Source: Fullmetal Alchemist / Hagane no Renkinjutsushi / 鋼の錬金術師

by Hiromu Arakawa

Chadwick Boseman (1977-2020) - Rest In Peace

Prompt #2451

“When I die, the world will be yours for the taking. The question is, what will you do with it?”

A red lipstick smile. “I won’t be taking the world.” The smile sours. “It’s…telling you’d think that though.”

The Hero strains against their bonds. They’ve never been in this situation before–bound by thick chains in the Villain’s lair. They’ve never been caught before and it’s throwing them off their game. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

She doesn’t answer. Her heels click against the linoleum floor as she walks the perimeter of the room. There are photos on the wall of destruction. Houses burning and skyscrapers crumbling. Pits in the earth and scorch marks across asphalt. She stops behind them. Out of sight. “I didn’t think I’d be able to capture you so easily.”

The Hero didn’t think it was possible either. The Villainess behind them is newly risen in her predecessor’s place. They didn’t even know the old villain retired, didn’t know villains could retire. You’re supposed to be a Villain until you die. “You caught me off guard. If you’d fought fair, I would have–”

She’s in front of them between one breath and the next, one hand one either armrest, looming over them. “You would have what? Set me on fire?”

The Hero stutters. Her eyes are almost as black as the mask covering most of her face. “You attacked me from behind like a coward–”

“You would have heard me coming if you hadn’t been blowing up the street,” she says. 

Keep reading

Thank you, Sir Ian Holm Cuthbert 12 September 1931 - 19 June 2020

POV: You’re the “i” in the Pixar logo

zuko, barging into sokka’s tent: hey, how did you— stop screaming, it’s me— how did your mom die?

it is complete, what happens now?

They put Avatar: the Last Airbender on Netflix

ROGUE ONE + last words

Baby-Doll Batman: The Animated Series

This is one criminally underrated Batman villain.

SERIOUSLY THOUGH SHE WAS MY FAVORITE BATMAN VILLAIN

Her physical condition didn’t allow her to age

No one took her seriously as an actress

And even when she was trying to get into a happy romantic relationship (albeit with another villain) he still couldn’t take her seriously as a consenting, sexually active and romantically interested adult

That’s a lot of blows to someone’s psyche 

and Babydoll is both a sympathetic villain and a formidable one

I remember this episode fucked me up a a kid. 

And man, do I wish we could see this Batman again: the Batman that consoles his villains, because the majority (if not all) of them are mentally ill people. And Batman knows this and wants them healthy again, not punished and GOD definitely not dead.

Baby Doll is so underrated as a Batman villain 

but her episode was perfect 

Batman: The Animated Series The story of one fucked up, traumatized little boy, doing his best to help other fucked up traumatized people.

#this show is the only batcanon that matters to me #dc can burn everything else down but they’ll never pry the dcau from cold dead clawed hands

The Batman that cares about the inmates is my favorite. He doesn’t put up with their shit, but he does try to reach out here and there and he’s as human as he can be to them.

When Harley was re-institutionalized, he got her that dress she wanted.

In the comics based on B:tAS, there was a time during Christmas that there was snow and it was Mr. Freeze’s fault, and he was making it snow because Christmas was his anniversary with Nora and she LOVED it when it snowed on Christmas, so Batman let him finish mourning before calmly taking him back to Arkham.

He never, ever gives up on Harvey possibly recovering.

Sure, Batman is going to throw punches and do what it takes to take these guys down when they’re hurting or threatening people. And he’s not going be a complete bleeding heart; he has to protect the innocent. He’s going to take them down and take them back to Arkham, but it doesn’t mean he’s incapable of being a bit human to the ones who deserve it.

Batman needs become human again

Because it needs to be here:

Remember that time a young girl with near god-like psychic powers threatened to destroy reality and the only one that could stop her was Batman because he had a previous encounter with her and was tasked with killing her to restore reality.

But instead, Batman sat with her on a swing and kept her company as the girl’s psychic powers slowly killed her.

No?

Fuck you people making me emotional

The. Batman.

This is MY Batman, not the murderous fascist they’ve made him into.

A desperate cleric slamming every healing spell so hard to bring someone back to life the ground is forced to grow plants and flowers around the body.

Decades later, guarded by a forest of roses and thorns, lies a corpse refusing to rot.

Rest in Peace, Lonnie :(

Popular with the troops.

DARTH VADER DEATH CULT DARTH VADER DEATH CULT DARTH VADER DEATH CULT DARTH VADER DEATH CULT

meanwhile the officers are like “who is this enormous spooky fucker and WHY DOES HE KEEP STRANGLING US TO DEATH.”

Imagine stormtroopers painting Vader’s helmet on ships or on armour, wherever they can get away with it.

Imagine stormtroopers praying to Vader as He-Who-Brings-Death and entreating him to pass them by; at first in jest, but who knows what’s serious any more when half your unit is dead and you only barely survived.

Imagine stormtroopers swearing “May Vader take your soul!”

Imagine stormtroopers hearing of Vader, then seeing him in person, and being held back by their fellows, from kneeling in front of him.

Seriously, I am 100% here for “stormtroopers worshipping Vader as a god of death”.

Well that would definitely also serve as some extra psychological warfare if that idea ever leaks over to the Alliance with the defectors.

Which would make Luke’s fight at Bespin like four extra levels of nerve-wracking. I mean, he doesn’t know if Vader is human. As far as he knows, he’s an eldritch death deity straight out of Tatooine nightmare folktales. Of course, then Luke has to Learn Some Things, and everything is confusing and terrible for a couple days and then like probably a week later when the “he survived a fight with a god of death” whispers start circulating he might start actually thinking about it.

Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight, and Darth Vader, death-dealing deity of the stormtroopers and it hits him wait, what does that make me?

That just makes it even better.

There’s got to be a weird mishmash of beliefs among the Alliance anyways; vague memories of the Jedi Force tradition overlaying it, used in expressions, but everything combines with all the traditions and beliefs from all the different worlds and cultures the Rebels hail from.

I am now imagining someone trying to comfort Luke, from what they believe he believes is a close encounter with the god of death. They tell him “no that wasn’t the god of death, the real god of death doesn’t bother to fight because everyone comes to Them in the end, that was just an incredibly dangerous maybe-human maybe-droid”.

Someone else tells him to sprinkle pure water in every corner of the room he sleeps in, and to wear his socks inside-out, so that the hounds of Death will lose the scent if they come to track him down, on their master’s bidding. He asks if he needs to be worried about a security breach; no, he’s answered, mortal security can do nothing against the hounds, not when they have his scent after a close brush with Death, so he needs to remember, water and inside-out socks.

A third person believes Vader holds a fragment of divinity in him, even if it’s a hostile force, and thus every respect must be shown to him and in mentions of him, lest the other divinities grow angered. They speak in euphemisms about Luke’s encounter with “the red-bladed power”.

Oh my gosh now I’m imagining superstitious Rogue Squadron pilots all wearing their socks inside out every time they go into battle or something. So then, one wonders, unless they figure out whose son Luke is what do the stormtroopers think of Skywalker?

Just an upstart? A rival? A Trickster who can’t run forever? Or perhaps a demigod with a story they’re certain they’ll learn one day if they’re patient enough?

Skywalker is clearly some kind of malevolent trickster. He came out of nowhere, tricked his way off the Death Star with the Princess, tricked his way back in past its defenses to destroy it, and continues to evade and enrage He Who Brings Death.

Stormtroopers carefully avoid saying Skywalker’s name, because seriously you don’t want to risk catching the attention of a malevolent trickster.

HOWEVER. If you are really truly desperate because you have kriffed up so bad and blown your mission all to hell and you are absolutely literally dead if this screw-up EVER comes to the brass’s attention. Very cautiously make a little Skywalker effigy with a bright orange come-and-get-me flightsuit, and sneak it onto a cargo shuttle headed very far away in the complete opposite direction from you. It’s a slim chance, but he just might find your trick amusing enough to go along with it and fool everyone into looking in that direction.

ooohhh I like this, I like this very much

and like many trickster characters, he can be equally likely to help or to harm. Which is why some stormtroopers would probably be less than particularly surprised if they ever saw him working in tandem with He-Who-Brings-Death. But tricksters can also come to harm when they bite off more than they can chew, which might be their explanation for Luke losing his hand at Cloud City.

Of course, should said troopers discover that the Trickster (snrrk because Mark Hamill) is the son of He-Who-Brings-Death, they might be like “ah. so much makes sense now.”

Consider: Leia gets deified.

She just mysteriously knows things, and whenever you’re around, even when she’s screaming at you, she makes you feel like you can fight anything.

She has a kind of presence like Darth Vader’s but in the opposite sense. Vader’s like a force of demonic force of nature, but Leia is more like a barely restrained mother wolf, primal, protective, and carrying a legacy of something old.

Defectors getting grilled by Leia for the first time freeze up and have to keep from shitting a brick because she might be a head shorter than you and weigh less than an Artoo unit, but when she talks, you listen, like Vader himself came down from the heaven to growl at your incompetence.

Eventually, the alliance starts treating Leia as almost as a mythic figure in it of herself. But not like Vader’s death cult.

The stormtroopers start realizing this when they first see these insignias here and there, a hastily scrawled “Leia Organa blesses us” in aurabesh on the inside of a crashed X Wing. A decorative woman with a blaster painstakingly painted onto what what used to be a Nebulon B.

But they almost never see Luke’s insignia’s anywhere in these piles of rubble. Or any other form of deity.

Soon, the stormtroopers realize that all of Leia’s insignias are on the dead. And they scoff.

“Our deity keeps us alive, and blesses our fighting skills! Why pray to something that doesn’t bring you glory?”

But the insignias keep showing up. And in fact, it looks like more of them are showing up every day. Still showing up on dead frigates and destroyed X Wings.

Until, one day, a particularly naive and superstitious stormtrooper and a particularly hardy prisoner of war were stuck in a prison block together.

“Out of curiosity, why do you paint that woman on your ship?”

The prisoner of war laughed, and laughed long.

“To get you to shoot at us, boy!”

It wasn’t until that particular prisoner of war died in a breakout saving thirty fellow rebels that the stormtrooper took his meaning, and word spread like wildfire.

The stormtrooper corps, so superstitious, and so wary, began to realize why they see her image so much.

The ones who invoked her name weren’t unlucky, they just chose to die more often than the rest.

When they’re fighting in the trenches, and they have them cornered, the rebel who pulls a grenade on himself to slow them down has “Leia Organa” stitched into the inside of his jacket.

When they’re chasing a supply convoy, the Nebulons that run headfirst into Star Destroyers to buy time for the rest have Leia’s image sprayed onto their hulls.

When the rebels are bullied in the empire’s many prisons, it’s Leia’s name that rebels whisper prayers to before standing in front of the lead guard and saying “It’s my fault, take me instead”.

And still the stormtrooper corps and the Empire scoffs.

“So, this woman is a goddess, is she? But you still die. How will that win a war?”

But…deep in the ranks of the stormtrooper corps. Among the innumerable privates who will always be forgotten, some begin scribbling “Leia Organa” on the insides of helmets, and chest pieces.

Eventually, the rebels begin to win.

And at some point, the rebels begin to realize that some of the stormtroopers have begun to scribble “Leia Organa” onto the inside of their helmets.

They’re confused, and wary. It’s not written anywhere people can see it, so it’s not like they’re defectors. The writing is usually in some easily removable ink, something that can be wiped into obscurity with the quickest of finger rubs. So it’s not any permanent political statement. And it’s very clearly Leia’s name on it. Usually with a second name right beside it.

Once they know what to look for, the rebels begin to see it scribbled more and more. Where once it was only one or two stormtroopers a battle, the farther they push against the Empire, they begin finding whole squads with “Leia Organa” scribbled in the creases and margins of their armor, always followed by a completely different name, or set of names.

It’s not until a particularly brave and naive Rebel guarding Imperial POW’s asks them directly that they get an answer.

He cautiously holds out a helmet, asking the assembled prisoners why his general’s name is scrawled on the inside. In a shaky and uncertain voice, he speaks to the confused group.

“It says ‘Leia Organa, please save’” and he lists off the number written beside it. CT-and some several digit numerical code.

In response, a hardened stormtrooper, with scars gained years before anyone in the group had been born, breaks into tears.

The rebel asks if he knew who this belonged to, and the man nodded.

He tells the rebel that he begged his brother not to do it. They were the last two clones either of them had ever seen. For all they knew, they were the last clones in the entire galaxy.

They had talked before the battle, he had talked about how they were going to bring victory to the Empire together, one last time, and how nothing else mattered to them.

But then, his brother went quiet, and just responded:

“You are the only victory I ever cared about.”

And he scribbled “Leia Organa, please save…” on the inside of his helmet, with his brother’s ID number.

The rebel tells him his brother fought bravely, and the clone thanked him through his tears while the rest of his squad consoles him.

From then on, the quiet, the superstitious, and the grieving would comb the battlefield. Checking the inside of helmets and the edges of pauldrons looking for those telltale aurabesh symbols.

And they would go to the nearest POW camp, holding cell, or brig, reading off “Leia Organa, Please Let Me Save…”

And in every camp, in every cell block, there was always at least one person.

Not always a stormtrooper. Sometimes a technician, sometimes a pilot, occasionally an officer. Some rebels would swear on their life they’d seen it happen to an Imperial Admiral.

But always, there was at least one person who cried when the names were read out.

Some were lovers, some were siblings, some were parents, some were squad mates, and some were friends. The rebels didn’t always find out who it was, they were at war after all, and the rebels were their enemy.

But…something about the tears often made people want to talk.

And it was always tears.

Because nobody in the Empire invokes Leia Organa’s name to win a campaign.

Nobody invokes Leia Organa’s name to survive a battle.

Nobody invokes Leia Organa’s name to bring glory, or victory, in any military sense.

No. In the stormtrooper corps, you invoke Leia Organa’s name for the only kind of victories that really matter.

Sending her prayers even a rebel goddess would heed.

You only invoke Leia Organa’s name when you have someone you care about more than life itself.

And you only invoke her name if you’re willing to pay the price for her protection.

And the part the rebels found most surprising, through the hundreds and hundreds of names they read out, was that more often than not, that person those invokers paid to protect only found out how much they cared, when a rebel read their own name out in front of a cell block.

Vader was a god of battle.

Luke was a god of cunning.

But Leia…

Leia was the goddess of sacrifice.

The Force Works In Mysterious Ways and if enough people believe in something, in someone

well, then it must be true, your focus determines your reality

and Leia becomes the Lady of Sacrifice, She Who Gives and Gives and Gives

Luke becomes the Skywalker, the Trickster Who Shows The Way (to freedom, to wisdom, to the nearest cantina? it varies)

and Vader/Anakin becomes the two-faced God of Death, Destruction and Rebirth, The Fire that Destroys and the Ashes that Renew

and when they wake up in the Force to find their new status, the Force quakes in their anger (mostly Leia, she’s earned her rest), their laughter (because Luke can do nothing else, because of course this is how he’s going to spend his ‘afterlife’, with his two most loved people) and their fear (because fear is Anakin’s constant companion, although now? pleasedon’tletmekriffthisuppleasedon’tletmekriffthisupomgmychildrenarehere)

Holy. Kriffing. BALLS.

THIS IS BETTER THAN ANYTHING FROM THE NEWER TRILOGIES COULD EVER DREAM OF BEING

bless the old trilogies and george lucas’s newness that allowed the actors to change the dialogue and make it what it became.

Jeffrey Zhang: “This is Nia DaCosta. She is the director of Candyman. Jordan Peele is not the director of Candyman. He is a writer and producer for Candyman. Thanks for your time.

Just to clarify, this is not a dig against Jordan Peele. He is one of my favorite filmmakers, and he has accomplished a great deal in giving voice to the underrepresented. All I’m saying is, many are talking about Candyman without any mention of its director. Let’s do better.” 

@deanevangeliou: “i get using Jordan Peele’s as the “big name” (who wrote the candyman remake) is for marketing to get people interested, but we need to highlight Nia DaCosta the DIRECTOR!!! thank you!!”

Jordan Peele: “Follow @NiaDaCosta ftw. She directed and co-wrote the new Candyman.” 

CW: scary, blood shown

The best comic of the year 2020

Hey @blackestglass - were you using your emotions today?

2019 - a year in review

At 18, everyone receive a superpower. Your childhood friend got a power-absorption, your best friends got time control, and they quickly rise into top 100 most powerful superheroes. You got a mediocre superpower, but somehow got into the top 10. Today they visit you asking how you did it.

“Power absorption?” you ask him over your pasta, which you are currently absorbing powerfully. in the background, a tv is reading out what the Phoenix extremeist group has done recently. bodies, stacking.

tim nods, pushing his salad around. “it’s kind of annoying.” he’s gone vegan ever since he could talk to animals. his cheeks are sallow. “yesterday i absorbed static and i can’t stop shocking myself.”

“you don’t know what from,” shay is detangling her hair at the table, even though it’s not polite. about a second ago, her hair was perfect, which implies she’s been somewhere in the inbetween. “try millions of multiverses that your powers conflict with.” 

“did we die in the last one?” you grin and she grins and tim grins but nobody answers the question.

now she has a cut over her left eye and her hair is shorter. she looks tired and tim looks tired and you look down at your 18-year-old hands, which are nothing. 

they ship out tomorrow. they go out to the frontlines or wherever it is that superheroes go to fight supervillains; the cream of the crop. the starlight banner kids. 

“you both are trying too hard,” you tell them, “couldn’t you have been, like, really good at surfing?”

“god,” shay groans, “what i’d give to only be in the olympics.”

xxx in the night, tim is asleep. on the way home, he absorbed telekinesis, and hates it too. 

shay looks at you. “i’m scared,” she says.

you must not have died recently, because she looks the same she did at dinner, cut healing slowly over her eye the way it’s supposed to, not the hyper-quickness of a timejump. just shay, living in the moment when the moment is something everyone lives in. her eyes are wide and dark the way brown eyes can be, that swelling fullness that feels so familiar and warm, that piercing darkness that feels like a stone at the back of your tongue.

“you should be,” you say.

her nose wrinkles, she opens her mouth, but you plow on.

“they’re going to take one look at you and be like, ‘gross, shay? no thanks. you’re too pretty. it’s bringing down like, morale, and things’. then they’ll kick you out and i’ll live with you in a box and we’ll sell stolen cans of ravioli.”

she’s grinning. “like chef boyardee or like store brand?”

“store brand but we print out chef boyardee labels and tape them over the can so we can mark up the price.”

“where do we get the tape?” 

“we, uh,” you look into those endless dark eyes, so much like the night, so much like a good hot chocolate, so much like every sleepover you’ve had with the two of your best friends, and you say, “it’s actually just your hair. i tie your hair around the cans to keep the label on.”

she throws a pillow at you. 

you both spend a night planning what you’ll do in the morning when shay is kicked out of Squadron 8, Division 1; top rankers that are all young. you’ll both run away to the beach and tim will be your intel and you’ll burn down the whole thing. you’re both going to open a bakery where you will do the baking and she’ll use her time abilities to just, like, speed things up so you don’t have to wake up at dawn. you’re both going to become wedding planners that only do really extreme weddings.

she falls asleep on your shoulder. you do not sleep at all.

in the morning, they are gone.

xxx

squadron 434678, Division 23467 is basically “civilian status.” you still have to know what to expect and all that stuff. you’re glad that you’re taking extra classes at college; you’re kind of bored re-learning the stuff you were already taught in high school. there are a lot of people who need help, and you’re good at that, so you help them. 

tim and shay check in from time to time, but they’re busy saving the world, so you don’t fault them for it. in the meantime, you put your head down and work, and when your work is done, you help the people who can’t finish their work. and it kind of feels good. kind of.

xxx

at twenty, squadron 340067, division 2346 feels like a good fit. tim and you go out for ice cream in a new place that rebuilt after the Phoenix group burned it down. you’ve chosen nurse-practitioner as your civilian job, because it seems to fit, but you’re not released for full status as civilian until you’re thirty, so it’s been a lot of office work.

tim’s been on the fritz a lot lately, overloading. you’re worried they’ll try to force him out on the field. he’s so young to be like this.

“i feel,” he says, “like it all comes down to this puzzle. like i’m never my own. i steal from other people’s boxes.”

you wrap your hand around his. “sometimes,” you say, “we love a river because it is a reflection.”

he’s quiet a long time after that. a spurt of flame licks from under his eyes.

“i wish,” he says, “i could believe that.”

xxx

twenty three has you in squad 4637, division 18. really you’ve just gotten here because you’re good at making connections. you know someone who knows someone who knows you as a good kid. you helped a woman onto a bus and she told her neighbor who told his friend. you’re mostly in the filing department, but you like watching the real superheroes come in, get to know some of them. at this level, people have good powers but not dangerous ones. you learn how to help an 18 year old who is a loaded weapon by shifting him into a non-violent front. you get those with pstd home where they belong. you put your head down and work, which is what you’re good at. 

long nights and long days and no vacations is fine until everyone is out of the office for candlenights eve. you’re the only one who didn’t mind staying, just in case someone showed up needing something. 

the door blows open. when you look up, he’s bleeding. you jump to your feet. 

“oh,” you say, because you recognize the burning bird insignia on his chest, “I think you have the wrong office.”

“i just need,” he spits onto the ground, sways, collapses. 

well, okay. so, that’s, not, like. great. “uh,” you say, and you miss shay desperately, “okay.”

you find the source of the bleeding, stabilize him for when the shock sets in, get him set up on a desk, sew him shut. two hours later, you’ve gotten him a candlenights present and stabilized his vitals. you’ve also filed him into a separate folder (it’s good to be organized) and found him a home, far from the warfront.

when he wakes up, you give him hot chocolate (god, how you miss shay), and he doesn’t smile. he doesn’t smile at the gift you’ve gotten him (a better bulletproof vest, one without the Phoenix on it), or the stitches. that’s okay. you tell him to take the right medications, hand them over to him, suggest a doctor’s input. and then you hand over his folder with a new identity in it and a new house and civilian status. you take a deep breath. 

he opens it and bursts into tears. he doesn’t say anything. he just leaves and you have to clean up the blood, which isn’t very nice of him. but it’s candlenights. so whatever. hopefully he’ll learn to like his gift.

xxx

squadron 3046, division 2356 is incredibly high for a person like you to fit. but still, you fit, because you’re good at organization and at hard work, and at knowing how to hold on when other people don’t see a handhold.

shay is home. you’re still close, the two of you, even though she feels like she exists on another planet. the more security you’re privy to, the more she can tell you. 

you brush her hair as she speaks about the endless man who never dies, and how they had to split him up and hide him throughout the planet. she cries when she talks about how much pain he must be in.

“can you imagine?” she whispers, “i mean, i know he’s phoenix, but can you imagine?” 

“one time i had to work retail on black friday,” you say.

she sniffles.

“one time my boss put his butt directly on my hand by accident and i couldn’t say anything so i spent a whole meeting with my hand directly up his ass,” you say.

her eyes are so brown, and filling, and there are scars on her you’ve never noticed that might be new or very, very, very old; and neither of you know exactly how much time she’s actually been alive for. 

“i mean,” you say, “yeah that might hurt but one time i said goodbye to someone but they were walking in the same direction. i mean can you imagine.”

she laughs, finally, even though it’s weakly, and says, “one time even though i can manipulate time i slept in and forgot to go to work even though i was leading a presentation and i had to look them in the face later to tell them that.”

“you’re a compete animal,” you tell her, and look into those eyes, so sad and full of timelines you’ll never witness, “you should be kicked out completely.”

she wipes her face. “find me in a box,” she croaks, “selling discount ravioli.”

xxx

you don’t know how it happens. but you guess the word gets around. you don’t think you like being known to them as someone they can go to, but it’s not like they’ve got a lot of options. many of them just want to be out of it, so you get them out, you guess.

you explain to them multiple times you haven’t done a residency yet and you really only know what an emt would, but they still swing by. every time they show up at your office, you feel your heart in your chest: this is it, this is how you die, this is how it ends. 

“so, like, this group” you say, trying to work the system’s loopholes to find her a way out of it, “from ashes come all things, or whatever?”

she shrugs. you can tell by looking at her that she’s dangerous. “it’s corny,” she says. another shrug. “i didn’t mean to wind up a criminal.”

you don’t tell her that you sort of don’t know how one accidentally becomes a criminal, since you kind-of-sort-of help criminals out, accidentally. 

“i don’t believe any of that stuff,” she tells you, “none of that whole… burn it down to start it over.” she swallows. “stuff just happens. and happens. and you wake up and it’s still happening, even though you wish it wasn’t.”

you think about shay, and how she’s covered in scars, and her crying late at night because of things nobody else ever saw.

“yeah,” you say, and print out a form, “i get that.”

and you find a dangerous woman a normal home.

xxx

“you’re squadron 905?” 

“division 34754,” you tell him. watch him look down at your ID and certification and read your superpower on the card and then look back up to you and then back down to the card and then back up at you, and so on. he licks his chapped lips and stands in the cold.

this happens a lot. but you smile. the gatekeeper is frowning, but then hanson walks by. “oh shit,” he says, “it’s you! come right on in!” he gives you a hug through your rolled-down window.

the gatekeeper is in a stiff salute now. gulping in terror. hanson is one of the strongest people in this sector, and he just hugged you.

the gate opens. hanson swaggers through. you shrug to the gatekeeper. “i helped him out one time.” 

inside they’re debriefing. someone has shifted sides, someone powerful, someone wild. it’s not something you’re allowed to know about, but you know it’s bad. so you put your head down, and you work, because that’s what you’re good at, after all. you find out the gatekeeper’s name and send him a thank-you card and also handmade chapstick and some good earmuffs.

shay messages you that night. i have to go somewhere, she says, i can’t explain it, but there’s a mission and i might be gone a long time.

you stare at the screen for a long time. your fingers type out three words. you erase them. you instead write where could possibly better than stealing chef boyardee with me?

she doesn’t read it. you close the tab. 

and you put your head down. and work.

xxx

it’s in a chili’s. like, you don’t even like chili’s? chili’s sucks, but the boss ordered it so you’re here to pick it up, wondering if he gave you enough money to cover. things have been bad recently. thousands dying. whoever switched sides is too powerful to stop. they destroy anyone and anything, no matter the cost.

the phoenix fire smells like pistachios, you realize. you feel at once part of yourself and very far. it happens so quickly, but you feel it slowly. you wonder if shay is involved, but know she is not.

the doors burst in. there’s screaming. those in the area try their powers to defend themselves, but everyone is civilian division. the smell of pistachios is cloying. 

then they see you. and you see them. and you put your hands on your hips.

“excuse me, tris,” you say, “what are you doing?”

there’s tears in her eyes. “i need the money,” she croaks.

“From a chili’s?” you want to know, “who in their right mind robs a chili’s? what are you going to do, steal their mozzarella sticks?”

“it’s connected to a bank on the east wall,” she explains, “but i thought it was stupid too.”

you shake your head. you pull out your personal checkbook. you ask her how much she needs, and you see her crying. you promise her the rest when you get your paycheck.

someone bursts into the room. shouts things. demands they start killing. 

but you’re standing in the way, and none of them will kill you or hurt you, because they all know you, and you helped them at some point or another, or helped their friend, or helped their children.

tris takes the money, everyone leaves. by the time the heroes show up, you’ve gotten everyone out of the building.

the next time you see tris, she’s marrying a beautiful woman, and living happily, having sent her cancer running. you’re a bridesmaid at the wedding.

xxx

“you just,” the director wants to know now, “sent them running?” 

hanson stands between her and you, although you don’t need the protection.

“no,” you say again, for the millionth time, “i just gave her the money she needed and told her to stop it.”

“the phoenix group,” the director of squadron 300 has a vein showing, “does not just stop it.”

you don’t mention the social issues which confound to make criminal activity a necessity for some people, or how certain stereotypes forced people into negative roles to begin with, or how an uneven balance of power punished those with any neurodivergence. instead you say, “yeah, they do.”

“i’m telling you,” hanson says, “we brought her out a few times. it happens every time. they won’t hurt her. we need her on our team.”

your spine is stiff. “i don’t do well as a weapon,” you say, voice low, knowing these two people could obliterate you if they wished. but you won’t use people’s trust against them, not for anything. besides, it’s not like trust is your superpower. you’re just a normal person.

hanson snorts. “no,” he says, “but i like that when you show up, the fighting just… stops. that’s pretty nice, kid.”

“do you know… what we are dealing with…. since agent 25… shifted….?” the director’s voice is thin.

“yeah,” hanson says, “that’s why i think she’d be useful, you know? add some peace to things.”

the director sits down. sighs. waves her hand. “whatever,” she croaks, “do what you want. reassign her.”

hanson leads you out. over your shoulder, you see her put her head in her hands. later, you get her a homemade spa kit, and make sure to help her out by making her a real dinner from time to time, something she’s too busy for, mostly.

at night, you write shay messages you don’t send. telling her things you cannot manage.

one morning you wake up to a terrible message: shay is gone. never to be seen again.

xxx

you’re eating ice cream when you find him.

behind you, the city is burning. hundreds dead, if not thousands.

he’s staring at the river. maybe half-crying. it’s hard to tell, his body is shifting, seemingly caught between all things and being nothing.

“ooh buddy,” you say, passing him a cone-in-a-cup, the way he likes it, “talk about a night on the town.”

the bench is burning beside him, so you put your jacket down and snuff it out. it’s hard sitting next to him. he emits so much.

“hey tim?” you say. 

“yeah?” his voice is a million voices, a million powers, a terrible curse. 

“can i help?” you ask.

he eats a spoonful of ice cream. 

“yeah,” he says eventually. “i think i give up.”

xxx

later, when they praise you for defeating him, you won’t smile. they try to put you in the media; an all-time hero. you decline every interview and press conference. you attend his funeral with a veil over your head.

the box goes into the ground. you can’t stop crying.

you’re the only one left at the site. it’s dark now, the subtle night.

you feel her at your side and something in your heart stops hurting. a healing you didn’t know you needed. her hands find yours.

“they wanted me to kill him,” she says, “they thought i’d be the only one who could.” her hands are warm. you aren’t breathing.

“beat you to it,” you say. 

“i see that,” she tells you. 

you both stand there. crickets nestle the silence.

“you know,” she says eventually, “i have no idea which side is the good one.”

“i think that’s the point of a good metaphor about power and control,” you say, “it reflects the human spirit. no tool or talent is good or bad.”

“just useful,” she whispers. after a long time, she wonders, “so what does that make us?”

xxx

it’s a long trek up into the mountains. shay seems better every day. more solid. less like she’s on another plane.

“heard you’re a top ten,” she tells me, her breath coming out in a fog. you’ve reclassed her to civilian. it took calling in a few favors, but you’ve got a lot. 

“yeah,” you say, “invulnerable.”

“oh, is that your superpower?” she laughs. she knows it’s not.

“that’s what they’re calling it,” you tell her, out of breath the way she is not, “it’s how they explain a person like me at the top.”

“if that means ‘nobody wants to kill me’, i think i’m the opposite.” but she’s laughing, in a light way, a way that’s been missing from her.

the cabin is around the corner. the lights are already on. 

“somebody’s home,” i grin.

tim, just tim, tim who isn’t forced into war and a million reflections, opens the door. “come on in.” xxx squadron one, division three. a picture of shay in a wedding dress is on my desk. she looks radiant, even though she’s marrying little old me.

what do i do? just what i’m best at. what’s not a superpower. what anyone is capable of: just plain old helping.

Written art. Beautiful. Better than most movies. Please read and share.