#so I was borrowing from the warrior to be more on the offensive because we were getting fucking crowded by jacked up cyborgs

[imsorryithurts]

My character almost died last TTRPG session. Real tense, but I have to admit, real fun.

#ok so long story short I am a psionic healer in stars without number #using my power usually costs effort which is kinda like spell slots #but I also have a power that allows me to 'borrow' the powers of another character at higher effort #so I was borrowing from the warrior to be more on the offensive because we were getting fucking crowded by jacked up cyborgs #and more keep showing up #but at half health I stopped because if I needed to heal my colleagues at a distance I would need the effort I have left #tense battle even tough we never went lower than half health. also I hadnt slept the night before so it was hard to keep track of the stuff #so maybe it wasnt even that tense it just felt that way because I was so so sleepy #but ok. we manage to escape. I get my effort back and heal all of us to full health. great! #but then I felt a powerful psionic power coming from where we were before #and I try to track it. #long story short. I basically saw god and failed my saving throws so I immediatelly dropped to 0 hp. #from and outside perspectice I just stopped #grabbed my head. bled from my eyes. and dropped dead. #one of my friends had a healing item so I wake up with 2 ho #*hp #great that I'm awake now but I'm at 2hp! not great! so I say ok I'm rolling to heal myself and my DM just says 'nope'. #something blocked our psionic powers. #so now I'm just an extremely hurt guy who might have just seen the thruth of the universe and is used to being able to heal right away #let's hope next session we find out our healing machine back at the ship can revert 'saw what the universe is made of' damage. #but also lets hope it can't because that way I'm just a guy who forgot what long term pain was. and is in so much pain.

[a-wayne-at-heart-too]

Ask: The 27th of April, the Last (and Long) Part

Bonus Ask:

[Stately Wayne Manor]

Jason: *helping Alfred clear out the dinner table* You think we should’ve asked Harley to stay for dinner? 

Alfred: If you wished to see Master Bruce’s hair turn to grey as you ate dessert, I don’t see why not.

Jason: *burps loudly and fans his breath away* Whoops. Sorry, Alf. Just my way of complimenting your cooking.

Alfred: *carrying the dishes to the kitchen* Then perhaps you should come here more often, Master Jason.

Jason: *following Alfred* I'd rather not cause any trouble.

Alfred: *stops in his tracks and turns to face Jason with a stern expression* And you don't think it troubles me that you feel unwelcome here?

Jason: *takes the dishes from Alfred’s hands, sets them on the kitchen island, and pulls him in for a hug* Alf, hey... I didn’t mean it like that. I know you guys care about me, it’s just...

Alfred: *sobbing into Jason's shirt* We've already lost you once... Once is enough, Jason...

Jason: *tightens the hug and gently plants a kiss on top of Alfred’s head* I know, I know... I'm back, Alf. I'm back.

>>> *** <<<

Dick and Barbara: *sitting on the carpeted floor in the study, enjoying the heat from the fireplace in front of them, going through a stack of photo albums*

Dick: *smiling fondly* Wow, these are old-old.... I should probably scan them before they crumble to pieces.

Dick: *stops at a page and points at a picture of Bruce and Jason on a boat, smiling, and holding up a tuna* Check this out, Babs... Aw, I love this one. I had a few days off from work, decided to spend it here. Somehow Jason convinced Bruce to take break from himself and go fishing.  

Dick: *talking animatedly* So, there we are on Bruce’s huge fishing boat, the Bat-2-Sea -- And Jason’s starting to get seasick because he’s been hanging out by the edge, waiting for a bite for hours -- The persistence on that kid! --  And he finally gets one! A big one, Babs -- *spreads his arms* -- and it was pulling down hard like you wouldn’t believe, but Jason just wouldn’t let go! -- So Bruce drops the glass of wine he’s holding and runs to grab him --

Barbara: What were you doing?

Dick: Who do you think took the picture? As I was saying -- Bruce, he -- he -- *starts to laugh so hard that he tears up* trips over Jason’s line somehow and falls into the ocean! *slapping-the-floor laughing* The World’s Greatest Detective, in his Batwaders, drenched like a wet bird... *sighs happily* You should’ve seen his face!

Barbara: *turns the page* Oh, I can see it now. Still stone-faced, but wet.

Barbara: *stops at a page and giggles* Aw... Will you look at that?

Dick: *looks at the photo Babs is pointing at and chuckles softly* That’s adorable. 

Barbara: Those scaly leotards fit him better than they ever did you, Boy Wonder.

Dick: *smirks* Whatever. But I have to admit, he did look great. He looked really... happy. I wish... I wish I saw more of him in action, you know? *voice breaking* I could’ve maybe trained him the way I did Tim and Damian --

Barbara: *rubs his back comfortingly* Dick...

Jason: *walks into the study* Dickie, I took some of your --

Dick: *clears his throat and wipes his eyes haphazardly* Hey, Little Wing!

Jason: Wait, are those our old family photos?

Barbara: *pats the empty spot beside her* C'mere.

Jason: *sits down and rubs his hands together* Where’s the one where Bruce goes kersplat in the ocean?

Jason: *flips through the pages and grimaces at his photos as Robin* You're not gonna use these to blackmail me, are you?

>>> *** <<<

Duke: *watches as his RPG character explodes for the fifth time in a row and shakes his head* You beat me again! You're so good at this game, man.

Jason: *snorts and puts his controller down* Dude, you weren't even trying. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were letting me win.

Duke: What? Naaaah... That's... Come on, why would I do that?

Jason: *gets up and shrugs, grinning knowingly* I dunno... 'Cause you like seeing me alive?

Duke: Yeah. It’s pretty awesome, actually.

Jason: *offers to bump fists* I gotta pack up. Good game, though. See you around, bro.

Duke: *exploding-fist-bumps with Jason* You too, bro.

Jason: *pats Ace the Bathound’s head as he exits the game room*

>>> *** <<<

Steph: *examining Jason’s face* You look really pale.

Cass: *pointing at various spots on his face* And you have a lot of... scars.

Jason: *sitting on a stool in front of Cass’s vanity dresser, staring at himself in the mirror and absentmindedly running a finger over the shirt-covered scar on his chest* Yeah? That bad, huh?

Steph: *grins* Nothing a little makeup can’t fix.

Jason: *rubbing his chin* You think so? I mean, I just came here to borrow a few weapons from Cass, but if you think I need a makeover...

Steph and Cass: *look at each other and squeal in delight*

>>> *** <<<

Tim: And this *holding up a minuscule gadget between his fingers for Jason to see* generates a force field over your entire body. The more the impact, the greater the energy generated. Schway, huh?

Jason: *nodding his head appreciatively as he takes the gadget and sticks it on the lapel of his leather jacket* Schway.

Tim: *proudly shows Jason a Bat-shaped breastplate * Now, this -- You're gonna love this -- It can turn you invisible to the naked eye for roughly 34.5 seconds, giving you time to do all kinds of offensive or defensive stuff. They won’t know what hit them, Jay. You’re basically gonna be invincible and Joker... Joker, he’s... he’s not... not gonna... *drops the breastplate unceremoniously* 

Jason: *places a hand on Tim’s shoulder* Thank you, Timbo. Really. But I'll be fine out there. You don't have to worry about me.

Tim: Yeah? Can you promise me that? Because I don’t think I can live through another one of Bruce's meltdowns.

Jason: *chuckles softly* Aren't they the best?

>>> *** <<<

Jason: *staring at an empty grave layered with concrete in the backyard*

Jason: *rolls his eyes* I know you're there.

Bruce: *comes out of the shadows and stands next to Jason*

Jason: Why'd you keep it?

Bruce: Because I'm a sentimental old fool.

Jason: This is just... creepy. Even for you.

Bruce and Jason: *stare at the empty grave in silence*

Jason: I've forgiven you.

Bruce: *glances at Jason, who could’ve sworn his adoptive father’s eyes were bloodshot* 

Jason: You know that, don’t you? I mean, I know we’re always going to disagree about Jok-- about him, and a few other things, but... You’ll always be family, Bruce. My family. 

Bruce: *looks at Jason, smiling wearily*

Jason: *grinning back at Bruce*

Bruce: *puts an arm around Jason’s shoulder* Thank you... Son.

Jason: *pulls Bruce in for a tight hug*

Bruce and Jason: ... 

Jason: Hey, remember that time you went kersplat in the ocean?

>>> *** <<<

Damian: *knocks softly on Jason's bedroom door* Todd.

Jason: *stuffing a duffel bag with clothes, homemade snacks, and weapons* Hey, kid, come in. I’m just getting my stuff ready --

Damian: These came from Mother. *drops a pile of books on Jason’s old desk*

Jason: *picking one after the other up excitedly* Tolstoy, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu, Shakespeare, Marx... No way... 

Damian: They’ve been with me for a while. But since you rarely come over, they’ve been collecting dust and taking up valuable space in my room. -Tt-

Jason: *wiping the dust off with his shirt and hugging each one* She kept them... These were my friends back when I was in the League... 

Damian: I didn’t realize we had more in common than just being my Father’s sons.

Jason: Wow. I have no idea how I’m supposed to bring all of these home. I mean, I got here on roller blades, for Bat’s sake -- 

Damian: *thrusts a piece of paper into Jason’s chest* This is for you.

Jason: *gingerly uncrumples it, revealing a painting of him and Damian*

Jason: *reading the writing in calligraphy underneath* “The Second Chance Robins”... *looks at Damian, feeling the tears well up in his eyes* You made this?

Damian: *looking down at his feet* When it’s my day... M-my d-day... Will you come over, too?

Jason: *gets down on bended knee to be at eye level with his little brother* Hey, buddy, look at me. Damian, look at me. Of course. Listen, we’ll do whatever you want. We’ll, um... We’ll take bad guys down together! Pull pranks on Tim! You name it, I got you.

Damian: Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Todd.

Jason: I promise that I’ll do my best, okay?

Damian: You could stay the night, you know. You’re home anyway.

Jason: *ruffles Damian’s hair and grins* I'd like that. As long as you hang out here with me. And I promise I won't tell anybody because it'll ruin our reputation.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

If truth be told, @wingedskyes​ , Jason makes himself available on his Death Day. Because even if neither he nor his family and friends mention it, he knows that they need him just as much as he needs them.

Thank you for this Ask. It was both fun and just a tad bit heartbreaking to write. 

And thank you, @warrior-of-the-blue-moon​ , for the nice addition. 

See: Part 1, Part 2

#Ask #Bruce Wayne #Richard Grayson #Jason Todd #Timothy Drake #Damian Wayne #Barbara Gordon #Stephanie Brown #Cassandra Cain #Duke Thomas #Alfred Pennyworth #Talia al Ghul #Ace the Bathound

[fanfic-inator795]

Oneshot: Movies and Mermaids

((Have some Mikey and Draxum bonding *throws confetti*))

It wasn’t as if Draxum had any genuine interest in human culture, certainly not! He could care less! ...Though, his obvious lack of caring didn’t prevent certain annoyances.

Like how he would be sometimes be completely lost in certain conversations. A member of the faculty at the high school would ask if he had seen the latest film in theaters and if he liked it better than the remake, or how his fellow lunch servers would reference certain shows and encourage him to watch them as well - Gladys especially seemed entranced with a show regarding doctors all dating each other in-between doing their actual jobs, for whatever reason.

The rest of the city seemed to only aggravate him more. From displays and the videos that would play on the large screens on towers, to the advertisements he saw on the television box or in magazines. It just seemed like everything he saw in human culture was a reference to something or someone - a laundry list of names and shows and movies and jokes and even what were supposedly ‘simple’ concepts like technology and brands and lingo and-!

After over two months of living on the surface, Draxum had reached his limit. He was tired of constantly being confused. He was tired of constantly missing or misunderstanding the references.

He was tired of being reminded that this was not his world, that he was still a yokai in human clothing.

So naturally, as a man of science, Draxum thought it only made sense to start with some research. Granted there was an entire pantheon that he would have to go through, and without the power of the ‘internet’ and a television box that only had five channels, it would be a incredibly slow process... At the very least, O’Neil had said that she would help him get a human library card when they both had a free afternoon. 

In the meantime, Michelangelo had plenty of ‘reference material’, and even with the insistence that this was all for education and NOT entertainment, Draxum figured it was as good of a starting point as any, considering how much the humans seemed to admire their on-screen stories and their film stars. (No wonder Lou Jitsu was just as popular as an actor as he was as a warrior...)

It was late Friday night when Mikey showed up to Draxum’s apartment with a backpack full of movies of all different genres and formats and a VHS/DVD combo player tucked under his arm. “Good thing Donnie found this thing a few years ago, huh?” he said as he hooked it up.

Draxum didn’t bother replying. Instead, he was focusing on his choices for that evening - as well as for the rest of the week, since Mikey said he could borrow them as long as he needed to - pulling out each tape or DVD case and examining it carefully. Quite a few of them looked like they were for children, which he probably should have expected, though he didn’t dismiss them immediately.

“Don’t worry,” he heard Mikey said, “I remembered what you said. All of these are super popular ‘staples of human culture’ that practically everyone’s seen.”

“Good,” Draxum mumbled, putting aside a movie about a boat next to a movie about a boy gardener who wore a cloak and was apparently very harry. Picking up the next one, his expression flattened a bit at the cover. “This one you can take back, I don’t need to watch it.”

“Huh? Why- ohhh.” The box turtle chuckled as he took the tape, smiling at the younger version of his dad on the box. “Sorry, guess that one accidentally got slipped in there. Though to be fair, ‘Jitsu for Justice’ is a total classic.”

“Irrelevant,” Draxum huffed, “I have no desire to watch ANY of Lou Jitsu’s films, no matter how popular they may be. Once was more than enough...”

“Alright alright, I’ll- wait,” Mikey paused, “so you DID watch his movies?”

“Er, I- Not because I actually wanted to!” Draxum told him, “It was for research!” Mikey gave him a flat look. “He had stopped fighting in the Battle Nexus and I needed to study his moves! I-I didn’t enjoy doing it, if that’s what you’re implying! His movies were still ridiculous and completely unenjoyable! I would never actually-”

“Whatever you say, man,” Mikey shrugged, ignoring the Baron’s growls at being interrupted, “Though, how’d you watch ‘em anyway? I didn’t think that TV was that big of a thing down there?”

“I used my viewing orb to summon and display them, obviously,” Draxum told him, “Most yokai have them for when they need them, and they’re much more useful and clearer than any television box.”

“If you say so...” “Hmph.” With that settled, Draxum went back to digging through the bag of movies. It didn’t take long for another video to catch his eye, this one in a plastic case rather than a cardboard one, with a picture of a happy mermaid and an equally happy human plastered on it.

“Awwww!” Mikey said suddenly, “That was April’s favorite movie when she was little! Which meant it was one of the first movies she brought over to share with us! Heh, guess we borrowed it so often we forgot to give it back, whoops. But it’s a really good movie! See, there’s this mermaid who wants to live on land as a human, and she’s friends with a crab and-”

Draxum had begun to tune the turtle out as he continued to stare at the VHS case. Mermaids weren’t too common in the Hidden City itself, though that didn’t mean they weren’t there at all. The city was next to water, after all, and some would live on the shore or become part of an air-boat crew - and they certainly didn’t look like this.

He felt his thoughts start to swirl, becoming just as mixed as his emotions as a grimace began to form on his face. On one hand, Draxum supposed he should’ve been grateful that the humans were portraying a yokai positively - as cute and friendly instead of vicious creature that lived to drown humans. 

Centuries ago, before the Great Migration underground, Draxum had heard that and many other similar claims about his people... Baseless claims meant to justify hunts and attacking on sight...

On the other hand, did humans only see them as ‘harmless’ when used for entertainment purposes? Did they only approve of yokai existing when they only existed in fiction, where they could be used however humans saw fit? 

He was briefly reminded of the creatures - the ‘poke-o-mon’ - that he would occasionally see on shirts or on phones, creatures not directly based on yokai, but similar enough. He had to wonder how much other human entertainment was based on so-called fictional creatures and monsters that they never would have even smiled at before.

“-xum... Hey, Drax?” Mikey poked his bicep, making Draxum flinch. “You okay, bud-?”

“Fine,” Draxum snapped, though there was a little actual bite to it, “Just surprised that humans would portray a yokai so positively, even in fiction.”

“Most humans do think they’re just fiction,” Mikey told him. After a moment, his tone became a bit gentler, thinking back to certain points brought up by his father and April. “Though, I can still sorta see why that would feel weird or kinda insulting, seeing a fake version of yourself or your people and not knowin’ how they’d react to the real you, wondering if they would only like the fake you. That probably doesn’t feel the greatest... and I’m really sorry about that.”

Draxum blinked. He stared at the turtle for a few seconds before finally replying with, “You’re a lot more introspective than I would have thought.”

“I get that a lot,” Mikey grinned, “But hey, they don’t call me Dr. Feelings for nothing. So, did you wanna keep this one then, or- I mean, I can understand if-”

Draxum stopped him, looking at the tape again. “...I am admittedly curious,” he said, “You did say this was a movie humans watch as children.” Studying a species’ influences during adolescence could prove to be pretty useful in understanding the adults. “And besides, if the portrayal is truly offensive, I can always send a complaint to this ‘Walt Disney’ and demand certain edits.”

“Riiiiight, though I don’t think you’ll be too mad at this one,” Mikey told him, “Ariel is a great character, and all the other mermaids in the movie aren’t portrayed as jerks or anything. ...Well, one guy kinda is but, uh-”

“Let’s just watch it already,” Draxum told him, shoving the tape into his hand, “The sooner we start it, the sooner I can gauge whether or not it’s actually worth watching.”

Mikey smirked a little. “Heh, alright.” Opening the case, he pushed the tape in while Draxum went over to the couch they had gotten him at the thrift store, briefly checking it for bugs or lumps before sitting down. “Good thing it’s already rewound.”

The only annoying thing about that was that they had to sit through previews, though Mikey used that time to cook up some popcorn kernels that he had snagged on the way out of the Lair, easily cooking it using a pan and the stove top. (No one trusted Draxum with a microwave after That One Time.)

By the time he finished, the movie’s title had just faded onto the screen. Mikey smiled widely, the nostalgia from the music and the memories he had with the movie sending slight shivers up his shell. 

Draxum, meanwhile, was watching the film intently, taking in every detail. The mermaids in the film were still completely different than actual mermaids, but at least they weren’t an insulting caricature (even if they were a bit too human-like for his liking).

As it turned out, the main mermaid character was not only a bit of a collector and explorer, but also a human fanatic. “Ugh,” Draxum grumbled as he grabbed a couple more pieces of the puffed-up corn-snack. Mikey gave him a bit of a look, but he ignored it. Just because he had been able to find a bit of common ground and comradery with his fellow lunch servers didn’t mean he was willing to give ALL humans a pass.

At least the mermaid’s father seemed to have some common sense. In fact, Draxum found himself nodding in agreement with nearly every scene the mer-king was in. ...Up until a certain point, at least.

Mikey winced a bit as the scene began. He resisted the urge to go into his shell like he always had when he was little, but he did sink a little in his seat as Triton stepped out of the shadows. When he noticed Draxum glancing over at him, Mikey simply mumbled, “I always hate this scene...”

A couple minutes and a destroyed grotto later, and Draxum could sort of see what Mikey meant, understanding how Triton’s act might have been “harsh”, as the orange-wearing turtle would’ve put it.

As the movie moved onto the next seen, Mikey relaxed a little, though a frown remained on his face... However, his expression of sadness soon became one of confusion as he felt a hand pat the top of his head.

“Uh... there, there,” Draxum mumbled, giving Mikey one more head-pat before retracting his hand. It was awkward as all heck, they both knew it, but seeing the sheepman somewhat care about his feelings still made Mikey smile.

It didn’t take much longer for Ursula to make her appearance, and as soon as the Sea Witch began talking of deals and trades, Draxum gave a small smirk of his own.

“What?” Mikey asked, tilting his head a bit.

“I didn’t realize Big Mama was in this movie.”

Mikey snorted at that. “So what, you tell jokes now?”

The sheep-man shrugged as he grabbed another handful of popcorn. “Just making an observation,” he said simply. As the scene went on though, his mind made another small connection - Ursula’s two eels reminding him of his own pair of pets, even if Flotsam and Jetsam were much more confident than his former goyles.

Even so, the reminder made his chest ache a little... Not in sadness, mind you, or because he actually missed them. No, clearly his chest ached for a completely different reason that he was sure he’d think of later.

Once the little mermaid made the contract and silenced herself, the film very much became a literal ‘fish out of water’ story, complete with plenty of amusing moments featuring misunderstandings and an over-abundance of cuteness, as well as another musical number. Thankfully, before things became too saccharine, Ursula launched the second half of her plan to rule the seas.

After that, the movie moved pretty quickly through its third act. Draxum was a bit annoyed at the human prince being the one to ultimately save the day in the end, but overall he could agree that the ending was a pretty happy one.

As the credits rolled, Mikey looked at him with eyes wide. “Sooooo, what do you think?”

Draxum cupped his chin in thought, staying silent for a few moments before finally speaking. “...If the king’s trident had the power of transformation, why didn’t he just turn the prince into a merman?”

Mikey’s face fell. “...That’s what you got out of it?”

“It’s a valid question!” Draxum argued, “Why should she have to be the one to transform?”

“Because she wasn’t just after the guy!” Mikey told him, resisting the urge to facepalm, “You saw her collection and heard her song, she wanted to be human! She was tired of bein’ stuck in the same ocean and wanted something new - something she thought was cool!”

“Hmph, I suppose that’s true... Plus, she still has the option to turn back into a mermaid later on thanks to her father’s power, so at least there’s that.”

The box turtle slumped back on the couch, disappointed though maybe not too surprised. “I guess that means you didn’t really like it, huh?”

There was a long moment of silence. “I didn’t completely agree with the ending but... the film overall wasn’t too bad,” Draxum conceded, “Not as bad as I thought it’d be, at least?”

“...You really mean that?” Mikey asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t waste my time lying about something as trivial as animated human-entertainment,” Draxum replied, “And... there were high production values. Characters were mostly understandable, and it was... cute. Not too annoying or insufferable. Even if it was still slightly inaccurate to actual mermaids and mermen.”

“...You know what, I’ll take it. And I’m glad you enjoyed the movie, and not just for my sake.” With a bit of a ‘whup’, Mikey sat up and tucked his legs under his body in a sort of lotus position. “Though, now I’m kinda curious. What’d the movie get wrong, and what else can you tell me about merpeople? I only ever saw one, on Hueso’s brother’s ship, but that was only for like a second.”

This time, it was Draxum’s turn to give him a look. “Really... The child who’s always pushing me to ‘embrace humans’ and hide my ‘mystic stuff’ is asking me to teach him about a member of Yokaikind?”

“Hey, I only to tell you to hide your mystic stuff so you don’t get yourself evicted, fired or arrested,” Mikey retorted, “I’m not the one goin’ around mutatin’ kids and/or lunches and making giant stone heads angry.”

“...Fair enough,” Draxum said, only slightly reluctant.

“But as far as I can figure, there’s no harm in just talking about mystic stuff. And as for my actual interest... Yeah, I really do wanna know.” Unable to help himself, Mikey directed his gaze towards the floor - down towards the Hidden City that he knew was there. That he only now knew was there. 

He wouldn’t have traded his life with his dad in the sewers of NYC for anything, but he would’ve been lying if he said there wasn’t a small part of him that wondered what it would’ve been like to grow up around people that looked like him in a city full of magic.

“We protect humans, but we don’t like only humans, you know,” Mikey continued, “We’ve got other mutant friends, and yokai friends too.” His smile softened. “Senor Hueso and Sunita and the chefs I’ve met at Run of the Mill, they’re all so amazing. And I’ve only seen, like, a fraction of the Hidden City but I know that’s amazing too, and I just... This city - the surface - is always gonna be my home, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care about the other city or wonder about it.” 

He finally looked back at Draxum, his eyes firm. “So yeah... I wanna know.”

There was another moment of silence between them, though within it, the slightest bit of connection was formed. Small and fragile, but no less noticeable.

“...Fine,” Draxum finally agreed, “But pay attention, I don’t want to repeat myself later. First off, no merperson has the same skin tone as a human. They range between greens, blues and grays to help blend in with oceans. Their eyes are also much wider than a human’s to help them hunt.”

“Makes sense to me!” Mikey smiled, leaning back on his hands a little, though looking no less attentive. Even when the TV turned to quiet static, he kept his focus right on Draxum - a gesture the former warrior-scientist certainly appreciated, even if he didn’t say so outright.

“Merpeople are also able to survive outside of water. While mobility becomes an issue depending on how often they’re moving or traveling, they have no issues living on land - hence why some take to living on air-boats as a sort of compromise, plus it helps them travel across bodies of water in a shorter amount of time. They also don’t eat humans, despite the lies told about them, though they can be territorial when they are in the water - although you can’t blame them, especially if fish start to become scarce. Furthermore-”

It was sort of nice... Sure, Mikey had plenty he wanted to show and teach Draxum about humankind - and if all went well, then maybe there was a chance of Draxum having a change of heart. Maybe their technical creator wasn’t totally evil, and maybe one day, he really would be a better person and would understand what he and his family already knew. Mikey certainly hoped that would end up being the case...

But, in the meantime, maybe Mikey would end up learning a little from Draxum too. And honestly, as long as it wasn’t lecture series about ‘effectively destroying humans’ or anything like that, the orange turtle didn’t see anything wrong with that at all.

THE END

#rottmnt #baron draxum #michelangelo tmnt #oneshot #my writing #fanfiction #had this idea for a while #finally finished writing it out

[retroateez]

Prophecy - Chapter Nine

hello!! updating this quicker than I expected but i’m excited for this again so here we go,,, i’m gonna try scheduling this one too so that’s fun. hope u enjoy xx

wc;3282 Prophecy Masterlist

Needless to say, passing your alchemy exam proved a far more difficult task than you had initially anticipated.

No wonder why Yeosang had failed it five times.

You're sat in Yeosang's garden, perched on one of the benches placed against the wall of the house. The winding path through the woods is around a hundred metres ahead of you, and you often find yourself staring amoungst the tree trunks, wondering what could be lurking there.

You knew nothing could attack you on Yeosang's land; he had cast a protective charm over the entire area, so even if he wasn't here, you remained safe.

Although, grumbling at the exam paper in your lap, you half wished a griffin would come barrelling through the forest and tear you into shreds with it's deadly claws.

You're convinced it would be less painful than the questions on this exam.

What is the purpose of bloodmoss?  you read Yeosang's scruffy print, having been forced to get accustomed with his unintelligable handwriting.

"Oh, this is easy," you murmur to yourself, picking up your quill and scribbling your answer down quickly.

'Bloodmoss is used to create Vitriol.' you scrawl. 'Vitriol is used to dissolve certain substances.' You nod to yourself, proud that you seem to be doing fairly well, despite how challenging Yeosang made your test. You're convinced he did it on purpose.

With a sigh, you turn the page and gratefully, you lay your eyes on the final question. That is, until you read it.

It doesn't even seem to be a question, nor is it written in Yeosang's usual hand. In fact, it appears to be from a book, the ink faded at the edge of the pages from people thumbing through the whole volume.

But why was there a single page mixed in with your alchemy exam?

'Beserkers' is written at the top of the page in a large, bold print.

'Originating from the North, Beserkers are believed to have roots in powerful bear cults. Members of these cults are typically warriors, of whom are thought to manifest the strength of the bears themselves and enter a fit of frenzy. These frenzies are wild in nature, often leaving the individual considerabley weaker once the effect has worn off. It is debated whether or not these Beserkers metamorphose into bea-'

"Have you finished your exam yet, Iris?" Yeosang voice plummets you back down to earth, causing you to jump in your seat and almost send your papers flying out of your grip.

"Yeah!" you gasp, holding them out to him and he takes them with a smile.

As he goes back inside to mark your test, you decide not to ask him about the loose page hiding in your exam. It clearly wasn't supposed to be there, so you come to the conclusion that Yeosang doesn't want you knowing about it. Truth be told, whatever those things were, they seemed dangerous anyway.

Yeosang finds you at the end of the garden a short while later, plucking daisies from the grass and knotting their stems together. He stands behind you, observing your creation of what he assumes will be a crown. You haven't noticed him yet, and he takes the moment to think.

He couldn't explain why he took you under his wing and trusted you immediately. There was just something about the way your two lonely souls happened to find one another that tugged at Yeosang's heart strings. He always was a sucker for sappy things like that.

He was glad to have a human friend, for a change. Somebody that he could talk to, and they would offer him actual conversation back. He enjoyed his role as your teacher too; they had told him being an advisor of the arts was a position he was destined for, they just hadn't factored in the fact he despised them and everything they stood for. Besides, he knew your knowledge of magic was minimal, if not almost non-existent. Meaning there were little to no dangers here, and he refused to have a repeat of last time.

"Hey, you." Yeosang calls out, cautious not to make you jump again. "Want your exam results?"

You spin around on the grass instantaneously, probably staining the seat of your (Yeosang's) borrowed breeches in the process. You leap up, jumping towards him.

"I did awfully, didn't I?" you chew on your bottom lip nervously, playing with the ends of the sleeves on your (Yeosang's) shirt.

"Congrats, my tiny student," he smiles. "On being the only person I know to have passed their alchemy exam on their very first try."

He hands you the papers and you gawk at the mark score that reads fifty out of fifty points at the top. You stand there, frozen, staring at the numbers.

"Well?" Yeosang asks. "Aren't you going to thank me for being the best alchemy teacher ever?"

You look up at him to see the fond expression he seems to have gotten comfortable wearing.

Deciding to play along, and maybe embarrass him a little, you sweep down into a full bow.

"Thank you!" you cry. "O' great master of alchemy! How ever would I have gained such knowledge without your guidance? May the gods bless your so-"

"Okay, okay! That's overkill." Yeosang laughs at your exaggerated performance, then he notices your daisy crown, abandoned on the ground where you were sitting.

He paces over to it and leans down to pick it up, and you watch him silently.

He crumples the flowers up into his palm, and closes his eyes.

A couple of seconds pass, and Yeosang's eyes flutter open, his irises burning a dandelion yellow. He turns to you, then opens his palms, leaving you in awe.

The daises you had picked, were tiny and snowy white, wrinkled and bearing few petals. But the daises Yeosang was presenting were gorgeous; each flower had grown to the size of roses, blooming proudly in the mage's hands.

Yeosang places the daisy crown on your head, and steps back to admire his work.

"Well done," he smiles softly. "I'm proud of you."

You can only give him back a wide grin, loving the sunshine yellow glow Yeosang's flowers leave against your hair.

-----

"So, where does this astrolomer guy live?" you ask Yeosang a few days later during lunch.

"Astrologer." he corrects you, handing you a sandwich and a bowl of sliced apples.

"Yeah, that one."

Now that you had officially earned a beginner's alchemy qualification, Yeosang was content on making progress with the messy situation you had gotten him into.

"He lives just outside of Yirelia," he answers. "It'll take us a day or two to get there, so we'll have to rest at a village inn or something."

You nod and chew your food slowly, nerves already beginning to set in. You'd never travelled anywhere before, and you knew that with Yeosang by your side, you would be safe; he'd never let anything happen to you. But still, you couldn't help but feel a little nauseous.

"So, how come this astrolomer owes you a favour?" you ask, ignoring Yeosang rolling his eyes at you getting the stranger's profession wrong once again.

"Astrologer," he corrects you one more time, and you don't know why he bothers. "And I saved his life once. Us outcasts stick together."

"Outcast? Is he a mage too?"

"Not quite." Yeosang doesn't elaborate, so you take it as an unspoken hint to stop asking questions, and eat.

The blonde mage bustles about the house for the rest of the day, gathering ingredients and bundling them into pouches, collecting bottles of brewed potions and lining them inside his satchel and packing clothes and food into a smaller, leather bag for you to carry.

"Do we really need all this?" you question him, surveying the small vial of yet another restoration potion he was clutching in his palm.

"Probably not," he tells you honestly. "But you never know when one of these little beauties could come in handy!"

You just nod, deciding to go along with his plan. You do that a lot with Yeosang, you noticed; just taking his words and concluding that he knows best in every situation. Perhaps for your own character it would be better to question him at times, but deep down you knew that without Yeosang's guidance you'd probably be buried six feet under in the Ateez graveyard.

No, they wouldn't have even buried you, they probably would have just thrown your body into the sea. Yeosang's ideas were (probably) better than that, so you opt to keep your mouth shut and assist him with the packing.

The next morning, you set off, you clad in a seaweed green shirt and tight, black breeches. Yeosang had once again altered some of his old clothing for you to wear. If his mage work fell through, you think he'd make a spectacular tailor.

Yeosang looks great (as usual), dressed in his typical white shirt and brown trousers, paired with a sweeping, wine red coat which has sleeves hiding most of his hands.

"That coat makes you look like a pirate." you muse aloud to him. You see a hint of offense strike his face, but he recovers quickly, grabbing his satchel and slinging it over his shoulder.

"Maybe I want to look like a pirate." he sniffs and turns away from you, marching off and starting your journey.

You hurry to catch up with him, having to increase your pace to keep in time with his brisk pacing.

"So... we're just walking?" you question.

"Yes." Yeosang replies shortly.

"Right."

You wrinkle your nose; you'd hoped that he'd be a little more talkative but it seemed that when the mage had a goal, he was very determined to get it done. Or perhaps he had finally concluded he was in fact pissed off with you for getting him into a situation that required him to walk for two days straight?

"Do you wanna play a game?" you suddenly blurt.

-----

"I spy with my little eye, something beginning with... T!"

"Tree?" you guess Yeosang's attempt at playing your game immediately.

"How are you so good at this?" Yeosang pouts; you've deciphered his hint on every single one of his turns so far, and you can't even tell how long it's been since you started. Time is an illusion when you're walking.

"Because there's nothing around us except for trees!" you yell. "What else could 'T' possibly be?!"

Yeosang falls silent at your outburst and carries on walking.

A while passes with the two of you in silence, and the guilt begins to creep in. You shouldn't have gotten mad at Yeosang, but he'd spied trees at least six times already and it really was getting frustrating.

After deliberating for a few moments, to plan your apology to Yeosang. The game was your suggestion, after all, and it wasn't fair for you to snap at him.

"I'm sor-"

"There's a small town nearby," Yeosang cuts you off. "We can rest there for a bit and get something to eat."

The moment for you to apologise passes, and you can tell by how Yeosang refuses to meet your eye that you've upset him. You mutter a quiet agreement and you both carry on your way.

You silently pray that the town wasn't too far away, the tense atmosphere becoming too much for you to handle and the guilt weighs heavy on your shoulders. Yeosang was good to you. more than good, in fact. He had literally saved your life, fixed you up and tapped into your hidden potential to be more than just some common thief, of course, he wasn't aware of your past, or indeed anything about your life from before you washed up just outside his back garden. But he still hadn't asked for any information regarding your former identity. Maybe it simply wasn't important to him? After all, the past was the past and what was most important was the present. Yeosang didn't seem the type to dwell on the 'before', instead focusing on the 'now'. In a way, you were grateful for it; you didn't want to think about his reaction if he discovered you were in fact a minor criminal.

Luckily, Yeosang brings you to the doors of what you assume to be a tavern, the hanging sign outside the door reading 'The Golden Treasure' in bold, professional lettering. However, the small crowd of drunks hanging around the entrance suggested this was a far from professional establishment.

You look up at Yeosang questioningly, and he responds with a shrug of his shoulders and a quick signal for you to stick close to him.

As usual, you cling to the mage's side like a lost child, gripping the side of his red coat so tightly you're concerned your knuckles will rip through your skin.

The two of you keep your sights fixed on the doors, avoiding all possible eye-contact with the drunks whose intoxicated yelling was quickly escalating into a fist fight.

Yeosang rapidly whisks you up the steps and towards the door of the tavern to get you as far away from the men as quickly as he can.

"Jongho!" one of the men slurs. "Leave it man! It's not worth wasting your time on!" you witness a stocky, well-built young man with an oddly round, grizzly brown haircut be hauled back by another man much smaller than himself. It's a wonder how he can even tug the obviously stronger man away from his rival, but something tells you this isn't the first time he's had to do it.

Already through the threshold of the inn, you aren't able to watch the angry young man's response, but a shrill yelp of pain and the sound of a body colliding harshly with the ground tells you all you need to know.

Yeosang steers you by the shoulders up to the barkeeper to inquire about rooms, and you take the chance to study the inn.

You'd never been inside a tavern before, the swarms of drunk folk loitering outside the building at night a clear reason for you to stay clear, but on the interior, you found it to be strangely comfortable.

It was a large, dim room with minimal light coming from the roaring fire situated opposite the door. Sturdy tables and less sturdy benches fill up the center of the room, empty goblets and playing cards strewn across the tabletops in an untidy fashion; perhaps the ruckus outside was the result of a card game gone awry.

On the far right was a staircase leading up, to where you presumed the rooms for travellers and the like were.

The whole room was highlighted by the familiar warm glow from the hearth, and your worries started to settle again, laying themselves to sleep like the exhausted people meters above your head. You feel the comfortable heat from the warm seep through your body, beginning at your fingertips and sliding underneath your skin. Even surrounded by dangerous strangers, you've oddly never felt more at home. There was something about being around Yeosang that just made you feel like you belonged. Like you and him were two pieces of a puzzle you'd spent years trying to figure out how to piece together. But now that you'd finally managed to get them to fit, you realised there was something missing. There were other pieces to the puzzle, but they were scattered around the box, and they were all painted pitch black; you had no idea which piece was which, or which piece you needed next. 

Still, you were content being at Yeosang's side. You were learning quickly, but he had noticed your appetite for knowledge growing rapidly, and truthfully, he feared it. He could sense an untapped potential in you, he'd seen similar before and it had never ended well.

He was adamant that he wouldn't let the same happen to you, even if it killed him.

"Come on Iris," Yeosang snaps you out of your thoughts, motioning to the stairs. "up you go."

Fatigue suddenly setting in, you gladly shuffle yourself up the stairs and collapse onto the bed face first.

"Move over, you lump." Yeosang whines, pushing you to the end of the bed, to which you respond with a pained groan. 

"You're so cruel!" you cry, sitting up and frowning at him. "You could've hurt me doing that!"

"If I wanted to hurt you," he raises an eyebrow at you. "you'd know about it."

You ignore his threat and turn your head around the room, surveying the simple, wooden decor; a tattered book shelf, a plain desk and accompanying chair, a few, worn and rusty storage chests and the bed Yeosang was currently lounging on

."Yeosang," you pipe up, only just realising. "There's only one bed."

He pulls himself up, peering up at you through sleepy eyes

."I don't care." he murmurs, flinging himself back down with a thump.

"Well, I do!" He brings himself back up slowly, like a vampire rising from his coffin after being awaken from a century long sleep. His eyes are half-closed and you think he might actually be asleep already.

"Then sleep on the floor."

"Why do you get the bed? That's not fair!"

"I'm older, I have more joint pain than you." he deadpans. "Also, I saved your life."

"You can't keep using that against me..." you grumble, but collect a few blankets from the bed and snatch them up, creating a make-shift bed on the floor. The wooden floor isn't exactly the height of comfort, but with a roof over your head and a crackling fire just downstairs, you can't really complain. 

Cuccooning yourself in the blankets, you try and fall asleep. But you find yourself staring at the ceiling, thinking of everything and nothing to the soundtrack of Yeosang's snoring. Your mind wanders to the stranger who owes Yeosang a favour, you wonder what his name is, what they look like. Yeosang had called them an 'outcast', like him, but also said he wasn't exactly a mage either. So you didn't know what to expect. Life kept throwing these things at you, probably to keep you on your toes. It was overwhelming, if you were being honest; having spent all of your life up until this point mainly fending for yourself and never venturing outside of the city you grew up in, to suddenly travelling across the country with a random, magic man who's beach you almost died on.

Your eyes grow heavier as you lose yourself in your thoughts, and you're almost grasped by the clutches of sleep, until an abrupt growling from outside whips your eyes open, and you bolt upright.

"Did you hear that?" you whisper to Yeosang.

"It's just a bear." He mumbles in response, making you jump slightly because you thought he was still asleep

."A bear?"  you hiss."I know," he says sarcastically. "Un-bear-lieveable."

You retrieve one of your pillows and launch it at his figure, smirking triumphantly when he grunts in surprise.

"That was a terrible joke." you complain and bury yourself back into your improvised bed.

"Whatever," Yeosang yawns. "just go to sleep, we'll be meeting the astrologer tomorrow so you need to rest."

Finally deciding to listen to the mage, you squeeze your eyes shut tightly in hopes you'll fall asleep quickly. Luckily, you do just that, sleeping peacefully and dreaming about the bear in the forest outside. He's wounded, bleeding heavily from a nasty gash on his neck and panting in pain. You reach out to help him, but of course it's just a dream; he'll be okay. You hope.

Chapter Ten

(as always, if u enjoyed pls leave some love! it rlly helps me out)

#ateez au #medieval!ateez #ateez #yeosang #hongjoong #seonghwa #jongho #wooyoung #san #mingi #yunho #ateez fluff #ateez angst

[nikkoliferous]

Ragnarok Makes No Damn Sense (Part 1)

Having now laid out who Loki has always been and why there was an open agenda to demean and debase him, we come to why Thor: Ragnarok is antithetical to his character. Buckle your damn seatbelt. We've got a lot to unpack.

Off the bat, we're supposed to be appalled/annoyed/something that Loki has usurped the throne from Odin. Yet when last we left our heroes, Thor had abdicated his role as King of Asgard, knowing full well that Odin's health was failing, he was emotionally unfit to rule, and there was no other heir to fill his role. Oops! And for all that we're meant to believe in Loki's selfish ambitions for a throne, let us not forget that Loki-as-Odin at the end of The Dark World offered Thor this kingship. It was Thor who refused. What was it he said at the time? Oh, yes.

"For all his grave imbalance, Loki understood rule as I know I never will."

Now Ragnarok wants us to forget all that. It doesn't suit the narrative Taika Waititi wishes to spin. He wants us to believe that Loki is a terrible, lazy ruler who cares only about glorifying himself. But wait, is Loki a terrible ruler? The Hero™ tells us he is, so it must be so. And yet all we really know of Loki's reign is that he had a non-interventionist foreign policy, improved public infrastructure, and supported the arts. Wow, yeah, what a dick.

We will soon go on to meet Doctor Strange, a character who in comparison to Loki is a novice at magic yet somehow repeatedly manages to get the drop on the trickster. This is necessary in order to minimize Loki's power and competence in the eyes of the viewer. Let me also explain why the "I have been falling for 30 minutes" scene is not charming.

Does anyone think perhaps Loki may have a touch of PTSD related to the sensation of falling? No? Then perhaps we should instead analyze the deleted scene in which Loki is locked in a portapotty while men repeatedly urinate on him until Thor arrives to let him out. The fact that this was an idea someone had to begin with is gross. The fact that they came close enough to using it that it was actually filmed is downright shameful. Every single person at Marvel involved in approving this trash should commit seppuku in penance.

Ignoring the sexual assault implications here... I mean, this is literally toilet humour. Literally. What are we, five years old? Who the hell actually finds this funny?

"I keep a watch list of individuals and beings from other realms that may be a threat to this world." - Doctor Strange, Thor: Ragnarok

So how did you miss the huge, purple nutsack wreaking havoc across the cosmos? I mean, no offense. I'm just saying.

Now we have the culmination of Odin's A+ parenting. He's at the end of his life just because he feels like it, I guess, so now it's time to pretend he gives a damn about Loki for a few seconds again. One "I love you" without even looking at him is supposed to make a millennium of emotional abuse and neglect all better or something. Even in his death, Odin can't seem to stop screwing with Loki's mind. What a charming man, I'll sure miss him.

Oh, but before he's on his way, he has a teensy weensy confession to make. Remember when he lied to you about your entire existence, Loki? LOL! He lied to Thor about being the firstborn too! And now the evil sister neither of you knew you had is coming to destroy everything and he's given you no time to plan how to stop her! Don't you feel much better now?

It's been about five minutes since we were reminded that Loki is a coward and an idiot or something, so contrary to Tom Hiddleston's own words that

"The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears."

it became necessary for Loki to immediately panic and lead Hela straight to the one place he knows she'll be most powerful. Whoops!

The Warriors 3 are quickly dispatched by Hela because it's important we remember that the first two Thor movies were trash and nothing that ever happened in them has any meaning. By the way, Heimdall is Thor's new BFF now and Thor will never mention his former friends ever again. Ever. Like, even in passing. Like they never existed. Those people who committed literal treason for him both before and after he was banished in Thor (2011). And then again in The Dark World. Those friends.

Meanwhile, Thor and Loki have both landed on a planet called Sakaar. It's a giant trash heap and that about sums up how I feel about this whole damn movie, so credit to TW for the symbolism, I suppose. Here's possibly the most cringeworthy moment in the whole debacle—and that's a very high bar. Or low, I guess, depending on how you look at life.

He's a Norse god... screaming, "oh my god!" I don't have enough hands for all the facepalming I feel like doing right now.

Anyhow, Loki and Thor have arrived on Sakaar separately and Thor has just noticed Loki sitting across the room, casually joking about his own suicide attempt. Because there's nothing funnier than suicide, amirite?! Especially when you still haven't sorted through any of the complex issues that led you to become suicidal to begin with. Who cares? We're just here for the lulz, yeah?

"Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Korg, I'm the director's annoying self-insert, and I'll be pissing on every poignant moment from here on out because reflection is for nerds. You just need to smile more."

Hey, remember that time in The Dark World where Loki was stuck in solitary confinement for a year and Thor didn't come to visit him even once? Now Thor is the one locked up and Loki has come to visit him almost immediately. To offer his help. To try to relate. Maybe mourn the loss of... everything together. But Thor's not interested in relating. He's interested in scapegoating Loki, because that's what this family does.

"What would you like me to say? You faked your own death, you stole the throne, stripped Odin of his power, stranded him on Earth to die, releasing the Goddess of Death.” - Thor, Thor: Ragnarok

To borrow a phrase from the late Luke Skywalker, "Amazing. Every word of what you just said is wrong."

► Loki has never faked his death. What he did is fail to die on Svartalfheim, through no fault of his own. It seems a little insane I have to defend Loki's right to not die, but here we are, I guess.

"We planned to have Loki have a redemptive death[...]We think he's wounded, but it wasn't a death blow." - Kevin Feige, The Dark World DVD extras

"Loki probably in his heart wants to be worthy, and the way he achieves his redemption—his salvation—is to ultimately sacrifice himself, for Thor and for Jane. I hope it’s a very cathartic and moving moment, by saving his brother’s life and avenging his mother’s death." - Tom Hiddleston, The Dark World DVD extras

The worst that can be said of Loki's "betrayal" of Thor at the end of The Dark World is that he failed to inform him that he had survived. And Loki had very good reasons to do so. What had Thor offered him in exchange for his help with the Dark Elves? He would return him to his cell to live out the rest of his days in complete isolation—a fate that I will just reiterate is classified as a form of psychological torture.

► Loki didn't steal the throne. As mentioned above, he offered Thor the throne. Thor said no.

► There is zero evidence beyond Thor's own assumptions that Loki stripped Odin of his powers. We are meant to believe this only because we are told that it is so. On the contrary: "It took me some time to break free of your spell," Odin tells Loki before his death. But if Odin had been stripped of his power, how then did he eventually break free? Upon examination, Thor's logic fails.

► Loki did not "strand Odin on Earth to die". He left him in a freaking retirement home where he had every expectation that Odin would be well-cared for. An argument can certainly be made that after everything Odin has done to Loki in the past, Loki was downright merciful not to kill the old man in his sleep and be done with it.

► Loki had no way of even knowing Hela existed. How is her release his fault and not, say, Odin's for dealing with all his problem children by tossing them out and throwing away the key? Or for not preparing his sons for the day they would be forced to face her?

Oh well. Now it's time for Loki Is A Coward™, Part Deux, because as I may have mentioned previously:

"The thing with Loki is that, if he’s afraid, he won’t show it. He’s been highly trained, through the experience of his slightly traumatic life, to shield his fears." - Tom Hiddleston

MINOR ENDGAME SPOILER:

Reminder also that this was Loki's reaction to the Hulk in Endgame, only minutes after being beaten to a pulp by him

Doesn't seem particularly frightened, but what do I know?

Hey, remember back in Thor (2011) when this happened? If the Valkyrie were already legend, why did Sif need to prove herself as a female warrior?

Shhh. You were supposed to forget about that minor detail. Now back to the butt jokes.

Now let’s take a short intermission, shall we? Because this movie blows so hard that if I put all my criticisms in one post, it’ll probably break Tumblr.

↩️ back to the compendium

#the big damn ragnarok sucks compendium #ragnarok cinematic universe #taika waititi is a piece of shit ask me how #loki #thor #odin's a+ parenting #loki meta #thor meta #not my thor #mcu

[mobius-prime]

203. Sonic the Hedgehog #135

The Tommy Trilogy (Part One): Agents of K.N.O.T.H.O.L.E.

Writer: Romy Chacon Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

Well, the title of this story kind of gives away the mystery of the cover image, huh? Sonic finds himself once again traveling to the Forbidden Zone in search of a undercover contact who just so happens to be a turtle. Interestingly, his narration as he makes his way into the bar that they're supposed to meet in notes that though the Forbidden Zone is apparently under Eggman's control, the Mobians that live there have refused to defect to the side of Knothole, instead keeping their heads down and hoping to not get involved. This is the first inkling we've ever gotten of a population besides Angel Island trying to stay neutral in the war, and since Eggman has more important things to focus on than the residents of a small out of the way town in the middle of nowhere they've been largely successful so far.

As this is going on, in some undisclosed location, Eggman and Snively talk about a mysterious project of theirs. Whatever they're creating, apparently the first hundred models of it failed, but their hundred-and-first is operational. Sounds suspicious… Back in the bar, Sonic slides into a booth across from a similarly hooded figure, reciting some code words, and who pops out of his cloak but Tommy Turtle! Yeah, turns out he survived the explosion at the factory a year ago, and only recently managed to message Sally and Sonic about his continued existence.

Now that's interesting. It seems Ceneca-9009 thought of everything, and tried to make sure that a Mobian once deroboticized can't be reroboticized, but somehow Eggman has found a way around that. Sonic and Tommy's conversation is then interrupted by none other than the same "friends" Tommy was hanging around last time we saw him - Sleuth Dawg, Drago, and the Fearsome Foursome, all roboticized once more! What a conveniently relevant conversation there, guys! The roboticized goons try to place the two friends under arrest, but Sonic easily dodges their attacks and begins kicking their metal butts with ease. He even gets his chance to throw in some sass here and there - but Tommy isn't doing as well as he is, being a noncombatant.

Sonic decides to hurry things along, finishing off his own opponents and rushing to Tommy's aid. However, he's startled to find that somehow, Drago and Sleuth have both disappeared from the scene, with Tommy looking perfectly unharmed. Tommy explains that he was able to hotwire the two of them and reprogram them to go throw themselves into the nearest lake, and that's good enough for Sonic. Together, the two leave the messed-up bar behind, with Sonic glad to have Tommy back and alive once more…

Anonymous

Writer: Romy Chacon Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Jason Jensen

So what exactly is the deal with the roboticization thing, anyway? Time to find out in a story that clearly takes place before the previous one. A.D.A.M. gets Eggman's attention in his base and directs him into a room where stand the six villains of the story prior, all roboticized and awaiting commands. The twist? Eggman didn't do it. He's just as surprised as we are to see them standing there roboticized once more. Eggman is of course eager to find out who has managed to reverse the anti-roboticization effects on them, and has A.D.A.M. run diagnostics on their memory banks to find any useful information.

Several hours later, A.D.A.M. rouses Eggman from his nap only to give him the bad news - their memory banks are totally locked down from accessing information about who retransformed them. The only thing he was able to find was a brief image of their benefactor, which has been similarly censored out, leaving only the impression of someone Eggman-sized behind. The final piece of information A.D.A.M. is able to retrieve is that the person behind it has signed their work merely as "Anonymous," which only frustrates Eggman more, as he has no idea if this person is friend or foe. Hmm, so the famous hacker group is behind this, eh? Watch yourself then Eggman, they tend to not like fascists.

Mobius 25 Years Later: Dealing With the Devil

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

It's time for another riveting piece of teen drama! Lien-Da, after dropping Salma off at home, is ready to interrogate Rutan about where he was last night. Rutan isn't looking forward to the repercussions of his actions, but is grateful when Dimitri steps in to give his two cents.

This sucks in so many ways. Like, how can you make me cringe so much from just a few lines of dialogue? Yes, teenagers often want to sneak off to make out with their crushes. Lien-Da should know this, especially as she appears to be a single mother with no father in sight, indicating Rutan is perhaps the result of a one night stand. But then Penders has to go and make it all weird and have Lien-Da get like, bizarrely feminist on Dimitri, and not the reasonable kind of "I just want equality" feminist, more the "rabid social justice warrior who takes offense at everything" kind of strawman feminist. When has any of this ever been established as part of Lien-Da's personality? Why did we need this weird "man, boys and girls are sooooo different" tangent? It's just… so weird and out of place.

For a moment, we actually take a turn into something mildly interesting - that is, the matter of how exactly Lien-Da and Dimitri got to be where they are today. Apparently, at some unspecified time in the past, when Eggman's empire was on the verge of crumbling, he captured Dimitri with the intention of using him to somehow fix everything. When Dimitri refused, Eggman took his revenge… somehow, which resulted in Dimitri becoming the disembodied head that he is today. Lien-Da thinks that he holds a grudge against her for not saving him from his fate, but he retorts that he's only angry because once he was incapacitated (and decapitated), she drove the Legion forward in her own self interest instead of following his vision… which we're not even sure what it was supposed to be in the first place. Again, all of this is extremely vague - seriously, this entire story arc seems to want to gloss over everything that could actually be interesting in favor of the awkward domestic dealings of heroes past their prime and their annoying, bratty offspring. Lien-Da cuts the budding argument off at this point to go right back to the clearly most pressing question of the evening - namely, what exactly Rutan was doing with his girlfriend last night.

I love how this entire thing comes across as though Penders thinks he's danced around the issue of teenagers boning oh so carefully, when really it's done with all the finesse of a drunk baby deer trying to navigate its way through a room full of glass figurines. Like, who do you think you're fooling, dude? A five year old could read this and know you're talking about sex. Furthermore I'm trying to decide if the shocking part is that Rutan was trying to get it on with his girlfriend at all, or if his mother's life lesson was merely not to lose his virginity in a park specifically. Either way, he's able to deflect her anger by relating what he overheard of the conversation between Knuckles and Rotor, which granted, isn't much. However, it's enough to catch Lien-Da off guard, and after thinking for a moment, she suddenly gets unnervingly sweet, saying that she believes him and sending him off with a firm "just don't do it again" to his room. Rutan catches the chill from her sudden attitude shift and leaves gratefully, and when Dimitri tries to talk to her, she brushes him off, clearly calculating her next move. Next thing we know, Julie-Su, chopping vegetables for dinner, finds herself getting a video call from Lien-Da asking to talk…

Again, though, I just have to point out that nothing we're seeing makes any sense here. Everyone is so scared of Lien-Da finding out anything important, but if she's so dangerous, then why hasn't she been arrested and incarcerated for her former crimes yet? Either she's a dangerous terrorist who should pay for her transgressions against echidnakind, or she's a reformed and upstanding member of society. You can't have it both ways, guys! And now, with the new information gleaned from her son, she's all ready to scheme and plot her way to… what, exactly? The only thing she knows as of now is that Knuckles and a friend of his met in a park at night so that the latter could make a request of the former. How does she know it's anything important at all? Remember, Rutan didn't overhear anything about spacetime breaking down, so for all Lien-Da knows, Rotor just wanted to ask Knuckles if he could borrow his hairdryer. There's nothing here to even begin to be suspicious about! This entire arc is held together with duct tape and Penders' tears, and there's so many weird plot holes that rely on us essentially just taking Penders' word for it that this person is bad, and that person is totally in character, and this other person is at all interesting. And I hate to say it, but we haven't even seen the worst yet! We've yet to see King Sonic and Queen Sally enter the picture, and once they do things only get weirder…

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 135 #writer: romy chacon #writer: ken penders #pencils: ron lim #pencils: art mawhinney #pencils: steven butler #colors: jason jensen

[gabriel-gabdiel]

【Draft】Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 51: A Casket of Secrets

Kinta Minakata has uncovered a casket of secrets from his family, much to his chagrin.

Rurouni Yahiko Chapter 51: A Casket of Secrets

Back in Shimabara, six years ago...

Kinta Minakata (the Shogo Amakusa doppelganger) had finished another sparring session with Kaede Morinaga (the Kenshin Himura doppelganger) with the fight ending with the Mimawarigumi Battousai narrowly winning.

This was so because "Shiro Amakusa the Second" was busy with morning mass and the healing of the sick Kakure Kirishitans (Hidden Christians) with western medicine, so he didn't have time to spar with the warrior woman.

"STOP RUNNING AWAY AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!" demanded the tempestuous Kaede. "COWARD!"

"....But you're a girl," said Kinta, which resulted in him backpedaling from a screaming Morinaga's Scorpion Nest (multiple sword swipes from two swords).

Ah, so he was right. This time around, Kaede was a girl. Because sometimes, she instead claimed she was a boy. Like a woman possessed by different spirits.

Morinaga was a curious lady. Sometimes she fought like a ferocious tigress. Other times, she was as frustrating to battle as a snapping turtle hiding inside a thick shell.

Once in a "blue moon", when she was consumed with bloodlust and bad memories, she became a mix of both.

He even heard that when she tied her hair like a topknot, she even looked like the Legendary Hitokiri Battousai himself, but he personally had no idea. He never met his Battousai namesake.

Blocking every strike and countering sharply. She was a yin and yang of patient defense and inimitable offense.

She didn't only fight with a different style every time but also with a different attitude. It was like fighting three different people altogether.

"DAMMIT!" she screamed and threw her shinai (bamboo blade) at Kinta, who parried it almost automatically with his own weapon. "I want a rematch! Round two! Next time, I'll break every bone in your body, you sullen Shogo-sama wannabe!"

"Go ahead," Minakata dared with a half-smile (or half-frown). "A broken bone becomes stronger once healed."

Morinaga harrumphed. "Admitting defeat already, Kagemusha?"

"...I believe in kintsukuroi (gold repair)," he stated matter-of-factly. "Whatever that's broken can be fixed. Made even better than before."

"How naive. Spoken like a privileged, spoiled samurai." Kaede laughed then grimaced. "There are some broken things that can never be fixed, no matter how hard you try."

Rurouni Yahiko

A Rurouni Kenshin Continuation Fan Fiction Story by Chester Castañeda

Not-so-fabulous secrets are about to be revealed. A skeleton or two might even pop out.

Disclaimer: All characters used in this fanfic (save some others) are the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki, Shueisha, Shonen Jump, Viz, Sony Studios, Fuji TV, Studio Gallup, Studio Deen, and ADV. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.

Chapter 51: A Casket of Secrets

Somewhere in Yokohama, back at the Minakata safe house, Kinta Minakata reminisced about his time with Shogo and the Hidden Christians.

Kinta also wondered how a fight between Kaede and Soujiro would go.

He'd fought both, after all. Which one was better?

From his experience, unless something changed between the six years he last fought Morinaga, then Seta would probably win.

Especially the Soujiro whose feelings and bad intentions Minakata couldn't read at all: His "Heaven Sword" self.

So what made the Mimawarigumi Battousai think about Shogo's apprentice now of all times? Nostalgia, perhaps.

Or something to distract him from the depressing news he got about his dear ol' grandfather. Of happier times with Shogo, Sayo, Kaede, and the Hidden Christians that he called family once upon a time.

Before Kinta betrayed them to the Meiji Government.

Like grandfather like grandchild, apparently.

Although the fight with Tetsuo Akahori's latest pawn, Soujiro Seta, was one that Kinta Minakata almost lost, he was still able to retrieve documents of the utmost importance.

So in the end, he won. Kind of.

They were samples of the decoded papers that should help the Sanada Ninja Clan in unraveling the mysteries behind the Seiryu Clan's volume of the Black Book.

"...."

The decoders of the clan (since secret messages were among the specialties of these shadow warriors) came up first with the messages and correspondences from the bakufu to the Minakatas and back along with plans of wiping off the rebellious Ishin Shishi rebels.

The families involved in the creation of the Black Book, the Four Clans, were government spies that were tasked to preserve Japanese culture but ended up becoming embroiled in Bakumatsu politics themselves.

They covered all bases from both sides of the conflict... the Shogunate and the Patriots... while at the same time having no dog in the fight. They had loyalty to neither faction or to themselves but pretended that they did.

The Seiryu Clan represented the Bakufu or the Shogunate.

The Byakko Clan represented the Japanese Imperial Army and the Shinsengumi.

The Suzaku Clan represented the Ishin Shishi Patriots.

And the Genbu Clan represented the Rebel Samurai and the Hitokiri or Manslayers of the Ishin Shishi.

Whoever they represented, they had an extensive catalog of their info and members. The Four Clans were supposed to be objective observers outside the conflict looking in, gathering information out of all sides and exchanging them among each other for the sake of gaining favor of the government when the war was over, regardless of which side wins.

As typical of such setups, the Four Clans started to backstab each other, throwing objectivity under the horse carriage and vying for supremacy by taking a gamble and backing what they viewed were the ultimate victors of the war.

Because of this, some clans were wiped out completely. The Suzaku Clan, for example, was discovered by the Ishin Shishi as traitors and killed by their best hitokiri.

However, the Sanada Ninjas and the Mimawarigumi Battousai soon realized that relaying government secrets weren't the only things that the Black Book's secret codes were used for.

Back in the hideout of the kidnappers in the middle of the Hiroshima woods...

The rider from before arrived in time to attack Yahiko Myojin and Kaede Morinaga with his bullwhip, saying, "...I see you came too late ta save 'er, ya bitch! Da boss already got 'er, didn't he? Serves ya right!"

Yahiko Myojin, still miffed from before, grabbed hold of the whip before it cracked, let it loop around his wrist, then pulled the hooligan towards him in order to hogtie him with his own weapon.

"I got to your cowardly boss before he could touch her. We got here just in time," Myojin countered.

The bullwhip rider still wouldn't shut up, though. "Dun matter. I've seen the same look in her eyes from many a horse with a broken spirit! There's no fight in her left! She's dead inside! Soiled fer life! HAHAHAmmph!"

Yahiko had to tie a gag on the criminal just to keep him quiet.

Meanwhile, the one girl Kaede Morinaga wanted to save the most on that day... Mariko... broke down right before her eyes.

Her spirit was shattered into pieces like Kaede's. Realizing what had almost happened to her.

The pale Mariko looked back at the redhead with cloudy eyes, her quivering lips opening as though to say something.

Morinaga grabbed hold of the girl by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes to help her treat the wounds of her past.

Saying things that another special someone in her life had said to her before. Shogo Amakusa's words.

"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her," she quoted Shogo, who in turn quoted Jesus Christ from the Christian Bible's New Testament.

"Minoe-san..." Mariko trailed off, unaware of Kaede's multiple personalities, thus calling her by the name she knew her first.

"I'm not saying that because you've done anything wrong, Mariko. You're obviously not at fault here. These... criminals have no right to judge you. Listen to me. You are not soiled. You are not somehow 'less' of a person than any of us. Any of them, especially. They're scum. Don't let anyone ever say otherwise, y'hear?"

"...."

The clouds in Mariko's eyes lifted before, with a quibbling mouth and sobs that wracked her body, she hugged Morinaga tightly. She said, "...I was so scared!"

As for Yahiko, he grabbed hold of Takae's straw kabuto and placed it over his head to the point of covering his eyes, as though tipping it at the girls. He then walked away to let them have their moment.

"...Thank you for saving me. Good thing you got here on time," Mariko said after her sobs had finally subsided.

Kaede scratched her head. "N-No. The one who rescued you was my good friend, Yahiko."

Mariko smiled wanly. "Well, he saved me too. You both did."

"Oh." Morinaga looked away and smiled herself, nodding once and borrowing her other self's catchphrase. "Mochiron (But of course)."

As for Yahiko, he realized that he still had much to learn. He still needed more training if Kaede of all people had to stop him from murdering that bandit.

He merely wanted to be as strong as Soujiro and Kaede but not to the point of becoming as crazy as them.

Or was sanity the price of strength? To fight monsters, you had to become one?

No, you didn't have to. Kenshin proved that it wasn't the case.

A couple of hours later, the police arrived on the scene along with Chizuru Raikouji (who helped deliver the other kidnapped girls back to their homes in Hiroshima) in order to arrest the hooligans.

Kinta Minakata had heard all sorts of stories about his late grandfather from his mother's side: The Late Great Toshiro Minakata. The former head of the Minakata Clan and Seiryu Clan. A legendary samurai in his own right.

He was a swashbuckling, seafaring samurai... a Japanese buccaneer of the seas... who safeguarded trade and battled against Chinese smugglers and European invaders of the South China Sea during the period when Japan isolated itself from the rest of the world (also known as Sakoku), thus trade was restricted only in certain ports in the country.

Toshiro was among the samurais responsible for controlling Dejima and Nagasaki trade on behalf of the Bakufu while at the same time being part of the secret alliance of the Four Clans as the head of the Seiryu Clan.

It was under his watch that the Portuguese were expelled from the country while at the same time, the Shogunate engaged with discussions with Korean and Dutch representatives so that the overall volume of trade didn't suffer.

Kinta took a look at his inherited sword, the Akatsuki. Unlike ordinary samurai blades using "pig metal" or Japanese steel with low carbon content, it instead used steel melted straight from the swords of the fallen Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch smugglers. High-carbon European steel.

The katana, despite its popularity as a collector item among westerners or its beauty and style, was actually a comparatively fragile sword designed to be manufactured on a budget.

Japan didn't have very good access to good quality metals like European countries did. The majority of katanas were made out of low-class steel to save resources.

Furthermore, only the front part was made of good metal and even that was merely coated with a small, thin sheet of it (and sprinkled with carbon powder as they were forged). The back end or spine of the average Japanese sword was incredibly frail.

It also wasn't the defining weapon of the samurai. That would be the spear or the naginata that the Sakaguchi's adopted daughter "Satsuki" used. At certain time periods, the bow was instead the military's primary armament.

Additionally, according to some of the more disdainful European merchants and blacksmiths that his grandfather traded steel with, nothing about the "overrated" katana was completely unique to Japan.

Similarly shaped curves in blades existed in European and Indian sword creation in one form or another. The process of folding steel multiple times was also used by Vikings hundreds of years earlier.

The standards of the world was eye opening to any Japanese in Sakoku Era Japan who believed that Japan was number one at everything, especially in light of the superior military technology that the world's superpowers of the 18th Century possessed.

All the same, this knowledge Toshiro gained resulted in him getting a Japanese sword forged with European steel. The best of both worlds in design and toughness.

The former Minakata head's military exploits and iron fist when it came to upholding the Sakoku Edict of the Bakufu was legendary. Indeed, Kinta's proud Minakata and Akahori lineages were what allowed him into the Mimawarigumi Army in the first place.

It was also during this time that Toshiro made use of naval codes to better facilitate the exchange of secrets between the Four Clans before they ultimately split up and chose sides during the Bakumatsu Era.

On top of all that, Kinta's grandpa used his influence as the head of the Minakata Clan to form what was known in modern times as their zaibatsu (Financial Group)... the Minakata Zaibatsu... with its riches taken from the importation and development of new drugs using western medicine, leading to the development of their Minakata Pharmaceuticals subsidiary.

His grandfather was ahead of the curve and hedged his bets accordingly. He knew that the writing was on the wall when it came to samurai privileges due to changing times. In the Meiji Era, if you wanted to remain in power, then you should get it through money instead of blood and prestige.

However, there were also rumors of Toshiro taking advantage of his high government position back in the Sakoku Era to run his own opium cartel on the down low.

This was just a baseless accusation and pure speculation, of course. Rumors and conjectures that the envious enemies of the Minakatas would use to drag their good name to the mud.

These same critics went on a feeding frenzy like sharks against their family when Kinta's mother had an affair with a foreign dignitary, leading to the murder of the same gaijin in the hands of Kinta's livid father, who then committed seppukku (ritual suicide) afterwards to protect his honor.

The slander that resulted from the incident made Kinta quite skeptical in regards to the assumptions people made about his father selling out his dignity and samurai blood for illegal drug money.

These accusations were never proven, at least. They were just conspiracy theories from idle minds at best.

At least, that was what Kinta hoped they were.

Right?  

However, the recently discovered naval codes he got from the errand boy of his uncle from his father's side... Tetsuo Akahori... ultimately revealed the truth behind the elusive Seiryu Chapter of the Black Book. And his family.

An inconvenient truth.

By the time everything was sorted out at the police station and everybody from their group had a good night's sleep, the Sanbaka (Three Stooges) soon rejoined May Brooks/Satsuki Sakaguchi and her best friend, Chizuru Raikouji at a cafe near the Hiroshima train station.

The Great Gan, Yahiko Myojin, and Munenori Minoe arrived in time to bid their wistful goodbyes to the departing young teacher.

Reading the mood, Yahiko didn't mention anything about yesterday's storming at the camp of bandit kidnappers to Minoe. The Tokyo Samurai Descendant hoped that the eye-patched spy could figure out on his own the exploits of his female self, Kaede.

The three arrived just in time to overhear the conversation between the two best friends'... love life, of all things.

"...Oh my! You're such a damp squib, Chizuru-san! Especially with how you'd dare compare Kinta-sama to your crush, the vagabond. They are not alike at all!" said Satsuki.

They were apparently in the middle of some sort of conversation about Kenshin Kamiya (nee Himura) and Kinta Minakata (the man whom May had a crush on).

After Chizuru and May exchanged pleasantries, bows, and hellos with each other and the Sanbaka, the buxom blonde teacher then asked, "You're not making this vagabond guy up, are you? He's no make-believe boyfriend of yours, right?"

As Minoe mouthed, 'Damp squib? What's that?' the Raikouji heiress insisted, "HE EXISTS! But he's not my boyfriend, damn you! Anyway, Yahiko knows him! Tell her, Yahiko! Tell her about Homura Kenshi!"

'...Who the hell is that?' thought Myojin. 'Has she been infected by Gan's nicknaming sickness too? Get it together, Chizuru!'

Unwilling to bring up Kenshin Himura in Minoe's presence (lest his other personality, Kaede, was summoned by the name she hated the most), Yahiko decided to change the subject.

Ignoring Chizuru, the samurai boy told May, "I didn't know you practiced martial arts! You were amazing back at that kidnapper's hideout!"

He then remembered that, oh yeah, even Satsuki's stepsister Kyoko Sakaguchi from back in Shinshu practiced swordsmanship. Duh.

"HEY!" The Kaoru look-alike then stomped on Yahiko's foot with her booted foot, which he also didn't react to despite the pain. "I was talking to you, you rude boy!"

"...Do you pratice battoujutsu too?" Yahiko inquired further, recalling how close Kyoko was to fighting Soujiro and wondering how she would've fared. "Sorry, I meant iaijutsu," he corrected himself, remembering that battoujutsu was the old term for the Japanese sword-drawing style.

"Oh, good heavens no! I only use the naginata. I've never drawn a sword out of a sheathe in my entire life!" May tilted her head to the side. "Wait a tick, how did you know Musou Madden Ryu is an iaijutsu swordsmanship school, Joshua-kun?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you?" Raikouji answered for Myojin. "I met Yahiko back when I was staying with the Sakaguchis in Shinshu. He knows Kyoko-chan! He even saw her wield her grandfather's sword that one time!"

"Oh, you've met my baby sister?" asked the adopted gaijin daughter of the Sakaguchis. "I haven't seen her in a while! Isn't she the cutest?"

Yahiko scratched the back of his head and admitted, "Y-Yeah, I guess she's kinda cute," while eyeing a smirking Chizuru from behind May. "...Don't start with me, Tanuki-chan (Miss Raccoon Dog)."

"I didn't say anything!" Chizuru feigned ignorance. "Also, that ain't my name, Yoshi-boy! Who are you calling a raccoon dog?"

All the same, Satsuki winked at Yahiko and invited, "If you want, spar with me sometime."

The grinning Chizuru then teased the adopted Sakaguchi child, asking, "What would Mister Frowny-Faced Samurai Guy say if he saw you flirting with another guy, Satsuki-chan?"

The Enlightened Gan then hit his palm in his fist, taking note to remember the "Frowny-Faced Samurai Guy" nickname that "Kaori-neechan"  came up with. Because he had his priorities straight.

With squinted eyes and a cherry pink blush, Satsuki grabbed Chizuru by the shoulders and shook her around.

"WAH! That's a load of cobblers and codswallop, Chizuru-san! And you know it! I'm not flirting with anyone! You Japanese are so shy that simply being friendly with someone seems like flirting to you people!"

Chizuru's sneering smile widened even while being shaken. Meanwhile, Yahiko looked away and Gan outright stared at the... jiggling girls. One of them jiggling more than the other.

"Oho, I thought you were Japanese too, Satsuki-chan," teased the Kaoru look-alike further, staring at Satsuki's not-so-Japanese chest. "Don't you mean 'us' Japanese instead of 'you' Japanese?"

"You're a meanie, y'know that?" said May with a pout and crossed arms. "I don't even think Kinta-sama and I ever shared a chin wag outside of 'Hi, how do you do!'"

"Well, Honey, it's because he's not the 'chin wag' kind of guy," Chizuru answered, primly straightening up her ruffled kimono and ribbon. "Don't take it personally."

In the background, Minoe himself reminisced about the silent Minakata, nodding in agreement with Chizuru.

Yes, the man certainly didn't wag his chin much indeed.

From there, the Morinaga within him awakened, seething in memory of how frustrating it was to spar with the high-ranking samurai turned Shogo Amakusa body double.

The Judas Iscariot of the Hidden Christians.

Satsuki's happy expression then changed altogether as she concluded with a lower lip quibble, "So I reckon this really is farewell, huh? Cheerio, I guess?"

Chizuru kicked the snow underneath her booted feet. "Aw. And we just got back together again after so long, Satsuki-chan." The rich girl sighed.

"Huh? But aren't you coming with me, Chizuru-san?" asked Miss Brooks.

"Eh? I was?" asked Miss Raikouji in turn. "B-But...!"

"Well, of course you are! I don't see why not! You're our family friend and this is a Sakaguchi Family Reunion!" May then put her hands on her waist. "You'll do great and Bob's your uncle!"

"Who the heck's Bob?" asked Chizuru, who bit her lip, her eyes wide and darting between Yahiko and Satsuki.

Myojin sighed, shoulders slumped, then shrugged and bowed at the Raikouji heiress. "I thought I'd still see your ugly face all the way to Kyoto, but if duty calls and family friends beckon, then I guess we'll just have to say our goodbyes here and now."

"N-Now hold on a minute...!" Chizuru stuttered some more.

"Aw, come on, Yoshi-boy! You still have me!" reassured the Gregarious Gan, who leaned on top of Yahiko's spiky hair like he were a countertop and picked his nose with his sausage-sized index finger.

"...Could you take Gan with you too? He's house trained, I swear," retorted the Tokyo Samurai Descendant while pointing at the thug with his thumb.

"I-I..." stuttered Chizuru, not knowing which path to choose. Should she go with Yahiko, who knew the vagabond, or her best friend, who was about to reunite with her childhood crush?

Yahiko, Gan, and Minoe looked at each other before bursting out laughing at Chizuru.

"Wait, what's going on?" asked Chizuru. "What am I missing here? Why are you laughing at me, you Three Stooges?!"

Myojin slung his arm over Raikouji's shoulders and said, "I was just kidding. We're all going. I've changed my mind. You don't have to go with me to Kyoto or Osaka because we're coming with you and Chizuru to Yokohama."

"W-What? Hey leggo, you perv," the heiress said before shrugging off the younger boy's arm over her shoulders. "But what about your Mushi-whatever? You were supposed to go on a pilgrimage for training, right?"

"Musha Shugyo (Warrior's Pilgrimage)," Yahiko corrected without a second thought before reassuring, "Don't worry about me. This is just a li'l detour before I head on out to Kyoto. Also, I want to spar with the students of Musou Madden Ryu for good measure. I want to see Kyoko and Satsuki in action, pitting their iaijutsu with my kendo."

'...Besides, the way I am right now, with both Minoe and Soujiro able to make short work of me at my current skill level, I don't think I'm quite prepared to face Kenshin's master of all people,' he told himself, remembering how much more mature Kaede was about the bandit situation than he was.

"ALL RIGHT! I mean, you know. Whatever. That's cool," came the petered-out exclamation of Chizuru, who brushed her silken "rich girl" hair back and squirmed in her boots after her best friend and the Three Stooges saw her sudden fist pump into the air.

"Oh my! That's indeed wonderful news! You're all coming with me?" asked Miss Brooks. "You've made so many new friends, Chizuru!" she added before whispering to her best friend, "Chizuru-san, why are they coming with us again? They're not staying over at the Minakatas' like freeloaders, are they? Kinta-sama's mother isn't going to like that!"

Raikouji herself shrugged. "But that's what they are. Freeloaders. Interlopers. People who don't know how and when to mind their own business. But seriously though, they'll be staying in their own tents and inns. I guarantee they won't be a bother."

Satsuki saw the glow in Chizuru's face and cheeks then relented, "Since you're all chuffed up about it, why not? The more the merrier, I say!"

To Yahiko, Chizuru said, "I guess it can't be helped. We'll still be seeing each other again real soon. You stupid dumbasses."

"Right back at you, Raccoon Face," mumbled Myojin to Raikouji.

The Son of Tokyo Samurai then offered his hand to Satsuki for a handshake. "This is how westerners greet each other, correcct? I look forward to challenging your Musou Madden School for a spar or two. Tell 'em Myojin Yahiko from Tokyo's Kamiya Kasshin School sends his regards."

May grabbed hold of Yahiko's hand but then curtsied with her dress and bowed in traditional Japanese fashion. "I'm kind of looking forward to it myself, Joshua-kun. I know my onions when it comes to wielding long poles."

Gan guffawed in the background at that suggestive comment, which prompted Myojin to kick his shin.

"OW! It's settled then! Yoshi-boy's Musashi Gundoh continues in Yokohama, training with Miss Melon, Soba Lady's daughter, and the Stone-Faced Samurai!" declared the Boisterous Gan with a wave of his giant metal bat.

"...Soba Lady's Daughter?" Satsuki asked Chizuru.

"He means Kyoko-chan. Soba Lady is his name for Nonoko-obaasan. Because, you know, he really likes soba," explained Chizuru. "The big oaf met the Sakaguchis back in Shinshu too, along with Yahiko and Minoe."

"Ah. How... quaint. What riveting wit he has."

"Hey, at least he doesn't call her Kaori. Or Miss Melons."

"That's Miss Melon, Kaori-neechan!" corrected the Clueless Gan, which earned him swift shin kicks on each leg care of both Kaori and Miss Melon.

"YEEEOOWCH!"

"BAKA!"

After recovering from the pain, the Gabby Gan added, "Of course, we'll keep tagging along with Yoshi-boy for shits and giggles. The Sanbaka rides again. Right, Patches?"

"Mochiron!" responded Munenori.

Yahiko spared Minoe a glance, which made the wigged and eye-patched "man" smile and give him a thumb's up (because a wink was out of the question).

How could he surpass Kenshin when he couldn't defeat his two Kagemusha, the Ten Ken and the Battousai of Speed?

Also, he was more than a little curious about this Shogo doppelganger who also took on Kenshin's name, the Mimawarigumi Battousai.

Yet another Fake Battousai for him to meet. 'The plot thickens.'

Back at the kidnappers' hideout, after the local police force finally arrived along with Chizuru...

As the coppers rounded up the bandit kidnappers in shackles and handcuffs, Morinaga told Myojin, "I've made my decision. I'm going to Yokohama. I need to face off with the man who betrayed Amakusa Shogo-sama. His Kagemusha (Shadow Warrior)."

"K-Kagemusha...?" trailed of Yahiko. "What do you...?"

"It's Minakata Kinta. He served as a body double for Amakusa-sama six years ago. The Mimawarigumi Battousai. The one who betrayed the Hidden Christians to the devil himself, Akahori Tetsuo."

She turned her back on him and walked away. "Someday, when we meet again, maybe you can tell me all about Himura Kenshin. The Hitokiri Battousai."

"W-Wait, M-Morinaga...!"

He grabbed hold of Kaede and turned her around, only to end up facing the winking, gentler face of Munenori Minoe.

"Oh. I mean, Minoe. Hi."

Dammit, the Battousai of Speed ran away from him again.

Even without the wig and the eye patch, Myojin could sense the change in Kaede's demeanor after traveling with the weirdo for so long.

"AH! Yahiko-chi! What is it...?"

With a sigh and a shake of his head, Yahiko told Minoe, "I'm coming with you and May Brooks to Yokohama. We all are."

"Ah. Okay. Mochiron, Yahiko-chi!" said Munenori without thinking before blinking and realizing what the Tokyoite just told him. "Um, come again? We're going where now?"

Chasing Minoe... Kaede... and the rest of the Battousai Group was the right decision. Maybe by taking them down, Myojin would find the strength to surpass the real Battousai and bear the full weight of his heavy sakabatou.

It was silly, but his actions were spurred from seeing another chance at getting extra training to make himself stronger.

He just wanted to be stronger. He had no complex motivations of conquering Japan or avenging the death of a loved one.

He simply wished to be worthy of carrying the Battousai's... no Kenshin's... sword.

His most important inheritance.

What an idiot he was, he realized. No wonder he and Sanosuke Sagara got along so famously.

Toshiro Minakata was crazy. Crazy as a fox.

That was why he went from nobleman to merchant in order to keep his wealth and privilege regardless of which side won the Bakumatsu. This was also why he had his daughter, Kinta's mother, marry into the similarly wealthy and influential Akahoris.

He was a samurai who was ahead of the curve in regards to changing times, even though not all of his schemes went according to plan.

Like his daughter's affair with a gaijin. Or his own untimely death.

A prolific gambler in the prime of his life (like his fat lawyer son Kaneda), he knew how to hedge his bets and take calculated risks every time. Even if he lost, he'd somehow find a way to win.

According to his critics and enemies, Toshiro Minakata (allegedly) got his extra funding for his pharmaceutical business from illicit drug running. They said he was in fact a corrupt government official to the core.

The legit business that imported and made western medicine for distribution into Japanese households was the perfect front and money laundering scheme for all his illegitimate smuggling, complete with labs he could use to make both legal and illegal drugs.

The Elder Minakata got filthy rich from being a drug kingpin that no policeman could pin down until his legitimate pharmaceutical business (that he initially used as a front while using its very labs for opium processing) eventually became financially solvent itself.

It was the same bait and switch scheme done by the wealthiest families of the United States of America. Drug barons who made so much money, it lasted their family for generations to come.

However, there was no proof of such wrongdoing except rumors.

As far as the Bakufu and later the Meiji Government was concerned, Toshiro Minakata was an honest, honorable samurai turned head of a major conglomerate.

However, the naval codes unlocked info that suggested otherwise.

The naval codes used to hide info that the Seiryu Clan gathered from and on behalf of the Shogunate revealed more than just top secret documents from the past government hidden within piles of redundant paperwork.

The more messages that the family ninja Kaita delivered to him (which Kaita's sister Misanagi compiled and summarized for Kinta's convenience), the more the uncomfortable truths about Toshiro Minakata and the Minakata Family was exposed.

Toshiro's critics and their speculations didn't even scratch the surface of how much of a wily fox the old man was. He pulled the wool over everyone's eyes.

According to the puzzle pieces of hidden correspondences dating back decades and records hidden in code within what appeared to be mundane receipts and past contracts, Toshiro had been quite the busy man.

Working on both Dutch and China trade in Nagasaki as a trade regulator and enforcer that was answerable only to the Shogunate, Toshiro was the watchman whom no one else watched over. Betrayed by the very guardian who was supposed to protect them.

He realized that the writing was on the wall in regards to Japan and samurai after seeing the growing sentiment of dissatisfaction over the Bakufu by many of its soldiers and warriors.

The entirety of Japan had lost face thanks to the disaster that was the arrival of the Black Ships of Commodore Matthew C. Perry back in 1853.

The Shogunate was seen as weak and it soon became desperate to save face and crush the growing Ishin Shishi mutiny against it. The chain of events led not only to Toshiro becoming a covert drug runner but also the formation of the Four Clans spy group under the behest of the Shogun himself.

A government intelligence group tasked to protect the Japanese way of life in light of changing times.

Conveniently, Toshiro also took advantage of the resulting reopening of trade to the West after the Black Ships Incident in his plan to safeguard his personal wealth, assets, and influence in the future along with the Four Clans.

Taking inspiration to how the Sassoon, Rothschild, Lincoln, and Forbes families built their own riches in the 1830s to 1840s (the deciphered documents outright referenced them), Toshiro covertly engaged in opium trafficking at night (just like Robert Bennet Forbes) while overseeing the changing trading policies of Post-Sakoku Japan during the day.

He then married into a merchant family who had a pharmaceutical business in order to further help process the opium he imported from Hong Kong then resold back to China using his secret yakuza connections.

Yes. Rather than damn the Japanese, Toshiro had enough national pride to instead damn the already damned by also indulging in opium trade on their behalf along with the rich elite like the Delanos and the Forbes.

He even personally oversaw the safe delivery of his goods under the noses of policemen and his own samurai underlings even as he got rid of his black market competition of Wokou Pirates and the Three Harmonies Society.

He laundered his ill-gotten wealth and opium fortune to fund his actual legitimate businesses like real estate and his existing pharmaceutical company in order to get away with being a criminal mastermind that destroyed the lives of countless addicts for a couple of decades.

By the time the smoke cleared and the Opium Wars had passed, he was already a multimillionaire with a business empire that could rival the Mitsubishis.

All this time. All that wealth. All that privilege. They were all from the money his grandfather made off of the degradation and suffering of the Chinese people.

A cold sweat ran through Kinta's spine as more and more information surfaced from the Seiryu Clan's declassified copy of the Black Book. Names of past and current ministers kept popping up.

Men complicit with his grandfather's crimes... and benefited from them, so they allowed him to remain a powerful man in politics who was effectively above the law.

Such info from the Black Book was probably present in Tetsuo Akahori's own volume. The volume of the Genbu Clan. And two other volumes covering the secrets and sins of the various warring factions and other information of national importance all compiled in one voluminous book.

Every name, crime, and sin was listed along with the crimes and sins of the (grand)father. The measures they took and the bets they made during such a chaotic, uncertain time.

It was as much a history book as it was a "black book" that contained the list of secret contacts and people liable for punishment. Or blackmail.

Like with the rich families of the U.S. and Britain, Japan's elites and multiple political dynasties had an awful lot of drug money in their hands, making the Meiji Government more of an oligarchy than anything else.

This sobering reminder showed the unsurprising truth that if one dug deep enough under the family trees of the one percent, skeletons would be unearthed down below.

Inside a train going in a five hour trip straight to Yokohama in the Kanagawa Prefecture...

"Throughout my travels as a food connoisseur..." began Gan.

"...You mean food bandit," drawled Yahiko.

The five companions of Yahiko Myojin, the Great Gan, Munenori Minoe, Chizuru Raikouji, and Satsuki "May Brooks" Sakaguchi had collectively bought tickets straight to Yokohama from Hiroshima.

They were currently seated on couches facing each other, with Chizuru and May sitting on one couch then Yahiko and Gan sitting on another couch. Just behind his fellow men was Minoe.

Yahiko originally wanted to travel there by foot and rough it out on the woods (mosquitoes be damned) like he did when he traveled from the Kamiya Dojo to Shinshu in Nagano.

Then he went straight to Shura's crew at the docks of Naoetsu. Then he pushed further from Hakata Bay to Fukuoka, where he fought ronin who were terrorizing the town. Then to Hiroshima where he met the English teacher known as May "Satsuki Sakaguchi" Brooks, who helped the Sanbaka bring down a den of creepy kidnappers.

He'd been all over the map, so to speak. His Musha Shugyo had been... fruitful. He'd been perfecting his Revisal Techniques he developed on his own to harness the hardness and heaviness of the sakabatou (reverse-edged sword).

"Quiet, Yoshi-boy. Anyway, I've eaten all sorts of ramen. Okinawa soba. Kumamoto ramen. Hakata ramen. Tokushima ramen. Wakayama ramen. Onomichi ramen. Tokyo ramen. Kitakata ramen. Sapporo ramen. Ashikawa ramen. I even tasted Sakaguchi soba at Shinshu, which was one of the best I've ever eaten! Wait, where am I going with this?" said the Gluttonous Gan.

"If I have to hazard a guess, you're going to Yokohama City to try out the cuisine there," deadpanned Chizuru, murmuring, "Better not stiff the bill on us again, you fat pig. No more freebies from me for sure."

"Damn straight, Kaori-neechan!" said the Scatterbrained Gan, who ignored Chizuru's side comment, too focused on the dishes he felt entitled to partake in. "Can't wait to get a hold of those Yokohama goodies! What are they, anyway? What do I have to look forward to?"

Miss Brooks unironically answered the Ghastly Gan's inquiry with, "Uh, well we have Sanma-Men ramen in Yokohama. Oh, aaand also Shoronpo dumplings, Gomadango sesame balls, and the Gyunabe beef hotpot. Most of those are specialties of the Yokohama Chinatown though, so I'm not sure they count."

"Actually, that's perfect! All ramen comes from China, right? Didn't they invent the wheat noodle? So it's both Chinese and Japanese!" reasoned the Starving Gan, licking and smacking his lips. "Sanma-Men ramen, huh? But what about Soba for the Soba King?"

"We're not going on a food trip! While we're at it, you should've stayed in Hiroshima, Shinshu, or wherever you came from!" said Chizuru. The rich girl then nudged Satsuki's side, saying, "Don't humor him! It's not as if he pays for his own meals!"

"Oh my, let him be, Chizuru-san! No need to be chuffed about him," said the beatific teacher as though Gan were one of her misunderstood "bad boy" students. "Just think of him as a hungry bodyguard! Or a big, cuddly doggy."

"Ah, Megami-sama! You are such an angel, Miss Melon! A goddess from heaven!" said the Grateful Gan. "And quite the looker too! Woof!"

"Aw, shucks," said May. "You're beautiful too, Galileo-san! Uh, in your own way. You're a knees up kind of bloke!"

"Huh? You do nicknames too? We're going to get along famously, Miss Melon!" said the Japanese Galileo. "Oh, and speaking of melons, do you have some special Yokohama fruit desserts or sweets over there? Like melon bread or taiyaki?"

"Fruits? Desserts? Melon?" repeated the adopted Sakaguchi with an innocent bounce. "Well, yeah, I guess we have melons in Yokohama too. But they're not exactly Yokohama specialty."

The Grinning Gan was about to quip about something crass when Yahiko raised his wrapped-up sakabatou and aimed it at the bandanna-wearing man's head. "...What? The melons are coming back to Yokohama."

And so Myojin conked the goon's thick head with his sword scabbard. The Unfeeling Gan barely even winced.

Located south of Tokyo in the Kanagawa Prefecture, Yokohama was Japan's second largest city. The Minakatas settled there (or so Satsuki informed them) because of their influence in trade back in the Sakoku Era.

Around 1859, the government opened up the Port of Yokohama. It was one of the first places in Japan that allowed open foreign trade from a multitude of nations, spelling the end of the closed-off and controlled Sakoku Era Trade.

Knowing this, one of the premier hatamoto officials of the previous era packed his bags and moved his family to Yokohama along with the samurai family serving under him (the Sakaguchis).

That was how eccentric "Grandpa" Toshiro was, claimed Satsuki. He was a game-changing, forward-thinking maniac cut from the same entrepreneurial cloth as the patriarchs of the Mitsubishi, Sumitomo, Mitsui, and Yasuda Clans. But this time with samurai blood and influence involved.

At any rate, Yokohama soon became a progressive city right after the Black Ships of Commodore Perry forced Japan to open trade with the rest of the world, making it one of Japan's most internationally minded cities.

It served as a gateway to items like jazz music, baseball, beer, and beef; products that would eventually play a role in shaping modern Japan and, in turn, Yokohama cuisine.

In fact, Asia's biggest Chinatown area (outside of actual Chinese towns) was in Yokohama. It was filled with traditional landmarks, restaurants, and shops that occupied several city blocks.

Speaking of Yokohama, Kinta Minakata learned even more about his grandfather in the context of the city's transformation as an international merchant town.

Reams and reams more of hidden codes started getting deciphered by the Sanada Ninja Clan. Other names and families came up with their own questionable histories during the Bakumatsu and their connection with the dying Shogunate.

Some of whom were still in high positions in government. Many others had died in the war, leaving their families in poverty. Their children and grandchildren suffering from the sins or karma of their fathers and forefathers.

Some even had their family line wiped out entirely.

But none of those puzzle pieces fascinated the Mimawarigumi Battousai more than his hatamoto grandfather and his shenanigans for obvious reasons.

His case was personal, after all.

The Chinatown in Yokohama boasted countless stores, making it the largest Chinatown in the world by the time the 20th and 21st Centuries rolled along.

The Yokohama Chinatown was established in 1859 along with the opening of the ports of the city. The shores of Yokohama were where all the Chinese merchants went and gathered after being forced to do restricted trade in Nagasaki for centuries under the watchful eye of samurais like Toshiro.

Yokohama became the new center of trade with western countries, and Toshiro Minakata grabbed the opportunity to himself indulge in western medicine importation and, on the down low, making and distributing his own brand of opium to China to fund his burgeoning pharmaceutical empire.

Kinta expected to unlock the sins of the forefathers of the current Japanese administration by decoding the Seiryu Clan's volume of the Black Book, not uncover that his grandfather was among those criminals.

The shards from his shattered glass house cut deep.

The opium that brought China to its knees in order to give Britain a more favorable tea trade agreement also pushed his grandfather and their family up to hatamoto-class.

"So what? Queen Victoria herself is history's largest drug dealer," was one of the smug coded messages that Toshiro left to justify his own sins.

Even as Japan suffered from Unfair Treaties by countries that bullied it into submission so that it could open its shores for trade once again, the Minakatas were among the elites who plundered and took advantage of the suffering of their own nations and other nations that were also headed towards the same fate as China.

As food for the new superpowers of the world. Manifest Destiny.

The saddest part was none of this disturbing info really shocked Kinta in any way. He suspected it from the start. Or rather, he wouldn't put such actions past his family.

It almost seemed typical for a Minakata to act this way, especially the oh-so-great Toshiro. Every one of the children of Toshiro and Mieko (his grandmother) were groomed for success.

Tatsuya overcame his lack of talent in swordsmanship and physical strength to grow up into a banker that handled the entire family's significant fortune stemming from its multinational financial group named after it.

Kaneda overcame his own inferiority complex of living under his assertive elder brother's shadow (and his own body image issues) by completing his studies and becoming a lawyer himself.

Even Daddy's Millionaire Princess did her part for the family by having an arranged marriage with the Akahori Family's eldest son to strengthen political bonds and secret ties as well as merge their accumulated wealth.

Although according to Grandmother Mieko, Kinta's mother was spoiled rotten by his Grandfather Toshiro.

Even Kinta served as a pawn to the Minakatas. Or the Seiryu Clan itself.

He had to become another Battousai to counteract the Ishin Shishi Battousai that murdered many fellow Mimawarigumi samurai (even though their paths and blades never crossed through a twist of fate) and earn back his grandfather's trust that was lost from him when his mother had her affair.

As though he were the fruit of that union rather than the biological son of Azuma Akahori and Aoi Minakata.

Even Kinta had to curry favor of his own high-standard hatamoto-class samurai family (and relatives) in order to not be treated like their black sheep or a redheaded bastard.

This was all understandable... even characteristic... of the Minakata Bloodline.  

The Mimawarigumi Battousai had heard stories on the dinner table from his bragging grandpa about how their Sengoku ancestors were defeated and became Ochimusha (disgraced samurai who'd lost standing and became low-ranked citizens; could also mean the remnants or corpse of a defeated warrior).

Legend had it that instead of becoming Burakumin (outcasts) hiding in the boondocks, the surviving members of their family stole the land under the control of another family of samurais known as the Minakatas by killing them, taking their identities, and defending their uncaptured land before allying themselves with the Tokugawas.

Known for the shaved top of their heads and disheveled chonmage (topknot) after being disgraced by defeat, the new shogun allowed these ochimusha to grow their hair back along with their dignity and standing as reward for their help.

The False Minakatas became the True Minakatas.

They henceforth became known as the Minakatas (their original clan name had been lost in time), replacing the family they massacred. Through their cunning, they managed to save face and cease from being Ochimusha. Allegedly.

"What are you going to do now, Kinta-sama?" asked Misanagi in reference to these discoveries they'd unearthed regarding his grandfather.

"...." said Kinta.

Back in the train to Yokohama where the Sanbaka (and friends) were riding...

Unable to take more of the Gluttonous Gan's inane food talk, Yahiko switched seats (it was a half-empty train) to sit with Munenori Minoe (or Kaede Morinaga) from behind them.

The Son of Tokyo Samurai sat beside Shogo Amakusa's own prodigy, who had her Minoe "disguise" on and was snoring softly with her head nestled on the closed window.

Or his head. Whatever.

Munenori (or Kaede) was, after all, the reason why Yahiko decided to do his Musha Shugyo training pilgrimage in Yokohama along with him (or her).

The samurai kid couldn't risk Morinaga separating from him and doing any political assassinations and whatnot under his watch, specifically on this Minakata fellow whom she described as a traitor to Amakusa and the Kakure Kirishitans.

After all, Kinta was Satsuki's crush and all.

Regardless, Kaede was the person who almost defeated Soujiro Seta the Ten Ken (Heaven Sword), who in turn almost defeated Kenshin Himura.

According to the former Juppon Gatana member, his Shun Ten Satsu (Instant Heaven Kill) was as fast although not as strong as the Amakakeru Ryu no Hirameki (Heavens Gliding Dragon Flash).

Yahiko remembered how Enishi Yukishiro countered Kenshin's ultimate technique with his own ultimate technique, the Kofoku Zetsu Tou Sei (Absolute Trap Blade Wave) or Kofuku Zettousei.

He then learned the mechanics of Zettousei from when Shura, the Scourge of the Pacific, used the same technique to get her revenge against Captain Masakichi Hananuma Inoue for sinking her ship and killing her first mate.

As the Pirate Queen turned Privateer Queen slowly but surely found a way to counter Captain Inoue's Wanmei Fengbao (Eye of the Storm) with the Kofuku Zettousei, Yahiko also put two and two together and realized that the Hirameki was susceptible to attacks from below the vortex it created, allowing a chance to counterstrike between the gap of the initial strike and the second counterstrike.

Myojin even began getting faster and stronger from sparring with both the Great Gan and the Battousai of Speed. Gan helped him work on his stamina. Minoe helped him work on his reflexes and dexterity.

They were the best training partners a growing teenage boy could ask for.

If the Tokyo Samurai Descendant could get on the level of the Nisemono Battousai (Fake Battousai) and the also-similar-to-Kenshin Ten Ken, then perhaps he could someday finally wield the heavy sakabatou and the accompanying burden of responsibility that came with it.

So that the injured Kenshin who could barely practice the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu wouldn't have to bear that burden himself.

Unbidden, Minoe began to stir and moan.

"Minoe?" whispered Yahiko. "Are you awake?"

"Amakusa Shogo-sama... is amazing. I'm sure that even the Hitokiri Battousai would fall against him. They use the same sword style, am I correct?" Yahiko heard Minoe murmur in his sleep, his one exposed eye closed and his other eye covered by an eye patch.

Ah, so he was talking in his sleep.

Yahiko smirked and harrumphed. "I've seen Kenshin in action. He's amazing. He helped the Ishin Shishi win against the Bakufu. What feats has your Shogo-sama accomplished?"

He then bit his lip, remembering how much of a touchy subject the mass murder of the Hidden Christians rebels were to Amakusa and Morinaga.

Thankfully, the half-asleep Munenori didn't interpret his words in such a malicious manner.

With his eyes (or eye) still closed, he rebutted, "Amakusa-chi is a gifted swordsman from birth, taking out young men his age in kendo tournaments then taking on older, more experienced swordsmen as well when none of the kids could match his kenjutsu prowess."

Huh. The Tokyoite didn't know that. Of course, most any sword style should succumb to the superman's sword style known as Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu. "So he learned Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu at a young age, huh?"

Munenori shook his head. "He used Nikaido Heiho when he was younger. That was his father's swordsmanship school. His Uncle Hyoue taught him Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu later on, after... escaping from Japan when the Bakufu first rounded off, tortured, and murdered the Kakure Kirishitan, including his parents."

"Oh. I... I see." Yahiko didn't know what else to say.

"...Besides, he's also a one-man army that took down whole squads of policemen and whole platoons of soldiers. Or have you already forgotten what happened in Shinshu? How you can barely keep up with Shogo-sama?"

Or maybe Minoe did find Yahiko's rebuttal earlier malicious after all. That was... harsh of him to point out, to say the least. Munenori just reminded Myojin of his failure to save the lives of many a copper.

On the other hand, if the Tokyo boy remembered correctly, weren't some of the policemen at Akahori's Mansion involved in an incident with Amakusa six years ago? From another government-sanctioned massacre of sorts?

Shogo, as Shiro Amakusa the Second, assassinated the murderers of his parents (some of whom were still in power), only for the current Meiji Administration to retaliate against his growing rebellion.

The two went silent as the sound of the rumbling train and the murmur of the passengers drowned out their thoughts.

The samurai kid turned his head, only to see someone else other than Minoe stare back at him. The person beside him removed his eye patch, revealing a new character.

Kaede Morinaga had just woken up. He'd been talking to her all this time, not the gentle Minoe.

Kaede rubbed her eyes and recounted to Yahiko the things Lady Magdalia told her about Shogo and his exploits.

Magdalia had specifically told her the story of how she and her brother escaped the Bakufu's clutches.

Even though Shogo himself didn't seem to remember how he manhandled the samurais who were after him, his sister, and his mother at the time, Lady Magdalia filled in the details.

Shogo took out the initial wave with only his shinai before that broke and he was forced to steal a katana that turned him into a bloodstained whirling dervish.

Amakusa might've remembered things differently due to the trauma of the situation. However, had his master Hyoue Nishida not intervened, Shogo might've outright murdered the samurais that stabbed his mother to death.

In fact, Kaede had compartmentalized her skill set into two categories... Cancer Stance for defensive moves and Scorpion Stance for offensive moves... based on the dual styles Shogo used (the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu and the Nikaido Heiho).

"Oh yeah? Well, Kenshin himself trained hard with his master for years. And when he was 14 years old, he also took down grown swordsmen himself as a hitokiri assassin! Grown experienced noblemen samurai, even," boasted Yahiko.

The boy blinked. As much of a bad guy he painted Amakusa as in his mind, the Hidden Christian was similar to Kenshin in many ways.

Except for one important thing, but he held his tongue in regards to that in order to not incur the wrath of the emotionally unstable Nisemono Battousai.

"That's nothing! Shogo-sama defeated his master when he was the same age! Using a technique of his own making, the Rai Ryu Sen!" Kaede countered.

"Okay? Kenshin defeated his master to acquire the ougi (succession technique)."

"Ha! I knew it. Shogo-sama is better."

"What? No! Kenshin's master is a god who walks among men. A superman in his own right. Also, last I checked, he's the official bearer of the Hiko Seijuro name. Shogo's uncle isn't, so he must be the weaker of the two!"

"No, he's not! He was the swordsman Kirisaki, who protected the Hidden Christians for the longest time single-handedly until that fateful massacre. I heard he also spared his master, Hiko Seijuro, from death by countering the Kuzu Ryu Sen with something other than the ougi!"

"...A likely story!" said Yahiko with a shake of his head. "Kenshin has a better, stronger master who actually inherited the Hiko Seijuro mantle, so of course he'd whup Amakusa's ass real easy."

"HA! I bet Amakusa's twice as fast as the Hitokiri Battousai! He'd have Super Godspeed compared to the slower Battousai!"

"Yeah right! Kenshin defeated Psycho-Kid when he was still part of the Juppon Gatana... in his prime, mind you... and Amakusa can't! He got completely defeated by Psycho-Kid back in Shinshu!"

"T-That's... unfair! He fought multiple policemen at Akahori's Shinshu Mansion before facing the Ten Ken! He was already spent! Besides, he showed that emotionless bodyguard of Akahori who's boss when he used the Rai Ryu Sen on him!"

"More excuses, huh? Well Kenshin faced off against an Oniwabanshu Okashira (Garden Guard Boss) before facing Psycho-Kid back in Mount Hiei, and he defeated both of them while holding back on killing them, which made taking them down twice as difficult!"

"Shogo-sama's master Kirisaki avoided killing the people he fought all the time, including Kenshin Himura's master, whom he also faced off against. He was a pacifist, so he became skilled enough in swordsmanship to defeat everyone without killing them. That's the kind of master Shogo-sama had!"

"Yeah, well, Mr. One-Man Army didn't help win a civil war against the Bakufu to install the Ishin Shishi into power!" Yahiko blurted out even though he didn't mean to. He couldn't help himself. His emotions got the better of him.

He wasn't even particularly proud of Kenshin helping the Meiji Government rise to power, especially in light of his experience with its corrupt officials.

However, instead of threatening to cut his loose tongue or castrate him, the Fake Battousai pledged to him, "Shogo-sama's own revolution is near. Once he gets the Black Book from Akahori, he'll have all the ammunition he needs to topple this government."

Kaede herself then slapped her hand over her mouth, realizing that she had said too much as well.

Reading the mood, Myojin changed the subject. "In full health, who's faster? Psycho-Kid or Amakusa?"

Morinaga turned her head away, placing the eye patch back on her eye as though to "summon" back her alter ego Minoe before muttering, "The Ten Ken is a little faster than Shogo-sama. But Shogo-sama can still beat him. Stupid Urchin-Head."

The Son of Tokyo Samurai heaved a sigh and confessed, "It's fine. Kenshin told me that Psycho-Kid is faster than him too. Seta Soujiro might even be faster than the whole Hiten Mitsurugi School itself. Maybe."

"...But I bet the Hitokiri Battouai is waaaay slower than the Ten Ken compared to Shogo-sama, who's only a little slower."

"Hey! Don't get ahead of yourself!" said the inheritor of the sakabatou. "I give you an inch and you take a mile. Honestly."

Much later still...

"You wanted to speak to me?" Tatsuya Minakata said. The banker son of Toshiro Minakata. Kinta's uncle from his mother's side.

"Yes," said Kinta.

"What the hell do you want, you brat?"

...And Tatsuya was every bit as intimidating, menacing, and cunning as his uncle from his father's side, Tetsuo Akahori. The complete opposite of his other uncle and Tatsuya's younger brother, Kaneda.

But that was in the past. Kinta was no longer a small child or gangly teenager that the alcoholic could push around and abuse whenever he was drunk.

Uncle Tatsuya might've not inherited any of Grandpa Toshiro's immense talent in swordsmanship, but he certainly had his father's business acumen as the person in charge (by proxy and with Grandma Mieko's blessing) of the Minakata Family's vast wealth.

As expected of a ruthless banker who was as thin as Uncle Kaneda was fat.

From behind Tatsuya was their newly hired manservant bodyguard who towered over the two like an outright foreigner despite being Japanese. Meanwhile, Kinta's uncle sat on his chair behind his desk, his arms folded and his mouth a scowl.

His eyes staring straight into Kinta's eyes.

Toshiro's grandchild could hear the insistent taps from the shoes of Toshiro's eldest son.

Hiding behind Kinta's shadow though was Kaita of the Sanada Ninja Clan.

Not that the Mimawarigumi Battousai who faced off against Hitokiri Gensai Kawakami needed help defending himself or anything.

The ninja Kaita was also there to remind him of anything he missed regarding the intelligence they'd decoded in their search for the Seiryu Clan's Black Book.

Kinta didn't want to make a single mistake about the uncovered intel before asking about them straight from one of their primary sources.

Conversing with his grandfather's son about past crimes was the ex-Kagemusha's way of giving Toshiro the benefit of the doubt. Even though Tatsuya himself could very well be an accomplice to those crimes.

"...Well? What is it? I'm a busy man," said Tatsuya with a dismissive snort, breaking contact with Kinta's gaze. "I have no time to play with you. We have goddamn assassins after us, if you haven't noticed!"

Kinta went straight to the point. "What do you know about the Seiryu Clan's Volume of the Black Book?"

There was a pregnant pause.

"Seiryu Clan? I have no idea what you're talking about," denied Tatsuya. Like Jesus Christ's disciple Thomas, as Amakusa would say.

The younger Minakata then placed his copy of the decoded papers on the Elder Minakata's desk.

"What is this nonsense? I have no time..."

"There are declassified documents about Grandfather Toshiro's drug dealings in China using Minakata Pharmaceuticals as a front."

Tatsuya's scowl turned into a snarl. "Drug dealings? Are you saying your grandfather is a drug lord? Is that it? Those are some grave accusations you're hurling, kiddo. Be careful what you say."

However, Kinta always was careful. He spoke the way he fought. Methodically. With no wasted movement or words.

The nephew presented a different document from Kaita. This time full of names, addresses, and quantities of delivered goods. Contact persons, if you would. More like accessories to his grandfather's crimes.

The names listed meant nothing to the Mimawarigumi Battousai, but he summarized and said them aloud nonetheless. They were Toshiro's contacts from the warehouses he stored his opium. The names of his chemists who processed the drug.

The list of ports under his control that allowed him to ship to China his own brand of premium-grade, potent opium that was easier to access than the ones being sold by the Indians, the British, and the Americans in Hong Kong and the Pearl River outside Canton.

Although his uncle would not divulge one piece of information about the Black Book, the reactions he gave to the uncovered information spoke volumes.

Kinta had all the puzzle pieces of the Black Book right at the palm of his hand.

Through seemingly redundant and suspicious documents, bogus employee contracts in triplicate, and receipts for business expenditures that were nonexistent, his grandfather had weaved a web of lies he used to communicate with the underworld in order to go about his opium trade in ways that would've made the likes of Takeda Kanryu jealous.

The sheer amount of opium Toshiro sold and money he made was many magnitudes larger than Kanry's lifetime wealth. It involved millions of yen's worth of drugs sold by the ton. The same way the Rothschild and Forbes families built their fortunes.

Tatsuya stood up from his seat and slammed his hands on his desk, with both bodyguards... the tall nameless one beside the uncle and the ninja hidden in the darkness behind the grandchild... stirring in reaction.

For Kinta's part, he stood his ground. In his younger years, he would've flinched or cowered away from Tatsuya. Not anymore. Not after everything he'd been through.

Tatsuya got in Kinta's face before smirking and attempting to feint a punch, but the swordsman wouldn't buy it.

The ruthless businessman had half the mind to punch his nephew. Show him who was boss. His little sister's forgotten piece of excess baggage.

Like the good ol' days.

"As if Father would leave a paper trail behind," Tatsuya rebuked, calling his nephew's bluff. "What piece of fiction have you written up here? Decode? There's nothing to decode here! Spare me your conspiracy theories and nonsensical speculation!"

"If this is all false, then you won't mind the police investigating all this evidence, correct?"

Tatsuya grabbed Kinta by the collar. The younger Minakata still wouldn't flinch. Defiant to the end.

"Call the police? We own the police!"

"The Minakatas haven't been influential in politics since grandfather's death," Kinta called Tatsuya's own bluff.

"Ever since you became one of those Mimawarigumi goons from back in the day, you've been full of yourself. You've changed. But I know better. You're still the same scared little snot I've whipped with my belt time and time again. How many times do I have to teach you that lesson, boy?"

Tough talk from a drunkard who never held a sword or killed a man his entire life.

Kinta didn't say those words, but Tatsuya must've heard his unsaid sentiment through his eyes because the banker soon swung at his face immediately after.

A swing and a miss.

To Be Continued...

Miss me? It's been a while, huh?

Salamat, Abdiel

#kinta minakata #yahiko myojin #minakata familyi #るろうに剣心 #rurouni kenshin #るろうに弥彦 #rurouni yahiko #fanfiction.net

[sirro85-blog]

Humans are Space Orcs: Loyalty

"Humans will pack bond with anything" is not true.

I am Professor Gleax and studying the humans has been my life's work, I have spent time with them in war and in peace in simple and in interesting times. To borrow from one of earth's great thinkers; others have studied humans and given me guidance, while my 30'000 volumes are intended to be exhaustive, I am standing on the shoulders of giants.

Humans can pack bond with anything animate, sentient or otherwise but this doesn't mean they will. My time observing Major Kovac one time soldier in the United Nations Galactic Defence Force and part time mercenary taught me this.

I had followed Kovac to earth's 2nd joint species settlement, Terrans and Votoli the humans called them "wombats" due to their similar appearance to earth's species of that name although Kovac always maintained that they looked more like small camels to him. Votoli lived in colonies with a queen similar to earth's insects but lacked the hive mind instead using various musks to coordinate the colony's activities.

It had not been a happy start to the settlement with issues regarding resource sharing and unfortunate accidents resulting in some early deaths but after 2 orbits the settlement appeared to be running smoothly. Until the Rhul settlement established itself on a nearby continent.

From what Kovac was able to uncover later the Votoli took unilateral decision to sabotage the settlement and the humans unaware of Votoli actions were hostile when accused of subterfuge by irate Go-Rhul (low rank pack leaders).

There were several skirmishes and hostilities seemed to escalate at every parlé, until a human outpost was overrun and the occupants all killed.

Major Kovac was dispatched with his squadron at full compliment, 3 troops of combat specialists and a 3rd auxiliary troop of support troops. The UNGC gave him full licence to resolve the issue, the Rhul afterall were known to be hostile to humans at times. Rhul internal politics meant that the Dote-Sim-Rhul that commanded the settlement was unlikely to be able to expect support from the Rhul homeworld.

Initially I thought the Major would resolve the conflict peacefully without needing the power of the human military machine. Sadly another outpost was overrun and the Votoli lost troops aswell and things spiralled out of hand

"We need to close the western defences Major," chittered the Votoli commander, while the Votoli were nominally in command of their own troops and positions the human warrior tendencies and the Major's reputation meant the human leader was in overall command.

"No, Wolf will have hit that position hard and extricating his men will be a challenge, when they get back his men will be tired and nothing can slow down their achieving safety."

"I doubt your men are left alive Major, a single troop can't capture that position as you admitted yourself and humans cannot outrun a Rhul, those hunting your men will be led by a Go, if not a Stad or even a Finn. A fighting withdrawal over 10 of earth's kilometres will see the last of the survivors run down." The Votoli gave a squirt of annoyance, the odour assailed my scent receptors.

"No, the Captain will have inflicted maximum casualties and as the Stad tried to respond would have targeted the communications, this will lead to a Finn pack being deployed and the men of 1 Troop will have been pushed to hold position initially, now Wolf will be leading his men back at a run, a Chet may have been foolish enough to pursue headlong but a Finn will be wise enough not to push too hard after humans, especially after Wolf has left them a few...gifts."

"I don't see how 30 humans can hold back a Finn pack..." began the Votoli.

"I know you don't," Kovac cut across him, "No more than you can see how 120 humans are enough to win this war we are encumbered in. Have faith commander," I have to admit I agreed with the Votoli, 30 humans even as good as Kovac's would not withstand an onslaught by near 200 Rhul warriors, I believed my friend Wolf was dead.

The Votoli squirted in anger and declared, "your men are dead!"

"They aren't," came the laconic reply.

"You're so sure, what is this? Blind loyalty?" Sneered the Votoli, literally dripping with derision.

For the first time the Major turned to look at his ally, "it's not blind."

A few moments later a shout went up from a lookout, human soldiers sighted, within minutes they were visible to the commanders, the Finn must have realised his quarry had nearly escaped him because he drove his pack forward harder, the humans were 500m from safety when the Rhul were less than 25 from them, Captain Wolf had his men find cover and turn their rifles on their fast approaching enemy.

I thought the Major would order the defences raised as he raised his radio to his lips and said, "Captain Dorman, if you would, Gillie, light them up."

The Finn-Rhul seemed to realise his error as the jaws of the trap snapped shut, mortar and heavy support fire rained in from Captain Gillespie's auxiliary unit as Captain Dorman signalled his men to open fire, bullets tore into the Rhul from three sides as explosives rained in from above. Less than half a dozen Rhul were seen to limp from the killing zone and while the Votoli were eager to pursue them they lost their desire when the humans would not assist them.

"Well done Wolf, your men were superb," Kovac shook his Captain's hand. "Thank you sir, need to report three casualties...I'm sorry sir."

Kovac bowed his head for a moment and gave a heavy sigh, "Thank you Captain."

3 planetary rotations later the Major was in communication with the Rhul, "I've already destroyed at least 1/3 of your forces, I suspect more than that, please return to the negotiations, we can make decisions that benefit us all"

The response was less than positive but the Major seemed to lose his temper when the Votoli liaison cut across the broadcast, "surrender!" She chirruped, "surrender or my humans will destroy you." The Major ended the communications link.

Captains Dorman and Becca reported incidents to the Major when Votoli troops seemed to break rules of engagement to inflict non-military losses on the Rhul.

The Major lead a daring raid into enemy territory and successfully destroyed the Rhul communications array, they captured the final two Stad-Rhul pack leaders of similar rank to the Major himself. The Votoli at this point had refused to accompany the humans but were acting as the defence force manning positions. When Captain Becca confronted them on this the Votoli insisted that the humans were asking too much and went so far as to blame the humans for the conflict.

The only setback was when Captain Dorman's 3 troop were unsuccessful in their attempt to capture the Rhul logistics HQ, while casualties were low it left 1/3 of the Major's combat troops exposed for several planetary days.

In many cultures my own included failure to complete an order would result in loss of command and punishment, however as the Major explained to me, "It was a near impossible task, I don't love my men because they always succeed I love them because they always try."

As the seasons changed to colder & wetter relations with the humans and Votoli broke, the humans it seemed could do no right in the eyes of the "Wombats" every victory was expected and every set back was the fault of the human forces, the Rhul were now besieged and the Major had resolved to seek peace one more time before the war reached its violent and dreadful conclusion.

This time no Votoli were invited to the meeting, even I was asked to remain outside, whatever was agreed the next event was the human forces withdrawal to their own defensive perimeter and the release of Rhul prisoners.

"You're incompetent," railed the Votoli bureaucrat at the Major, "you've given up all our hard won land and sacrificed all the advantages we had achieved." The creature appeared to have greater control of it's scent valves than most and gave less away, "everytime we look to be achieving our goal your foolishness costs us, if it hadn't been for Votoli..."

The Major appeared to lose his temper and raised his hand, "If it hadn't been for the Votoli? Do not tell me what would be the situation if it were not for our allies."

The Major dismissed the Votoli with a gesture and the creature lost it's control letting out a stream of rage, the Major had already departed.

"About as subtle as a shotgun, as manipulative as my old dad," muttered Captain Becca falling in with her commander.

Within a week the Rhul had broken through the Votoli containment and were on the offensive. No human position was attacked and no form of aggression was seen by either side.

By the second week the Votoli had been routed and only their military command post remained intact, though heavily damaged.

"You're our allies, you're pack bonded, you're supposed to protect us from this, you have to help us," wailed the Votoli high commander through the communications link.

"We were allies, you took advantage of our nature, you took advantage of who we are and exploited the best of us, we who will help anyone regardless of race and will stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in the face of obliteration, you used us as any bully uses people, you're cowards and thugs and I will not weep at your passing." Was the Major's cold reply.

Humans will pack bond with anything and they will show a trust in their friends beyond reason, they forgive and forget and they will give their last for their own but never assume they'll let that be taken for granted.

If you ever find one ask the Votoli what happens when human friendship is taken for granted, or human love is abused.

#humans are weird #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are insane #humans are space orcs #space australia #space orcs #earth is awesome #earth is a deathworld #earth is weird #earth is space australia #space orks

[gascon-en-exil]

Lords and their Knights: When FE Chivalry Goes Gay

@mwritesink prompted me to write about my favorite tropes in FE and how they evolved over the course of the series. I already crossed a few others off in an earlier post, but this one is a particular favorite of mine where M/M romance in this series is concerned and one I felt had enough examples to constitute a piece of its own. Let it not be said that this is merely the gay variation on the well-worn heterosexual romance trope of a lady and her knight (ex. Eirika/Seth), because negotiating the fundamental power imbalance in this type of relationship takes on different dimensions when both parties are male. I draw a closer comparison to courtly love, which in the traditional sense is also socially transgressive (being adulterous) and not consummated via marriage or other public means...which in FE terms means an S support and possibly a eugenics baby. A vassal in love with his lord rather than his lord’s wife is not only cutting the female intermediary out of what can already be a very homoromatic scenario, but it’s directly tangling together a kind of martial romantic love and ideas about what knighthood/vassalage even is or ought to be - two topics FE loves to explore. I’ve therefore compiled a few of the most notable examples of this trope across the series to talk about in more detail, because if one is willing to be liberal with subtext there’s surprisingly quite a few to pick from.

(And yeah, this is also in part because I like hot rich men who take orders, and this series already has plenty of gay or otherwise ambiguously non-straight mages, thieves, archers, and their ilk without my help.)

The Sad Gay Knight: Quan/Finn

This one I’ve talked about before in a fair amount of depth, from my hopes for how a Genealogy remake will treat Finn to speculation on just what Quan got out of this relationship besides a devoted retainer and (we may assume) a nice piece of ass. The summary here is that Finn’s love for Quan supersedes anything he’s shown to feel for any of the various women he can hook up with and quite frankly astonishes in its ramifications for the future of Leonster and Thracia as a whole. It’s poignant, adulterous (but Ethlyn’s probably ok with it?), and messy as all hell once you factor in whatever’s up with Glade and whatever Lachesis wasn’t feeling about the whole situation. It is also, naturally, very sad; Finn loses his lord when he’s only around eighteen, and with their kingdom collapsing around him and the entire continent consumed by war he dedicates the next twenty years of his life to raising Quan’s son to be the king Quan himself had wanted to be. And for all his labor he apparently derives no lasting satisfaction, spending his epilogue wandering around the Yied desert and at last returning only to (possibly) pen the history he’s helped to make. 

Finn is the embodiment of knighthood loyal unto and beyond death, and that paired with all the romantic and erotic subtext surrounding the two of them - Finn as Quan’s treasured favorite, his catatonia after Yied, the obsessive polishing of the brave lance that Quan gave to him, his inability to satisfy women in some vague way - makes them the defining example of this trope in Fire Emblem. I look forward to seeing how remakes will handle them; Finn’s presentation in Heroes is definitely cause for hope there. As for the issue of yet another story in media of gay men beset by tragedy and death, I did draw up a long headcanon on the technically crack pairing of Diarmuid/Tristan that specifically plays into the lord and knight trope while also allowing Finn a chance to pass his experiences on to a later, happier generation. IS is free to take notes, just saying.

Pretty Blond Twinks and the Men Who Love Them: Perceval/Elffin and their lasting influence

Moving on from Jugdral, I’ve got to say that I’ve really been sleeping on the original gay Elibean duo. Before Raven and Lucius (but chronologically after, because these games are out of order) there was another feminine young man with long blond hair beloved of a severe-looking warrior. Binding Blade gives us the bard Elffin, who in another life was Etruria’s Prince Mildain and Perceval’s liege. The Knight General takes Mildain’s alleged accidental death about as well as Finn takes the death of his lord and lady; he turns grim and humorless, and without a dying dream to guide him he follows the command of the corrupt revolutionary faction of Etruria with little protest. It takes learning that Mildain is alive and in Roy’s army for Perceval to drop the halfhearted Camus routine and switch sides, and the strength of his fealty not to his nation or even to his king but to the prince he’d thought dead is absolutely touching in the moment not to mention incredibly useful since the guy is one of FE6′s best units. 

Binding Blade doesn’t give anyone but Roy and his harem paired endings, but there’s still a fair bit to be gleaned from their support lines, both what is in them and what isn’t. Perceval and Elffin each have supports with women, but nothing remotely romantic - Perceval’s support with Larum is particularly amusing since he clarifies that her, ahem, dancing does nothing for him. Also worth noting is that neither of them can support with Clarine, even though one would think they’d make fine romantic choices for her given their statuses and physical resemblances to her beloved brother. Their own support line is quietly intimate. Elffin has changed since his near-death experience, and Perceval is still struggling to accept that their relationship can’t be as it was, that in fact for the time being they can’t now be a knight and his prince. Perceval also frets over Elffin’s refusal to see his father the king, and he later extracts a promise from Elffin to come home to Etruria after he’s done traveling the world as a bard, in one of the series’s several instances of writing what sounds like a marriage proposal in ambiguous terms. Per Elffin’s ending, he’s only gone for a few months after the war, so their promised reunion isn’t long delayed. I’m interested to see what a remake would add to their relationship, because as it stands Perceval/Elffin has an established romance arc that deserves a paired ending or at the very least more suggestive epilogues.

Further compounding their underrated signficance, it’s not too difficult to trace a line from Perceval/Elffin to a number of other M/M pairings in the two later GBA games and in Tellius that present some variation on this theme:

As mentioned above, Raven/Lucius is physically similar and performs a nearly identical gameplay function, with the pretty blond waif again responsible for recruiting his surly but protective boyfriend from the ranks of the enemy. 

Gerik/Joshua meanwhile borrows the character of the end of their support line and turns it into a genuine paired ending, with a prince incognito recruiting a swordsman to come work for him. They being who they are however, it’s all handled a bit rougher, with Gerik being impressed by Joshua’s “swagger.” Take that as you will.

Ike/Soren may be the defining seme/uke dynamic in Tellius’s overflowing fount of queer subtext, but Tibarn/Reyson smashes that trope together with this one and FE’s power couple unit archetype plus a dash of whatever the avian equivalent of furries is for wholly unique results. Although both of them are technically royalty, only Reyson is a prince by heredity whereas Tibarn presumably became king of Phoenicis by beating the crap out of any rival contenders as most laguz prefer to do. One can therefore read shades of a courtly relationship in Tibarn’s decision to zealously take up the cause of justice for the Serenes massacre in Reyson’s place. Combine this with Reyson’s characteristic edge that even Tibarn is forced to rein in at times and their relationship comes off as surprisingly more egalitarian than the sum of its parts. Oh yeah, and blond waif dancer + premade OP unit with ludicrous physical stats and movement again.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the conflict of the Tellius games Zelgius -> Sephiran explores what would happen if a gay Camus archetype chose instead to dedicate himself to an antagonistic lord. Sure, you can still recruit Sephiran via a convoluted and unintuitive process, but Zelgius is doomed no matter what.   

They Can Say It, But They Can’t Do It: Awakening and Fates

Ugh. If I must....

I’ve made no secret of my ambivalence toward FE13 dragging the series into open acknowledgement that same-sex attraction is a thing that exists, handled as it was with a lot of explicit homoerotic denial and an assortment of cheap gay panic jokes and...whatever the hell Victor and Vincent are supposed to be. Chrom/Frederick, hot though it may potentially be in fanon, is one of those jokes, making a parody out of a knight enamored of his lord and leaving it to mean absolutely nothing since Awakening’s relationship endgame is invariably S supports for time traveling eugenics babies. FE has taken cracks at the overly dedicated knight before - see just about everything involving Kieran from Tellius, up to and including his overzealous devotion to his superior officer - but Awakening plumbs the depths of Frederick expecting Chrom’s nude image to raise the army’s morale. Just..what do you even say to that, apart from the awkward sputtering that comprises most of their support line?

FE14, for all its stumbling steps toward something less completely offensive, fares little better in this particular regard. Leo/Niles is a deeply troubled albeit thought-provoking callback to the subtextual lord/knight relationship, one where it’s hard to imagine them finding a healthy way to navigate the power differential. Then there’s Ryoma/Saizo. It’s nothing special in localization, but the never-localized festival DLC involves Saizo’s ardent desire to warm Ryoma’s clothing in his cleavage. That sounds like absolutely normal behavior for a servant and not a rehash of Frederick’s shenanigans, uh huh. Fates may indeed be said to be slightly better about playing palpable homoerotic tension for drama rather than comedy...but only slightly.

Paving the Way for an OT3: The Deliverance

This is, incidentally, yet another reason to appreciate Echoes for doing so much to redeem the 3DS games in the realm of (male) queer content. Yes, there’s a large and unaddressed divide between the openly gay and very modern Leon and the heavily subtextual faux-historical queerness of the Deliverance, but taken independently the two presentations work for what they’re each separately aiming to be. Among Clive’s gay entourage are not one but two men who’d dearly love to be the knight to his lord, and Forsyth’s strong desire to put Clive on a pedestal evokes the earlier spoofs of this kind of relationship precisely because Forsyth is that kind of vassal, the kind that would read Ribald Tales of the Faith War and cry like a heavily erect virgin bottom getting his first taste of dick at the brief interludes of tender manly love between Quan and Finn. He’s played for comedy just as much as Kieran or Frederick are, and yet Echoes comes across as less down on the concept as a whole for several reasons, being that

1) Python’s snark over Forsyth’s attraction to both Clive and Lukas is genuinely funny, much more so than when it’s the object of these affections quietly groaning his way through them,

2) Lukas is also there, and his desire to be Clive’s beloved knight is not played for comedy at all but is allowed to be unrealistic and unsatisfying because Clive will never get it,

3) everyone wants to screw Clive for some reason, not just his subordinates but also his sister and the estranged BFF who dies in his arms...and the guy is shown to be unworthy of all of them, and

4) all the characters involved are allowed other avenues for romantic attraction outside of a lord who’s just not that into them. Forsyth has Python, Lukas has both of them as friends and possibly more later, Clair has Gray (...at least he’s not her brother?), and Fernand has a bad rebound that goes to hell in the manner of Zelgius and Sephiran but at least ends with him getting to reconcile with his former friend before he dies. 

The setup for the Deliverance’s overarching queerness is a bit strange as it rests on all these characters somehow finding Clive attractive, but nonetheless it makes for an unexpected and refreshing critique of the lord and knight trope, given a situation where the lord just isn’t that into it and in fact doesn’t seem to realize that he can be into it. It’s a good reminder that this isn’t a particularly good dynamic for a stable and lasting relationship, and that as hot as it can be it takes more than impassioned one-way devotion to make it work in the long term.

The good news if you’re into this kind of relationship like I am is that it’s a trope with some life in it yet. Echoes came at it strong, and prerelease information on Three Houses suggests a few possibilities for this dynamic in that game. I’m especially keeping my eye on Dimitri and Dedue, whose relationship appears to contain echoes of the original duo of Quan and Finn. I highly doubt there will be anything on the level of S supports acknowledging this type of attraction, but I’ll settle for some suggestive A supports.

#Fire Emblem

[scoutception]

Final Fantasy I review: a pragmatic evolution

Final Fantasy; one of the largest and most influential game franchises out there, and my personal favorite video game series. It’s kind of surreal to think that it started out as what was basically an unlicensed Dungeons & Dragons adaptation from a failing company that only approved it to try to top Dragon Quest, like so many others back then. For all the faults it had, like being so utterly buggy that it artificially increased difficulty through things like mages not actually being able to gain more power for their magic, and several spells not even working, period, it pulled through with an innovative team building system, a great soundtrack that would help cement Nobou Uematsu as one of the great video game soundtrack composers, and a much more developed exploration system compared to Dragon Quest, giving you access to vehicles like an airship. For this review, however, I shall be reviewing the PSP version of Final Fantasy I, which is quite a different experience, for reasons I shall tackle shortly. Otherwise, in we go.

Story

The story is about a world home to 4 elemental crystals of earth, fire, water, and wind, which once blessed the land and its inhabitants with peace. However, the Four Fiends, the Lich, Marilith, the Kraken, and Tiamat, have since corrupted the crystals, depriving the world of their blessings and causing the appearance of monsters across the land. Despite the bleakness, however, the people keep faith in one thing: a prophecy stating that four Warriors of Light will appear one day to restore the crystals and defeat the Four Fiends. 400 years after the first of the fiends appeared, the Warriors of Light finally arrive at the town of Cornelia, where they are tasked by its king to save his daughter, Princess Sarah, from Garland, a traitorous knight, who has taken her to the Chaos Shrine. Afterwards, the king builds a bridge in gratitude, allowing them to skip over to the next town and beat up some pirates for their ship. Most of the “plot” of this game takes the form of fetching key items and chains of deals that stand in the way of you actually taking the fight to the Fiends, with the worst taking place right after getting the ship, involving almost every single area you can even visit at that time. It was probably a bit more interesting at the time, especially compared to Dragon Quest, but it’s a huge drag nowadays.

After killing all of the Fiends, the game decides to pull a twist: as it turns out, an evil force 2000 years in the past is still stealing the power of the crystals, originating from the Chaos Shrine. After traveling through a time portal, and killing all the Four Fiends again, the game pulls a bigger twist: they find Garland at the bottom of the shrine, having been sent back in time by the Fiends. Using their power to transform into the monster Chaos, he then used his power to send them into the present, creating some time loop that allows him to live forever. After defeating him, the Warriors of Light are returned to the present, having retroactively prevented any of the disasters from taking place, even ensuring Garland would never betray Cornelia. Doing this erases their memories of their journey, but the legend of it still lives on.... somehow. It’s not exactly a deep plot, but it can still be decently entertaining to go through, especially with the vastly improved translation of the later versions, which gives quite a bit of dialogue a surprising amount of charm.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Final Fantasy I is about the most standard NES era RPG you could get. You travel on a world map, exploring towns and dungeons and getting into random encounters, with the battle system also being a very standard turn based system, selecting all your party’s actions at the beginning of each turn, and having choices of attacking, using magic, using an item, defending, or attempting to escape. You gain the use of a ship, a canoe, and eventually an airship which pretty much invalidates any other form of travel for navigating the world map, though the ship can only dock at certain spots, and the airship can only land on grass tiles. This can pose a problem to a new player, as the continents are large and often force you to land farther away from your goal than you might expect. This is doubly bad as the game initially seems to lack a map feature, which can make navigation very difficult sense the map loops when you reach an edge of it. While there is actually a map you can access on the world map, which even displays the locations you’ve discovered, you can only bring it up by hitting a button combination the game never outright tells you, only being mentioned, and backwards, at that, by some brooms in an early area (it’s ok, it’s the home of a witch), which could be passed off as random nonsense if you’re not in the mood to think laterally.

The most interesting gameplay feature FF1 has to offer is its party building system. Instead of just gaining predetermined characters as you go on like, say, MOTHER, or only having one character, like Dragon Quest itself, you have 4 party members all the time that you select at the start of the game, picked from 6 different classes: the Warrior, the very standard physical fighter with great attack and defense, whose only real downside is being very reliant on equipment, the Monk, who is pretty much the opposite of the fighter, being a physical fighter who specializes in fighting unarmed, to the point of equipment actually lowering his attack and defense after a while, making him very cheap to use, and very broken after the first few levels. There’s also the Thief, which is bad on defense, but is good for attacking and has superior speed. The second half of the classes are magically focused. The White Mage specializes in healing and support magic, though they also have offense in the form of the Dia line of spells, which is effective against undead, and Holy, one of the major attacking spells of the series. The Black Mage, conversely, focuses on offensive magic, though they also have access to some very good buff, though they’re perhaps the most vulnerable of any class, with abysmal HP growth, at that. Lastly, there’s the Red Mage, the jack of all trades, master of none. They can use swords, have good defense, and access to both white and black magic, though they’re worse at all of those than the classes that focus on them individually, and can’t use most of the later game spells or equipment, though since you’re stuck with your chosen classes all the way, they’re never an outright burden, and plenty of people find them great regardless.

Aside from leveling up from fighting random encounters, you power up your party by buying equipment, or finding it in dungeons or other areas, and buying spells from towns. There’s 8 spell tiers in all, with all having 4 different spells per tier for both black and white magic. However, the spellcasters can only know up to three spells for each tier, with the red mage having to use those spaces for both white and black magic. Some tiers have better spells than others, with most spells more complex than simple healing or damage usually not being worthwhile. However, a lot of spells and equipment available around the time you get the airship is not actually usable by your party members, and this is because of a sidequest offered by Bahamut, the king of the dragons, to go within the Citadel of Trials and retrieve a rat tail. Doing so will cause for your party members to class change, aka basically promote into stronger classes. The Warrior becomes the Knight, the Monk becomes the Master, the Thief becomes the Ninja, the White Mage becomes the White Wizard, the Black Mage becomes the Black Wizard, and the Red Mage becomes the Red Wizard. This grants them better stat growth and access to stronger equipment and spells, and the Knight and Ninja gain white and black magic, respectively.

The NES version of FF1 is infamously difficult, but over the many ports, starting with the Playstation version, and most notably advanced with the GBA version, the game became much, much easier. Whether it be the fixing of damaging bugs or the ability to save anywhere instead of the world map, which, granted, was only sensible considering portable console, to switching the spell system from each tier only being usable a certain amount of times before needing recharging at an inn, something borrowed from Dungeons & Dragons, to switching to a much more traditional MP system, to just a general rebalancing of the classes, it makes for a much easier game to get through. Too easy, honestly. You gain experience much, much faster, so as long as you fight the majority of the encounters you get into, you’ll quickly end up overpowered. It’s very easy to reach level 99, and much of the best equipment is easy to get. However, I don’t think the easier difficulty, and the general simplicity of the gameplay, are necessarily bad things. On the contrary, it makes the game very easy to pick up and play through, and it’s surprisingly fun despite how simple the combat is. This, I think, is the saving grace of the game, and even if that doesn’t satisfy you, the bonus content added in the later ports are the highlights of the game.

The GBA version added four bonus dungeons collectively called the Soul of Chaos, unlocked after each Fiend you defeat. These dungeons consist of a set amount of different, and often wacky, floors that load in a randomized order. While the first two dungeons are fairly standard and short, stuff begins picking up with the third, and the fourth is a 40 floor gauntlet of fun and creative little challenges and maps. In addition, each dungeon contains cameo bosses from Final Fantasy 3-6, complete with remixes of their boss themes for the PSP versions. These include Shinryu and Omega, who are the hardest bosses in the GBA version, and Gilgamesh, one of the most famous characters in the series. All in all, these dungeons are actually really fun to go through, as long as you’re properly leveled, and are definitely refreshing compared to how most RPGs handle bonus dungeons. On that subject, however, is the Labyrinth of Time, added in the PSP version. It consists of time puzzles, 30 in all, though you only do so many in each run, that ends with a fight against a newly added superboss, and the usurper of the title of hardest boss in the game, Chronodia. The catch is that Chronodia has 8 different variations, with different rewards and bestiary entries for each, and which one you encounter depends on how many puzzles you finish in time, and how many you only complete after running out of time, causing a fog to roll in that saps you of your HP and MP, and allows random encounters while in the puzzle areas. While creative, the Labyrinth of Time is overall maddeningly difficult and not fun. This is one to skip if you value your sanity.

Sound & Graphics

The graphics of FF1, again, judging the PSP version, are actually really good. The characters look distinct, and the monster graphics especially are great, and represent Yoshitaka Amano’s designs for them very, very well.

The areas are also surprisingly well designed. From the ruins of the Chaos Shrine, and the complete version of it as the final dungeon, to the underwater ruins that house the lair of the Kraken, to, most notably, the flying fortress of the Lufenian civilization, home to Tiamat and far advanced compared to all the other locations, especially in the original NES version, where it’s a space station, of all things.

As for the music, it holds up amazingly. Aside from many of the most famous themes of the series, such as the Preude, themes like the town theme and the Chaos Shrine theme are amazingly atmospheric, and it overall still stands out as one of the best soundtracks in the series to me. Even if he wasn’t involved in the rearranging for the remakes, this was a significant step for composer Nobou Uematsu.

Conclusion

Despite how fond I am of this game, my recommendation rating depends. If you’re looking for a nice, easy to pick up RPG, perhaps as an introduction to the series, or to RPGs in general, I would give this a recommended. If you’re looking for much past that, however, I would give it a not recommended. As transformed as it is, it is still a very old game underneath, with unclear goals, very barebones gameplay systems, and with all the innovation it did have swept away over the years. Still, if nothing else, it’s a very respectable start to Final Fantasy. Until next time.

-Scout

#final fantasy #gaming #long post #game review #jrpg

[osmw1]

Poison-Wielding Fugitive   Chapter 48

“Whew… what happened to staying low-key as fugitives? That was all sorts of wack.”

Veno and I have finally finished clearing the sewers of corpses. Now I’m resting up in Wayne’s living room.

“… oh, hey, how you doin’? How are things?” “The workers and merchants in town are saying how things are noticeably better already and that they haven’t seen a single rat.”

Sounds like Rurika has been keeping up with the situation. And I’m glad things are turning out fine.

‘Those rats carried diseases as well. I am sure the town is now more sanitary than ever before.’

I sure hope so.

“Mu!”

Muu hops onto a chair to give me a shoulder rub. Aww, thanks, buddy.

“You’ll want to report to the guildhall next.  Before you guys went down, they also asked ‘til when they should close off the sewers or something like that.” ‘The lass’ cooking is still moving around… we should give it about two weeks and see how the land lies.’

By the way, does Arleaf’s cooking… spoil? Deteriorate? I’m imagining the monsters be like rocks exposed to the element—immobile but yet still holding their shape. Though they’re food, but technically, they’re monsters. So, I guess it’s not so much spoilage, but “lifespan”?

“We should monitor it for another two weeks, lest any casualties arise.” “Got it.” “Oh, and Arleaf, you’ve leveled up quite a bit. Are you going to change into an advanced job?”

I remember she said something about going to the church to find out what classes she could advance into.

“I wanted to do so very much… but however, I found out at the church that all my possible ones are banned.” “Huh… what kind of jobs were there?” “Dark Alchemist, Dark Witch, Evil Shaman, Genocider, Evil Druid, and Dark Marionetter. Apparently, they are so notorious that if I were to choose any of them, sirens will sound.”

Their names all sound pretty wicked. She’s really getting screwed over.

“It’s all Veno’s fault, huh?” ‘I have merely suggested an efficient way to complete the quest!’ “Well… it’s probably because we exterminated them by the roots, right?”

Rurika explains to us why those classes are all considered evil.

‘It might be just that other people had been punching above their weight, so to say. If thou trainst thyself well, perhaps thou may find good results.’ “That would be nice, but…” “Well, you could temporarily spec into another base job and pile on the experience.” ‘Hold your thoughts. I believe that would be quite wasteful. Thou should utilize the fact the lass is more than twice your level. I recommend thee to borrow her strength and train thyself before she changes to another class.’ “I thought you don’t get that much weaker after a sidegrade though.”

Though you don’t lose everything, you’re back at level 1 and have half of your stats. That means Arleaf would be as strong as someone who’s level 30. That’s what either Veno or Arleaf told me anyway.

‘However, as it stands, she is level 60. Though thy statistics may increase by consuming her cooking, it is no replacement for actual experience. It would not be a bad idea to rely on her.’ “Umm… I would be more than happy to give it my all to help you get stronger, Yukihisa. It’s not like I stop leveling either.”

I guess that’s fine then. Normally, I’d get some quintessence or exp from being in the same party, but this time seemed to be unusual.

“Not only have I gained many Senses from leveling up, I am strong enough to use some pretty difficult magic too.” ‘Has any skill caught your attention in particular?’ “I have a few I am interested in—Knife Sense, Staff Sense, Dart Sense, Medicine’s Blessing, Magic Handling Assist. There is also Undead Summoner Sense… but it seems to be a sense for rituals that would summon questionable entities.”

I suppose that, like Shamans, it’d be normal for Thaumaturges to be capable of “evil” magic as well. But I was thinking it’d be more like curses.

“I also now have a skill called Mask Master, but I wonder how one could be more proficient with a mask.”

Arleaf always has a gas mask on when she’s in the miasma. Maybe that’s why. But for some reason, after seeing all her skills, she reminds me of some kind of tribal warrior.

‘It is likely the same as Armor Mastery in that thine equipment would be more effective than normal. Perhaps thou art more resistant to the miasma when equipped with a gas mask.’

But she’s a Thaumaturge, not “Tribal Warrior”.

“That would be quite practical, wouldn’t it be?” ‘I have seen cursed masks before. Thou may be able to gain class-specific magics with one of those. However… they all seem to be considered evil.’ “What kind of magic is it?” ‘There is Fetish Enchantment—breathing life into dolls and figures to do thy bidding. As well, Create Undead for granting a temporary soul to the dea—’ “Okay, I see your point…”

That’s totally dark magic, without a doubt. I can’t imagine anything good if we were to use magic like that.

‘Being so self-conscious would only bring us trouble. After all, living the fugitive life is not easy.’ “Surely you see how those skills would be catastrophic though?” ‘Magic Handling Assist brings to mind an offensive spell that creates a living creature to attack thine enemies. Bats made of flame, predatory fish made of water, or perhaps a swarm of spiders made of air would be possible.’

That sounds a little better.

“Maybe that’s not a bad choice then.” ‘Aye… it may be a little difficult, but why not challenge thyself with it? And of course, as thy ability in magic has increased, even Fire Bullet is rather strong now.’

Maybe Arleaf would be good as a support magic specialist.

‘Dart Sense, as the name suggests, grants proficiency in weapons such as a blowgun. As it is not quite a difficult weapon to handle, thou canst learn it along the way.’

There’s a lot to do, eh?

‘Hmm? It is not as if I have ordered to learn it all right away. Start with the easy ones. A blowgun would be quite effective in a pinch when combined with thine poison.’

Well, it sounds easy enough.

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /ch006/ /ch007/ /ch008/ /ch009/ /ch010/ /ch011/ /ch012/ /ch013/ /ch014/ /ch015/ /ch016/ /ch017/ /ch018/ /ch019/ /ch020/ /ch021/ /ch022/ /ch023/ /ch024/ /ch025/ /ch026/ /ch027/ /ch028/ /ch029/ /ch030/ /ch031/ /ch032/ /ch033/ /ch034/ /ch035/ /ch036/ /ch037/ /ch038/ /ch039/ /ch040/ /ch041/ /ch042/ /ch043/ /ch044/ /ch045/ /ch046/ /ch047/ /ch048/ /next/

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#Poison-Wielding Fugitive #PWF #Average Translations #AvgTL #osm #Yusagi Aneko #Aneko Yusagi #light novels #ln #web novel #wn #isekai #毒使いの逃亡者 #毒使い #一般の英訳 #ライトノベル #ラノベ #オンラインノベル #アネコユサギ #異世界

[gamearamamegathons]

Dragon Warrior IV: Fantasy Day Job

Circe here! In the third chapter we meet Taloon the merchant. Apparently he wants to be the world's greatest arms dealer, which sounds somewhat less than noble when you phrase it that way, but we're really just talking about swords here I guess, so that's not so bad. Every hero needs a sword, right? I mean, okay, not *every* hero but -- look, you gotta get that stuff somewhere. I guess blacksmiths would sound more ominous too if we called them 'weapons manufacturers', which is technically true, so we'll just chalk this up to tonally clumsy localization.

Taloon starts out in his small hometown of Lakanaba, where he has a wife, a kid, and a day job. In this chapter, the game goes a lot heavier on event scripting, so you can actually work for the local weapons shop and everything, which mostly involves standing still while customers walk up to you and answering 'yes' to all their questions so they buy stuff. But it's interesting, and notably, Taloon starts out very, very weak even compared to other level 1 characters, so you actually have some reason to work at his job and make some money living his day-to-day life for a bit. In the morning, he wakes up, his wife gives him lunch, and he goes off to work. At night, he goes home and says goodnight to his wife before going to sleep to do it all over again. I'll admit, this actually got me in a bit of a roleplaying mood, and even when I had Taloon going out and poking monsters with sharp objects, I still tried to go back home every night.

Eventually, though, you've gotta get together your own weapon and armor and set out. Taloon's big perk is that he seems to get more money and items from encounters, which means that once you get going, it's a lot easier to kit yourself out with pretty good equipment. This makes the earliest encounter zones pretty easy to handle. The first big hurdle Taloon has to cross is heading to a dungeon to the north to find the Iron Safe, an item that stops you from losing any gold on death. Yes, that's right, with this item in hand, you basically suffer no consequences for dying. It's kind of awesome, actually. And it's important, because amassing large quantities of gold without losing a bunch of it is going to be integral to Taloon's quest. This dungeon is kinda fun, 'cause you gotta run away from a giant boulder and swap the treasure with a stone, Indiana Jones-style. It's definitely a lot more involved than a lot of the old stuff, and it looks like they really wanted to show off what this game's engine was capable of compared to the previous ones.

Taloon's travels take us south to the castle of Bonmalmo. It's actually not far from Endor, which is where Taloon wants to get to, but the bridge is broken. You might remember Endor as being the endpoint of Alena's quest, so things are starting to connect together. Unfortunately, the king of Bonmalmo wants to invade Endor. Our quest to solve this whole problem involves us rescuing a guy from Lakanaba who's been imprisoned in Bonmalmo, then borrowing his dog to rescue the king's architect from magical foxes (yes, really) and then, once the bridges are fixed, talking to the prince of Bonmalmo and the princess of Endor, who want to marry, and convincing the king of Bonmalmo that a marriage would be better than a war. Phew.

If we were paying attention last chapter (and I was, don't worry) we would've already met a man in Endor who had a shop he wanted to sell so he could retire. This is Taloon's next goal, to start his own shop here. But it's pricey, so we need to find a good way to make 35K gold. Luckily, we can pick up some rumors of a rare artifact called the Silver Statue, and it turns out there's a guy in Endor who will pay a lot for it. So off we go. This dungeon is actually pretty tough, but luckily Taloon can hire a couple folks to help him out -- a warrior and a spellcaster. Even with their help, it's pretty rough going, but remember, even if we die, we don't lose any gold, so with that in mind, I happily took much greater risks than I would have normally. And this, eventually, led me to the Silver Statue. Selling the statue to the collector, plus some money I already had on hand, is enough to buy the shop, and Taloon's whole family moves to Endor with him. So that's done, but Taloon's quest isn't over yet. He wants to find this one awesome legendary sword, but that means helping another guy dig a tunnel further east. That'll be 60K gold, please.

Getting together the money is a bit more straightforward this time. The king wants 7 broad swords and 7 half-plate armors for his men. That's a lot, but with a combination of Taloon's ability to scrape together money and the fact that he can get monsters to drop those items semi-regularly, I was eventually able to deliver the whole order and get enough money to help get that tunnel finished. Completing this task brings Chapter 3 to a close.

Chapter 4 introduces us to the sisters Nara and Mara, dancers who are traveling from town to town seeking to take revenge on the man who killed their father, named...Balzack. I really have nothing to add to that, chalk it up to clumsy localization again. Nara is a Fortuneteller, and she has healing spells and is pretty competent in combat. Mara is a Dancer, and she has offensive spells, and is going to take a while to even find a weapon we can equip her with. The two of them together are a lot stronger than Taloon was, although they're admittedly a bit fragile. I can't tell if it was my impatience or because this was intended, but when I took their first dungeon, they were very weak, so I wasn't able to travel very deep at first. The monsters did give pretty good experience, though. Funnily enough, we actually managed to find an ally in the dungeon who joined us, and he was a very heavy hitter with a lot of HP, so he managed to carry the party pretty far even though the sisters were pretty weak. Again, I can't tell for sure if this is how I was supposed to do things or if I was hugely underleveled, but oh well. In this dungeon, we also find the Sphere of Silence, which is supposed to help us defeat Balzack.

Our journey eventually takes us to Keeleon, which is apparently ruled by an evil king. We get word that this is where Balzack is holed up, but we have to find a way to uncover the king's secret chambers. This involves going into a mine in a nearby town to find gunpowder, so we can make a loud noise with it and scare one of the king's servants into fleeing back to the chamber and revealing it to us. This is where we fight Balzack, who has apparently been turned into a monster by...evolution, or something. With the Sphere of Silence, we manage to take him down, but then the real king of Keeleon takes us on, and he's also an evolution-monster, except he totally kicks our ass in a clearly scripted beatdown. So we end up in jail. Luckily, we're able to find a boarding pass to get on a ship and flee Keeleon, heading to a port town to the north and getting the heck out of this entire messed up continent. We failed to kill Balzack though, since the king intervened before we could finish him off. Darn.

That's the end of the sisters' quest for now, though. Now, finally, it's time to get started on the main quest, which means we're going to play as...me! Yes, that's right, it's finally time to be the hero. We find that our hero had been raised in a hidden village, far away from civilization, and trained to be a hero until the age of seventeen. Oh, and we finally have a female sprite, so, life is pretty good. Well, that is, up until Necrosaro's forces find the village and burn it to the ground and kill everyone pretty much. So that sucks. We survive by hiding in a hidden basement, and one of our friends disguises herself as us so that the monsters think they killed the hero. That...sucks a lot, jeez. So, now we're on our own. But at the very least, we know that there are allies out in the world, the characters we've already met and played as, we just need to find them. It turns out that our hidden village is east of Endor, so we can find Taloon's tunnel and travel there. In Endor we meet Nara and Mara, who join the party and give us some much-needed extra power.

One thing that's immediately noticeable is that in this part of the game, our allies are not directly controllable -- we can only tell the hero what to do, and for everyone else, we have to set a tactics mode that will determine how they act. I dunno if I'm a huge fan of this approach, but I'm getting used to it.

At this point, I know we're supposed to find Taloon, but I'm a bit lost, so I just kind of wander around until I find another dungeon further east. This dungeon is strange -- it requires you to have three party members, and a little ways in you get separated from Nara and Mara, which sucked because they were like five levels higher than me. Then you find imposters who turn out to be monsters, and after you defeat them...you find more imposters who turn out to be monsters. What a mess. After meeting up with the sisters proper, we manage to find the Symbol of Faith, which is...uh...ah...? A thing. With no other clear direction, I rub the quest item on the immediate next obstacle, which is a guy who has a wagon we need to travel across the desert, but won't help us because he doesn't trust people. Apparently, rubbing this quest item on him causes him to realize the power of friendship, and he joins us and allows us to continue. After crossing the desert, I happen across another port town, and I hear people talking about Taloon preparing a boat, but it can't leave yet because of an...evil lighthouse or something, and Taloon's gone of to fix the lighthouse so it's not evil anymore. Uh, so I guess that's our next lead!

I'll admit, I'm quite wary of boats in Dragon Warrior games at this point, but we'll see how things go. I've quite liked traveling over the land with my companions and beating dungeons and meeting people and stuff, so I hope the game will continue on like this. The main quest is still in its early phase, so only time will tell where it will lead us.

#circe #marathon #dragon quest #dragon warrior iv

[dfroza]

Love is always True and it doesn’t change.

but it can change us, when we are humble enough to allow it.

and in this world we are meant to guard the heart and Love’s sacred truth. we need to guard a seed of rebirth by never turning away from grace. and we need to help provide for this, to illuminate it.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 8th chapter of the Letter of 2nd Corinthians that looks at giving and receiving:

Now, brothers and sisters, let me tell you about the amazing gift of God’s grace that’s happening throughout the churches in Macedonia. Even in the face of severe anguish and hard times, their elation and poverty have overflowed into a wealth of generosity. I watched as they willingly gave what they could afford and then went beyond to give even more. They came to us on their own, begging to take part in this work of grace to support the poor saints in Judea. We were so overwhelmed—none of us expected their reaction—that they truly turned their lives over to the Lord and then gave themselves to support us in our work as we answer the call of God. That’s why we asked Titus to finish what he started among you regarding this gracious work of charity. Just as you are rich in everything—in faith and speech, in knowledge and all sincerity, and in the love we have shown among you—now I ask you to invest richly in this gracious work too. I am not going to command you, but I am going to offer you the chance to prove your love genuine in the same way others have done. You know the grace that has come to us through our Lord Jesus the Anointed. He set aside His infinite riches and was born into the lowest circumstance so that you may gain great riches through His humble poverty. Listen, it’s been a year since we called your attention to this opportunity to demonstrate God’s grace, so here’s my advice: pull together your resources and finish what you started.

Remember how excited you were at first; it’s time to complete this task in the same spirit. Now if there is a willingness to help, give within your means. That’s perfectly acceptable. No one expects you to go without or borrow to give. The objective is not to go under so others will have some relief; the objective is to use this opportunity today to supply their needs out of your abundance. One day it may be the other way around, and they will need to supply your needs from what they have. That’s equality. As it is written, “The one who gathered plenty didn’t have more than he needed; the one who gathered little didn’t have less.”

I praise God who lovingly burdened Titus’s heart for you just as He did mine. You see, when we approached him about you, he eagerly stepped up, not only because of our request but because of his own desire to help. We’re also sending with him a brother who is well known among the gatherings of believers because of how well he proclaims the good news. And there’s more you should know: he has been handpicked by the churches to accompany us as we carry on this work of grace. All this is being done for the glory of the Lord and to show our own good will. We’re being careful so that no one can claim that we are mishandling the funds we’ve collected. For we are taking every precaution to remain aboveboard—not only in the Lord’s eyes, but in the eyes of the people too. So we are also sending another brother who’s proven himself time and again. He’s certainly trustworthy and enthusiastic for the gospel; and after hearing about all you are doing, he’s even more excited because he has confidence in you. If anyone asks about Titus, he’s my partner and coworker in this ministry to you. If there’s any question about who the other brothers and sisters are, they are emissaries of the churches, traveling to bring glory to the Anointed One, our Liberating King. So welcome them before the community in love; show the churches they represent that I have not exaggerated your charity and kindness.

The Letter of 2nd Corinthians, Chapter 8 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 59th chapter of the book (scroll) of Isaiah that deals with the nature of lies:

The Eternal One’s reach is not so short that He cannot save you.

His ear is not so deaf that He cannot hear you.

Your persistent wrongdoing has come between you and your God;

since you constantly reject and push God away,

He had to turn aside and ignore your cries.

For your hands are covered with blood;

your fingers are sticky with all manner of crimes;

Your lips drip vicious lies;

your tongue mutters all manner of wickedness.

Everyone misuses the judicial system,

clogging it with twisted accusations and misleading testimony.

With empty charges and baseless lies

they conceive trouble and give birth to injustice.

They concoct and create the most poisonous things;

it’s as if they hatch vipers’ eggs or weave spiders’ webs.

Eat their eggs and die; crush one and a viper is hatched—

yet more poison, hurt, and distrust.

There is nothing of value in their creations—

the webs they weave are not fit to clothe or cover anyone.

The products they make are nothing but trouble;

violence comes naturally to them.

Their feet race to do evil;

they rush to shed innocent blood;

Their thoughts are bent toward injustice;

destruction and trouble line the roads of their lives.

They never travel the path of peace;

no justice is found where they have been.

They set a course down crooked roads;

no one who follows their lead has a chance of knowing peace.

People: That’s why we can’t make things right;

good and true can’t gain any ground on us.

We look earnestly for a bright spot, but there isn’t

even a glimmer of hope; it’s darkness all around.

We are left to stumble along, grabbing at whatever seems solid,

like the blind finding their way down a strange and threatening street.

In broad daylight—when we should have sight—we stumble and fall as in the dark.

We are already like the dead among those brimming with health.

We growl like bears and moan like doves.

We hope that maybe, just maybe, it will all turn out right;

But it doesn’t. We look for liberation, but it’s too far away.

For our wrongdoing runs too deep before You.

Our sins stack up against us—sure evidence of our guilt.

For our offenses are always with us; they are insidious and lasting, as You know.

Our guilt says it all. We know it, too.

We took You for nothing, and did just the opposite of Your commands.

We broke our promises to You, ignored and rejected You.

We hatched up schemes to oppress others and rebel, to twist the truth for our gain

while presenting it as honest-to-God fact.

When justice calls, we turn it away.

Righteousness knows to keep its distance,

For truth stumbles in the public square,

and honesty is not allowed to enter.

There is no truth-telling anymore,

and anyone who tries to do right finds he is the next target.

It’s true. The Eternal One saw it all

and was understandably perturbed at the absence of justice.

God looked long and hard, but there wasn’t a single person

who tried to put a stop to the injustice and lies.

So God took action. His own strong arm reached out and brought salvation.

His own righteousness—good and pure—sustained Him.

But God’s equipment was that of no ordinary warrior:

He strapped on righteousness as His breastplate,

And put on the helmet of salvation.

Wrapped in vengeance for clothing and passion as a cloak, God prepared for war.

Finally, God determined they must get what they’ve earned:

fury to those who oppose Him, vengeance against those who are against Him.

To the ends of the known world, God will go to render justice.

This is how people from east to west will come to respect the name

and honor the glory of the Eternal.

For He will come on like a torrential flood driven by the Eternal’s winds.

Eternal One: The Redeemer will come to make Zion right again,

to rescue those of Jacob’s holy line who turn their backs on wrongdoing.

This is what the Eternal One declares.

Eternal One: This is My covenant promise to them: My Spirit, which rests on and moves in you, and My words, which I have placed within you, will continue to be spoken among you and move you to action. And not only you, but so it will be for your children and their children too. And so on through the generations for all time.

The Book (Scroll) of Isaiah, Chapter 59 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for friday, August 6 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons that reflects upon the pure significance of grace:

If you ever feel frustrated because of recurring personal struggles and failures, do not add to your troubles by despising yourself, but instead allow your character defects to lead you to humility and surrender before God. Bear in mind that you are unable to please God apart from his intervention and help (John 6:63), so avoid self-reproach, since teshuvah ("repentance") is not about learning to deal with your pains, after all, but trusting the Lord to do the miracle of healing within you. You "have been crucified with the Messiah" (Gal. 2:20) - the verb used in this phrase is a "perfect passive" form (i.e., συνεσταύρωμα), meaning that it indicates completed action done on your behalf. Your job is not to devise your own sanctification but to receive the blessing by faith, trusting in God's righteousness given on your behalf. The focus is not on you, and when you get out of the way and surrender, the grace and love of God will do the impossible within you (Matt. 19:26). In a way, teshuvah is a form of death, that is, identifying with the judgment of Messiah given on your behalf, just as teshuvah is life as you take hold of your new identity in him. Practically speaking you turn away (i.e., "die to") your anger, disappointments, bitterness, and sorrows by turning to the Lord for his acceptance and grace. God will bring freedom and newness of life from what binds your heart. As C.S. Lewis once advised: "Remember that He is the artist and you are only the picture. You can't see it. So quietly submit to being painted, that is, keep fulfilling all the obvious duties of your station... asking forgiveness for each failure and then leaving it alone. You are in the right way. Walk --- don't keep on looking at it" (Collected Letters). How you do teshuvah depends a great deal on where you are standing: if you are before the cross of Messiah, then you stand on the side of divine grace; otherwise you will remain in a place of exile, questioning God’s love for you.

The message of the gospel (i.e., הבשורה, from the word basar) requires that you regard yourself as worth dying for, that you are God’s friend... “There is no greater love than this: that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). God quite literally demands that you regard yourself as benefited by the sacrifice of his beloved son Yeshua in your place; he demands that you understand how dear you are to his heart. God sees something of such great value in you that he was willing to suffer and die to redeem it from loss... Just as the kingdom of God is a “pearl of great price,” so you are a pearl of great price to God. What grieves and angers God is the refusal to believe that you are someone of infinite importance to him... Only God can rightfully make such a demand because He knows that loving other things more than Him leads to "disordered love," darkness, and eventual madness. We were made for God's love, but substituting finite things for this infinite need will never suffice to bring lasting healing to our souls...

Those who are “in the flesh” cannot please God (Rom. 8:8). We must turn away from regarding ourselves as mere “flesh” and understand that we are essentially spiritual beings created and redeemed by God (2 Cor. 5:16). We must give up the distinctions in the “world of basar” - the carnal world that is known through sensuous apprehension - and accept ourselves as “new creations” in the Messiah. It is “not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as offspring” (Rom. 9:6-8).

The mere conviction of sin is not the same thing as repentance. We have to step beyond a troubled conscience and have our sin crucified by God’s love and grace. Grace is therefore essential to genuine repentance, since moral reformation is never enough. “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” We must be humbled so that we can receive. God gives us bitter experience of our inadequacy to call us to return to him. Only God can kill the power of sin within our hearts. Conviction of sin is not the end, but rather newness of life...

There is a place for godly sorrow, of course, and for genuine regret over our sins. As we understand God’s desire and love for us, we begin to realize that the essence of sin is the refusal of God’s heart for us. The underlying issue with sin concerns the question of God’s love. Simply abstaining from certain actions does not address the deepest need of the heart. It is not turning away from sin that matters as much as turning toward God. The death of sin is meant to lead us to the life of love... [Hebrew for Christians]

and another:

God is both infinitely loving and infinitely just, and both of these “attributes” are inseparably a part of who he is. God is One. Nonetheless, the cross of Yeshua proves that “love is stronger than death, passion fiercer than the grave; its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame, the very flame of the Lord” (Song. 8:6). It is at the cross that “love and truth have met, righteousness and peace have kissed” (Psalm 85:10). This means we must drop our defenses – even those supposed objections and pretenses voiced by our shame – and “accept that we are accepted.” It is God’s great love for you that leads you to repent and to turn to him. Allow yourself to be embraced by his “everlasting arms.”

Genuine repentance will entirely change you. It is an act of profound respect over what God has done on your behalf. You say, but I am a miserable wretch! Indeed that is so, but the consciousness of your wretched state is the heart’s cry for love... God goes “outside the camp” to meet with you. He enters the leper colony to join you there, in your wretchedness, and even takes upon your fatal disease. He sees you in your desperate estate and joins you there. God enters into the dust of your death and says, “Live!”

Repentance means changing your thinking, turning around to face the truth, and returning to embrace God’s love. It does not identify the whole person with sin, but rather regards all people as redeemable, worthy, and valuable to God. Conviction of sin is not the end, but rather the means to newness of life. God saved us so that we could be in a love relationship with Him. We must “choose life,” and that means choosing to welcome God’s love into your heart. The only sin that can keep you from God’s everlasting love is the denial that his love is personally for you. You must forsake seeing yourself “in the flesh” and take hold of God’s spirit, his passion, and his grace for your soul. You are worthy to be loved because God is worthy to make you so.

Repent and believe the good news. God is love, and that love is *for you*... [Hebrew for Christians]

8.5.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

August 6, 2021

Treasures of the Snow

“Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail?” (Job 38:22)

It is interesting that this book, the oldest in the Bible, contains more references to snow, ice, and frost than any other book of the Bible. This is despite the fact that Job’s homeland was in what is now essentially a desert region. Possibly the effects of the post-Flood Ice Age were still strong in Job’s day.

In any case, the beautiful phrase “treasures of the snow” is both appropriate and prophetic. Its crystal structure, though mostly in the form of delicate six-pointed “stars,” is endlessly varied and always intricately symmetrical and incredibly beautiful.

The snow is a treasure in other ways as well. The winter’s snowpack in the mountains is often called “white gold” because of its indispensable water storage capacity, released in the melting season each spring to provide life to teeming cities and irrigation in the desert for needed food supplies. The snow also aids in maintaining the planet’s chemical cycles by returning various elements in the nuclei of its flakes back from the ocean to the lands from which they were leached and transported by rivers to the oceans. When the snowpack becomes a glacier, it can greatly assist in the breakup of rocks to form fertile soils.

In the Scriptures, its pure white color is often used to symbolize the cleansing of a sinful heart that trusts the Lord. “Wash me,” said David, “and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psalm 51:7). “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,” the Lord promises those who come to Him for salvation (Isaiah 1:18).

As the snow comes down from heaven, so comes the Word of God to ask the soul as in today’s text: “Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow?” (Job 38:22). HMM

[autodidact-adventures]

World War I (Part 73): The End of the War

It was obvious that Germany was going to lose the war in the west, but Ludendorff was incapable of seeing sense.  He still believed that Germany could end the war in possession of part of Belgium, and France's Longwy-Briey Basin.  On August 28th, Foch said, “The man could escape even now if he would make up his mind to leave behind his baggage.”

Britain was preparing for an offensive out of Arras.  Foch was demanding that America contribute divisions to it, but Pershing refused – he wanted to concentrate his troops on his own sector of front, to achieve his own objectives.  Foch was indignant at this.

Pétain worked out a solution, providing French support for the offensive that Pershing was preparing at St. Mihiel.  This offensive had three goals – 1) drive the Germans out of the salient; 2) cut the railway line that ran laterally behind the salient; 3) threaten Longwy-Briey.  It was to begin in five days' time – the Allies were in a rush, thinking for the first time that they might be able to finish the war before winter.

The Arras offensive (with Canadians in the lead) was successful, breaking through everywhere they attacked.  Ludendorff was forced to order a pullback to the Hindenburg Line, giving up all they'd gained in 1918.  But it was too late for an orderly retreat – during the fortnight-long withdrawal, the Germans lost 115,000 men, 470 guns, and stores that they had no way of replacing.  And that was just on the British part of the front.

After four years of fighting, the Anzac & Canadian corps were so potent that Haig repeatedly used them as a battering ram to smash the German line with, and it was the case here as well.  It was likely that they were the best divisions in the whole war (on either side). John Monash and Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie, his Canadian counterpart, were much of the reason for this.

Like Monash, Currie's background set him apart from almost all the other BEF generals.  He'd grown up on a farm in British Columbia; he wanted to be a lawyer, but after his father's death he became a teacher.  After that he went into insurance, and then into real-estate speculation.

At 21yrs old, he joined the Canadian Garrison Artillery (a “weekened-warrior operation” [?]) as a gunner.  He was competent and amiable, and was commissioned at 25yrs old, promoted to Captain the next year, and at 33yrs old he became a Lieutenant-Colonel, commanding a regiment.

Medical problems kept him out of the Boer War, to his disappointment, and he was eager to fight when WW1 broke out.  He was as well-qualified as a Canadian soldier could be at that time, and was put in command of one of the country's four brigades.

But he was struggling financially.  Early in 1914 a real estate bubble had burst, leaving him in major debt.  He borrowed regimental funds to avoid bankruptcy, and if it wasn't for the intervention of friends he might have been charged with embezzlement.

However, by the end of the war he had become one of the BEF's most respected commanders.  In April 1915, during the Second Battle of Ypres, his brigade held off a German attack on the village of St. Julien, preventing the battle from turning into a disaster for the British.  In 1916, his Canadian First Division showed its brilliance in capturing Vimy Ridge; this led General Henry Horne to declare it “the pride and wonder of the British army.”

In June 1917, the British selected Currie to become the first Canadian commander of the Canadian Corps.  But back at home, people weren't happy – politicians complained that they'd hadn't been consulted, and proposed other candidates; they also urged Currie's creditors to demand payment in full.  So Currie's promotion was changed to “temporary”, and seemed likely to be revoked.  Even compared to Monash he was a fish out of water among the other generals – his son would later recall, “He had a tremendous command of profanity.  He didn't swear without a cause.  But boy, when he cut loose he could go for about a minute without repetition.”

Two of Currie's officers advanced him $6,000, and the great respect the Canadian troops had for him made it clear that removing him would spark protests.  He was also knighted.  At the end of August 1918, his troops had a record of never once failing to capture an objective, never being driven out of a position that they'd had the opportunity to consolidate, and never losing a gun.

At the beginning of September, the biggest problem for the Germans was the huge mass of American troops assembling near Verdun. Ludendorff knew they were going to attack, so he ordered the entire salient (518 square km, 21km deep) to be abandoned.

Pershing had originally planned for the offensive to begin on September 7th, but he was held up by difficulties in getting French artillery into position.  He wanted to destroy the defenders as well as capture the salient, and he certainly had the resources to do so – a million American troops, 110,000 French troops, 3,000 artillery pieces, complete air superiority, and essentially unlimited ammunition.

The Battle of Saint-Mihiel began on September 12th with a 4hr-long barrage.  When the infantry advanced, though, they found only a rear guard shielding the escape of eight German divisions. The Americans took the salient within a day, taking 15,000 prisoners and 450 guns.

Pershing and his staff immediately began preparing for another attack, this one in an area that was bordered by the Meuse's heights and the Argonne Forest, where the Germans were waiting with a 19km-deep defensive system nearly as formidable as the Hindenburg Line.  But Pershing had 820,000 troops (600,000 of them being Americans), 4,000 guns, and enough shells for the guns to fire at their maximum rate until the barrels burned out.  The staff had two weeks to get everything ready.

Everywhere else, things were falling apart for the Central Powers. Franchet d'Esperey's Army of the Orient were weakened by malaria and influenza, and when they attacked the strong Bulgarian & German entrenchments outside Salonika, the defenders held their ground for several days, making it seem that this attempt to break out of Salonika would end in failure as usual.  But the Bulgarians were struggling with ammo & supply shortages, and their morale was low; they attempted a limited retreat that was intended to draw the Entente forces into an ambush.

It didn't work.  D'Esperey's aircraft began to attack almost as soon as the Bulgarians were out of their defences, and the retreat turned into a rout.  The Bulgarian troops were exhausted, and tired of a war that had accomplished nothing; they were unhappy with their king, who had made the decision to join the Central Powers.  Now they abandoned the fight, leaving the way the Hungary's interior open to the Entente advance units.

German troops were sent to salvage the situation, but it wasn't possible.  Later, Ludendorff would say of the situation, “We could not answer every single cry for help.  We had to insist that Bulgaria must do something for herself, for otherwise we, too, were lost.”

Bulgaria asked for an armistice on September 25th, and it was granted five days later.  The Turks had been defeated in Palestine by an Allied force commanded by the British General Edmund Allenby; they were in retreat towards Damascus (Syria), and couldn't do anything about Bulgaria unless they left Constantinople unprotected.  The war in the Balkans was over.

Ludendorf & Hindenburg met in their headquarters on September 28th.  They abandoned their illusions, and admitted that the Balkans were lost, and so was the war in general.  A few days later, Hindenburg would write that they were forced to do so largely “as a result of the collapse of our Macedonian front,” and their consequent exposure to attack from the east.

Ludendorff had no options left, and he sent his army group commanders a message, stating that there would be no more withdrawals in the west.  He was still determined that every position be held, and told his staff that “pneumonic plague” had broken out in the French army – he'd heard a rumour about it, and “clung to that news like a drowning man to a straw,” as he later put it.  The rumour was nonsense.

At the Hindenburg Line, Britain & France were attacking, capturing thousands of Germans and hundreds of guns.  In the Meuse-Argonne, the French were attacking on a 64km-wide front.  Even the Entente armies were taking huge casualties – from August 28th to September 26th the British had 108,000 casualties; the Americans had 26,000 killed and 95,000 wounded in about the same period.  But this was more bearable than earlier in the war, because the Allies had the hope that an end was in sight, and the Germans couldn't possibly stand up to all of this without eventually collapsing.

A British sergeant wrote home, “I have seen prisoners coming from the Battle of the Somme, Mons and Messines and along the road to Menin.  Then they had an expression of hard defiance on their faces; their eyes were saying: 'You've had the better of me; but there are many others like me still to carry on the fight, and in the end we shall crush you.'  Now their soldiers are no more than a pitiful crowd.  Exhaustion of the spirit which always accompanies exhaustion of the body.  They are marked with the sign of the defeated.'

The best of the remaining German units, continued to resist with intense determination – but it was quite obviously a lost cause. The Allies had 6 million troops in the west, but they didn't actually need to use all of them, thanks to their artillery & tank advantage, and the fact that Monash's tactics were now widely adopted.  Nearly 40% of the French army (over a million men) were assigned to artillery.  While they'd had only 300 medium & heavy guns in 1914, they now had nearly 6,000.

On September 28th & 29th, the Canadians finally broke through the Hindenburg Line.  This was thanks in part to their firing of nearly 944,000 artillery rounds during those two days.  In early October, 12,000 tonnes of munitions were being fired every 24hrs.  France's 75mm light field guns were firing 280,000 rounds a day.  The Germans on & near the front were living under a constant barrage.

The Allies were regularly breaking through the German line, and with increasing regularity – on October 5th, each of Haig's four armies did so at one or more points.  But none of these successes turned into a rout.  The hard core of the German army was low on food & ammo, and never able to get a day's rest, but they gave up ground reluctantly and continued to take a heavy toll on the enemy; they even managed to counterattack at critical junctures.  In some places, the German line was manned only by officers with machine-guns.  And still the line didn't dissolve.  The number of Allied troops killed in combat was higher than the Germans.

An American Marine battalion that eventually succeeded in driving the Germans off a hill in Champagne lost almost 90% of its men (killed/wounded).  This region had been reduced to “blackened, branchless stumps, upthrust through the churned earth...naked, leprous chalk...a wilderness of craters, large and small, wherein no yard of earth lay untouched.”

Heavy autumn rains, the difficulty of the terrain, and the strength of the remaining German infrastructure (especially along the eastern sector, where the Americans were) slowed the Allied advance.  The size of the Allied force, while an advantage in attacking, was a disadvantage in other ways – it was extremely difficult to keep it supplied and in motion, and to deploy the guns & men.  In fact, Pershing was forced to suspend his offensive in the Argonne for a week in order to get things sorted out.

Admiral Paul von Hintze had been appointed Foreign Minister on July 6th, after Kühlmann's forced resignation.  In the aftermath of Salonika, he met with Ludendorff, who outlined the realities of the situation, as he'd done with Hindenburg.  He told him that they needed an armistice immediately.  This was sensible, but he also said that he thought a ceasefire could be secured within a few days; and he wanted an agreement that would allow their armies to pull back to the German border, rest the troops and build their defences, and later resume the fight if they chose to do so!  Hintze was shocked at this, and the conversation became so heated that at one point, Ludendorff collapsed to the floor in one of his rages.

They did agree, however, to approach Woodrow Wilson about an armistice based on his Fourteen Points.  Hintze's goal was to save Germany and the Hohenzollern dynasty, and he suggested that they carry out a “revolution from above”: to transform Germany's political system in a way that would demonstrate that Germany was now under progressive (even democratic) leadership, and that this change had been accomplished by the kaiser (rather than in spite of him).

The “revolution” wasn't really that, though – the most radical change was giving Reichstag representatives a place in the cabinet. Because it wasn't much of a change, it was possible for Ludendorff and the kaiser to agree to it – but the conservatives considered it a shocking violation of Prussian & Hohenzollern tradition. Chancellor Hertling, who wasn't even a Prussian, resigned the chancellorship rather than agree to it.

On September 27th, the kaiser signed a proclamation of parliamentary government, in an attempt to salvage something of his inheritance.  One officer noted that he was a “broken and suddenly aged man.”  Wilhelm knew that all of his ancestors (except for his father) would be horrified at his actions, but the German leaders knew that the situation was desperate.

(This change, in the end, led to the liberals & socialists in the Reichstag having to take part of the blame for the disaster that was unfolding.)

Hintze insisted that he also had to resign, to demonstrate that the kaiser's proclamation wasn't just empty words; the kaiser & Ludendorff failed to dissuade him.

On September 30th, Ludendorff sent a member of his staff (only a Major) to Berlin, with orders to inform the Reichstag of what was happening on the Western Front.  But the truth contradicted so much of what the public & the Reichstag deputies had been led to believe, causing great damage to the government & military's credibility.

On October 3rd, Prince Max of Baden became the new Chancellor, and was given the job or arranging a peace.  Max was “the one prominent royalist liberal in the empire,” and was capable, but in poor health.  He was well-known within the German establishment for reformist sympathies, so his appointment would hopefully show the Allies that there was a new kind of government in Berlin; one that the democracies could come to terms with.

But things looked quite different to the Allies – Max was a relative of the kaiser, and a member of the Baden royal house.  He seemed simply more of the same.

On the 3rd, Max signed a note that Hintze had drafted, addressed to Woodrow Wilson.  It asked for an immediate armistice, and accepted the peace terms that Wilson's government had been issuing during that year.

Wilson replied promptly, and in almost friendly terms.  He asked the Germans to confirm their acceptance of the Fourteen Points, and their willingness to withdraw from all occupied territory.  The prince's government signalled their agreement.

It was by now the second week of October, and the Allied armies were briefly stymied on the Western Front.  The Americans were finally clearing the Argonne (with Brigadier General Douglas MacArthur constantly exposing himself to enemy fire), but they had taken high casualties, and were facing even stronger defences further east.

Ludendorff, moving away from the sensible attitude he'd been showing, began to talk of line-shortening measures that could enable them to hold out through the coming winter, and wear the Allies down through attrition, in order to get better peace terms.

But this was not likely to happen – even the peace terms that they were hoping to get already weren't going to happen.  Wilson was under pressure: after a year and a half of propaganda, the public had become almost hysterically anti-German.  Congress members responded in ways that would increase their own popularity.  The president had been severely criticized for not responding strictly enough to Germany's request.  The midterm elections were scheduled for November 5th, and his party had only a thin majority over the Republicans in both Congress houses.  The French and British, too, were pushing him to take a harder line.

On October 10th, the steamer RMS Leinster was sailing between Ireland and England's west coast, as usual.  Not long before 10am, a U-boat fired two torpedoes into her hull, and she went down with nearly 450 people killed, including 135 women & children. One of those killed was Josephine Carr, a 19yr-old shorthand typist from Cork, the first member of the WRENS (Women's Royal Naval Service) to be killed on active service.

The result of this sinking was that all the Allies toughened their peace terms, including Wilson, who sent a new note to Berlin, in an entirely new tone.  He demanded an end to the submarine warfare, and referred to the “arbitrary” power of Germany's military elite and the threat it posed to the world – and any armistice terms must be settled with the Allied commanders in the field, rather than with him or even the Allied governments acting together.  This got him off the hook.

Hungary had declared itself an autonomous nation, separating itself from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Emperor Karl, desperate to try and save something from the wreckage, issued a manifesto that transformed the remains of the empire into a federation in which all members would have their own national councils (even nationalities as obscure as the Ruthenians).

But no-one paid any attention to this – all the pieces of the empire were going their own ways, and the remnants of his army were breaking up as well, with various non-Austrian units marching home. Now, the road to Central Europe lay open to the Army of the Orient. This included Romania, which Germany relied upon for oil.

On October 17th, the German Council of War gathered – the kaiser, Ludendorff, Hindenburg, and all the new government's leading officials.  Ludendorff was completely irrational, insisting that they would hold out through the winter (actually, that very night he would find out that the British had made a new breakthrough and were advancing again).

He also threatened to resign if the other generals were even allowed to express their opinions, and demanded that the submarine campaign continue.  The kaiser agreed, and only Prince Max disagreed.  He threatened to resign himself if they didn't accept Wilson's terms to the last detail.  It was impossible to let this happen, as they'd attached so much importance to the creation of a “liberal” government.  So Ludendorff's power was now broken.

Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria was still commanding the northern German army group.  He sent a warning to Prince Max that if they didn't soon get an armistice, they wouldn't be able to prevent their country from being invaded.

General Wilhelm Gröner had begun the war as head of the German railway system, and had held other important positions since then (and had been at odds with Ludendorff along the way).  Now, he reported that at least 200,000 troops were missing, many of them having deserted.  In fact, it could be as many as 1.5 million, as it was no longer possible to keep track.

During October, 133,000 French troops were killed, wounded or missing.  But the Allies were still attacking, and the Germans were struggling more and more.  They had no replacements and hardly any reserves; meanwhile, the Allies had so many troops that they were able to pull the Anzac Corps out of the line – they were near breaking point, and Monash couldn't keep his left hand from trembling, so he tended to keep it in his pocket.

On October 22nd, Admiral Franz von Hipper (new chief of the German High Seas Fleet) tried to execute Operation 19, in which his ships were to put to sea and fight the British & Americans in a final suicidal campaign.  Three dreadnought crews at Kiel heard of this plan and mutinied, running red banners of revolution up their masts; the Kiel army garrison joined in, and the revolt quickly spread.  Now the German fleet wasn't even a potential fighting force.

On October 23rd, Germany received a third note from Wilson: “If the Government of the United States must deal with the military masters and monarchical autocrats of Germany...it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender.”

Provoked by this, Ludendorff wrote a harsh message to the troops, and both he and Hindenburg signed it: “Our enemies merely pay lip service to the idea of a just peace in order to deceive us and break our resistance.  For us soldiers Wilson's reply can therefore only constitute a challenge to continue resisting to the limit of our strength.”

Ludendorff then travelled from his headquarters to Berlin, with the intention of ending Prince Max's dialogue with Washington.  But he arrived to find that his message had created a furor – the public (who were hungry for peace), a large part of the Reichstag, Prince Max himself, and even the military were indignant.  The note had to be withdrawn, because so many of the field commanders had protested. This was yet another humiliation for Ludendorff, and some Reichstag members were demanding he be removed.  Some were even saying that if peace was impossible with the kaiser on the throne, then the kaiser must go too.

News of new disasters was arriving every day, almost every hour.  In Italy, an Allied force of 56 divisions (including 3 British & 2 French) were attacking northwards – the Italians were trying to seize as much territory as possible before the fighting ended.  The Austrians revolted instead of resisting, with 500,000 of them surrendering.  Their generals sent a delegation to Trieste to beg for an armistice.  (This was the Battle of Vittorio Veneto.)

Now Ludendorff began talking about something he called “soldier's honour”, in which the entire German nation would be mustered for a final fight to the death.  The deputy chancellor listened to Ludendorff's rant, and replied, “I am a plain ordinary citizen. All I can see is people who are starving.”

On October 26th, Ludendorff & Hindenburg met privately with the kaiser.  Ludendorff coldly offered his resignation, aware that his position was untenable.  Wilhelm offered to transfer him to a field command, but Ludendorff refused & asked to be relieved. Hindenburg also asked to be relived, but the kaiser told him curtly, “You will stay,” and Hindenburg bowed in acquiescence. Ludendorff would see Hindenburg's obedience as an unforgivable betrayal for the rest of his life.

When Ludendorff's decision was announced in Berlin's movie houses, audiences cheered.  Ludendorff slipped away to Sweden, as it was too dangerous for him to stay in Germany.

On October 27th, Germany sent a fourth note to Wilson, giving in.  It stated that Germany “looked forward to proposals for an armistice that would usher in a peace of justice as outlined by the President.”  They were now accepting that Wilson would decide the peace terms, but assumed that they would correspond to the Fourteen Points.  This would not be the case.

While Germany waited, Americans captured the French city of Sedan, and severed Germany's last north-south railway line in France. Turkey & Austria surrendered, and Bavaria began to explore a separate peace.  Revolution broke out in nearly every provincial capital.  A republic was declared in Munich, and on November 7th Ludwig III of Bavaria (the last King of Bavaria) & his family fled from the Residenz Palace in Munich, to the Schloss Anif (near Salzburg in Austria).  And Crown Prince Rupprecht now no longer had a home to return to.

The commanders-in-chief of the Allied armies met on October 28th to decide on the armistice terms, and there was a lot of disagreement.  Haig suggested that Germany should withdraw from Belgium & France, and surrender Alsace-Lorraine.  Pétain went further, demanding that German withdraw east of the Rhine (even north of Alsace-Lorraine), and hand over large parts of Germany itself. Pershing's preferred terms were the strictest of all.

Britain & France were now wanting to end the war as soon as possible, before the Americans became so dominant that they were able to dictate the peace terms.  These weren't irrational fears – they'd started when Wilson had begun communicating with Germany without even consulting the other Entente nations.

There were major issues dividing the Allies.  Lloyd George & Wilson had very different ideas on how things such as post-war trade, freedom of the seas, and the German colonies should be decided.  When Wilson's Fourteen Points were introduced into the discussion, the generals had to send out for a copy, because none of them really knew what they covered.

The kaiser was asked to abdicate on November 1st.  He refused, and talked about leading the armies back to Germany to put down the revolt, which was spreading.  General Gröner had replaced Ludendorff as quartermaster general; he asked the most senior generals on the Western Front if their troops would obey the kaiser & take part in suppressing the population.  Gröner was a capable man, and after the war he would save Germany's fledgling democracy twice (and become an enemy of Hitler for doing so); he knew what the answer was likely to be, and he was right.  One said yes, 23 said no, and 14 said possibly.  Wilhelm was informed of this, and Hindenburg told him that his safety could no longer be assured.  The kaiser abdicated, crossing the border into the Netherlands. where Queen Wilhelmina had agreed to accept him.

On November 8th, a German delegation arrived at Allied headquarters in Compiègne.  It was headed by Matthias Erzberger, head of the Catholic Centre Party.  Germany was facing civil war and was afraid of a Communist takeover, and the government had ordered Erzberger to accept whatever terms were offered.

Foch made it clear that there was to be no discussion of the terms, and then presented the conditions under which the Allies would agree to a 30-day armistice.  The terms included Germany's withdrawal to east of the Rhine within a fortnight; their withdrawal to the eastern borders of August 1st, 1914; the repudiation of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk; the surrender of all Germany's colonial possessions in Africa; and the handover of 5,000 artillery piece, 3,000 mortars, 30,000 machine guns, and 2,000 aircraft.  Furthermore, the Allied naval blockade would continue.  The delegation was given three days to decide whether or not to accept.

Eventually, however, a few minor adjustments were made, as the Allies were also worried about a Communist revolution in Germany.  The number of machine guns to be surrendered was reduced, so that the German authorities could better restore order.  Erzberger led his fellow delegates in signing the agreement; he would later be assassinated for his “betrayal” of the Fatherland.

The armistice went into effect at 11am on November 11th. Mangin disagreed strongly with the decisions: “We must go right into the heart of Germany.  The armistice should be signed there. The Germans will not admit that they are beaten.  You do not finish wars like this...It is a fatal error and France will pay for it!”

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