Saturday, May 11 - Friday, May 17, 2024

Top 60s

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
195	46 comments	[1966] On May 16th, 1966, The Beach Boys released 'Pet Sounds', their 11th studio album.
68	7 comments	[1969] Joe Cocker, Isle of Wight Festival, 1969
26	3 comments	[60s] The Box Tops - The Letter (Audio)	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC]
24	6 comments	[60s] The Beatles - Yesterday (Live From Studio 50, New York City/1965)	[AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]
22	0 comments	[1964] The Beatles-Twist & Shout ( Performed Live On The Ed Sullivan Show-Febuary-23/1964 ).

 

Top 70s

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
222	26 comments	[70s] Ticket stubs from when my mom and dad went to see Zeppelin, in the late-'70s, at the Pontiac Silverdome (RIP).
98	4 comments	[1971] Ozzy Osbourne, 1971 (by Chris Walter)
95	26 comments	[1970] On May 11th, 1970, The triple soundtrack album 'Woodstock' was released in the US. The album featured tracks by Canned Heat, Richie Havens, Country Joe McDonald, Crosby Stills & Nash, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Santana and others.
90	20 comments	[1978] REO Speedwagon - Roll With The Changes (1978)	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC]
88	13 comments	[1975] Rainbow - Man On The Silver Mountain (1975)	[Sp] [AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]

 

Top 80s

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
164	35 comments	[1981] On May 15th, 1981, The Moody Blues released 'Long Distance Voyage', their 10th studio album. Featured on the album were "The Voice", "Gemini Dream", and "Talking Out of Turn".
115	19 comments	[80s] The Police - Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic	[Sp] [AM] [BC] [Dzr] [SC]
28	4 comments	[1983] I see your "If I could only flag your down" and raise you "Thug"
22	2 comments	[1984] Scorpions - Big City Nights (1984)	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC]
21	5 comments	[1981] Molly Hatchet - Bloody Reunion (1981)	[Sp] [AM] [Dzr] [SC]

 

Top Remaining

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
10,260	753 comments	Dee Snider with a valid point
1,253	274 comments	I just saw this on instagram. Are there any other Classic Rock musicians known for doing things like this?
718	120 comments	Director John Hughes paid a hundred thousand dollars for the rights to use The Beatles version of Twist and Shout in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off and then proceeded to piss off Paul McCartney by adding brass. McCartney commented, "If it had needed brass, we’d had stuck it on ourselves!"
601	510 comments	What was the first album you bought with your own money at the record store? Mine was the Beatles’ Red and Blue albums (1973)
296	62 comments	At 81, Paul McCartney is worth £1 billion for the first time

 

Top 5 Most Commented

score	comments	title & link	mirrors
95	530 comments	I need sad(ish) classic rock songs about things ending, the final time, etc
203	488 comments	Is Prince on the level of Zeppelin, Beatles, Stones and so on Musically?
203	290 comments	When you hear Bob Seger's "Night Moves" What Year and What Girl/Boy Do You Think About?
83	237 comments	Bands whose original lineups are all still alive?
33	137 comments	What muscians were also athletes?

 

Part 1, Part 1.5, & Part 2 of my rewrite of the Batman Arkham games are posted. The first three parts have covered adjustments I made to the main story of Asylum, City, Origins, & Knight. Here's the first part of how I would improve the set of DLC packs for Arkham Knight that's set after the main story:
1.) A Matter Of Family #1: Ascension of Azrael (Azrael DLC Pack)

• The first DLC pack canon to the good ending of "Heir to the Cowl" focuses on Azrael hunting the remaining members of the Order of St. Dumas throughout a variety of areas in Gotham City to redeem himself after Batman mentored him. Azrael's conflict is holding onto his newfound morals when the Order escalates with their attempts at cleaning different areas of corruption without caring about the damage they cause to those around them.
• Azrael is able to persuade members to deflect, along the way. The main villain would be "Father Valley" who's the father of Jean-Paul Valley and is the leader of the Order of St. Dumas while the secondary villain is Prometheus, who's using the Order to his own ends to carry out his brutal crusade against crime and law enforcement with help from Father Valley.

2.) A Matter Of Family #2: Harrowing Hearts (Harley Quinn DLC Pack)

• The DLC picks up sometime after the main story and shows Harley Quinn in Bludhaven Prison, who's conflicted about her life choices, but she's sneaked out of prison by supposed prison guards, who are revealed to be Jokerz gang members. Harley's confused, at first, but she learns about the fake prison guards being a part of a growing movement honoring Joker's name to find freedom in all of the chaos that ensued during the countless times Gotham City's suffered.
• Harley's intrigued but uneasy about this since she feels conflicted about the choices she's made and a piece of her still missing Joker. She's introduced to the growing Jokerz followers, who she's impressed at since they have style but knows they wouldn't hold a candle to Mr. J, despite what they intend to do.
• The 2nd-in-command is introduced as Curtis Base, who convincingly impersonates Joker with his costume and make-up. Curtis Base and the starting members of the Jokerz go over the plan of how they heard about weapons and a nuclear bomb being auctioned in the black market for their plan to steal them.
• It leads to the first playable section of the DLC being Harley leading the Jokerz and Curtis Base to the auction and fighting through the guards to infiltrate it so they can take the bomb for themselves. Afterward, the weapons and bomb are brought back to the Jokerz hideout and their plan is to retrofit the bomb with laughing gas to unleash it onto the city, which Harley's unsure about approving of since despite how she had fun with taking down the mobsters, she isn't sure about going that far.
• Batman's able to track the Jokerz to their hideout and they escape with the weapons and bomb while Harley's left behind. Harley's taken into custody and Batman makes an offer where he'll allow Mayor Jim Gordon to lower Harley's sentence if he helps find the Jokerz gang and where they have the bomb if she promises to not double cross, which Harley reluctantly agrees to. The DLC has Harley and Batman work together to crack down the operations of the Jokerz gang, one block at a time, while Harley's split personalities have her feel conflicted about either going back to her old ways to help the Jokerz, go back to her former self, or find a balance between her personalities.
• Curtis Base, who's a Joker impersonator, is the main villain of this DLC. His Joker impressions can have Harley conflicted about her feelings over her past life and time with Joker before his death before she chooses to break through her "love" for Joker to reform and redeem herself, in the end, to earn a lighter prison sentence while forgiving Batman. Batman gains newfound respect for Harley since she chose to reform, but warns her about needing to live with her crimes and learn from them.

3.) A Matter Of Family #3: GCPD Lockdown (Nightwing)

• The DLC starts with the player infiltrating a criminal base as Nightwing while using stealth and his acrobatic skills to avoid being spotted to hear in on the conversation between the criminals about them divided on if they should take the money they gained and get out of Gotham City or stay to get more money and trust the protection given to them by Penguin. The thugs store money and weapons in vans to prepare to leave, but Nightwing drops down and after he takes them down, he interrogates one of them for the whereabouts of Penguin.
• Batman's absence is implied to be because he and Mayor Gordon are helping Barbara's paralysis outside of the city and it's why he entrusted Dick Grayson to handle the situation with The Penguin and his goons. Dick and Alfred communicate throughout the mission as you have to find and infiltrate outposts that his henchmen guard while messaging Penguin to taunt him and rile him up to trick him into giving any potential information on his plan and location.
• Nightwing learns the reason why The Penguin broke out of prison is because he wants to regain his territories since they're under threat of being taken from him by a new player in town who executed his men. Nightwing then manages to find the Penguin and arrest him with help from the GCPD, but they'll need to keep an eye out for the new player Penguin mentioned.

4.) A Matter Of Family #4: A Flip Of A Coin (Tim Drake)

• The DLC takes place during Dick and Barbara's honeymoon with Tim Drake accompanying them as a friend. Tim gets leads on Two-Face being in charge of operations that are near where Dick and Barbara's honeymoon is, so he suits up to investigate. Throughout the mission of this DLC, the new maps introduced are new areas outside of Gotham City where Two-Face operates. The DLC set during the honeymoon for Dick and Barbara can make natural comedic banter between Tim, Dick, and Barbara instead of him being compared to Bruce.
• Two-Face's breakout from prison happened at the same time Penguin escaped during the events of Nightwing's DLC. Unlike Penguin, however, he isn't interested in starting another gang war but wants to build his own criminal empire outside of Gotham City to avoid Batman. The sections of this DLC are mostly the same but with conversations between Tim and Dick with Barbara on what Tim intends to do in the future if he wants to step out of the mantle of Robin, which he isn't sure about yet. Afterward, Robin heads to the 2nd map where Two-Face resides in his Caribbean Inspired base of operations and he curses Batman for finding him, but isn't afraid when learning it's Robin.
• The fight throughout Two-Face's base stays the same, but when Tim confronts him, Two-Face mocks him for how he's washed up, hears Nightwing and Batgirl aren't here to save him, and will fix him having to deal with two Robins with the past one and Tim as the new one, but when he's about to shoot Tim, he claims he's about to make Robin's ugly suit Red and the player has a moment to press a button to dodge his shot at Tim and take Two-Face down after managing to get past him.
• After Tim Drake defeats Two-Face, he interrogates him to learn what made him choose to leave Gotham City and he answers by saying there isn't enough room for him anymore, especially since a new player came into town and took his operations from him before he knocks him out and leaves the police to arrest him.
• In the ending, Tim Drake suggests new costume design ideas to Dick and Barbara while even suggesting the new name "Red Robin", which they find to be a bit corny but will consider it and they'll think of other potential new names as the DLC ends with a teaser for Red Hood's arrival.

5.) A Matter Of Family #5: The Brave and The Bold (Batgirl and Jason Todd)

• The DLC begins with establishing Batman, Batgirl, and Dick Grayson's dynamic when stopping a crime in progress. The player can switch between the three in the first mission as you take down the criminals. Afterward, Dick Grayson announces he's leaving the Robin Mantle and is moving to Bludhaven with his reasons being it's time for him to form his own identity. Bruce is conflicted about this, but to respect Barbara's wishes for Dick, he respects his decision.
• During a night out, Batman meets a boy trying to steal the Batmobile’s tires when it is parked in an alley unknowingly, who's introduced as Jason Todd. He's quick to apologize for trying to steal Batman's tires and fanboys over Batman, a little, and after some time of them getting to know each other, he decides to take Jason in to train him.
• The player is tasked to train as Jason Todd in the Batcave and gets to see how Jason's training made him earn the Robin mantle. Jason then gets to go on missions with Batman and Batgirl, which consist of taking down familiar villains, stopping drug operations, and him becoming more brash and overconfident as he wants to prove himself to Batman. The new major task for Jason and Barbara is to stop Joker and Harley Quinn when they cause chaos in Gotham City while Batman is temporarily absent, due to personal matters.
• Jason Todd and Batgirl work together to infiltrate criminal operations from Joker's gang with the player able to switch between them. They make progress in finding leads for where the two are but occasionally conflict with each other. Jason and Barbara get false leads on the location of kidnapped victims of Joker when trying to find them, so the mission goes south when they can't save them in time.
• Jason Todd learns the false lead was given by a corrupt GCPD officer on Joker's payroll, who he finds and brutally interrogates for information on why he worked with him and where Joker and Harley are located. He learns the horrifying truth about Joker killing children as he sewed the body parts together to give them back to their parents in "one piece". Jason is disgusted and enraged by this and Batgirl finds where the bodies are with Commissioner Gordon's help. He makes the bold but risky choice to go after them himself.
• The subplot explores Joker and Harley's abusive dynamic that mirrors Jason and Barbara's dynamic as they enact their chaos around the city, but Harley's pieces of moral consciousness are explored a bit when her split personalities conflict with each other. Batgirl has to work with the GCPD to find Jason as he hunts for Joker and Harley while the sections where you play Jason show his growing rage when he fights against the waves of Joker's henchmen sent to kill him while tracking him.
• It leads to Jason Todd being captured and tortured by Joker. Harley watches but is unsure about if she should be amused when he watches and it gives her the sad truth she doesn't want to admit, which is Joker admiring Batman over her. Harley takes care of Jason, a bit, but he's angry towards her for assisting Joker with his crimes, especially the recent deaths of children. Harley has no prior knowledge of it and briefly confronts Joker about it since she doesn't kill kids, but Joker beats her for speaking out against him and goes to torture Jason himself.
• Batman returns from his temporary absence and works with Batgirl and Commissioner Gordon to find Jason. He gets a lead on Joker when Harley secretly turns herself in, unknown to Joker, to give Jason's location. Batman and Batgirl fight through Joker's remaining goons, who taunt them for how they won't make it. The two and Commissioner Gordon try to reach Jason's location in time as he's being tortured by Joker for a few months and Batman has to face obstacles when trying to make it to where he is.
• Unfortunately, Batman's too late when the location where Jason Todd is explodes. He's killed in the explosion before he can be reached, and the last thing he says to Batman as he's in his arms is "I'm Sorry". Batman, grief-stricken and enraged, tells Batgirl to stay behind to search for Joker. The player gets to play an enraged Batman as he finds Joker and beats him to a pulp. He almost kills him until Commissioner Gordon arrives to stop Batman from doing it and Alfred gets Bruce to come back to his senses.
• The DLC ends on a bittersweet ending with Jason Todd's funeral taking place. Afterward, Batman thinks it's best if Barbara takes a break from being Batgirl for a while since she should focus on her life and not suffer the same fate Jason did. The game cuts back to the present day where Bruce looms over Jason's grave as he reminiscences on Jason's training as Robin and apologizes for not being able to save him and wishes he was here now, but despite how he failed him in life, he won't fail him in death. Dick, Barbara, and Tim console Bruce, but a figure watches them from afar, who's implied to be Red Hood, as the DLC ends.

Credit for these ideas is to Game Den. Let me know if each improves the DLC's storylines.

LPs

• A Boogie wit da Hoodie - Better Off Alone (w Young Thug, Future, Lil Durk, Cash Cobain, Fridayy & Mariah the Scientist) [Melodic Trap, Atlantic]
• Blessd (🇨🇴) - BlessDeluxury (w Hades66, SOG, Nicki Nicole + more) [Latin Rap, Warner]
• Álvaro Díaz (🇵🇷) - SAYONARA (w Tainy, Rauw Alejandro, Feid, Young Miko + more) [Latin Trap, UMG]
• Alejo (🇵🇷) - EN ESTA NOS FUIMOS LEJOS (w Jowell + more) [Reggaetón]
• Vacra (🇫🇷) - PYGMALION [French Rap]
• Clavish (🇬🇧) - Chapter 16 (w Fredo, Aitch, Potter Payper, D-Block Europe + more) [UK Rap, Polydor]
• Rio Da Yung OG - Rio Circa 2020 (w RMC Mike & Louie Ray) [Michigan Trap]
• Harley (🇫🇷) - WHO'S HARLEY? [French Rap]
• BIG30 - Still King (w Fredo Bang & K Carbon) [Memphis Trap, NLess]
• ShooterGang Kony - OPPS CAN'T HAVE FUN [West Coast Trap]
• Mach-Hommy - #RICHAXXHAITIAN (w Black Thought, KAYTRANADA, 03 Greedo, Roc Marciano + more) [East Coast Hip Hop]
• Rapsody - Please Don't Cry (w Lil Wayne, Erykah Badu, Hit-Boy, Baby Tate + more) [Conscious Rap, Jamla/Roc Nation]
• softboy ivo (🇩🇪) & Philantrope (🇦🇹) - Seele Aus (w Wun Two + more) [European Hip Hop]
• Courtney Bell & Royce Da 5'9" - Microdose (w Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine, LaRussell, Symba + more) [Rap]
• ian - Valedictorian [SoundCloud Rap]
• Stavo (🇫🇷) - Eviter la misère [French Rap, Warner]
• wolfacejoeyy - valentino [Sexy Drill, Alamo]
• Blu - abc [West Coast Rap]
• Raz Fresco & Daniel Son - Northside [Rap]
• USKY - ANHÉDONIE [French Rap]
• Nico Miseria (🇪🇸) - YO NO SOY YO [Latin Rap]
• Mike Shabb - SEWASIDE III (w Boldy James, Navy Blue, Nicolas Craven, Da$H, Estee Nack, ANKHLEJOHN & Lord Sko) [Rap]
• paymels & StoopidXool - Spectrum [Rap]
• La F (🇫🇷) - TNF 3.5 [French Rap]
• HOLOGRAM LO’ (🇫🇷) & HUNTRILL (🇫🇷) - REPLICA 2 (w Alpha Wann + more) [French Rap]
• Thizzler On The Roof - Bar Wars: Season 1 (w lou deezi, 1100 Himself + more) [West Coast Trap]
• Zinée (🇫🇷) - OSMIN (w Chilly Gonzales) [French Rap]
• Zoomy (🇫🇷) - DIRTY SPRITE 19® [French Rap]
• your.nash (🇫🇷) - solitaire mais bien accompagné [French Rap]
• Heem - Bars & Noble (w Benny the Butcher, Boldy James, Conway the Machine, Jay Worthy, Jae Skeese & ILLY FOO) [Rap]
• Ben.C (🇫🇷) - BENNY [French Rap]
• FRELONZ (🇫🇷) - MOTION OVER EMOTION [French Rap]
• Struggle Mike - HONOR (w Benny the Butcher, Jeru The Damaja, Planet Asia, Eto + more) [Coke Rap, BSF]
• Butter Bullets (🇫🇷) - Château [French Rap]
• Rory Sweeney (🇮🇪) - Carlos Danger Presents Irish Hash Mafia (w Curtisy + more) [Irish Cloud Rap]

Deluxe

• Doja Cat - Scarlet 2 CLAUDE: Disc 3 [Pop Rap, *Kemosabe/Republic]
• Childish Gambino - ATAVISTA (w 21 Savage, Young Nudy, Ariana Grande, ) [Pop, Rap, RCA]
• Madison McFerrin - I Hope You Can Forgive Me (w Honey Dijon & TrillzAI) [R&B]
• DJ Ess - #HEAVENSGATE, Vol. 1: DJ Ess Mixes [Surf Gang]

EPs

• LaRussell, 03 Greedo & Mike G Beatz - Sessions At The Grill: Episode 001 [West Coast Rap]
• Jay 305 & Hit-Boy - Don't Wait Until I Die EP (w DOM KENNEDY) [West Coast Rap]
• Kaydy Cain (🇪🇸) - For Romantic Bitches [Spanish Rap]
• Terrace Martin - Grounded [Jazz?]
• Lil Double 0 - Return of the Walker [Trap, Freebandz/Open Shift]
• Mutant Academy - Talk Soon [Rap]
• Lil Supa & Recognize Ali - "REC a LIL" [Rap]
• Cold Hart - Rap Show (w BONES & GothBoiClique) [Cloud Rap, Epitah]
• Kamaiyah - Figuring Out My Emotions [West Coat Rap]
• Kitty Ca$h - Handle With Care (w Rico Nasty, Thundercat, James Fauntleroy, PawPaw Rod, Kilo Kish, George Riley & ROZET) [Rap]
• Payroll Giovanni - Have Money, Have Heart [Rap]
• Leith (🇫🇷) - SI LA FORTUNE EST AVEUGLE [French Rap]
• Elaquent - Obrigado! [Beats]
• Fendi P - White Lines (w Polyester the Saint) [Southern Rap, Jet Life]
• SAM (🇫🇷) - 1ère mi-temps [French Rap]
• Cities Aviv - Bernadette Leak [Experimental Rap]
• EESAH YASUKE (🇫🇷) - PS: J'ÉCRIS L'ALBUM (w Haviah Mighty) [French Rap]
• Mandyspie (🇫🇷) - Monster Therapy [French Rap]

Songs

• Maluma & Pirlo - MIONCA
• Conep & Anuel AA - Bellakita
• NxWorries - FromHere (feat. Snoop Dogg & October London)
• Tha Dogg Pound, Tha Eastsidaz & Snoop Dogg - We All We Got
• Kodak Black - No Manager*
• DJ Luian, Mambo Kingz, Yandel, Darrell & Dei V - No Puedo Controlarme
• Jimin, Mark Ralph, Muni Long, JVKE & NLE Choppa - Angel (Anniversary Edition)
• Key Glock - Fuck Around & Find Out
• TitoM, Yuppe & S.N.E. - Tshwala Bam (Remix) [feat. Burna Boy]
• Russ & 6LACK - Working On Me
• Masio Gunz & Jeremih - Panic
• T-Pain - On This Hill
• Chow Lee & Cash Cobain - swag it! (Remix) [feat. Flo Milli]
• Diany Dior, Cash Cobain & NAV - Favorite Lady
• Saweetie - NANi
• Yelawolf & Jelly Roll - Trailer in the Sky
• Cowboy Killer & Yelawolf - Bob Barker
• El Malilla, Yeyo & DJ Rockwel MX - B de Bellako (Remix) [feat. Jowell & Randy]
• Lila Iké - He Loves Us Both (feat. H.E.R.)
• Sayian Jimmy - BAD BOY (Remix) [feat. Gino Mella, LIT killah, Juhn, Jairo Vera, Dani Flow & Montaña the Producer]
• FERG - MDMX*
• Chance The Rapper & DJ Premier - Together
• Omar Apollo - Dispose Of Me
• 2Rare, Skilla Baby & Rob49 - C4
• 42 Dugg - Win Wit Us
• Brown Money Minds, That Mexican OT & DeeBaby - Fuck It
• Big Hit, Hit-Boy & The Alchemist - Black & Whites
• Nardo Wick - Deep End
• Lupe Fiasco - Samurai
• Nemzzz - ATM
• JasonMartin, DJ Quik, Channel Tres, Free Nationals & George Clinton - TWO HI (WAVES)
• Durand Bernarr & Free Nationals - Fist Bump
• MCVERTT & 41 - Hate The Real
• M Row & MCVERTT - Undefeated
• Sheff G & Great John - Everything Lit
• A.R. The Mermaid & 03 Greedo - Bitch I Met
• Bb trickz & El Baby R - Trickstar
• BERWYN - I AM BLACK
• Maxo Kream - Judged the Plugg (From the Block Performance)*
• Peezy - The Warm Up
• Homixide Gang & Cxdy - R50
• YTB Fatt & Rylo Rodriguez - In The Air
• EBK Young Joc - Temper
• P Dub, EBK Leebo & EBK Juvie Ju - Free Leebo
• Don Corleo & Veeze - duh duh duh
• Living Legends, Del the Funky Hompsapien & Statik Selektah - The Return (Remix) [feat. Aesop Rock, Blu, Chino XL, Kool Savas, Planet Asia, Twigy, Vast Aire & 2Mex]
• Fat Trel & Sada Baby - Steppa
• Luxx Kitty - FWM (feat. Sada Baby)
• SwuM - Lost In Space
• Rucci & BlueBucksClan - It Hit Different
• Skrapz & Kano - Marathon Continues
• STRANGEHUMAN - SIN PERDER, NUNK CUENTA
• MATT OX - MONDAY TO SUNDAY
• lil joujou, Slayter & Midnvght - Mini Van
• Your Old Droog & Conductor Williams - Mercury Thermometers
• RJD2 - Catch The Exit Door (feat. Jamie Lidell)
• Chris Palace - FWM
• lou deezi, Mari Peso & Wiggle - Trapped
• THEBROSFRESH - Caution (Remix) [feat. Pell]
• Certified Trapper - Blood
• Babyfxce E - BTA Freestyle
• RMR - Sweet Divorce
• Shreea Kaul - Press Pause (feat. Dende)
• Humane The Moon - K9 (feat. Jeshi)
• 22nd Jim - Vacuum Seats & Money Counters
• Karriem Riggins - Affectionate Overture
• Big $wift & Chito Rana$ - Wanna Ride
• Nyck Caution - On Mine
• KrispyLife Kidd - In That Case
• RXKNephew - No Handouts
• KALLITECHNIS - WOUND UP
• Lilblackkids (Georgia Anne Muldrow & Keith Rice) - Moon Slide
• Tracy T, Street Symphony & Symba - Cross Me Out
• Young Ant Jefe - Drip On 'Em (feat. Big Sad 1900)
• Estee Nack & BonesWeso - RUDEBOY
• Hurricane Wisdom - Rose Gold
• Woodie Smalls - Understand
• KayFarraway & ROMderful - Give Up The Ghost
• Highway - SDSU
• Bizarre - HEEBEE JEEBEEZ*
• PENPALS & EMERLD - Raw Deluxe
• Siege MC, Redeyes & Tha God Fahim - Black Flame
• Shoebox Baby - What Happened?
• Cuban Doll & Molly Brazy - Buban Doll
• K.Rock$ & Glockboyz Teejae - Victor Wembanyama
• Freddy Got Magic & Supa Bwe - Same Thing (feat. 7000 (7K))
• GB Jay, Verde Babii, Ssrichh33 & Ranvo - Ran Wit It
• DCG BROTHERS & Screwly G - Bounce Out
• GEMEN - Maison de Campagne / SMS
• Finch & Fritz Rango - Remedy (feat. Young Wabo & Denmark Vessey)
• Demae - Speechless
• Janette King - Paradise

Old Drop Watches

2023 and 2024 Calendar

First/Previous
"Watch out!" Jack yelled out to the crowd as the now-glowing overhead turrets, long dormant and forgotten, suddenly whirred to life with a mechanical hum, tracking his movements as he ran, shoving past a group of unsuspecting Xarak to the side as he moved to dodge the torrent of rapid fire aimed right at him, kicking up smoke as the superheated plasma churned the ground underneath him, before the sound of gunfire abruptly stopped.
"Fucking overheating shittubes!" the voice on the speakers cursed. "The Outsider is by the two broken pillars!"
"I see him!" a voice replied from out of the crowd as Jack got his bearings, spotting a group of three uniformed soldiers rushing towards him. As the leader moved to stab him with a nasty-looking barbed shortspear, Jack quickly juked the direction he intended to dodge, dipping to the right as he smashed the avian in the stomach with a vicious kick, shuffling back as he caught the blade of the second soldier with his bracer before throwing them off balance, lashing back at the first with his elbow as he did.
He moved to check the third that was moving to take a swing at him with a bat, but before Jack could do so the soldier was suddenly yanked back as a long, coiled leather whip snapped around them. Following along, Jack spotted an older grey-skinned ganger in black leathers with a coarse, black beard to match his scraggly hair sat down with his back to a wall, casually drinking a beer as he observed the chaos with a mischievous smirk.
As the soldier pulled back his bat to strike the interloper, the ganger grinned and looked down where his legs were already spread wide, revealing a strange metal crotch plate. Suddenly making a jerking motion with one of his legs, the plate flipped up to reveal the barrel of a huge codpiece gun that flipped up to point directly at the soldier, before it fired once, catching the solder completely by surprise as the top of their body was utterly obliterated by a bolt of powerful plasma energy. Smirking, the ganger gave Jack a wink, chugging down the rest of his drink, before charging into the brawl.
Hearing an almighty roar, Jack turned around only to be knocked back yet again as a broken, avian body was roughly lobbed at him, staggering him backwards as the Redeemer turned to the last of the bird-like gangsters, picking him up with immense strength and smashing them to the ground before advancing towards the human more cautiously this time, shoving drunken brawlers out of the way.
“I have long waited for this moment, Outsider. With your death, my King shall grant you redemption!” The Redeemer snarled. Now having a good look at him, Jack couldn’t see any visible weapons on him, which was strange. Last time, he’d brought a gunship and was taking potshots at him with some kind of high-powered rifle. Then again, considering what happened last time, maybe The Redeemer wanted the satisfaction of using his bare hands to beat him to death.
It wouldn’t be a terrible plan considering everything the Ogar had pulled off so far…
While sports on Earth were often separated by gender, despite some resistance from the more liberal-minded, due to biological differences between men and women, combat sports were a whole different game, with mixed martial arts organisations having very specific weight classes for fair competition between athletes, with two fighters of similar size and weight less likely to cause serious injury to each other.
But if you placed an experienced lightweight against even a novice heavyweight? That would introduce major problems for the smaller fighter, who would need to contend with the extra size, reach and power of their larger opponent. Not an impossible fight, but a tough one.
And Jack very much felt like a lightweight here.
Though of course, he had faced larger opponents before. Even an Ogar, though they had defeated the Laird with a cunning trap. However, he didn’t know how well matched he and The Redeemer were in a fair close-range fight outside of the opening moments of the ambush.
Still, he had little choice but to find out. He didn’t have an easy way to escape, and he didn’t know what the status of the others was. If he ran while they were still here then The Redeemer and the Regulators would simply go after them instead to get to him…
No. He couldn’t allow those thoughts to shake him. His friends knew what the hell they were doing, and they could handle themselves just fine. He had to worry about himself right now.
He couldn’t run, so he had to fight.
With a speed he didn’t expect from The Redeemer, they grabbed a nearby chair and lobbed it right at Jack in one smooth motion before following through with another charge.
‘Aegis!’ Jack yelled as he brought his forearm up, as his new and improved shield eagerly sprung up to take the hit from the chair, before a fist smacked into the side of his head as The Redeemer used the chair as a distraction to change his angle of attack.
Spinning with the blow, Jack fought in his mind to stay in the fight as his vision blurred, with the powerful strike threatening to knock him out then and there, before another fist caught him in the stomach, with his battleskin dispersing a hit that would have otherwise easily taken the air out of his lungs.
Retracting his shield, Jack ducked another punch that threatened to decapitate him as he skidded under the blow, parrying a backfist with his forearm that tingled painfully as he ate the blow, before clocking the Redeemer with a punch to the jaw, his gauntlet extending to cover his knuckles with a well-forged plate of metal to add their power to the strike, before the Redeemer threw out a punch that caught him on the shoulder, sending the deathworlder reeling back.
Jack grit his teeth as he fought through the pain, adrenaline rushing through him. He wasn’t out of the fight yet, but he knew he’d gotten the worst of that engagement.
The Redeemer clearly understood this as well, as the zealot strode towards the human with a confident, wicked grin.
But this time, Jack was ready.
‘Caltrops’ Jack whispered the command word, as his gauntlets gave him a good handful of them, subtly tossing them in front of him with an underhand throw, which had gone unnoticed by the Redeemer as they stared at the human with hatred.
Suddenly dashing forward to quickly close the remaining distance between them, the Redeemer roared as he charged Jack again, suddenly grunting in pain and stumbling as his full, heavy mass sent a sharp, painful spike straight through his armoured boot, causing him to lose focus as he looked down at his foot for just a moment to see what had happened.
A moment of distraction that Jack used to its fullest, as he quickly swung his axe down right at The Redeemer’s head.
However, the Ogar reacted with surprising dexterity as he used his forward momentum to avoid the full force of the axeblade, his metal helmet taking a glancing blow as he shoved Jack off balance, causing him to stumble. Quickly predicting what would come next, Jack dropped his axe on purpose as he prepared for a takedown attempt, dropping low and widening his stance as the Redeemer tackled him around the waist to try and bring him to the ground for a quick finish.
“There will be no salvation for you, human!” The Ogar growled through his pain as Jack was forced back by the Redeemer’s superior strength.
“Aww, did you miss me?” Jack taunted, holding on and walking back with the ever increasing momentum The Redeemer was building as he was pushed back along the dancefloor. “I saw your tantrum on the TV afterwards, didn’t know you were a bitch too!”
‘That’s it, asshole.’ Jack thought to himself as he felt his axe clip back onto his back. ‘Get mad. You showed me last time that you like to talk too much. I need to time this right…'
“Your blasphemy ends here Outsider! I shall smite you in the name of my King!” The insane zealot roared out in an enraged challenge.
With a roar the Redeemer pushed with much greater strength, forcing Jack to change his slow backpedalling into a full on sprint as he scrambled to stay on his feet, fighting to keep his grip above that of the Redeemer’s to maintain his control of the grapple for as long as he could as he was gradually being put off-balance, almost being lifted upwards.
‘I’ve got to hold on until the last possible moment…’ Jack thought to himself, as tables, chairs and people alike were battered to the side.
‘Now!’
As the wooden pillar supporting the balcony passed them in a blur, Jack shifted his weight to the left and relinquished the grapple, using the Redeemer’s momentum against him as he shoved the Redeemer off balance, as they smashed into the crumbling brick wall head first with an almighty crash.
As they stumbled back, yanking their head back out through the newly formed hole, Jack growled as grabbed the Redeemer around the top of one of his legs, yelling with effort as he was only just able to lift the Redeemer up and over him, slamming the Ogar down on the top of his head as hard as he could in a vicious suplex that gave a satisfying crack.
Growling with effort, the Redeemer pushed himself back into a crouch and looked up just in time as Jack’s foot smacked into the side of his head in a savage kick that cracked his metal helmet and dislodged one of his fangs. Roaring in rage and pain, the Redeemer got to his feet only to meet a flying knee that shattered his nose as his helmet cracked and dented with the heavy impacts.
“Redeem that you ugly cunt!” Jack growled, moving in for another strike as the Redeemer shoved him away, showing no signs of faltering as he slowly got to his feet, even after the devastating blows he just took. The Redeemer simply gave Jack a wicked grin of satisfaction, before it fell slightly upon seeing something to Jack’s side.
As Jack’s Ring of the Berserker vibrated again, he spun around to spot a large, lanky Vivren with several piercings in overt heavy armour grinning at him with malicious intent as she pointed a wand at him and cast a word of power.
Before he had any time to react, Jack’s entire body erupted in a wave of agony unlike anything he had ever felt before…
*****
“Fuck! Alora! Sephy? Chiyo? Dante?” Nika coughed as she got up from where the balcony had collapsed from under them.
Looking around, she could see even more patrons fighting around them, revelling in the chaos of the brawl, but she couldn’t spot any of her friends in the immediate aftermath, as thick dust plumed out from the wreckage below her.
‘At least the crew of the ship we’re meant to be travelling on are probably out by now.’ The Kizun thought to herself. ‘Can’t go back, the CorvMart crew will have moved on by now, so sticking to the original plan is probably the best move, unless we can steal a vehicle one of us knows how to pilot.’
Assessing the situation before her, Nika went for her bo staff, though made sure that her shotgun was well within easy reach. Though many of the people fighting around her looked rough, they weren’t attacking her or her friends, and until that changed they could make good allies of convenience, or for a smokescreen to give their enemies the slip if they had to run.
Though slaying as many of their attackers as they could would be preferable.
‘Best way to do that is link up with the others, we’re better as a unit.’ She reasoned, hearing an almighty crash. ‘Well, that’s probably Jack.’
Dodging a thrown bottle as a Squarri ganger missed their intended target - a pissed-off looking quadrupedal furry species that Nika didn’t recognise - before dodging a swing of a bat from a Xarak that saw her as an easy target. Quickly raising her staff she parried the backswing before cracking the other end of the staff across the reptilian’s face, knocking the rough-looking thug out as he collapsed to the ground.
Yet before Nika could think to move on from the conflict, she had to dodge out of the way using her tail as a large Balnath with some kind of cleaver-like sword took a swing at her. Recognising the sigil of the Regulator group Chiyo had told them to watch out for - a stern-looking demonic rune surrounded by a neon-red triangle - Nika parried the next sword swipe from the figure.
“Let me guesth, you want to get to the Outthider?” The Balnath sneered at the Kizun with a lisp so thick that in any other situation she’d have to stop herself from laughing. “I’m stho thorry, but we can’t let you have sthilly ideas like that!”
“Are you for fucking real?” Nika asked as she dodged to the side and put some space between them before quickly switching to her shotgun, letting loose a powerful blast that the Balnath was able to raise his shield up to block.
‘Skill like that? Probably the leader or an officer of some kind.’ The Kizun noted to herself. ‘No choice. I’ve got to kill him.’
“Yeah, I know that you’re finking! You fink my teef make me sound sthupid?” The Balnath growled, with a few experimental chomps. “Well these teef like to gnaw and gnasth on Kizun flesth!”
“Come and try it!” Nika snarled as she twirled her staff around her in a well-practised flourish, eagerly accepting the challenge.
The Balnath charged forward with lightning speed as it came at Nika with a series of feints, before swiping at her with a brutal overhand chop, using both hands. The Kizun was able to deftly parry with her staff, the kinetic modules battering her opponent’s grip to the side, though she felt the strength behind the blow and knew that the Balnath was stronger.
Still, she knew she could take him.
Ever since she was little she had roughhoused with her brothers and the local boys in fights around their ranch, and had learned the hard way from an early age that her gender and short build worked against her when facing her peers, so she had trained to be the strongest she could be, and learned to be quick and tactical to make the best use of that.
She had eventually kept up with the neighbourhood boys, using holds and precise strikes until her elders found out what she was doing when she was meant to be working on the ranch to help the family scrape by, and quickly put a stop to the shenanigans.
When she moved to the city, she only got better from there.
The tip of her staff thundered against the Balnath’s shield like the striking of a gong, forcing the larger being back as Nika could tell he was already tiring. Though she wanted to finish this fight quickly and get to her friends, she knew she couldn’t allow herself to give her opponent an opening, even as she sought to exploit an opening of her own. She had to be patient.
Her staff rattled against the shield again and again, as she felt her opponent’s defence get weaker and weaker, with the powerful force of her kinetic module focusing the strength of her strikes into a single point. Eventually something would break, his shield of his arm. Once his defences were finally down, she would go in swiftly for the kill.
Her opponent’s frustration won out as his shield shattered and fell to the floor, forcing him to attack Nika with a vicious two handed swipe. She blocked the strike handily, before the Balnath grabbed her staff, locking them in a clinch.
“Giff me sthome help over ‘ere!” The Balnath called out, as Nika reached for a knife, forcing the Balnath to adjust his stance as she stabbed blindly, glancing off armoured plates before finding purchase somewhere, causing her attacker to grunt with pain as he shoved her back, holding her up against a wall.
‘Shit.’ She cursed in her mind. ‘He’s stronger than me, but all I need is a moment to take him by surprise and I can break away and kill him!’
She held strong with her arms, holding the Balnath back as his jaws snapped shut barely an inch away from her neck. He tried again, and she pushed back harder, the jaws snapping shut around nothing, but much closer this time.
He tried again, bringing his vicious maw even closer still…
‘Gotcha!’ Nika thought to herself, as she jerked her head forward in a headbutt, catching the Balnath by surprise and giving the Kizun the space she needed to bring her knees up to her chin, before kicking out as hard as she could into the face of the Balnath, knocking him back with a roar of pain, before he leapt forward with a side swipe that Nika used her tail to quickly dodge, before in the same motion she brought the tip of her staff round and smacked the Balnath as hard as she could, right in the face, the powerful strike shattering its lower jaw completely.
“My fathce!” the attacker got out, clutching what little remained of his lower jaw, before looking up in the next moment as they stared down the barrel of Nika’s shotgun.
“Plea-” They got out, before their head was obliterated in an explosion of dark, blackish blood as their body clattered uselessly to the ground.
“Fuck you.” The Kizun retorted. Using her tail to quickly clip the sword to the magnets of her armour, Nika could see more Regulators in the crowd heading towards the DJ booth. Quickly checking her weapons, she headed right into the brawl!
*****
“You don’t belong here, girlie!” the thug cackled as their cybernetic arm crackled with electric discharge.
“Replacto!” Alora snarled as she swiped her wand out, blasting her attacker with a sudden flash of light that sent him stumbling back, clutching at his eyes.
“Anyone else?” Alora asked, trying her best to channel Nika’s cool, calm demeanour, crossed with Jack’s intimidating presence as the cluster of gangers and mercenaries all looked around at each other for just a moment, before deciding that the Eladrie wasn’t actually that intimidating, as one tried to rush her with a broken chair.
‘Oh by the Mother Tree! How do those two do it?’ Alora cursed in her mind as she summoned her spiritual weapon - a spear of light - that she quickly stabbed at the fish-like Osi, gutting them in the stomach which quickly made them drop the chair, while Alora wisely moved to the side to get out of the vicious melee happening all around her. Where were the others?
‘I have to make sure they’re all right.’ the Eladrie determinedly told herself as she began casting another, more complicated spell…
“Attention all idiots!” The voice over the speakers sneered out over the ever-changing music that the DJ didn’t seem to have any control over. “We discussed this. Though the Outsider is a priority, you target the spellcasters first if you can! Must I do everything myself?”
Thrumming with sudden power, the turrets above them finally opened fire, shooting almost indiscriminately at the crowd below, cutting several of the brawling patrons down before they even knew what hit them.
Chanting and waving her hands around as quickly as she dared, Alora maintained her concentration of her spell, completing it just in time as the turrets finally tracked her as she summoned a great holy aura of light to cover herself that would give her the protection she needed, the Armour of Faith deflecting the lights of the laser turrets harmlessly aside.
A loud bark sounded out, and knowing Dante’s warning for what it was, Alora spun around to see two Regulators, who were both Vulstas fighting through the brawl to get to her. Unlike Rena, these two were males, both carrying plasma shotguns but unable to get effective shots off through the crowd. Not that something like that stopped them from trying…
“Stevarin!” she yelled out, pointing her wand at one of the two who was about to open fire on a downed ganger, as with a flash of yellow light their movements slowed, quickly freezing stiff as a board as they failed to resist the Holding spell, their eyes widening in sheer terror as the gang-mates of their would-be-victim set upon them in a fury with fists and clubs, before a spell cast from the rafters sent all of them clattering to the ground clutching at their minds.
‘One of the enemy mages providing overwatch.’ Alora noted as she quickly looked up for any sign of them, but not seeing them. ‘Under a veil of invisibility no doubt.’
Feeling the dull impact of a shotgun blast dissipate harmlessly against her magical armour, Alora spun round to the other Regulator, cursing her moment of hesitation as the Vulsta drew a long knife with which to get in close with.
Remembering her fight with Izadora all those weeks ago, Alora waved her arms around quickly to summon a bubble of light to engulf her, before quickly following it up with an explosive flash that thundered all around her like a flashbang grenade, while leaving her unharmed.
As the light dissipated, she deftly avoided the blind lunge from the temporarily blinded Regulator, before jamming her spear into his stomach, using her reach advantage to dodge the desperate swipes he sent her way.
“Garrash!” Alora spoke a quick cantrip, using her affinity with life magic to channel poison through the top of her spear. Her already-weakened attacker quickly slumped to the ground as the debilitating effects took hold, but before Alora could pull her spear back, she was hit by a spell that came from above, disrupting her magic and causing her magical spear and armour to disappear.
‘Damn! It’s that mage above me!’ Alora cursed to herself as she quickly ran underneath one of the balconies, as the turrets chased after her with gunfire. ‘You want to hide in the shadows like a coward? I’ve got something to fix that!’
Quickly making sure there weren’t any immediate threats around, Alora quickly rummaged through her pockets for a wand of white crystal she had prepared about a year ago that still had a few charges. Casting quickly, she levelled it towards the ceiling and prayed to all the gods that she was aiming it at where the enemy mage was hiding,
“Glitasha!”
A spray of shining, sparkling particles of light shot out of her wand, puffing out to cover a good half of the ceiling, and as they began to fall to the floor and latch on to the people below, Alora spotted a huddled form by one of the rafters.
‘Got you!’ She thought with satisfaction.
“Ilthax! Get out of there!” The voice over the speakers warned, presumably the name of her target, but it was too late…
“Solaris!” Alora yelled, throwing her palms out in a thrust as a great javelin of light shot out of her palms. The enemy mage had barely moved before it impaled their centre of mass, sending what must have been a fireball spell way off target which blasted apart a huge, gaping hole in the back wall.
The invisible form of the glitterdust-covered mage slowly began to materialise as the blue-furred, ape-like Regulator clutched at their chest in pain, with wide eyes of disbelief at the spear of hard light that had gone right through their torso. As their flight spell dissipated, their lifeless body fell three stories from the rafters to slam down on the ground floor below.
“Nice one Alora!” the Eladrie heard the voice call from behind her as Nika came up next to her, the Kizun bleeding from a cut on her face. “Where are the others?”
“I don’t know. But we need to find them now!” Alora frantically told them as she took in the sheer state of chaos around them. Many broken bodies lay amongst the carnage, and though the Eladrie knew some would likely be still alive at the end of the night, she knew that many would not.
“You don’t need to tell me twice!” Nika agreed with a grim expression.
*****
First/Previous
Looks like Jack, Nika and Alora are holding on for now! But how long can they keep it up?
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(You should read the previous two parts to understand the rest of the story - Part 1, Part 2
The thief-in-law Viktor Korostylev, nicknamed Korostyl, stood at the origins of organized crime in the Kemerovo -Kuzbass region. Originally from the small town of Prokopyevsk, Korostyl eventually became one of the most influential figures in the region's criminal world. Korostylev narrowly avoided going to a juvenile colony in 1971 when he was just 15 years old. He got caught for petty hooliganism, so he received a two-year suspended sentence. However, a year later, Korostyl began committing serious crimes. Soon he was arrested again, this time for robbery, and was sentenced to nine years in prison, including his previous suspended sentence for hooliganism. It was in prison that Viktor Korostylev became acquainted with the criminal underworld and thieves-in-law. With a considerable sentence ahead of him, Korostyl decided to join the "denying" camp, which refused to cooperate with the administration and held a favorable position under the thieves' control.
During the initial years in prison, Korostyl was not much different from other inmates. He was, so to speak, part of the general prison population that adhered to criminal traditions. His young age and the need for adaptation to prison life required time. After serving about five years, Viktor had fully embraced his allegiance to the thieves-in-law, and by the age of 25, he was an established criminal authority.
Upon his release, Korostyl did not linger in freedom. The expression "prison is a home for a thief" was precisely about him. However, each of the charges against Korostylev was far from theft-related. In 1981, he committed murder and was sentenced to serve his term in a maximum-security prison. As a repeat offender, he received 9 years out of a possible 10 for this charge, as the murder was committed without aggravating circumstances.
While in prison, Korostyl positioned himself as an experienced figure in criminal affairs. In the Tobolsk prison, he mediated a conflict between two groups of inmates. Later, Korostylev was transferred to Zlatoust zone, where he was eventually crowned at the age of 31 by prominent thieves in Law such as Valery Mitin (Motyl), Suren Kukunyan (Gray Bakinsky), and Farit Khabibullin (Farit Rezany).
During his time in prison, Korostyl spent periods in many facilities, including a stint in a Georgian prison. It was in the Georgian prison that he formed close ties with many thieves, and subsequently, Viktor Korostylev leaned more towards the Caucasian criminal clan than the Slavic thieves Clan.
Prokopievsk Group
When Korostyl once again returned to freedom, he was no longer just a common thug. After all, a thief-in-law status gives its holder a lot. In a short time, he assembled an organized criminal group from former convicts. Just as racketeering began to flourish, Korostyl managed to almost completely take over Prokopievsk. Later, his influence spread to the entire southern Kuzbass region. In the northern part of the region, the situation was controlled by one of the authoritative thieves, Oleg Chernyshev, nicknamed Cherny. They often met with Korostyl. During one of these meetings, it was agreed that thieves would not encroach on each other's territory. Thus, a strong thieves' alliance emerged in Kuzbass.
Korostyl subjugated practically every street stall in Prokopievsk and neighboring cities. At least he put under his protection only those who did not already have it. In general, he acted wisely, avoiding making enemies. He even attempted to infiltrate the mining industry, sending his messengers to the director of one of the mines. However, they made it clear that it was a strategic object under the control of the KGB. Korostyl understood everything, and his interest in the mining industry disappeared.
Instead, the thief-in-law began to show interest in business. He invested money in various enterprises, subsequently receiving decent dividends from them. This was not forbidden, as Korostyl replenished the thieves' common fund, so if questions arose about this matter, arguments about the necessity of supporting the business prevailed, as the zones and prisons benefited from this money.
Novokuznetsk Killers
In 1991, a gang was formed in Novokuznetsk from lowlifes thugs. In the criminal history of Russia, it will be known as the Labotsky Gang. This phenomenon also has another name - the Shkabary Barybin Gang. Young and audacious, they immediately made a loud statement about themselves with brutal murders of local entrepreneurs. Then it was the turn of criminal authorities, who were killed by members of the gang on the orders of their leader, Nikolai Labotsky.
It is strange that despite being under the control of thieves-in-law, the region could not resist this gang. The Labotskys were not afraid of consequences. They seized almost the entire commercial sphere of Novokuznetsk and continued their onslaught on other cities in the Kuzbass region.
Typically, Labotsky would send a messenger to criminal authorities, offering them to peacefully surrender their territory to the gang. At first, they were sent away. But then there was always the killing of the authority. Thus, Labotsky and his right-hand man, Shkabara-Barybin, earned such a reputation that many eventually willingly handed over their controlled points to the gang.
In early 1992, representatives of the ruthless gang also arrived in Prokopievsk. They met with Viktor Korostylev and calmly explained that it was time to share the commercial structures. The thief had heard of Labotsky, but apparently did not think he himself could become their victim. After all, Korostylev had significant influence in the region, and it would have been too costly to go to war against him. So he sent Labotsky's bandits a negative response.
But the lawless gang always pushed forward, seeing no authorities around them. In the spring of 1992, a criminal authority, Arslan Sattarov, who was considered Korostylev's "right hand," was killed. The thief did not immediately grasp the essence of what was happening, at least he did not swear to avenge Sattarov's murder on Labotsky. And as it turned out, it was a mistake. It was Labotsky who began to push him out of the territories he occupied. By killing Sattarov, he simply did not leave a "successor" for Korostylev. Viktor Korostylev himself would be killed seven months later, on October 2nd, right at the cemetery, where he arrived as part of a funeral procession, bidding farewell to his relative.
*As fate would have it, Viktor met his death at the cemetery. On October 2nd, Korostyl, a notorious thief in the Kuzbass region, was attending the funeral of his uncle's mother. During the farewell ceremony, two 17-18-year-old boys in "Zhiguli" cars approached the cemetery and opened fire: one fired five shots from a revolver at Viktor Korostylev, while the other punctured the tires of Korostylev's car, parked nearby, using a Makarov pistol.
At 14:35, Korostylev was taken to the 2nd city hospital with severe chest injuries. Several hours later, he passed away.*

(You should read the previous two parts to understand the rest of the story - Part 1, Part 2
The thief-in-law Viktor Korostylev, nicknamed Korostyl, stood at the origins of organized crime in the Kemerovo -Kuzbass region. Originally from the small town of Prokopyevsk, Korostyl eventually became one of the most influential figures in the region's criminal world. Korostylev narrowly avoided going to a juvenile colony in 1971 when he was just 15 years old. He got caught for petty hooliganism, so he received a two-year suspended sentence. However, a year later, Korostyl began committing serious crimes. Soon he was arrested again, this time for robbery, and was sentenced to nine years in prison, including his previous suspended sentence for hooliganism. It was in prison that Viktor Korostylev became acquainted with the criminal underworld and thieves-in-law. With a considerable sentence ahead of him, Korostyl decided to join the "denying" camp, which refused to cooperate with the administration and held a favorable position under the thieves' control.
During the initial years in prison, Korostyl was not much different from other inmates. He was, so to speak, part of the general prison population that adhered to criminal traditions. His young age and the need for adaptation to prison life required time. After serving about five years, Viktor had fully embraced his allegiance to the thieves-in-law, and by the age of 25, he was an established criminal authority.
Upon his release, Korostyl did not linger in freedom. The expression "prison is a home for a thief" was precisely about him. However, each of the charges against Korostylev was far from theft-related. In 1981, he committed murder and was sentenced to serve his term in a maximum-security prison. As a repeat offender, he received 9 years out of a possible 10 for this charge, as the murder was committed without aggravating circumstances.
While in prison, Korostyl positioned himself as an experienced figure in criminal affairs. In the Tobolsk prison, he mediated a conflict between two groups of inmates. Later, Korostylev was transferred to Zlatoust zone, where he was eventually crowned at the age of 31 by prominent thieves in Law such as Valery Mitin (Motyl), Suren Kukunyan (Gray Bakinsky), and Farit Khabibullin (Farit Rezany).
During his time in prison, Korostyl spent periods in many facilities, including a stint in a Georgian prison. It was in the Georgian prison that he formed close ties with many thieves, and subsequently, Viktor Korostylev leaned more towards the Caucasian criminal clan than the Slavic thieves Clan.
Prokopievsk Group
When Korostyl once again returned to freedom, he was no longer just a common thug. After all, a thief-in-law status gives its holder a lot. In a short time, he assembled an organized criminal group from former convicts. Just as racketeering began to flourish, Korostyl managed to almost completely take over Prokopievsk. Later, his influence spread to the entire southern Kuzbass region. In the northern part of the region, the situation was controlled by one of the authoritative thieves, Oleg Chernyshev, nicknamed Cherny. They often met with Korostyl. During one of these meetings, it was agreed that thieves would not encroach on each other's territory. Thus, a strong thieves' alliance emerged in Kuzbass.
Korostyl subjugated practically every street stall in Prokopievsk and neighboring cities. At least he put under his protection only those who did not already have it. In general, he acted wisely, avoiding making enemies. He even attempted to infiltrate the mining industry, sending his messengers to the director of one of the mines. However, they made it clear that it was a strategic object under the control of the KGB. Korostyl understood everything, and his interest in the mining industry disappeared.
Instead, the thief-in-law began to show interest in business. He invested money in various enterprises, subsequently receiving decent dividends from them. This was not forbidden, as Korostyl replenished the thieves' common fund, so if questions arose about this matter, arguments about the necessity of supporting the business prevailed, as the zones and prisons benefited from this money.
Novokuznetsk Killers
In 1991, a gang was formed in Novokuznetsk from lowlifes thugs. In the criminal history of Russia, it will be known as the Labotsky Gang. This phenomenon also has another name - the Shkabary Barybin Gang. Young and audacious, they immediately made a loud statement about themselves with brutal murders of local entrepreneurs. Then it was the turn of criminal authorities, who were killed by members of the gang on the orders of their leader, Nikolai Labotsky.
It is strange that despite being under the control of thieves-in-law, the region could not resist this gang. The Labotskys were not afraid of consequences. They seized almost the entire commercial sphere of Novokuznetsk and continued their onslaught on other cities in the Kuzbass region.
Typically, Labotsky would send a messenger to criminal authorities, offering them to peacefully surrender their territory to the gang. At first, they were sent away. But then there was always the killing of the authority. Thus, Labotsky and his right-hand man, Shkabara-Barybin, earned such a reputation that many eventually willingly handed over their controlled points to the gang.
In early 1992, representatives of the ruthless gang also arrived in Prokopievsk. They met with Viktor Korostylev and calmly explained that it was time to share the commercial structures. The thief had heard of Labotsky, but apparently did not think he himself could become their victim. After all, Korostylev had significant influence in the region, and it would have been too costly to go to war against him. So he sent Labotsky's bandits a negative response.
But the lawless gang always pushed forward, seeing no authorities around them. In the spring of 1992, a criminal authority, Arslan Sattarov, who was considered Korostylev's "right hand," was killed. The thief did not immediately grasp the essence of what was happening, at least he did not swear to avenge Sattarov's murder on Labotsky. And as it turned out, it was a mistake. It was Labotsky who began to push him out of the territories he occupied. By killing Sattarov, he simply did not leave a "successor" for Korostylev. Viktor Korostylev himself would be killed seven months later, on October 2nd, right at the cemetery, where he arrived as part of a funeral procession, bidding farewell to his relative.
As fate would have it, Viktor met his death at the cemetery. On October 2nd, Korostyl, a notorious thief in the Kuzbass region, was attending the funeral of his uncle's mother. During the farewell ceremony, two 17-18-year-old boys in "Zhiguli" cars approached the cemetery and opened fire: one fired five shots from a revolver at Viktor Korostylev, while the other punctured the tires of Korostylev's car, parked nearby, using a Makarov pistol.
At 14:35, Korostylev was taken to the 2nd city hospital with severe chest injuries. Several hours later, he passed away.

LPs

• A Boogie wit da Hoodie - Better Off Alone (w Young Thug, Future, Lil Durk, Cash Cobain, Fridayy & Mariah the Scientist) [Melodic Trap, Atlantic]
• Álvaro Díaz (🇵🇷) - SAYONARA (w Tainy, Rauw Alejandro, Feid, Young Miko + more) [Latin Trap, UMG]
• Clavish (🇬🇧) - Chapter 16 (w Fredo, Aitch, Potter Payper, D-Block Europe + more) [UK Rap, Polydor]
• Rio Da Yung OG - Rio Circa 2020 (w RMC Mike & Louie Ray) [Michigan Trap]
• ShooterGang Kony - OPPS CAN'T HAVE FUN [West Coast Trap]
• Meekz (🇬🇧) - TRU [UK Rap]
• Rapsody - Please Don't Cry (w Lil Wayne, Erykah Badu, Hit-Boy, Baby Tate + more) [Conscious Rap, Jamla/Roc Nation]
• Courtney Bell & Royce Da 5'9" - Microdose (w Benny the Butcher, Conway the Machine, LaRussell, Symba + more) [Rap]
• ian - Valedictorian [Jerk]
• Mach-Hommy - #RICHAXXHAITIAN (w Black Thought, KAYTRANADA, 03 Greedo, Roc Marciano + more) [East Coast Hip Hop]
• wolfacejoeyy - valentino [Sexy Drill, Alamo]
• Mike Shabb - SEWASIDE III (w Boldy James, Navy Blue, Nicolas Craven, Da$H, Estee Nack, ANKHLEJOHN & Lord Sko) [Rap]
• Struggle Mike - HONOR (w Benny the Butcher, Jeru The Damaja, Planet Asia, Eto + more) [Coke Rap, BSF]

Deluxe

• Childish Gambino - ATAVISTA (w 21 Savage, Young Nudy, Ariana Grande, ) [Pop, Rap, RCA]

EPs

• Marina Satti (🇬🇷) - P.O.P. [Greek R&B, Universal]
• Jay 305 & Hit-Boy - Don't Wait Until I Die EP (w DOM KENNEDY) [West Coast Rap]
• Lil Double 0 - Return of the Walker [Trap, Freebandz/Open Shift]
• Mutant Academy - Talk Soon EP [Rap]
• Cold Hart - Rap Show (w BONES & GothBoiClique) [Cloud Rap, Epitah]
• LaRussell, 03 Greedo & Mike G Beatz - Sessions At The Grill: Episode 001 [West Coast Rap]
• Payroll Giovanni - Have Money, Have Heart [Rap]
• Elaquent - Obrigado! [Beats]

Songs

• Maluma & Pirlo - MIONCA
• Conep & Anuel AA - Bellakita
• NxWorries - FromHere (feat. Snoop Dogg & October London)
• Rich The Kid & D.A. Got That Dope - Band Man
• Jimin, Mark Ralph, Muni Long, JVKE & NLE Choppa - Angel (Anniversary Edition)
• TitoM, Yuppe & S.N.E. - Tshwala Bam (Remix) [feat. Burna Boy]
• Russ & 6LACK - Working On Me
• Masio Gunz & Jeremih - Panic
• Diany Dior, Cash Cobain & NAV - Favorite Lady
• Saweetie - NANi
• Lila Iké - He Loves Us Both (feat. H.E.R.)
• Sayian Jimmy - BAD BOY (Remix) [feat. Gino Mella, LIT killah, Juhn, Jairo Vera, Dani Flow & Montaña the Producer]
• FERG - MDMX*
• Chance The Rapper & DJ Premier - Together
• Omar Apollo - Dispose Of Me
• 42 Dugg - Win Wit Us
• Big Hit, Hit-Boy & The Alchemist - Black & Whites
• Sheff G & Great John - Everything Lit
• Cowboy Killer & Yelawolf - Bob Barker
• BERWYN - I AM BLACK
• Maxo Kream - Judged the Plugg (From the Block Performance)*
• Homixide Gang & Cxdy - R50
• YTB Fatt & Rylo Rodriguez - In The Air
• EBK Young Joc - Temper
• P Dub, EBK Leebo & EBK Juvie Ju - Free Leebo
• Dom Corleto & Veeze - DUHDUHDUH
• Luxx Kitty - FWM (feat. Sada Baby)
• SwuM - Lost In Space
• MATT OX - MONDAY TO SUNDAY
• Your Old Droog & Conductor Williams - Mercury Thermometers
• RJD2 - Catch The Exit Door (feat. Jamie Lidell)
• Chris Palace - FWM
• lou deezi, Mari Peso & Wiggle - Trapped
• THEBROSFRESH - Caution (Remix) [feat. Pell]
• Certified Trapper - Blood
• Shreea Kaul - Press Pause (feat. Dende)
• Humane The Moon - K9 (feat. Jeshi)
• Karriem Riggins - Affectionate Overture
• Lilblackkids (Georgia Anne Muldrow & Keith Rice) - Moon Slide
• Young Ant Jefe - Drip On 'Em (feat. Big Sad 1900)
• Estee Nack & BonesWeso - RUDEBOY
• KayFarraway & ROMderful - Give Up The Ghost
• Bizarre - HEEBEE JEEBEEZ*
• Cuban Doll & Molly Brazy - Buban Doll
• K.Rock$ & Glockboyz Teejae - Victor Wembanyama
• Freddy Got Magic & Supa Bwe - Same Thing (feat. 7000 (7K))
• Demae - Speechless
• Janette King - Paradise

Old Drop Watches

2023 and 2024 Calendar

(continuation of part 1)

III. Searching for Aerith Beyond FFVII

There were absolutely no answers in Remake or OG (at this point in my research, Rebirth wasn’t released yet), no matter how much I looked; nothing at all hinted at how Cloud could’ve obtained the memories of OG that emerge in Remake as MOTFs. I knew I had to look elsewhere to search for more clues, so I decided to check every piece of media ever released by SE with a mention of Cloud or Aerith in it, digging for hints in the compilation and beyond.
And boy, did I find them.
III. a) Core Worlds and Suspension Worlds
There are a couple of general FF rules that we need to establish before going forward.
It’s important to note that there are multiple realms in which the FF stories take place, each with a different name, history and society. This ensures that all FF stories occur separately, never intercepting or interacting— though they do have creatures like moogles and chocobos in common, as well as concepts like airships, gil, magic and some form of crystal. For simplicity, I will refer to these separate worlds in which the numbered FF games (FFI, FFII, FFIII, etc) occur as “core worlds”.
Characters from different core worlds may appear together in non-numbered FF games, the events of which have no impact on the core world at all: it seems that sometime after a FF character has reached the end of their core world’s plot-line, they may somehow be summoned to far-removed realms where they will face new adventures. I call these far-removed realms “suspension worlds”. One example of a FF game that takes place in a suspension world is Dissidia Final Fantasy, wherein characters from multiple core worlds unite to accomplish a mission as a team.
III. b) Final Fantasy Tactics
First on our list of non-compilation SE games to explore is 1997’s Final Fantasy Tactics (FFT), a game whose plot takes place in the suspension world of Ivalice. Let’s plot out the relevant events, and then analyze!
III. b) i. Fact-Finding
The main character of FFT, Ramza, encounters a brunette flower peddler with Aerith’s iconic, gravity-defying bangs:
\"Aeris\" in FFT's Ivalice
If you choose to buy a flower from her, she express her relief: apparently, business isn’t going well because no one is interested in flowers. The girl wistfully dreams aloud:

“When is my knight in shining armor going to take me away from here...?”

Later, Ramza and his companions encounter a mysterious machine that can summon people from across universes. The machine is activated, and a rather rude young man with spiky blonde hair appears. Cloud claims he used to be in SOLDIER, and says the last thing he remembers is “getting stuck in the current”. He looks to be disoriented and lost, and suffers from piercing headaches. Mere moments after being summoned to Ivalice, Cloud rambles:

“What’s this? My fingers are tingling… My eyes… they’re burning… Stop… stop it [Se]phiroth…”

He dashes out of the room, but not without announcing:

“I must go… must go to that place…”

Outside, Cloud encounters the brunette flower girl Ramza met earlier. She offers Cloud a flower, but he only stares at her wordlessly:

“Flower girl: Buy a flower? Only 1 gil.
Cloud: …
Flower girl: Something wrong? Do I resemble someone?”
Cloud: No… it’s nothing.”

As soon as Cloud leaves, a gang of ruffians surround the flower girl and start harassing her, demanding payment that’s apparently overdue. One of them finally calls her by her name: “Aeris”. He grabs her, insinuating that he might sexually assault her in lieu of payment. Aeris is not strong enough to push him away. That’s when Cloud returns:

“Cloud: Get your hand off her!
Thug: What did you say!?
Cloud: Didn't you hear me? Get your dirty hand off her!
[…]
Cloud, to Aeris: Go… now.”

Aeris heeds Cloud’s advice, fleeing the scene before a fight between Cloud and the thug can break out. After Cloud scares the ruffians off with the help of Ramza and his companions, he speaks once more:

“I lost… something very important… Ever since, I’ve been lost […]. What should I do? What about this pain [?] Must go… to the Promised Land.”

III. b) ii. Fact Analysis
There’s a lot to unpack here, all of which you probably clocked in your head upon reading, but let’s put it down in writing.
While FFT Cloud’s memory is far from perfect, the Aeris he encounters in Ivalice doesn’t recognize him at all. FFVII Ultimania Omega addresses this question without answering it:

“[The flower seller’s] name is Aeris, and she has the same appearance and tone of voice as the Aeris of FFVII. However, when she comes across Cloud, she does not recognize him. Could she really be the same Aerith who appears in FFVII but with memory loss, or is she a completely different character?” (“#4 Proof of Omega”, “FFVII in Other Games”, “Final Fantasy Tactics”, page 560).

Regardless of her unknown identity and inability to recognize Cloud, FFT Aeris’ fantasy of a “knight in shining armor” is quite reminiscent of the flower girl/bodyguard dynamic we’ve come to know and love. Cloud’s armor doesn’t shine, but in my opinion, if you’re looking for the dystopian, corporatocratic equivalent of a knight, you can’t get much closer than a supposed-former-SOLDIER-turned-bodyguard. Additionally, despite his rude and cold attitude toward Ramza’s gang, the urgency with which Cloud swoops in to save the flower girl from the ruffians betrays a softer, warmer side to him: the flower girl/bodyguard dynamic strikes again!
FFT Cloud’s dialogue borrows two lines from the speech OG Cloud makes as Aerith lies dead in his arms (disk 1, chapter 28): “My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning!” and “What are we supposed to do? What about my pain?” You might’ve noticed that this glimpse of grief Cloud experiences in FFT bears a resemblance to the fourth MOTF 4 experienced by Remake Cloud (see section “II. a)”). Could it be that FFT Cloud and Remake Cloud have something in common?
Shortly after being summoned to Ivalice, FFT Cloud declares that he must go to “that place”, a mysterious line that is later elucidated when he tells Ramza that he must go to the Promised Land and find the “very important” thing he’s lost. The Promised Land is the Cetra culture’s afterlife, meaning FFT Cloud is looking for someone who’s died, someone “very important” to him. OG suggests this is none other than Aerith:

“Cait Sith, reading Cloud’s fortune: You will find [what] you pursue. However, you will lose the most precious thing” (disk 1, chapter 16, English translation by Kotaku’s “Let’s Mosey: A Slow Translation of Final Fantasy Seven: Part Eight” by Tim Rogers, 9:42-9:52).

&

“Cloud, after seeing Aerith’s hand reach for him through the Lifestream: … I think I'm beginning to understand.
Tifa: What?
Cloud: An answer from the Planet… the Promised Land... I think I can meet her... there” (disk 3, chapter 3).

Finally, let’s try to understand where on the OG timeline Cloud was summoned to this suspension world from and what he remembers. His comment about getting stuck in a current has to be about the Lifestream; apparently, on top of its atemporal nature, it can act as a conduit to other worlds. One only enters the Lifestream if they’ve somehow fallen into the core of the planet or once they’ve passed away and returned to the planet. Both scenarios merit consideration.
On the one hand, it’s possible that Cloud was summoned to Ivalice after he and Tifa fall into the core of the planet: this point in the FFVII OG timeline occurs after Aerith’s death and shortly before Cloud finds out he was never SOLDIER, which matches the gaps in FFT Cloud’s memory quite well. However, this scenario does not account for the vagueness with which FFT Cloud remembers Aerith and her death. Most importantly, Cloud’s realization that he can find Aerith in the Promised Land occurs much later in the game (FFVII OG, disk 3, chapter 3) than when he falls into the Lifestream with Tifa (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 8).
On the other hand, FFT Cloud’s vague yet persistent memories of Aerith suggest that he’s been summoned to Ivalice after his eventual death post-OG, but also that he’s lost quite a large portion of his memories. His incomplete memory loss is likely the result of Cloud’s individuality’s erosion by the Lifestream after death, which we discussed in section “II. a) ii.”. We can therefore surmise that by the time he is summoned to Ivalice from the Lifestream, Cloud has been dead for long enough that the Lifestream eroded a large portion of the memories of his lifetime. This post-death scenario is likelier than the first. The memory of Cloud’s realization that he was never SOLDIER must be gone, which explains why he claims otherwise upon being summoned to Ivalice. Contrastingly, vestiges of Cloud’s OG memories of Aerith cling to his soul, even after others have been wiped clean. Could this be a consequence of their soulmate bond? Could the strength of Cloud’s love and grief for Aerith have made his memories of her stronger and more difficult for the Lifestream to erode? Could it be both?
One thing is clear: Aerith is of fundamental importance to Cloud, even when he can’t quite remember her. In fact, the only other character he remembers and/or mentions in FFT is Sephiroth. It does make sense that the memories of those who have marked one’s soul forevermore would be the most difficult for the Lifestream to erode.
III. c) Dissidia Final Fantasy
The next stop on our travels through suspension worlds is 2008’s Dissidia Final Fantasy! Now strap in, because here’s where things get really serious.
III. c) i. Fact Finding
In the suspension world of Dissidia Final Fantasy (DFF), the goddess of harmony Cosmos and the god of discord Chaos are engaged in a never-ending cycle of conflict. Both deities need warriors to fight on their behalf, so they recruit core world characters into their respective teams by summoning them to DFF. Some of these summoned characters are FFIV’s Cecil, FFVI’s Terra, FFVII’s Sephiroth, FFX’s Tidus, and of course, FFVII’s Cloud. The warriors find themselves in the suspension world of DFF with no memories of their core worlds’ plotlines. However, as the DFF adventure progresses, they are able to recover pieces of their memories here and there. It isn’t clear how much they come to remember. Ultimately, the warriors hope to return home to their core worlds by fighting in this war and seeing to its end.
Cloud is summoned to DFF as a warrior on the side of Chaos, who seeks to destroy all existence. Sephiroth is also on Chaos’ side, meaning the two are teammates despite being enemies in their core world of FFVII. It just so happens that Tifa is a summoned warrior in DFF too, though she’s fighting on Cosmos’ side. Intrigued by her vague familiarity, Sephiroth hypothesizes that killing Tifa will bring back his memories of OG’s plot line: before long, the masamune wielder finds Tifa alone and corners her into a one-on-one fight. Thankfully, Cloud swoops in and saves her before Sephiroth can do any harm. Tifa is thankful for Cloud’s help, though confused that Cloud would elect to assist her and turn against a fellow warrior of Chaos; she doesn’t remember what Sephiroth and Cloud mean to each other in OG. In fact, Tifa doesn’t even remember Cloud’s name or that they share a core world, though Cloud feels somewhat familiar to her. For his part, Cloud at least remembers that Tifa is someone he cares about from his core world. As Tifa thanks Cloud for saving her from Sephiroth, something she says elicits an odd reaction from the warrior of Chaos:

“Tifa: The way you showed up and fought that guy off. It was a pretty cool thing to watch. You were like a hero, charging in to save the girl.
Cloud gasps at her words. She doesn’t notice” (Dissidia 012: Treachery of the Gods, report 5: “Unexpected Fulfillment 2”).

On another note, Cloud knows he will have to fight Tifa once the Cosmos-Chaos conflict comes to a head, as they are on opposing teams. He thinks to himself:

“Once [her] memories return, [she]’ll lose the will to fight just like I have. So... Before that can happen, I have to act...” (Dissidia 012: Treachery of the Gods, report 5: “Unexpected Fulfillment 2”).

In order to end the cycle of the conflict and to avoid fighting Tifa, Cloud decides to try and defeat Chaos himself. Predictably, Cloud is no match for the deity. As he dies, Cloud pleads the following to the goddess Cosmos:

“Cosmos, goddess of harmony. If you can hear me, listen to my plea. I beg you. Save her. Save my friend… Tifa.”

Cosmos hears him and responds immediately:

“Cosmos: An end to this conflict, and a life spared? This is your heart's desire? If your will remains unchanged, I shall bring you here when the battle draws to a close. Cloud. My chosen" (Dissidia 0.13: Treachery of the Gods, report 7: “Unexpected Fulfillment 3”).

Cloud’s wish is granted by Cosmos: the first phase of the conflict ends without Tifa getting hurt, and she is sent away from the suspension world of DFF before the second phase begins. Cloud is saved from death, and Cosmos enlists him into her team of warriors for phase two: this time, Cloud is fighting on the good side.
Now we enter phase two of the war. Cosmos tells her team of ten core world warriors that in order to save the world from Chaos’ destruction, they must collect what she describes as crystals containing the power to persist through darkness. I call these the “DFF crystals”. There are ten DFF crystals in total: one for every warrior in Cosmos’ group to find. To obtain their crystal, each hero must overcome a trial that will confront them with whatever personal struggle they faced in their core world; if they prove themselves worthy, their DFF crystal will appear to them. On one hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals simply take the form of the crystals found in their core world. For example, Onion Knight’s DFF crystal looks to be nothing more than one of FFIII’s elemental crystals, which hold little to no personal significance to him. On the other hand, some warriors’ DFF crystals symbolize something more personal to their respective warriors. For instance, Cecil’s DFF crystal looks to be one of FFIV’s dark crystals, which specifically represent the dichotomy of light and darkness he struggles with in his core world’s plot line. Cosmos describes the quest for the DFF crystals as follows:

“Cosmos: The crystals embody the strength to face despair. With ten gathered, there is hope yet to save the world. The path to your crystal will be perilous... and different for each and every one of you. But you must believe in and follow your own path. Even if you know not where that path leads" (Dissidia 013: Light to All, prologue: “A Final Hope”).

From this exposition, simply keep in mind that: Cloud must find his crystal by overcoming a personal trial, and his crystal may have the appearance of an object in OG that’s important to him.
Once the team is debriefed on their mission, Cloud remains reticent to fight; he doesn’t much like the mysterious nature of this conflict. Not knowing exactly what they’re all fighting for is clearly bothersome to the swordsman, and the idea of thoughtlessly engaging in battles leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Fellow warrior Firion understands that without a reason to fight, Cloud’s heart just isn’t in it. He imparts upon Cloud that he must have a dream he’s fighting to protect, something he wants to see come true, to motivate him to stop Chaos from destroying all existence. Unfortunately, Cloud doesn’t have a dream to preserve, or can’t find one for himself:

“Cloud: I've looked, but I'm still empty-handed. And without a dream, what do you suppose I should do? […] Maybe what I'm looking for... isn't here” (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Gateway of Good and Evil”).

Another fellow warrior, Cecil, expresses worry for Cloud, whose response evokes the main theme of FFVII OG:

“Cecil: Everyone's worried, Cloud. But... Do you shoulder a larger concern?
Cloud: Concern... Maybe a sense of loss" (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Beyond the Continent”).

Whatever Cloud is looking for “isn’t [there]”, and he feels “a sense of loss”: Cloud’s motivating dream has been lost to him. This is later reasserted in a conversation with Terra, another warrior of Cosmos:

“Terra: And you, Cloud... What's your dream?
Cloud: I've lost mine" (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 3: “The Chosen Battle”, “Gateway of True Intent”).

Later, Cloud encounters and fights Sephiroth, who is still a part of Chaos’ team. Sephiroth is defeated, but not before he’s taunted Cloud with his habitual puppet talk. However, Cloud remains strong and refutes Sephiroth’s manipulation, asserting that only he can determine his own path. This must’ve been Cloud’s personal trial, because his crystal appears at that very moment: it is a small, light green orb that looks like materia from his core world. Having pocketed his crystal, Cloud decides he must find his own reason to fight. Interestingly, his search is depicted as intertwined with Fate:

“Cloud: Even if I have my doubts... I have to find my own answer […] Until then, I'll keep fighting.
Narration: The warrior has vowed to keep fighting— and keep fighting he will […]. Etched in destiny, his quest for answers continues on” (Dissidia 0.13: Light to All, chapter 1: “Beyond Doubt”, “Gulg Gateway”).

Later, the nemeses meet again in a segment called “Recurring Tragedy”. Their interactions here are particularly interesting. Sephiroth speaks of making Cloud suffer through despair and pain as though referencing their history together:

"Sephiroth: This disease called hope is eating you alive. The world of suffering was born out of such half-baked ideals.
Cloud: If that's the case, I have to endure the suffering. There's no moving on if I run from it.
Sephiroth: If that is what you wish for, you shall drown in the pain. I'll lead you to true despair. [My] shadow is burned into your heart. We'll meet again, Cloud. I'll keep coming back— as long as you are who you are."
Sephiroth disappears. Cloud looks out into the distance before the scene ends.
“Cloud: No thanks. The one I really want to meet is…” (Dissidia 013: Light to All, epilogue: “Conclusion of a Cycle”, “Recurring Tragedy”).

This final line suggests Cloud has finally found a reason to fight: he wants to meet someone unspecified.
Finally, after the war has ended, we arrive at the final cutscene of DFF. I will let you read the full script, with notes added by me in bold behind the spoiler censors. Please do not read my notes if you do not wish to encounter spoilers for FFI, FFII, FFIII, FFIV, FFV, FFVI, FFVIII, FFIX or FFX:

“[The] heroes are all standing together in a grassy field with a forest behind them. Birds are chirping, the sun is shining brightly, and the wind is blowing gently. The heroes look around them in awe. They're all holding their crystals.
WoL: The battle has come to an end...
Tidus notices that his crystal has begun to emanate a blue glow.>! His crystal is a movie sphere from his core world of FFX: a capsule containing sounds and images that people record for later viewing. Tidus’ crystal likely represents the specific movie sphere recorded by his love interest Yuna, which revealed that she’d loved him from the beginning.!<
Tidus: Gotta go, huh...
The blue glow transfers to him as well. He turns to look at the others
[…] Tidus grins at the others, then turns and runs toward a nearby lake. He leaps into it in a manner reminiscent of [the events] of FFX. He vanishes as he descends toward the lake.
Zidane: We're not vanishing. We're returning—
Zidane is sitting on a tree limb as he says this. His crystal begins to glow gold, as does he. His crystal is shaped like a highly important ‘progenitor of all life’ crystal from his core world of FFIX.
Zidane: — to where we're supposed to be.
Zidane spins around the tree limb with the use of his tail and launches toward the sun. He's lost to view.
A white feather then drifts down from that direction and Squall catches it. The feather is reminiscent of his love Rinoa Heartilly, whose character symbol is a white feather. In fact, Squall’s crystal looks like a mix of his revolver gunblade from FFVIII and Rinoa’s feather motif. [Squall glows blue.]
Squall: Perhaps we can go on a mission together again.
Squall vanishes.
Cloud is then visible, standing in [a] flower field. The flowers are white and yellow. Cloud has his crystal, a light green materia from his core world of FFVII, in hand.
Cloud: [(Chuckles shortly, like a scoff)] Not interested.
Cloud walks off into the flower field, gaining a green glow. He vanishes.
A snowflake then falls into Terra's right hand as her crystal begins to glow pink. The flames drawn on her crystal represent her power, which is connected to the element of fire: her character arc in FFVI.
Terra: I think I've learned how to keep going. Thank you— and take care.
Terra glows pink and then vanishes. Bartz throws a stick. He's glowing pink as well.
Bartz: When you're having the most fun, that's when time always flies. His crystal is the Adamantite from his core world of FFV.
Bartz vanishes.
Cecil: It's mine to pass on—
A moon appears behind Cecil and goes through its phases as he begins to glow blue. His crystal has shadowed and illuminated parts, representing the duality of his character, which is central to his personal arc in his core world of FFIV. It also represents his brother Golbez, who has chosen the darkness. Cecil considers his familial bond with Golbez his guiding light and hopes to be with him someday.
Cecil: — this strength I've gained from everyone.
Cecil vanishes.
Onion Knight hugs his crystal and looks up toward the sky. His crystal is shaped like those found in his core world of FFIII**.**
Onion Knight: Everyone... thank you!
Onion Knight briefly glows blue and then vanishes.
There are wild roses at Firion's feet. He and WoL are looking toward the sky. WoL suddenly begins walking away while Firion looks down and sees the roses.
Firion: This isn't the end. Another dream is waiting to begin.
His crystal is the color of the wild roses that were at the center of his dream and of his motivation to fight Chaos. The roses are also the emblem of the Rebel Army he was a part of in his core world of FFII. His crystal is shaped like Pandaemonium, the final dungeon of his core world story. Firion gains a violet glow and then vanishes.
WoL is walking through the field and then comes to a stop. He's looking at something.
WoL: May the light forever shine upon us.”

As you can see, everyone’s crystal is very important to the story of their core world, and in the cases of at least Tidus, Squall, Terra and Cecil, the crystals represent something very personal. What about Cloud and his crystal, then? What about the dream he lost and the person he wants to meet? Let’s begin analyzing to answer these questions.
III. c) ii. Fact Analysis
Firstly, it’s clear to me that the Cloud that appears in DFF is a post-OG Cloud, given how many plot points from OG he interacts with. I’m reticent to say whether or not this post-OG Cloud is dead like in FFT, as he recovers many of his memories of OG during DFF and there is no evidence of him having passed away and joined the Lifestream.
The second thing I’d like to point out is Cloud’s strange reaction when Tifa compares him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. Cloud gasps, indicating that her words mean something to him; the trope Tifa references must therefore be included somewhere in the FFVII OG plot-line. Some of you are surely ahead of me by now, having realized that only the tragic antithesis of this trope appears in OG: Cloud is unable to save Aerith from Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). Whether or not DFF Cloud remembers Aerith herself at this point, it’s clear he recalls the pain and guilt of losing Aerith to Sephiroth.
Next, let’s address Cloud’s lost dream: to meet an unspecified person. It seems Cloud is aware at this point that in OG, he was eternally separated from the person he dreams of meeting. So, who was he separated from in his core world? Who can he never meet again, even if his team of warriors defeats Chaos and Cloud returns to the realm of FFVII? There are a few options —his mother, his father, Zack, Jessie, Biggs, Wedge, and any other person he knew who died—, but the sheer narrative weight that Aerith’s untimely death carries makes it clear who he truly wants to meet. This is corroborated by Cloud’s “I think I can meet her… there” line in OG (disk 3 chapter 3), by FFT Cloud’s search for Aerith during his appearance in Ivalice, and by Cloud’s strange reaction to Tifa’s comparing him to a hero who swoops in and saves the girl from the bad guy. All the available evidence suggests that Cloud’s dream is indeed to reunite with Aerith, and that this dream is “lost” to him because she was killed by Sephiroth (disk 1, chapter 28). This would also explain the title of the DFF segment “Recurring Tragedy”, since as we all know, the ultimate tragedy of FFVII OG is Aerith’s death. Considering Sephiroth was the one to take Aerith away from Cloud, Sephiroth’s threats of drowning him in despair in “Recurring Tragedy” only solidify this interpretation of Cloud’s lost dream.
Finally, we arrive at the ending cutscene. Cosmos’ warriors return to where they belong to try and accomplish whatever dream they held as motivation during the Cosmos-Chaos conflict, each carrying their DFF crystal. Cloud is shown standing in a field of white and yellow flowers and walking deeper into it with a light green materia in hand. Why was a white and yellow flower field chosen to represent DFF Cloud’s dream? The answer is obvious. White and yellow flowers symbolize Aerith: she sold Cloud a yellow blossom upon first meeting him in OG (disk 1, chapter 1), and her yellow and white flowerbed cushioned Cloud’s fall when the two reunited in the Sector 5 church (disk 1, chapter 4). What’s more, we have the iconic credits video of the original cut of Advent Children to refer to, wherein Cloud is seen driving near flower fields. Aerith stands there (3:20), seemingly waiting for him. Here’s what Nomura had to say about this credits scene:

"[...] we filmed the video for the ending credits in Hawaii. There are fields of flowers on both sides of the road, and the colors —yellow and white— are the same as the flowers in Aerith's church […]. With Aerith, 'flowers' have been her image throughout the series” (FFVII Reunion Files, “Countdown to Reunion”, “Stories from CG Production”, page 87).

Even in the Advent Children Complete cut of the film, where Aerith is not shown standing in the field, the flowers and their symbolism of Aerith remain. That being so, it’s more than fair to say that the white and yellow flowers in DFF’s ending cutscene serve as yet another confirmation that Cloud’s dream is to be with Aerith.
With all of this established, we can address the nature of Cloud’s DFF crystal. As we established, every core world has its own version of a crystal, each possessing a distinct appearance, function and meaning. Materia are the crystals of FFVII, so one could be satisfied by the proposition that Cloud’s DFF crystal is simply meant to represent a random materia. However, I think Cloud’s crystal is specifically the White Materia, as it represents Aerith’s sacrifice, her importance to the plot and what she died fighting for. If any one object symbolizes her death, it’s the White Materia; it’s even given closeups during the event (2:33-3:02). Besides, unlike any other materia in FFVII, the White Materia is known to glow a light green when Holy has been activated:

“Bugenhagen: If [the prayer] reaches the planet, the White Materia will begin to glow a pale green” (FFVII OG, disk 2, chapter 15).

Here are pictures of the White Materia in OG and Advent Children, and two pictures of Cloud's DFF crystal (in order) so you can compare for yourself:
https://preview.redd.it/0qtumfeyfq0d1.jpg?width=386&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3995f010738c83fca0c5842a0564d0a9ad206dfd
https://preview.redd.it/0kj525tzfq0d1.jpg?width=1144&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=575573ef1d2c937635cf569d4a376886a24b384c
Cloud's DFF Crystal
Cloud’s DFF crystal
So far, in both suspension world games we’ve examined (FFT and DFF), Cloud is searching for Aerith. As a final note on DFF, it may interest you to know that codirector of the Remake trilogy Toriyama was actually a writer for DFF: he may have carried some themes from DFF to Remake…
III. d) Detour: The Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition
Before we hop onto the next suspension world, let’s return to ours for a quick detour: the 2018 Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Expo. Themed with farewells and tragedy, this expo showcased the heartbreaking goodbyes featured in different FF games. Artwork, clips, quotes and images aplenty here! As the highly anticipated Remake was going to be coming out approximately a year and a half later, the FFVII section of the expo featured a few sneak peek Remake designs. This means the expo was at least partly curated with the Remake trilogy in mind; there could be interesting material in the FFVII section of the expo related to Remake. Let’s dive in!
Unsurprisingly, the focus of the FFVII section is Cloud and Aerith, since she is the loved one he lost in OG. Zack is also given a mention, however Aerith was the glaringly central star of the show. To showcase how important Aerith’s farewell in particular was to the expo, the FFVII portion was introduced by a photo of Cloud lowering Aerith into her watery grave and a video of her tragic death:
Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Farewell Exposition, FFVII Introduction
The description under the video screen reads:

“She was gone in the blink of an eye. But the pain never went away.
Aerith awoke the ultimate magic to protect the planet and the people she loved. Yet her life came to a sudden end at the hands of Sephiroth, a man bent on seeing the world destroyed. Even the usually stoic Cloud couldn’t hide his grief at the unexpected death of an irreplaceable companion. ‘My fingers are tingling. My mouth is dry. My eyes are burning.’ True words, revealing Cloud’s deep sorrow” (Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Exposition).

Conveniently enough for us, the expo’s tagline is “Who is the person you want to meet again?” Given that Aerith holds the spotlight in the FFVII section of the expo, it’s clear who SE is telling us Cloud wants to reunite with. Recall Cloud’s unfinished line in DFF: “The one I really want to meet is..." (Dissidia 013: Light to All, epilogue: “Conclusion of a Cycle”, “Recurring Tragedy”). We theorized that he must be referring to Aerith, and now, we are certain.
The expo also had pamphlet descriptions of the farewells depicted. Here is the general summary of FFVII‘s farewell story according to that pamphlet:

“The story follows the lead character Cloud, but it is the heroine, Aerith, who opens Cloud’s eyes and helps bring him closer to understanding the mystery that is his past. Through her, we draw closer to the truth of the story.
This scene, in which the heroine Aerith is lost, is easily the most shocking and tragic in the story. No one expected to say goodbye to such a major character in the middle of the story. Rumors of a secret way to revive Aerith spread, and it was clear players were having a hard time saying goodbye to her too. Even now, twenty years later, it still feels like a shocking turn of events” (Final Fantasy 30th Anniversary Exposition Pamphlet, page 36).

It’s interesting that SE would mention the rumors of Aerith’s revival circulated by players back in 1997, especially as fans were awaiting Remake’s release…
In light of everything we’ve analyzed so far, it can be said that between FFT (1997) and this farewell expo (2018), SE has consistently demonstrated that reuniting with Aerith is post-OG Cloud’s goal. That’s a period of over two decades— two decades of wishing, seeking, longing in real-world time for this character. This is a huge long-term commitment for SE to make, and you can bet the devs don’t take it lightly. Again and again, once the events of the OG game have ended, Cloud is shown to desire a reunion with Aerith. This ever-present and ever-insistent theme will become very important to us later in this analysis.
(continued in part 3)

Friday, May 03 - Thursday, May 09, 2024

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score	comments	title & link
394	39 comments	Is it true
196	397 comments	Who is the Most Influential Rapper? 🌎
188	51 comments	Man these kendrick disses remind me so much of gay-z and cockafella records lmao
161	411 comments	What's that one Nas line that made you relate to him more?
116	35 comments	Drew Nas on my desk
72	46 comments	The way Kendrick broke down Drake and atl rappers on “ Not Like US” reminded me of Nas on “I know I Can”, how they gave us black history lessons on songs.
72	12 comments	Nas belongs in the Fashion Hall of Fame, no one putting it on like him!
67	143 comments	As Nas fans, would y’all consider “Meet The Grahams” the “Ether” of this generation. Why or why not, and if not is there an “Ether” of this generation’s rap game?
48	97 comments	Nas opinions on Lupe Fiasco
45	32 comments	Just finished listening to Street's Disciple for the 1st time,it wasn't bad,but I did expect more especially after this amazing 3 album run I just went through being Stillmatic,Lost Tapes and God's Son,next stop is Hip-Hop Is Dead

 

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score	comments	title & link
31	93 comments	What’s the most underrated nas song ??
17	79 comments	How would a Nas and kendrick beef go?
26	49 comments	How many Nas albums would you consider classics?
33	29 comments	[Nas has been dropping easter eggs! Who remembers when the KD2 tracklist was announced and DJ Premier had production credits on Death Row East?
](https://v.redd.it/9ky4063ciezc1)
31	26 comments	Best guest verse on the Hit-Boy run?
24	28 comments	Do you think nas will ever do another multiple producer album again?
31	11 comments	Method Man Says Nas Bodied Him On This Track
30	7 comments	Stay - YouTube Music
27	9 comments	Does K.Dot’s most recent Drake diss “Not Like Us” sample “Ether?”
23	2 comments	Nas book for kids

 

Top comments

score	comment
139	swizzzz22 said That buck that bought a bottle coulda won the lotto
138	MisterInsect said I don't get this at all. Why would a 30-year-old album get the same attention as two of the biggest rappers in the world right now trying to destroy each other?
126	EnvironmentNo4181 said Is he Drake drizzy, Drake dummy, or Drake Diddy?
112	Dapper_Caul1flower said "A thug changes, and love changes and best friends become strangers"
110	regggis1 said I consider myself one of the biggest Nas fans in the world lol. I’m constantly standing up for him in threads, know all his albums by heart, I even have It Was Written tatted on my arm. To me, he’s th...
91	Ok_Put_849 said He isn’t even one of my favorites but It’s Rakim and it’s not close Nas would tell you the same
88	Batman-NYC said I would have to say RAKIM because there if you listen to how rappers were rapping before him and after him its like Night and Day.
81	drewtheblueduck said "I don't work this hard to be around people I don't like"
66	TheSolace_ said Concept wise meet the grahams is the best diss track ever created imo. Writing letters to Drake's entire family to apologize on his behalf for all the horrible things Drake's done, revealing all the ...
63	Patrick_Vieira said Story Of Adidon reminds me more of Ether than Meet The Grahams does The Nas/Jay beef was never as personal as the Push/Kendrick vs Drake beef Nas and Jay kept it mostly based on music/who had supr...
61	Avocado66600 said "Name a rapper I ain't influenced" - Nas It's Rakim
58	Tenthousandrufy said At this point, i don't even think Jay got done this dirty.
52	onlyplay2win said "What comes first peace or the paper? Before I had a piece of paper peace was in my favor"
51	_heypuddin_ said “I got no game; it’s just some b*tches understand my story.”
50	Unhappy-Location8213 said Kendrick would never….🤣🤣🤷🏽‍♀️

 

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• Anderson Paak - Malibu (Cloudy Blue) / NM/VG+ ~ $40
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• Kali Uchis (2) - Isolation (Blue Translucent) + Red Moon in Venus (Red) / Isolation is sealed and a single sleeve jacket; Red Moon in Venus has been played once, grades NM/VG+ - asking for $50 shipped for both together
• 7" bundle (2) - Billie Eilish - Party FavoHotline Bling (Sealed, NM) + The Weeknd - Heartless / Blinding Lights (003 Collector's Edition Red, NM/VG+) / I have one perfectly sized 7" mailer, so looking to bundle these together. Asking $70 shipped for both.
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Welcome to The Oblivion Cycle universe, a vast setting spanning all of time and space and so much more. While many stories may shed perspective on this grand cosmic vista, there are also tales of adventure and sacrifice, romance and terror, grimdark corruption and scientific progress. To become immersed in the setting is to let the chaos of creativity flow through you, to let go of what is probable to discover what’s possible. I have created TOC for one reason, to inspire and entertain any who will listen. So please feel free to join me on this great adventure as I push the boundaries of what is possible and expand the limits of our creativity together. For more information on the setting and its lore there is a subreddit for TOC at TheOblivionCycle and a Discord server dedicated to it here [https://discord.gg/uGsYHfdjYf] called ‘The Oblivion Cycle Community Server’. I hope you find the following story entertaining and once more, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy.
+ E1:P1 + E3:P1 + Previous + Next +
_________________________________________
Continued From E3:P3
Balinski took a few steps down the hall towards the distant exit but stopped as he realised Daryon wasn’t following. He looked at her and the police woman seemed to shrink slightly. “What? What is it? We need to get moving, Daryon.”
He waited another second as she put her weapon away and compiled. She seemed strangely subdued now all of the sudden, as if she were embarrassed to be around him. They walked down the hall, thuds coming from behind them as the barred doors did their job. He reached out towards her but she flinched away slightly. “Okay, what is going on? What’s the issue?”
She walked a few more meters in silence and then spoke softly, “I jusst.. I didn't want you to have to ssee anything like that. Who I usssed to be.”
Balinski shook his head, he didn't care who she used to be in her past. He cared about who she was now. And who she was, was a friend. “Daryon, I don't give a znot’s ass about that asshole or what he said. You are my friend, and I promised that I would watch your back.” he had made the promise in order to calm her down, he didn't mention that he hadn't actually expected to have to cash in on it so soon.
She made a gesture of dejected misery, “I know you did. But you didn’t know who I used to be. What I did.. to ssurvive.” She looked at him and her tone became pleading. “Please don’t think less of me becausse I used to.. do things.”
Balinski shook his head. “Why would I think any less of you, Daryon?” She seemed to look at him in mild confusion, her faceplates cracking open to reveal the pink flesh of her lipless mouth. “I mean it. I have known you for a few months now, but we have been working together on this case for Siyel together for a few weeks now. I feel like we can trust each other with our secrets..” he trailed off, he was about to take a big step in trusting her.
He started hesitantly, now the large insectoid woman’s turn to hear something he didn’t like others to know. “Daryon..” he hesitated again and then took a deep breath. “I am not the hero that people make me out to be. I am simply the one that survived. And not even by being brave.” She looked at him, her head cocking slightly as he spoke. “I was placed on perimeter watch, I never even entered the complex before the destruction. Ima fraud, I never even fired a single shot at the rebels that day.” he stopped talking and slumped slightly himself.
It felt strangely liberating to get it off his chest, even if it was not the whole truth of what had happened in actuality. No, the whole truth was far too dangerous to share. “So now you know. I’m not the war hero who took out the enemies of the Union single handedly. I'm just the scared little boy that the commander of my unit did not trust enough to take into battle. And I have to live with that, the images still haunt me. My comrades shattered bodies, the blood.. The fire..”
He felt a wave of pain crashed through his mind, the memories once more causing the psychic anguish to overwhelm him. He raised his hands to his head and groaned quietly, he felt himself backslide towards that dark personal oblivion that was the pit of his past trauma. He stopped, or rather something stopped him.
He looked up as a voice brought him back to the present, “..can’t help you if I don’t know what’ss wrong, Balinski.”
He shook his head and stood. “I.. sorry. I have an.. a condition.” He finished lamely.
Daryon seemed to look him over without moving. Her bright blue compound eyes were able to see so much without her having to turn her head. She reached out and gave his shoulder a pat. “I get it. I think I do at leasst.”
He had a thousand things he could have said in response ranging from cruel to straight up flirtatious. But he never got to explore any of the options as just then a mighty crash echoed through the hall. This was soon followed up by the sound of distant screams and angry yelling.
He looked at Daryon briefly and then began running down the hall again. They skidded around the corner into the final stretch and up the slight incline towards the exit. Next to the door stood Dunmec and a slightly battered looking Terri, the yeown woman looked to be bleeding from several cuts across her forearms. They looked like they had been made by some manner of sharp objects.
Despite her oozing injuries the woman was beaming, her long pointed ears and wide predatory grin as gleeful as he had ever seen one of the big werewolf-like aliens. As they made their mad dash up towards the exit he also noticed that the tall umraghj was bandaging her wounds, the soft buzz of their synthetic voice echoing through the enclosed space.
“..andeged like this tightly or you may get infected. I don’t know why you had to go and do something like that Terri.” Balinski was able to pick up on the tail end of their muted conversation. “What’s that? Hey, it’s you two! You won’t believe what happened..”
Balinski skidded to a halt, breathing hard. Daryon was only centimeters behind. He saw Terri bristle, her mantle hair standing on end as she stood and whirled to face them. In her haste she scattered the small first aid kit that Dunmec had been using.
As she looked back and forth between them a gleam of recognition flashed in her eyes and she glanced at the umraghj who was busy trying to pick up the scattered debris of her suspicion. “This is the ones?” She seemed at once curious and skeptical.
He gave her a nod and a synthetic grunt as he stood with some difficulty despite the exosuit he wore. The gravity of the planet was nearly a perfect standard G, but the umraghj had evolved on a planet with much lower gravity and thusly had trouble standing unaided under standard gravity.
Balinski nodded to her as he reached them and then gestured towards the door. “We need to get out of here, like right now.”
“Too late, look out!” Daryon yelled as she dodged into the small alcove to the side of the chamber. Balinski twitched as he meant to follow, but in that second of hesitation he realised that Dunmec was entirely out in the open, and the approaching henchmen had drawn their guns.
The fool had gone for the exit, in a second he would likely be riddled with bullets and dead. Balinski stepped towards the man just as the thugs opened fire at him with an AP-6 submachine gun. He threw up an arm to shield his face as he felt a series of impacts against his chest and legs. He grunted in pain as he was thrown backwards by the force of the absorbed impacts. He swore internally as he slammed into the door right next to the cowering Dunmec, that was going to hurt like a bitch in the morning.
Dunmec lowed in fear, the electronic tone of the sound magnified by the distortion of his suit. Balinski coughed as he reached up and grabbed the man right as another flurry of shots flew their way. The umraghj jerked in either fear or pain as Balinski used his body to shield the man while simultaneously dragging him towards cover. He tried to send a mental alert to Caesar for backup but didn’t feel the transmission go. He couldn't be sure that the message had been sent, much less been received.
It looked like they were on their own. A bullet nicked his neck, causing him to jerk. With a last herculean effort he hauled the tall alien into the cover of the alcove while the other three tried to shelter in place. “Daryon, waste these fucks.” he shouted to her, unholstering his ThunderEagle and tossing it to her.
She grabbed it out of the air deftly and gave a grim looking nod, her antennae pressed down her back as she leaned out from cover and fired a shot off. He didn’t see if she hit anything as he was preoccupied with the whimpering Dunmec.
Terri was hovering nearby, her bloody wounds forgotten as the unfinished bandages hung from her arms. “Oh no! Oh-oh no.” the woman muttered as Balinski looked the suited man over. He had a small puncture in the shoulder of his suit, a thick green liquid seeped from the wound. The man’s chlorine based blood stained the fabric of the suit as Balinski checked him for patches.
He pointed to Terri, the woman still looking a little freaked out. “Hey, you.” Her chatoyant blue eyes snapped to his face. “First aid kit, now. I can help him if you help me!” He told her loudly as Daryon fired another two shots.
“Two down!” The vinarfel shouted. “I never sshould have let myssself get dragged in here.” He heard her mutter, as if anything he said or did would have stopped her from entering the building. She opened the revolver’s chamber and asked, “You got reloads?”
Balinski nodded and handed her a handful of bullets, AP, HE and others. He hadn’t looked, he had just grabbed some from his pockets as he lay on the ground wheezing slightly through the pain in his chest. Tarri had grabbed the first aid kit that Dunmec had been rummaging around in and he flung open the lid to see what he was working with. His own medkit he wore on his waist would come in handy if he couldn't find what he needed.
He looked through it as more gunfire erupted from down the hall, it sounded as if the gunmen in the hall had been reinforced. Balinski ignored it, instead focusing on the injured alien. Dunmec was breathing heavy, his eyes just visible through the HUD visor he wore. Balinski placed a hand on the man’s injured shoulder causing him to moan in pain.
“Hey, stay with me kid. This might hurt a bit, but I need to seal the wound. It looks like the bullet is still inside, I am going to have to get it out.” He watched as the man nodded, his breathing taking in a more fearful pitch.
Terri hovered by his side, dancing from foot to foot as she mumbled in some manner of near incoherent babble. He gave her a look, pausing in his work. “Terri, I need space. Most importantly I need you to watch my partner’s back. Here, take this.” He undid his ammo belt, handing it to her he gave her a small smile, “I got this. Don’t worry. I'm a professional.”
The yeown rushed off to help Daryon, now alone with the injured man he reached for the kit and located a small vitatector. He switched the portable MRI detector on and scanned over the wound. The small device beeped and showed an interior scan of the man’s injury. The bullet had been slowed by his suit, it looked like and embedded itself in the bone just next to his shoulder joint. It would be a difficult fix, but he had done this before on the battlefield on several occasions when a designated medic wasn’t available.
Balinski grabbed a small pair of packaged forceps from his own medical pouch. They had been stored in antiseptic fluid that he used to sterilise the wound as he ripped the package open. Dunmec once more cried out in pain as the liquid seeped into the open wound but Balinski sat him up against the wall and held him still with his free hand.
He looked at the man and asked him, “This is going to hurt. I don’t have any anesthetic that will work on you, I recommend that you hold onto my arm and squeeze as hard as you feel the need to.”
The umraghj nodded, their long double jointed arms reached out and his suited hands gripped his free arm. Balinski breathed deep and then pushed the tool into the wound to where the vitatector had told him to. It took a few seconds to find the bullet, in that time the man’s hands tightened down hard enough on his arm to make the allow creak concerningly. He felt the tool slip of the bullet and he swore.
“Luck damned thing! Come one!” He fished for it again and succeeded in getting a grip on it the second time. He had to work it back and forth a few times to loosen the projectile from its death grip. As soon as the projectile was free he dropped the forceps to grab some sterile gauze, he needed to stop the bleeding and didn't have a QTube handy. He needed to requisition more from the precinct when he got the chance.
He checked the man’s waist pouches quickly and found a patch kit. He squirted some basic medical foam into the wound, it would swell and keep pressure on the wound internally. It didn’t have the healing properties of a QTube, but it would keep the man from bleeding out. Balinski used a sterile bandage to clean the suit as best he could before applying the patch to it. Oxygen wasn’t harmful to the man, but it might not be good if the pressurised chlorinated atmosphere from inside the suit got out.
He reached for the first aid kit and closed it before patting the man on his shoulder. He was still lucid, impressive as most non-combat oriented species of the Union would quickly succumb to shocksleep when injured. Dunmec must be tougher than his lanky frame looked at a glance.
Daryon shouted as he stood. “Alright, they just got rushed by club staff it looks like. They are laying down their arms!” She scuttled back into the cover of the alcove as shouting replaced the sound of gunfire in the distance. She handed him his .50 calibre revolver and he replaced it into his shoulder holster as Terri rushed to Dunmec’s side.
She spoke quickly, “Oh.. oh Dunmec.. I’m so sorry. Are you alright? You got shot!” She added, a bit obviously.
The downed alien just coughed lightly and shook his helmeted head while reaching up towards the muscular alien woman. “I feel bad. But not as bad as I did before I met you.” He said the lines in an almost practised way, as if he had been waiting for the opportunity to use them for a while.
Balinski snorted slightly under his breath at the cheesy line causing Daryon to punch him in the shoulder. He gave her a glance as Terri lifted the nearly three meter tall man to his feet. He leaned heavily on her much shorter frame, but she didn't seem to mind. Her powerful muscles easily compensated for the additional strain as she replied to him, “Well, that was before. Now you don’t have to feel bad or scared. I will protect you now. I won't let anyone else hurt you, I promise.” Dunmec just chuckled and then groaned in discomfort.
Balinski stood straight as he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, his hand flashed inside of his trench coat. His fingers finding the handgrip of his gun as a quartet of heavily armed people rounded the corner with MR-12s raised.
Daryon automatically raised her hands and after a moment he did as well, relinquishing his grip on the gun reluctantly. A tattooed nerivith female stepped forwards, her face taken up on one side by a flowing vine-like pattern that disappeared into the collar of her suit. She wore a bullet resistant vest over the top of it, very much business-combat attire.
She nodded her horned head to them and shouted loudly, “You two, get on the ground! No funny business or you will find out just how much I care about problem brewers in my establishment.” She stopped as Terri rushed forwards.
The yeown woman’s arms were still wrapped up in the bandages from earlier and spots of bright red blood dripped slowly from at least one of the deep cuts. “Stop! These two saved us, literally. The human took some bullets to save Dunmec, he got shot by those packbreakers.” She spat the last word with considerable venom. Her disdain for the submachine gun wielding men was obvious.
The nerivith woman looked from Terri to Dunmec a few times before stepping closer to Balinski with a suspicious look. “Hands all the way up, move and I’ll give you another orifice to breathe through.” She stepped close and opened his coat, her hand feeling his ballistic vest that had stopped the first burst of automatic fire. She nodded and then stepped back before lowering her gun.
“Don't touch that hand cannon in your shoulder holster, but I think I trust you. Who are you two and what the smeg are you doing antagonising these jerkoffs?” The pink skinned alien demanded as she looked between him and Daryon.
Balinski gave Daryon a glance and she nodded before raising one of her middle arms. “I can ansswer that for you.” She pulled out a physical badge from her back pocket and handed it to the woman.
The club workers' tufted tail flicked as she took it and Balinski watched as her raven colored eyebrows rose. “CPD? What the hel are you doing here, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Daryon spoke again, the nerivith woman frowning as she laid out the tale in as accurate a fashion as she could without compromising their true agenda. “Well, we were following a lead to a persson of interessst when we were accossted by these men for ssome unfathomable reason. We tried to run and when that didn’t work we defended ourselves to the full legal extent of the law. You may notice that I didn't shoot to kill, at least not on purposse.” She added with a slightly guilty hiss.
Terri let out a small noise as she said it. The woman likely still in some manner of mild shock, despite her species violent natures, death was not always so easy to grasp. The gun-wielding woman turned to the few other club workers that had come with her and commanded, “Tell the boss what happened, call the police. I want this wrapped up as soon as possible. I’m not taking the fall for this one.” She turned back to Balinski and punched him in the chest, not hard enough to be aggressive but still with considerable force. “I think I like you, big man. You got some horns on you, I guess I don't have to ask you to wait for the police to arrive to give a statement do I?”
Balinski chuckled and glanced towards Terri and Dunmec. “No, you don't have to worry. I will be submitting a full report of the events..” He wasn't able to finish as a loud thud echoed from the main door followed by a series of loud percussive noises. Everyone immediately went on high alert but Balinski raised a hand. “No, it's okay, that’s my backup. Fashionably late as usual. Here, let me get the door so she knows it alright.” He looked towards Terri who nodded.
The nerivith woman’s gun was still raised but she nodded too. “Be my guest.” She gestured for him to go ahead. He walked to the door and unlatched it before swinging it open slightly. Before he could say anything, Caesar burst through it as she pushed it out of his grip. He grunted in mild discomfort as she slammed into his legs and landed in a stunned heap.
Chuckling as the embarrassed looking dog stood to her feet, he watched as she shook her triangular head. “You big oaf. Everything is fine now girl, thanks for coming though.” he reached down and gave her head a scrub that made her grumble in annoyance like a put upon teenager.
Daryon scuttled over on her short, pointed legs and Caesar perked up a little. “Oh you brave warrior, you would have ssaved usss for ssure if Balinsski had just taken you with uss.” She gave him a look, her faceplates cracked in her version of a grin. He could only shake his head as the nerivith woman walked up to him once more.
“Alright, I need to get this mess cleaned up. I beg your pardon if I ask you not to come back here on official business again?” He nodded.
He pointed to the door. “It wasn’t my plan to cause such a disruption when I came in here.”
She shook her raven haired head. “It’s all over now. No sense worrying about what did and didn't happen. It just so happens that we have had trouble with these individuals before. So as far as I see it you did us a favour because we now have cause to bar them from ever coming back.” She nodded again as she said it, her smile flashing at him. As she did he noticed that she had several gold teeth.
She turned and stalked away, her tail lashing behind her. Balinski rubbed his chest and then glanced down at Caesar. “Yeah, you did good in coming. If we hadn’t been able to make it out your backup would have been the thing we needed.” She just gave him a little bark and then headbutted his thigh affectionately.
Daryon was talking to Terri and the still slouching Dunmec. Balinski got the feeling he didn’t need the support as much as he was simply enjoying being physically close to the brawny furred alien.
Balinski decided to walk over to them to hear what they were whispering about. He picked up on the conversation as he neared. Terri was speaking, “Yes. She likely will keep trying to force her ideas on me, but I already beat her once and she won't ever be able to forget that. It is an exploitable weakness if we should ever lock claws again. Thank you for your concern.”
The woman looked over at him as he approached, her eyes settling on Caesar. “Oh, what’s that?” She exclaimed.
Caesar tossed her little head and gave him a look as if to say, ‘What? Another one?’ He chuckled and gave her a pat on the head. “This is my erstwhile companion and oldest living friend, Caesar. She is a cybernetically enhanced dog, a Jureillion husky to be precise. She’s got cognitive implants, you can talk to her if you want.” He prompted.
The yeown woman gave him a look that seemed as if she was unsure of herself. Finally she reached out and spoke softly, “Wow, look at you. You kind of look a little like my grandmother, it's uncanny.” Caesar snorted at the comment and then walked over for free head scritches, grumbling contentedly as she received them. “Ok she is so.. I mean, you are so soft. I love her.”
Caesar seemed to be enjoying the attention. Dunmec spoke now, the suited alien’s robotic sounding voice wheezing out from his helmet’s speakers. “I just wanted to thank you again for saving my life, man. Here, take this.” the man handed him something, it was a datachip card. An old style one too. “If you ever want to get a hold of me..” he glanced at Terri and she nodded, “..or Terri. Just call me with the number on that card.”
Balinski had to nod as he heard the faint sound of sirens coming from the still open door. “I will do that. You two take care of each other.”
Terry gave a wide grin, her teeth clinting in the light. “Oh, we will.” Daryon gave her a pat on the back as she followed Balinski out the door. Caesar hot on her tail.
He took a few steps out into the night and then patted his pockets. He grunted in mild delight as he found what he was looking for. It was a small shiny package of pibbles, the small candies one of his favorites. He poured a few out into his open mouth and jerked as he felt a tap on his shoulder. He glanced over, it was Daryon.
“Pibble?” he asked her with his mouth full. She seemed to smile slightly and offered a hand into which he poured a few of the colorful candies.
He chewed vigorously on the fruity sugar orbs as he contemplated the massive shitstorm they had just managed to walk out of. Daryon must have been thinking the same thing as she gave a loud sigh, “Wow.. that was. Well, it wassn't good.”
He just nodded silently. They stayed that way for another few seconds before he turned to her. “What did we actually get out of that old skorp? Anything that we can use to track down the one’s behind the attack?”
Daryon walked a few paces away and then returned quickly, the side-to-side scuttling motion of her pacing threw him off a little. “I really don’t know. The trail hasss gone cold, without another major lead I am fearful that we will losse them. That ssimply isn't acceptable to me.” He nodded, she was right.
He would have liked to respond but it was about that time that a series of screeching vehicles covered in flashing lights skidded into view at the end of the alley. He sighed and fished around in his trench coat for his credentials. “Here we go..” He muttered to which Daryon gave an amused hiss.
A series of officers rushed down the alley with guns drawn, shouts directed their way. It took only a few minutes of back and forth with them to convince them that they were in fact officers, or in Balinski’s case, employed by the CPD.
When it was over he gave a statement and almost a whole hour after they had walked down the alley he found himself leaving it. A bit the worse for wear but secure in the knowledge that they had at least put down a dangerous criminal for their trouble.
Daryon scuttled along beside him, “Gee, I ssure hope the club doesn't get into any ssort of trouble for thisss.”
The comment caught him off guard and he chuckled. “Yeah, they seemed like downright decent folk for running a burlesque underground club.” She gave him a pointed look, her antennae shooting up as she looked like she was about to rebuke him. He raised his arms in mock surrender before she could though, “Oh hey, not saying I didn’t like the place. Just that they likely were not excited to see the boys in blue.”
It was a fair point and she conceded. “Yeah, I ssuppose. But I think we sstill got out of there with a halfway decent lead.”
Now it was his turn to look shocked as they crossed the street, weaving between emergency vehicles to get to the opposite side of the gloomy street. The flashing of emergency lights was behind her and it made her eyes glitter like gemstones, he frowned. “What do you mean? That crusty old skorp didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already suspect.”
She raised an arm and pointed to the wall. He looked and noticed the graffiti for the first time. The one in particular she was gesturing to was a gang affiliated symbol for the Sunstarters. “I can ssay with sssome measure of certainty that we might be able to look around for ssome additional cluesss.”
The Sunstarters were known distributors for the Psychosis Division. It stood to reason that if the Pit Vipers had gotten involved with the Psychs then they were likely also involved with the Sunstarters. Balinski clapped his hands together and smiled, they might just have a lead indeed. What had the old skorp said? To follow the source?
They walked into the large parking garage and to his big blue truck, as they climbed back inside he leaned his head back. “That was a bit of a fuckfest. Are you hungry, I’m hungry.” Indeed almost as he said it he felt a small grumble from his middle.
Daryon made an affirmative gesture, her antennae moving excitedly. “Oh yess, where do you want to go for lunch? Ullnek’ss Hut maybe? McDoinkss?”
He folded his arms. He wasn’t really in the mood for greasy burgers or razah’voolian seafood. No, he would have to think about it. “Why don’t we just drive around till we find something interesting? We need to keep an eye out for any good leads too.”
He started the truck as the large insectoid woman gave Caesar a head pat while nodding. “Okay. But if you see a TFDs then we are sstopping immediately, isss that fair?”
Balinski shrugged. He liked fried drebble as much as anything else. Caesar however seemed very excited by the idea of crispy breaded arthropod as she woofed happily. He shook his head and looked back out the window. He would have to keep his eyes peeled for one of the yellow and black spotted stores.
**********
Balinski smacked his lips happily as he took another great bite out of the steaming fried drebbleloaf sandwich. The snallke was fresh and the pickles were crispy, just the way he liked them. Glancing over at the other two revealed similar scenes of personal enjoyment. Caesar was snacking on some popcorn drebble and Daryon was cleaning out a six-piece bucket of BBQ drebble graspers. Her long radula snaked from her lipless mouth between her opened faceplates as he watched, mildly intrigued to watch the alien woman eat.
He took another bite of his sandwich as Daryon sucked the meat off another fried and breaded grasper. Lacking a jaw she was unable to chew but her radula and powerful cheek muscles made up for her lack as she deftly disassembled the meat with the skill of a surgeon.
She waved the de-meated shell and gave a small hissing sigh as another of her ten arms reached out for the Smarkus grape soda sitting in the dash drink-holder. “Ahhh… Yeah, that'ss the sstuff. How’sss your ssandwich?” She looked at him without moving her head, her compound eyes making her constantly aware of her surroundings in a manner that some might describe as unsettling.
He got the feeling she was watching him eat too, his mastication of the sandwich as inherently alien to him as her own strange method of ingestion was to him. As he took another bite her curiosity seemed to get the better of her. He saw her head cock a little as she asked, “Sso, can you feel with your teeth? I know that you can’t tasste with them. I read that much on the hyperweb at leassst.”
He finished chewing and swallowed before giving her a wide smile. She froze, her fascination with his teeth obvious. “Yeah, kind of. I was lucky that I didn't lose them. It's not uncommon for people who go through.. what I did, to have their teeth shatter. And when they go they don’t come back.”
She nodded slightly as she took a loud slurp of her soda. “Yeah, I read that humanss only get a sssingle sset of adult teeth in their life. No wonder they are so hard, you have to keep using them for a hundred yearss.”
He looked out the window, they were driving slowly around the entertainment district looking for anything that might point them in the right direction. He wasn’t really too sure what he was looking for to be honest, but Daryon insisted that she knew what to look for. He nodded towards a distant structure, it rose so high it went out of sight. “What’s that there?”
Daryon made a loud noise as she cleared her throat. “That’ss one of the upper-city sspires. It connectss the people up there to the ones down here, think of it as a vertical metro..” She trailed off before pointing to something in the near distance. Her BBQ bucket forgotten. “Hey.. hey right there.. Sstop. Pull over.” She tapped him on the shoulder with one of her lower arms rapidly and he obliged.
He looked forwards and saw nothing out of the ordinary, a few people walking along the edge of the street. There was a tall human woman leaning against one of the street signs at the corner, she was dressed in some tight fitting dress and high heels but other than that looked as normal as the rest of them.
Daryon put her yellow and black spotted grasper bucket on the dash and cleaned her hands at the same time she undid her seatbelt and straightened her clothing. She stopped fussing after a moment and then pulled a soft cloth out of one of the inner pockets of her overcoat and used it to polish her eyes. She replaced it and then held out her arms, “Well, how do I look?”
Balinski took the opportunity to give her a completely unabashed once over. He shrugged, “You look like you. What can I say?”
She seemed to smirk. “Alright, good enough. You know you have a way with words Balinski, any girl would just swoon to hear such things.” He frowned but didn't get to reply as she continued, “I’ll be right back. Sstay there and try not to look too harmlesss. This will only take a ssecond.
She slithered out of the truck and he kept his eyes firmly forwards this time as she closed it and sauntered off, well as much as the fifty-two legged alien was able too. He noticed that she had once more adopted that somewhat provocative side to side sway in her stride as she walked away from him. He just shook his head, she was doing it again.
Continued In E3:P5
==End of transmission==

Welcome to The Oblivion Cycle universe, a vast setting spanning all of time and space and so much more. While many stories may shed perspective on this grand cosmic vista, there are also tales of adventure and sacrifice, romance and terror, grimdark corruption and scientific progress. To become immersed in the setting is to let the chaos of creativity flow through you, to let go of what is probable to discover what’s possible. I have created TOC for one reason, to inspire and entertain any who will listen. So please feel free to join me on this great adventure as I push the boundaries of what is possible and expand the limits of our creativity together. For more information on the setting and its lore there is a subreddit for TOC at TheOblivionCycle and a Discord server dedicated to it here [https://discord.gg/uGsYHfdjYf\] called ‘The Oblivion Cycle Community Server’. I hope you find the following story entertaining and once more, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy.

• E1:P1 + E3:P1 + Previous Part + Next Part +

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Continued From E3:P2
Daryon finally let go of Balinski’s hand and he flexed it gratefully. She had been treading a deathgrip on it the whole time they had been in the club. She looked around to make sure they wouldn't be overheard and then slipped up and onto the booth’s long bench-like seat. She made room for Balinski and so he sat next to her, a little wary of her lower body that was occupying some of the space under the table.
She leaned forwards towards the old drone and hissed loudly, “How did you know?
The skorp seemed to wheeze terribly and for a moment Balinski thought they might be in some manner of medical stress. But after a moment he realised that they were just laughing. “How did one know? Look at this big hunk you walked in with. The poor boy is practically screaming military man or law enforcement. His stiff posture and the shifty way he has been checking the surroundings constantly.” He shook his head slightly, he thought he had been incredibly subtle. This old bug knew their stuff, clearly not somebody to be trifled with.
He leaned forwards and made a quick gesture of apology towards the bug. “And here I was thinking I was the epitome of stealth, you are a shrewd one I’ll give you that.” He glanced at Daryon, “I don’t think we have been properly introduced. Who is your friend?”
Before she could answer the skorp leaned forwards and reached out towards him. “Let me show you who one is. This one hears certain things, knows others. And one thing it does know is that the second precinct was attacked by a Pit Viper kill team late last month, and one also knows that the attack was beaten off at a heavy cost to the station.” Balinski nodded slightly, that much was now public knowledge. It had been impossible to keep the news of such a heinous act from slipping to the ravenous, predatory media.
“Yes, that’s not much of a case for you.” He started to say but the skorp raised a hand.
They shook it slightly as if rebuking him for his lack of attention. “That’s just the setup for the other things this one was going to share.” They cleared their throat and took a swallow out of the cup next to them. It was full of a jet-black liquid that seemed to stain the glass. “It is also known that the kill team was stopped in its tracks by the actions of a single man, not a police officer. But a void warden.”
Now it was Balinski’s turn to try and remain stoic. Anything he said or did could give things away that may still be vital insider knowledge in the investigation. But it didn't matter as they dropped the bombshell a moment later.
“It knows that this one man managed to kill most of the death squad by himself with the help of some manner of cybernetic animal. One also knows this person’s basic description and name. So tell me.. Balinski Katars… What is it that you need from us? Ask the right questions and you may just receive the answers you seek.” With that final declaration the aged insectoid leaned back. Their legs creaked slightly as they shifted their position to get comfortable once more.
Daryon was looking at him now, her version of a smile showing in her cracked faceplates and raised antennae. “Sso, do you believe me about the ssource now?”
He waved a hand. “Yeah.. yeah. I believe you now, I only have one question, I don't have my cyberhound with me. So without that as confirmation how did you know it was me?”
They leaned back a little and replied coolly, “That is not the right question. Try again.”
Daryon gave him what looked to be the beginnings of an apologetic shrug and so he leaned into the table and spoke, “Ok then, my turn. I haven’t been dicking around. I pay attention too, I have contacts in the information services and they funnel information I need to me. You are old, far too old to be here for the carnal proclivities. So it must be something else. You seemed to know Daryon and spoke of her field work.” He gave her an apologetic glance and mouthed ‘sorry’ before he continued.
“From what I know of Daryon, she joined the force young and was originally recruited to the undercover operations field by a certain commander who I won't name. She worked in some of the hardest places in the city, she must have done some manner of deep undercover which is where I'm guessing she met you. Now you don’t strike me as the dirty work type, your earlier analysis makes me think that you were a counter-spook. Maybe even a disgraced UIA operative or something like that.” He finished with a nod and leaned back into the padded bench, proud of his own admittedly frayed deductive logic.
Something pressed up against him and he looked over to see Daryon huddling against him slightly, not out of fear though. She seemed to be watching him intently, her expression unreadable as her antennae twitched.
The old skorp drone looked around slightly, their compound eyes doing most of the work for free. They spoke, that same slightly wheezing voice now less derisive. A hint of respect in their tone as they folded their upper two arms while the lower two lay palm flat across the table on either side of their drink. “Well, well. Perceptive and powerful, no wonder Siyel chose to confide in you.” he jerked, now how in Luck’s name could the old bug possibly know that? They continued unabated, “You were right about one thing at least, this one did meet Daryon in the field. She was at a low point and we helped her out of it out of some misguided sense of pity. One has been paying for it ever since. She’s a good girl, but she can be a little too open with her feelings at times.” they raised their voice slightly as if chiding the larger woman.
Daryon dipped her head and looked around conspicuously. “I told you that I would make it up to you. And in my own opinion I have, you did what needed to be done. He was a bad man, too bad to let go any longer…” She trailed off as she shivered. Balinsky gave her a bump with his shoulder and a small smile, the gesture working to cheer the woman up slightly.
“Remember what I promised. Nobody, not even yourself.” She nodded gratefully, her arms folding once more as she quickly regained her composure. He turned back to the woman and asked her again, “So, you know who we are. Can you tell me your name now?”
She chittered and then coughed before downing another glug of the thick black liquid. “Oh you poor young soul. You don't understand yet, but names hold power. Be careful what names you so carelessly sling around. You never know who may be listening.”
He frowned and looked around. Suddenly acutely aware of just how exposed they were should a fight break out. “Alrighty then, we are looking for information on the Pit Vipers and who is funding them.” He pulled out a small vial he had checked out of the evidence wing earlier in the week in preparation for this meeting. He rolled it across the table to her where she deftly snatched it. Her movements were much faster than her earlier show of frailty would have led him to believe. It would be a folly to underestimate this woman, his respect for her climbed another notch higher as she examined the contents of the small vial with a practiced eye.
After a moment of scrutiny she rolled it back to him. “Occusmite. And some of the purest this one has seen in a while. Are you aware of the street value of that single vial?” He nodded and she made a small shrugging motion.
He glanced at Daryon and gave her another nudge. She swallowed and then began, “Well, what you may not know iss the connectionss that this vial provesss. We know for a fact that it was in the kill ssquad’s posssession before the attack. We also know that it was provided to them through an intermediary.”
“The Golden Boys, that’s why you captured Slake.” the skorp said, piecing it together from the scraps of information they must have already heard.
She made an affirmative gesture to the older alien. “What you may not have known for ssure iss where they got it.” The skorp cocked her head and Daryon answered with a hissing whisper. “Thisss ockie was manufactured by the Psychossisss Divission and likely disstributed to the Golden Boys directly.” This got them to lean forwards, obviously news to the old skorp.
They sat still for a moment, gears turning in their head as they seemed to mull it over.
After a moment they spoke up, this time directly to Daryon. “Well that doesn't make much sense. The Psyches usually only deal with the Sunstarters, and you know how much they hate the Golden Boys for encroaching on their market. Are you sure that this came from the Psychosis Division?”
Balinski interjected. “One hundred percent. It has been tested against other known sources and isn’t a match to either the Golden Boys own supply or that synthetic shit cropping up over by the flyway. No, this has their distinct signature.”
A distinct signature that he had only been able to identify because of the Psychosis Divisions seeming compulsory need to be held accountable for their work. To be fair, they did some of the best chemical engineering of various narcotics and substances in the entire city, but it was still an exploitable weakness to those who knew what to look for.
Daryon spoke up again, the chitinous plates of her face moving animatedly as she talked in rapid fashion. Her constant exhale gave her a slightly hissing accent that was indicative of her people. “Sso what is it that connectss the Pit Vipersss to the Psychossisss Division then? There iss no way those rabble roussersss were able to get a sseat at the big table like that. There had to have been an intermediary, what do you know?” She asked firmly, expecting an answer.
Balinski watched as the grizzled bug looked around and then lowered their voice. In the thumping musical atmosphere of the club it became difficult to hear them as they spoke softly, “One will tell you this but nothing more. People have been killed for knowing even a fraction of what we are about to tell you.” They paused again and Balinski leaned in closer to hear them better. “What this one has been hearing whispers of in the streets is that something big is going on. There are echoes of truces between rivals that have never been at peace, new alliances forged between former rivals and old hatreds put to rest for the sake of this upcoming wave. As to what the wave is, one knows not and cares not to know. We are only on the edge of this and already this one is far too scared to dig any deeper. There have been.. disappearances and one is not keen to be next. But there is one thing we can tell you for sure, there is much fresh psychosis occusmite on the streets. Follow the trail to the source and you will find what you seek in good time.”
With this last declaration the old skorp pushed themselves back upright and grabbed the glass that was still half full on the table. They slammed the thick honey-like liquid back and used their long lapping tongue to quickly clean out the rest of the glass. They set the glass back down with a loud snap and nodded their large head. “This one must now bid you farewell, we hope that you are able to figure it out without tipping your hand.”
Without another word they scuttled off, their six legged walk deceptively quick for their advanced age. Balinski sat back into the couch and reached up to rub his face with a polymer and alloy hand. “Great, so what in the deep dark do we do now?”
Daryon didn’t answer, instead she seemed to settle herself ever so slightly closer to him.
Before he had the opportunity to ask what was wrong he heard approaching footsteps, a lot of them. He turned and saw a small group of men approaching. Slaaveth, humans and even a surly looking atraxses following behind a large and heavily muscled yeown male. The man was tall for a male of his species and almost as muscular as Terri the bouncer had been.
Daryon seemed to shrink even more, her jacketed torso now noticeably pressing into him as she made an attempt to hide herself. The man was walking directly towards them and he hissed, “What is it Daryon? Is it trouble?”
She didn’t answer him though, just a small almost whimpering hiss issuing from her lips. The furred alien was now pretty much on top of them as the muscular yeown stopped at the edge of their table and took a deep sniff. The conspicuous nature of it seemed intended to either rile him up or set him on edge.
He could smell the trouble brewing almost immediately as the man’s goons seemed to fan out behind him in a wall formation, blocking off the rest of the club and acting as a physical barrier to any potential onlookers. The yeown himself extended an idle claw and it took Balinski only a second to notice it had osmiridium gilding along the back of it.
He seemed to ignore Balinski entirely and instead spoke in a manner directed at Daryon, the vinarfelien woman had now fully slumped down as far as she could. Fully cowering behind him. Balinski bristled automatically, who was this asshole and what did he want with his friend?
The man on the other hand had continued to speak. Balinski started to pay more attention to his words as he chuckled in an insidious manner, “..like that. Oh come on, I can see you remember me Talluni. It's me, Humble Bob. Surely you remember all the.. good times we shared together?”
Humble Bob, as the man put it, was nothing of the sort. It was almost immediately obvious that this grey furred alien was a top tier asshole and likely a criminal to boot. He longed to just stand up and put the impudent fuzzer in his proper place, but he didn’t want to cause a ruckus if they could avoid it.
The man who called himself humble slapped the surface of the table causing Daryon to make a small exclamation of fear as he practically roared, “Talluni, I know it’s you. I would recognise that pretty little tail of yours anywhere. Are you sure you don't want to talk? What’s the worst that could happen, I can give you a lot more excitement than your new toy here possibly could. Come on and bite off a piece.” he stood and flexed his admittedly impressive muscles.
That was it, the man was going to leave them alone one way or the other. He would try diplomacy first, and then when that inevitably failed he would switch to more aggressive negotiations.
Balinski stood, with some difficulty as Daryon was still attempting to crawl inside of his trench coat. Facing the man he met him eye to eye and spoke with a firm but fair tone. Far more polite than the man deserved, “I am sorry friend, I think you may have the wrong table. My friend and I were simply here to relax and knock back a few drinks. I would politely ask that you leave us in peace.”
Humble Bob just stared at him for a second before he threw his head back and laughed, a growling, yowling laugh that sounded almost forced. It was if the man were playing a character of himself, his brash nature completely at odds with his clean pressed suit. He looked back towards his assorted cronies and they began to chuckle along with him, classic yes-man style. It was obvious they were simply on the man’s payroll and likely though he was as much of an insufferable cock as he did.
The yeown turned back to him and asked, “And what do you think you are going to do about it, you dumb clawless meatbag.” He punctuated the last insult by jabbing his clawed hand into Balinski’s chest. He might have been expecting to draw blood, maybe even scare him off. The last thing he seemed to have expected was his claw almost immediately getting tangled in Balinski’s soft body armour layer.
“What is this.. huh?” Humble Bob tried to withdraw their hand but it was stuck fast, their claw having snagged on the nanoweave fibers of his armour.
Balinski just smiled at the man, his knuckles cracking as he grabbed the man’s wrist with his left hand. “You look a little stuck there, here let me help. With a twisting yank he pulled the man’s claw free.
The insufferable asswipe screeched in pain as there was a snapping sound. Likely their finger breaking as he dragged it from his hidden chest rig. The man’s goons stepped closer but the man waved them back. “NO!” he shouted while cradling his injured hand. “I will deal with this one myself.” He growled.
‘He could try.’ Balinski thought to himself with a silent chuckle. He glanced over his shoulder and was alarmed to see that Daryon had covered her face with her hands and was entirely withdrawn it seemed. It was a shock to see the normally self confident alien like that, she was generally the first one in the door when it came to any dangerous situation. First in, last out, she liked to quip.
The big man lashed out at Balinski’s face without warning and he was forced to duck under the clumsy swing. No doubt it would have taken his face off if it had connected, but the man was clumsy and slow. He was relying entirely too much on power and not enough on movement and agility. In order to show him the error of his ways Balinski reached out and grabbed ahold of their elbow as they were still recovering from their missed swing.
With a simple twist and shove he knocked the aggressive yeown backwards onto his ass. Once more the ring of henchmen surrounding them and blocking off any escape closed in a little more. Balinski got the feeling that if he wasn’t careful one or more of these guys was likely to put a bullet in him. Or at least try to, he was still wearing his body armour after all.
Balinski spoke in a level voice, keeping his cool even through the haze of red anger that was misting his vision. “Are you done now? Leave us alone, final warning.” He knew it would antagonise the man, maybe that is what he had been wanting to do anyways.
The man climbed back to his feet and gave a cruel smile. He took a single step forwards and reached into his suit with a large furred hand. Balinski tensed as the man grabbed something, was it a weapon? Before he got the chance to find out the man spoke quickly and two of his goons rushed Balinski. A slaaveth man and human grabbed his arms and tried to drag him to his knees but Balinski locked his legs. The cybernetics made a rather conspicuous whine as their servos were stressed, but he held his ground as the two thugs looked back towards their master in confusion.
Humble Bob snarled, “Fucking cybe!” With that he pulled out a wicked looking diamonomolecular gut knife, the blade was so razor sharp that its edge seemed to be nearly transparent. The ultra-hard hyperdiamond edge would carve through his body armour like it didn't exist if he let the man touch him with that thing. So he did the only thing he could think of, he swung his arms together with the two henchmen still attached. The two of them cracked together, their heads rebounding off each other with an audible clunk as they fell to the ground in front of him stunned.
He took a ready stance as the man lunged at him with another snarl of fury, his slavering predatory teeth flashing a dull yellow in the flickering neon lighting of the club. Balinski dodged, well, mostly. The edge of the blade caught his inner arm and sheared through his sleeve to cut into the buckyweave of the cybernetics beneath. He didn’t feel pain in the conventional sense with his cybernetics, but the feedback from the damage was enough to make him wince slightly. Something that the enraged yeown clearly picked up on as his eyes widened.
“Military grade cybernetics? Who the fuck are you and what are you doing with my Talluni!” Balinski didn't want to answer the first question and didn't have a good answer for the second.
He dodged again and had to somersault over the edge of the table as the knife carved a large furrow out of its surface. “I don't know what the hell you are saying, I was just trying to enjoy an evening and you had to come over like a giant grinskal shit and stink it all up.” he spat back to the knife wielding yeown.
Another henchman stepped forwards out of the corner of his vision and tried to smack him over the head with some sort of cudgel, but he threw up his right arm and blocked it. He felt his whole body shudder from the blow, damn that atraxses was strong. It was time to let go of the niceties, he extended his wrist blade with a snap and counter swung at the cudgel wielding thug. He wasn't trying to kill him, just entice him to back off. It was successful as the swing cut through the large furred man’s sash and sent his various belongings clattering to the floor.
Amongst the mess he saw at least one gun and knew that he had to leave now before things escalated more. He jumped the bench and kicked another of the thugs in the chest, causing them to crash to the carpeted floor wheezing and clutching their chest.
Another swing from another thug was narrowly avoided when something caused the table to fall with a snap and sent him tumbling to the floor. He landed hard, the air getting completely knocked from his biological lung. He stood quickly with a wheeze just in time to have Bob swing at his face again. This time he only narrowly pulled back, the knife cutting a slit out of the brim of his hat.
He swore, “Damnit, okay.. I’m done playing.” Balinski rushed straight for the suddenly very surprised looking gangster and punched him in the muzzle hard. The sound of snapping teeth was as loud as gunshots to his ears as the man smashed into the stairs that led to the lowered middle area. His limp body rolled to a stop in a heap, his bloody face wheezing as the unconscious man blew blood bubbled from his fractured nose.
He heard a shout as the remaining henchmen paused to observe their boss, several of them rushing to his aid while Balinski dashed to Daryon.
He gripped her torso under her second pair of arms and housed her upright, her antennae were pressed as hard into her back as they could go and she still had her face covered. She made a sort of hissing noise as he dragged her upright and several of her lower arms lashed out at him.
Balinski grunted as several of them made solid connection to his lower torso, “Ouuf, Daryon.. Daryon stop! It’s me!” He said as quickly as he could.
To her credit she stopped hitting him immediately and peeked between her fingers at him. “Balinsski?” He nodded and then was knocked back half a step as she threw all ten arms around him in a ferocious hug that nearly squeezed the life out of him. Her people’s evolutionary background as ambush constrictors was well known, their primitive hunting strategy had always been to wrap around their potential prey and crush the life from their bodies like some manner of huge armoured snakes.
He patted her back in response but said, “That’s nice, but we don’t have time. We need to go now!” She pushed back and observed their surroundings. The broken table and groaning thugs that were starting to get back up. The ones that had run to Humble Bob’s aide were now gesturing back up at them angrily with one of them seeming to direct the others back their way.
She seemed to hunch again and Balinski took hold of her head, his hands cradling the insectoid woman’s face just below her brilliant blue eyes. “Look at me, trust me. I won't let them hurt you, I promised remember?”
He saw her nod, the antennae on her back rising slightly as she regained some of the courage that seemed to have fled from her earlier. “Okay.” She hissed.
He stood and was forced to dodge around the downed bodies of the still groggy looking henchmen he had already put down. “Come on, we need to get out of here before the rest of them..” He didn’t get to finish his statement.
A deep voice from behind him yelled out suddenly, “Don’t let that freak get away with the whore! Get them!” That wasn't good.
He abandoned all decorum and picked up speed, he was fast on his cybernetics. Much faster than a man his size had any right to be, but Daryon was like a blur as she tore towards the exit on her multitude of legs. She was like a bolt of living lightning as she crossed the gap in seconds and stopped at the doors. He knew that vinarfel could move quickly when they wanted too, but he was floored by the agility she had displayed. He had seen them move before, but not like that.
He picked up the pace as best he could, vaulting over the edge of the stage and running across the raised portion. The startled slaaveth auquadancers vocalised ultrasonically under the water as their carefully choreographed formations broke. He ignored the screeching aliens as he jumped from the stage over the heads of several screaming patrons.
From behind him he heard the crash of something attempting his move much less gracefully. He sprinted for the exit and saw Daryon had removed the traumawand from her jacket and had it powered and ready to use. “Fuck that! Go!” He shouted as he swung his arm towards her in a gesture to leave.
She complied but remained behind to hold the door open. He realised that it was a manual door, of course! He looked around and snatched at the raised metal railing around the edge of the stage and tore off a section of the metal piping. He wasn't planning to use it as a weapon though, instead he skidded through the doors and used his cybernetic strength to jam it into the door handles before bending it into a U.
He panted, thoroughly out of breath as he struggled back to his feet and grunted, “That should hold ‘em for a minute. Come on, Daryon.” He gestured towards the empty hall and turned towards it. They needed to put some distance between them and the men trying to end them.
Continued In E3:P4
==End of Transmission==

Black Sheep Family
Interlude 9
Date Night: Valentines
The Evening of the 17th of February, 2079
Agatha Quain sat at the back of The Divine Comedy Club , a cheap laugh restaurant that prided itself on having “discovered” a few good comedians. Currently Agatha was debating whether she was gonna toss an illusionary tomato at the racist piece of shit on the stage or at her boyfriend for not checking the schedule. Jack was just staring at the stage like the man had signed his own death warrant, not because of Agatha, but because the man was hellishly ripping into the Rana at the front of the stage. He was about to stand up and go get a manager when a short, wide man stepped on the stage, both teens knew he was Dominic Carcelli, a member of the Carcelli crime family, and a man whose family made heavy donations RHED, or the Rana-Human Education and Defense funds.
Carcelli made a swift grab for the microphone and nodded to a man off to the side. “Hey sorry about that folks, lets say we get some actual fuckin’ talent up here, yeah?” He covered the microphone and shouted off stage, “Who else we got back there that ain’t stupid enough to provoke half the damn city.”
A timid voice called out.
Carcelli rolled his eyes. “On behalf of management, as an apology, I’ll be covering mozz sticks for everyone, sound good?”
Agatha followed the mobster’s gaze to a taller, more severe looking man with salt and pepper hair and a groomed goatee. He also had a top hat at his side and a pocket watch clearly sitting in his breast pocket.
“Thanks for your patience folks.” Carcelli waited for the new comedian to come on stage. “Hey, what’s your name buddy?”
“Tommy Kallewski.” The young man said.
“What’d you think of that palooka before you?” Carcelli asked as he handed the comedian the microphone.
“You mean the guy who couldn’t grow up past the seventh grade?” Tommy snorted. “I’ve never heard worse jokes, and my material is fart jokes mostly.”
Agatha snorted and almost lost her drink through her nose. Jack barked and slapped the table. Most of the audience burst into laughter. The old man in the back grinned and sipped his drink as Carcelli joined him.
“So.” Jack snorted as the comedian’s jokes started to take off. “Sorry I didn’t check the schedule.”
“Anyone with a last name of ‘Dick’ that’s that old shouldn’t be labeled a comedian. Especially with that material.” Agatha rolled her eyes and leaned over and kissed Jack on his forehead. “You’re forgiven.”
“Thank you.” Jack smiled and took her hand.
They watched, laughed and listened for a few minutes. Jack was obviously enjoying the potty humor that Tommy was dolling out faster than most people could process. Then the free mozzarella sticks came and the two teens smiled as they tried to share a single stick between them. They laughed and dropped it as they failed.
“So, does your family need anything done while you’re out?” Jack asked.
Agatha sighed, “Yeah. Saw that coming. I think we’re good. Could use someone to look after the gardens.”
Jack nodded, “Not the cat.” He said.
Agatha snorted, “No gramps has the cat.”
“I can help with the gardens.” Jack nodded, “Dad’s upset he’s being put on a desk.”
“He’s the best leader dad has until we get back.” Agatha shrugged. “Even if he doesn't think so.”
Jack nodded. He smiled at her and held up another mozzarella stick.
“You’re doin’ it wrong.” Carcelli’s slight scarred face stared at them. “You’re breaking it early, you gotta have them in your mouth and then pull.”
“Thanks...” Agatha looked the man over.
“Hey, I know who your pops is and I don’t start shit. I run legit businesses and ain't no law says I have to call the cops on my customers. In fact Dross city has Neutral Ground laws.” Carcellie smiled, “Relax, we ain’t enemies.” He flicked the ashes of a half smoked cigar into his hand.
“Fair.” Agatha nodded, “Dross does have no smoking laws for restaurants though.”
“She’s right,Dominic.” The tall man said as he walked over. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, I am Dwayne O’Donnelly.” The man’s heavy Irish accent was crisp and reminded both teens of older actors from the past. “Please enjoy the show and the food.”
“You own this place?” Agatha asked as she turned to look at the man as he stood directly behind Jack.
Jack was frozen and locked into place as he scratched his nose.
“I do.” Dwayne smiled, “One of my many investments in the city.” He turned to Carcelli, “I must go, please enjoy your meal as well.”
Dominic nodded and walked back to his table and put his cigar out in a half filled glass of water.
Dwayne smiled, “You’ll have to forgive the young Carcelli, he sometimes forgets I prefer a more laid back setting for my places.”
Agatha stared at the man, trying to see past his form and to something of less physical substance. She hadn’t been training with Illidae as he Master for long, but he had taught her how to activate her Soul Sight. What it showed her shocked her into just nodding silently. The man nodded and smiled before he left.
“That man smelled of danger.” Jack let out a breath. “Like metal and molten glass.” He noticed Agatha staring in shock and reached over to touch her hand.
“We need to follow him!” Agatha shot up to run, but Jack grabbed her, making sure not to tear her lace gothic dress..
“What did you see?” Jack hissed, “We can’t just chase a guy like O’Donnelly.”
“It was darkness, pride, hatred and rage.” Agatha said. “He’s one of them. He’s a Revenant.”
Jack paused then nodded, “Man, we need to plan for date night interruptions.”
Jack quickly got the bill and paid for their meal which they hadn’t even gotten to eat, he did ask for it to be packed as they would return for it. When they got outside they hopped onto Jack’s motorcycle and were off.
---B)(S)(F---
Danny sat nervously at the Pizza Hat. He had just finished a movie, The Terrible Trio Strikes Again!!! The third Strike!, with Heith and both were sitting nervously at the both. Both teens were clearly unsure how to behave and both knew Danny likely had other thoughts he was focused on.
“I hope the movie wasn’t a terrible idea.” Heith sighed, “I know the shit with Cassandra is bad, I just know I’d want someone to distract me if Sofie were in a similar situation.”
Danny looked up in worry, “No it was a good movie, and I appreciate the break. I just can’t stop thinking about how I could have stopped him for sure and now...” He put his head in his hands. “I think he’s not dead. I think Salem’s right.”
“The nosferatu guy?” Heith clarified, “The one who fought vamp-bitch?”
Danny chuckled, “Well for once an accurate statement if worded for a poor reason.”
Heith snorted, “I’ve met the woman, that’s personal bias.”
Danny smiled as a pizza and a large shake with two straws was put in front of them.
“Did we order that?” Heith blinked as she looked at the super-tall shake that had a mountain of whipped cream and two cherries on top.
“On the house.” The server winked. “You two have a fun date night!” He rolled backwards on his shoes and danced away.
“Man...” Danny sighed, “Dross City, we got’em all.”
Heith nodded and blinked, “Well it is chocolate.”
Danny nodded, “I’m fine with sharing.”
“Good.” Heith smiled as she put a piece of their pizza on a plate. “I never understood why...” She paused, “Is dad appropriate anymore?”
Danny shrugged, “I mean in some twisted way he cared, right?”
“Not about us.” Heith sighed, “Not how your family cares for each other, it was more possessive.”
Danny nodded, “Well then what is to you?”
“The Lab doctor who grew us.” Heith snorted in a laugh that signaled a sense of relief. “But I never understood why we couldn’t get pizza. This stuff is better especially when it’s not school based.”
“My dad would call that blasphemy.” Danny laughed. “How is Sofie doing?”
“She’s dealing better than I am.” Heith nodded, “I still have nightmares with him ripping off his face and that robot’s face.” Heith sighed, “He did give her an amazingly realistic snobby attitude.”
“I don’t know how people get attracted to that.” Danny sighed, “Has to be purely physical.”
“Or they’re the same.” Heith sighed. “Am I doing better?”
Danny tilted his head a little. “Heith, I’m the son of a rich as shit family. Both of my parents are independently wealthy and the only reason I had my job was boredom.” He laughed, “I’m not sure I can judge spoiled and bratty and stuff like that accurately.”
“Fair, but am I less bitchy?” Heith asked, “I don’t know. Forget I asked.”
“In terms of what I’ve seen, yeah, you’ve improved. You’ve learned and even though you still call me devil-boy, you’re not pissing Agatha off with it so I guess it’s okay?” Danny shrugged.
“Well she calls Jack ‘puppy’.” Heith said flatly.
“She’s called him puppy since we were four.” Danny explained, “She’s the only one he lets call him that.”
Heith paused, “Noted and remembered.”
Danny nodded, “And it’s not like she won’t sometimes get on his nerves with it.”
“Fair.” Heith nodded and sipped on their shake, then made a face. “That’s bad.”
Danny sipped on it as well. “Yeah I don’t think it was mixed right, too much chocolate mixed in.”
“Oh well, it’s free.” Heith smiled, “But don’t worry about Burlin or Gravitas or whoever the fuck he was or is. We won the day, now you focus on your sister.”
Danny nodded and sighed, “Thanks. I don’t know why but I feel like I messed up there.”
“I feel like I messed up my whole life with him.” Heith said with a grimace, “You’d think you’d see something that would scream ‘supervillain’!”
“To be fair, GLOBAL is classified as a villain organization.” Danny said, “We don’t know their endgame so unless it’s global domination, I doubt it’ll be classified as Super.”
Heith blinked. “That’s the difference?”
Danny shrugged. “Classifications are based on motivations and power levels mainly. Criminals want survival and the stuff that helps with that; cash, gear, et cetera.” He pulled out a napkin and drew up a small diagram. “Villains have some ideal or goal, they feel they have a purpose or society is the one in the wrong. Super-Villains want power, to rule and to run things. It’s why guys like the MechAnimals and the psychotic Animals are both considered criminals, but Pharaoh is a Super-Villain despite mostly being a crime boss. We know he wants the world under his control and crime is his means to an end.”
“And The Fog is a criminal because they just sell their services. Man-Tick is a villain because, why?” Heith asked as she took another piece of pizza.
“Fun fact about Man-Tick, he funds his research into breaking his curse via mercenary actions, but his goal isn’t complete reversal, it’s to make more like those animal-hybrid people GLOBAL made.” Danny explained, “My best guess is they stole his work, because that man would not be quiet about being successful.”
“And that makes Jet Fission a Super-Villain.” Heith nodded, “What about the Nazi Zombies?”
“Armageddon Level Threat.” Danny nodded, “Isn’t this first year stuff? Dad taught us this when he came back, Anna already knew it.”
“You’d think, but it’s a Senior class.” Heith gave a huff, “How many Armageddon Level Threats are there?”
“Bleak and his Crew is currently the only one, but Fission can slide into that as well.” Danny took his first piece of pizza. “I keep forgetting how greasy this isn’t.” He sighed.
Heith snorted and shook her head. “Well thank you for the lesson. If you need someone to talk to until then, I’m just a chat or call away.”
Danny nodded, “Thanks.”
“So why’d your dad let you take the van, isn’t it like your only car since that fancy one of his got stolen and wrecked.”
Danny chuckled. “He got it replaced pretty fast. Scared the shit out of those car thieves though. Spent an hour crying about the best metal baby.”
Heith stared at Danny in confusion.
“It was his first car, one of the only things he’s had any material love for. Mom says I’ll understand when I get my first car.” Danny explained with a light sigh of contentment.
“But you can fly.” Heith said.
“I can, but sometimes you gotta move someone else. Also I don’t go that fast, just above the average running speed.” Danny shrugged.
“We need a re-match.” Heith sighed, taking deep of their shared shake.
“Have you suddenly developed the ability to hit incorporeal things?” Danny shot back, “Because I can still do that.”
“I’ll find a way. Found a way to block Guire’s stupid shocks.” Heith said with a slight tinge of annoyance.
“Ah, give Guire a break, kid’s in just as bad a situation as you were, only he can’t run and the best guy to help him is a bit distracted helping my sister right now.” Danny sighed.
“What do you mean?” Heith asked.
“Guire’s dad is a former cop. Currently head of Security at Sun-Tech. Dad got him fired for beating his wife, but he’s got too many friends still on the force. Dad can’t make any moves to help Greg, Bubbles is trying now.” Danny took another slice and a deep sip. “It’s really fucked up.”
“I can break his face.” Heith said, “No one could mad at me after what I’ve been through.”
Danny almost choked, “God, no. Please. Just don’t give him so much shit.”
Heith crossed her arms but nodded in understanding. “I’m kinda full.”
“Me too, too much popcorn.” Danny laughed. “Want to take it home to Sofie?”
Heith nodded and they waved to the server who promptly trolled back over to them.
“Take home for the rest please.” Danny said, “And hey, where’d you get the shoes?”
“Customs on myshoedrip.net.” He smiled, “Used to be popular in the early millennium, called Heelies. I’ll get you a box and cup for the shake.”
“You take the shake.” Heith said as she stood up to pay.
“I got this.” Danny smiled.
“I got it, I kinda put you in the asking position.” Heith smiled.
“Half then.” Danny offered.
“You pay for the shake.” Heith smiled.
Danny nodded, then remembered it had been a free shake. “Hey...”
“Too late you agreed.” Heith smiled and went to the counter to pay.
As the two stepped outside he couldn’t help but notice a motorcycle speeding by with a very elegant gothic dress on the rear end.
“Aggie?” Danny paused and stared.
“She wears dresses?!” Heith’s jaw dropped.
---B)(S)(F---
Alan and Endara were at one of the most expensive restaurants in the city, a professed neutral ground where criminals could come to safely dine so long as violence was not reported. It was a Carcelli restaurant, but Alan wasn’t going to hold that against them tonight.
“So...” Endara looked at the menu. “Should we be here?”
Alan looked at her and sighed, “I made the reservations, Cassie told us too.” He threw his arms up in defeat, “I just can’t help but feel like a shit-heel here.”
“Same...” Endara sighed. “Maybe order a dessert and take it home?”
Alan smiled, “Okay, but we have to eat a meal or Anna will get Stephen on both of us.”
“She does do that easily.” Endara smiled, “Her mother’s care in her.”
Alan nodded, “So my lovely fire engine of brute force...”
Endara broke into laughter, then collected herself. “Thank you, you know just what to say. My lovely dumbass.”
“I do try.” Alan smiled, “Oh. Manicotti.”
“You hate anyone else’s manicotti.” Endara gave an accusatory glare.
“That’s not true, just people who don’t know how to make it. This is an Italian place, if they can’t make it I’m going to be upset.” Alan smiled. “You just stay out of their kitchen.”
Endara snorted and looked the menu over. “Oh, they make big meatballs here.”
“Good evening.” A man said as he approached, “My name is Trevor and I will be your server tonight.”
“Well Trevor, ever had the Manicotti?” Alan asked.
“Yes, my favorite short of the chef’s favorite ravioli.” Trevor smiled.
“I’ll take that.” Alan smiled, “House’s best red wine, for the holiday past.”
Trevor nodded, “And you Mrs. Quain.”
“I’ll have the spaghetti and meatballs, can I ask for just three extra large ones?” Endara asked.
Trevor nodded, “We can do that.” He then took their menus and bowed before leaving.
“Well, let’s enjoy the night.” Endara smiled, but paused as she noticed Alan looking up and past her.
Endara turned to see the massive frame of Polar Bear grinning down at her. He raised his hands in a peaceful gesture.
“No harm meant.” He said as Mud Dauber stood by his side.
“I always thought you two made an odd couple.” Alan tried to laugh. “We good?”
“Yes.” Polar Bear nodded, “I wanted to thank you for your kindness last we met.” He bowed his head. “It is rare when we have a hero remember we are human too, mostly.”
Alan did a brief scan of the man’s surface thoughts and nodded to Endara. Endara then relaxed.
“And I have no interest in taking on you and your wife. Even with Freya’s help, we would lose.” Polar Bear laughed.
“You would lose, I would flee.” Freya snorted.
Polar Bear looked slightly wounded as he stared at his partner, then he nodded in the affirmative and agreed with her.
“Well, you’re welcome, but right now we’re on our Valentine’s date.” Alan smiled, hoping to dissuade any further conversation.
“Da? So are we!” Polar Bear laughed, “But we will leave you to yours.”
Freya pulled on his scarf and Polar Bear bent down to listen as she whispered in his ear.
Polar Bear winced, “I know this is probably a bad time, we have heard of the attack on the school and that you have an injured child; but our leader has a proposition.”
Alan felt his jaw drop as he felt the idea pass from Polar Bear’s screaming and nervous mind.
“Too loud Isaak.” Freya hissed, “Remember he is a telepath.”
“Right. Sorry.” He pulled an envelope from his very carefully crafted vest and handed it to Alan. “It isn’t much as of now, but we have hopes.” Polar Bear smiled as he once again bowed and led Freya to their table.
“Well...” Endara watched the two MechAnimals sit at their own table, “At least you can tell they’re in love.”
Alan nodded as he put the envelope away. “We might have to step up Anna’s therapy.”
Endara blinked, “What?” Then she realized the implication. “They’re that desperate?”
“Pharaoh may have cut off other sources.” Alan sighed, “Or the Animals really messed them up.”
Endara nodded, “What about the psycho?”
“Let’s worry about that after we save our daughter.” Alan sighed. “And part of that is eating a meal to bring home a huge chocolate mousse.”
“I was thinking, instead, what about stopping for ice cream?” Endara smiled.
“Anna will want what she always wants.” Alan sighed and telekinetically lifted his phone from his pocket and sent out a message to the family. Then he got a reply that made him pause and stand up.
“Agatha or Danny?” Endara asked with a sigh.
“Take a guess.” Alan sighed as he went to a non-emergency exit. Then he dialed Agatha’s number, when she didn’t answer he sent another text and waited.
The door opened and Mud Dauber came out and lit a cigarette, then noticed Alan. He felt genuine shock from her, but didn’t let her distract him. Finally he got a response and sent a quick demand for her and Jack to get home. Then he leaned against the opposite wall and sighed, partially sinking down.
“Are you all right?” Freya asked, “That’s a stupid question. I’m sorry.” She walked over and offered her hand.
Alan paused and took it, using her to help himself stand.
“Eldest decided to do something ridiculously stupid.” Alan sighed, “Thank you.”
Freya nodded and Alan went to go back in, but paused.
“If he’s serious, tell him to hold out as long as he can. We’ll be out of the country for a bit.” Alan explained.
Freya nodded, “You know I met your newest. She’s a sweet kid, I hope it's not her that’s hurt.”
Alan paused and let a bitter laugh echo in the night. “Hurt is an understatement. That bastard started to tear her apart from the inside, and something else decided to continue it.” He growled.
Freya nodded, and watched the door close, but Alan remained outside.
“You have kids?” He asked.
“I wish I could. Early childhood cancer.” Freya smiled, “And Isaak’s DNA may not carry over.”
Alan nodded, “If you and he are serious and you all really mean this, hold on. Then maybe consider adoption.”
Freya nodded. “We’ll try.”
Alan cleared his throat. “You have a nice Valentine’s dinner.”
“You too.” Freya smiled.
Alan joined his wife once more.
“Was she a problem?” Endara asked.
“Nah, just a smoke break.” Alan nodded.
Endara leaned in, “So what broke you?”
Alan went to argue but smiled, just as he could make her laugh, he could never lie to her.
“Agatha tried to chase a guy she thought was a revenant.” Alan smirked with a slightly mad glare.
“Why is our daughter blessed with both of our impatient and impetuous natures?” Endara laughed and brushed her hair back.
“Luck.” Alan smiled.
Then their meals were brought out and Alan immediately went to dig into his manicotti. He just as quickly frowned.
“Bad?” Endara asked as she cut up her meatballs.
“I think I’ve been ruined.” Alan smiled, “Best damn manicotti I’ve had.” He looked at Trevor. “Compliments to the chef.”
Trevor smiled, “I shall inform him.”
Endara nodded as Trevor poured their wine for the night.
“Trevor, how big is the biggest mousse you’ve got?” Alan asked.
Trevor paused briefly, almost concerning Endara as she watched him quickly stop pouring. “Pretty darn big, but that's for catering. We have a twelve ounce one for take home.”
“Dang that won’t satisfy a house full of teens.” Alan sighed.
“We can put it on a cake or a pie.” Trevor suggested.
“Ohhh.” Endara smiled, “Can we get one to go?”
Trevor nodded and looked at Alan.
“If you would.” Alan said, “And anything else she wants.”
Trevor nodded and stepped away.
Endar smiled at her husband as she remembered a specific order she had put in with a private call. Alan found it moments later as he split open a manicotti to find a jewelry box that he telekinetically plucked out. He stared for a moment then looked at Endara.
“You would.” He sighed and opened it.
Inside was an infinity loop with Endara’s birthstone in the center and the stones of the entire Quain family, including Daniel, Jazz and Alan and Stephen’s original adoptive parents.
Alan smiled and sat it down.
“Surprise.” Endara smiled.
Alan nodded, “They cooked it in the manicotti.”
“What?” Endara blinked.
Alan laughed, “Thankfully it only messed up one.” He scraped the offending manicotti to the side. “Someone’s gonna get in trouble for that.”
“Well, hopefully they can learn.” Endara sighed and slowly laughed at the scenario.
Soon both Quain parents were laughing and making jokes about pasta jewelry.
/////
The First Story
[Previous Interlude]() //// [Next Interlude!]()
Arc 1 - Black Sheep Family - Arc 1, First Chapter
Arc 2 - Paradigm Shift - Arc 2, First Chapter
Arc 3 - Gravitas Rising Arc 3, First Chapter
Arc 4 - The Director’s Chair Arc 4, First Chapter
Arc 5- The School War Arc 5, First Chapter
Spotify
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Credit where Credit is due:
Kyton & Cassandra Adams are © u/TwistedMind596
Obsidian is © u/Ultimalice
Ixton the Blade of the Wielder is © My friend Forged of Souls who does not use reddit
Furnace is © my friend Matt who does not use reddit
Cedric Stein Meissner aka Tesseract is © my friend James, who does not use reddit.
All other characters and Dross City are © u/TheSmogMonsterZX
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Perfection: Kinda heavy for an interlude inn’t?
Wraith: Well interludes are the parts that can't fit into the normal stories. He never said they wouldn’t contain any important details.
Smoggy: I believe I said I would try, and honestly I just couldn’t get Alan and Endara’s dinner anywhere at the end of Arc 5 or at the start of Arc 6. So it goes here and if I need to refer back to it, we treat it like a comic book and link to the story at the end.
Deadpool: I’m BACK and I brought boxes for all!
Smoggy: Glad to have you DP.
DM: What?
Smoggy: I’d like to send you some place nice, warm year ‘round and plenty of hot ladies to flirt with.
Deadpool: ...Really.
Wraith: (taps Scythe against the floor) He means hell.
Smoggy: I mean Hell.
DM: Ahhhh...
Deadpool: How about, like some place I can help teen heroes fight bad guys?
Wraith: We’ve already tried that with another version of you.
Smoggy: He still sends them Christmas Cards. So hell, or leave us alone.
Deadpool: You know I think it’s been fun here, but I miss home.
Perfection: (leaning over Deadpool’s shoulders) Smart choice. (vanishes with Deadpool)
Wraith: Why can’t they all be that reasonable.
Smoggy: Luck, insanity? I dunno. Time to focus. I got some SpellJammer stuff to make!
DM: Stinger!
Smoggy: Wha-
---B)(S)(F---
The Evening of the 16th of February, 2079
Jazz pulled her motorcycle up to the curb of the well maintained SkyView Apartments. She was almost up to the door when she heard voices out back laughing and shouting, so she went around to see what was going on. She found the person she was looking for with two of his friends, one of which was a personal hero of hers.
“Holy shit!” Jazz quickly saluted Samantha Canning.
“I’m retired and from what I understand, so are you.” Samantha smirked, then gave a quick salute.
“Jazz, what’s up?” Salem asked without looking up from the fire on the grill.
“They’re giving that poor little girl some bad news and I didn’t want to hear it.” Jazz sighed, “Figured I’d make you have some fun.”
“Some fun?” Sawyer looked at his friend, “You got a Super Nintendo?”
“Nah, figured we’d go beat up some thugs or something.” Jazz smiled. “Salem invite only though.”
“That’s fair. He needs more friends.” Samantha smiled.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Salem looked up with a glare.
“That you’re an old curmudgeon with few friends and most are kids.” Sawyer smirked.
“Pot, meet the kettle.” Samantha smirked.
“I got friends.” Sawyer laughed, “Just no one else likes’em.”
Salem rolled his eyes and downed the rest of his whiskey mixed with blood. Then he stood straight and stretched before staring directly at Jazz.
“I got a strict curfew of twenty minutes before dawn.” He set an alarm on his phone. “Won’t crash or anything, just don’t want to dust.”
“Man, have you ever crashed?” Sawyer snorted in annoyance.
“Nah.” Salem nodded, “Can’t let the sun win at everything.” He grinned. “All right Artigan show me what you consider fun!”
“Get your helmet, you ain’t ridin’ with me without one.” Jazz smiled.
“I am not a seat warmer.” Salem glared.
Jazz crossed her arms. “My bike.”
Salem snarled, but stomped off and returned, but with his own bike and a leather helmet.
“You just...” Jazz laughed, “Can that thing keep up?”
Salem’s head tilted.
“Oh, now she’s done it.” Samantha laughed.
“They’re going to be mangled in a mess on the news.” Sawyer laughed, “Anna will kill them both. Then maybe Cassie.”
Samantha laughed and picked up her whiskey.
“Take my couch Canning, cops won’t care who you are if they smell that shit. Doesn’t matter that you’re not drunk.” Salem said as he continued to glare at Jazz.
Jazz continued to smirk, “Well come on old timer. We got some red to paint.”
Salem let a low growl escape his lips.

Purisha
Purisha wanders along the streets of Little Serbow and is... really enjoying herself if she's honest. She didn't really know her date terribly well, even by reputation, but 1st Lieutenant Eugene Markuson, a charming blonde haired man with enrapturing blue eyes and a roguish smile was... well. Gorgeous! Romantic. Aggressive. Really he was a lot of women's dirtiest dreams come true even back on Earth.
Liking bad boys wasn't quite as common out in the galaxy as on Earth, but bad boys were certainly popular with pirate lasses like Purisha. Even if the majority of them were only found in x rated material aimed at mercs, pirates and thugs from Horchka or Cannidor space.
Still, here she was, likely to never even get a date in her life, and she's being swept off her feet! Humans really were built different!
Yet... even as she chatted with Eugene, talking about all manner of things, part of her wondered if this was the right path for her. He wasn't Sir David that much was for sure, but he seemed to be an attentive, passionate, and most assuredly handsome man with the kind of smile that could set any girl's panties on fire!
She was happy to get the attention, extremely so but part of her chastised herself for giving up on Sir David so easily. Though was it really giving up if another opportunity presented itself and she took that instead? Besides, it was just a few dates. It's not like she was marrying Eugene or anything.
Despite her best efforts so far though she'd not really managed to get a lot out of Eugene about the man himself. He redirected things effortlessly much of the time to focus on her, which never failed to give her the shivers. Eugene could make her feel like the only girl in the room. When she did get him talking it was mostly boasting about his accomplishments.
He was an Undaunted Marine now, but not an Earth Marine like Jerry and a lot of the others. He'd been an officer in the American army, and graduated from a place called West Point, something he was very proud of. He was a decently well regarded officer from what she'd heard on the grape vine, but scraping more than the very surface had proven challenging.
He had just been decorated for the action on the Pillars of Ascension, so that was something at the very least. It was also fairly common knowledge that he had around thirty wives and had no intent on limiting his family any time soon. He was considered a 'refreshing' human by some of the girls because he tended to allegedly be a bit more 'normal' in his behavior by galactic standards. Compared to the Admiral's determined attempt to make romance novelists look like they weren't being nearly ambitious enough with their male leads.
So in the absence of information, her mission today was a simple one, to pry some more details about the man courting her out of him.
Well, and have fun. No sense going on a date if she wasn't having a good time, right?
A dress in a shop window catches her eye, Apuk gowns were very pretty and she'd been considering getting one. It was a bit poofier than anything she'd wear normally, but she could probably conceal an entire arsenal under the skirt!
"Hey, do you mind if we stop for a minute? I want to try that dress on."
"Sure, I don't mind. Lead on."
For a moment there was a flash in Eugene's eyes that suggested to Purisha he absolutely did mind, but it was gone in a blink and never made it past that gorgeous smile of his that had her feeling a bit gooey again.
She eagerly walks inside with Eugene on her tail and the Apuk clerk looks up at the sound of a chime.
"Oh! Hello! I was just getting ready to close up for the day, but I think I've got time for one more customer! Mirka'Nar at your service. I'm a dressmaker and seamstress if you can't guess."
"Purisha, and this is Eugene. I'd like to try on the dress in the window please."
Mirka'Nar nods slowly, sizing up Purisha mentally before activating a drone that races over and begins to take her measurements with a variety of sensors, scanning her in high detail.
"I think I can work something your size, you're a bit more slender than many Apuk girls... but that pattern... yes."
Before long Purisha's doing coming out of dressing room and doing a curtsy and a twirl to applause from Eugene and Mirka'Nar.
A bit of movement draws Purisha's eye to Mirka'Nar's hand as she tucks her communicator away. She seemed a bit... flushed too. Had Eugene hit on her and given her his number while she was changing? Purisha resists frowning or reacting, instead happily chatting with the sales clerk and arranging some changes, which the girl dutifully applies.
It wasn't a problem per se if he had. The galaxy was all about sharing after all. A bit strange that a man was doing the pursuing of course, and was so aggressive as to pursue a woman while actively engaged with another, but it stuck in her craw, even as he lavishes her with praise, mostly for her curves... which was a bit more... shallow feedback wise than she'd been hoping when dress shopping. Then again, any feedback from a man was nice and did wonderful things to her stomach.
Purisha takes another twirl and looks over at Eugene.
"What do you think? Is this my color? Or should I go with something else?"
"I think it looks good on you. The lines really suit your frame. I suppose a strapless gown is rather bold by Apuk standards, is that right, Mirka'Nar?"
"Oh incredibly, but she's got such lovely grey fur it'd be a shame not to show more of it! I really think that color sets it off."
Purisha chats a bit more with Mirka'Nar. She was a nice girl and seemed to be extremely forthright with her praise, not holding back from criticism in the name of making a sale if it was required. She was dead set on getting the exact right dress for her customer, something that seemed to be... annoying Eugene just a bit as the fitting dragged on. Not that Purisha knew for sure. She was getting better at reading human emotions, but the lack of ability to sense most of them in the axiom like a normal person was downright infuriating at times.
Suddenly feeling anxious, she makes an excuse about their dinner reservations and schedules another fitting with Mirka'Nar for tomorrow. She'd have to swing by with the girls. Dar'Vok would be her resident expert on Apuk gowns... though maybe she could ask the princess!
Asking Princess Aquilar for help dress shopping was the kind of starry eyed thought that steers her back to sunshine as she slips back into her far more modern dress, a style Jerry called a 'little black dress' that was apparently human women's preferred feminine weapon of choice in many situations. The assault rifle of women's clothing if you will, with the right cut and coverage it was generally suitable for almost any situation you could throw at it, from dinner and drinks, to a board room, to dancing, a diplomatic reception, or covert bodyguard detail if the skirt had enough freedom of movement and you accessorized with a purse that could conceal a pistol or SMG.
A truly versatile piece of clothing... and with Sharon helping her with the cut and dimensions when she'd commissioned it from Mama San, the ship’s gifted Pavorus tailor, to start expanding her civilian clothing arsenal back up after losing what little she had on the Prancing Pavorus she had to admit... it made her feel damn sexy, especially with the heels she'd picked out.
Now she just needed to work out how to best carry her dress kukri with it and she'd really be ready to knock anyone and anything dead.
Instead she'd opted for a little kukri shaped pin that Sergeant Major Gurung had hand made for all his female commandos when they were in civilian attire that didn't easily let them carry their war knives if they so desired.
The little silver bauble had certainly started to be recognized when it came to announcing their status. Amazing how fast an Apuk from the shock infantry company's tune changed when she saw that little bitty pin and realized she could easily get a thrashing.
Not that many of those girls were trouble in general. A few rough and tumbles early on had led to decent integration, and Purisha's status as a quasi adopted daughter of the Bridger family was well known at this point. One did not make an ass of oneself to one's liege's family, adopted or not.
She flows through the busy 'streets' of Little Serbow as Eugene leads her to one of the higher end eateries in the area. A joint venture with Chief Noitaka, the ship's best chef, it did Apuk style protein, but focused on exotic meats, especially human meats, and a few other goodies. It was not cheap, preferring fresh material when they weren't in deep space, and only the highest grade of cloned material from the Bridger clan's cloning vats. With only a handful of tables a night, and everything being cooked by hand, it was as exclusive a dining experience as it got on the ship, and Eugene had somehow gotten them a reservation.
They'd met up a few times while they'd been heading towards Cannidor space, but with one mission or another a full on date had taken time to arrange, and Eugene apparently didn't do things by half measure. He was determined to wine and dine her, and little things aside Purisha was very, very impressed with the charming human's showmanship.
It really made her feel like she was the princess around here, not her adopted mother or her very dangerous close friends.
The gentle knocking of his West Point class ring against the table draws her fully back to the conversation as he tells her another story about one adventure or another back on Earth. He had a lot of adventures, and Purisha enjoyed hearing about them, the way he related all the little details with a glance over his shoulder, like they were secrets he was sharing with her, billions of miles away from whatever authority might care about one minor act of mischief or wrong doing. It was as if he had invited her into his confidence. Mixed with good food and good wine, the company was certainly having an effect on Purisha.
She really did feel special. Unique. She was being wooed! Her! A literal no one! She didn't have a good family, or money, or power. Well. Not until the Bridgers more or less adopted her. So she supposed she had a good family now, but her surname? The Velours? She was probably the last of that line. Now she was here, with a new career, powerful friends, some accomplishments she was damn proud of, and a handsome man doing his best to charm her panties off.
What girl could really ask for more?
First Last Next

Frank Miller's Daredevil and the Ends of Heroism (Comics Culture) eBook : Young, Paul
This was the first honest-to-god analysis of a work of fiction I ever bought. Sure we all think about the stories we read but I had never sought out a professional look at it before. The interviews with Miller and others are really an invaluable look into his creative process, IMO.
I really recommend this book for insights not just into Daredevil, but Batman and Punisher, too.
For anyone curious, here are a lot of the parts which really stood out to me - although of course I have my own interests and you might have parts of the book you love which I just passed over. The first comic I ever remember reading and being deeply impressed by was JMS' Supreme Power. To me, the best superhero stories ask "what does it even mean to be a (super)hero?" I think Miller has some invaluable insights on this topic.

Miller's problem with Spider-Man was all the angst. "All my reservations about the character are in how he talks 'cause his visual is still very confident, and very strong - it's just that he never stops whining." Spidey's self-pity, his penchant for martyrdom, and his borderline masochistic self-neglect attracted fans' identification but also made his life more or less a continual nightmare. Even worse, it made his success as a superhero hard for Miller to swallow. Spider-Man's trademark heckling of villains during fights only made his effectiveness less believable:
"I don't believe that Spider-Man would last two weeks [as a crime fighter] the way he's conceived. In order to have power over the criminals, you would have to be that rotten; [criminals] would have to accept him as almost one of them... Daredevil has to reach the point where when he walks into a room. they're terrified of him. because he has to be accepted as a force they'll respect. That isn't done much in comic books; it's around in other kinds of fiction. I'm more comfortable with that; I don't see him as being happy go lucky when he's up against a bunch of guys with guns."
[...]
Miller would probably have incited comparisons to Batman in the fan press simply by transforming Daredevil into a grittier, more deterministic series, but Miller openly stressed the parallel in his Daredevil-era interviews. In 1981, Miller draws an explicit contrast between Daredevil and Batman: "Daredevil . . . operates on a basic motive of love for seeking out justice. . . . [Batman] is punishing those who killed his parents. Batman's focus is on the criminal, Daredevil's is on the victim."27 Critics picked up on Miller's concern with Daredevil's motives, as well as the productive task of measuring them against those of the Batman. Reviewing Miller's work thus far in the Comics Journal in 1982, Ed Via wrote that Miller had made Daredevil "first and foremost a moralist, a person with a strong sense of fairness and . . . compassion, someone whose actions were as directly in line with his convictions as humanly possible."28 Even Daredevil's scuffles with criminals differed from Batman's in that they were performances rather than acts of vengeance:
"I see Matt Murdock as being a grown man and Daredevil as almost being a boy. . . . He believes in everything he's doing and he works very hard at it, but part of him just gets off on jumping around buildings."29 "I'm also trying to develop him as a guy with a terrific sense of humor, who scares criminals and has a great time doing it. Like [Steve Ditko's DC character] the Creeper, he laughs and laughs and laughs, and thinks [to himself], 'Jeez, they're buying it!'"30
Miller's favorite means of exposing his hero's antic side was to send Daredevil to Josie's Bar, a fictional dive where New York's entire population of petty thieves seems to turn up every night. Digging for clues to various cases, DD inevitably sparks fights that trash the place, hurling thugs through the front window while Josie protests (for the umpteenth time) that she just had it repaired. Sometimes he even orders a drink first, but as Miller points out, it's always a glass of milk. The milk (and the milk moustache it leaves behind) comically telegraphs Matt's wholesomeness compared to the hardened types guzzling whiskey and beer all around him, but it also underscores Miller's description of DD as Matt's boyish side, the inner child that "comes alive" while playing superhero.31
Ultimately, however, the contrast Miller once drew between the borderline psychotic Batman and the psychologically healthy Daredevil sounds like an overstatement of the argument, fronted by the Village Voice in 1965 (and echoed in Esquire the following year), that "Marvel Comics are the first comic books to evoke, even metaphorically, the Real World."32 By those lights, "real world" referentiality meant that Marvel heroes dealt openly with persecution, neuroses, and family squabbles and turned out to be their own worst enemies nearly as often as protagonists did in postwar literary fiction.
By contrast, DC didn't raise any schlemiels, with the possible exception of Clark Kent, whose inferiority complex is all an act to keep people from noticing that, but for the eyeglasses and the hunched shoulders, he looks exactly like Superman. DC stories followed the logic of such classical storytelling modes as the epic or the chronicle, where decision making is an exponent of action instead of a process inflected by character subtleties and every action thus taken is world-historical in importance. Its editors exiled strong emotion, anxiety, mortality, and other everyday complexities to the infamous imaginary stories of the fifties and early sixties.
This means of distinguishing Silver Age Marvel heroes from those of DC hits a snag, however, when we stack Batman's origin up against that of Spider-Man or Daredevil. The emotional crux of all three is the Spidey triumvirate of all-too-human gut reactions: guilt, shame, and a desire for revenge. Indeed, the most obvious precedent for Daredevil's origin is the first version of Batman's origin story in DC's Detective Comics #33 (December 1939), in which an anonymous street thug robs and shoots Bruce Wayne's parents before young Bruce's eyes. Batman's origin sets underexamined precedents for many origin stories from Marvel's Silver Age: dead parent, angry child, costume chosen to strike fear into what the Batman of 1939 touts as a "superstitious, cowardly lot" of evildoers, an initial state of helplessness igniting the desire to bulk up and do right. Not unlike the death of Jack Murdock in Daredevil's case, Bruce Wayne's extraordinary childhood loss forges Batman's determination to avenge that loss on all criminals everywhere forever after and to transform himself into a steroidal, bat-eared Sherlock Holmes.
Miller brought the Punisher, then Marvel's most homicidal lead character, into the comparison to develop a pet point about Daredevil's singularity: his duty to the legal system, for better or worse. In 1981, when Richard Howell asked Miller point blank, "Is Daredevil Marvel's Batman?" Miller answered that, no, "the Punisher is Marvel's Batman."33 Miller argued that, unlike the Batman, whose parents' murder catalyzed every major life decision he made from then on, the death of Battlin' Jack did not have as "big an effect on [Matt] as his father's life, and he is his father's son, being a natural born fighter."34 The Punisher, by contrast, shares not only Batman's desire to murdered loved ones but also his will to stop killers and drug dealers in their tracks. He exceeds Batman's mission only in that he executes the bad guys on the spot.
The Punisher, Miller tells Howell, is "Batman without the impurities. The side of Batman that makes him spare the criminals is something that's added on. It's not part of the basic concept of his character. . . . Daredevil's basic concept is very dissimilar. I see Daredevil as someone who operates on a basic motive of love for seeking out justice."35
This was not to say, however, that the Punisher's use of deadly force made him less heroic to Miller than Daredevil or Batman were. The Punisher is a hero, Miller says, but "I don't consider him a role model. The main difference between him and Daredevil is Daredevil's sense of responsibility to the law. The Punisher is an avenger; he's Batman without the lies built in."36
The "lies" Miller mentions refer in part to Batman's vow never to kill; he wields a gun only two or three times in his entire first forty-five years in print, due in each case to editorial inattention. While the no-kill rule probably helped keep Batman out of trouble with parents worried over comics' influence on young children, it exacerbated the tension between his desire for justice and his sense that the legal system is inadequate to the task of collaring mass murderers and rooting out corruption. If Batman's prime motive is to champion justice in the legal sense, to quash anarchy and restore social order, then why does he have such contempt for the police and the legal system except insofar as they can help him achieve his goals?
[...]
The ambivalence about due process expressed here stems in part from Miller's decision to make Daredevil a character whose convictions don't necessarily match his own: "I don't necessarily believe that Daredevil's right about everything he says. The character is built on very strong basic principles, and it would have been a terrible violation of those principles . . . to let Bullseye die. Daredevil has to believe that the law will work in every instance, but I'm allowed to believe differently."17 Miller had much tougher critiques of Daredevil-style liberalism waiting up his sleeve, including the bleeding-heart psychiatrists in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns who claim that Two-Face and the Joker (the Joker, for crying out loud) can be rehabilitated and an unforgettable throwaway joke about liberal hypocrisy in the same book, in which a Central Casting suburbanite tells a reporter that he doesn't believe in Batman's brand of vigilante justice but then snorts that he himself would "never live in the city." But to paint Miller as a legal or social conservative would not be accurate, at least not at this point in his career. Satirically, in fact, Miller plays the entire political field, broiling John Ashcroft and George W. Bush in The Dark Knight Strikes Again (2001–2) for exploiting the Twin Towers' destruction to further their own political agenda (and while these men were doing exactly that in the aftermath of 9/11, no less).
The Daredevil run, though, is less a satire of Matt's position, or anyone else's, than it is a Brechtian experiment in which Miller draws sympathy to Murdock's point of view while examining it with a microscope at the same time, pushing harder and harder on the question of whether justice is served if lives are left at risk, while putting just as much pressure on the opposing question of whether preventive justice deserves to be called justice at all.
[...]
Matt's reaction to the death of Elektra is to bully Heather into the submissive role that Elektra couldn't play. Miller attributes to Matt not a single thought balloon to suggest that he is aware of the toll his bullying takes on her, while Miller continually draws the reader's attention to that toll via Matt's glib condescension and Heather's devastated reactions to it. The soundness of Daredevil's judgment is now more questionable than ever. Does his heroism stem from a neurotic urge to control everything around him, and is that neurosis reaching a tipping point? After all, we see him suffer a nearly dissociative breakdown when he convinces himself in #182 that Elektra somehow survived her own murder. The splash page of that issue still chills me with its full-face close-up of Matt in a cold sweat, staring into our eyes, as if pleading with us to believe something we know to be utterly false just because he believes it: "SHE'S ALIVE." By #189, only seven issues later, his demeaning paternalism has driven his new fiancée straight to the bottle.
In spite of the ugliness of Matt's abuse, and the emphasis Miller places on that ugliness, it's difficult for me to decide whether terrorizing Heather this way makes Daredevil less heroic or more heroic in Miller's definition. Miller has often spoken about the archetypical hero as something other than human, as dismissive of what others think they need as Matt is of Heather's feelings. When Miller discusses The Dark Knight Strikes Again!, which he and interviewer Gary Groth agree is nearly a parody of superhero comics, he emphasizes Batman's abstract quality, born of the kind of social isolation that Stick enforces on Matt: If Batman's "motto is striking terror" into the hearts of criminals, then "Batman can only be defined as a terrorist. . . . I don't want you to like this guy." "My feeling about Batman is that he's similar [to James Bond] in that you'd want him to be there when you're being mugged, but you wouldn't want to have dinner with him. The way he cheers Hawkman on as he crushes Luthor's skull . . . For me, [such scenes demonstrate] the idea [of Batman] coming into its own without the bullshit on top of it being a socially acceptable role model and all of that."23
Matt's disregard for Heather's emotional state during the Glenn Enterprises affair further clarifies Miller's sense of the heroic impulse: it is prosociety but deeply antisocial, convinced that Right and Wrong are real and unchanging standards but dangerously solipsistic in its interpretation of how to achieve Right at the expense of Wrong. The true hero, according to Miller, is, compared to "normal" human beings at least, a pathological narcissist. Daredevil, with unwavering faith in his own judgment, performs "necessary" services for a culture whether it asks for them or not, while those who are under his protection see him as unfathomable at best and terrifying at worst. But even if Miller thrills to his own extrication of the "lies" and "bullshit" from the Batman persona a few years later, in Daredevil he employs dramatic irony to relate the high cost, to both individuals and their community, of the uncompromising, take-no-prisoners heroism that Americans think they want. "Dirty Harry . . . is a profoundly, consistently moral force," Miller tells Kim Thompson, but that wouldn't keep him out of jail for "administering the 'Wrath of God' on murderers who society treats as victims.
An authoritative study of Jack Kirby, Charles Hatfield has suggested that Marvel Comics distinguished itself in the 1960s in part by placing new stress on the tension intrinsic to superhero comics between the hero's desire for justice and the extralegal means by which she or he pursues it.25 I would add that Marvel's Silver Age stories place the stress primarily on the plotting opportunities provided by this tension, as in the case of Spider-Man, whose good deeds only draw the ire of a public (understandably) suspicious of ununiformed law enforcement.
Miller further develops the "upstanding vigilante" paradox from a cliché of the genre into a philosophical dialectic that, though sometimes decried as fascistic, cannot be reduced to an unironic plea for authoritarian rule. The superheroic fantasies on display in 300, the Sin City graphic novels, The Dark Knight Strikes Again!, and even the controversial Holy Terror cast a clear eye on the paradox of the specifically American fascination with the superheroic ideal. All pose to the reader the implicit question, Is this really what you want? Considering the consistency of this theme dating back to Daredevil,
I think of the pre-9/11 Frank Miller as less conservative than libertarian, a posthippie refugee of the 1960s who disdains the everyone-is-special relativism of grade-school participation trophies and liberal humanism but shares with the conscientious objector and the bra burner a fervency for personal liberty: "I'm no middle-of-the-roader, but I find that people who tend to follow any party line, of the left or right, tend to all end up saying the same thing, which is 'Do what I tell you.' Quit those habits I don't like, don't use the words I don't like, don't draw the pictures I don't want my children to see. . . . So yeah, I have a very jaundiced view toward most authority."26 In any event, Miller's focus on Daredevil's unflagging moral code, and his attention to how a relentless diet of violence might change that code into an ideological prison, allows him to explore the upstanding vigilante figure from multiple angles—the broadly liberal defense of constitutional protection for criminals and victims alike; the broadly conservative ideal of defending one's own body, family, and property without impediment from the state—without readily disclosing his personal politics.
[...]
Slowly and steadily, Miller was maneuvering out of Code territory into the world of frankly adult themes and pressing harder and harder on the contradictions on which a traditional concept of heroism depends. Miller's The Dark Knight Returns steps even further into that world even as it sets up new "walls" to push against, namely, the postsixties culture of liberal humanism and so-called moral relativism. Miller's Batman has all of Daredevil's desire for justice but lacks any of DD's concern for the civil rights of the alleged perpetrators; indeed, if Daredevil's primary concern is with the victims, as Jim Shooter taught Miller, then Batman's primary concern is with crushing the perps. And he gets called on it throughout The Dark Knight Returns by loads of liberal-sounding talking heads who claim that Two-Face and the Joker were actually turned into supervillains by Batman's example, that even convicted homicidal maniacs deserve a second chance, and so forth.
What Miller has done is to take Daredevil's line of legal thinking regarding the rights of criminal defendants, the same line that made him save Bullseye from being mashed on the subway tracks, and put it in the mouths of comic-relief characters such as the brain surgeons and psychologists who try to make Two-Face a productive member of society again. Miller's Batman, by contrast, is an epic hero who refuses to mistake good for evil or vice versa, and he gets to define on his own what each term means. Miller's Matt Murdock refuses such a metaphysical view of good and evil as all-or-nothing opposites on idealist grounds of a different sort. Matt believes that obscured innocence and hidden guilt have to be brought to light intellectually by finding proof and testing it, while Batman, who was at one time represented as a detective at heart, relies entirely on instinct when Miller has the reins.
To be fair, Miller presents the crudeness of Batman's worldview as a serious problem and has even done so in the midst of a conflict that seemed to many Americans to draw the brightest possible line between the national Us and a foreign Them. DC had already published the first issue of Miller and the colorist Lynn Varley's Dark Knight sequel, Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again!, when al-Qaeda operatives commandeered the planes that destroyed the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, an event that, Miller told Groth, made it impossible to leave Batman's catchphrase about "striking terror into the hearts" of evildoers unannotated. As I've mentioned, Batman's dialogue in The Dark Knight Strikes Again!—even the dialogue written before 9/11—makes the ugliness of his philosophy unmistakable: "Striking terror. Best part of the job."
Groth even points out to Miller that one Batman speech, in which he refers to American capitalists and the federal government as "tyrants" and promises that he and his team will "strike like lightning and . . . melt into the night like ghosts," sounds uncannily like "the point of view of radical Islamists" toward the United States.13 Miller doesn't take such a crack at the obvious bad guys, however. Rather, he immediately pounces on the political reaction to the bad guys and how the George Bushes, Dick Cheneys, and John Ashcrofts of the world use crises like 9/11 for their own purposes. They stand in for the heroes we think we need in tumultuous times but slip the bounds of law at every turn—and Miller attempts to reduce our sympathy for them. This Miller, chastened by the 9/11 attacks but ever the shrewd critic of the media that deliver such disasters to us, digs into the fascistic politics of superhero comics, the news media's role in sensationalizing global politics and inciting fanatical nationalism, and the real-world politics of vigilante justice all at once. He claims comics as a space to explore what "heroism" means—and not necessarily to him but rather to contemporary US culture. If the one who "saves" us from tyranny, even the tyranny of our own leaders, claims he has to act like a terrorist to do it, do we even want to be saved?
At the same time, both Miller's comics and his interviews have long scrutinized the insolubility of the paradox—heroism is necessary to restore order, but it's also authoritarian in its purest form, even fascistic—as a necessary evil. Batman seems the purer Miller "hero" in that Batman's sense of justice is unencumbered by any complicating factors. He metes it out as he sees fit, on the basis of an Old Testament version of righteousness: you take my eye, I'll take yours, score settled. This hero is no model for quotidian life, but as in such classical Hollywood Westerns as John Ford's The Searchers (1956), the frontier will remain forever a chaotic wilderness without him. Only Ford's half-wild hero Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) can save his niece from hostile Comanche in post–Civil War Texas, but his intense race hatred makes him a relic, unfit to cross the threshold into the orderly world of law, family, and home that his very wildness has helped bring to the western frontier.
The civic-minded Daredevil would be welcome in any such home, but for the later Miller especially, that taste for civilization and its rules reads as an "impurity," a liberal-humanist streak within traditional superheroism that Miller once talked about strictly in terms of character type (it's the difference between Batman and his "purer" doppelgänger, the Punisher) but that lately he describes as a moral fault, without any of the irony he mustered up a decade ago. There are signs dating back to 1986's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns that this irony was ambivalent anyway, considering the extent to which Batman adopts the Western hero's ruthless stance when taming the "frontier" of racialized criminals, right down to trading in the Batmobile for a horse.
The progressive reverence with which Miller's comics after Daredevil treat that definition of heroism has everything to do with 9/11 and the scale of twenty-first-century global terrorism as Miller has processed it since The Dark Knight Strikes Again!. Back in 2003, he told Groth, "For at least the foreseeable future, [9/11 is] the whole point of my work. I'm going to play around with doing some propagandizing,"15 but this sentiment did not prevent him from making the US government's reaction to the disaster a target for satire in his second Dark Knight story or lambasting the Bush administration for branding disagreement with its policies as providing solace to terrorists. By contrast, the Fixer, the costumed hero of Miller's frankly propagandistic graphic novel Holy Terror (Legendary Comics, 2011), doesn't care whether he gets thrown out of the house or not; his lot is to make the world safe for civilization, American style, not to inhabit it, and he likes it that way. The Fixer, a behemoth who shares a name with a character that Miller created for his high school newspaper's comics page, kills terrorists like a sledgehammer breaks pavement. There's no second-guessing motives or anything else; as far as the Fixer is concerned, if you're Muslim, you've got a bomb strapped to your midsection, so there's no danger that he will smash the wrong face.
Unsurprisingly, the character originally at the center of Holy Terror was Batman. Finally, Miller had freed the character of its impurities. To do that, he also had to burn off the "impurities" of the fundamentalist foe by painting al-Qaeda as representatives of all Islam and all Muslims and playing on every Arab stereotype he could scratch onto his Bristol board, from big noses to using Evil English to express delight in the torture and murder of "infidels." He has matched such images with political commentaries on National Public Radio, his personal blog, and elsewhere that show none of the critical distance that once made his work as jarring and energizing intellectually as the best Dashiell Hammett novel you've ever read. Our terrorist enemy, Miller has said, is "pernicious, deceptive and merciless and wants nothing less than [our] total destruction." Never mind that the majority of victims of al-Qaida and now ISIS are, in fact, Muslims.16
The hardline right position that Miller takes in Holy Terror differs so dramatically from that expressed in interviews dating back to the early 1980s that one has to wonder if he's been replaced by a Life Model Decoy from Nick Fury's supply closet. But Holy Terror was a critical disaster, prompting fans and critics alike to swear off any future Miller work and even to claim that his comics have rallied around a "sexist, fascist" flagpole since as far back as The Dark Knight Returns and possibly even before. Spencer Ackerman echoes the most scathing reviews when he writes in Wired, "Frank Miller doesn't do things halfway. One of the true comic-book greats, he's created several of the most extraordinary stories ever to grace the art form. So perhaps it's fitting that now he's produced one of the most appalling, offensive and vindictive comics of all time.
[...]
I can't subscribe to such uses of Miller's Batman to evaluate Miller's own character. Critics have been mistaking the positions Miller examines in his comics for his own convictions for decades. Indeed, Miller would agree with every one of Kevin's criticisms of Batman and even offer an aesthetic justification for this portrayal that depends on a dramatic irony that is difficult to locate, precisely because superhero comics have always traded in absolutes; criticism of those absolutes would understandably be less obvious to a dedicated reader of superhero comics, not to mention a nonreader convinced of superheroes' intrinsic lack of sophistication, than to someone interested in exploring or exploding the limits of the Batman mythos. Now, however, it not only looks like Miller has given away his critical distance; he also wants everyone to know it and to decide for themselves whether what he's done is worthless as a result, as comics or as political activism.
Back in 1998, discussing 300 with Christopher Brayshaw in the Comics Journal, Miller acknowledges the historical irony of Greece, the epitome of civil organization and intellectualism in the ancient West, needing a nation-state of cold-blooded warriors to fight its battles. In another context, he tells Brayshaw, he might have invited readers to ponder that irony and consider its paradoxical relationship to the development of democratic ideals.19 He does not do so in this context, however. For Miller, 300 is all about the necessity of saving civilization—Western civilization—from barbarism. The three hundred Spartans did what was necessary; they lost the battle, badly, but without their sacrifice, discipline, and utterly unambiguous worldview, we would apparently still be living in mud huts today.
Even with 300, though, Miller argues that he's playing around just a tiny bit with our tendency to collapse heroes with role models. Miller makes Leonidas admirable but not likable and renders most of the other 299 Spartans as less admirable and even less likable. But maybe, Miller has said not only about the Spartans but about the Punisher, Batman, and Superman, cultures need guys like that, and I do mean guys—the reckless male narcissists who can't or won't make subtle distinctions between good and evil—to do the dirty work of "preserving civilization as we know it." Usually, as in The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again! and to a certain extent the noir riff on Dante's Inferno that is Sin City, Miller lets us sit with that ugly possibility, lets us squirm at our own enjoyment and/or disgust. He forces us to wonder if peace and forward movement are ever possible without the bright lines between good and evil and at the same time makes us ponder whether by drawing those lines, we put our humanity at risk. The generous way to interpret what Miller says here is that, like Hitchcock, he's casting doubt on the very notion of heroism that rules superhero comics, that is, the fantasy that superheroes could do what they do and yet remain "ordinary" people. Miller turned Batman into a living symbol of the fear that criminals should feel when threatened by "good," at least in a Platonist universe, but don't. However, when it's no longer comics, the First Amendment, or aesthetic complexity at stake but national security, take-no-prisoners tactics—in art as well as war—look to Miller like the only way to go.
[...]
In what I want to believe is a triumph of Miller the listener over the absolutist Miller who sneers at the same First Amendment he once sacrificed his industry goodwill to defend, Miller now refuses to comment further on his anti-Occupy rant. Perhaps he thinks it all speaks for itself, or perhaps he has accepted certain tenets of his critics just as he graciously (and legitimately, it seems) accepted the differing opinions of Groth and other interviewers as recently as a decade ago. Either way, he has stopped talking much about politics of any stripe. His blog is now abandoned due to "computer problems," Miller says, glowering during an interview for a Wired profile when Sean Howe suggests he find "a better technician" to fix it. "I will," Miller says, after a long silence.22
Look back on Daredevil's nemeses from the '79–'82 run with Miller's current anti-Islamicism in mind, though, and watch the ambiguities and nuances of his first major achievement get harder to pinpoint. Bullseye is a psychopath, complete with brain damage caused by cancer to guarantee it. Elektra is irredeemable despite her ostensibly clean bill of mental health: "The feeling I've been trying to get across is that she's betrayed something. She was meant to be something better than she is."23 But once you've fallen from grace, that's it. Some people are evil, through and through—think of the "reformed" Harvey Dent/Two-Face in The Dark Knight Returns, whose ruined mind no amount of reconstructive surgery can repair—and they must be punished, locked away for good, dismissed, disposed of. There's no other way to get the cancer out of society. Miller dates the rising scale of violent crime in Daredevil back to his getting mugged and robbed in New York: "The experience filled me with anger, and that translated right into my comics."24 As he got angrier, however, the struggle over right and wrong that plagued Daredevil seemed to get a lot less interesting to him than staking an unwavering claim to right.
Howe shrewdly characterizes Miller's use of secondary characters as a kind of misdirection: "Daredevil's dastardly supporting cast allowed Miller to have it both ways by making Daredevil's barrage of kicks and punches look reasonable in comparison."25 The bleak view on Miller's career would paint it as a slow but momentous roll past such apologies for superheroic vigilantism and into the stark light of the Fixer's gleeful, openly sadistic rampages, a development that Howe connects to Miller's personal victimization by crime prior to plotting Batman: The Dark Knight Returns:
"As Miller's career was taking off, the everyday violence in Manhattan at the time was taking its toll. "New York is no longer fit for human habitation," Miller told one friend. After enduring three robberies in the course of a month, he and [the colorist and his then-girlfriend Lynn] Varley decided to escape to LA. While she went out west to search for a home, he stayed behind to set up more work to get them out of debt. He had a check in his pocket when, once again, someone tried to rob him. "Frank just went berserk on the guy," Varley says. "He didn't hit him or anything, he just went so berserk the guy backed off and ran away. We were on edge."26
Such anger floats to the surface of his work with a bang in 1986, the year I graduated from high school, with not one but two smash-hit stories about characters that didn't belong to him: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Miller's most lauded Daredevil story, Daredevil: Born Again, his 1986 return to the Daredevil series, penciled by David Mazzucchelli.
[...]
It's a hell of a second coming for a character whose series stubbornly still bore a Comics Code seal. I won't fault Miller for the anger of that story today any more than I did when I read Born Again at seventeen; on the contrary, I still believe there's not much point in going through adolescence in the United States without some rebel-themed mass culture to embrace for the sole reason that your parents would hate it. Still, I marvel at how much Miller's perspective on his audience had changed between 1983's "Roulette" and the Born Again story line in 1985–86.
According to Howe's account of Marvel in the eighties, Miller's inspiration for Born Again was losing everything himself. Ramped up on the success of Ronin and eager to get away from the city that fostered at least one person's transformation into a real-life vigilante ("one Bernard Goetz is enough"), Miller moved to Los Angeles, found himself dead broke, and decided to pitch a new Daredevil story that started with Matt Murdock in similar straits.28 No doubt it was satisfying to create a world in which a bloated mob boss—somebody, anybody—could actually be held accountable for downturns of fortune, instead of such mundane external forces as random robberies or astronomically high rent. But Born Again also recommends interpretations of Miller's work as reflective of his worldview, making it more difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt when he says he is investigating the justification of defensive violence rather than sponsoring it.

First/Previous/Next
Jack breathed heavily as he dozed in his hammock, trying his best to doze and get what little REM sleep he could. Despite his brain telling him he had to, his body just wasn’t cooperating that well, with a combination of the earlier ‘bedtime’, the rattling cargo on the shelves around them, and Jack clearly anticipating the probable danger ahead all leaving him in an uncomfortable flux state of semi-lucidity.
Deciding to make the best of the situation, he just kept his eyes shut, trying to clear his mind of his worries as he simply listened to the sound of his own breathing and the slight rumbling of the shuttle and he lay there in the hammock with Chiyo.
His battleskin underneath his clothes actually felt good in the heated cargo compartment they were in, in no small part due to his new armour, which had done a good job of keeping his body well-ventilated so that there wasn’t any discomfort when he moved. He had no idea if things were similar for the other armour types, but he and Nika had agreed that it was a perfect fit.
Jack had no idea how long it had been since they started, but there hadn’t been any problems on their journey. The crew had kept to themselves throughout, though Chiyo had been confident they had been drinking on the job, causing Sephy to loop the internal cameras and check more of the containers for anything tasty or expensive, and Jack was grateful for the bag of steak-flavoured crisps the Skritta had thrown his way earlier.
Almost idly he shifted slightly in his doze, causing the figure he was cuddled up to move with him. He had almost forgotten Chiyo was there, and he instinctively wrapped his arms around her reassuringly, before all of a sudden there was a sudden sharp wave of force, causing him to snap awake with a start, spotting where his hand had accidentally been for a split second before the hammock tipped over, causing them both to thump down to the ground with a hard thud.
Hearing the groans from all around them, Jack could see that they hadn’t been the only ones woken up by that, as Sephy was rubbing her head on the floor, while Nika was on her feet scanning for threats.
“Fuck! What was that?” one of the crew at the front exclaimed.
“I dunno! Some kind of turbulence!” another one of the men grumbled. “Fuck, rookie! You’ve gotta keep an eye on things!”
“What!? The lights were green!” the rookie exclaimed in disbelief.
“Yeah, suuuure they were!” the first voice retorted, clearly not believing them.
“Um…sorry about that,” Jack whispered. “Accident!”
Suuure it was! Chiyo teased back. Some warning would have been nice!
“Damn, well that timing could have been worse!” Sephy shrugged with a grin. “We’re nearly there, only about fifteen minutes out.”
“In that case, gear up and get ready to move,” Alora ordered them all. “We don’t want to hang around here.”
“Roger that.” Jack sighed, as he got up and began to pack.
*****
“Coming in for a landing,” the old captain professionally called out over the ship-wide comm, as Sephy finished hiding the evidence of their scrounging of the cargo.
“We all good?” Nika asked, as she gave her shotgun a quick check out of habit.
“Yep!” Sephy grinned, practising her quick draw with her twin pistols. “These magnetic clips on our armour are dead useful! Even you won’t lose your weapons easily, Jack!”
“Oh for fucks sake, you’re still gonna bring that up?!” Jack groaned as the others snorted in amusement. “You would have dropped your stuff too!”
Well, even if you do drop anything, they should automatically reattach if you’re in close enough proximity and nothing’s impeding it.
“Like Iron Man or something, right?” Jack asked, earning a bemused look from Chiyo, who obviously didn’t understand the reference, but nodded anyway.
“Heh, that doesn’t work with grenades, right?” Sephy asked with a grin. “That one might be a bit counterproductive!”
“I am very sure it doesn’t!” Alora giggled. “But Clan Bharzum know what they’re doing! I’m sure everything will be fine!”
They all held on as the shuttle made its final approach, before finally plonking to the ground. Everyone was ready by the time the crew had everything powered down.
“So, head to the docks, find the crew and be out of here in less than ten minutes,” Jack stated as if to remind everyone of what they were here to do
“Yep!” Alora confirmed. “This should only be a border town with not many people around, so I doubt there’ll even be that many ships around. Add the fact that the crew is all Megafauna, and the fact they know we’re coming, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Um…guys….” Nika called out as the cargo ramp began to open, and Dante gave a low whine of concern. “We might have a slight problem…”
The crisp, cold breeze that buffeted them was instantly punctuated by the sounds of shouts, screams and bedlam in the distance, broken up by the occasional burst of gunfire, but it was only when the ramp fully extended to let them down could they see the chaos they were about to walk into.
The Cypherport they had expected should have been a quiet, small border town with a simple dock for traders and fishers…
The Cypherport they had landed right at the edge of made the most ghetto streets of Detroit look tame by comparison!
Tightly packed shacks and dilapidated houses leaned menacingly over a labyrinth of narrow winding streets, barely illuminated by the many grimy, flickering neon signs all over the town that cast eerie shadows over the crumbling streets, adorned with gang symbols, crude drawings and warnings, with all sorts of dangerous looking people milling about, from what they could see from where they were.
I don’t understand… Chiyo began. This can’t be the right place? We researched this place, it wasn’t meant to be like this at all!
“Maybe the info you found is outdated,” Sephy pointed out. “But everything I’ve got says this is the place…what the fuck!?”
“Everybody stick close together!” Alora warned as they slowly and carefully made their way down the ramp, with the workers barely giving them any acknowledgement. “Our plan hasn’t changed. We head to the docks and get out.”
“I can plot us a basic route, but I’m not throwing drones up until we need to,” the Skritta warned as she typed a few things on one of her tablet devices, converting the view they saw from the cargo ramp into a basic map.
“Should we use the Broaches of Disguise?” Jack asked Alora, who nodded instantly.
“Good idea, Jack,” the Eladrie agreed. “The less attention we bring to ourselves, the better.”
Quickly activating their magic, the group cautiously made their way out of the tiny Corvin Enterprises drop-off point into the shadowy dystopian streets. Now that they were close up, they could see that the buildings around them were thin and mostly composed of wood with multiple floors, with the majority having steep, high-peaked roofs that dissuaded them from attempting to traverse along the rooftops.
Looking around Jack could already see a few faces of the shady-looking inhabitants gazing their way with suspicion and curiosity, causing him to keep one hand on his gun. He didn’t care what any of these guys wanted, if anyone came up to them with no good reason, he was ready to attack at a moment's notice.
Was this what it was like to be a cop in America?
“Hey man! You wanna buy some grass?” someone called out from the side, and Jack could see a few street vendors peddling their wares from makeshift stalls. The one that had called out to them was obviously trying to sell them drugs of dubious quality, but a few others had weapons or random electronics, probably stolen. Many of the vendors were obscured under hoods or facemasks, making it impossible to discern their intentions at a glance. Jack just curtly shook his head, and kept walking forward.
This is so sketchy, Chiyo pointed out, while doing her best to keep up with them on foot, not attracting any attention by floating in the air like she usually did.
“So far so good,” Jack whispered back, before a shark crack of gunfire echoed through the streets ahead, followed by the sounds of a few smashed bottles.
“That was closer to the centre of the town,” Sephy told them, checking her map. “We stick along the outside, we can avoid that shit.”
“Speaking of shit, fucking hell it smells bad,” Nika growled as her nose was assaulted by the pungent odour wafting around them.
“It’s just like the bad parts of the city,” Alora noted. “The quicker we get out of here the better.”
“Docks aren’t far,” Sephy whispered to them. “Just down the hill.”
“I see it…” Jack whispered back as they rounded a corner onto a particularly narrow street, where a gang of thugs aggressively stared them down as they passed, though didn’t go after them. A few of them whispered among themselves and pointed, causing Dante to lowly growl under his breath.
“Reckon they made us, Chiyo?” Nika asked the Ilithii as the group briskly kept walking, toeing the fine line between casual walking without fear and running to safety.
It is possible, Chiyo replied unsurely. I don’t know for sure.
“Then we lose them in the alleyways,” Alora muttered under her breath. “Are they following us?”
They look like they’re debating it, Chiyo confirmed.
“We can break line of sight up ahead, alleyway to the right,” Sephy whispered, and Jack nodded as he led the way. They turned down the alleyway, quickly sprinting for the next turning the moment line of sight was broken, keeping their footsteps as quiet as possible as they maintained their general direction down to the docks, before finally emerging on the waterfront to a few curious glances of some very inebriated sailors.
“How are we for time?” Alora asked nobody in particular, as Jack checked his commlink.
“It’s been about ten minutes,” Jack told her. “Just need to find our ride and we can get out of here.”
“Yeah, but these docks are fucking huge,” Nika pointed out. “It’s nobody’s fault, but we’ve still got bad intel about this place.”
“Then we just walk up and down and hope for the best until we see our guy.” Jack shrugged. “We know the kind of people we’re looking for at least, right?”
Right, Chiyo agreed. Let’s go! Keep your wits about you!
*****
“Where the fuck are these assholes?” Nika grumbled about 15 minutes later as they checked the various piers for any sign of their contact. “The client told us they knew we’d be on our way!”
“Doesn’t mean they have to sit in place I suppose,” Jack reasoned. “Though I’m surprised that in a place like this they wouldn’t have a guard set up for their ship.”
“Raises a valid point though,” Sephy spoke up. “Could we steal one of the ships and make our way to where we need to go?”
Don’t forget that we need to come back here! Chiyo warned.
“Okay, we ‘borrow’ one of the ships and return it intact then…” Sephy suggested half-heartedly with chuckles from the others.
“We can keep looking around here or we can wait for someone that looks like our contacts to show up,” Alora began grimly.
“Which will take time, which we shouldn’t waste, especially if people have worked out we’re here,” Nika prompted. “Anyone with basic astral sight can see through our disguises, and anyone smart and knowledgeable enough can work it out too, so waiting around is a huge risk.”
“Or we go looking for our contacts.” Alora grimaced, hating the idea herself. “There was a lot of noise in the middle of the district. Whatever it is, if they’re not here, they’re probably there.”
Along with everyone else, Chiyo pointed out. It’s a risky move.
“Do you think it’s a risk worth taking?” Jack asked, not having a particular opinion either way.
“I would frame it as our ‘least worst option’”. Alora tentatively nodded. “But in this situation we don’t want to hang around any longer than we need to.”
“You’re right, but we’ll need to be careful.” Jack sighed. “If we can’t find them, Sephy’s idea is probably the next best thing we can do. Unless anyone else has any better ideas?”
Looking around, everyone shook their heads.
“Very well then.” Alora nodded slowly. “Everyone stay as close together as you can without attracting attention. Jack, Nika, you lead the way.”
“Got it.” Nika whispered, Jack nodding in agreement as he took point, heading towards what looked like a busy main street in the distance. Though it wasn’t as covert as he would like, he figured that they could hide in plain sight while looking for their contacts.
“Eww…” Alora muttered under her breath, as a slurring reptilian almost stumbled into them, reeking of cheap alcohol and vomit as they staggered aimlessly past, weaving unsteadily across the dirt road with glazed eyes before they smacked into a crumbling wall, earning laughs from a few nearby crowds as he pitched forward and threw up on the floor.
“Damn! Wouldn’t want to be him in the morning!” Sephy quipped, as the group saw two shady-looking men approaching the drunk with ill-intent.
I doubt that fool has anything left worth stealing, Chiyo noted as they put some distance away from the imminent mugging.
“Wait, shouldn’t we do something?” Jack asked, only for Alora to sharply shake her head.
“Best not get involved,” Nika added as they saw the two muggers run away, while the drunk guy flailed around helplessly. “Or we bring much worse down upon us.”
“Yeah…” Jack sighed, who couldn’t help but agree with the logic. He felt uneasy as they weaved their way through the sea of gutter trash, not finding anybody who looked like their contacts, but gradually getting closer to the sounds of debauchery up ahead.
As they got closer to what sounded like a wild party up ahead, Jack spotted a small, rat-like Lizta squatting down right in the middle of the road taking a dump, to the immense displeasure of Alora as they gave the degenerate a wide berth.
“Reckon that was the Pooping Bandit?” Sephy joked, as Alora shuddered in disgust at what they had just witnessed.
“Doubt it.” Nika snorted in amusement. “Designated shitting streets are probably the norm here. Hell I’d sooner trust a dirt road than anything else in this shithole.”
Let’s hurry up so we can get out of here! Chiyo hurried them along. With any luck this will be the worst thing that happens this weekend.
“Let’s hope.” Jack agreed as they kept on moving, ignoring the inquisitive glances from the various beggars and panhandlers sitting at the side of the road begging for change. Though Jack wouldn’t have minded tossing a few credsticks their way, he didn’t want to look like an appealing target for any of the gangers and other trash hanging around.
“Watch out for pickpockets,” Sephy warned, as she checked the movement of a mangy toad-looking being who tried to sidle up past them, flashing him her gun, which caused him to back off.
As the group reached the top of the hill, the sounds of raucous laughter, clinking glasses and pounding music became deafening, drowning out everything else in a cacophony of noise that reverberated through the air. The streets around them were packed with a dense crowd, clamouring and jostling as they drank what looked like ale out of dirty-looking glasses, many of them chipped or smashed.
At the centre of the main street was a great obelisk jutting out of the road several metres high that looked like it was made of bright green glass, with white runes gently glowing in swirls along the base, but Chiyo looked genuinely upset by the way the star attraction of Cypherport had been defaced and almost completely blanketed by old graffiti and vandalism, and Jack couldn’t blame her. Though it bore little significance to him, he still felt a pang of sheer disappointment at seeing such disrespect for what should have been a cultural artefact, as a blue-scaled reptilian walked up to it, dropped his trousers and began pissing against it, while another placed his hand against it and puked, leaving a yellow stream along the faded glass.
“Leave it Chiyo, it’s not worth it.” Alora whispered to the distressed Ilithii, who looked like she was about to attack the men for their desecration, with Dante whining as he pawed at Chiyo’s leg.
“Guys? Over here.” Sephy called to the group and pointed. Just ahead of them was a huge building that might have once been a town hall or a temple of some kind, but looked like it had long since been repurposed into a huge nightclub.
Bolting onto the remains of what could have once been a religious symbol was a poorly maintained neon sign that kept flickering the words ‘The Soggy Pussy’.
“Welp.” Jack began. “I think we know where they probably are.”
“Well, they’re not out here.” Nika sighed. “No getting around it then, looks like we’re heading in!”
“Looks like it.” Alora sighed, as she took point.
I doubt it needs to be said, but don’t drink or take anything here, Chiyo warned, as they sidestepped a group of four off-duty Red Legion soldiers who were taking turns snorting lines of white powder off of a half-rotted wooden picnic table.
“Really? Aww damn,” Sephy joked as they politely made their way through the crowd to the front door, where a greeter was hyping up the crowd.
“You like dicks? We’ve got dicks!” The Xarak grinned as he pointed to members of the crowd. “Here at The Soggy Pussy we got lotsa dicks for you to choose! Hairy mammal dicks! Dry reptilian dicks! Wet amphibian dicks! Soft aquatic dicks! Questionable animal dicks! Laaaaady dicks!”
“Lovely…” Alora muttered under her breath as they gave the hypeman a wide berth and headed to the door, past the towering bouncers standing guard at the entrance. For a moment Jack thought they would give them trouble, but after assessing their worthiness in the mysterious way that bouncers do, they allowed them to pass without a problem.
Ducking under the buzzing signs and projections of various disgusting things that would make even Kizzarith blush, they group was immediately engulfed in a maelstrom of chaos. The pounding bass of the local shitty music swirled through the air like a physical force, shaking the very foundations of the building and almost completely drowning everything else out. Overhead, lights flashed and span in a dizzying array of colours, casting the room into a kaleidoscope of light and shadow, disorienting the group as they looked around for their contacts. Overhead, they could see a set of well-used heavy turrets scattered all along the ceiling looking out over the crowd, a sure sign that violence was commonplace here.
We should head to the bar. Chiyo indicated to the far end of the huge room. Maybe we can ask the bartenders if they’ve seen them, might need to throw them a bribe though…
“Stay behind me.” Jack warned, as he pushed his way past the writing, dancing bodies all around them tangling to the rhythm of the music, causing him to almost gag from the putrid scent of alien sweat and pheromones. He kept to the walls as a fight broke out in the middle of the dance floor between a few rival gangs, only for a few more bouncers on duty to step in and royally beat the perpetrators until they could no longer move, chucking them against the wall to take a nap.
Turning around to make sure his friends were still close, Jack moved away from the outer wall to avoid a series of women giving ‘special attention’ to a few guys, their expressions far from focused on what was going on all around them, making a beeline for the bar past a group of mercenaries smoking something questionable that left a sickly sweet smoke in the air around them.
“What you kids want?” one of the grungy-looking Xarak bartenders grunted at them with a sly expression as they approached the bar, surprising Jack that he didn’t call them out for their age, or being here in the first place. He simply guessed they didn’t care.
“A crew of River Giants,” Alora asked the man, slipping a credstick across the bar, which he pocketed with a greasy palm. “We seek the captain.”
“Yeah they’re around.” The barman grinned a creepy, toothy smile, staring at Alora a little too intently. “First balcony up on the left.
“Thank you.” Alora nodded as politely as she could before turning away.
“Finally, let’s find them and get the fuck out of here!” Nika shouted out over the noise of the crowd. “This place is dodgy as fuck!”
More than that, there was something off about that barman, Chiyo added, with all of the group agreeing with nodding heads.
“We’d better make this quick then!” Sephy urged them on. “I see stairs heading up over there!”
Making their way through the crowd they got to the staircase in the far corner of the room, near to where an avian DJ in a ridiculous purple pimp outfit was changing tracks while hanging a crack pipe out of his beak.
“Watch yourselves going up,” Jack warned as he noted the many spills dripping beneath their feet. Carefully they made their way up, dodging a few intoxicated patrons coming in the opposite direction with by now well-practised fitness.
“That looks like them over there!” Nika pointed in the distance. Indeed, a group of about 5 or 6 large green-skinned megafauna were sat around a small coffee table laughing at a joke one of them had told in between taking shots of hard liquor.
“Excuse me?” Alora called out to the oldest one, a bald man with a thick grey beard in a simple toga. “Are you Captain Ripples-On-Salt?”
“That I am lass!” The River Giant boomed out with a grinning jovial voice. “I must say you kids are all here much earlier than we expected!”
How so? Chiyo asked curiously. You were made aware by our mutual client that we would be on our way and to expect our arrival. You didn’t even post a guard on your boat!
“What in the name of deep waters are you talking about?” Captain Ripples-On-Salt scoffed. “We got word that the mess in the city meant we wouldn’t expect you until morning, got some tokens to come here to tide us over…”
“Word from who?” Alora asked incredulously.
As Alora spoke to the captain, Jack had an uneasy feeling as he looked around. Though the crowd was massive, and most seemed to pay them no heed as they conducted their business, he could somehow sense that eyes were on him, even if he couldn’t identify where they were.
“Guys, it doesn’t matter!” Nika told them. “We should finish up and get the fuck out of here!”
As Jack looked around he suddenly felt a strange sensation forcing his senses into overdrive. Immediately dismissing it as nothing malicious, he found himself looking down at his hand where the Ring of the Berserker was snugly attached. If it had actually done anything since he had first put it on, Jack didn’t know, but now for the first time it seemed to vibrate slightly, as the gem in the middle began to glow a slight blood-red, and only grew more intense in feeling…
“Alright, finish up…” the Captain began to order his crew. “We have a-”
“Fuck!” Sephy yelled in alarm, but Jack was already moving, suddenly aware of the danger as he quickly dodged to the side to avoid the knife, before grabbing the Xarak attacker’s knife-hand in a counter, using their forward momentum to drag them in a circle to smash it’s head into the wall in one solid motion. Sephy quickly used her wings to put some distance between her and her attacker, before she magdumped her twin pistols into the Korrigan that tried to stab her while the others had barely processed what was happening.
Sensing thunderous movement closing on him, Jack drew his axe and spun around in a diagonal slash, only for the axe to be caught in a single meaty hand, while the other reached forward and closed around his neck. Quickly letting go of his axe with one of his hands, the panicking Jack grabbed onto his attacker’s fingers to barely hold them back from snapping his neck then and there…
As he struggled to break free from the hold, Jack growled in defiance at the large Ogar man he really didn’t want to see again…
“Embrace your redemption boy!” the Redeemer snarled with a face bearing scars from their last encounter, his eyes staring into Jack with hatred as he squeezed tighter…
Desperately, Jack tried to break the grapple, but the Redeemer was just too strong! Behind him, he could hear the others with their own problems, so he couldn’t afford to stall for time. The confines of the balcony made it difficult for him to move around to try and slip out of The Redeemer’s grasp.
Unless!
His legs swung at the wall as the Redeemer flailed Jack about, trying to finish him, but Jack held stubbornly on. Gritting his teeth, Jack kept his footing, before he suddenly kicked off from the wall in a burst of strength, sending The Redeemer staggering back, still keeping his hold on Jack’s neck. As the two heavy forms hit the wooden safety rail, the long-rotted wood gave way like paper and smashed into splinters and the two figures headed straight to the ground below…
*****
First/Previous/Next
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(Previous Part)
(Part 001)
Following the end of the two opening and closing arguments, the Great Debate enters a new format. No longer do Phoebe and Neil speak unopposed, but instead they both stand at their respective podiums on the left and right, with Yamir positioned between them.
The Minotaur holds up a microphone and speaks. "People of humanity, today has truly been eye-opening to this humble chef. Mister Adams and Miss Hiro have both revealed shocking and interesting information. Not only has Neil spoken of Threats we will someday face, originating from within our own galaxy as well as more distant ones, but Phoebe has told us that Humanity has lost its Flaw! What this means for the future, I cannot say exactly, but I am certainly interested in hearing more."
The Minotaur turns to look at Neil. "Commander Adams, is it fair to say that your position in this debate is that humanity should split in half for the sake of maintaining a cohesive bloodline and culture? Should they split apart in order to ensure a more 'pure' species takes root in the Milky Way, while allowing demon and monster-lovers to stay here, on Tarus II?"
The corner of Neil's eye flickers while he forces a smile. "There is more to it than that. We are also vulnerable to a single act of destruction! By placing all of humanity on one world, we make it possible for a powerful Cosmic deviant such as Mephisto to annihilate our species in merely one attack! As for leaving humans behind, I would honestly prefer if all humans went to Maiura while leaving the demons behind, but that doesn't seem likely to happen."
"You contradict yourself!" Phoebe exclaims, interjecting without hesitation. "You say humanity should split in order to ensure we cannot fall all at once, but you would also rather all the humans stay together in a mono-culture. Admit the truth, Neil. You're just a bigot who hates demons! I bet you'd even prefer it if our monster allies weren't a part of your perfect and pure society!"
"That is not what I said." Neil answers calmly. "Humans need to stick together in these times. We have a tiny fraction of the population of other Sentients. We cannot risk spreading ourselves out and preventing our population growth from accelerating."
Yamir holds up his hand to politely prevent Phoebe from jumping in. "That is an interesting statement, Commander. But what about Miss Hiro's revelation that humans are potentially a superior species in the genetics department? If humans can indeed somehow impregnate or become impregnated by non-human species while almost always bearing human children, then does this not imply that humans are no longer at risk of going extinct? Why, a single human male could sire hundreds of offspring with non-human females!"
Neil's eye twitches again. He starts to open his mouth, only to pause for half a second. Then he opens it again, but closes it once more, as if struggling to speak the truth within his mind.
All at once, he erupts with anger. "Those will NOT be trueborn humans! They will be bastards born of sin! I don't care what Miss Hiro says, a demon who gives birth to a so-called human will actually be spawning a servant of the devils!"
Countless people in the audience flinch in surprise at Neil's explosive words. Many outright gasp, shocked he would say such words out loud.
Indeed, many humans, especially those loyal to him in the military, hold such views. But the reason they feel expectant toward him is because they believed Neil would make their views more palatable to the masses.
Instead, he does the opposite!
...
All across Tarus II, more than a million humans watching the broadcast recoil from their screens in horror, hearing his clearly xenophobic views made manifest through his wicked lips.
"I can't believe this clown!" One human male civilian says. "Everyone knows Neil doesn't like demons, but who knew the true depths of his hatred?? There are obviously countless evil demons out there, but I'm not gonna listen to this prick while he shits on the good ones like Samantha! She saved my boy from an infection that would've killed him!"
"She helped my husband recover from a broken back." A woman nearby adds. "He fell from a roof and would have been paralyzed for life, but Samantha and Leeroy patched him right up. If the Commander can't even acknowledge the good done by demons like them, how can we trust his judgment?"
A trooper sitting in the same room frowns. "Neil might have gone a little too far, but you can't pretend he's wrong. Humans need to stick together! We need to repopulate!"
"We CAN repopulate! We'll easily make babies with tons of non-humans!"
"Those won't be humans! Like Neil said, they'll be half-breed hellspawn!"
"You're just as bad as him, you bastard! Get the hell out of this bar! We don't want you here!"
...
Phoebe listens to Neil's words, unaware of the outbreak of anti-Neil sentiment across Tarus II, but fully aware that his words absolutely went too far.
Rather than retort or saying anything, Phoebe remains silent, allowing Neil to continue shouting expletives while Yamir's expression turns dimmer and dimmer.
A wise person does not interrupt their enemies when they are making a mistake, Phoebe thinks to herself.
"Commander, are you saying that human children born of demons won't be trueborn humans after all, but half-breed bastards?" Yamir asks.
"That's exactly what I'm saying!" Neil snaps. "How can anyone think differently?! You really expect to take the WORDSMITH at face value? That imbecile has shot humanity in the foot too many times to be believed. How can he possibly know about the long-term effects of cross-breeding with demons? He only fixed the Flaw two weeks ago!"
"And what about humans breeding with monsters, such as Minotaurs, Harpies, and Goblins?" Yamir asks, his eyes suddenly narrowing to slits. "Are our progeny also considered... half-breed filth?"
"I-" Neil starts to say, only to suddenly realize the trap he just fell into. "I... that's not what I meant! Monsters are a valued ally of humanity! They're not the same as demons. Not at all!"
"So you believe that it would be fine if humans were to hatch children with their monstrous comrades?" Yamir asks, pressing the point harder.
"I... well- well of course!" Neil stutters, as sweat begins to build up on his forehead. "Monsters are... they are good friends... NO! God dammit, do you really want to make me say it?!"
Neil's fury explodes once again. "Humans belong with HUMANS! Not demons! Not monsters! Humans belong with their own kind! There, I said it! Does that make you feel better?!"
Yamir, and many other monsters like him, look at Neil with a new set of eyes, suddenly realizing their commander isn't only anti-demon, but anti-monster as well. His explosive words shatter the beliefs of countless humans, making them even angrier as his bigoted words touch upon a reverse scale of anger they never expected to feel on this day.
Many people ball their hands into fists while rage-filled thoughts roll around in their heads.
I can't believe it! Attacking demons is one thing, but the monsters have proven time and time again to be humanity's most loyal allies!
How could the Commander think such thoughts? King Kar gave his life to save humanity! Millions of monsters died during Stormbringer!
My best friend was a HARPIE! That fellow was my brother in arms! I'll never forgive the Commander for this!
Despite his rage-filled words, Neil doesn't lose his rationality. For once, he simply feels that holding back is no longer beneficial.
What does it matter if he enrages half of the humans?
So what if they decide to stay with Phoebe.
Would he really want a bunch of weak-willed demon and monster-lovers to come with him to his idyllic paradise on Maiura?
NO!
Far better for him to keep the humans who hold the values closest to his to come along.
Besides! Neil realizes something extremely important.
Humans aren't just able to breed with non-humans now. They're also able to breed with one another much more easily!
That means a much smaller population of pureblooded humans will be able to increase in number faster and more reliably than before.
So what if half of humanity stays with the First Wordsmith? Those who go along with Neil will be the most loyal, diehard purists of human thought he could ever pray for.
And so, Neil suddenly goes on the offensive...
"Wake up!" Neil barks at the crowd, while turning away from Yamir to ignore him entirely. "Do you disagree with me? Do you truly think these monsters are our friends?! It was a monster ruler, Bahamut, who imprisoned me and countless numbers of you! Bahamut even imprisoned my opponent, Phoebe! Do you really think that just because a tiny portion of monsters and demons have chosen to 'side' with humanity that they can be trusted? I THINK NOT!"
Neil sneers viciously. "These creatures are only pretending to be our allies! When push comes to shove, if the Volgrim attack, or the demons launch a full-scale invasion with the help of their new Archdemon, I would not count on our so-called Monster Allies to stand alongside us! For all we know, many of these monsters could be Volgrim Changelings! Spies sent to keep an eye on us until the time is right!"
Neil's words further enrage the people sympathetic to the demons and monsters, but at the same time they fire up his supporters, making them raise their fists in solidarity!
"Finally!" One soldier exclaims with a huge grin. "The Commander's saying what needs to be said! I'm about sick and goddamn tired of pretending to be friendly with these scaled, feathered, furry freaks!"
"Here, here, brother!" Another soldier adds. "Screw these 'demi' sympathizers! My trigger finger's itching!"
However, as Neil continues to rant, Phoebe's frown deepens. She finally realizes his newfound goal, and this causes her to finally speak up.
"Alright Neil. That is QUITE enough!" Phoebe roars, her voice booming loud enough to actually startle Neil into a momentary lapse of speaking. For some reason, the voice she bellows with doesn't just jolt him into silence, but for a moment, it even frightens him!
Something about her voice hits him with physical force, making the blood in his body roil momentarily. He whips his head to the side to look at her, stunned by this strange... attack?
"I think we've all gotten your point." Phoebe barks. "You want to split humanity? You want to form a coalition of bigots and xenophobes? FINE! Anyone willing to support you, as far as I'm concerned, is not a true human! We're more than violent thugs! We are HUMANS! That means we have compassion! We have love! We have empathy! I will not tolerate your intolerance a moment longer!"
"Compassion, love, empathy?!" Neil shoots back. "You speak of those traits as if they haven't resulted in the weakness that brought us down to our current numbers! It was your spineless husband who nearly brought our species to extinction!"
"My husband is a great man!" Phoebe retorts, shoving Yamir out of the way so she can shove a finger in Neil's face. "His flaws can be fixed with time! He can become smarter! He can become wiser! But you're a fool who is stuck in the past! All you want is to drag us into a never-ending war!"
"Humans thrive in times of danger!" Neil counters, slapping her hand aside. "We are a species with battle baked into our blood! Not a bunch of pathetic, piss-ant pansies! Maybe YOUR ways are holding us back!"
"I'll tell you what's holding us back-!" Phoebe starts to exclaim...
But suddenly, a flash of light erupts in the middle of the stage, catching her and Neil both offguard. They both step backward as that light materializes between them, in front of Yamir.
At that moment, a figure materializes out of thin air, his disposition imposing, and a powerful aura of divine energy rolling off the sword held in his right hand. In his left, a shepherd's staff hangs loosely, while a brilliant golden crown rests atop his head. He wears a white military uniform that appears distinguished and regal at the same time.
"Enough." Hope Hiro says, as his figure comes into focus for the cameras. "Enough from both of you."
Hope looks at Neil with a strange, distant expression. Then he turns his head to look at Phoebe, this time with a faintly empathetic look that shows his appearing here was not an easy decision to make.
The Second Wordsmith turns his attention to the people in the audience.
He lifts the sword in his hands up into the air, revealing its full glory to the people watching from all corners of humanity.
"Humans... are an Apex Species." Hope says slowly. "We are formidable. We are powerful. But we are also vulnerable. We are disorganized, distracted, and disturbed. Look inside yourselves. Is this the Humanity you want the rest of the galaxy to see? A shameful bunch of arguing monkeys who can't make up their minds on anything?"
Hope lowers the blade known as Excalibur, but continues to allow its power to permeate outward, bathing the audience in waves of Holy Energy.
"My friend, Neil, has said a lot of things today." Hope says slowly. "Many things that I agreed with, and many that I did not. I cannot in good conscience allow him to slander the good name of our monster allies. Monster King Kar was a close friend of mine. Perhaps even my best friend. At the same time, while I have always held plenty of resentment toward the demons, I cannot go to the extreme lengths Neil has. There are good demons out there. Great demons. Demons I would trust more than some of my fellow humans."
Humanity's second most renowned Hero sighs softly.
"Phoebe has also made some good points. I watched from afar, and honestly, I became a little impressed by her and Jason's plans for a greater humanity. Can you imagine it? Our people... ascending to all become Heroes in their own right? It is a vision of the future I'd dearly like to see."
He smiles for a moment, but then that moment passes, and the smile slips away.
"I have a vision of my own. I have a vision of a united humanity... but different from the one proposed by Phoebe."
This time, Hope lifts up his left arm, revealing the coiled head of a Shepherd's Staff.
"This is the Dominion Rod." Hope says evenly. "It is possessed by the soul of the very first Human Hero. The ancient Hero-King known as Jepthath. And the power he wields is terrifying, indeed."
"Through the power of the Dominion Rod, those who swear fealty to Jepthath can become linked to one another. You have already had your Flaws cured. You will develop different, unique powers over time. But the Dominion Rod can take this future trajectory... and supercharge it!"
Hope's eyes flash with excitement.
"Those who swear fealty can become united in minds, bodies, and souls! We will share our thoughts! We will share our desires! If one of you gains the power to manipulate flames, ALL humans will obtain that power! If a human gains the power to copy a Psion, then ALL humans will obtain that power!"
"Even if not one human gains a new power, we will all share ONE power; the one belonging to Jepthath! We will become as strong as the ancient Titans! We'll have bodies capable of shattering buildings! The strength to move mountains! The speed to do battle with Demon Emperors! Every human will reach the apex of what the mortal world can offer!"
Hope glances at Phoebe for a moment before looking back at the people again.
"What humanity lacks is time. Perhaps, if Phoebe and Jason have their way, some of you, many of you, or even all of you may ascend to become Heroes as strong as Jason and I. But then again, perhaps none of you will! And even if you do, how long will that take?"
"By swearing fealty to Jepthath, we can immediately empower our species! We can gain the capital to stand our ground and make our enemies afraid of crossing us! We won't need to fear deceptions, because our minds will be united. No Changeling will infiltrate us, because our minds will be united! And even if someone succeeds... we can simply crush them like a bug! The other Sentients will no longer be able to trample on our dignity!"
As Hope speaks, the eyes of many humans light up with excitement.
Who wouldn't want to gain incredible strength and speed, especially if it came as easily as the Second Wordsmith claims?
Who wouldn't want to solve the problems plaguing human society just by swearing fealty to an ancient, powerful Hero?
Who wouldn't want to uplift themselves and gain access to a variety of powers as more and more humans manifested their true human powers?
Many people who were outraged at Neil find themselves leaning more toward Hope's proposition.
Many who were ardent followers of Neil also become swayed by Hope's offer. For plenty of soldiers, more strength means more of a chance at becoming powerful enough to protect their friends and families!
While the monster and demon allies of humanity aren't exactly enthralled by an offer that won't benefit them, they do feel that Hope suddenly feels like a less vile alternative to Neil's outright xenophobia. Better for humanity to become capable of protecting itself while staying friends with its demon and monster allies than to turn on them viciously.
Just as Hope is about to hold up the Dominion Rod and ask for his fellow humans to follow his lead...
Foop!
Another figure pops into existence, this time on Phoebe's left.
Jason Hiro!
The First Wordsmith, like his counterpart, watched the proceedings, only now deciding to make his move after seeing his clone break the unspoken rule of not interfering with Neil and Phoebe's debate.
Phoebe jumps in surprise as she feels her husbands hand lightly press against her back. She turns to look at him.
"Jason?"
"It's me." Jason says, smiling at her. "It's really me. I solved the issue... and it seems Hope did too."
Jason looks over Phoebe's head at his clone, who also turns to look at him.
Hope and Jason frown in unison, with Hope immediately becoming annoyed that Jason would show his face, while Jason is equally annoyed he had to make an appearance to even out the power imbalance.
"You just couldn't help yourself, could you?" Jason asks blandly, his voice projecting to the audience without even needing a microphone. "You had to come here and swing your big sword around, let everyone know about your super-duper plan to perfectly solve humanity's problems."
Hope sneers. "At least I have a sword, Jason. I have Excalibur, humanity's mightiest weapon! I have Solomon's Crown, which grants me wisdom beyond anything you can offer. And I have the Dominion Rod, which will allow me to unify our people into an unstoppable force!"
Jason crosses his arms, looking unamused.
"I don't have any of those things, Hope. But I don't need them either. Because I have something you don't..."
He pauses.
"...I have a brain!"
Hope blinks. "Excuse me? Care to repeat that?"
"You tried to fool everyone, but it's too bad I showed up." Jason snaps back. He turns his head to look at the crowd. "Hope told you the truth about the Dominion Rod's power. But what he failed to tell you was the cost of accepting it as your master!"
Thousands of people form invisible question marks over their heads.
The cost of accepting its power? What cost? Many quietly wonder.
"Hope sneakily slipped a portion of the truth into his little speech," Jason explains, "but he downplayed the severity. Didn't you hear what he said? Once you accept the power of the Dominion Rod, you will have to share everything. Your thoughts, your emotions, even your deepest, darkest secrets. And that's not all!"
Hope glowers at Jason as the First Wordsmith continues speaking.
"When you become a servant of Jepthath, you lose ALL your autonomy! If Jepthath so desires, he will be able to control the lot of you like puppets! If he tells you to throw yourselves into a burning star for the 'good of humanity,' that is exactly what you'll have to do. If he tells you to give up your husbands and wives to others he deems more worthy, then THAT is what you'll do! You won't have a say in the matter!"
Jason turns his head to glare cruelly at Hope. "Am I lying, Hope? Do you dare offer a retort?! You tried to sucker people into a free lunch, but anyone with a brain knows power always has a cost!"
Hope squeezes the Dominion Rod tightly, hurting his palm as he exerts his maximum strength onto its handle. "The price is not too steep to pay! Humanity needs power!"
"If people go along with your scheme, they won't even BE humans anymore!" Jason shouts back. "What makes a human, Hope, Neil?! My wife and I believe it is our compassion, our love, and our empathy! But I would go even further! It is our individuality, yet also our ability to sacrifice for the good of others! By becoming a monolith of thought, we would be no better than the Plague, or even the Volgrim! A bunch of drones doing as the Commander Unit demands! That is NOT the humanity I want to see!"
Jason pounds his fist against his palm for emphasis.
"If this debate has shown me one thing, it is that I was painfully naive. I didn't think humanity's differences had grown as big as I now understand they have. But now I see the truth... there are many who want to kill, kill, kill, and there are just as many who wish to spread love and peace! These two factions are fundamentally opposed. We cannot remain united any longer!"
Hope blinks. So does Neil.
"Wait..." Neil says slowly. "Are you implying...?"
"I agree with you, for once, Neil." Jason says authoritatively. "Humanity cannot remain united. In fact, I say it MUST NOT! Through your ignorance and bigotry, you have convinced me of such QUITE thoroughly! How can I stand alongside those who think nothing but vitriolic thoughts towards others who have never treated them badly in the slightest?!"
Jason flashes a look of rage toward the crowd.
"I have heard the truth of the matter spoken through your lips! I heard what many of you whispered when you thought none were listening. There are countless humans among you I do not wish to call my friends any longer."
"So, from this day forward, I declare that humanity should split apart!" Jason roars.
The crowd explodes with shock.
During this entire debate, Jason's wife argued for unity, but at the very end, he swooped in and undermined all of her arguments.
Doesn't he feel that he betrayed and made her look like a fool??
Jason's expression calms down. "While I say that we must split, I do not think two factions is enough. Neil is right about one thing. We are exceptionally vulnerable to a single, coordinated attack! Even if humanity splits to two different worlds, such as Tarus II and Maiura, we are only barely more likely to survive two attacks from Demon Deities, Cosmic Psions, or other frightening monsters."
He turns his entire body to face the crowd, then lifts a finger for emphasis.
"I have a proposition for all of you. Humanity can now breed with non-humans to make more humans. Therefore, the future path we must take is logical. Become many and fill the Milky Way! I have spoken to Demon Deity Melody, ruler of the world of Sharmur. She has taken back control of the planet, and wishes to re-establish a safe haven for humans and demons alike. If any of you wish to join her, you may do so at your leisure!"
Countless humans, especially those who once lived on Sharmur, flash expressions of excitement at one another!
They enjoyed wonderful lives on Sharmur, free of strife, until the Wordsmith took them away. To them, this could not be a better offer, and they immediately decide they would rather stick with a reliable leader like Melody than their fellow humans who have continually dropped the ball.
"But that isn't all!" Jason says. "Do you enjoy living here, on Tarus II? So be it! Stay here, and remain among this community I have built up over the last six years. I promise I will do better in protecting you all, and I will make your stay here even more pleasant than before."
"But what if you align more with Neil's interests? Fine! Go and be with him, or Hope, or wherever you wish. Go to the Labyrinth, or to any other world you prefer. Do not feel obligated to stay here if your bigotry will not allow it. Don't let the door hit your asses on the way out!"
Jason chuckles smugly. "And if you want to go along with Hope's offer? To become a slave of the First Hero? Go ahead! I'm sure nothing bad will come of those who become vassals to that ancient powerhouse. Your lives will definitely be 'smooth sailing'. Hah!"
Jason's mocking tone causes many who still remained interested in Hope's deal to only solidify their plans. Despite hearing the price they might have to pay, they would still rather place their faith in Hope than in Jason, and not much would ever change their minds...
"I have other offers, for those of you who might be interested." Jason continues. "Fairy Queen Blinker has told me the fairies might be interested in re-homing humans who are willing. I also have certain secret places some of you may wish to go to if you want to avoid the upcoming wars entirely. These secluded domains will not be easy for the Volgrim, the Demons, or the Plague to locate. Time will pass quickly inside, and you will live boring but stable lives. For those of you only interested in rearing families, I would recommend this option! In fact, I bet even Hope could recommend a 'special space' of his own!"
Jason and Hope exchange a glance. The Second Wordsmith frowns, realizing Jason must have learned about the existence of the Hall of Heroes. But then again, Hope also knows Jason has his own time-accelerated realm. The two of them are not unique in this regard.
As for the details of their respective realms, neither one knows the exact location of their hidden domains. In that respect, they are both equal...
"So that is that!" Jason concludes. "You're all Sentients. You know who you are! As Humans, you should have the right to make your own decisions. I no longer believe that coddling the lot of you and forcing you into some unified, egalitarian utopia will ever properly work. Better to let you choose the lives you want to live, and reap the rewards or suffer the consequences of those choices. I only pray you won't regret whatever decisions you make."
Jason waves his hand flippantly.
"That is all! I will be opening a cross-species hall for people to apply for their preferred destination. A few weeks from now, we will announce the results, and you can all go to whatever place your heart desires!"
He turns to look at his opponents. "Neil! Hope! Do the two of you have any issues with this decree?"
Both men glare at Jason. Neither one offers a word of retort.
"No." Neil says quietly. "I've gotten what I wanted."
"As have I." Hope says darkly. "Well played, Jason."
The First Wordsmith ignores his clone's snide compliment.
"Then it's settled. I declare this farce of a 'Great Debate' to be over. DISMISSED!"
As Jason speaks the final words that will be broadcast to all his fellow humans, a collective sigh of relief goes up around Tarus II, Maiura, and the other sectors that tuned in to watch.
This day has changed the status quo forever... and only time will tell if it was for the better.
Next Part

“You ready to do this?” Brukka asked, gripping my hand tightly in hers. “Once we do, there’s no going back.”
I thought about it for a while, and then nodded.
“Yeah. It feels right. I don’t know how I know, but it does.”
She nodded back at me.
“Okay. You have the wand?”
I had forgotten about it in the pockets of my robes, but quickly pulled it out and held it up against the larger staff. It melded into the larger piece of wood, disappearing and causing the entire object to increase in size.
“Man, that always freaks me out.”
“Me too. Well, at least it’s gonna be the last time we have to see it. It’s gonna be the last time we have to deal with any of this.”
That thought brought me a pang of sadness. This had been a hell of an adventure. It was kinda disappointing that it was all going to be over soon. All this time I had been planning to become THE guardian of the multiverse, to take over after Xavier was gone. But now everything was going to be different. I was going to go back to being a teenager again. Going back to school and trying to make friends…
Holy shit, I had missed SO MUCH SCHOOL, I realized. Like SO MUCH, you have no idea.
But, it was for the best. A normal life sounded great right about now. I couldn’t wait for that.
“Hey, I just thought of something,” I said. “If you didn’t have magic anymore, would you, like, age super fast like those witches in Stardust? Because that would really suck. Xavier said you’re like a hundred years old or something, right?”
“Nah, I’ll just start to age from where I left off. Which is about the same as you.”
“OH. So, you mean, we’d be in the same grade? We could go to the same school and be like… together?”
I wasn't sure how to properly finish this sentence, but I had a feeling she knew what I was getting at. She blushed at the suggestion.
“Yeah, I’d like that.”
Something else occurred to me then.
“Your dad said something about how you made a deal with a demon from another dimension, and that’s how you became super evil. Is that all true?”
She shook her head.
“He would have said anything to get you to break up with me. And you did, by the way, I still haven’t forgiven you for that.”
She kissed me hard on the mouth, telling me otherwise, and settled back with a grin. Her berry lip gloss reminded me of-
“Hey! Give that back!”
She stepped back suddenly with the key in her hand. Was this seriously all just a ruse for her to get it from me? After all this time, had she really not changed at all??
Thankfully she was just fucking with me. She winked at me and tossed it back.
“Gotcha. I had to mess with you again, at least once, for old times sake.”
After a few stunned seconds, she nudged me forward with a cute little push.
“Go on. Do it. You’re the chosen one, after all,” she said with a smile.
I grabbed her hand, pulling her closer.
“Y’know, I think this time… It’s actually the chosen TWO.”
And with that I held up the staff, pressing it into the bark of the All World Tree’s trunk. It began to absorb into it, reluctantly at first. And then, a moment later, you could no longer tell where one started and the other began.
The two of us watched the tree for a few more seconds, and then our eyes found each other's again, and we embraced fiercely.
After a few blessed seconds of wonderful silence, Xavier’s voice began to scream from out of nowhere.
“YOU FOOLS! YOU BLOODY, INCOMPETENT FOOLS! Don’t you realize what you’ve just done!?”
We stared at him in dumb silence for a few moments before I managed a reply.
“We returned the tree to itself. It’s whole again. That was the only way to stop him, Xavier. We had to do it. I’m sorry.”
“WHOLE!? You think it’s whole!? There are a half dozen other pieces of the All World Tree still scattered around the globe! Other sorcerers descended from those who lived in ancient days! Did you really think we were the only ones?”
Brukka looked shocked.
“You told me we were the only ones who had a piece of the tree! You said we were the only ones left to protect it!”
“And you believed me!? I lie all the time! I’m a terrible person! Oh, this is really bad. Truly awful. Those other sorcerers are not good people, that’s why they weren’t chosen to protect the tree! And the fact that they weren’t chosen just made them more jaded. Most of them are lifelong criminals! Gangsters and thugs who use their power for evil and greedy purposes. Oh, heavens, boy. You really screwed the pooch this time. Yes, we are all almost certainly going to die. They'll sense the power vacuum and show up one by one to claim my place as rightful guardian of the tree. And then who knows what they might do with its power!? And now, I have no way to defend it! Nothing to stop them with! I begged you to care for the staff, to keep it safe! And you return it to the tree!? How did you get such a terrible, stupid idea in your head!?”
Brukka didn't hesitate.
“It was my idea. I'll take the blame, okay? He didn't know. Neither of us did. We thought it was the solution to all of this, but now… Now I'm not so sure.”
“If only there was a way to take it back,” I said. “We worked so hard and now it’s all for nothing. I wish I could just go back in time and-”
Suddenly the world flashed bright white all around us, causing me to blink my eyes shut. Brukka was still holding my hand, and when I opened my eyes and looked around, everything was different.
I was holding the big staff in my hand again, ready to reintegrate it into the tree. And Xavier was gone.
“What the hell?” I said, pulling it back. “Did we just…”
“Travel back in time?” Brukka finished. “Yeah, I think we did.”
“But, how?”
The Dark Wizard was unconscious on the ground still as we spoke, but I saw him beginning to stir now. He was starting to wake up after I’d bonked him on the head earlier.
“The tree contains the entire multiverse inside of it. Space and time. I think they’re both aspects of the same thing, if I remember my science lessons correctly. I might be misremembering, since that was like 90 years ago.”
“No, that sounds right. That makes sense. The tree saw we made a mistake, and it sent us back to fix it.”
We both stared up at the All World Tree, trying to decipher what it wanted from us.
“What do we do?” I asked, after a few moments. “What do you want from us?”
Who knew how many chances we would get at this? There might have only been one mulligan. We needed to get it right this time.
“The road less traveled is less traveled for a reason,” said the Dark Wizard’s voice from behind us. “Don’t you remember what I told you both? So long ago, now. You are both taking the easy road. The way to a better future is simple - we must start over. The Tree knows this as well as I do! We must bring this realm of existence to an end, to start over fresh and new! It is the only way!”
I thought back to the other Brukka I had met, in the other multiverse. The one who had succeeded in her plans to blow it all up. She wasn’t happy either. She actually told me I needed to stop it from happening, since our multiverse was keeping hers supplied with cats, which she was unable to reproduce in her world.
Suddenly, I had an idea. And something told me, this time, it was the right idea. Now that we had all of the information to make an informed decision, we could do what needed to be done.
“I can’t,” I said. “I think you’re right. But I can’t do it myself. I just can’t bring myself to destroy the All World Tree. You do it.”
“Jordan, NO!” Brukka yelled. But I didn’t listen.
I handed the staff back to the Dark Wizard. Then, I tossed him the golden key which hung around my neck. Brukka gasped, looking at me as if I had just betrayed her. But I dropped her a sly wink, and her expression softened a little.
The Dark Wizard looked just as surprised. But after a few seconds of composing himself, he put the key around his own neck, held up the staff, and pointed it towards the tree.
“I knew you would come around,” he said, laughing. “Smart boy. Very smart. You can see as well as I do that this realm is on its last legs. But the three of us will start everything anew! A triumvirate of power, ruling over the new multiverse!”
A black ball of energy began to grow around the tip of the staff, swirling and building in size and strength. It built up, larger and larger, until it enveloped the tree. We stepped back and watched as the sphere grew even bigger, encompassing the Dark Wizard.
“Benedicti, Burraka, Mustafa, Beurre blanc, Rastifarian, Nunchuku, Esteban!”
The Dark Wizard’s incantation sounded like a mixture of random words, but there did seem to be some power in them, as if spoken together they were stronger than if spoken alone.
“What are you doing?” Brukka whispered. “I thought we were trying to stop him!?”
“We don’t have to,” I said. “He’s not the chosen one. Or, chosen two, I guess I should say.”
“He doesn’t have the power,” she uttered. “He thinks he does, but he’s not strong enough without us.”
“Exactly. And what happens when a lightweight tries to take on a heavyweight?”
She smiled.
“He gets knocked the fuck out.”
At that instant, the ball of dark energy imploded, a shockwave of white light erupting from within it. It grew in size and strength, exploding outwards from the tree and causing all of the nearby plantlife to be blown backwards, as if by a nuclear blast.
“What!? What is this!? What’s HAPPENING!?” The Dark Wizard howled, and I saw his robe being incinerated, revealing his horrifying visage.
He spun around to scowl at us, and as he did the skin around his face began to flake and peel away, like dry paint. Still, he didn’t die. The dark power inside of him kept him alive through it all, as his skin was torn away, revealing muscle, and then bone beneath that. Until he was nothing but a skeleton filled with dark energy, his eyes still boring into mine, his horrible grin still somehow on his face. But then I realized that all skeletons look like they are smiling, and he probably wasn’t actually too thrilled with this situation.
“I will get you. I will find my way back to this plane of existence. And I will kill the both of you! I will be the one to usher in the new age! I will be the one to take this multiverse from the tree, and GIVE IT TO HIM!”
I gripped Brukka’s hand even tighter, and looked over at her.
“Who does he keep talking about? Who is this HIM guy?”
“I don’t really know. Something from the prophecies, I guess. Some dark, horrible, satanic antichrist figure, I’m assuming.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I was never really into that part of it so much. I was just gonna kick him to the curb and do my own thing at a certain point. You know, after you and Xavier were dead. But I guess you figured that out already.”
“Yeah. The other Brukka told me all about it. But, y’know, she didn’t look too happy with her decisions. I think she regretted it.”
Brukka nodded.
“I can see why. After you described the place to me, it didn’t sound very nice. But at least she’s got cats to keep her company.”
“Yeah, thanks to us.”
The dark wizard was still screaming and melting, looking at us incredulously.
“Are you two REMINISCING right now!? What the FUCK!? I’m dying over here!”
And with that, the bright white light finally turned his bones into ash, and they scattered on the wind.
The key and the staff fell to the forest floor, and the two of us walked over to pick them up.
I took the staff and Brukka grabbed the key. She put it around her neck, and I didn’t try to stop her this time. It was her birthright, after all. Her inheritance from a father who should have tried a lot harder.
“You did it,” Xavier’s voice came from behind me, just as I was thinking of him. “I would have never thought of that, I must be honest.”
We both turned around to see the old sorcerer standing before us, with tears in his eyes.
“I’m so proud of both of you,” he said, pulling the two of us into a bearhug. “You’re going to make such excellent guardians.”
After a long embrace, we stood back, and I looked at him with a smile.
“I thought there could only be ONE guardian. Isn’t that what you always said?”
He tried to smile, but faltered.
“Forget everything I ever taught you, Jordan. You are a finer sorcerer than I could have ever hoped to be.”
He turned to look at Brukka.
“And you, my daughter. Brukka. How can I ever make it up to you, for all that I’ve done wrong? I’ve been a terrible teacher, and an even worse father. I let your mother… No, nevermind that. What I mean to say is that you deserved so much better. And I only wish I could go back in time, to correct everything I did wrong-”
Bright white light flashed suddenly, and he was gone. Xavier, who had been standing in front of us a second before, was nowhere to be seen.
I looked down and noticed there was a root of the All World Tree poking up out of the ground where he had been standing.
“Oh, shit. I think he just pulled a Marty McFly,” I said, pointing at the root.
“A Marty McWho?” Brukka asked.
I raised my eyebrows, looking at her with deep concern.
“Wait… You haven’t seen Back to the Future!? Okay, we’re going to go watch it right now! Do you have Netflix at your place? Wait, maybe I’ll have to rent it. Either way, great movies.”
“Movies? As in, plural? How many of these things do I have to watch?”
“You’re gonna love ‘em! There’s this crazy wild-eyed old man scientist type who converts a Delorean into a time machine. He kinda reminds me of somebody, actually. I dunno who, but he seems super familiar.”
“Can’t we just watch Rick and Morty? There’s time travel in that too. And multiverse stuff. It’s right up your alley.”
“Okay, one Back to the Future movie, then I promise we’ll watch Rick and Morty.”
The two of us walked away from the All World Tree holding hands, still chatting about movies and TV. Xavier was gone, sent back in time somewhere, but that was okay. We could figure that out another day.
For now, the two of us were just gonna be kids again.
FIRST PREV