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lillaxtrigger · 3 years

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Young Hope: Chapter 39

The near cloudless skies above let the afternoon sun beam down upon the city of Townsville, most of its light reflecting off the glass of the towering skyscrapers and redirects down towards the estates and manors that make up the upper crust district. The sunny glow seeps its way straight through a small window set along one of these manors; resting along the floor of a seemingly random dark room; a stream of dust passing through the sunshine when the door to this room creaks open. From the light that comes out from this doorway, the room is revealed to be filled with numerous party supplies. A lone figure stands within this very light and waltz’s right on through the doorway, shutting the door behind him as he makes his way into the walk in closet. With the closet door shut, the room starts to dim back and lets the sliver of natural sunlight be all that illuminate the closet; a young man with a blue mane dressed in white glazing over the party decorations, fancy cups and plates, tapestries, fancy sculptures, even a shut down automaton dressed in a suit.

Can’t believe Kingsley’s folks got a whole closet filled with this kinda fancy party stuff; makes a guy wonder how often they throw these kinda stuffy shindigs. Lookin at all these kinda decorations, doubt any of them were any fun ragers that didn’t even draw out even a little bit of a cheer; much less set about half the building on fire. Maybe the robot has some sparks in em, but it might be a safe bet to say that it ain’t gonna be hostin even a four year old’s discount birthday bash anytime soon…What was I doing here again? ...Oh right, the tapestries. That’s it. Reminding himself of the reason he had ventured into this darkened walk in closet in the first place, Tore reaches right over the numerous plates, cups, and decorations and grabs hold of a couple of rolled up pieces of cloths from one of the shelves; the blue boy zipping out from the dust filled closet with tapestries in tow.

Straight out through the hallway does Tore go through a fancy hallway, passing through the pictures of Kingsley with his happy family that hang along the wall; making his way towards the front lobby while keeping the rolls of cloth tight in arm. Amidst his rush out from the hallway however does he wind up bumping straight into somebody; both of them and the tapestries spilling onto the carpeted floor. “Ah!” Its in shaking off the little bump and rising back on his feet that he see’s who exactly it is he had wound up running into; the young daughter of the estate, dressed in a pink hoodie and black leggings. “Watch where the hell your going!” she rudely barks. “Sorry, Chloe. Couldn’t see ya while carrying these for yer bro’s party.” The mere mention of her brother’s party sours the young girl’s mood even further, incentivizing her to head straight towards the door; even as Tore continues to speak while picking up what he dropped. “So, how good are ya-” Hearing the front door slam shut makes him turn back towards the front, the red head he was trying to converse nowhere in site. “-Holding up…” Huh, guess she’s still tryin to workout some stuff after what happened with Circe half a month back. Can’t really blame her sour mood with what she went through; least she’s actually going out of the house now.

Within the main hall of the estate, a girl with flowing dark brown hair dressed in green army jacket covering a salmon pink dress carefully holds a golden chandelier above her head and hovers it straight up to the roof; keeping her eyes on the top of the decoration as she nears the hook set along the ceiling. Carefully does she weave the top of the chandelier right along the hook and slowly backs away to let the exquisite ornament dangle on its own; its golden finish shimmering against the sunlight that seeps inside. Just as the young lass lets out a relieving sigh from finishing this task, her nerves are wound right back up when hearing Tore echo out: “Got me the good’s Cayenne!” The girl glances back down towards the entrance to the main hall to witness the blue boy run right inside while he asks: “Where ya want em?” “Where do ya think Kingsley said, dumbass? Just hang one of them up at the top of the stairwell.” “On it.” Cayenne giving her these instructions, a pair of white wings sprout out from along his back and ascends straight up to the very top of the twin stairwell; landing right along the very center and scanning length of the roll to try and find where it ends. “Hey uh, I don’t see an end. How do ya open this?” Right as he asks this, the boy manages to find a lone button set along one of the sides and claims that he: “No wait, think I found it.” Pressing this button, Tore watches the whole tapestry roll down from the railing and unravel into a gorgeously sown picture that hangs just above the hall set between the twin staircases.

“Huh. Figure it was gonna be some old family heirloom from like medieval times or something. It don’t look half bad though.” “Does it look alright to you?” Cayenne aggressively questions. Standing behind the stairwell railing does the blue boy peer down to the finely knitted tapestry that he had just freshly rolled out, finding the top to be facing the floor below. “You mean from my perspective or yours?” Upon the indigo angel’s cheeky little comeback, the spice queen can’t help but let out audibly upset gnarl; prompting Tore to correct himself with: “Kidding. Just-just kidding here, kay? Gimme a sec to find the button.” “Nrr. The withdraw feature seriously has one hell of a fuckin kickback. So don’t be acting like such a reckless jackass and just hold-”

Before Cayenne could give anymore words of warning to the blue boy, he manages to find the same button he used to unravel the tapestry and wastes not another moment pressing it. The entire knit work art swiftly rolling right back up and snapping shut as it flings itself into the air; smacking Tore right in the face as he takes off. From the top of the stairwell does the rolled up tapestry careen through the air and straight towards the freshly hung chandelier; the rolled up cloth slamming against the golden decoration hard enough to knock it off the hook and send it plummeting down towards the hard marble tile. In but an instant is the golden chandelier reduced to nothing but pieces that scatter across the floor in a loud crash; both the spice queen and indigo angel hovering down towards the wreckage as Cayenne’s fists violently tremble. “God fucking dammit! What the hell is wrong with-” Before Cayenne could unleash all the enraged fueled screaming and cursing bubbling within, her anger starts to simmer when he finds the blue boy showing signs of growing worry, but rather seemingly on the verge of crying while staring down to the wreckage he caused. Amidst letting loose a short growl does Cayenne instead decide to walk off and simply let the boy be; the spice queen strolling straight down the hallway set along the left. Swear that blue dumbass sometimes just doesn’t fucking listen. Like seriously just pisses away anything ya try and say to him.

While walking through the carpeted hallway, Cayenne witness a lone door set along the side crack open with a young man with orange hair peering out from within and asking: “Just heard a loud crash! Is everything okay!?” “Ain’t anything that bad, Kingsley. Just the blue dumbass out there wound up breaking one of your guys’s chandelier.” A small sigh escapes from the boy genius’s lunges as he is relieved how: “Least nobody got hurt.”

“Kingsley. Get your sweet buns in here and let me finish.” a voice within the room urges. Seeing the boy genius retreat back, Cayenne follows him in to find a flamboyant boy with partially blonde hair dressed around his black haired crown; Kingsley stepping onto a small stool as he asks the boy: “Benji, do we really need to get my measurements now of all times? All of us are in the middle of prepping for a big formal tonight.” “Bay-be, this big party you guys are throwing is about this big young superhero team you all are forming, ain’t it? So you all serious need some uniforms to match the motif, something that just screams iconic to go along with this little league of yours.” Speaking this does the small crystal earring hanging right along the side of his head start to let out a strange sparkle; a roll of measuring tape set along the table behind them hovers in the air and is drawn straight into his hands. As Benji wraps this length of measuring tape around his clients waistline, he hears the boy genius assure how: “Do-don’t get me wrong here. I’m thankful for the help I’m getting in prepping for all this.” “Please, sweetie. Its the least I can do after your mom taught me so much about clothes and armor design. And from the sound of things out there, you need all the help you can get.”

“And speakin of actual needed help, that indigo dumbfuck out there’s already wound up breaking a chandelier, tore up a couple of table clothes, and wound up shattering some glass in the span of like two hours. Why in the hell are you keeping him around if all he’s gonna do is just wreck shit.” Cayenne gets back on topic with. “Agh….When Mally and the other’s wound up getting back home, she told me all the sort of stuff Tore’s been through these past two and a half weeks. From the way she put it, it sounds like things got incredibly bad for him on his end too, like something that just tore is soul in half. Figured that giving him something to do would keep his mind off it.” “Not that I don’t sympathize here, but I doubt keeping him workin’s gonna cheer him up all that much. Ya ask me, he needs to sort through all that emotional bullshit.” “I’m sure he will. He just needs some downtime to think things over.”

“Yeah so, how’s that thinking stuff going for you?” the spice queen then questions. “Whaddya mean?” the genius asks. “Y…Yer fuckin with me, right? You and my aunt just came up with this whole club fulla fresh out the pussy heroes ready to shove their feet straight down the forces of evil’s asshole with you at the top and you ain’t even sweating a drop here. Won’t lie here, ballsy, but a little worrying. You feeling okay?” “I’m...still pretty surprised myself. Wonder if all the stuff we went through before hand might’ve prepped me for something this big. Feels like yesterday when we escape that little fortress out in the middle of the tundra, got kidnapped by a gang twice, almost died to Circe, having the whole town come after me in a manhunt, my girlfriend’s dad nearly blowing up the town, my sister getting possessed, my parents souls getting taken…” Among the distant ring running through his head, the sounds around him grow muffled as he himself grows silent; a lone voice pushing through the deafening ring with: “Kingsley...Kingsley...Kingsley...Kingsley!” The last shout that blurts out from the spice queen manages to snap him straight out from his haunting moment of reflection; the boy genius shaking his head before peering over to Cayenne with: “Di-da-du. My-my point is that with everything we’ve been through these past several month or so, leading a whole generation of new young heroes against the forces of evil should be simple in comparison.” “You sure you’re alright?” “Don’t gotta worry about a thing Cayenne, I’m fine.”

Rising from under them does Benji cut straight between the two to add how: “You know what isn’t so fine? I need to split outta here to snatch up a particular sort of fabric I got in mind for the uniforms, one that they only sell along the east end of Townsville. Gotta make it over before the animals in opening hours grab them.” Right as the fashionable young boy was about to race right out, Benji stops dead in his tracks to turn back and question: “Oh, before I go. What color are you wanting for the uniforms?” “Uh...the logo we got’s purple. Maybe find a shade of that.” Kingsley suggests. “Fantastic choice, I’ll see what I can do sweetie.”

“I seriously can’t believe he’s gonna be in the tech department.” Cayenne disbelieves. “You haven’t seen the kind of high tech state of the art armor he makes.” Kingsley argues. “While were talkin about it. You still haven’t really picked out a supervisor for that branch yet, haven’t you? Ya got me rockin the combat division, your girl on knowledge and info; and for some damn reason, you went ahead and made that pussy little ghost boy head of supernatural.” “Hey, I’ll have you know that Damian’s gotten a lot more brave and bold these past few months; he ain’t even disappearing when he gets slightly anxious.” “But we still ain’t got anyone sitting their ass down on the seat for the tech department. If we plan to announce this whole alt young justice bullshit, then we can’t show up on stage with half a deck here, and with you acting as leader, I doubt that you’ll have time to fill both bottles with piss.” “Yeah, I know. Its why I’ve been looking into a couple of promising people I heard about. Even got Mally suggesting somebody, but I still need to look into them.”

Before the two could speak even another word on the whole matter, the violent sound of a rumbling explosion catches there attention; both of them facing towards the door leading into the hallway; Cayenne barking: “The hell was that?” “Sounds like it came from the front hall, come on!” Kingsley claims as he rushes out the door alongside the spice queen.

Leaping out from the end of the hallway, both of them are left alarmed when greeted by the site of blazing flames enveloping a pair of large flower pots set along the side; the flames threatening to climb up the wall and reach the decorations hanging above. What draws their attention however is the blue boy standing before the blazing pots with bits of cake and candle at around his feet; all the while panicking with: “What do I do!? What do I do!? Why aren’t the water sprinklers going off!?” “Uh. My dad’s been dismantling the sprinkler system so it could deal with electrical fires more effectively.” Kingsley answers. “Well ain’t that fan fucking tastic! How the hell we supposed to put this out!” “I got it.” they hear another voice shout out. Glancing towards the direction of this call do they see the misses of the estate race right in with a fire hose in her hands; the big hipped milf pulling back the lever to unleash a torrent of gushing water. In a matter of moments are the flames threatening to climb the walls of the manner doused by the downpour of water; the gorgeous pot of flowers left under these flames reduced to a charred crisp down to the remains of their petals.

Turning off the flow of water, Kingsley’s mother drops the hose straight down onto the floor before she herself falls to her knee’s; lamenting how: “Those two pots...They were thirty thousand dollars each. There’s no way we could replace them for the formal tonight.” Clutching the blue boy by his shoulder, Cayenne jerks Tore to face her and aggressively claims that: “Ya got ten fucking seconds to say what the hell happened here, else those flowers ain’t the only thing that’s gonna be set ablaze!” “I-I don’t know. I seriously just went to the bathroom for about 3 minutes and when I came back they were on fire.” Pinching one of the frosting covered candles off from the marble tile, the misses of the house looks closely to the soaked party candle and concludes how: “Oh...I think this might be my fault.” “It is?” “Huh?” “Xcuse me? “Let me show you why.” the mother insists.

Through a pair of twin doors, the misses opens up to reveal to them an assortment of sweets and pastries set along the kitchen; most of which of moderate quality, something she explains with: “I don’t really tend to bake all that often, but I wanted to break out the over mitts for this special occasion. I woke up around seven mixing batter, pouring sugar, and laying bread crust all just to make this whole splurge for all the guests that’ll attend.” “Geez, splurge really is an understatement here.” Kingsley comments Among them does Cayenne notice one of the cakes holding several candles having a big chunk broken right off and asks: “Guess this was the little firestarter? The hell happened?” “Oh. It happened when I was pulling out a couple of homemade pies I left in too long out from the over. Part of the baking sheet was stuck on the oven grill and I had to jerk it out. I pulled so hard that I flung both of them through the air; one of them wound up smacking a piece of the cake off and flew straight into the front hall. I saw some of the candles fly off the cake and land right into the pot of flowers; as soon they caught on fire, I raced out toward the nearest fire hose they had. Can’t believe that my baking blunders nearly caught the entire manor on fire.” “Hey, don’t worry about it.” Peering over do all of them see the blue boy scrapping some of the splattered pie off the wall and shoving it straight into his mouth; Tore complimenting how: “This beef pot pie you made ain’t half bad.” “Its supposed to be apple.” the mother replies. After swallowing all that he had shoved in with a single gulp, the indigo angel lets out a little hiss and jest how: “Maybe adding some cinnamon might fix it.” Alas does this little attempt to ease the room only fuel the misses dismay more and have her put her hands against her face, all the while Cayenne shakes her head at him with an upset gaze. “B-but I might be able to fix those flowers.” “Really? How?”Kingsley questions.

Returning to the set of burnt oversized flower pots set along the main hall, the three watch closely as Tore stands before the charred petals; the blue boy’s wings sprouting forth as he takes in a deep breath, From where they watch do Kingsley, Cayenne, and the Misses behold as bits of glimmering color penetrate the walls of the estate to gather into the indigo angel until his figure is coated in a thin layer of lively aura. With the power that he had mustered, Tore thrusts the palms of his hands out towards the two charred remains of flora and cast forth all he had gathered upon them; letting the light that he engulfs them in seep straight into their petals. Yet despite his best efforts to restore the bouquets to their previous natural glory, all the colorful light that seeps into them only manages to bring but a single flower back from its burnt demise; a single flower that blooms among the ruin. “What? Aw…” the angel moan. Beholding the minimal restoration, Cayenne gives a less than sincere applause as she sarcastically praises how: “Wow. What a miracle. Truly the coming of the holy is thy.” Midst her little sarcastic jest does she feel Kingsley elbow jab her side, causing her to stop her little insincere praise. Approaching one of the burnt pots herself, Kingsley’s mother reaches out to the freshly revived flower and plucks it out from its scorched others; beholding the colorful sheen shimmering along the flora’s restored petals.

“Hey, don’t sweat about it, Tore. They’re just a bunch of flowers, nothin too important.” the boy genius attempts to comfort with. “But I was looking to bring both pots back to life. God, I can’t get anything right today.” the indigo angel claims. “That’s a fuckin understatement.” the spice queen whispers under her breath. “How bout not worrying so much about the décor. The party doesn’t start til later tonight. I’m sure we can handle it.” Kingsley suggests. “Well, what’s that leave me to do?” “Uh...Ya know, there’s gonna be a good dozens of people that are attending this little party, some of them pretty important guests of honor. Some of the catering servants we usually got to handle all that are taking their vacation days. Maybe you could help keep the party going, make sure everyone’s having a good time, refreshments aren’t running out, just miscellaneous stuff.” “And not to be a complete fuck up while yer at it.” Cayenne rudely adds.

Upon that very moment do the front doors swing right open, revealing the very fashionista himself strolling straight in with a bounce in his step; claiming to them all: “Well if that’s the case, it’d pain me to see him going around catering in those rags.” “Its been like 20 minutes, how the hell are you back already?” Cayenne wonders aloud. “What’s wrong with what I got on now?” Tore question. “You’re joking, sweetheart. Just look at the poor thing.” From the designers words does the blue boy peer down to his short sleeved white blazer, looking to the numerous stains, burns, tears, wrinkles, and stretches littered across its once pure white fabric. “It’d be a downright felony to have you serve wearing that mess. Come. I shall sow you a suit worthy to match.” Benji exclaims, grasping the blue boy by the collar and dragging him down the hall. “Well, with half of the treats ruined. I better get back to baking before the party starts this evening. I just hope that I don’t wind up making another mess like that again.” the mother claims as she retreats back towards the kitchen.

With both of them left along with one another, the spice queen strolls over to Kingsley side and once again asks him: “Hey, you sure can handle all this?” “Um- of course I can. I’m sure when Renee and Damian get here, things should be smooth sailing from then on.” “With the kinda shit that goes on with all of us, it’ll be a hell of a miracle if it does” Cayenne comments as she walks off. As his spicy pal floats off out from the main hall, Kingsley is left alone with nothing but some new thoughts running through his head; pondering on Cayenne’s very words.

Several hours pass as the afternoon clear blue is replaced by the twinkling night sky that hangs above the entire city, the lunar glow of the half moon shinning down onto the manor and reflecting off the roof of the dozens of vehicles that pull into the massive driveway. Stepping out from these vehicles to an array of people that stroll through the driveway to the manor front doors; some dressed fancy while other’s dress more casually as they enter the estate. Beside the front doors are a pair of door keeps that kindly greet the numerous guests that enter with: “Evening folks.” “How are you doing?” “Welcome to the estate.” “Hope you have a pleasant time.” “Please direct yourselves to the main hall.” These very guests step through inside to behold the Spicer manor’s main hall to be decorated with numerous finely woven tapestries, towering statues, lines of pots filled with flowers, and paintings depicting family and friends. Set along the sides of the main hall be the catering platter holdings small portions of meat, cheeses, crackers, punch, some alcohol, even some of the humbly made cakes and pastries that the Mrs had made.

Along the side of this grand hall, the blue boy himself peeks out from the dark recesses of the left hallway and beholds the numerous guests that fill the main hall and slowly spread themselves out through the abode; a small anxious breath escaping from his bit lip as he stares to them all. Don’t think about what happened then, Tore. It’s a new night. New moment. You’ll get yer mind off what happened then in no time. Just focus on what your friends are counting on ya for and play the servant. Circulating these thoughts through his head does the indigo angel finally steps out from the hallway darkness and right into the light of the main hall, letting the light hit his suit of deep indigo blue complimented with an undercoat and cuffs of silk white. His blue main held into a short ponytail that dangles behind the crown of his head.

From the side of the hall, the finely dressed blue boy makes his way straight to the platter table and swipes a silver platter filled with small little meats and snacks; the angel’s eyes glued to the treats as he attempts to hold back the chance to dunk them all down his gullet. Snap outta it, man. These ain’t made for you, these’r for the guest. Just hold the platter above your head and try not to look at the delicious cheese, warm moist meats, and savory salty crackers together in cute little sandwiches… After taking a moment to shake off the temptation, the blue boy strolls away from the food table and ventures out towards the guest further off; holding off even taking so much as a glance at the food he delivers.

From the platter table, the blue suited boy strolls over to a couple of guest enjoying the party and attempts to lower the tray in his hands down to present them the selection of snacks; only to wind up accidentally bumping the silver tray into their side and nearly spilling the goods. Before all the little sandwiches could smack against the guest, the indigo angel manages to slide them back onto the tray in the nick of time; swiftly offering them in a sort of faux innocent manner with: “Snacks?” Despite his little blunder, the guests swipe some of the little treats right off the plate with some hints of offense; Tore soon strolling off towards the dozens of other party goers while attempting to keep what remained of the food he carries on the silver plate.

Perched atop the manor’s front hall stairwell, Kingsley keeps his eyes peering down to the numerous guests partaking in the parties pleasantries below; all of them sipping wine, eating little sandwiches, and generally mingling among each other. Just look at all of them down there. Wonder what they’re even expecting outta all this...out of all of us...They’re expecting someone who can lead the this new team to keep the peace, to fight off the forces of evil. What if we can’t...What if I’m not-

Among his thoughts of doubting self reflection, a familiar voice cuts through and snaps him back to reality as he hears: “Hey, Kingsley.” “Jolting out from his thoughts does the boy genius swiftly turn around towards second floor hall to discover his supporting blonde, Renee, approaching; the girl’s eyes reflecting a distinct worry as she asks him: “Is everything okay?” “Oh. Y-yeah, everything’s fine. I just really didn’t expect so many people to show up.” “What exactly did you expect after the announcement of the Vanguard League a week ago? Everyone here’s practically looking forward to see the impression of this new teams leader. Why don’t you go down there and mingle a bit?” Upon his girl suggesting such, Kingsley constantly shifts his eyes about as if searching for way out, stuttering out how: “Uh-uh-uh...Ma-maybe not now; the party just started. They should get some time to enjoy themselves. Besides, you really want me to go down there looking like this? An occasion like this calls for more formal wear. Let me just get dressed in the suit I got in my closet.” Watching her boy race walk right past and head straight down the second floor hallway, a stark worry is reflected in the smart blondes eyes as he watches the boy genius retreat into the depths of the hall.

Slowing his walk down to a simple wander, Kingsley takes in small, calming breaths as he travels further into the decedent hall, constantly shifting his head back and forth from his front and back. As he peers back to the hallway he strolls through, a lone figure suddenly rises up from the carpeted floor before him; the boy genius nearly falling back from the unexpected visit. After keeping himself from falling right on his ass, Kingsley starts to calm himself when realizing it only be his friend, Damian; the boy apologizing with: “Oh! Sorry for popping in so suddenly like that...You feeling alright? I mean I know I kinda scared you, but you just seem so tense.” “Yeah. Just feeling a tad nervous about the party here.” “Believe me, you ain’t the only one here. When you suggested for me to be the head of the Supernatural department, I seriously nearly fainted hearing you say that. I really didn’t know what to think. But afterwards, I took some time to process all of it, and I realized how honored I was that you would choose me of all people to help you run something this huge. I’m still feeling a little tingly to be honest.” “Really? How exactly did you process all that?” “I just simply thought of all my loved one’s who I would make proud, all the people who’ll look to me for guidance, all the other’s that’ll count on us to be the mainline defense against this new budding evil. You know, given everything else we’ve tackled together, I started to understand why you thought there would be no one else better for the job.” “Hmm…” “I think I should go down there and introduce myself to all the guest that came to see us. Why don’t you just take a little bit of time to think things over and come down when you’re ready. Alright?” “Yeah. I might do just that.” Having given this tidbit of advice to his friend, Damian hovers out towards the direction the boy genius had came from; leaving Kingsley with all these newfound thoughts running through his head.

Back within the downstairs kitchen, Tore finishes pouring out several glasses of wine set along a silver platter; the blue boy setting the wine bottle aside and very slowly lifts the plate off the table; careful not to spill a single drop as he carries them all out. Out from the kitchen twin doors, the indigo angel first strolls over to a couple of gents and ladies; presenting the freshly poured wine and offering with: “Refreshments?” “Oh, delightful.” “Choice.” “Fine and Dandy.” “Thank you, young man.” After serving to the more fancy folk, Tore ventures over to some dressed in more casual wear; offering them the drinks with: “Some wine?” “Thanks there.” “Nice.” “About time they got drinks out.” With but half of the refreshments having been taken, the blue boy starts to venture out towards the other side of the hall; careful with what wine he still had atop the platter he carried. Got those, now just to see if some of the other guests along the east wing want anything like some refills or snacks or-

Amidst this thought does he fail to see where he walks and bumps right into one of the guests; all the wine glasses he had been carrying spilling right onto the floor as both of them fall. “Ah, jeez. That’s coming out of the paycheck.” Tore comments as he starts to pull himself back up. Glancing over does he see another having fallen onto the floor and rush straight over to help the finely ruby red dressed woman a hand; apologizing to her with: “So sorry about that.” Taking the boy’s hand, the blue boy pulls her back on her feet; the pinkish red young lady looking to the boy with her three eyes and implores that: “I’m the one that should be sorry. I seriously wasn’t looking here I was going.” “That makes two of us then.” he rebuttals, the two of them sharing a little bit of a laugh between them. “So, you enjoying the party so far?” the blue boy then asks. “Oh, absolutely. The people up here have been so nice and friendly; never thought that life out here would be so much different up here.” “Up here? You come from down south?” “Oh, way down south.” the young lady answers. “Guess that’s two for two we got here. I came from up North, all the way up to the country of Maple leaves and pine tree’s. Winter’s up there a little too cold, but other than that, it was a real nice place to live at. Bet you don’t gotta worry about winter’s down there, do ya?” “Oh hardly. You’d be hard pressed to find even a little tiny flake of snow drop down where I’m from.” “Really? You even seen snow before?” “Of course I’ve seen snow silly. I’ve seen a lot more places that have a lot more to offer then that.” “Hey, I’ve done some big traveling around pretty recently, even to some places that ain’t really nice and neat; still, fun memories...mostly fun. From the way you’re putting it, sounds like she’s got some good stories stashed in that head of yours.” “Oh sure. Though I doubt I’d seen as much as my dad; he’s been practically everywhere. You should really come meet him.” “Ah what the hell. Seems like everyone here’s served pretty well. 10 minute break wouldn’t hurt. Name’s Tore.” “Vera, Vera Lucitor.” the girl introduces with a curtsy as both her and the suited blue boy both stroll along the halls past the numerous other guests and head straight out to the west wing of the hall.

Out along the east side of the hall, Damian waves goodbye to a couple of guests as he floats away; to which he feels somebody grasp his shoulder with: “Hey listen.” Jolting back from ho had grabbed him, the ghost boy calms himself when seeing it to be the spice queen herself; Damian noting: “Well, this is certainly a surprise. Hard to believe you came down here on you’re own. You usually don’t enjoy associating with the more fancy folk.” “You kidding. I hate this fucking uptight shit. Came down here looking for Kingsley. He said he’d be down here in a minute.” “How strange. I just ran into in a couple minutes ago. He said he was rather nervous about the party, so I thought he should take a minute to himself.” “That’s not what he told me.” A third voice chimes in with. Peering out from the crowd beside them do the two witness Renee approach them, continuing to state how: “He told me he was going to change into a suit.” “Really. Might be possible that he’s just doing all three at once.” the ghost boy guesses. “Still, it ain’t like him to mix his story up that much. Maybe we should give him a ring, see what’s going on with him.” Cayenne suggests. “I tried that already; didn’t get a single answer. You think something might be going on with him?” “I’m not too sure. Maybe we should try finding him and find out what’s going through his head.” the ghost boy offers. “Might not be a bad idea. How bout you go search upstairs while Renee and I stay down here in case he comes back down.” This little search party set up, Damian hover straight up through the second floor, leaving the girls to start their search up through the first.

While strolling through the west corridor leading down towards the west hallway, both the indigo angel and young lady continue to chatter among themselves over the numerous adventures that both of them had; Vera continuing off with: “I still remember my trip down in the Hydro kingdom. All the water Nymph’s I met were so nice down there; even offering us tools that let us breathe underwater to take in the sites of their ocean. Just so many beautiful sites I wish I could’ve taken pictures off. They’re cities were lovely sites too, just decorated with jewels, seashells and gold. And the cuisine, never in my life did I taste sea food so delectable.” “Sounds real fun. I remember when my family went down to the middle of the bahama’s for a vacation and we wound up having to fight back against a raging forest beast that was kidnapped people left and right, including our mom. So Roy, Mally, and I went through the woods and fighting this massive monster the size of a giant mound. After punching a part of its shell clean off, we manage to wind up beating it down and send it running right off; setting all the people it kidnapped free. After that, the town we were staying at went and gave us a banquet to celebrate. Think Mally might’ve vomited after finding out a dish she ate had lizard testicles in it. I still remember her beating Roy upside the head as he was laughing over it. Can’t lie, almost bust out giggling myself just watching it all.” “I figured you didn’t cut it as a servant all that well; but I didn’t really think you’d be such a natural warrior like my mom. I’ve seen her in the depths of combat outnumbered, armed with but a single sword; the best I could compare the way she fights is with the grace and elegance of the wind itself.” “Funny. Most of my friends say I fight with all the grace of an overly tipsy Irishman drunkard’s worst nightmare. Guess they mean I can take a lot of hits and still keep on brawlin. Like I seriously remember this one time I got stabbed in the stomach and I was still swinging.” “Really? What sort of teacher did you have to help develop that sort of resilience?” “I can thank my Bosnia war vet grandma taking both Roy and I in for one summer. She really knew how to take a dirty bomb and somehow hit back ten times as hard.” “Sounds like she has a lot more in common with my dad than anyone else I know.” “What’s he like?” “He’s pretty much a clean cut and kind sort of man. Though I won’t lie that the few times he loses his temper can be pretty explosive.”

When finally venturing out from the corridor and entering the west hall, Vera peers through the crowd set before them and states how: “I think I can see my family from over here.” “Which one are they?” the blue boy questions as he gazes out through the crowd. “They’re the couple with the toddler in the woman’s arms.” This little detail given, Tore manages to spot the very woman donning a blood red dress holding a little tike with horns dressed in a little suit in her arms; all with a horned man with three fiery red eyes standing beside them both. “Hey, I think I...think I...Oh…” A sense of overwhelming dread begins to slowly settle in the boy’s stomach when he realizes why all of them look so very familiar, drips of sweat beginning to run through his head as he peeks over to the young woman beside him, the last pieces of the puzzle clicking in his mind. The memories of traversing through hell’s very keep and facing their king still fresh on his mind.

While the indigo angel is left utterly horrified upon these newfound realizations, the young woman beside her starts to skip over towards her family and waving to them with: “Hi everyone!” “Vera. How are you liking the party so far?” her mother in the blood red dress asks. “It’s going so wonderfully thus far.” “I am rather curious of what this New Vanguard league has to make of itself. The bold confidence to lead through danger is something not many can hold.” her demonic father states. “And speaking of new faces. I just got done chatting with a quite interesting gent who’s told me tales of his exploits set though his numerous journey’s. I wish to introduce you all to this boy named Tor-” Vera attempts to introduce, only to turn around to find nobody waiting beside her. Peering through her surroundings, she attempts to spot the very boy in question; swearing to her family how: “Huh? Strange. He was just right beside me.” Peering out towards the direction his daughter had come from, the horned father gazes outwards to notice a figure of indigo blue hurrying through the corridor leading to the main entrance hall; a rather suspicious glare set within his three eyes.

Racing out from the hallway and across the main hall, a myriad of panicking thoughts race through the blue boy’s mind as he dart straight towards the other side; disregarding every single guest that calls for his assistance. “Say, could I get I refill?” “Are there any more snacks?” “Excuse me. Do you know where the bathroom might be?” Why is he here!? Why is did the king of hell gotta come up here tonight of all nights, at this place of of all places!? And of course the girl with three eyes is her dad, so obvious. Should’ve realized it sooner. You think any of them would’ve recognize who their daughter was talking to? Know the mom probably would. The face of someone who broke into yer baby’s room is one that your never gonna forget. Wouldn’t be a stretch to say she’d pull out long sharp blade and finish her castration appointment on the spot. Okay, think Tore. What’s your best bet on slipping outta here? Can’t just barge out, it’d cause too much noise. Maybe hiding somewhere til the parties over? Nah, Kingsley and the other’s are gonna want an explanation. They might be able to help though. Sure Kingsley could think of a plan involving a fake mustache and a slightly understandable foreign accent...or would that be too racist?

Opening one hallway door after another, both Cayenne and Renee peer into every room they come to; all the while calling to their friend with: “Kingsley?” Cracking open one room, the blonde sees nothing but darkness wafting within the bathroom; not even a single figure hidden among the shadows. “Kingsley?” Swinging open another door, the spice queen peers into every corner of the decked out lounge, only to find no one held within. “Kingsley?”

Meeting up with one another, the very first thing that Renee asks Cayenne is: “No luck on your end either?” “Afraid not. Where the hell could be possibly be hiding? Swear to fucking god if he wound up bailing…” “That’s not like him though. This isn’t like him. He wasn’t that skiddish about being the teams leader a couple days ago. You think the pressure might be just now setting in?” “With all the damn organizing he’s been doing keeping him busy, I wouldn’t be shocked if it did. Can’t help but wonder what sort of shit he’s been dealing with right now.” “Guys!” the both then hear from across the hall, the familiar voice making the spice queen let out a “so done with this shit” breath. “And speaking of having to deal with bullshit.”

Gazing out towards the direction of the hysterical screaming, both girls behold the blue boy himself sprinting through hallway like a maniacal marathon man; his arms flailing about as he races right towards the both. Right before the indigo angel could run right into them, Cayenne reaches over and clutches Tore right by his face; the Spice Queen tossing the boy back onto the carpeted floor. As they watch the blue boy arise off the scarlet red carpeting, Cayenne then questions: “Alright; what the hell sort of fucked up brain hemorrhage are you suffering from now to race through the hallway like a screaming jackass?” “We need to get everyone the heck outta here pronto! The king of hell himself is in the building!” Tore warns. “Yeah? He’s a part of the guest list, dumbass.” the spice queen answers. “What!? But why!?” “The underworlds Royal family are famous not just as celebrities, but also for the diplomatic work in multicultural relations. They could give the league a vast network of connections if we manage to impress the king.” Renee elaborates. “They’re serious here just to chill and mingle. That’s it. Why the hell are you freaking the fuck out so much?” Cayenne questions.

“Ahh...S-So, Mally told you all about the trip I took with Mall, right?” Tore starts to explain with. “Yeah…” Cayenne confirms. “And about the Halo’s that we needed to collect to get the warpgate to work better.” “The hell’s your point?” “Well, one of those rings we had to get was stashed underneath the Lord of Hell’s castle.” “You fucking didn’t.” “Yeah...And while I broke into their home and swipe the Halo from under them. I might have wound up breaking into their young son’s room and scarring him, nearly got my balls cut off by the queen, bust through a couple of their walls, had Mall mow down a good chunk of his forces outside...And to escape, we had to work together to beat the Kings into an unconscious mess. Th-that-that’s all, really.” Both girl are left unsurprisingly astonished with all the blue boy said he had done underneath the king of hell’s own roof; Renee pleading to tell her that: “Please tell me you’re not serious.” “Augh…Sounds pretty bad saying it all out loud, don’t it?” the indigo angel admits. Upon having heard all of this, a small chuckle is all that could escape from the Spice queen’s mouth before she starts to stroll off and mention how: “Whelp. It’s been a hell of a ride knowing ya.”

“Guys, come on! Don’t make me beg here! If I winds up getting caught out in the middle of this party, the devil that’s among us’ gonna have his Kybr hide roast to a delicious crisp served neatly with a side of gravy coated mashed potato’s and freshly salted stuffing.” Despite the blue boy’s desperate plea, Cayenne continues to head down through the hall; only stopping when hearing Renee claim how: “Cayenne. We’re in the midst of forming out own superhero team, so dealing with situations like this is gonna be something on the clock.” “Oh come the hell on, Renee. Why the hell do we gotta stick our necks out for a guy that brought all this shit on himself.” “Because that’s something that heroes do.” The blonde reminding her of such, a frustrated sigh escapes from the spice queen’s lips as she starts to return to their side and mentions how: “It’s shocking how I’m not used to this shit.”

“So, any idea’s?” Tore asks them both. “Think the best thing to do is to call Damian and have him whisk you away. All with no one being the wiser.” the blonde first suggest. “Not a bad idea there. Just gimme a sec.” the spice queen compliments while pulling out her phone from her pocket. After fidgeting with her phone for a brief moment, the spice queen puts it up to her ear and hears the tone ring; waiting as the tone keeps repeating and repeating in her ear. Alas does the tone simply redirect straight to his voicemail, Cayenne putting her phone away as she curses out: “God dammit! Did he leave his phone at home again?” “What now?” the indigo angel questions. “Whelp, with the phoning in option gone. I’ll have to buckle down and try and find the pissy little ghost boy myself. Renee, get this dumb blue bastard some new digs to cover up with while I try and look for him.” the spice queen commands as she glides through the hallway. “Wait, what should I try and do while and she’s gone...Great…” “So, do I gotta return the suit?” Tore questions, Renee taking her glasses off to pinch the top of her nose.

Along the corridors upstairs, Damian phases through every wall and every door in his way whilst searching for the boy genius himself, flying through bathrooms, bedrooms, and lounges as he constantly calls out with: “Kingsley? Kinglsey? Where are you?” Oh lord, just where the heck could that boy possibly be? But it really isn’t like him to hide the truth like this? Why would he not tell us anything? Does he not want any of us to worry about him? Is he ashamed of have second thoughts? If I had know that being the team leader was what really was on his mind, we could’ve talked things through, let him know that he ain’t alone on all this. Let’s just hope that he’s not feeling unsure enough to do anything drastic.

“I’m not really so sure about this. You really think this might fool anybody.” the indigo angel claims, gazing to himself in a full body mirror while donning a gorgeous indigo blue short gown; its sheen finish reflecting the light of the room. “I’m exactly sure about that; but with how urgent this is and with what little time we got, there really isn’t that much other options to work with. Besides, this was the only dress she could find around here that would look good on you.” the blonde beside him states, applying eye shadow of a similar color. “Never thought I’d look that gorgeous in a dress. The fabric and eye shadow compliments my hair amazingly. I can kinda see why Roy likes doing this sometimes.” “I only wish I had more time to work, but the guests outside are gonna want to know what I was doing this whole time; so this quick little revamp is gonna have to work for now.”

Tore’s visual transformation finally finished, the blue boy strikes a sassy pose as he admires himself in the mirror; Renee admitting: “I didn’t really expect you to have that sort of figure. It really work.” “It does, don’t it. So what sort of escape route ya got in the works?” “Hmm. Front door is obviously out; some people might see through the ruse. Going through a window might just seem conspicuous.” “Can’t exactly fly out, either. With wings as bright as mine, people are gonna see me fluttering out in the night…Didn’t exactly see anyone going to the garden. You think with this sort of party, it be pretty crowded.” “I think Kingsley mentioned something about a problem with the garden water sprayers and the fountain. With nobody around, it might just serve as the perfect escape route; just go through, jump over the fence and run through town to get back home.” Renee plans through. “Sounds like we got a plan here. Though I might need another to explain to my mom why I’m coming home in this.” “Hmm...Pulling it off this well, I’m not sure she’ll see a problem.” “True.”

Along the left side of the main manor hall, the pair peek out from the shroud of darkness set along the west hallway corridor; both of them beholding the numerous party goers mingling among one another, all while a few other servant race around tending to their requests. Pouring drinks, serving snacks, all the things that Tore himself was tasked with. “Hmm, seems pretty okay to me. Don’t see a pair of horns anywhere in site.” “Most of the manor’s first floor looks pretty packed with guests; that except for the kitchen over there. That’d make a good midpoint between the front and back halls.” Renee elaborates. “Let’s just hope that the king’s family haven’t split up; if any of them recognize who I am, might as well be dead on the spot.”

The first part of their little escape route planned out before them, both the blonde and crossdressing angel emerge out from the hallway and brave ahead through the front manor hall; weaving through the numerous guests and few servants that shuffle among eachother. “Excuse me.” Renee apologize as she swerves through the crowd. “Pardon me, good sir.” Tore says, attempting to put on the best ladylike impression he can. “Sorry.” “Just need to get through, so sorry.” “I hope you’re enjoying yourselves.” “I love the suit you got on, is it silk?”

All seems to be going rather smoothly as the two of them make their way towards the pair of twin doors leading into the kitchen; Renee whispering to the blue boy she leads: “Almost there. Once we get into the kitchen, we’ll figure out a way from there.” “Yeah, thanks for all the-” Right in the midst of thanking the blonde for her gracious assistance through this predicament, the blue boy then feels something tug on the back of his dress; Tore glancing back for his hopeful expression to shatter when finding that something to be the very young lad of the hellish royal family himself gazing up to him. “Oh lord.” Tore utters. “What is it?” Peering back herself is Renee alarmed to see the devilish horned little tike smiling up to them with a precious grin; that weariness setting into maximum overdrive when hearing a woman close by call out with: “Issac! Where are you sweetie?” In a matter of just seconds do the two witness the human queen of hell herself cut through the crowd as she starts to strolling over to her lost little child; Tore’s eyes shifting about in a panic as he tries to come up with something with just seconds to act. With not many options to work with, Tore grabs hold of the blond beside her and shoves her gently in front of the little horned baby boy; the blonde whispering to him: “What are you doing!?” “Keep’em busy!” the indigo angel feverishly requests as he retreats out in the opposite direction.

While the blue boy heads out behind her, Renee peers back just in time to face her majesty approaching and scooping her little boy in her arms; the little tike letting out a little cute giggle while his mother thanks the blonde with: “Oh, I can’t thank you enough for finding him for me. the boy can get really rambunctious and slips away from time to time to chew on stuff.” “Uh-R-really. How old is he?” Renee responds to her with. “Little bitty Issace here just turned two, those little horns of his just grew in about five months ago.” “Ha ha ha ha, sounds like he can be an adorable little trouble maker, can he? I wonder what having him for a brother wound be like?” the blonde girl jests, slightly peering out towards one of the golden statues set behind the mother. Within the shimmering statue’s reflection can she see the blue boy she had been escorting slip through the crowd and head straight through the doors leading straight into the kitchen; a slightly relieved breath escaping from between her lips as she hears the queen herself ask: “So what pray tell are you planning on the future for this Vanguard league.” “Uh, well. We already have most of the leader division seats filled. It won’t be long before we manage to find the last one to fill in.”

Back upstairs does Damian continue to phase through every single room set along the floor, searching for even a single sign of the boy genius among them; all the while he continues to call out to him with: “Kingsley, where are you. All of us are getting worried here.” “Where the hell are you mopping, dammit!?” he hears a familiar voice crassly shout out for. Phasing straight through a couple more rooms, the ghost boy peeks right through a door to discover the voice belonging to the Spice queen herself roaming through the hallway; Damian grabbing her attention by asking: “Cayenne, you’ve had any luck in finding Kingsley?” “You mean you haven’t sussed him out yet?” Cayenne questions in return. “Oh, I tried. Believe me have I tried. I’ve phased straight into every single room, nook, cranny, and closet set throughout this floor; and not once did I see even a single orange hair of his. I just don’t know where else to look.” “Hmm...Think I might know where he’s hiding. The one place he always goes to think to himself or cry, often times both.”

Within the dark recesses of secret storage space lies dozens of miscellaneous toys, tools, portraits, clothing, and numerous boxes that hold more than meets the eye; some of the contents within threatening to overflow and spill out onto the dust ridden floorboards. Suddenly does a random stack of boxes begin to tremble from something shaking underneath; the grunts of the ghost boy all that manages to make it through as he struggle to open the door held under these boxes. “It’s all too heavy.” “For fuck’s sa- Just lemme try.” “Wait, I think I can-” In a single instant are all the boxes set over the trap door sent flying through the dusty air as the way is flung right open; the light from the hallway downstairs flooding the space as Cayenne hovers up; Damian phasing straight through the floor beside her as pieces of junk rain down. “What’s so wrong about simply me phasing through the floor?” “Where’s the hell’s the fun in that?”

Its then that the two then hear a brief shaking sigh sound off from across the space; Cayenne strolling over to the side to flip a switch; the light bulb above illuminating the entire attic and finally discover the boy genius himself huddled in the dusty corner, his head buried in his knee’s. “Kingsley? Are you okay?” Damian questions as he hovers over to him, only for his words to go unanswered in place of some light sobbing. “Dude, the hell is up with you?” Cayenne then joins in with as she walks closer. “Am I good enough?” both of them hear the boy utter out. “Come again.” “Am I the right sort of person for this kind of job? To lead an entire team of young budding heroes against rising evil, an evil that we must keep at bay else the people I sworn to protect risk being hurt or worse. And all the other’s that will have to look to me for guidance, all of them hinging on my every word for hope and inspiration...I-I didn’t really didn’t put it into perspective much before tonight; but now that I am, that sort of overwhelming pressure and responsibility, its... What if I do something wrong, something I can’t go back to and fix. Like send a bunch of young heroes to their deaths. Wind up making a mistake that cost dozens upon dozens of people their lives. Something that could very well change the course of history for the worse. I wouldn’t know how to fix that; or even if it could be at all.” Such unrelenting worries spiraling through his mind cause the nervous young man to quake in his boots as bouts of sweat run down through his skin; his friends before him looking to Kingsley with great concern.

Down along the back hall of the main floor, the blue boy dressed in silky indigo peeks out from the kitchen twin doors and gazes out past the numerous guests enjoying the spread out platters of cake and meat entree’s to find the glass sliding door leading to the backyard. Hung on the handle of the sliding door was a single dangling sign; one that read out that: “Due to plumbing maintenance issues. Entry into the backyard garden is prohibited. (Yes, again.)” The moment of truth. A little further through the minefield and it’ll be home free from then on out. Just gotta not mess this up.

This little self motivational pep talk going through his head, the finely dressed indigo angel emerges out from the kitchen and blends into the fancy dinning crowd like a serpent through the bushes; slithering through the numerous guests and party goers that enjoy their meals and snacks. In his little sneak out through the back dinning hall is his attention drawn out to the side, his pupils growing when beholding the incredible platter spread out along the length of a table set along the side; all the little sausages, salamis, cracker sandwiches, cakes, fruits, pieces of stake. Eh, maybe a little bit on the way out wouldn’t hurt.

Strolling right over to the table filled with delectable little treats, Tore wastes not a second partaking in the wonderful spread set before him; some he shovels straight into his mouth while others he indiscreetly stashes away in the breast of his dress. This might as well as count as a whole dinner and dessert. Midst his little picking platter detour towards the exit, he fails to see where he was sidestepping and winds up bumping right into someone and fall right onto the floor; wiping off some of the food that splattered onto him while claiming that: “Ah, sorry. Didn’t really see-” The indigo angel quickly snaps silent when glancing over to who he had just bumped into and discovers that somebody to be coincidentally the very same demon princess he had ran into before, parts of her dressed stained with steak grease. “No. I should be sorry. I-” Vera attempts to retort with, but stops speaking when peering over to find no one before her; swiping off some of the food that got on her as she rises confused. Glancing around to figure out who she might’ve ran into, the princess fails to notices a couple of feet sliding straight underneath the tablecloth; the indigo angel keeping his mouth shut tight as he crawls along towards the other side of the platter table.

“Are you okay, sweetie?” a voice questions. Gazing over to her side, the demon princess finds her father walking over to her side; Vera answering him on how: “Oh, I’m just fine dad.” “Did you simply just trip?” “No, I...I thought I just bump into someone. But I’m not sure who, or even what. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t find a soul.” As her daughter explains this, the king’s eyes venture out towards the very back of the room; where a lone figure with matching indigo hair and dress slithers out from the dining hall and straight into the backyard garden. His eyes squinting as a sense of familiarity starts to creep upon him.

“Why did you decide to try and hide up here and not talk to us.” Damian questions, staring to his friend huddled in the corner. “How could I even start? Having been appointed the leader of the Vanguard league about a week ago and now of all times in the middle of an introduction party are doubts and pressure starting to set in; how are people gonna look seeing me like that? I supposed to be the spearhead against rising evil, but they haven’t even properly formed the team yet I’m already shaking?...I’m not so sure now if they made the right choice putting him in charge.” Kingsley worries. “That ain’t the kinda shit I seen you do.” he hears the spice queen pierce through with. “What are you alluding to?” “The hell I’m saying his that we’ve been dragged through all sorts of bull, and every single time we’re drowning in the absolute worst piss, that carrot top ya got for a head goes into overdrive to get us out. All the kids Circe had kidnapped, Renee’s dad nearly blowing up the city, everyone’s souls getting fucking ganked; even when you’re knocked outta the game, the work ya put in gets us all so damn far. I’m not fucking with you when I say I think we’d all be long dead if you weren’t there covering our asses.” Hearing this coming from his friends causes him to cease quaking in his boots and start to stand back up; lifting his head up to theirs and questioning with a slight smile if: “You really mean that?” “We seriously couldn’t think of anyone better for the job if you left.” Damian assures him.

Out behind the Spicer manor, Tore ventures through the garden in his efforts to distance himself from the party as far as he could on foot; his eyes glued to the brick wall set along the very end of the garden as he weaves around and hopes over several dug up pipes among the garden path. Just several more meters and over the wall, this whole night’ll just be a thing of the past; just another wacky and cooky night of cross dressing shenanigans full of comedic close calls and socially awkward misunderstandings. Just the usual teenage dramatic comedy happy hour on whatever the heck channel or streaming service even airs those anymore. Wonder if I should keep the dress?

Alas, before the finely dressed blue boy could bound right atop the wall, Tore peers his eyes right along the top and screeches dead in his tracks; his pupils shrinking as he slowly starts to waddle back as he beholds the very king of demons staring down upon him. Oh...oh no. “To think, after you and your partners transgressions, you decide to nest right above my kingdom. Foolishly wondering about as if I would not seek justice. After all that you two have done; breach my kingdom’s abode, destroy my forced, threaten my family; the tormentous pits of the damned would be but a mercy. Instead, I shall carry your execution out myself; engulf your entire being in the depths of my scorching pyres until nothing remains of you in this world. Not even a single piece of your soul.” Promising such to the indigo angel under him does the demonic king leap down from the top of the brick wall and land before the blue boy; the earth quaking in a glowing hellish red as his feet stamp onto the ground.

Everyone in the manor sitting behind them stop right where they stand and gaze about to wonder what’s causing the commotion; some of them falling on their asses while the trembling shakes the entire estate. Within the attic above does Kingsley nearly plummet down into a display of pointy figurines, Damian catching him before he could fall right into a single figure. “What the fuck is that?” Cayenne exclaims. “It sounds like it’s coming from outside.” Kingsley answers.

Erecting out from the cracks of this trembling earthquake be a shell of unholy red power with patches of brimstone covering its surface; threatening to encase both the king of demon’s and the indigo angel within. The blue boy rockets up in a frantic hurry to outrace the forming barrier in hopes of escaping; his hopes dashed when the spherical prison encloses at the top and cuts off the angel’s escape. Slamming right into the top of the cage does its inner layer let out a violent pulse of orange red that sends Tore plummeting back down towards the garden earth; crashing straight down into the concrete set before the cages very conjurer.

Outside this newly formed prison do most of the guests that dwell inside the manor all look out through every glass door and window they could see from, including the king’s own daughter; who attempts to reach out to him with: “Dad, what are you doing!?” Yet do the princess’s words fail to bait even a single bit of the demon’s attention as he keeps his sites to the angel rising before him; his majesty swinging his open palm upwards to let a geyser of hellfire erupt right underneath the boy and launching him up in enveloping flames.

Among the crowd watching the chaos unfold before them, the queen herself manages to squeeze herself through the other guest with her young baby boy in her arms; peering upwards to the figure her husband had just set alight. All of them behold as the scorching blaze that engulfs the boy above is dispersed all at once as the boy’s angelic white wings sprout forth from his backside; his facade having been burned away to reveal the angel underneath. Most of his dress covering his upper torso destroyed, the make up covering his face chipping off under the heat, and the band holding his hair burned away and letting his indigo blue mane flow out; all of these details together giving the queen the answer of who he really was. “...Him! That little miscreant! He’s the exact same boy who broke into our home and terrorized out baby boy.” In listening to that single realization is the crowd around her left utterly astonished, some of them gasping while others say among themselves how: “Did that really happen?” “I heard recently that the royal family’s home was attacked.” “Can’t believe somebody would try and scare poor Issac like that.” “What a little blue asshole.” “Hope the king lights this little marauder aflame!” Soon enough is the entire spectating crowd riled up into a maddening cheer, their numerous praises and encouragements coming out from their mouth being for the king to beat the little blue punk into a sobbing mess. Agh, great. Not only am I gonna die, I’ll go down in history as the jackass that deserves it…Maybe I just had this coming. Peering down to the demon king himself, Tore could see the blazing fury held within his very eyes; a wave of hellfire beginning to erupt from his entire body. Whelp, if I’m going out like this, better get as much fun outta it as I can.

Upon the realization of there being little way out of this predicament, indigo angel quickly decides to start off by delving straight down to where the fiery king stood; constantly flipping through the air as he plummets downwards with but a single leg sticking out. Right as the blue boy’s spinning axe kick was moments from slamming straight onto the demon’s horned head; the king halts the boy’s descending kick with just a single arm; Tore feeling as if he had hammered the back of his foot against a solid wall In a matter of moments does the demonic king let out a blazing burst of flames from his body that blows the blue boy away and send him out through the rest of the garden; the angel’s very body crashing straight through the stone fountain set in the middle and through numerous other flowers making up the rest. Tore manages to flip back onto his own two feet and grind himself to a skidding halt moments before he could hit the side of the unholy cage, soon glancing out in the direction he came from to behold a blaze of fire streak out towards him like a lunging serpent. As he witnesses his angelic foe spring up from the very flames he had cast forth, his majesty launches himself straight after him in a fiery explosion and reaches out in just a matter of moments. Hanging just above the indigo angel, the hellish royalty unleashes a blast of hellfire that sends the blue boy careening back down towards the earth below; the crowd inside cheering for the king as the angel crashes into the dirt.

Just above the cheering crowd of guests, Kingsley, Cayenne, and Damian all peer out a window overlooking the entire garden and peer out to the ensuing brawl between the angel and demon; all the while the boy genius question: “What’s going on!? Why is hell’s King trying to roast Tore alive!?” “Seriously, its been like half an hour since we split up. What the hell did we miss?” Damian asks as well. “Heh heh heh heh. Okay, so you guys are seriously not gonna believe the shitshow that blue dumbass wound up getting into.” Cayenne offers to elaborate.

Behind the spectating crowd gathered beneath them Renee joins in watching the ensuing fight alongside the numerous guests; asking one of them: “What on Earth is happening right now?” “I’m wishing to know the exact same thing.” the blonde hears someone beside her say. Peering off to her side, the blonde girl discovers the questioning voice to belong to none other than the princess herself; Vera adding: “Just what is my dad even thinking doing something like this.” “Seriously can’t believe that blue asshole broke into their royal family’s home and terrorized their family.” they hear someone vent. “Wait what!?” the princess exclaims. “No! He’s not like that. It’s all just one big misunderstanding. Does he even look like somebody like that to you.” Renee attempts to informs.

Despite most of the crowd either ignoring or dismissing the blonde, Vera peers back up towards the chaos and watches closely as her father continues to duke out against the angel; the unholy king letting loose a bevy of fire from his maw that transforms into a demonic creature of flames that pursues his majesty’s foe. The indigo angel glides away from the pursing monstrous blaze, fending away the fiery beast with a volley of pale rays; all the while the princess state how: “He does seem rather familiar. The blue mane, the white wings, the light coming out from his body; all of it’s just making bells ring in my head. Just where have I seen him before?” Its in thinking back to not so long ago that she remembers the moments she was just moments away from the cold grip of death; bleeding out underneath a pile of broken castle rubble, surrounded by darkness. In but seconds his the vial of shadows lifted away, her site blurred to everything except a figure dressed in light; that very same glow enveloping her and pulling her away from the brink of demise. Among her recovery does her vision start to return, all the while the figure began to fly away down the castle corridors; the princess only able to make out white wings and a blue mane from the retreating figure. “That person...It was him...Oh no.”

Hearing this from the princess, Renee looks over and sees Vera attempt to slip through the thick crowd in hopes of making it outside; only for the overwhelming numbers to shove her aside. Coming over to the princess’s side does the blonde help Vera off the floor, all the while hearing her state how: “If I can’t get through, I won’t be able to break dad’s cage in time to tell him.” “You know how to break it?” Renee questions. “I’ve seen my dad use this barrier many times and saw how he breaks it open when he’s done. But even if I got out there, I’m not sure how I could even reach up around it by myself.” Its in hearing the princess lament of such that Renee peek out through the window set beside the sliding glass door and gaze upwards to discover her boyfriend and his pals watching the ongoing brawl through a second story window: “I might know some people who can. Come on, we gotta hurry.” the blonde girl tells the princess as she races back from the crowd, the princess she tells this to feverishly following after her.

With just a single blast of white does the indigo angel blow away the pursuing flaming demon, the monstrous pyre evaporating in the ray of pale power. This tiny victory is unfortunately short lived however as a pillar of rising flames erupts right behind the boy with a demonic silhouette underneath its blaze. The very moment that Tore turns back towards the column of fire, a hand of fiery brimstone reach out from the flames and grasp hold of the angel’s neck, the blue boy feeling the incredible heat radiating underneath the rock palms grasp as the king of hell emerges out from the blazing inferno. Amidst struggling under his majesty’s burning grasp, the king himself take his other brimstone covered fist and prepares to swing its hard rock right into the angel’s face; Tore repeatedly beating against the rock clutching his neck tight, the brimstone cracking with each it. With the fifth strike does the boy manage to burst the brimstone holding him up apart and free himself from the demonic king’s grasp; though his escape proves too late as his majesty slugs the angel right in the face with his other brimstone gauntlet, sending Tore spiraling down towards a part of the garden lined with numerous statues.

Among the resulting rocky collection of dust and dirt, the king hovers back down upon the earth where he had struck the blue miscreant down to; peering around to a number of statues that lined out along the walkway wayside that bare items such as books, weapons, and other tools, some baring a sort of resemblance to both Kingsley and Chloe. In strolling along the garden path is his majesty in his search, the hellish lord is left unaware of the angel himself hiding behind a statue of a beautiful woman holding a scale of justice in her hand; Tore himself peering out through the rest of the garden for anyway to tip the metaphorical scale. Okay Tore, you went through this before and barely survived the last time against this guy. Taking this guy head on right now is a seriously bad idea. Maybe not with what’s in the tank right now, but maybe with what’s around. A bit of juice outta turn things around. Glancing out towards the foliage that makes up the garden, the indigo angel realizes his options in drawing out nearby power having been cut short; most of the flowers, vines, and other lively greens that once stood in bloom among the decor now engulfed in a blaze of hellfire Doesn’t seem there’s a lot left to work with here, but what about outside; All the other plants and animals out in the city. Should be more than enough to borrow from it all to make it through this.

Setting his mind on the life that lies beyond the garden, Tore clasps his hands together as he focuses on the plants, people, and animals that dwell within the city. Come on, need something here. Yet no matter how hard he focuses on all that live beyond the garden, even to those with the manor just outside; the angel opens his eyes to find not even a single bit of colorful light coating his body. Wh-what? Why hasn’t anything came yet? Focused on all the living things in Townsville, but there’s not even a single glow of color here. Why is this happening now!?

Left at a flustered loss over the lack of power he had failed to gather, the blue boy has little time to ponder how or why as he feels an incredible heat come from behind and turns back to witness the stone statue he hides behind start to melt before his eyes; Tore crawling backwards as he sees the demon king standing right behind its stone. Raising his fist up high, the demon king’s hands suddenly combust in a blazing fury as he starts to swing them down to the angel before him; Tore managing to flee back away before his majesty hammers his fist down to the ground in a blazing quake. Among the bursting flames does Tore peek back in his retreat to see his hellish foe relentlessly pursue after; his mind running a hundred miles an hour thinking of what other options he has. Fine, if anything out there won’t help out, then there’s might be something in here that can; something that can quell this guy’s fiery temper. But what? Among his swiftly look around does the blue boy manage to spot the remains of the broken fountain; some of the pipes sticking out from the stone and dribbling water out from within. Hey, that might work.

Before the indigo angel could take the chance to delve down towards the busted fountain; the king himself swoops right beneath him with hands of blazing fury; Tore evading his grasp as the demon cast forth a bevy of flames up towards the boy above. In the middle of evading his majesty’s blistering hellfire, Tore delves right down towards the king himself to deliver a couple of kicks to counter with; one right in the stomach and one straight into his face. Attempting to send out a third one however, the indigo angel winds up getting his leg caught right in his hellish foe’s clutches; the demon king seeing fit in the moment to light the boy’s leg ablaze. Enduring the burning pain, the blue boy swings the leg the demon king holds straight upwards and flings his majesty up into the air above; following up by firing a beam of white straight upwards out to the ascending demon and using its force to descend down towards the ground.

Recovering from the unexpected counterattack, the demonic king plummets down towards the plume of stone dust with his burning red eyes locked to the cloud; seeing the figure of the boy he pursues. While the king of hell drops downwards towards his angelic foe, the dusty cloud starts to let him see the blue boy grasp something from under his feet and uproot it up to the surface; ultimately caught off guard when witnessing the angel pull out a massive pipe pointed up towards him. “Get ready for the flood!” Tore warns with a smile. Descending down too fast to stop himself in time, all his demonic majesty could do was grind himself to a halt just before the open end of the pipe; preparing to face an entire torrent of gushing water from the quaking pipe. Alas when the pipe finally stops shaking, nothing but a pitiful stream is all that drizzles out from its steel depths; Tore looking inside to wonder if that was really all the water it had as the king lowers his guard. “Does...does he not know people shut their water off when working on their piping?” Kingsley questions. “Oh my fucking god…” Cayenne sighs while shaking her head.

In realizing the angel’s attempts to thwart him having blown up right in his face; the hellish king uncovers his face and tilts his burning scowl down upon him; returning his remark with: “Cute. Wish to see what a real flood is like?” With but the snap of his finger, the entire garden ground underneath starts to violently tremble as fissures form between what foliage had yet to burn; the remaining flowers combusting into flames when geysers of lava spew out from earth. The fiery hot goo swiftly covering the earth, Tore leaps upwards into the air to avoid its molten heat; the boy peering down in his ascent to see nothing but a few statues and rocky stands peek out from under the melting lava.

Taking in the view of the unholy red prison starting to flood with the fiery hot goo from the second floor, Damian claims to both his friends how: “Okay, this is getting too outta hand. We need to do something.” “My thoughts exactly.” the spice queen declares before leaping out through the window and towards the scene. “Cayenne, wait!” Kingsley attempts to warn. Spurring her friends warning aside does Cayenne charge straight towards the side of the unholy prison; putting as much force as she could as she rams her shoulder straight onto its side. The very moment that the spice queen touches the surface of the barrier is a powerful pulse of hellish power unleashed, one that blast Cayenne aside and have her crash right into the side of the manor. “The hell was that shit!” “A rather counter intuitive attempt with solve this with force, I’d say. Allow me.” the ghost boy scolds her with as he hovers out towards the red cage for a go. Approaching the hellish barricades surface does the ghastly young man turn himself completely intangible, gliding out towards the red wall as fast as he could. Yet strangely does this as well prove fruitless; the unholy cage stopping Damain right their and pushing him away; despite being totally incorporeal. “What!? How!? Why can’t I phase through it!?”

Its midst their questioning mysticism that Kingsley hears somebody behind him give them their answer; responding to the ghost boy’s quarrel with: “Only royal blood can unlock the seal. Without doing so, everything, even souls, are kept in and out of its unholy walls.” Hearing this answer, the boy genius quickly peers back to find both his blonde lover and the princess of demon’s herself standing behind him; Kingsley going: “Renee! Wait, you know how to break it open?” “Indeed I do. Those chunks of brimstone that line the barricade are the locks that ultimately keep the cage together. If they are unlocked, the cage shall shatter.” Vera elaborates to them. “So, you know where the key is?” Renee questions. Upon hearing the blonde girl ask this does the princess take off the pointed crown set atop her head and pricks one of her fingers with one of its sharp ends; a thick crimson leaking right out from the tip of her finger. “It’s right here.” “So you were being literal? Why?” “It’s a family practice. With but a drop will the brimstone locks break, I simply need someone to break through the layer’s underneath to reach them.” In hearing the princess explain all of this does Kingsley peer down through the window to see both of his friends still struggling to pierce through the prisons unholy defenses; Cayenne constantly beating against its surface while Damian repeatedly attempts to phase through, both yielding little to no success. “I’m not sure that’ll be enough. We need to do more than that.”

Inside the unholy prison itself, Tore continues to flee from the grasp of the demonic king of hell in a boiling sweat; all while beholding his majesty thrusts his palms down towards the lava beneath them both and commanding the molten liquid to spew up in geysers after the angel. As the blue boy weaves around the spewing strands of red hot goo, he could feel his very skin on the cusp of boiling as the incredible heat from these flung strand beats down upon him. Finding a couple of approaching waves of lava far too large to evade, the indigo angel instead fires out rays of pure pale power against these encroaching hellish waves; effectively dispersing the boiling before it could engulf him. Despite having spurned away his hellish foe’s cascading waves, his efforts proves to be nothing more than a distraction as king of hell plummets downwards from above with a blazing flame in the palm of his hand. The very moment that Tore turns back is one that is far too late, discovering his demonic royalty hovering above and unleashing the hellfire he holds in his hand; engulfing the angel in a plume of his fiery wrath as he’s blasted back.

While holding in the overwhelming desire to scream out, the blue boy careens through the fiery garden air in a smoking mess; threatening to crash right into the side of the hellish red barrier. But in the nick of time does Tore manage to regain his aerial balance and stop himself moments before he could slam straight into the side of the cage; the smoke enveloping his body disappearing to reveal the numerous burns along his skin. Okay. Can’t really call on any sort of power from outside. Every living thing in here that could’ve been a source of power is submerged in a sheet of boiling lava. And the King of hell is still aiming to burn away what skin is still left. If there’s nothing left around here to draw life from… With his demonic foe on the verge of striking him down, the indigo angel takes his focus away on the seething burns left along his body and starts to concentrate on what life he held within; the pain he feels eventually numbing as a colorful power starts to well from within the depths of his soul.

“Enough dawdling here. The time of your punishment is at hand. Say what prayers you have left, for they will not be answers for where you shall be sent!” the king of hell tells the angel before lunging after with hellfire engulfing his entire hand. Right when his hellish majesty was on the verge of striking the boy down with a furious hellfire, his assault thwarted on the spot when the blue boy grasps his wrist moments before he could be struck. Left astonished by the unexpected grab, his hellish majesty glances down to the blue boy as Tore in kind peers upwards; the angel’s eyes flashing a rainbow of colors along his pupils. ...Then I’ll just use what life I got left.

His fist coated in a colorful aura, the indigo angel straight slugs his demonic foe right in the chest; the incredible force of the assault hard enough to send his majesty crashing down into the pool of lava, with the red hot goo splashing onto the sides of the red unholy cage. “Whoa!” Kingsley exclaims. “Holy shit!” Cayenne shouts. “Dad!” Vera screams.

Yet mere moments after taking the descending splashdown straight into the pool of fresh hellish lava, the demonic king surfaces up out from the molten goo in an ascending burst straight after the angel above; globs of the boiling liquid clutched in his hands. Closing in on the indigo angel, his majesty scatters the globs of fiery goo straight out towards the boy above in little pieces. With small bullets of flaming lava coming straight at him, Tore rockets straight down towards the approaching flurry of flung lava; sticking his arms out towards the spread as he begins to twirl through the air in a straightforward aileron roll. The colorful life force held within his hands combined with the swirling velocity, the indigo angel spur away the flung scatter of molten liquid; piercing straight through the storm and towards its very sender.

Upon nearing his demonic majesty does the blue boy cease spinning through the air, focusing all the power he has in a single fist; ready to slug the demonic royalty straight in the face. Alas when Tore was on the cusp of punching his foe right in the shnoze, the king of hell weaves right around his swing with hellfire coating his fist; his majesty countering back with own brand of a fiery strike straight onto the boy’s backside. The burning assault sending him careening across the blistering hot garden air, Tore sticks his legs out towards the side of the cage he threatens to crash right into and manages to land right on his feet; the unholy prison wall letting out a furious pulse of flames that launches the blue boy back out towards the very demon that had conjured it. In but a matter of moment does the indigo angel return out towards the king of hell and swings his leg straight out to his majesty, the glowing blue boy landing an overwhelming kick right to the king’s side hard enough to send his fiery foe careening aside. As the demonic royalty recovers from the swift counterattack, the indigo angel thrusts his palms out towards the demonic royalty and fire out an incredible wave of colorful life out towards his majesty; the incredible ray widening exponentially as it streaks through the blistering hot air. The colorful ray proving too wide to dodge, the king of hell commands the magma beneath him to rise up before the encroaching wave and hardens its molten goo into fiery stone in but a matter of seconds. Though the wall of hardened lava manages to take initial brunt of the colorful ray, it quickly begins to weaken under the constant stream of power and breaks apart in a matter of seconds; the overwhelming blast engulfing the fiery demon in a flash of of bright colors.

Once the light from the incredible wave starts to finally dim, the indigo angel peers down to the pool of lava beneath to discover his fiery foe left floating along the surface; then witnessing his majesty swiftly snap right out from his dazing stupor in a roar of blazing hellfire. Arising out from the molten pool does the king of hell once more face the radiant colorful angel with a burning rage reflected in his bright red eyes; his entire body engulf in a scorching fury as he proclaims that: “That’s it! This has gone on long enough. I thought of making this quick, but you seem to wish for this to drag on. No more! I’m going to fry you alive from where you float!” While listening to the hellish devil’s decree, an encroaching dizziness begins to seep its way into the boy’s head; his vision blurring in and out as he threatens to pass out from exhaustion. Come on, don’t give out just yet. Just a bit more.

Right outside the barrier do both Damian and Cayenne hover above the unholy prison with both Vera and Kingsley riding upon them; the boy genius informing the spice queen that: “We need to break open that cage as fast as we can. Cayenne, take Vera around and break the locks holding it together.” “On it.” Cayenne simply complies with, gliding down to the crown of the hellish cage with the Vera atop her back. “Right. Damian, I need you to take me over to the water pressure controls. They’re right down in there.” the boy genius then orders the ghostly young man he rides on; pointing to a little steel shack set along the corner of the backyard. “Alright, hang on.” the ghost boy complies, delving down towards the very shack his friends pointed out. As they dive down towards the small steel shack, Damian turns both himself and the boy genius on his back totally intangible and phases right on inside; Kingsley hopping right off his back when landing inside and race straight over to a set of pressure valves and control panels within its walls.

While the boy genius starts to get to work on the panel and turning the numerous valves; the ghost boy behind him argues: “Kingsley, are you sure about this? The pipes underneath all that lava are probably sealed shut by now. I doubt any water would get through, even if we break the barrier.” “I know, but that’s not what this is for. When we bust it open, all that lava inside’s probably gonna spill out all over the place. So if we can’t stop it from spilling, I think it’s better if we try and slow it down while keeping it from reach the manor so no one watching all this gets hurt.” “If you didn’t want anyone in the splash zone, why didn’t we break them all up first?” “With what little time we have to work with, I got Renee to try and work on that, maybe clear a way for them to escape.”

“Seriously people. We need you to evacuate the estate before the situation here becomes any worse. Don’t any of you understand how severe this could turn?” Renee tries to reach through the observing crowd with. “You’re kidding, right?” “I sure am not gonna leave now and miss all this.” “I wound up traveling across the world just to see what this new team has up their sleeves and sure as hell ain’t leaving now.” Among their overall noncompliance can the blonde not help but let out a frustrating growl; swiftly calming herself down with a little breath before she could do or say anything crazy. Oh Kingsley I seriously hope you have a plan working for this.

Above the very barrier before them do all of them watch as Cayenne hovers just above its very top; the princess riding atop her eyeing the brimstone chunks along the outside. “So, ya saying that these locks are under a sheet of brimstone right?” “Indeed, but none of you have yet to tell me how you plan to break through their layers.” Vera claims. “The hell’s so fun about telling you? Why don’t ya just see for yourself.” “Wait, what do you mean by tha-” Just before the princess could finish questioning the spice queen’s statement do they both start diving straight down towards one of the brimstone slabs along the unholy barricade; Vera holding on for dear life as Cayenne prepares to strike away at the stone. In just a single swing does the Spice queen manage to bust through the brimstone’s outer shell; swiping away the debris to reveal a hellish insignia with a hole dead on the middle. “Damn, that looks fuckin sick. You need to dunk your finger in there or…?” “No, no. Th-that won’t be necessary. Just give me a moment.” the princess tells her, her body still quaking from the unexpected drop down. Hovering her finger right over hellish insignia, the princess lets the blood seeping from her finger drip straight into the hole; the entire face alights in a glow of orange and lets out a horrible shriek from under its stone. While covering their ears from the trembling screech, both of them witness the brimstone crumble apart in a burst of hellfire; the unholy prison’s red walls starting to flicker as the lock falls apart. “Hell yeah. One lock down, three more go.”

Gliding within the burning air of the red cage itself does Tore continue to fight off the devils hellish assault, pushing away the demonic king with a pulse of pure colorful life. In being pushed back that the king of hell command the lava beneath in to rise out from the earth and bellow out towards the indigo angel; the intense light from the boiling lava covering the boy as he rushes outwards. With but a wave of his hand, the blue boy casts forth a colorful wave that disperses the fiery hot goo wave and rockets out towards the king himself; his entire body coated in a lively colorful aura as he nears. Seeing the indigo angel incoming, the demon waves his arms upwards to conjure a whirlwind of fiery hot flames from right underneath the blue boy; engulfing the boy in a tornado of blistering heat. Tore blocks his body from the fiery inferno blowing at him from all sides, enduring through the searing flames as his body starts to glow brighter and brighter in a multitude of colors; a light that the king beholds beyond the blaze of his whirlwind. Finally does Tore unleash all he had in an overwhelming shockwave that disperse the flaming whirlwind, the almighty push casting his hellish fiery foe straight down into the pool of molten liquid.

From this overwhelming wave, the colorful aura that irradiates out from the boy’s body starts to fade away to unveil his skin left nearly gray; Tore clutching his heart as he tries to catch his breath. “Ah...Oh god...Can’t keep going anymore...Might just burn myself out.” “You’ll burn either way.” a voice from below claims. Peering down beneath his feet does he see a pillar of lava spew out from the below and flutters back to avoid the seering goo; his escape failing to take him far as an arm pops out from the molten liquid and tightly grasp his neck, the devilish pyro emerging out and finishing with: “I promise such.” Midst his struggle to free himself from the fiery king’s clutches, the blue boy grabs hold of the king’s horns and pushes back with as much strength as he had left to muster; his majesty letting out a seething growl as he begins to take in a deep breath. When seeing his hellish foe taking in a deep breath, he realizes all too well what the king’s next move was and shove his knee straight into the devil’s jaw; the indigo angel keeping the devil’s trap shut as bits of lava escaping from the demon’s nose. The demonic king’s cheeks puff bright orange as he starts to choke on all the excess lava gathering in his mouth; tearing up as he finally lets go of the blue boy and kicks him away, vomiting all the molten goo out from his maw. The demonic royalty takes a brief second to cough out bits of lava as he rubs the part of his chin the angel had kneed; his other hand trembling as he peers over to the blue boy and calls him a: “Cheeky little bastard.”

Just outside the unholy prison do all the numerous dug up pipes littering the garden starts to spew out a torrent of rushing water; all of it starting to soak everywhere from the stone paths, the grass, the foliage, every drop spreading out along every inch of the backyard. Up along the crown of the devilish cage does Vera let a drop of her blood peter out from her finger and fall straight into the brimstone lock; the symbol surrounding the hole letting out an unholy shriek before crumbling to pieces. Witnessing the red power that makes up the bubble flicker more frequently, the spice queen claims that: “Just one more.” Right when they were about to hover out towards the final lock, both of them hear a familiar voice call out from the distance; peering out to find both Kingsley and Damian gliding over as the boy genius orders: “Heya, lets switch!” “On it!” Cayenne complies, taking grasp of the princess atop her back. “Wait, what the hell do you think your-” Without even a single warning does the spice queen straight up toss Vera up out towards the ghostly young man hovering above, all the while Kingsley leaps down as she arises. Almost simultaneously, the boy genuis manages to land right in Cayenne’s arms just as Damian catches the princess amidst her ascent; Vera taking a brief moment to calm herself while riding atop the ghost boy’s back. “Oh...Oh dear…”

Held within the spice queen’s grasp, Kingsley peers down and watches as the open pipes soak his backyard in more and more water; Cayenne asking the boy: “You wanna say what you got in mind or are we just pissing in the wind?” “At this rate, most of the water here won’t be enough to stop all that lava. I think we need to do something else to keep it from reaching the manor, something I think you excel at.” “Whatcha got in mind for me to fuck up?”

After explaining what else the boy genius has in mind, Cayenne hovers out over towards a stone column set over the garden and setting Kingsley down at its very top; the boy genius watching as the spice queen fly out near the manor and delve down towards the ground set between it and the garden. All the numerous guest spectating these events jump back as Cayenne dive bombs down along the ground and scrapes through the dirt with her bare fists. Seeing his spicy partner starting to make out a ditch between his home and backyard, Kingsley peering over to Damian and the princess hover above the cage.

When floating just inches away from the last brimstone lock guarded in a layer of brimstone, Vera wonders to the ghost boy: “I do wonder how you plan to break through the layer to reach the lock.” “Oh please, I’m not a brute. There won’t be any breaking needed.” he claims. Gently grasping the princess’s arm the ghost boy turns her limb completely transparent, Vera letting out a little shriek before Damian tells her to: “Calm down. It’s alright. Just simply dunk your hand right in where the hole is.” “Uh...okay.” Carefully, Vera does what he instructs and is astonished to see her arm phase straight through the brimstone like nothing was there. The blood from the demon princess’s finger dribbles down from the tip straight down through the brimstone; soaking through until dripping into the lock hole underneath. Like before does the hard rock begin to scream out before it falls apart, the entire red bubble holding both her father and the boy he fights trembling at the seems. “What is going on?” the ghost boy questions. “I suggest we flee before it burst open.”

Upon the princess’s warning does Damian take her away from the red cage as it starts to quake far more violently; suddenly collapsing in a powerful burst that breaks the glass of the manor and knocks the people inside on their asses. With the walls of the unholy cage broken does the lava that was kept inside start to spill out further through the garden; the guests of the manor running like hell as a big wave of the molten goo flows out towards them. When arising right out from the ditch that she had just dug out, Cayenne sees some of the lava melting the stone column her pal stands atop off; the base of the pillar melting away as it threatens to tumble down into the scorching lava. Immediately does the spice queen spring into action and dart straight towards her falling comrade, snatching Kingsley right out from the air moments before he could take the fiery plunge. While hovering above, Kingsley watches as the lava that spills starts to collide with the water streaming through the backyard; only slowing the molten liquid down as he head straight for the manor. “Come on. Come on.” the boy genius utters. With sweat running down their foreheads, Kingsley and Cayenne watch as the lava starts to fill up the freshly dug out ditch set before the manor; growing more tense as the lava starts to reach the top. But with how deep Cayenne had dug and the running water starting to slow it down, all the lava that spills out manages to just rim the very top of the ditch, both of them letting out a huge sigh knowing their home and all the people within were safe and sound. “Holy shit...So, now how are we gonna take care of that shit show.” the spice queen wonders, pointing out towards the continuing brawl.

Despite the red cage that had encased them both having vanished, the demonic king continues his onslaught against the indigo angel; slugging the boy with fiery swing after another and scorching him further with every strike. Though Tore attempts to counter the king’s flames, he proves far too exhausted and spent to reliably get any hits of his own in; failing to even raise a single hand up as all that be left for him is to endure his majesty’s blazing wrath. Placing his palm right underneath the blue boy’s head, the king unleashes a burst of searing flames right from above; a fiery blast that sends the angel plummeting down towards the earth. Crashing down into the charred soil below, Tore still feels the scorching heat beat against his back; despite there not even being a single glob of molten liquid left. When attempting to pull himself off the blistering hot earth, the blue boy only able to pull up onto his ass moments before his demonic foe lands before him; Tore left frozen in place as the king of hell looks down upon him with a fiery glare. Not even a word is spoken between them as his majesty raises his hand to the sky and engulfs his arm in a thick burning layer of hellfire; the light it emits rivaling that of the sun. Whelp, really facing the heat now, and with a nearly empty tank of gas too. Body here’s practically more burns than skin. And lookin like the final stop here is a one way road straight into the fiery depths of oblivion. If this is the way this road trip ends, better just use what fuel I got left. These determined thoughts ringing through his head, Tore faces the demonic king head on as the colorful aura that had once coated him returns in full force; its rainbow glow matching that of the very fires that he faces.

Seeing the two on the verge of clashing at any moment: Vera peers down to her ghostly ride and demands that: “No! Damian, let go of me!” “From this high up!? But-” “There’s no time! Just do it!” On Vera’s request does the ghost boy complies and releases the demon princess from his grasp, letting her plummet down towards both her father and the angel; the princess gazing down to witness both her father and the angel lunging out towards one another. Right as the two were about to lunge upon each other in a clash of lively flames does Vera drop between them both; urging the two to suddenly stop dead in their tracks, their blinding light dimming as they behold the princess standing between them.

Even as her legs quake from the drop that she had just endured, the demonic princess stands before the fury of her burning father and demand out from him that: “Daddy, you need to stop, right now!” “Vera?...Why!? After this miscreant broke into our home, scared your mother and brother, stole the family treasure, and beat me unconscious! Why after all of that do you wish for his life to be sparred!?” “Because he had saved mine!” the princess answers, his daughter’s responds quelling some of the king’s burning fury.

In my hurry through the castle hall’s, parts of the roofs had collapsed onto me and buried me underneath their dark red stone; it honestly felt as if my chest had been smashed open and that death was knocking on my door. That is until I started to feel a warm glow run throughout my body and return me to reality once more. The unbearable pain that I had suffered from had vanished in a matter of seconds as I began to return; awaking from my stupor to find my dress torn open in places where I had felt this agony. Rising up from the behind the rubble, all I could see retreating from me was a figure donning a blue mane and wings of pale white gliding deeper into the castle. Since then, I couldn’t help but wonder if those events had actually transpired or if they were simply a hallucination brought on by a concussion. But seeing this boy with my own eyes proved to me that it was no mere illusion; if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be standing here before him tonight.”

His daughter having told this side of the story to her, the demonic king takes a calming breath as the flames enveloping his body disperse; quelling the murderous rage he had gardened towards the blue boy. Yet does a thin layer of doubt remain as his majesty marches right past his loving daughter and over to the boy behind her; Vera staring in concern to her father as he walks beside her while uttering: “Daddy?” Standing tall just inches away from the kneeling angel, Tore takes up a stance as the king stares down upon him with a fiery orange glare; the only words that he says as a demand to the boy to: “Start explain. Now.”

About a half an hour passes as the lava that dwells within the ditch starts to cool from the water flowing from the pipes; whatever fires and flames that lingered having been dowsed out. Sitting patiently beside him does the fiery royalty listen to the indigo angel he was but moments away from roasting in burning hellfire as Tore goes on to finish with: “Once I realized who the Kybr truly were and what they were like; I wound up having to fight Mall in hopes of stopping him. If it weren’t for my sibs and their friends helping me to stop Mall and destroying the warp gate’s core, the Kybr would’ve wound up flooding the universe.” “Is that all?” the devil beside the angel questions. “Yep…” the blue boy simply responds back to with hints of disappointment. Hearing the last of what the blue boy has to say for himself, the king of hell lets out a small sigh as he rises back on his feet and stroll out towards his daughter; telling her to: “Come on, Vera. We’re heading back home.” “Um, okay. Thanks again for all your help, Vanguard League.” the princess thanks with as she follows her father out towards the backdoor. The misses of the estate coming out from the sliding glass door, she winds up running into the exiting royalty; who apologizes to her with: “I apologize for the mess I had caused tonight. I promise to pay off the damages.”

Despite the night having just been saved, Kingsley can’t help but peer over to the blue boy; watching the angel as he slouches over with his hands over his face. Before he could go over to try and comfort the blue boy, he suddenly feels somebody giving him a big pat on his back and glances over to find Cayenne congratulating him with: “Damn, Kingsley. You’d did a fine ass job keeping yer cool under all that heat.” “Uh, thanks. Pretty surprised myself on how cleanly I handled it all. I thought for sure I was gonna crack among the action.” “Well, I can safely assure that you handled it all with such incredible grace and fortitude; even I was shaking through most of it all.” the ghost boy hovers over and praises. Racing right over to his side does Renee give the boy genius a great big hug, embracing her boy tight as she claims how: “I told you that all those worries you had were just in your head. Even when things turn out their worst, you become your very best and bring out everyone’s A game.” “You guys think so? Maybe being this whole leader thing won’t be as bad as I was inflating it to be.” Kingsley corrects. “I wish I could say the same about our garden.” he then hears his mother lament.

Peering aside, the boy finds her mother grieving over the site of her now destroyed backyard; what remained of the numerous colorful flowers and bushes that made up its natural beauty now left charred and burned beyond any sort of recognition. “It might not be that bad, Mrs. Spicer. We could just rebuild and replant everything again.” Renee attempts to cheer her up with. “I’m not sure that’ll be possible. The soil itself is far too charred and burned for anything planted here to grow. I’m not sure if it’ll ever recover.” Damian points out, a statement which only furthers the mother’s sorrow.

Rising out from his self pity does the indigo angel behold the consequences of what his fight with the demon king had entailed; the smoke wafting from the burnt foliage covering the night sky. “God...all this is just my fault. None of this wouldn’t have happened if I was here. If I didn’t go with all and wind up nearly dooming everyone.” “Oh Tore...yeah it pretty much is.” “Cayenne!” Kingsley snaps. “What? It’s cause if him that the king of hell through a big shit fit in the first place.” “But he was just trying to help us with the party; how were we supposed to-” “No...Cayenne’s right. I gotta try and make up for all this. All the trouble I just wound up bringing here.” the blue boy states. “Just how do you plan to start? This garden’s practically lifeless the way it is.” the ghost boy tells him. “...I might know how.”

Among saying such does the angel start to stroll out towards the very center of the destroyed garden, taking in a deep breath of the smoke arising from the earth. Once standing right in the midst of the ruined garden, the indigo angel exhales the breath from his lunges and closes his eyes while clasping his hands in a prayer; once again focusing all the plants, animals, and people that reside outside the garden wall. All throughout the city are little bits of colorful light drawn out from within every single thing alive within Townsville; be it from the biggest of elephants held within the zoo to the smallest of insects that crawl along the underbelly of the town. The countless bits of life all flutter through the city skyline and gather out towards the upper district; every single piece taken straight out to the backyard where they all drawn within the blue boy’s body. Kingsley, Cayenne, Damian, Renee, and the Misses stare upon the indigo angel as his entire body and the wings on his back is enveloped in a rainbow of aura that alights the entire backyard in a colorful glow. Holding all the lively power he had gathered throughout Townsville, Tore thrusts his arms straight down into the charred earth beneath his feet and sends it all surging through the soil; the once burned and scorched ground now glowing alight in a multitude of lively colors that shine across the neighborhood.

Soon enough does this brilliant light start to fade, letting all that dwell within the once ruined backyard all behold the overflowing flora that spreads out before them; numerous flowers, plants and tree’s of dozens of families and species now standing before them all in an incredible burst of nature and vegetation. “What?” Cayenne utters. “Wow.” Renee softly awes. “Amazing.” Damian gawks. “Our garden. It’s practically overwhelming. Everything’s flourishing greater than ever.” the misses of the estate gushes. Peering over is everyone’s attention drawn to the blue boy who had made it all possible, resting soundly against the base of a thick oak whose height rivals the manor before it. “Can’t believe he did all this in mere seconds.” the blonde girl surmises. “He brought not just the plants, but the soil itself back from the clutches of death.” the ghost boy marvels. “If he can do all this. Just what the hell are we supposed to do about this blue bastard.” Cayenne questions. Kingsley stares out to the indigo angel left soundly sleeping underneath the massive thick oak; letting his burns rest as the nightly wind brushes the leaves down from their branches and flutters onto the slumbering blue boy. “I don’t know Cayenne. I really don’t know.”

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you all for sticking around here for this long. And I wanted to start off this season by finally firing a Chekov's gun that I set up a while ago. Also wanted to do something with Kingsley processing the thoughts of being a leader to a budding organization with big plans since it wasn't really touched upon. Also add in some little details that weave into the mainline story here.

I'd say I'm at a near competent in terms of writing skills, but there's always more out there I could learn from and improve. I hope all of you stick around to see that process take place. Thank you.

#lillaxtrigger #Young Hope #callyieverse

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shotosprincess · 3 years

Text

When he loves me — Iwa ♡︎ Oikawa

LISTEN TO: “ CLOUD 9 “ — BEACH BUNNY

ART: UNKNOWN ( i found it as a sticker on picsart since i couldnt find any good iwaoi screencaps so if yk who the artist is plspls lmk !! ty !! )

｡･:*:･-: ✧ :,｡･:*:･ﾟ☆

pairing: iwa x oikawa

summary: iwa shyly plays oikawa a song he wrote on a whim ,, and years later ,, after they fell apart ,, oikawa attends one of iwa’s concerts and hears their song,, the song,, once more .

genre: angst + fluff !! <3 ugh i love oikawa my bby but i absolutely love him and iwa together sm too ajjdjjf

a/n: 3am writing for comfort innit (•̀ᴗ•́)و smhsmh it’s lowkey so dramatic ?? idk why i was feeling so melancholic ?? but i live for the yearning anyways lmao <//3

“ Hey...wanna...hear something I’ve been working on? “

Iwa’s voice shifted to one of a far softer tone, unusually uncertain of himself as he gripped the bedsheets beneath him in an anxious hold, turning away from Oikawa whilst a deep vermillion blush tainted his shy-stricken face.

The hazel-haired setter lifted his mouth into a gentle smile, skin mirroring a similar red to Iwa’s. His head lolled to the side, and Iwa swore he felt something flutter within him. The fist which he clutched the bedsheets within closed even further.

“ Sure, Iwa-chan! “

A hard gulp. Iwa swallowed his nerves down, fingers hovering over the strings of his freshly-purchased guitar, hesitant. Trembling, even.

Light wisps of brown swept just over Oikawa’s eyes as he put down the volleyball he had been mindlessly spinning, and covered Iwa’s hands with his own. He looked up with a reassuring grin, deepened-honey gaze colliding with one of the enchanting midnight sky.

“ It’s okay. It’s just me. But of course, you don’t have to play if you don’t wan— “

Iwa swats his hand away. “ Of course I wanna, dumbass! “ He barked.

With a frustrated huff, his fingers find a home amongst the sound as they begin to delicately strum the translucent strings. His eyes fell closed, lost in the music, albeit fairly cliche, as he wordlessly played the song which was most special to him.

For what reason it held such a cherished place in his heart, he did not know. Not truly, at least. Admittedly, he had written it purely on a whim, clutching onto the fleeting remnants of a foreign euphoric high. The crazed rush of fingers furiously clacking against the keyboard filled the silence of his room, lasting well into the evening. He had so much to say, so much to express, and yet it was only through the words appearing on the screen in which he could ever hope to communicate it.

He had never even planned on sharing it. After all, it was merely a crappy, rushed song put together purely by the rawness of an unknown emotion, and during ungodly hours of the night out of all times. It was nothing special, really.

To him, at least.

And yet in a hushed, timid tone, he began to sing:

“ I don’t wanna seem the way I do...but I’m confident when I’m with you... “

Oikawa’s lips parted in sheer awe. The delicate swirls of the instrumental blended flawlessly into the angelic quality of Iwa’s singing. His muscles tensed. He shook it away.

What the hell is this? Was he...nervous? No, no, it can’t be. This is Oikawa-fucking-Tooru we’re talking about!

He could do nothing but stare intently in a silent adoration as he allowed his heartbeat to meld with the smoothness of the melody, sweeping him out of Iwa-chan’s bedroom and into a whole other universe entirely. One where there exists no pain, no sadness, no fear. One where tears dried before they could even splatter upon the ground. One where everything was happy and perfect and...good.

—

IWA

Five years have passed, yet I miss him all the same. If anything, the ache has only grown to, somehow, prove itself increasingly unbearable over the time we’ve spent apart. My stare falls upon my guitar. Not the new one, which is this modern, flashy model with a bold red design, but my first-ever guitar, boasting its worn-out strings and dulled body. The hole in my heart digs itself impossibly deeper.

We had dated not long after that night—the night I played my song to him, and suddenly it became our song. We would whip it out like a handy party trick whenever we’d hangout with the rest of the team, and it was...nice to say the very least. Well, while it lasted, of course. Highschool love, teenage love, is constantly fleeting. Temporary. That was my philosophy at least, until Oikawa Tooru appeared and changed everything. I disregarded every sense of rationality, and all for the blissful rush of romance which he offered. The sneaking out, the small notes snuck into each other’s lockers, the way he draped his jacket over me when I got cold, the tender kisses shared in a darkened room.

I loved it. All of it. And when I lost him, I missed him too. All of him.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised, though. After all, teenage love is but a transient feeling, is it not? I had to drill the reiteration of my old motto back into my head when we split, so that I may never allow myself to yield to the temptations of love, or at least the attractive promise of one, ever again. Eventually, we had to go our separate ways. He pursued volleyball, and I chased relentlessly after a different growing passion of mine, though honestly rather unexpected; music.

And now here I am. Sitting backstage at my own show, waiting patiently for my cue. My foot taps a random rhythm against the floor as I mentally debate with myself whether or not my choice for the opening song truly was the best option.

I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?

He might be watching.

Fair, but would he even recognize me? Does he even remember me at all? I mean, it’s been so long...

I think he’d remember something as sentimental as the song you first played him. I mean, you were the first guy he ever dated.

Yeah, keyword: “ dated “. He’s probably moved on by now.

Shit, do you think he’s found someone new already? What if he brought them to the show?

Nah, nah. That’s highly unlikely. Impossible, even. The latter, that is. It’s not exactly that popular of a show.

Right, you’re right. So there’s nothing to worry about. Hakuna-fuckin-matata, right?

I suck in a sharp breath as the lights come on, laughing dryly.

Hakuna-fuckin-matata.

—

OIKAWA

My hands fiddle with one another as I push my way past the busy crowd to find a spot amongst the front row. A cheery girl with astonishingly-saturated red hair and an almoat-overwhelming brightness about her, greets me. I scoff, amused.

A fangirl, no doubt. Charming.

“ Oikawa! Ohmygoshohmygosh, Oikawa Tooru!! Hi!! I’m—I’m— “

I glance at the front row, which is only a few steps away, as her blubbered words start to blur together. I laugh.

“ A fan, right? Want my autograph or something? A picture, maybe? “

Her eyes light up vastly and she begins to bounce up and down with the same enthusiasm I’ve noticed to be common among practically all fangirls.

“ YES! Ohmygosh, yesyesyesYES!! “

My grin widens as I click my blue pen, which I carry around for autographs ( oh, the pains of being famous ), and hurriedly sign my name on her collared shirt. It was a fairly pretty garment, I’ll admit, but at this moment I didn’t really care, and I’m sure neither did she, judging by the way she squealed excitedly and took a spam of what had to be a million-and-one selfies with it.

I finally find a place among the jumping people at the front, taking in the atmosphere. The lights dim, and brighter white ones turn on in their place.

The show is about to start.

—

IWA

“ Hey, everyone. I— “ The mic whines with feedback. I wince, wrapping my free hand around it and trying again.

“ I’m—I’m opening with a song that’s very dear to me. I wrote it way back in highschool, but it’s always stuck with me, kinda like a safety net...of sorts. I uh, hope you enjoy. “

Shit, why am I being so damn awkward? I’ve never been this awkward before a show. Maybe it’s because of that damn opening song. Oh well. Too late to back out now.

Irritated, I push the thought away, wetting my lips as the drowning claps and whoops from the crowd cheer me on. My hand hovers just over the strings. It’s shaking. No matter. I close my eyes, and imagine him holding them. Him encompassing my hands within the warmth of his, just like he did all those years, which were now lost in the past. Him looking at me, him telling me it’s okay. Him.

I breathe all my nerves out.

Him.

And I begin to play.

The awkwardness melts away almost instantaneously as I pour every dripping ounce of my heart out into the song, the music swelling wildly with every emotion I had forced in for the dreariness of these five years. My eyes shoot open when the chorus hits. I feel like I’m king of the world.

I catch a familiar set of eyes. Richly brown. Deep.

Oh shit.

My breath hitches when I realize who they belong to; Him. His. He-

No, no, it couldn’t be. Could it?

It felt too real, as if I’ve somehow managed to reduce his very existence to nothing but romanticized self indulgent daydreams of what we once had, woven into the vast vagueness of song lyrics with a naïve hope of what could’ve been. And now here he was, at my concert of all places, for god knows what reason. The colourful lights fell upon his face in the most flattering manner, though admittedly I suppose anything would be flattering on him either way. But under this light especially, at my concert, he looked nothing short of perfect. Of lovely.

But of course he was. This was Oikawa-fucking-Tooru, after all.

The chorus hits with a sharp accent. I belt with all that I am, for the boy who took a rough sketch of a dream and made it reality, for the boy who found an unmatched sense of home among those of his highschool volleyball team, for the boy who wound up so foolishly falling in love with his best friend. For him, for my fans, but most of all, for me.

“ But when he loves me, I feel like I’m floating, when he calls me pretty, I feel like somebody— “

I maintain eye contact with him. It’s scary, burning holes into my tattered soul, which I had pieced together so carefully with cathartic lyrics scratched into the pages of creased notebooks. I’m secretly scared that his gaze will somehow break it all down again. But that’s when I finally understand; it’s him. This, this song, it’s about him. It’s always been about him. There will be no one else, could be no one else for me. That...sheer elation, the unfiltered emotion which sparked this song to begin with—I understood now. That was love. More specifically, love which my chest held for Oikawa. It’s as if I’ve been harshly disillusioned to see what I’d been unconsciously denying all these years, seeing him here. It’s always been Oikawa. How could I not have known? After all, I’m constantly recalling the day he held me in a tight embrace after one of our best matches, happy tears staining my damp jersey as he whispered in my ear the praise I’ve subconsciously always wished to hear.

“ You did good. “

Though it seems painfully mundane, simple to anyone else, it was...different, coming from his lips, hearing it in his voice. I took that compliment and kept it close to me for all eternity, immortalizing it within the varying notes of this song. I stare right back at him with a newfound fervour, an unknown intent, a epiphanic strength.

“ Even when we fade eventually to nothing, you will always be my favourite form of lovely. “

His eyes widen.

—

OIKAWA

My heart clenches as Iwa freely powers through the rest of the song. But during this moment, it feels as though it was created solely for us. As if the universe, as if fate itself had decided that despite the harshness of this world, and every little force fighting to keep us apart, this one moment, if anything, was ours. Truly ours. Our song, our moment. Ours. Time suspended itself indefinitely as the onyx hearth of his gaze finally met with mine. Unexpectedly enough, it stayed there.

And everything fell into place.

The song didn’t take me to a paradise without tears, or pain, or sorrow anymore. It took me to a place with Iwa in it. I realize now that...I want the tears. I want the pain. I want the grief. I want the good and the bad and the light and the dark, so long as I can have Iwa there with me through it all. I want him. All of him. I’ve want to love him enough to love his “ unglam “ moments and his admirable aspects all the same. I want to be there with him through every body-wrecking tear, every hearty laugh, and every glimmer of happiness. I want to be able to see the face he makes during a scary movie, to open an umbrella for him during the rain. I want to see the sunlight glow upon his cheek, I want to count the stars with him until I fall asleep. I want everything about him, for to me, he is everything. And it’s this song...this damned song which brought it all back.

It was ours. And I realize now...it was about...me. I mean, I’ll admit that I’ve always been a little more on the conceited side, but how could you deny it? It had to be. It had to. Had to. I wanted it to, at least. I wanted it to be about me so desperately, it sent a cold pain through my chest. A single, lonely tear falls down my cheek as the crowd around me erupts into a sea of laughter and off-tune singing from the audience.

What if it wasn’t? I mean, you guys broke up. You told him you moved on. Yes, it was a lie to lessen the pain, but he didn’t know that. What if it was about someone else completely and you’d just been an idiot this whole time? What if—

The concert comes to a close much faster than I thought it would, much faster than I would’ve ever wished for it to. I don’t know what I’m doing, what I’m thinking, but my legs move before I even have a chance to question them. I’ve always been one to think before acting, hence why I’m such a star on the court, but this time, my emotions seem to be taking over. I don’t know what’s come over me, what this unusual, hot feeling is. It’s exciting and intimidating all at once, and I hate it because I know what it must be. In a hot flash, I find myself standing at the door of Iwa’s changing room. How many bodyguards I must have recklessly shoved out of the way to get here in the blur of adrenaline, I don’t even want to begin to think about.

My hand freezes over the door. “ Iwa “ is engraved in bold gold letters with a deeply-etched star sticking out at the bottom. Taking a deep breath, I knock frantically.

“ I-Iwa-chan? It’s uh...it’s Oikawa. “

—

IWA

I pause in the midst of buttoning up my shirt. A solid three are left undone. But his voice...how could I ignore it? Ignore him? I haven’t heard his voice in what feels like eternity, but I’d be kidding myself if I had said I’d forgotten it. The constant yearning was always so irritating. Such a pain. At least it made for decent music, I mean, I’ve been booking shows. But alas, one problem before another.

“ O-Oikawa? “ I slowly pace to the doorknob as I twist it open.

Holy shit.

It is him after all. He hasn’t changed a bit. He remains the charming, handsome man I remember him to be, even after all this time has passed.

“ How’d you get—why are you here? “

“ Iwa, there’s...there’s just...there’s something I need to ask. “

“ Huh? “

“ That song...our song.... “

“ Shit, right! I, uh...sorry. I didn’t ask you about it because I honestly didn’t expect you to show up at all. It’s been what, five years? “ I stumble subtly over my words, rubbing the back of my neck.

He turns away sheepishly. Almost...longingly, even.

“ Yeah...it has. “

He clicks his tongue.

“ Who, uh...who was that song about? The curiosity’s been eating at me. “

A heat rises to my cheeks. A pause.

“ I—It—Ugh, fuck it. “

I’ve never been the best at talking directly to Oikawa, not since I realized that what I felt for him extended to something past the bounds of friendship. So I decided to do the only thing I knew to do in that moment—show him instead.

My lips crash against his as he slams the door behind him. The palpable tension between us is shattered immediately, and everything is faded out into insignificance. All that matters is the man in my arms, the man I’d been longing so desperately, so hopelessly for all this fucking time. I kiss him against the smoothness of the door, hands immediately trailing to his soft locks. I twirl and twine them as I see flashes, bright hues of heaven itself. His lips upon mine are the most perfect fit. His touch is painfully intoxicating, and I show him, wordlessly, with an unparalleled fervour—just who the song was about. He melts into it, matching my energy with a foreign sense of passion.

—

OIKAWA

“ Do you think...the universe is gonna try to separate us again? “ I ask softly, voice barely even a whisper. Tears wet my lashes at the very thought of being without him again. For those five years, though I was living my dream...it didn’t feel complete. Not without him. I blink them away aggressively, focusing on the night sky above us. My head is resting in his lap, and we’re simply...existing together beneath the curtain of darkened pools which hung above our twined bodies.

Iwa strokes my hair nonchalantly as he interlocks his fingers with mine. “ Of course. It always will. But we found each other didn’t we? And even after...even after this life has passed and we’re reduced to nothing but ash, I’m convinced we’ll meet again. One way or another. “

He tucks a straying tuft of hair from brushing my lashes.

“ Even then...even then you’ll still be my favourite form of lovely. Or whatever. “ He scoffs at his own over-poetic response, looking away with a tiny smirk.

“ Okay, Mr. Songwriter! “ I tease, nudging his side in a playful manner.

He rolls his eyes, bending down to kiss me once more.

For the first time in a long time, I feel complete. I’m on cloud 9.

#haikyuu fluff #haikyuu fic #haikyuu oikawa #haikyuu!!#fanfic #oikawa oneshot #oikawa scenarios #oikawa fic #iwaizumi x oikawa #iwaoi #iwaoi fic #iwaizumi imagine #iwazumi imagines #oikawa tooru #iwaizumi hajime

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ladyloveandjustice · 4 years

Text

Winter 2020 Anime Overview: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

Ok, so let’s get this out of the way first, 1. I adore this story so much and 2. Toilet Bound Hanako-kun has a horrible, horrible English title that is not actually at all representative of the story’s content and I have no idea what happened when it came to the team choosing that name. To the average English-speaking viewer/reader, this name 100% implies gross stuff and bathroom humor, and there is none in this show.

A Japanese reader on the other hand, would be more likely to recognize the name Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun as a spin on the classic ghost story “Hanako-san of the Toilet” only A BOY THIS TIME WHHHHA?” Basically, the story goes that a girl named Hanako in a red skirt haunts girls’ bathrooms in Japanese schools and if you knock on the third stall and call “Hanako-san” three times, she’ll appear. She might grant you a wish or pull you into Hell or something else, it varies.

(Her Wikipedia image, aww.)

Anyway, I dunno why the English title didn’t at least go with “Toilet Ghost Hanako-kun” or something that would have gotten the premise across even a little better (HE NOT TECHNICALLY BOUND BY THE TOILET EVEN, HE CAN GO ANYWHERE IN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS THE BATHROOM IS JUST HIS HOME BASE), but our boy Hanako haunting the girl’s bathroom only leads to broad jokes about our heroine being tasked with cleaning the bathroom and “dude you really shouldn’t be in here” comments, it’s pretty incidental.

Now that THAT’S out of the way, let’s talk about my LOVE FOR THIS STORY

Hanako-kun tells the story of a “regular” high school girl named Nene Yashiro, the mischievous and mysterious school ghost she befriends, and all the other weird monsters, exorcists, spirits and curses they encounter. It’s got a gorgeous, colorful bold aesthetic and art style that combines gothic and cute! It has a great mix of humor, intrigue, angst and fantasy action. basically if you love ghosts, monsters, Japanese mythology and legends, supernatural-human relationships, supernaturally fueled angst and drama, stories about trying to fix an unfair system the world has set up, wistful romance, a good shoujo manga with a Lot of Feelings (yes this is a shonen technically I’ll explain that later), weirdo dorks becoming friends AND MUCH MORE...this story will have something that will resonate with you. It’s got a lot going on, and it’s a ton of fun.

Hanako-kun is really one of those surprising stories that fits right into a hole in my story-loving heart I didn’t realize was still there, or that I’d actually been carrying since childhood. I love ghosts, see, and have since I was a kid!!! I knew this, but I kinda forgot how intensely I love them until this show reminded me again??? That’s because regular ghost stories/mysteries/whatever- I like them, but they don’t quite do it for me in the way more character-driven ones exploring the nature of being a ghost and humans and ghosts trying understand each other etc do. Stuff that really gets into the tragedy AND the fun fantasy aspect of ghosts, and plays the long game with it- and Hanako-kun scratches that itch perfectly.

Getting a little bit deeper into the premise of Hanako-kun, Nene is a very brave and sweet but not-all-that-bright girl (or, to put it more bluntly, she’s an idiot in the best way) who has a lot of romantic fantasies and insecurities and is VERY focused on them. After hearing a rumor at school that “Hanako-san of the bathroom” will grant wishes, she wishes to be able to confess to her crush and finds out its actually a weird ghost boy her age named Hanako haunting the bathroom! A lot of things happen, and she ends up cursed and bound to Hanako-kun, but also ends up slowly forming a friendship.

Turns out Hanako is the ghost in charge of the “seven mysteries/wonders” aka seven powerful supernatural entities that haunt this school (he’s number seven). These apparitions only supposed to terrorize students a LITTLE, because apparitions need to have rumors spread about them to remain in the human world.

(‘HAVE YOU HEARD?’ Oh hey shadow girls from Utena see you’ve moved to a new school.)

The rumors also generally dictate how powerful and dangerous the apparitions actually are- but SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS is changing the rumors around the school and making the apparitions go berserk and actually harm humans. So Hanako needs a human assistant to change the rumors and help him calm and seal the apparitions! That’s where Nene comes in.

Hanako himself is a very fun character- he’s very chaotic and revels in his whole “ gremlin ghost” persona, and is upfront about being a bit of an asshole. BUT he also makes his kindness, often good intentions and the fact he’ll have his friends back when it counts obvious from the beginning. B U T! He’s also got darkness and hidden depths to explore, and a lot of his persona is affected and masks deeper issues!

Our ghost boy is genuinely A TAD unstable deep down (as in he straight up has several untreated PTSD symptoms and that’s as disastrous as you’d expect) and packing some serious tragic backstory, as you might expect from a kid who died young and carries around a butcher’s knife, and it’s gonna come back to bite him and and all who care about him hard.

Especially when an overly enthusiastic exorcist named Kou Minamoto shows up! Kou is another one who’s very dumb and very good, a wannabe-shonen-protag with a heart of gold and strong sensitive, domestic side. He rounds out our main trio. Also he gets a tragic, emotionally intense relationship with yet another ghost boy that sings to my heart.

(Yes Hanako’s helping Nene to do the thing)

You may be able to tell, this story has INTENSE good-shoujo vibes despite technically being a shonen in a way that I love- it’s story very driven by big emotions, a variety of fucked up and tragically complex relationships, teen hormones running wild, etc, and it’s just delicious.

Nene is the normal-person-audience-surrogate-girl in a way that is more common for a shoujo protag, and the way her emotional connections to everyone, her sweeping romantic fantasies and her interiority are consistently in focus when she’s there- yeah, she’s definitely a plucky shoujo protag, 100%. And I’m all about that!!!

One thing I especially appreciate (though this comes across more strongly in the manga than the anime thanks to the anime rearranging things) is when Nene finds out about Hanako’s Heavy Baggage, she actually takes some time to herself to consider whether she can handle dealing with someone with these intense issues as a kid who’s never encountered stuff like this before- it’s not assumed by the story that the Sweet Girl is Obligated to help the Tragic Boy. I go into more detail about this part in this part here, but it’s that kind of attention to Nene’s needs that makes her role in the story work. Hanako and Nene and everyone’s struggles to get the hang of and properly navigate honest communication and mutual support in relationships are often really great and real-feeling

The story has a lot more things I love packed in to it- a dorky-but-still-deeply-unsettling villain gang who’s screwed up interactions are just as fun as our protagonists, yokai, A CURSED LIBRARY, some great ladies in addition to Nene, meditations on the nature of life, death, themes about fighting nihilism, and so on...I could seriously go on forever. It’s good stuff, and there’s lots of good weird supernaturals to meet.

The story’s also got tons of intrigue! The overarching plot and Hanako’s Mysterious Past is still in the process of unfolding, but it’s been great drama every step of the way! As mentioned before, the story also really relies on funny character dynamics, interaction and development to carry the whole thing and balance the drama.

The anime itself does have some pacing issues bc they crammed a lot into the first season and rearranged some stuff- an entire two chapter arc was skipped and was unlikely to be covered in the anime and some parts are noticeably rushed. I still really like the anime and it’s a solid adaptation. I love how much of the manga’s detailed aesthetic it managed to keep as well as the amazing voice acting and it made a few small but important additions. But there are some notable bumps- of course this just led me to go binge the manga (up to volume 12 is legally available digitally) and BOY DO I NOW LOVE THIS STORY EVEN MORE.

Now obviously, just because it is Exactly My Shit in a lot of ways doesn’t mean Hanako-kun is the much quested for “unproblematic fave”, there’s several caveats you should probs be aware of- its shoujo vibes also mean some classic shoujo ~Problematic tropes~ and a couple shounen ones.

THE LIST:

-Just as a general content overview thing: if this wasn’t clear the show deals heavily with death, body horror and other horror aspects. There’s heavily implied suicide and abuse and so on- as mentioned, the main character is traumatized and shows a lot of symptoms of PTSD, and Nene has to struggle to navigate her relationship with him because of this, as does Kou.

-Hanako himself has the whole ~loveable pervert~ and ~slightly possessive shoujo bad boy~ schtick going as part of his mischevious persona. In the anime so far, he never actually gropes or comments on not-in-his-naughty-mags-people’s breasts or anything of that level thankfully, but he’s very flirty, clingy, will loudly bring up porn, fond of the ol’ *says something that purposefully sounds sexually possessive* HAHAHA U THOUGHT I MEANT SOMETHING DIRTY RIGHT LOL ACTUALLY I DIDN’T.”

(My unnecessary ‘this part is kinda interesting!’ ramble: Nene always lists “sexual harassment” among Hanako’s flaws (she loves listing them), but doesn’t get visibly uncomfortable with his flirtiness or seem to mind it most times, which at least makes the whole thing more tolerable for me.

(since she doesn’t seem to mind that part and its clear he does it bc of actual affection for her, it’s actually p. cute how huggy he is.)

The one time it does cross the line and genuinely upset her, it’s treated seriously, Hanako is genuinely regretful and apologizes. That’s one of my fave moments in the story and the way it’s handled is well done.

This incident that he’s honestly pretty socially clueless as kid who died young and a lot of his bravado is to cover that up and keep people at a distance- this is a trope into itself that can use unpacking but I do at least appreciate that this is a considered character trait that’s part of his whole messed up package rather than something that thrown in there Just to Be a Fanservice Trope. (Especially since the manga confirms he never acted particularly pervy while alive, further cementing this is an affected persona).

-There’s a running gag around Nene’s insecurity over her thick ‘daikon shaped’ ankles and boys treating her badly for it.

One one hand, her body image issues are relatable, on the other, it feels cruel and annoying just how much the show finds ways to bring it up and humiliate her over and over again.

(My unnecessary “this is part is kinda interesting” ramble:The one thing i did realize that despite bringing it up constantly, we at least have no “i’m going to do this to lose weight” or “go on a diet” rhetoric,like this is just part of Nene’s body type and she knows she can’t change it? Which is kinda interesting. And I’ve spotted what might be foreshadowing something plot relevant’s going to happen with her ankles (I DON’T KNOW HOW, BUT GOD I PUT NOTHING PAST THIS STORY) so uh yeah??? either way it’s not good tho)

-”Obsessive and twisted love” is a running theme in this story, and while it’s generally acknowledged as unhealthy, it can be played for comedy in a way that could make viewers/readers uncomfortable. There’s a couple characters who’s entire thing so far is “obsessively in love with this one person” (and the one only focused on in the manga so far is one of the least interesting characters tbh ugh)

-The antagonist of the show is a member of a main character’s family, and the manner he acts towards pretty much everyone, including (and really especially) his family member, verges on seductive. This is presented as deliberately unsettling and treated as a marker of how unstable and scary he is- and though the backstory between them hasn’t been fully delved into, it’s pretty much all but confirmed he abused this family member physically and emotionally.

-The story has like, A LOT of queer subtext and pretty-heavy queer coding for one character especially, but the few times queerness blatantly comes up in the story, it’s played as a joke in the “haha that’d be kinda weird” way (aside from the rando boys who have a crush on Teru, handled pretty neutrally). It’s not as malicious as a lot of animanga can get (ONE MANGA INCIDENT ASIDE), but it’s something to Be Aware Of, and it makes it clear we’re unlikely to see subtext rise to text and makes some moments feel baity.

-And probably more I might have missed! The manga also has Some Shit in addition all the Good Shit that hasn’t been adapted yet, an early arc has Hanako crossing a serious line etc.

BUT despite how messy it is, I think it’s clear I have a lot of love for this story. In fact, I wouldn’t trade away a good chunk of its messiness (DEFINITELY SOME JUST NOT ALL), it kinda works for the characters and works in the “this story really feed my inner teen” way. Some of the trashy parts are exactly My Trash, basically.

So, I knew I’d ramble on for a while when I talked about his show, but if you’ve read this far, thanks, and I hope that means you’re gonna check out and maybe enjoy this story, bc i need more people to join me in Hanako Hell.

#toilet bound hanako kun #jibaku shounen hanako kun #jibaku shonen hanako kun #winter 2020 anime #anime overview #hanako kun #nene yashiro #yashiro nene #kou minamoto #minamoto kou #yugi amane #amane yugi #my reviews

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personne-reblogs · 4 years

Note

Hello! Idk if you still accepting ficlet prompt or not, but if you do, would you mind if I request a combination of 2 fluff prompts between 52. “i’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.” and 18. “are you that desperate?” “for you, yes.”, for OPM ship Batarou? Thank you very much 🙏💖

Whoopsie, I went a little wild with this one... well, you didn’t give me any word count and I was very inspired by the shameless flirt so I included prompts 55, 61, 62 and 63 as well. Thanks Anon, I had so much fun!! Hope y’all will like it!

Fandom: One Punch Man Ship: Batarou Word count: 4k Summary: Lately, Badd has been haunted by a ghost. Kinda. It looks like a guy with white spiky hair, but Badd's the only one to see it. It's following him everywhere, and it's able to help him fight monsters, and it Won't. Stop. Flirting.

Read under the cut or read on AO3!

A Ghost Story

***

There have been better days, Badd sighs to himself. The rain that ruined his carefully stylished hair this morning, the Hero Association meeting that took his entire afternoon, the busy traffic that almost made him late for his ice cream appointment with Zenko, the empty fridge that has him walking to the nearest nightshop at this late hour.

“You look amazing tonight,” a predatory voice purrs behind him.

Ah, yes. And the ghost that has been following him for days and won’t shut the fuck up.

“You’re still here, huh?” Badd asks without thinking, and immediately regrets it.

“Not like I’ve got anywhere else to be, dumbass,” the ghost replies, and Badd suddenly feels tired. He’s heard this shit, like, a thousand times already, and it’s been less than a week. “You should have registered by now. Nobody’s that stupid.”

“Hey, watch it, asshole,” Badd grunts defensively. “‘s been a long day, okay?”

“Oh yeah? How come I didn’t see any of that?”

There’s a smirk in the ghost’s tone, and Badd doesn’t even need to turn around to know there’s a teasing look printed on its face.

“Not every hard day is about fighting, y’know. Regular human stuff is exhausting too.”

“Right,” the ghost says, and there’s a pout in that.

Badd walks through the night shop's door and automatically goes for the drink aisle. He knows the ghost comes in too, but it mercifully keeps quiet.

It first appeared after Badd killed a random tiger-level monster on his way back from Zenko’s school. It has the form of a dude with strange white, spiky hair. A dude who looks like he practises a lot of sport - something contact-ish, martial arts, maybe. At first Badd thought it really was a random guy that had arrived after the monster was dead, but then the thing had followed him everywhere, claiming it was stuck with him, and Badd had realized he was the only one to see it. Creepy.

Now the ghost - that’s all Badd can think of to describe it - is part of his life, whether he likes it or not. It usually appears at night, when it’s dark outside, maybe cuz it doesn’t like daylight or some shit. Except it also appears each time Badd is in a fight. Even in plain day. Hell if he knows why.

“Keep the change,” he tells the cashier before heading back home with a fresh bottle of coke. He’s addicted to it these days. Can’t sleep early, so he might as well treat himself with something sweet while he endures endless conversations with the thing.

“I’ve always wanted to try it,” the ghost says conversationally as soon as they’re out in the street, because of course it won’t keep quiet any longer. God, Badd feels so tired.

“I’d gladly share it with you, but, you know,” he replies as mockingly as he can, turning around and slightly shaking the bottle before opening it and taking a long sip. He makes a show of savouring it just because he can and the thing can’t. It can’t touch anything real, actually, and isn’t that a fucking ghost thing?

Except it does manage to hit monsters in fights. It has happened before. Weird.

The ghost narrows its eyes at him and crosses its arms, but a twisted smile stretches its lips.

“Yeah, but you offered anyways. See? You’re cute when you’re half asleep.”

It really Won’t. Stop. Teasing.

Will it?

***

It’s two in the afternoon when he gets a call from the Hero Association. There’s a demon level threat across town, he’s the closest S-class hero around. He immediately goes to the location they sent him - he was bored anyway.

He’s surprised by the looks of the monster once he’s there. For its level, it happens to be… small, actually. Not even the size of a human being. It jumps in and out of sight, hides behind public bins, and destroys buildings as if they were nothing.

Shit. That one’s gonna be a pain in the ass.

“Fucking finally,” an unexpected, hungry voice hisses behind him, and he realizes he almost forgot about The Thing.

It’s been two entire weeks and he almost bloody forgot.

“Stay outta my way,” Badd orders, his grip tightening on his bat, his eyes searching the place to find the monster back. It’s gonna be complicated enough without the ghost distracting him.

“Yeah, right,” the voice laughs next to him.

“Dude, I really have no time for yer -”

He stops mid-sentence because there is suddenly a building collapsing beside him, and he doesn’t even have time to swear before he gets a glimpse of the monster across the street. It seems like it is avoiding contact, staying out of reach -

And then, in a blur, the ghost rushes past him to throw itself on the monster.

Literally.

He can’t make out what happens after that, not amongst the dust from the demolition, so he runs after them.

When he finds them back, the monster lies motionless on the floor. The ghost is casually sitting on a rubble, an arm thrown around its knee, a ferocious smile spreading wide on its face.

“Gosh, I’ve missed this,” it says as if it were talking about going for a walk in the sun.

It looks that refreshed, at least. Neat.

“What the shit?!” Badd barks, because even though he’s impressed, he doesn’t like losing control of the situation.

“Not the first time I give you a hand, you know. No big deal.”

“I would’ve handled this perfectly well on my own, thank you very much.”

“Yeah, and you would’ve destroyed the entire fucking city, so, you’re welcome.”

“Ghost, I swear -”

“Oh, honey, I thought we were past that,” the ghost says with an exaggerated hurt look.

“Past what?” Badd asks confusedly.

“I have a name, you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“What?”

The ghost looks genuinely surprised, and it shouldn’t, but it makes Badd feel extremely satisfied.

“You never mentioned it. Your name.”

“I - really?”

The ghost shakes its head with an incredulous chuckle. It gets up from the rubble, comes a few steps closer, and presents Badd its hand.

“Call me Garou.”

Badd shouldn’t try to shake that hand. It doesn’t exist. His own hand would pass through it and he’d look like a fucking moron.

But he’s curious, so he does it anyway.

And it turns out it feels exactly like a regular handshake.

“Hi. I’m Badd.”

***

He his a martial art type of guy.

Badd has seen him in enough fights to know for sure now. It’s not just the vibe and the looks - whenever they’re in a fight, the ghost Garou uses sharp, precise techniques Badd could only dream of.

Not that he’s interested in martial arts, but he has to admit it’s quite effective.

Especially when Garou single-handedly brings strong ass opponents down like that.

Hot.

“Pfff, no fun,” Garou sighs, disappointed, before coming back to Badd. He always does. Something to do with him being physically unable to wander too far away from his human host, or some shit.

“It isn’t supposed to be fun, but whatever,” Badd points out while poking at his own enemy with his bat, just to check. It’s dead alright.

“You say that because you’re not strong enough to have a good time.”

“Right,” Badd says. He has given up on reacting to Garou’s teasing. It’s no use.

“Maybe you’d be more useful in fights if you weren’t so busy staring at me,” Garou goes on.

Badd only raises a very unamused eyebrow at him.

“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice,” his ghost insists with that stupid, smug expression of his. He even - wait, was that a bloody wink?

“Urgh, I’m gonna be sick,” Badd tiredly mumbles as he turns around to leave the scene. Now that the fight is over, Garou will soon disappear for the rest of the day. Meanwhile, there’s a piano recital Badd needs to attend.

To be honest, he’s getting used to this whole ghost thing. Garou can handle himself in a fight. Hell, he can even be of some real use, Badd has to give him that.

Such a shame he’s that much of a big mouth. It’s been almost a month now, and his lame pickup lines still exhaust him.

***

When the evening is quiet and the weather is soft, Badd loves to just sit on the wooden stairs behind his house and chill. Zenko often joins him, and they chat, or she just reads a book until it’s time for her to get to bed.

That time was half an hour ago. Now Badd is alone with Tama, purring loudly in his lap as he pets her, and he simply enjoys doing nothing.

He doesn’t really notice the nightfall.

“It’s late,” a familiar voice says in a sugar-coated tone. “Shouldn’t you be asleep?”

Badd tilts his head to find his ghost in his usual sitting position, one elbow casually resting on his knee, a few steps higher.

He recognizes the question for what it actually is: an attempt at starting some small talk. He’s not in the mood, so he shrugs, and suppresses a grimace when the gesture makes his bandaged shoulders sting a bit. Then he shifts to find a more comfortable position and resumes petting Tama without answering.

Garou doesn’t insist. Nice.

They spend a moment like that, in silence, and with the light breeze brushing his washed hair, Badd thinks he could fall asleep right there. The adrenaline of the fight he’s had this afternoon has finally worn off, and he feels tired, but in a good way - it’s a physical weariness, not the nervous tension he’s been used to lately.

After a while, his ghost is talking again, and it would annoy Badd if not for the genuine curiosity in his voice.

“Just wanted to ask, about earlier… How did you do that?”

“What d’ya mean?”

“I saw that monster beat the shit out of you,” Garou says, and he sounds suspicious. “You were out, man. How the fuck did you get up and win after that?”

“Not thanks to you, asshole,” Badd groans, but there isn’t any bite to it. He’s actually smirking a little.

“That kind of brute? Not my style,” his ghost snorts with a disgusted expression. “Besides, I wanted to see how you’d manage without me, and… shit, I still don’t know what I’ve seen.”

Badd doesn’t know what he’s done to make an impression on fucking Killing Machine Garou, but hell if he doesn’t secretly feel very pleased.

“Just some good old fighting spirit,” he replies in a carefully neutral tone.

“Come again?”

“Y’know. When you get all angry at stuff. Makes you go wild.”

“You… were angry,” Garou repeats incredulously.

“Well, duh! Wasn’t gonna let that jackass waste any more of my time,” Badd explains blandly, and he doesn’t get what’s so hard to understand.

He turns to watch Garou, and catches him staring right back, eyes wide in a shocked expression. Then the ghost bursts out laughing, and it startles Badd, because it isn’t one of his damn chuckles: it’s an actual, full-throated laugh.

“What?” he asks, not knowing if he should feel cheerful or offended.

“You’re really something else,” Garou wheezes, theatrically pretending to wipe a tear away. “Man, I wish you’d killed my last host sooner - where were you all this time?!”

“You mean, that tiger level monster back when I met ya?”

“Yep,” Garou nods, sobering up a little. “I’ve been stuck with it for years. Never been so bored in my whole sorry existence. The bastard spent most of its time hiding from humans.”

“Why didn’t you kill it?”

“Because I can’t, obviously. I can touch my hosts, but I’m physically unable to harm them. I thought you’d figured that much out,” Garou explains, and his voice is regaining its teasing tone already.

“So that’s why you still haven’t tried to killed me,” Badd deadpans, feeling a little more up for banter than a moment ago.

“That, and also, who would you talk to if you didn’t have me?”

“Yeah, yeah, let’s pretend I’m not the one who’d kick your ass, why don’t we.”

“SAY WHAT??”

***

Garou doesn’t know exactly where he is during the day, when his host isn’t involved in a fight. Time passes differently, and for the most of it, he isn’t really conscious. It’s like he’s in some kind of stasis. And then, when he’s awake, he’s full of energy in a way humans probably can’t imagine. He wants to talk, to run, to explode and to scream. He wants to exist.

That’s why he likes fighting so much. It makes him feel useful. It makes him feel real. It’s the proof that he can leave his mark on a world he sometimes doubts he’s a part of. He’s had countless years to train, and he’s become strong - strong enough that he’s having a good time whatever the enemy.

But, well, fighting isn’t everything. He’s had dozens of hosts, and he’s never been able to walk too far away from them without slipping into his awkward rest mode again - only to find himself stuck with the same host when he wakes up again. Which always turns up to be incredibly boring. Between humans who mostly sleep at night and monsters who sometimes don’t talk at all, Garou has learnt the hard way that he’s, in fact, a talkative guy. And isn’t that a great thing to be when the only being in the whole universe who can see and hear you is your current host?

Garou has had his fair share of boredom, to say the least.

“Hey, dipshit, you awake?”

That’s why he’s more than happy with his new host.

“When have you seen me sleep before?” Garou replies with a playful smirk, tilting his head towards the voice.

It’s dark, and he’s outside, leaning his shoulder against the external wall of the house, arms crossed onto his chest. Badd is standing a few paces further and is giving him a vaguely annoyed look.

“Haven’t heard what I just said, have ya? We’re goin’ for a walk. Come on.”

“Why, babe, it almost sounds like a date,” Garou teases in his cheesiest tone.

“We’re out of food for Tama,” Badd goes on, unbothered, as if Garou hadn’t spoken at all. Damn, he’s good at ignoring him.

“Guess it can’t be helped,” Garou sighs loudly, trying very hard not to give away how eager he actually is to just… do something. Anything.

“Don’t make that face. We’ll make a lil’ detour by that shitty park - you know the one. Who knows what we might find there, at such an hour?” Badd grins, shifting his grip on his bat, and it seems like he’s eager, too.

Yeah, Garou thinks with an amused expression as he follows Badd into the street, that’s got to be his best host ever. Badd does sleep, of course, but far less than the average human - or, well, much later, so there’s that. He’s a hero, so he’s involved in more battles than Garou can count - and he’s good at fighting, in his own way. Not exactly the fast, calculated fighting Garou is used to, but rather a raw, brutal style, with a strength and a resilience that has forced Garou’s admiration more than once (meaning his host probably won’t die on him anytime soon - not that Garou would let that happen, anyway). Last but not least, Badd is fun to talk to, even if Garou’s constant teasing never seems to pull any reaction out of him - and that’s new, because all his previous hosts had let him get to their nerves so easily, but Badd won’t even acknowledge his little game, which is fun, too.

It’s fun because it allows him to push as far as he wants without risking damaging the balance they have found, and the domesticity of it is making him more relaxed than he’s ever been.

The park is quiet and empty when they get there. Garou tries not to feel frustrated, and fails. He’s glad he can stretch his legs a little, but he really could use some action right now. It’s been days since they last were in a fight.

“Shit, we’ll have to actually buy food for your stupid cat, won’t we,” Garou mutters.

“Don’t call her that,” Badd snaps, looking down at his phone. “But yeah, looks like everything’s fine tonight. Let’s go before the nightshop closes.”

So Badd won’t react to shameless flirting, but he will defend his goddamn cat. Garou smiles as he stores the information for later use, and makes to turn around and leave - except he doesn’t.

He suddenly feels like his whole body is being weighed down. He frowns down at his feet and insists.

He stays perfectly still.

“Well, well,” a smug voice says, “That’s a pretty friend you’ve got here, Metal Bat.”

Garou furrows his brow harder. There’s a man approaching - a random dude, all dressed up in a suit, hands in his pockets. On Garou’s left, Badd moves freely to face the newcomer.

“I dunno what yer talkin’ about,” his host says, sounding only mildly annoyed. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Thomas J. Lambert, at your service,” the guy introduces himself with assurance as he comes to a stop right before Badd. His attitude exhales cockiness and audacity. Garou already hates him.

“Never heard of ya,” Badd casually drops, as unimpressed as he always is. Which seems to suck a little of the fun out of the guy. Oh, he’s really good at this.

“Well, let’s just say that I’m an esper with… very specific abilities,” the douchebag goes on, and he sounds just a tad irritated. “I can feel the aura of your pet from miles away,” he adds, not even bothering to glance in Garou’s direction.

What a prick.

“I can hear you, y’know,” Garou interjects.

“And I can interact with it, too. My power is keeping it paralyzed as we talk,” Thomas Jerk What’s-His-Name goes on, and he still won’t spare a glance at Garou. Badd does, though.

“Ya better hurry up and spit out what ya wanna say already,” he mutters, expression halfway between nonplussed and upset.

“It’s simple, really. I can rid you of this parasite - in exchange for financial compensation, naturally.”

“Oi! I’m right here,” Garou repeats louder, because he is beginning to lose his patience. He tries against his invisible restraints, without success.

His host is silent for long enough that Garou looks back up at him, and he is stunned to see Badd is grinning slightly.

Like he finds this whole situation funny.

The bastard.

“I’d make you a special price, of course,” Mr Jackass is still saying. “It would be my pleasure to help a S-Class hero out. What do you say?”

There’s a short silence.

Then Badd makes the most self-satisfied, shit-eating smile Garou has ever seen.

“How much would that be, exactly?”

“YOU ABSOLUTE ASSHO-”

“OKAY! Okay! Jesus,” Badd laughs, before turning back to the guy. “Sorry, fella, that’s… kind of you, I guess? but I’m not interested.”

“Are you certain, sir? Just think about it,” the son of a bitch insists. “I’m sure a hero like you could use a little peace at night.”

“Nah, I’m fine, thanks. Let him go, we’re moving,” Badd says as he begins to walk towards the exit of the park - only for the guy to block his way, hands lifted in a soothing attitude.

“What about the next host, then? Surely you wouldn’t willfully condemn someone to wear that burden after you.”

“Someone would hafta kill me first, and it ain’t for so soon.” Badd is probably starting to feel pissed, because he’s articulating every word distinctly, voice low and threatening. “I said I’m not interested. Let. Him. Go.”

The brat suddenly seems hesitant, but the pressure around Garou’s body doesn’t lessen. What is he playing at? No one in their right mind would want to get on Badd’s ner-

“I didn’t want it to come to this,” the walnut says, and his voice doesn’t sound human at all anymore.

Three things happen simultaneously. The force blocking Garou slightly diminishes, allowing him to take a single, difficult step forward. Badd falls down on one knee, as if he is now being crushed. And the suit of the esper tears itself apart, revealing a slender figure with what looks like a second pair of arms.

A monster.

“Can’t say I was expecting to run into Metal Bat today,” the monster crackles, and its face doesn’t have anything human left either. “But you happen to be linked to a very powerful creature. I need to kill it to absorb its energy.”

“As if,” Garou snarls, taking another heavy step forward, struggling to regain more control over his body. Come on. Come on!

“I can’t have you protecting that thing,” the monster goes on, as if it doesn’t know how to shut the fuck up anymore. “But I don’t mean you any harm. We don’t have to be enemies. I’ll just keep you still while I take care of it.”

From the corner of his eye, Garou sees Badd brace himself on his bat and start to get up, but the monster points a finger at him, and he’s sent back to his knees.

The pressure on Garou loosens up a little more.

That fucker can’t immobilize us both completely, he realizes.

He tentatively straightens himself up and rolls his shoulders. His muscles feel heavy and slow as they strain against the still-there tension, but they obey him. He smirks. I can work with that.

“Your pet is still too weakened to overcome me, any-”

The monster is interrupted as Garou tackles it to the ground.

The close up fight is messy - a bit too much for Garou’s liking. He has to put all his focus on every move he makes, and even like that, he can feel how uncharacteristically slow and weak his attacks are.

“Shit,” he hisses against his better judgement when the monster hits him square in the shoulder. It doesn’t exactly hurt, but it does make him take a step back, and damn, he should have ducked that one.

He knows he should go for the arms. If he could tear one or two off, he’d have more room to use his usual techniques. But the esper knows better than to let Garou get too close, which is infuriating. It constantly jumps just out of reach, and only hits when Garou’s momentum prevents him from reacting in time.

I could use some fucking fighting spirit right now, Garou thinks, and he almost chuckles at the thought. Badd’s style isn’t always the most refined, but in Garou’s position, he’d probably still have enough raw strength to beat the shit out of that motherfucker.

Shame Badd isn’t in Garou’s position. The esper had said it’d concentrate on keeping the hero out of this, which is why Garou can move at all. Big fucking A.

Garou is pulled out of his thoughts as something punches him hard in the stomach, and the hit sends him flying a few feet away. “Dammit,” he swears as he raises to his feet again, reaching to the trail of blood that leaks from his mouth with trembling fingers.

He’s already getting tired.

And the monster only seems to become faster with each passing moment.

Its attacks still aren’t powerful enough to cause any serious injury, but time isn’t playing in Garou’s favor here.

I need to end this, he thinks. The sooner the better. He takes a deep breath and shifts his weight on his feet. He won’t win by his usual ways. He needs to rely less on the speed he currently doesn’t have, and to focus more on the few hits he can land if he wants to -

Right behind him, the monster emits something that might be a giggle, and Garou realizes it’s must closer than he’d thought.

He startles, turns on his heels, puts his guard up and braces himself -

The monster is hit by a metal bat on its side and violently crushes into the trees nearby, leaving greenish, fuming fluids all over the place.

Badd is standing in its place, and his face is maculated in red.

“You’re bleeding,” his host informs him, slightly out of breath.

Garou can’t believe this guy.

“I’m - ?! Dude, your face! What happened?”

“Hit myself,” Badd shrugs, swinging his now red-and-green bat on his shoulder, keeping an eye on the monster’s form where it landed. “To clear my mind of that jerk’s shit.”

“You -”

Garou trails off, because he needs a while to process this. A few paces away, the monster wiggles sluggishly - it isn’t dead yet, as the slight pressure still weighting Garou down should have let him know, and they should go on and finish it now, but he’s too stunned to get a move on.

So instead, he blinks and lets himself slip into more familiar ground as he cracks a flirtatious smile.

“Really? You hit your own head with your fucking bat just to give me a hand?” he grins cockily. “Man, are you that desperate?”

“For you, yes,” Badd states - he doesn’t whisper it, he doesn’t shy away from it, he states it, loud and plain, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

Like it doesn’t make Garou suddenly feel warm all over.

For the first time ever, he doesn’t know what to say.

“Oh, so you’re the biggest bloody flirt there is, but I can’t flirt back?” Badd teases him with an all too knowing grin, before casually walking to the monster and delivering it the final blow.

Garou can feel his invisible restrains vanishing, but he still doesn’t know how to move. Or how to talk, for that matter.

“Come on,” Badd laughs as he shakes his bat to rid it of the monster’s gore. “If we run, we can make it to the nightshop in time to buy Tama’s food.”

“Wait-” Garou yells after him. “Wait, did you actually -”

“Come on!” Badd yells back, tone playful, and he’s already gone.

For a few more seconds, Garou just stands there, arms stupidly hanging at his sides, mind gone completely blank. Then a wide, amused, unbelieving smile spreads on his face, and he chases after Badd.

He’s blushing hard, but he can’t bring himself to care.

Badd cares.

And they have all the time in their intertwined lives to figure things out.

#one punch man #opm #ask #prompt #garou #metal bat #badd #batarou #shameless flirt #ghost story #kinda #ficlet #fic #original content

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all-hail-the-witcher · 4 years

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every book i had to read for english and why i didn't like any of them

i woke up thinking about this and decided to make this post. for context, i went to public school and was on the honors/ap track for english. i am a firm believer that english teachers ruin books for their students inadvertently. this is my experience:

6th grade language arts

we read three books during 6th grade, bridge to terabithia, the cay, and where the red fern grows. and i had to read a wrinkle in time over the summer which i didn't understand like at all so I'm just gonna skip that one honors english was not a thing until 8th grade where i went to middle school so this was a regular english class and i hated it. it was also a double period class for some reason, so i had an hour and a half of language arts every day.

it took us half the year to read bridge to terabithia. i am not kidding. that book is like maybe 100 pages and it took us a good 4-5 months. this is because our teacher stopped us every time we got to a pice of figurative language and made us analyze it. every. single. piece. i got so bored that i read ahead and then got in trouble for reading ahead. needless to say, i absolutely detested bridge to terabithia and would not touch it to this day if my life depended on it.

after bridge to terabithia we read the cay. this took us the rest of the year. the cay is a relatively short book as well so i got bored with this one quickly as well. i really dont remember much about the discussions, but i remember a long one about how the cover was “inaccurate,” which, yes, it was but i dont know if a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds need to spend a week debating that. i think i hated it mostly because, again, we read it for 5 months.

the last three weeks of the school year, our teacher gave us a book and said “here read this before school ends because we have to read three books a year and we only read 2″ (for context, the other language arts class had read about 5-7 books that year and found it insane that we were “still reading bridge to terabithia”) so i read where the red fern grows. all in all it wasn't a bad book, i did kind of enjoy it, but since i was rushed reading it on top of all my other homework and because it was definitely ahead of my reading comprehension level, it wasn't my favorite.

7th grade language arts

now, a bit of a disclaimer here, this was the year that i was in language arts with the guy i had a crush on and one of my close friends at the time. so, i didn't really pay that much attention to begin with. we read quite a few books in this class, but I'm not sure if i remember all of them. again, this was a double period.

i think the first book we read was freak the mighty. i remember not liking this book because i felt like i was missing something. there was definitely some kind of metaphor or something in there that i was supposed to get but because i was literally twelve i didn't get it and i didn't find the meaning in it. theres nothing more frustrating than reading a book that you dont understand.

after that I'm pretty sure we read the wave. it was explained to us that the wave is supposed to symbolize how the n*zis came to power and all that stuff, and while we all knew this, i dont think we really Understood it. (probably because we were 12). we all kinda saw it as a joke and thought it was funny. i think that if i read it now i would be like. “well shit this is really interesting” but 12 year old me wanted to make fun of it with the rest of my class.

i think we read seed folks next. this was another book that just went over all of our heads. its about how a garden changes a whole bunch of peoples lives which is like, super interesting. but none of us got it and were like “lol this is stupid” so much so that we actually stopped reading it. like my teacher stopped having us read it.

I'm fairly certain the last book we read was the miracle worker. a lot of us had had to read parts of it before that class so we were all kinda familiar with it already. i vaguely remember some kind of obnoxious class joke about the book that was probably rude. i remember finding it interesting, but there were so many activities we did about the book that i lost interest.

8th grade honors reading

this class was A Trip. i liked the teacher, but she was a little out there. its unclear whether she got fired or just didn't come back after that year. i had a lot of fun in her class but it was usually because we all bonded over hating the assigned reading.

i dont remember what order we read the books in and i dont remember if this was all of them, but to the best of my recollection this is what we read

we definitely read romeo and juliet. by the time you're in 8th grade, everyone knows the story of romeo and juliet, so it wasn't like that suspenseful or a surprise or anything. but we had to act the reading out. yes we had to act out romeo and juliet. with burger king crowns. and wrapping paper swords. clearly the teacher was trying to have fun with us, and it was fun fun for awhile but it got old. especially when you got participation points taken off your grade if you didn't read for once of the characters (which is massively unfair because not everyone wants to get up in front of a class in a paper crown holding a wrapping paper tube and read in old english when you're 13 but whatever).

we also definitely read animal farm. it was another book that went right over our heads (or, mine at least). i didn't actually really understand it until i had to read the communist manifesto for ap euro senior year. and our teacher talked in a bad russain accent the entire time? i could barely keep the characters straight, let alone analyze the underlying message and all that. now i might actually like it since I'm a history major and have a decent background on the russian revolution, but at 13? no thanks.

the one book that everyone hated (including the teacher herself) was farewell to manzanar. it was a memoir about a young girl growing up in the japanese internment camps and looking back on her life and stuff like that. the story itself was very interesting and we all learned a lot from it. but the person who wrote it did not know how to write. it was confusing, some chapters made no sense, and none of us generally knew what was going on. we had to finish the book because we were the honors class, but the regular class got to stop after chapter 6.

i think we only read 4 books that year and the fourth one was the outsiders. this was one of two books that i actually liked the entirely of my public school education. i kinda vibed with it when we were reading it and then i vibes with it more once i got to high school and rediscovered it. it was just a good book, pretty solid, good themes, fantastic.

9th grade honors english

i absolutely hated this class. hands down the worst teacher i ever had. she was one of those that should have retired 20 years ago but was still teaching for some reason. and she hated kids. legitimately. that was the first time i got a c and it took my parents a long time to realize that it wasn't because of me, it was because the teacher was absolute shit. the only thing that made that class bearable was the fact that my friend was in there and so was this guy that totally like her so he would flirt with her pretty incessantly and it was Hilarious.

we read so many books that year and i hated all of them. a lot of them were like greek dramas and plays? like we read oedipus rex and julius caesar and antigone. and i hated all of them because the teacher made me hate reading and made it seem like a chore.

by far the worst was the old man and the sea. i hated that book, hemingway was terrible. i struggled to find any kind of meaning in it and connected all of my responses to the bible because my teacher loved it when people did that.

we read inherit the wind and to kill a mockingbird and all quiet on the western front which were the only books i found remotely interesting. but i still hated them because i knew that we would have to do her reading quizzes which were impossible so it was pointless to read the book anyway.

and we also read a raisin in the sun. i dont remember what this was even about except that there was some kind of insurance money involved. but by this point we were all really done with our teachers shit and my one friend legitimately said during class “but, ms. [name] if you put a raisin in the sun, doesn't it just get more raisiny?”

10th grade ap english language and composition (american lit)

i loved this class and the teacher but i hated all the assigned reading because we read it for the ap test. everything you read was in the context of having to find themes and shit to write about on the ap. so i didn't really get any of the books for that reason. i think we only read three and they were the scarlet letter, the crucible, and the great gatsby. i kind wish i paid more attention to gatsby and i think i would like it more now but at the time i detested it. we also had to read grapes of wrath over the summer and i hated that. i wanna read books to read them, not to come into school and write essays on them. also the ending was weird and i hated it.

11th grade honors (british lit)

another bad year of english, not quite as bad as freshman year, but still bad. still hated it. i outlined many fics in that class. the teacher did not like me and i did not like her. she also talked in this weird fake almost british but not quite accent that sometimes still haunts my nightmares. she was also one of those backwards feminists who claims they're a feminist but still was sexist in her favorites and the way that she treated people in the class?? after english i had math and my friend (the same girl who said the thing about raisins freshman year) and some others would complain to our math teacher about our english teacher. math was essentially a support group for english where we would discuss answers to reading checks.

over the summer we read 1984, which, cool concept (esp right now) but i hated knowing that i had to find some kind of deep meaning in it because i was going to have to write an essay on it as soon as i came back to school.

from there i think we read beowulf which was interesting. i dont know if we actually read the whole thing or just excerpts but again, i hated looking for meaning.

we read a tale of two cities which was like the one book i actually wanted to read because i am a huge fan of the shadow hunters book serieses and will and tessa quote that book all the time. i think if i had read it to read it it would have been better but first, dickens is wordy and weird and second i dont really wanna have to search out symbolism while I'm reading because its required.

we read macbeth, which i just didn't like. idk why. i just kinda thought it was stupid. i dont really have an explanation for this one. i think it was because we read it in the old english and that confused me a lot of the time.

and we read jane eyre. the only thing i remember from jane eyre was “pathetic fallacy” which is where the mood of the scene is reflected in the weather. i dont wanna dissect a book like that. and also my teacher referred to the book as “jane” but she said it “jAAYYneeE” which was annoying.

12th grade ap lit

dear god. this class. i had issues with this class. our teacher was something. everyone was afraid of him. e v e r y o n e. he ran detention and didn't know how to match his clothes and wore skinny ties. he had three swell bottles the he would bring with him to school every day. people claimed he used to be in a rock band and that was why his voice was so high pitched and weird. some said his wife left him, others said he had a kid. we were genuinely confused by him. he didn't teach, he yelled at you for doing things wrong without giving any instructions on how he actually wanted it done. he made college out to be some big scary thing where we would all be trampled. but mostly, he was an existentialist.

we had to read song of solomon over the summer. i hated it. i didn't hate it because of the messages and all that stuff, no the book itself was good and toni morrison is a great author. i just hated the fact that there was graphic description of incest, necrophilia, or sex at least once every 5-10 pages. i didn't wanna read that. and it turned me off the book. so when he asked us if we liked the book when the year started i said no and i argued with him about it. and he hated me for the entire year.

next i think we read waiting for godot. which was absolutely terrible. its literally a play where nothing happens. it would have been funny except that i knew i was gonna have to write an essay on it. how do you write an essay on a play where nothing happens? literally all of our discussions about it were about existentialism and it was terrible.

we read the metamorphosis, which everyone hated cause it could have been written in like 4 sentences. and our teacher thought he was So Clever for assigning it to us. he thought it was the biggest joke. and he went on and on about how its about existentialism and blah blah. the book would have been funny had he not only discussed it in regards to existentialism.

i think next was hamlet. i would have like hamlet had we not discussed it only through the lens of existentialism. its a good play, but i hated it because of the way he talked about it. even now, i only like it to make fun of the way he liked it. my friend and i send hamlet memes to each other all the time but only cause they remind us of our teacher.

one flew over the cuckoos nest. the second and final book that i actually liked my entirety of school. i dont know why i liked it, but it was just a good book. our teacher also had some kind of weird cowboy trope thing that he thought mcmurphy fell under which i thought was hilarious. the essay i wrote on that book was the only one he wrote “nice job” on and i still have it somewhere

my friend claims that we also read the stranger. i dont really remember what that book was about except some guy shot some people. there was definitely something in it that i didnt get.

anyway in conclusion required reading ruins books. when i told my creative writing advisor that i out of all the books i read for school i only like the outsiders and one flew over the cuckoos nest she was like “yeah, english teachers really ruin books for students”

#this is a very long post #saph screams #english #books n shit #english teachers are so hit or miss #and even if they're good teachers #that doesn't mean that you'll like the books

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maniacalmagician · 5 years

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Moral Orel vs South Park: adult animation, cynicism & sincerity

So i doubt ive ever written about anything more than I have personally written about Moral Orel. From an essay i wrote years ago about its use of lighting and camera angles to being a regular shitposter for a while. I got around to thinking, once again, what seperates this show in my mind from the hoarde of other adult animation that i remember as more crass and offensive of its ilk.

For that, I had to revisit a source for that comparison to occur. I headed on down to South Park and got around to playing Stick of Truth. A really fun game, certaintly had moments of pure offensiveness of the likes any other creators would have been canceled over? Maybe. The satire was still enough to let me buy the shock value as relatively harmless.

I wish my opinion of this would have stayed as I played South Park: fractured but whole, which on the whole made me very much more uncomfortable than its predecessor.

I cant say i didnt expect it from south park, but i used to remember when their shots at shock value on the whole targeted people who deserved it - only to be horrified upon rediscovering, the vast majority of it hadnt. Not only had it aged poorly from every angle - global warming denial for example - but it made me realize more often than not, the subject of the joke was meant to be at the very principal of giving a shit. It doesnt matter how much nostalgia i had for it because it was all we really had as far as transgressive art back when i was a child.

Now this is a comparison essay which means i will be comparing two things, apples and oranges as they may be. For now. I have a scene in the fractured but whole game that i am getting to be the main point of this essay.

Moral Orels humor wasnt always a hit and it often relied on disgustingly over the top gags - rape, murder, selling your piss as a sports drink (a plot line that south park would later have a very similar one to!) - but when it did get heavily political, it took a very obvious stance: conservativism leads to problems in our society especially built out of evangelical religious idealism... which almost all of it is. Either it doesnt share the same wishy washy opinions as south park did on hot button issues or it didnt get around to them and focused on its more important character building, setting and drama.

South Park has decades on Moral Orel from the start of its run to the end, thus moral orels true identity as something that could infinitely sustain itself on that model cannot really be compared. There are after all, moments in south park that come close to moral orels emotional highs.

Now if you arent familiar with Moral Orel you are going to be confused what i mean by "emotional highs". Moral Orel is really good, short, and you should check it out. Its got some of the deepest, most well thought out dramatic storylines in all of western animation. It has a level of sincerity that ascends to the level of an andy kaufman act, where you arent sure whether to laugh at the awkwardness or admire the genius of the act. It is obvious that someone in the writers room had a goal in mind with the storys message and it ultimately is one that is sympathetic towards victims of child abuse/niglegence due to alcoholism, a subject that in an essay i wrote almost 7 years ago, i mentioned was one of the most heart breaking gut wrenching self identifying moments id ever witnessed in any piece of media.

Then i saw a scene in south park: fracted but whole that was giving me an identical rush of validation, only to be struck by a horrible realization: unlike moral orel where its subject matter was taken seriously and with dignity, i could no longer trust south park would be capable of doing the same.

Even as it showed that it was.

I could tell that later in this game there would be a moment where that trust would be violated.

And personally i dont think a model where your end game isnt a specific message and instead a battle royale of apolitical statements and ideas... well... kinda sucks, especially as it overfloods the market.

As an add endum: tucca and bertie i feel like suffered a very similar fate here as moral orel, a great show's opportunities to continue its plot lines ruined by shit marketing and a lack of understanding that the target demographic was something new.

My main point being if you want to point to the problem in modern adult animation, its this: cynical slogans are easier to slap on a tv shirt than marketing the heart felt emotional reactions of its audiences, and thats why we dont see many good adult animated comedies anymore.

#moral orel #i am afraid to tag the rest of the fandoms

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takerfoxx · 5 years

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As it so happens, my unplanned little rant about the Lego Movie sequel kinda ends up being a great jumping-off point, as here is another little rant that I’ve actually been working on and off ever since that discussion about grimdark deconstructions and how to and not to do them, mainly to just get it off my chest all in one go.

See, I (obviously) like darker stories, but like everyone else I got my storytelling pet peeves. And the biggest one is something I’ve talked about here and there, something that I call Redshirt Philosophy. Basically, this refers to the narrative treating the protagonists as the only ones whose lives matter, and any nameless passerby and/or walk-on is free game. By this, I don’t mean that it’s bad to only kill bystanders and side-characters while sparing the mains, I’m saying that it’s bad to treat those deaths like they don’t matter and that they happen with no consequences.

But there’s a sub-category of that that pisses me off even more: the concept of the Unintentional Karma Houdini. Basically, a Karma Houdini is someone who does something really bad and gets away with it. They go upon their merry way suffering no repercussions.

Now, in of itself, this isn’t a bad plot device, and it can be done well if it’s intentional to make a point. However, when a character who is supposed to be the hero does something bad and it’s not treated as something bad, or if it’s just brushed off with no consequences, or if the bad guys switches sides but is never held accountable in any way for their heinous acts…then yeah, that really gets to me.

So without further ado, here’s my list of good guys who did bad things badly and it still pisses me off!

Warning: the following contains spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Harry Potter, Warcraft 3, Elfen Lied, Future Diary, Game of Thrones, and Angel. Yes, I will be saying some bad things about most of those. So...take that for what it’s worth.

1. Protagonists who did bad things and were either treated as being in the right or at least insufficiently called out, but I am still a fan of the series and even still like the character. It’s just that these incidents kind of stick in my craw.

A. Buffy’s “Everyone but Me Sucks” speech, from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

I’m starting off with the least offensive incident, as well as the most understandable, even if I still think it was bad writing. Okay, some quick background: in season 7, the Big Bad known as the First Evil starts sending its henchmen to wipe out the entire Slayer line by killing off all the girls who had the potential to become the next Vampire Slayer when the current one died (which, due to a weird loophole, actually wasn’t Buffy, but she still had her powers and shit). Anyway, all the surviving potentials get together and go to Buffy for help, who takes them into her house to shelter them and train them to defend themselves, even though they didn’t have any supernatural power.

Now, the thing about the First Evil was that it couldn’t become corporeal and interact directly with our world, which is why it had to work through agents. However, it could take on the form of anyone that had died to speak to people, just not actually touch them. Which meant that it could still appear in Buffy’s house to fuck with the gang, which it did.

The worst incident is when they noticed that a girl named Chloe was late in coming to breakfast, so they went to her room to wake her up. But upon entering, they find Chloe’s body hanging from the ceiling, with another Chloe standing next to her. It turned out that the First Evil had been speaking to her all night, slowly twisting her around and finally convinced her to kill herself.

Naturally, everyone is shocked and horrified. Buffy buries the body by herself in the back and then calls everyone together for a meeting. From there, she has this to say about their recently departed friend.

“Anyone want to say a few words about Chloe? Let me. Chloe was an idiot. Chloe was stupid. She was weak. And anyone in a rush to be the next dead body I bury, it's easy. Just...think of Chloe, and do what she did.”

She then proceeds to ream everyone for hiding behind her and letting her do all the work, giving them the “Get your shit together or die” speech. Of course everyone is offended and angry, but over the course of the next few episodes they start doing just that: pulling themselves together and becoming more proactive in the fight. All well and good; after all, sometimes leaders have to be harsh and tell people exactly what they need to hear to save their lives. It ain’t always going to be pretty, and you do sometimes need to be mean, especially when it’s a matter of life or death. I’m sure commanders out in the field have often had to make similar speeches to their surviving men, especially after one of them cracked and took the easy way out.

There’s…just a couple problems with the execution here.

See, this is the last we ever hear about Chloe. She freaks out, kills herself, and gets verbally bashed by the person she went to for help. And that’s that. She straight up loses, and that’s that. And call me a softie, but I have a real problem with introducing a terrified girl, have her get mentally tortured by the literal embodiment of Evil itself to the point where she takes her own life, and having the final word on her in the whole show be…that. And from the main character no less! It goes back to the whole disposable victim thing, which is funny, considering that the whole reason the show even existed was because Joss Whedon would always feel sorry for the cheerleader who would get killed off at the start of schlocky monster movies and wanted to see them fight back and kick the monster’s ass. Understandable, but it’s weird that that same trope would get used over and over again in his own show, all to make the monster of the week look scary. And again! There’s nothing wrong with that in itself, but it’s kind of noticeable when you have a kid’s head explode in one episode and have Buffy just make a joke about it, have a girl get her heart torn out in another and have her supposed best friend mention their bond all of once right after and then forget all about her, and then there’s the whole thing with Jesse in the first episode and…well, you get the idea. Joss, man, what are you doing?

But this wasn’t just a monster tearing out some teenager’s throat out. This was a suicide, followed by a verbal condemnation of the victim. Which, in a real life setting, wouldn’t be as much of a problem, but the fact of the matter is that no matter how much reality you want to inject into your fantasy show about vampires, ghosts, and robotic internet demons (look it up), your show does not exist in a vacuum. It wasn’t just the characters hearing that speech, it was thousands of people all over the world. And if you’re going to tackle a subject such as suicide, then you have to be really, really careful about how you handle it. Did it never occur to the writers that there might be people in their audience struggling with suicidal thoughts themselves, who were constantly told that their problems were all their fault, that they were being a burden, or maybe some of them had actually attempted it, failed, and were all called weak, useless, stupid, what have you?

Interestingly enough, I recently stumbled across an old Buffy message board, which had a thread debating this very topic. And it was pretty fascinating reading the various viewpoints, with many agreeing with me that the writers kinda dropped the ball here, especially since there were many points in the series where Buffy also gave up, succumbed to fear and despair, and even attempted to end her life. Plus, she wasn’t nearly so vicious when the First Evil nearly convinced Angel to kill himself in an earlier season. Others were of the opinion that while harsh, it was something that needed to be said, and that Chloe’s actions were cowardly and selfish considering what it would do to her friends. Plus, given the immense amount of pressure Buffy was under with all the trauma she had already suffered, snapping like that was perfectly understandable. And I can’t lie, I do see where both sides were coming from.

I guess my main problem with this episode wasn’t that the speech itself happened, but that it ended up being the final word on Chloe, which was pretty messed up.

So what would I have done differently? Well, if we must keep the speech, then fine. Have Buffy slag her off to motivate everyone to get their shit together. However, don’t let that be the final thing that’s said about the terrified girl who was manipulated and intimidated into committing suicide.

Earlier in the episode, it’s mentioned that Chloe had been a big fan of Winnie the Pooh, something that the First Evil used to taunt her friends. So, after the speech, after the fight and whatever it was that everyone did to get their heads into the game, just stick in another scene, one that’s just a few seconds long, where, when nobody’s watching, Buffy goes into the backyard and just leaves a Winnie the Pooh doll on Chloe’s grave, indicating that she did feel bad for her but had to say what she did. That’s it, that little bit of empathy is all I ask.

B. Hermione Granger’s scarring of Marietta Edgecombe in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Ho boy, this is a complicated one.

All right. So, Order of the Phoenix is my favorite of the Harry Potter books, mainly owing to Dolores Umbridge being a brilliantly written character in just how incredibly scummy she is, and the whole plot of her versus the school was just gold. And…kind of topical, now that I think about it.

But anyway, though it’s my favorite of the books, it also has my least favorite scene. Quick background: Umbridge has taken over the school and pretty much nixed Defense Against the Dark Arts, which is now needed more than ever. To counter this, Harry and co. take it upon themselves to start teaching it to the students. They form a group called Dumbledore’s Army and make their hideout in a magical room hidden from Umbridge and her minions to practice. However, someone sells them out, the room is raided, everyone is caught, and Harry is rushed to Umbridge’s office to be interrogated.

There, it’s revealed that the traitor was one Marietta Edgecombe, best friend of Harry’s girlfriend Cho Chang. This is discovered because Hermione had hexed the contract she had everyone sign to cause pus-filled blisters write out the word SNEAK across her face, something that apparently none of the brilliant and experienced wizards they got teaching at Hogwarts can remove. In fact, her final scene in the series shows her wearing a veil over her face to hide it.

Of course the heroes get out of their predicament in the end, but it pretty much destroys Harry and Cho’s relationship, as Harry is understandably a little peeved about that whole betraying him and his friends to a sadistic fascist thing and felt that Hermione’s hex had been brilliant, while Cho sticks up for her, saying that she’s actually a good person who had been the only one of her friends to stick with her after the murder of her previous boyfriend Cedric Diggory, and she had just made a (big) mistake, given that she hadn’t even wanted to join the DA in the first place and didn’t trust Harry to begin with, given that her mother worked for the Ministry of Magic, which wasn’t exactly keen on Harry at that point. Plus, she was kinda put out that Hemione had hexed them all without telling them, so basically they fight and break up.

Anyway, this in itself wouldn’t be much of an issue. A bit character that we barely know sells the good guys out, gets humiliated in return, and the good guys prevail in the end. What makes this something of a sticking point for me is due to one of the first of the many controversial social media canon details that JK Rowling would become infamous for dropping: that the blisters would indeed leave permanent scarring, and that she feels that this is wholly justified, given that she, and I quote, “Loathes a traitor.”

Okay.

There is…a lot to unpack here, and it has become even more divisive in the fandom than the Chloe thing I mentioned above. One camp holds that while betraying the DA was a rotten thing to do, the hex still crosses the line, given that scarring a sixteen year old for life for one mistake is really messed up, that she hadn’t even wanted to join the DA in the first place but had been pressured into it, that given that she had a parent in the Ministry of Magic she was probably subject to a lot of anti-Harry propaganda and genuinely thought he was a bad person, and that she had probably been singled out by Umbridge and interrogated, likely with her mother’s job being threatened. The flipside argues that she had to know that she still sold everyone out to a sadistic fascist, that Hermione was a minor herself and isn’t subject to the same rules that an adult would be, that Umbridge’s perchance for torture was well established at that point, that she had to know that her friend Cho would be punished with everyone else, and that teenager or no, there is no excuse for supporting someone like Umbridge. I mean, Hitler Youth and all that.

To tell the truth, like the Chloe thing above, I can see where both sides are coming from. On the one hand, I can see how someone like Marietta could be led to believe that Harry was trouble and feel that she was endangering her family by associating with him. Plus, we have no idea what the circumstances surrounding her betrayal were, though given Rowling’s words on the topic I guess Umbridge didn’t have to probe hard. On the other, she did sell out everyone to get pretty much tortured, so that deserved some kind of retribution, so good points all around.

But that’s not really where I personally have a problem. My problem is that Rowling’s addendum on the whole affair goes against the rules of the world she created, and even the themes of the book itself. Also, if Rowling wanted us to agree with her, then she fucked up the execution.

First, let’s take the bit where it the blisters left permanent scars. This is a world where they can make bones grow back, inflate bodies like a balloon without doing permanent harm, and where even mutilations are temporary (if painful) inconveniences. The only thing that can cause permanent damage is Dark Magic, hence Harry’s scar.

So…how exactly does Hermione’s hex permanently scar Marietta then?

Jumping off that, this isn’t the only instance of permanent scarring in that book. One of the many horrible things Umbridge did to students was force them to write lines with a magic pen that literally carved out those lines into their skin, resulting in Harry picking up a new scar that read I MUST NOT TELL LIES. The fact that this scar can’t be removed with magic is one of the many clues that Umbridge is more than just a pompous asshole and had dealings with something darker.

Look, I’m not saying that the two situations are a one-to-one parallel, but it just feels kind of uncomfortable for the book to treat magically scarring kids as something horrible and unforgiveable (which it is!), only to laud one of the heroes for doing it right after, regardless of circumstances. It…just doesn’t sit right.

Plus, you know, there is the point that when you get down to it, the hex is kind of a problem in of itself. Like Cho pointed out, putting it on everyone without telling them is a little messed up, and it makes it completely useless as a deterrent. Why not use a tongue-tying spell or something? Then again, logic was never really the series’ appeal.

And finally, how the hell are we supposed to feel righteous indignation about a character that gets zero lines, just sort of hovers in the background, and has a character we already know to be sympathetic defend her? With Umbridge we had ample on-page reason to hate her, but we never get to see her finally get her just rewards in the end. The Malfoys are all sorts of horrible throughout the books, but other than some humiliation they apparently come through it unscathed. So really, this whole thing just feels weird.

How to fix? Simple. JUST DON’T PUT IN THE PART ABOUT PERMANENT SCARRING!!! All the rest about the hex can be written off as Hermione just not thinking things through. And without the scars, it sort of works. Marietta still gets paid back for her betrayal but isn’t disfigured for life, and the whole things becomes a lot less uncomfortable.

Hell, why not take advantage of the situation? Give Marietta some character growth, bring her back to redeem herself like they did with Percy, and he was way worse. Hell, Snape was downright monstrous, and he was made out to be this tragic redemption story.

Sigh. I know the movies get a lot of flak for the stuff they’ve changed, but switching things so that Cho was magically compelled to give up the secret and sidestepping the issue entirely was a good idea.

2. Heroic (or at least, portrayed as sympathetic) characters who cross the line so thoroughly that I now loath them and am infuriated whenever I think about them, but I am still a big fan of the rest of the series they appear in.

A. Tyrande Whisperwind’s slaughter of the Watchers to free Illidan Stormrage, from Warcraft 3: The Reign of Chaos.

Yeah…fuck this character.

All right, this happens pretty deep into the plot, so here’s the cliffnotes: demons are invading the world, and the remnants of civilization need to put aside their differences to stop them. In particular, the priestess Tyrande and her husband Malfurion, the Arch-Druid, set out to awaken their people’s sleeping druids for reinforcements. But while delving into the cave where said druids are napping, they come across a strange locked door. It turns out that the door leads to the prison of Illidan Stormrage, Malfurion’s traitor brother, who was imprisoned for turning on the Night Elves due to his lust for magical power. Tyrande has the brilliant idea that they should free Illidan to help fight the demons, BECAUSE THAT TOTALLY SOUNDS LIKE A SWELL IDEA! Malfurion says no, Tyrande tell him that she’s gonna do it anyway, and fucks off to do just that.

Beyond the door, she’s confronted by the Watchers, a group of Night Elves and their forest allies who had been entrusted with defending Illidan’s prison, who respectfully inform her that they will not waver in their duty and she does not have the authority to say otherwise.

So…she slaughters them.

All of them.

She wanted to free a dangerous traitor, the guards said no, and she kills them for it.

Yeah. That is a thing that happens.

But hey! Illidan is free now, and he agrees to fight the demons for her. And wouldn’t you know it, on day one he manages to destroy a powerful demonic artifact that was corrupting the forest and kill Tichondrius, one of the demons’ primary leaders, so that worked out!

…a pity that his lust for power took over and he absorbed all of the artifact’s power, turning him into a monstrous demonic beast and leading to Tyrande and Malfurion to become so horrified that they imprison him once again.

…nah, just kidding. They banish him, basically freeing him to do as he pleases. And as it turns out, what he pleases ends up being summon up a bunch of monsters from the depths and use them to strike at Night Elf villages, massacring its inhabitants.

Good job, Tyrande. You really know how to pick ‘em.

But you know what’s worse? You know what takes this whole ordeal from a massive fuck-up to completely killing any possible redemption for the character for me? As it turned out, Maiev Shadowsong, the leader of the Watchers, was out on patrol at the time and narrowing missed being murdered off with the others. And when she got back and found her friends dead and her prisoner freed, she gathered up what remained of the Watchers and immediately set off after Illidan.

Well, she finds him, but he and his new allies prove to be too much, so she calls for help. And Malfurion and Tyrande answer, with Tyrande even admitting that the whole thing was her fault and thus it was her responsibility to fix! Okay, okay, it’s a step in the right direction. Doesn’t really make up for what she did, but at least she’s…

Oh wait. Maiev calls her out on pretty much everything, and Tyrande’s response is, and I QUOTE, “I did what I thought was right. You are in no position to judge me.”

…

Oh, FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Bitch, YOU MURDERED HER FRIENDS! YOU FREED ILLIDAN, WHO HAS SINCE MASSACRED YOUR OWN PEOPLE! SHE HAS EVERY RIGHT TO JUDGE YOU!

Hell, waaaaaaaaay back earlier in the series, the human prince Arthas kills all the inhabitants of a city call Stratholme, all whom had recently become infected with the Undead plague, and it’s treated as his moral even horizon, the point where there’s no turning back from his descent into evil. Except…while terrible, he at least had a very good reason for doing what he did. Those people were literally moments away from turning into zombies, and there was no way to save them. Whereas Tyrande causes the deaths of even more innocent lives, whether directly or indirectly, but it’s treated as, at worse, as a whoopsie-daisy on her part. Meanwhile, Maiev is made out to be this revenge-obsessed extremist.

So…yeah. Fuck Tyrande. And hey, I still kind of like him, but fuck Malfurion too for letting it slide.

B. Just about everything about Lucy from Elfen Lied.

All right, cards on the table: of all my favorite anime/manga, Elfen Lied is easily the most flawed. The violence is beyond gratuitous, the nudity is sometimes downright silly in how nonsensical it is, the plot is completely inconsequential, and the sudden mood changes aren't exactly gracefully done.

Still, I’ve always had a soft spot for schlock that embraces its own schlockiness, and it has enough of my personal favorite tropes to make me love it. Hell, it was my freaking avatar for the longest time!

That being said, I do have one major issue with it, and that is the central character: Lucy.

Yes, the chick whose eye used to be my avatar.

I hate Lucy.

Why? Because she’s a psychotic serial killer who’s graphically murdered hundreds of innocent people out of pure sadistic nihilism. One of her first acts upon coming into her powers is to kill a random family just so she could hide out in their house, and that’s when she was a child. There’s a scene that establishes that she’s mastered the art of giving passersby brain aneurysms just so she can murder more effectively without drawing attention to herself. She tears Kouta’s family apart, including his little sister, because she was jealous. She has a breakdown and massacres an entire festival full of people. One of her first acts upon regaining her memories and wandering off is to use that brain aneurysm thing to kill a passing girl…just for walking by!

And that’s just the stuff we see her doing on-screen!

Now granted, the series doesn’t make it out that she’s still somehow a good person, though they do portray her as sympathetic for…reasons, and even treats her like the hero in some parts. However, there is a scene in the anime where, upon learning all this, still forgives her and even kisses her! And yes, that includes learning that she’s the one who murdered his little sister! At least in the manga he tells her off and tries to make her promise not to kill anyone else! And she also gets a terrible death in the process, so there’s that.

But I guess most of my issues come from how others fans still try to stick up for her. I had a friend who once said that she was justified for everything because kid-Kouta lied about the gender of his cousin. Uh, yeah, nooooo. She’s a monster, end of.

Oh, what’s that? She has a tragic backstory of abuse and neglect? Well, whoop-dee-fuckin’-doo. Guess who else has the same? Just about every Batman villain, and most of them are portrayed as dangerous monsters! Except…for the ones who are cute girls. Huh, imagine that.

Wait, she had an alternate personality intrinsic to the Diclonius driving her to kill? Well, I’d just might buy that, except for one problem: Nana exists. Nana, another Diclonius who is shown having the same alternate personality issue but also fighting it off and goes through the whole series without ever killing anyone else, despite enduring even more horrible torture and abuse than Lucy! And that’s why Nana is a ball of love and delight and fully deserved her happy ending and fuck Lucy.

Although…just to be clear, I’m not talking about Nyu: the childish other alternate personality that Lucy reverts to as a result of her amnesia. Nyu’s great. Nyu’s adorable and innocent, and since the series treats her like her own character, I will too.

But yeah, Lucy’s an irredeemable monster and screw anyone who says otherwise. Man, that on top of how much of a mess this series was, why did I like it so much?

=looks down at my Nana-themed mousepad=

Oh yeah.

Thank God for Nana.

And finally…

3. Protagonists who did so many terrible things and were never held accountable for their actions that I stopped liking them entirely, actively rooted for their failure, and eventually stopped liking the series as a whole.

For this entry, there really is only one example: every single one of the main characters of Future Diary.

Oh, Future Diary…

See, I used to be a big fan of this manga. Back when I first started IM, it was my favorite, and I eagerly awaited every month for the new installment. I mean, it was pretty much Battle Royale meets Code Geass, of course I would be a fan!

However, as the series went on and my favorite characters were all killed off, leaving the four mains, I started to realize something:

I did not like these people.

They were all pretty terrible people, in fact. All of them had either done something really, really awful or were complicit in the others’ actions, and they never really got held accountable for what they did, with their actions just treated as, “Oh, BIG SHOCKING PLOT TWIST!!!!” So by the time the series reached its end and they all got a happy ending, I felt no happiness for them. In fact, I was kinda pissed.

Later, when the anime first started airing, I watched the first couple episodes, and seeing their actions actually animated before me made it worse. I hated them, and I hated the fact that nothing they did ever had any real consequences for them.

Now, looking back on it years later, I can really see what a mess this series was. Nearly every aspect about the plot, setting, and character growth is pretty illogical and inconsistent to the point of being outright stupid. But that’s just the icing on the cake for me, and not my main reason for hating this series. My beef comes down to these people, and the things they did.

Yuki Amano

A lot of these people bash this guy for being weak and passive, a bit like Shinji Ikari. Personally, as someone who actually liked Shinji, that part didn’t bother me.

Him deliberately betraying an entire orphanage and gunning down all the orphans sure as hell did though.

As did him almost immediately forgiving his father and wanting to live with said asshole EVEN AFTER HIS DAD MURDERED HIS MOM! And this is just swept aside because yay, his dad is back!

Yuno Gasai

Ho boy, where do I start with the Queen of Yanderes? Well, let’s get this out of the way: I actually don’t have an issue with her creepy stalking. It’s her schtick, and if executed well it can actually work.

It…wasn’t executed well. It just was a long list of making her do crazy shit for big shocks, and outside of her Yuki obsession, she had pretty much no other characteristics.

Also, in the second episode, she deliberately sets off a bunch of bombs that massacres scores of innocent teenagers over a misunderstanding.

And after that happens, it is never brought up again.

So yeah.

Minene Uryu

Let’s start with the fact that she is a literal terrorist who has killed scores of innocent families.

And that she blew up part of Yuki’s school to get his attention, also probably killing several children.

And no, she isn’t held accountable for this. At all. Why? Because she’s cool, I guess.

Masumi Nishijima

Doesn’t kill anyone like the others…but hey, what about him completely ignoring the fact that he falls head-over-heels in love with Minene and even proposes to her, despite knowing that she’s massacred hundreds of innocent people and it’s actually his job to bring her in? Talk about being completely useless as a police officer.

And the worst of it? All the above get one kind of happy ending or another.

Yeah, no. Fuck each and every one of them.

Even though this is by far the worst offender, I’m not going to spend as much time on it, as it’s easier to rant about something that does a lot of things right only to fail spectacularly in one regard. Future Diary instead does so many things wrong that it’s kind of beyond saving and not really worth getting heated up about. Which is a shame, because the concept could have worked in the hands of a better writer, but instead, we got a dumb, illogical mess full of characters that are impossible to root for.

But okay, I’ve ranted on and on about these instances that piss me off, but are there any examples of series doing this right? As if in, actually holding characters accountable and making them suffer consequences for their actions when they usually wouldn’t?

Well, obviously, but there are a few instances that really stand out in my mind, because they’re instances that would normally get glossed over without mention, but the writers actually had the wherewithal to ensure that this wouldn’t happen. And they really make me happy.

A. Sandor Clegane stands trial for the murder of the Micah the butcher’s boy, in Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones.

It’s kind of funny that Ice and Fire would be on this list, seeing how it’s full of innocent people getting slaughtered, tortured, and raped, even by the “good guys’” hands at times. You’d honestly think that I wouldn’t even touch it as a result.

And yet, it is the rare example of someone going all in on the ultra-darkness but actually doing it right. Because no matter who it is doing the bad thing, who they do it to, and how well laid their plans are, they always seem to suffer consequences for their actions.

In this particular example, there is a scene where Sandor Clegane casually murders a little boy named Micah in the first book because evil Prince Joffrey did a thing. And of course, none of the bad guys suffer any repercussions. At the time, I chalked it up to another example of just how unfair this medieval fantasy world is meant to be.

Flash forward another book or two. The king is dead, chaos reigns, and the Stark family has been scattered to the winds. Little Arya Stark, who had been a friend of Micah, falls in with a group of good guy outlaws. And to her surprise, they have taken the now renegade Sandor Clegane hostage.

Naturally, since the Hound had been one of Joffrey’s top henchmen, this is a big catch for them, but since they insist on doing things honorably and giving him a fair trial, they run into the problem of being unable to pin any specific crime on him, since most of the stuff they come up with was actually carried out by other people or they can’t prove that Sandor was involved. But then Arya brings up Micah, which Sandor actually did, and of course the outlaws seize upon.

Now, when I read this, I actually put the book down for a moment to pump my fist. Because holy crap, they’re actually acknowledging that whole thing! It wasn’t just another example of an innocent person getting offed for shock value without the perpetrator being held accountable! It was getting brought up, and not only that, it was being used as a plot point! It was beautiful!

Of course, Sandor does actually win the resulting trial by combat and is set free, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that Song of Ice and Fire, as grimdark as it is, is fully committed to holding all of its characters responsible for their actions, and sometimes small cruelties will come back in huge ways, and I think that’s awesome.

Another example from the same series is Theon Greyjoy. Now, here is a guy whose insecurities lead him to betray the family he was raised by, steal their home, execute their associates, and even murder a couple of little boys and cover their bodies with tar just to make his men think that he had successfully killed the Stark boys rather than admit that they got away. Now normally, this would put him right at the top of my shit list, and it did for a while. But surprise surprise, the story actually manages to make him look sympathetic again, by…

1. Showing full well how his insecurities have caused him to make these mistakes

2. Have him get called out by pretty much everyone over how horrible his actions are

3. Show full well that he understands this, and feels rotten about it deep down inside

4. Have him essentially put through hell as a result, to the point where he’s physically mutilated and mentally scarred by Ramsay Bolton’s…administrations

5. Have him go through even more hell to try to redeem himself and put his life on the line to protect someone innocent

6. Make him acknowledge that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, but he’s going to try to do whatever he can to atone for his sins once he gets his identity back

Through all that, when he finally is forgiven by Jon Snow and welcomed back into the Stark family, it does feel earned, and not through excusing what he did, but by acknowledging it and dealing with it directly.

B. Spike shows genuine remorse for his past, in Buffy/Angel

Kind of weird to include Buffy/Angel in this section after already calling it out before, but I’m pretty sure these two episodes had different writers.

Anyway, Spike is undoubtedly one of the most, if not the most popular characters in the Buffyverse, and it should come as no surprise that he’s my personal favorite. Quick background for anyone who hasn’t seen the series: he is a British punk-rock vampire renowned for loving violence and besting two Slayers in one-on-one combat. He started off as a main villain, but became so popular that the writers nixed his planned death and spent several seasons slowly bringing him over to the good guys’ side, first out of necessity, but giving him a redemption arc (which was controversial for…reasons) that ultimately ended with him fighting to get his soul back and become an actual hero. So, hoorays all around.

However, there still is the lingering problem of him having spent over a hundred years torturing and killing his way across the world. The last season of Buffy tried to address that by revealing that one of the heroes’ new allies was the son of one of Spike’s victim and wasn’t too keen on working with the monster that killed his mothers, but their execution of said idea was…deeply flawed, to say the least.

Things got better when Spike made the jump over to Buffy’s sister series Angel. In it, a rogue Slayer named Dana, who has been rendered mentally unstable after an evil man murdered her family and tortured her as a child, is deluded into believing that Spike was the man that ruined her life. As such, she kidnaps him, tortures him, and even cuts off his hands (don’t worry, he’s a vampire, they can deal). Then the cavalry arrives to save the day. Dana is captured and handed off to people that can actually help her, Spike is rescued, and goes to the hospital to have his hands sewn back on. Like I said: vampire. They can do that.

Anyway, Angel then uncharacteristically goes to visit Spike, and as a bit of a surprise Spike doesn’t seem to hold any anger toward Dana at all, and instead says something to the tune of, “What? I’m supposed to be angry because hers wasn’t one of the hundreds of families I killed? I spent so much time being a monster, I never stopped to look back at the victims.”

This is great, as it 1, acknowledges the wrong he’s done, 2, shows that no matter what he does to redeem himself, it’s always going to hang over him, and 3, puts no blame on Dana whatsoever. And with that, I felt like I was free to like and root for Spike without having an asterisk hovering over everything.

And honestly, that’s all I ask for. Acknowledgement. Accountability. Acceptance of consequences. Because otherwise, it just leaves a rotten taste in my mouth, and the more I see it happen in fiction, the more it bugs me.

So, that’s my rant about storytelling for today. My next posts will probably be something more positive.

#buffy the vampire slayer #buffy summers #chloe #harry potter #hermione granger #marietta edgecombe #Warcraft 3 #tyrande whisperwind #elfen lied #lucy #future diary #angel #spike #game of thrones #sandor clegane #arya #rant

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lillaxtrigger · 5 years

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Young Hope: Chapter 22 (Pt2)

Descending further through the glimmering lost city of forgotten ages on his own, the demon plummets through the sides of countless hovering abstractly shaped structures; their surfaces growing ever more in sheen and shine as he drops. Stupid fucking brat. The hell does she know? Already saved her ass twice today and she still got the balls to bitch away? Almost wishin to just ditch the whole mission and go get a fucking meatball sub with extra sauce; the good shit. Fucking show her how much of a dumbass she is. How hard can it be to find a piece of this races history in this overly bright art show of a city?

After pondering this does Victor drop comes to an end; landing upon the gleaming surface of a golden triangle. Standing along its edge, the green demon takes in the site of the bizarrely shaped buildings; some clustered with one another to the point of combining. Staring out to the golden cityscape, he covers his eyes from their shimmering glow. God damn, all this shinning yellow is an utter torture fest to the eyes. It’s like these insecure assholes thought the brighter the better. Who cares if we blind some people who’ll be exploring our ruins thousands and thousands of years later; we’ll be long dead by then. Fuck’ em.

Turning away from the illuminating view, his gaze is soon baited towards a structure that peaks his interest. A massive golden ring encasing an empty giant glass sphere; the statues and décor surrounding it depicting strange carving of weapons and battles having once been held within the dome. The structures purpose being all to clear to predict, a devious smile draws itself across Victor’s face.

Having departed from her troublesome demonic partner, Shen Mi begins to fly towards the golden spiraling tower set in her sites; the pale energy surging down from its top coursing through towards the bottom and pulsing out from the ring surrounding it.

In her approach towards the glimmering spire, the witch glides past several passing objecta that grab her attention; gazing back to find them being automatons. At least, they kinda look like automatons. Their outward curving faces sporting etched swirls that surround a pair of glowing holes. The sides possessing two circles with etched lines along the sides; some of the robots detaching these circles from their body and spinning off the etched lines to resemble floating hands. At their backs be a gold plate that reach from tip to base; these metal linings holding what seemed to be a sort of propulsion system, letting the circular bots soar through the city. The exposed insides prove to probe the sorceress’s curiosity the most; not a single piece of wiring or board to be seem under their transparent yellow shells. Simply just a bright power that flows through the entire automaton. The swarm of circular bots don’t even waste a moment acknowledging the young sorceress as they depart away from the tower. Their design and power lends Shen Mi a couple of curious questions; ones that she can hopefully answer upon infiltrating their nest.

Nearing the top of the spiraling spire, the Heylin witch witnesses the power that surges from its cap descend down through its surfaces; bursting out through the ring surrounding it. Perched atop its peak, the witch gazes along its curving roof for a way inside; soon spotting her reflection slightly upset by a groove in the gold. A closer inspection reveals this groove to be a button, laid atop the very tip of the tower. Pressing this button causes a hole to form from the center, letting a powerfully bright light flow out; the young witch shielding her eyes from the blinding glow. Her eyes soon adjust to the intense luminescence, slipping right through the hole as it shuts behind her.

Hovering within the towers highest room, Shen Mi’s witnesses the source of the intense illumination; a big bright ball of pale white light hovers in the middle of the chamber. Hot damn! That’s some intensely concentrated power. Kind of a surprise that such a bizarre civilization this ancient was capable of conjuring something like this. It’s so powerful and bright. It, um...It’s actually really blinding. It’s like staring 2 feet away from lava. Just burning the eye sockets. Geez. Looking down from the intensely bright sphere, the young witch notices a hole under it; traces of the light breaking from its bottom and descending through. Looks far too close to the core to try and squeeze through; perhaps making a hole of her own would be better.

Blasting through the core chambers base, Shen Mi descends down to witness the pieces of luminescence fluttering through a giant golden tunnel. Dozens upon dozens of lights drift through the towers insides like fireflies; the witch tempting to hold them as such. Though they land upon the tips of her fingers, the light soon trail off her nails and drops down towards the tunnel walls. The glow soon ceases to drop near the golden sides, a metallic liquid soon emerging from the walls to consume its light in one bite. From devouring the luminescence does the golden liquid part from the wall, soon morphing itself into the shape of the very same kind of robots she had encountered outside. Once having been fully formed, a hole opens before the bots for them to soon exit out of.

So this race manage to craft a practically limitless sources of power, and the best they can muster to use it for would be meager appliances. How frustratingly wasteful. A single blast would probably turn them to scrap. What are these tacky tin can even built for, anyway?

Her questions is soon answered when one of these robots flies right overhead; glancing up to where she blasted in to see the bot spurting out a golden liquid upon the hole. With the robots swift departure, the witch witnesses the golden liquid forming within the wall; leaving the ceiling as good as new. Oh, seems like these golden toys serve as little more than maintenance bots. Guess it explains why this place is so clean and kept. Begs the question how long they’ve been independently running. Still, several dozens of these toys would serve as useful around the Alliance’s keep. Dusting, cleaning, patching up daily holes in the wall. It certainly make the tech department back home squirt themselves. Why not? You can never conjure too many minions.

After deciding such, the Heylin sorceress waves her palms high; casting forth her magic towards the pale core above. Forcing her power into its bright light, the witch lime green glow begins to consume the sphere; the golden chamber walls surrounding it beginning to reflect its corrupting glow. The devious smile sketched upon Shen Mi’s face soon begins to withdraw however, soon finding herself slowly being pulled towards the ball of light. Her attempts to pry away from the core’s grip lead to failure, her arms inching closer towards the light no matter how much she tries to jerk them back. What in Hera’s name is happening!? What is with this core and its insatiable appetite!? Need to pull away! Need to escape before every ounce of power is drained!

Frantically gazing through her surroundings for whatever could aid her, the young witch soon witnesses a golden bot approaching her side. With but her dainty little legs, Shen Mi tightly hugs the automatons with all her strength; the circular robot soon tugging her away from the core. As her hands start to free themselves from her lime green aura, her leg strength begins to dwindle in turn, both pair of limbs seemingly competing on which of them give out first. Despite her lack of leg strength, the young witch manages to break away from the drawing binds of her own aura. Her successful escape attempt doesn’t come without its consequences however, as her sudden freedom causes her to swiftly start careening further down the tower; smacking herself against the curving golden walls in her tumble.

She soon manages to put an end to her painful descent, regaining her aerial control just before she smack into another wall. Ascending away from the golden side, the witch feels the places her body took impact; a painful hiss leaking out from her teeth. What is up with this golden nightmare of a robot factory!? How could such mindless energy be so voracious?

In the midst of processing these thoughts does she notice a cavalcade of golden automatons surrounding her; their glowing eyes staring the witch down. Prepared for the oncoming herd of robots, the young sorceress puts her hands to her front; their lime green glow reflecting off the golden walls. Hmph. As if these worthless excuses for mechanical janitors have any chance against such a powerful Heylin witch.

Right then and there does an illuminating glow bait her attention overhead; a bright lime light shimmering from above. From this luminescence do sparks of green begin to drop down soon forcing themselves into the horde of automatons set before the witch. Within their insides does the power flowing through rot to a more fowl energy; changing in color similar to that of sorceress’s own aura. Though these golden droids fail to take in this new foreign power kindly, soon flying and flailing through the tower upon intake.

Shen Mi watching as the cavalcade of bots go haywire, she soon realizes one of them tempting to rush her from her side. Erecting a lime green barrier to her left, the witch halts the automatons mad dash; soon blasting its circular golden ass away. Another robot soon follows that failed assault from above; the Heylin sorceress creating a swirling portal to swallow the approaching droid whole. With a third bot attempting its attack, the young witch opens a different portal to launch the one she’d capture towards its brethren; both of their shinning hides crashing into one another.

Tempting to escape from the army of golden maintenance droids, the witch takes off deeper down through the tower; glancing back to see the horde of automatons in hot pursuit. While making her retreat, the teenage sorceress generates a powerful lime green power between her palms; Shen Mi casting forth the compressed ball of magic towards the tailing army behind her. With but a single touch of the enchanted ball, the entire golden crowd is consumed by a lime green explosion; the young witch laughing upon their destruction. Honestly, what tempted them to even continue such a pointless pursuit. Best not to dwell on the thought process of such moronic machinery. Time to make an escape.

Thinking this does the witch close her eyes and begins to picture the outside of the tower in her head, letting her magic flow through her body. Seconds pass and she opens her eyes once more, finding herself still within the spiraling towers twisting walls. Oh fuck off! What’s it now this time!? The sorceress’s frustrating question is swiftly answered, glancing back to see a cyan barrier similar to the one at the library soon start to catch up to her side. Oh, of course it can never be that easy. Almost tempting to ask what else this glimmering tower of horrors has yet to offer.

Pondering this does the young sorceress witness an oncoming cluster of circular automatons flying towards her front, a relaxed breath leaving her lips. Ha, is it really all it has? Little do they realize who they dare to trifle with. Readying to destroy the armada approaching her, Shen Mi hears a surging pulse from behind, gazing back to find the power from the corrupt core pursuing after. How utterly annoying. So not in the mood for this.

Set within the inner layer of the golden ring be rows of round seats surrounding the dome in the center. Above, a fly slips in from the golden cracks above, soon hovering down towards one of these golden seats. Once close enough to one of the, the fly soon morphs into the green demon himself; Victor landing upon the seat cushioned top. Gazing out to the glass coliseum before him, a whistle slips through the demons lips. Hot damn, this be some fine looking slugging grounds. Bet this place held a shit ton of bloody battles back in the day. The size certainly says so. Just look at this sweet as hell set up. Lots of open seating, wide as fucking fighting arena, snazzy lookin gold art. Now this is what an arena should be. Make the place the Alliance was running back in Townsville look like a shithole. Wasn’t even allow to kill anyone there. Place like this has to have some sick ass weapons lying around too; that’d be one hell of a prize to take back. Hope its something badass, like a lightning sword or fire spear.

This planted in his head, Victor begins his search hoping across the spectator seats; looking for a button or hole to drop down to. Soon, the demon manages to find an open hole set between a couple seats and doesn’t hesitant to drop right on in. His reckless abandon however manages to bite him in the ass; soon landing upon a slanted floor below and twisting his ankle. Tumbling onto the golden angular floor below, a painful hiss escapes from the demons lips; soon looking out into the hallway he dropped down to to find taking a far more angular design. Haven’t these pretentious assholes ever heard of fucking boxed hallways? Haven’t seen a solid flat floor since getting in here. Might need to change into something more flexible. To this end, the green demon soon takes the form of an iguana; crawling across the angling sides of the coliseum halls. Transforming into such a scaly tree crawler lets Victor scurry through the coliseums angular hallways with next to no problem; the green iguana scuttling down the obtuse cornered turns with relative ease.

This method of travel soon leads him to stepping upon a golden button lying along the halls wall; Victor accidentally stumbling right inside. Bumping through the jagged floor, his roll down soon comes to a stop; the green demon transforming back and rubbing his head. God dammit, what the hell’s with this place and its weird buttons anyway? Which jackass in this dead city was in charging planting those damn things? Better yet, what kind of room did that hole lead to? Rising from the slanted golden floor, Victor soon gazes upon his answer: dozens of swirling armor sets suspended in the air, holding onto themselves without a mannequin within them. Set upon the back palms of its glimmering gauntlets be hard diamonds, their sheen reflecting across the entire golden chamber. The leggings sporting smooth streamlined designs, looking rather thin and light for armor. The boots follow the same trend as well, though sporting sharp and lethal edges along the sides of the foot. Chest plates break away from this design however, being more thick and defensive in the front. Finally, the helmets comes back to the sleek graceful design; a retreating cone morphing into diamond the further from the face it goes.

The teenage demon leaps towards the hovering set of armor, taking the form of a snake as he slithers through the defensive wears. Jeez man, just look at this jumbled mess. They’re the kind of thing some unimaginative fuckwit would make up on the spot. Like making the armor so thin but having heavy ass diamond on the hands and head. Seriously this looks so fuckin stupid. Bet it ain’t even that strong either.

Wishing to prove his doubt, the demonic snake opens his mouth wide towards a part of the chest plate; biting down upon its metal with all his jaw strength. Alas, this proves to be not his wisest moment, as his teeth fail to pierce through the armors tough metal. Withdrawing from the armor set, Victor transforms back as he lands upon the cornering floor; rubbing his aching jawline. Okay, probably not the smartest move to just try and bite down on it. Didn’t really expect to be so tough. Teeth fucking hurt. His jawline aching, the green demon glances back towards the armor with unwavering skepticism. Still, probably not worth takin back. Doesn’t really tell who these assholes were. Just that they had some shitty senses in armor design.

This cemented in his head, Victor takes his leave from the armor chamber; leaping right through the hole he came in from. Behind him, he fails to witness one of the gauntlets twitching their fingers, soon balling them into a trembling fist.

Taking the form of a green jay, Victor zips through the angular hallway with not a single care on his mind. Should’ve just been a bird from the start. Way easier to fly through here then trying to climb across its jagged ass walls. Still, beside this places weird as hell halls, these guys don’t really got much going on inside here, do they? No décor or anything. Guess they can’t really put much in here with them being built like this.

The sleek design of the corner filled hallway is soon upset by a button set to the wayside; the demonic green jay pressing the golden button with his beak. From the hole that forms, Victor flies into a darkened triangular chamber; the light coming from behind letting him witness a triad of statues holding mirroring orbs. The hole soon closes up, leaving the only light left to come from a lone triangular platform set dead in the rooms center. Approaching the glowing platform, the demon soon sees a solid wide plague floating behind it, a number of odd symbols etched upon its silver; the golden lettering striking a sense of familiarity within him. Kinda look like the same ones that bratty witch was tryin to decipher back in that weird ass library. Doubt that this would try and blow up in her face if she tried to magically translate it. Ah, who even fuckin cares what it says, probably just some random ass bullshit like “Don’t stare directly into the light.” or “Keep your dick tucked between your legs when standing in the light.”; some bullshit like that. Doesn’t matter what it says anyway, ain’t no way in hell that this demon is gonna come crawling back to her bitch ass just to see what some stupid sign says.

Right on those thoughts does he notice the glow below him grow brighter; glancing down to find his foot on the source of luminescence. Try as Victor does to pull his leg away from the platform, he soon finds his whole body being forcefully drawn into the light. Attempting to escape its pull, he casts his bandages to one of the statues overhead, his binds wrapping one of its arms. His entangling attempts buy the green demon a few fleeting seconds, soon glancing back to witness the glowing platform transform into a column of light. Those moments soon escape him as his bindings rip right off the statues arm; Victor soon sucked into the pillar of white where he disappears in its glow.

The light surrounding him soon dissipates, Victor soon finding himself right in the middle of the glass arena set in the middle of the ring; gazing below to witness the abstract clustered buildings through the transparent bottom as he begins to drops down. Guess all that flare was just this places welcoming party. Much fun as it be to tango with whatever this arena’s got, there’s a mission to be done. And its a safe bet that Shen Mi will never shut her bratty mouth if she finds anything first.

In the midst of dropping down towards the bottom of the glass, Victor swiftly takes the form of the heaviest animal he can think of; the colossal tyrannosaurus. Descending through the arena with his newly acquired weight, the green demon crashes down onto the bottom of the transparent cage; the glass rumbling upon the heavy impact.

Transforming back upon the unbroken glass, a painful hiss escapes from between Victor’s teeth as he clasps his stomach. Holy shit, that hurts! Didn’t think the slam down would leave such a sting. Did it even make a dent in the glass? Gazing upon the surface of the glass, the green demon found his prehistoric body slam to be completely ineffective; not a single scratch or dent to speak of. Oh come the fuck on! Are you fucking serious here!? Practically crashed down with the heaviest motherfucker in the world and it did jack shit!? What the fuck is this glass made off!?

Pondering these frustrating question does Victor hear the sound of shifting and shaking metal nearby; gazing up towards the spectator seats to find them glowing a multitude of colors. Sitting within these golden chairs be the sets of armor the demon came across not to long ago; dawned by featureless glowing figures that stared down upon him. Standing right in the middle of the clear arena, Victor readies for the sudden crowd of sentient armor to make their move. Come on, ya overly made piece of shitty tin! This motherfuckers ready for anything ya got.

Soon, the lime green demon watches as some of the glowing figures raise their arms up high, the rest of them soon joining the others in wave. Fluttering out from their bright palms, bits of light travel right through the transparent cage, Victor mesmerized by the lights swirling high overhead. His spellbound gaze fails to last however, soon witnessing the bits of light beginning to cluster together, their luminescence beginning to take form. The gathering light soon starts to protrude out lines that surround itself, almost like a protective cage. Coming out from that cage do limbs begin to emerge, soon separating out and spreading like wings. From the base of its cage does a sharp tip point out towards the bottom.

The glow slowly begins to dim, first revealing the golden cage surrounding the light core, the wings it grew shows its feathers to be of silver, the pointed base of bronze. Fully discarding its illuminating shroud, the machinations of the light presents itself with a sparkling glow. Taking in the site of the monster above him, Victor cannot help but let out a hysterical laughter; his chuckling echoing throughout the entire. Is that a fucking lamp? Are they for real with this? They gonna try and fight with an overblown lamp of all things? That’s fucking priceless. Almost as if hearing the demons mocking laughter, the lantern folds its wings; unfolding them to let loose mechanical cry that shakes the very coliseum they reside in.

After the lanterns scream, Victor takes it on himself to attempt and make the first move; leaping out towards the lamp in the form of a dragon. Halting his assault right in his tracks, the massive shinning lamp flaps its silver wings; casting forth a frightening gale that sends the demon back. Before his smacks against the glass cage behind him, Victor transforms back to normal and lands right on his feet; his satchel sliding along the glass next to him.

Rising from the transparent surface, the teenage demon looks on as the lantern spreads its silver wings wide open; its metallic feathers soon detaching themselves from the lamps limbs and lunging forth towards their demonic foe. With a devious grin, Victor leaps towards the lamp once more; this time jumping towards one of the approaching silver feathers. Morphing into a swift cheetah, the demon runs across and leaps to thin metal slab after slab; soon forming into a kangaroo and leaping closer towards the lantern. As he then turns back to normal, he soon utilizes his bandages to swing across the storming of silver feathers; all the while witnessing the lamp ahead lop turning itself back to point its base towards the green demon. The bronze point soon starts to glow a powerful rainbow light; Victor bouncing off one of the silver feathers as a giant spring to ascend high in the air, knowing all too well what the lamps next move is. From the tip of its bronze base does the lantern fire out an intense ray of light toward the green demon; Victor evading the beams scorching blast in his ascent. Soon witnessing the lanterns beam rising after him, the teenage shape shifter takes the form of an owl to outrace the ray. In his rising retreat from the pursuing beam, Victor starts to fly over the firing lantern; soon turning back to normal and delivering a mighty bolt of lightning upon shinning lamp below. The sudden shock causes the lantern to suddenly tremble, the beam shooting from its base dissipating. Hell yeah! How you like that shock to the system, bitch? Bet it got you’re golden ass melting, didn’t it?

The airborne demons celebration fails to last long however, as he soon finds the giant lantern aiming its bronze base upwards. Out from its tip, the lamp fires out a salvo of light orbs out towards its demonic foe. Taking the form of a small hummingbird, Victor weaves through the oncoming barrage of glowing spheres; the lantern turning his aim as the demon streaks through the arena. The demon’s gliding evasion comes to a sudden end when one of the orbs of light shoots him straight out of the sky, transforming back as he plummets towards the bottom of the arena.

Victor soon crashes back down upon the coliseums transparent base, soon rising to witness the lantern turning itself right side up; an excited smile painted across the teen demons face. This morning, the mission report said to just explore some old as fuck ruins. Kinda glad it couldn’t mention any of this and spoiled the surprise. Would’ve been way more boring. His fiery gaze locked to the lantern above, Victor watches as the silver feathers of its wings come together once more; opening them wide as an overwhelming light consumes the arena.

In the Heylin witch’s descent down through the inside of the swirling tower, Shen Mi looks ahead to find the wave of lime green light still feverishly pursuing her. On top of this, the young sorceress finds another cavalcade of spherical maintenance droids coming to her front; letting out an irritated growl upon the site of the oncoming armada. These over glorified golden cans are quite the persistent pest, aren’t they? No matter how many of their forces are turned into scrape, they’re just seems to be another pack of them awaiting around the corner. How utterly annoying. Best to find a way out soon, then. But first to slow down the pursuing surge from behind.

Tempting to clog the flooding power tailing her from behind, the young magician waves her palms towards the mechanical army in front of her; a lime green aura enveloping the golden automatons as they soon close in. From her magic, the crowd of bots start to cluster together; Shen Mi warping behind the forming barricade of droids. Her blockade of golden maintenance droids complete, she watches the surge of energy failing to pass her newly formed clog; soon picking up the pace when she still sees the cyan barrier slip through.

While zipping through the swirls of the golden tunnel, she soon covers her right eye with her magic infused palm. Hopefully, there’s an opening up ahead that may lead outside; providing an escape from this accursed golden tower. With a spell of the enchanted eye, the Helyin sorceress soon finds a pure light fluttering over towards the golden wall; soon to be consumed by the liquid that produces its automatons. If the rest of the assembly process remains uninterrupted, that worthless robot should provide the perfect escape. Having seen her way out beginning to unfold, the witch warps away from the pursuing flood of green behind her.

Shen mi reappears right behind the forming automaton, nervously watching as the gold slowly forms before her. Come on, you stupid tacky droid! Just form already before the barrier comes. Hearing a surging power overhead, the young witch glances above to witness the glow of lime green growing ever brighter; a sure sign of the floods approach. Soon, the cyan barrier could be seen descending through the tunnel, the green torrent of energy soon to follow. Quickly looking back towards the bot, the witch finds it having finally formed; a hole leading outside soon emerging in front of it. In her desperate hurry, the teenage sorceress blasts away the bot and zips right out the hole; meager moment before both the barrier and flood come down.

Once having escaped outside, Shen Mi distances herself far from the swirling golden tower; soon looking back to witness the entire structure soon being consumed by a bright light. From the corrupted luminescence, the witch soon witnesses the light erupt in a lime green implosion, the entire tower disappearing before her eyes. Mere seconds later does the golden tower reappear in a flash, looking just as untouched as when the witch went in; ring pulsing white light and all. Hmph, just like a hard reboot. An impressive feet, even with magic. Still, no time to dwell on how such a process happens; there’s a mission that must be done. With that thought, The young sorceress descends away from the freshly crafted tower.

Dropping down through the countless golden buildings, Shen Mi ponders where to take her investigation next. Wherever it goes, it would be best to handle it carefully. Dwelling within that accursed golden tower took off a good chunk of time. A rather offsetting embarrassment that would best be left forgotten. That demonic oaf would probably never stop mentioning it if he’d saw such a display. Wherever the investigation goes, it should be somewhere with far more significance than these unpleasing to the eyes structures. Though given the bizarre and obtuse nature of their society, its would be a mystery where else they would keep records of their history; preferably in physical form.

To that end, the Heylin witch’s gaze is baited towards the very bottom of the city; the multicolor crystal below reflecting off a golden palace taking the shape of an upside down crown. Oh my, this impressive castle must certainly act as the capital; the crowning jewel of this lost civilization. Certainly putting the golden sheen to great effect this time around. No doubt a glorious castle worth taking a tour through.

Sprinting across its transparent surface in the form of leopard, Victor races through the glass coliseum with the lamp above him launching a barrage of scorching white orbs towards him; the green demon weaving through the light’s explosive impact. In the midst of the lanterns bright salvo, Victor soon transforms into a giant spring and ascends towards his glimmering foe. While in the air, the green demon then morphs into an elk; his sharply tipped horns aimed towards the lamps illuminating core. Right before Victor could even pass through its golden cage, the shinning lantern ascends out from the transforming demons reach; its lime green foe returning to normal as he lands on the other side of the glass arena.

After landing upon the clear wall, Victor gaze up towards the rising lantern; watching as the lamp begins to start spinning in the air. With its twirling, the lanterns summons a powerful tornado; its powerful gales swirling throughout the transparent coliseum. In hopes to not be caught in the oversized appliance’s whirlwind, the green demon quickly morphs into an octopus; his newly formed limbs sticking onto the coliseum’s glass surface. Though he tempts to hold on for as long as possible, the green demons new suckers prove no match for the lanterns powerful gales; soon being swept into its raging winds.

Trapped within the lamps intense twister, Victor careens throughout the glass arena, his screams echoing off the transparent surfaces. Riding through the storm, the shape shifter soon witnesses the lanterns scattering its silver wings once more; the metal feathers surfing along the winds of the raging hurricane, Transforming into various flying creatures, the demon attempts to fight against the horrible storms intense rage; the silver of the flowing feathers soon smacking him in the midst of his struggles. Careening through the arena, the transforming demon is smacked into feather after feather; shifting from animal after animal in his beat down.

Soon enough though, Victor ends up falling upon one of the feathers reflecting surface as it surfs through the winds; soon rising from its silver face to gaze upwards towards the rest of its brethren. The demon watches as the feathers flow through the hurricanes winds like water in a stream; their smooth flight paths lending Victor an idea.

Leaping right back into the raging hurricane, the green demon casts his bandages out towards a silver feather; grasping the passing metal with is wrappings. Swinging through the tornado garnered Victor so much more control than fighting against its wind, using this added freedom to swing across the countless feathers flowing alongside him to close in towards the spiraling lamp. His swinging ascent soon takes him to the calm eye of the storm; finding himself hovering over the lamps golden top.

Descending down towards the lantern, the green demon morphs into his stronger, more feminine counter part; aiming her toned legs down towards the lamp as she drops. With but a single kick, Vicky knocks the lantern straight down the bottom of the arena; its glass surface and the spectators surrounding it trembling upon the heavyweight impact. With the over glorified appliance finally grounded, the she demon lets loose a mocking laughter from her lungs as she slowly descends. How you like that, ya fucking oversized nightlight!? Pretty much punched your lights out! Or guessing kicked, instead. Like to see it come back from that throw down.

From the cusp of her celebration, Vicky witnesses the metallic lantern gather its silver feathers to slowly stand from the coliseum’s clear bottom; flapping its wings the more they swarm. Oh no you don’t! Hoping to put a swift end to its take off, the green demon drops towards the rising lamp; finding her efforts wasted when she witnesses the lantern ascend from the arena’s base. Tempted to not quit, she cast forth her warps out towards one of the lamps silver wings; her bandages warping along one of its feathers. The lanterns wing gives the green demon a much rougher rides than she expected; the silver swinging Vicky up and down through the transparent arena. Her bandages strength fail to stand against the wings wild ride; ripping right when it casts the green demon downward. Flung down by the lanterns silver wing, Vicky soon crashes down upon the glass arena’s bottom; slowly prying herself from the transparent surface and gazing up towards the lamp with a vindictive glare.

Snapping her out from her growling fury, the green demon soon feels something slither along her side; looking to her arm to find a slither of black tentacles slipping out from her bandages. Taking in a deep breath, the green demon lets out a calming sigh; the tentacle from her arm slowly retreating back into her wrappings. Keep it together, Victor. Ain’t worth going apeshit over some shitty overgrown light bulb. Just chill. With these relaxing thoughts do her black tentacles fully withdraw back behind the demon’s binds; the young woman forming back to a guy as he rises from the glass. That huge ass lamp up there’s tougher than it looks; options are starting to run out here. Gotta find some way out of this damn glass cage soon, else thing might get a little too bright around here.

While pondering on his next move, a familiar odor passes through his nose; tracking the scent to find it emitting from his bag. Approaching his discarded satchel, the demon finds a massive hole on its bottom; fuchsia juices lining the edges of the hole. Glancing to where the bag sat, Victor discovers the rest of the fruit that the young sorceress warn him not to eat; the busted fruits acidic juices spread across the glass surface. Watching the liquid bubble, he soon realizes the fruits juice slowly melting through the cages glass. Looks like the perfect escape was here all along. Just need to give it time to work its magic.

The sharp sound of flowing power greeting his ears, Victor gazes above to find the lantern charging its energy from its bronze base; its sharp tip aimed right at the green demon. Hoping to buy the fuchsia fruit some time, the shape shifter sprints away from its bubbling acid in the form of a greyhound. Soon, the winged lantern fires down its scorching ray down upon the bottom of the coliseum; the beam trailing across the glass arena as it chases after the fleeing canine. In his escape, the demon glances back to find the ray beginning to close in; transforming into a kangaroo to take off into the air. Shifting from a marsupial into an eagle, Victor trails across the intense ray of light; ascending towards the glimmering lantern. Nearing the shinning lamp, Victor soars far over the white rays and forms back to normal; casting out his bandages towards the golden cage surrounding the core. His wrapping grabbing hold of its bars, the green demon zips closer towards the cage; morphing into a slippery eel to squeeze through. Swiftly forming back to normal, Victor jumps towards the core and shoves his entire arm in its light; forcing his demonic lime green power from his tentacles straight into it. Taking in the unholy energy, the core flashes a deadly burst, busting the demon straight through the bars of its cage and straight towards the ground.

As the glimmering lantern begins to frantically spiral overhead, Victor shakes off his sudden break out and glances down towards the bottom of the coliseum; the fuchsia fruits acid melting a small hole through its durable glass. A devious smile is painted across his face as a maniacal laughter escapes his lungs: bidding the arena and its armored spectators: “Farewell fuckfaces! Hope the present I left in ya tacky ass lamp brings you hours of fun!” Saying his adieus, Victor swiftly takes the form of a tiny fly and slips right through the hole the acid fruit had kindly provided.

Having escaped from the glass cage surrounding the golden ring, Victor transforms back to his old grungy self; gazing up towards the coliseum overhead to find the lantern repeatedly slamming against its transparent surface. Geez, can’t even handle a tiny bit of demonic power without overdosing and going apeshit. That oversized lightbulb doesn’t have what it takes to handle the raw, powerful energy of my- In the midst of his self inflating inner monologue, he suddenly slams back first into a golden surface; his entire body punched inches into the gold.

Slowly prying himself out from the bent golden floor, the demon lets loose a raspy groan. God damn…Where the hell did… Finally standing, Victor finds himself atop an actual flat surface; not jagged spikes, no curves, nothing. Just a flat floor. Ah, finally. Somewhere to actually stand and not break another ankle. Could actually take a nap here if the old back wasn’t aching. Wonder what this roof is attached to?

Taking the form of a hawk, Victor drops down to find where he smacked himself into; beholding the entire structure taking the form of an upside down crown. The demonic bird finds the curving walls of the castle decked out with shinning jewels of all kinds; columns and pillars sporting elegant carvings and depictions of warriors alike. Hot damn! This place looking fancy as fuck! Lookin a lot like one of those royal palaces that one of those pimps or rich assholes would live at. Probably a ton of cool shit stashed away in their too. Don’t think these guys wouldn’t be missing any of it if it wound up missing, would they? These devious thoughts in mind, Victor flies straight through one of the open holes decorated in indigo blue crystal ring.

Floating within the golden corridors of the crown palace, a sharp gasp passes through Shen Mi’s lungs; her eyes widening upon viewing the display set before her. In her sites laid a countless collection of clear oval case, each of which contained numerously rare artifacts and items. This...this showcase is simply...marvelous! There’s truly never been a whole collection of rare, almost unseen magical relics such as this. Each one of these artifacts cataloged coming from races and beast long since been extinct.

Beginning her tour through the enchanting collection, the first item to grace the young witch’s eyes be the hollowed out remains of a frog; its entire body covered head to toe with glistening, almost dragon like scales. An amphibious dagon pup. Children of the deep being itself. Even single piece of their scales were said to craft some of histories most potent water spells. Responsible for massive floods throughout the world. Probably why they were hunted to extinction millennia ago. A rare find to come across even their corpses now a days.

Turning away from the frog, her starstruck gaze in then baited towards another rarity; an elongated tongue made out of shining diamond. The tongue of a giant primordial gecko, rumored to help craft some of the strongest of shields and sharpest of swords. Yet another species that reached extinction during the end of the Roman empire. To come across even its tongue is a once in a lifetime moment.

Next to it lie apiece which captured the sorceresses amazement; a human skull with a diamond implanted in its forehead. The skull of a Mydrid mystic, told to be born with a diamond in their forehead that let them replicate spells with but simple observation. It looks...smaller than the tomes had informed. The books back at the Alliance’s archives told that they had proportions similar to humans. Perhaps a mistake of sorts? Nevertheless, they but another race of people that became extinct during the great enchanted plague.

Beyond it however was a site that takes her breath away, flying to an oval display containing a long sharp, swirling tooth; a cosmic pattern flowing through its bone. The tooth of a celestial mongoose, told in tales to rip through the very fabrics of reality with a single bite from its maw; opening pathways to dimensions beyond even godly imagination. To come across a genuine one is just unheard of. Begs the question how these people even come to acquire such mystical treasures. A question that may forever be unanswered.

Alas, it would be a tremendous waste to simply leaves these artifacts idle; their boundless magical potential going untapped. Surely, with even a single of these treasures, one could craft spells that could bend the very fabric of reality. They be better left with a magician with far more...gifted capabilities.

This in mind, Shen Mi opens a small green wormhole right at her side; one small enough to slip her arm right through. Dipping her arm straight into the portal, another wormhole appears right inside the oval casing; her hand reaching right for the celestial tooth. Before her palms could even touch its starbound bone; the young witch receive an intensely painful shock; one that urges the sorceress to pull her grasp out from the clear display. After pulling her arm out from the wormhole, Shen Mi calms herself from the sudden shock; a seething growl escaping from between her teeth. Of course. What else was there to be expected.

Right on that headache does she soon witness the golden walls around her trembling; a metallic liquid soon spurting out from the curving surface. Forming before the witch, the gold soon takes the form of guards; their limbs detached from their bodies and revolve around. And now there’s this. How fantastic. Best not to cause a scene around here and not risk having these countless valuable artifacts get caught in the crossfire. Hoping to escape from the soldiers, Shen Mi warps away before their eyes in a blaze of lime green; her flames reflecting off the golden walls.

Gliding through the palaces golden halls, Victor passes through its countless décor lining its sides. A statue depicting various figures holding mountains under their arms, a long column that stretches and swirls across the golden octagonal hallway, stripes of colorful crystal surrounding the base of the figures, and carvings of mystical and alien creatures lining the golden walls. Hot damn. Now this is a pimpin as fuck. Kick ass jewels, awesome statues, fierce looking pics; these mofo’s know how to deck out their cribs. Way snazzier then those boring bronze shitholes over at the top.

The green demons descent through the golden corridors soon leads him dropping down into a chamber with a clear dome bottom; the sheen from the crystals below reflecting across the dozen of golden holes. Hovering right in the middle of the chamber be a smooth golden throne, its slick curved sides towering up towards a sharp pointed tips. Now this is a throne room; seein somebody sittin their ass down in a place like this just screams not to fuck with em. Like scream out: “Yeah! I rule this joint, bitches! Just try and fuck with me, I’ll shove my glorious golden boot right in your tight asshole!” Fluttering down towards the seat himself, Victor turns back to normal and plops his demonic ass down upon the golden throne; kicking his feet up to the side as a sigh leaves past his lips. All hail the king, baby.

Relaxing on the golden seating, its surface starts to shine a shade of lime green; the golden ceiling overhead doing the same. Victor watches in awe as a rainbow of lights coming from the crystals below start shinning through the dome; soon meeting with the lime green luminescence. The intertwining lights soon start to clash with each other; the green demon witnessing them battling over ground pushing and pull one another. Soon however, both lights retreat back to their origins; the multicolored lights returning to the crystal and the lime green returning back to Victor’s seat. Right after that moment is the teenage demon expelled from the base of the seat; falling flat onto the glass dome. Starting to get real fuckin sick of glass here.

Rising from the transparent dome, Victor finds the ceiling overhead beginning to squirm; droplets of gold soon raining down from the ceiling. The drops of gold splash all around the lime green demon, soon beginning to take form as they cluster together. Eventually, the golden liquid takes the form of deformed warriors; pointing their sharp jagged limbs towards the intruder. Surrounded by the glimmering guards, a bright green spark flares in the demons eye’s; a maniacal smile stretching across Victor’s face. “Thinkin your dicks can measure up to mine? I’m gonna set your T-1000 asses boilin!”

Upon this taunt does one of the golden freaks lunge forth; swinging their bladed arms out to the demon. Evading his shinning foe, Victor crouches out from the freaks swipe; delivering a powerful kick to its chin that sends the golden warrior flying.

After sending one of them flying does the demon gazes overhead; witnessing the solider forming his arms into a heavy weight. The golden freak crashing right down from the air, the hammering impact causes the glass dome to tremble. Turning its arms back from a weight, the glimmering guard sees not a single reminiscent of the green intruders remains; not even a drop of crimson staining the glass. Looking upon the domes reflection, it soon notices something slithering across its torso; a lime green snake gliding around its golden waste. Though it tempts to pry off the serpent from its stomach, the snakes leathery hide soon turns into burly gorilla hands; an ape that soon flings the golden solider right into its comrades.

Forming back to normal, Victor glances down upon the glass he stands on; finding another shinning soldier threatening to plunge its trident arm straight through his body. Sidestepping out from the tridents thrust, the green demon grabs hold of the golden soldiers arm and pulls it close; seizing the freak by the disfigured freak by its faceless head. Once trapping his gleaming foe in his palm, the demonic teenager sends a powerful shock surging through the guards body; the overwhelming electric causing the golden soldier to explode. After reducing the deformed foe to droplets, Victor turns back towards the rest of the golden troops; wondering if: “This all you golden glory bastards got?”

Questioning this, he soon witnesses a bunch of the soldiers cluster together; melding into one another like clay. The green demon watches as their disfigured golden bodies swiftly form as one; taking the form of a fierce golden beast. Bursting out from the four holes open on its face, the monster lets out a sharp, high pitched screech that echoes throughout the chamber; Victor covering his ears from the harsh ringing. “Screaming ain’t gonna get you anywhere.”

Lunging towards the shrieking beast, the demonic shape shifter takes the form of an octopus and latches right onto its face; silencing the beasts wailing screams. His hasty effort prove to be more reckless than effective; soon puzzled by the scent of fried calamari. There a seafood grill in this crib or what? A bright light flashing underneath the cephalopod’s smooth body; Victor is blasted right off the golden beasts face; transforming back to normal and patting out the flames on his burning behind. Quickly reducing the fires to smoking embers, the green demon breathes a sigh of relief. “Knew my ass was hot, but god damn.”

A flash of white soon baits his attention back towards the glimmering monster; the four holes on its faces shinning an intense luminescence. From its holes do four curving beams blast out; the rays twirling and twisting towards the green demon. Rather than run from the shinning rays, Victor takes the form of a tiny robin and flies right through the firing volley; feeling their scorching heat as he dodges and weaves through the curving beam. Right when approaching the golden beasts face, the demon swiftly turns straight into his female counterpart; using her toned legs to kick the glimmering monstrosity back towards the ceiling above. Crashing straight into the roof, the shinning beast is sucked back into its golden surface; letting loose one last cry before being fully consumed. “Yeah, bet that made ya cry! Ain’t nobody got what it takes to match this bitch!”

Vicky’s bravado wains when she finds the ceiling below her still squirming; soon witnessing countless deformed limbs reaching out towards the green demon. She soon finds those limbs attached to dozens more freaks and beasts protruding out from the wall; their shrieks echoing across the throne room, making the green demon cover her hears. Great. More of this screaming shit. Got better things to do then listening to these golden jackoffs all day. Thinking this, Vicky jumps towards one of the holes in the roof and transforms into a morning dove; the cluster of freaks and beast chasing after the escaping green demon.

Within the confines of a large octagonal chamber, the young sorceress reappears in a blaze of lime green flames. It should be a while before those pesky golden guards decide to check inside here. Might as well see what else this glamorous palace has to offer. Gauging her surroundings, Shen Mi finds planted within the octagonal quarters more of those blue transforming panels; boasting much larger sizes then those ones back in the bronze abodes. No doubtingly reserved for the high class of this lost society, its a wonder what kind of rule these people enforced upon its citizens. Socialist? Communist? Perhaps a tyrannical rule? We may never know.

Alongside these larger boards, a few golden spheres float through the chambers; their faces engraved with swirls that make up a single shape. They kinda look a little bit like keyholes. Maybe a pinch of magic could unlock whatever contents they hold within their glimmering shells.

Approaching one of these orbs, she waves her hands across these carved swirls, filling their space with her lime green light. The engravings all alight, the Heylin witch snaps her finger; the green glow dissipating as the orb starts to open itself. The orbs contents revealed, Shen Mi lets out a girlish squee; beholding an entire treasure trove of jewelry and gems. Levitating these trinkets out from the sphere’s shelves, the young sorceress finds the gems to take on unique, almost impossible shapes. An emerald that twists into shades of orange upon its sides, a sapphire brooch that looks frozen in an eruption, a ruby ring carved into the shape of connecting figures, and so many more. Donning these countless gems and trinkets along her fingers, ears, and neck, the teenage witch lets slip an excited giggle. This is a delightful surprise. Despite this lost races bizarre and tacky designs in architecture, their taste in jewelry is par for the course. Never could one really expect such exquisite taste in gems from a race that dawns such hideously droll robes.

In the midst of her pilfering admiration for the lost races jewelry, a pair of elongated limbs surface out from the golden walls; slowly encroaching upon the young sorceress’s backside. Its razor fingers quivering in anticipation, the pair of limbs ready to grasp the intruder out of the air; finally lunging in for the kill. Deflecting its approach at the last moment, Shen Mi erects a lime green shield to her back; a sigh leaving the witch’s lungs. Can these hideously tacky nuisances give a girl some down? Really, its quite off putting.

The pair of golden limbs having been rejected, they pound their palms on the very gold they emerge from; soon pushing out an entire lanky figure. The entirety of the golden mannequin surfacing, it raises it razor covered hands high in the air; soon swinging its long limbs down upon the lime green shield. The sorceress’s barrier shattering like glass. the golden mannequin looks between its fingers for any sign of the mystic intruder. Its fruitless search is suddenly cut abruptly short; its slender torso sliced in half by a lime green disk. Tumbling down the chamber, the spindly freak glances back to discover the very witch it pursued right behind it; the bright glow of her palm slowly fading. Watching as the lower half of her golden foe sinks back into the chambers cornering surface, Shen Mi can’t help but let out a small chuckle. Her gaze soon rises towards its upper half, witnessing it rises from the slanting floor and standing upside down; its severed end spurting out a golden axe.

Tempting to hack its intruder in half, the slender mannequin leaps into the air; flipping towards the Helyin sorceress with its glimmering weapon. Shen Mi simply slides around its brutish swing; gliding right under the golden figures as she admires her reflection in its torso. The teenage sorceress right under it, the shinning figure swipes its lanky arms to attempt and catch the intruder; the witch slipping away from the mannequins grasp once more.

After watching the hovering intruder floats towards the roof of the octagonal quarters, the metallic mannequin witnesses the girl turn back with a confident smirk; her hand pointing the bird right down upon it. Angered by her baiting taunt, the slender figure digs its golden axe right into the base of the chamber; soon stretching out towards the witch above.

Observing the giant pathetically reaching out towards her, Shen Mi erects two small wormholes to her sides; plunging both her arms through their lime green swirls. Her palms then emerge on both sides of the chamber, soon feeling the cooling surface of the transforming blue boards planted along the wall. With her touch, those boards soon lunge out from the walls; meeting in the middle to crush the slender mannequins torso. Stopped right in its tracks, the mannequins hands halt mere inches from Shen Mi’s smirking face; soon melting before the Heylin witch. Watching the remains of her slender assaulter drip out between the walls that she erected makes her let out a snide cackle. Such a pitiful excuse for a guard. About as harmless as golden paint.

Reveling in her victory, the Heylin sorceress fails to realize another pair of sharp limbs surfacing right behind her; ready to clasp the chuckling witch in their golden hold. Right when they were ready to grasp their intruder however, a lime green barrier denies its approach; the witch herself turning to the pair of limb. “Is this the next best you can accomplish?” she asks. Popping out between the arms be the mannequins head; ripping open a jagged mouth in the middle of its featureless face to tempt and bite down upon the sorceress’s own. Countering its chomp, Shen Mi bellows out a breath of green flames right into its jagged maw; the lanky figure retreating back into the golden walls in its entirety.

Hearing her defeated foe’s painful cries echoing through the golden chamber, a relaxed breath leaves her lungs. A harsh lesson on why none should mess with a gifted Heylin witch. Satisfied of her victory, the witch warps out from the octagonal quarters; the lime green glow from her flames reflecting against the golden walls as she departs.

The Heylin witch soon finds herself having warped within a strange corridor of the palace; the boxed hallway sharply corkscrewing along and creating jagged corners that stick out in the air. Ugh, looking at such an abstract disaster doesn’t give any kind of sign where these people would store their historical records. It may be a worrying thought then that the only records of this civilization may be kept in that library full of privacy protected, indecipherable garbage. These assholes really know how to get on a girls nerves, don’t they?

In the midst of pondering her next destination, a cyan barriers materialize around the young sorceress; trapping her within a part of the square corridor. No…No...NO! Upon the mere site of their blue tinted plasma, Shen Mi lets out a frustrated growl that soon transitions into an enraged scream. “Why won’t these things leave me alone!?” the witch shrieks. From her palms, the Heylin sorceress casts a furious volley of lime green flames onto the field; her barrage of blasts enveloping the entrapped witch in shroud of smoke. Ceasing her lime green barrage, the cloud from her fiery rage quickly parts; revealing the barricade having been stretched outwards. Shen Mi watches as the cyan shielding positions itself back into place; soon releasing a harrowing cry.

After her panicking screams, she glances back to witness one of the cyan shields beginning to close in on her. Gazing back towards the other sides show them doing the same; threatening to crush the young witch between their plasma walls. Hoping to break free from her entrapment, the teenage sorceress envelopes the barriers in her mystic aura; tempting to push them away. Alas, her enchanted efforts only prolong their approach; the bright blue walls slowly overpowering Shen Mi’s Heylin magic.

Why is this happening!? Why in Hera’s name is this happening!? I’m supposed to be one of the greatest spell casters of this generation! My mystic powers exceed beyond limits, beyond description! Yet my magic fails to stand against the product of this lost races trappings! This hideously blue barrier threatening to crush me within this damn golden hall! This isn’t happening! This can’t be happen! It has to be a nightmare! A mere dream! How else can this be explained!?

Her doubt is harshly swept away when her aura is pushed back; the walls between her inching closer and closer. Struggling against the closing barricades, tears begin to trickle down the sorceress’s face; her panicking screams echoing throughout the glimmering halls.

Through the looping halls of the glimmering palace, Victor flies across the corridor at breakneck speeds; glancing back to find the horde of golden soldiers and beasts rapidly swimming across the walls in pursuit. These golden dicks don’t really know when to call it quits, do they? Been flyin for about 3 minutes and they still havin fucked off. Hate to say it, but there really isn’t much left to do. Gotta some place to lay low. To that end, the green demon discovers a hole in the ceiling up ahead; a bright glow flowing out from the other side. When reaching the hole, Victor takes the form of a kangaroo and jumps right on in; the stream of shimmering freaks and beasts swimming right inside.

From within, the collage of golden soldiers and monster gaze in a cylinder chamber full of dozens of glowing crescents floating across the room; each of them illuminating a unique light that reflects across the quarters. Hovering right in the middle of the chamber was a lone golden basket with a sharp base point, blooming metal in the shape of a tulip surrounding basket. In their search through the quarters, the guards and monsters stretch out their necks around the moons; looking for a single sign of their intruders. One soldier stretches out towards the floating crib; glancing inside to find nothing but soft pillow nestled between its golden sides. The soldier reaches out its limbs towards the inside; grabbing hold of the soft cushion and lifting it up. Underneath the pillow, the soldier finds nothing but the curving inside; soon putting the cushion right back inside and searching elsewhere.

Their search yielding no fruit, the flood of golden monsters and soldiers drain out from the chambers bottom. The cluster of fused abominations having departed, something minuscule crawls around a yellow moon and flies away; its taillight matching the same color as the crescent it took off of. After flying about to check if the coast was clear, the tiny firefly grows back into the green demon himself; landing upon the curving bottom of the quarters. Finally lost those golden assholes; turns out that liquid metal was better in chasin shit than it looks. Maybe James Cameron was onto something, who knows?

Peeking out from the hole, the green demon surveys the glimmering halls for any sign of the collage of soldiers and monster; dropping down after finding the coast clear. Upon landing on the golden bottom, a familiar echoing cry catches the demons attention; turning back towards the source of the struggling screams. Those bratty noises. Can’t be.

Turning into a leopard, Victor follows the echoing cries through he curving halls; racing across the looping twists and swirls throughout. His pursuit soon leads him to a jagged hallway composed of boxes that twist on each other; their corners sticking out into the open. Leaping across the halls, the demon soon comes to a drop and turns back to descend down through the hall; soon landing upon a cyan surface. Gazing down through the plasma barrier, Victors curious face soon sours upon finding the source of the scream. “Yep, thought it sounded like you.”

Glancing up from her shrinking entrapment, Shen Mi finds her demonic partner standing sideways. “You! Don’t just stand there! Get me outta her!” she demands. “Golly, you’re wanting my help. And here I was think such a gifted and powerful witch like you didn’t need a hand from some orphaned freak.” “Ohohoho, do not fucking do this right now! Just quit standing there and help me out already!” “Mmm. I’m gonna haveta think about it for a sec-No.” Having said this, the demon simply turns away from the struggling sorceress; soon hearing a small cackle coming out of the witch herself. “And how do you exactly plan on breaking the news back at HQ, huh? Telling my brother and daddy how you just left their gifted little witch to die?” “Oh wow. I didn’t realize that. Realize how such a powerfully magical sorceress could result to such low and petty threats. Oh, how the mighty have sadly fallen.” Victor jests.

Feeling her magic weaken, Shen Mi watches the cyan walls inch closer; a seething growl escaping from between her teeth. “What the hell do you want out of me!? An apology!?” Turning back towards the struggling witch, the demon confirms with: “Ding ding ding ding! We got a winner here folks! A small sorry for all the constant shit you been throwing at me since we’ve been paired up! Tsk, calling someone and orphaned freak. The hell’s the matter with you?” “Nrr...fine, alright! I’m sorry, okay! It’s just frustrating working with someone that barely listens and just does whatever the hell he wants! Happy!?” “Ehhhhh, not yet.” Victor admits.

“Oh you stuborn piece of-. What else could you possibly want from me!?” the young sorceress exclaims. “Eh, I don’t know. How bout admit how your not as tough shit as you think you are? That you’re not this powerful goddess of magic that you always bitch to be.” Pushing against the barriers force, Shen Mi gives her answer with a harsh: “Never!” “Ah, well. Suit ya self. Have fun.” her demonic partner mentions before beginning to jump out from the jagged hall. Struggling further against the cyan walls, the sorceress gazes above to witness the green demon start to ascend towards the turn. “Ahh! Fine, you win!” Hearing this echoing admission causes Victor to stop leaping out towards the top; glancing back down towards the imprisoned witch.

With a hefty sigh, the young sorceress attempts to start off with: “i must admit, although my magical prowess in the arcane is vast, powerful, astounding, extraordinary, gifted, wondrous, boundless, magnificent, glorious...” As the witch below continues to endlessly spout positive adjectives, the teenage demon can’t help but shake his head; threatening to leave with a sharp: “See ya!” “But!...” With her sudden break, Victor looks back down; hearing Shen Mi continue with: “There is still so much more out there I can learn from. The world and the ones beyond it are full of so much to know and see. I shouldn’t be shunning the chance of gaining experience from others around me by berating them of my own talents. I can still better myself from those around me. From people like my daddy, from my brother, from my teammates, and even...even from you, Victor.” All of the witch’s regrets out in the open, the green demon himself looks back down with a warm smile.

“Now that all of that’s been said and done, would you be so kind as to- Get me the hell outta this cyan nightmare!” “Just sit tight.” Victor suggests before leaping out; transforming into a falcon to ascend back out of the boxed hall. Watching as her partner departs; the Heylin witch feels the blue barricade around her push further in.

Hasting through the twisting corridors of the golden palace, Victor scampers across the geometrical halls in the form of a racehorse; galloping and jumping across the slanted and jagged surfaces in his path. In the green demons hurry, he keeps in mind the position of his entrapped partners position relative to his. That being the case, the demonic shape shifter glances ahead to discover a branching path; one leading upwards left while another to the bottom right. Leaping in the air, Victor swiftly takes the form of a penguin and drops down into the latter hall; sliding across the descending halls smooth gold on his stomach.

Gliding across the golden corridor, Victor finds a light up ahead; soon speeding off a ramp way that leads out into a larger hall. Careening through the air, the demonic penguin finds himself flying in what seemed to be a banquet hall of sorts; floating sets of tables and chairs scattered through the glistening hall. Tumbling down towards these tables, the green demon slips straight from a penguin into a mountain ram; soon jumping across the banquet chambers tables. In his skipping traversal, Victor finds within his sites another ramping hole above; matching the exact design as the one he’d just shot out off. The exit above locked in his sites, the demonic goat takes one final leap before forming back to normal; casting out his bandages towards one of the lone seats above. Swinging out towards the corridor, Victor transforms into a mouse right at the arch of his jump; rising right onto the corridors ramp. Once he makes his smooth landing on the ramp, the green demon takes the form of a greyhound and continues to scamper through the hallway.

In his haste, Victor attempts to traces where exactly his enchanted partner stood; taking a sharp right to the intersection ahead. Getting closer. Hang on there, ya bratty bitch. Should be just a couple more turns before- In the midst of pondering this, a familiar roar echoes through the golden corridors; causing the demons haste to come to a halt. God dammit. Not this liquid bastard again. Don’t have time to deal with its bullshit. Gonna need to hide. Planning such, Victor’s gaze frantically looks around for wherever his canine ass could hide; soon noting an open hole left to the side.

Flowing along the smooth curving halls, the golden flood of clustered soldiers and beasts passes through; its countless head gazes in every direction for the palaces intruder. One of these head stretches out within an open hole set to the side; finding within the darkened chamber nothing but forming boards with piping attached. With not a single sign of their intruder in site, the mass of clustered guards and monsters moves on; the head gazing inside withdrawing from the room.

Unaware to them, their target hides right before their eyes; the green demon reveling to have taken the form of a dark yellow chameleon. Jumping off the golden wall, Victor changes back to normal and lands near the exit; peeking out for any sign of the blob of horrific golden nightmares. Finding next to no sign of his liquid pursuer, Victor sprints out from the unorthodox latrine and continues racing through the golden corridors.

In his charge through the diamond shaped hallway, Victor takes a sharp turn into a hole along the side; leaping into a chamber with odd tools and appliances spread throughout. The green demon unveils out from his bandages a few of those acidic fuchsia fruit; carefully aiming their plump hides towards the wall over one of these golden appliances. Once certain of his target, Victor chucks the striped fruit over towards the wall; their juices splattering all over the shinning wall.

Pinched between the squeezing cyan walls, only meager feat stood between the Heylin witch and her crushing demise; feeling her palms growing more numb by the minute. In her struggles does a familiarly sweet scent brush past her nose; following the smell underneath her to witness a fuchsia liquid quickly start to burn through the golden surface. Once the juices create a large enough hole, a pair of wrappings shoot out from the other side; swiftly entangling the young sorceresses legs. With but one strong tug, Shen Mi is jerked out from between the closing barricades; the cyan barrier finally closing upon her leave.

Having pull his mystical partner out from the jaws of death, a wide smile spreads across his face as he shout: “Gotcha.” That same smile swiftly fades as he witness the witch’s careening flight not stopping; watching as she crashes right into the other side of the hexagonal kitchen. Upon her rough impact does the sorceress tumble down the chamber; resting on the point at the cornering bottom of the room. Rising from the cornered floor, Shen Mi calms her distressed breathing; Victor approaching the decompressing spell caster with a: “Eh, sorry for the rough landin there. Kind of in a hurry, ya know.” After letting a deep breath pass between her lips, the teenage witch returns the demons apology with: “Don’t be...It was about time you got me out of there. Starting to get cramped as hell.” “You’re welcome.”

From her breathing does a sharp growl seep out from between her teeth, venting aloud on how: “This entire mission has just been a roller coaster of frustration after frustration; taking us through the agonizing tunnels of failure and pain! The whole thing’s just given me one overly painful migraine! Of all days to forgot the ibuprofen.” “Hey, chill out. Least we’re still in once piece.” Victor interjects. “Of course someone like you would say that. You’re so used to failing.” “Yeah, I am. But ya know something? Even when getting my ass handed to me stings like a motherfucker, it gives me a chance to be better. To figure out what went wrong and improve. It can be a brutal bitch...but that’s just what life is.” “...Huh. Ya know-” Her gaze turning back towards the green demon, the young sorceress finishes with: “That might just be the smartest thing that’s come out of your mouth yet.” Upon such a rare complement, a small smile peeks out from between his cheeks.

A ringing shriek soon makes that smile vanish; both Victor and Shen Mi turn towards the kitchens exit to behold the golden amalgamation of soldiers and monsters pouring inside. “Aw hell.” Victor curses. Its massive liquid body overshadowing the two, the collage of guards and freaks lunge forth with a cavalcade of sharp limbs. Their assault however is easily quashed; Shen Mi splattering the abomination with but a single fiery green blast. After the smoke from her palm cools, a deep breath leaves the witch’s lungs; barking on how: “This dammed city has been nothing but one constant overly shimmering nightmare! This whole time, my magic has been brushed aside and countered every single step of the way, and neither of us had discovered not even single trace of even this lost race; not even any mention of a name! Ya know what!? I don’t give a shit anymore! I’m so glad that whoever built this Hera forsaken city died out! Fuck them hard with a barb wired didlo!” Ending her enraged rantings, the sorceress turns towards the exit as she takes in a relaxing breath. “I just wanna put this whole mission and this deserted tacky shit hole behind me. Come one, Victor. It’s time for us to leave.” “Eh, before we do...” With Victors mention, Shen Mi glances back to the demon; hearing him reveal that: “I think I might have found something while fucking around at this place’s arena. Something I think ya can translate.” “Oh please. Like you’ve found anything worth noting.” With the sorceress’s doubt, a contemptuous glare spreads across the demons face; Shen Mi reconsidering with: “Fine. Lead the way.”

Leading the Heylin sorceress back to the coliseum, Victor leads her into the triangular chamber with the statues holding the mirror sphere. Beyond the glowing platform in the center floats a wide silver plaque with the bizarre lettering engraved in its steel. “So, this is what you’ve found?” Shen Mi questions. “Yep, only weird symbols not written on some explosive happy hologram.” Though young sorceress begins to approach the hovering plague, the green demon stops her just before she flies over the glowing platform with: “Hold up.” Stopping on the spot, the witch wonder why he stopped her with: “What?” “Don’t float over that spot. Just...trust me.” Although scoffing at her demonic partners warning, she flies around the bright glowing platform anyway. Might as well, he been helpful so far.

Once behind the glowing podium, the witch waves her palms over the lettering; the engraved symbols highlighted by a lime green aura. The aura taking the shape of the letters, they soon projects themselves over the plaque; their forms soon twisting before the duo’s eyes. The symbols soon morph themselves into English letters, making out a fully translated sentence. “Hmph, there we go. A full translated plaque. Seems my magic wasn’t the problem after all; as usual.” “Uh cool...Soooo, what’s it say?” the green demon wonder. “Ugh, you illiterate…It says-”

“Fight well, Young Kybr. May the battles you face mold you into proud warriors.” Drake repeats. Back within the Young Blood Alliance’s HQ, Both the witch and demon stand before their leader in his office. “And this was all the evidence you could successfully trace?” their leader question. “Sadly, yes. Their archive’s proved more stubborn in lending us any feasible information. Who knew an ancient lost race would think of privacy protection countless millennia before humans?” Shen Mi explain. After letting out a small breath while pinching his nose, Drake calmly admits that: “I really should have expected as much; pairing you up with Victor of all people was more of a mistake then I realized.” Upon his boss’s chastisement, the shape shifting demon’s irritated gazes drifts to the side. His site swiftly turns back, surprised on how his enchanted partner defend that: “To be completely honest, he wasn’t as bad as I expected him to be. He was actually the one to find the scrape of translatable info in the first place.” Hearing the bratty witch standup for him; a small smile breaks between his cheeks. “Hm. Even so, I expecting far more promising results; especially from you, dear sister.” Drake mentions. “Kinda like how daddy expects more out of me than you?” the sibling bites back. A moment of embittering silence passing, their leader soon tells the two: “Both of you are dismissed.”

Outside the office door, both the witch and demon glance to one another; Victor mentioning how: “Well, that was one hell of a ride wasn’t it? Kinda fun working with ya.” “The feeling is oddly mutual. It makes me wish we can working together agains someday soon in the near ffffffffffff-” On the cusp of finishing her statement, Shen Mi busts out laughing in a cackling uproar; the demon joining in her chortling fit. Their laughter soon starts dying down, the sorceress catching her breath as she admits: “I...I can’t even finish that with a straight face.” “I know. Took me all I had not to even snicker.” After catching their breath, the two finally depart from one another with the witch going: “Yeah, go fuck yourself.” “Eat shit, ya bitch.”

#Young Hope #lillaxtrigger

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