword slashes. Safest on shield.

Hold on second tap- Lance thrust. Tipper breaks Shields instantly.

Hold on the third tap- Axe slam. Produces a small earthquake, similar to Roy's Flames and Chrom's wind, that hits front and back. Insta-kill at full charge, but minimal shield damage.

Side- Special

Tilt- forward Javelin toss. Can angle slightly while winding up.

Smash- Hand Axe. Straight shot that boomerangs. Hold Down the B Button for more distance.

Hold- Draws a bow, fires an arrow on release.

Down- Special- Instead of a counter, you get Instruct. It will Increase damage and knockback for a selected weapon for ten seconds

Tap for Gauntlet

Double Tap for Sword

Triple Tap for Lance

Hold for Axe

Up-Special

Smash- Dolphin Slash with gauntlets. Or... A Shoryuken I guess.

Tilt- Throws a Javelin with a rope attached. Tether recovery but can also function like Isabelle's fishing rod. Can perform a different up-Special if you catch an opponent while you're in the air.

Hold- Ike-Copter 2.0. Imagine K-rool's up special with a bigger hitbox above them, but not as much vertical.

Smash attacks work like Peach and Daisy- Different angles for different weapons.

F-Smash-

Neutral- Spear Thrust

Upward Angle- Axe slam

Downward Angle- Gut punch with gauntlet

Up-Smash-

Neutral- Again, Spear Thrust

Backward Angle- Swings Axe from front to back.

Forward angle- Swings Sword Back to Front

Down Smash- Slams weapon into the ground, creating an earthquake.

Neutral- Gauntlets. Fast and with little endlag. High- damage but trips instead of launches. Worst range.

Forward Angle- Sword. Better range, but slower than Gauntlet. Best damage, middling knockback.

Backward Angle- Lance. Best ground range and high knockback to grounded opponents. Kicks Up rocks into the air to damage opponents that try to jump over it. Lots of endlag, though

Taunts!

Down-Taunt

Tap- Byleth slams their axe into the ground and poses

Hold- Byleth buries a Lance in the ground like a flagpole and salutes.

Up-Taunt

Tap- Byleth raises a gauntleted fist into the air and cheers

Hold- Byleth raises their sword skyward. It twinkles.

Side-Taunt-

Tap- Shadowboxing with the gauntlets

Hold- twirls the lance idly.

#super smash bros #Super Smash Bros Ultimate #fire emblem #Fire Emblem three houses #byleth

6 notes · View notes

oneofyatosfollowers · 5 years

Text

One Of A Kind Chapter 2

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20191861/chapters/47843311

FF: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13360973/1/One-of-a-Kind

Yato's alarm went off the next morning, slowly pulling him out of a deep sleep. The noise was less urgent then the warning from last night's dust storm, but bounced around his skull none the less. He heaved himself off the mattress with a groan, his limbs and eye lids heavy. As he woke up, so did his systems, the screens blinking to life along side his vision. The first message saying his charge was low and would need to be replenished soon, while the other gave him the usual schedule of clean-up.

Getting up to a low battery was like waking up sore with a hangover. No wonder he turned in early. Yato groaned and stubbled towards the door. Pawing at the wall to get his oxygen-mask and ascot off the hook. He put both on, looking down to see he slept in his boots again. He debated putting on another pair but decided to wear these ones out completely.

The brown-tinted sunlight blared down strong this morning. Yato unzipped the top of his brown wearalls, tying the sleeves around his waist. Along the underside of his forearm, flat green panels were where the soft skin should be. Embedded there was a flexible solar panel, the easiest way to charge his battery. Yato laid back down on the top of semi-trailer, belly down with his arms at his side, and let the sun light soak into his systems. Due to smog-covered sun, this way of charging took half the day. But it was necessary, where as eating and drinking was not. It also lasted much longer than any food had previously done.

Yato opened his eyes at the sound of the battery being full. He stood and zipped back up his uniform. Nodding to Nora who had crawled her way up, he climbed back down the ladder and grabbed his cooler after locking his compactor to his back. When he stepped on Nora as he made his way down the ramp, he quickly got on his knees to apologize. The cockroach buzzed at him in irritation before making her way up his leg and on his shoulder. Yato nodded at her, then set off to work, his compactor still clasped on his back.

The hours ticked on as usual. The cubes of trash forming a large square base as Yato's cooler filled with the treasures he found. He made his way to the next pile, tossing aside a fire extinguisher- having already learned his lesson- and found an old refrigerator. This was tricky, he would have to remove everything then bring the large object to the dump to have it compresses by a much larger machine.

When the door wouldn't open, he pointed his right finger at it, signaling the laser to shoot. He started at the top and slowly made his way to the bottom, allowing the door to split down the middle and fall apart. What was behind the door had him pause.

"Nora...What is?" Yato's voice was nothing but a whisper. He gazed at the anomaly that shown a bright green. Stark against the dark brown waist land. 'Prunus Serrulata- Japanese Cherry Blossom' his main frame supplied. After a moment he thought on how to best take it back with him. The instructions on how to properly relocate a plant showed up, he read them while Nora jumped down to take a closer look. After some shifting through the trash, the plant was carefully placed in a short glass bottle, then put safely in the cooler. Reading the rest of the information his drive provided, Yato decided it would be best to return the plant to his house.

The trip back went by quick. Yato tried to search his own memories, from before his Father modified him to be a Wall-E. He couldn't remember plants, not even in his earliest memories. He remembered the fake leaves kept on the main table. But the plastic look-alikes where dull and rough in comparison to what Yato carried. He rubbed the leaves and had his scanner check again and again, his data coming back assuring him of the object was in fact a living organism. An extinct one at that.

Once Yato placed the plant safely on it's own shelf, he made his way back out the door. Another bright color caught his eye. Yato had just opened the door to his home when the red dot appeared. Nothing flickered into his view to give him any help to the second oddity of the day. It was a big red dot. A light the size of his palm. He slowly picked up his foot, eyes going wide for a moment before he slammed it on the door. His head whipped to the side as the dot darted out of the way just in time. After a pause it took off down the path, stopping a couple meters.

At this, Yato moved much slower. Placing the cooler down, he sneaked down the ramp, keeping his hand in front of him. When he was close, he moved slower, eyes fixated, and reached for it. When he did, the light shook. Circling Yato in a sort of dance, who danced with it in order to keep his gaze focused.

Suddenly, Yato was running. Taking off after the light that rocketed across the land. It's been a while since he's ran, but he wasn't wiped of such an instinctive human ability. It took a second for his tech system to kick into high activity mode. After a few meters, Yato was bounding over trash heaps and vaulting over fences. It helped he knew every inch of this city down to the last newspaper.

When it stopped again he was over what was once the ocean, now solid pollution. Yato let out a puff of satisfaction, its been a while since his lungs and heart had to work so hard. He looked around to see where the dot brought him, only to notice more of them coming down in a line. The red came down the city and the dunes and Yato realized he was surrounded. Good thing his mainframe was still buzzing because Yato turned tail and ran to the nearest, largest pile of trash.

He threw his body behind it, his systems blaring in his skull, pounding against his heart and breaths. The ground began to shake and the wind picked up. Yato dug his hands into the trash heap to hang on as the whole world seemed to shake. He faintly recognized the sounds of a space ship engine, but was too busy hanging on for dear life to get excited.

After a while, it quieted down, not nearly as silent as before but Yato was already starting to forget what that was like. Machines and engines began to hiss as the orbital maneuvering engines whined and slowed down. The atmosphere immediately cooled again, but the air smelled burnt.

Yato peeked around the corner, hand ready on his compactor in case he had to start swinging. A new, rounded tower stood tall, silhouetted against the sunlight. The bottom of the ship hissed open and a white cloud fell out of it like a water fall. Blue light streamed out of it, scanning the surrounding area. Yato crept out of his hiding spot when the light disappeared. He subconsiously fixed his hair, tried to rub any dirt off his face, then patted down his uniform.

Yato slowly made his way closer, stopping again when a large tube came down from a crane. It was placed not two inches off the ground. More mechanic arms came from the ship, one opening the locks along the side, the other typing in a code on the keypads at the top. Yato decided these machines weren't sentient and made his way behind a closer-much smaller-pile.

Whatever the machine typed in had the entire pod glowing a bright blue. The front was a glass case, one that had the shadowed shillohette of a person. At this, Yato nearly leaped out of his skin. His human half was almost thrilled to tears. It had been so, so long since he'd seen anything that even resembled a human. Just when he was starting to think this planet had been long since left behind. On the other hand, his mainframe panicked. The other Wall-Es were all dead, and he wasn't nearly done with the work he was supposed to do. What's worse is that he was sitting doing nothing in the presence of someone who was defiantly above him, instead of doing said job.

Yato's thoughts were silenced as the glass door of the pod slid open and the creature- who he assumed was a human- sat up and slid out. It stood in a white skin-tight suit with little glowing buttons along the hip and light up blue lines that stretched thoughout. Tyed to the tail bone was what looked like a small hand gun, long and futuristic without any sort of handle. The human reached up at the helmet it wore and clicked the buttons. The helmet seemed to disappear into thin air and long brown hair fell out. Yato gasped in awe at this, the hair flowing beautifully as the human looked around at it's surroundings.

The human waved at the pod, allowing it to shut before walking a few steps to the left. One hand on the side of their head- the white parts of the helmet that covered where the ears should be, still visible- and allowed the other side to scan the ground, just as the ship had done. After a second, something on the human buzzed, and it walked a few more paces before scanning again. It continued this process even as the ship began to fold back into itself. Yato ducked as the engines turned on, eyes not leaving the new guest.

The Earth rumbled and heat waves pushed past Yato with great force. But his eyes were able to keep open, even under such conditions, so he braced himself and watched over the human. The ship took off, the charred ground where it once stood the only evidence of it being there. That and the new two-legged organism walking around.

By now, the human had turned so Yato could get a good look at- oh. It was a human. Not just any human. A female. Yato figured he should had guessed, what with the nicely kept long hair she had, but then he reminded himself of the few men that kept their long hair in ponytails. But, her face look soft too. The skin was smooth and unshaven, her cheeks rounded along with her jaw. She had a delicate swan neck, delicate collar bones, and yep. Defiantly female.

Yato finally remembered how to close his mouth and his systems flashed a quick reminder he would need to breathe soon. So he did, watching the girl as she continued scanning. Maybe she was a cyborg like him? His systems hadn't picked up another signal, but it hadn't mentioned the ship either. Maybe they were both too advanced?

The human stopped, and so did Yato. She turned to watch the ship leave the atmosphere, now just a ball of light. She didn't show any emotion. Yato hoped she wasn't sad. As much as he was happy to finally have company, he knew what it felt like to be left behind. Yato took a breath, ready to go introduce himself and tell her it wasn't so bad here. Until she suddenly let out a yell.

Yato fell back behind the pile, freaked, before he realized the cry was one of joy.

"Oh my..." Yato's voice was caught in his throat when the woman's boots opened up two motors on the bottom and she took off in the air. She spun around, letting out a type of feminine laughter similar to the last sound Yato heard from another person. Yato 'Ooo'd and 'aw'ed as the girl flew around, kicking up dust, and dancing on telephone wires like gravity had no hold on her.

Yato worried about her flying off, somewhere he couldn't find or reach. But she stayed within sight, breaking the sound barrier now and again. After her laughter died down, she skidded into a landing right back where she started. Her hair was barely disheveled and her suit didn't have a speck of dirt on it.

As she caught her breath, Yato made his way toward her. He thought about how best to indroduce himself, how best to explain the mess and the lack of superiors, and maybe how best to invite her over for dinner. Once he was a meter away from her back side, he took in a breath through his mask.

"Hello-AH!" Yato threw his body to the side, his back hitting the dirt hard. Past him, the ground ruptured and exploded, dust billowing up. Yato still felt the heat of the blast long his chest, her calm focused face playing on repeat in his head. Yato realized he made a grave error: he hadn't even considered this person could be an enemy.

When the smoke cleared Yato sat in the fetal position with his compactor held out in front. Even the heavy iron and steel squares that blocked his head would be no match for whatever just fired at him from close range.

The girl made a string of noises. Firm and controlled, at normal volume.

Yato peaked around his compactor to see she still had the gun pointed at him. From this close he could see her eyes were brown.

She made the sounds again. Yato realized she was trying to speak to him in a language he- or his systems- didn't understand. There was so much to say, but he addressed the first issue.

"Don't shoot me. I'm not dangerous." Yato mimicked her tone, if not a little more passive.

He watched her eyes flicker to the down slightly to the right and knew she was reading something. She pressed her lips together, looking between him and her info, unsure.

"You-" she took a breath. "You speak the old dialect?"

Yato figured the question was rhetorical, noting that she still pointed the gun at him. He pointed his gaze at the gun then returned it to her with a hard, pleading, expression.

The young woman looked at him just as hard before pointing her gun to the floor. Yato noticed it encased her hand, stopping just above the wrist.

"You are not human." She spoke again while looking off to the right again, her voice choppy and unsure.

Yato shook his head, slowly putting down his compactor but not letting go. Yato may be a Wall-E, but there had been more than a fair share of fights. He swung this thing around day in and day out, his enhanced bone structure able to carry it like a baseball bat. He could also tell that she was new, or at least never pointed that at a sentient being before. Yato was confident he could defend himself.

"No. Are you?" He held his gaze. And his breath. Wanting desperately to know the answer. Her eyes finally left his and widened at something just below his chin.

"You're a Wall-E." she spoke in awe, and continued to look him up and down. "But I thought they were-" she shut her mouth and look at him again when he spoke.

"What? You don't have Wall-Es?" Yato forced a joking smile, but the words came out more nervous than he indended. The young woman let the gun fall to her side.

"No." she informed him, almost sad.

Yato immediately felt bad for upsetting her, even if he didn't know what he did.

"That-That's okay! What about you? Are you human or a hybrid, like me?"

"That's classified." she looked stern again, but a forced practiced stern.

"Well that's rude," Yato huffed.

"Sorry. That classified, Yato."

Yato perked up at the unfamiliar sound of his name. His smile returned when she put her gun away and he scrabbled to his feet. His name sparking the energy he had during her arrival.

"What's your name?" he asked excitedly, stepping close to her.

She stepped back with a funny look, "S-Sorry, but that's classified too."

Yato suddenly remember a joke his father often told.

"Nice to meetcha 'That's Classified Too'! Welcome to Earth!" Yato did a bow and flayed out an arm to gesture to the garbage land that surrounded them.

"There's lots of things here I think you'll like! And I'll be happy to show you!" Yato took walked towards her again, frowning when she backpedaled.

"Th-That's okay! I'm on a mission, so I'll have to pass." Her boots clicked on again. "It was- uh- nice meeting you!" she waved a bit awkwardly and took off again, this time toward the city, out of sight.

Yato stood and stared after her. His heart felt odd in his chest. Like it was telling him to follow her and never let her out of his sight. A high pitched chirp brought his attention away from the sky, to the ground behind him.

"Nora! Did you hear that! She said it was nice to meet me! And those boots! Did you see she could fly? Oh, wasn't she amazing Nora?"

Nora shook her body at the volume he shouted, instead crawling up his legs to his shoulder. She squeaked again.

"If you wanted to go home you should have went on without me. You're just using me as a ride 'cause you're lazy."

Nora hissed at him as Yato put the compactor back in it's holder. The smile still planted on his face. His cheeks were hurting, not being used to the activity, and he knew the future was going to be much more fun.

After Yato brought Nora back home, he tidied the pace up as best he could. Then he washed his hair and clothes with a leaf blower. And finally, soaking both in fancy-looking cologne he found. It was the middle of the night when Yato found her in the city. She had ended up in an old mattress store asleep in her pod, but this time with a blanket.

Quietly sitting in the parking lot outside, his gaze was zoomed in as far as it could go. His night-vision gave him high definition as he scanned the length of her body. He concluded some things. One, she was human, or at least a lot less cyborg-y than he was if she required sleep. Two, her knowledge about this world was basic at best. Other than her shock at his existence, she seemed to have an idea of what things were. It was like she had only seen things in pictures or read about them in books. Three, she was not here for a long time.

Next to this pretty human, the space ship also set aside a small crate. And if this person needed sleep, it was safe to assume she needed substance as well. Something that the crate most likely provided. If that were the case, the amount of food that thing could hold- even dried- was three months tops. Yato had hooked up the city's security system to his TV and his mainframe, it alerted him of any movement. He watched her take a meal out before finding a place to sleep.

Yato saw her sigh and roll over, pink lips parted, her breath fogging the invisible helmet. The Wall-E sighed longingly as she drooled, it's only been a couple hours but he couldn't remember life without her. Yato wouldn't let her leave. He couldn't. There was no way Yato could go back to that loneliness.

#noragami #noragami yato #yato #hiyori #Hiyori Iki #iki hiyori #yukine #noragami fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #wall-e #wall e #one of a kind

18 notes · View notes