#until she put on black leather and stabbed a guy in a fun slide

[gummybear1031]

I love Harley Quinn (maybe not as much as Margot Robbie does). Like she was the first time I remember thinking, "Maybe I'm not as straight as previously advertised."

So of course, I bought "Birds of Prey." I love Gail Simone's run; I love Harley. It was a no brainer.

Why did none of you warn me about Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Huntress?!? My poor little wlw heart had to go into that completely unprepared.

There better be a sequel that's mostly Huntress beating people up and being an awkward ball of rage.

#birds of prey #bop #movie adaptation #movies #birds of prey movie #harley quinn #huntress #helena bertinelli #mary elizabeth winstead #mew was never my type #until she put on black leather and stabbed a guy in a fun slide

[sparklekitteh]

Prom Night

SFW, inspired by this imagine from @jeanslove

Jean Kirschtein x fem!Reader

Word count: 1998 -- LOL, ironically the year of my senior prom

Warnings: None, this is all SFW cotton candy fluff

“Y/N, will you come take one more picture before Jean arrives, dear?” Mrs. Kirschtein asked sweetly, her professional grade Nikon camera dangling from her neck. You adore Jean’s mother -- this woman who might as well be your own mom, as much time as you’ve spent at her house with your best friend Jean. She thinks the world of you and was delighted when Jean asked you to be his date to senior prom. She was over the moon when your parents invited her over to take pictures of the big moment when Jean whisked you away to the dance. In the two hours it has taken Jean to secure his rental tuxedo and your corsage, your mother and Mrs. Kirschtein -- Mama K as she likes you to call her -- have probably snapped hundreds of pictures of you from every angle. She was posing your hand on the waist of your red satin gown in front of the old upright piano where your father gave you and Jean lessons for years when you heard the cheery tones of your front door bell.

“Honey, he’s here!” your father calls to you from the door. “And he looks real sharp, like a fine young gentleman. Come on in, Jean,” he beckons to your date, and your father is not wrong. Jean is dressed to the nines in a black tux with a red vest and red bowtie matched to your dress, his shiny patent leather shoes gleaming in the light of your living room. Despite his attempt to sound suave in his text to you earlier, now his face is almost as scarlet as his outfit. He manages to find the words to say thanks and shake your dad’s hand nervously, who claps Jean’s shoulder with such a heavy hand that he has to take a step to the side to catch himself from stumbling.

“Oh Jeanboy, you’re here! Come in here by the piano so I can take pictures of you two dressed up,” his mother calls and you are surprised to learn that Jean’s face can turn an even deeper shade of red. “Look at my handsome boy!”

“Mother, please!” he groans as she drags him by his elbow and you follow trying to suppress a laugh at Jean’s protests at his mother publicly doting on him. She fusses over your dress for a few moments, straightening the hem while she instructs you to angle your shoulders just a little this way and tilt your chin up. She grabs Jean’s wrist and pulls him to stand behind you, then places his hands on your waist. “Sorry about this,” he mutters to you as she continues adjusting his stance.

“It’s ok,” you smile reassuringly, and it really is. You’ve had a crush on Jean for the longest time but didn’t want to do anything to endanger your friendship, especially since he’s your next door neighbor and it would be awkward as hell if it went sour. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t enjoy having his hands resting lightly on your waist as his mother flits about. She takes a few steps back and peeks through the camera lens to frame the shot and then steps over again to nudge Jean closer to you, closer, closer still, until he’s standing so near that you can smell the minty gum he’s chewing mixed with the cologne he bought for the occasion, a light botanical scent that reminds you of rain and freshly cut grass. His hands are trembling slightly, probably from the fact that he’s practically standing on top of you with your parents right there. His mother, finally satisfied with the shot, begins snapping pictures. Jean relaxes a little as your mom and dad crack jokes and tell stories about their own prom adventures, though the tremor in his featherlight touch near your hips betrays his nerves. After what seems like an eternity, his mother decides she has enough pictures and begins to shoo you and her son to the door.

“Mom, wait a second, will you? I have something for you, Y/N.” He strides to the table next to the front door where a plastic clamshell holds a delicate white rose fastened to an elastic band. He pops open the box and pulls the bud out, then slips the elastic around your wrist -- you note to yourself to thank him later for opting for this corsage and not one that would be pinned to the front of your dress; considering what a jittery mess he is he’d probably stab you with the pin.

“Thank you, Jean. It’s lovely,” you say as you bring the bloom to your nose. The scent blends perfectly with your vanilla rose lotion and you close your eyes as you inhale deeply. As you open your eyes, you see Jean is watching you with a dopy smile and it evaporates as soon as he realizes you saw it. He looks down at his feet, then runs his hand over his fresh undercut.

“You are lovely,” he whispers, then looks around the room with a sheepish grin. What a relief -- all of the adults are reminiscing about their high school days and are blessedly unaware of the two of you. “Ready to go?”

“Yeah,” you breathe, thankful that this stage of the night is coming to a close.

“It’s getting close to seven, it’s time to see you two off,” your mother smiles and walks you to the front door. “Have fun and remember, curfew is midnight.”

“Thanks, Mom,” you nod. Jean is whisking you out the door, eager to leave before his mother can stop him for another round of photographs. As you stumble over the threshold, you are shocked to find a black limousine parked in front of your house. The chauffeur, leaning against the passenger door and dressed in a black tuxedo himself, sees you approaching and moves to open the door for you. You stop in your tracks and gape at Jean. “Is this for us?”

“Yeah, silly… who else would it be for?” he laughs. “Cinderella went to the ball in a carriage, right? Every princess needs to arrive in style.” He pulls a pair of aviator sunglasses from his pocket and puts them on, then flashes you that crooked smile that makes your heart feel like it’s going to race out of your chest. He takes your hand and turns to wave to his mom who has followed you outside, the shutter of her camera snapping as she takes another hundred or so photos. Jean looks dashing in his tux and shades and you feel like you’re getting a glimpse of the man he’ll become -- handsome, confident, cool as hell. He helps you into the limo and as if the universe couldn’t miss an opportunity to humble him, Jean bonks his head on the doorframe and yelps a curse.

“Jean Kirschtein!” his mother scolds him, then rushes over to examine his injury. He holds her at arm’s length and rubs his head, the aviators sitting askew on his face now and for the second time you have to hold back a giggle -- you can tell he’s not physically hurt too badly but his pride certainly is. He mumbles an apology to his mom for the profanity and slides into the limo with you, taking the sunglasses off. You lean over and peer at his forehead.

“I think you’ll survive but you might have a bruise tomorrow.”

“Oh good. I knew everything was going too well,” he complains and you laugh out loud this time.

You’re still a little confused why he would go to such an expense -- it wasn’t like you were actually dating, and in fact the reason Jean is your date tonight is because you made a promise to each other that if the two of you didn’t have a date to senior prom that you’d go with each other. He probably feels sorry for me, you think to yourself. You wonder why he wasn’t able to secure someone else as his date, though. You know for a fact there are several girls and even a couple of guys in your graduating class that have turned their attention on Jean but he never seems to be aware of their interest. He turns to you as the limo pulls away from the curb and you’re grateful to finally be out of the glaring attention of your family and just relax with your friend.

“Jean, thanks for this,” you gesture around you at the limo’s interior. “This was unexpected but very sweet.”

He scoots a little closer and your breath catches in your throat as his knee bumps into yours, the black satin stripe on his tuxedo pants brushing against the red satin of your dress. “Of course, Y/N. I wanted to make tonight special for you,” he smiles shyly. “I hope you don’t think I went overboard or anything -- mom actually suggested this.”

“Oh,” you reply, a little let down that the thoughtfulness came from his mother and not himself.

“She said I owed you after chasing away everyone else who wanted to ask you to be their date tonight,” he chuckled, turning red again. You stare at him dumbfounded at what he just dropped so casually.

“What?” is all you can manage to squeak out and he shows that lopsided grin you’ve come to cherish.

“I know we said we’d be each other’s date if no one else asked… but I kind of cheated. Mina Carolina asked me but I turned her down, and I … uh… I might have warned every guy in our class that I’d kick their asses if they asked you to prom.” His grin faded into a sheepish look as he looked into your wide eyes and fumbled over his words. “I hope you’re not mad. I just… I didn’t know how to tell you that I like you. A lot. More than best friends. For a long time now.”

“Jean, I like you too. Way more than best friends,” you whisper and feeling an impulse of bravery, you thread your fingers with his and squeeze his hand.

“Would you … um… would you be my girlfriend, Y/N?”

“Oh my god, I thought you’d never ask. Yes!” you breathe and he tilts your chin up to look into your beaming face. The look of relief and adoration in his eyes melts your heart as he softly kisses you -- your first kiss, and his as well. He goes to lean his forehead to yours and then swears quietly, feeling the bump he received earlier. You giggle and gently kiss the sore knot on his forehead, and he laughs too. He’s warm and wonderful sitting so close to you and you feel like you’re dreaming, enchanted by this sweet clumsy boy.

The limo pulls up to the entrance of the school gym and Jean, more carefully this time, leads you out of the vehicle into the school. Sasha greets you at the door, both of you gushing about how pretty you look in your gowns and Connie fist bumps Jean when he sees you’re still holding his hand. Jean opens the door for you and ushers you into the dimly lit gymnasium, decorated with silver and blue balloons and streamers, fairy lights strung along the walls to resemble constellations, and leads you through a tinsel-curtained archway that reads A Night Among the Stars. There are certainly stars in his eyes as he leads you onto the dance floor and you fall into a comfortable swaying rhythm as you wrap your arms around his neck, his hands resting on your hips with just enough distance between you not to alarm any of the teachers and chaperones. What you thought was going to be an awkward night of goofing off with your friends has become the night you’ve dreamed of -- the night you finally get to hold Jean and call him yours.

#jean kirstein #jean kirschtein #jean kirstein x reader #jean kirschtein x reader #tooth rotting fluff

[before-we-get-started]

Dream Come True

Colin Shea x O/C Corinne MacAdam

Multi-Chapter Story - Complete

Summary: Colin Shea and his band Rock the Cradle are finally making it big - until something unexpected happens. When he meets a girl that makes him reconsider his player ways, he thinks his life may be coming together, until she blows it apart.

Warning: Bad language, smut, suicidal ideations - no one under 18, please

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please do not read if you are underage. I do not own the character of Colin Shea; the rest are my original characters. By reading beyond this point, you understand the disclaimers as posted.

Chapter Six

To say Rapscallion’s was hopping on Saturday was an understatement. Waitresses were balancing round trays with mugs of beer and drinks, spinning around customers as they piled into the bar. Cori was glad she got there early and grabbed a table. Her friends came in and she waved to get their attention.

“Holy hell, this place is rocking!” said Sarah. “I haven’t been here in a long time, looks the same.”

“This used to be my brother’s favorite place, I always wanted to sneak out with him and come here,” said Jana.

They’d been friends since elementary school, stayed in touch during college and now they were all making their way in the world. Only Cori had been in a serious relationship. The other girls were playing the field, enjoying single life.

A waitress took their order and they picked out appetizers and beers. It was eight o’clock, the band should be out any time.

“So you know someone in the band?” Jana asked as the lights dimmed and stage lights came up.

“Yes, he’s my neighbor,” said Cori.

“What’s his name?”

“Colin Shea.”

Both of her friends all but dropped their beer bottles on the table. “Colin Shea? Are you kidding?”

“No,” she said. “Why?”

“That bastard. He picked me up at a party and told me he’d dreamed of a girl like me. The next morning, he was gone when I woke up. He never even called.”

“I’ve got one better than that!” said Sarah. “I slept with him at his apartment and when I woke up, he was gone. From HIS apartment. Turns out he was hiding out across the hall until I left.”

“Across the hall?” said Cori.

“Yeah, the girl that lived there let him hide out from all the conquests he didn’t have the balls to talk to anymore after sleeping with them.”

Cori looked down at her beer bottle and made a face.

“What?” said Sarah.

“I think that’s my apartment now. I live across the hall from him.”

They all looked at each other and started laughing. “Well, you should put a toll booth on the sixth floor. You’ll retire early with all the traffic at his apartment.”

“And be careful. He’s incredibly charming,” said Sarah.

Just then, the manager of the bar took the stage. “This is a big night for us here at Rapscallion’s. We’re happy to host the return of our favorite band, ladies and gentleman the ones you’ve been waiting for, Rock the Cradle!”

A roar went up as Colin and the boys took the stage. Of course he was out front, lead guitarist and singing lead. Cori gasped when she saw him, then tried to find some air to breathe. He had on black leather pants and boots, a white button up shirt with the sleeves roll up to just below his elbows. His hair was moussed and his chain with the medallion and sexy chest tattoo were on full display. He looked gorgeous.

“Damn,” Sarah said next to her, “now I remember why I slept with him.”

The band played a set and sounded fantastic. They recognized a couple of the songs but she bet the others were originals. They were all good. When the set ended, Colin announced they were taking a break and would be back in a few.

The girls decided this would be a good time to hit the bathroom, so they decided Cori would stay with their purses and go last. Sarah and Jana made their way through the crowd, shoulder to shoulder with the other customers. As people filed past their booth, a guy stopped, gripping onto the edge of the table as the crowd brushed past him.

“Sorry,” he said to Cori, “just trying to stay alive.”

She burst out laughing and so did he. He was tall and thin with brown wavy hair and wire framed glasses. He had on a Pixies t-shirt and jeans and had gorgeous brown eyes. He tried to merge back out from the table but the crowd was too heavy.

“Do you mind if I sit?”

“No, please,” said Cori, pulling the purses over.

“I’ll just wait until I can actually merge without crashing. Seth, by the way.” He extended his hand.

“Cori.”

“Nice to meet you Cori. Do you come here often?” He stopped, his eyes wide. “Did I really just say that?”

She laughed again. “Actually no. I came to see the band, I’m friends with one of them.”

“Oh yeah? My buddies and I used to come and hear them all the time, we missed them when they quit playing. I was glad to hear they were back.”

“Yeah, they’re really good. It’s my first time seeing them play. I just moved into a new apartment and one of the guys is my neighbor.”

“Very cool. I love the nachos here, probably have more of them than I should,” he said. He had a gorgeous smile, and Cori found herself smiling back.

“I live a few blocks over, share an apartment with my buddy.” He pointed over his shoulder towards another table. “I work for a legal office down the street, run their IT department. I love this neighborhood.”

“Me too,” she said. “I just got here but it seems great.”

He hesitated and took a breath like he was preparing for something. “Would you join me one night? For nachos? Or whatever you want, I mean, if you don’t like them, but, like, for dinner?”

He was nervous and she found it so charming. “I’d love to,” she said. “Thank you.”

They traded phones and gave each other their numbers, relieved and laughing as they chatted. Across the room, Colin managed to make his way out of the green room where the band was hanging out. He’d spotted Cori in the crowd as soon as he took the stage and he loved seeing how into the music she was.

As he moved through the crowd, he could see her at her table. She had on a strapless top with a rhinestone choker and her hair was pulled up into a high ponytail. He’d seen her in makeup for work but tonight she’d changed it up, smoky eyeshadow and dark eyeliner. She looked gorgeous. He saw her through a totally different lens tonight. He was closer to the table and the crowd parted, and he stopped. She was with a guy. They were talking and laughing, exchanging cell phones. The guy leaned closer to her and she threw her head back to laugh. He suddenly felt like he couldn’t breathe. Not only was she more beautiful the closer he got, the stab of jealousy he felt took him by surprise. How hadn’t he noticed her this way before now? He thought for just a second and realized that, for the first time since he met her, she looked happy. He thought about what she’d said, about being cheated on by someone and getting a fresh start. He suddenly wished he was her fresh start.

“Hi Colin.” He was suddenly surrounded by three girls telling him how great he was and how much they loved the band. He thanked them, checking them out but not losing focus on Cori’s table. He noticed two more girls sliding in next to her. She said something to the guy and he walked away, then she slid out of the booth.

“Excuse me ladies,” he said, pushing his way towards the women’s restroom. He cut her off just as she got there.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey! Oh my gosh, you guys are so good!”

“Thanks,” and Cori noticed he actually blushed a little. “So you’re having a good time?”

“Yes, best time I’ve had in a long time! I met some friends and we’re having a blast.”

“Good, it means a lot that you’re here.” He hesitated, then “uh, there’s a party afterwards at our building on the roof. Do you want to come?”

“Uh, sure. Ok.”

He shook his head, smiling that irresistible smile and it was all she could do not to jump him right there. “Ok, see you at the party.”

“See you at the party!”

The rest of the evening flew by, the band bringing down the house and getting called back for an encore. When the house lights came up, everyone started moving around again, some leaving now that the band had ended.

“Well, that’s it for me. I can’t believe I have to work tomorrow,” said Sarah.

“Yeah, I need to go too,” said Jana. “Wanna share an Uber?”

“Sure.”

Cori was so sad the evening had ended, she’d had so much fun. “Please tell me we’ll do this again soon. We should do this all the time!”

“Agreed,” they both said. They made their way out of the bar and exchanged hugs and said good night. It was such a gorgeous night. Cori had planned to get a cab but it was too nice not to walk.

“Hey stranger.” Seth came up from behind her. “How was your evening?”

“It was so good! I was just telling my friends how we should do this more.”

“Which way are you going?”

Cori pointed towards her building.

“Mind if I walk with you?”

“That would be great,” she said.

She found talking to him so easy. He told her he too should try to get out more. He spent too much time at work and his mother was all over him to get a life.

Cori laughed. She told him she’d started a new job and really loved it. “It was a great opportunity and I’m making the most of it.”

As they neared her building, she was feeling courageous. “I got invited to a party with the band on the roof of my building. Do you want to come up with me?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, enthusiastically opening the door for her. They made their way up the stairs to her apartment, stopping in so she could drop off her purse, then they headed up to the roof.

As she stepped through the doorway, Colin saw her. He’d been waiting impatiently, willing her to walk through every time the door opened. He smiled brightly, jumping up from the couch – until he stopped. She wasn’t alone. The guy from the bar was with her. This wasn’t what he’d hoped for.

She smiled and waved at him, stopping to talk to some of their neighbors and introducing the guy she was with. He let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. She made her way towards him, the guy following behind.

“It was so good Colin,” she said, pulling him into a hug. That shock between them happened again. “So good!”

“Thanks.” Damn she smelled good.

She turned to the guy, taking his hand and pulling him toward her. “Colin Shea, this is Seth Miller.” The guys exchanged hellos and Colin noticed when she lowered her hand, she kept hold of the guy’s hand. “We’re going to grab a beer, do you need one?”

He lifted his bottle. “No, I’m good.” They walked towards the cooler and grabbed beers, talking to the people near the cooler.

Alright, two could play this game. He took a look around and zeroed in on a blonde standing alone. He went up and started to introduce himself but there was no need, she knew who he was and was happy to be his arm candy.

Cori and Seth found a place to sit and started talking. He’d grown up in a suburb of Boston and gone to school at Virginia Tech where he’d stayed for a master’s degree. He snagged the job with the law firm right out of college and found an apartment nearby. He had a younger sister and his parents still lived in his childhood home. He was a huge baseball fan. His dad had season tickets and he joined him often at Red Sox games.

Cori’s story was similar, growing up in Waltham and going away to a small college in Connecticut. She’d initially moved back in with her folks but then shared an apartment with a friend until the accident (which she didn’t mention). They both loved Italian food and action movies. She was feeling a connection that was really comfortable.

Just across the roof, Colin was dancing with the blonde. You could barely slip a credit card between them, he was holding her so close. All the while, he kept an eye on Cori. She never looked up, not once, she was so engrossed in her conversation. He noticed how much she laughed and smiled, really smiled, the entire time. When she’d made the comments to him that she did about her past, he didn’t really think about it. She was obviously deeply hurt. He’d blown it off, and then sped out of her apartment to go meet his booty call for the night. What a jerk.

He tried to focus on the blonde instead of why what Cori was doing mattered to him. Truth was, he felt a pull to her. She was beautiful, but it was more. Her independence, her sense of humor, her prowess in the kitchen, the way she’d lit up when he handed her flowers that night. He felt some kind of connection to her. He was sure she felt something for him too. He looked over at her again, and she had her hand on her date’s arm. If she did feel something for him, this guy was fixing to make it disappear. He worked his dance partner closer to where Cori was sitting, and she finally looked up. When she did, Colin planted a slow, deep kiss on the blonde, then pulled away and looked into her eyes. As he looked back at Cori, he saw the smile leave her face for a minute, then she focused on Seth again and the smile returned.

He knew it. She did have something for him. When the song ended, he let the blonde go and found someone else to flirt with. He was suddenly the center of attention, everyone talking about the show and how good it was. He was enjoying the conversation and almost didn’t notice Cori and her date slipping through the door to leave the roof.

He waited a few seconds and excused himself, slowly descending the stairs into the building, and creeping down to the sixth floor. He could hear voices as he came around the corner. They were at Cori’s door, and it looked like their evening was ending. He watched Seth put his hand on Cori’s cheek and move closer to her, their first kiss inevitable.

“Hey 6C!” said Colin. Cori and Seth jumped, startled. “I was telling Cathy about that amazing pasta you made us for dinner the other night. She wondered if you’d share the recipe.”

Cori stared at him. Seriously? “Uh, sure. I’ll get with her later.”

“Ok,” he said. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets, standing in front of his door. And he stayed that way. Didn’t move.

Cori cleared her throat. “Ok, well thanks for walking me home.”

“Thanks for the party,” said Seth. He kissed the back of her hand. “I’ll see you Tuesday night.”

“Great,” she said with a smile and he stepped away, walking around the bannister and directly past Colin.

“’Night,” Colin said, tilting forward on the balls of his feet, rocking up and down.

“Good night,” said Seth and down the stairs he went.

Cori walked up to the bannister, waiting until Seth was out of ear shot.

“You have shitty timing,” she said to him, her mouth in a grim line.

“Aw, sorry about that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I wanted to catch you before you went to bed.”

“Yeah, that was some Earth shattering info you needed.” She rolled her eyes and unlocked her door. “Good night Colin,” she said, rich with sarcasm.

“’Night 6C,” he said with a smile. “Sweet dreams.”

She slammed the door behind her.

#chris evans #chris evans fanfic #chris evans angst #chris evans fanfiction #dream come true #what's your number #royal court #colin shea fanfic #colin shea fanfiction #colin shea x ofc #colin shea x original fictional character

[irie-kun306]

Deux Mondes

Chapter I

"how did I get here, how did it all end up like this?"

"ah! yes! I remember, that woman who thinks she knows everything! She got me into this and now I don't even know where the hell I am!!!!"

"Although... now that I remember it well.... it's my fault too... I was so damn distracted by... agh, fuck it! Forget it, better forget it. I didn't even stop to ask him what that device he had invented was all about... I just remember he said something about traveling to different places in different time... or something like that?"

"well that doesn't matter anymore...what's done is done...but.... where am I..."

.

.

.

.

TIME BEFORE THE FAILURE OF THE EXPERIMENT...

The sun peeks through a window the thin rays of its white light, the person in the room stirs in his sheets, the sun has hit his face directly, it is 5:30 AM, he gets up heavily, goes to the bathroom and takes a cold shower, he let the jets of cold water hit his body, the water slid down his soft and somewhat tanned skin, changing the temperature of it.

She comes out of the bathroom, she looks at herself in the mirror, her hair was still dripping, she only used a towel around her waist, she takes another towel from the closet and gently dries her hair, she decides to wear her usual clothes, but with a difference, today she will not wear the armor, in front of the mirror she puts on the remaining clothes, she has finished, still in front of the mirror she looks at her face, He swallows thickly and exhales heavily, it is the day, he has decided, he has thought about it for a long time, now everything is clear, he will tell her, he will tell her what he has felt for so long since he saw her, he will finally tell her what he had denied for so long, "his feelings".

He slides the glass door and takes flight, he will go to that place, that place where so many times he used to meet him to train, that place where he saw them get carried away by the emotion of the sound of their fists colliding on the opponent's skin, that place where they seemed to be themselves, without ties, without regrets, without anyone else but the two of them, a universe in which they were the only inhabitants.

But this time it was different, this time it was he who summoned him to that place. And there he was, waiting for him, something very rare indeed, he is not usually very punctual, but there he was, he turned when he felt his presence and gave him a smile, this accelerated a little more his already agitated heart.

He slowly steps forward until his boots touch the grass, he slowly approaches and the other does the same.

-Hello vegeta!!!" he says naturally as every time he sees him.

-Kakaroto- he says, trying to disguise his nervousness a little, he can hear how his heart beats, <<how noisy>> he thinks, but he doesn't take off his typical mask of "I don't care about anything", that mask that has helped him since time immemorial since he can remember.

-It's strange that you asked me to come to train, it's more common that I'm the one who asks you to come," he says a little surprised. But he plays it down, "Well, let's get started then," he says, getting into a fighting pose.

-I didn't call you for that," he says coldly.

Goku leaves his battle pose and with a big question mark looks at him puzzled.

-So?" he asks.

-There's something I have to tell you..." Now you could notice a bit of his nervousness, he took a long breath and looked away.

-y... What do you have to tell me?" curiosity had invaded him.

-Kakaroto... I... I've realized that you are a formidable warrior, it's hard for me to admit it, but that's how it is..." he was still looking to the side.

-Goku didn't say anything, he was stupefied, Vegeta saying that he was a formidable warrior? That was something strange, it was even scaring him a little, maybe this morning he had woken up in an alternate world or maybe he was still asleep.

-You are very childish and innocent sometimes, that was something that bothered me, I couldn't believe that there was a benevolent sayajin who fights just for fun. For a while I hated you with all my strength, I focused that all I felt for you was hatred because you always surpassed me in powers, my pride is something I have put before all things, and I stayed on earth with the excuse of wanting to surpass you, but I have realized that was a lie... I was lying to myself, now I know it. I realized it in that battle with Majin Boo- he was still looking at the horizon, but now he turns and looks at him with great decision in the eyes.

-Now I know what I feel for you," he says looking at Goku, who was still without saying a word but was looking at Vegeta with great attention, even though he couldn't believe what his ears were hearing.

-And you better listen well because I won't repeat it, insect," he closes his eyes, takes a long breath and slowly lets it out and opens his eyes, "and- ... I love you Kakaroto... I love you," he blurts out with great decision and without hesitation.

Goku's face was like "What?" the poor guy didn't believe it, then he thought, << Vegeta sure is joking... if that must be... it's the most logical thing>> is then that he laughs as only he knows how to do it, now Vegeta was the one who had a face of complete surprise.

Goku straightened up and looked at his eternal rival, he looked him in the eyes, those deep black eyes that made him feel so strange, now that he thought about it, he never hated the prince, in fact, he always liked him, even when he was his enemy, his intention was never to kill him or anything like that, he was always the only one who he could always face almost as equals, the only one who seemed to understand him, the only one who never judged him or forced him to do something he didn't want <<like working for example>> but. ... Could it be that what she feels for him... that nervousness, that inexplicable happiness she felt when she saw him coming... but then came to his mind the memory of Gohan, Goten and Milk, his family, he couldn't just leave her, now that he had some time with Milk he could understand the meaning of some things, and the fact that Vegeta loved him meant that if he loved him back he would have to leave his current family. No! he couldn't leave his family for something he didn't even know if he really felt, and thinking about that he decided.

-Vegeta... I don't love you... I don't see you that way... you are... my friend and I can't see you as something else... but, I want us to keep training as usual... so... how about if we pretend this never happened? Yes?...- he said even a little hesitantly.

The answer for Vegeta was like a bucket of the coldest water that could exist, he felt how ice daggers pierced his chest, Goku's words gave no respite to his broken heart, it was broken, the sound it made when it broke sure could be heard even on the other side of the continent, and then the very synical one comes out with

"but I want to keep training with you so... how about we pretend this never happened?"

Vegeta stood there in silence looking like he was gathering anger, hidden even in a surprised face.

-Well Vegeta... if we don't train today then let's train tomorrow..... well then bye- he said seeing that Vegeta didn't react, he put his fingers on his forehead and saying bye he gave him a last smile and teleported home.

He was left alone there... with his heart shattered, he had opened up to him, he showed him his feelings and put them in his hands, and what did he do? He squeezed those feelings as if they were nothing and threw them on the ground and then trampled on them as if they were nothing but garbage, the stabbing pain in his chest, a lump in his throat and endless tears that he did not let go because his pride came out at that moment, his pride that is what always kept him out of this danger that not even all the powers of the world could defeat. Now he would cling to it.

-Then you want me to forget it.... don't you?"-his voice threatened to crack, but he clenched his fists tightly, and looked straight ahead,-then so be it..... - he blurted out angrily.

Vegeta flew back to capsule corp. He got into his room, took off all his clothes and got into the bathtub, he wanted the hot water to take away all those memories, he wanted the relaxing smell of salts and oils to penetrate his thoughts and cloud everything until nothing was left, he looked at the white floor of the bathroom, as if he was looking for the meaning of life, his look was sad.

She sank into the large bathtub, a few minutes passed, holding her breath was something of the simplest.

When he got out he went to the closet and put on some black spandex, a white tank top, this one was a little loose and the fall of it marked the hips of its user in an extremely sensual way, he also put on some Nike air Jordan type flight sneakers, but he didn't

He was not entirely comfortable, "stupid shoes" he said "why does Bulma have to buy me this kind of shoes? I like my usual boots better."

So he exchanged them for his white boots and then put on some leather fingerless biker gloves.

He went downstairs to train in the gravity chamber, surely training with all his strength would make him forget, he always did.

Bulma was in the laboratory, she was making a new invention, this time she would try to win that international fair of scientists, she would surpass all those illusions that did not believe that she deserved that blessed prize.

Her invention now consisted of a machine that would make people travel through time, but it was not like the other machine she invented, this one would not only make them travel to another time but also transport them to other universes at the same time.

But she felt that her calculations might be wrong, something did not fit, maybe some algorithm was wrongly written, but she had to test it, she had to test the machine to clear these doubts and find the problem that did not let her move forward, but with whom? With whom?

It is then that the answer to her prayers passes by her door, Vegeta who was passing by to go to the gravity chamber to start training, was interrupted by the voice of her friend.

"In this case Bulma knew that Vegeta was not with her for love, but for the fact of taking responsibility for his actions << Trunks>> but the earth woman had endeared herself to the sayajin prince, not in the way she wanted but she had managed to make a space in his heart, she had managed to become his friend, so she had been content to at least be that in the prince's life."

-Vegeta!" the woman calls him.

-What do you want, woman? Can't you see I'm busy," he said a little tired, he was not in the mood to talk to someone.

-Come on, Vegeta, don't be like that... I just need you for a moment... I won't keep you long.

It is then that Vegeta looks at her and looks around, he sees that there is a new machine, it is then that he understood, "so you want to try that, don't you?" it was then that without listening to the woman he crossed his arms and went straight to the machine and at once he entered it.

-Hurry up woman, I don't have all day," said Vegeta in the machine.

It is then that Bulma runs to the computer, inserts coordinates, prepares the machine and looks at Vegeta.

-Well Vegeta, the purpose of the machine is to take you...".

-Yeah! -Woman... Just get on with it and get it over with," says Vegeta, interrupting her, already a little tired.

-What a genius..." says Bulma, but why get into an argument, when he gets like that there's no one who can beat him.

Bulma closed the door of the machine, went to the front of the PC and started to look at the logarithms, graphs and everything and then put on some protective glasses.

Everything seemed to be going well, the portal would be next to the machine as Bulma had planned... but.... something went wrong, the PC began to fail and the data and coordinates to distort, the machine began to crumble and everything began to spark, Bulma wanted to stop everything but could not, Vegeta inside the machine only saw how everything began to get chips, Vegeta tried to get out but when he wanted to touch the door the machine exploded, during the explosion Vegeta closed his eyes due to the light, Bulma during the big flash only managed to see how Vegeta fell into the portal next to him and it closed with him.

-Vegeta!!!" shouted the woman, she ran to the PC and almost fell off the desk, she put it back in its position and tried to turn it on, but it wouldn't turn on, she was totally desperate, where did he send Vegeta, did he kill him, did he send him to an unknown dimension, did he leave him lost in space time, could he come back?

Bulma couldn't stop thinking about where Vegeta could be... the only thing she remembered, or rather the only thing she could see was Vegeta falling into the portal and disappearing with it.

Trunks arrived a few minutes later, he had heard the explosion from far away and a little closer to home he heard his mother's scream.

-Mom," said Trunks.

-Trunks...- Bulma approaches the little boy and hugs him, the youngest still doesn't know the cause of his mother's sudden behavior.

Then he looks at the whole mess, he doesn't know what happened, he starts to analyze, he remembers he heard his mother shouting his father's name, he thinks they fought.... but no... that would be something strange... his father would not destroy the laboratory, but where was he then?... he wanted to locate his ki but he could not find it, it is then that he separates from his mother and asks.

-Mom... Where is daddy? I can't feel his ki....

.

.

.

PRESENT TENSE

As he sits in a meadow surrounded by white wildflowers, he notices that he is on the earth, but something is different... it feels and looks like the earth but it is different... something is wrong.

"how did i get here?"

Hey... hi everyone, this is just a test, something just to see if you were interested in this story, this crossover fanfic.

Comment if you liked it and if you expect one more chapter.

[matchaball]

all that glitters is not gold

AN: HAPPPPPYY (late) BIRTHDAY @powerdragonmoon!!! ♥ ♥ ♥ You’re always so amazingly sweet and kind and I’m forever thankful that we somehow found each other in this big, strange world of fandom and became friends! I never could shake off the idea of spy au after talking about it with you, so here’s my gift to you ;) It’s my first time writing ChloNath, so sorry if the characterizations are off! ^^; This was SUPER fun to write though, so I hope it makes for an equally enjoyable read!! Happy birthday again my dear! ♥

Also: Chloé’s dress and heels!

( AO3 )

Chloé Bourgeois does not do subtle.

Subtle would kind of defeat the point of the sleek black dress ensemble gracing her figure for tonight’s assignment, where her every move glitters from the gold embroidery running along the sheer nude fabric covering her collarbones and dipping down over her left shoulder and breast. Spiky gold bracelets flash at her wrists, matched by the outrageously expensive earrings dangling daintily from her ears. Even the turn of her head attracts attention, from the smooth shine of her honey gold hair, to the gold glint of the singular hair comb pinning her complicated updo in place.

If anything else, the waist high slit up the side of her dress, loosely held together by slim strands of gold chain, shows enough leg to make anyone in the room momentarily forget their own name, especially since she’s brought her killer heels to the game.

She could do subtle. She probably should, given her line of work.

But she won’t.

“Doing all right there, Clo?” a voice crackles through the comms hidden in her earrings.

“I’m boooored,” Chloé sighs. A martini hangs from her hand as she surveys the crowd milling around the art gallery for whatever fundraiser they are all apparently a part of.

“You have to wait for the chairman to give his speech, that way all the security gets redirected-”

“-to him, I know, I know.” Chloé rolls her eyes as she drains the rest of her martini. As she signals the bartender for another, she mutters, “Keep me entertained then, Adrien.”

“I’ll do my best,” Adrien laughs. “What do your regular partners do when they’re paired up with you at this end?”

“They’re not partners.” The bartender makes eye contact with her as he prepares her next drink, but all it takes is a slow smile, a suggestive tilt of her head, and a small wink for him to fumble and accidentally spill a bit of gin over the edge. Too easy. “And I don’t know, they never last long enough for me to actually be entertained by them.”

“Except for one.”

She doesn’t answer that. Her original support, her very first, had been a partner to her, for as long as they worked together, for as much as he teased her during missions. Her hot temper and biting words only seemed to amuse him, and even though they knew each other, she’d only ever called him Red for how riled up he could get her in the midst of an assignment.

It was a strange partnership, but it was a good one. Until she went out on an assignment one day and heard another voice at the other end of her comms, another voice that was so nervous, so obviously new, that Chloé ended up silencing communications and going through her assignment solo rather than relying on such dubious support.

The new girl hadn’t lasted long. Neither had any of the other supports assigned to her since.

“You know what they call you here, back at HQ?” Adrien asks.

“Enlighten me.”

“Killer Bee.”

“I’m touched.” Chloé’s tone is about as dry as her martini.

“Yeah,” Adrien chuckles. “Everyone who’s been assigned to you looks like they got handed their death sentence.”

“Everyone except you.”

“Just this time,” he points out. “And only because I broke my leg and Ladybug broke three ribs and nearly punctured a lung during our last mission. Neither of us are very good at quietly resting up though.”

“Hmmm.” Chloé’s answering hum is deceptively non-committal, as is her ensuing comment, “So you being paired up with me for this is purely coincidental.”

“Yup!” Adrien chirps back. Too quick, too bright. No matter how long they’ve been in this business, Chloé can always spot his tells; the perils of growing up together since childhood. “Besides, I can’t help out an old friend every now and then?”

“You can,” Chloé replies as she slowly stands and sidles into the crowd. “You don’t.”

“Me-owch. Well, Fu thought this particular assignment could use some… delicacy.”

Any answer Chloé might’ve given is discarded along with her martini as she accepts a dance invitation from a man she already spotted eyeing her legs earlier that night. Despite his wandering eyes, his hands stay respectfully in place as they whirl and glide along the floor with the other dancers, so he’s spared of any suffering she could’ve gleefully devised for him.

Her smile is a dazzling thing, a tool in itself, and she uses it to full effect on her partner as she scans the room for cameras, exits, windows, air vents, and security personnel. Art museums are always a little trickier, with all sorts of hidden motion sensors and silent alarms that could betray her before she’d even know it, but falling for any one of those would be a disdainful, graceless rookie mistake.

Chloé sniffs. She has only ever been one of the very best.

“Eight more minutes,” Adrien sounds in her ear again. “Take the southmost exit. I’ll disable the keypad and the warning alarms, but there’ll be three guards patrolling the hallways. You’ll need one of them for a fingerprint and eye scan for the next set of doors. Hang on, let me find out which one…”

As the music draws to a close, her partner asks, hopefully, “Another dance?”

She smiles, a pretty, empty thing, as she steps away. “Another time.”

She blends back into the crowd and begins making her way to the back. She circles around sculptures, greets important politicians and businessmen, and picks up a glass of champagne from a passing waiter.

“Ok,” Adrien finally says. “It looks like any one of the guys will do. Try not to kill anyone, Clo.”

“No promises,” she mutters as she drops her empty glass at a nearby table. Right on cue, the crowd begins to murmur and move as the chairman steps up to the podium, a beaming smile on his face and a prepared speech held in his hands.

“Go,” Adrien whispers, but she’s already gone.

The keypad at the door blinks from red to green and she slips soundlessly through before anyone can notice. The hallway she enters is empty, but she knows it won’t stay that way for long.

“Alright, two coming your way,” Adrien warns.

“Just two?” Chloé sighs as she languidly reaches up. She pulls her hair comb out, letting long golden curls cascade down her back, and twists two teeth from the comb out, revealing poison-coated needles. They hide between her fingers as she prepares to put on a show.

“Hey! You can’t be back here!” one of the guards yell as he turns a corner and catches sight of her. His partner is close behind, and one glance alone tells her they mean serious business. Bulletproof vests, at least three guns visible on their persons, and two, possibly three knives hidden on their shins, backs, and wrists.

Chloé gasps. “How dare you talk to me like that! Do you harass every woman who gets lost on her way to the bathroom?”

“Ma’am,” the other man’s partner takes over, his tone decidedly more polite. “I’m sorry, but you aren’t allowed to be here.”

“Too bad,” Chloé decides as she eyes him. A smile curls on her face, as if she likes what she sees. “Seems like you boys could entertain me a lot better than the stuffy old men in the exhibit back there.”

Trained professionals or not, she catches the way their eyes scan her once, twice, not with the gaze of a predator looking to take out its prey, but with the most basic and predictable form of want. Want, though, is easy. She shifts a little, hips swaying, legs sliding out of the high slit of her dress.

“So,” she whispers when she’s right in front of the closest one, “entertain me.”

He swallows and it’s his undoing as her hand slides up and jams a needle into his vocal chords. He chokes, the sound coming out strangled as the needle does its work, and despite his fingers twitching for his weapons, he stiffens up and drops to the ground as the poison paralyzes him.

The second man meets the same fate. With his partner’s back to him, he never even saw her coming until it was too late. He drops like a stone, his voice choking in his throat and a layer of foam coming to froth around the corners of his mouth.

Chloé sighs, decidedly unimpressed. She bends down and begins searching their pockets for anything useful she could use.

“Your 6,” Adrien warns, just as she hears the shout of “Hey!” coming from behind her.

No time to ready her needles, and no space to use them too as she hears the telltale click of a gun cocking in her direction.

“Hands up!” he yells as he stalks towards her.

“Oh please,” Chloé snorts. “Only point that thing if you actually have the balls to use it.”

In one smooth motion, she slides the small dagger hidden out from beneath the sole of her heels and whirls around. She grabs the guard’s arm and wrenches it around, not even blinking as a shot goes off and ricochets off the wall, before using her other hand to twist the dagger deep into his abdomen.

“Don’t even think about it,” she suggests pleasantly as he continues struggling. She brings her foot up and stabs her heel down onto his shoe. The sharp heel sinks through the leather and into flesh and bone, eliciting a strangled moan of pain from the guard before the poison takes him down too.

Unlike Ladybug’s legendary luck or Chat’s many fancy bells and whistles, distraction is her game; few ever think to look closer, to find the actual substance beneath. And the unlucky ones who do find the poison of her sting in lieu of the sweet honey they had hoped for.

“Just three?” Chloé asks as she wriggles her dagger back out. She wrinkles her nose as she wipes the blood off onto the guard’s clothes.

“Just three,” Adrien confirms. “Alright Clo, door at the back. And take one of them with you.”

“I heard you the first time,” she snips. She grabs the unconscious guard closest to the door and begins dragging him down the hall. Despite his size and bulk, she hauls him as easily as a rag doll. As she scans his fingerprint and his eye, Adrien’s voice crackles through her comms again.

“I won’t have eyes when you go in there,” he warns. His keyboard clacks furiously in the background. “I’ve disabled what alarms I could access but there’s still some stuff that’s rigged. I think mostly paintings, maybe one of the sculptures.”

“Mostly paintings,” Chloé repeats as the scanner beeps green. She drops the guard and pushes through the acquiescing doors. “Adrien, darling, you do know why I’m here.”

“I was briefed,” Adrien grumbles. “Your painting shouldn’t have any alarms around it. Your extraction will come to you when you’re ready.”

“I won’t be long,” she assures him as she steps into the pristine, cavernous conservation lab.

Enormous paintings lie in complicated contraptions that she delicately avoids, and smaller paintings waiting to be restored rest in easels on neat, organized work tables. As she passes them by, she snags a pair of latex gloves from a box off someone’s desk. Sculptures and statues occupy a large corner of the room, awaiting their own restorations, but she heads directly to the rows of storage racks stocked full of paintings, snapping on the latex gloves as she approaches her target.

The racks slide out noiselessly as they display their contents to her. Chloé had never been much an art connoisseur, but she’d picked up a few things here and there from her original- her first- partner. When things got tense, he’d always distract her by dropping an interesting tidbit about a painter, about a particular colour, about art history.

It always drove her nuts, because art was hardly interesting to her, but it’d always worked. She relaxed, when he talked to her.

Well, except for one memorable incident when he had actually painted something while he guided through her a mission. He had used whatever obscure colour hues he’d been painting with and his paint stroke patterns to warn her when security was coming or when she had to disable an alarm, and she had damn near blown the roof off of the chateau she’d been infiltrating. The moment the mission had finished and the objective was in her hands, she had railed on him, as angry as a whole horde of provoked bees.

And he had just laughed.

“Found it,” Chloé breathes as she finds a match for the painting she’d been briefed to find. It’s an original Turner, she can tell that much, encased in an ornate gold frame.

She slides the rack out all the way and carefully flips the painting over. The back is empty, just plain canvas against the flat back of the frame, but she carefully detaches a spike from her bracelet and unsheathes the needle thin knife encased within. Carefully, precisely, she digs into the top left corner where the canvas meets the frame until the canvas comes loose. She peels it back a little more and digs the needle into the crevice of the frame, rooting around until she finds what she’s looking for.

She carefully draws her prize out into the light and watches as the faint light shines upon the key dangling from the tip of her knife.

“Shit,” Adrien swears. “You tripped an alarm.”

“Adrien,” Chloé warns as she slides the key down her bra for safekeeping and sheathes the knife back into her bracelet. She flips the painting back over and slides the rack closed. “My extraction, now.”

“Hang on, he’s coming. Let me see if I can reroute security…”

As Adrien handles complications from his end, Chloé sinks into the shadows, her eyes on all the exits she can find. She palms her hair comb in her hands and hooks her fingers through the gold honeycomb design decorating the top until they adorn her fists like brass knuckles. One push of a button, and all the teeth retract, leaving poison-coated needles in their wake.

A noise from the ceiling redirects her attention. Her head snaps up, but there’s only a vent with its gate dangling wide open.

Another noise from behind is the only warning she gets before a hand grabs her wrist. Her fist shoots out behind her, poison needles ready to sting, but her surprise target evades her easily. It was only meant as a distraction though as she stabs her heels down onto her intruder’s feet and headbutts viciously back. Despite the added height of her heels, she only manages to hit his chin but her heels find their target as the sink down into his shoe.

She takes advantage of his momentary swear-filled pause and bodyslams him backwards. They clip a storage cart, sending it flying across the room but that’s only a passing worry as he twists her arm painfully up her back.

Chloé snarls and pushes into the pain by headbutting back again. A thunk and a moan of pain tells her she’s finally backed him against a wall, so she stabs her heel down again until his grip loosens enough for her to twist around. One hand grabs his throat, pinning him against the wall, as her other hand stops just a hair’s breadth away from the underside of his jaw, the honeycomb glinting from her knuckles and the needles just grazing along his skin like a kiss.

“You idiot,” she begins furiously before stopping dead in her tracks. Sky blue eyes blink back at her, unnaturally unruffled and infuriatingly casual about being threatened with instant death. Familiar, firetruck-red hair pulled back into a half-ponytail is the biggest tell though, and she almost wants to stab him again with her heels for the sheer gall-

“Chloé,” Adrien says calmly, delicately, “meet Nathanael: your extraction, and your new partner.”

“My what?”

“Good to see you again,” Nathanael smiles and Chloé swears she sees red all over again.

“You idiot,” she repeats, upping the intensity of the venom in her voice. “Where the fucking hell have you been? You were just- gone. No note, no message, nothing.”

“I was tapped for a new program,” Nathanael explains, apparently unperturbed about catching up while still under threat of instant death via poison needles by her. “It was on a need-to-know basis. And don’t worry, I was the best. That’s why I was assigned to you.”

“Of course,” Chloé sniffs, “I only ever get the best.”

“The only reason he was assigned to you, sure,” Adrien’s snickering filters through her comms and Chloé nearly rips her earrings out silencing them.

“I hear you’ve been through six supports since I had to step away,” Nathanael comments. A shit eating grin unfurls across his face. “I guess Queenie didn’t suit you as well as Killer Bee, huh?”

“Both are ridiculous,” Chloé sniffs. The sound of the door rattling jolts them both back to the situation at hand, and she finally steps away and sheaths the needles with the teeth of her hair comb. Nathanael steps after her, warming her personal space. He clears her by at least a few inches despite the towering heels she’s armed with.

She blames the adrenaline coursing through her system for the way the bottom of her stomach heats as he rakes back the flyaway strands of hair from out of his eyes. His impeccably tailored black suit certainly does not help either.

She blames the fact that he was her first, which is why he can so easily get under her skin.

“You’re my extraction,” Chloé snaps. “So, extract me.”

Instead of answering, he grabs her hand and tugs her along the shadows until they’re pressed up against the wall right beside the closed doors. The doors open into the lab, so she sort of gets what he intends: for them to just walk out the doors the moment security’s all swarmed in and left their backs unchecked.

“It won’t work,” Chloé mutters. “Even if Adrien’s disabled the cameras- which you should’ve, I know you’re still listening through Red’s comms- there’ll be too many for us to sneak by. Plus you’ve left fingerprints behind. They can trace you.”

“One: diversion.” Nathanael points at the open air vent at the ceiling. “They’ll assume we- sorry, you, escaped through there. And two: have I ever guided you wrong?”

Her deep scowl is answer enough, so she doesn’t give him the satisfaction of saying anything at all.

He chuckles, unexpectedly. Pressed this close together and she can feel the rumbles through his chest.

“Something you want to share?” Chloé asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Not really,” Nathanael answers, catching a lock of her hair and running it through his fingers. “Just missed you.”

“Now is not the time to be sentimental Red.”

The door busting open interrupts them and they both freeze and tense up as armed guards spill into the lab, guns raised and radios crackling at their sides. More and more come through the doors until the lab looks like a kicked anthill.

She was right. There are way too many for them to just simply slip on by behind their backs. She looks up at him, a question barely contained in her throat, but she waits to see what he does.

His hand moves to the pocket of his pants, and she watches as his lips move in a countdown from three, two, one-

A muffled detonation goes off in the ceiling and a thick plume of gas comes rushing out of the open vent, clogging up visibility in the lab. The guards directly underneath begin wheezing and coughing.

“Move it, I doubt they’ll be dazzled by your butt,” Chloé hisses as the gas fills every crevice of the room.

Nathanael looks at her, an amused twinkle running through his eyes. “Have you seen my butt? Especially in this outfit?”

Regardless, he allows himself to be pulled by her, and together, they simply walk out the door. The hallway is deserted and they slip back into the main gallery without any notice. They join the panicked crowd and allow themselves to be herded out the front doors.

Chloé eyes him out of the corner her eye.

Nathanael was with her, at the beginning. He saw her first fumblings, her first embarrassing rookie mistakes, and was there all the way when she rose through the ranks and completed her first assassination, her first high-security infiltration, her first deep cover op. He’s seen her grow from being a newbie greener than fresh cut spring grass to the Queen Bee she’s infamous for today.

And she had always assumed her growth, her victories, meant his as well. But now…

“What are you?” Chloé hisses as the distant and unmistakable sound of paint bombs go off, no doubt splattering all the security and artwork in the conservation lab in a rainbow of cheap acrylic.

Nathanael chuckles as they step into freedom. “I’m something of an escape artist.”

#miraculous ladybug #chlonath #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #powerdragonmoon #fanfiction #matcha writes #i have no idea how accurate to chloe's character this really is but she was SUPER fun to write hahahahaha #BUT: SURPRIIIISSSEEEE #HAHAHAHA THIS WAS THE FIC I WAS WORKING ON WHEN WE WERE TALKING THE OTHER NIGHT #HEHEHE HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN :DDDDD

[gravityshifterscouplescounseling]

Hostages First, Hoagies Later: A Wolfpack Short Story

[February 14, 2538

1357 hours

Hoppe City fuck-shit city in the middle of nowhere

Colony of Lumesc boring-ass planet in the middle of nowhere]

 Oni hated rebels.

Not the leather-clad, chain-wallet-loving, “anarchy is a valid system of governance; no it’s not a phase, mom!” kind of rebels. No, she hated militant rebels – the kind who ran around the galaxy, claiming their own worlds away from the ORG, and then shat them up. Things would be fine if they just stayed there, on their own shitty little worlds, but they didn’t. They never did. Those “enlightened few” who’d split and gone their own way always ended up coming back, usually with big ships and even bigger guns.

And sometimes when they came back, they stormed a super-important government building in a super-important political colony and tried to take hostage a super-important ORG diplomat, failed to get past his office’s reinforced Olympium door, and resorted to taking several office drones who worked for said super-important ORG diplomat hostage instead. And when that happened, somebody usually ended up spending several hours on a rooftop, lying on her stomach and spying on those damn, dirty rebels in the building across the street as they went around waving their big guns and scaring those helpless little office drones.

That “somebody” just happened to be Oni.

“Rebels suck.”

“Eloquent as always, Oni,” Rick said, eyes never leaving his target.

Oni shifted her weight and smirked. “Damn right I am.”

Rick’s finger tightened on the trigger. He adjusted his angle and pulled. “He’s down.”

“Ooh hoo-hoo, they’re not gonna like that!”

“They’ll be dead before they get to that point.”

Oni turned to her rooftop buddy, amusement and surprise on her face in equal measure. “That’s stone-cold, man.”

Rick shrugged. “Just a fact.”

“Gimme the truth: am I rubbing off on you? ‘Cuz that’s totally something I’d say.”

“If you are, I hope there’s a medication for it.”

“There’s no cure for fun, Prickly Ricky.”

In the building across the street, a few floors below where they stood, a man in worn, pitch-black armor rushed to his headless comrade’s side and knelt by him, an endless stream of babble Oni didn’t care to decode pouring from his mouth. He grabbed one of the hostages, a woman with all the bells and whistles of a secretary, and dragged her to her feet by her hair, gun pressed to her cheek. She cried and cried as he barked and barked, and Oni was trying to count in her head exactly how many times she’d seen that scene play out. Had to be in the hundreds by now.

Rick aimed again and fired. “Got him.”

Oni got up, wiping her hands off on her thighs. “We should move. They’re getting antsy and so am I.”

Rick stood with her and nodded. He reached into his pocket and came out with two identical gadgets, square-shaped and palm-sized. One he put on the roof’s metal lip, and the second he put on his forearm where it stuck thanks to the unexplainable power of magnetism. He aimed again at the same window, his arm that time instead of his gun, using his wrist like a sight. The rods sticking out of his shoulder pads hissed and sparked until a blue-white electric charge burst to life in between them. Oni’s face tickled. She put her helmet on.

The charge reached its climax within seconds and was gone faster than it had appeared, a popping sound and a smoky smell the only signs it had ever been there. The little gadget on Rick’s wrist was gone, too. Oni spotted it down by the rebels’ bodies, stuck to a steel pillar among little cubicles. Rick stood himself on the roof’s lip.

“Why don’t you ever just, oh, I dunno, jump across?” Oni said.

“If I did that, what would be the point of all this then?” he said with motions to the gear and gizmos strapped all over his armor.

“Oh, sure, invent stuff that’ll get you out of a little exercise, but when I ask for something it’s ‘too impractical.’”

“No, not impractical. Counterintuitive. Because it’s counterintuitive to die on the job. Now,” he gestured at the wide gap between both buildings, “ladies first.”

Oni smirked slyly. “Exactly what I was thinking.”

Then she pushed him off the edge.

Rick rolled with it, figuratively speaking, and stuck his hand out. The magnets in his gauntlet caught onto the magnetic zip line and he slid down and across the street. He swung feet-first through the broken window. Not a second later, his rifle’s familiar takk-takk-takks echoed through the city blocks.

Oni ran her eyes across the room until they settled on where the rebels were concentrated most. It was near the front of the room, where they hunkered down behind the row of cubicles nearest the elevator. There had to be almost a dozen there. She couldn’t really tell from her position. They spread themselves down the aisle and didn’t budge an inch as they returned Rick’s fire. Maybe that was their escape route.

She had to roll her eyes. Didn’t these guys know the first thing about fire safety?

Oni stepped a good few meters back, then covered that distance again in two long, sprinting steps and gave a double-booted kick at the edge of the roof. For a second, she was flying.

Then she was crashing.

Then rolling.

Then she handsprung and rocketed her feet into the face of some hapless mook and his brains blew out the back of his skull.

She landed low and swept a pair of stubby legs out from an equally stubby woman and drove her fist through her solar plexus before she hit the ground.

The human mind can interpret an image in 13 milliseconds, fast enough to process a picture before one can blink – still too slow to catch a sight of Oni. When she slowed she was still a mere blur of red and blue, a gale of razor wind that tore through flesh and bone with a mere flick of the hand. By the time the rebels had processed her presence, she was elbow-deep in her seventh victim’s chest.

Bullets flew her way. Most of them tore away at the mook she wore for a glove. She tossed him at a rebel nearest a window and they both took the short way down. Four left.

As the saying goes, they put all their bullets in one basket, so when they ran dry there was nobody to cover the rest their reload. An empty magazine fell out of its grip.

Oni covered the distance. Jumped. Kicked one neck, then another.

Grounded now – fed her momentum into a reverse roundhouse. Finished with a hook.

The magazine clattered as it hit the ground.

Two necks, one jaw, and an entire skull shattered in what seemed like the same instant. The bodies flew far.

Oni had a line about broken bones and flying pigs ready but the familiar click of a handgun’s hammer pulling back stopped her. She turned unamused.

The scrappiest of the rebels held his gun to her head with all the confidence of a newborn puppy in the face of a thunderstorm. Every inch of him shook, hands most of all, his face an unconvincing mask of bravado. Oni swore she’d seen the same one, albeit more sincere, on the lead of one of last year’s action blockbuster flops.

The muzzle flashed, fire and smoke blooming like a rose. That wasn’t just artful simile either. Every moment lasted ages. Particles of light exploded before her eyes – a split-second instant that stretched on and on in her head. It was maddening, like she really were watching a plant grow, because it left her alone with her thoughts. Might as well think of something fun.

Like deciding on what would make her look more intimidating: dodging the bullet or letting it bounce off her visor. She came to a decision around the time the round started poking out of the muzzle.

The bullet that hit her at over three times the speed of sound was of a caliber frequently used in anti-armor small arms. Many Hydra tanks had fallen to just a handful of well-coordinated fighters armed with them. Enough concentrated fire with the stuff could tear through a freighter’s hull and get at the squishy humans inside. It was the leading reason Iron Inquisitors never stopped looking to improve their magnetic shield generators.

And it crumpled like a tin can against Oni’s armored brow.

She watched it bounce on the floor and roll to a stop against her foot, then looked at him – arms crossed, hip cocked, the universal stance for silently saying, “Really, dude?”

His mask slipped and fell. He shouted – wailed, really – as he fired until his pistol’s slide slid back. Through the tears in his eyes, he couldn’t see how his rounds disappeared before they could hit home.

Oni gave him a few seconds to collect himself before raising her hands to either side of her face and spreading her fingers. In the little spaces between was every last bullet he’d fired. She grinned widely.

He broke all over again.

An ear-piercing cry stabbed at the air as he tossed his gun her way and ran for the elevator.

“Hey,” Oni shouted, “aren’t you forgetting something?”

She threw his bullets back at him. The wailing stopped.

“Oh, man! Dude looks like I took ol’ Queenie to him,” Oni said, patting the shotgun magnetically stuck to her back. “Nasty.”

One last gunshot echoed through the room and then the only noise was the panicked breaths and whines of terrified office drones.

“That everyone?”

“That’s everyone,” Rick said from across a sea of cubicles.

“Good. Get the door so we can get outta here. It’s Valentine’s Day and you know what that means.”

“Is that the only reason you brought me here – to get the door instead of, you know, defusing the bomb in the basement?”

A wave of gasps and exclamations destroyed the quietly fearful atmosphere Oni’d been enjoying. She rolled her eyes, pulled her magnum out, and fired once into the ceiling.

The sound was like an explosion going off. Oni didn’t even notice the recoil but its sheer force still cracked the ground beneath her feet. There was total silence.

“Relax, you buncha worry-warts. We’ve got someone on it.”

                                                           -

Sam was no bomb disposer.

Her skillset was varied, wide as an ocean and just as deep. She could cleave through an enemy frontline as easily as she could recall the intricate cultural proceedings of Kah’Eel marriage ceremonies; speak hundreds of languages with perfect fluency and care for just as many species of wildlife no matter their planet of origin. But explosives and electronics were why they had Rick.

She supposed that was why complacency was so dangerous. If there was one lesson that had carried over from her childhood days as a hard-working farm girl, that was it. Idle hands and all that.

But she didn’t allow herself a modicum of doubt. Rick had left her with a document of detailed instructions to access from her heads-up display, and if she really needed the extra help she could always patch him. Those reassurances kept her mind clear and her steps steady.

The building’s power had been cut off. That wasn’t an issue on the higher levels, where every wall was a glass window that let in the bright midday sun, but underground there were no such things.

The staircase leading to the basement was dark enough that Sam imagined she wouldn’t be able to see her own hands an inch from her face if her eyes hadn’t been genetically augmented to see in the dark. If the rebels really were as ill-equipped as they suspected, they would have to rely on flashlights down there where it was darker. That made them easier targets and her – clad in pitch-black armor that lent itself well to the shadows cast by ceiling-high hills of office equipment – a nightmare come to life.

She reached the automated double doors leading into the basement, although the power outage meant their emergency systems had kicked in and left them wide open. Just a few feet beyond was a desk before a wall, and an entryway on either side. Washes of light shone from both.

They didn’t move much and, judging by the way they streamed and splashed against the walls, were facing away from her. She took the left entrance and slipped inside.

Sam spotted four men idling about before crouching behind a chest-high machine she didn’t recognize. Their theory had been correct. The rebels only had primitive flashlights to work with, and they each carried one. Two of them stood across from each other, a row of what looked to be 3D printers in between them, nearest the entrance and her, and two more stood near the exit in the same configuration. More walls stood on either side, dividing the room into thirds. Her plan of attack formed and finalized within seconds.

She gave the ground a hard knock and unsheathed a short, hooked blade. Feet shuffled, a wary conversation between the men beginning.

“What was that?”

“Something fell off a shelf, probably.”

“‘Fell off a shelf,’ my ass. Go check that out.”

“Why me? Why’s it always gotta be me?”

“You’re closest. Don’t argue just this once and go check it out!”

“Fine, fine…”

His grumblings and footsteps got closer until a boot landed an inch away from Sam’s hand. She gripped her knife tight. Before he could take another step, he yelped and tripped on torn ankle tendons.

The pain, she imagined, kept him from breaking his fall. He landed on his stomach, winded, and Sam pounced, planting her forearm against his neck while her other hand jabbed the knife through the back of his skull. Not a whisper came out of him.

More feet-shuffling. “Hey, man, you okay? You need a hand up or something—?”

Sam was up, cartwheeling over the printer. The rebel’s flashlight turned on her and its light shone off the long blade sticking out of her boot-heel. She stuck the landing. And his eye.

Before his body hit the ground she threw two knives from the same hand. They hilted in the temples of the last couple of fumbling rebels.

No flashes of light came from the other two-thirds of the room so she didn’t crawl around as she took back her throwing knives and moved on.

At the left of the room were more doors and another staircase leading only down, which she took three at a time and ended up in an entryway leading into a much larger, more populated floor. She took cover behind the doorway.

Most of the equipment had been pushed to the sides, leaving much of its middle empty space and stone pillars. Eight men patrolled the place – four along the outside diameter, four on the inside – and one stood in the center of it all by a big, bulky, blinking machine. The bomb. She recognized that much. Another plan started forming.

Barring those thin stone pillars, there was nowhere to hide, and those wide swathes of light could easily cover every inch of the room if properly coordinated. But they weren’t. The patrollers moved in very predictable patterns, leaving her with ample space to move through undetected. It didn’t take long for her to figure them out. She took a blade in each hand, one for slashing and the other for piercing, waited, and took her chance the second it came.

The first to fall was a rebel patrolling near the doorway. She caught him through the back of the head, as mundane an act as picking ice, and was slitting another’s throat before his body fell. A third took her blade through the brainstem.

Faster footsteps than usual signaled an irregularity in their pattern. She took a small knife, followed the noise, and threw. Four down.

That left the four forming the innermost patrol diameter. The falling bodies had them spooked and aiming their weapons haphazardly.

Terrified whimpers turned into gurgles through mouthfuls of blood once, twice, then a third time. The last man didn’t whimper, his nerves stronger than most, but not his arteries. They ruptured all the same.

The last one standing, the bomber himself, looked ready to fall, shaking in his boots. He babbled strings of meaningless words and almost hugged his gun to his chest. Time to make herself known.

Sam stepped out of the shadows and into his light. Her armor slipped from black to a dark, snakelike green in the brightness and her helmet fell away. She wanted him to see her face.

His gun homed in on her chest immediately.

“S-stay back, b-bitch!” His voice was barely audible, his knees knocked so much.

Sam took a step forward.

He jumped away, one hand reaching shakily behind his back before raising it over his head, a detonator in hand. “I-I’m serious! Do anything funny and I’ll blow us all to shit!” His voice seemed to have gained the barest hint of confidence with his contingency.

How cute.

Sam took another step. “What a curious contradiction it is,” she said in a voice of honey and ice, “to trust a man desperate to live with a dead man’s switch.” Her grin shone in the light, predatory, hungry. “I think I’ll call your bluff.”

His hands shook even harder, gun muzzle swaying and pointing at everything but her. “It ain’t no b-bluff, bitch. I d-die, we all d-die!”

Sam’s eyes narrowed but her grin got bigger. “Oh, was that a Freudian slip I just heard?”

“W-what?”

“‘It ain’t no bluff.’ Isn’t that what you said? That’s a double negative, meaning that it is a bluff. You’re afraid to die. You’re not even holding the trigger.”

The bomber’s brave façade fell, but his trembling fingers wrapped around the trigger all the same. A tell-tale click said it all. “Ain’t a bluff…” he more whispered to himself than told her.

Sam sighed and curled her index finger. “In that case, be sure to hold on as tight as you can. We wouldn’t want a little high-yield mishap on our hands, would we?”

“What are you on about—?”

He hadn’t seen it until it was too late, glinting in the light as it tightened around his wrist.

For all intents and purposes, monomolecular wire was another science-fiction invention that worked better on paper than in reality. It was simply too thin to have proper tensile strength, no matter the material it was composed of. That was, until Olympium, the “metal of myth,” had been discovered and made the impractical an everyday reality. Smith an Olympium blade and one has the power to cut anything. Forge Olympium armor and the wearer will live in comfort knowing nothing can ever hurt them again. Make Olympium bullets and see one’s enemies fall in droves.

Or so the myth goes. It had surpassed all the tests, in any case. And with flying colors.

But in that moment, the only flying color was crimson, spewing from the bomber’s wrist and staining the basement floor. A puddle formed around his disembodied hand, detonator still tight in its grip.

He screamed loud enough Sam had no doubt Oni and Rick could hear it all the way up on the twentieth floor and long enough that he went pale in the face. Although that could just be blood loss.

Sam extended her hand, the little slot under her wrist housing the wires barely visible to even augmented eyes, and curled the rest of her fingers in. More wire wrapped around his body, invisible but surely there.

And they tightened – tighter and tighter until blood seeped out of the many miniscule cuts in his armor. He only cried louder.

They reached bone and that went too, like butter baking on a hot summer afternoon.

There was a shing sound and then nothing else. Just quiet. The wires formed a blood-covered web where the bomber used to be. His pieces were perfectly proportioned, at the least.

The wires untangled and slinked back into their slot.

Sam didn’t spare a second and moved on to the bomb, helmet back in place.

It was big, its shape reminding her of one of those ancient photocopiers. Its only interface was a touch-based display, but she knew that with the trigger primed, the whole thing was locked down and ready to blow. She needed to find the metaphorical red wire if she was to stop it at that point.

Her knife of choice for the situation was long and thin and she jammed it into the tiny gap between the interface and the machine’s chassis. She pushed on one side of the handle until the metal creaked, groaned, and gave away under the pressure. It popped off, leaving her looking at circuit boards and wires of only one color: beige.

Sam gulped. She consulted Rick’s document.

“Welcome to The Statist’s Guide for Quelling Anarchy Volume I: Explosives and Riot Control,” a woman’s too-bubbly voice began.

Sam wasn’t so sure she wanted to defuse the bomb anymore if it meant dealing with…that.

“In this volume, we’ll be going over the proper procedures for defusing the most common improvised and black-market explosives in use by modern rebel cells, as well as how to properly suppress riots and peaceful protest—” a sudden burst of electric screeching nearly took out Sam’s hearing, “—riots.”

Sam gulped harder.

                                                           -

“You see why I brought you along now?”

“Okay, I’ll admit, it was warranted,” Rick said as he attached one of his many machines to the electronic lock beside the foot-thick, reinforced Olympium door the super-important ORG diplomat cowered behind.

“Damn right it was. These politician fucks are so paranoid the shit they spew makes your ‘liquid anthrax water poisoning’ theory look plausible by comparison.”

“There’s anthrax in the water?” came the panicked voice of the ORG official from the speaker atop the door.

“Oh, sure. Gallons of the stuff. You wouldn’t happen to have drank any in, say, the past month, have you?”

“Oh, sweet merciful…I have!”

Oni shook her head and tsk-tsked. “Shame. See, that’s why I stick to healthier alternatives, like soda and sweet mead.”

“Yeah, and you’d have diabetes if your immune system weren’t so strong.”

“Details, details.”

As Rick dealt with the door, Oni turned to check their evacuation’s progress.

Icarus, the team’s personal dropship, had been brought down and leveled with the window Rick’d broken through, boarding ramp extended to allow the office drones relatively safe passage onboard. She said “relatively” because without Sam at the helm, Icarus had a nasty habit of swaying with the wind. The ol’ boy just didn’t respond to anyone as well as it did to her. Still, better than sticking around where potential rebel reinforcements could get at them. She trusted Sergei would get them all, but there was always the possibility they’d use their heads for once and find a way to sneak inside.

The dropship was only meant for small teams like their five-man band, so the drones had to press together to fit inside the troop bay. Most of them were already inside, ushered in by Recon, who’d retreated into the cockpit before the mass of office workers could prevent him from doing so, leaving them to help each other instead.

It looked like there’d be enough room, which she was thankful for. Babysitting wasn’t her department.

Rick’s lock-picking gizmo beeped, something in the door clicked, and then it receded into the doorway and slid aside.

A slight, meek little man stood on the other side, glasses round and thick, looking like he were one spook away from a heart attack. He jumped when their gazes fell on him, sweat flying off his face. “O-oh. You really are ‘b-breakers.” He looked between them, but his eyes returned to Oni. “I th-think?”

Oni’s eye twitched and an all-too-familiar pain in her temple flared up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

For such a timid man, he sure had the balls to ignore her obvious irritation and say, “Well, you, in particular, are a bit, um, shorter than I imagined…”

Rick face-palmed.

Oni was quiet for a short moment that felt like a long one. Her vision grew an angry red, sound drowning out until she could only hear his words playing on repeat in her head. The pain grew. Her head twitched.

“Um,” said the government shit-heel, “are you alright?”

Oni snapped out of it. “Oh, yeah, fine. Just measuring, y’know?”

“Measuring?”

“Yeah, measuring.” She took her hand, in knife-hand form, and lined it up with his kneecaps. “Y’know what they say: measure twice—” she pulled her hand back, “—cut once!”

She swung fast enough to cut clean through solid steel.

Rick caught her wrist. “Stop that.”

Their speed had rendered their movements invisible. The little shit didn’t even know he’d almost had his legs chopped in half. “Um. Yes. They do say that, don’t they?”

Her next attack was much more visible – an angry, sloppy punch that Rick didn’t have to predict to catch. The shit-heel jumped again.

Rick pulled Oni in against him as she thrashed and snarled, shouting expletives in between gnashing her teeth. He stepped aside with her in tow and motioned for the shit to get out while he still could.

The diplomatic shit didn’t have to be told twice.

“Sorry,” Rick said as he passed. “It’s just teenage angst. She barely turned the big 1-3 not even two weeks ago. I think the new responsibilities are getting to her.”

The shit swallowed, color draining from his face. “13? Sh-she’s only 13?”

“Oh, yeah. Youngest of us by a whole two years. Gets to her almost as bad as the height thing. You might want to get going.”

Oni’s hand slipped from Rick’s grasp and reached for the official shit’s throat, stopped only an inch away when Rick managed to slip his arm under hers. The little shit looked ready to faint.

Good. It’d make it easier for her.

He didn’t even say goodbye before running off for Icarus, the rude shit.

Rick held her until the dropship had taken off, a mere dot in the distance.

Oni had calmed a little, although steam still streamed from her ears, face a darker shade than usual. “On my shit-list, motherfucker,” she said over and over like a mantra.

Her head snapped in Rick’s direction. “What’s his name?”

Rick feigned ignorance the best he could, which was still piss-poor. “I can’t recall.”

“Oh, that so?”

“That is indeed so.”

“Well, guess you’re barred from this year’s Valentine’s Day dinner, asshole.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Ha. Sure I can. I’m the leader, motherfucker!”

“But I’m the one who always pays.”

“Guess that’ll be me this year then.”

“With what money?”

The truth of the matter hit her harder than she’d ever been hit – and she’d taken a railgun to the gut. “Fuck!”

-

           They’d shared no words on the way down, but that didn’t mean Oni was quiet. She’d muttered to herself about betrayal and all the bad things she’d do to Shitheel McFuck when she found him. For a few minutes it looked like she’d end up working herself into another frenzy until they went out the building’s front doors and reunited with Sam. The redhead had a way of soothing Oni with her presence alone.

           “Heya, Sammy! You get the bomb alright?”

           Sam smiled and rubbed soot off her forehead. “Oh, yes, everything went fine. Although that…‘guide’ wasn’t as clear-cut as I’d have liked.”

           Oni shot Rick yet another dirty look. “Yeah. Egghead over there’s been making a nasty habit of being unhelpful lately.”

           Rick rolled his eyes. Oni stuck her tongue out at him.

           “Real mature,” he mouthed.

           “Fuck you,” she shouted back.

           Before any sudden awkwardness could settle in, Sergei, the eight-foot wall of grade-A Russian meat and muscle, stomped onto the scene. Good ol’ Sergei. Could always count on him to come in at the right time.

           He grunted.

           “Really? Only one convoy?” Sam said. “I expected more from them.”

           “That bomb was probably the best they could do,” Rick said.

           Oni shrugged. “Well, if that’s the case, we’re free to go, right? Cops’ll pick it up at some point—wait. You guys hear that?”

           Everyone stood still and listened.

           The unmistakable sounds of a monster engine and gravel-chewing tires tearing down the road were loud and clear. And they grew closer.

           A couple blocks down the street, a Trojan troop carrier turned the corner and didn’t slow down. The steel behemoth had been painted the rebel colors of black, gray, and red, its three-ton bulk gunning for them faster than any sports car. The van-semi hybrid was known to smash through entire meters of steel barricades without slowing down. Its horn roared and it breathed smoke that looked like it could single-handedly destroy the ozone layer.

           Oni swept her hand out in its direction. “Big guy, if you would…”

           Sergei grunted and stomped forward. He could’ve used his massive metal axe to stop the vehicle, or maybe his mini-gun to rip it to shreds, but sometimes a man just has to feel something crunch under his fist.

           His fingers curled, he wound back, and, when the time came, brought his fist up and then down on the Trojan’s hood.

           The entire front disappeared, just like that, into chunks and fragments of metal. The entire thing flipped forward, over his head, and at the speed it was going it kept flipping and flying until it landed well behind where they stood, its roof scraping against the street and spitting sparks. It whined until it stopped an entire three blocks over.

           The team waited for any survivors to get out and they almost decided that nothing would come of it until the back doors exploded off their hinges.

           A man stepped out, clad in the skeletonized remains of a Nandi exo-suit. One of the older models, it seemed. He clanked his metal fists together and shook his head, getting himself hyped to fight.

           He turned to the team, glaring. Not happy to see them, Oni guessed. Couldn’t blame him. If she had to compensate by wearing ORG hand-me-downs she might just be pissed at the world too.

           He crouched and took hold of the Trojan by the end of its roof. He bellowed, lifted, and kept lifting until he could hoist the thing up over his head. He shouted again, spitting and red-faced.

           Oni yawned. Rick checked his watch. Sam looked her nails over.

           The metal madman reared back, and then tossed the vehicle their way with enough force to rise a few stories before it fell. Its shadow grew until they were all covered in it.

           Rick looked through his pouches until he found just what he was looking for: a little disk-looking thing that glowed red on its inside diameter, fitting snugly in the palm of his hand. He tossed it at the transport and it stuck to the surface. It beeped.

            The explosion swallowed the Trojan whole. Its heat was overbearing and turned the nearby street to tar. Any metal that flew off burned to molten slag before it could land. In the seconds it took to near them, its body burned until it was nothing more than harmless kindling, and then ash. And the flames died as soon as they appeared.

           Then silence.

           The team looked at the rebel expectantly.

           He was too stunned to do more than gape.

           Oni drew her magnum, Rick and Sam their rifles, and Sergei his mini-gun. And they fired.

           His body jerked, their rounds chewing through his outdated armor as easily as they would through any of the more modern tech. Pockets of blood exploded from his body. Bullet casings flew and clattered at their feet.

           They only stopped when they ran out of ammo. He wasn’t anything worth burying by then.

           Oni took her smoking gun and blew the smoke from its barrel. “Okay. I’m in a good mood again.”

           Sam smiled. “Well, that’s good to hear, Kit.”

           “Yeah,” Rick agreed. “I wouldn’t want to get kicked under the table the whole time I’m trying to eat.”

           “Speaking of which, have we decided on the place?”

           “I could go for some Chinese.”

           Oni scrunched her nose. “No. Ew. Plenty of sweet; not enough meat. I’m thinking good ol’ Texan cuisine instead.”

           “Just like last year.”

           “And the year before that,” Sam added.

           “Alright, what do you want then, Sammy?”

           “I could go for anything you three decide, really.”

           “That’s not an answer!”

           Sergei grunted.

           Everyone else paused. Then, in perfect unison, started gagging.

           Sergei sniffed. Philistines, the lot of them.

#my writing #Project Wolfpack