Kobold King

2 minutes ago, AxeliustheGreat said:

I think it has to do with something about how much Investiture an individual has. Anyone ever notice that Vin never got pregnant, nor any Elantrian? 

That's my theory anyway.

 

Apparently the Lord Ruler had children at some point, so this seems unlikely to me. Who has more Investiture than the Lord rusting Ruler?

13 hours ago, Sharshiblarb said:

A bit off topic, but a cosmere computer game would be awesome. When you die, you are reborn as a different person on a different world. One day you could be an Elantrian, the next life could be a trader in Roshar, your next life could be a steelpush, in Scadrial. 

 

At least 90% of the game would be such thrilling titles as Skaa Simulator, in which you grind for hours trying to sweep ash out of your crops before getting murdered by a nobleman in an unskippable cutscene, and Darkeyes Simulator, in which basically the same thing happens except there's also the possibility that whitespines (which you can't kill) will attack you in your field.

5 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I got approved for my new apartment! 

 

That's great!

 

"Oh, hey! You're alive! That's great."

Darkrose stiffened where she stood, whipping her head around to see the man who'd just called out to her. He stood across the ruined street from her, shivering in place but looking relieved. That lanky body. Those stupid glasses. This was Backtrack the Epic, who was anything but.

She knew him.

She hated him.

He walked closer, happy and oblivious. "Whew, that'ts a relief. If you guys survived then things must have wound down in this place a little. And I bet you'll know where to find the future guy!"

Darkrose raised an eyebrow. "Future guy?"

"Yeah," Backtrack said, nodding sagely. "Well—I think he calls himself Alastor or something like that? I looked into his head but it got... weird."

The man suppressed a shudder. "I mean, I was looking into the past into his head, but he was looking into the future, but the future in this case was actually the past, which is usually my thing but it hadn't happened for him yet, and it just overall got kind of timey-"

"Hey, slontze."

He snapped out of his rambling as though slapped. His eyes were wide behind those ridiculous glasses, and he took a step back just as she took two forward.

"Wha—hey, what did I do?" His shock turned into a shrill indignation, as he shot her a glare that was even less intimidating than his stammering. "I mean, besides, you know-"

"Selling my home address to Lightwards?"

He winced, and he wouldn't meet her eyes. Darkrose barked out a laugh, one without a trace of humor in it. "What, you can't even look at me? Other Epics at least own up to their atrocities, you know."

Backtrack swallowed loudly, and it seemed with great difficulty that he looked back up at her. "I..."

He took a deep breath, and it seemed with even greater difficulty that the fear left his eyes to be replaced with displeasure. "...look, I'm an Epic. Do you know what that means? I don't have to take this. I'm going to go find Ala-star so I can..."

Roses sprung up from the earth. They carpeted the cracked street like a layer of grass, twisting upwards with one another as their thorny vines grew taller and taller. Without any warning there were now black roses at Backtrack's face level, completely surrounding him.

"...so... I can..."

Realization flashed across his face. Then terror.

"...be your number one guy!" he proclaimed, voice suddenly hitting a high note. He put his hands up in the air in a defensive posture. A defensive posture that meant roughly diddily squat.

Darkrose folded her arms over her chest, fixing him with a flat stare. "Wow. You change sides even faster than I can grow my vines. Is that automatic, or what? Is that your—what do they call it—your 'prime invincibility'?"

"Heh... I just, uh..." He tugged nervously at his shirt collar, eyes never leaving the thorny tendrils around him. "...I just know a winning bet when I see one."

"And you're betting on me letting you stay alive?"

"Uh..."

Backtrack trembled, but seemed to force a confident smile onto his lips. He then gave her the shakiest thumbs up she'd ever seen.

"Yes. Yes I am. Because I am an extremely useful Epic to have on your side. I can help you track down anybody, absolutely anybody at all, and I would be honored to do so for a merciful and gracious-"

He cut off with a yelp as her vines coiled around his ankle, jerking him into the air and dangling him upside down. His glasses fell down to the street as he kicked and screamed, Darkrose yanking him violently forward until his upside down face was mere inches from her own.

"Liar," she hissed. His face was white and his eyes were petrified. She wanted to gouge them out—and she would. In just a minute. "I'm not merciful. I'm not gracious. You don't think for a sparking second that I am. And if you think that I want a simpering, lying, spineless sack of crem like you following me around and telling me I'm something that I'm not, then, buddy..."

She leaned in even closer, a grin widening across her face. She could see her bared teeth reflected in his teary eyes.

"You've missed some very important history."

Backtrack's lips moved, but only the ghost of a whisper came out. She was close enough to hear it.

"...I'm sorry."

"I don't care."

She snaked her vines down his legs, slipping under his shirt where her thorns would be prodding at his chest. His terror was so palpable she could practically taste it on his breath.

"Now, since I don't see Alastair wanting anything more to do with you than I do... and since there's really no one I need tracked that I can't track myself... I guess we can start pulling out bones until we find out if there's a spine somewhere in there after all. How does that sound?"

His face was filled with mortal panic and desperation. She drank in the sensation, reveling in every teary drop she saw in his eyes.

And then he booped her on the nose.

Darkrose frowned.

"...what. The sparks. Are you-"

And then infinity exploded.

The sun raced backwards in the sky as though God just slammed the rewind button. Today faded into yesterday and yesterday faded into ereyesterday and ereyesterday faded into centuries long past where Portland was just a forest. Then the forest became a sheet of ice with woolly mammoths trumpeting in the distance, and the mammoths faded into a hazy backwards memory of the distant future by the time jungles and dinosaurs sprung up around her.

Dinosaurs rewound before her eyes, shrinking back into the weird lizards they'd come from. Bizarre forests filled with giant insects flashed before her eyes before all signs of life retreated into the distant sea. Then the ocean raised, and she realized the very land she stood on had once been underwater. She watched the primordial ocean fade away into the barren ball of lava that Earth used to be. She watched that same ball of lava disintegrate into rings of red hot dust circling a newborn Sun burning in the distance.

It was as though she stood in space with no ground to stand on. The stars rewound, hurtling into each other at the moment of time. Then she saw it. Sparks, but she SAW it! Playing backwards before her eyes the Big Bang EXPLODED out of existence, and she saw the birth of all she knew. It was then with a terror she'd never felt before that she realized all she knew was smaller than she could have imagined. Because before the Big Bang, before time, there were powers. Bright lights and dancing energies at play she could no more understand than an ant could decipher the lights of highway traffic. Even so, she knew in that moment how small she was. That everything she'd ever known, the universe itself, was little more than a single bud on a vine dotted with them. That there were more universes than stars in the sky or hairs on her head or atoms in her hairs. That there were truths to the dizzying, infinite reality before her eyes that made even the origin of Calamity or the existence of God seem like a pointless inquiry. That TRUTH was written all around her in a language she could never understand.

She wasn't sure if she was falling or flying. In truth, she was lying flat on her back, jabbering to herself for a solid ten minutes before the impossible sights she'd seen were mercifully blacked out of her memory.

 

 

Sparks! Sparks sparks sparks sparks. Sparks sparks sparks.

Sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks. Sparks? Sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks. Sparks sparks sparks. Sparks.

Sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks SPARKS sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks sparks!

Spark-

 

 

"Steve, shut up!"

MV slapped him across the face, glaring angrily to hide how concerned she'd suddenly become. In the admittedly short time she'd known him she'd never heard him babbling like this. She chose to further mask her worry with some sarcasm.

"Now, what happened? Did Timmy fall in the well? Did you see another stray dinosaur?"

Backtrack took a moment of staring off into space before suddenly shouting at the top of his lungs.

"GOTTA GO! GOTTA RUN! SHE'S COMING! OH SPARKS SHE'S COMING!!"

"Huh?" MV had her mouth open to demand further clarification when a sudden scream echoed from a nearby street. It wasn't a scream of fear. It was a bloodcurdling expression of pure rage and bloodlust that made her hairs stand on end.

"Calamity," MV said with a shiver. "What kind of Epic did you piss off this time?"

"Samrose!" Backtrack wailed, waving his arms miserably in the air. "Darksam! Gotta go!"

"You know what, I think that's a good idea."

She took him firmly by the hand—only because he was in no condition to lead himself right now—and started running.

Whatever was behind them, at least they'd survived it. Now they just had to keep it that way.

David's Dad in a nutshell. (Steelheart)

 

 

1 hour ago, Invocation said:

Could be worse, though: the cast could have not returned.

 

I am glad about that. Overall, cautiously optimistic, and mentally preparing myself for things not being exactly what I expect.

It isn't often that I find myself hyped for things that haven't come out yet. I generally don't watch the horizons for new shows that are going to be making their debut, and almost all of my entertainment was introduced to me by a family member who practically had to strap me to a chair and force me to try something new. That is true of my love of Gravity Falls, of Avatar: The Last Airbender, of Undertale, and even of Brandon Sanderson himself.

This, my friends... is no exception! I had neither heard of Hazbin Hotel nor would I have cared about it until my brother made me watch the trailer and a few of the clips on YouTube. And also it isn't even remotely like any of those other things I mentioned, so don't take those things as related to this recommendation in the slightest. Hazbin Hotel is looking like a unique series in every sense of the word. It's not at all like any of the other things I enjoy, but strangely I still find myself looking forward to it and wanting to see where it goes. If you want to know something it might turn out looking like, it's from the mind that created the webcomic Zoophobia that no one I talk to has ever heard of.

I think it's best to let the show speak for itself now. I'm going to give the official synopsis and then I'm going to link to two clips from the official YouTube channel.

Synopsis:

 

Quote

Hazbin Hotel is the story of Charlie, the princess of Hell, as she pursues her seemingly impossible goal of rehabilitating demons to peacefully reduce overpopulation in her kingdom. She opens a hotel in hopes that patients will be "checking out" into Heaven. While most of Hell mocks her goal, her devoted partner Vaggie, and their first test subject, adult film-star Angel Dust, stick by her side. When a powerful entity known as the "Radio Demon" reaches out to Charlie to assist in her endeavors, her crazy dream is given a chance to become a reality.

 

Fair warning, this is looking like an adult show with bad language, cartoon violence, and occasional sexual references to boot. The clips I am about to link contain some of these elements, mainly the swearing. Make sure you're in an appropriate setting for watching such media, that you're an adult, etc, etc.

This is the official trailer for Hazbin Hotel.

And this is a clip containing one of the show's musical numbers, titled 'Inside Every Demon Is A Rainbow.' And honestly, if even the name of that song isn't getting a curious chuckle out of you, you and I are very different people.

Has anyone else heard of this upcoming show, and more importantly: is anyone else as weirdly hyped for this as I am?

On 1/24/2019 at 6:45 PM, Invocation said:

You're probably excited for next year, then, huh? With MHA having season 4 in October and OPM's season 2 confirmed for next year sometime.

 

I am excited! A little concerned too, though. I heard OPM 2 is being animated by a different studio than the first, and I hate change.

Will someone please explain to me what the oncoming storms is happening in the audio dramas?

 

 

Because the trailer did nothing to explain to me why this is happening, and more importantly, why even a character as awesome as River Song isn't dead within 0.0004 seconds of four Masters walking into the room.

What you are about to see is an actual incident involving Stephen Leeds, AKA "Legion" in action.

 

 

If I switched bodies with someone would I still think like myself, or would I start thinking like them, seeing the world as they do, because my brain chemistry is now identical to theirs? What, physically, would have changed in our respective brains?

I am familiar with both of these characters and I both agree and disagree. They're similar on the surface, but Samantha Carter is older, more mature, and more settled into her role as an SG personnel. Pidge by contrast is much younger, more insecure, and still struggling to find her path. Pidge also has the rescue of her family as a motivating force, while the challenges Samantha Carter face are those she took upon herself as part of her career.

Haven't finished Voltron yet though, and it's been a while since I watched Stargate.

A collaborative piece.

Part 1 of 2.

Blue text written by @TwiLyghtSansSparkles. Green text written by @Kobold King.

Set in a darker universe.

 

 

****

 

Alastair stepped onto the street, and a hundred futures swam in his mind.

They were there by choice, of course. Prior to his awakening, he’d assumed the overwhelming presence of futures, of potential futures and their many permutations, was what drove precogs from sanity. The burden of that sight, he’d thought, would send anyone as far from human thought, human behavior, as it was possible to go.

He smiled. Looking back on those naive days was like revisiting the period of his childhood when he’d thought hot dogs were named for the animal from which they were formed. Almost as laughable as the notion that Epic powers were a burden.

They were a gift.

Portland had not fared well under nearly a decade of Epic rule passing from hand to hand, but a battle never helped matters. He wished he recalled the moment when the simmering tensions came to a boil, when they bubbled over and scalded anyone in their path, but all he had were snatches. Red light. A scream here. A shout there. The thud of a body hitting the floor. A small voice at the back of his mind whispered that he ought to feel something from these thoughts--some sense of remorse, perhaps. People had died, people he couldn’t recall. Perhaps they were people he’d known--

Alastair turned his attention to the futures in his mind, and the voice fell silent.

CorpseMaker was still within the city, or what remained of it. That name didn’t bring the rush of fury Lightwards’ name had (or still did, if he reminisced about those days spent under his boot). But it did bring anger. There he was, another Epic who thought he might escape justice. An Epic who had held Alastair in terror for little purpose but his own gratification.

Alastair breathed the smoke-filled air, fingers brushing his revolver. He’d reloaded on his way down from the Museum of Natural Awesomeness, but if his predictions served, he wouldn’t need more than a round or two.

And his predictions did serve. They served quite well.

******

Darkrose hadn't been to this part of Portland since she was a little girl. It had seemed bigger then.

The streets were a whirl of chaos and confusion, men with guns retreating desperately before a horde of horrors painted in every stripe of horrible there was. Robots would go screaming across the sky, heavy weapons blazing. Dinosaurs were on the rampage, having gotten suddenly and inexplicably even wilder than normal at some point in the battle. Every now and again an Epic could be seen hurtling down the street, leaving carnage in their wake.

Darkrose did her best to rise above it. The asphalt underneath her cracked and disintegrated into dust, opening space for her twisting vines to sprout up ahead of her and carry her forward. Impossibly strong they hefted her far above the chaos, allowing her to traverse the streets quickly and as though the hectic frenzy below her were nothing. It was sort of like a giant pair of stilts, except she could use the lower parts to grab and rip people apart when they got too close or tried to shout some kind of challenge at her.

If she'd ever put much thought into Epic powers beyond how much their wielders sucked, she might have thought they took more getting used to than they did. She'd even had a little bit of trepidation about rising herself up this high. But as it turned out, powers like this came as naturally to her as breathing or sarcasm.

The only real downside to her current locomotion was that she'd left a pretty obvious trail behind her from the direction of Thoughttown, which on a strategic level probably wasn't the best thing in the world since the slontzes with the Dominion would think she was on the other side. She wasn't really used to thinking that way—Epics were the ones who thought about how they could outwit their enemies. Vanillas thought about how to stay the sparks out of the way.

Not that that had ever worked out for her.

Right now she just hoped none of them made it difficult to get to where she wanted to be. As satisfying as it might be to dismember every single Epic she ran into—to pick them up, to shake them to pieces, to shout "Look at me! I'm not afraid of you! I'm worse than you!"--she really didn't have the time for that. There were just so sparking many Epics in this city, and it seemed like half of them had the convoluted sort of powers that made fights take forever.

'Cause obviously she wasn't invincible. Only lunatics thought they were.

She was just really good at killing people. She'd proven it quite a few times now. And as she saw the bank her goal was holed up in looming in the distance, she found herself... excited. Just as excited as she'd been striding into Thoughttown, and eager for the satisfaction she'd felt when she'd walked out. She progressively lowered her vines until she was almost walking on street level in her steady march for the prize.

Years ago her father had taken her to this bank. Not as a daughter. As a piece of cannon fodder in his fight to take the city. It had been a scene that replayed in her darkest dreams for years, at least until the new nightmares came.

Her father had failed, CorpseMaker making short work out of him. But maybe it was time for another Trattner Epic to give it a go.

After all...

What was more fitting for a new Epic than an old grudge?

******

Alastair’s progress toward the bank was slower than he would have liked.

That was to be expected, in the midst of a battle on this scale, but that didn’t make the reality any less irksome. Take two steps, wait for the mecha to pass. Take three forward, one back and one to the side to avoid the foot of a Tyrannosaurus before it crushed him. Had he more time, he might have found it interesting to observe the dinosaurs that still rampaged throughout the city. Lightwards wasn’t dead, not in the traditional sense, but the sheer number of deaths Alastair had subjected him to had left him in no condition to run an electric toothbrush, let alone an Empire. It would be interesting to see how his resurrected goons fared under that.

Unfortunately, Alastair spent more time dodging the dinosaurs than he could observing them, and when he did steal a glance or two, their behavior seemed little different from what he’d seen under less extraordinary circumstances. Perhaps they rejoiced at being set free from Lightwards’ control; perhaps he’d never had much control over them in the first place. Whatever the case, it made Alastair’s approach a good deal more frustrating than it ought to have been.

Finally, finally, the bank was in sight. The taste of vengeance wasn’t quite as strong as it had been with Lightwards. Alastair knew even then that he would not relive this encounter the way he would relive the one with Lightwards, that he would not relish the moment of CorpseMaker’s death the way he already relished the necromancer’s descent into madness. But he would relish it. He smiled already at the thought of holding it close at some date in a future he could not quite see.

Speaking of….

Alastair pressed his back against a nearby building--more ruin than building now, though the lone intact wall still provided a small measure of cover--and scanned the future.

A pterodactyl circling above, sighting prey a street or two over. Little threat to him, unless he lingered too long on the decaying asphalt.

A mecha, clattering onto the street he needed to cross only to turn and go the other way seconds later. An omen if Alastair had ever seen one.

An Epic approaching from the east, carried on vines that sprouted heedless of asphalt or concrete, soaring feet above the road they ruined.

Alastair paused to consider this future a moment. Not because of her powers, incredible though they were. Not because of her face, lit with the anticipation of vengeance. No, it was the face itself that gave him pause.

He knew that face.

****

In theory, Darkrose knew about every Epic in the Dominion. She'd sat in at the most elite, highly classified meetings in all Portland, listening to Lightwards and Altermind coolly and methodically listing out every one of their enemies and all their known strengths and weaknesses. More so than any late player to the game, she had access to all the information she could possibly need.

In practice... she hadn't actually done that. She'd mostly spent those meetings scribbling jokes about Lightwards' hat and the ridiculously buff OC that Altermind had insisted was his real body, and had actively done her best to ignore what the Epics were talking about. She almost felt a bit of regret about that. As far as anyone could regret opting out of one of Lightwards' long-winded lectures about how smart he was.

So really, as far as she knew, CorpseMaker could have anyone secretly guarding the bank entrance. She hesitated. This had been too easy so far, even for a toppled Epic on his last legs. There had to be something waiting around the corner, or behind that wall. But what?

Then she had one of those little moments where you kicked yourself for being stupid, like when you panicked that you'd lost your house key when it was right in your hand. She actually snorted, amused.

She was an Epic.

She decided to use her roses to tear down the wall and every other obstruction in sight.

****

Precognition or not, Alastair was still a lone Epic in CorpseMaker’s territory. Still in danger from the moment he’d set foot outside the Empire--although with the Empire now defunct and the city crumbling before his eyes, the rules regarding territory were only as good as the Epics who still cared to enforce them.

It seemed many of CorpseMaker’s Epics were off defending what remained of said territory, in whatever ways they could--hence the clashing of metal punctuated by prehistoric shrieks. CorpseMaker’s defenses had been reduced as a result, although most people would not call a gaze that killed in seconds reduced defenses.

But then, most people couldn’t see what Alastair could.

A sharp buzzing at the back of his skull pulled him from his analysis of defenses.

Danger sense--one of Calamity’s first and most useful gifts to him. When he thought back to the snatches of memory he still struggled to recover, that buzz permeated every fractured moment. Danger. Danger in front. Danger behind. Danger above and danger below. Focus on the danger. Deal with the danger until it is no more.

The warning was lessened now, but no less dire--and it warned of a threat from behind. Without pausing to see what form that hazard took, Alastair leaned forward, removing his weight from the doomed wall. The simplest move would have been to duck and roll and run a few paces, and under ordinary circumstances he would have done so.

But these circumstances demanded more.

Vines covered in thorns and roses alike shot forward just as Alastair’s jump propelled him onto the half-crumbled wall of the adjacent building. His foot struck, allowing him to bound upward, into the air. From there, he could land safely, both feet atop the uneven wall and balanced as though he stood on solid ground.

The small somersault he took in midair wasn’t strictly necessary, but introductions between Epics were a time for theatrics.

“Hello,” he said pleasantly once the noise had settled. There were a number of ways he could ask the needed question, but the one he landed on seemed the most polite. “You can call me Alastair. And what should I call you?”

*****

Nathan?

Her mind was reeling. It was obviously him—she'd lived with him for a couple of weeks now. She'd know him anywhere.

He was her friend Nathan. Good guy Nathan. Nathan who'd been introduced to her as a maniacal Epic. Nathan who'd been a normal guy forced to date a real maniacal Epic. Nathan who'd looked like he might cry like a pathetic child when he'd been punched in the stomach by a real Epic. Nathan who'd laughed at her jokes. Nathan who'd made her laugh with his own. Nathan who'd helped her negotiate Funtimes. Nathan, one of the only human beings in the world she felt like she could trust.

Nice, wimpy, quiet, breakable Nathan.

Nathan had just somersaulted up the side of a collapsing wall. He'd also foregone his Traveler coat and was rocking a brand new coat and a faintly striped maroon shirt. And his face wasn't meek and terrified at all. He was half smirking, and introducing himself with what she could only assume was some kind of French name.

And he asked her name.

It was such a shocking intrusion of normalcy—or the faux-normalcy that had become her life—that she almost answered with the oldest name in her head. Sam. Somehow that made her feel angry.

"...Darkrose," she said, her face an imperious mask. She'd seen Lucentia make this face enough to replicate it pretty easily. "I am called Darkrose now. And I..."

Nathan. Weird French name. Somersaulted up a wall. Smiling like he wasn't the most ridiculous, dorky, fragile little man she'd ever seen. It was all too much, especially after this rollercoaster of a day.

She snorted. And then she snickered. And before she knew it, she was actually holding her side and struggling to hold in a laugh. "...okay, okay, hold up. Hold up. How... the sparks did she pull it off this time? Did she put springs in your shoes? Is it in the new coat? You can tell me. I'm not even mad, really."

She was barely even thinking about killing him.

****

Foresight brought with it an odd sort of dualism.

Most people, vanillas and Epics alike, were unable to see what he saw as clearly as the world around him. There were moments when this knowledge brought a thrill, a savage sort of glee. He knew what was coming. He knew what would happen. Life was a book, and he was a chapter ahead. He’d felt that thrill while confronting Lightwards, and he could still feel it now, warming him from within.

But there were other moments, other times, when the lack of knowledge carried by the rest of the world brought a lack of patience. The future barreled towards them with all the subtlety of a runaway car, and no one else seemed to notice. They ambled along, oblivious to reality--and if confronted with the truth, there was a chance they’d lash out toward the one attempting to guide them.

Alastair drew a breath, biting back a sharp reply. Sam--Darkrose--couldn’t know. She couldn’t see. She wandered the world in a blindfold, while he walked with sight intact. He had his visions, his sense to keep him safe. Aside from her newfound powers, Darkrose had nothing but snide remarks and biting sarcasm.

A small chuckle escaped his lips. Whatever Calamity had changed in her, it hadn’t touched her. She was Darkrose, and yet she was still the Sam he’d hunkered down in a garish cottage with. Still the Sam who had watched him double over as Lightwards’ fist collided; watched him stagger off to nurse his wound.

His smile had faded. He couldn’t help that, and so he didn’t try to replace it.

“Funtimes can do some incredible things,” he said, striding easily along the narrow wall, his feet finding grips in the uneven brick without trouble. “But don’t tell me you think a coat and some shoes can do what I just did?”

Alastair didn’t need to glance at her face to see that a part of her, perhaps a small part of her, still clung to the possibility. He looked anyway, and cracked a small but genuine smile. He’d have better luck convincing her if he met her gaze.

“Although I have to say, that’s a more creative guess than the one Lightwards came up with.”

*****

It couldn’t be.

It couldn’t possibly be.

Nathan wasn’t cool, he was nice. He wasn’t confident, he was terrified. Sometimes even more terrified than that Backtrack slontze. Who, she made a note to herself, still definitely needed to die.

Above all else that Nathan was, and wasn’t, he was not a man who would even say the name of an Epic without some slight lingering fear in his voice. So when he looked her in the eyes, despite how clearly dangerous she was, and walked towards her, despite how easily she could pick him up and snap that twig a neck, and when he smiled as though she weren’t the kind of monster he’d spent years of his life learning to keep his head down around…

...the only rational line of thinking was that this wasn’t Nathan at all.

This was Alastair. Or… whatever name he’d said. And the other half of that line of thinking, along with his admittedly wicked cool wall stunt, was that ripping his scrawny body apart probably wouldn’t be as easy as she’d assumed.

That made her furious. She grinned back at him. She wanted to tower over him and force him to kiss her boot. She instead lowered her roses still further, until she stood precisely at eye level and only a few feet away.

“Lightwards?”

She was a monster, true. But she was a monster who hated Lightwards.

“Was he the first one to see you like this?” The grin on her lips was genuine now. “On a scale between 1 and ‘Joyous Leprechaun,’ just how badly did that piss him off?”

****

Alastair couldn’t read minds.

He could guess, of course. Years spent learning to read the moods of his Epic masters had translated quite easily into a knack for reading vanillas as well. Sometimes he’d been wrong. Sometimes he’d mistaken shyness for a standoffish nature, or worry for anger. But in most cases, his guesses weren’t far off the mark.

With Darkrose, there was little need to guess.

Her grin was not one of glee, or even disbelief. No, he’d seen it before, as a lowly server seconds from a beating. He’d learned to avoid that grin or, barring that, brace for whatever pain his masters had in store for him. Learned to bear it, learned to work through it, learned to smile despite it when they wanted a servant full of cheer. But he hadn’t understood it back then, not fully, certainly not the way he did now.

It was the grin of one with power in the presence of the powerless. The glee of an angry god about to crush a wayward mortal purely for her own enjoyment.

Alastair wanted to shoot her in the heart. No--that wouldn’t be an appropriate display, nothing an ordinary sharpshooter couldn’t manage. He wanted to smile and lead her toward the raptors entangled with those mechas three blocks away, pull her into as best a trap he could devise, entangle himself only to escape with ease. He wanted to watch that grin fade to dismay, watch as understanding dawned too late.

Instead, he took a few more steps toward her along the ruined wall, his last step more of a small jump as he dodged a hole. Those roses were close--close enough to strangle, close enough to crush--but Alastair saw no fewer than fifteen methods of escape while Darkrose remained blind. The thought alone was enough to bring a small smile to his lips. To add to her frustration, he slipped both hands into his pockets, fingertips brushing the tarot deck hidden there.

“I wouldn’t say he’s pissed off. He was furious, sure, but that didn’t last.” Alastair shrugged. “Now he’s too busy babbling to the air to feel much of anything.”

******

She used to like Nathan's smile. He didn't show it often, but whenever he did it felt like such a welcome break from the fear and the tension that she couldn't help but grin back. If it weren't for him and Revolution she'd have never been able to keep her spirits up.

Now she wanted to pierce her thorns into his cheeks and peel his face away until he had nothing but that smarmy smile to keep him company. Why was he smirking at her like that? What did he know that she didn't? What even were his powers anyway?

"Lightwards is always babbling," she said, matter of fact. Still, she knew he got crazier when he died, and chose to focus on savoring the image of him getting loonier and loonier with every bloody end. It was more fun than being annoyed at Alastair's little smirk and cocky pose. "How many times did you have to off him before you could tell the difference?"

****

“I lost track after thirty.”

That wasn’t true. Thirty-seven. That number was burned into Alastair’s memory. Not every death had been due to gunfire, of course; he might have far fewer limits now than before, but the capacity of his revolver was the same as ever. He’d had to get creative a time or two, but that creativity had been less obligation than opportunity.

Sam. Snide, sardonic Sam, who wouldn’t have survived long working Newcago’s overstreets. Weeks prior, he would have assumed her to be just the sort to become an Epic, if only because her boldness left Calamity no other option to ensure her survival.

She was still there, little as Darkrose would have likely cared to admit it. Sam still reared her head in every quip, every jab toward his newfound power, even if those remarks were sharper than they might have been back in Funtimes’ cottage. The thought kept Alastair’s smile in place, kept his desire to make her suffer for her jabs as exactly that.

“Not every death was the same,” he went on. “And they did grow a bit repetitive and dull after a time, but there are a few I’m sure you’d like to know about.”

“But,” he said, stepping lightly off the wall and landing on the street, “I didn’t come here to discuss the past. Right now I’m more interested in the future.”

He drew his pistol, resisting the urge to cast a pointed glance in her direction. She hadn’t even asked what he could do, though his demonstration had provided a hint. She didn’t need to know his plans--unless, of course, she wanted to offer assistance.

****

He wasn't looking at her. He was even hopping down and acting like he was about to walk off as though he had better places to be.

She'd been trying to keep her mirth up. After all what was even the point of being an Epic if you were going to be outraged over everything? Lightwards and Lucentia hardly ever looked like they were enjoying themselves, always stiff and acting like they had steel rods rammed up somewhere uncomfortable. She'd thought they were ridiculous.

Now she kind of understood. Now that it was her turn to be the most important person in the world, being treated like an uninteresting diversion was sparking annoying.

"'I'm more interested in the future,'" she mimicked, making her voice as ridiculously pompous as it would go. "That's you. That's what you sound like right now. Being an Epic is one thing, but you don't have to be a cryptic slontze about it."

****

Alastair didn’t suppress his entire smile. Just the part that betrayed his depth of amusement.

Still the same old Sam. Of course, Sam had lacked the ability to tear down entire structures with deadly roses and she would have had the good sense to squelch some of her quips, but Alastair could just as easily picture that mocking imitation done by the vanilla he’d known.

“You didn’t ask a question,” he said, looking up toward the entrance to the bank. No one had entered or exited, and they wouldn’t for a few minutes. He had time. “I can’t be cryptic if there’s nothing you wanted to know in the first place.”

****

There were actually a lot of things she wanted to know.

When had he become an Epic? What were his powers? What about Revolution and Remington, were they still alive? Had he left anything up at the Museum of Natural Awesomeness for her to kill? What about Funtimes? Had he finally wiped the smile off that sparking lunatic's face?

"What the sparks does 'Alastair' mean?" she asked.

****

Alastair almost laughed. Of all the questions she could have asked, she’d chosen the one with the least pertinent answer.

“Aleister Crowley. The Wickedest Man in the World. I take it you’re not familiar?”

Alastair wasn’t either, if he were to be honest. His knowledge of the man was limited to a few scattered facts he’d stumbled across while pretending to research a school report prior to Calamity’s rise. But Darkrose didn’t need to know that.

****

Darkrose folded her arms, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

“Neeeeever heard of him,” she said flatly. “Who’s he? Some bottom-of-the-bargain-bin Epic from Newcago? Did he hang out with Lord Snakehands?”

****

“Never mind,” Alastair said, giving the future another quick scan. There was time to field a few questions, though his fingers itched to send a bullet into CorpseMaker’s skull. Still, if that was the best question she had, he figured he’d need to give her a hint or two. “Suffice it to say, his methods of divination were a bit less….reliable than mine.”

****

Divination. That was telling the future, right? Was he a precog?

That might explain why he looked so impatient. She didn’t care for the idea that he was seeing things she couldn’t.

“Dramatic… pauses,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “If you wanted me to ask you what powers you got you could have just said so.”

If he was a precog though, she could test for that. Maybe even see how those powers worked. She began to will a single solitary flower to pop up and bloom behind him, intending it to work its way up and surprise him with a tap on the shoulder.

And, if he just stood there and got surprised by it like an idiot, to pop his head off so she could keep moving.

****

A flower popped into the future.

Alastair saw it moments before it rose out of the ground. Just a single flower, thorns sprouting from its stem but, for the time being, no immediate danger. Still, having seen what Darkrose could do, he didn’t doubt she would impale him the moment she grew bored. The option that placed him in less danger was, sadly, the less impressive.

Without glancing behind, he took a few steps forward, placing him out of the flower’s immediate reach. He then turned round, gave it a pointed glance, and looked to Darkrose with a raised brow.

After continuing a few more paces, he stopped. “You’ll actually be able to surprise CorpseMaker with that trick,” he said. “In case you were worried it might go to waste.”

****

It hadn't even popped out of the ground before he'd gotten out of his path. Precog, then. Definitely a precog.

"...I don't want to surprise him," she said slowly, frowning. She stared straight ahead at the base, once but no longer the most feared building in Portland. The smile tugged at her lips again. "I want him to see what's coming but not be able to do anything about it. Just like Altermind."

And maybe you too, Nathan 'Alastair' Sperry. Haven't decided yet.

****

I don’t want to surprise him, either.

Those words were on his tongue, in his throat, but he didn’t voice them. She’d said it first; if he agreed, it might seem as if the plan was hers and he wouldn’t dare give her even that small measure of power.

“I want to see his face when he knows he’s been had,” Alastair said quietly. “He thinks he’s safe. I want to watch that crumble as reality sets in.”

He wouldn’t cherish CorpseMaker’s death the way he did Lightwards’. CorpseMaker, after all, had never dismissed him as a brave little body better off as a soulless Warrior. But he would enjoy watching the self-styled ruler’s last defense vanish before his once-deadly eyes.

****

Quiet. Sincere. Ah, there was Nathan. Just a bit more murder-y than ever before.

"You're honest about it. I like that." Her smiling gaze moved back to him. "If you'd started rambling about justice or purpose or some crem I think I'd have barfed. And then, you know. Killed you."

Her eyes fixated back onto the bank. No one had come out of it yet. Was CorpseMaker bunkered down in there with all he had remaining, determined to make his last stand?

"Don't make it weird or anything... but how'd you feel about going in there together?"

****

Justice. Alastair almost laughed at the word. In Newcago, it had existed only as a mockery of itself. Give Epics what they want. Let them do as they please. Serve them. Grovel at their feet. Die by their hand. Refuse them that, and the Epic wronged was allowed to set the terms of restitution. And in Portland, even that joke of a law was absent.

“Justice is dead.” He gazed toward the bank, where one of the city’s arbiters of the concept--or what passed for it--resided. “All that’s left is what you can take--or take back.” He caught her gaze briefly. “It wouldn’t be weird if we went in together at all.”

******

“Great! I’d tell you to watch out, but if I had to do that I think we’d have just had a very different conversation.”

She raised a hand towards the bank--the motion wasn’t necessary, but it made her feel cool. Her first clenched, and she created her quickest, strongest garden of roses yet. They moved like extensions of her own will, acting with one goal.

To rip the front of the building into chunks of rubble and to cast them aside.

No more waiting. Get ready, CorpseMaker. We’re coming for you.

****

Just now, Kidpen said:

This is probably what's gonna happen. 

 

flies away in terror

1 hour ago, TheOoklaThatComesBefore said:

and the Cosmere are both garbage 

 

That's not a controversial opinion here... it's suicide.

I found it. The scariest scarecrow.

 

 

 

Darkrose was not the hero of her own story.

She'd been making good ground for several days now. The dead, smoky trees were all a gray blur to her now, and there weren't any old highway signs this far out into the wastelands. But even so she was certain she was going in the right direction. Backtrack's directions had been as precise as they had been shrill.

Black roses would sprout out of the ground just in front of her, supporting her with a strength they shouldn't realistically have and carrying her slightly further towards her goal. There was a wrongness to the way they sprouted up like that, popping out of dead earth or barren asphalt with identical ease. She wasn't really fond of the way they grew, either. Too fast for real plants, they looked like old timelapse videos with the way they'd mature from seedlings to impossibly tall vines in the span of seconds. She knew they had to violate every possible law of physics and biology because of the way they'd collapse into dust as soon as she moved far enough away from them. That trail of dust extended for miles, stretching all the way back to what used to be Portland.

So she had to be almost there. Just a few more miles of desolate Oregon and she'd have reached the tiny little village that dared to have survived. Just a few more and she would make them take a good, long look at all the unnatural wrongness that swirled around her.

Because she was not the hero of her own story, nor of anyone's. She was under no illusions. She didn't pretend that there was some noble reason to be doing what she was about to do. She knew it was evil, and that made it worse. At least the liars thought that they were trying to do the right thing. They weren't, and they were crooked maniacs, but at least they remembered what morality looked like. Not like her. She was trash. Just, absolute garbage. No redeeming qualities. No conscience. No buried screams hidden under all the corruption. Just a slontze who desperately needed a bullet in her head.

Still.

As much as knowing all that about herself should depress her... it didn't.

She was about to do the most evil thing she'd ever done. And there was a grin on her face, because the High Epic Darkrose was really looking forward to it.

 

 

None of them knew what to say.

It was Nathan who put up a try first. With a hesitant hand on Sam's shoulder he told her he was so, so sorry about what had happened. Distantly she was aware of his voice asking if there was anything at all he could do.

He knew there wasn't. She knew it. These words had the air of something that had been rehearsed—no, not rehearsed. Said before. He'd comforted, or done his best to comfort, friends in this situation before. At least, he clearly thought he had.

Revolution was next. She was clearly less experienced than Nathan was. Her face was a strained look of struggling sorrow, as she rambled, unusually for the well-spoken woman, about how things might look like the end, but that she wasn't alone. She had friends who were there for her. That she could find a new path for her life. That she could blah blah blah.

Sam wanted to scream at her. My Mom is dead. If you don't know what to say, if you don't know what this MEANS, then you need to SHUT YOUR MOUTH RIGHT NOW.

But she didn't, because that would be wrong. Revolution just wanted to help her friend in the only way she knew how. And though it didn't work, she was grateful for it. Even if she privately shouted that she should turn around and run away right this moment.

Finally Remington Springfield. He didn't even say a word, but somehow what he said meant the most. It was just a nod. A solemn look in his eyes.

He knew.

Oh, he didn't know everything. But he knew that she'd lost the most important person in her life, and he knew what that felt like. He knew that she felt like a part of her had just wilted up and died. He knew that her life would never be the same, and there wasn't a single damnation word in the English language that could make it any better.

The only thing he didn't know was the name of the Epic who'd murdered her. She wondered how much that knowledge would change the look in his eyes.

"Clearly the work of an Epic."

Lightwards' voice was the last thing she needed to hear right now, but there it was. He stood amid the dusty ruins of the suburb, that perpetual glower on his face as he spoke. No quips sprung to Sam's mind; she wasn't really in the mood to even acknowledge the fact that he existed. But his scowl found her all the same, and she knew exactly why.

"Somehow, someway, a new Epic has blundered their way into the path of the Empire of Light," the self-proclaimed Emperor went on, the sour look on his face bleeding into his voice. "They have destroyed my buildings and buried my bodies. If anyone knows anything about this, I would advise them to pipe up now."

Liar. Not a single damnation thing in this city belonged to him. Even the clothes on his back were stolen.

"...no one?" Lightwards asked again, grinding his jaw in frustration.

For the first time Funtimes piped up. "How would they know anything? They were with me all night."

It was an unusually lucid sentence from her. She'd been as bubbly as ever this morning, and the carnage here in the suburb had done nothing to diminish it. It was only when she'd seen Sam's troubled face that a more concerning expression had overtaken her own, and she'd gone skipping off amid the rubble to make pretty faces out of all the leftovers of someone's house. Acting like an oblivious little girl to pretend she hadn't felt anything from the look on Sam's face.

Liar. Whatever was going on in the mind of Doctor Funtimes, it wasn't all unicorns and sparkles. Even the sparkles these days were getting fewer and farther between.

Lightwards' eyes narrowed. "Are you certain about that?"

"Pfft. Obviously," Funtimes retorted. "My house is the best! I make dresses and pancakes! Why would they want to be anywhere else?"

Sam swallowed. She held back tears through power of will. Her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands.

"...she's right," Sam said with considerable difficulty. "I've never been here before in my life."

LIAR.

She'd managed to sneak out at the meeting last night. Right under Funtimes, Lightwards, and even Altermind's noses. She'd even managed to make it all the way out here in this suburb, in a bold, even heroic move to get her mother and ditch this city once and for all.

She... remembered that much, at least. Then it all turned into a blur.

Warriors. Dead bodies raised up and willed to hold Mom at gunpoint every moment of every day.

Anger. She'd felt angrier than she'd ever felt in her entire life, which was saying a lot.

Light. Red light. Red light crashing down on her, shining so brightly her eyes burned and her soul burst like an eggshell.

And after that, she'd woken up. Surrounded by dust. Dust and blood and roses. With difficulty she'd made it back to the rest of her fellow humans. There... hadn't been anywhere else to go, after all. At least they'd welcomed her back with worried open arms. They hadn't pieced together the whole story, or at least, she hoped they hadn't. But they knew that the Epic Sam most hated in the whole world had murdered her Mom in cold blood.

"Hmmph." Lightwards again managed to sound like the most petulant man-child to ever hold the powers of a demigod. "Well... if that story changes, you all know where to find me. And I expect to be told the truth."

Again he was glaring at her! What right did he have to look that angry? As though it was a personal slap in the face that some other Epic had murdered his pathetic bargaining chip!

But for once in her life Sam kept her mouth shut. Furiously she watched him stride away to discuss something with his lieutenants. He didn't know, not really. He wouldn't have the spine to turn his back on her if he knew. He was probably thinking Funtimes had made some secret alliance with one of his enemies behind his back.

Sam's fists were clenched as tightly as she could manage. So tightly her fingernails dug into her palms and drew blood. The blood dripped down to hit the dust, mixing with the other scattered remnants of the whole world she used to know. With the broken furniture, the broken woman torn in two in what was once a kitchen, and the broken picture frame from long ago. The father, mother, and older sister in the photo were all gone now, weren't they? Only the little girl was still around. As much as it would be better if she wasn't.

She clenched her eyes shut, and her bloodied palms began to suture themselves whole again.

 

 

After a while the trees had started to be green again. Up here in the far reaches of Oregon the turf wars hadn't yet torn everything up, given there were so few people that Epics had never really materialized. You could grow up in these hills and never see one.

You could even grow up into a flaky naive moron who thought Epics were some kind of angelic test for humanity. If you were a particular idiot you might even have the audacity to say the evil ones, which were all of them, were the ones who'd failed the test. And that the good ones—which didn't exist—were the ones who had passed and were supposed to be guiding everybody else out of the dark or some sparking lunacy like that.

You know, theoretically. Not to point fingers or anything.

She was so sparking glad when she finally spotted a vanilla.

He was a lanky specimen. Young, probably as naive as any of them, with long unkempt hair and an even longer sleeved knit sweater. He didn't even seem to notice her coming, engrossed in plucking herbs from the side of the forest trail.

His eyes went as wide as saucers as thorny black flowers started to spring up like weeds amid the herbs he was picking, but they had grown twice his height and surrounded him by the time he had the common sense to try to get away.

Darkrose let her flowers carry her in a gliding motion to the ground beside him, their thorns digging into her body in a way she'd long since learned how to shrug off. She looked him in those terrified eyes and grinned.

"Hey!" she said cheerfully. "I'm looking for the farm where hippies come from. You look like you know where it is."

He was trembling, looking like any moment he might make a break through the thorny vines around him to escape. She decided to nip that little idea in the bud by coiling her vines tightly around his legs, until they dug under his skin and hooked there. He let out the cry of a man who'd never felt real pain before, and Darkrose waited patiently for him to stop.

"I..." His voice was weak, but she gave a bored motion with her hand to let him know he should continue. Something about that simple gesture ignited some defiance in him, and his next words came more confident. "...I... I won't tell you anything. I won't sell out my home to you, Fallen One."

"Epic," Darkrose said flatly. "We're called Epics. Using a different name than literally everyone else on the continent doesn't make you wiser. It just makes you sound like a cult."

"We know what you are," he replied, smiling weakly. "You are the ones who failed the test. You are the ones who were given the chance to be great, but failed to use it wisely."

"Whatever. I'm not here to convince you fairies aren't real or whatever it is you believe." She crept her vines up his body, until they grasped his chin and forced his face down. "I'm here to argue with your leader. Can you point me in her direction? I'm an old friend."

Still he struggled against her, both with his body and with those defiant eyes. "Our leader would never associate with one of the Fallen Ones. She is everything you failed to be. Kind, and merciful, and-"

"Liar." One of her vines grabbed his shoulder, wrenching it painfully towards her. She used her hands to yank back the sleeve of his sweater, revealing the arm that lay beneath it.

He whimpered. She could see why.

There was a burn scar there—a carefully crafted one. Something extremely hot had seared away the skin and flesh exactly where it touched and nowhere else, specifically to leave a scar. That something was in the shape of a young woman's hand.

Darkrose whistled softly. "Wow. That's some great kindness and mercy you've going for you."

"She... she's only stern where she needs to be. It's to guide us, to make sure we don't stray from the path of-"

"Oh, for the love of—dude, you need to chill," Darkrose interrupted, rubbing her forehead. "I'm not gonna kill you because you didn't defend your Epic overlord. In fact, I kind of like it when I hear your kind badmouth them."

There was confusion on his face, mixed with a slight bit of hope at the phrase 'not gonna kill you.' She put her hand on his chin, leaning in close to continue.

"I'm gonna kill you 'cause I'm an Epic, and that's just what we do. Think of it as our way of saying hello."

He never made another expression beyond that look of pure fright etched into his every muscle. That was the moment she squeezed her vines around him until he burst.

She moved on quickly, letting his bloody remnants fall to fertilize the forest herbs. She followed the trail he'd been on, picking up speed and building in anticipation.

Revolution was close.

She could feel it.

 

 

Sam had had nightmares for as long as she could remember. Any vanilla girl who lived in downtown Portland would, and she'd seen more than most. But she'd never had the kind the next couple of weeks brought with them.

She'd always be back in the kitchen with Mom. Sometimes she'd be the woman she was now, sometimes a little girl again. Memory and fantasy would blur in that way only dreams could.

"It helps to keep busy," Mom would explain, just as she had in the real world. "There's always going to be something to bother you, but if you keep your hands busy—set yourself a little goal and try your best to meet it—you won't even notice."

She'd stir with that sad smile. "Most of the time, at least. Will you bring out the cupcake moulds?"

Then it would break. Again, just like in the real world. Except here she was treated to a different calamity every night. Sometimes it would be Lightwards and his Warriors. Sometimes it would be Lucentia, sometimes with her brother by her side. Sometimes it was Altermind and his soldiers and sometimes it was CorpseMaker and his Epics and sometimes it was Funtimes with too wide of a smile stretched across her lips.

But they'd all end the same way.

Blood. A broken body sprawled out on the floor. Chest torn straight through the middle.

There was no other way it could end. No matter what she did. How she cried out, how she tried to warn her, no matter how she tried to fight back, she would always be gone in the end. And she'd stay gone. That was the worst thing. Every time she woke up she returned to a world where Mom was gone, where that house would never again be a warm home waiting for amid all the chaos and tension of the city outside, where she was alone.

At random times through the day the thought of cupcakes would make her want to curl up and cry. Funtimes had mercifully started leaving them in the cottage more often, leaving her with plenty of time to do just that. To look around, make sure the others were all in the fenced in courtyard or similarly out of hearing, and then quietly sob her eyes out.

Stupid sparking cupcakes. It was like they were all she could think about. Covered in icing, cooked to moist perfection all the way through, made with only the garbage ingredients a Portlander could acquire but somehow made beautiful and exquisite anyway.

Because it helped to keep busy. Because that was the way she'd hide from all the troubles. Before her daughter couldn't keep her sparking mouth shut and brought the troubles right into her kitchen.

Stupid sparking cupcakes! They were even in her dreams now! After the end, after the gore, after the nightmare had hit its grisly climax, there would always be one sitting on the table, flecked with blood, mocking her for still being there even after everyone else was gone.

Sleeping brought nightmares. Being awake was a nightmare.

Why couldn't it just end?

It wasn't as though she hadn't thought about it. At length, even. There were so many ways a girl could end in this city. There were guns lying around for anyone to pick up. There were knives. She could even use an Epic for the job. Just walk up to Lightwards, or to Lucentia, or any other Epic she had access to and punch them right in the face. Funtimes or no Funtimes, that would have to do the job, right?

Except it wouldn't work. She was now very certain of that. Every bump or scratch she picked up around the cottage would be gone by the time she so much as glanced down at it. There'd only be the trailing expression of something like a black petal slipping back under her skin, and she'd be flawless and whole again. In those brief moments she could feel it itching inside of her, wanting out. She could feel her grief flash into anger and her anger into hate. It was those brief moments that were making her more afraid of living than she was of dying.

But there was nothing she could do. Nothing but curl up on her garish bed and cry her eyes out, a confused dog her only comfort.

Until one night, when Revolution heard her.

"...Sam?"

She stopped immediately, stiff, embarrassed and somehow angry. She tried to wipe away the tears, but the other woman was already in the dark bedroom, her face already scrunched up in concern. She'd already seen.

"Listen," Revolution said softly. "If you tell me to get out, I'll go. I'll leave you be. But..."

There was a kindness to her voice. One almost no one had ever had with her. Certainly not Dad, in the end.

"...if you don't want to be alone, I'm here."

There was no stopping the next wretched sob, or the next. But this time a dismayed but earnest Revolution was drawing close, hand on her shoulder, simply quietly letting her cry it out with a warm presence beside her.

That was the night Revolution Sunburst Jones became more than just a friendly face to spout quips at. That was the night she became, without hesitation or ambiguity, Sam's best friend.

It was also the night that in years to come she would identify as the fatal mistake of Samantha Trattner.

"I..."

Her quivering voice stammered out through the sobs.

"...I'm an Epic."

 

 

"Oh no, it's one of the Fallen Ones!" Darkrose grinned at the scattered vanillas, who gazed back at her with stunned, terrified eyes. "...that's what one of you was about to say, right?"

Apparently what they were really about to say was a bunch of screams, as they went scattering and running for cover as quickly as she could. Their charmingly quaint little mud-village was suddenly a shrieking frenzy of chaos. Chores were abandoned. Buckets were dropped. Children were hastily scooped up in terrified mothers' arms.

But no one was getting very far. Her roses could sprout out of even the hardest of substances, but good old fashioned dirt made it easier than ever. She was grabbing them with ease, walling off their avenues of escape and slaughtering them faster than they could even move their feet.

At least, it started that way.

A bolt of pure sunlight came careening out of the trees, striking the ground in front of her with a sound that made the deepest of thunderclaps sound silent. The earth shook, the ground just in front of Darkrose melting into a pool of red hot lava.

Darkrose recoiled from the heat, her nearby flowers catching fire and burning swiftly away as though made of matchsticks. But the smile never left her face. If anything, it got wider.

She snapped her eyes up, as did everyone in this dirty little village. A figure walked out of the treeline. The figure stood tall and proud, wearing a vivid red sarong that would have been out of place anywhere but a beach in a world without supervillains. On her wrists were countless little bracelets of the kind artsy folk would sell on the Internet back before Calamity.

And that face. Determinedly calm and serene, even as her hands glowed with the might of the sun.

Darkrose's best friend.

The High Epic Sunburst stared at her coolly, not with rage, not with hate, but with a look that shouted almost of disappointment. Darkrose's smile faded.

"Samantha," said Sunburst. "Stop."

This is really good, especially the latest version!

It looks like Twi's already advised you on all the things I'd say to change. I'll stick to the positive things that worked the best and bear duplicating in the future.

First of all: there's a sense of grim menace throughout this entire piece, as the narrator thinks about how they shouldn't be here, about how they should be fleeing, even while the strange magic begins to work itself. The character of the older tree monster is spectacularly creepy; it's not the traditional "I'm gonna eat little children who misbehave" kind of monster. It's something more real than that. More insidious. There's a power to its strange family motivations that aligns with the aesthetic it goes with; after all, what's more unknowable and unsettling than a dark, deep forest? The theme of wilderness vs humanity is very crisp and clear here.

That the narrator is also a tree creature, stolen from the woods as a child, is also a fantastic subversion of the old changeling trope in fairy lore. Here the narrator belongs to the other, more mystical world, but was stolen by humanity. While that's been done before it normally turns into a Chosen One narrative, and not the vivid dark fantasy that this is.

All in all I think this is really well done. I lament not having anything more meaningful than that to say.

Basically the entire plot of the trilogy, as summarized by a person who makes memes in Microsoft Paint.

 

 

Been watching My Hero Academia and One Punch Man here lately. And spending most of the time in between episodes just wondering which characters could take on which Epics from the Reckonerverse.

On 1/4/2019 at 7:52 AM, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I leave it up to the writer to determine that. If the writer demonstrates that he does a complete heel-face turn, then I’m on board. I’m leaving aside what Rowling said about his postwar life on Pottermore because with Dramione, we’re firmly in AU territory anyway; so if you show me he’s changed, I’ll take it. 

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There’s also the fact Rowling contradicts her own canon in that essay, but that’s neither here nor there. 

 

 

 

On 12/24/2018 at 5:43 AM, SandersonFanderson said:

This actually adds to a theory my friend had, that Tia might secretly be an Epic. Epics were referred to as "god-like," and Tia is greek for "Goddess," this add so much to the theory

 

It could just be a piece of irony. The character named after a goddess has one of the least amounts of physical power in the series, although she has a vital role among the Reckoners.

23 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

“So what powers did you get, Mizzy?”

”Welllllll, looks like I got Stormwind’s old powers.”

“Neat!”

“And Regalia’s.”

”Okay....”

”And Fortuity’s. And Instabam’s. And also I can control pistachios with my mind.”

”Sparks, was Calamity having a going out of business sale or what?”

”Yes, David, I was. And who do we have to blame for that?” 

 

While I once had my nitpicks with the ending of Calamity, time has brought acceptance and even a certain appreciation for the fact that the entire series is about the havoc wreaked by an angel who has a bad attitude about his work.

On 7/3/2018 at 4:58 PM, Darth Woodrack said:

I personally agree with the Stormwind theory. When calamity left he probably just gave up the rest of the powers he hadn't gifted yet and the ones of the epics that died. That would mean that, someone got Stormwind's powers, and it would make since that it would be her.

 

"Ugh, look, fine, you can have the rest of these dumb powers I had sitting around. Oh and you can have these ones too I guess. They just got mailed back up here with a 'Return To Sender' stamp. They must be stupid powers if the addressees didn't want them, but sure, okay, fine, whatever. Take 'em."