Martha stewart peanut butter bar

Hello,
My son ate a peanut butter sandwich he made many days this school year. He liked it to add in some protein for workouts to help bulk and just loved peanut butter. During spring break no sandwiches were made, zero peanut butter, then that Monday back to school he made a peanut butter sandwich and ate it 10 am in car during school break and within minutes broke out over his entire body. He didn’t call me stayed at school and even went to football workouts after where when running and sweating the welts on body only intensified. He came home and I saw the hives, he was extremely itchy and I gave Zyrtec and waited for them to get better but the hives just go worse. Hives aren’t normal for him. We went to urgent care where he was given meds and steroids and prescribed Epipens and referred to allergy. Skin test was negative peanut pos for 6 environmental things, but blood test we got yesterday was “HIGH” for IGE to peanuts. However, the component test from what I can see might not be positive? I don’t know…. I guess obviously wait for doctor to talk to us. He is still avoiding peanuts. He was given a cookie in class and tasted peanut butter ( before getting any testing done but after the hive incident) and his mouth was tingly and numb as he put it. He spit out the food right away and rinsed mouth with water. Could he actually be allergic to peanuts now? Will doctor have us do a food test? I’m very new to any allergies. My daughter ( 8) got stung by a honey bee and went anaphylactic within minutes and now gets venom immunotherapy for that since we actually keep bees but yes, other than that, just not really familiar with food type allergies.

Spent a week in Florida, they had all the VL flavors. These were all so good

My wife and I were watching Peanut Butter Falcon the other night and my mind went down a rabbit hole of a movie we watched about a year ago, I’m unsure if it was new or not, but it was about a young woman who I believe was left by her aunt and uncle.. may have had a beau who was in the military but also gone, and she had a house on a swamp or river. I remember her befriending another guy, and he or the other man may have lost or broken a leg. I thought she had an old time classic name like temperance or Constance… and for some reason wildflower comes to mind along with glass dishes… but for the life of me I cannot remember this movie. She may be close to losing her house…
Please help!

I've seen a lot of posts where people work out a healthy calorie deficit for weightloss based on their TDEE (mine's apparently 2,700).
Well, I've not yet started counting calories (though I'm sure I'll need to at some point), as I seem to be losing weight efficiently enough as it is (I started in April at 245 lbs, and am now at 225 lbs: -20 lbs in 7 weeks), having cut out treats/junk and eating mostly healthy soups.
So I thought I'd take a look through the cupboards and see what I used to typically eat in a day, and work out roughly how much I was consuming.
O.M.G!
Breakfast: Cereal - 400 calories, 30g sugar, 2g fat
Lunch: Peanut Butter on Toast - 600 calories, 10g sugar, 50g fat
Dinner: Burger, Fries, Soda - 1,240 calories, 90g sugar, 50g fat
Snacks: Potato Chips, Chocolate Almonds, Muffins - 2,050 calories, 120g sugar, 110g fat
Total:
4,290 calories, 250g sugar, 212g fat
Plus sugar in coffee, then there's cookies, plus a dessert after dinner. And that doesn't even include a beer or two of an evening...
Probably a good 5,000 calories in a day!
It's really quite shocking to see it written out like that, and would explain how I'm losing weight without counting calories so far.
Have you ever worked out your old intake?

Hi all. Just an fyi, while this is my first ever post, I’m a real account and have been mainly reading and commenting on posts until now.
Now for the issue. I (29F) am wondering if I’m wrong here. Yesterday my husband (33 M) went to work around 7:30-8am and worked until around 5:30pm. During those hours I was home watching his daughter (7) and doing the necessary (breakfast, lunch, snack, etc). She had peanut butter and jelly just before dinner so I didn’t expect her to want much, but I made enough to feed everyone.
My husband comes home from work with leftover pizza; tells me he ate because his job provided lunch (no problem at all). For dinner I made rice, fried plantain, fried pork ribs (like fake chicharron style) and guac.
I had plans with my cousin to stop by a friend’s who we haven’t seen in a few years for maybe 1-2 hours and come back. When I return home I see that everything but the meat to the meal I cooked is still there; my husband and his daughter ate all the meat and left everything else.
I try to remain calm but as I’m sitting and thinking about it I just get enraged. Who does that? I questioned him because I’m truly confused as to why someone would think it’s ok to do something like that.
I expressed that I hadn’t eaten and now there’s no meat left to the meal I cooked. His answer? He thought I ate. I told him you didn’t know for sure so why not check? And even if you didn’t check why eat all the meat and nothing else?? He claims they didn’t like the other components of the meal. To me this is still unacceptable, and at this point I’m livid because I can’t believe he thought that explanation justified his actions or “explained” his thought process.
Then he tried to use his daughter (she’s gone to bed at this time) as an excuse by saying he left her have most of it. That pissed me off even more because she had eaten, and if you know kids they will eat only the meat and leave everything else if you allow them to, which he did!
He said sorry but I just feel like I don’t want to accept it. To me, this was a show of unconscionable selfishness and greed. And then to constantly say “sorry, BUT” is not being accountable to me, it’s trying to lessen the blow of accountability. Even if you were unsure if your partner ate, why wouldn’t you leave some of the food they cooked just in case?
The worst part was when he started claiming that I hadn’t made enough food anyway and had he been really hungry after work, the same outcome would’ve happened. The meat I cooked was literally the last protein we had in the house. I lose it. I made enough food, and I know I did because I made the other half of pork ribs that I saved from two days ago and I cooked the first half for dinner and there were leftovers so I know it was enough. It only “wasn’t enough” because none of the other things made were eaten, just the meat and he decided because he didn’t want the other things he’d supplement them with more meat.
Then goes to the kitchen to rummage in the fridge and act like he cares to find me something to eat. After a few minutes and not finding anything I guess he decided that was enough efforts to try and right his wrong and proceeded to go in his game room and get back to playing with his friends online.
We’re smokers so I roll a joint because I really wanted to lay into him but that’s all I can do at this point because his daughter is asleep and it was late. He comes out and asks me to share and I flat out say no. He flys into a fit claiming that I always act cold and mean when I’m upset and how he’d never purposely deny me something out of spite. He stormed back into his game room and I didn’t hear everything but I’m pretty sure I heard him say stfu (funny because he approached me ask spoke to me but I have to shut up?) and said I just wanna be bitchy (he knows I do not like this word being used to describe me but he thinks if he doesn’t call me a flat out bitch then it’s not the same). I shot back with “At least I know I’m being spiteful, you straight up don’t consider me and that’s far worse!” He just got quiet and said “ok babe”
I went to sleep without eating and I’m currently not speaking to him.
So AITA?

I think I am cured. I cant friggin believe it. I am eating everything, everything !!! Coconut yoghurt with probiotics, sauerkraut, pastries, eggs, bacon, soups, cheese, occasional take away, dates smothered in peanut butter, overnight oats etc. I am eating all fodmaps. I am still keeping it healthy but I do indulge in good things occasionaly, i want to take care of my health. My body felt so damaged that even non fodmaps were hurting me before.
I did everything, prucalopride, rifaximin, carnivore diet, endless supplements and anti microbials which made me worse.. i even quit work. I was in the deepest depression, I am still battling it because my mind is scarred from the trauma. I lost about 9kg, i am a 27 year old female .. very short in height so I looked like a skeleton. I was almost 40kg at my worst, i havent weighed myself yet because I dont want to obsess over it.
What worked ? I have no fkin clue which worked first. After all I mentioned above, I said fuck it and ate whatever I wanted. After the intense carnivore it was not easy I was bloating after everything I ate.. Then I went to an immunologist and he looked at my blood work and said I had homocystenimia. He said my body is not absorbing folate, and had me take that everyday (l-methyl folate).. i am so happy i cannot believe it, i suffered from intense constipation, insane gas and bloating, debilitating brain fog and gut pain just a month ago. It feels like my old self is returning.. i also started taking b1, b6, b12 today as per doctors advice, as he said that these are probably getting depleted as we lower the homocystene. He is having me introduce magnesium too but im trying one thing at a time.
This feels to early to be a victory, but this group really helped me when I felt like dying so I wanted to post this to give you courage to keep fighting. My brain is traumatized from all the pain I felt, but hopefully this will be fixed in time.
Good day to all and dont give up.

I have Some experience with fasting but i just wanted to make a question, do you guys think peanut butter would be ok after a 72h fast? As i come to this sub to enter my question dough i see people fasting for 18, 14, 30 days... WTF? I am surely a noob here but isn't fasting for more then 3 days counterproductive and dangerous? I not here to judge, if people feel good then ok for you. Anyways thanks for the answer about the PB 😊🤗🌈

Hey everyone! I know tons of people have done posts like this, but I absolutely love reading them, so I figured I’d make one too. I’m closing in on one week of using 5 units of injectable semaglutide. Here’s how it went:
-The second I injected it, I noticed a difference. I had recently eaten a 200-calorie peanut butter cracker pack. That usually keeps me satisfied for about an hour, maybe 90 minutes. This time, I was satisfied for over 3 hours
-I was dizzy for a few hours after injection. Nothing major and I originally thought it was just from the nervousness of having to inject myself. But I’ve been seeing other people say the same after their first dose
-I think about food way less. It used to constantly be on my mind and now it’s decreased significantly. I used to get takeout basically everyday or every other day, and I only got it once this week. And I didn’t even NEED to get it, if you know what I mean. I made the conscious decision that I could have a treat. I’ve struggled to decrease my takeout spending for YEARS, and to have the desire just abruptly shut off was wild
-I used to wake up ravenously hungry every morning. Now I don’t get hungry until at least an hour or two after waking up. My hunger has vastly decreased overall, but this was the most shocking thing
-The only side effects I have are diarrhea (not severe but I’m also definitely not taking solid shits) and one bout of nausea after I ate eggs. Looks like I maybe just can’t have eggs anymore—I’m nervous to try again!
-Just based on hunger, I could probably get away with 700 calories a day. But I know this isn’t enough so I’m eating a bit more.
-I’m not weighing myself yet because I tend to get extremely discouraged if I don’t see the number I want. I’d rather wait and see a big loss than check constantly and see a bunch of tiny losses. But I can absolutely tell I’ve lost some weight. My body feels like it does right after I’ve had the stomach flu, if you know what I mean
-I noticed the medication “wearing off” toward the end of the week. I still had appetite suppression, but it wasn’t as noticeable on day 7 as it was on day 1. When I get to higher doses, I’ll probably split them in half like a lot of people suggest
I have 3 more weeks before I titrate up. My body responds pretty well to the lowest dose, which is a welcome surprise. The only thing I don’t get on this dose is full very quickly. I get “satisfied” with a much smaller amount of food, but I don’t get “uncomfortably full” any faster than I used to. If I’ve got a great meal in front of me, I struggle to stop eating until my body sends a signal that I’m gonna be in pain soon if I don’t stop. So hopefully a higher dose will help that, or maybe I’ll just have to get used to it.

After allergy testing, our doctor recommended removing peanut butter, wheat, oats, and many other foods from our 18 month olds diet.
For the past two months he has eaten many foods with cassava flour and sunflower butter. Now, I am reading that those are both very high in lead, and I feel like the worst mom ever. He eats cassava at least once a day, and sunflower butter maybe every other day.
Should I have him tested by our doctor for blood lead levels? Or am I overreacting?

I just installed the G-Swivel Bike + Shelf sold by Teal Triangle and under the StoreYourBoard brand, using the same model name.
I have four large bicycles and wanted to make them accessible from the shed while taking up minimum space. There are many options for wall mounting bicycles, ranging from simple individual hooks to high end racks. I went through a number of reviews for the various options, nearly selecting a generic rack that is sold under many names on amazon for as low as $50, but this is a job I really wanted to do just once, and the G-Swivel model appeared to be a bit better construction and design.
Instructions provided did not speak to the G-Swivel model specifically, I assume because it is new. But the difference between this and the normal rack is just the placement of the hooks into the supports, which is easily understood.
The parts all seemed to be reasonably thick steel, and the finish looked good. Unlike generic amazon stuff, the screws aren’t made of butter alloy.
I had envisioned having two bikes swiveled to the left, and two swiveled to the right in order to maximize space. That plan didn’t really work out, since all that buys you is a small bit of floor space between the two sets that isn’t really usable, and maybe 5-6” of floor space overall, at a cost of taking up another 3’ of wall space. So I ended up pushing them in the same direction.
The instructions make it sound like you have some latitude as to where you place the shelf and the support bar. Unless your bikes are all childrens sizing, you have no choice at all. The shelf must go at the highest setting on the vertical supports, and the support bar must go at the lowest. Even then, you will be hard pressed to place or remove a bike without hitting the shelf.
And when you hit that shelf, you’ll quickly discover that the little plastic locks for the brackets are not sufficient to keep it from jumping out of the track. I am hoping that with a little practice I will develop some technique to hang and remove bikes without bumping the shelf, but if not, the shelf will have to go.
Another problem with the vertical brackets is that they are held in place by a single screw at the bottom. There is nothing to secure the top other than the hook shape, and that will allow the top to move around a bit. Curiously, they did include screw holes in the vertical brackets but with the large empty space between the surface of the u-shaped bracket and the stud, I don’t think they can add much support.
They include 4 drawer handles to stablize the lower wheel while hanging. Because my shed is unfinished, and only one of the spaces aligned with s stud, I only used one of them. I could mount them all on a 1x6 board across the bottom, but letting them fall between the studs gives me a couple of extra inches of floor space.
The install took me a couple of hours but for someone handy it is probably a 30 min job. Lastly, I had underestimated the disadvantage of hanging lower end steel frame bikes. They are heavy and awkward, and I don’t think anyone else in the family will be able to place or remove bikes from the rack by themselves.
In hindsight, I probably would have been better off giving up the entire shed wall, and using hooks that would allow all of the bikes to be as flat against the wall as possible. That also would have also allowed some family members to be able to get the low position bikes on and off the hooks without my help.
I do mildly regret the purchase but I will give it a couple of days.
https://imgur.com/a/6gewrKj

For some context, I have been consuming a lot more self-care content lately and I feel as though I’ve been inundated with the ‘layering scents’ concept and proper shower hygiene (antibacterial bar soap/then scented shower gel) Which I think both sound good on paper. I never used to use two different types of soaps in the shower, I actually have a glycolic acid bar soap and scrubbing gloves which I use. But I bought a dove shower gel that is scented and used it in combination. Yet… I don’t really ‘smell’ a difference after like 15 minutes, I smell clean but I don’t smell the washed off soap and then barely smell my sol de janeiro bum bum cream (another recommendation) I’m kind of confused, I am money conscious as I just began a new job and want to save rather than overconsume and I can’t help but feel like it’s all overconsumption. I’m open to hearing others’ thoughts on this though as I would love to have a strong warm scent like salted caramel, coconut and Shea butter. I just don’t think it’s worth splurging on anymore except for buying stuff related to skin health over the smell that I have perfume, deodorant and mist for anyway.

First: https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/14vo5lb/troublemakers_deaths_pity/
*previous:* https://www.reddit.com/HFY/comments/1d3yvie/troublemakers_parabellum/
......
Go'mon stormed through the castle corridors. He'd sensed something slip beside him during his encounter with the vampire lord. It wasn't just that damned top hat with the thief's prints. No, it was more subtle than that, it was the sound of a gossamer chain rattling against cloth. He scanned every square inch of the hallways as he walked, slowly twirling the Warhammer in his off-hand as he calmly held the pistol muzzle-up towards the ceiling. He'd barely gotten a glimpse of what almost looked like mist as he stomped through the grand halls with paranoia-fueled, seething anger. Abruptly turning a corner he fired the revolver at what he thought was that pesky invisible parasite.
The shimmer shuddered and he switched to the visible spectrum to find out it was just a tapestry in front of a heating vent.
Go'mon let out an enraged scream, tearing the tapestry apart with his bare hands after casting his weapons aside in a fit of rage and impotence. The visage of Monarch D'vinn looking out from the top of a bombed-out hill in battered armor at the shattered remains of the once human-occupied city, being shredded like single-ply latrine paper by go'mon's molecularly edged cybernetic claws. Having spent his rage on the tapestry, he panted dramatically as his heart pounded in its cask. Turning around he let out another furious scream, howling madly as he scanned the hall with thermals. His Hammer and revolver had disappeared without a trace.
The sudden blare of a Klaxon made him pause as he adjusted his armor, forcing himself to calm down as he examined his molecularly edged claws. The main enemy was at the gates, he should go meet them.
...
Cassius' Heart pounded as he took shallow breaths, Go'mon's backplate inches from his own chest as he held onto the Hammer and Pistol for dear life. As the general strutted outside, Cassius moved in perfect synchronization, his left leg rising with the general's before being placed down in sync. He'd been practicing for weeks with the security droids at the mansion, practicing to keep inches from their backs without touching their metal carapace. Now he strutted behind perhaps the second most powerful being he knew like a silent specter. As Go'mon slammed through a door, breaking it into splinters, Cassius lifted his right leg and rotated out of the way just as Go'mon's tail would've brushed against his Calf, giving him away. As the General strutted out into the middle of the courtyard, Cassius used the various straps attached to his gambeson to affix the weapons to his waist before grabbing his Kama and weighted chain from a small pouch at his belt.
Cassius tossed the weighted end of the chain over the wall of the castle after a short run-up, wrapping the gossamer chain around his hands with each rapid step he took up the wall. Reaching the top, he unhooked the weight from the small bar he'd tossed it around quickly disentangling his hands from the chain. He groped the air on the outside of the wall until he touched the enchanted ladder the Top-Hats had left him. Sliding down the ladder, he spotted Drake sitting astride Barney in the middle of the street. The rest were nowhere to be seen but that indeed was part of the plan. Sprinting over, Cassius leaped onto Barney behind Drake and slipped Go'mon's revolver into the empty holster at his belt. Drawing out no reaction save for a few words from Drake, who didn't turn his head lest he give the gambit away.
"Good work Cassius, Fall back and get a gas mask on. We still don't know what's in those canisters because they inked out the labels."
Cassius slipped off of Barney's back and slipped into a nearby building before De-cloaking as he pressed himself against the wall next to a Warmonger who passed him a spare gas mask. He pulled it on and checked the seal before sitting against the wall as his legs jellied beneath him. His mouth was dryer than the scrubland as he accepted a Volunteer's canteen, drinking heavily through a port in the mask as he rode out the adrenaline crash. He glanced over to where their fighters had pried open a sewer access hatch and were dropping in, the smell of sewage souring the air. A few warmongers closest to the opening had comically attached wooden clothesline clips to their noses.
...
Caz lay atop the second-tallest building in Golgatha, trash and debris piled up around her for camouflage ash she drew a bead on the strutting Go'mon. Her god-given eyes were able to see the purple miasma that rose from him like mercury vapors. She didn't even turn her head as she softly asked.
"Distance?"
The man with Heavy cybernetic augmentations pulled casually from a large pouch of grain alcohol, camera-lense eyes extending from his face as he chewed on a bullet thoughtfully. Slowly he stated.
"One thousand five hundred and sixty-seven meters, If you're keeping it under auto-ignition velocity, you should be able to hold it one mil above and..."
The sound of the bullet in his mouth getting chewed filled the air before he stated.
"Two mils right, wind fluctuates between us and the target, expect a half minute of angle deviation."
Caz adjusted her optic, bringing the point of aim directly onto her crosshairs. The man next to her had called himself "an Olympian" an old sect of bionically enhanced warriors from even before the betrayal wars. In the small amount of time she'd gotten to know the man, she'd found him palatable at the very least, soft-spoken with a touch of crazy, it was refreshing. She tried to ignore the artillery-sized rifle he laid behind, the barrel itself bigger around than a drainage pipe, a suppressor of equally massive size almost protruding over the edge of the building. She watched from the corner of his eye as he pulled the breech open to the side and selected a shell thicker and longer than her forearm with a fused tip. He rammed it into the gun with the same ease she loaded her flechettes with.
They both had different jobs despite sitting on the same roof. She'd take care of anything on two legs, and he'd handle anything that had an armored skin. From her vantage point, she watched as the Agri-bots moved into position, planting their artillery pieces against the ground in preparation to fire. They weren't using High explosives much to Remin and Destrier's chagrin, but with their attack plan, they couldn't risk collapsing the sewers. They were instead armed with a chemical weapon known as "CS Smoke" which would obscure visual sightlines for anyone with unaugmented vision. Lucky for her and the Olympian, that wouldn't be an issue with her clear-sight and his advanced optics. She slowly swiveled her focus onto Drake, keeping the center of the crosshair off him as she watched him.
Sitting astride Barney, Drake looked every bit the warrior he was. His dark helmet and armor were almost lost in the dark night. But the red shock of his Helm's mohawk could not be mistaken, glowing brightly against the darkness. As his palm came to rest on the pommel of his sword, she saw something entirely different for a moment.
A warrior in battered, rusty armor, the flesh falling from his bones as a pair of white lights gleamed behind the helmet. A skeletal hand held a rusty sword in its sheath, Its pale, emaciated steed's head hanging low, milky eyes soulless and empty.
But as soon as she saw it, the image faded and she swiveled her crosshairs onto the castle's inner courtyard. A small, dim red light blinked on the side of the Olympian's skull as the Geknosians organized into fighting lines. Hulking Geknosians in overbuilt power armor manned emplaced turrets and the looming Gas generators. A small feed from the Olympian's perspective overlaid itself on her scope before minimizing to one corner. She watched as his crosshair fell onto one of the two Gallicks. The horseshoe-shaped APCs presenting their bulk to the gate as a bulwark. Caz switched her aim to a heavily armored Geknosian, slowly dialing the small wheel on the forend of her rifle to half-power, just under auto-ignition velocity. The geknosian seemed to get uncomfortable as her crosshairs landed on his chest, fidgeting at the controls of their AA plasma Beam-cannon.
The moment the Agri-bots fired their artillery, she'd remove him from the gene pool and take that AA gun out of the fight so Destrier could get into position.
...
Destrier and Remin ran last-minute checks on the small fleet of two-wheeled land vehicles the Top Hats had called "Dirt bikes." The variable electric powerplant produced little to no noise, even now, powered on and ready to roll they didn't even humm. Stepping back, Destrier let the forearms of his power armor clamshell close as he retook the hand controls. Contrary to popular belief, the hands of power armor weren't at all like gloves. A handle with a pressure sensor for each finger was clasped in his hands, allowing him to manipulate the hands of the armor like his own. Destrier turned his head, helmet whirring on its bearing as he watched Remin mount one of the Dirtbikes, the black scimitar strapped to the suspension of the bike within arm's reach. The old man's Mongolian lamellar draped over either side of the bike like fabric, small metal plates clinking and clattering softly as he pulled his fabric-wrapped helmet back on. Destrier clomped over, hardly noticing the backpack with over two hundred rounds of 13x110 mm HEP.
Remin looked up with a grin and met Destrier's arm halfway in a forearm-gripping handshake, their metal hands clanking together as they slid their arms back into a grip around the base of each other's thumbs, then to a normal handshake before waggling their fingers at each other.
Destrier chuckled softly and looked up at the sky, night vision lenses making it appear stuffed to bursting with stars.
"What's on the black samurai's mind?"
Remin asked softly, head tilted back to also look at the stars between the rooftops.
"Well... I'm looking forward to the fighting to finally being over... Maybe I'll finally be able to settle down and invent something with Martha..."
Remin chuckled softly.
"A noble goal... I'd expect nothing less from you Destri... I'm actually hoping to catch a ride back to human-controlled space. I'm too old for this shit, I want to settle down and live out the last years of my life in peace..."
Destrier nodded in agreement, slowly turning his gaze back to the helicopter, blades slowly turning in preparation for takeoff.
"How old are you Remin? I don't think I ever asked."
The old man paused, thinking for a long time.
"Oh... I'd say I've made it past a century at this point. Got a cybernetic heart when I was a kid thanks to a car accident, Ol' things been keeping me going far past when I shoulda dropped."
Destrier nods and laughs softly.
"Damn, and I thought you were only in your fifties."
Remin laughed in agreeance, setting his hands on the handlebars.
"I don't blame ya, I feel like it. Especially now that my legs aren't filled with creaky arthritis."
Destrier sighed softly, gently punching the old man's shoulder as softly as he could in his power armor.
"See you on the other side old man... whether that be the living side or the dead one."
"Here's to hoping it's the former not the latter."
Destrier chuckled his agreement and boarded the helicopter, making the landing gear compress slightly as he put his weight on the flight deck. Unhooking the feed chain from the side of the backpack, he clipped it into the Ma-deuce's feed chute. It whirred as the heavy cartridges were funneled down the chain and into the gun with a click and a clatter.
...
Barney shifted from one leg to the other beneath Drake, Death's chosen reaching down and gently patting his neck fondly as he softly whispered.
"Just a moment longer boy... There's someone I need to talk to."
Drake closed his eyes, letting the Darkness envelop him for a moment before opening them again.
He looked at Death, who was casually swirling a glass of black bourbon thoughtfully.
"You said you wanted to talk to me right before the battle?"
Death nodded and slid the glass of black bourbon his way.
"I did, I want you to drink this before you go into battle."
Drake picked up the glass, inspecting the pitch-black, inky liquid curiously. Before sniffing it and coughing as his eyes water.
"No offense, But I think something died in your liquor bottle."
Death laughed jovially, pouring his own glass from a red crystal decanter.
"That's because this is made from the blood of my predecessor. I thought i might as well get it out of the way."
Drake suspiciously looked at the glass.
"Okay, what happens when I drink it?"
Death paused, slowly swirling his own glass of black bourbon pensively. Then, he slowly knocked his own back, eyes dilating wide before returning to normal.
"Well, It should allow you to control your power, bypassing the decades of training most need."
Drake gave Death a side eye, sniffing the foul drink one more time asking.
"What's the catch?"
Death frowned, then set his glass down.
"Considering that it's going to completely restructure your magical and circulatory pathways. It's going to hurt like nothing you've ever felt before. It also may or may not bind your guardians to your soul."
Drake's head snapped up.
"Guardians... you mean my parents?"
Death nodded softly.
"Guardians, souls that loved someone so much that they remained on after death to watch over them. Your parents loved you... loved you enough to stand by your side even in death... and before you give me some bullshit about this not being what your parents would want... Remember, they'll always be at your side until you die one way or another."
Drake slowly swirled the bourbon before nodding softly, bringing it to his lips, he downed it in a single gulp. It burned on its way down, the tingling feeling intensely spreading throughout his body and to his fingertips in a moment. His nerves burned, and his very being felt as though it was being scalded by burning hot water. But as he set the glass down on Death's desk, he smiled softly. There was a warmth to the pain, like a cold rag against a feverish forehead. The sting of a garlic poultice applied to a fresh whip-wound. It was the crack of his father's wooden sword against his knuckles during their sparring, the sweat that would drip into his eyes on long evenings working the fields. Drake opened his eyes slowly, no longer sitting in Death's office, but his own soulscape, looking at the long-neglected buildings halfway through construction. But he wasn't alone.
Drake smiled at his mother and father. His mother gave him a soft smile as she touched the scar across his face, the wound in his cheek where a gauss slug had torn it open, then, she took his hand to gently touch the scarred wound where Garravan's knife had pierced his hand. His father just sat cross-legged, drinking a stout mug of scrub tree tea with a proud smile on his face. drake looked between them before holding out his hands.
As his parents took them, they dissolved into motes of light that drifted into his chest. His veins burned, and his eyes and nose bled. His entire existence felt like a blistering inferno as the ground of his soulscape rumbled, small, red flowers the color of blood and the shape of gunshot wounds popping up from the ground. But even as the pain grew, and grew, and grew, He found himself simply laughing, grabbing what felt like an invisible pair of chains and pulling up on them as he stood.
The ground erupted in the middle of his soulscape, a massive, gnarled oak tree sprouting from the ground. Its sturdy trunk protecting a small patch of pink carnations interspersed with curly-petaled white Gardenias. Drake felt something form atop his head and reached up, feeling a thorny crown, he gently pulled it off, looking at the black-petaled roses fondly before returning it to his head. The thorny veins grew down from the crown, snaking their way deep into his flesh only to bloom into what felt like new muscles and tendons that weren't attached to his physical strength. Looking at his upturned palms, he curled his fingers, a steady, smokeless pale flame popping into existence in his palm with next to no effort.
As the pain subsided, Drake closed his eyes, relishing its departure before opening them to the shocked and concerned face of Death. Drake gave him a curious look and Death coughed softly as he composed himself before speaking.
"Look, I know I can hide pain well... But that smile you get when you're hurting is capital C Creepy."
Drake touched his grinning face with a soft laugh, wiping a trickle of blood from his nose.
"Well, guess I can add that to my achievements list, Creeping Death out with a smile."
They both chuckled softly at the joke before Death sighed softly.
"You should get back to them, they're almost ready."
Drake nodded and stood, stepping over to the door.
"Wish me luck."
"Good luck, my Champion. Give them hell."
Drake smiled softly and stepped out the door. When he opened his eyes, he was back in the real world, staring up at Go'mon who'd perched himself atop the castle wall, eyeing Drake hungrily.
Giving Go'mon his signature grin, He reached up and depressed a countersunk button on the side of his helmet.
"Hit 'em"
Drake stated, the sound of artillery rocking the city as Go'mon's hungry look quickly turned to rage. There was a loud, screeching whistle as the artillery shells streaked in, blanketing the area in stinging fog. Drake drew his sword, extending thorned vines of power into it as the blade ignited with pale flames. Barney snuffled excitedly and roared as Drake nudged him forward, the Dinosaur leaping over the wall in a single bound. The final battle for Golgatha had begun, after this, they would either be free...
Or they will have died free.
......
Part 112: will be linked here upon completion.