You are a brave knight of the kingdom. You and your comrades are locked in a constant struggle against the forces of the evil magic user terrorizing the land. One day, the unthinkable happens. You find yourself captured and brought before your greatest foe. Despite your efforts to resist, they put you under a spell that enslaves your will to theirs. They seem very excited at the prospect of adding you to their army. There's just one problem... you aren't actually good at fighting. You aren't good at anything, really. You only joined up with the knights because you didn't have anything else going on. Cooking, cleaning, managerial work... you suck at all of it. You're honestly not sure how you're supposed to be useful to your new ruler. However, they see some potential in you. And they're gonna do their damndest to bring it out.
Link to script here: https://scriptbin.worksAcrobatic_Still7483/a4a-evil-ruler-makes-you-their-servant-but-you
A repost of a script that was orignially written F4A. A short one, and it's definitely more focused on the humor than the hypno elements. Started out as kind of a shitpost but I decided to flesh it out a little more. Hope the end result is to your liking. Feedback is very appreciated as always. Monetization ok, but please DM me first.

I sit alone in my room on the seventh floor, writing what will surely be my last will and testament. The heroin which allowed me to forget and to sleep for the last couple of years has lost its power to keep the screaming terrors away. The drug destroyed my body and mind, gradually eating away at them like a corrosive acid. Now I have become a slave to it. And yet, without it, I do not sleep for weeks, but instead continuously see the scenes from that terrible night running through my head on repeat as worsening waves of madness crash on the shores of my consciousness.
In the caverns under the town of Frost Hollow, I found the meaning of true madness. Ever since I escaped that den of horrors, it is difficult to tell what is real and what is only the feverish delirium of an unhinged mind.
Even now, they wait behind the door to this cheap, bare rented room. They drag their claws over the wood. I hear them hissing in that strange, ancient tongue, the one I first heard in the tombs of rock that had been undisturbed for countless millennia.
***
I had first heard rumors of an unexplored cavern from my friend, an experienced caver named Sonia who had explored caverns all over the world. I had been looking for some excitement in my life, some break from the constant monotony and boredom of simply working and sleeping. I had gone caving quite a few times over the year leading up to the trip, but I was not nearly as experienced and had never explored a supposedly virgin passageway of cavern before.
“How do you know no one’s gone down there?” I asked, curious. We sat across from each other at a local diner, getting some early breakfast before our planned descent. The sunrise was still another half-hour away, the sky flat and dark. We would be joined by Sonia’s husband, Phil, who would meet us there shortly after sunrise. I repressed an urge to yawn, chugging half of the steaming hot coffee in one long swallow. Sonia leaned close to me, her nearly colorless blue eyes reminding me of chunks of ice floating down a muddy stream.
“Phil’s friend just found it randomly,” she whispered before glancing around conspiratorially, as if she feared someone would care enough to eavesdrop on a conversation about a cave. “Well, it’s in the middle of a farm, and Phil’s friend, Jack Graysole, owns the entire property and surrounding woods. Jack says he noticed the cows kept going over to a certain spot in the field when it got really hot during the summertime. They would all gather around this little indentation in the grass. After seeing it a few times, Jack got curious and went to investigate what the cows were doing.
“He found a small hole in the ground, almost entirely covered by weeds and grass. He said he felt a cool breeze constantly blowing out of the hole, a breeze that smelled like burning matches and charred metal. After bringing out some shovels and digging down a couple feet, Jack realized that the hole wasn’t a hole at all, but the beginning of a steep passageway leading deep into the bowels of the earth.”
***
The owner of the land decided to unofficially call the newly-discovered cavern Graysole Caverns. Out of respect for him, this is also the name we all used. This is the story of how I found myself in the bowels of a strange subterranean tunnel, a tunnel where creatures beyond my comprehension slunk and hunted, skittering monstrosities who would be more at home in a nightmare.
After grabbing a couple coffees to take with us, Sonia drove over to Graysole Farms. Cows stood out in the grassy fields, huddled in tight circles as they repetitively chewed. The thin silhouette of Jack Graysole waited for us next to the herd. He had a face like a raisin, I thought to myself. I watched his thin, shaking body standing in the middle of an overgrown grassy field. Jack stared down blankly at something only he could see. Sonia and I started unloading some equipment from the car while we waited for Phil.
Once we had the backpacks loaded with some simple supplies, such as water, food, headlamps, rope, a couple extra batteries, some buck knives, and radios, we headed over to accompany Jack. We weren’t taking much, as we didn’t really expect to be down there for more than six or seven hours at the most.
Jack Graysole’s withered old face was as slack and expressionless as that of a corpse. He stared down at the ground as if he were in a trance, waving back and forth slowly on his feet like a plant in a light breeze.
“Jack?” Sonia called out as we approached. I could hear the man’s teeth chattering as we got nearer.
“Hey, what are you doing over here this early? You interested in accompanying us down there?” Sonia joked. But Jack might as well have been totally deaf for all the reaction he gave. Sonia glanced over at me with an anxious expression. I wondered if the old man was having a stroke.
I quickly walked over to where he stood, staring down at a black circular hole about three feet across directly in front of his feet. The entrance to Graysole Caverns stared up at us like a sightless pupil. As I drew within a few feet of Jack and looked straight into his blank eyes, I noticed something alarming.
His pupils were quickly dilating and constricting before my eyes. They would shrink to tiny pinpoints, then, a couple seconds later, rapidly expand until they became dark and serious. I could see his thready, rapid heartbeat pulsating in a vein on the side of his temple. Alarmed, I reached forward and put my hand on his shoulder.
Instantly, he came to life, like a man waking up from a nightmare. Shrieking, he looked at me with fully dilated pupils, reminding me of a panicked deer surrounded by wolves. His quavering old man’s voice shook with ineffable existential horror and mortal fear.
He took a step back away from us, seeming to realize where he was and what he was doing. He looked around, confused, then straight at me and Sonia. His eyes focused with anger and fear, as if we were demons here to drag him down to Hell. His eyes flicked back and forth between us constantly. Jack raised a trembling hand and pointed it straight at my heart.
“It’s you,” he said, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper. His teeth chattered despite the warm spring air. His skin looked deathly pale. “You’re the one who will bring an end to humanity, who will release the ruler of nightmares upon us.” He continued to point accusingly for a long moment at me, his face turning chalk-white. Then his eyes rolled up in his head. Slowly, he stumbled and fell backwards onto the soft grass of the field.
“Jack!” Sonia cried, running over to the old man. Jack’s breaths had started to come in slow, drawn-out gurgles, like a man with a slit throat trying to breathe. Frothy blood bubbled from his lips as they turned blue. Staring up at the endless expanse of cloudless sky, he exhaled one last shuddering breath and died.
***
Phil showed up only a couple minutes later. He found me and Sonia in a state of utter panic, both of us bent double over the still body of Jack. Sonia was on the phone with 911, and I was trying to give Jack chest compressions. The way his fingernails and lips shone with that cyanotic blue cast made me feel sick and weak. I knew it was futile, that I was simply playing with a corpse at this point, but I didn’t know what else to do. I felt if I didn’t do something, I might explode.
I heard the faint wailing of sirens approaching as Sonia’s panicked voice continued babbling to the 911 operator. Phil stood by her side, his tall, dark features searching and lost.
“Oh God, I think he’s dead!” Sonia cried over and over to the operator, as if she thought the operator could do anything about it. I didn’t hear what the operator said in response. As the ambulance pulled in, I gave up on chest compressions. I stood up and took a step back, looking sadly down on the kindly old man’s dead body.
The paramedics ran over. Phil, Sonia and I stood back while they worked on the corpse, trying to shock the heart back into life. But Jack’s open eyes stayed glazed as they stared sightlessly up into eternity.
***
The paramedics left. A couple police officers stayed behind to ask us a few routine questions. Eventually, after an hour or so, they left, too.
“What a fucked-up day,” Phil said, shaking his head grimly. “Do you guys still want to do this? Maybe it’s an omen from God telling us to go home.” Sonia and I exchanged a glance, then we both nodded at the same time.
“Definitely,” she said. “It’s sad what happened to Jack, but realistically, we don’t know what’s going to happen to this property now that he’s passed away. It might get sold or taken by the bank for all we know. This could be our one and only chance to explore this cave.”
“I don’t believe in omens. I’m still down,” I said, feeling slightly sick from the experience. I still remembered how Jack’s body had cracked under the weight of my chest compressions, how his ribs had snapped like bones shattering in greedy hands. “We’ll do it in memory of Jack. I plan to put this up on YouTube.” I pulled my GoPro out of my bag, turning it on. Phil groaned at that.
“Do we have any idea how far down this cave goes?” Phil asked. I felt a sense of relief now that the topic had changed from the death of the old man.
“I sent a little camera down on a rope, but it only went about a hundred feet,” Sonia responded. “It’s pretty steep at first, then it levels out. I couldn’t really see much after it leveled out, but it looks like it should be easy to climb down. There’s plenty of handholds, lots of jutting rocks.”
Phil put on his headlamp and small pack. As he crawled down into the hole, his tanned face looked up at us and gave us one last devilish grin. Once he had gone down a few dozen feet, Sonia started descending. She looked excited and happy. I noticed how she couldn’t stop smiling as she disappeared from view.
I watched their lights grow smaller and dimmer in the circular tunnel. I marveled at how perfectly circular the entrance was. It almost didn’t even look natural.
Taking a deep breath in, I followed my friends down into the dark.
***
“This isn’t too bad,” I said as I climbed down. The jutting rocks gave plenty of handholds and footholds for us. It wasn’t so tight that it felt like a coffin, either.
“It only gets easier from here!” Sonia called up.
“How do you know?” I asked. “You said you’ve never been here before.” She laughed.
“I know. Probably just wishful thinking,” she said. Far below us, Jack’s voice drifted up, faint and weak. He had already reached the bottom.
“The tunnel really opens up down here, guys,” he called. “It’s somewhat… bizarre, though.”
“What do you mean by that?” Sonia asked. I looked down, seeing Sonia and I would reach the bottom in seconds. “Forget it, I’ll let it be a surprise.” I heard her drop down. Slowly and carefully, I lowered myself down the last few feet. There was a short fall onto a smooth granite floor. I looked up, seeing what Phil and Sonia were so mesmerized by.
“Oh, wow,” I said, speechless. I blinked rapidly, wondering if the image would clear like a mirage. The tunnel was cut into a perfectly triangular shape, each side about seven feet long. The ceiling met in a point above our heads.
All along the smooth walls of gray rock, I saw thousands of black orbs peeking out. They looked similar to obsidian, but they were perfectly smooth and circular, each about the size of an orange. They were formed into interlocking diagonal patterns and followed the tunnel straight down as far as the eye could see.
“What is this place?” Sonia asked, taking a tentative step forward. I looked up, seeing the distant pinpoint of sunlight far above our heads. Our voices continued to echo off down the massive tunnels, disappearing in eerie waves into the thick curtain of shadows.
“Are you recording all this?” Phil asked me. I laughed, giddy.
“Of course! This is internet gold right here,” I said. “No one’s going to believe that this isn’t man-made, however. I can’t even believe it. Do you think Jack was playing a joke on us or something?”
“Jack had the sense of humor of a wet paper towel,” Phil whispered, shaking his head. “No, he wouldn’t do something like this.”
“Well, let’s go check it out,” Sonia said, taking a step forward. Her headlamp bobbed up and down rapidly, throwing dancing shadows through the triangular tunnel. It continued straight ahead, without the slightest deviation or curve, disappearing off into a dark point in the distance.
***
We walked as fast as we could, excited to see where, if anywhere, the strange tunnel led. Phil, always the conspiracy theorist, babbled excitedly.
“This has to be aliens, man,” he said, running his fingers through his dark hair. “I bet that scientists will find out this shit is millions of years old when we get back up and tell everyone. Maybe aliens came to earth in ancient times and made a bunch of stuff underground.” Gradually, as we walked, I noticed the tunnel opening up. The pointed triangular ceiling rose up higher above our heads and the walls moved outwards, as we were walking up a triangular funnel. At first, it was so subtle that I didn’t believe it when Sonia pointed it out.
“No, look,” she said, raising her hand above her head. “When we first started down this weird tunnel, my fingers were only maybe a foot away from the top. Now it’s a couple feet.” I was about to respond when our headlamps illuminated something standing in the middle of the tunnel.
“What the fuck is that?” I whispered, stopping cold in my tracks. Phil and Sonia looked up at the abomination at the same time. Its back was to us. It stood nearly as tall as the tunnel, which was now about twenty feet high.
The bottom half looked black and spidery with dozens of long, jointed legs. A bloody, white spine rose out of the mass of legs. Inhumanly long, skeletal arms stretched out in front of it. Its face was pointed away from us, but the back of its head resembled an enormous pointed skull with deep fissures like the cracks of an earthquake running through the bone. The abomination stayed as still as a statue, and for a long moment, I wondered if we were looking at some macabre work of art.
Then, suddenly, one of its insectile legs twitched. A moment later, the other legs started jerking and twisting. There was a sound like bones shattering as it rose up to its full height, turning around to face us.
Its face was like something from a nightmare, melting and reforming constantly like dripping candle wax. I would see a black eye appear on its forehead, then a grinning mouth on its chin, then the features would get sucked back into the folds of melting flesh. After a few moments, two enormous eyes appeared on its face, dark and cold like craters on the surface of the Moon. The mouths and noses disappeared back into the dripping skin, and only the two lidless eyes remained, emanating a cold, reptilian consciousness beyond the ability of my mind to comprehend. I felt terror radiating from its body like freezing waves.
“Free me,” it cried in a gurgling voice that seethed with insanity. It had a shrieking, metallic ringing behind every word that gave it an alien quality. “Free me, and I will give you the waters of eternal life. Within me, I contain the seeds of immortality. Within the nightmares, we live forever, always together, never alone.”
“Who are you?” I asked, terrified. The black reptilian skin of the enormous beast glistened as it knelt down, its massive face drawing near to mine. A sideways mouth burst out of the liquified flesh, showing hundreds of fangs growing like tumors from its white, bloodless gums. The fangs varied in size from only a couple inches to long, sword-like projections that stabbed into the creature’s flesh, causing white blood glittering with rainbows to fall like raindrops all around me.
“I have many names,” it hissed, its thousand voices rising and falling in crashing waves of sound. “I was present at the beginning, when this planet was no more than dead cliffs and endless freezing oceans. Those holy ones who search for us, the ancient ones, call me Niralahoth.”
“How do we free you?” Phil asked, looking terrified. He held Sonia’s hand tightly.
“By letting me into your mind and body,” Niralahoth cried, shaking the cavern. “I was thrown down here, cursed and forgotten. I cannot leave this place of shadows within this body. But in the body of another, my consciousness can be free, and the seeds of new life can spread beyond this prison.”
“There’s no way anyone’s going to do that,” I said, my eyes widening as Niralahoth’s reptilian skull turned towards me in fury. “I mean, you’re asking one of us to give up our individuality, our lives, right?”
“I am asking you to become one with me and gain power undreamt of by mortals,” it cried. “I have within me the fountain of life, the waters that send death away screaming.” I glanced anxiously at Phil and Sonia, wondering if we would have to run.
“The answer is no,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, we can’t do that,” Phil said, backing me up. “But, anyways, I think our trip has ended. It’s time to turn around…”
“You will never return,” Niralahoth cried, skittering away from us. “If you will not accept salvation, then you must accept death.” Within seconds, it slunk away from us, backpedaling on its many skittering legs into the shadows.
***
All around us, a rumbling started.
There was a pounding that crashed through the rock tunnel, as if an insane blacksmith were hammering on a massive anvil. The ringing of crashing rock started off slowly, with a few stones smashing down around us with heavy blasts of sound. Within seconds, the cacophony sped up, rising into a constant stream of destruction. The black orbs were spinning in place all up and down the tunnel, their glossy obsidian surfaces flashing with sparks of blue light.
“It’s collapsing!” Phil cried, running back in the direction we came, holding Sonia’s hand as she tried to keep up with him. I could only stare for a long moment, not sure what to do. It seemed that the direction Phil was heading stood closer to total collapse.
“Wait!” I cried, but my voice was drowned out in the destruction all around us. I felt a rock smash into my shoulder, sending me down to my feet. I heard Phil give a scream of pain, then another stone came down and smashed into my forehead. I remember seeing everything spinning around me as the world went black.
***
I awoke to find my headlamp still shining straight up in the dusty tunnel. Large chunks of the tunnel had slid out of place and crashed to the stone floor. The granite chunks that had fallen looked unnaturally smooth, most of them in the shapes of cylinders or cubes and varying in size from that of an egg to that of a small car.
My head throbbed. It felt as if a tight belt of fire were wrapped around my temples. Groaning, I put my fingers up to my forehead. They came away slick with blood.
Slowly, I started pushing myself up on my feet. I was relieved that nothing seemed broken. I had a deep gash running from the center of my scalp down to my left temple and some shallower cuts on my shoulders and back, but I knew none of that was life-threatening.
“Sonia?” I whispered, my voice coming out weak and strained. I reached into my pack and found a bottle of water. I chugged it quickly in one long swallow.
“Phil?” I cried again, this time stronger. I heard a soft weeping nearby. Staggering, I followed the sound.
Sonia was bloody and covered in cuts and scrapes, sitting next to Phil’s prone form. I saw Phil’s right arm pinned under a massive slab of granite. His arm disappeared from the elbow down in a spreading puddle of thick, dark blood.
“Oh God, Max, I think he’s hurt really bad,” she wept. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly in his head, his face pale and bloodless. I looked down the way we had come, seeing the entire tunnel blocked by large slabs of stone, many with strange, black orbs peeking out like the lenses of cameras.
***
I don’t know how much time passed. My phone died after a day, and then we were counting the endless darkness in breaths and tears.
Phil swam in and out of consciousness as his arm putrefied and blackened around the crush site. After a couple days, Sonia and I agreed that something had to be done. We told Phil we would need to amputate his arm. He was half-delirious, but he came back long enough to understand us and nod weakly.
We made a fire with Phil’s pack, trying to find fuel to throw in it to get it roaring. As it grew, I saw one of the black orbs near the flames abruptly ignite, as if it had been covered in gasoline. Blue, almost colorless flames rose from its surface. We started throwing the small black orbs on the fire until it rose high in the air. I sanitized the buck knife with the flames and pulled a rope tourniquet tight around Phil’s arm. He was conscious but seemingly insane, talking to himself more than anyone else.
“How are we going to get the car started without a key?” he gurgled to someone only he could see. “We need to look around. It has to be here somewhere.”
“Phil, can you hear me, bud? We need to fix your arm. We need to get you out of this mess. OK?” I said as comfortingly as I could. Phil’s eyes rolled wildly, but they didn’t meet my own. I sighed and looked over at Sonia.
“Let’s do it,” I said, giving a grim nod.
I pulled the buck knife out, slicing quickly down through the flesh next to the tourniquet. His veins throbbed like fat worms as the blackened, necrotic skin split easily under the blade, releasing a rancid-smelling gas that hissed out of the wound.
I couldn’t believe how hard it was to slice all the way through the arm. It felt like I was stuck in that hellish task forever. Phil’s eyes rolled in his head as his skin turned the color of clotted milk.
“God, Jesus, make it stop,” Phil whispered over and over, exhaling ragged, pain-filled breaths. The blood spurted from the blackened, dying tissue all over the dust-covered cavern floor, covering my hands in its warm, slick embrace.
After what was probably only three or four minutes, but felt like hours, I had sliced all the way down to the bone. The infected tissue of his arm spurted great gouts of orange pus mixed with rivulets of blood. The hard part was over.
Standing up, I took my steel-toe sneaker and stomped down on his arm as hard as I could. Phil cried out in a powerful voice, as if all the agony and suffering in the world was contained in that one shriek. The bone snapped under my weight with a sound like a tree branch cracking. A moment later, Phil rolled away from the rock that had pinned me in place for so long. Something alien and spongy was shoved into my face, a mass of destroyed red tissue pulsating in time with a runaway heartbeat. At first, shell-shocked and revolted, my mind couldn’t comprehend that I was looking at the stump of Phil’s mutilated arm. I hardened my heart and forced the giddiness and madness to the back of my mind. The time had come to cauterize the wound.
“Sonia, give it to me,” I said with a tremor in my voice. I reached out a hand towards her, a hand stained with Phil’s blood. It looked as if I were wearing a wet, crimson glove. Sonia only stared blankly at me for a long moment, however. A surge of anger ran up my chest.
“Sonia, toughen the fuck up! He’s going to die if you just sit there!” I swore at her, hearing my deep, angry voice bounce around the caverns. Sonia pulled back, as if she were struck. Inwardly, I cursed having a woman as my only able-bodied companion in this situation. She was a competent enough caver, but what would happen if violence and blood came over us? What would happen if, or more realistically when, we needed to fight?
Grimly, Sonia leaned forward and yanked the burning black orb out of the roaring fire, handing it to me on the end of a buck knife that had just barely pierced its hard, strange exterior. The handle of the knife felt coarse and splintery under my filthy skin. I put it to the spongy stump of Phil’s arm. The stump twitched violently. Phil tried to pull away as black smoke rose from the burning flesh.
There was a smell like bacon sizzling. The searing meat of Phil’s arm blackened and crisped under the heat of the orb, which had become no more than a cylinder of glowing blue embers by this point. I felt simultaneously sick and giddy. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or vomit. I felt like I was on the verge of some kind of madness, that the stress and insanity of the experience had started to shatter my mind.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he appeared to go into a seizure for a few seconds. With a long exhalation of breath, he finally, mercifully, lost consciousness. It’s hard to admit it, even this close to the end, but a small, sick piece of me was jealous of Phil. Most likely, he would be dead soon, maybe within hours, while Sonia and I would slowly starve and dehydrate like animals over a period of weeks. I looked at her lithe body and soft skin, seeing the feminine curves of her hips and chest. She was a beautiful woman. I knew Phil to be a lucky man. At least, before this trip, he was.
I watched her body, wondering if I had what it took to eat her or Phil if I had to. Did I have an iron heart that would allow me to slice into my friends and consume their raw, cold flesh? Perhaps, by that point, it would be hunger and madness driving me forward, and I wouldn’t even hesitate. I shuddered at the very thought.
***
I fell asleep that night, having strange dreams of massive gods with melting faces sitting in judgment in a circle around me. We had very little food or water left. No one knew we were down here. Rescue was not coming.
When I awoke, I found myself alone. Phil had died from his injuries while I slept, the black streaks of septic shock spreading up his arm towards his heart. His eyes stared sightlessly up at the rock ceiling.
“Sonia?” I called out, my heart racing as I sat up. “Where are you?” My headlamp was growing dim. I looked in my pack, realizing I was on the last of my batteries. I saw a silhouette walking out of the darkness, the thin, pale form of Sonia. She was trembling badly.
“I saw them,” she said. “Niralahoth and its priests. The priests aren’t human. They look reptilian with sideways mouths and too many eyes.” She shuddered.
“Why would you do that?” I asked. Her eyes grew distant.
“You know we’re not getting out of here alive,” she said. “Not on our own. I wanted to see what it offered. It says that if we take a piece of its nightmare into us, we will gain the power to leave this place, that it simply wants to see the surface and spread its nightmares there.” I shook my head.
“Insanity,” I muttered. “We’d be better off dead.” Sonia nodded.
“My thoughts exactly,” she responded grimly. I didn’t realize what she meant until the next day, when I woke up and found her hanging next to Phil’s body, her tongue swollen and blue as it poked out of her cyanotic lips. And then I was truly alone.
***
Soon after Sonia committed suicide, the last of the batteries for the headlamp died. I had run out of food and had only a small sip of water left. I don’t know how much time passed in the darkness, starving and raving, following the tunnel by running my hands over the walls. I heard many things skittering in the darkness, and a few times, I heard the demonic voice of Niralahoth as it split and distorted.
“You are on death’s door,” it hissed. “Will you not drink from the fountain of life?” I couldn’t tell where the voice came from in the maddening blackness. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. I had lost nearly all of my sanity in that pit of shadows by this point. I tried laughing constantly to keep my spirits up, and when that failed, I simply cried.
“I’ll do it,” I wailed. “I’ll do it. Just let me see the sky again. Get me out of here, Niralahoth.” Everything went deathly silent all around me, then a laugh rang out like the grinding of glass.
In front of me, I saw a tornado of fire descending from the ceiling, surrounding the massive, spidery form of Niralahoth. It rose its skeletal arms upwards, as if it were Zeus calling down lightning. In the sudden brightness, I saw the fiery form of snakes slithering and centipedes skittering forwards in that tornado, each massive creature sculpted from flames in the spinning cyclone of energy. Niralahoth reached into the tornado of fire with its sharp points of fingers and plucked something small from it. The fire instantly dissipated. In its hand, I saw a tiny, swirling orb that looked like it contained a firestorm within it.
“The nightmare seed,” Niralahoth gurgled as it skittered forward towards me. I could only stare, open-mouthed and starving. I hadn’t slept for days, it felt like, and everything seemed slow and unreal.
In a blur, its skeletal arm shot out and forced the orb into my mouth. Despite the fire raging within it, it felt freezing cold. As it touched my tongue, it gave off a sensation like frostbite all throughout my mouth. I screamed and tried spitting it out, but it seemed to have a mind of its own. It started liquifying, dripping down my throat.
I felt something cancerous and sick spreading throughout my body, radiating out from my heart and stomach to every inch of it. I tried to scream, but it caught behind my teeth. I fell to my knees, clawing at my face as that insane, alien laugh continued resounding all down the tunnel. I fell unconscious and woke up under a beautiful sky in the fields of Graysole Farms.
***
Soon after, I realized that my life would never be the same. Everywhere I went, I could hear the wailing voice of Niralahoth. Behind the trees, I always saw skittering shadows, creatures with long, spidery legs that stalked me every day and night. I slept with every light in the house turned on, yet when I woke up, they would all be shut off, and I would find myself in darkness, next to something in the bed with far too many legs and a face that dripped like burning wax.
I sold everything I owned and tried to move far away, to give as much distance between myself and those cursed caverns as I could, but the nightmares followed me like a shadow. I realize what a fool I was in those ephemeral moments of madness. Sonia was much wiser than myself; I should have killed myself or died rather than allowing that thing inside of me.
Even now, I can feel it creeping through my heart, spreading through my blood. I feel it trying to crawl its way out of my throat, the thin, black legs peeking out at the back of my esophagus.
I only hope that, when I finally jump and feel my bones shatter against the concrete far below, I will kill whatever is inside of me. For I fear the consequences for the world if it were to escape.

Chess puzzles are incredibly enjoyable. Personally, I can’t get enough of them. There's nothing quite like the satisfaction of solving a challenging chess puzzle that truly tests your intellect.
Solving chess puzzles can significantly improve your chess skills, but, like any activity, there are certain guidelines to follow. If approached carelessly, chess puzzles can actually hinder your ability to play well.
So, while chess puzzles are exciting, there are important considerations to keep in mind. Not just casual thoughts, but serious points to ponder whenever you tackle a chess puzzle.
Chess puzzles can either be a valuable learning experience or a mindless exercise, depending on how you approach them. Simply solving them doesn’t teach you much; it’s the method you use to solve them that counts.
I believe many people use a "trial and error" approach to solving chess puzzles. They analyze the position, mentally move pieces around, test a promising path, and if it fails, try another. It’s seen as a fun activity, and if they wanted a serious game, they’d play one. That’s how I used to view chess puzzles too.
However, chess puzzles are serious training tools, and this article aims to highlight their importance. They are effective training exercises and have a significant impact on your behavior during actual games.
Here are some key points to remember when working on chess puzzles:

1. A major limitation of chess puzzles is knowing that a solution exists on the board.

This isn’t necessarily bad, but if you’re not careful, you might take shortcuts. Avoid jumping in and moving pieces around in your mind until they fit. This bad habit can hurt your performance in real games. If you do this now, you might be tempted to do it later.
The solution? Treat the puzzle like an actual chess game.
Make the next move as if it’s your move. Don’t just accept the scenario as given. Try to understand how you got there and why you should make your next move from a strategic perspective.
Like a puzzle cube or a daily crossword, learn to see the solution instead of stumbling upon it, and you’ll gain much more from solving chess puzzles.

1. Chess puzzles are predetermined, meaning the solution is the only thing you need to figure out.

This can encourage you to stop thinking independently, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Play by the rules, which should already be part of your chess habit.
Don’t cut corners just because the game is in an advanced stage.
Scan for knight moves, check for tactical opportunities, familiarize yourself with the board position, including the pawn structure. Take an introspective approach to puzzle solving.

1. Remember that every move on the chessboard (whether in a puzzle or not) requires a fresh perspective.

Always start by thoroughly scanning the puzzle for every possible check and capture from both sides. Avoid the temptation to jump straight to the solution by moving key pieces in your mind. This might save time, but it also ingrains a bad habit that can be hard to break.

1. Play the puzzle out against a computer or a person. This adds a consequence for wrong decisions and makes the puzzle feel like a formal game rather than just an image in a book.

These tips can help you get more out of chess puzzles. Approach each puzzle as if you don’t know a predetermined solution exists.
Anyone can eventually stumble upon a solution, but can they replicate the process consistently? Likely not.
Take your puzzle-solving skills to the next level by applying the rules of chess. Enjoy the process and learn something along the way.
Good luck!

Unless you are ready to handle the reaper cushions.

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.
― Mark Twain

general information	additional information
name: Micah Di Santis	preferred name: Myka, Mike
d.o.b.: 10 June 20XX	age: 16
nationality: Sicilian	hometown: Sicily, Italy
gender identity: cis-male	gender expression: male
sexual orientation: Undecided	preferred pronouns: he / him / his

• Half-blood- and non-half-blood-related conundrums: ADHD (attention deficiency and hyperactivity disorder), Dyslexia

relation	name/s	age	relationship
divine parent	Charon, The Ferryman	old	Micah still has no idea what to think about his dad. Speaking with him during the visit to Olympus did nothing to clear things up. The man, or was it immortal, was blunt and yet, his son's opinion of him was still up in the air, though leaning more to the positive side. At least Micah has the connections to get himself an admittedly fantastic tailored suit.
mortal parent	???	???	Micah has no idea who his biological mother is. The only reason he knew who his father was before he came to camp was because the spirits told him.
mortal adoptive parent	Maria Di Santis	32 years old	If Marco was a saint then Maria was a saintess through and through. Everything she did, she did with someone else in mind. From the day she adopted Micah to the moment Marco died, Micah did not see her cry for herself at all. She'd cry when a little boy got hurt and would offer help or cry when she saw a cat get kicked by some drunk douchebag.
mortal adoptive parent	Vincino (Vinny) Bertelli	37 years old	Vincino is an absurdly rich man who was born and raised in Sicily. He found Maira through her singing on the side of the road to raise money for Micah's trip to the US. He offered to take her in because he liked her and sponsored Micah's trip by giving him some money and a ticket onto a transatlantic cruise ship headed to New York City. All things considered, he's a kind and considerate man who loves Maria.
adoptive brother	Marco Di Santis	14 years old, Deceased	Marco Di Santis was a saint. Ever since he learned the word 'kindness', he was absorbed and defined by it. He loved seeing the smiles bloom on people's faces when he shared some bread or helped them with something but what he truly loved more than anything else was sailing and playing the piano. He was handsome beyond reason, having pale blonde hair and clear blue eyes, though he never had a chance to grow into it fully.
dead guy	Chris	16 years old, Deceased	Like Marco, Chris is one big ball of sunshine. The only difference is he's a ghost. Micah met Chris on the cruise he stowed away on to get to the US and the ghost promptly joined him, though reluctantly because he was watching over his parents and little brother, due to finding him interesting. Like Marco, Chris is handsome though he had more time to grow into his looks. Framed by golden hair and chocolate brown eyes, Micah wouldn't have doubted it if the boy was very popular during his living days.
friend	Willow 'Will' Crest	16 years old	One of the more laid-back campers Micah had met, Willow became something of a friend to the son of Charon, though they started off more as discussion partners than anything else. And besides, being chill-buddies is pretty fun on its own. Who knows where things can go from there?
friend	Rachel 'Rocky' Williams	17 years old	Rocky was one of the first people Micah met upon arriving at camp and her enthusiasm, uncharacteristic for a child of a chthonic god, immediately made her stand out. Though he genuinely has no idea what goes through Rocky's head, Micah considers them close, and okay, maybe he has a minuscule crush on her.
friend/former cabin-mate	Ramona Herrera	16 years old	Being another camper who met Micah's criteria for friendship (i.e. Be chill and relax), Ramona is someone who Micah doesn't know too much about. Much like Kit, who Micah has seen around camp and the Hermes Cabin, she is a mystery to him. Though he does enjoy trying to spot which corner she's hiding in at any given camp gathering.
acquaintance (?)	Mathew Knight	15 years old	Matt is, as far as friendship is concerned, a work-in-progress. Micah's father had recommended getting to know the son of Hades and though he'd lost himself in school shortly after, Micah had made introductions.

appearance

faceclaim	height	weight	hair	eyes	skin
FC, Art by Charlie Bowater	5’11”	Doesn't care	Black	Amber, fiery like gold	Lightly tanned, peppered with a few more recent thin scars from his time at camp

description: Micah is a fairly restrained person when it comes to clothes. Usually, he'd only grab a long-sleeved shirt and some jeans, feeling content. Most of his clothing is fairly average, what with them being of all sorts of muted colors and sorts of clothing. He isn't used to expressing himself whether it is though clothing or other methods.
equipment:

• Folding Knife; The cleaver-shaped folding knife was a present from his brother and Micah has taken to using it for almost everything in his day to day. When his mother fell ill after Marco's death, Micah had to scrub the docks, cut rope to secure the boats, and even got to work on some boats during outings for extra cash. The knife became like a lifeline, being used for everything he had to do.
• Bead Necklace; Micah has been at camp for a year now.
• Monster Directory; Over the years, Micah has seen one or two monsters in their undisguised forms and has taken to keeping note of them by drawing them in as great a detail as he can remember in a separate notebook from the rest of his drawings while also making notes of tactics that worked against them.
• Sketchbook; Ever since he started drawing, Micah has had a good amount of sketchbooks, most of which he donated to orphanages in Sicily for the little kids to enjoy the drawings if they weren't destroyed by seawater or other kids. After he donated his last one with a few pages blank at the end, he got himself a new book, this one being leather-bound and practically a blank slate. He's glad to have an abundance of space to draw as his story unfolds.
• Art Supplies; A good amount of colored and uncolored pencils, all in different states of use, either dull or sharp, long or short, and an eraser in a dark brown leather box.
• Satchel; The over-the-shoulder bag Micah carries around with all of his items. It's nothing special, just an olive green bag with a good amount of compartments and space.
• Throwing Knife Bandolier; Micah's choice of weapon, the bandolier he carries is easy to hide under civilian clothes, fast to access, and easy to use. The knives are of standard make and easily replaceable with others from the armory, though Micah tends to clean and sharpen them himself after each use.

abilities:
* – modmailed / custom

godrent domain powers: 

a) Dead Communication; Ever since his close brush with death, Micah's powers surged. His father's connection to spirits and those who have died became his and as such he can now see and communicate with the spirits of the dead. They have been his only source of information on his father. He likes to build a network of spirits whenever he goes somewhere new so he can gather information as fast as possible.
b) Shadow Camouflage; From a fairly young age, Micah wasn't much of a social butterfly. Most of the time, he felt most comfortable in a shadowy nook where the lines of his body would be broken by shadows, using the ability unconsciously. After his near-death experience, Micah became more aware of his ability to hide in shadows and learned to use it more effectively than before.
c) Shadow Travel\;* After an unknowably long amount of time spent in Hades, Micah's father, Charon, was aligned with the underworld to which he led the souls of the dead. Similarly, Micah has inherited the ability to travel through shadows in short or long-range teleports.

godrent minor powers: 

a) River Step\;* The connection with the River Styx flows through Micah's veins as much as it does through his father's. The ability this connection granted him was the ability to walk on water, as long as there is no significant shift to the water, such as large waves.
b) Death Buff\;* Being a servant of the God of the Dead, it only makes sense that Charon would draw his own power from his master. As such, Micah has inherited a trait where he becomes stronger when around children of other deities of death, such as Hades, Melinoe, Zagreus, the Oneiroi, etc.
c) Aura of the Harbinger\;* Being a multifaceted deity, Charon passed down his multifacetedness in the form of an aura ability. Micah has the ability to project an aura with two opposite effects that work on separate targets. A calming effect affects any spirits within the aura while an imposing effect like that of Children of Hades affects living beings within the aura's range.

godrent major powers: 

a) Major Watercraft Manipulation\;* Being known as the Ferryman of the Dead, it only makes sense for Charon, and Micah by extension, to have dominion over watercraft. Micah's control over watercraft was one of the first powers he discovered and the power that is most intertwined with him in his entirety. He has inherited the ability to gain absolute control over any and all watercraft down to the rigging and ropes.

skillset 

Over the years, Micah has picked up a good variety of skills, including fishing and rope work. Still, there have been a great many learning experiences for the boy on the streets of Sicily. Free running came as a given to any child of below-average means in Sicily but Micah was significantly worse than most thanks to a leg injury he got at the age of thirteen. Drawing was the only real luxury he had during his time when he wasn't working. A young lady from a carnival that was passing through taught him how to use throwing knives after he helped her find her way around the city. He learned ballet by watching, sitting for hours outside a studio every day for weeks until he'd gotten good enough to practice independently, which led to his interest in gymnastics. One of the older neighborhood boys took to teaching Micah, his brother, and the other kids how to read and write in English. Micah's adoptive mother insisted on teaching him how to speak English from a young age. Now, he can speak English with a barely noticeable Sicilian accent.
personality
Micah is about as quiet as you'd expect from a Chthonic kid. That isn't to say that he is particularly serious or brooding, in fact, even when he's upset, he rarely does either. He mainly remains silent because he isn't particularly talented at talking. His reactions to most things tend to be a bit muted unless something is especially funny or angering. Any of the kids that liked him or trusted him in Sicily did so because they understood that when it was needed, Micah would talk as much as was needed and would do what needed to be done to keep everyone safe.
Fatal Flaw; Vengefulness
backstory
Micah's past year at camp had been simultaneously the most relaxing and confusing year of his life. There had been a unfamiliarity that Micah had with anything to do with relaxation or really anything but working that had slowly melted away. He'd made friends and discovered passions that might have otherwise gone ignored for the rest of his life (Art was definitely one of those).
So, when school started to take over his time, Micah barely gave it any thought, settling back into his old work mentality, though now focused on mental instead of physical labor. Before he knew it, it was summer, school was out, and he was back at the start, not knowing how to get himself to relax.
now
Micah stared at the ground around the Range target blankly, the celestial bronze knives scattered around it refracting light. He was jolted out of his mental haze when a camper a few rows down yelled at him for standing in front of the target for so long. Quickly finishing up gathering his throwing knives, Micah slotted them into his bandolier and left the Range.
For a while, he just walked, until he reached the pier. Boats had been a constant of Micah's life before coming to camp and when he was really out of it or off his rocker, the son of Charon liked to settle at the camp pier and imagine what sort of sea vessel he'd design for himself. Aesthetics might not have mattered to everyone but to Micah, they did. The ship would have to look as good as it sailed.
Now, he fell onto his back in the sand a few meters from the pier and stared up at the sky. Barely any clouds. Gods that was boring.
(Credit to u/FireyRage for the amazing intro format.)

Whats up my dudes, we are back at it with another chapter for you all. We are getting the swing of things and have another chapter or two to start the main plot fully, we are just getting to know our leads for now. I hope you enjoy
Lets get this bread
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The movement from the nightclub to Stitch’s clinic was grueling. Typically lugging a passed-out HVI or some other sod halfway across the city's district would not be a challenge. With his cybernetics, Conor was in decent enough shape and could sprint ten kilometers in full battle rattle without breaking a sweat, but Conor had pushed himself and didn’t need to wax a few Voodal in his way.
Conor had heard that Kurlatra were dense, but his assumptions about how heavy they were came nowhere close to the reality of picking one up.
Whatever this woman's name was, she likely weighed north of eighty kilograms. It was a shock because she was a meter and a half tall at most. For Urka’s sake, Conor only weighed one hundred and fifty kilograms despite being two meters tall and filled to the brim with wires.
He thought a bit about the woman's build and realized why she must weigh so much. She had hips and legs that could crush a man's skull. Along with a pair of tits just big enough that they would overflow from your hands.
Conner was made all the more well aware of those traits as he adjusted her to ensure he would not drop the little lass. Her fatty chest and plump thighs would try to swallow his hip each time he did. No sentient this small had any right being heavier than his entire breacher kit, explosives, anti-rifle armor, and all.
If not for Brakul expecting this rosey scag to be delivered to Stitch’s place, Conor would have lugged her to his safe house, which was far closer. But no, he had another job and order to follow.
The only shining light on this impromptu extraction was that the Voodal did not follow him. He had been worried about that last ganger he had shot; they had only eaten one round through the midchest. At the time, it looked like it might not have been a heart shot, and since he was picking this bimbo up at the time, he did not have a chance to ensure they were put down permanently.
Conor took a deep breath as he rounded the corner into a dirty alleyway, leaving the bustling thoroughfare behind. Thankfully, the residents of Heavalun knew better than to mess with him or anyone else who regularly did mercenary work, especially when they were carrying a body—alive or not.
Those who stopped his type tended not to live long, so he was ignored other than a few passing glances.
After traveling a few meters into the alleyway, Conor stopped and tucked behind a dumpster. His feet squelched in a puddle of rank trash water leaking from the impromptu cover. While Conor was reasonably sure no one had followed him, a quick double-check was always good for his skin.
Conor did not want to bring trouble to Stitch’s place. He did not have the slightest idea where he would find another techy who could synthesize the cocktail of stimulants Stitch made to keep his broken body held together. Pissing the tech head off was not high on his priority list.
Over the next ten minutes, the only thing his thermal vision picked up between him and the main road was a few Zlit rats scurrying atop discarded food. Their fleshy tendrils groped the garbage and pulled it into maws of razor-sharp teeth.
The sight of them sent a shiver down his spine. Those foul little mammals were high on his list of hated creatures, having been bitten by them more than once since he was a kid slinking around the gutters of Heavalun.
Pushing those memories away, Conor traveled deeper and rounded a blind corner. The sounds of the crowd's chatter entirely vanished as he entered the backstreet where Stitch’s clinic was nestled.
The rest of the journey was only a few hundred meters and only required Conor to sidestep some used needles and shit; He also had to kick one homeless bum who tried to grab the girl out of the cover of his jacket. Usually, he would have just shot the piece of hreck shit, but with his hands full, a swift boot to the jaw got the message across.
With the bum limping away, broken jaw clutched in pain, Conor hammered on the metal door; its frame and the neon sign to its side quivered under his brute strength. Then began the worst part of dealing with Stitch, waiting for the asshole to open the door.
Conor waited until ten minutes had passed and received no answer. Then he punched the door harder, his metal hand denting the surface. Several seconds later, a heavily synthesized voice echoed out of the speakers hidden around the area—speakers that Conor had never been able to locate, no matter how fervently he tried.
“What do you want, Conor?” Stitch questioned. “Did you break more of your wiring?”
Conor sighed heavily, knowing Stitch had this entire block wired with multispectrum cameras and could see him a kilometer out. If this were a visit for his wiring, Stitch would know. The man was just being paranoid and wanted Conor to state his business.
“I got a girl I need you to check up on,” Conor said, pushing his jacket slightly open and letting the girl's ref scales shine.
“What another hooker pass out on a bad trip?” Stitch chuckled cruelly. “This is the fourth this month; you are getting soft merc.”
Rolling his eyes, Conor could admit he was softer than most of the other mercenaries and gangsters in the city's neutral sections. Having seen his fair share of how bad this city can be, Conor did his best not to fuck over those who were just down on bad times and were not trying to cause him issues.
Life was arduous enough for them. So he gave back by lugging hookers and junkies to the nearest tech head and paying for their treatment or the closest Zential clinic. The Zentials were more than willing to treat the downtrodden for free, unlike the other medical services in Heavalun—stitch included.
He considered it his way of giving back and maybe finding Urka's good grace. Perhaps the god might forgive him for being a general piece of hreck shit if he continued to until he did. But he would not know until he finally kicked the bucket.
His intervention was a drop of clean water in the ocean of venom in this city. The other locals were more than willing to pick those he aided clean in minutes. They might as well be a swarm of bealit beatles eating carrion with how ravenous they were.
“It ain’t that. Just open the damn door,” Conor growled, punching the door again.
“Hold on, you greased-up cyborg,” Stitch frantically complained, worried that Conor would break his door again.
Conor smirked, glad the strange form of tolerance he and Stitch had built over the years was still strong. At this point, it was their modus operandi. Neither hated the other; no, they respected one another's role in this shithole.
Both toles put them in harm's way and brought them respect and infamy.
However, Conor found the way the denizens of Heavalun treated them funny. If you asked the average COS or GU citizen, who was more brutal: a mercenary with a pension for hyper-violence and little regard for collateral damage—-or a skeletal Itelv doctor who regularly performs life-saving surgery? They would choose Conor ten out of ten times. They did not know Stitch like Conor, Brakul, or most of the people in this city section.
They would tell you the truth of the good doctor.
They would weave you a tale of a greedy, crit-pinching asshole and that Stitch was the type of man who would stitch up for pay but would just as quickly harvest your organs for sale, or Urka forbid he would stick some experimental tech inside you and wait for your inevitable death to retrieve his property.
The door at long last opened with a vile hiss, and a gangly grey-skinned hand forced it open.
Stitch was just about as tall as Conor. But his thin grey limbs made him look one stiff breeze away from taking flight, with only his heavy artificial spider-like legs keeping him firmly on the planet.
Draped over his pencil-thin neck was a once-white apron. After years of use, it was stained with blood, oil, and hydraulic fluid.
“If she ain't one of your precious hookers, put her on the table. I will get my tool ready,” Stitch hissed, jamming his thumb over a shoulder.
“I ain’t selling this one to you either. Girlie got tagged by visage, and I need yah to treat her,” Conor replied, pushing past and laying the blonde on the recovery bed.
“You said she ain’t some hooker,” Stitch complained following, having gotten tired of Conor no longer bringing him fresh meat to sell.
Once Conor turned around and was about to explain the situation, Stitch pressed a bony finger into Conor's chest. “I told you, I'm selling the next one. She is it,”
“Can it doc. She is a client,” Conor replied. “Or are you going to explain to Brakul why you cut her up?”
Stitch clicked his tongue but did not try to move closer. His glassy, verdant eyes pulled Conor and the girl apart as he weighed the pros and cons of allying with Conor and Brakul another time.
“What is in it for me?” Stitch questioned, tapping a finger on a scalpel attached to his tool belt.
Conor sighed, realizing he should have expected this question, but he was not the broker of deals. That was Brakul’s schtick, and he was running late.
“You can take her jewelry and any credsticks you find on her. Alright?” Conor replied, knowing Brakul likely would have made a similar deal.
Stitch nodded and slinked closer to the woman. He lifted the necklace from her chest and carefully examined the jewels with a prudish eye any good businessman should have. After Stitch activated his magnified eyes, his cornea glowed gold, letting him see the atoms of the shiny trinket.
The doctor grinned cruelly, letting his crystalline teeth show proudly. The sight was unsettling and made Conor grip his pistol, fearing the doctor would flip his shit and decide it was not enough payment and try to cut the girl up.
But he did not start to slice her skin open. Instead, he sniggered nearly uncontrollably for a few moments, then spoke. “Yes, yes, yes. This will do just fine,” He sneered.
Conor was unsure what the jewels were, but they must be worth far more than he initially thought. For Urka's sake, Stitch was drooling on the necklace and the passed-out girl's chest.
“Good. So you will take care of her?” Conor questioned, needing to hear an assured answer.
Quickly slipping the jewelry into his pocket, Stitch looked back at Conor, his demeanor having done a complete one-eighty. “Of course, I always have room for paying customers.”
“Oh sweet, Conor, you handled the deal,” Brakul said, having just stepped in through the doors.
Why Brakul was allowed unfettered access to Stitch’s clinic and Conor was not something Conor had wondered for years but had accepted it as something to do with their role in the duo.
“Yeah, and he will watch the client. But we had yet to lay out the finer details,” Conor explained.
“Ah, no issue, I can take it from here,” Brakul replied.
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so what did you think? a decent chapter or total trash? either way I wanna know. I will see you all in the comments. please don't forget to comment and updoot.
your baker
-Pirate
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PART 1:

 Every town has their own version of “The Boogeyman”. A monster, cryptid, phantom, whatever you want to call it, it’s all essentially the same thing- just a scary story they tell kids in an attempt to get them to behave. An urban legend is just a life lesson disguised as a horror story after all. For us folk living up in the tiny and once prosperous gold-mining town of Trillium, ours was known simply as The Locust Man. Now, let me start by saying, I realize how ridiculous that name must sound to you. “The Locust Man”?? Pftt…What’s he do, besides get stuck in the grill of someone’s pick-up truck. Destroy some crops? Oooh, he sounds real scary... yeah, I know. But yet, as I sit here today 20 years after the fact - a grown woman who’s wiser, stronger, and even more grounded in reality than she was at 12, I still hesitate to even write down that name. 

As a young child I had always thought it to be a little weird that our town was called Trillium, considering I had never seen a single one growing there. If you don’t know, a trillium is a small flower, usually white but they come in other color varieties as well, with three pedals and a bright yellow center. They sort of look like if you took a lily and tore off every other pedal playing “He loves me, he loves me not”. In school, about 2nd grade or so, we were taught everything about this elusive flower I’d never seen in real life, and told how proud our town was to be named after it. Trillium, Colorado was established in 1922 - A new town born in the wake of a great tragedy which befell the town that had previously sat in the same location. For us, and those that came before us, the trillium was supposed to be a symbol of hope. Knowing all that I know now, that sentiment almost makes me want to laugh - in a morbid way.

 Growing up in a small, mostly isolated town, there really wasn’t much for a kid to do. You’d have to drive 45 minutes to get to the closest mall and movie theater. The high school kids would usually all hang out at the roller rink downtown or at the old run-down burger joint called Slim’s that sat across it. But at that age, I wasn’t allowed to go hang out there by myself yet and for me, going with my parents tagging along wasn’t an option I was open to. My neighborhood was on a long dead end road leading up to a large patch of woods that separated the main part of town from the abandoned mine. The old trail the miners used was still accessible up until a point, and so me and the other kids from my street would hang out in those woods all the time. We had a “secret spot” which was, what we thought at the time, about half way through the woods, 10 steps away from a small shallow creek that pretty much ran the length of the area. Rain Creek, we called it. There was a small clearing there, and we had created our own little clubhouse using old milk crates as supports, half- broken wooden pallets as walls, along with some old lawn chairs one of the neighbors was throwing out one day. I made my contribution by bringing a tarp we had in our basement that served as the roof of our establishment. Our parents didn’t love the idea of five 10 to 12 year olds running around in the woods by ourselves, but as long as we stayed within earshot and made it back before the streetlights came on, they probably figured it was safer than us being across town galavanting unsupervised. 

It was me, Lacey, Devin, Mikey and Michelle. We were all best friends - pretty much inseparable, except the boys weren’t invited to the girls’ sleepovers and vise versa. Everyday after school, we’d get dropped off by the bus at the very beginning of our road, and it was a running joke between the Rain Street Gang (as we liked to call ourselves) for all of us to try and run off the bus as quickly as possible, while me, Lacey and Devin would all yell in unison ‘Last two home are some rotten eggs!!’, as Mikey and Michelle tried to push past us to get a head start. The aforementioned two were siblings, and lived in the very last house on our row right next to the woods, so they’d always get home last, regardless of their efforts. Although, the year that Mikey got a pair of Heelys for Christmas he finally got his edge over the rest of us, leaving Michelle to be the lone “rotten egg” until the next summer when one of his wheels broke off. The whole point of it all was just to get home and get our chores and homework done as fast as possible, so we could meet up at Mikey and Michelle’s house with enough daylight left to make our trek into the woods and back - together as a group. All five of us had made a pact to never visit the clubhouse without all members present, although us girls always had a sneaking suspicion that the boys thought themselves exempt from that rule. They, after all, were the ones that had discovered the spot in the first place, and not to mention, did most of the physical labor of dragging our provisions out there. Me and Lacey initially only heard about the spot a day after the boys found it; Michelle had walked into Mikey’s room in the middle of him and Devin talking about it, and immediately relayed the message to us. Michelle wasn’t necessarily more loyal to the girls than the boys, she was just the youngest among us and honestly couldn’t resist blurting out any mildly relevant information she thought she might have, in an effort to be included. But in that regard, if the boys had ever gone out there on their own, they would’ve had to be extremely sneaky about it, because Michelle’s number one objective in life was to gather any piece of intel she could. It was a seemingly normal Saturday morning when we learned our suspicions about the boys may have been warranted.
I had slept over at Lacey’s house the night before. We had just woken up and were still sitting on her bed discussing our possible plans for the day, when Michelle busted through the door with a look on her face that immediately told us she had finally gotten a hold of some juicy information, before she could even open her mouth to stutter out, “You-you-you guyssss, guess w-w-what!?!” Lacey gestured the nail file that was in her hand toward her, raising her eyebrows bluntly as Michelle tried to catch her breath. “So… Devin came to sleep over last night, annnnnd I was pretending to go to the bathroom so I could spy on them. Seeeeee, I was supposed to be sleeping but I -“ “Ughh come on Michelle, get to it! What’d you hear?” Lacey snapped “Ughh okay okay. So, I heard the boys talking, anddddd…. they’re planning to go explore the old mine today!!” “Alright Michelle! Good spying!” I chuckled, trying to encourage her after Lacey’s impatience. Lacey rolls her eyes, then immediately stands up. She takes the scrunchie off her wrist, ties her long blonde hair into a messy bun, and simply said, “Let’s go.” “Lacey..” I said “What??” She responds as if she hadn’t registered the tone of my voice at all. As I opened my mouth to begin explaining all the logical and practical reasons why even if the boys were stupid enough to go play around somewhere dangerous, we shouldn’t be, Michelle exclaims, “That’s where the Locust Man lives!!” I close my mouth in defeat, as I know Lacey will take this nonsense as a challenge, and because of that, no amount of my warnings concerning actual dangers would have any effect on her decision. Lacey dismisses her comment as she attempts to shove her foot into one of her new pink sneakers that she refuses to admit are too small for her. “Pshhh, don’t be such a baby Michelle, he’s not real, you do know that right?” Michelle crinkled her face and yelled back, “Yes he is Lacey! He is!! And th-th- that’s where he lives, and he eats kids that go there!” Lacey laughs at her and says “Oh yeah? You still believe in Santa clause too? What about the tooth fairy?” Michelle looked down at her shoes, and although she could admittedly be annoying, I found myself feeling bad for her. “Come on Lacey, she’s just scared.” Lacey shot me a look like she was expecting me to burst into laughter, but I just gave her a smirk and a shrug, and she rolled her eyes and said “Get dressed.”

 We walked in silence toward the end of the road, though the reasons for all three differed drastically. Lacey’s was determination and resolve, mine was comtemptousness and defeat, and Michelle’s was just fear. I found myself half-way hoping the boys had left already, but as we approached the driveway we caught them just as they were about to step off the porch. 

“Hey!!” Lacey yelled, in her trademark cheerleader cadence. “Where do you boys think you’re going without us?”. Mikey let a groan and rolled his eyes, while Devin said through a coy smile, “Well, we were actually just heading out to go to find you girls.” “Liar.” Lacey snapped, quickly wiping the grin off Devin’s face. “Michelle already blabbed- we know where you two are going and we’re coming too.” The boys looked at each other, then Mikey shot Michelle an angry look as she tried to shrink herself behind me, and said, “Fine, whatever, but no cry baby snitches allowed!!” Michelle then proceeded to prove both of his accusations correct by yelling back, “I am not a cry baby!! I’m telling mom if you don’t let me come with you!!” At that point I finally spoke up. “Alright, listen.” I said sternly, then once I had their attention I lowered my voice a bit to say, “Just for the record, I think us going to that grody old mine is a dumb idea and a big waste of time, but if one of us goes, we all go. That’s the deal, so make your decisions.” Lacey folded her arms in solidarity beside me, and with that we all had an unspoken understanding. So, with the boys out ahead leading the way, we headed toward the tree line.

 As we entered the woods, I felt a sense of dread wash over me - but to be fair, as a preteen emo kid who had already reached an adult level of cynicism, I felt a certain level of dread towards almost everything in life. So take my premonition with a grain of salt, but for some reason, this felt… different. I remember the woods being abnormally quiet that day. It took some time for me to even notice, but as soon as I did, I interrupted the mindless chatter going on to say, 

“Where are all the freakin’ birds?” Everyone turned to look at me as if I’d completely lost my mind. “Uhhh… What are you talking about?” Devin asked me. I pointed up toward the treetops. “Listen…. ” They all looked up, then looked around at each other in confusion. “Every time we’ve ever been in these woods, there’s always birds chirping back and forth. We’ve been walking almost 5 minutes now and I haven’t heard a single bird, have you guys?” “Damn, yeah, that is weird.” Mikey agreed. “They probably all just migrated!!” Devin goofily offered. “That’s stupid Devin, it’s spring. If anything, there should be more birds here, not less you moron.” Lacie argued. Devin flipped Lacie off, which was the best rebuttal he could usually come up with, and then turned toward me and said, “Okay whatever, what’s your point exactly?” “Just that - “ I looked over to Mikey, then back at Devin. “It’s weird.” I didn’t want to say what I was actually thinking. That the woods being too quiet was never a good thing. That when birds aren’t chirping, it could mean there’s a predator nearby. Besides, I was pretty confident that the boys, having both been in the scouts, knew what I knew, so saying it out loud would only serve to annoy Lacie and further frighten Michelle. Mikey broke his gaze that had been fixed on me, and while scanning our surroundings he said, “Let’s stop by the clubhouse on the way.” With a nod from me, we continued. When we arrived at our pit stop, Lacey hobbled over to the closest lawn chair and plopped herself down in it. “Ughhh, my feet are killing me!!” “I wonder why.” I mutter under my breath. “Excuse me, what was that?” “Just saying. Those shoes are gonna be the death of you Lace, you can barely walk in them.” “Pshhh, shut up. They just need to be broken-in okay? You’re just jealous cuz you’re still wearing your dirty old Vans from last year.” “Oooh yeah, you got me there. I am so sad I don’t have a pair of ugly pink Sketchers that don’t fit me.” She stuck her tongue out at me and we both laughed. I was just about the only person who could go toe to toe with Lacey’s sass. It’s part of the reason we ended up being best friends, besides being neighbors. In regard to style, personality and interests, we were almost polar opposites. But when it came to humor we were equals. And more importantly, we both had a mutual understanding when it came to our differences- I was me and she was her, and neither of us felt the need to try and make the other one be more like us. Besides, I was the only person who had ever really stood up to Lacey and didn’t take any of her crap, so I think she respected that. While that exchange had been going on, Michelle had started picking tiny pink flowers, and the boys were rummaging in the clubhouse for something. I yelled in their direction, “Hey! Big Mike and Dirty D!!” Me and Lacey giggled and she mouthed the word “big” with air quotation marks. They didn’t respond, so I walked over to the entryway and looked in. They were standing with their backs to me while looking down at an open metal box, and Mikey was reaching to grab whatever was in it. As he stood back up, I could see what it was. “What the fuck Mikey, seriously?” Hearing me cuss, Lacey and Michelle crowded in behind me. “Chill, it’s just a BB gun.” “I know it’s a BB gun Michael, what are you doing with it, and why is it here?” I was livid at the thought that he might be coming out here and shooting at animals just to be a shithead. I expected something like that from a goober like Devin, but not Mikey. Michelle butted in, “I’m telling mom!!!” “Nice try, dad knows I have it.” He looked at me and softened his tone. “It’s for protection, just in case we come across a black bear, or some weirdo creep out here. Seriously… it’s just to scare off something, not hurt it.” He knew how I felt about killing animals, especially for no good reason. A lot of people out here are poor and hunt for food, which I could accept as a reality. But hurting animals just for fun is psycho behavior, so I was relieved to hear him dispel my fear; I really didn’t want to have to hate him. “Do you even know how to shoot that thing?” Lacey asked. “Yeah, my dad showed me.” Devin clapped his hands together, making us all jump and himself laugh. “Well alright then, let’s get going!” I turned to Michelle, still holding the flowers. “You okay?” She nodded. “If you want me to walk back with you, I can.” I was slightly hoping she’d say yes so I’d have an excuse to get out of this excursion, but she just shook her head and forced a smile. I knew she was scared, but she was just too curious. Maybe I was too.

 We walked for what felt like half an hour. The trees had gotten more dense and the path narrowed from the overgrowth. Still no birdsong. I kept scanning the area in search of any sign of life other than us. Looking for movement of creatures scurrying away, listening for the sound of rustling as we passed, hoping for a squirrel, a lizard, even a bug. Nothing. 

“How much further is this damn thing?” Lacey groaned. Mikey answered without even turning around. “We should be coming up on it any time now.” “You said that like 10 minutes ago.” “Yeah, and now we’re like 10 minutes closer to it. And hey guess what, you insisted on inviting yourself - so suck it up buttercup.” “Hahahaha!” Devin laughed like a maniac at Mikey’s quip, while Lacey folded her arms and for once in her life didn’t have a snappy comeback. This time however, I did. “Well we really only came along to make sure you idiots didn’t kill yourselves.” “Oh, so you girls came out here with us to be our protectors, huh?” Devin laughed. “Ehh, more like babysitters.” Needless to say, I was flipped off for that statement. We rounded the next bend and suddenly all came to an abrupt stop one after another, starting with Mikey. Devin positioned himself beside him and let out a disappointed groan. “Shit Mikey!” A huge tree had fallen and was blocking the trail completely. There was no way we could climb over it because of all the leaves and branches - we’d have to go around it, which meant leaving the safety of the trail and crossing Rain Creek twice to get back to it. “Seriously???” Lacey exclaimed. “Maybe it’s a sign that we shouldn’t be going.” I shrugged. Mikey didn’t seem fazed by the obstruction at all. In fact, he seemed more confident. More calm. More sure of his intended mission. “It’s fine, we’ll just go around.” Michelle, who had been mostly quiet this whole time, finally broke her fear induced silence. “We are NOT supposed to leave the tr-tr-trail Michael! We could get lost!” “We aren’t gonna get lost Michelle, I have a compass. Plus, it’s literally just a few paces that way, then we cross the creek and circle back once we pass the tree and we’re right back on the trail.” “Oh you have got to be kidding me” Lacey said, “I’m not treading through that nasty water!” “Yeah Mikey, what about Lacey’s brand new shoes??” I laughed, and she playfully slapped me in the arm. Mikey’s patience was wearing thin with us. “Look, we already walked this far - if we turn back now, we’ve wasted the whole day for nothing. If you girls wanna be lame and turn around, then go for it - but me and Dev are going.” That’s all Lacey needed. A challenge to accept; someone to prove wrong. “I’ll show you lame.” She pushed past the boys and lead the way into the thick brush towards Rain Creek. It wasn’t very wide across, and there were lots of fallen limbs and large rocks spread throughout it. The current was barely that of a trickle, and the depth was no more than knee deep for us. It was definitely doable - just an inconvenience. And of course, one more ominous obstacle lying directly in our path. Another hint from the universe telling us to turn around. We didn’t listen. Lacey placed one foot on the closest limb and pushed down a few times to test its sturdiness. “I got this.” She stepped out onto it with both feet, then shimmied sideways until she was close enough to the large exposed rock in the middle of the creek, and hopped onto it. She turned around with a full grin and said, “Coming?” Mikey made his way across the limb as Lacey hopped onto a different limb which led her to the other side of the creek. Devin followed, then me, and then it was Michelle’s turn. “I’m scared to fall in!” Of course she is, I should have made her go before me. “It’s okay Michelle, it’s easy!” I reassured her. She didn’t look convinced in the slightest. “Come on Chelle, we’re leaving you!” Mikey yelled, already walking away. “Nooo!! I’m coming! Wait!” She made it across, but instead of just walking like everyone else did, she got down on her hands and knees and gripped the limb as if it were the only thing in between her and a 50 foot drop to the ground, which was funny to see but prolonged the whole process further. After all, we were about to have to do all of this again. Next go round went a lot smoother. The creek was more shallow here, and there were a whole lot more stepping rocks and debris built up. Having just crossed successfully a few minutes ago, we were all more confident in our abilities, including Michelle - who this time we made go first. “Just walk across like it’s a bridge! You got this!!”, we all cheered for her, and then clapped when she made it to the other side. Before we knew it we were back on the trail, and it wasn’t long after that we finally arrived at our intended destination.

 We all stopped and stared at it for a minute, carefully examining the dilapidated exterior of the place that had brought both prosperity and destruction upon our town. Mikey bent down, picked up a rock and threw it into the entrance. We heard it bounce a few times before it stopped. 

“Just to make sure nothing’s in there.” he turned around to clarify. “Did anyone think to bring a flashlight?” I asked. “It’s dark as hell in there.” I was hoping for just one more reason not to go. Devin reached into his cargo shorts pocket and pulled out a small keychain-sized flashlight, smiling with the satisfaction of finally being useful. “Okay, Mikey’ll hold the gun, I’ll shine the light and you girls follow behind us. Let’s go.” Mikey shifted the BB gun from its position of resting on his shoulder, to holding the barrel in his left hand and the butt in his right; trying his best to emulate a soldier’s stance. Something his dad had taught him I’m sure. We ducked down a bit to enter. “How far in we going?” Lacey asked. “Until we see something cool.” Mikey answered. I turned around to check on Michelle, still hovering in the doorway. “You coming?” I could see in her eyes that fear had finally gotten the better of her, and curiosity had taken a backseat. With wide eyes she shook her head. “The-the Locust Man lives in there.”, she tried to whisper. “I knew you were gonna be a baby about this!” Mikey yelled. I crouched down and put my hand on her shoulder. Against my better judgment, I say “How bout you just wait here for us and pick some more flowers. We won’t be long, there’s nothing in there, I promise. Just.. don’t move from this spot and we’ll be right back, okay?” I could feel her unease, but she seemed to accept my reassurance nonetheless. “Okay.” I smiled, then stood up and looked down at my watch to check the time. 12:46 PM. I turned and headed into the darkness, trying to catch up with everyone else. I didn’t feel good about leaving Michelle, but I didn’t feel good about letting the rest of them go in there alone either. And if I’m being honest, maybe a little part of me wanted to see what was in there too. When I caught up to Lacey she asked, “Where’s Michelle?” “Stayed behind at the entrance, she was too scared. I told her to pick flowers and wait there for us.” “Pshh, figures.” “Yeah. How’s your feet?” “At this point, numb actually.” It was so dark in there that even Devin’s rinky dink flashlight was illuminating the area enough for me to start taking a closer look at my surroundings. I looked around at the rock walls, they were covered in what looked like orange mold and green algae. There was a slight breeze coming in from the entrance, but the whole place just had a staleness to it. The boys stopped and turned around as we arrived at the first curve. “So ladies, what do you think? Cool huh?” Devin asked excitedly. “Smells like a fart in here.” I said.

 The most dangerous thing about exploring an old mine wasn’t getting lost in the maze of tunnels, or tripping on the rusted tracks and slamming your head against the wall - it was something simply referred to as bad air. Pockets of still air that have dangerously low levels of oxygen, the old men in town would call it “black damp”. There was also something produced from the old chemicals they once used called “stink damp”, which smelled like rotten eggs. Both were lethal. 

“I wonder if there’s dead bodies in here!” “Uh, Dev… we’re gonna be the dead bodies in here if we go in too far. I wasn’t just making a joke, you know that rotten egg smell can mean bad air.” Mikey interjected. “The entrance isn’t far behind us, there’s still enough fresh air coming in. We won’t go in too far, let’s just get to the end of this tunnel where it splits off and look around a bit, then we’ll turn around.” The fork in the tunnel really wasn’t that much further, and even though I knew once we rounded this curve I wouldn’t be able to see the entrance behind me anymore, I decided what the hell. Maybe a hundred more steps, then we can finally turn around and this whole dumb situation would be closer to being over with. When we got there, we looked down the length of the connecting tunnels each way. Everything looked unusually identical in its deterioration. I could see how someone could easily get disoriented and lost down here. “Hellooooo…” Mikey yelled to the left, his voice echoing through the corridor. Devin turned to the opposite direction and called out, “Hey yo, Locust Man!! You in here?” We all giggled, which made me think about Michelle, still waiting at the entrance for us, alone in the woods. I looked down at my watch. 12:46 PM. “Hey what the f-“ My cuss word was interrupted by a loud bang that came from the passageway Devin had just been hollering into. We all froze. I didn’t have time to process that my watch had stopped right as we entered the tunnel, or that Michelle had been left alone for who knows how long now, or that we had just heard what sounded like a support beam crashing to the ground, because next came a horrifying screeching buzzing sound. It sounded distant at first, but was quickly increasing in volume. We silently looked around at each other and backed away stunned at what we were hearing. Mikey never took his eyes off the tunnel though, and slowly he began to raise the BB gun to firing position. Without even thinking, I grabbed the barrel and pushed it downward. He quickly tore his eyes away from his target to look at me. I shook my head and managed to barely choke out the word, “Explosion.” He nodded and I let go. I looked down at the gun in his hands, and seeing his finger had already been on the trigger, I realized how lucky it was that I didn’t make him shoot himself in the foot. All of a sudden, the noise stopped. “What the hell was that?” Lacey asked. “I don’t know, nothing good.” I said. “Let’s just get the fuck out of here before this whole place caves in on us or something.” Another loud bang erupted from the right, extremely close to us. “Shit!!!” We all turned around and ran as fast as we could back toward the entrance. Devin tried to push past me, but as he did my elbow knocked the flashlight out of his hand. “My flashlight!!!” “Leave it!” Mikey shouted “The turn is right here, we won’t need it!” We rounded the corner, and using what little light there was illuminating from the entrance to guide us back, we ran like our lives depended on it. And they may have- none of us dared to look back, not like we would have been able to see anything anyway. When we finally made it out, we were all completely out of breath. I felt like I was going to throw up. I have to admit though, once we had made it back to safety I felt a rush of adrenaline like I had just had a near death experience. That feeling quickly faded into sheer panic when I looked around and realized Michelle was nowhere to be seen. “Uh, where’s Michelle?” Mikey asked me. “I told her to stay right here, she can’t be very far… Michelle!!!!” We all called her name, as loud as we could. No answer, no sign of her anywhere. “Alright look, she probably went off a little further looking for flowers to pick.” I tried to rationalize. “Let’s just split off in 4 directions and walk in a straight line while calling for her. She’s bound to hear one of us.” Everyone agreed, and even though I appeared outwardly as the level-headed calm person you need to take control in an emergency, inside I was petrified that something had happened to her, and that it would be my fault. I took the east, and headed out. It didn’t take too long before I passed a large tree and saw her sitting down behind it, looking at something on the ground. “Michelle! Oh thank god!! Didn’t you hear us calling for you??” She didn’t answer me, or even turn around. “Michelle, didn’t I tell you to stay by the entrance and not move?!?” My relief was quickly turning into annoyance as she continued to ignore me. I walked up closer to see what she was looking at, and my mouth dropped in awe of what she had found. It was a single white trillium.

 They say it takes 8 years for a trillium plant to produce a flower, and conditions have to be just right for it to bloom. That’s what makes them so special and rare. I stared down at it almost in a trance, like I was seeing a mythical creature. Michelle slowly reached out her hand towards it and I snapped out of it. 

“No!!” I grabbed her by the arm and she finally turned around to look at me. “If you pick the flower, the plant will die.” She ripped her arm away from my grasp and whined, “But I want to show my mom!” We heard Mikey calling from the north and I cupped my hands over my mouth to yell back, “I found her, she’s over here!!” I looked back at her. “No Michelle, come on, you can just tell her about it when we get back home.” I had enough, I was beyond ready to go and we still had at least another 45 minutes of walking to even get back to the clubhouse; an hour if Michelle kept up her crap. I grabbed her arm again and pulled her up to a standing position, looking back at the trillium as I walked her away. Mikey caught up to us, breathless but trying to hide his concern. “You little shit, we should have left you out here! What the hell were you doing?” I let go of her arm and she walked toward Mikey. “She was trying to pick a flower over there.” “It was a trillium!!” Michelle said, with the biggest smile on her face. “Wait, really?” He looked at me in disbelief. Before I could respond, a blood curdling scream echoed through the forest, coming from the west. It was Lacey. My heart dropped into my stomach and once again, every molecule in my body went into full blown panic mode. This time, I couldn’t contain my composure. “Laceyyyyyy!!!!!” A panicked shriek erupted from my lungs and I took off running. Mikey grabbed Michelle and sprinted after us. The trees became a blur; I didn’t even feel all the scratches and scrapes. Had she come across a coyote? A mountain lion? A bear? I didn’t even stop to think about the danger I might be about to come in contact with, I just ran. And then I found her. She was lying on the ground, holding her left foot. “Lacey!!” I said, trying to choke back the tears that were building up. “I think I twisted my ankle!!” “Oh god damn it, you bitch.” I struggled to catch my breath. “I thought you were dead.” “I might as well be, I have cheerleading practice on Monday!” Mikey and Michelle caught up to us. “What happened?” He asked “She’s being a drama queen, she just rolled her ankle.” I was angry. “Can you get up?” He asked her. She was able to stand, but as soon as she tried to put any pressure on her foot at all, she screamed in pain. We spotted Devin running over from the south as he was yelling out, “Hey yo, everyone alive and accounted for?” “Yeah, Lacey hurt her ankle.” Mikey yelled back. As he approached he looked concerned. “Can you walk on it?” He asked her. “No.” Without hesitation he replied, “Well alright then, looks like you’re gonna have to piggyback it all the way back home.” He lowered himself enough to where she could hop up onto his back, and we headed back toward the trail. Even though my nerves had begun to settle a bit, I knew we were still far from being out of the woods, in more ways than one.

As someone who has played a few 2D fighter games causally with friends, the difficulty in TFH is beyond fair. The character and story is fantastically interesting, and I think the game has a really nice charm to it but man is it just horrifically unbalanced. I'm not a bad gamer nor am I hyper competitive, I'm just your average Joe. I've 100% all the RE games, but RE1, and has 100% & beaten Ascended Radiance in Hollow Knight yet this game is too much of a challenge.
My main, and only really complaint is that it frustratingly difficult. The controls are a little slow on response, your light attack is very frustrating to use cause you have to hold for ~0.5 or so seconds instead of just tapping, and the enemies not only block most your attacks but will pretty much always combo you when they hit you, so much so it got in the way of one, not being able to enjoy the game but two being unable to proceed through the story.
Cuddles (mind you, is a fantastic name) felt like the difficulty equivalent to Dung Defender. A bit tough for your first boss but fine for anyone who's played any 2D fighters, but Velvet?! I've tried for about half an hour and her difficulty felt like the equivalent to Nightmare Grim, and again this is on beginner! Her attacks are so fast it's practically impossible to dodge with the clunky movement, and if this one of the easy bosses them I don't see how anyone is meant to finish the game.
I really would like to try to get into the game but it's just too hard. Is there anything I can do?

I was doing some digging around about the meaning of Cryo and it’s “ideal”, and stumbled across a few interesting connections. I am not sure if anyone else has found these connections already (from a quick check) – I tend to only hop on here when I have a crazy theory I want to share. Hopefully I am not rehashing something that's already been covered!
The main theory is that the power of Cryo, like Anemo, is related to Time.
To be more specific, I think Cryo may be the power that creates the "Seeds" that are carried by "the winds of time".
I came across this idea when trying to look into the "ideal" of Cryo.
From what we have seen in the game, all elements are tied to an “ideal”, and each “ideal” is tied to a deeper meaning connected to the world itself. To give some brief examples:

• Anemo – freedom, time and perhaps Death
• Geo – Contracts(perhaps between mortal and divine?) and perhaps history.
• Electro – Eternity and what is eternal, and Change is eternal or constant.
• Dendro – Wisdom, memories and knowledge through experience.
• Hydro – Justice, life and emotion.
• Pyro – War and rebirth and the erasure of memories (as seen from Arlecchino).

From what we know, it seems like the Cryo Archon’s ideal is likely to have been “Love”. So what deeper meaning does “Love” mean and how does it relate to ice or “Cryo”?
And then from there I kind of spiralled!
The main theory here is explained in the first two sections, and the rest of the sections I try and use this theory to explain other mysteries in the game. Those sections might be heavier in speculation.
The Meaning of Cryo
While I'm not sure I have a concrete “meaning” or understanding of Cryo yet, I came across a few interesting themes surrounding the Cryo Element:

• The descriptions of both the Large Cryo Slime and Cryo Abyss Mage mention their protective shields, despite the fact that similar enemies don’t mention this in their description (Geo Slime and other Abyss Mages)
• The Cryo Abyss Mage description also says that their body is vulnerable (hence its need for protection).
• Cryo Hypostasis gameplay has the Hypostasis create a shield while it is healing (protection while vulnerable)
• Tiara of Frost artefact description: “facing fatal flaws. Fatal flaws are born of a fear of death. Fear of death is born of having things and people to care about” (Fatal flaws are the “vunerability” to protect?)
• Tiara of Frost artefact description: “life as weak, and earth blanketed in unending ice” (weakness is a vulnerability – and also I am not sure if the ice is a bad thing here, perhaps the ice was meant to protect the “weak” life?)
• The Spirit Locket Of Boreas description mentions that Andrius let his power seep into the land to “protect” it.
• Childe who is from Shneznaya says “it’s all about family where I am from” (family and love are easy to relate to each other)
• Qiqi Vision Story: Qiqi has a Cryo Vision and apparently before she received it she missed her family.

To summarise, there seems to be themes of protection(perhaps preservation?),family, and vulnerability.
Thematically I can see the ties between these – we love our family(typically) and want to protect them, and the things we protect can be seen as our vulnerability(and/or, we protect things that are vulnerable).
So "love" inspires us to "protect".
Love and it's connection to "protection" is an important part of this theory.
Cryo and Time
There are a few instances in descriptions where both ice/snow/Cryo and time are mentioned together.

• Qiqi Vision story: before receiving her Cryo vision (while she was dying or on the verge of dying), Qiqi wished that time could stop.
• Cryo Hypotasis drop, the Crystalline Bloom, says: “Perhaps it is stagnant time, that never-thawing bosom, that is the essence of this undying flower.”
• Blizzard Strayer artefact set, Frozen Homeland’s Demise, says: “An ancient hourglass with fine powdered snow flowing in it. Even the coldest winter cannot freeze the flow of time. "The cold that descends from the sky can freeze time itself."
  • To me, this might be drawing a distinction between ice and “Cryo”. Like how Hydro and water are not considered the same thing because Hydro is toxic, as seen in the description of Hydro slimes. So normal winters can’t freeze time but perhaps Cryo can?

Furthermore:

• We are able to melt frozen boars in game and when melted, they are completely fine. It seems that they were literally “frozen in time”.
• We also have that quest with Xiangling, where we find Olaf who was frozen by a Cryo Regisvine 300 years ago - and seems to have survived this process unscathed. He effectively time travelled from the past to the future.

So overall, there seems to be a lot of talk about “freezing time”, and it seems like freezing a living organism can preserve them in a way that doesn't kill them (like in real life).
We have seen how Cryo might be related to the idea of “protection” as well, or perhaps preservation?.
So perhaps we can say that the Cryo element seems to be able to "protect" things from the flow of time?
“Seeds of stories, brought by the wind and cultivated by time. Stories brought on the wind will bloom into legends in due time.” - Sundial in Mondstadt related to the God of Time.
In this quote above, it says that “seeds” are brought by the wind/Anemo.
But what are these “seeds”?
While I can’t say exactly what they are, I think that perhaps these “seeds” are at least partially created through the powers of Cryo.
I came to this conclusion after looking at the themes that surround Cryo: love, protection and vulnerability.
These themes, to me, seem to apply perfectly to the concept or function of “seeds”.
A seed tends to need a protective shell, to shield the “vulnerable” parts within.
A seed waits for the correct conditions to sprout, remaining dormant otherwise.
This dormancy can be seen as being “frozen in time”. A seed is effectively “frozen in time” and won’t sprout until the correct conditions are met. This power of protection from time being related to Cryo may be similiar to how the power of Dendro is related to the power of dreams.
Also, remember that when asked about the Cryo Archon, Venti said that “500 years ago, I knew her well.”?
Sure, they are both Archons, but perhaps they were also close because either 1) they both served the God of Time or 2)Cryo Archon is a god of time (perhaps less likely, though).
So the “seeds” frozen in time and/or protected from time, by Cryo, are then carried by the winds of Anemo, to the correct moments that allow them to sprout.
The Love of the Three Moons
This part gets a little more speculative, but fun!
So the three Moon Sisters are suspected to be possible Gods of Time, and also seemed to rule over the Seelie in some capacity.
Love seems related to the fall of the Seelie – as the Seelie seemed to have been forbidden from falling in love with humans. It was after one of the Seelie married a “traveller from afar” that the Seelie fell – some catastrophe struck as a result, soon after this “marriage”.
With the added context that love possibly means or results in the protection from time – that could explain why falling in love with a human was seen as bad. Abusing your powers to protect a human from time sounds bad, for sure.
And maybe, just maybe, the “love” the Seelie had were finite in some way? Which would explain why they couldn’t dish it out to humans freely. Maybe, they had none of this “protection” left over for themselves after giving it away… leaving them to deteriorate and become the lifeforms we see them in today?
In fact, if this is true, then the Seelie gave their love to a “Traveller from afar” which sounds like it could have been an entity similar to the Traveller. The Traveller is said to be a star themselves.
What’s interesting about that is both the Abyss Sibling and the Travellers are stars, and they are possibly very old. In fact, in the We Will Be Reunited quest, the Abyss Sibling tells the Traveller that “I have more than enough time to wait for you, we’ve always had enough time.”
While this seems to be hinting that they have a lot of time, not necessarily immunity from time, it is interesting when you remember that the book Moonlit Bambo Forest says that the Moon Sisters “shared but one love, the stars of daybreak”.
If love is the protection from time, then it could mean that the twins have gained an immunity from the flow of time. Time does not affect them – as they have received the love of the Moon Sisters, who are possibly Gods of Time.
Khaenri’ah, Dainsleif and the Inteyvat
While the pure-blooded Khaenri’ahns are cursed with Immortality, they still seem to be under the effects of time. They don’t seem to be immune.
They seem to still be undergoing some sort of decay – whether it be their memories, mental state, or decaying “from within” (As Chlothar speculates).
HOWEVER – remember how Dainsleif said that he was able to resist the effects of his curse due to the presence of “it”? It was somewhere in the Chasm questline, where he was unsure how the Black Serpent Knights were able to retain some of their humanity without “it”.
Perhaps Dainsleif has also received the “love” of a Seelie/Moon SisteTime god (or whatever the Cryo Archon actually is)?
In fact, now I am wondering if this is also related to the Inteyvat flower, which would harden when In Teyvat, and then return to normal when back in Khaenri’ah.
Khaenri’ah might be located somewhere in the Abyss, and the Abyss seems to have a strange flow of time, after all.
So it might not be too far of a stretch that the Inteyvat flowers are also “protected from time” with this power of love/Cryo until the flower returns to the correct “time” – Khaenri’ah. Though that would also mean that Khaenri’ah is located in a different place in time – in the future or the past, which would be interesting. But probably not impossible from what we have seen in Ei’s second story quest and the Perilous Trails Chasm quest.
Possible Links between Paimon and the Tsaritsa
So there seems to be possible links between the element of Cryo, love, and protection.
The God of Cryo, who is potentially the God of Love and, by extension, potentially the God of Protection…hm.
Remember the “About Yashiori Island” voice lines?
In those voice lines, Paimon claims to be the “god of protection”.
Sure she seems cheeky about it, and was probably joking, but who knows at this point! She might have remembered something subconsciously or this may just be foreshadowing, etc, etc.
Either way, I started digging around to see if I can find any mythological links in real life.
A few interesting things I found:

• Aphrodite, the greek goddess of love, according to some myths, was born from sea foam. And we first met Paimon after we fished her out of the sea.
• Aphrodite seems to be related to the Cherubs (She mothered Eros, who together with its roman equivalent Cupid, influenced the iconography of the Cherubs) and apparently Paimon in the Ars Goetia might have been a Cherub (at least according to Wikipedia).
  
• Paimon in the Ars Goetia could “bestow dignities and lordships”. Genshin Paimon gives people nicknames – but the Tsaritsa bestows “new names” upon her Harbingers. Maybe a coincidence, but you could say that both of them “bestow dignities and lordships”.
  
• Paimon in the Ars Goetia is said to be able to create “visions” (as in dreams) and we do know the Tsaritsa’s Fatui have Delusions, which are fake Visions.
  
• Paimon in the Ars Goetia is also said to have the power of “acquiring and dismissing servant spirits” –perhaps the Fatui Harbingers?
  

I’ve already made a theory previously on this subreddit about the Tsaritsa and the Moon Sisters. So if Paimon is also related to the Seelies and/or Moon Sisters, perhaps these connections between her and the Tsaritsa is not too strange if the theory about Cryo and time are true.
In fact, the goddess Hathor is said to be the Egyptian version of Aphrodite, god of love, and from reading the wikipedia page, Hathor seems very similar to the Goddess of Flowers – who was a Seelie - and the Seelie served the Moon Sisters, who may have been gods of Time.
There isn’t much more for me to say here – I am not saying that Paimon and Tsaritsa are the same person, but just that I find it interesting that there may be some overlaps between the two characters. I can’t say for sure what this overlap means. Maybe Paimon is a fragment of the Tsaritsa, maybe Paimon was a servant of the God of Time along with the Tsaritsa, maybe Paimon is the God of Time and is therefore the Tsaritsa’s boss. Who knows. Just interesting.
Time and the Preservation of Memories
In the Parable of the Lethied Lotus in the Book of Sun and Moon, it says:
"A ship captain searching for the way back to the surface discovered a tribe of people who ate these lotuses. Some crew members stayed in that place. Others rejected that temptation."
In this story, staying where people ate these lotuses is said to be a "temptation". The title of this Parable described the lotuses as "lethied" which is related to the Lethe river of greek mythology, where drinking from it causes you to "forget". In other words, forgetting is a temptation they wanted to avoid.
This is in the same book that mentions the God of Time, and Enkanomiya, where they worshipped the God of Time.
Now, Ganyu, a Cryo character, uses Amos Bow, and the literal translation of this weapon, according to the wiki, is "Determination to Not Forget".
So perhaps this power of "protection" can also protect memories.
Since time causes memories to "fade" (best example, Dainsleif's own faded memory due to his long life) then perhaps this power of time immunity can also be used on memories.
TLDR:
Cryo protects things from time, and those things are then carried by Anemo. Cryo seems to have the ability to freeze things in time (possibly), or in other words, to protect them from the flow of time. The Tsaritsa, as the Cryo Archon, may have a deeper relationship to the God of Time (or she is a god of time – if you think that there are multiple aspects that rule different types of time).
There are also some interesting possible connections between Paimon and the Tsaritsa, which, if they are both related to the god of time, makes sense.
The twins may have also received some sort of protection of time, since they are stars and the Moon sisters loved the stars of daybreak.
Also this might also be related to Dainsleif and his ability to resist his curse somewhat, and Inteyvat flowers.
And this "protection from time" may also be used to preserve more intangible things - like memories.
Discussion/Conclusion
So what does “Love” mean in the world of Teyvat?
In Genshin, the power of Cryo, and therefore the power of love, may be the power to protect things from the flow of time. It protects things from the flow of time, creating a "seed", and that seed stays dormant or "frozen in time" until its the perfect moment for those things to “sprout”.
If true, this calls a lot of things into question.
The Tsaritsa’s plans to possible recreate the world may also link back to this idea of “seeds” – she may blanket the world in snow to make it a “seed” for the next world.
I also think that if this is true, then it is quite poetic that Shneznaya – the land of the Cryo Archon – is the last region in Teyvat we visit (Khaenri’ah probably/possibly not being counted as “in Teyvat” if its located in the Abyss).
Anemo also seems to signify death in some ways (Venti’s Story Quest), and if Cryo is related to the concept of “seeds”, then Cryo represents life or birth.
“Seeds brought on the wind will bloom into legends in due time.”
Anemo is death, and is the wind that carries the seeds, and Cryo is birth, the creation of the seeds.
We started the game in the land of Anemo, of wind, and death – we started our journey in the land of “endings” and, if this theory holds true, then the last place we’ll visit in Teyvat will be the land of Cryo, of ice, seeds, and birth.
We started at the end, and will end at the start.
That is more or less it. I hope you all enjoyed reading my descent into madness! Hopefully not too wordy as I have trouble making things concise and I was getting real tired towards the end of this ha ha. What do you guys think? I would love to hear any thoughts or input, or even corrections if I got some things wrong.

Hello fellow brothers of the blood I’ve came to use for some feedback/help on how to defeat and go against grey knights.
He’s currently running draigo with a 10 terminator brick and 3x 10 inceptors with two dread knights with another terminator squad with a chaplain pretty straight forward list but I feel like the teleporting and the Deep striking alongside draigo and his blob of termies is quite horrifying.
But here’s what I’ve made up for my list thanks.
++ Army Roster (Imperium - Adeptus Astartes - Blood Angels) [2,000pts] ++

• Configuration +

Battle Size: 2. Strike Force (2000 Point limit)
Detachment: Sons of Sanguinius
Show/Hide Options

• Epic Hero +

Lemartes [120pts]: Warlord
The Sanguinor [140pts]

• Character +

Judiciar [95pts]: Archangel's Shard

• Battleline +

Intercessor Squad [80pts]: Astartes Grenade Launcher . Intercessor Sergeant: Bolt Rifle, Power Weapon . 4x Intercessors: 4x Bolt Pistol, 4x Bolt Rifle, 4x Close Combat Weapon

• Infantry +

Bladeguard Veteran Squad [180pts] . Bladeguard Veteran Sergeant: Heavy Bolt Pistol . 5x Bladeguard Veterans: 5x Heavy Bolt Pistol, 5x Master-crafted Power Weapon
Death Company Marines with Jump Packs [280pts] . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist . Death Company Marine . . Melee weapon and pistol: Inferno Pistol, Power Fist
Devastator Squad [120pts] . Devastator Marine w/ Heavy Weapon: Grav-cannon . Devastator Marine w/ Heavy Weapon: Grav-cannon . Devastator Marine w/ Heavy Weapon: Multi-melta . Devastator Marine w/ Heavy Weapon: Multi-melta . Devastator Sergeant: Combi-weapon, Power Fist
Infiltrator Squad [100pts]: Helix Gauntlet, Infiltrator Comms Array . Infiltrator Sergeant . 4x Infiltrators: 4x Bolt Pistol, 4x Close Combat Weapon, 4x Marksman Bolt Carbine
Infiltrator Squad [100pts]: Helix Gauntlet, Infiltrator Comms Array . Infiltrator Sergeant . 4x Infiltrators: 4x Bolt Pistol, 4x Close Combat Weapon, 4x Marksman Bolt Carbine

• Vehicle +

Baal Predator [125pts]: 2 Heavy Flamers, Baal Flamestorm Cannon, Hunter Killer Missile, Storm Bolter
Baal Predator [125pts]: 2 Heavy Flamers, Baal Flamestorm Cannon, Hunter Killer Missile, Storm Bolter
Baal Predator [125pts]: 2 Heavy Flamers, Baal Flamestorm Cannon, Hunter Killer Missile, Storm Bolter
Gladiator Valiant [150pts]: Icarus Rocket Pod, Ironhail Heavy Stubber
Land Raider Redeemer [260pts]: Hunter Killer Missile, Multi-melta, Storm Bolter
++ Total: [2,000pts] ++
Created with BattleScribe (https://battlescribe.net)

It all began some months ago, when I reunited with some friends that I used to play with a lot during our childhood, and we took the chance to relive those moments again. Since it was only 3 of us, we didn't feel like always playing 1v1 with one left to watch, and felt like a 3 player duel would have been more fun. We used to do that all the time back then, having even 4+ players at a time because we didn't have that many concerns and our decks were pretty simple anyway, but now, after we all played Master Duel and got a taste of modern play, we had to adapt.
As a general way to handle rulings, we settled on the following:

• none of us can attack during their first turn.
• any effect that says "your opponent" or "the opponent" is treated as you would treat "target opponent" in MTG.
• any effect that says "all [cards of a certain type or not] on the field" or "both players/sides of the field/etc." affects all active players.
• we all collectively agreed not to play cards that interacted with columns or pointed to specific opposing zones, in order to not make the thing overcomplicated when we can avoid it. I'm the only one with Link monsters in his deck, but we settled on having only 1 Extra Monster Zone available at a time, being the left one. This virtually disables V-Links, but we don't care since no one of us can perform it anyway.
• every player can activate quick effects during each other player's turn, making for double the disruption.
• if one player runs out of LP, the duel reverts back to the normal ruleset.

Since our decks aren't that advanced anyway (we are on Traptrix, HERO and Resonators respectively), we are perfectly fine with this ruleset and we can basically play as if it was a Commander game. But if this was applied to a different context, where all cards are playable, it would probably turn into a ruling nightmare.
First of all, we managed to get away by not playing cards that interact with opponent zones, but how would you handle, for example, Relinquished Anima? Would that allow to steal both the opposing monsters in the respective zone? Would Impermanence's column effect apply to all three players? What would Mekk-Knights even do?
Do you think the game would balance itself spontaneously with no further bans? Going third would imply playing through double the normal amount of interruptions, but going first or second would imply playing through double the normal amount of handtraps. I'm honestly really curious about how it would turn out.
Teaming could become a problem, especially if one player has a way to lock an opponent or skip a turn. No one would like to go second and get Calamity locked while the third player sets up a board and the first player OTKs uninterrupted. But if the first player is targeted by the third player, it could end up making the lock less relevant, as the first player would have to defend themselves from the third player's onslaught and the second player can have a chance to recover.
Floodgates will still be powerful, as stuff like Anti-Spell Fragrance and Skill Drain would affect twice the normal amount of players, but maybe stuff like Inspector Boarder could be easier to out, as two players might be on two decks with multiple different summoning methods and thus they could have more effects available. Plus, one more player can mean twice the odds of getting out a Cyclone if someone tries to Fossil Dyna + MMS.
Overall, if a proper set of interactions is established, I think this idea has a chance of working. I couldn't, however, think of all possible instances, so what would you think?

For example like how taming a lizard in Rain World requires a lot of experimentation, and can be completely missed. Or how a backflip (in Rain World) allows you to throw stuff up and downwards. But that’s like the entire game. With many combinations not being required to beat the game, but can be used to reach new areas with new challenges that use that “combination”, or can just make things easier.
If you, besides items and creatures, also have to figure out your own movement, then that’s even better.
(I guess I’m looking for a game with the movement and experimentation of Rain World, and the “item unlock” system of metroidvania games like Hollow Knight)

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**Fujimaru Ritsuka, the Last Master of Humanity, Enemy of the Crypters, Ammo of the Black Barrel, Feller of Goetia... is batshit insane.
Let me explain.
...

Lack of Basic Understanding of Causality

Fujimaru's bizzare tendencies show up from the very beginning of FGO. According to the game, he joins Chaldea after seeing a poster and deciding to take the job on a whim.
However, Chaldea is in Antartica. The implication is thus that Fujimaru abandoned his family, abandoned his life, abandoned everything he'd ever known and loved, to go to Antartica for a job that he had no idea what was, with zero guarantee of getting the job, with no certainty of a return trip-
On a whim.
Immediately after this, while getting lectured by his potential boss, being told everything he needs to know to pass the entry test, he decides now would be a perfect time to take a nap. Understandably, his boss is miffed by the new intern with zero experience taking a nap right in front of her while she's explaining the most important part of their job, and she decides to fire him.
Fujimaru reacts to this with... nothing. He's a little concerned and stressed per his dialogues, but you'd think he'd be significantly more horrified about needing to walk back home through the Antarticas or join an oil mine at the bottom of Chaldea. Instead, he just... chills with the doctor?
When he finds out Chaldea is on fire and even all the skilled, significantly better Masters than him are dead, his reaction isn't terror or fear. Instead, he remembers a girl he talked to ONCE, and immediately rushes over to the literal origin site of the fire to check if she's alright. Then he sees that she's buried under a building. As a regular guy, he has no prospects of saving her. And the longer he stays, the lower his chances of survival get. His response?
Ignore everything to hold her hand and stay there till no hope of getting out remains.
Presumably CHALDEAS itself is impressed by what is either the tremendous love of Ciel-lookalikes or the complete lack of basic understanding of consequence in this man, and it sends him to Fuyuki presumably in hopes to unite him with fellow madman Shirou so that their collective insanity can open a path to the Root or something.
...

What's Self-Preservation? Can I eat it?

Fujimaru is teleported to a hotter fire surrounded by skeleton upon skeleton. Fortunately, the girl he held hands with turned into super servant Galahad. She can protect hi-
Ritsuka why the hell are you throwing yourself into danger when you have a LITERAL SHIELD at your side?
No Fujimaru do not sacrifice yourself trying to protect someone WHO LITERALLY WEARS ARMOUR AND HAS A SHIELD!
Fujimaru taking a page from the book of Shirou Emiya has a violent martyr complex and nearly dies dooming all humanity in the first twenty minutes of the game. Very fortunately, Cu Chulainn notices this and not wanting to be outdone by someone else dying before him, saves the day.
Ritsuka later proceeds to instantly grasp the concept of Shadow Summoning and turn it into his technique which further raises the question of if brain damage in the Nasuverse just lends you power somehow when we consider the strongest techniques in the series:

• Unlimited Bladeworks (manifested by swordtism)
• Tsubame Guashi (manifested by fightingtism)
• Strong Punch (manifested by Soujuuro)

Ritsuka then acts normal for some time till we reach the end of Singularity-F. He finds out about the END OF HUMANITY.
He is somehow barely fazed by this and determines to save it all himself. This random chump with no mage skills, no Master experience, nothing at all, is entirely confident. This is presumably the true reason why Servants keep being summoned - not by Mash's roundtable shield - but because Fujimaru's balls are just so big they've developed their own gravitational fields and draw in Servants from the Throne like a blackhole.
...

Psychopathy in the Singularities

Fujimaru Ritsuka, Humanity's Last Asylum Escape, then goes to Orleans, sees several thousand dragons, ignores the terror of that sight, murders a fanfiction OC, murders his way through Septem without going insane in the process despite interacting with Nero, and finally we reach the madness that is Fujimaru in Okeanos.
Fujimaru in Okeanos:

• Volunteers to race against HERACLES
  
• He WINS this race against HERACLES
  
• He, a completely inexperienced magus, fights a woman WHO HAS SINGLE-HANDEDLY KILLED POSEIDON AND IS BEING POWERED BY A HOLY GRAIL and wins?????
  
• Fujimaru also wouldn't have full understanding of Shadow Summoning at this point, so the implication is that Fujimaru just half-assed it and then made up the difference by fistfighting her? What sort of gym is this kid going to?
  

We continue on to London. Fujimaru sees a Goddess, the human equivalent of a God, a fragment of Amaterasu, one of the Heavenly Kings, all back to back and is completely uninterested.
He trusts Mordred, literally known as the Knight of Treachery and Jekyll whose best known myth is him pretending to be another person to get out of the consequences of his desire to be evil and betray all his friends.
From this we conclude Fujimaru Ritsuka has no understanding of basic human minds and operates on some greater level of humanity known only to him and Soujuuro.

Train him wrong as a joke? Wait, we were supposed to train him?

Fujimaru walks across the entirety of America on foot in less than a month. In Lord of the Rings, this took over a year. Now, this wouldn't be surprising for a mage. They can boost their physical capabilities so-
What do you mean Fujimaru doesn't know how to enhance his body?
Yeah, as it turns out, contrary to a number of doujins and... basic expectations, not a single person taught Fujimaru Ritsuka, Last Master of Humanity, the guy on whom the entire world depends, basic f***ing magecraft. You know, Da Vinci, maybe some things are more important than making fun of Romani for liking Vtubers? Maybe you could have taught the kid literally the most important fundamental to keeping up with Servants?
This is shown in Lostbelt 1 where Kadoc is surprised that Fujimaru can't enhance his eyes before Fujimaru reveals that he doesn't know anything about enhancement at all, which is... C'mon, Paracelsus, Avicebron, Circe, Medea, they're all literally part of the team. Did not one of them consider "huh, I wonder if I should teach the Last Master of Humanity, the guy on whom ALL HUMANITY DEPENDS, magecraft?"
Shirou was trained wrong. Ritsuka? Somehow Chaldean staff are even more negligent than Kiritsugu. He wasn't trained at all!
...

Fujimaru tells God to eat Shit

Fujimaru goes to Camelot. He's almost normal for most of it besides a tad too deep sense of social justice shared by Mash.
Then he confronts the Lion King. The Lion King who could smite him with a single thought. The Lion King who wields the Pillar of the World. He looks at her, this terrifying force of nature, an actual divinity, God to mortal.
...And he tells her she's a dumbass.
"Humans aren't butterflies you can put on a board!" says Fujimaru Ritsuka, having for unknown reason decided to try to refute a GOD. And flabbergastingly, this works as Lion King takes brain damage presumably from the sheer bafflement that a child with no special abilities is talking down to her, causing her to go berserk and lose when Bedivere activates his Bitch-Slap Airgetlam.
...
Then he goes to Ancient Uruk/Babylonia/I still have no clue where this is. He meets Gilgamesh, King of Heroes, several tiers beyond what Fujimaru will ever be.
"I'm going to skip the line to talk shit to you and ask you to join me," decides Ritsuka. Gilgamesh, unimpressed tries to make him do housework. Fujimaru reveals that in addition to being Humanity's Last Master, he's Humanity's Last Housewife and perfectly does everything till Gil is forced to respect his impressive janitorial skills and they go off to Literal Hell together.
Fujimaru's insanity then makes him befriend several people he shouldn't including:

• God known for betraying everyone she knew (Ishtar)
• God trying to kill them (Gorgon Lily )
  
• Other God trying to kill them (Jaguar)
  
• the Grim Reaper (King Hassan)
  
• The Grim Reaper if it was an anime Waifu (Ereshkigal)
  
• Merlin, who if you've studied Arthurian mythos, you know is the LITERAL ANTICHRIST.
  

Somehow, he gets all of these to work together including mortal enemies Gilgamesh and Ishtar, and inspires King Hassan to give up his Grand title to become a different Grand- a Grandfather.
Fujimaru Ritsuka fights with Lucha Wrestler God trying to kill him by attempting to... suicide tackle her by being air dropped for some reason instead of just breaking the damn magic stone powering her because Fujimaru has offscreen developed telepathy and knows exactly what Lucha Goddess wants.
Having befriended a fourth god trying to kill them, they go to befriend Mom by beating her to death. The gang cheers as they succeed and Waifu Grim Reaper is outed as a tsundere.
...

Coughing Baby vs Omnipotent King of Seventy Two Demon Gods (the baby wins)

Fujimaru goes to outer space. He meets unsurmountable odds. Seventy-two immortal Demon Gods. His reaction?
"Nah, I'd Summon."
Fujimaru transforms the game into a Kingdom Hearts story as the bonds he formed along the way act as a catalyst to summon EVERY SINGLE SERVANT IN THE THRONE to fight for his ass. Goetia screams like a baby as Fujimaru performs the ultimate JJK beatdown by calling in every damn person to ever do anything of note to kick Goetia in the balls through the sheer overwhelming power of friendship.
Goetia reveals himself to be a fraud and pulls "with this treasure I summon Ars Almadel Salmonis: The Time of Birth Has Come, He Is the One Who Masters All!"
Fujimaru calls in additional support from Archetype Eggplants to block an attack that destroyed seven humanities. Following this, he calls in Goetia's dad to put his omnipotence on timeout.
Then, Fujimaru Ritsuka, this untrained regular human with zero enhancement skills, solos Goetia with a Shield he's never used, beating him in a straight boxing match.
Combined with the Francis Drake thing, it makes me wonder if he's secretly the FGO version of Soujuuro.

Conclusion

You liars told me he was a regular ordinary human and the most boring Type-Moon protagonist with no mental problems like the rest.
What the hell did you mean? I have never met a man more on the spectrum, insane, off the walls, unhinged, bonkers and genuinely weird than this guy.
How did I let myself be fooled? He's a Type Moon protagonist! It should have been obvious from the get go!

Fujimaru Ritsuka is Completely Insane.

FIN.

To start this off, I am a competitive player in pretty much every game I've played. In this sub I've seen casuals use this term and have cringed, but the more I see it, the more accurate it feels. In MD I do tours here and there and get max rank every season, so I'm not exactly terrible even if I'm not very good compared to good players. I mostly play rogue decks because they are the decks I happen to enjoy the most but have still used a good dozen non rogue decks when they were dominant in their format because I enjoyed those too.
That being said, both ladder and tournament scenes are exhausting because most players tend to only use the 1-3 most powerful decks in the format rather than just using the decks they claim to use because they enjoyed them. How many people used spright because they "enjoyed" them but the moment spright started getting hit you could tell that the supermajority of the players that "enjoyed" spright suddenly stopped "enjoying" it. This can be true for most top tier decks in any format after any meta shift. I know there are many more, but how many people do we still have playing drytron, prank kids, sword soul,runick stun, phantom knights, tear (NOT currently, but as it was starting to get hit before new non tear support was released), dragon link, pure kashtira, etc because they enjoy those decks? The answer is not very many because the knew flavor in town is fire
Because of this and in between max c mini games, this game is overall not enjoyable both in the casual and competitive scene as a result. Idk why I even keep playing tbh this pattern never changes.
In tournaments I'm less inclined to complain about this behavior since you want to win but at the same time, I do think tournaments would be much more fun if we had good players using actual decks they like instead of it being good players using only the one or two best decks. At the very least, it would be nice to have formats those post runick stun formats with healthy a variety of t1-3 decks so players can use their "top tier" decks without the format being so dominated my the same one or two decks.
In other games I usually find the earlier rounds in tournaments boring since you have filler opps usually, but in this game I find the first few rounds more enjoyable even if the skill level of the opp isn't as high since you have them using filler decks that you don't get to see often enough while playing your filler deck
I think the game would be much more enjoyable for everyone if we could take away the pseudo tier 0 deck riding trend we've always had but this will never happen since I dont think the skill level of the average player will allow them to survive the ladder with essentially handicaps

Greetings, people of Reddit, this is my first post in this community and on Reddit as a whole. I would like you to read about my original sentai
Yojutsu Sentai Obakeranger (Yokai arts squad ghost Rangers) Motif: Yokais, Sorcereexorcists, magic It is inspired by animes such as Shaman king Yokai Watch Jujutsu Kaisen and the concept of Onmyodo (Japanese escoteric magic), among other things.
The story revolves around a young man who, upon arriving in a new city, discovers that it is haunted by terrible spirits known as Onryo but the city is defended by yojutsu shamans. Soon after saving the life of a Nekomata (cat yokai) he awakens his yokai power and becomes Obake Red, joining the team and beginning his journey to become a shaman.
The rangers are:
Obake Red: a young man obsessed with the supernatural and the occult and even though he doesn't have shaman blood he can use yojutsu techniques, this is one of the mysteries of the series His element is fire and his yokai partner is a Nekomata (Two-Tailed Cat)
Obake blue: A serious young man and strategist and was the former leader before Red's arrival and because of this, a rivalry ends up being created between the two, he wants to honor his clan of shamans at all costs. His element is wood and his yokai partner is a tengu (raven man)
Obake yellow: The youngest on the team. Imperative and playful but he hates when people treats him like a child, his element is earth and his yokai partner is a Tsuchinoko (snake yokai)
Obake Black: Before being called by her family to be a shaman she was a sukeban (juvenile delinquent) gang leader she is the typical tomboy and doesn't like too much feminine things she is tough but deep down she has a soft heart Her element is water and her yokai partner is a kappa
Obake White: She didn't really want to be a shaman, she actually wanted to follow her dream of being a "cosplayer idol" but her family repressed her, but among her teammates she can be herself and that's why she appears almost always with a new cosplay when he arrives on the scene. Sweet and cheerful, she is the heart of the team Her element is metal and her yokai partner is a jorogumo (spider woman yokai)
OniSlayer: a man who renounced his shaman side and made a pact with an oni in order to take revenge he does not use spells but rather martial arts withv oni energy His color is purple, his element is darkness and his yokai partner is Shuten Douji (I imagine his ranger suit design to be very inspired by Gostei Knight, Gaisoulg and Rio from Gekiranger)
The collectibles are Yo-Fudas, cards inspired by Ofuda talismans that are responsible for the team's spells, weapons and zords Each ranger has their own deck of Yo-Fudas based on different yokais of their respective elements
About the mechas, I think of something a bit similar Go-Onger, Go-Buster and Goseiger, zords that are half yokai and half vehicle Red: Nekomata/ racing car Blue: Tengu/ helicopter Yellow: Tsuchinoko/ Shovel Black: Kappa/ submarine White: Jorogumo/ Armored car OniSlayer: Oni/Dekotora The main five Rangers have a shared mecha (gashadokuro/ tank) that serves as the mecha main body (similar to the Korean toku Legend Hero) and can make multiple combinations
The villains are the Onryo, vengeful spirits whose mission is to resurrect their leader (Tatarigami) so they can create "hell on Earth" and take revenge on the living. Its method of creating monsters is very similar to miraculous Ladybug
They choose a human with bad feelings such as grudge and malice and incorporate an evil spirit into their body that ends up creating a monster linked to something (an object in most cases) while the monster causes chaos the possessed victim begins to perform the ritual to send his soul to Tatarigami so that he can be reborn (the ritual ends with the victim killing themselves)so the Rangers have to defeat the monster through exorcism (the monster also attacks people with the aim of accumulating people's negative energies to help with the ritual)
So that's it, that's my idea. Again, anyone who wants to give ideas on how to improve this story (specially about the villains) it would be greatly appreciated.

“The past and the future, considered apart from the consequences of their content, are empty as a dream, and the present is only the indivisible and unenduring boundary between them.” ― Arthur Schopenhauer, The World As Will And Representation

In Chapter 3, it's revealed by the medical records disk that Isa's name is shorthand for "Isolde." I wasn't familiar with this name, but I felt it was distinctive enough that there had to be some meaning behind it, so I did some digging.
One use of the name "Isolde" that caught my attention was that it is the name of a facility at CERN- the ISOLDE or Isotope Separator On Line DEvice, used to produce and separate radioactive isotopes of elements for research purposes. Given the game's frequent use of motifs relating to nuclear science and the health risks of radiation, it felt too specific to be incidental. Still, there wasn't much meaning I could derive from it, but I thought it was interesting enough to be worth pointing out.
The most prominent instance of that name is from the story of Tristan and Isolde, a celtic legend and a romantic tragedy often described as a precursor to Romeo and Juliet. There are many versions of the story told across different times and cultures, but given the game's many references to Romantic Era art from the German speaking world such as Schubert's Serenade and Böcklin's Isle of the Dead, I'm inclined to think it's specifically referencing Richard Wagner's opera "Tristan and Isolde". I'll give a quick synopsis here and analyze the parallels that I think may reflect Isa's role in the story. (To avoid confusion, from now on I will only use 'Isolde' to refer to the character from Tristan and Isolde while 'Isa' will refer to the one from Signalis, unless otherwise stated.)
It begins with Isolde on a ship, being escorted by the knight Tristan, from Ireland to Cornwall to marry Tristan's uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. It is an arranged marriage she is not keen on going through. In a fit of rage, she curses the ship, hoping it sinks and takes all of them with it, particularly Tristan. After learning that Tristan killed her original fiancé, she issues him an ultimatum that she will not willingly leave with him until he drinks with her as an atonement. In truth, she is planning to poison the both of them, and he suspects as much, but in an attempt to prevent this, her attendant replaced the poison with a love potion.
Though she ends up marrying King Mark between the first and second act, Tristan and Isolde can't ignore their passionate love. They realize the only time they can safely pursue their relationship is at night, when the King and the court aren't watching. As their patience for the night grows thinner, they realize the only way to realize their love is through the eternal night: Death. But at the same time, they are caught together by the King and his attendant. Without even attempting to explain his betrayal, he asks Isolde to follow him into death and impales himself on a sword.
In the third act, Tristan partially recovers from the suicide attempt but remains delirious. At the sound of a shepard's pipe in the distance, he reflects on the death of his parents, believing the pipe to be death now calling to him. He laments drinking the potion and how it led him to live a life of madness desiring something that can never be. He dies in Isolde's arms and she follows him into death. As the King arrives to the scene, Tristan's servant kills the King's attendant in revenge and then himself. Amidst all the death, the king reveals he had learned about the love potion and had simply come to offer his blessing to Tristan and Isolde, and the story ends with them finally realizing their love in the afterlife.
In writing this adaptation of the classic story, Wagner was reportedly inspired by the work of Arthur Schopenhauer, particularly his work "Die Welt ais Wille und Vorstellung" or "The World as Will and Representation." In "The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy", author Bryan Magee identifies Wagner's use of day and night as respective metaphors for "phenomenon", the aspects of the world we can perceive and "noumenon", the fundamentally unknowable reality beneath it. Both concepts were first named by Immanuel Kant, but Schopenhauer further argued that the gap between them is the cause of misery and suffering for all sentient beings; our individual pursuits and efforts to move towards a more personally favorable 'phenomenon' cannot be reconciled with a fundamentally uncertain state of the world and its other inhabitants. That to fulfill one desire requires the quashing of ten others. Illustrating this, he writes:

"...he saw an immense field entirely covered with skeletons, and took it to be a battle-field. However, they were nothing but skeletons of large turtles five feet long, three feet broad, and of equal height. These turtles come this way from the sea in order to lay their eggs, and are then seized by wild dogs... with their united strength, these dogs lay them on their backs, tear open their lower armour, the small scales of the belly, and devour them alive. But then a tiger often pounces on the dogs. Now all this misery is repeated thousands and thousands of times, year in year out. For this, then, are these turtles born. For what offence must they suffer this agony? What is the point of this whole scene of horror? The only answer is that the will-to-live thus objectifies itself."

Returning to Signalis, this quote immediately calls to mind the first-person Shores of Oblivion scene, in which skulls are buried and littered across the sand, and a quote from one of the nearby scattered papers:

we should have never left
the primordial soup
only through death can i escape
the call of the one who rules
above all life

Tristan and Isolde, realizing that their personal passions were irreconcilable with the interests of the material world they were in, concluded the only answer was to leave it behind altogether, so they made a death pact. A "promise", if you will. So upon finding Tristan dead, Isolde takes her own life. Much like how our Isa, who upon losing hope of being able to find Erika in the living world, disintegrates.
Another related theme connecting these stories is the lamentation of fate. Just as Isolde prays for the ship carrying her to her destiny to sink with her on it, and as Tristan regrets drinking the potion that led him to a life of desire for something that could never be, two early game quotes from Isa show that she is seeking Erika not just with love and concern but with regret for how they left things:

"Erika, if you find this note, despite everything that's happened. I've come to look for you."
"Have you ever wondered if you're speaking to someone for the last time without knowing? I wish I could go back, so I could say something else."

The details of this regret are deliberately ambiguous. It sounds like they had a fight or falling out, but 'everything that's happened' implies a deeper conflict- a disagreement or choice that they couldn't reconcile. Something important enough that it took Isa away from her sister, yet also something she regrets so greatly that she would take it all back just so she can see her sister one more time.
As Schopenhauer said, "A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants." The great tragedy at the center of Tristan and Isolde is that even if we have control of our actions, we are at the mercy of the desires we were given by fate. It's a theme that permeates not just Isa's story, but Signalis as a whole.
Elster never chose to love Ariane. Had she not, she might have found the strength to end her suffering before it was too late. So she ran away from the "day" of Ariane's suffering into the "night" of keeping her in cryosleep.
Ariane never chose to love art. Had she not, she could have had a simple and comfortable life fitting in with her peers. So she ran away from the "day" of the Eusan Nation's surveillance and social ridicule into the "night" of Penrose-512.
Falke lost any hope of finding happiness after becoming burdened with emotions and identity that she could do nothing to satiate, and quite literally went from the "day" of life into the "night" of dreaming.
And then there's Adler, all but crushed by helplessness as he tries in vain to hold back the death of reality, as Elster and Isa continue to bring about its apparent decay in pursuit of their own wills. The relationship between Adler and Isa is interesting and I think quite important, as he's the only character besides Elster who gets direct screen time with her. As the game bluntly mentions the first time Adler meets Isa,

NONE OF US ARE HERE BY CHOICE (And No One Will Miss Us)

It's from this and the Schopenhauerian interpretation of Tristan and Isolde that I think Adler represents phenomenon while Isa represents noumenon.
Adler wishes to preserve the light of day. To awaken from the dream and return to shared experience of a common, coherent reality. One where what you see is what you get. Where experiences can be trusted, and results are predictable.
Isa wishes to live in the night. The world of passion and of choice. Valuing the experience of familial love over all else, even the world or truth, she continues to live only in pursuit of another reality amidst the abyss of uncertainties, one where she made amends with her sister before it was too late, or never fell out with her at all. And when she finally accepts that she cannot find it or manifest it, much like her namesake, she concludes the "eternal night" is her last recourse.
There can be no perfect reconciliation between these two wills. It can never be day and night at the same time. And yet they do find themselves together- falling into the bottom of the mine. In the Nowhere, at the end of all things. At the sunset, the liminal space in between the night and day, between dreaming and waking. Because, one means nothing without the other.
To me that is the important take away from her story. That if we don't want to live in regret over the hand life dealt us- hating ourselves for being unable to fulfill the desires we were stuck with, before its too late, we must confront the question of which world we want to live in.
Is it truly better to have loved and lost then never loved at all? Is it truly better to have tried and failed than to never try? I don't want to believe the answer is no, but none of us can be certain for ourselves until we reason with ourselves honestly about why we struggle with the question in the first place- what the true value of each side of the coin is. Perhaps then we can accept what is beyond our control.
To quote Schopenhauer once more:

Every individual, every human apparition and its course of life, is only one more short dream of the endless spirit of nature, of the persistent will-to-live, is only one more fleeting form, playfully sketched by it on its infinite page, space and time; it is allowed to exist for a short while that is infinitesimal compared with these, and is then effaced, to make new room. Yet, and here is to be found the serious side of life, each of these fleeting forms, these empty fancies, must be paid for by the whole will-to-live in all its intensity with many deep sorrows, and finally with a bitter death, long feared and finally made manifest. It is for this reason that the sight of a corpse suddenly makes us serious.

"Good-bye, lover-- It's been fun... And I always did want to go in battle. You get to keep your planet, kid... Don't forget me... Don't forget me"
Bio: Val Armorr was the son of Japan's greatest crimelord, Kirau Nezumi, also known as Black Dragon, When he was born, his mother, the American secret agent Valentina Armorr, tried to hide him from his father, but she failed and was killed for her affront. Japan's biggest hero Sensei Toshiaki, the White Crane, eventually killed Black Dragon for his crimes and adopted the infant Val. He raised Val as if he were his own son, and trained him in all manner of the martial arts.
Origin in scan form ^{(Superboy vol 1 #210})
Alternate look at his origin ^{(Secrets of the Legion of Super-Heroes #2})
Databook entries

• Superboy #205
• All-New Collector's Edition #55
• Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #12
• Who's Who in the Legion of Superheroes #3
• DC Comics Encyclopedia: Updated and Expanded
• All New DC Comics Encyclopedia

Original Val

Strength
Note: Karate Kid needs to concentrate and channel his chi to perform feats of strength ^{(Adventure Comics #359})

• In his origin, chops through a steel beam ^{(Adventure Comics #346})
• Chops through a spaceship hull ^{(Adventure Comics #347})
• Lightning Lad flashes back to Karate Kid stopping a car with a single chop ^{(Adventure Comics #351})
• Knocks out a Jovian Mastodon and a Tricorn Beast with a single strike each, and judo throws a Sloth Ape ^{(Adventure Comics #358})
• Chops through two trees in one swing ^{(Adventure Comics #358})
• Analyzes some thick gates, then chops through them ^{(Adventure Comics #360})
• Kicks away a hover car ^{(Adventure Comics #361})
• Chops through a tank, then starts a small earthquake with a stomp ^{(Adventure Comics #367})
• Destroys a practice bot in a rage ^{(Adventure Comics #373})
• Claims his chops could fell giant redwoods ^{(Superboy vol 1 #203})
• Creates an earthquake with a stomp that breaks apart a statue ^{(Legion of Superheroes vol 3 #31})
  • Note: This is a flashback to earlier times, so despite being in vol 3, takes place Chronologically in vol 1, as shown by him wearing the brown gi instead of his more famous white one
• Punches through a robot ^{(Superboy vol 1 #214})
• Kicks a meteor to pieces ^{(Karate Kid #2})
• Creates a counter-vibration strong enough to reverse Major Disaster's artificial earthquake. ^{(Karate Kid #2}.)
• Flexes off six cavemen ^{(Karate Kid #11})
• [MASSIVE OUTLIER] When bound with ropes made of indestructible Inertron, he somehow manages to break free. ^{(Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #231})
  • Album of Inertron being invulnerable/unbreakable/strong enough to resist Kryptonians
• Breaks out of a machine that saps powers, minds and will (Legion of Super-Heroes vol 3 004)

Speed

• Moves "with the speed of thought" ^{(Adventure Comics #361})
• Dodges Mano and Persuader's attacks ^{(Adventure Comics #378})
• Dodges Validus' mental lightning ^{(Adventure Comics #378})
• Dodges a blast from the Emerald Eye of Ekon ^{(Superboy vol 1 #198})
• Dodges a blast from *sigh* Radiation Roy ^{(Superboy vol 1 #208})
• Rushes forward and front tuck into a Rider Kick in a fraction of a second ^{(Superboy vol 1 #214})
• Dodges a bolt from Lightning Lad ^{(Karate Kid #1})
• Dodges radiation blasts from Nemesis Kid ^{(Karate Kid #1})
• Intercepts a falling meteor ^{(Karate Kid #2})
• Backflips over a bullet ^{(Karate Kid #2})
• Dodges a laser ^{(Karate Kid #13})
• Leaps over a bullet and behind a guy in less than a fifth of a second ^{(Karate Kid #15})
• Dances around Pharoxx's strikes ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes #309})
• Redirects Pharoxx's own magic against him ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes #309})

Durability

• Survives an explosion that KO'd and nearly killed his sensei ^{(Adventure Comics #367})
• Smacked by a giant robot and recovers being back to fighting shape on the next page ^{(Adventure Comics #373})
• Endures ever-increasing pain through meditative techniques even though the pain was so bad, it made Timber Wolf go feral within a few minutes ^{(Superboy vol 1 #209})
• Clears his mind of mental influences ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #268})
• Wades though blasts from Pharoxx ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #288})
• While sick, takes a blast from Pulsar ^{(The Brave and the Bold #198})
• Pulsar explodes right next to him and he's all good. ^{(The Brave and the Bold #198})
• Gets clawed by a monster and shrugs it off ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes #309})
• Gets blasted by Pharoxx's magic and recovers, while Pharoxx getting hit with the same blast made him immediately flee ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes #309})
• [Limit] Dies after being beaten nearly to death by Nemesis Kid, then missile launches himself into a planet-draining machine. ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 3 #4})

Skill
Statements and styles

• Great Skill in all forms of martial arts, but especially Karate and Judo ^{(Adventure Comics #346})
• Master of all forms of fighting ^{(Adventure Comics #359})
• Switches from Boxing to Savate to Kendo against a robot ^{(Adventure Comics #363})
• Knocks some guys out with chops to the back of the neck ^{(Adventure Comics #360})
• Mastered every weapon form "from fencing foils to Jovian trident spears" ^{(Adventure Comics #368})
• Temporarily puts Timber Wolf in a Judo hold ^{(Superboy vol 1 #209})
• Falkone IV arm riflie technique ^{(Karate Kid #12})
• Loback III restraining hold for non-powered people to restrain super-powered people ^{(Karate Kid #12})
• Karate, Judo, "Arcturian Sli-tilla", "Venusian Txrxvrx", and boxing ("the good old one-two punch") in one page ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #268})

Against skilled opponents (Solo)

• Beats a boxing champion ^{(Adventure Comics #377})
• Beats the absolute stuffing out of Black Mace ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 3 #31})
  • Black Mace is stated to be Ganglands's answer to Karate Kid ^{(Adventure Comics #374}) and a fast, strong invincible fighter ^{(Superboy #213})
• Beats Black Mask again, with an assist from Princess Projectra ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 3 #31})
• Quickly beats a dual nunchaku wielding black belt ^{(Karate Kid #3})
• Beats the Samurai known as Master Hand ^{(Karate Kid #4})
• Had the advantage on Black Dragon II, the student of his father he previously beat in Superboy vol 1 #210 ^{(Karate Kid #10})
• Karate Kid vs Black Dragon II in a ceremonial fight. ^{(Karate Kid #10})
• Beats Dick Grayson quickly ^{(Karate Kid #14})
• Wins a tournament and the title of Samurai, going down as the youngest to gain the title ^{(Secret Origins vol 2 #47})

Against Skilled opponents (groups)

• Defeats three Black Belts he claims could waste a battalion of ordinary men ^{(Superboy vol 1 #210})
• Beats six opponents trained by his father, Black Dragon, including the future Black Dragon II ^{(Superboy vol 1 #210})
• Beats a bunch of 20th-century martial arts masters ^{(Karate Kid #1})
• Quickly beats four martial artists ^{(Karate Kid #4})

Against superpowered opponents (1v1)

• Fights Superboy and does so well, Clark says he needs to be in the Legion ^{(Adventure Comics #346})
• Training with Superboy ^{(Adventure Comics #368})
• Gets the advantage over Don Allen, descendent of Barry Allen and a speedster ^{(Adventure Comics #373})
• Defeats Ultra Boy ^{(Adventure Comics #375})
• A brainwashed Karate Kid easily beats Ultra Boy ^{(Superboy vol 1 #205})
• Survives a fight with Superboy, though he constantly mentions he's outmatched and it's taking all of his skill to just survive . ^{(Karate Kid #12})
• Temporarily holds Superboy, but admits he needs help immediately and is losing him and is saved by Mordru's magic wearing off ^{(Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #245})

Against Superpowered opponents (groups)

• Solos the Fatal Five ^{(Adventure Comics #378})
• Manages to hold his own against Lightning Lad, Superboy, Colossal Boy, Saturn Girl, Sun Boy, and Chameleon Boy before being stopped by Cosmic Boy ^{(Karate Kid #13})

Against Skilled Superpowered opponents

• Fights four superpowered assassins and is holding his own ^{(Adventure Comics #361})
• Beats Pharoxx of Orando in a sword fight, forcing Pharoxx to resort to magic ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #286})
• Beats Timber Wolf in a spar ^{(Legion of Superheroes vol 4 #52})

Accuracy

• Splits a rock so each half flies off and KOs a foe ^{(Adventure Comics 361})
• Hits a knight with a stone and KO's him ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #288})
• Uses his sash as a lasso to disarm Pulsar of his power staff ^{(The Brave and the Bold #198})

Agility

• Rushes forward and front tuck into a Rider Kick in a fraction of a second ^{(Superboy vol 1 #214})
• Contorts himself in mid-air to stop himself from falling out of a building then Jumps back in ^{(Karate Kid #1})
• Jumps from the street to a sign to a third story roof ^{(Karate Kid #2})
• Does a series of flips to land safely after jumping out of a building while holding someone ^{(Karate Kid #2})
• Jumps out of a window, does a ton of flips, and starts running on cars ^{(Karate Kid #3})
• Flips on a pole ^{(Karate Kid #11})
• Flips over a car ^{(Karate Kid #11})
• Flips out of Batman's grasp ^{(The Brave and the Bold #198})
• Rolls back to get out of a monster's range, then launches himself into a flying kick ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #309})

Weak Point Sensing

• Finds the weak point in a diamond ^{(Adventure Comics# 365})
• Finds the weak point in a wall ^{(Superboy vol 1 #210})
• Finds Omega's weakest point, but is too weak to capitalize on it ^{(Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #251}). This is the first time it's called an explicit "power" and not a skill.
• Finds the weak point in a hatch ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes #277})
• Originally struggled to find a weak point in massive chains encircling Earth, but after getting a hint from Princess Projectra manages to sense and destroy it ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #279})

Retroboot Val

Despite dying.....Val Armorr's back and in the past! ^{(Justice League of America vol 2 #7}) How? Never explained! ^{(Justice League of America #10}) Here's his feats. Note: All feats are done while he's dying (Countdown Weeks 14-15/ 38-37) from what's later revealed to be the Morticoccus Virus

• While disguised as a supervillain, freezes Parasite without Black Lightning realizing Parasite was the target ^{(Justice League of America vol 2 #2})
• KO's Black Lightning with a chop to the neck and stalemates (and arguably has the advantage over) Batman while sick and memoryless ^{(Justice League of America vol 2 #8})
  • Another view of the fight ^{(Countdown Week 2/#50})
  • Doctor Mid-Nite says Karate Kid very nearly took down Batman in that fight ^{(Countdown Week 7/#45})
  • Batman conceeds Val outfought him but claims he wouldn't in a rematch though he may have been being a jerk to get into Val's head ^{(Countdown Week 10/#42})
• Is still conscious and talking despite being loaded up with enough tranquilizers to give Wonder Woman trouble ^{(Justice League of America vol 2 #8})
• Somehow survives Speed Force Lightning that should have insta-killed him ^{(Justice League of America vol 2 #10})
• Finds the weak point in a vault he's sealed in ^{(Countdown Week 13/#39})
• Tears through Oracle's tendrils and punches through a wall ^{(Countdown Week 13/#39})
• Hurts Equus, an enhanced being who bragged he had fought Superman ^{(Countdown Week 16/#36})
• Kicked Equus arm clean off his body ^{(Countdown Week 17/#35})
• Breaks shotguns and kicks a police car over ^{(Supergirl vol 5 #21})
• [Limit] While he can dodge her attacks, can't move Supergirl with his strikes ^{(Supergirl vol 5 #21})
• Chops Equus arm off ^{(Supergirl vol 5 #22})
• [Limit] The closer to death he gets, the less he's able to focus and use Super-Karate feats ^{(Countdown week 32/#20})
• Takes out four Apokoliptians ^{(Countdown Week 41/#11})
• Takes a hit from an OMAC and shows some agility ^{(Countdown Week 42/#10})
• Dies of the virus ^{(Countdown Week 45/#7})
• Time Trapper puts his and Una's bodies in the mainline Earth when they had died in Earth-51 ^{(Action Comics #864})

Misc

• As a Legionnaire, he has a Legion flight ring ^{(Karate Kid #1})
• Invited his 20th-century friend to his wedding, not realizing she was in love with him ^{(The Brave and the Bold #198})
• Man married a princess. Respect. ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes Vol 2 annual 2})
• Brave enough to try to hit Darkseid with a flying kick, though all it accomplishes is knocking himself out. ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 2 #294})
• It's implied he somehow came back/will come back to life again, but this wasn't elaborated on because of the Flashpoint thanks Barry ^{(Legion of Super-Heroes vol 6 #6})
  • Time Trapper also foreshadowed this ^{(Action Comics 864})

Wade held Jasmine in his arms as he flew a low height down the long road to another section of the staryard, Tina on his back and Nathan and F right behind them in the air. Together, the five glided across the base grounds, taking care as to not irritate the aerial security during their search for the meeting room. Being outside for the flight, the group considered it a blessing that Wade's 'enhanced cooling unit' allowed his body to tolerate the breaching sun in the still cloudy sky, which, according to F, was dangerous to drones like her due to the inefficient cooling she and disassembly drones like her suffered from. Given F's physical fault, she had to fly under shady areas in order to safely traverse the base at day.
Originally, Wade and his friends had planned to walk to the meeting zone, but after running into a trooper experiencing a health mishap, the group did what they could to help the distressed officer. By the time he was brought to the medical ward by other soldiers, Wade found that him and his team would be at least a few minutes late if they kept on their way with their walk.
Deciding to speed things up, Wade, understanding the concern for performing such an effort, opted to carry the Fowleys around the base to the meeting area. Reluctantly, F decided to come along, carrying Nathan in a similar manner that Wade was carrying Jasmine. Taking notice of the time on his HUD, which read, "9:47 AM", Wade scouted for the building he and his friends were directed to. "8072" He said to himself, the number being for the building that would house the imminent meeting.
"They said it was down here, right?" Wade asked aloud to Tina before stopping himself in mid-air, the girl holding onto him tightly as he tried to speak over the growing sound of a retrofit Apache flying overhead.
Looking about, Tina nodded as she spotted the target building. "Yes, I believe that's the one over there!" Pointing past his head, Wade followed her finger to a large building ahead at his right. The structure was moderately tall, only about two stories high, with several soldiers and officers going in and out of the building. Wade smiled as he noticed the target number, as well as the big, bold words describing the building's designation. "8072, Briefing Center B"
"Good eye, honey. Hang on!" Continuing his low glide, Wade zoomed towards the building's entrance before stopping just meters above the ground, his two friends close behind as they slowed down as well. The troopers around them initially looked startled by the sudden arrival of Wade and his group, but quickly regained their composure as Wade hovered still above them.
"At ease! Just visitors." One of the soldiers declared as they identified the newcomers, who touched down before Wade let Jasmine down to her feet, Tina hopping onto the ground along with her.
Putting his hands up, Wade apologized for his swift surprise. "Sorry for the scare, we got delayed for a meeting we're invited to."
The soldier gave an understanding nod as he replied to the former worker drone sternly. "I can see that, just be a bit more careful next time, Mr. Carter. You gave the boys here quite a scare."
Wade returned the gesture in embarrassment as F put a hand to his back, chuckling at his efforts as Tina questioned the officer. "Is Mrs. J in there? She's the one who called for us."
The guard gave his reply as Wade and Tina pulled out their IDs for clearance. "Yes she is, Miss. The meeting's set to begin in under ten minutes." Checking the two drones' IDs, Jasmine and the others pulled out theirs as well, the watchman motioning another trooper over to verify the group. Once the guard finished checking the five's cards, he nodded in approval as the watchman spoke once more. "You're clear to enter."
"Thank you Sir, again, sorry about that spook back there." Wade replied with a smile as the trooper gave one of his own, the disassembly drone and his allies making their way towards the office door before stopping upon the call of a voice.
"Hey, Felice!" Wade turned to find the origin of the voice, F doing the same as the two quickly spotted a quartet of soldiers walking excitedly towards F. The disassembly drone glanced to her friends with a smile before turning back to the approaching entourage.
Wade examined the four troops as they got closer: Two human men, one woman, and a male worker drone. One of the male soldiers had short, blonde hair, and a small scar to the right side of their face. The second man bore a tan skin tone and had black hair, with blue strips that went down slightly in a mullet style. The woman bore a set of long, dark green hair, with the hair going down and over her left shoulder. As for the worker drone, he wore the standard green soldier helmet, single eye visor and all. He had no hair on him from what Wade could tell, and bore a pair of whiteish purple eyes on his visor.
As F walked over to the soldiers, the same one that called to her spoke again. "Felicity, I didn't expect to see you around here today! Where you been?"
The girl soldier interrupted his initial chatter. "Hang on Carlos, do you even know if she remembers us?"
"Aye, don't she have one o' them memory locks, or sumthin?" The drone added in a heavy Scottish accent.
F waved her hand as she replied to the group. "Easy, everyone. Thankfully I still got my memories, courtesy of my technician back at Central." Lowering her hand, F let down her usual persona as she gave a wide smirk to the soldiers, clearly pleased to see them. "Good to see you guys around here."
The soldiers gave light cheers to F as they all embraced her, the group having a surprise reunion as Wade and the others watched in surprise. These must've been F's old colleagues from when she was in the service, Wade thought. Quite the coincidence for them to be here at this base of all places.
Not bothering with the convenience of the matter, Wade shook the thought off as he and his friends watched F and her old friends breaking the hug, Tina wrapping an arm around her boyfriend as the second male human spoke to her in what the two discerned as Spanish. "Ay, who your new friends, F?"
"Oh, these guys?" F replied in the same language, quietly startling Wade and the others as they had never heard her speak like that until now. Glancing over to Wade, F motioned him and the others to come over. "Everyone, these are some friends I made in the past few days. Wade, Nathan, Tina, and Jasmine." She pointed her hand to the four as she said each of their names. "I met the boys here during my time on Ceres. Jasmine and Tina here are sisters."
The four soldiers gave various forms of excitement, ranging from hearty laughs to low woops and even a whistle from one of the guys. As F stood next to her old teammates, they each introduced themselves to Wade and his friends. The blonde soldier went first. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you all, name's Carlos, Lieutenant Marksman."
"I'm Private Alvaros, good with close-range and stealth operations." Said the tan soldier with a salute.
"Sergeant Lucia Vasquez, usually the one who leads this bunch around these days." The female warrior stated with a humorous smirk.
"And Corporal Duncan Wallace, at your service!" The soldier drone stated proudly as he saluted to the bunch in front of him, who gave warm smiles as Wade shook his hand.
"Quite honored to meet you all, seems you have quite the history with F." The former worker drone said as Carlos patted F on her back.
"Oh, we do! She's the one who took charge when we didn't! Did you all hear of the Pasting of Nola VI?" Jasmine and Tina gave nods of affirmation while Wade, not as familiar with such history, held his hand up in a questioning manner.
"I think, wasn't that the battle where the Navy just barely held the outpost in that system? From the Stryker Clan?" Wade asked as Carlos nodded approvingly to him.
"That's right, and if Felice weren't there, WE would've been the ones getting pasted!" Carlos' statement brought victorious cheers and "oorahs" from the group, F letting a blush loose as she chuckled at her team's praise of her efforts.
"Well, that's not wrong." Although she didn't want to break off from her friends and discuss the past few years since they'd last met, F remembered the briefing. Clearing her throat, she continued. "And as much as I'd like to chat about the good times, I've been called to a meeting here, as have Wade and his crew."
The soldier group gave understanding looks to F as Lucia spoke up. "Thought so, Carl here was real eager to see you, though."
"Maybe we can talk after the meeting?" Nathan proposed as the soldiers collectively nodded in agreement, F readying a smartcomm attachment before turning to face her friends again.
"We're probably getting low on time, you all go in, I'll catch up in a sec." Wade nodded in acknowledgement before taking Tina's hand, the lover drones continuing towards the briefing center as Jasmine and Nathan followed behind them.
Passing through the door, the four guests observed a short hallway, which seemed to split into two paths as they came closer to the other end. Looking to a sign on the wall above, they saw arrows pointing to two separate areas, "Primary Briefing Room; Main Lobby + Secondary & Tertiary" Going to the right, they entered the moderately active lobby, several officers walking and standing about in mass chatter. Walking over to the desk up against the wall to their left, Wade and his group waved a hand to the occupying attendant.
"Welcome, what do you need?" The desk attendant asked as Tina raised a finger to reply.
"We're here for a meeting, Mrs. J called us here."
The attendant nodded in understanding before directing an arm towards the other end of the room, where a single door stood. "She should be in the second briefing room down that way."
"Thank you." Tina replied warmly before she and Wade began walking towards the door, their friends behind them as they proceeded into the room.
The room beyond the door was quite sizable, a large circular table occupying the middle with several chairs surrounding it. The walls went up a few meters, with four whiteish blue lights illuminating the room. On the wall opposite to Wade and Tina were three monitor screens, all of which showed the USN in bright blue. In several of the seats were faces both familiar and unfamiliar, several men and women in varying styles of uniforms conversing about quietly or taking notice of the recent visitors. Standing up near the monitors were three people: A decorated officer whom Tina identified as a ship captain, and the so-called operatives, Tessa, albeit as a hologram, and J.
Walking slowly into the room, Wade gave a low wave of his hand as he tried to hide his nervousness. Noticing his shyness in front of the officers, Tina held his hand and rubbed his arm comfortingly while returning a pleasant smile to the staff in the room.
"Ah, Wade, Tina. Glad to see you all here." J stated with a smile as she scanned the group, raising a digital eyebrow as she noticed one missing guest. "Or, most of you, I see. Did F run off somewhere?"
Wade shook his head as he replied to his fellow disassembly drone. "Oh, no. She just ran into some old friends, she should be back-"
"Right now." F finished aloud as she entered the room, seemingly having heard Wade speaking about her absence. The warrior drone fast walked to Wade's team, taking a seat near them as they prepared to do the same. "Not too late, are we?"
"Not at all." The standing officer answered as the group took their seats, Wade and Tina sitting next to each other as they got comfortable. The captain examined the lot for a moment, glancing to J as he asked about them. "So, these are the ones you helped rescue from the Mojave?"
"Yes Captain, and they helped us out greatly in turn. This is Wade Carter, one of the captured drones whom became a disassembly drone before we could mount the rescue. The luckiest one, if you ask me." Motioning her arm over the others, she continued. "And there's his girlfriend, Mrs. Tina Fowley, and her sister Jasmine." Smirking to F and Nathan, she finished her friends' introductions. "And these two are Serial Designation F and Mr. Nathan, whom I've heard were once under your ranks."
The military captain gave a welcoming smile to the five as they returned the gesture, eyeing F and Nathan specifically before speaking to them. "Indeed they were, we still have records on their contributions to the colonies." Eyeing F, he continued. "Though, in Mrs. F's case, I won't blame her if she doesn't remember us. We've been very well aware of JCJenson's 'memory suppression' protocols when it comes to their DDs."
F laid back in her seat with a smug look as she replied to her former superior. "Well, my friend on the station's a good tech gal. She's... waived that hindrance from me."
"I see, that means your still with us, am I right, Mrs. Lee?" Unlike her friends next to her, F was not startled by her original name being said aloud, rather smiling proudly as she saluted to the captain. "Good to see you again."
"Pleased to be here, Sir." F replied as she lowered her arm, glancing to her companions next to her as J spoke up.
"Everyone, I'd like you to meet Captain Preston Mitchell, commander of the USNV Vickers down at the stardock."
Wade gave a respectful salute to Preston as he spoke first. "It's an honor to meet you, Sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Carter. I've heard about your efforts from J, you did an admirable job back there, son." Wade failed to hide an embarrassed blush from the compliment, but it quickly faded as a beep sounded from a small device on the table. It was swiftly silenced by the captain as he tapped a button on the small, pyramid shaped timer, then facing Wade's group before continuing. "Though, as much as we could use some small talk, it'll have to wait till later."
"Indeed, we're running late at this point." Said another officer, a highly decorated member of the base with dark skin, dark grey hair and a thin beard. He immediately won the attention of everyone in the room as he spoke up. "I'm General Hugh Hood, overseer of this base. I'm certain you know some of the reasons you're here with us, correct?"
Wade nodded as he spoke to Hood. "Yeah, it's cause of those rogue agents from the JCJenson corporation." Glancing to J, the corporate drone nodded in affirmation before speaking herself.
"Tessa and I spent the last hours of yesterday evening clearing up the matter with General Hood, along with several other officials stationed here." She stopped as the middle monitor behind her flashed with a banner at the top, reading, "INCOMING TRANSMISSION", and in place of the USN emblem was a textless version of the JCJenson logo. Below the profile image was another two lines of text. "N. Jenson (Company Exec); Comms Source: Yottrite IV"
"And also told our boss about what happened here too, he wanted to give his say on this ordeal." Looking to the general, J asked him, "May I put him on?"
Hood only gave a nod of approval to the corporate drone before she picked up a remote on the table and tapped a button, accepting the call as the picture shifted to show a middle-aged man in a pristine-looking business suit on the screen.
Wade and Tina glanced to each other before J introduced their guest on the screen. "Ladies and Gentlemen, the CEO of JCJenson: Mr. Noor Jenson."
Jenson gave a pleased nod to his subordinate as he spoke to J. "Thank you for the pleasantries, J. I see we are ready to discuss our plans on dealing with this 'recall' disaster I've bore witness to on the news this morning?"
J nodded as she replied to her boss. "Indeed, I've explained to General Hood here about our efforts yesterday, and, as of recent, we've just received a message from a source we believe to be close to the company."
Mr. Jenson looked down to J attentively as he spoke to her. "Well, that's quite intriguing news, J. Do you have this message available for us to view?" J and Hood both nodded in affirmation, but didn't get an immediate reply as Jenson gazed to Wade and his friends. "...And I presume these are some of the drones rescued from one of the factories?"
Again, J nodded to her superior before explaining her colleagues. "Yes Mr. Jenson, the two drones at the front in particular were among those taken by the Administrator and their subordinates." Pointing an arm to Wade and Tina, she introduced the drone couple. "The disassembly drone here is Mr. Wade Carter, a brother to his-technically speaking-owner, the late Ron Carter. The latter helped us recover Wade during an initial raid inside the Nevada facility." When bringing up Ron, J gave an apologetic look to Wade as to show she did not mean to be offending on him and his brother's relationship. "And this is his romantic partner, Mrs. Tina Fowley. I heard she and her sister Jasmine are pilots."
Jenson looked over the two drones as his obedient employee described them to him, quietly sighing as Wade and Tina returned the gaze with nervous smiles. Once J finished, Jenson spoke to Wade. "I... would say it's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Carter. But, given recent events, I don't hold fault to you for feeling frustrated at me for my... former subordinate's actions."
Wade shook his head lightly, taking Jenson's light apology with a faint smile as he replied to the CEO. "Actually, I don't. The only person I have such feelings put towards is," He hesitated for a moment, his anger at Dr. Halloway returning for a short moment before he eased himself. "..That bastard Halloway."
"The feeling's mutual, Mr. Carter. Dr. Halloway has been trying my patience for years now, especially with you and your fellow disassembly drones." Looking to J, then F, he returned his gaze to Wade before questioning him on his new body. "I don't know if J has told you of this, but if there's one truth my company has admittedly not held up to for a while, it's our quality. Recently, some of my research staff here made blueprints for an upgraded variant of the disassembly drone design. It's intended to fix several faults we expected to be nonexistent previously, most notably that atrocious cooling unit."
As a schematic pulled up on the left monitor, everyone glanced to the improved design before F spoke up about it. "If I may ask, Mr. Jenson, how big of an improvement is this new cooling unit supposed to be?"
"Good question, F. Frankly, it's supposed to do away with the issue entirely. Saves us from sacrificing enormous supplies of oil for the poorly built unit in the previous iterations. We even tested it with a repaired drone just a few days ago, and it worked flawlessly." Then, glancing to Wade again, he questioned the former worker drone on his new form. "Speaking of, how does your enhanced body feel, Mr. Carter? I'm certain it feels better to not have to-"
"Actually, Mr. Jenson," Wade interrupted, pulling out one of his canteens as he answered the CEO on his upgrades. "I guess Halloway changed up the blueprints, cause unfortunately this new cooling unit didn't cure the overheating problem. I... kinda learned that the hard way." Wade glanced to Tina apologetically, still feeling bad from her seeing him eat the corpse of the dead murder drone back at the factory.
The corporate CEO grimaced in frustration as he took in Wade's statement, already intolerant of the head researcher's actions as he replied. "...I was worried about that, Edgar always likes to run things his own way, making excuses for that 'Administrator' he watches over." Taking an agitated breath, he continued on with his spew on the two culprits of yesterday's events. "It was only because of all the very impressive creations and enhancements she and her research team provided that I tolerated them for so long, but this..." Sitting up straight in front of the camera, Jenson finished sternly. "J said the Administrator... Cyn, I believe? She was apparently something worse than we presumed originally, and I'm very inclined to believe so after yesterday."
"As well as the program tied to the Administrator, the AbsoluteSolver." J clarified before receiving an agreeing nod from Mr. Jenson, standing corrected on his placing of blame.
Raising a hand, Nathan asked about the supposed plans. "Yeah, about this "Solver Project", what do we plan to do about that?"
"Good question, Nate." Tessa replied as she crossed her arms before looking to Jenson and beginning her explanation. "Initially, we were going to investigate the other factories spread across Earth in order to get some more info on the Administrator before things get worse. But, just this morning, it seems someone else saved us the trouble." Just as Tessa neared the end of her sentence, J held up the remote again, tapping a few buttons before the left monitor shifted to show a slightly grainy video onscreen.
The video only showed a single being, a worker drone, dressed in a chrome suit and bearing a set of yellow eyes. Behind them was what appeared to be a vacant room, a few shelves holding many books within them standing still in the back. The drone's visage indicated they were filled with immense anxiety, terrified of being caught as they spoke quietly to the camera.
"I can only hope someone gets this in time, they're gonna be on me once they find out the transmitter screens are down!" Turning the camera, he showed what appeared to be a large factory room, several more of the mysterious conveyor belts like at the factory slotted next to each other. It was hard to discern every detail due to not only the window reflection, but also the dark lighting in the inactive conveyor room. Filming the room beyond, the drone continued. "Dr. Halloway's a madman, he's got more of those stolen drones being brought here and he's going to be overseeing it in the afternoon tomorrow! I've seen what happened back in Nevada, I can't take this any longer! I'm at coordinates ##.######, -###.###### Please, send someo-"
The suspicious, partially scrambled transmission immediately cut off to static, leaving Wade, Tina, and their friends with confused expressions as Tessa spoke up. "Yeah, that caught me by surprise too."
"So, that guy says they got more drones being sent 'there', but... where is there, exactly?" Jasmine asked with immense curiosity.
"I was hoping you'd ask that, Mrs. Fowley." The technician replied as she glanced to J, who tapped a few more buttons on the remote before speaking over her boss-friend.
"While the transmission itself isn't much to work off of, our friends from Comms over here managed to intercept the signal earlier, and even better, discern where it originated from." As J started her explanation, the screen shifted once more to show a large city, with one skyscraper highlighted in red as it was zoomed towards on the screen. "That scrambled audio wasn't a simple glitch, it was intentionally done so as to hide key information for us to uncover. Upon cleaning up the message, we managed to recover a set of coordinates, which direct to this structure here, in San Francisco."
Wade and his friends stared at the building in shock, examining the tall structure as it stood over the shorter buildings in the city. Tina broke the silence in her gaze. "So, this is another factory? It looks... terribly different from the one we got out of."
"Not exactly, Mrs. Fowley." Mr. Jenson answered, Tina and the others looking to him as he continued. "THAT is the Administrator's main laboratory, its location was kept on the down low so other authorities and terrorist groups wouldn't find out what the buildings true purpose was." Sighing, Jenson completed his reply. "But, with this recent mistake of Halloway's, that place has lost all purpose for us at the company."
Wade raised a hand to speak. "So, we're going to pounce on that place? Get Halloway before he runs off again?"
"Exactly." General Hood replied as he looked up to Mr. Jenson. "This whole 'recovery/recruitment' effort has gotten out of hand all across Sol. We've gotten countless reports of people being killed because of this, be it the brutal robberies here in Nevada or the bloodbath on Ceres. Even if Mr. Jenson refuses to cooperate, this has become a dire matter for us now. One way or another, this insanity will be stopped with due haste."
The CEO nodded in acknowledgement before explaining his own plans for the mission. "Speaking of cooperation, upon seeing what was happening at Earth, I ordered a detachment of our corporate starships in orbit at the time to depart for Sol in order to help with investigating the situation. They're not warships, but they are well-armed. I'll dispatch them to your authority upon concluding this call." Glancing to Wade and his team for a moment, Jenson continued. "As for the mission, I may not have much of a say, but let it be known that you have my blessing to do whatever it takes to end this madness. I don't care what you do with Halloway or any of his lackeys, or what happens to that facility down there... I want that program shut down."
"Thank you for the extra hands, Mr. Jenson. We'll make sure this Administrator is dealt with." Hood replied gratefully as Wade sat firm in his seat, Tina and the others following suite.
"General?" The former worker drone said aloud, catching Hood's attention before he made his request. "I know I'm not a soldier, but I want to help with dealing with Halloway and his grunts. After what he did, after losing my brother, I can't rest until I see that man stopped."
Tina raised a finger as well. "As do I, Wade could use a hand with those people, and given how we did during our escape run out of that place, I think the two of us make quite the duo." She glanced to Wade with a smirk as she referenced their combat prowess when flying together.
Nathan and F stood up before the latter gave her own request. "Sir, I wish to take part in this mission as well. I can also recommend Wade for you too, as I fought alongside him during the factory raid."
"Wouldn't mind giving a hand myself! And I'm sure my pal Kurtis would love to help, he's here at the base too!" Nathan added with a confident smirk, the group's determination encouraging Jasmine to stand up as well.
"I'd like to help too." She stated simply, a smile on her face as the general and his companions observed the five guests.
Admittedly, Hood knew it would be a bit absurd to allow these people to take part in an operation which would certainly involve bloodshed, especially considering most of them merely had civilian status at the moment. But, upon careful evaluation of the five, their desire to see this problem dealt with, and the fact that some of them had experience on the field...
He paused his train of thought as Captain Mitchell spoke to him. "General? I read up on the Fowleys' files when we recovered Mrs. Jasmine here, they provided service in their early careers." He smirked to the pilot sisters as he finished adding his say. "And to be frank, we need more people like them here. The records we have of them showed them to be damn fine pilots."
Tina blushed at the praise from Mitchell as she spoke to the general. "That is true, we uh... did get discharged for our... 'fancy maneuvering'."
"Sir?" Jasmine said, the general's attention on her as she added to the conversation. "Even if our flying is a bit out of protocol, Tina saved a lot of people on that starjet a few days back. I can promise you, she's an excellent woman to have at the wheel."
Glancing to Wade again, Hood took in his face, one of begging desperation as he spoke once more. "Please, Sir. My brother, the troops he brought from the Coalition, Halloway's gotten them all killed cause of this. I want to do this. I HAVE to do this, at least for them."
The good general took a deep, quiet breath, considering his decision once more before finally revealing it to Wade and his friends. "Mr. Carter, Fowleys? I'm probably making myself a fool for saying this, but you're permitted to assist us in this mission."
The drone couple contained their gratefulness in the form of ecstatic grins as Wade replied to the general. "Thanks, General. We won't let you down."
"And Mrs. Lee?" Hood said as he glanced to F, who returned the gesture as he told her, "You're technically under Mr. Jenson's authority, whatever his answer is, it's mine as well."
Bringing her yellow-orange eyes to her CEO, F awaited Mr. Jenson's answer. "F, yes? I heard Mr. Hood call you by a different name just now, I assume you have some experience with the army?"
The warrior drone nodded as she explained herself. "I once inherited the name of Felicity Lee, Mr. Jenson. I served under the USN Defense Forces before joining the DD Division." Then, glancing to the military staff near her, she finished with, "I had hoped to provide my enhancements to the Force one day."
Jenson gave a hint of a proud smile as he finally gave his decision. "Well, it seems you'll finally get that chance. From now on, even after this mission on Earth is over with, you're hereby dispatched to serve under the USN."
F admittedly couldn't hide her excited smirk as she flung a salute to her now former boss. "Thank you Sir!"
Looking up to Jenson, General Hood asked the CEO, "Mr. Jenson, how long until your ships can reach Earth?"
Jenson glanced down at his communication console as he answered the military leader. "At max speed, their Ion drives should be able to bring them into orbit in as little as one to two days. I believe there should be some ships within the system that could help as well."
"Signal them when you can, Mr. Jenson. We could use all the help we can get from them." The CEO nodded to Hood as he stood firmly to the viewer, the general turning to face Wade and his colleagues. "And Mr. Carter? We'll be mobilizing our forces immediately after this meeting concludes. It'll be a minute, but I want you to gather whatever items and belongings you'll need for this operation. Be ready to head to the flight pads in no more than three hours."
"Understood Sir!" Wade said with a salute, Tina, Jasmine and Nathan giving their own as Jasmine raised a finger.
"What about the area around the lab? That place looks like it's in the middle of the city."
J raised a finger as she told Jasmine and the others about their resolution of the civilian obstacle. "Shortly after reporting our findings on the transmission, Hood told us that they were sending in some teams to clear out the civilian population within several miles of the facility. Once we get there, it should be of no concern."
Jasmine sighed in relief as Tina spoke up. "So the people should be safe from any sort of danger?"
"Correct, Mrs. Tina." Preston answered before continuing. "Given the resistance Halloway and his men showed during the Coalition's raid, they most certainly won't hold back there."
"One more thing, Sir." Nathan asked. "The Coalition's going to help us out with this too, right?"
"You can count on it, Mr. Nathan." The Vickers' captain replied as he looked to J, then to Jenson as he spoke further. "I met the leader of the Coalition's detachment working with us when I was introduced to J and Mrs. Elliott here, they intend to see this conflict finished. I highly doubt they're willing to sit back and let us do this by ourselves."
"And their help will be much appreciated." Hood added, everyone's attention returned to him as he looked to Tessa, curious eyes scanning her holographic form. "And Mrs. Elliott, if I may. Do you mind heading down here to assist us in our investigations later on?"
"Funny you say that, General. I'm almost done with my own snooping around on the JCJ up in orbit, Cyn has some small departments of hers aboard, and I thought I'd gather some more intel before coming down." Glancing to Mr. Jenson, she saw him giving an understanding nod before returning her gaze to the military staff. "I should be down there by the evening, judging by where you're located."
"Do what you must, Mrs. Elliott. We could use whatever you find." Hood replied firmly as he turned once more to the JCJenson CEO. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Jenson. We will get to the bottom of this."
"It's my pleasure, General." Glancing to J and Tessa, he spoke to them once more. "J? Contact me when you've finished with Halloway and his Administrator."
"It'll be done, Mr. Jenson." The obedient servant answered before saluting firmly, receiving a final nod from her boss before he ended the transmission.
With their off-world guest out of the way, Hood looked to Wade and his friends, J, Tessa and Captain Mitchells sharing the gaze with them as the general spoke to them in finality. "Well, you know what comes next everyone. You're all dismissed for now. And remember, landing zone by 1300."
"We'll be there Sir." Wade said with a nod as he and his friends stood up, pushing in their chairs before making their way out to the door.
As they neared it, Wade stopped for a moment as they heard Hood call to one of his friends. "And F?" The soldier drone looked to the general as he continued. "Before we depart, would you mind changing your uniform? I believe it could help with identifying you from the other disassembly drones more easily." Glancing to J, then back to F, he finished with, "I recall hearing about the most formidable drones having clones prepared, yes?"
"Correct, Sir. I'll stop by the nearest barracks while I can." F replied before turning back to the door with her colleagues, Wade opening the door for them all as they passed through. After them, Wade passed through himself, shutting the door to the meeting room as he returned to the lobby.
Walking about together, F spoke to Wade and the others. "Well, that went smoothly. I'll be heading down to the barracks, then head over to your place to help out."
"Actually," Wade replied, raising a finger up as he asked his fellow murder drone, "You think you could bring your friends over? We could get to know each other while we're getting ready."
F glanced to Nathan with a smile before returning her eyes to Wade. "I could see about that. You're gonna like them, I can promise you that."
Taking Tina's hand, Wade walked with his girlfriend alongside Jasmine and the others, nearing the hallway they came through as they prepared for the walk back to the apartment.

I'm not sure why this should even be a rant. I am tired of seeing someone talking about like, the Joker and saying "They should just kill him!" or "How didn't he get the death penalty?", nobody understands comic book time.
In the average DC run or reboot the Joker is not the super insane terrorist with 20+ years of experience under his belt who got captured 50 times in a row and is escaping again. People don't write the Joker as if every bad thing he did in the past is canon to his current portrayal. Most of the Joker's crimes that are actually long lasting are the personal ones: There's no denying that the killing Joke or Jason Todd usually happened, but like, he did something extremely edgy like blowing a school bus maybe in that one story, defo not in this one.
In nearly every Batman story where the Joker is supposed to be portrayed as a sort of long running criminal who has been causing trouble for a while, he DIES. Arkham, Animated Series, Injustice, Dark Knight, technically Telltale?
Like yeah you can like make a complaint about how comic book time work and I'd agree with you and we could even talk about how to fix that, but why does it manifest specifically through people trying to criticize Joker's character in this super roundabout way? Like how hard is it to say you don't like how Joker's story isn't one straight thing? Why does this complaint have to be about how you feel about The Jonkler and not about how the execs want the endless DC machine to keep churning? People are barely even using him as a way to make that complaint because the whole thing is centered on him.

Newish dm l, been running for a while now but still fumble rules every now and again admittedly... as the title says I am looking for (potentially silly works too) suggestions to occasionally throw at my players to throw them for a loop. They just got to LL3 if that helps
One idea I have been muling over involves demolishers... I have been using them sparsly as damage sponge distractions for more important enemies, and the players have been talking about how easy they are to beat... so looking over my options I noticed that support npc's are also size 2, and have a lot of movement... so I was thinking for one combat to have veteran demolishesupport combo where the support is carrying the hammer boy at high speeds to deliver books directly to the players like a knight on horseback.
Any other idea's like that to mess with my players?