Waking up in the middle of the night I find myself restless
So much has come into focus in the last few days. The station, my first steps on another world. It is all a bit overwhelming. Relaxing my thoughts drift off thinking about how I got here. A young girl on Europa, being selected for training after my aptitude tests, the Academy on Ganymede. Then as always my thoughts drift back to… her…
Lucy…
We started at rivals at the academy, we were from different worlds. Literally, me from Europa a wet ocean world remote and isolated, her an inner worlder from the hot dusty plains of Venus. We were water and fire.
The professors pitted us against each other from day one, based on our aptitude tests we were the top of the class. They split the class into teams and gave us challenges. I like to say I got the better of her, I was fast out the gate winning a few challenges. But Lucy turned back on me in a vengeance, she had a magnetism to her that caused our classmates to almost be addicted to her. People from my team would defect over to Lucy. Soon I found myself vastly outnumbered.
One day after Lucy and her team thrashed me again in a simulated strategy challenge. I left and I needed to be alone. I showered, went into the sauna. Replaying the moves again and again. How was I going to get the upper hand. She outnumbered me so much.
Everyone knew to leave me alone in the sauna. It was where I thought, relaxed, my place of peace. I was frustrated, I lean back against the wall and let me hands wander. Gently down my body, letting my stress evaporate as I tease myself…Then the door opened…. And it was Lucy. A cocky grin in her face.
We had been thinking about nothing but each other and we had both become obsessed. When that tension broke. Let me just say in a sauna fire and water combine to make something beautiful. Lucy and I did as well.
She moved towards me quickly, letting her towel drop, she was direct with a purpose. Grabbing the back of my head and kissing me deeply. I was shocked.. surprised... Excited..
I grabbed the back of her head and kissed her back. A deep need inside of me welling up, our lips slid across each other's as our tongue intertwined. I poured my life water of passion into her. She flared up and accepted my passion. Her hands exploring my body as I moved my knees between her legs.
Fuuuccckkk…. When she arched her back… so beautiful… MMM nnngghhhh an orgasm washed over me in my bed while I thought of Lucy.
Panting… even after all this time, separated by a waygate and unfathomable distance my body still yearned for her, I still yearned for her. Rolling onto my side I stare out my window into the vastness of space and the void. My fingers still ryhmically dancing on my pussy. Fingers sliding in and out
Your taught at the academy not to develop attachments, especially since the top prize, the highest honor of our training, to one day fly a deep space exploration through a waygate. Which would put us alone, in a different system. Like I am now.
Even if I power up my waygate in record time and rush home. Lucy is most likely gone. She was my alternate, meaning had I been unable to go this time she would have. It also means she most likely the deployed to her own system and would be gone before I returned. Likely I would never see her again.
Biting my lips and pressing a hand out onto the glass…yes…yes.. there
Fuck again….Fuucckkkkk LLLLuuucccCC
EeeeeeeeeerrrrrreeeemmmmmAAAAAA, a beautiful black haired woman orgasms in a bed identical to Emeras save the ambient lighting is blue inside of pink.
Fuck…. That was good. I find myself panting as I step out into the hallway of my ship. 2 days since the waygate, 6 months since I last saw Emera. Since she departed through her gate. Stars know if she still lives.
It was a rare happening, another gate coming online shortly after Emera’s departure. I thought I would be flying routine patrols around the system. Now I'm alone. Alone with my thoughts of her, and my AI Julia. Fuck. Why couldn't we have gone together. Why only one pilot to a ship. Who knows maybe she's thinking of me. Technically the systems we are in are closer together than home. That's something…
You're probably wondering if I was outnumbered and Lucy normally had my number in competition then how did I get to leave first. Yes, I did sleep with high command. That was only my closing argument though. You see Lucy had her magnetism that caused people to be addicted to her, she drew people in. But I was better at strategy and nuanced maneuvers.
The rules weren't strict on the teams, people defected all the time. Keeping your people together was part of the challenge. I decided to break that challenge.
No Battleplan survives first contact with the enemy afterall. Why not break the competition itself
My enemy wasn't Lucy, trust me we had been together enough at this point my heart swelled when I saw her. My enemy was the rules, and proctors.
There had to be two team in the academy for the lessons to work. But the rules only set a minimum not a maximum.
Lucy and her best 4 left her team, and me and my best 4 left my team. We formed a new team with Lucy and I at the head. The proctors were fuming. I was called into their offices again and again. Which is what led to me sleeping with a few of them to get ahead. It is always good to solicit a meeting with superiors, you can always be turned to your advantage.
In the Academy, there were 50 of us girls. The proctors let us keep our 3rd team, but declared no one else could join us. It was the ten of us vs double our number on both the other teams. Not ideal… but we had Lucy and I together. My how we shined
We out maneuvered, out paced, and out thought the other teams again and again and again..
Entering into the final the proctors split everyone up, eliminating the team. Just to try and stop us from sweeping the competition. Instead there would be 25 teams of 2 members each of our own selection. Lucy and I naturally selected each other.
We set down on a terraformed valley on Mars, all the other duos were around. The mission was complex. Gather knowledge, survive in the wilderness, there were simulator villages where we had to set up relations, and if possible eliminate other teams.
The gravity is different from what I'm used to, my body feels heavy. Sluggish, they train us on this and soon I'll adapt. But first landing it hits me like a weight. Ffuuuccckkk I murmur as I land my account ship on the surface.
Lucy always compares a new celestial body to a lover. Well for me Mars just grabbed my hair, slapped my ass and pushed in
Fuck I can't imagine landing on Earth. Triple this, fuck that give me my moon mother's oceans anyday.
I suck deep and hard on the control in my mouth and all three extract from me. I am about to get up from the control seat when I feel a palm in the small of my back
“Lucy not funny, let me up” I say
She giggles, and rubs my ass cheeks before her fingers rub against my lips
I moan biting my lip as I push myself against her hand
“I knew the gravity here would give a Moonie like you a good fucking, you're so wet my love”
Rolling my head back and forth..”quickly we have to debrief and set up camp” I moan
She smacks my ass again and her fingers deftly slide to work, one hand pinning me to the chair while she teases my sex, her thumb rubbing in perfect circles on my clit and her fingers pulling on my g-spot
“Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes uuuhhhhh my love it feel so good” shaking my hips back and forth I feel it building as I rock my hips on her hand
Squeezing….my leg….quivering… my voice squeaking… “uuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh ffuuuccckkk” I moan as I feel the orgasm wash over me…
Lucy slaps my ass playfully and licks her fingers… “let's go my love, stop playing around we have to set up camp” she giggles
“Oh!! You!!” I get up and rush after her slapping her ass when I catch up
Carryalls follow us out of the ship.. I immediately sent out the scout drones and assessed our landing spot. Allocating tasks and running diagnostics.
Lucy set about converting the ship to a shelter and arranging power arrays, and deciding on perimeter defenses
We were a perfect power duo. Our carryalls and scouts were soon all at work, and Lucy was finishing up the shelter
I needed to repay her, so I slowly walked up behind her. She heard my heavy steps in the gravity. Turning to look at me she beamed at me. My heart melted and grabbing both sides of her face I pinned her to the side of the ship. Our bodies intertwined and our lips locked.
She moaned at me giggling, pushing my knee between her legs, and we quickly undressed each other. Her mouth on my breast, as my hand glided down to her slick vagina.
Grabbing her chin roughly and up turning her head exposing her neck I sink my teeth into it as I push forward with my knee back and forth pressing my fingers in and out of her.
A deep moan emanates from her, licking my bite mark I kiss up her neck until my forehead is resting hers. Eye to eye, I watch the pleasure build in her. Thrust after thrust of my knee. My fingers pressing into her g-spot every time, my palms pressing and grinding onto her clit
“Cum for me my love, give me your sweetness, I want your water to be the first I drink on this planet” I breath
I feel her pussy tighten and grip my fingers. Her legs twisting around me… she goes silent… a flush rises in her flesh… we kiss deep, and long, and passionately as I feel her gush onto my hand as orgasm rapts her body..
I watch her eyes dilate and relax I kiss her gently again before kissing down, my lips brushing through her pubic hair tickling my lips. Opening my mouth and pressing my tongue in I drink of her orgasm
My fingers inside pressing to work again, she cries out as she rocks her hips grinding her lips to mine. As she gushes another orgasm into my mouth..
I can even taste and feel it now on my tongue…
Releasing her, and helping her up I grin
Walking awayz the top of my leotard open my tits out in the sun
“I'm up by one my love, and you taste so GGGGOOOOoooOOooddddDD” I giggle setting back to work.
Days and weeks pass Lucy and I set up our camp. Wefind nearby teams before they find us. We quickly fall on them in the night, clearing our immediate area, eliminating them from the contest. We bathe in a nearby stream, sun ourselves on the rocks, make love on the soft moss of the forest.
I don't know if I've ever been happier, ever been more at peace l than I was then with Lucy. Her and I… her and I against the world.
We make good progress setting up relations with 12 of the 15 villages. Our camp is well stocked. We receive updates from the proctors from dead drops. Seems out of the 25 teams only 8 remain. Lucy and I have eliminated 7 ourselves.
We need to be the last standing, triumphant together.. so that maybe.. maybe we can convince them to send two of us on a ship. Imagine the wonders, this wouldn't be temporary, but would become our life.
Lucy and I talk about it often. We can convince them. We'll defeat the others then refuse to turn on each other.
Our dream died that night…
We were naked, curled up in each others arms when the alarm sounded..all the alarms
Proximity alert for 14 signals… they had teamed up on us. 14 on 2 they were going to eliminate the front runners while they still could.
Fuck.
Lucy and I turned and quickly downed our emergency biotic vials just as a concussive blast hit our ship shelter.
“Fuck! They aren't supposed to attack equipment!” I yell
“The proctors must have sent them, they should be intervening with that!” Lucy says
“You're better in a fight, charge them and I'll flank” I yell
We nod at each other and we are off naked as the day we were born
Lucy bursts from our ship her shield bursting out in front of her
I dart out the side and task our scouts and drones to make dive bomb attacks on the intruders
I leap over a blast, grab a tree branch and swing. I land my legs on either side of the head. Of one the attackers, twisting my flip her over and knock her out. Back on the run, I see Lucy take out another one as drones dive in and out of the chaos.
Lucy blocks to her right and charges blasting herself high into the air, twirling before blasting herself downward tackling her target to the ground and eliminating her.
She's about to get blasted from behind when I take the attackers in the flank, knee to the solarplex. My hand on the side of her neck I thrust up hard with my knee. In the low gravity she turns and flies off into the trees as I raise my hands and blast another in the side.
She turns just in time to block my attack, when Lucy rockets into her side with her elbow

Yes, you read it right. I got a few admits and I will not be joining any of the colleges. Will be dropping MBA in general, as I have other plans. But, as I bid this community goodbye, wanted to give back in any tiny way possible.
P.S. Do not expect to see anything new here, and feel free to ignore!
Profile; GEM 9/9/9 - T10 Engg college, Work ex: 3yrs, CAT: 99.5X, XAT: 99.2X
I had registered for CAT on the very last day, with absolutely no idea of what the exam is, or if I am even planning for an MBA. As November came closer, I decided to give it a shot as an MBA would be something that suits me. I looked around to ask friends in IIMs on how to prepare with 15-20 days to go. Everyone had different strategies so I sat down to find some material. Everything seemed vague until I started checking out previous-year papers. (I personally have given 2 mocks, and solved all slots '19-'22). The patterns that evolved over the past decade, the most likely pattern for this year, and figured how I have around 1.5 mins per question to reach a rough score of 100. (I decided upon this as the fair average to be in the top 0.1/0.2 percentile based on results from '21-'24) While I state this simply, I did go through a lot of videos from creators, to Quora, to this very subreddit to get my information. And I must say that the first-hand accounts from here helped me all along.
Remember; CAT is strategy first, ability second kind of exam. I will keep different disparities out of this post, but would ask everyone to see this being based on bucketing. Yes, your gender, category, school-marks, UG field, all matter, but then don't think the entire pool is your competition. The percentile system makes one think like that, but it isn't the case. The competition is WITHIN your own bucket, find the scoring needed there. That math will go a long way and will keep you away from unnecessary excuses and debates.
General strategies:

- set an ideal score in mind, everyone would want highest possible but set a realistic number in mind. Aim should be to score equal in all section. Give mocks/prev year papers, find weakest section, compensate for loss there by gain elsewhere. - if strong in VARC, practice completing whole thing in 40mins (whatever the section time is), else tackle in order of strongest module first (RC/ordering/summarising/fill sentence). - in QA, put a hard limit of 1.5-2 mins per question when practicing. Choose only the sections/problems you are comfortable with, learn to solve them in the exam constraints first. There is no need to know everything, this isn't boards. - in DILR, know that 1/4 is enough, 2/4 is good, 3/4 and you can afford huge mistakes in VA/QA, but being able to solve 3/4 probably means you are very strong at reading and math, so no need to think here. 

I went on to give my CAT, and post that is when I got involved here the most. I was active when this community had 14k~ members, so it has grown significantly, in ways good and bad. But that's not the point. There are all kinds of people here, and therefore you should be able to find whatever you need amidst all the noise.
I had applied for top 10ish colleges based on my personal suitability (+All checkboxes in CAT form ). Adding links to their interview experiences/transcripts here;
IIM A, C, FMS - NO call [A and B have non-public criteria, but generally B has more weightage to experience, while A has for diversity. C and especially FMS need raw marks in CAT]
SPJIMR - my first interview experience, got kicked out of round 1 IIM K - admit XLRI BM - admit IIM B - PGP + PGPBA admit IIM I - admit IIT B - waitlist in 20s but opted out to not block seat IIM L - admit IIFT - will probably get IIM Mumbai, IIM Shillong, XLRI HM, IIT Delhi - filled interview forms but didn't attend All other IIMs - skipped entirely
I cannot give any specific advice on interviews as things to work upon vary greatly from person to person. You can go through the above links, and ask questions if any, I will try to answer them.
I hope this post is of help, And all the best for your plans!

Humble Bundle: (Region: EUROPE!)
Will do multiple keys for Astrea and Double Dragon Gaiden
 
2Dark
Aarklash: Legacy
Among the Sleep - Enhanced Edition
Almost There: The Platformer
AUTONAUTS VS PIRATEBOTS
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA DEADLOCK
BASEMENT
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Burly Men at Sea
Cities in Motion 2
Crazy Machines 3
CRYOFALL
Dungeon of the Endless
DON'T ESCAPE: 4 DAYS TO SURVIVE
ECHO
ENDLESS SPACE 2 - DELUXE EDITION
Evergarden
Forged Battalion
FANTASY BLACKSMITH
Fae Tactics
FOBIA - ST. DINFNA HOTEL
FIVE DATES
GAS STATION SIMULATOR
GRID 2
GOAT OF DUTY
HackyZack
Homeworld Remastered Collection
HIVESWAP: Act 1
Insurgency
IRIS AND THE GIANT
INDIVISIBLE
Kona
Kathy Rain
Laser League
Leap of Fate
Late Shift
LIGHTMATTER
Magicka
MAID OF SKER
Meadow
Majesty 2 Collection
MIND SCANNERS
Mysterium: A Psychic Clue Game
MORBID: THE SEVEN ACOLYTES
OMNO
One Way Heroics
One Way Heroics
Orwell: Keeping an Eye On You
Orcs Must Die! 2 + DLC
Red Faction®: Armageddon™
RAILWAY EMPIRE
RAILROAD CORPORATION
Revolver 360 Re:Actor
Rusty Lake: Roots
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
She Remembered Caterpillars
Shadowrun Returns
Shady Part of Me
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode I
Sonic the Hedgehog 4 - Episode II
Sonic Adventure DX
Sonic Adventure 2+Battle DLC
Steel Rats
Sid Meier's Civilization VI
SIGMA THEORY: GLOBAL COLD WAR
Shadowrun Returns
Sentinels of the Multiverse
Swords and Soldiers 2
STRANGE BRIGADE
Subterrain
Talisman: Digital Edition
Tannenberg
Tennis World Tour
The Town of Light
THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: LITTLE HOPE
Tesla Effect: A Tex Murphy Adventure
THE UNCERTAIN: LAST QUIET DAY
The Forgotten City
Tower of Guns
Tacoma
TRAIN STATION RENOVATION
The Golf Club™ 2019 featuring PGA TOUR
THE WILD EIGHT
Toto Temple Deluxe
Tumblestone
Tokyo 42
THE OCCUPATION
THE SHAPESHIFTING DETECTIVE
Unholy Heights
VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE - COTERIES OF NEW YORK
VOID BASTARDS
VERLET SWING
WARSTONE TD
WEREWOLF: THE APOCALYPSE — HEART OF THE FOREST
WHO PRESSED MUTE ON UNCLE MARCUS
YUPPIE PSYCHO
YES, YOUR GRACE
 
Fanatical:
Grand Ages: Medieval
Jalopy
Mysterium: A Psychic Clue Game
Holy Potatoes! A Weapon Shop?!
GALAK-Z
Subterrain
SPACECOM
Songbringer
The Sexy Brutale
Streets of Fury EX
OUT OF THE BOX
Yoku's Island Express
 
Wants:
Astrea: Six-Sided Oracles
Clash: Artifacts of Chaos
Dicey Dungeons
Astalon: Tears of the Earth
Wanted: Dead
Rep page: https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/femr35/crimsonfoxyboys_igs_rep_page_number_5/

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BTC Reserves are in a year long downtrend
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Dapps?
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Transfer from paper wallet to Exchange
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*Where to test smart contracts? *
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Elon bragging about his "diamond hands," exactly 3 years ago. He's since sold $2 billion worth of Bitcoin 💀
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Crypto Sending locked for 2 MONTHS!
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binance

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I've been trying really hard to get past the coil/cloak of flame meta on witch and I think I've discovered a pretty cool way to get very tanky without using meta items.
Enduring Cry > Call to Arms > Enhance > Inc duration along with the Deep breaths cluster with the 10 min power mastery means you have 100% uptime of the enduring cry buff and guaranteed endurance charge generation.
With 3 base, 2 from tree, 1 from boots (corruption or synth) and 1 from an endurance charge synth shield you get 42% flat PDR accounting for the enduring cry buff.
Golem stacking with primordial chain, both elementalist nodes, the golem commander notable and the golem of hordes tech gives 9 maximum golems. Combine with 6x primordial bond from 4 megalomaniacs and two large minion clusters and you get 39% pdr from chaos golem, not to mention 90% increased generic damage from each one.
All that together is 800+ life regen, 200+ crit chance and accuracy, 75+ attack and cast speed and 700% increased generic damage that applies to anything. Just make sure to double summon your chaos golem so you always have the buff up if one dies.
You are now at 81% pdr, and can get the last little bit from many sources, the easiest being your endurance charge shield which can roll up to 8% flat pdr if it is armor based, as well as myriad pantheon powers which can push you 90+ pdr.
With your chest slot freed there are a ton of ways to mitigate elemental damage. Loreweave + Transcendence. Divine flesh + incandescent heart/doppelgangers guise. Or even good old max res stacking with a rare chest or brass dome. You now have a really strong generic framework and can build just about anything.

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[REQ] ($100) - (#Chicago, IL, USA) (Repay $120 by 2/4/2022) (Venmo, CashApp)

Post contents

Need some help short term to pay bills.

Father come save us from this madness we’re under! We are now on to The Headless Children! This tournament should be very interesting in that pretty much every song from this album is great and could easily be considered for the top spot. I think there are a few obvious choices for early elimination, but I’m very curious to see how this one is going to turn out!
Round 1 begins now! Reminder of the rules:

1. In order to vote, you must write the name of the song that you wish to eliminate in a comment below.
   
2. Upvotes do not count as votes.
   
3. Replies to comments do not count as votes. Of course, you can reply to comments to discuss song choices or any other related topics, but to cast a vote, you must create a new comment with the song title you wish to eliminate.
   
4. Please only vote for the remaining songs listed below. Votes for songs other than the remaining songs will not be counted.
   
5. Only one vote per person please! If you vote more than once, only the first song you selected will count.
   
6. Voting will end on Saturday nights at 11:59pm ET. At this point, the post will be locked and the votes will be counted. The results will be posted the next day, along with the next round of the tournament. You will then have the entire week to cast your next vote.
   
7. As always, please be respectful and civil to one another!
   

Note: I will not vote other than in the event of a tie.
————————————————————————
Results
W.A.S.P. (1984) - Results
The Last Command (1985) - Results
Inside The Electric Circus (1986) - Results
————————————————————————
Please vote for your LEAST FAVORITE song below:

1. The Heretic (The Lost Child)
   
2. The Real Me
   
3. The Headless Children
   
4. Thunderhead
   
5. Mean Man
   
6. The Neutron Bomber
   
7. Mephisto Waltz
   
8. Forever Free
   
9. Maneater
   
10. Rebel In The F.D.G.
    

DallasStars
FFIE
jschlatt
Mavericks
k_on
shittyhalolore
dunememes
IndiaCricket
hatsune
MurderDrones
WutheringWavesLeaks
HuTao_Mains
memeframe
ChurchOfKasumi
psx
ipl
Spacegirls
libraryofruina
FamousFaces
MargotRobbie
WriothesleyMains
FUWAMOCO
Zendaya
smoking
KendrickLamar
Aether_Mains
MoriCalliope
Fotv
MumbaiIndians
AusFemaleFashion
WutheringWaves
reddeadredemption2
KafkaMains
DungeonMeshi
helldivers2
kingdomcome
productivity
JEENEETards
BridgertonNetflix
Markiplier
boxingcirclejerk
StardewMemes
YaeMiko
FalloutMemes
korrasami
CriticalDrinker
FireflyMains
A24
steak
antinatalism
sillyboyclub
Cartalk
travisandtaylor
hellsomememes
IndianFashionAddicts
eurovision
DarkViperAU
LooksmaxingAdvice
tacobell
ExtraFabulousComics
falcons
grilling
Invincible
instacart
Paranormal
AmIOverreacting
Fallout
AltFashion
dogelore
DragonsDogma
PiratedGames
okbuddycinephile
LoveIsBlindNetflix
shieldbro
megantheestallion
PanPorn
GameTheorists
RoyalsGossip
oscarrace
selfie
Futurology
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amphibia
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fo4
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ufc
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army
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RocketLeague
WitchesVsPatriarchy
BestofRedditorUpdates
Eldenring
nba
StarWars
IAmA
formula1
TwoXChromosomes
Tinder
Lisa_Mains

All are Steam keys unless otherwise specified. Minimum transaction of $2 (so if you want something that's less than $2, please select multiple games until you get to at least $2). Payments are via PayPal F&F or you must add fees to the price to offset the payment. My Paypal account is USA region and so are my games.
 
 
Happy to discuss bundle discounts.
 
 

Game	Price (USD)	Notes
Almost There: The Platformer	$0.50
Amnesia Fortnight 2012	$0.50	incl Happy Song, White Birch, Autonomous, etc.
Brazen Prototype	$0.25
Disjunction	$0.25	GOG key
Eterium	$1.00
Evan's Remains	$2.00	may keep
Figment - Soundtrack	$0.25
GRID 2 - Spa-Francorchamps Track Pack	$0.25	tier1
Headsnatchers	$1.00	tier1
MudRunner	$3.00
NASCAR Heat 2 - October Jumbo Expansion	$0.25
Nebuchadnezzar	$1.50
Outward Soundtrack DLC	$0.25
Puss!	$1.00
Red Solstice 2: Survivors	$1.00
Relicta	$0.50
Smashbox Arena	$1.00	VR Game
Starfinder: Pact Worlds Campaign	$1.00	Paizo Rulebook
Superliminal	$4.00
Taiji	$4.00
Tangledeep Soundtrack	$0.25
The Sims 3 Date Night (Origin)	$0.50
TRAIL OUT	$5.00
The Talos Principle Gold Edition	$4.00
The Witness	$4.00
WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship	$2.50
WRC 10 FIA World Rally Championship	$4.00

 
 
IGS Rep Page:
https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/mmbl9k/axles_igs_rep_page_7/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/ina2af/axles_igs_rep_page_6/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/fd32v9/axles_igs_rep_page_5/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/cu1xbc/axles_igs_rep_page_4/
(old) https://old.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/ahz0z0/axles_igs_rep_page_3/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/8znig0/axles_igs_rep_page_2/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/7ph5fb/axles_igs_rep_page/
 
SGS Flair (Rep) Page:
https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/o5r1vw/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/ka29dk/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/h7q41m/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/e9g469/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/by29ab/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/9xykb4/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/8jvfsv/flair_profile_uaxle/
 
GameTrade Rep Page
https://www.reddit.com/GameTradeRep/comments/o5r65j/axles_gametrade_rep_page_3/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/GameTradeRep/comments/jvd3e3/axles_gametrade_rep_page_2/
(old)https://www.reddit.com/GameTradeRep/comments/fpdd46/axles_gametrade_rep_page/
 
Steamtrades rep Page:
https://www.steamtrades.com/use76561198079888394

All are Steam keys unless otherwise specified. Minimum transaction of $2 (so if you want something that's less than $2, please select multiple games until you get to at least $2). Payments are via PayPal F&F or you must add fees to the price to offset the payment. My Paypal account is USA region and so are my games.
 
 
Happy to discuss bundle discounts.
 
 

Game	Price (USD)	Notes
Almost There: The Platformer	$0.50
Amnesia Fortnight 2012	$0.50	incl Happy Song, White Birch, Autonomous, etc.
Brazen Prototype	$0.25
Disjunction	$0.25	GOG key
Eterium	$1.00
Evan's Remains	$2.00	may keep
Figment - Soundtrack	$0.25
GRID 2 - Spa-Francorchamps Track Pack	$0.25	tier1
Headsnatchers	$1.00	tier1
MudRunner	$3.00
NASCAR Heat 2 - October Jumbo Expansion	$0.25
Nebuchadnezzar	$1.50
Outward Soundtrack DLC	$0.25
Puss!	$1.00
Red Solstice 2: Survivors	$1.00
Relicta	$0.50
Smashbox Arena	$1.00	VR Game
Starfinder: Pact Worlds Campaign	$1.00	Paizo Rulebook
Superliminal	$4.00
Taiji	$4.00
Tangledeep Soundtrack	$0.25
The Sims 3 Date Night (Origin)	$0.50
TRAIL OUT	$5.00
The Talos Principle Gold Edition	$4.00
The Witness	$4.00
WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship	$2.50
WRC 10 FIA World Rally Championship	$4.00

 
 
IGS Rep Page:
https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/mmbl9k/axles_igs_rep_page_7/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/ina2af/axles_igs_rep_page_6/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/fd32v9/axles_igs_rep_page_5/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/cu1xbc/axles_igs_rep_page_4/
(old) https://old.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/ahz0z0/axles_igs_rep_page_3/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/8znig0/axles_igs_rep_page_2/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/7ph5fb/axles_igs_rep_page/
 
SGS Flair (Rep) Page:
https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/o5r1vw/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/ka29dk/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/h7q41m/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/e9g469/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/by29ab/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/9xykb4/flair_profile_uaxle/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/sgsflaicomments/8jvfsv/flair_profile_uaxle/
 
GameTrade Rep Page
https://www.reddit.com/GameTradeRep/comments/o5r65j/axles_gametrade_rep_page_3/
(old) https://www.reddit.com/GameTradeRep/comments/jvd3e3/axles_gametrade_rep_page_2/
(old)https://www.reddit.com/GameTradeRep/comments/fpdd46/axles_gametrade_rep_page/
 
Steamtrades rep Page:
https://www.steamtrades.com/use76561198079888394

All are Steam keys unless otherwise specified. Minimum transaction of $2 (so if you want something that's less than $2, please select multiple games until you get to at least $2). Payments are via PayPal F&F or you must add fees to the price to offset the payment. My Paypal account is USA region and so are my games.
 
 
Happy to discuss bundle discounts.
 
 

Game	Price (USD)	Notes
Almost There: The Platformer	$0.50
Amnesia Fortnight 2012	$0.50	incl Happy Song, White Birch, Autonomous, etc.
Brazen Prototype	$0.25
Disjunction	$0.25	GOG key
Eterium	$1.00
Evan's Remains	$2.00	may keep
Figment - Soundtrack	$0.25
GRID 2 - Spa-Francorchamps Track Pack	$0.25	tier1
Headsnatchers	$1.00	tier1
MudRunner	$3.00
NASCAR Heat 2 - October Jumbo Expansion	$0.25
Nebuchadnezzar	$1.50
Outward Soundtrack DLC	$0.25
Puss!	$1.00
Red Solstice 2: Survivors	$1.00
Relicta	$0.50
Smashbox Arena	$1.00	VR Game
Starfinder: Pact Worlds Campaign	$1.00	Paizo Rulebook
Superliminal	$4.00
Taiji	$4.00
Tangledeep Soundtrack	$0.25
The Sims 3 Date Night (Origin)	$0.50
TRAIL OUT	$5.00
The Talos Principle Gold Edition	$4.00
The Witness	$4.00
WRC 9 FIA World Rally Championship	$2.50
WRC 10 FIA World Rally Championship	$4.00

 
 
IGS Rep Page:
https://www.reddit.com/IGSRep/comments/mmbl9k/axles_igs_rep_page_7/
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Edited by WaveOfWire
- - - - -
Two days… It had been two days that Tracy had gone to sleep while Harrison was working, only to come back in the morning to see him still in the workshop. She knew he was damn productive, sure, but that really couldn’t be healthy. Apparently, it had something to do with the weird bowl of orange… soup… that Cera gave him. No way was it just caffeine; any amount of the stuff would have been filtered out of his system by now. He mentioned a tingling feeling too…
Damn, she did not know enough about drugs to even start assuming what that massive alien had Harrison fucked up on. At least the scanner said he was ‘fine’—if you ignore the other glaring issues the machine brought up. Plus, he said he didn’t mind it. Either way, he managed to complete the weaving component and a few other electrical backbones of the fabricator last night, so the project was practically done, and after seeing the engineer work himself half to death, she was dead-set on finishing it.
She was currently tits-deep into the upper manufacturing portion of the towering machine. It took a tall step-stool—on top of the nearby desk—for her to push her small shoulders through the even smaller access panels high on the everything-printer. It was difficult to fit her torso in, but she managed, holding a flashlight between her teeth as she fiddled with a stubborn series of mechanical ‘hands.’ Nothing new. The situation reminded her of the ‘shop back on Mars; it had the same ever-present scent of copper and industrial sealant. All that was missing was her dad’s ancient tunes blasting through some shitty speakers… Hold on…
The modular component in her grip was successfully attached with a resonating thock. Tracy squirmed out of the dim wire-filled crevice, trying her best to not rip her only tank-top on any bolts or corners, and getting a face-full of the bright flood-lights illuminating the workshop. She scowled and blocked out the searing light with a hand, but she was a bit too late to avoid going half-blind.
“Are the mechanical manipulators in?” Harrison grunted, poking his head out underneath the printer’s floor-adjacent maintenance hatch. She looked down at him as she tried to blink off the spots in her vision. His hair was messy, barely kept in line by his habit of combing through it with his fingers. The areas around his eyes were dark and sunken… Guess that’s what two all-nighters did to a man. He’d be seeing the hat man or start hallucinating if he didn’t get any sleep soon… but then again, the two of them were so close to finishing the fabricator…
“You bet.” She gave him a thumbs up, slamming the panel cover closed. “Feel free to test it.”
He nodded and slid back underneath the machine. “Gotcha”
She gently stepped off the stool and slid off the side of the desk, stretching herself out. If her piss-poor sitting posture or her tank-top puppies hadn’t already fucked her spine up, bending over backward to build this fabricator sure as hell would. She sat down next to the panel where Harrison resided, resting her back against the fabrication tower. Her excited voice broke the muffled noises of the engineer’s work. “So… Harrison?”
“Hmm—”
“—Mind if I play some music?”
The sounds from the hatch stopped, followed by his muffled, shocked tone echoing from beneath the fabricator. “You have music!?”
She smirked at seeing the expression on his face when his head popped out again. “I sure do… Did you seriously not download any to your data pad?”
He slipped out from beneath the fabricator fully, huffing as he took a knee beside her. The scent of melded rubber, wire, and his liquid labor reached her nose not-so-unpleasantly. “You would not believe how much of a pain it is to repair an entire barracks without it… So, yeah, I didn’t.”
“Sooooooooo, whatcha wanna listen to? I’ve got almost everything on here—besides the super niche, of course.” She pulled her data pad out, swiping to the massive music folder
“You wouldn’t like the kinda music I listen to; It’s ancient.”
She gave him a lighthearted, annoyed glare. “Welcome to the club… Now what’ll it be?”
“It’s Old Earth kind of ancient… but alright” He looked up at the ceiling in thought, lips pursed. “Do you have anything from Styx or Sweet?”
She stared at him incredulously, her smirk turning into a fully-fledged smile. “Oh my God. You are an absolute dork! You actually listen to Golden Age music?”
His brows raised, accusatory. “And you somehow know exactly who those bands were and what age of Old Earth music they came from?”
She smugly leaned in closer. “That’s because I’m just as much of a nerd with that kinda music as you apparently are.” She quickly looked upward, addressing the workshop AI. “Sebas, connect nearby speakers to my data pad’s audio.” Tracy elbowed the engineer lightly as the PA system chirped its affirmation. “Now, Mr. Golden Age music, which albums do ya want me to queue up?”
- - - - -
The two of them listened to music for hours, tossing on songs they liked as they came to mind while they worked. Harrison had a ton of recommendations that spanned all over the Golden Ages and some twenty-first century classics. She didn’t even know half of them, but she was vibing either way, adding on her own taste by intermingling some older rock tracks and newer electronic beats. The playlist was steadily built up as the day went on. Thank God her dad showed her a vast array of tunes; she might not have been able to keep up with the engineer if her old man hadn't.
It made the work go by so fast, their conversations blurring as they jumped from topic to topic. They discussed whatever came to mind—old hobbies, old jobs, and old interests. A lot was left behind in Sol… At least she knew that the only other human on the planet was more interesting than a soulless workaholic. It turned out that he was a pretty big history buff, and he apparently read a lot about the colonization of the Sol system and the various wars of independence thereafter. Curious, she asked where the interest stemmed from, and he explained that his grandfather was an admiral in the Slavic-Europan deep-ice submarine fleet, which explained how Harrison’s mother was able to afford to immigrate to Mars from Europa.
He could also play an acoustic guitar, and, unfortunately for Tracy, he wasn’t even the slightest bit interested in printing one out, citing that it was a waste of time and material that would be better used elsewhere. That didn’t stop her from writing a note on her data pad to do so later, though. She hadn’t seen someone play one of those in years—the last time was probably in some old music video from the early twenty-second century. What a shame. She would have liked to hear some of the Europan songs his grandmother taught him.
On the bright side, the man seemed to take an interest in her odd hobbies. He brought up the folder of 3D models that she accidentally uploaded to the inter-module system and asked where she got the inspiration for what was in it. Boy, was he not ready for her ‘WarHalberd40k’ lore dump. Props to the guy for not standing up and leaving the workshop throughout her rambling. He even asked questions about the different factions and their weapons, which she was more than happy to talk about.
She also ended up going over the other franchises and hobbies she was interested in, such as robotics and the like. The only interruptions to their chat were the occasional Akula or Craftsman asking for insight regarding the various tasks he had allotted to them, or Shar coming in to check up on Harrison between guard shifts.
The new dynamic of the group was pretty interesting, to say the least. Tracy hadn’t been out to interact with the whole lot of Malkrin, but she definitely noticed how they treated the engineer. They’d started to look up to him in a way ever since he started showing off technology. In a little over two days, the man had shown them that he could provide the materials for a brick house, fine clothing—especially by the alien’s standards—armor, and delicious food. That wasn’t even mentioning the other benefits the technician heard a few of the ‘banished’ talking about over their meals: heating, electric lights, and other assorted machines.
She’d be feeling pretty happy about herself if she was in his position, having so many look up to him and be grateful at the same time. He seemed to view it a lot more robotically, however, only striving to get the basics done. Luckily for him, his basics were their luxury.
That wasn’t all there was to the topic; the engineer lamented about how the colony was going through food just as quickly as materials. The meals weren’t the direct issue he had, more that he had to start focusing on long-term resource harvesting rather than directly preparing for a literal horde of monsters—which wasn’t exactly ideal. It was a good thing that they just so happened to take on an influx of Malkrin then…
Either way, they finally finished the ‘totally legal modification’ for the fabricator, meaning they could at least partially address the latter half of his worries. The whole process of ripping out an old printer and replacing the parts for a new one felt a lot easier than she imagined… even if it took her at least forty-eight hours to complete it… with help from Harrison. Maybe that was why it felt so easy… She supposed the colony overseers didn’t choose the man for no reason, so his skills made sense.
“So… what do we want to print out first?” Tracy questioned, having finished testing the last major component.
The engineer stretched his arms up into the air and rotated his shoulders, then pulled back the desk’s chair and took a seat. “I’ve had just one thing in mind since the start of this whole project.”
Her brows raised in a mix of excitement and curiosity. She leaned forward, looking at the computer monitor from over his shoulder. “Oh? What’s that, then?”
A smirk formed along his cheek, the computer mouse rapidly clicking through the blueprint folder. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about what kind of firearm we need since I started dabbling in belt-fed weapon systems.” He opened one final file, a short loading bar preceding the exploded assembly view of… “An M2 Browning machine gun. It’s more than powerful enough to kill in one shot, while also being capable of fully-automatic fire, with a capacity of however many rounds we want in a belt-box.”
“Uh…huh…” She gave a skeptical nod and took a step back, not exactly sold on the idea. “It looks ancient. It’s kinetic, right? Why aren’t we using energy-based weapons? Don’t we have a gunpowder shortage coming up?”
He moved his chair off to the side to look back at her. “We just can’t; Simple as. We’ll need who knows how many more AI cores before we can get started on that level of equipment, Trace,” he huffed, returning his gaze to the specifications of the firearm. “This isn’t the most ‘modern’ weapon we can make, but its twenty-first century counterpart helps with an improved design… somewhat. And, as I said before, it should be more than capable of killing a bug in one shot, so Shar can just tap-fire it to save ammunition.”
Her head tilted quizzically. “Shar?”
“Yup,” he returned confidently. “It’s the perfect weapon for her.”
She raised a brow. “How so?”
He held his hand up, counting his reasons on his fingers. “She’s always on the front line with a shield, she can absolutely handle the weight and recoil, her four arms make reloading it simple, plus she’ll need something with range and power that isn’t a spear. So, why not? And, if for some reason, she doesn’t want to use it, we can just convert it into a turret—which is something I was planning on doing anyways with however more M2s we print out later.”
“I doubt she’ll say no to any gun you give her,” Tracy chuckled while shaking her head, inadvertently causing her bangs to cover her eyes.
“Fair enough,” he conceded with a bob of his head. “What do you think, then? What kinda weapons do you have in mind?”
She reapplied her goggles into an impromptu hairband, feeling a smirk cross her face. “Thought you’d never ask. What purpose do we need these guns to fulfill? Hordes I’m guessing?”
“That’s the idea, yeah. That doesn’t mean they all need to be machine guns, though.” He tapped the belt-fed shotgun beside him.
“Well, lemme see what we’re working with first.” She suddenly stepped forward, leaning over Harrison’s seat to access the keyboard and mouse. Her arms briefly rubbed against him, forcing him to roll his chair backward. She suppressed a giggle at seeing his incredulous frown.
Her eyes quickly traced the hundreds of individual files, clicking through all sorts of folders, each arranged from pre-twenty-first century ‘antiques,’ to more modern iterations of kinetics and particle weaponry. There was… a lot on there—almost too much to reasonably comb through. Why? Did the colony overseers just say ‘fuck it’ and put whatever they could find on here? Were they expecting the pioneers to make a museum of everything?
She sighed, standing up straight and facing Harrison. “Y’know, I’m actually impressed you managed to find that M2-whatever in there…”
He shifted in his seat, resting an elbow on the desk. “Yup, there’s a lot. I’m almost tempted to just make several of those machine guns and just call it a day, but I feel like that’d be too much of a strain on resources, no?”
“I don’t really know enough about how you fight those spider-crab things, or how to get more gunpowder, so… maybe?” She shrugged, biting her cheek in contemplation. “You might just wanna make a few smaller caliber weapons… like, uh… those old kinetic service rifles. If your pump-action shotgun works fine, I’m sure some normal guns would work just fine for now, right?”
He hardily gripped his firearm, hauling it up to his lap. “Depends on what you mean by ‘smaller caliber.’ The whole reason why the KS-23 here works—” he pulled out a massive shell from the ammo belt, displaying it on his palm. “—is because the twenty-three-millimeter round has enough energy transfer to mess up any bug's shell and insides. I’d say the smallest rounds we could use would be point-two-forty-three caliber to get any similar results.”
Brief flickers of grungy orange shells and gnashing teeth marred Tracy’s sight. She forcibly suppressed them, distracting herself with dry humor and a strained laugh. “Guess those fuckers can really take a punch, huh?”
He shook his head somberly. “I couldn’t imagine going up against them without a gun… Anyway, I like your idea of a standard rifle for now. Then, when we have some product lines up, we can go a little more in depth into personal weapons.”
“So are you gonna take one?” She hopped up on the desk, letting her legs swing off the side.
“Don’t think so, no. I’ll stick with my shotty.” The internals of the heavily modified weapon rattled as he held it up and inspected it. “Doesn’t mean I’ll keep it as is. I’m thinking of printing a laser aiming module so I can point-fire it accurately, and maybe a melee-oriented muzzle brake or a lighter chassis to reduce weight… Not sure though.”
She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees, her cheeks in her palms. “Melee-oriented? Oooooh, like a chain-sword or something?”
His short chuckle coerced a smirk to her face. “No, not like that. More something to use as a bludgeoning tool. Right before the blood-moon, I ended up getting just as much use out of this shotgun as a hammer than as a… well, a shotgun.”
“That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. So are you just gonna make the barrel into a giant bayonet?”
He nodded. “Not exactly a bayonet, but something more like a door-breaching break.”
A short silence settled on their conversation, the faint sounds of the fabricator’s hum and distant woodwork coming to light. Right, there was an outside world… She’d been too caught up talking to Harrison for however many hours it had been. She wondered how successful the fisherwomen were in collecting, and how things had been for the others working on the wood storage shack. Maybe it was already completed? The sun peered through the cargo bay door, proving that it was only about midday. What else would they work on today?
“Hey,” she ventured.
“Hm?” the engineer hummed, his eyes focused on the monitor beside the technician.
She scooted closer to his keyboard. “What’re we doing after this?”
“What do you mean?”
She leaned backward, propping herself up on two hands. “Project wise; what’s the next big thing?”
“Uhmmm…” he muttered, interacting with the computer for a few more seconds before finally meeting her gaze. “Well, I’ve just allocated the fabricator to print out the M2, three FALs—wood furniture, of course—then there’s the magazines and ammunition, so we’ve got a lot of time to kill. The next big thing is definitely going to be metal procurement, and— Oh, right!” Harrison stopped mid-sentence, reaching into his backpack and pulling out several finger-sized metallic cubes, a sudden fire in his eyes. “Okay, so a while ago, during an encounter with three colossi, Shar and Akula found a cave with some ‘surface’ metal deposits. I took a piece off to analyze, but never got the chance to until last night. Anyway, we don’t have any machines to examine the ore, so I made use of the recycler and broke it down to its baser components.”
She nodded along, seeing where he was going with his explanation. “I’m guessing those shiny cubes are the metals from the ore?”
“Sure is. So, as it turns out, we have a pretty damn close supply of not only iron, but also, zinc, sulfur, and a small amount of cadmium. I talked with Sebas about it and did a little research. We believe it’s something akin to sphalerite, given its composition and looks, which implies it’s a sedimentary exhalative deposit. That means there must have been some volcanic…”
Harrison continued talking about underwater deposits and ancient rock formations, bringing up some theories brought forward by the now 4-AI-core-powered Sebas, delving into the current land mass’ history and possible ore output. A lot of it went over the tradewoman’s head, but she still listened intently… Honestly, she could have listened to the man talk about finding metals for hours. It was sort of like the podcasts she used to listen to while completing colonist training, but even more personal and somehow easier to get lost in…
“…find some other minerals further down like silver, but it also might be an active lava zone. Again, these are all theories and this world could just throw the fundamentals of geology away as it does for physics. Anyway, sorry for going on for so long about that, just thought it’d be important for getting some metals in the future.”
“No, no,” Tracy assured, alleviating him of concern with a wave of her hand. “If there’s anything the colony overseers emphasized, it was farming and mineral acquisition. Don’t worry.” She smiled, pointing a thumb to herself. “I just wanna know how I can help.”
“Actually, I’ve a few things only you can do. I’d like to make use of your impressive drone-making expertise for a few applications, if you don’t mind.”
The task of keeping eye contact slipped into an impossible feat in the span of a singular second, planting a pang of embarrassment on her reddened face, forcing her to inspect her fidgeting hands. “I-I wouldn’t say ‘impressive’… b-but what do you have in mind?”
She could see him raise a brow out of the corner of her vision. “Well, after what you’ve shown me with the reconnaissance flyers, I’d like your help in setting up a more permanent ‘net’ of them to scour the meadow and parts of the nearby forest to look out for any approaching hordes. I don’t want to be snuck up on… again…”
‘Again.’
She noted his small frown and sunken eyes, both a little more exaggerated than they already were. It wasn’t like she’d deny his request, but the pangs of empathy over their shared situation all but solidified her resolve. It was the least she could do. She could help him. She would help him.
The technician exhaled slowly, taking on a more serious and understanding tone than before. “I… can do that. For sure. What else?”
“I appreciate it.” He gave a wane smile. “I’ll help you with whatever you need for the project. For the other drones, I’m thinking about a small exploration vehicle to map out caves around us and mark any minerals, as well as a submersible to look for potassium deposits in the ocean.”
“So… search bots?” She crossed her arms, confidence growing; those were her specialty. “Depending on how long the fabricators take and what kind of base drones are in the blueprint folders, I should be able to get those done in no time. All I need to know are the search cues for potassium and how many drones you want.”
He quickly shuffled a few folders on the computer, turning the monitor for her to see some scientific documents with various images and walls upon walls of text. “There’re plenty of resources for that on here for what to look for, and there’s always Sebas, so feel free to ask him since he can just sort through the data for you anyway. If you can, I’d like it if you could focus on the submersible after the reconnaissance drones.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll be right on it, then.” She gave him a thumbs up, slipping off his desk and toward her own.
“I’ll bring you lunch in a bit. Imma go check on the others,” he called.
Her stomach grumbled at the mention, her head turning to give him an appreciative smile. “Oh! Thanks!”
\= = = = =
Avian creatures chirped from their perches in the trees nearby. The wind softly rustled red leaves as grass gently gave way to calculated footfalls. A warm sun laid its light on Shar’khee’s neck. It was surprisingly pleasant, were one to take the time to notice. The mainland was a confusing place for the paladin, with its disparate representations of nature contrasting so heavily. Some days were filled with blood and ravenous beasts, while others were left within the domain of simplicity and beauty. She was content to have the latter, yet it felt like a facade veiling the former—a soft exterior covering the maliciously spiked interior. Never could she leave herself to carelessness, no matter how welcoming it might be.
Hence why she worked to ensure the safety of the star-sent’s castles and their inhabitants, her days largely spent patrolling for any roaming swarms that may wish to cause them harm. She typically used the routine to think, but today offered little in the way of solitude. This time, she was accompanied by the previously banished guardswoman, and was tasked with instructing the new one, though the specifics of what such lessons should entail were vague. Still, Shar’khee did all that she could so as not to disappoint Harrison, so she could only attempt to meet his expectations of her.
She told the yellow-skinned female of the threats that the settlement faced, how one was to defeat them, and what to expect from the beasts. The guardswoman was directed to practice her form with the spear in both thrusts and throwing for some time afterward, proving herself to be well-built. Such was expected of her profession after all.
It was pleasing to have another capable of patrolling the settlement’s outskirts for swarms, as it would greatly impact how effectively the colony could react to such a threat. If her routine was to suffer for the colony’s well-being, she was happy to show the new one her patrol route and note what to look out for.
The guardswoman was not a perfect student, however. Shar’khee never addressed it directly, but the yellow-skinned female obviously discredited the danger posed by the abhorrent, not-so-subtly shrugging off any warnings.
…That was until they stumbled upon the ‘hyena-boars,’ as Harrison called them.
The beasts resided in a clearing not too far from the castles, carelessly meandering across the sea of tall grass. Shar’khee quickly crouched, dragging the guardswoman down with her. Once she assessed that the creatures were not an imminent danger, she decided it would be an excellent opportunity to show the new one how to properly engage a threat. She was about to propose the idea, yet her speech was silenced just as swiftly.
Orange flashes darted through the trees around the glade. Taloned feet and gnashing teeth tore across the ground toward the unsuspecting beasts at the center. It was much too late for them. They were slow. Surrounded. Unaware. It was as quick as it was vicious, the forest’s reds turning a deeper crimson hue in a moment's notice underneath the abhorrent’s brutality.
Gangly monstrosities gnawed and ripped at the dead creatures, brief glimpses of raw flesh and white bone protruding from the small spaces between the clumped-up beasts. Repulsive wet splatters of blood and gore overlapped the calm noises of the forest, the grisly scene serenaded by the softest of nature’s symphonies. It was a sickening juxtaposition.
Shar’khee bit back the unease and steeled herself. They were within twenty paces—close enough to smell the abhorrent’s vile stench of rot and bile, yet far enough so as not to be noticed. She briefly considered backing away and retreating, her focus bouncing between the different avenues of escape, or how to cover her footst—
Crack.
Several sets of feral, eyeless maws snapped in their direction, the blood dripping off freshly dampened teeth. The guardswoman gasped, Shar’khee’s gaze following to see the mistake: a singular broken branch crinkled as a yellow-colored foot raised off the splintering twig.
The paladin exhaled sharply and smoothly stood up, brandishing two spears and her shield. Her glare settled on the still crouching guardswoman. “You are to stay behind my shield and let them appr—ch. Rem—ber what I have told you. Aim for their maws when you thrust y—r lance.”
The other female nodded, shakily pulling out her own weapons with unsteady placement hampering her grip. There was an obvious nervousness to her gaze. Hesitance. That would not do.
Shar’khee faced the prowling abhorrent her knuckles shifting hue as she prepared for their advance, for there was no chance that they wouldn’t. True to her experience, the stalking turned to a gallop with several clicks of grotesque tongues, the swarm bolting toward her as one. She snarled and slammed her bulwark into the ground, letting the approaching beasts skewer themselves amongst its spikes.
There were only ten—a paltry amount. She had defended against magnitudes more, and yet she still stood. What is more, they were mindless. Uncoordinated. They would be but stains in the cloth she used to clean her armor. Perhaps, if they were fortunate, they might leave a furrow in her shield to remember them by. Her arms tensed as the first leapt.
One by one, the abhorrent fell, their repulsive green blood splattering under her thrusts. Each awaiting corpse tore across the grove’s grass, lunging to their deaths with gaping maws and unfeeling hunger, yet she did not yield. Their shells were crushed by her shield and impaled by her Goddess-blessed spears, becoming but one more smear across their surface. Ten motionless lumps lay before her, seeping their ichor into the soil, none having passed the barrier she became. Dead, just as the Creator intended. She remained vigilant for a few moments longer, watching for any more of the disgusting creatures.
None showed themselves, finally allowing blood to flow to her fingers once again. The shield’s heavy presence weighed down her back, the blood flicked off of her spears before she returned them to their place.
“Are y–u well?” Shar’khee addressed the frozen Malkrin, wiping away the splatter on her bracers. The guardswoman stared at the small pile of deceased creatures, her heavy breaths and widened eyes moving from the spear from her singular kill. The paladin huffed. “We are fort—ate that there were so few.”
“F-Few? God help us…” Her horrified, stunned gaze slowly met the paladin’s. “Y-You said there were hundreds on the crimson nights? H-How do you… They were s-so fast.”*
”As I h–ve warned,” Shar’khee affirmed.
“You are a paladin! You all exaggerate your feats… I thought it was just a facade!”
“I have no r—son to lie,” she returned tersely, shrugging off the insult to her station and shaking her head. “The mainl—d is far more dangerous than ten gnash—g beasts; more so than that of your island hamlet. Pick yourself up. We m—t inform the others of this incursion.”
The yellow-skinned female snarled, furrowing her brows at the ground in frustration. At whom…? Shar’khee? Herself? Regardless, the female promptly gathered her composure, pushing air through clenched jaws. A step forward had her feet splash in the small pool of blood, the Malkrin nodding toward the paladin to continue back to the castles.
“…for the village.”
Shar’khee paused in her stride and faced her, frowning at the determination and anger leaking through the intent. “W—t was that?”
Her question was returned with honesty, a huffed voice marred by vexation. “Paladin, how am I to defend my village-mates as I am now?”
“‘As you are now?’ What do you m—n?”
The guardswoman stared down at her spear, wood creaking under her grip. “I have faltered before what you deem a paltry threat, and the thought of an even greater one sows dread deep within my bones. I wish… I wish to be better prepared to defend those of my village. I cannot help but see their faces on those of the furred creature in the clearing, and yet, even if I am so close, I am just as unable to protect them.”
Shar’khee stared down the yellow female, a long gaze taking in a rare showing of sincerity. “Y—r fears are one we all share, new one. Do not be ashamed of them. All t—t matters is that you do not let them rem—n mere fear, but make them your strength. So tell me, do you wish to impr—e? To ensure they do not fall while you are support—g them?”
The yellow-skinned female released a shuddering breath that bled off the worst of her indecision, a newly invoked flame flaring within her visage. “I do, paladin. I seek to protect and to be of use.”
“Then, if you wish to make y—rself resilient in the face of all that opposes us, it would be my undertak—g to forge you anew. Fortunately, Harrison has ordered such already, and his guidance shall prove ever useful, should you pursue it.”
The guardswoman shuffled in place at the star-sent’s mention, her eyes slipping downwards. “He is of a great many resources, but I would rather receive your teachings than those of a craftsman… or that of a male, deity-sent he might be.”
She placed a palm on the female’s shoulder. “He is far more than you might ever k—w. Regardless of if you ac—pt his guidance, I commend your conviction. However—” Her hand gripped tighter, though not enough to instill hostility. “—understand that you are protecting more than just your vi—age-mates.”
The new one nodded, staring up at the paladin with stallwart resolve. “Of course. I shall be in your tutelage, then.”
Shar’khee smiled. “T—n let us begin.”
\= = = = =
Akula was becoming increasingly certain that she knew how her parents once felt. The green-skinned fisherwoman was currently rotating between the many tasks placed upon her, guiding the newcomers through the minutia of their tasks so they might live up to the potential Harrison saw within them. She was gratified to have her own talents recognized by the Creator, but it also placed a great many responsibilities in her talons. Of course, she handled each new addition with finesse befitting her heritage, never once balking from the increasing demands. If anything, she felt validated; it was required of her as a female anyway, was it not? The more feminine-appropriate labor and management one undertakes, the higher authority they were granted.
It began with a simple assignment to oversee the chef’s introduction to the star-sent’s provided cooking appliances. As fascinating and convenient as utilities were, she held no interest in preparing any more food than she already had, but teaching another to operate the machines would alleviate such requirements of her. She reluctantly accepted the task when it was proposed, especially considering the fact that Harrison was much too busy with his other projects to bother with something as benign as cooking. His work was more valuable elsewhere.
The task itself went well, and the pink-skinned chef was quick to pick up on the use of the various kitchen devices, as well as the smoker. A grin had grown when she considered the possibility of all males understanding such domestic things readily, yet her mirth at removing the masculine job required of her was short-lived. Despite the newly initiated Malkrin’s success, Harrison had Akula frequently return to oversee the numerous cooking operations being conducted. That was in tandem with the back-to-back fishing trips made by both herself and the newly acquired females.
…Which was something else the green-skinned cycle-worshipper was ordered to oversee.
She had left the chef to his devices after producing another batch of partially seasoned meals, returning to the Creator with hopes of a break. He applauded her efforts with a nod and tersely spoken appreciation, then quickly pushed two spearguns into her hand and directed her to the ocean, where the twins were ‘working with jack shit,’ as the busy male said. She was to give the fisherwomen the tools and make sure they were used properly, and offer additional assistance in acquiring ‘enough fish to have us fed for a little bit.’
So, she left to complete the given task, feeling somewhat appreciative that her speargun was of superior quality to those she would be delivering—the newcomers were only afforded the lesser, roped-bolt version. It was only natural that she was in possession of their greatest assets, of course; the star-sent saw her as the only one capable of wielding such fantastic ammunition, showing trust that was rightfully placed in her. That did not mean the gray-skinned females were unsatisfied with their own gifts, however. The twins were swiftly caught up on the ‘manual of arms’ and sent to work, somehow managing to keep up with Akula in spite of their land-based origins. The two were fast enough to outpace the cycle-worshipper in sheer speed, but their lack of numerous winters spent traversing deeper waters meant they required frequent rests, breaking the ocean’s surface after every third captured fish or so.
Still, she had to appreciate their dedication to their task. They never complained about Akula pushing them further to reach the star-sent’s vague objective. Such a task was entrusted to her—and by proxy, the other two—and thus it would be completed, no matter how much her comfortable bed… couch called her tiring muscles.
The group of three hauled net after full net of fresh meat to the chef—and sewist, who later joined him—forcing him to relegate much of the catch to long-term storage as the kitchen simply could not deal with the surplus. At least three-quarters of the fish were put to slow cook in the now Malkrin-sized smoker. The craftsman had upgraded it with a kit provided by Harrison, who had recycled much of the dining room and workshop furniture to accommodate it. The Creator’s showcased urgency to gather materials was clearly not unfounded… It was admirable how he used what little he had left to ensure food would not be scarce. Additionally, the apparatus exuded an excellent scent for all the survivors to enjoy, the earthy aroma drawing in some of the other Malkrin for their breaks or meals.
Those were not the end of the cycle-worshiper’s tasks, however. She was also required to report on Shar’khee’s progress in training the guardswoman—helping to recycle the small swarm of abhorrent they cleared earlier—as well as the wood storage building’s progress. Indeed, she was advising and assisting however and wherever applicable. To say she was seen all around the settlement would be an understatement.
Nevertheless, she was appreciative to see her efforts bearing fruit by sundown. The processing of their meals from sea to plate was quite efficient, and those that Akula taught were now well-practiced in their duties. The twin fisherwomen dove from wave to wave, bringing fish back to the barracks, where the cook and sewist swiftly worked to transfer the meat to pans and smoker hooks alike. Then, the remnants of the Sea Goddess’ aquatic gifts would be subsequently recycled and given purpose anew as biofuel or perhaps future fertilizer.
The endless onslaught of duties and responsibilities had enlightened her, in a way. She could see where Harrison came from now; having a working project go from one point to another without input nor difficulty was a sight to behold, and it made her swell with pride. It was a surmountable feat to teach the barbaric ground-worshippers to do something properly.
…Well, they were not horrible Malkrin, so perhaps simply calling them ‘uninitiated’ was a more apt descriptor…
No matter the tribulations faced, and no matter how draining her new authority might be, her rest at the end of the day would be one that was well-earned, and it would be had with a sense of satisfaction. She deserved it, and perhaps that extended to the rest of the settlement as well.
- - - - -
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Next time on Total Drama Anomaly Island - Mine! Mine! Mine!

Just another fun little story idea I had. I am still working on Humans are the violent ones but I like to bounce around and experiment with ideas to see what I really like. I also suck at writing more casual stories, as they give me severe writer's block as I try to map out how to make a scene feel genuine in my head, but I promise I'll update that soon. If you like this story and want to see more, then like and comment. I'll gladly continue this series as well.
Start of Personal Log
Humans don't like being told what to do. They don't like being commanded, put in their place, or snubbed. It was an inexorable, inalienable trait of humans, at least any noteable humans, to go against any authority that they believed was against their interests.
Humanity would not fit amongst the stars. Few ever did. It was a trait of most successful species to be willful, ambitious, and to desire more. But once they reached the stars the new (and simultaneously very old) pecking order either quashed any spirit such species had or simply eradicated them. Countless tomb worlds and diaspora served as painful reminders of what became of the nails that chose to stick out. The hammer of order would always strike. There could be no compromise, the very soul of the authority that held the Jurisdiction together relied on a show of unmatched power, or at least the illusion of item.
In reality, the Jurisdiction was an old, fat, and lazy beast. It filled its belly on the corpses of empires far and wide, and sated its bloodlust on the shattered dreams of hopeful cubs. It had every right to, for none could challenge it: there were no new frontiers to explore, nor were there any other enemies to conquer. The Milky Way, as humans had so strangely dubbed our cradle galaxy, as well as Andromeda, had long since been warred over and settled for millennia before humanity had arrived, bright-eyed and with familiar yet otherwise foolish dreams of cooperation and prosperity. The Jurisdiction did not cooperate, nor did it ensure prosperity. Oh, it claimed it did, but in reality it simply took. The rest was just the peace that came with not being the direct target of the biggest fish in the pond. The humans didn't like that, but they had no choice.
Slavery was a common tribute. The Jurisdiction had no use for other resources: it simply took. No, it wanted those who could facilitate that unequal exchange, those raised in a world where the only morality was the one set by your lord. The Jurisdiction was held together by expectations, obligations, and dury more than any kind of shared dream, so when you were ordered to take you did so without question. Humanity was new: they had no niche or value that set them apart, but they had a penchant for killing and taking, so the Jurisdiction gave them a taste of how the galaxy worked. They killed and they took. The humans didn't like that, but what choice did they have?
Humans were strange. They learned, but not in the way most species learned. Most species learned to adapt in a passive way, to adhere to the world around them. They flowed like water, moving past and around obstacles and confirming to the boxes they were assigned too. Humans didn't confirm, nor did they adapt: they made their circumstances fit their desires. They would not move around obstacles, but rather smash through them, and they refused to stay in one box for too long. The Jurisdiction merely saw them as a particularly loud nuisance, but those who faced their wrath knew better.
It is said that when a beast seeks to make an example, it shall humble its rival by killing it's cubs. Children were one of those universal constants that brought entire communities together: the Sok’klar saw their hatchlings as gifts, shaped by the fruitful currents of the universe in perfect harmony. The Yarrack saw each and every newborn whelp as an uncut gemstone, ready to be shaped into something magical. Humanity oftentimes referred to their offspring as angels, or spirits of unbridled good sent by the gods themselves. Children were seen by most of the galaxy as gifts.
The Jurisdiction saw them as a lever to inflict suffering. It had become quite effective at enacting psychological punishments on those that stood up and spoke out. You dare to disobey? You believe you can speak out? Your gifts shall be taken from you, and you shall be without joy.
Humans didn't like this, but the Jurisdiction would have their pound of flesh, and humankind would kneel. And they did. But humans were patient creatures: most species who retained that trait of willful spit also lacked patience.
I had long since become desensitized to the Jurisdiction’s actions: it was simply how the universe worked now, as if it were a constant akin to gravity. Cruelty was the unspoken rule of this seemingly unending age, where our lives never appeared to move forward or backwards, only lay dormant. The Jurisdiction had been the unyielding authority that ruled the galaxy for thousands of years, venerable yet feared all the same.
And for the longest time I was just another cog in its wheel. My name is Kalnuracht Sedjuur-Noumar VII, and was the scion of the noble house Sedjuur-Noumar. I was born into what most would describe as veiled apathy, living a life that could be attributed to the privileged class of feared scribes that enacted the will of those above. I was an administrator and nothing more. And now I am doomed to be far less than that in the eyes of my former constituents within the endless administration. I am the only scion, as is tradition, and without an heir I am the last of my house, our name to be scrubbed from the records, worthless, meaningless, and forgotten.
I am merely Kalnuracht, nothing else and nothing more. I have seen from their eyes, the eyes of the downtrodden, and it makes my crimes of association with the Jurisdiction feel all the more damning on my worthless soul. I am worthless to the world, and this is my story.
End Personal Log #1
Start of Neural Lace Narrative Log #1
They came from the black like carrion birds in the night, encircling our convoy as if it were a dying animal ready to be picked clean without remorse. There was no warning, no list of demands sent out as civilized peoples did, nor was there either any requirement for unconditional surrender nor chance to parlay, as was done so under letter of marque: this was an unmistakable call for violence and nothing else. They sought to reduce us to slag and scavenge the rest.
So, as one would expect, the entire bridge of the ship was nearing a panicked state. This was not the actions of those practicing civility, but rather the common behaviors of despoiling barbarians, the kind that tore their way through the dark reaches of the galaxy as if they owned it.
“Wayfinder, what do your probes see?” Shouted the ship’s sovereign. He was an older Kar’Rowmach, an amphibious cephalopod species with a venerable history within the Jurisdiction going back thousands of years. Normally one such as him would be above me if it weren't for the fact that I was under the authority of the Jurisdiction’s seal of office. He didn't like me very much, but most of his kind shared the same sentiment.
“All dark, honorable Sovereign: the sensor arrays are wailing but the feedback we're reviewing is beyond incomprehensible,” the wayfinder replied with a certain restrained temper in his voice. The Sok'klar wayfinder swayed gently, his tentacled limbs grasping different metallo-liquid braille output arrays, the liquid gallium flexing and reshaping unnaturally to allow him to to take in multiple different sources of sensory output at once, with the primary navigation computer plugged into the cybernetics surrounding his opaque, gelatinous head and plugging directly into his tube-shaped brain.
The Sovereign cursed in Loskat and pointed to his bridge crew while I simply sat in the back, near the Sovereign’s symbolic throne. “Prepare countermeasures and spool up the warp drive, we cannot allow the amanuensis to be taken! He carries sensitive information that only he can translate and transcribe!”
As the bridge crew nodded and began fiddling with their own systems, I preened my feathered hide anxiously. I wasn't a fighter: us nobles of the cloth were the educated minority above all else, not those who waged war or partook in hard labor. Special cybernetics in my brain allowed me to translate triple-encoded messages that usually took a ducal signet codekey or above to parse, but even without that I was a skilled mathematician and logician. I had terabytes worth of knowledge stored within the hardware installed in my head, all well protected of course, but if I were to die it would still be a waste. I could only imagine the damage any malcontenders could do with it if they were able to get their filthy hands on me.
Suddenly, the ship rocked, and the gallium overhead display began to form crescendos like I'd never seen before. “Sovereign, decks A-3 through C-12 are venting atmosphere and our coolant systems have been obliterated,” the Wayfinder spoke in an almost serene voice, as if he was completely unconcerned by current events. I knew they were simply incapable of tonal displays, but it was unnerving nonetheless. “Once we jump, we will not be able to risk another until the vacuum of the void can reduce temperatures to acceptable levels within the plasma capacitors.”
“Damn them,” the armored nautiloid hissed, his barbed feelers coiling in frustration, “May the currents take them. What are our options? what can we see? This fleet cannot fall to the void today, not with such vital cargo.” My hackles rose lightly at the Kar’Rowmach referred to me as some object rather than an esteemed amanuensis of the Jurisdiction, but I bit my forked tongue. Now was not the time to squabble with the sovereign over who was what and what titles I deserved, not while he was so desperately attempting to keep what semblance of order within his fleet that he had left.
I could not blame the crew for being panicked either: wars were practically mythologized now, having been long since rendered obsolete with the rise of the Jurisdiction, and that felt like an eternity ago. Now, either being levied into or joining a ducal naval force was simply another career, more akin to serving as an officer of the law rather than a fully fledged soldier. Minimal training was required, most of it being the technicals of one's duty rather than any kind of combat conditioning, so expecting a fleet to actually be prepared for a combat scenario in a universe where peace was the norm was laughable.
“We are practically blind, Sovereign,” stated the Sok'klar Wayfinder, “our probes are offline, and shipboard graviton displacement sensory arrays have been rendered unreliable at best.”
“What about the particle emission array? Has there been a spike in radioactivity where we were hit?”
The Wayfinder seemed to think for a second, his gelatinous form flexing and morphing a bit before answering. “Affirmative, a jump from negligible to forty billion becquerels along decks A through E-5 on our starboard side.”
“Torpedoes…” the Sovereign hissed, stroking his barbed feelers, “Human Torpedoes. Only those primitives would rely on crude nuclear warheads.” He then turned to his militant leaders on the ship. “Noddos, Rel’ads: organize your phalanxes and prepare to repel boarders. We are bound to be assailed by those rancorous primates, and I want their skulls piled at my feet if they dare set foot on our ship.”
“Your wish is our command, Sovereign,” the two militant commanders spoke as one. Noddos, a large bipedal with multiple sets of curved spines running down his back, a pair of graceful horns sprouting from his head, and multiple rows of sharp teeth in his snout, bowed first, followed by Rel’ads, a marsupial with long saberteeth and thick fur. They both must have been fierce warriors in their own right to each lead a phalanx. They wore thick, semi-powered armor and held dueling polearms alongside their usual plasma casters, and seemed completely unfazed by the situation we were in. As they stomped out of the brightly lit bridge, I let out a quiet squawk of discontentment. “Sovereign, why haven't we jumped again? We are wasting precious time.”
“I am working on it, you spineless beaurocrat!” He warbled back, his feelers tensing in anger, “besides, it's not as if you're the one who will be spilling blood today, amanuensis, so flatten your wretched beak or I shall weld it shut with a plasma torch.
I was about to reply with something indignant, but the ship rocked again, this time causing the lights to flicker and the air to become… thick. The skin under my feathers began to blister, and I became lightheaded and confused. “Seal the damnable vents, initiate radiation scrubbers, and activate secondary life support!” Shouted the Sovereign, “Their nuclear weapons are rendering the ship inhospitable!”
I coughed up magenta blood accidentally, and I could feel more seeping from under my eyes. Some of the crew was in a similar position, but others were more resistant to radiation than I. The Sok'klar seemed completely at ease as he ran his tentacles across his morphic braille arrays before calmly announcing the ship’s status. “I've regained some control over our probes: ten, twelve, and seventeen are active and fully functional, the rest are either still malfunctioning or permanently inoperable. A rapid rise in localized radiation is also interfering with the detection of graviton displacement; we can't sense photon redirection, thus readings will remain inconclusive.
“Wayfinder, damn you, get me some kind of out here! We're easy prey until we can respond in kind!”
“Negative, something has gone awry with our processing hub, I am attempting to troubleshoot-”
And with that, the Wayfinder’s bulbous head exploded in a cascade of opaque lavender blood, covering the front half of the deck crew like a morbid art piece. Some of the crew screamed and shouted in terror before removing their cranial adaptors and choosing to interact with their displays manually. Others died just as quickly, unable to unplug in time as their brain stems fried or their blood boiled. It was a horrible way to go, having your insides neutralized by your own cybernetics, so I was glad I wasn't connected to the system.
“Cybernetic warfare! All systems are to be considered compromised, switch to manual settings or you'll be killed!”
The lights in the bridge flickered again, and the displays went haywire. The bridge crew, which obviously weren't acquainted with working without being hard-linked into the mainframe, moved at a much slower pace.
“Launch missile pods A through F and set to self-target after five hundred kilometers, then rely on their ballistic coordinates to begin firing broadsides! If we can't see the humans due to their meddling, we'll just have to feel them.” Shouted the Sovereign, “and got me a detailed report on the ship’s diagnostics readings. I need to know if this flagship is still capable of escaping or if we'll have to scuttle it and retreat on another.”
“Acknowledged, Sovereign, launching now,” affirmed another deck officer as he swiped across his own gallium output array. I could hear the dull thunk, thunk, thunk of missiles pushing out of their pods before racing off to their intended targets, then the mechanical whirring as the pods rotated to be reloaded by slaves in the lower decks. I was regaining my bearings as the many horrible sensations of being overwhelmed by radiation poisoning were beginning to subside, but I still felt as if I had been microwaved. The air was stale, the crew was horribly sick as well, and even the sovereign himself seemed to be on his last leg. I was beginning to believe that I might die here.
“Sovereign, a message from the lower decks,” shouted a communications officer, his chitin scraping against itself as he turned quickly, “they're requesting reinforcements, something about being overrun.”
“Impossible,” the Sovereign hissed out in a vain attempt to exude confidence, “We must outnumber the humans, they always go for bigger targets out of arrogance.”
“I've received reports that it's not just humans: the primates seem to make up only a third or so of the assailing force, along with some Phaeldaer and Vrex.”
The commander slammed his clawed hands down on his own output array in a fit of rage, obviously overwhelmed by the circumstances, “Then this wasn't just a typical assault, but something more sinister!” The nautiloid warbled, blood seeping from his shell as the full effects of the radiation took hold, “Get Rel’ads on the line, have him divert all spare lances to the lower decks or else we'll lose the only offensive capabilities we can use.”
“Rel'ads has gone dark, Sovereign, his vitals are critical.”
“Then either get me Rel'ads tail-leader or get me Noddos!” He screamed in rage, “don't give me this nonsense! If we don't pick it up we're all going to die, is that what you want?”
“No, Sovereign, I'm simply overwhelmed-”
“We're all overwhelmed! By the tides, I'm dying of radiation poisoning you nincompoop! Get me something I can work with!”
The officer didn't even acknowledge the Sovereign after that, simply turning back to his display. Eventually, the Sovereign was able to get Noddos on the line.
“Sovereign, two thirds of my phalanxes have been decimated by combat with the primitives and the radiation, the rest are in shambles. We must retreat and fortify elsewhere!”
“Then the ship is compromised! Rel'ads is unresponsive and the lower decks are swarming with intruders. We must evacuate the amanuensis to another ship.”
Just as the Sovereign spoke, I heard several gentle thumps rattle against the bridge’s door, and it made me uneasy. Some of the bridge crew seemed to feel the same, as they looked incredibly nervous and some even drew their sidearms. Just as the sovereign turned to give further orders, the door blew inward with a deafening explosion, followed by shouting and gunfire. Several of the bridge officers were dispatched quickly, brain matter and blood splattering against the delicate electronics. Others were shot in the legs, the torso, or in any other exotic yet non-vital body parts. The humans poured in, brandishing primitive ballistic firearms and jury-rigged energy weapons while wearing scavenged, legion-grade powered armor.
The Sovereign was the next to go, but he wasn't afforded an honorable death. He was shot along the arm with a particularly potent plasma caster, burning off his clawed hand and cauterizing the wound, the acrid smell of roasting chitin filling the already hot and cramped bridge. He fell back against his output array, the gallium reaching new highs and lows as more diagnostics and casualty reports were delivered, and he clutched his stump angrily. “I'll burn every last one of you in the foundries! I'll tie you to stakes, cover you in wax and set you alight! Your screams will be broadcasted all over the galaxy!”
One human warrior stomped up and slammed the butt of his rifle into the sovereign’s face, shattering his facial plates and causing blue blood to splatter across his section of the bridge. “Shut the fuck up, you mutant lobster,” the human said before dragging him by both antennae towards the center of the bridge and receiving a stained breeching axe from one of his comrades. “Emmanuel, start recording. We need proof.”
The other human nodded and pressed a button on his armor before lifting up his gun again. The rest of the humans fanned out, holding everyone else at gunpoint. I tried to get up and sneak out, but a human grabbed me by my neck and nearly wrung it out as he forced me to my knees and pointed a sidearm to my skull. “Get down, you piece of shit, before I blow your brains out too.”
“Damnable primate,” I hissed, but he bashed me in my skull with the base of his sidearm’s grip and sent me sprawling, making my already pounding headache worse. Another human shouted at him in a language I didn't recognize, but he sounded furious. The first brought me back up to my knees again, and I complies with a hiss and a groan, blood still leaking from my eyes and mouth and my world was spinning.
The Sovereign struggled, but he was weak from the radiation poisoning and he couldn't exactly resist on account of his lost arm. The human with the breaching ax kicked the Sovereign down and forced him to kneel before lifting up the breeching ax and splitting his chitinous head down the middle with one powerful swing, sending more blood and brains across the floor. “Execution confirmed, take his antennae just in case and we've got ourselves a bounty. Now all we need is that ugly cat’s teeth and the fat hedgehog-thing’s grimy spines and we'll be in business. Although, they do have skulls… we might as well just take their heads.”
The real horror of the situation dawned on me at that moment: they were going to kill us all, or maybe worse. They mentioned a bounty for the commanders, and multiple of the higher ranking ship officers were already dead, their brains splattered against the walls or their bodies torn apart by gunfire. I wasn't dead yet, but that didn't mean much since I wasn't an immediate threat.
“Alright, round them up and bring all the grunts to the hanger bay, then kill the rest,” the leader of the humans said in such a lackadaisical manner that his complete disregard for life almost made me sick… almost. I had seen worse from the Jurisdiction before, but usually that was from me delivering some kind of ordered judgment on a world that had sinned against order. I might have simply been the messenger, but I had seen many of the outcomes. “And make sure to collect whatever proof of bounties you can, we'll need to deliver them to the office to get cashed out. Don't let this be a repeat of last time where Juarez fucking forgot to take a few heads and it ended up cutting our profits in half, the fucking retard.”
Some of the humans chuckled at that as they dragged more of the senior officers away, out of the room and into the hall,where I heard gunshots. The rest of the bridge crew froze in place, different fear instincts kicking in. The remaining Sok'klar corralled together into what seemed to be a singular, semi-congealed mass as if to try and trick the humans into believing that they were much bigger and much more threatening than they actually were. The one Thei’chi on the bridge, an ensign who had clearly thought this would be a simple mission, bore her curved fangs at the humans and growled as they approached, her hackles completely vertical and her eyes dilated. They quickly muzzled and bound her before beating her over the head with a gun stock, sending her sprawling onto the ground. Many others simply cooperated, eyes wide and yet simultaneously empty, as if they couldn't quite process that the ship had been taken and the commanding officers were being executed as the rest were escorted to the hangar.
“Get the damn messenger down to the hanger as well, we need whatever data's in his ugly lizard head, then we can decide on what to do with him.”
I spat at him in spite, as if to try and seem brave, but it was clearly an empty gesture. “You won't get anything, primate! You couldn't possibly crack the encryption!”
The human holding me seemed to wind up for another swing, but the commanding officer simply held up his hand to stop my tormentor before strolling over to me. He knelt down and removed his helmet, revealing a beige-colored face covered in scars, wiry black hair cut down to the scalp, and multiple tattoos. “You're really fucking mouthy for a hostage,” he said before punching me across my beak faster than I could register. I heard a sharp crack as his fist connected, and my head spun again as the metallic taste of blood pooled into my mouth. “I'd advise you to shut up, but I'm sure you won't listen: you aristocratic types are so full of yourselves. Maybe I should have you flogged in the public square until your vocal chords give out once we rip those cybernetics from your head, huh? How's that sound?”
“It won't matter… it won't change anything… the Jurisdiction will hunt you down.”
“Maybe, but I doubt it will happen for some time: they really suck at doing anything that requires effort, even when they're mad enough. They just keep sending their rabid lapdogs to try and smoke us out, and they always end up full of holes,” the human officer said with a smirk, his yellowish-white teeth and green eyes sending shivers down my spine as he drew his knife. “They're just horrible at their job, you know? You've all gotten so lazy and incompetent after being able to just take what you want without resistance, and now that you've met people who are angry and crazy enough to fight back you act as if we're committing some grave injustice,” he placed the knife against my throat, the flat just underneath my now bent beak, “No, we just took a few pages out of your book, ‘cept we've got standards. No kids, for one…” he seemed to look off into the distance as his sneer deepened, “but it's more than that, we don't attack the defenseless in general and we still win against you all in fair fights.”
I went to say something else snarky, but he quickly grabbed my thin tongue with his fingers and yanked it out, blood from my mouth pulling to the floor as he held the blade of his knife against it. “No no, none of that. Say one more thing and I'll cut that rancid little tongue of yours out of your mouth and feed it to you,” he hissed at me, pressing the blade down just hard enough to draw blood. “Do you know what it's like to see a planet turn into a tomb?" he asked me, gritting his teeth, “Do you know what it's like to see everything you've ever known crumble to ash and glass, all the life and the green stripped away leaving nothing but bones? I do. I've seen it happen to countless worlds, and my grandfather always told me stories of how you bastards did it to Earth. He still prays in its direction five times a day, to Mecca, but he knows the Kaaba is gone now, or maybe it's still there, buried in the bones of those who sought refuge there.”
I didn't care for the human’s nonsensical beliefs, but I did care to correct him. “I've seen it before, and I'll see it again. And so will you, it's inevitable. The Jurisdiction will always have its judgment fulfilled, there is no alternative.”
“One day, I hope we can rectify that,” he said, then he sheathed his knife and slammed my head against the metal floor with enough force to nearly knock me out. As I lost consciousness, I could hear him speak. “Take him to the Chop Doc, and make sure the cybernetics don't get damaged: they're supposedly more valuable than any bounty on this ship.”
Warning: Severe radiation poisoning detected. Flush system immediately.
Warning: Neural Lace removal detected, chance of neurological damage high. Proceeded with caution.

Hi there, this will be a bit long. I appreciate you reading it all lol :)
I’m only looking for women
What I’m Looking For:
I’m looking for someone to make a connection with, and hopefully become something serious and last forever :) I want someone I can give all of me to and share my life with. I can talk to you about anything, and just fully be myself with and don’t have to hold anything back. Someone I can share my deepest thoughts with, and most unhinged parts XD. And they also share with me all of them. I’ve always dreamed of being fully known and understood by someone. Someone loving me for all of me, and loving someone for all of them. I have a world of love to give and want someone I can shower in it. I’m a hopeless romantic, after everything I’ve been through I still choose to believe true love is real and I’ll have it one day.
I want something that will truly last forever through anything. “Ride or die” is such a cringe term to me lol, but that’s what I’m really looking for. I have an unshakable loyalty when I’m committed to someone. My love is almost unconditional when I’m locked in.
Only message if you’re sure looking for something serious.
Do not message me if you ever ghost people If you’re not feeling it I would appreciate you telling me.
A little bit about me.
I’m a INTJ 5w4, and personality wise, I’m like 2 different people lol. Emotional and logical. I can be really sweet and wholesome. Supportive, the kind of person that will always be there for you. I’m also extremely affectionate both physically and with words. I’ll always talk about how much you mean to me :) But I also can be a quite overly logical jerk lol. Best of both worlds I guess. When I’m comfortable I can be really goofy and loud, and give crackhead energy, but in the beginning I’m really quiet and reserved. I try to be positive and nonjudgmental, while also being very strongly opinionated XD.
I also can be pretty dark. I have a good mixture of being wholesome and dark lol. It’s weird
I’m a contradiction but I love that about myself. You shouldn’t message me if you’re easily scared away, I am a pretty eccentric person generally lol I can ramble about weird/random stuff, and be pretty extra sometimes. I can talk in a kind of unfiltered way. I don’t want to have to hold those things back lmao.
Important tidbits. * I have a fear of abandonment and anxious attachment style. * I am obsessive and clingy when I fall for someone. (Not in a crazy way) lol * I am left leaning on most things. * Strictly Monogamous * Agnostic atheist. * I have BPD, we can talk about what that entails * In college for accounting * I have a pretty dark humor XD
Looks wise: I’m black, 5’2, very masc presenting, I have a short haircut and dress masc. I am def plus size, but definitely not like huge lol and currently losing weight as well :)
Interests: Gaming, true crime docs, horrothriller movies, I love all kinds of music. Particularly R&B, rock/metal, and Kpop though XD. I watch a lot of YouTube and tiktok. Working out/going to the gym, as I’ve recently started a new fitness journey. I’m kind of huge homebody tbh, wanting to get out more and have new experiences.
Who I’m Looking For:
Looks don’t matter much to me. You can be fem or masc.
Personality wise: I like a lot of different personalities. Some important traits though would be having emotional intelligence, Someone patient and caring. Also having a good logical side is very very important to me. As I said above I’m pretty affectionate and clingy so I’d match best with someone also like that lol. You can be introverted or extroverted. But too extroverted won’t be a match.
Age 22 to 40. I am from Chicago in the US, but I would love to talk to women from anywhere. I’m open to relocate anywhere gay mar riage is legal lol
Thank you for reading all of this. If you’re interested please message me a little about you. :)

I met Luna on a train two years ago. She asked about the book I was reading and pulled a copy out of her bag. She wanted to know whether it was any good.
I’d just escaped from a toxic relationship, so love was the last thing on my mind. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready to date again, but by the time we pulled into the station, my heart was already starting to heal. Straight away I felt comfortable being vulnerable around Luna—like she completely understood me. And in all the time we’d been together, she never gave off any ‘creeper’ vibes. Not once.
Then a few months back, I stayed the night over at her place. When she got up to use the bathroom, I grabbed her laptop off the side desk to catch up on some work e-mails, and the incognito tab was just sitting there.
I discovered a Google account with a photo album called ‘Michael’s EX’. In it, there were 427 photos of my former girlfriend turned psycho stalker, Sadie. There were shots of ‘Sadie the stalker’ with her family, screenshots of her passport, the works. I dared to check her Facebook page for the first time since our break-up. The latest post said Moving to the Philippines, and since then she’d become a social media church mouse, so how did Luna keep her under surveillance? I couldn’t imagine the lengths you’d need to go through to get PERSONAL ID from a person halfway across the globe.
---
Read the rest here

I met Luna on a train two years ago. She asked about the book I was reading and pulled a copy out of her bag. She wanted to know whether it was any good.
I’d just escaped from a toxic relationship, so love was the last thing on my mind. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready to date again, but by the time we pulled into the station, my heart was already starting to heal. Straight away I felt comfortable being vulnerable around Luna—like she completely understood me. And in all the time we’d been together, she never gave off any ‘creeper’ vibes. Not once.
Then a few months back, I stayed the night over at her place. When she got up to use the bathroom, I grabbed her laptop off the side desk to catch up on some work e-mails, and the incognito tab was just sitting there.
I discovered a Google account with a photo album called ‘Michael’s EX’. In it, there were 427 photos of my former girlfriend turned psycho stalker, Sadie. There were shots of ‘Sadie the stalker’ with her family, screenshots of her passport, the works. I dared to check her Facebook page for the first time since our break-up. The latest post said Moving to the Philippines, and since then she’d become a social media church mouse, so how did Luna keep her under surveillance? I couldn’t imagine the lengths you’d need to go through to get PERSONAL ID from a person halfway across the globe.
Read the rest here

I met Luna on a train two years ago. I’d just escaped from a toxic relationship, so romance was the last thing on my mind, but then she sat across from me in the carriage and asked about the book I was reading. She had a copy in her bag and wanted to know if it was any good.
I'd never felt such an instant, effortless connection with anybody before. I took a chance and asked her to dinner, and by the time the waiters cleared away our desserts, I already felt comfortable being vulnerable around her. So we went on a second date. And a third. And next thing I knew, we were planning our second anniversary.
In all that time she never gave off any 'creeper' vibes. Until a few months ago, when I stayed the night over at her place...
She'd gotten up early to use the bathroom. I grabbed her laptop off the side desk so I could catch up on some work e-mails, and the incognito tab was just sitting there. My first thought was: either she's having an affair or she's got a secret fetish.
What I found instead was a Google account with a photo album called ‘Michael’s EX’. In it, there were 427 photos of my former girlfriend turned psycho stalker, Sadie. This included shots of ‘Sadie the stalker’ with her family, screenshots of her passport—the works. On Facebook, Sadie's latest post said Moving to the Philippines, and since then she’d become a social media church mouse, so how did Luna keep her under surveillance? And how did you even get PERSONAL ID from a person halfway across the globe?
Down the hall, I heard the bathroom door swing open. Quickly I closed the laptop and pretended to be asleep until Luna planted a kiss on my lips. “Wakey wakey Bugs.”
I faked a stretch. “Morning Lola."
(At school, the other kids christened me ‘Bugs’ because of my cartoonishly large front teeth; I called Luna ‘Lola’ because of her blonde bangs and heart-shaped face.)
“How about we grab a fry for breakfast?” Her smile didn’t seem genuine, more like she was wearing a mask.
“Crap. I forgot I’m doing overtime today, I’ve gotta get to work.” With that, I shot out of there faster than a bullet train to Tokyo.
Because I didn’t wanna believe the worst about someone I cared so deeply about, I didn’t contact the police (not that anybody could’ve guessed what Luna was up to) and made excuses whenever she asked to meet, delaying the decision whether to end our relationship.
At night, I couldn’t sleep. Every time a hedge rustled outside, I’d run to the window and pull back the curtain only to discover a black cat skulking around the garden. I put this down to my previous relationship leaving me with a mountain of unresolved PTSD.
Sadie the stalker also seemed normal until we moved in together. After that she started picking fights if she caught me talking to another woman, even just distant relatives or childhood friends. The screaming matches went from weekly to nightly, only ever ending when I conceded to her every wish and gave her full access to my phone and social media accounts. I literally needed to grab my clothes into a bag and run away one night, and then I started hearing noises outside my new apartment. And although I never found any evidence, I was pretty sure she’d broken in at one point because the books on my side table were suddenly out of order one day. What hurt the most was Luna knew all this and still acted the way she did.
Right as I reached my lowest point, my close friend Gertrude called and said, “The universe is telling me you could use a sympathetic ear.”
I told her the universe didn’t know the half of it.
I’d met Gertrude—aka my surrogate mother—on a flight to London. Passing over Wales the aircraft hit heavy turbulence, and the grey-haired hippie in the seat next to mine squeezed my hand so tight that my fingers turned blue. After we levelled off, she apologized and said, “So what’s calling you to London?”
“A job.”
A few glasses of wine from the service trolley later, she blurted out, “You know your aura is strikingly similar to my husbands.”
“Uhh, thanks. Where is he now?”
“Oh, he burned to death in a house fire.”
Gertrude’s eyes started welling up. To take her mind off the subject, I said, “I lied earlier. I’m going to London because I fell in love with a Londoner.” I pulled up pictures of Sadie (back in her pre-stalker days) on my phone. “We met in Italy. She looked flustered trying to read a map book so I offered to help. Next thing I knew, we were planning a trip to this place called Orvieto.”
“Michael, I need to know how this story ends. Gimme your number.”
Since then, we’d met two or three times a year.
I laid the whole mess out over pizza. It was the first time since finding the Google account I didn’t feel hidden eyes crawling all over me.
Just as I wrapped up the story, over in the corner booth, a family burst into a chorus of happy birthday. A waiter appeared carrying a chocolate cake, capped by a giant candle that looked more like a flare. Gertrude tensed up.
“So what do you think about all this?” I asked.
She looked back at me and said, “It’s possible your reaction has been a touch on the dramatic side.”
“DRAMATIC??”
“Well consider things from Luna’s point of view. Your last relationship lasted for, what, three years? Maybe she felt threatened.”
“I don’t believe this.” I grabbed a cigarette from my pocket, but Gertrude snatched it away.
“You know how I feel about you poisoning your lungs, Michael.”
“Don’t you start. I got enough of that crap from Luna.”
Gertrude always encouraged me to work through my romantic problems. Ultimately, I decided her love of fairytale romances clouded her judgement and ghosted Luna instead. But I couldn’t escape her shadow. She always felt close. In fact, it got so bad that at a friend’s costume party several weeks later, my eyes kept compulsively scanning the crowd as if she was there in disguise, ready to pounce.
I stood off to the corner until, over the sea of heads, I spotted a beautiful stranger dressed as Jarlath the Goblin King. I took a shot of liquid courage and made a B-line towards her.
Halfway across the crowded room, beer splashed across the front of my Ziggy Stardust outfit.
“I am so sorry,” a female pirate said, patting me dry.
“Don’t worry about it.” Every time I tried circling her, she moved to cut me off.
“I am such a klutz. Why don’t you come into the kitchen so I can clean up this mess?”
I put my hands on her shoulders and steered her out of the way. “It’s fine. Trust me.”
Approaching Jarlath from behind, heart slamming against my chest, I said, “Well this is awkward. One of us is gonna have to change.”
Jennie had bright blue eyes and dimples impossible to miss. Ten minutes into our debate about David Bowie’s greatest album, I said, “You know Absolute Bowie are playing the Half Moon next week. I could take you?”
“Sorry. I’m going with my boyfriend,” she said with a sympathetic smile. From beside the buffet table, the pirate stared daggers in our direction.
“No worries,” I replied, despite the fact I was brimming with jealousy.
The next day, as I jogged off my hangover, a brown-haired lady cut across my path and we both went spinning to the ground.
“Flip, sorry.” I rushed to pull her up by the hands. “I’m like a bloody zombie lately.”
She did a doubletake. “Ziggy, right?”
There was no mistaking those eyes. “Jarlath?”
“Well, Jarlath or Jennie. Eithers fine.”
“Right. Well, sorry again. Enjoy Absolute Bowie.”
Before I could jog away, she said, “Hey, so that guy I was seeing? Turns out he’s a total prick.”
Jennie and I went for coffee. Coffee morphed into drinks. Drinks morphed into a steamy make-out session on my sofa.
But as she covered my neck in soft kisses, my stomach turned. It felt like cheating. So, I put the brakes on things and said, “I can’t do this. I’m really sorry. You’re amazing, but I just got out of a serious relationship…and…it’s just…”
“Hey, don’t worry about it.”
We agreed we’d let our connection blossom in its own time.
Jennie had a playful mystique to her. Within a handful of dates, we’d developed inside jokes and could tell what the other was thinking. But Luna’s imprint was hard to shake, to the extent I almost mixed up the two ladies’ names multiple times.
To detox, I suggested Jennie and I spend a romantic weekend in the Lake District, because after two days of hiking and kayaking my ex would no doubt be a spec in the rearview mirror.
Hours before we set off, however, Luna’s mom called. She wanted to meet and wouldn’t accept any excuses.
“Look, it’s obvious why I’m here,” she said, sitting across from me in Starbucks. “Ever since you and Luna broke up, she’s been acting…different.”
“Different? Different how?”
“I call but she hardly answers. I go over to her place but she’s never there. Now she’s telling me she needs to find herself. Says she’s moving to Australia.”
Her fingers tightened around her cup. “I need to know what happened between you two. And I don’t care if that paints anybody in a bad light. I’m just worried about my daughter is all.”
I told her about the Google account.
“Did you confront her about it?”
“Hell no. I ghosted that crazy bitc—” I cleared my throat. “I mean, I just…stopped seeing her.”
She started crying so loudly customers at nearby tables paused their conversations. I touched her forearm, promised I’d call if I remembered anything else, then set off for my romantic weekend.
But while Jennie and I enjoyed all that fresh air and pub food, a thought nagged at me. Luna adored London, so why move to Australia? It seemed so out of character. Back at our rented cottage, I was so fixated on the thought I needed a smoke, badly.
“What the hell is that?” Jennie demanded, as she stepped onto the front deck.
I glanced at my hands. “Uhh, a cigarette.”
“Michael! Don’t be sarcastic. You know how I feel about those things.”
“…Do I?”
“Uhh, well it’s the same as anybody else. Quit poisoning your lungs and put that thing out.”
“Alright alright, geeze. Sorry Luna.”
“That’s okay.”
A knot formed in my stomach as she went back inside. I’d called Jennie Luna by mistake. And she hadn’t noticed. In fact, her reaction to me smoking was identical to Luna’s—even the snappy way she said the ‘poison your lungs’ line.
I followed Jennie into the lounge, where she’d curled up on an armchair with a Colleen Hoover novel. She was hiding something. What else did she know about Luna? Maybe I could trick her into revealing some details…
From behind, I started massaging her shoulders. “Sorry for being rude before. I know what you said came from a place of love.”
“That’s okay.”
I waited until her eyes drooped shut, then said, “It really is perfect here, huh? Maybe we should stay forever.”
“Wouldn’t that be amazing?”
Her little groans of pleasure, the rhythm of her breathing, it all felt so familiar. I waited until the tension in her neck dissolved, then I pushed my lips against her ear and whispered, “So how about we take this into the bedroom…Lola.”
“Hmm. Sure thing Bugs.”
My hands froze. Jennie jumped up. “Uhh, that felt so good, why’d you stop?”
“What did you just say?”
“What did you just say?”
“I called you Lola,” I replied, my arms frozen in midair. “And you called me bugs.”
“Like the cartoon, right? I thought it’d be a cute nickname. Anyway, I’m tuckered out.” She forced a yawn. “Why don’t we get some sleep?”
As her hand laced with mine, an image of me waking up drugged and gagged and tied to the bedposts flashed before my eyes.
I said, “Sure. I just…need to use the bathroom first.”
The second the door shut behind me, I flew out of the house, climbed in my car, and sped away.
Within seconds my phone started blowing up with calls, followed by texts. Where are you going? Is everything okay?
No, I wanted to reply. I’m onto your sick little game. Whatever it is, I’m onto it.
Luna stalked my stalker, now Jennie somehow knew Luna and I’s nicknames. How? Did all women take turns drawing straws and whoever picked the short one needed to become my girlfriend?
I couldn’t go home. For all I knew, my exes would’ve been there burning effigies of me. I needed a safe place. Somewhere I could lie low until I got all this straightened out.
“Of course you can stay,” Gertrude said over the phone. “I’m out with some friends, but I’ll meet you later. If you hop the side gate there’s a spare key under the kissing gnomes out back.”
Gertrude lived in a detached house in Wembley. It took a bit of foraging to find the gnomes hidden beneath the weeds in the brown, patchy garden.
I needed to shoulder the door open. Inside, a mountain of letters and flyers had piled up on the welcome mat.
Down the hall, a huge archway connected the landing with a lounge, where a bar sat against the far wall, surrounded by upholstered sofas, a low table, and tie dye sheets strung over the filthy carpet. Everything had a real elegant vibe, despite the musty air.
I’d drained two glasses of whiskey before Gertrude arrived.
“Looks like you’ve had a rough evening.”
I said we could talk in the morning.
“Not a chance. You can’t take negative energy to bed. Come on, confession is good for the soul.”
She sat on the sofa and patted the empty seat next to her. So, with a weary sigh, I shared a tale of deranged exes.
“Crazy,” she said.
“I sure can pick ‘em, huh?”
“No, I mean you’re crazy.”
“What?”
“Think about it. What’s more likely: that your ex’s are secretly in collusion, or you’re being paranoid? Look how bloodshot your eyes are. When’s the last time you got a good night’s rest?”
She made a great point; teenagers on the street occasionally shouted ‘Bugs’ or ‘Thumper’ at me. Jennie might’ve come up with the nickname herself. I pinched the bridge of my nose, groaning.
“Look, sleep here tonight. Tomorrow we’ll brainstorm ways you can make it up to Jennie.”
I fumbled through my pockets for a cigarette.
“Really?” Gertrude said. “If you insist on poisoning your lungs, can you at least do it away from my home?”
“Well if I can’t smoke, I’m gonna need a refill.” I shook my empty glass.
On my way toward the bar, a wave of wooziness hit me. My first instinct was to blame it on the alcohol, but there was something else.
It was her reaction to the cigarette. My finger ran through the thick layer of dust along the bar’s countertop. Why was it like the place had been abandoned? Why did Gertrude always pressure me to stay with my psycho girlfriends? And how come she always reached out, as if on cue, whenever my relationships hit problems? It couldn’t be coincidence…
I poured two glasses of whiskey and carried them to the sofa. “So, you’re really against the whole smoking thing, huh?”
“Of course. It’s a filthy habit.”
“Yeah. Plus, there was that mess with your husband. House fire, right?”
“I’d rather not discuss it.”
“Sure, sure.” I ignited the lighter with a roll across my trouser leg.
Gertrude grabbed a cushion and hugged it. “What are you doing?”
“Alright, cut the crap. What the hell’s going on? Have you been sending your friends to date me?”
“What are you talking about?”
I wrestled the cushion from her and held the lighter beneath it. “I want an explanation right now or I’m torching this place.”
This was an empty threat. I wasn’t some pyromaniac—I just wanted answers. Inch by inch, I raised the flame. “Last chance. Why are the women in my life acting weird?”
Gertrude grabbed for the lighter. As I swatted her wrists away, we both got scorched, and for a moment her skin went wild with spasms, a sensation I can only compare to reaching inside a bucket of wet, writhing maggots. My gaze whipped between her face and her hands, which vibrated like plucked guitar strings.
Before I could scream, she yanked me up, clamped a cold, wrinkled palm across my mouth, and forced me against the wall. I thrashed around, unable to move. For a lady old enough to collect a pension, she was crazy strong.
She waited until I ran out of breath, then said, “Michael, please. I’m not going to hurt you. Open your heart and listen.”
What else could I do?
“You were right before. I have been keeping a secret from you. The truth is, I’ve been in love with you since we met. I’d never flown before. And you were so so sweet. You started talking about this other woman, but I knew our energies were perfect for each other. And it’s like I always say, love makes us do crazy things. You can’t begrudge me that can you?”
She looked as if she expected me to respond, so I shook my head.
“But I think we’ve reached a point where our connection is so deep we can be completely transparent with one another.” She took a slow, steady breath. “Michael, all your ex’s, Luna, Sadie, Jennie. They’ve all been…well, me.”
I stared at her, confused.
She sighed. “It’ll be easier if I just show you.”
Out of nowhere her hand wriggled again, then her face tightened, as though the skin was being stretched over the bone. Wrinkles smoothed out and colour bled into her grey hair, turning it brown, and within seconds I found myself face-to-face with Jennie. Even her vintage clothes morphed into a green blouse and white slacks.
“See?” she said in Jennie’s voice, her now blue eyes locked on mine.
I screamed into the soft flesh of her palm.
“Sssh, it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you. Watch.”
Her entire body jerked and twitched, the muscles spasming as she shifted from Jennie to Luna. “See? Think of these as costumes”—from Luna to Sadie—"the important thing is what’s underneath. And you’ve fallen in love with what’s underneath three times. Now I’m going to let go, but I need you to promise you won’t overreact. Understand?”
On the verge of a panic attack, I nodded furiously.
The second she pulled away I made a break for the exit. The thing posing as Sadie grabbed me and hurled me backwards against the wall.
Like a disappointed teacher, she put her hands on her hips. “I’ve been so patient with you, Michael. So very, very patient.”
She blocked off any hope of escape. I sidestepped around the outer edge of the room, towards the bar.
“All those years moulding you. Trying to grow you into the man I know you can be. I really thought we had it this time. For the record, I wanted to do this the easy way. But drastic times...”
I was so scared I slammed right into the cabinet and yelped. Glass bottles chattered together, and then something wet ran down the back of my shirt. It was whiskey, leaking from the overturned bottle onto the carpeted floor.
Speaking more to herself now, Gertrude said, “I’ll just have to keep you here until you love me as much as I love you. Of course, that means posing as you so nobody gets suspicious, but that’s no trouble. I’ll tell your dad you’re moving to Italy. You always loved Italy.”
Pose as me? She'd been killing my ex's and taking their place, I was just the latest in a long line. She’d keep me as a personal sugar baby if I didn’t escape, but how? She was impossibly strong, and the only thing that seemed to scare her was…
Snatching the bottle, I doused the remaining whiskey all over the carpet and furniture. As I flicked the lighter open, Sadie’s hands shot up.
“Bugs…darling…what are you doing?”
I took three slow, steady breaths. “Breaking up with you, you crazy bitch.”
I tossed the lighter forward. Within seconds flames sprung up all around us, spreading as far as the sofa. Sadie’s shoe caught fire, and as she stamped around, unintentionally fanning the blaze, her body writhed again, starting with the ankles. Fat boils climbed up every inch of exposed skin, milky white and with the consistency of frog spawn, like she’d had a killer allergic reaction to poison ivy.
She dropped to her knees, wailing like a wounded animal. This was my chance.
I made a break for the exit, giving the creature as wide a berth as possible. But as I got one foot planted in the hall something clamped tight around my ankles. My chin hit the floor, then I started sliding backwards.
I twisted onto my back. Where Sadie’s left arm should’ve been, a tentacle-like appendage stretched across the length of the room, a distance of over twenty feet. It reeled me toward her like a fish on a line. Whatever that thing was no longer looked human. It melted like an ice statue, with no bones or connective tissue inside, its lips nose and mouth becoming hideously elongated before dripping off in huge globs like melted candlewax. A fire alarm started wailing as the tentacle dragged me through the flames, scorching my arms and legs.
The loose mass of skin reached out and encased me like a mother bird sheltering its eggs.
“WHY WON’T YOU LOVE ME?” all my ex’s voices screamed at once. Whichever direction I looked, silhouettes of faces rose and fell, as if trying to burst through. Parts of them dripped inside my mouth, disgustingly warm with a bitter taste worse than Vaseline.
I put everything into clawing my way out if there. What was left of the beast had the consistency of wet clay and came apart just as easily. I tore away chunks until there was a hole large enough to squeeze through. Then, I crawled along surrounded by black smoke.
At the far side of the room I risked a glance back and saw a bumpy, uneven hand reaching out of a puddle of ooze. Soon I was crawling over the bristly welcome mat, then fumbling for the door. All I remember after that are paramedics wrestling me into an ambulance…
A specialist officer came to see me at the hospital the next morning. They’d been unable to contact the homeowner, Gertrude Huyton, and through his line of questioning I could tell they hadn’t found her ‘remains’ inside the charred house. Like the wicked witch of the West, my stalker had melted. I told the officer she said I could stay the night, and that I probably started the fire by dropping a cigarette.
“In that case, we’ll keep trying to reach her.” He walked to the curtain surronding my bed and paused. “Oh, and I almost forgot to mention, her cat is missing.”
“Her...cat?”
“Yeah. The little black one. One of the firemen pulled it out of the wreckage. The poor thing had burns over its legs but it ran off before anybody could take it to the vet.”
I swallowed a gulp and thanked him for telling me.
And now I’m still sitting here listening while nurses rush back and forth, terrified any one of them might be Gertrude…

Hi there, this will be a bit long. I appreciate you reading it all lol :)
What I’m Looking For:
I’m looking for someone to make a connection with, and hopefully become something serious and last forever :) I want someone I can give all of me to and share my life with. I can talk to you about anything, and just fully be myself with and don’t have to hold anything back. Someone I can share my deepest thoughts with, and most unhinged parts XD. And they also share with me all of them. I’ve always dreamed of being fully known and understood by someone. Someone loving me for all of me, and loving someone for all of them. I have a world of love to give and want someone I can shower in it. I’m a hopeless romantic, after everything I’ve been through I still choose to believe true love is real and I’ll have it one day.
I want something that will truly last forever through anything. “Ride or die” is such a cringe term to me lol, but that’s what I’m really looking for. I have an unshakable loyalty when I’m committed to someone. My love is almost unconditional when I’m locked in.
Only message if you’re sure looking for something serious.
Do not message me if you ever ghost people If you’re not feeling it I would appreciate you telling me.
A little bit about me.
I’m a INTJ 5w4, and personality wise, I’m like 2 different people lol. Emotional and logical. I can be really sweet and wholesome. Supportive, the kind of person that will always be there for you. I’m also extremely affectionate both physically and with words. I’ll always talk about how much you mean to me :) But I also can be a quite overly logical jerk lol. Best of both worlds I guess. When I’m comfortable I can be really goofy and loud, and give crackhead energy, but in the beginning I’m really quiet and reserved. I try to be positive and nonjudgmental, while also being very strongly opinionated XD.
I also can be pretty dark. I have a good mixture of being wholesome and dark lol. It’s weird
I’m a contradiction but I love that about myself. You shouldn’t message me if you’re easily scared away, I am a pretty eccentric person generally lol I can ramble about weird/random stuff, and be pretty extra sometimes. I can talk in a kind of unfiltered way. I don’t want to have to hold those things back lmao.
Important tidbits. * I have a fear of abandonment and anxious attachment style. * I am obsessive and clingy when I fall for someone. (Not in a crazy way) lol * I am left leaning on most things. * Strictly Monogamous * Agnostic atheist. * I have BPD, we can talk about what that entails * In college for accounting * I have a pretty dark humor XD
Looks wise: I’m black, 5’2, very masc presenting, I have a short haircut and dress masc. I am def plus size, but definitely not like huge lol and currently losing weight as well :)
Interests: Gaming, true crime docs, horrothriller movies, I love all kinds of music. Particularly R&B, rock/metal, and Kpop though XD. I watch a lot of YouTube and tiktok. Working out/going to the gym, as I’ve recently started a new fitness journey. I’m kind of huge homebody tbh, wanting to get out more and have new experiences.
Who I’m Looking For:
Looks don’t matter much to me. You can be fem or masc.
Personality wise: I like a lot of different personalities. Some important traits though would be having emotional intelligence, Someone patient and caring. Also having a good logical side is very very important to me. As I said above I’m pretty affectionate and clingy so I’d match best with someone also like that lol. You can be introverted or extroverted. But too extroverted won’t be a match.
Age 22 to 40. I am from Chicago in the US, but I would love to talk to women from anywhere. I’m open to relocate anywhere gay marriage is legal lol
Thank you for reading all of this. If you’re interested please message me a little about you. :)