Plank Sinatra

Fate/Prisma Connections (the reboot!)

Don't call it a BF.

It figured that my gayest student wouldn't know how to throw around the letters 'BF' with any sort of coherence, but come on, what was Ryou thinking? Last time a girl threw around the letters 'BF' so casually I had to change my phone number and flee Milan.

It was a Bounded Field.

...

Nonetheless, she was right. There was no time for me to set up anything more than cursory Bounded Fields, which wouldn't do much to protect our rapidly shrinking defensible area. What we would need was nothing short of a fortress.

I could be a fortress.

"Hell with it. On your head be it." Jin would be the offensive component. She would crush Morimoto. There was no other option at this point, not while we were surrounded by the forest, the fog, and the one-time teacher's expanding terracotta battalion. But with her attack came the need for defense; Lia was functionally useless in this fight aside from loafer tossing ability, and she had already expended half her ammo. "Hound of Ulster, dig your heels in. Install!"

CHILD OF LIGHT
TAKES THE STAGE

No one would confuse the forest for a beacon of light. It was too dark, too dim, too cold; it seemed like through all the layers of interference, even the sun itself could not touch the faces of those assembled. But the black shield that Dorian Fiordilatte held now seemed to drink up what light remained. It was pitch black and cruel; its shape seemed to be a dark mockery of the sun itself, with thorns jutting out like the rays that children usually add to the Earth's star. Blood red patterns were the only source of color on the weapon's surface.

Dorian dug his feet in and grinned. His glare had changed, too; like the blue of the sky above them, the cerulean color had left his eyes only to be replaced with the blood red color of the divine. His grin was downright wolfish.

"Dig in, bambina," the 'teacher' commanded his terrified student. "This is just another test, right? Don't let your mind go blank when you're facing it."

His shield could stop a few clay men. And that buck?

He could probably hunt that buck for fun.

You hear that, you ugly bastards?

While his shield was raised high, they would draw no fear from him. Magus and demigod both had survived far worse than this.

A Certain Variegated Pseudepigraphum [Toaru/Raildex RPG]

@Krayzikk @Crimmy

In a minute, the entire convention had gone to hell. To most of the cosplayers inside, being taken hostage was certainly a shock, and they were no doubt cowed by the gunshot, the bomb threat, the loss of power...it was a lot to take in. Brennan's heart had jumped at the gunshot, and his wrist had snapped involuntarily when the bullet hit the phone. Some of the glass from Umeko's screen and camera had wound up buried in his hand. But it was nothing compared to what a bullet in the heart would have been.

Either the asshole who had just served them ice cream was no crack shot, or the bullets had been unable to pierce the thick meatshield that was now frisking him for injuries.

"Babe," he hissed quietly, although he knew she wouldn't take him seriously, "I'm fine, fook dis, let's--"

"Brennan, I think they're underestimating us."

Oh.

So that was the play. As Brennan's eyes adjusted to the darkness, he started to make out the familiar features of his lover - and, in contrast to the serious cast of her face, his face broke into a wolfish grin and laugh. He brushed most of the glass off or out of his hand, smearing his pants with blood, and shook his hair from his eyes.

Fighting in these conditions would be nothing new. Although Academy City was so well lit during the midnight hour that it hardly counted as night at all, Brennan did most of his best work under the cover of darkness. Umeko had known how to handle herself in a fight as long as Brennan had known her, too, so that would be no issue. If anything, these conditions had set up a series of disadvantages for those who thought that the two aerospace students were their hostages. After all, it was unlikely as hell that anyone amidst this cabal of lunkheads, with their garish bomb threats, had actually seen the Papal Bulls arc of Kanamin Integral. Alexander Boniface, the Catholic witch hunter who had turned a local cram school into his summoning circle for shadow familiars, had tried to blanket the whole of Tokyo under darkness with the power of his shadow familiars, the Papal Bulls. It had looked like it would be a cour-length arc until Kanamin teamed up with her rival to put an end to him in two episodes flat. Something similar was bound to happen here if the couple put their heads together now.

Why use Boniface so early in the show, anyway? He had a pretty unique villain design, and they dropped the fuckin' ball casting Sugita for a season-starting bit-length villa--

...

Umeko was staring at him like she could read his thoughts.

I'm breaking up with you.

Her reaction didn't change. Maybe visions of the same arc just happened to be running through her head; her knowledge of magical girl shit was far more extensive than Brennan's, who had just absorbed things through osmosis while lounging on the couch with her, after all.

"Hit me wit' it."

---

MgRonald's, District 7

@GreenGoat @HereComesTheSnow

"Hrrrgh."

In most occasions, one could smell burning hair before they actually felt any pain from it. It was the acrid stench that notified them that something was going terribly wrong with their follicles, and that they should cease whatever attempts at styling, dying, or follicle restoration that they were putting their hairstyles through.

In the case of the pompadour-wearing young man, styling was practically an afterthought in the mornings. His hair had darkened since the days of his early youth, sure, but that had more to do with his genetics than any sort of coloring that came from a bottle. Speaking of genetics, he was also quite self-assured about the state of his own hairline and follicle density, having thus far avoided the dramatic temple recession and slight thinning that most of the men on his mother's side of the family had dealt with in the turbulent stages of their own youth. His hair was very rarely a problem, and more often served as a problem-solver.

This lunkhead's esper power was going to be a problem.

Grunting slightly as the unpleasant scent began to translate into real pain, the pompadour-wearing man seemed to give in to the natural human instinct of anyone who touches a hot surface - rear back. His hair, however, reared back too against Karasawa's touch, and began to mold again before the eyes of the two restaurant patrons. It did so with surprising force, and Karasawa's hand and wrist were nearly jerked into an unnatural angle as his hairstyle turned into a sidecut - the long on one side, buzzed on the other 'do that had become a fad amongst ravers and the bad electronic dance musicians they patronized. The side it had grown long on - the young man's left - reared up to smack into Hisui, throwing the airborne girl out of her arc before her kick made contact. Karasawa's burning touch had more success in harming him; the young man's teeth were still gritted in frustration and pain, but the New Yorker's wrist had been jerked hard, and as the pompadour-wearing criminal (now a sidecut-wearing criminal) had turned left so his hair would strike into the girl, so too did the man with the magic mane line up a lush left towards Karasawa's liver.

"You're looking scruffy," he said to the boy with the burning blood. "You should try my regimen sometime. It's Vital Sassoon!"

ESPER NAME:
VI
TAL

SAS
SOON!

---

District 7

@NaraK

"Chief, ahead! We're gonna hit a kid!"

"C'mon, Isami, make the jump! Where's your sense of the dramatic?"

Isami usually saved her sense of the dramatic for the powerful, award-winning documentaries she often screened in her fair time. A sizable number of them had to do with the meat packing industry or with the corners cut by the global fast food conglomerates, which were growing increasingly sloppy with their food, cruel with their hiring practices and wages, and automated from management down, leading to no accountability for the harm they did to workers and consumers alike. Chief didn't like that kind of drama, though. He liked chicken nuggets and a good C-movie where nameless yakuza were regularly punched in the throat by a clean-cut young actor who the studios thought could appeal to Western audiences. There was nothing wrong with that in theory.

Until you tried to live it in practice.

"I'm going around him!" she yelled.

"Isamiii! Where's your sense of excit--excruci--_whatthehell--exuberance!?"

"I'm going around him!"

If they had only been of one mind instead of trying to argue about four-syllable words, they might have been able to make the jump without harming Jun in the first place. Instead, Isami chose to attempt to go around both the vehicle that Chief wanted to jump and around the sonic barrier Jun had set up to stop them. One was more successful than the other.

They clipped the very edge of the sonic barrier, driving a thin needle of sound into both their ears that dissipated within seconds, leaving Isami's ears ringing slightly but none the worse for wear. It was the situation of the trike itself, which had clipped the barrier with its sidecar, that was growing increasingly precarious. Though its three wheels afforded it considerable stability, it was now tottering precariously on its sides as Isami tried to overcorrect her steering and recover from the barrier.

Though not considerable, there was now a risk of it capsizing to the right if they weren't careful - or if the boy they'd avoided in panic could make any more efforts to halt them.

Super Invincible Max God Century Robo: Giga Assault Hell Smasher Promethion - A Combining Mecha RPG

THE GLORIOUS COMMANDER! THE RAGE OF THE DEAD AND THE HOPES OF THE LIVING! THE SOUL OF HUMANITY WHO NEVER BURNS OUT! CORIIIIINE...!

On Duty

Off Duty

Mask

Name: Corinne Shourichi (紅 勝利路)

Gender: Female

Age: 24

Job: MAX FIRE 1st Independent Special Squadron Commander, Personnel Coordinator

Personality: Corinne is a cocky, commanding young woman with an indefatigable will and awe-inspiring presence. She is an obsessed, driven humanist, one who is preoccupied with the idea of her own destiny and that of her species. Her passion for humanity and the opportunity they have to keep pushing new barriers and breaking new ground has driven her into a frenzied rivalry with the kaiju; her hatred for them is borne out of a bizarre sense of respect, seeing them as humanity's final obstacle in their struggle to take command of their own fates. Every individual skirmish with every kaiju is one she sees as a step closer to that apocalyptic final battle, and it's a conflict she has no desire to miss. Her hot-blooded nature simply does not allow it.

When it comes to her relationships with individual members of her own species, Corinne can be a curious creature to pin down. Many of her relationships are kept on the surface, where her boisterousness can come across as overbearing or even aggressive. She is a party girl through and through, always one for something high octane and exciting, whether that be a particularly attractive human, car, or robot. She is a notorious flirt who openly espouses her passions regardless of sex; many of her advances can come across as mocking or insincere, however, and it is impossible to determine who she actually seeks to make a conquest of or who she is simply passing her time on. Though unlikely, she has struck up a genuinely affectionate friendship with Dr. Ryoma Kougami, constantly seeking to get him drunk, attempting to style his bishie hair, or teaching him the joys of the French cuisine of her maternal ancestry. She also tries to temper herself around the younger pilots; although these efforts are usually unsuccessful, she acts as their surrogate older sister and guardian day-to-day in the fortress, and has been known to smuggle them out into the city for clandestine shore leave or even step in on testing she finds particularly invasive.

Skills: A gifted drinker, artist, and combat athlete with a propensity for striking. A crack shot with most weaponry at a gun range in her free time, though given her country and the sheer size of her prey, this skill goes underutilized most of the time. Corinne enjoys reading fashion magazines in her spare time, as well as swimming, baseball, gambling and card games, or sex. Believe it or not, she also gets a kick out of doing the paperwork for MAX FIRE's paramilitary. She can keep it organized fairly efficiently.

Short Bio: The implacable commander began life as an ordinary, if extraordinarily ebullient, child on the Japanese mainland. Her mother had French ancestry somewhere back along the line, but otherwise Corinne was a Japanese child like any other, growing up in a miraculous era of prosperity for a country only two generations removed from the Empire's brutal defanging. Born into a life of relative privilege thanks to well-to-do parents, the young Corinne balanced decent studies (although underachieving for a student with such a dynamic and creative mind) with a zest for new adventure and thrills that eventually led to her purchasing a Celica XX (with onboard nav! The future was here!) and racing it through the streets of Yokohama for kicks through most of her teens and early twenties as a way to make some side income. Corinne was a talented racer who placed in 70% of the races she entered and had a sizable collection of pink slips ripe for the claiming at any time. Her real claim to fame was not her bulletproof record, but in the ornate lavender butterfly mask she would wear to conceal her youth and identity - that, and her love of taunting fellow racers (or the police who inevitably responded to reports of tuners racing in the streets or outskirts) into chases that she somehow always managed to slip out of. When trouble erupted, Corinne Shourichi had a way of toeing the line all the way until she'd had her fill of fun, and then unceremoniously extricating herself from a hairy situation.

She may have never been caught, if not for her parents. A fight with an ex-boyfriend had led to her coming home hours past curfew, still in her tuner regalia and mask - and trying to sneak her former flame's new girlfriend through her bedroom window.

Corinne spent the next three months languishing in jail before her release, and when she got out she was floated a deal - join the military in exchange for her charges (which were relatively minor given what races she could actually be connected with) being dropped from her record upon her discharge. The years of service began as a drag, something to teach Corinne discipline until she could while away the time living in the moment again. The beginning of the kaiju attacks changed that. One of the first strikes in Japan was on her hometown of Yokohama, and Corinne was one of the few survivors from the first wave of defenders to meet the monster at Yokohama's port. Notably, she was the woman responsible for the "Yokohama Miracle Mile," her valiant attempt to slay the kaiju on foot after her lightweight Type 70 was flipped. She did, however, lead it on a suicide run - hotwiring a vehicle and using flares to guide the creature into the aerial assault that would eventually drive it back into the ocean and slay it.

She would have been happy to fight the battles to come for the JSSDF, but her performance had clearly drawn attention from figures across the world. When Higini Somporn's global collective branched out from a team of crack scientists to add a paramilitary component, construction on the first module of what would become Promethion was already complete. Shourichi proved its most competent pilot in testing - so gifted, in fact, that she almost managed to make something mobile out of Iapheton, the failed chassis that served as precursor to MAX FIRE's mecha ambitions. The organization was impressed with Shourichi's own ambitions and determination, and she was assigned as Lifrasir's permanent pilot and Vaucanson's top military official.

FIGHT NIGHT

I'LL PUNCH MY WAY INTO HELL RIGHT NOW! IT'S A TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, LET'S GO, LIFTHRASIR!

Model:
GAHS-CM-1 Central Module "Lífþrasir"

Specialty:
Prototype Titan Control Module / Autonomous Melee Fighter

Features:
-MAX FIRE v3 Etherion Engine
-Dynamic stabilizer controls, allowing for a range of motion similar to a boxer's
-Detachable Full Armor
-Mifune-Tech Beam Magnum Targeting Reticule and Battery Speed-Loaders
-No ejector seat

Armaments:
-Fucking rocket punch
-Obari Industries "Hellfire" HEDP CHEST MISSILES
-Dual Beam Magnums
-OVERFLOWING HUMAN SPIRIT

Weaknesses:
CAN ALWAYS FIGHT HARDER

Super Invincible Max God Century Robo: Giga Assault Hell Smasher Promethion - A Combining Mecha RPG

Oh yeah, I guess we should break this baby back out. Forgot we could dust her off.

discord.gg/4tjDCQA

@Crimmy @GarlandDaHero @Duoya @Fourze @Stern Algorithm @Hammerman @Kaithas

Super Invincible Max God Century Robo: Giga Assault Hell Smasher Promethion - A Combining Mecha RPG

THE GLORIOUS COMMANDER! THE RAGE OF THE DEAD AND THE HOPES OF THE LIVING! THE SOUL OF HUMANITY WHO NEVER BURNS OUT! CORIIIIINE...!

On Duty

Off Duty

Mask

Name: Corinne Shourichi (紅 勝利路)

Gender: Female

Age: 24

Job: MAX FIRE 1st Independent Special Squadron Commander, Personnel Coordinator

Personality: Corinne is a cocky, commanding young woman with an indefatigable will and awe-inspiring presence. She is an obsessed, driven humanist, one who is preoccupied with the idea of her own destiny and that of her species. Her passion for humanity and the opportunity they have to keep pushing new barriers and breaking new ground has driven her into a frenzied rivalry with the kaiju; her hatred for them is borne out of a bizarre sense of respect, seeing them as humanity's final obstacle in their struggle to take command of their own fates. Every individual skirmish with every kaiju is one she sees as a step closer to that apocalyptic final battle, and it's a conflict she has no desire to miss. Her hot-blooded nature simply does not allow it.

When it comes to her relationships with individual members of her own species, Corinne can be a curious creature to pin down. Many of her relationships are kept on the surface, where her boisterousness can come across as overbearing or even aggressive. She is a party girl through and through, always one for something high octane and exciting, whether that be a particularly attractive human, car, or robot. She is a notorious flirt who openly espouses her passions regardless of sex; many of her advances can come across as mocking or insincere, however, and it is impossible to determine who she actually seeks to make a conquest of or who she is simply passing her time on. Though unlikely, she has struck up a genuinely affectionate friendship with Dr. Ryoma Kougami, constantly seeking to get him drunk, attempting to style his bishie hair, or teaching him the joys of the French cuisine of her maternal ancestry. She also tries to temper herself around the younger pilots; although these efforts are usually unsuccessful, she acts as their surrogate older sister and guardian day-to-day in the fortress, and has been known to smuggle them out into the city for clandestine shore leave or even step in on testing she finds particularly invasive.

Skills: A gifted drinker, artist, and combat athlete with a propensity for striking. A crack shot with most weaponry at a gun range in her free time, though given her country and the sheer size of her prey, this skill goes underutilized most of the time. Corinne enjoys reading fashion magazines in her spare time, as well as swimming, baseball, gambling and card games, or sex. Believe it or not, she also gets a kick out of doing the paperwork for MAX FIRE's paramilitary. She can keep it organized fairly efficiently.

Short Bio: The implacable commander began life as an ordinary, if extraordinarily ebullient, child on the Japanese mainland. Her mother had French ancestry somewhere back along the line, but otherwise Corinne was a Japanese child like any other, growing up in a miraculous era of prosperity for a country only two generations removed from the Empire's brutal defanging. Born into a life of relative privilege thanks to well-to-do parents, the young Corinne balanced decent studies (although underachieving for a student with such a dynamic and creative mind) with a zest for new adventure and thrills that eventually led to her purchasing a Celica XX (with onboard nav! The future was here!) and racing it through the streets of Yokohama for kicks through most of her teens and early twenties as a way to make some side income. Corinne was a talented racer who placed in 70% of the races she entered and had a sizable collection of pink slips ripe for the claiming at any time. Her real claim to fame was not her bulletproof record, but in the ornate lavender butterfly mask she would wear to conceal her youth and identity - that, and her love of taunting fellow racers (or the police who inevitably responded to reports of tuners racing in the streets or outskirts) into chases that she somehow always managed to slip out of. When trouble erupted, Corinne Shourichi had a way of toeing the line all the way until she'd had her fill of fun, and then unceremoniously extricating herself from a hairy situation.

She may have never been caught, if not for her parents. A fight with an ex-boyfriend had led to her coming home hours past curfew, still in her tuner regalia and mask - and trying to sneak her former flame's new girlfriend through her bedroom window.

Corinne spent the next three months languishing in jail before her release, and when she got out she was floated a deal - join the military in exchange for her charges (which were relatively minor given what races she could actually be connected with) being dropped from her record upon her discharge. The years of service began as a drag, something to teach Corinne discipline until she could while away the time living in the moment again. The beginning of the kaiju attacks changed that. One of the first strikes in Japan was on her hometown of Yokohama, and Corinne was one of the few survivors from the first wave of defenders to meet the monster at Yokohama's port. Notably, she was the woman responsible for the "Yokohama Miracle Mile," her valiant attempt to slay the kaiju on foot after her lightweight Type 70 was flipped. She did, however, lead it on a suicide run - hotwiring a vehicle and using flares to guide the creature into the aerial assault that would eventually drive it back into the ocean and slay it.

She would have been happy to fight the battles to come for the JSSDF, but her performance had clearly drawn attention from figures across the world. When Higini Somporn's global collective branched out from a team of crack scientists to add a paramilitary component, construction on the first module of what would become Promethion was already complete. Shourichi proved its most competent pilot in testing - so gifted, in fact, that she almost managed to make something mobile out of Iapheton, the failed chassis that served as precursor to MAX FIRE's mecha ambitions. The organization was impressed with Shourichi's own ambitions and determination, and she was assigned as Lifrasir's permanent pilot and Vaucanson's top military official.

FIGHT NIGHT

I'LL PUNCH MY WAY INTO HELL RIGHT NOW! IT'S A TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, LET'S GO, LIFTHRASIR!

Model:
GAHS-CM-1 Central Module "Lífþrasir"

Specialty:
Prototype Titan Control Module / Autonomous Melee Fighter

Features:
-MAX FIRE v3 Etherion Engine
-Dynamic stabilizer controls, allowing for a range of motion similar to a boxer's
-Detachable Full Armor
-Mifune-Tech Beam Magnum Targeting Reticule and Battery Speed-Loaders
-No ejector seat

Armaments:
-Fucking rocket punch
-Obari Industries "Hellfire" HEDP CHEST MISSILES
-Dual Beam Magnums
-OVERFLOWING HUMAN SPIRIT

Weaknesses:
CAN ALWAYS FIGHT HARDER

SHE WHO LIVES IN EACH MOMENT WILL LIVE A BILLION LIVES

Heroes of Beacon - Creative Content Gallery

Haute cuisine, première

THE HARD PART

Zephyr had always been designed to be a pleasant city; the care and artistry that went into her early planning was designed as an end to a mean and a means to that end. To survive as a city was an easy enough feat once you packed the rabble into the borders like cattle and gave them hovels to match, like the kingdom’s many-tiered, eponymous capital; Zephyr was intended to be a fantasy designed by the elite for themselves, a living, bustling piece of artwork, as perfect and beautiful as its dream inhabitants. There was a small legion of skyscrapers throughout the city that would have made a loose scatter plot of the city from a bird’s eye, but they were owned by the most powerful of family enterprises, and they stood as lone exceptions to the thoughtful design of ninety percent of the city’s architecture. Under those two dozen high-tech citadels, less garish art deco friezes and stained-glass windows of rose and jade lit up every habitable workplace or studio apartment in the city. When the sunlight danced along them, Zephyr shone into space, no longer a city but a jewel case under heaven. When night and storms took hold of the city, the visions painted on the buildings by the shadows of night and the lights from the streets were downright apocalyptic. The sound of rivulets of rain landing, breaking, streaking down the windows was inescapable, eventually graduating from a pattering noise in the background to an abusive beating, all-consuming.

Even while she lay secure in the arms of her lover, Lauren Negasi couldn’t sleep.

Impatiently, she tilted her head to the left until she heard the crack in her neck, then braced her chin with her left palm and tweaked her neck until she felt – not heard this time – the other side crack for symmetry. She never found any comfort in that result, but it was the motion that brought her peace. It was one of the only habits she could never kick.

Fuck.

She rolled onto her back, nearly jostling Estelle’s own chin with a shoulder. The other girl was laying on her side, chin drooped, one strap of the borrowed black tank top she wore to bed drooping down to her elbow. Lauren turned to look at her, see if she’d awoken the professor, but Stella didn’t appear to have noticed, apart from the hand that had reflexively stretched across Lauren’s iron stomach. Her ivory hair, and the lack of the light that only occasionally streaked through the windows above their bed, hid her features too well to tell.

Fuuuuck.

Stella had bought her industrial loft off a starving artist desperate for an influx of heiress money, and her apartment had endless amounts of both – the artist’s touch and the heiress’, the bohemian who couldn’t live without money and the disowned girl who never ran out. The place was blanketed with windows on three sides, and there was hardly a piece of furniture to be found, let alone one that couldn’t support the weight of two girls having sex. Lauren had taken to the place as immediately as Estelle had, but she had never liked the storms.

The coo of an owl made Lauren stiffen briefly. It took a second for her to realize that the owl was hers. When the Scroll pinged on the floor beside the bed a few seconds later, she recognized that much faster.

Yawning, her fingers scrambled for purchase along the hardwood floor and finally hooked the underside of her Scroll’s curvature, lifting it up to her face and scanning the message preview with bleary emerald eyes. It was incomplete, but the contact name rang out like one of the thunderclaps outside:

S L O A N

“Ahhh, fuuuck,” she whimpered angrily, air hissing through her teeth as she hurriedly punched in her password and the Scroll’s messaging app answered her call. The light of the device illuminated her, painting her green eyes and her dark skin and hair with a pale technological blue. Reluctantly, she sat up to read it.

To: Lorena Aaliyah
From: Sloan Baraka
Message: Hey. mother is asking me about coming home for christmas. you know where that is?

To: Biggie
From: Gay-hova
Message: nah

To: Lorena Aaliyah
From: Sloan Baraka
Message: k.

To: Biggie
From: Gay-hova
Message: sorry

…

To: Biggie
From: Gay-hova
Message: you bringing saeva home to them this year?

Sloan’s responses, normally snappy in response to her questions, had dried up. That could mean anything; it could mean that the Saeva Sareta, kickboxing titan and walking sexual revelation for both Negasi siblings, had found her long-time sweetheart texting at an odd hour of the night and wanted to command his attention again. He may have been looking for an excuse not to hunt down their wayward parents, and she may have just given it to him. Who the fuck knew? Either way, his silence meant she was off the hook for a trip “home” herself. It suited her just fine.

“Texting one of your other whores?” The grumbled question, somehow still phrased playfully even through alternating layers of sleep and a brusque bougie accent, called her attention away from her device.

“Who, this?” Lauren spun her Scroll between her thumb and forefinger until it slapped against her palm, and then she casually tossed it in the direction of their spartan foyer, where it clattered against one of the few throw rugs Estelle had bothered to lay throughout the place. “Nah, my big bro. Bum ass motherfucker, forgetting he’s in another time zo-mmmph-“

Estelle had groggily reached up and pressed a kiss against Lauren’s lips, fingers burrowing into Lauren’s thick black hair and cupping the con artist’s head to hers. The Faunus’ eyes, as blue and piercing as they were, were hidden behind the messy white bangs she normally pulled back in a prim bun. Only her besotted smile was safe from the curtain.

“It’s Christmas Eve,” Stella murmured sleepily, when she had pulled away and cupped her fingers around Lauren’s chin to hold her still. The thief could do nothing but nod her agreement stiffly and grin.

“I think my parents are expecting to meet you,” Lauren replied. She kept her tone breezy, but her distaste for the idea of traveling so far from the owl’s nest on such an uncertain voyage was clear. “Well, I think they met you once, but…”

“Mmm…yeaaah, Family Day. You stole my credit card, right? Seduced me…and stole my credit card.”

“Nooo, you lost it. I just found it in my underwear drawer and texted you like a good girl should. I won't let some bougie bitch frame me for a good deed. That's how psycho girls with racist dads like you get niggas. Same with sex.”

“Hmmmm,” Stella giggled. “Laaaura the Explorer. Yeah, I remember now. They seemed nice. You want to go?”

“Fuck no.”

Stella laughed again, propping herself up on their copious pillows and scooting closer to the sitting Lauren. Her long legs had twisted up their already tangled covers, draping over Lauren’s legs while her head met Lauren’s broad shoulder. It was easy to see how she would have lived a charmed life as a model. It was also easy to see how she would have chafed underneath that life’s demands. Stella should never have been born a Nuit. Better for her to have been born like Lauren, free to see the world, do what she wanted, fuck who she wanted, live day to day and learn what it was like to really survive. But if she had…

I probably would’ve never liked her in the first place if she had.

“Speaking of...my dad wants to meet you too, you know.”

Her first instinct was to laugh. They’d had a lot of wine before Stella had finally drunkenly tackled her onto the bed that night. It probably hadn’t left her system.

“Hell yeah. Me, walk into the fucking Hellmouth. It’ll be rad. I’ve probably stolen cars for half his board members actually, maybe they’ll make me a fucking shareholder. We could both live off your dad’s money. Should I sell the rights to my jacket while I’m there?”

Stella shook her head lazily and pulled out her Scroll. Lauren expected to see a text chain, but instead Estelle pulled up her call history. Lauren saw her own name quite a few times, but there, yesterday at 6:18 AM, sure enough…

“Oh, there he is,” Lauren said brightly. “’BLOCKED NUMBER.’ I see him now.”

“He didn’t say anything about you specifically, but he wants me to come to dinner at the house. I like to pick my battles with him, make sure I don’t give him too much cause to cut me off. With the way Beacon and this job have gone, I’m kind of willing to cut my losses and survive one dinner. It’s everyone’s first Christmas without Mom, too…so I’m hoping he’ll ease up. Maybe he needs us there for him.” Estelle mischievously side-eyed her lover, smizing playfully at Lauren. “And maybe I need someone by mine.”

“You promised me you’d never make me do shit like this.”

“I know.”

“Nothing high society where I’d have to—”

“Yup.”

“—nothing to do with blue bloods—"

“Mhm.”

“—and nothing where I’d have to pretend to be bougie—”

“Sure did.”

“—and you’re starting to move the barriers in our whole fucking deal,--”

“Sorry.”

“—and I want to steal anything I can sneak out.”

“We’ll go for the stuff I liked growing up first,” Stella purred.

“…Maybe. I’m a soft yes.”

Estelle smiled and rolled over again, making a slight noise as her body landed atop Lauren’s muscular one. The rain was hammering away on their stained-glass windows, laying siege to them from all sides. The storm’s violent sounds drowned out the noise of their kiss. Lauren closed her eyes briefly and felt something wrap around the top half of her head. When she opened them again, she’d been blindfolded. It was as easy as running her knuckles down Estelle Nuit’s spine to realize that the instrument of her blindness was her own tank top.

“This really means a lot to me,” a breathy local accent whispered in her ear, before her teeth gently bit down on the lobe. For a second, Lauren thought of the chunk missing from Amy’s ear.

"I really love you, Laur."

Then she relented.

By the morning, Christmas dinner was a hard ‘yes.’

---

THE EASY PART

“(Jericho.) It is (3:32. A. M.) Are you asleep?”

…

“(Jericho.) It is 3:32. A. M.) Are you asleep?”

“No.”

“(Jericho.) It is (3:32. A. M.) Would you like to activate (privacy settings?)”

The Piper family home had been built sometime in his father Troy’s lifetime. As such, despite what Troy’s children (long numbered two, with at least one clone of one making her home with the family) liked to joke, the house was very much a piece of modern architecture. Most of it was made of glass, which would surprise Jericho and Babylon Piper’s friends on the rare occasions that they were invited to visit; after all, such intensely private and paranoid people as Jericho and Troy didn’t seem like the type of people to be comfortable living in an angular, low-lying glass box on a hillside overlooking Atlas’ CCT Tower. In particular, Jericho was an odd fit for the house. He had always been a light sleeper, but in the two years since he had graduated from Bastion Academy, his dreams had become so fitful and far between that he was more likely than not to just eschew the idea entirely. Perhaps it was something Bekah had inherited; she was never entirely comfortable with the home either.

But that was all part of the territory when it came to living in Atlas. The neon, the constant airship noise, the sound of skycars humming by 24/7…if Jericho had problems sleeping, it could only be because the only city in the world that he knew and loved had raised him to be that way. That, or…

The Holy Trinity.

The advertisements on it must have changed thousands of times since he was a kid, but the Trinity of billboards remained eternal. Atlas was filled with thousands of them, always flitting through new products or events, always selling something to the millions kept awake and entertained in the city of neon and aluminum wonders. One in particular was situated right on top of the Horseshoe Building, one of Atlas’ many neo-futurist architectural marvels, housing some military defense contractor or another. There was a set of three billboards that connected the space between the Horseshoe – capitalism had no time for minimalism. Usually, if a company was smart or an event had enough buzz around it, they would rent out all three and combine them into one giant high-tech mural. The flashing of the Holy Trinity was enough to keep Jericho awake at all hours of the night without aid, so Troy had gone into DIANA, the home’s smart assistant, when his son was young and modified the house’s privacy glass settings to shift depending on his wakefulness. The light would never be gone entirely, but the house would try and shield him from the worst of it.

The billboard hadn’t kept Jericho awake all night, but it had certainly awoken him now – that and DIANA, which surely had no idea of the role it had played in bothering him. The Gold Stripe, flicking at the legs of his black sweatpants, rolled over onto his side and stretched out across his queen sized mattress, staring at the Trinity now. The girl staring at him from across the city was beautiful, so beautiful she made his chest ache. Leather jacket and shorts, with her finger guns cocked at him. One eye was winking, and even though everyone in the city thought she was winking at them, Jer knew the truth. He’d seen her do it a million times. He’d seen the first time she’d ever done it. She got her wink from Dad.

MOR
NING
TIGER!

MOR
NING
TIGER!

BABYLON
PIPER
LIVE!

TIX
ON
SALE!

BABYLON
PIPER
LIVE!

“Activate privacy settings…for living room, DIANA,” Jericho said quietly. He didn’t need to raise his voice. He was too tired, and the house would hear him just fine. “Channel listings, RSPN.”

“Processing (channel listings…) (RSSN.)” DIANA’s voice changed then, suddenly, becoming a deep male announcer who droned: “30 for 30 – 42 v 1: Tyson v. Douglas—”

“I got it, DIANA. Turn on living room TV.”

He could hear the sudden noises of old commentary and the same baritone voiceover echoing from the family media room, but they faded into commercials before the Young Devil even sat up in bed. Jericho slowly rose, planting one foot on the mahogany floor, dark as sin, and one half in Babs’ light. His sister’s hologram flickered on the skyline, out of reach, painting the room in stylized golds and yellows when she appeared. It made him wish he didn’t have the house to himself. Even if the captain had showed up…

But the captain wasn’t in Atlas. His Christmas was going to be spent in some darker part of the world, far from the warm, familiar lights of any nearby cities or Christmas trees. Jer wasn’t even expecting a text. But Babs would send one anyway, and he would have to follow suit.

There was no point in loitering around here. Baseball had gone into extra innings, ending only an hour and a half ago; the boxing documentary would keep his attention until it was time for his pre-dawn jog. Jer had received all the sleep he’d find tonight.

The Piper house didn’t have much in the way of display pieces, but what it had would probably be considered elegant by most of their friends. Jer had always found that it settled into the background; most of the decorative items were from the Great War period, when Mistral’s architects had ruled the world, and as such they were almost universally carved from the glass, ebony, and ivory that the Mistralians had favored. From valkyrie’s head hood ornaments that had once wailed unending from the hoods of cars, to posters for art exhibitions, Vytal Festivals and prize fights that had concluded generations ago, everything felt sufficiently timeless enough to fit in with the hypermodern furnishings and healthy amount of smart home tech that surrounded them. He gave the valkyrie head a playful flick on the nose for good luck. It was a tradition that Rich had gotten him started on as a kid, and even though there was no reason to ever believe it worked, it had become a habit.

The first time he’d tried it do it with his left hand after Judgment, he had almost shattered the whole thing. The captain was more upset about that than he was about the glove.

Jer sank down into the couch with a long sigh, running his hand through his hair and pushing it away from his forehead. In here, the privacy glass had darkened, so that the view from inside the foyer more closely resembled the smoky, opaque view that would greet anyone trying to view the contents of the room from the hillside. He was protected from scrutiny. If he wanted to, he could even be vulnerable.

What the hell’s gotten into me?

He rubbed his eyes, and when his left hand touched his face, he almost recoiled.

Don't feel down, friend. Next time I'll be happy to let you drown!
—I like brothers who don’t get possessed—
get me out
There's no point in having this talk. I know how it goes. I love you, kid.
get me out
I don’t know what else we can do for him short of ripping it out, an—
—my SON!
GET ME OUT
What about me, tiger? You got a plan for me?
you were born for such a time as this.
oh, jer. my sweet baby. what did they do to you this time?

He should have gone to Rich’s place. He was hoping someone else would be home here. There was too much room for Jer and his thoughts under this roof.

“(Jericho.) You have an incoming video-call from – (Bianca N.) Would you like to (accept on screen)?”

“Oh my goddamned Lord.”

“(Accepting on screen,)” DIANA said helpfully. Just as Iron Mike was back on the flatscreen, he was swallowed up by a big, dumb bird. She was brushing her hair casually, with the practiced ease of a girl who had spent all her life flitting her wings through the societal elite, but Jericho knew her better than that. She had just rolled out of bed. Her shirt was proof – clearly one of the tops she’d claimed from him as a shack shirt, black with white text.

DEVIL &
BIRB &
CHARLIE &
TIGER &
MOLE.

“Heyyyy Jeeeeeeeer! Morning, sleepyhead!” she chirped brightly. In the background, he could see her cluttered room – he’d grown used to Bianca’s habit of cruelly chucking away the clothes she didn’t think would suit her outfit that day, only to come crawling back to them the next morning when inspiration struck her on how to use them. By then they would show the signs of their time in the doghouse, and it would be up to Jer to iron out the wrinkles. “How’s the sunrise in Atlas look? Can you see it through all the buildings?”

“You’re east of me. It’s 3:30.”

Her eyes are so goddamn blue. When they widened, they were like painted doll’s eyes. There were times he looked at her, beaming on the practice field under the bright Vale sun, and he could have fooled himself into thinking she was a portrait.

…

“What’s it there, like, 8? Did you just roll out of bed?”

“Nope,” lied the girl who had just rolled out of bed. “I’ve actually been up for hours planning. Listen, I have something to tell you. I want to spend Christmas with you.”

“Oh, that’s really sweet. No.”

Bianca gasped. “I was hoping you would be nice, but fortunately, I have a rebuttal. Yes.”

…

“That’s the rebuttal?”

“Oh yeah. That just happened.”

…

“Well, when you put it that way, no.”

This was the inevitable dance that they would go around in for the first minute of most of their conversations. For once, Jericho had no real reason to deny her out of impulse. Although he would have probably wound up hanging out with the Gaults on Christmas anyway – Jer was sure there were already gifts under the tree for him, despite his pained and repeated insistences that there was nothing in the world he was interested in this year – he hadn’t gone out of his way to make plans on when to be there. He never had. The other option was to turn up at Shiroyama for Christmas, but that seemed like more of a stretch. If he was already on an airship, technically, Bianca had sent the invite first.

But then she dropped the kicker.

“Listen, Papa wants to meet you. I talked about my new captain too much and—”

“God damn it, B.”

"—I can’t put him off any more, and…I might have slipped up and called you my bae.”

“B.”

“I lied and told him we loved each other as platonic friends, but he didn’t believe me!”

“I don’t even know where to start with you. Look, I’ve met your dad. He’s a cocksucker.”

“Hey!”

“He’s an asshole.”

“Better. Yeah I know. But he loves me, and he’ll love you too once you meet him as you! You two have so much in common! You’re perfectionists, you snap at people, you’re well-dressed, you don’t like liberals…”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, see, then talk to him about…hunting liberals on safari or something! Please! Please please!”

Bianca leaned forward into the cam, batting her eyes at him. The comb was wielded like a blunt club, as though she would try to reach through his TV and take his head off with if she were refused too brusquely. Jericho sighed.

“Look, B...”

“…ianca. If you’re going to tell me no then you don’t get to be hot and use a pet name.”

“Alright, Ianca, listen. I just don’t think it’s a good time for me to be meeting anyone’s dad. If you want me to explain to him that we’re not together, that’s easy. But I—”

She was pouting at him. Severely.

God damn it.

“Bianca, c’mon.”

“B-Bu…b-but…”

“B.”

“youd-dontluv…”

There was sniffling entering the mix.

“You sound hysterical. Bipolar. Have you been seeing the guy I asked you to talk to?”

“I bet that’s where you want me, huh? A straitjacket. Where no one will believe me when I tell them about how you call me by one letter and hug me when I have nightmares and call me birdbrain like a hotter Gratia.”

“Grat is pretty hot as it stands.”

“Ugggh! Never mind. You’re sick. You’re a sicko.”

They had restarted the dance. Jericho sat up, rubbing only his right hand against his face as he tried to blink the sleep and exhaustion with this whole routine out of his eyes. Bianca must have seen that his weariness had grown genuine, because in her own way, in her typical high spirits, she tried to redirect the competition to the print above Jer’s head.

“Cool poster. Is that from Django?”

He didn’t have to turn around to see what she meant – the heavyweight boxer, throwing the uppercut that echoed from here to the stars – but he did look up at her incredulously.

“Lewis and Klitschko?”

“Klitschko Unchained, riiiight! Right, that movie was awesome. Stella and I saw it.” Bianca’s smile brightened. “Oh, yeah! He invited Stella too!”

That did change the dynamic slightly, and in a way that confused Jericho, set him on edge, and came as a surprise relief in the same breath. If this whole idea had been sparked by Bianca mentioning Jericho, why would Estelle, black sheep of the family by anyone’s measure, need to come along too? Regardless, at least it was company. Jericho didn’t have to pretend to like or dislike Stella. She was just likable. She’d come through with tips on her younger, brattier sister more than once.

“He’s dragging Stella home? That's new. What for?”

“I think out of guilt, yeah…” Bianca trailed off slightly, drawing her flannel-covered knees up to her chin. Her wings drooped slightly. “It’s everyone’s first Christmas without Mom.”

God damn it.

That had been the kill shot. The third round kill shot that changed the course of the fight. Jericho’s lips pursed.

“Let me get some coffee in me and I’ll talk to somebody at the Academy about borrowing an airship. I can fly out this evening and do dinner tomorrow.”

Bianca was visibly bouncing on the balls of her feet, comb dropped on her desk as she reached out with both hands as if to pull him through the screen towards her.

“Just you wait. It’s going to rock. You can give everyone here tips, on cooking, on security, on how to frown, on…”

“Bye, Bianca. I’ll see you tonight.”

“…hey, wait. Jericho?”

He almost didn't.

He was reaching towards his Scroll, ready to disconnect on her abruptly as he usually did. He had already missed more of 30 for 30 than he wanted to. But her tone had changed, and her face along with it. She was squinting at the boy she loved as though she’d never really seen him clearly before. For a second he wondered if she’d just realized he was shirtless.

“…Are you okay? Did something happen?”

The concern in her voice put him off all over again.

"...babe?"

“I'll see you tonight.”

Her mouth made an ‘o’ of concern and confusion, ready to say more, but her face started to blur at the edges and shrink in on itself. Bianca Nuit, her messy hair and her messy room all tugged away at the corners, peeling inwards into a giant spark of light where the ‘o’ had yawned a second before. Bianca’s face left behind a black void on the TV screen for a second – refusing to camouflage against the wall, as it was meant to when no programming was on, or to play.

The screen decided to blink on, but Jericho had already closed his eyes during the delay. In his ears, the commentators were horrified. The Greatest of All Time had just been felled by a nobody, struck down in his prime by freak circumstance.

What were the odds?

bgm

Super Invincible Max God Century Robo: Giga Assault Hell Smasher Promethion - A Combining Mecha RPG

I have my gang back. My darling special squadron. This is the best Christmas ever

Super Invincible Max God Century Robo: Giga Assault Hell Smasher Promethion - A Combining Mecha RPG

@Duoya @Fourze YOU TOO GET IN HERE

Super Invincible Max God Century Robo: Giga Assault Hell Smasher Promethion - A Combining Mecha RPG

COOOOOOOOOOOORRINE SHOURICHI

RIDING AGAIN!

@Krayzikk @GarlandDaHero @Stern Algorithm I EXPECT YOU ALL READY TO ROCK N ROLLU

Heroes of Beacon - the Next Chapter

"Depends on how lonely they are, Lauren. Watch out for the pines. Monsters 'round here never had dark meat before."

@Krayzikk

@Krayzikk @Kaithas @NaraK

Shameful!

Appalling!

Insensitive!

Racist!

The things that Ben Lloyd had just insinuated about this forest's denizens, and their palates, were spoken with all the sensitivity of someone who thought that traffic stops were innocent check-ups on black drivers and Eminem had written the hip hop gospel. In that moment, Lauren saw the blacksmith for what he was - a conquistador in the wrong era, a callow boy whose only regrets regarding the rape of Vacuo were that he wasn't there for the climax. She regretted every word of friendship she had shared with the mayonnaise-hued boy, every sexually frustrated glance, suggestive wink, and pulse-pounding bout of feral, animal sex that they would probably wind up having as soon as they were settled back into their dorms. She hated him. In the streets where Lauren Negasi had penned her own legend, the boy's quips, disrespectful of both her ancestry and the supernatural, would have left him a corpse in the streets.

...

She wanted to grab his dick, but he was about to breach the door and one of the things Lauren had developed in her few weeks undercover amidst the straights was a good sense of timing.

"Fuck, man."

"Fuuuuuuuck, fuck you. Yeah, sure. Let's rock. Fuuuuuucking a."

...

"Fuuuuuck this."