I think I am here.

Mara dropped into the damp basement on a coin, not bothering with the winding ladder that started all the way upwards, back in the Hall of Legends. Crowds brimmed up there, but almost no one was down here, in this little peaceful seclusion. Max had always asked her how she wasn't scared of the graves down here. Max. Hearing Silphio drop behind her, Mara turned to regard him, speaking quietly. "What was it you wanted to show me?"

“What do you know about the Ghostbloods?” She replied, no answering Silph’s question and not turning back. After a small bout of silence, she continued. “I’m going to the Tomb of the Forgotton. I need some peace from all of this.”

But do you sell candy canes?

Max sat on the edge of a cliff, letting his legs dangle over the decline. He was bored. And bitter. Taking out his staff, Max ran his hand over the smooth wood, slight ingraves imbedded in it. It had been made specially for him. Pressing a small depression in the staff, two small blades popped out of either end, pushed by springs. Aluminium. Retracting the blades Max heard a scuffle behind him and turned to see Mara gliding towards him off of a coin. He'd rarely seen her use such precise movements before. Usually, she would rely on her raw steelpushing power than intricacy. When you could become a weaker coinshot for a couple days if it meant being able to push metals in stomachs the next, why wouldn't you rely upon that instead of classical coinshot tricks? Of course, Mara didn't supertap her nicrosilminds as much as Max did, but the potential was still there. "Hey," she said, taking a seat next to him. "How's it going?" A usual question from her. "Fine," Max said, sighing, before turning back to her. "Do you ever wonder what he was like?" "Who?" "Rashan." A pause. It had been traumatic for both of them, memories painful to remember. Max tried to not freeze up just at the memory, and by looking at his sister he saw that while her face was calm, her fists were squeezed so hard they were almost white. This topic had always brought these sides out of them. "All of the time." Mara replied. "They always say he was a hero and all, but that's probably all dressing. A hero wouldn't let himself die just for a bunch of kids, right?" "I don't know. You know what Master Sheonar says about him, though who knows how much of that is just the old man's mind playing up." "Don't say that about Master Sheonar," Mara snapped. "Why not?" Max said, standing up, raising his voice, subconsciously Rioting Mara's fear. It was starting to become a habit. "It's the truth! The man's been through so much, who knows what's going on in his head! And it's not helping that we all constantly pretend that the war was fine, 'oh, it's fine we spent 16 years rebuilding around a crater,' because it's not! So many died in the rusting war and whoever didn't was screwed up mentally. Just look at us!" He gestured to Mara and himself. "You can't say our reaction to Hemalurgy is normal." "It's right," Mara said, stepping forward. She seemed to know Max's emotional tricks, and tried to resist them. Max was more powerful than an average Rioter, however. "It's a monstrous, hateful thing!" "It's EFFICIENT!" Max shouted at his sister, supertapping one of his many smaller metalminds and filling her head with fear. Wait. Oh, no. Immediatly realising what he had done, Max stopped the Riot and covered his mouth with his hands. How had he said that? How had he come up with such a response. No, Max hated Hemalurgy, Mara despised it. But still, there was something unique about it, something... Max gasped in horror at his own thoughts, looking back towards Mara, completely pale, shaking. What had he done? She was almost in tears. Max tried remembering the last time someone had told him how it felt to be Rioted by one of his supertaps. It wasn't pleasant. "How could you..." She shivered, but not from the heat. "It's the Ghostbloods, isn't it?" She asked, preparing to run backwards. What could he say? "Answer me!" "...Yes," Max responded. "They're trying to get me comfortable with Hemalurgy, assassinations are going to be hard if anybody with a sp-" he was interrupted by the sound of Mara gasping, trying to wipe away tears. She'd never approved of the Ghostbloods. Max had taken the job to honour Rashan, but she didn't see eye-to-eye to him on that. Mara ran, jumping off of the cliff. "Mara, wait!" But she was already gone, shooting herself off into the sky with her coins, flying far away from the training ground, far away from Max. *** How could he? How could he? Mara knew siblings had fights, she knew they had disagreements. When Max had joined the Ghostbloods, Mara tried letting it slide, not bringing up the topic too much. But Hemalurgy? Ruin's own art? If there was one thing that unified Max to her, it was their hate of it. But, Max's freezes had been getting better lately. Still not good, but better. He'd stopped openly denouncing it, asking Master Sheonar more questions about it. It had to be the Ghostbloods. Those rusting assassins, twisting her brother's mind, turning him into a slave of theirs, following instructions without question. Had Rashan really been one of them? Her body was still shaking all over, still in shock from Max's Rioting. It was like something had gripped her, forced her to be afraid, something unstoppable. But when you unleash so much on a single mind, things start to break. Mara already felt she wouldn't be the same for at least a couple more days, just because of Max's outburst. But there was something else, too, something she saw. So much fear, so much pure emotion, and Mara couldn't tell whether her eyes had played tricks on her or she'd actually seen something. But she remembered what she saw. And it horrified her to no extent. Max. Caked in blood, growling in the middle of a stormy night, scars across his face. Mara's beloved brother, turned into an animal. A killing machine. She saw him on top of a glass throne, smiling as he saw dozens of spiked Abominations among him. She saw him mercilessly kill. She saw him smiling cruely as he got promoted within the Ghostbloods. She saw him smile cruely as he killed her, on that same stormy night. She'd overheard Master Sheonar's speeches a dozen times to Max. Pull on minds too much, they start to break. Had Mara's mind broken. Had she imagined her vision? Part of her said yes, but another part worried what she saw was a horrifying truth, a man her brother could become. She didn't know. She didn't want to.

Ooooh, could I sign up? I'll go as Itiah VII, the first of the Fourth Wall Breakers in his family and private investigator.

Max and Mara watched the fight eagerly, Mara fidgeting with something pinned to her shirt. “What’s that?” Max asked, leaning over to get a look. “It’s my TUBA badge,” she told him proud. “They were a bit hesitant to let me join, thanks to your position in the Ghostbloods, but they let me in eventually.” “That’s great,” Max said, walking off to find someone to spar with.

Ocean. Just ocean. The Deep watched as the giant charged forward to, aiming a lumbering punch. A primitive design. The Deep’s masters could have improved on it. As the giant pushed its fist forward, The Deep let out a growl, dodging the punch and wrapping itself around the arm, squeezing.

The Deep. also having the power to shift through alll three realms, could also shift into the non-canon realm. With one flick of its tail it was in. another place, still an ocean but elsewhere. In the distance, a giant statue. With a roar the Deep charged.

The Deep ripped the Devourer in half, sending its pieces across the ocean and swimming up to the surface, to new prey.

I agree, great idea!

Sudiov! What are you doing? I though you were against Hemalurgy! *gasps of feeling betrayed* *Cue betrayal music* Doo Doo Dooooooo..

Here, have a certified non-hemalurgic cookie! *gives* Also, I don’t really need to say welcome since I already have, but welcome!

Yay! This looks fun!

I don’t remember the video, but I saw your profile picture and I sent a reply comment “Ghostbloods are watching” Dunno, if I ever see an account with that profile picture I’m gonna say that to them.

Wow, thanks, you guys! I really appreciate you having the time to look over my stuff, and your feedback is definitely helpful to me and things I could improve on. Thanks! Sorana, I really appreciated your in depth feedback in my story, almost line by line! And MetaTerminal, thanks for your overall opinion, with certain examples. I believe it’s important to have a little of both. At the risk of repeating myself, thanks!

*Takes out Kaiju*

Hello! I've been trying to write something like a book for a while now, I've had all the ideas in my head but I can never quite get them on the page. This marks my first attempt at actually trying to construct a prologue for what will hopefully be a book (I've only ever done short-stories before), so that's exciting! I guess. I'd appreciate feedback, prologues/chapters and the like are new to me. When I was writing this, though, I kept getting the nagging feeling like I was writing a ripoff Reckoners book, since it's meant to be a superhero story. But I guess everyone's first book is a ripoff of someone, right? So, yeah, the prologue (sorry for rambling). This isn't actually from the POV of the main character, and its meant to be set 20 years before the events of the story. In it, stuff happens. So, yeah, here we go! I've included the prologue itself in a spoiler tag below, and beneath that I've got a Google Doc link in case any of you want to give feedback that way. Otherwise, any sort of comment in this thread would be greatly valued by me. Thanks! Prologue: Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PA0GG3PG99bRQ8o5Zgcrhb8RTyXJEPU3KOOmawMcUz0/edit?usp=sharing

Old habits die hard. @BitBitio now's the moment when you upvote.

Max regarded the first man, Alum. “I guess you could say that,” he replied, stepping forward. “Though it’s more of a planet than a city.” He pointed to a wall, which had a very large map of the Alleyverse sticky-taped to it, finished with a customary ‘you are here’ pin that Mara had added. “Any place you’re particularly interested in?” *** Mara was bored, though she recognised Max’s manipulation. You didn’t get a Rioter for a brother without being able to know when he’s tricking. Idle, Mara burned some steel and saved the power in her Nicrosilminds for later. She didn’t do it nearly as much as Max did, but still, with it she could push on things heavier than her, and that was always a welcome advantage.

The newcomer - space marines, she’d been told - addressed her, asking her about Max. She stood. “He’s fine,” she lied. “Just watering the Chulls.” She turned to Alum, the Alethi worldhopper. He seemed a bit too dark for an Alethi, but then again, Mara hadn’t seen one in a while so she wrote it off. “Not Yolen, whatever that is,” she said to Alum. “We’re in the Alleyverse.” Sensing the increased confusion in the man’s eyes, Mara just smiled and nodded, sitting back down. *** “Here you go,” Max said, watering the last Chull, zinc burning in his stomach. But instead of using the Allomantic power that came from it, Max stored the Allomancy in his Nicrosilminds, for future use. It was common these days, Max almost always burned zinc, if not to use then to store it, so that when the time came, not only would he be able to power Allomancy directly with his Feruchemy, but he’d also be able to supertap his metalmind, emit as burst of Rioting like no other. Master Sheonar had compared it to Duralumin Allomancy. Entering the room where all of the commotion was, he saw Mara eye him carefully in a chair, and also noticed two new people, one apparently regular man - though no one was regular in the Alleyverse, and another with Space Marine armour. “Hey,” He said, rioting the newcomers’ trust of him, still storing most of the output so what was left was a very subtle manipulation of emotions. Master Sheonar had taught him well. “What can we do for you?”

Merged with all abominations in one? Super duper boss battle in the mountains?