Sub machine gun : Blood - Explosive - 15% crit charge
Minigun : Blood - 25% shooting speed - 250 resistance while reloading
Carabine : 2 shots - 50% crit - 15% reload speed
Radium rifle : 2 shots - 50% crit - 250 resistance while reloading
Ultracite minigun : Blood - 15 Pa - 50 resistance while aiming

First/Previous
The travel took on a less gloomy quality in the day that passed since Gemma’s self-reflection and although there remained a queer distance in her eyes, she seemed in better spirits in losing the weight of the words.
It was a night just beyond Wabash Crevasse that we pushed on till sunset was almost upon us and we were each tired and the food stocks ran low and so we found harbor in a half collapsed cellar where a home once stood; it was only after examining the slatted, rotted boards of the old place, fallen over, tired with decay, that we spied the cellar doors intact; sheets of door metal plied us with safety from the outside world and the interior of the place stank of mold and the deeper recesses were collapsed, but there was a cradle to crossbar the stair hatch and I put my prybar there for the night. We finished the water and canned tomatoes, and I smoked a cigarette, staving off the inevitable doom which would come with the dwindling of our supplies.
I’d peeked through the space where the doors met at the cellar’s entry and watched the full darkness there while the youngins spoke of life and the trivial pursuits of it and I hardly said a word besides.
Sitting on the lowest step with Trouble dumbly maintaining her station by me, by the low glow of the space in the threshold, I saw they’d pushed their bedrolls together and Andrew had fallen asleep with his arm over Gemma’s shoulder and her eyes glowed with shine from the crack, blinked a few times while seeing me; she too eventually drifted to sleep, and I spent time by the secured door.
Gunshots rang across the stillness, and they stirred from their quiet slumber and Gemma asked, “Harlan, is it alright?”
I moved to the space there at the doorway again and listened and watched what I could through that crack and nothing beyond came. “It’s safe. I’ll be up a bit longer. I’ll watch.”
Andrew asked, “Can’t sleep?”
“I’ll sleep in a bit. Don’t worry about me. Rest. Sleep good and we can put more behind us.
They sat up, legs crossed triangle-wise, and Gemma spoke again, “Why do you have such a hard time sleeping? It seems I’m asleep after you and only awake after you too.”
“Yeah,” said Andrew.
“It’s cool at night. I can listen to the wind.” I shrugged.
“You should be the one that tries to get some sleep,” said Andrew.
I said nothing.
They reached out their arms and I shook my head.
“Here,” Gemma said, “Move your bedroll closer.” She reached across the dirt floor of the cellar and dragged my splayed roll so that it sat beside hers.
“I’ll sleep later.” I turned my attention back to the door and ignored them till their sounds of sleep could be heard. The Alukah was nowhere and did not tap on the door that night and when I moved to sleep, I shimmied onto the roll beside them, facing away on my shoulder; the dog followed, laid on the bare dirt beside me and I held the mutt.
Though I refused a noise as they stirred in the absolute darkness, I felt Gemma’s arm fall over my own shoulder and felt Andrew’s hand touch my back, and water traced the bridge of my nose and I slept deeply thereafter.
There was no breakfast without food, and the water was gone; I felt the eyes of the dog on us as we packed up our belongings that next morning and I tried not to imagine the poor animal skinned over fire. I smiled at Trouble, patted its head, scratched its chin; she sniffed my hand like she was looking for something that wouldn’t be found.
We went west again, ignoring roads and pushed through straight wasteland where nothing was and no one was, and with every dry footfall on the dry hard ground, I wished for rain, and I wished that when it had rained, as infrequent as it was, that I had been wise enough to save what we could from the sky; that sky was red and swollen and refused to burst. We pushed on through strange dead thickets where grayed and twisty yellow branches lurched from the ground into the sky like even they too wished for an end to all the suffering. It was days more till we would see Alexandria and though I could stave off hunger (thirst too, if necessary), I was not so certain that the children would be able to push on without it; they did not complain and watched the ground in our march and maintained higher spirits than I could’ve imagined from them.
Early in the day, they spoke often, and I listened and as they wore on, their words came less and even the dog seemed in a lower mood for the unsaid predicament; me too.
Gemma broke the silence on the matter by saying, “What are we going to do about food? Water?”
“We’ll push on.”
“We could turn back?” asked Andrew.
“The more time we spend out in the open, outside of a city, the more likely it is that the Alukah will catch us unawares. Tighten your belts.” Our feet took us around a dilapidated truck, an old thing with a rusty hook which dangled off a rear arm. “Save your urine.”
They made faces but did not protest.
“Does that work? You ever drink pee?” asked Andrew.
I laughed, “I thought we’d be there by now. I took us too long by trying to drop the scent of the Alukah. That thing’s hunted us for days—last night was the first time it ain’t bothered us. It’s got me wondering why.”
Gemma piped up, licking her dry lips before speaking, “Do you think that monster ran into those scavengers we saw?” Then I caught her shooting a look at Andrew, “At least we warned them.” Her smile was faint and almost indiscernible as one.
I shrugged. “Can’t say. Don’t think it’s smart to turn back. Won’t be long and we’ll touch the 40 and then it’ll be a straight on to Babylon—couple of days—can’t turn back though. Maybe without food; that’s doable. Water’s the worst, but if it comes to it,” I paused and looked on the weathered faces of the children, on the lowered head of Trouble which followed her nose across the ground (it searched just short of frantic), “Like I said, ‘save your urine’.”
The first pains of hunger held within me brought up some reminiscence and I wished for nothing more than to hold Suzanne; I could nearly smell them and in the swaying walk which took us on past toppled townships, I held long blinks where I could nearly make out their face and if I really pushed the limits of my imagination, I could feel them. In those moments, as we passed dead places, rotted pits of despair, I could think of little more than their presence. Though I knew it was a dangerous game, hoping for more than I was worth, I hoped for Suzanne then and I wished that I’d taken them up on their offer to travel to Alexandria with them; it could’ve been home—it never was in all the times I’d gone there, but who knows? The thoughts of Babylon brought forth their gardens; the wild gardens and the water which flowed freely through their pipes. I wished I was a different person entirely and that too would’ve been better for Suzanne; how it was that they’d seen anything in me, I don’t know. How it was that they could stoop to the level of being with someone like me—I warded off that thought, because to place the blame there would certainly be unfair. I thought of my love plainly and wanted a different life more suited to them.
Imaginations played more furiously, and I remembered the evening when Dave stopped me from leaping from that roof—it’s doubtful that he even realized that he’d slowed my demise; perhaps he did know—I wished then that I could ask him. Too kind for the world. People too kind for the world were scarce and hardly worth the trouble. Yet, there I was, chaperoning those two across the wastes.
Gemma was a broken person when I’d found her, tortured in Baphomet’s well; Andrew was a dullard boy who’d lost his hand. What a silly predicament.
I stopped in my movements and swiveled on my heel to catch Andrew by the shoulder. “You still got your hand, don’t you?”
In good humor, the boy grinned, lifted the nub on the end of his left forearm to show me, “Nope.”
“Dammit, no! The hand in the jar!”
Andrew raised his eyebrows. “In my pack.”
“Stop,” I commanded Trouble; the dog hardly recognized my words and continued a way then circled back, sad eyes looking up from where she took to sit by my side. Gemma, both arms dangling loosely from her own pack’s shoulder straps, took into the circle we’d formed.
The girl asked, “What about the jar? It’s nasty, but I guess it’s his.”
“I think that’s it,” I said. I took Andrew by his shoulders, looked him in his eyes, “We could use it!”
“What?” The boy almost laughed in the display of our concern. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I think I’ve got it! It’s good for a trap.” I shook him; maybe too hard. I almost smiled. “It’s worth a shot!”
“It’s mine.” He bit his top lip, withdrew from me.
“You’ll feel differently about that,” I said.
Gemma placed a hand on Andrew’s pack and tried ripping it open. “Give it to him!” shouted the girl.
The boy whipped from her grasp, and he spun on his feet, and panic stood on his face. “It’s mine, isn’t it?”
I took a step forward, “No, not anymore.” I put out my palm, “Give it.”
Andrew nearly flinched at the thought of it and shook his head a little. “Why?”
“I told you why,” I said.
“You don’t even know if it’ll work, do you?” his words were long in protest.
The girl started again, “Andrew, please.”
He locked eyes with Gemma and once again, his bottom teeth came up to meet over his top lip and he moved his jaw methodically with contemplation.
“What does it even matter?” she asked.
“It’s mine. You don’t know what it’s like.”
“Don’t be ridiculous!”
“C’mon,” he said, but his pack straps fell from his shoulders, and he hunkered down on the ground and opened his bag; his right hand plunged into the recesses therein and withdrew the jar with his severed left hand. He held the object up, refusing to come up from his open pack, keeping his eyes on the ground. “Take it then.” He shook the jar; its contents sloshed with liquid decay.
I grabbed the thing, held it to skylight; the remains within had congealed and rotted and lumps nearly floated in the brownish liquid which had formed in the base of the container. I shook it and stared for a moment at the miniscule debris which floated alongside the hand; each of its digits had swollen and erupted to expose bone; some had come away in pieces. “Tomorrow,” I said and nodded.
We gathered ourselves and Andrew pulled his pack on again and we moved, Trouble still looked sorry and the boy remained quiet while the girl chattered on with questions while we took through the dying ground in a formation with the dog on point then me then the children.
“What will you do with it?” she asked me.
“Not sure yet.”
Andrew made a noise like he wanted to say something but didn’t.
“You think it will work?” asked Gemma.
“Nothing’s a guarantee. They’re smart—Alukah.”
“Smart enough to figure out a trap?”
I shrugged. “We’ll find out.”
“We could put stakes in a pit.”
“Keep on the lookout for a building. Something with multiple floors.”
With that, we moved on, found a worn, mostly destroyed road and we fell into a travelling quiet and the thought of hunger or thirst arose again, and I pushed it down—though I knew the uneasiness could only last so long before savagery would overtake the human condition; the kids seemed strong enough, but I kept an eye on the dog too. Savagery belonged not only to humans, after all.
The ground of the wastes was harder when it was quiet, and it was flatter further west. The sky—red and full of thin and transparent drifting clouds—seemed an awful sight when stared at for too long; it was the thing which stretched as if to signal there wasn’t an end in any direction, as if to declare we had much more to go till safety. Wanderlust is a thing that I believe I’ve felt before, but under that sky, with those two and the dog, I didn’t feel it at all. It was doom that I felt. Ignorance and doom. And it was all because I was certain I’d made all the wrong mistakes, and it was coming back to me. I was experienced. We should’ve had food and water. Perhaps there was some deep and nasty part inside of me that had intended to sacrifice them along the way. The words of the Alukah might have rung true: You say you make no deals, but I smell it. I think you’d deal.
Surely, I felt differently. Surely.
“Getting darker,” called Andrew as we came to where signposts—worn and bent and barely legible—told us of a place once called Annapolis and the buildings were nearly gone entirely; places, maybe places that were once homes, were leveled—I was briefly caught in imagining what it might’ve been like all those ages ago. As are most places, it was haunted like that and when we came to a long rectangular structure of metal walls—thin walls—we took it as a place for rest for the night.
It once served as an agricultural station, for when we breached its entry, there were a line of dead machines—three in all—cultivators or tillers which stood higher than any of our heads and Gemma asked what they were, and I told her I thought they were for farming. The great rusted bodies stood in quiet shadow as we came through a side passage of the building and the great doors which had once been used to release those machines from the building stood frozen in their frame. I approached the doors, lighting my lantern and motioning for the children to shut the door we’d entered through.
Upon closer inspection, it seemed the doors would roll into the ceiling and the chains which held the doors in place were each secured with rusted padlocks—I removed my prybar from my pack and moved along the wall of doors, giving each old lock a smack with the weapon; each one held in place, seemingly fused there through years of corrosion, and I rounded the cultivators once more, back to the children, near the side door where they’d discovered a rickety stair frame which crawled up the side of the wall to a catwalk; along the catwalk, a levitated box stood at the height of the structure, stilted by metal legs, and we took the stairs slowly with the dog following close behind; the poor mutt was mute save the sound of its own shuffling paws.
The metal stairs creaked under our weight and Gemma held her own lantern high over her head so that the strange shadows of the place grew longer, stranger, and suddenly I felt very sure that something was in the dark with us, but there was no noise except what we made. My eyes scanned the darkness, and I followed the children up the stairs till we met the overhang of the catwalk and I peered into the shadows, the blades of the cultivators—far extended on foldable arms—struck up through the pool of blackness beneath us and I felt so cold there and if it were not for the breath of my fellow travelers, I might have been lost in the dark for longer than intended—lost and frozen and contemplative.
“There’s a room,” said the boy, and he pushed ahead on the hanging passage, and he was the first to the door. “Boxes,” he said plainly.
Upon coming to the place where he stood, Gemma pushed her lantern over the threshold, and I saw what he’d meant as I traced my own lantern to help; the room was crammed with plastic totes and old metal containers of varied sizes. There seemed to be enough empty space to maneuver through the room, but only if one watched their feet while they walked. Carefully.
We moved to the room, and I found a stack of crates to place my lantern then motioned for Gemma to douse hers. In minutes, the place was rearranged so that we could sit comfortably on the floor; crates lined the walls precariously and we breathed heavy from the work done, but we began to unpack and upon watching the children while I rolled a cigarette, I felt a pang of guilt, a terrible summation—all choices in my life had led me here and with them and perhaps it would have been a better world for them without me.
Mentally shrugging this thought away, I lit my cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then withdrew the jar which Andrew had handed over. I held it to the lantern to examine it. The grotesqueness of it hardly phased me and I watched it more curious and hopeful than disgusted.
“I hope it’ll work,” said the boy, “Whatever it is that you plan on doing with it.” He grimaced and maintained a further silence in patting his bedding for fluff. The dog moved to him, and she pushed her forehead against him where he squatted on floor. The boy scratched Trouble’s chin and whispered, “Good girl,” into the top of her head where he’d pushed his own face.
“I’m hungry,” said Gemma; she placed her chin in her arm while watching Andrew with the dog. She sat on her own flat bed there on the floor and stated plainly the thing that I’d hoped to ignore for longer.
“I know.” I took another drag from the cigarette and let the smoke hang over my head. “The dog?”
Andrew recoiled, pulling Trouble closer into his arms.
I smiled. “It was a joke.”
Andrew relaxed, but only a moment before Gemma added, “Maybe.”
The boy narrowed his eyes in the girl’s direction, and she shrugged. “If it’s life or death.”
He didn’t say anything and merely continued stroking Trouble’s coat.
That night, we slept awfully and even in the complete darkness, I felt the cramp of the storage room and the angled shapes of the tools that protruded from the containers on all sides remained permanent well after we’d turned the light off and it felt like those shapes were the teeth of a great creature like we were sitting inside of its mouth, looking out.
Trouble positioned herself partially on my chest, her slow rhythmic breathing brought my thoughts calm and I whispered to her in the dark after I was sure the others were asleep, “I promise it was a joke.” And I brushed the back of her neck with my hand and the animal let go of a long sigh then continued that deep rhythmic breathing.
Still without food or water, the following day was the true indication of the misery to come. Gemma’s stomach growled audibly in waking and Andrew—though he kept his complaints to himself—smacked his lips more often or protruded the tongue in his mouth in a starvation for water. The room, in the daylight which peered through pinpricks of its half-decayed roof, seemed another beast altogether from its nighttime counterpart; it was not so frightening. Again, I admonished myself for the lack of preparation, but there was another thought that brought together a more cohesive feeling; we had a possible plan, a trap for the demon that’d been following us.
We went into the field to the west of the building where there was only dirt beneath our feet in the early sunlight and in the coolness of morning air, I nearly felt like a person. The sun crested the horizon and brought with it a warmth that would quickly become overwhelming—in those few minutes though—it felt good enough. I wished for the shy dew and saw none. The weirdness of holding Andrew’s rotting hand in a jar momentarily caught me and I almost laughed, but refrained and the dog and the children looked on while I held the container up and suddenly, seeing the congealed mass of tissue floating in its own excretions, I was overcome with the urge to run, the urge that nothing would ever be right again in my life, and that I was marked to be that way.
I blinked and tossed the jar to Andrew. “Say goodbye,” I said. He fumbled after it with his right hand and caught it to his chest.
“It’s strange you care so much anyway,” said Gemma, shrugging—her eyes forgave a millisecond of pity and when Andrew looked at her, still holding the jar in his right hand, she smiled and stuffed her hands into the pockets of her pants.
“We’ve enough oil, I think,” my voice was raspy from it being early, “Enough for good fire, but if we use it, it’ll mean a few more dark nights on our way.”
“We’re going to set it on fire?” Andrew pondered, keeping his eyes to the contents of the jar. “It worked good enough last time. It’ll work,” I nodded, “I has to, doesn’t it?”
His dry lips creased into a brief smile, and he tossed the jar back to me and I caught it.
“Let’s dig,” I said.
Without much in the way of proper tools, we began at the ground under us with our hands, then taking turns with my prybar till there was a hole in the ground comfortably large enough to conceal a human head and I uncapped the jar and spilled it contents there and we covered it back and I lightly tamped it with my boot. My eyes scanned the outbuilding we’d taken refuge in the night prior and then to the street to the north then to the houses which stood as merely rotted plots of foundation with frames that struck from the ground more as markers than support. “I’ll take up over there across the street when it gets dark. I want you two in that storage room before anything goes off.”
“We can’t help?” asked Gemma.
“You can help by staying out of the way—the mutt too,” I said; the words were harsh, but my feelings were from worry.
“Wouldn’t it be better if we stuck together?” asked the girl.
I shook my head. “You stay in the room and keep quiet. No matter what you hear, you stay quiet and safe.”
“That’ll put you at a bigger risk,” Gemma furrowed her brow at me and shifted around to look out on the houses across the street, “There’s hardly any cover over there.”
The boy nodded, smacked his lips, and rubbed his forearm across his mouth then audibly agreed with her.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, “No matter what you hear happening outside, no matter, you don’t open the door and you don’t scream—don’t make a noise at all. Alright? Even if you hear me calling you, you don’t do it.”
“Pfft,” Gemma crossed her arms and kicked her foot against the ground. The way her eyes seemed hollowed with bruising showed that the irritation would only grow without food. “Alright,” she finally sighed.
Andrew looked much the same as she did in that; he swallowed a dry swallow then stuffed his hand into his pocket and looked away when our eyes matched.
We gathered our light oil. Altogether, it seemed enough; rummaging through the room of the outbuilding we’d earlier taken refuge within, we managed three intact glass containers—the only ones found that wouldn’t leak with liquid; two were bottles and the third was the jar that’d once kept Andrew’s hand. With that work done, we sat with three Molotov cocktails within our huddled circle of the storage room.
“Is it enough?” asked Gemma.
“We’ll see,” I began rolling a cigarette to ignore the hunger and the thirst.
Andrew took to the corner and glanced over his shoulder only a moment before a steady liquid stream could be heard and when he rotated from the wall once the noise was finished and he held a canteen up to his nose, sniffed it and quivered and shook his head.
As the sun pushed on, I scanned the perimeter outside, and they followed. Far south I spied a mass of shadow inching across the horizon and Gemma commented, “What’s that?”
I pushed the binoculars to her and let her gaze through them.
“A fiend—that’s what we called it back in the day anyway. A mutant.”
She held the binoculars up and frowned. “A mutant? So, it was once human?”
“A fiend was once many humans.” I pointed out to the horizon though she couldn’t see me doing so and continued, “If you look at the edges of its shape, you’ll see it’s got limbs galore on it. Sticking up like hairs is what it’ll look like at this distance. Those are arms and legs. It’s got faces too. Many faces.” I shuddered.
“I can barely see any details,” she passed the binoculars to Andrew, and he looked through them, “What’s it do?”
“What?” I asked.
“What’s it do if it catches a person?”
“It pulls people into it. Makes you apart of its mass. Nasty fuckers.”
Andrew removed the lenses from his eyes and held them to his chest and asked, “It won’t mess up your trap, will it?”
“We’ll keep an eye on it,” I said, “You don’t want to mess with a fiend unless you have to.”
First/Previous
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Is your main fandom a medieval-themed video game with swords and magic? Or does your OTP usually chill on Deck 5 of a space station orbiting Earth? As long as today they are transported to modern-day Earth, for a one-shot, or for a longfic, this exchange is for you!
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Hello Redditors of Photography
I am not sure am I at the right place for this sort of question, but I thought why not give it a shot.
You see, in September (09.-19.th of September), my fiancee and I are getting married and right after the wedding we are going to Italia for our honeymoon. We are visiting a few places, including Cinque Terre, Florence, Rome, Bologna and Venice. Our deal was to ask around for a good photographer in Italy so we can get some wedding photos in one of those places. And since it is our first time in Italy, we are not sure what location is our best option. I am certain every one of those have their own beauties and whichever we choose we won't go wrong. But I would feel better if more experienced people would help us.
And while we're on the subject, we still haven't found a photographer, so it would be a lot of help if anyone of you is one or know one. We would of course pay for this favour and negotiate it further in the inbox.
Thanks everyone for your time!

First/Previous
Gemma was right about the sky’s open night, and I could sympathize with her recollection of the beauty, but for me it must’ve been a greater tragedy—the young woman had only ever enjoyed the stars in the pits of Golgotha; I could, long before, drink in the sky at leisure. Cruel memories.
The night the Rednecks died was one of viscera, but before that it was coolness on the breeze, a warmth by the fires while John played his guitar and we had only just taken two dozen kegs of lager (personal reserves) from the Atlanta despot—the man that kept his subjects as slaves and not a person among the camp was left without budding intoxication. No matter the age, everyone was invited to be merry; if it was that children too faced the plight of a bad world, then so too should they reap the moments of plenty—or so the camp figured.
John had taken a group by the fires where wagons were drawn in interlocking semicircles for cover and Jackson sat beside the picker. Jackson was a man which normally preferred quiet reflection over boisterous singing and nearly never wore the band on his throat, and yet there he was belting out the chorus at the top of his lungs, tankard in hand, red cloth blazed around his neck—it was a contagion and those drunk enough for easier embarrassment sang proudly along:
“There is power, there is power in a band of working folk!
When we stand hand in hand,
That’s a power, that’s the power,
That must rule in every land!”
I’d taken to the outlying shadows with my back pressed against the gas-powered caleche, my own tankard in hand. I loved the warmth of that great big family, truly, but even in those days—and maybe it was that queer youthfulness which longed for individualism that made me that way then—I remained as distanced as possible when I could. I sipped the lager, it was a fine drink and my brother Billy, nearly as old as I was when I’d first taken up in the infantry, swaggered to stand beside me just as quiet for minutes and we looked at the stars and he asked me what it was like to kill a man.
“Is it hard?” he asked.
I nodded, “Sometimes.”
“Killing monsters ain’t so bad. Don’t know if I could do it to a person.”
“You could if they meant to kill you; or if they meant to do it to someone you cared about,” I promised him. In those days, spry, energized, I held no time for staring into abysses; though I still wasn’t a man fully, I pretended as one. It was about family, and it was about doing what was right—what’s right seemed to change, or I changed. The world felt stark with good and evil and even later I’d feel that sentiment well up in me, but if that’s true, I know I stand more on the latter and so I intentionally obfuscated it—this I know. If not, it might be too much to bear. I was required to lie to myself and even in knowing I lied, it was better.
Billy tugged on the red kerchief around his throat and asked me how it looked on him.
“Looks good,” I said.
“Don’t think I look stupid at all?”
I smiled over my drink, “You always look stupid.” I sipped. “The neckwear’s fine.”
“Give me a break,” said Billy; he investigated his own cup, gave it a swish with his wrist, watching its contents swirl. “Aren’t you ever afraid you’ll die?”
“Sometimes—nights like this—I wouldn’t mind it.”
“Really?” my brother asked.
“There’s always a chance of it. Every moment, I guess.”
He smiled. “I wish I had that confidence.”
“You’ll get it,” I returned his smile; it was true that he would gain the fighting spirit. It came to us all with time and reminiscing on the early days, I recall the grit and the hatred—there was learning there too though. Besides, I’d seen the squalors of a stationary man. The stagnation of a place, an unmoving home.
John put his guitar away and laughter erupted from the crowd from something said and Sibylle, cowboy hat cocked funny, traipsed across the camp to the open keg for a refill; the man there, tending the cylinders, was a man named Tandy (a foreigner and one unknown besides the way he smoked a skunk pipe and told wild stories). My mother leaned over while Tandy opened the spigot mouth on the keg, and she froze there, and I could see her there cut out forever against the light of the fires; I watched, and it came so suddenly that I couldn’t be sure what’d happened at all. It was so sudden that I couldn’t find my weapon and I couldn’t find even the courage to fight because in those moments it wasn’t courage I needed, it was grounds to understand.
Sibylle came apart in two pieces immediately, torn completely through and dust erupted as her legs struck the ground while her torso spun through the air like a top, a trail of liquid trailed after, caught in the blue of night so it shone as black; she couldn’t scream. Tandy was a statue. Before anyone could react, more flesh, other bodies, went up and there was all manner of limbs which filled the ground, and it is astounding how quickly a red mist forms across the ground during a massacre. Perhaps the wails of my comrades started before, perhaps others fell before Sibylle, but I could not comprehend the goings-on till I saw her drop the way she did.
Frail human screams rose on the night; I slammed to the ground, tankard gone away and hands scrambling in the dirt; I reached up blindly and yanked Billy to my level and his expression was one of innocence, panic, tears even. Glancing around, I saw the demons bolt from the pitch-black darkness on the edges of camp, mutants taking the fore while greater creatures lurked further back, some hurled whips of gliding metal which writhed over their heads when they stretched them out for a strike—alien—and they sliced directly through soft human bodies. Not even a cry escaped me, but Billy let go with it and I slapped my cupped hand over his mouth hard to hold the screams. His voice would not have been alone anyway, not alongside that startling cacophony. Amidst the cries of people, there were the cries of horses, of our hounds.
We rolled across the ground, slipped beneath the raised body of the gas-powered caleche, remained quiet in the dark, peeked out between the wheels.
“What’s happening?” Billy whispered through my fingers; I removed my hand from him and caught a glimpse of him framed in a square of firelight through the wheels—we lay there on our bellies and the left side of his face was glazed with dirt where I’d pulled him down.
“Shh,” I told him, “Shh, please. Please.” Not another word came while I pleaded with him, pleaded with the world to make this all a nightmare.
Through the haze and the running silhouettes painted black, I saw what might have been Jackson; he stumbled and in the moment that it took me to gasp, his head was gone from his body, his torso slid on as he collapsed, came to rest mere feet from the motor wagon. I told myself that it wasn’t him, but it probably was.
Some mutants lumbered through the camp like animated corpses, some leapt with wild energy or sprayed noxious fumes which lingered in the air; others still were amalgams of humanlike limbs themselves—fiends—exhausting terrible sounds, producing smells of sulfur, glistening with whatever liquids excreted from their oblong alien orifices. Demons ran amok, chanted in devil tongued languages, laughed madly at the destruction—others still, those which displayed some greater intelligence, broke into a song I could never hope or want to replicate; it seemed a unified damnation.
“Please,” I repeated in a whimper and Billy hushed me this time and I realized we were holding hands, squeezing for dear life as figures walked the camp, speared those half-alive, elected others for twisted carnality.
In darkness, in fright plainly, we scuttled from the recess of our hiding place, kept quiet, held to each other, and went into the wasteland where nothing was—every shadow was a potential threat, every second could’ve been the last. We were holding hands; then we weren’t.
Only a glance—that’s all I afforded my brother and nothing more—what a joke of a person I am! What a coward I was. Always.
Something got him in the dark and instead of dying alongside those I cared about, I went on, heartbeat driving me till it was all that I heard in my ears and my muscles ached and my chest heaved and sweat covered me, chilled me in the breeze of the night—it was only once I’d accepted the dark completely, crawled into a hollowed space of rocks along a squat ridge that I watched the demolished camp; it seemed no larger than a spark, but the creatures, fiends and others continued their war cries; never before had I witnessed demons participate in such an attack.
I watched till the sun came, till the fires became smoke, then I watched the band of hell creatures disband. The smell of sulfur remained in the air—copper too—and I stumbled back to the camp in a dreamlike daze, totally unbelieving of the things I saw. Among those dead on the ground, I could recognize none; among those piked from rear to shoulder, standing like morbid scarecrows where they’d been steadied against the ground, I could not want to recognize.
Many of the wagons were overturned, including the gas-powered caleche and I went to it; the metal of its body was warped but I fell to the ground by it and pushed my back against the exposed undercarriage, remained frozen there while examining the bodies, the terrible strips of skin which rested places like wet sheets of paper, the piles of bones removed and smashed and piled.
I cried so deeply that oxygen became a memory, and the shakes couldn’t be contained.
It was like that for so long, knees pulled up, face pushed between, and the wails came unafraid of whatever attention they might garner; there was no rationale, but I imagine if there had been, I would’ve welcomed death in that misery. It was a deep wound that not even my own cowardice would overcome for the sake of survival.
Unaware of my surroundings, not wanting to look up from the ground between my legs, the noise which had started out as imaginary became real and I raised my head then to listen better and wipe my sore eyes; it was the sound of clip-clop horse hooves and I mildly wondered if any of the animals had been spared. I stood and pivoted around the dead camp and there it was, a man on a painted horse with golden hair; he leisurely drove the mount through the place, maneuvering around pools of blood, clumps of body parts and upon seeing me, he smiled and offered a languid wave, keeping one of his gloved hands on the reins.
The man wore white and swished his hair back upon arriving directly in front of me. Ahoy, he offered kindly, Did you happen to see the other riders?
I shook my head, feeling numb.
Ah, he said, I could have sworn four other riders, at least, passed me on my way. His gray eyes examined the carnage. Shame. He shook his head. You are?
“H-harlan.”
He nodded and nearly offered an expression of genuine condolence before descending from the horse; the animal gave a gentle grunt and wandered away from its master to inspect a nearby group of the dead. The man offered his hand, and I took it in a shake. Mephisto, said the man. He flashed a smile again before his face grew serious. I’ve come to you to deal.
I shot him a questioning look, one of bafflement.
I heard your calls from far off. He nodded, removed a white handkerchief from his breast pocket and swiped it down his face. Hot out. He shrugged then replaced the cloth in his pocket. This, he motioned to the disarray of vehicles, of bodies, I can’t fix all this—it’s too much—but there’s a person you love, I know. I could bring them back.
“Doctor?” In retrospect it was such a naïve question.
He shook his head.
“Angel?”
He grinned and nodded, Sure.
“Demon?”
Undoubtedly. His eyes—pits of gray in that radiant face—nearly expressed solemness; he daintily shook the hair from his face and looked at his steed which sniffed a corpse. What’s the word, Harlan? There are others calling and I must be on my way soon—I can’t dally. There was a sharpness to the words. Can’t dally. We must convene soon, or I’ll mosey on.
I snorted back the clog in my nose from the tears and wiped my eyes with my sleeves. “Okay.”
Deal?
I nodded, “Deal.”
Sleep tonight, said Mephisto, Sleep and you’ll be rewarded in the morning.
“You said it’s a deal.”
He nodded and scanned the carnage before we matched gazes and then he said, Yes?
“What is it you want from me?”
Nothing you need now. He called the horse, and it came, and he swept his feet quickly from the ground and settled into position atop the animal. Sleep, Harlan. You won’t be bothered. There are worse things still over the horizon.
I watched him go till he disappeared and once he was gone, I couldn’t cry anymore and instead rummaged through the wagons for what I might carry; along the way I found John, face twisted but corpse intact. The body from the previous night that I’d guessed was Jackson couldn’t be determined but I found him nowhere else. I slid Sibylle’s holster from her hips, fell hard onto the ground and found that I could sob more. I took her cowboy hat, placed it on my head and held her pistol in one hand and the belt holster dangled from the other while I searched the other bodies; there were so many, but I could not find Billy.
Waiting for darkness, I took the spot where I rested, back against the caleche’s undercarriage, watched the sky and felt the gun in my hand; it was heavy. I put it to my head, closed my eyes, and whispered affirmations to myself then I put the pistol between my splayed legs, watched it still in the dirt, and pulled the hat down over my eyes but it did little for the smell. Though the brim of the hat cut the sky out, I watched the ground and saw circling shadows form overhead and heard calls of turkey vultures; they came to pick over the bodies. I withdrew my knees to my chest there again and laid my forearm across them and bit into my arm while closing my eyes. I had thought I was a man and for a time, maybe I was, but there in that miserable pit of despair I became a child again and if I’d become more delirious, I’m sure I might’ve called out for Jackson like it was a bad dream.
Into a fading stupor of sleep in the sun I went and when I awoke again it was dark and chilly and I was tired and hungry but too sick to eat and hardly strong enough to move; I looked at the gun and put it into its holster and left it there by the caleche. In the light of the moon and stars, I moved to gather a bolt of canvas; I unfurled the fabric and created a leaning shelter against the overturned vehicle and crawled into it. There was a hole in the canvas, and I peeked out at the stars.
Weeping came again, but not so uproarious; I was stuck there letting go of whimpers, lying on my back, feeling the tears trace in lines from the outer corners of my eyes to collect along my earlobes. In time, I fell to sleep again on the hard ground because the mourning had taken all else from me.
A pinpoint of sunlight broke my eyelids and I jerked awake and reached for the holster, but it was gone. So was the hat. I crawled from the leaning shelter and there he was.
Billy stood plainly among the dried, congealed blood-soaked field and he looked on to the horizon and all shadows were long in the midday sun which hung up there in a soft blue sky. Whether it be a dream or a spell, I couldn’t care—I charged to him and spun him so he faced me and though his face was plain and expressionless, I wrapped him into a forceful hug. He placed his hands on my back and gave a gentle squeeze; when I pulled from him, my hands on his shoulders, I saw he held Sibylle’s hat in his left hand, pinched by the brim; he’d already tugged her holster belt around his hips—he could have it all. I shook while holding him then let go to wipe my face.
“You’re alive,” I nodded.
He nodded without speaking then looked at the hat in his hand and placed it on his head and firmly pressed it down.
“Billy! Hell, you’re alive!”
The corners of his mouth twitched upward for a moment then he nodded again. “Yeah.” His eyes curiously searched our surroundings like he meant to take each detail in forever.
I slapped him on the shoulder and almost squealed. “Goddammit.” I wiped my eyes again and could do little to keep the excitement from exploding from me. “Oh, we should go. We should go on and get somewhere safe.”
He nodded toward the horizon, “’Lanta?”
“Sure.”
We packed and it was a like an ethereal phantom remained among us beside the quiet dead; turkey vultures cawed to break the silence, pecked where they pleased on the bodies, and I couldn’t want to fight them. I kept sidelong eyes on Billy with the ever-present worry that he’d vanish. Perhaps he was the phantom.
From the rear of the caleche, I removed a few sentimental books Jackson liked, essential cookware, and sparse rations for the trek. The last thing I grabbed was my shotgun and a bit of ammo.
As we set from the dead place, the terrible silhouettes that were cut from there on the horizon behind us grew in my mind with every backward glance—I wanted to fall to pieces, but I saw Billy walk alongside me and although contented is not the right word, it is the nearest. The steps of our boots were all that was heard because I could not fathom to pierce the space between us with words for fear that it would all end. It was a dream, surely. I’d lost my mind. With my hands thumbed into the straps of my pack, I saw I my hands still shook, and they would shake a lot longer—years and with memories too. The crunch of earth underfoot became a rhythm and instead of looking at my brother, I watched his shadow on the ground.
“Everyone’s dead?” He asked.
“Yeah.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah,” I repeated.
“How ain’t I? How ain’t you?”
To say that it was luck would’ve been too morbid. Instead of saying anything, I shrugged, kicked a loose stone, watched my feet some more, and felt a queasiness come over me. For the moment, the immeasurable deaths of those I’d left behind were forgotten in the company of my brother and a sickness welled up inside of me so suddenly that I felt that I’d fall to pieces at the slightest provocation. Finally, I did speak again, but only after steeling myself to the troubles, “Yeah, how are you alive?”
Billy shrugged at me then stumbled up a hill which overlooked trash wood wilderness where sticks lay twisted and bare and further on the sight of Atlanta was visible and I cupped a hand across my brow and Billy did the same and we looked on at the shadows of the place out there where strings of smoke rose from the skyline as a signature for the desolation of the city; it was dead. I felt it in my bones.
My hands were light while my head was heavy, my throat was dry, and the entire world seized in moments of stillness or perhaps it was my own vision which construed the world in that way; I took to the small hill which Billy had climbed and sat there and stared at the place between my feet to steady myself.
“Fire,” said Billy.
I nodded and nearly choked.
Leviathan—till then I had no belief in dragons—glided over the broken city, its winged shadow little seen but its voice was deep across the scene, letting go of roars which shook the ground. We hid among the trash wood and moved down the hill and watched the creature thrash in the air as if it was angry for its abominable life. Whatever millennia it spent in the pits of hell seemingly thrust upon it a love of destruction and pain.
My brother moved with a more assured stride and kept a cool distance and upon fleeing from the wreckage, from the outlying area of Atlanta and the place we’d left our family, he spoke little and watched me strangely whenever I took to melancholic fatiguing. We lit no fires for fear of what it could draw from the night so in the dark I’d see him watching some far-off place, maybe seeing through the reality which surrounded us, and he’d snap from it, catch my eye, and disappear for minutes to scan the perimeter of whatever place we stayed. Being alongside my resurrected brother was lonelier than I could bear, and I hoped he’d disappear for good or that I could work up the courage to end my own life. It was like purgatory explained in books and for a time, it felt endless; upon witnessing the destruction of Atlanta, we pushed to Marrietta, and it was much the same. As was Chatanooga, Nashville, Knoxville, Louisville, Charlotte. The ocean had risen so that Fayetville was gone underwater, and the Florida leg disappeared completely as far as I’m aware. I understood later that Memphis was overlooked and more places further west were alive too, but when we’d exhausted the south, we moved north and found strongholds of families or traders or even small groupings of civilization, but by and large we found nothing much in the two years that we hoofed it from place to place; it was my doing mostly—I wanted to find a place untouched by the mayhem in the area my family had once patrolled.
In retrospect, I am certain that Billy only stayed by my side for convenience; there wasn’t any of my brother left in the man that was my travelling companion for that time. He was a ghost of a person and Mephisto had preyed upon my desire in the worst moment of weakness in my life. There were nights—maybe we’d taken up in a natural alcove for shelter or we’d locked ourselves in some ancient structure for sleep—I’d watch Billy lay where he was, Sibylle’s hat and holster lying beside him, and I’d think of putting him down but he’d stir and in a brief shadow I’d see my brother as he’d been and withdraw to bury my face in fake sleep to be met with images of the night the demons attacked where I’d shake, sweat, and bite my lips so hard I’d drink blood.
Two years we marched around the Appalachians and in that time, I felt myself wither and disconnect.
Upon moving further north we met Indianapolis—that’s what it was called back then—and it was run by an older woman called Lady Lazarus; I reckon her father, affluent and dead, was a fan of Plath. Indianapolis was fortified more than most with its high walls, and its wall men, and its underground facilities which produced substantial ammunition. We—me and Billy’s revenant—were travelling with a group of traders we’d taken up with from out west; they called themselves wizards and although they seemed of the occult, their spirits discounted whatever suspicions I might’ve had of them.
I remember first pushing through that big gate; the town kept with it an indisputable malaise and though we were greeted at the gate by the leader Lady Lazarus—her brothers came along with her—and her jovial demeanor carried a certain infectious quality, I could not help but notice that the regular denizens maintained a healthy distance from their leader (the guards which followed the Lady everywhere probably had something to do with this).
Lady Lazarus touched each of our hands in greeting with enthusiasm and I could not help but notice how soft they were, how vibrant her eyes were, how much she smiled, and how beautiful she was given her age; already her head was fully gray.
Upon meeting each of us, going through the wizard traders first, she came to me, and Billy and she shook my hand then pivoted to Billy.
“Welcome. You can call me Lady.”
Billy caught her hand in his, held it longer than she’d intended so that they held eye contact, and he smiled broadly, tipped the cowboy hat on his head back to expose his smooth forehead and said, “And you can call me Maron, mam. You are quite a sight for a tired man.”
Though Maron—as he’d named himself—was more boy than man, Lady took a disturbed liking to him immediately and we prolonged our stay in Indianapolis after the wizards departed to head west.
Under the rule of Lady, Indianapolis was a theocracy, with her addressing the huddled masses at the steps of her grand abode, she’d preach for hours on sin and strife and quote her favorite passages; though reminiscent of my time with the Rednecks, I never found any truth or sincerity or freedom in her teaching—hers was more trouble, brimstone, fire and I’d had enough of that for a lifetime. Public execution was common. As was torture.
Maron distanced himself further from me, but I remained to keep an eye on him—it was not sentimentality but rather I existed without purpose and conjured some from watching my brother.
Often, Lady invited Maron to her private rooms and though the rumors and speculation ran the full spectrum of perverse speculation, every denizen feigned ignorance at her pregnancy.
Upon giving birth, the infant was malformed with two heads—her brothers took this as an omen and killed the child, put their leader in the stocks for months, and stripped her of dignity while the denizens did to her what they pleased.
Maron rose through the wall men while Lady’s brothers assumed control of Indianapolis and called themselves Bosses; in the time since Lady’s reign, the place was renamed to Golgotha for its closeness to a messiah.
I went west but always found myself drawn back to Golgotha because of some emptiness in me. It was only with Suzanne that I wanted something more and knowing them, I almost believed in a world like the one that children dream about. The world that Gemma and Andrew chased after when they left home, like the one Aggie talked about in her mother’s books. There’s a hopelessness in me that I’ll never be rid of. In the interim between our initial arrival to Golgotha and that flight from that terrible city, I cannot know how many people I sacrificed in convening with demons because I refuse to know because the number would destroy me. That is the worst of it; I do not even have courage enough to face myself or the actions of my past in any substantive way.
Mephisto tainted me so that I could speak with his kind as a dealmaker and the disease grew.
Billy or Maron or whatever he is should have been reaped long ago or better, I should never have brought that abomination alive. Such a cruel world where a deep longing like that can be inverted, weaponized. Me and him should both die; me and him should have died a long time ago.
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"Katsuki Bakugo, the hero known as CoolOff is a villain killer!"
The news circulates throughout the country. It's on TVs, YouTube ads, Posters, Billboards, stickers. If that wasn't enough the people are now wearing badges calling Bakugo a criminal.
"Young Bakugo, I heard what happened. Come we need to leave the country NOW" All Might stressed.
"No, I'm not leaving because a bunch of damn extras starting sympathising with a fucking femicidal maniac"

...

"I'm sorry, I'm just really agitated by this whole thing. I can't believe my entire career as a hero is over" Bakugo said as he looked down at his feet sheepishly.
"Don't be. This whole thing will blow over soon when the truth gets out" All Might responded
"Thanks"
KRAKAKAKOOOOOOOMM!
"What was that"
"I don't know but we should go check it out"
Bakugo stops Yagi
"I should go check it out. You stay, with OFA's embers down to 45% you're in no condition to go fight"
"Fine, but I'd feel more comfortable by your side Young Bakugo...That way I'd know your safe"
"Aww, your making me blush" Bakugo replied sarcasticly as he ran off.
AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
"There's more where that came from" The mysterious voice answered as he joyfully tormented his victim
"Please...Please stop" Izuku pleaded
"NO"
"Now I'm gonna make sure your kind never sees the sun rise again. INDISCRIMINATE SHOCK 1.3 MILLION VOLT-"
"SHUT THE HELL UP NERD"
Bakugo caught Denki off guard
"Wait. Are you that pathetic quirkless murderer guy i've been hearing about because frankly you're such a damn bore" Bakugo teased
"A-Are you making fun of me" Denki questioned
"Duh! What else do you think I was doing shit for brains"
Denki gasped
"That's soo rude" Denki reacted
"KAAACHAN!" Izuku gleefully cried
"Oh hey Deku"
"Wait. You know this juvenile" Denki queried
"Well-um yes? Kaachan and I go way back. We used to hang out back in Junior High"
"DEKU!!! Stop telling the bad guy E V E R Y T H I N G" Bakugo started grinding his teeth in frustration.
"Oh...sorry"
"HUMAN STUN GUN!" Denki electrocutes both Deku and CoolOff and runs off
All Might smacks Denki with a wooden plank effectively knocking him out
^{"Timber from Cainz...Specifically Miura Smash"} All Might careful whispers to his sleeping opponent.
"Who are you talking to?" Bakugo said bluntly
"N-No one" All Might hastily said
"Is that?...All Miiiiiiiiiiiiggggggghhhhhhhttttt" Izuku breaks out into a fanboy frenzy
"Yes, it is I young man. You must be awfully scared but fear not for I am here"
Izuku starts crying and tells All Might about how scared he was
"What do we do with this piece of crap now?"
"We?"
"We" Bakugo confirmed
"OW!" Bakugo yelled
"What's wrong Young Bakugo?" All Might asked
"Yea Kaachan are you alright?"
"I'm FIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNEEEEEEE"
Bakugo was indeed not fine
"You're sweating and your arms are covered with black veins"
"Huh?"
"Denki has an electric-type quirk" Izuku blurted
"Then it's worse than I thought" All Might added
"I think...You might be dying"
Bakugo laughs at All Might
"What are you crazy?"
"I'm quite serious Young Bakugo..How's your breathing and your heart rate. Check your heart rate"
"Alright All Might"
Bakugo checks his resting heart rate
"It says 160. Is that good?"
All Might dissolves back into skinny form
"You should be dead" All Might articulated
Blood starts dripping from Bakugo arms and old wounds start opening up
"That's not good"
"NO SHIT DEKU"
Bakugo's heart rate starts rapidly beating as if it were to explode
Bakugo struggles to breathe
He tries to shake the feeling off but ends up splashing his blood all over Deku
Bakugo realises his time is up and flys as far away as he can from the city and people
He explodes in an abandoned warehouse
Tears drop down All Might's face as he hears his protege's demise
Izuku goes home that night upset and gloomy.
He wakes up the next day
And punches his door in a fit of rage
His arms explode off
Terrified Izuku calls his mom for help.
4 hours later
"The surgeons have managed to successfully reattach your arms Izuku"
"Are you ok, honey?" Inko asked worried about her son's spontaneous combustion
"I'm fine mom"
BREAKING NEWS! TEEN HERO COOLOFF FOUND DEAD IN ABANDONED WAREHOUSE
Inko switches off the tv
"I'll give you some space"
Inko exits the room and heads over to get some coffee
Izuku's door opens
"Mom, I thought I made it clear I wanted to be left alone"
"Well then it's a good thing I'm not your mom"
"ALL MIIIIIGGHHHT"
"Hello Izuku-Kun, I heard your arms exploded off which is why I came"
"You see Bakugo is....dead. Which I'm sure you already know but what you don't know is that I gave my power to Bakugo..One For All...And he gave that power to you"
"Me? Why would Kaachan give OFA to me?"
"Well he didn't do it intentionally. When he tried shaking all his blood off some of it must've entered your mouth or gone up your nose and with the intention in mind to transfer the power you received it"
"Why would Kaachan want to give up this power?"
"Because his burden proved to great for him to handle"
"I'm sure you took note of the media cancelling Young Bakugo"
"I did"
"Well the media kind of twisted the truth and as a result Young Bakugo has been having thoughts of quitting for months. He let his rage get the better of him and now he's....May his soul rest in piece".
"Now that your arms have been fixed I think it's time to start your training"
Meanwhile in an abandoned warehouse
"Ah! CoolOff the 9th and last user of OFA! Now OFA will finally be mine!
The mysterious man grabbed CoolOff's hand but to his surprise no OFA
"He passed it on. I should've expected this of course Toshinori's protege would have his own protege". The mysterious man thought
"No matter. I'll make use of what I can" the mysterious man said a loud as he carried CoolOff's corpse to his van before driving off
"Vive Les Puissants"
Fin.
Some trivia about this universe:

• In this universe Bakugo is given OFA (at least 2 years before he ends up in UA).
  
• Bakugo is a lot nicer and friendlier to All Might than everyone else (All Might gives up on his relentless quest of finding a quirkless aspiring hero. It's been 20 years so he just gives OFA to the strongest and most dedicated aspiring hero he can find).
  
• Izuku also pulls up to UA (quirkless. He's in the General Education Department).
  
• All Might uses tech from David and Melissa Shield as well as Mei Hatsume and Power Loader [to make up for OFA's declining embers All Might utilises tech to continue his day-to-day hero pursuits. All Might's support gear includes: Electromagnetic Soles (for speed), High Density Capture Nets (neatly compressed and fired from a gun to swiftly capture one's foes), Koete Arm Bracers (a mix between Izuku's Airforce gloves, the mid-gauntlet and the full gauntlet. It's reinforced with iron, tungsten, tantalum, and vanadium. The fingertips of the Arm Bracers are covered with potassium chlorate, sulfur, and nitroglycerin [covered with resin so All Might doesn't accidentally set himself on fire. These coin-like projectiles activate when All Might flicks them at his opponents], The QAD (David Shield's Quirk Amplification device. The prototype was a headset but since then the design has been redeveloped and has been drastically changed to a set of trendy shades), and a Jetpack (to allow All Might to fly without placing further strain on OFA's embers).
  
• Weirdly enough Bakugo has been silently doing hero work for 2 years (He's following Eraserhead's footsteps by avoiding the media).
  
• Bakugo comes face to face with his arch nemesis [the weird slime villain who got the better of him 2 years ago] and blasts him to smithereens...This creates a very unfortunate series of events of Bakugo.
  

In the vast countryside, away from the busy city of Savannah, exist hills as tall as buildings and green as emeralds. There was also an aura of calmness, with a few birds twittering away in dispersed trees, followed by the gentle swaying of the wind.
Then, out of nowhere, came a small, lonely girl wearing a once-lily-white summer dress with a striped long-sleeved t-shirt underneath it. She was also wearing a dark blue and cream-white baseball hat with the letter D on the front of it. She was moving wearily, with a pistol in one hand, and wiping her damp eyes with the other.
She knew what happened to make her weep. According to her, it was her fault that she got him killed; she was convinced by a towering man who said he knew her parents. But that was a brainless, childish lie that got Lee killed. She shouldn’t have run off. At least, Lee taught her how to use a gun and what to expect in the future before his tragic passing. But now she was all on her own.
Eventually, she came to a log, which was next to the rusted shell of a car. Anyway, she proceeded to sit down on it. Throughout all of this, she was as quiet as a mouse, only looking at her feet and wiping her blood-red eyes. She noticed that on the floor next to the log was a mixture of bullets—some shell casings and some unfired ones. Out of curiosity, she picked it up and examined it before exhaling deeply, which is when she noticed something else. Something she could just about make out if she scrutinised her eyes—something on the nearest hill—looked like two figures. One followed the other, and they looked like they stopped to look at her, making her start to hyperventilate as her eyes extended to the size of oranges. Was it someone she knew? Was it a threat to her? She didn’t know.
"Lee said I needed to find Omid and Christa before he got killed because of me." She said to herself, still looking sad, as she noticed that the two figures were now coming down the prominent hill—they didn't look like walkers. So she clasped her gun tightly until the figures came into view. She ended up not firing the gun and running towards the figures, as it was Omid and Christa, and they were alive!
Omid was a tall, slim Persian-American man with short dark-brown hair and a beard to match.
Christa, on the other hand, was a slightly taller African-American lady. She also had jet-black hair tied up in a ponytail, and she was Omid’s girlfriend.
"Clementine, honey, where's Lee?" Christa asked, kneeling to the nine-year-old.
"H-h-he's...dead." She answered with her face buried in Christa’s shoulder.
"Oh, Clementine, we’re sorry," Omid said, who started to kneel to her height as well.
"W-where's Ben and Kenny?" Clementine asked, still with her face buried in Christa’s shoulder.
Omid and Christa then looked at each other without Clementine noticing, and it was Omid who told her what happened to Ben and Kenny.
"So, it’s just us three," Clementine responded, now looking at Omid and Christa with her eyes dry again, a short while later.
"I guess, Clem, I guess so." Christa replied, "Come on, let’s go somewhere safe."
With this, the trio (Clementine, Omid, and Christa) began to walk, with Clementine tagging behind while Omid and Christa were in front. They were busily talking away, apart from Clementine, who was still looking at her feet, along holding the gun in her hand. As a result of this, she wasn't engaged in the conversation that they were having. She was too melancholy about what happened today. With her being kidnapped, seeing her walker parents, Lee dying, and now Kenny and Ben dying as well.
It was a lot for her to take in.
* * * * *
Sometime later, the trio found an abandoned house that had been abandoned for decades, as thick ivy hugged the walls. Furthermore, it reminded Clementine of that house they stayed at in Savannah; it was hard to believe that was a month ago.
Anyway, they succeeded in getting into the house rather than struggling, so now they could search within it.
Clementine, honey," Christa said, kneeling to her. "Omid, and I believe you can search parts of this house on your own. Just remember, if someone, walker or not, tries to hurt you, you got your gun. If you run out of bullets or are in a tight place, call us, and we will help you if you get into trouble. Do you understand?"
“Yeah, I do, Christa; I will be careful."
“Good," replied Christa, "let me know if you find anything."
With this, Clementine strayed a little by searching for anything useful on her own, though she stayed close to Omid and Christa.
As usual in the kitchen, she found faded, rusted cans with nothing but spoiled food inside. So she decided to head upstairs, and it seemed like they creaked with every step; as Omid and Christa were searching the enormous living room. Once she was upstairs, she clasped her pistol tightly and opened the door with one of her hands and the other on the pistol. Nothing. The room was that of a bathroom, with its normal interior—a bath, sink, toothbrushes, and some cupboards—which was stripped of life.
So she closed the door, walked to the next door, and proceeded to open it in the same manner she did for the bathroom. This room was that of a child’s room, which made Clementine remember her room back in Georgia, with its toys and books. It felt like she was just coming home from school and wanted to play with her dolls until supper time; it was hard to believe that was a year ago. Yet, here she was searching for anything useful in terms of survival—and not searching for a certain toy she wanted to play with at present.
“Just as well Lee found me when he did.” She said to herself as she glanced over at the room, trying to remember simpler times. When she went to school, she watched cartoons all day and rode her bike in the park with her parents. When she was thinking about this, she noticed that there was a medium-sized lump near the wall, cloaked in dust. It was a doll, and there was a string attached to its back, and when Clementine pulled it, it produced the word "Mama”.
Clementine remembered the doll that her mother gave her for her sixth birthday; it was probably still in the back of the wardrobe.
Eventually, she found an old pocket-sized backpack with a few flowery stickers, along with a dark-blue hoodie in her size.
“Have you found anything, Clementine?” called out Christa.
“Yeah, a backpack and a hoodie," answered Clementine, walking towards the edge of the stairs where Omid and Christa were.
“Just remember to check the bag, Clem; they might have something useful." Replied Christa.
“Ok," Clementine replied, unzipping the bag and then putting her hand into it, but not looking into it. Lo and behold, she found a working lighter, and it looked like it had a decent amount of fuel for a while.
Clementine then walked to the conclusive door upstairs, and like what she did before, however, the door required a little exertion to open. As a result of this, Clementine noticed that the noise she made alerted her to the presence of a walker heading towards her. This, of course, made Clementine a little timid, but she knew what to do. As her heart started to ram against her ribcage, likewise, a thick seal of sweat began to form on her hands, transferring onto her gun.
Always aim for the head," Clementine said to herself as she exhaled deeply and fired the gun. BANG!! The walker fell with a deafening thud, and Clementine was astounded at herself for shooting the walker that was coming towards her.
I did it, I did it," she exclaimed in a loud whisper. Which is when the door bursts open to reveal Omid and Christa with perturbed faces.
"Is everything OK, Clem? Are you hurt?" Asked Omid.
Yeah, I’m fine; I’m not hurt. Replied Clementine, as the trio all stood in stupefied silence at the walker that Clementine gunned down. "Did you find anything? Clementine asked after a minute of silence.
"Yes. We have found two cans of beans and some water." Christa replied.
"Oh."
“Well, let’s keep moving on, Clem. People might have heard the shot and might come here.” Omid said.
“Ok," responded Clementine. "I said already, but I found a backpack and a hoodie."
“Put it on, Clem; it’s starting to get colder, and we get going."
“Ok, I’ll put it on now."
Clementine then took off her hat, gave the gun to Omid, put on the dark blue hoodie, put her hat back on, and took the gun back from Omid. After that, Clementine followed Christa and Omid downstairs and out of the house and walked on.
* * * * *
Some short weeks later, the trio now situated in a substantial-sized forest under a thick canopy of leaves with Omid tending to a fire. Clementine and Christa, however, were sitting down on some nearby log around the fire.
Christa was busy talking to Omid about her pregnancy, whereas Clementine was busy herself by looking at the stars. The stars flickered and danced in the sky like a million tiny flames, casting a shimmering glow over the forest below. Furthermore, the sky itself was filled with low oranges, along with a mixture of light blues. Which were progressively getting into the realms of dark blues, purples and then full-on jet-black. Moreover, there seemed to be a chorus of crickets hiding somewhere in lush grasses, chirping away harshly.
“I would say that rabbit is cooked now, Omid.”
“Oh, right, yeah,” replied Omid, as he began to take the cooked rabbit off the spit – and handed it out to Christa and Clementine, then to himself.
"Thank you very much," Clementine said as she reached for the rabbit meat before going back to look at the stars. She thought to herself as she ate: "How many are there? Hundreds? Thousands? Millions?"
“Hm, what – sorry Christa; what did you say?”
“Omid and I said that we are going to rest here tonight and get going in the morning."
"Ok, as my legs still ache from all that walking we did today."
"Well, get some rest, you're going to need it," Omid said, rising from poking the fire.
"Ok," responded Clementine, getting up from the weather-worn log, wishing Omid and Christa a good night before she got onto the floor near the fire and began to close her eyes. She then began to dream about what she would be doing tomorrow, what would happen, and what she would see.
The next morning was filled with colours ranging from warm yellows trickling through the gaps in the trees. Clementine rubbed her eyes before getting up from the harsh, tough ground and walked to the log where she sat last night, where she saw Omid was cooking again.
"Morning, Clem," Omid said. "How did you sleep?"
"Ok, I'd rather sleep in a bed than on the floor."
"Yeah, I don't like it either, but it's necessary until we get to Wellington."
"Where's Christa?" asked Clementine, now looking around the campsite as she noticed Christa wasn't there.
But then, five minutes later, after Clementine had eaten, Christa came back - and with this, the trio began to walk on; with her now near Omid and Christa. Yet, like last time, Clementine's fingers were still wrapped around her pistol as if it were a part of her. But instead of looking at her feet, she was looking around the pensive clearing.
The clearing was serene, where only a few walkers were roaming around, but they could be seen more evidently through a few hacked trees. The trio strolled down the lane through dappled light filtering itself through the trees; moreover, the sound of the leaves rustled in the weak wind. There was also an occasional bird twittering away on a pile of stacked logs near the broad track Clementine, Omid, and Christa were walking. There was also an infrequent number of signs that littered the road.
"TWO MILES UNTIL TRUCK STOP", Clementine read as she walked on with Omid and Christa.
"How about...Isabella?" Christa said aloud.
"Nah," scoffed Omid, "James is far better."
"That's if it's a boy, Omid. Clementine, do you have any name ideas?"
"What about...Carley?"
"Yeah, that's a good name." Responded Omid, with an expression of puzzled thought in his voice.
For the next couple of miles, they (primarily, Christa and Omid) talked about what seemed to be endless baby names for Christa's child; to pass the time. Clementine wondered if her parents had this amount of difficulty when they chose her name.
Eventually, Clementine stopped a little as Omid and Christa walked on regardless; as she noticed there was a blackbird perched on a nearby tree which cawed before flying into the lush forest.
"What do you think?" asked Omid, as he poised at the truck stop over the abandoned road before crossing it with Christa and Clementine.
"Omid, you can't be serious," answered Christa.
"I am."
"We are NOT doing that."
"Why not?"
"Because one of you is enough!"

Hi,
A few months ago I updated my Pixel 7a and it crushed. The screen is black, no charging indicator when connected with cable, no response. I gave up and returned to my Galaxy.
Yesterday I decided to give it another shot. After a few tries I was able to get to the boot menu and factory reset the phone. I tried to update the software again and it crushed again.
I looked online and it seems to be a common issue with Pixel phones, what can I do about it?
If I choose to make the pixel my main phone how can I be sure it won't happen again?

Ok, so obviously people are pretty mad that a free game with a bunch of iconic characters already is launching with one character who isn't highly requested. People are freaking out about how the launch is the most important time for a game's life, and that if there's one singular character that people don't like, the entire game is going to die instantly. So many people are asking, "Why add a character nobody asked for?"
But, hear me out, I actually think this might make sense on a few different levels. I have no idea if any of these reasons were why he was chosen. It's possible that it's a combination of them. But here are the reasons, in no particular order:

Reason 1: He was originally fleshed out in order to be a common enemy in the PvE mode, but ended up so close to playable they just ended up going for it.

This is what I assume lead to the idea in the first place. PvE mode required a bunch of new content, and Banana Guard was part of some campaign. He was already a summonable item in the Beta, which gave them a head start already, but all he really did was run across the stage back and forth. So they had to flesh him out a bit for him to work.
So they gave him a bunch of new animations, a few silly attacks, maybe a couple dodges, maybe they made him playable as part of a developer debug mode to test him out (which is EXTREMELY common, by the way), and realized one day "oh crap, this guy is like 99% of the way to being playable!" They could either leave it or say "fuck it, let's just finish it and put it in the game!"
I assume it was just a really easy character to add at the end of the day, and that he'll end up being a very simple character as a result. Essentially a playable goomba. Which leads to my next guess:

Reason 2: Joke characters are popular in fighting games.

If you watch Adventure Time, you'll know that Banana Guards are basically completely useless. They never do anything cool at all, at any time through the entire show, and end up getting completely decimated nearly in every scene. They're weak, stupid, and totally useless cannon fodder.
So, being weak, and being totally irrelevant, makes them a pretty good candidate for purposefully bad.
It might not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's a staple of competitive fighting games. Dan Hibiki, Pichu, Roll, Hercule, and dozens more I don't really care to research. Like it or not, there's a huge audience that loves picking the shitty, weak, broken character and styling on their opponent anyway, giving them an additional handicap to overcome. In a way, I really can't think of a better character than Banana Guard for this role. That's practically their role in Adventure Time to begin with.

Reason 3: No Publicity is Bad Publicity.

Whether you agree or disagree, chances are, you've heard this statement. And this outrage, I wouldn't be surprised if that was part of why specifically he was chosen for a relaunch character. We need people talking about the game, so why not have people talk about a totally out-there character? A few clickbait articles about the new character everybody hates? That's a huge new audience that's hearing about Multiversus for the first time, and learning it came back.
This creates controversy, and gets people talking. Talking about Multiversus, creating free word-of-mouth advertising.
Personally I think that's giving WB marketing WAY too much credit, and frankly I don't think they're smart enough to intentionally do that. With all the Banana hints on Twitter, I think it's pretty clear that, regardless of what the community thinks is obvious, THEY truly believe it to be an awesome, hilarious character. That it's just hilarious to play as a Banana in a fighting game.
But intentionally or not, I think it's working. I've seen WAAAAAAAAY more discussion about Banana Guard in the past 6 hours than ANYTHING pertaining to the Joker, who I think we can all agree, is a billion times more popular and iconic. Joker is expected. Banana Guard is controversial.
Which actually leads me to my next guess:

Reason 4: To create Fortnite Brand Confusion, and Capitalize on Popularity of Minions (yes really).

I'm not sure if this reason is genius or stupid. But look at Fortnite. In every single advertisement for the game, EVERY SINGLE ONE, they advertise Peely front and center. He's practically the game's mascot behind Jonesy (the blond guy). And I'm sure kids LOVE Peely, and going around shooting people as a giant Banana Man.
Obviously Banana Guard isn't literally Peely, but I can see them adding him in as a way to attract Fortnite players. "We can't get Peely, buuuuuut we got somebody else pretty close!"
Also I realized when describing Banana Guard from Adventure Time, there's quite a lot of overlap between them and the Minions from Despicable Me. Both are dumb, silly, useless, incompetant Yellow stubby "funny" boneheads. I really wonder if Banana Guard was chosen to be the honorary Minions Rep.

Reason 5: Hype is a Marathon, not a Sprint.

This is why I think, specifically, he's being released on Day 1 (assuming that is, indeed, the case) rather than, say, Dexter or Beetlejuice. Or any other big heavy hitter.
People are panicking right now, so hard, that Multiversus will be "dead on arrival". That it'll die unless it receives 10 Banger new characters day 1.
And I get the fear. Lots of Live Service games die. You need to hook an audience in. But here's what I think: They already did that just fine.
The game's been offline for a year, and their "Mic Test" exploded on the internet. People want this game to just come back. People are chomping at the bit. People spend every single day bitching on this subreddit about them not saying enough, or not coming back fast enough.
People are hyped, but more importantly, they need to STAY HYPED. Not just on launch, but for the next year, and the year after that, and the year after that, and so on.
I get the idea that Multiversus devs should just blow their load entirely and release 10 new banger top-shelf characters on Day 1 to create the biggest Explosion of Hype possible. But they need to save a heavy hitter for 2 months from now, when people are getting bored and need to be hooked into playing for another 2 months with a new rush of players and brand new content, and so on and so fourth. If the Launch is full of excitement and wonder, with trillions of new players hooked and waiting for new exciting content, and the devs are left with their dicks in their hands with nothing to show because they released all their best characters at launch, where does that leave Multiversus? Pretty much exactly where they were at the end of the Beta.
And I don't think Banana Guard is going to bring that hype back, after a few months have passed. I've seen a lot of people say this isn't the time, that adding a joke character like this at launch will tank the game, and they should save a character like this for the "right time", 10 characters or so from now. But the thing is, what if the hype is dying down then? What if Multiversus REALLY needs a boost that, say, Dexter or Daffy Duck or Beetlejuice could provide? But Multiversus already revealed them at the start, and all they have left is Banana Guard waiting to be released? That's not gonna bring people back after 10 months!
The relaunch already has Joker, [INSERT CHARACTER 3 HERE], and the entire Beta Cast, as well as new PVE content. I'd look at Banana Guard as a side-bonus, not a hype-killer. Just the cherry on top of the sundae. Not enough heavy hitters? Just wait a couple months, when the devs will want to add another influx of new players.
Remember, the Beta didn't end because the characters they picked weren't good enough and people didn't stick around (despite what I've seen some people claim). Players left because, after months of characters being released every 2 weeks at a completely unsustainable pace, the Devs ran out of characters and we went an entire season with only Marvin the Martian left. I don't think that would've changed if it was Harry Potter instead, the Beta still would've died either way.

Reason 6: It's just a really, really, REALLY silly fighting game.

Imagine that. Imagine if one of the fighters was a Green Dog that spit fireballs? Or Shaggy, but the meme version where he has DBZ powers? Or Lebron James from Space Jam 2? Or Velma revealing the opposing player is actually Old Man Jenkins in desguise. Or Taz transforming you into a giant cooked chicken that runs around.
Imagine if they released Joker, and gave him a move referencing "I'm the Joker, Baby!" Or if they copyrighted Big Chungus to use as a character probably eventually. Or if they released an advertisement TODAY where Finn and Jake rap and Kevin Controy Batman calls himself a "Queen" with a crown graphic on top of his head. Or if the official Multiversus Twitter and all it's affiliates made non-stop Banana Puns when they were supposed to be advertising the game instead.
Basically...maybe relax?
I'm not saying you aren't allowed to be disappointed that you didn't get a different character. But I think some perspective can help. I think remembering what kind of game this is, always was, and always will be, can help set the tone for this.
This is gonna be the fighting game where Batman can fight Lebron James, Big Chungus, Ultra Instinct Shaggy...and a talking stupid Banana. This is completely 100000% on-brand for the game you signed up for.

Hello Redditors of Photography
I am not sure am I at the right place for this sort of question, but I thought why not give it a shot.
You see, in September (09.-19.th of September), my fiancee and I are getting married and right after the wedding we are going to Italia for our honeymoon. We are visiting a few places, including Cinque Terre, Florence, Rome, Bologna and Venice. Our deal was to ask around for a good photographer in Italy so we can get some wedding photos in one of those places. And since it is our first time in Italy, we are not sure what location is our best option. I am certain every one of those have their own beauties and whichever we choose we won't go wrong. But I would feel better if more experienced people would help us.
And while we're on the subject, we still haven't found a photographer, so it would be a lot of help if anyone of you is one or know one. We would of course pay for this favour and negotiate it further in the inbox.
Thanks everyone for your time!

Started a new fallout 4 playthrough and came across 2 named raiders at the beginning in concord. Both had a sniper rifle named 'default' Iv never seen this gun before so wasn't sure if it was a bug from one of the new mods I'm using? I'm on ps5 if that makes any difference? None of my mods change the loot so I'm really confused

Hello Redditors of Italia
I am not sure am I at the right place for this sort of question, but I thought why not give it a shot.
You see, in September (09.-19.th of September), my fiancee and I are getting married and right after the wedding we are going to Italia for our honeymoon. We are visiting a few places, including Cinque Terre, Florence, Rome, Bologna and Venice. Our deal was to ask around for a good photographer in Italy so we can get some wedding photos in one of those places. And since it is our first time in Italy, we are not sure what location is our best option. I am certain every one of those have their own beauties and whichever we choose we won't go wrong. But I would feel better if more experienced people would help us.
And while we're on the subject, we still haven't found a photographer, so it would be a lot of help if anyone of you is one or know one. We would of course pay for this favour and negotiate it further in the inbox.
Thanks everyone for your time!

The scariest thing about Nothing.. about being Nothing is that nobody remembers. When nothing takes you, it's like you never existed.. till it spits you back out.
Watching the clock at work becomes such a daunting habit. You get so used to the monotony of watching the clock tick away, and somehow the seconds seem to be at an endless supply. Before you know it, the hours are gone, and when you get home it somehow feels as if it all had never happened. Hours of your life so meticulously spent doing just enough now behind you.
Time is so precious because of it's one way trip. You got forward, typical. You got backwards, something for the dreamers.. But Time was different for me today. I think that thing took me.. somewhere else. Like if.. if Time were some straight path, then it pulled me off course.
At 4:37 in the morning I took liberty in shutting off my computer. All things considered, I was running considerably late today. Work was backed up, curtesy of trucking errors. To make a long story short, 4 pallets of produce simply.. vanished. All you'd really need to gather from such meaningless information is that I was suddenly put on the for front of discovering how $5,000 worth of food had somehow grown legs and walked away.
The best answer I had..? None! I had not a clue, and after what felt like hundreds of calls, I was greeted to the warm embrace of humid Georgia air. There were no leads. I was no detective, so the ultimate conclusion of this predicament could be summed up as, "It's not my problem."
All I needed in this moment was to make my way to the bus stop. So, that's exactly what I did. Maybe twelve or so minutes had passed. I was excited to see the bus make it's way around those trees. It was by no means the longest wait, but what can I say? I was a hangry fellow.
I convinced myself that it wasn't my problem, that I wouldn't allow it to be my problem. The unfortunate thing about life is that problems have a tendency to fall into the laps of those who just did as they were told. Now, I'm not one to make some social commentary on the state of the world's general fairness, but the point to be made is my adopted philosophy that unless a problem can't just be brushed off my legs, then I'll leave it to someone else.
So maybe I'm an asshole, maybe I lack integrity, but it's honestly no deeper than "that's how the cookie crumbles." We are all cogs in the world, might as well let one of the other gears have a chance to spin! Make their money's worth.

"Helluva' night, huh?"

I jumped to such a sudden question presented to me. It was a problem, in my lap.
"That obvious?"
I responded sarcastically, looking over my shoulder to be greeted by a young face. Some kid, looked no older than twenty with orange hair and foggy eyes.. eyes that admittedly sent a shiver down my spine. The kind of eyes that.. well, you know how they say a dead person's eyes look cold? It was like that, only I wouldn't describe them as cold. Just.. empty.
"Well between the heavy sigh and tapping foot, just seems like you got somewhere to be."
Whoever this was didn't seem to be looking at me. It was quite uncomfortable that he'd just admit to having analyzed my situation, but perhaps I was looking to far into things. He just had his eyes locked forward, so why he made any effort to speak to me was still unclear. It wasn't unusual for a stranger to try to make light talk during the ride, but something about this kid irked me.
Part of me felt some level of guilt when I stopped the conversation there. I'm not sure if I'm lucky or not to say I think the kid took the hint of my uncomfortably, and for the remaining 20 minutes of the trip he was seemingly preoccupied with staring out the window. It wasn't until I stood upon reaching my stop that he ever seemed to bother looking up.. but not at me.
Again this kid had just stared straight ahead, and even now I couldn't get a great look at his face. His hair seemed to obscure it, and whatever the hair hadn't covered seemed to be so enveloped in shadow to a point that identifying him beyond his hair was seemingly impossible. He was dressed so casually, so casually that detailing his worn black hoodie and faded grey jeans would do no good.
I shook my head.. shook this problem off my shoulders feeling the weight of an unsettling interaction lift from my mind the moment I stepped out of that bus onto the final stretch of pavement between myself and my neighborhood. 5:02 AM
Where is the.. humidity?
I felt a bubbling anxiety, just crossing my arms and lowering my head.. I wanted to hide. My heart was suddenly screaming, and the irrationality of it all hit me like a truck.
"What is wrong.. the hell is wrong?"
I'd confused myself with my emotions, my eyes darting from left to right. Nobody was around me, nobody was behind me, I was alone! So I took a deep breath..
"Helluva' night, huh?"
My eyes shot open, suddenly my heart bounding and my breaths heavy. I know I head him I know I did! But he wasn't here. He was still on the bus, he never got u-..
I turned my head to look in the bus window. The doors screeched, shutting firmly as the bus engine practically roared out into the night. The wheels hummed, the burst of air sounding out as the bus continued motion.
My eyes looked into that window. The window I sat at, where he was next to me.. I was aisle side, he was window side.
He never got up.
He wasn't there.
That was the final straw. I began walking home, speed walking. To hell if anymore problems would fall into my lap. Not this morning, not today! I would get home, I'd climb into bed, and I'd sleep this off. I had to sleep.. I had to go.
"It's not my problem.."
I told myself.
"He moved seats.."
I rationalized the situation. Where did he go? I didn't see him.. He couldn't have just disappeared! Those damn pallets! I did anything I could, fought with my mind to mute my rapid heartbeat. Anything I could think of, any way to distract myself from the fact that the crickets were silent, that the stars weren't out that..
Is something watching me..?
When my house came into view, I wasted no time in fully sprinting to my door, finding my keys and barging that door open, slamming it behind me. I swiftly locked it back. To hell with a shower! I'd be damned if I were too...
"Helluva' night, huh?"
My fully body turned faster than my mind could keep up with. That damned voice!
"GET OUT OF MY HOUS-.."

But I saw nothing.
Let me paint this picture for you. When I say I saw nothing, I mean there wasn't only nobody there, but there was nothing at all. There was no room behind me, no bed, no door, no world. Empty.. empty like his eyes! There was nothing! Nothing but that one.. light.
There was a white orb. It got closer, and closer. I saw a silhouette.. It was some lengthy figure with no arms? And.. its wore this cloak of nothing. Somehow I looked into a place? No.. There was something else behind it..? Not like I'd ever find out!
One second my room, my world, was enveloped with an infinitely spanning nothingness, and in the blink of an eye it was contained into this figure! It took all the nothing!
My room was back! My world! WHAT IS HAPPENING? I don't.. remember.. But then it vanished. The nothingness was gone.
Watching the clock at work becomes such a daunting habit. You get so used to the monotony of watching the clock tick away, and somehow the seconds seem to be at an endless supply. Before you know it, the hours are gone, and when you get home it somehow feels as if it all had never happened.
Hours of my life so meticulously spent doing nothing now behind me.
It's now 3:37 in the afternoon and I remember. I crashed my car, Thomas is dead. His truck is in that ditch back in Duluth.
I remember.
That's why I took the bus.. Thomas is dead. The truck was flipped. 4 pallets gone.
It visited me tonight. Nothing. I saw that boys face, I just can't remember. Nothing.. almost took me today, but I finally understand why they never looked for me. They all forgot me too. I killed Thomas. I didn't mean to but it didn't matter! Everyone knew! It was on the news, it was everywhere! But..
Nothing walked with me tonight.. and you all forgot. You forgot everything.
~I need you to remember me!~
At 3:37 in the afternoon, two months ago, my car collided with Thomas's truck. He'd fallen asleep at the wheel. I was lucky to make it out with my life. The following weeks my story was covered by local news outlets, and the world moved on. That's what happens with Time.. but it was more than that. I'd forgotten what really happened. That boy.. he was with me, in the car, that day. I think.. I think he is the Nothing. I think he IS the.. the Void. He took Thomas.
We.. we all forgot! 4 pallets? Where'd they go? I couldn't remember the funeral! I was gone for three weeks. When I turned around and saw that light, when I came back.. when he left, it had been three weeks. I didn't have a single call! Not from mom, not from work! I was FORGOTTEN!
But.. it's not my problem anymore.
You all really forgot. I got went to mom's and my pictures were gone. Dad's? Same thing. I was gone, for three weeks. Nothing took me. Nothing is.. mad at me? And I don't know why! I was nothing.. someone please! Suddenly I’m back and all the work I left behind is still here. I was gone! The world has proved it. But.. nobody remembers? All the logs! It’s all here. I WAS gone. You can see it in the company finances, yet nobody thought to look for me? Nobody noticed I’m back..? It’s like I never left?
Do any of you remember?!

It is honestly fucked up how much not using a shell changes the game, the final boss basically 2 shot me every time I failed. I tried using the knight shell with sinker, sinker+, and the razor blade, and it just completely mopped the floor with the final boss. Don't do this unless you're fine with bashing your head against a wall for an hour, it was not fun getting 1-2 shot by a lot of the enemies. Also, the flare gun from the cage boss 1 shot me multiple times, so that was fun. I will be making a video on the experience in the near future if anyone cares about that, this was truly painful.

Hi!
I'm looking for someone that can spare some time for free to help me improve my Ashe (and perhaps cass and sombra) gameplay. I have been as high as diamond in one previous season in OW1. I am currently Plat 5 support mainly using Ana and Illari (a bit of Bap and moira here and there). As DPS, I was hardstuck Silver 2 for a month, and finally was able to climb a bit to Gold 4, feel like I'm already getting hardstuck here again.
I feel that whenever I get put into a "pressure" game (aka loser queue), I can't get a win. Can't help but feel like a victim of the infamous forced 50/50. Whenever I win 2 or 3 in a row, it feels like you are punished with a bad team because the game wants you to be the carry. I thought this was an urban legend, but Blizz pretty much confirmed it with the May 14 patch.
I HAVE done my homework (I'd enjoy a conversation about my knowledge of the game so you can assess my level of understanding), but feel there's something that needs expert advice. Here's what I've improved on :

• Aim and mechanical skill in general. Being able to consistently hit diving tracers, genjis, sombras, echos, pharas, mercy's and lucios. Being confident in my aim and standing my ground to get the killing shot instead of running (on low targets or targets that i know will die before reaching me).
  
• Taking angles, abusing high ground and smart flanks while complimenting my other dps creating situations where the opposing team has to decide which flank to counter
  
• Creating space with my bob or using it to create an extra flank
  
• Positioning in general and knowing how to get ready for the next fight.
  
• Knowing then a fight is lost and falling back instead of feeding. Invertly, also knowing when to commit to win the fight. This has greatly made me die WAY less.
  
• Target selection (not focusing on a single target unless they are low, not going for tanks unless they are low or if the team needs me to mitigate/suppress a push attempt)
  
• Tracking enemy CD's and ults in general
  
• Trading CD's with the enemy using my dynamite (provoking nades , suzus and sometimes ults)
  

Here's what I feel I need to work on:

• Countering the enemy team when they identify I am the carry and they try to kill me first
  
• Dueling hanzo and widow
  
• Dealing with a full dive comp (is there any way to stay hitscan or do I have to play CounterWatch?)
  
• Dealing with certain maps that are not necessarily convenient for Ashe, especially the newer maps they've added.
  
• Being able to claim a flank space when the enemy team is highly aware of me
  
• Getting a consistent performance / gameplay (playing at the same level performance level in every game)
  

There's even been games where i get 40 - 50 kills, 15k damage, 5 - 6 deaths and still lose. In these cases, my logic tells me the fault is somewhere else, but im sure its me.
I know that there's the concept of VOD reviews, but I feel that I can get the most out of a live session where someone spectates my gameplay and gives me feedback on the fly. Let me know if you can spare some time to view my gameplay and give me some pointers. I would greatly appreciate it!
You can contact me thru DM here on reddit, reply to this post, or discord me at elkioscotv.

H: Tradelist W: Offers
AA/e/90, Gatling gun, Lmg
AA/50C/25 Fixer(2x), Handmade, Tesla Riffle, Dragon, Combat shotgun, Pipe Revolver, BP Pistol, BP Plunder, Em, EPR perfect mods, AD
AA/25A/Dur EPF
AA/25/Dur .50, Minigun (2x) epr
AA/E/15R Pipe Pistol,
aa/25/90 Gamma gun, epp, flamer
AA/25/Dur NU Laser Riffle, Fixer, Hm, Gamma gun, Holy fire
AA/50C/15c epp, AD
AA/Ap/25 Holy fire
AA/25a/Dur AGL,
AA/Pa/1s Grognaks Axe
AA/50C/90 Grognaks Axe, NU Laser Riffle, epp
AA/50L/25 Tommy gun
AA/50C/15r Hm
AA/e/15c RR (2x), Em
AA/25/25 lmg(2x) EPR, Rail, Fixer
Aa/25a/90rw AGL
Aa/e/25 Pipe Bolt Pistol, Radium, Fixer
AA/40/40 Ski sword
AA/50c/50bs Compound Bow
AA/40pa/50bs chainsaw
AA/40pa/1S Blue ridge Iron
AA/E/25 Fixer(3x), .44 Pistol
AA/40/40 Chainsaw (2x)
AA/25a/25 epr 2x
AA/50h/15c EPP
AA/50h/50bs EPP
Aristocrat:
Ari/Pa/40 Chainsaw
Ari/50/25 Cryo
Ari/E/15r Minigun
Ari/50C/Dur CR
Ari/25/25 Epr
Ari/25/50bs epp
Assassins:
A/50c/25 Hm, Single Action Revolver
a/e/Dur Gatling gun
Aa25a90rw AGL
A/25/50bs Plasma Pistol
A/25/15r Laser Pistol
Berserk:
Be40/40 Drill
Be25/25 epp
Berz/e/25 10mm sub
Bloodied:
B40Pa/1a Bear arm
B/50C/15C Hm ( 2x ), Pumpgun, .44 Pistol, Rwr, Epr perfect mods, Bow, Lever
B/50C/25 Chainsaw, Auto Pipe, BP Plunderbuss, Handmade, Em
B/E/25 lmg, combat riffle , AR, 10mm, Pipe riffle, Single Action Revolver, Radium
B/25/Stealth 10mm
B/E Black powder Riffle
B/Ap/25 Ul Laser Riffle, Gamma gun
B/50L/25 Hm
B/25/Dur RR ( 2x), Agl, Ugl, Flamer
B/e/50bs Combat riffle, BP Pistol
B/25/15r Gauss, 10mm, EPF, Cryo,
B/25/25 combat riffle, gatling plasma, Radium, gp, gl, Handmade
B/Bash/50bs Minigun'
B/50h/25 Fixer
B/25/90 epp with alligned flamer, lmg, Gatling laser, Cryo
B/40pa/40 chainsaw
B/e/90 AR
B/50l/50bs Peppershaker
B/25/50bs Plasma Thrower, Laser Pistol
B/e/90 lmg, Gatling
B/50c/90 EPP
B/25a/50bs epp
B/50c/15r Em
B/25a/90 lmg, gl
Be15r fixer
Executioners:
Exe/50C/25 Hm (2x), Minigun, 10mm Smg, em
Exe/E/25 Lever, Combat Shotgun, 10mm Pistol
Exe/25/25 EPR, Gauss, Lever,
Exe/50C/15C EM
Exe/25/Dur Fixer
Exe/25/15r GP
Exe/50L/25 GAuss
Exe/E/15r Pipe Bolt Pistol
Exe/25/90 Radium, 10mm Smg, Hm (2x)
Exe/50h/25 Gamma gun, epp
Exe/e/15r Pipe Revolver
Exe/25/50bs epp
Furious:
F/50C/25 NU Laser Riffle, Radium, CR,
F/Pa/25 Chinese Sword
F/25/Dur Minigun
F/Bash/Dur Minigun
F/25/25 UGatling Laser, EPR, Radium
F/Ap/25 GP
Gourmands:
G/50h/25 epp
G/E/15R Radium
G/PA/25 DC Gauntlet,
G/50c/25 Flamethrower, Em
G/e/25 Hm
G/25/25 rwr
Instigating:
I/50c/25 bow
Inst/Ap/25 epp
Juggernaut:
Jugg/50h/25 EPP
Jugg/e/90 Fixer, hm
Jugg/e/25 Fixer, RR
Jugg/25/25 Fixer, Gamma Gun, hm , Cryo
Jugg/Pa/40Pa Chainsaw
Jugg/e/15r .50
Jugg/e/dur .50
Jugg/50c/25 hm,
Junkie:
J/E/25 Hm, RR, Em
J/25/15r EPR Perfect mods Alligned Auto, AGL, tommy gun
J/SS/1s Bowieknife, Powerfist,
J/25/15r RR(2x),
J/50c/15c RR, Single Action Revolver
J/25/90 .50,
J/25/25 Western Revolver, Kabloom
J/50l/25 epp
Medic:
Med/25/25 Fixer
Med/25/15r Holy Fire
Med/50c/25 Minigun, AR,
Mutant:
M/25/15r AGL
M/Bash/Dur Minigun
M/50H/25 EPP Perfect Mods(alligned Auto)
M/25/25 10mm
Nocturnal:
N/E/25 .50
N/50c/25 Em
N/25/15r 10mm
Quad:
Q/E 10mm, Lever, Gatling gun
Q/E/25 Lever, Combat Riffle.50, Sniper riffle, Fixer
Q/25/15r Fixer
Q/25/90 Hm, Em, Fixer, epp
Q/E/15C Pipe Bolt Pistol(2x), 10mm Pistol,
Q/25A/25 Fixer
Q/50L/25 Fixer, Tesla
Q/50C/15r .50, Tommy gun Gatling gun, Auto Pipe,
Q/25/50bs Fixer, Holy fire, DB, Hm, Auto Pipe, Cryo
Q/50C/Dur Fixer (2x), hm, EPP ,Railway
Q/E/90 railway, .50 cal, Minigun
Q/25/25 Pipe Revolver, Ab, EPR, Gauss riffle, tommy gun,
Q/50C 10mm, Em
Q/Ap/15r Fixer
Q/25A/Dur Holy Fire, Gamma gun
Q/25A/15r Holy Fire,
Q/E Pipe Pistol, Hunter Riffle, Pumpgun, Combat Riffle, DB
Q/50C/25 Minigun,Tommy, Plasma Riffle, Gatling gun, Western Revolver, Epr, Radium, Handmade
Q/50b/25 Tesla, Hm
Q/50l/15r tesla
Q/50H/25 Radium, , Western Revolver,
Q/e/15r hm(2x), Gatling gun, Em, Railway, DB, Pipe riffle
Q/ls/25 Ab
Q/25/15c epp
Q/50h/15r EPP
Q/e/50bs Rwr
Q/25/15c Railway (2x) , EPP, Handmade
Supressor:
S/e/25 Fixer
S/25/15r Fixer
S/50c/25 Hunting riffle
Two Shot:
TS/50C/25 Fixer (2x), Hm (2x), Tesla, Dragon
Ts/25/25 AR, Fixer, epp, Ultracite laser riffle
Ts/E/Dur Minigun
Ts/50H/25 Fixer, Radium
Ts/25/dur Fixer, hm
Ts/e/25 Pipe Revolver, RWR, Em, 10mm Pistol,
Ts/Ls/25 Assaultron Head
Ts/e/15c Lever (2x)
Ts/25/15r Flamethrower, EPR,
TS/50c/15c RR, Ab
TS/50L/25 Em Ts/e/15r lmg
Ts/25/90, Lmg
Ts/50c/15c Plunderbuss
Ts/e/90 Pumpgun, lmg
Vampire:
V/50C/15r GP, Gatling Gun
V/50C/15r Railway
V/e/dur Hm, Em
V/e/25, Hm, Em
V/Ap/25 Fixer
V/50L/25 Fixer, RR, 10mm, Hm
V/50C/25 Gauss, Chainsaw, DB(2x), Fixer, 10mm Pistol, handmade
V/e Lever
V/25/15c Hm(2x), Gatling laser, epp
V/25/25 Gatling laser, Pipe Bolt Pistol, Epr
V/25/50Damage resist EPR
V/e/15r Western Revolver, Single Action Revolver,
V/25/15r Plasma Thrower, Gatling Plasma
V/25a/15r Plasma Thrower
V/25/90 Gamma Gun, Flamer
V/50h/25 epp
Armor Pieces:
Uny/AP/WWR mixed scout set
Uny/AP/HTD H Leaver Set
Uny/Mix/Sent bos Combat armor set
As/Mix/Cav Usa Set
Uny/7Explo/Cav FSA La
OE/AP/Sent Usa LL
Oe/7Exp/Cryo Fsa LL
As/7E/AWR Raider PA LA
Aristo/AP/WWR Trapper RL
Aristo/AP/Stealth FSA Chest
As/7Exp/Sent FSA RL
Oe/7Exp/WWR X01 LA
Bolst/S/WWR T60 LL
Uny/Ap/Stealth Trapper RA
Uny/S/WWR light Metal armor LA
Uny/I/Cav Wood Rl
Uny/1S/Wwr Heavy Raider Armor Ra
Van/P/WWR FSA LL
Uny/S/Limb Usa LL
Uny/I/JWR FSA LL
Uny/Ap/Sent Fsa la (level 40)'
uny/ap/sneak trapper chest, trapper ra
Oe/Ap/wwr Raider PA rl ( level 30)
Uny/1P/Cav fsa Ra
Uny/S/WWR light Metal La
Uny/HungeWWR Usa Rl
OE/1e/FDC Usa ll
Bolst/I/sentt Trapper LA
Bolst/S/Sent Wood RL
Uny/L/WWR Heavy raider LA
Uny/S/WWR Sturdy leather RA
Uny/I/Sent Wood LL
Uny/Cryo/Cav FSA Cp
Uny/Cryo/Awr Fsa LL
Uny/I/AWR USA RL
Ari/Ap/Wwr Heavy metal CP'
Van/Cryo/WWR Leather CP
Van/AP/AWR Raider RA
Bolst/led/Cav Metal CP
Oe/1s/WWR Metal LA