hi i'm Ezra. my main is ionoreo; i go by sam or ezra and i use he/him prns. this is mostly a writing sideblog for the Fun of It . i post art on ionoreo rgat i might repost w/ writing attached here, and uhh I do poems. feel free to follow. currently running a silly ask game here !! more below the read more.
featured tags:
#glory and gore (fic) for the fic
#iono rambles for me talking about the stuff I write
current fics:
glory and gore (mha x murder drones)
spas and portals (portal au fic)
resonance (pokemon legends arceus x murder drones)
upcoming fics:
no heroes (original fiction)
i write for pokemon legends arceus, murder drones, and oc stuff. if anyone sends an anon asking me to write something about a fav of theirs i will research them for practice but it will be short!
i do not write for my hero academia on request mostly because i'm currently writing an mha x murder drones fanfic already and that is enough for me lol. i will write for anything else though! i also do not write nsfw or anything spicy (i love blood though
You work at a diner on the edge of the universe. A hive of scum and villainy, but to you, they're your regulars. This was just another day until a pair of peacekeepers strolled on in. You can never tell if they're the good ones or the bad ones.
Wattpad honestly isn't built for writers who actually want to pursue a serious career. It's a platform that thrives on cliché, mass produced romances because those bring in the most clicks. and the more shallow the trope, the better it performs in their system. The plots are often painfully cringe, and finding a genuinely good book buried under the algorithm feels like digging for gold in a landfill. And that algorithm pushes popularity, not quality, so writers with depth or originality barely stand a chance unless they bend themselves into whatever trend is currently blowing up.
Most of the writers who made it big from Wattpad either come with problematic histories or have virtually zero background in actual writing craft, yet they get glorified because the platform treats virality as talent. It's basically turned into a giant fanfiction hub at this point (no hate towards fanfiction or fanfic writers, i write fics myself) despite it was originally meant for all genres, and the culture around it treats writing like social media engagement instead of literature. And the community? A lot of readers there have no real sense of literary critique, everything is either overhyped or ignored based purely on vibes and ship drama.
Worst of all, abuse and pain is heavily fetishized and romanticized and I find it odd how most of female writers engage in these tropes. Wattpad could've been a space for real creativity, but instead it feels like an endless conveyor belt of trends, tropes, and underage fantasy dressed up as "storytelling".
hey. i just want to say i'm not trying to be mean or anything at all here but . two cents (actually more like 5 quarters LMAO please forgive my thought dumping)
having virtually zero background in actual writing craft is okay. everyone has to start somewhere. one of my shittiest fics ever is an ocxoc romance that i posted when i had just gotten started writing. it deserved the platform it got. it encouraged me to keep writing. the comments and interaction i got on any post of mine that became a hit, the reads i got on what i did publish, encouraged me to keep writing. where do you expect someone to start, where do you expect someone to publish a fic, if not on one of the most popular sites? having a problematic history is okay. i have a problematic history if you count the amount of scuffles i got into online because i was "problematic" and you'll never guess what! i am still a writer.
abuse and pain can be fetishized through fic because the fantasy is safe. there is no such thing as a thought crime or being morally wrong for writing about it. this is an argument i see regurgitated all the time about why ao3 is bad, and i'd like to point out that female writers are often the ones writing and engaging with this media not only because it's a safe way to process thoughts about traumatic events and because, once again, the fantasy is safe.
i don't mean for this post to come off as rude, and i'm sorry if it does. but as a former cliche writer myself, it just. feels so wrong to see people hating on those who are trying, who are picking up their pencils and their keyboards, who are creating, especially in the face of ai and increasing reader entitlement, when i was one of those people myself.
if this was about people who only write cliche romance fics, then i think those have their place too. the great thing about the online world is that it has made art more accessible, and i'd argue that creating cliche romance fics, if that's all someone specializes in, if the kind of trendy wattpad fanfiction/"bad" self insert stories are what get someone into writing, or someone else into writing, or even provide an outlet, then that's storytelling. that is art. it feels like the same kind of argument as "i could get my kid to draw that for less than $5" you see in modern art when people talk about beginners who go viral, or longtime writers who are still "bad" and i just. it's been several years since i graduated from my first romance fic, and i am a pretty good writer now. but whenever i see someone saying stuff like this i think back to my earlier years and it kind of grinds my gears. you're right about wattpad being more of a social media, less for those pursuing a career, but that shouldn't make it any less.
anyway thats all i am so sorry op if this came off as rude or angry i promise i'm not i just have a lot of thoughts about this
EDIT wattpad as a for-profit company absolutely sucks. would like to add that. but the thing about writers involved in it is what i had main thoughts about. i wish there were sites like ao3 for original fiction and i hate that wattpad is kind of the only popular alternative? but. yeah. to quote you, op, "It's a platform that thrives on cliché, mass produced romances because those bring in the most clicks. and the more shallow the trope, the better it performs in their system" is something that is bad. but that's the algorithm and the system being completely uneven. iirc on quotev, there was a recents spot you could check, and it was arranged by popular in genre, not overall popular which would obviously be dominated by certain genres. and if wattpad's search function is still terrible that is on them too (begging for more sites that have better tagging systems
yes actually! both mika and erin wear pretty simple outfits, and considering that the lightning bolts on mikas jacket change every time i draw her i would fully expect it to be a running gag that they're never consistent. lighty less so, but if vox machina can pull off zahra lighty could work in animation. the rest not so much unless you belong to that specific subset of wings of fire animators that specialize in dragon anatomy and movement
as a pokemon special fan, i hate to say there are actual genuine reasons for why the pokespe ship names are called that that make enough sense if you've read it you could probably figure it out.
silver and green being choosenshipping (chosenshipping?) makes sense because they were both chosen. agencyshipping is called that because whi runs the acting agency. its that simple. but its So Bad
theyre for being used at random to keep your readers on their toes. like being shot at and then all of a sudden you get a cannonball to the face instead of a bullet. that is actually how i use them. i know it's wrong. i do not care (love middle dash though. middle dash child is my personal favorite)
i think — is for long pauses actually, but. not sure
Mika takes someone else's car to the outskirts of the city, pretending to be a lost child, and then walks the next two blocks home.
Not to her apartment. Home. The building was torn apart in a pretty large dragon battle and never put back together, but it's where she goes when she just wants to sit and think for a while. She's not afraid of a little ceiling falling on her. She just doesn't know what she'll find there. A note from her parents? Something she used to have as a kid?
The buildings around the house are burnt all to hell, but at least her mom had stopped the house from burning down. She wasn't really anyone special, not to Mika, just... Mom. Just her mom, and definitely not really a wanted woman. Mika isn't sure why she's still reviled today, like she was a criminal. Mom always lived by what was right, even if she was a dragon rider-- it's not a bad thing, to tame a wild beast and use it to get your way if you're making a positive change. It's better than forcing them to fight over the dunes in the desert miles and miles away where they have enough room to brutalize each other.
Mika wonders if anyone down the next street, where no houses were scorched, even know about the street no one really dares to touch. Nothing here has been rebuilt yet. What are they waiting for, ash that's floated in the air for seven years to settle? Or do they think there's one final surprise hidden under the floorboards? It's not like her parents to pull surprises, even if they did blow up the single largest building there was in the city seven years ago.
Mika pushes aside the door, watching it fall, and sits on the dusty couch, pulling up one of the grey pillows to her chest. The TV was right in front here, and their cat-- actually, she doesn't want to think about the cat. It's somewhere better now; her dad gave it up to an adoption center before everything went down. No, she wants to think long and hard about what she did today.
Did she really want to kill someone? She's never done it before. Gotten close, yeah, but getting someone's artery was an accident, and she made sure they got help and medical attention before skedaddling with the knowledge they'd be okay. Doesn't matter the cause; killing someone is bad! And gross! And technically it was in self-defense and it's not like she answers to the police anyway so they can't arrest her for it but she still killed a guy. That's not something you can come back from. That's not really the kind of person she is, is it?
There's this weird void in her head she can barely think around, like if someone asked her what she felt she wouldn't be able to tell them at all, and the words that she wants to say-- the rambling to herself she usually does when walking home, complaining about something or other to Remix-- won't come out, and it's not normal, and nothing is right anymore. Mika pulls her hood up over her head, buries her face in the dry pillow, and wishes she felt bad enough to cry about it.
--
Mika's old room is still visibly bright pastels. Pink and purple curtains ripped to shreds over the years, bed nowhere near conditions any human being would stand to lay on it, but it's admittedly more comfortable than the living room was. Mika sits on the carpet, and watches the morning sun come in through the window and the ceiling. It's warm. Not warm enough, though; it's not warm enough if she isn't cozy enough to fall asleep. There's probably enough dust in here she should have brought a face mask or something, but it's settled from when she walked in.
It's time to go home, Remix tells her, and Mika gets up, briefly glancing towards the plastic case in the corner where all of her toys were stored when she was little. She doesn't like looking at them, not anymore. She wasn't really a dolls person, but every time she opens that atrociously bright case she remembers playing doctor with her plushies when her mom was at work and her dad was suffering through watching her put a bandaid on her stuffed whale and she hates that the memory gets fuzzier every time she opens it, and she's thinking about it now, and yeah she probably needs to go to her hideout and sleep it off.
"I arranged for the food to get dropped off," Mika says, shrugging her hood back and sticking her hands in her pockets. "You hungry? I have a granola bar."
Who did you loot that off? Remix asks, and Mika doesn't answer. She actually got it on the way to the museum, but if Remix wasn't paying attention when she dragged him back to the hideout to grab her snacks that's his fault. "I'll eat it myself, then."
She unwraps the granola bar, takes a bite, and then immediately nearly chokes on it. It's... moldy. How the hell is a granola bar she just got a few days ago moldy? It hasn't been long enough for it to be-- wait, it probably wasn't a few days, she remembers eating the other two when planning out her museum rescue, and they hadn't been that old then... but she's been planning that thing for months. Whoops.
Mika tosses the granola bar in the (still undamaged) plastic trashcan and swallows the bite grudgingly. "Come on. Let's just go home."
She walks the two blocks back to the only lively intersection in that part of town and calls another car that stops for a lost child. It doesn't surprise her, but it is a little funny how none of them question why a child like her has a snake twined around her arm and dust all in her hair.
--
"Heaps of walking, path is blocked--"
"Walk underground," Mika says dryly, laying on her stomach and watching assorted videos she's watched before from her puddle of blankets and pillows on the floor, her food from the Syn laying in front of her and her junk food stash at her side. Remix roots through her hoodie and licks at the lint in her pockets. She stabs some more of the vegetables with a shimmery fork and chews them until there's enough in her mouth she can barely swallow it all, then has a drink of water. "I need a nap."
Too bad she isn't tired. She's a kid still, and boundless energy is kind of her thing. Maybe she should just take some sleeping stuff, but she's been doing that for the past few days and it's not really safe to do it for any longer. Maybe she should just go back out and wear herself out some, but that's harder to do in the sunlight, 'cause any security guard would spot her slinking around. She's practically nocturnal for a reason. Then again, she could always pay a visit to a friend who's nowhere as near as nocturnal as she is.
Her parents are 100% dead and gone. Her grandparents? Off the grid. There is one piece of the fam, though, who she knows pretty well from that time of her life. She appreciated the whole surrogate father thing a few years back, and having someone powerful in her pocket allied with her would be a good thing right about now. She doesn't really like the way she gets babied every time she swings by, or treated like an unruly teen, but she needs someone to talk to. Mika rolls out of her bed, walks to her window, and jumps out.
She lands on the ground without much issue and walks it off to the astonishment of a few onlookers. Regretfully, regular people cannot see Remix or the golden feathers currently fluttering down around her from where Remix's wings blossom out, almost appearing to come out of her back (though regretfully she does not have wings, and if she did they would not be feathery but leathery like a bat's. Or a dragon's. Yeah, like a dragon's wings. And they'd be pink.) This means that to their eyes, a very small child just jumped six or seven stories, landed without even denting the pavement, and walked until she was out of sight. Mika has no doubt that more ghost stories accidentally caused by her haunting ares will be swirling around tonight.
The school isn't too far away. It's sort of a school, sort of an academy, someone deleted its name from the universe on accident a few years back and everyone just vaguely refers to it a few different ways and somehow everyone knows what everyone means. You'd think a school where people go to fully utilize their magical potential would be cool, as it is in the plot of every magical girl show ever, but it isn't. It's strict and harsh and the most you'll ever do unless you're super special is make fake stars to hang in the sky and convince people light pollution isn't real in service to whatever major corporation owns the right to the spell for that. Mika's unofficial grandfather-esque figure is the headmaster of that school, Illumina, and the reason that the majority of really frickin' strong trainees leave. As much as Mika likes her and uses her for free stuff and intel, Ilumina is really shit at what she does, because the majority of the education is steeped in tradition and funded by Ye Olde Graduates who scoff when something isn't taught the way they were taught. Magic could have evolved so far if not for Illumina's 3,000 years of strict policing.
So. What does she want? Anti-trauma spell, hopefully, and as much protection from the police as is possible. And maybe another coat or a refresher on the spell over hers. Hers is magically warmed, but it's been fading as of late. And Illumina is the only magic user she knows who won't immediately turn her into the police or try to take a metallic object of hers for divination purposes. It's the reason she doesn't wear a lot of metal. Do the pieces on her shoes count? Maybe? She's heard of stranger things used for divination... and she's going on a tangent again. She likes to think while she walks. Now that she's a few streets down, not a lot of people are paying attention to her-- she's a small kid, yeah, but her face clearly isn't that of a child child. A few dogs start barking when they see her. Remix scares them off for her before they start trying to rip her limbs off to get to the snake coiled around her arm.
The sunlight is harsh. Bright. Mika's preferred kind of eyestrain is usually neon lights or phone screen in dark room, not the ever-blazing gas ball bestowed upon people by AEEA and vi.b.aa for the good of (not humanity) all life on this stupid planet. She should have brought sunglasses. Instead she pulls her hood over her head and continues walking until she's in the shadow of the school building, massive and hauntingly hollow. She's only been in the main hall twice because of the servants recognizing her the last two times. She feels daring today. She pushes the massive doors open, and steps in.
--
From the outside, it's big. From the inside, it's bigger, thanks to some magical shenanigans. The main hall is massive, made for the hundreds of students that used to line its halls, shiny white floors with stripes in shifting colors turning it into a grid. The floor glows softly in her footsteps for a moment when she steps on it, and the windows remind her sort of like those of a church's, only they're colorless and only shaped by the twisting lines of gold and silver that the eye can't follow all the way to the end. Part of it was made by fortune's very avatar, AEEA, and part of it was made by humans. The air is cold and chilly, and where there should be students sitting on the benches below the windows comparing notes or assisting the servants cleaning the windows (not out of the good of their hearts; labor makes for really great penance according to every head of the school since basically before the most recent of the gods was born) but instead there are no students, just a bunch of classrooms with dusty faded spaces where namecards should go and a few staircases up to different parts of the building. Faculty board on the left, student board on the right, classrooms and offices in the middle. Mika takes the middle step and carefully ignores the two servants carrying crystals (and for some reason, a glass of wine) down the stairs. Maybe they were using wine as replacement water? Gods only know.
The staircase is well-maintained, and looks good as new, probably because it's been barely used since the floors got their updates a few hundred years back. There are almost no students left, and barely any students coming in, what with the dwindling of strength. Mika happens to know that six weak students in a group turns into one strong student, but the school won't take in any trainees below a certain strength level, and the strong ones usually don't respond well to the tactics used to drill the knowledge into them. Too bad Mika can't change the 3,000 year old mind of the head honcho sitting at the end of the hall. The doors to Illumina's office are layered in transparent, glimmering crystal that blurs everything behind it, frosty on the inside. So Illumina still excels at sucking the warmth out of everything. Mika may be the only person alive who knows that Illumina does not specialize in ice, but in heat, and pulling it away. It does a little damage to Illumina's frosty image to know she was born with a talent in fire. Which is why Mika always goes to her for that heat spell on her coat.
Mika raps on the door in a special rhythm, then knocks again. It only takes about two minutes of standing there boredly before she sees the note on the door that Illumina is currently not accepting visitors because she's filing her taxes. Well, that's annoying. Gods make a hundred shades, Illumina makes five, that's why she files her taxes on company time. There are no unlocked windows she can use to crawl around the building and into Illumina's office, and the AC vents are far too small for her to spy movie her way through. Mika knocks again. No response. The doors might be magically warded, but that magic has to be tied to something. If she broke the door down, an explosion would probably go off in her face. But if she picked the lock, and the door magic was tied to that lock, the wards might collapse and she can walk in. Mika crouches down by the golden lock and slips her knife into her hand, jamming it into the lock and jiggling it. These are old doors. That's great, actually-- older doors were designed to let their locks break open easily due to the amount of fires ravaging the city during that period.
The lock clicks after only a few minutes and she waltzes in, only to glance down at the floor when something sticks her feet to the tiles. She looks up. Illumina is passed out at her desk, papers stacked high on it, and leaning over the majority of the papers, a copy of herself. Oh. Interesting.
The two of them lock eyes. Mika stares in shock for a moment. A little too long of a moment, because she doesn't even duck away from the sleep spell that hits her square in the face. At least she's out before she collapses to the floor.
"Come on, lemme in," Mika says, flipping over the keycard and trying again. The massive concrete wall only raises if your keycard scans correctly, and there are plenty of people who want to get into the market behind her and she's holding up the line. Some of these people are starting to look irritated. Mika is irritated herself. She flips it over again, and then it finally beeps and lets her in, to which she gets the hell outta dodge and scampers into the market.
It's loud and hot down here. The place isn't entirely based around illegal activity, but Mika operates on a tight schedule and she doesn't have time for street food or grocery shopping until after she gets these things to her clients. Well-- maybe something wouldn't hurt. She is hungry. And she will want to be on her best behavior and it's hard to do so when she's cold and running on an empty stomach.
Remix is silent, instead digging through her pockets trying to find the chocolates. She's going to make him work for them, and it's a little silly because she always puts them in the same places, yet he can't seem to fathom that perhaps the reason he smells chocolate every time he goes near her inner coat pockets is because they're in there somewhere. He's going to be no help, but she slides into a seat by one of the vendors advertising HOT N FRESH -- WILD CAUGHT AUTHENTIC DELICACIES in neon lighting so blue it spills over into the street and bathes everything else in its color. Mika likes this place. The Syn who runs it gives her tips on fighting sometimes. She can taste the steam and it's warm enough that she can feel Remix get more comfortable.
The Syn turns and while it's not the one usually there Mika waves, mentally scanning their body for any implants. There are thick tubes running from their forearms up to their back, glistening green and black against the purple of their armorlike plating. That face doesn't have eyes, but it does have a mechanical band around where the eyes would be, displaying a looping blue gif of code rain.
"Mika! So good to have you back. Have you seen anything that interests you?" Oh, so she's in regular territory now. That, or this employee just likes her, probably because Mika tips very well here. She scans the food being prepared. "What's the meat? I think I smell the sauce for it."
"They're the equivalent of rats where we live, but bigger, and they'll curl up into a ball when threatened. Not animals, insects." The Syn skewers a piece on a toothpick and hands it to Mika. "Try it."
Mika tries it. Her immediate thought is that the meat doesn't taste like anything special, (or maybe she's just used to eating out of dumpsters) but oh wow, the flavoring on the sauce. "How much for a big plate of that?"
"Twenty shade." Mika fumbles around in her pockets for a couple coins and hands them over as fast as possible. "Would you like a receipt?" Mika nods, and the Syn prints one out on a machine by the counter and hands it to Mika, who almost drops it but does eventually get a hold of it. She looks over it for a moment, and smiles. The Mika discount, huh? He probably knows I'll make up for it in tips.
"So I guess you are someone special?" Mika shrugs when the Syn asks the question, already piling meat onto a paper plate. "I do a lotta work around here. People don't really know me, but they know of me, and it's kind of good business to have me around. That, and if the service is good, I usually come back and pay a little extra next time."
"I heard that people were scared of you." The Syn puts the plate in front of Mika and her mouth starts watering. That is a lot of meat and plenty of sauce and some bread and some steamed vegetables that she doesn't recognize that smell almost sweet. "My father worries about you. He told me to make sure no one put a knife in your back, if I saw you around. I'm afraid I'm not very good at that, but I can for sure feed you. I do most of the cooking here since he got injured."
Mika looks up from where she was shoving the vegetables in her mouth. "Oh no, he got injured? Is he alright?"
"He was caught in an experimental magic accident," the Syn says, and Mika thinks the Syn would be smiling if they had a mouth. "The vegetables are cooked with honey."
"I love you," Mika says. "Oh my god. So good. What kind of experimental magic accident?"
"A child-- one of the trainees at the school--" Mika scoffs, and the Syn shakes her head; they've all heard the horror stories, "she was fooling around with electricity and managed to stop his heart. He's fine now, but still in the hospital. Has been for almost four weeks now."
"Sheesh." Mika slows down when she gets to the insect meat, if only to savor it. The texture is a little different from usual, but not bad. "I really haven't stopped by in four weeks? I gotta start coming by more."
"It's best you don't." The Syn slides Mika a cup of water that she takes appreciatively. "The police have been coming in more and more every week. If you have business to do, I'd suggest you get it done with, quickly. I heard they'll be checking here after something happened at the museum," Mika chokes on her water, "should I get you a to-go box?"
Mika gets her coughing under control and slides the Syn ninety more shade. "Two more to-go boxes and keep the change. For the good food, and the information. I'll grab it on my way out." The Syn nods and takes the paper plate, and Mika jumps down from the chair. Right, time for business then.
I cannot believe, Remix says, coming out of her hood with chocolate on his fangs, that you would drop one hundred and ten shade on something like that.
"It's three full meals that are enough to keep me going for an entire day," Mika says, "and I wouldn't have tipped so much except she warned me and her dad's in the hospital and you know you like him too."
It's not safe to like anybody, Remix counters, and Mika scurries into one of the buildings on the side. She doesn't like nightclubs, but no one would notice anybody going in and coming out with a little more silver on their outfit, even if they would usually notice a slithering heap of metal.
--
The private room is cold enough Mika has to pull her coat tighter around her. The various people who had responded to her emails about the sentient weapons are gathered at the other side of the table she had brought in. She can clock at least three gang wannabes, one person who actually knows what she's doing dressed in icy blue and silver, two Syn that look almost identical, and a wiry girl with cat ears and a tail that is eyeing the hammer Mika has just placed on the table as if she plans to use it on someone. The rest, Mika has no idea about.
"Alright, so." Mika claps her hands together. "I'm sure many of you have wanted this opportunity for a good. Long. While. Anyway, prices can be negotiated, but I'm starting at 890 shade for all of these. I know it's a lot. I'll go down if you give me a really good story. First come first serve, if you kill someone else to get what they have that's fine just don't do it in front of me for the first 28 days. And if you want to leave a deposit in case you're not sure if you want it just give me your name so I can make a note of it. Got it? Alright. Go."
They stare at her. Mika stares back. It might be because she's standing on the table or because that is the single worst intro any aspiring businesswoman has ever given to her weapons auction, but the general response seems to be "what?"
"If I tell you I think I know how to make more of these kinds of weapons could you go down to 650 on the hammer?" the cat-eared girl says, and Mika shrugs. "Do better."
"I was messing around trying to find a way to create something like this again," the girl says reproachfully, and the gears in Mika's brain start turning. "I electrocuted a guy half to death doing it, but I know how to avoid it now and how to do it properly. I just need a reference for the mind, and that'll take my entire life without something to study. I could knock it down to years, twenty maybe, if I had that thing."
Mika sighs. "Sold."
"Really?"
"You gotta go apologize to that man and heal him if you're a magic user first, though. Come back when that's done and I'll hand it over. Oh, yeah, and I'm taking that 650 shade in advance. Plus a deposit in case you don't come back and I'm stuck with this thing forever. They are such downers."
"How much for the deposit? I'm, uh," Mika can see she's deciding on a fake name, "Adagio."
"How much ya got?"
Mika walks out of that nightclub with 5500 shade and some girl's phone. That was more than she expected, honestly. Now she has enough to buy some good stuff for her secret evil hideout she uses to plan her revenge. Technically it is an apartment in the downtown area but it's also her totally evil secret hideout that no one but her has the key to. Not that it matters since she has to leave the door unlocked at all times. Why? Remix ate the key once and she still can't get ahold of the landlord to get another key.
And now time to have a very serious talk with Zura. He usually frequents this one shady place that Mika doesn't like going into, but his girlfriend who Mika also doesn't like is for sure going to be there if he isn't. It's not exactly a tattoo parlor and it's not exactly a pizza place, but kind of... both. The pizza place. The tattoo parlor. The combination pizza place and tattoo parlor. It's scary! At least Mika is used to braving scary things. And she's sure they'll have some food a small child could steal to assert dominance. Maybe not. She doesn't want food poisoning.
Mika counts no less than five people eyeing her as she turns down the side street to the place (it's called the Dragon, but no one calls it that, mostly because the sign is so faded it's hard to tell what it said unless you were alive when it was new) and there's probably more people hidden somewhere she can't see. She recognizes a guy she sold some old trinkets to a few years ago. A cursed amulet or something like that.
She opens the door (the glass is cracked, it wasn't this morning) and stops just before she slips on the floor. It's wet. Who allows water in their--?
Mika pulls her foot back. It leaves a mark in the style of the soles of her shoes, glistening in a drying puddle of thick blood and something else that's probably guts. She wipes it uneasily on the mat in front of the door, sidesteps around the puddle, and dodges stepping in three or four more puddles. There's blood in handprints on the walls, too, and it's not just red, but black. A Syn was injured here. How did someone injure one of those? Machine guns don't even scare them, how could someone... magic, maybe, but no one is strong enough to do something like draw blood from one of those without expending all they have and leaving themselves open to attack. Maybe she doesn't want to go in here. She's survived this long by avoiding fights and things that may or may not involve her, not by going in. But she wants her money back, damn it.
She walks towards one of the doors, marked EMPLOYEES ONLY KEEP OUT and presses her ear up to it. There are people in there. So she knocks, waits until the talking stops, then knocks again. The door swings open and Mika slides in before anyone can check if she's an employee and allowed in there or not.
"Where's Zura," Mika begins, then sees the three bodies, one of which is Zura's. "Oh, shit. What happened here?" She can't see any visible injuries, but there's a lot of blood, and he isn't breathing, and his eyes... there's a reason Mika is a good thief instead of a good killer: she can't stand bodies. She swallows and looks away before the body can remind her of her dad.
A coin purse hits her square in the face, and she catches it as she stumbles back. It's heavy. 300 shade heavy. They're giving it back that easily? Well, Zura's dead, so they're probably giving it back to keep her silent. Oh, well. She wasn't going to tell anyone anyway. "Zura's dead," a blue-haired woman hisses, tear streaks ruining her makeup. Zura's girlfriend. Mika feels a pang of sympathy, then shuts that down quickly. If Zura got into a stupid fight and died over it that's his fault. "Now get out! Leave us alone! We don't want you around here."
Mika counts people. Three of them, one injured and holding an arm limply at his side. Two exits, one window, one door that she could probably break through. Remix twines around her arm, hissing and flicking his tail. Her hands are still covered by her coat sleeves, but the jerk of her arm allowing her knives to slip into her hand would be too obvious even if they couldn't see the blade. "I asked what happened here."
"Some people came around looking for a tiny freak with green hair and blue eyes," the injured one tells her, staring off into space, before his eyes narrow like he's suddenly seeing her. "And a white coat with horns..."
"Don't you dare," Mika warns, then jolts back when he lunges for her, outstretched hands aiming for her neck. Mika swings her arm up to defend herself, and red blooms across his throat as the dark crystal knife slices cleanly through his skin. She had forgotten that it would slip into her hand if she moved it at all. Mika steps back, legs going a little weak, and checks to make sure Remix is okay instead of watching the body crumple on the ground. That guy was fast. Too bad she's always been faster. If she had been slower, had hit his eye instead of his throat, he could have just gotten a replacement...
Mika looks up at the blue-haired woman, who has since stopped crying. "Get out." she tells Mika, and Mika turns and runs. She only makes one stop on the way home, and it's to grab her food. For some reason, it doesn't smell as good anymore.
--
The cracked mirror in the room of the girl who called herself Adagio shimmers faintly when she enters and fixes itself, piecing back together so she can see one picture of herself and not multiple. It wasn't broken when she left. So inspection fucked up, huh? That's the problem with assigning fellow students to go through the dorms and make sure she's got everything clean and in order; they're much clumsier than she is, and only she would know that most people wouldn't see the dresser to their left and hit it with their hip upon entering. No matter; she can just fix it.
The problem with her mask is that it falls apart in mirrors unless she really studies it, and the cat-eared disguise was just something she thought up quickly. Even now, a simple blink makes her grey hair shine through the blond layer over it, and moving... well, moving makes the fox ears visible over the cat ones. How annoying. The one she plans to use next, though, that one is for sure stuck in her memory. People say you shouldn't impersonate someone if you plan to move around a lot, because no one has a memory strong enough to cover an illusion from all angles, but she's sure she's got it. She's been studying her for weeks. And she
"Come on, lemme in," Mika says, flipping over the keycard and trying again. The massive concrete wall only raises if your keycard scans correctly, and there are plenty of people who want to get into the market behind her and she's holding up the line. Some of these people are starting to look irritated. Mika is irritated herself. She flips it over again, and then it finally beeps and lets her in, to which she gets the hell outta dodge and scampers into the market.
It's loud and hot down here. The place isn't entirely based around illegal activity, but Mika operates on a tight schedule and she doesn't have time for street food or grocery shopping until after she gets these things to her clients. Well-- maybe something wouldn't hurt. She is hungry. And she will want to be on her best behavior and it's hard to do so when she's cold and running on an empty stomach.
Remix is silent, instead digging through her pockets trying to find the chocolates. She's going to make him work for them, and it's a little silly because she always puts them in the same places, yet he can't seem to fathom that perhaps the reason he smells chocolate every time he goes near her inner coat pockets is because they're in there somewhere. He's going to be no help, but she slides into a seat by one of the vendors advertising HOT N FRESH -- WILD CAUGHT AUTHENTIC DELICACIES in neon lighting so blue it spills over into the street and bathes everything else in its color. Mika likes this place. The Syn who runs it gives her tips on fighting sometimes. She can taste the steam and it's warm enough that she can feel Remix get more comfortable.
The Syn turns and while it's not the one usually there Mika waves, mentally scanning their body for any implants. There are thick tubes running from their forearms up to their back, glistening green and black against the purple of their armorlike plating. That face doesn't have eyes, but it does have a mechanical band around where the eyes would be, displaying a looping blue gif of code rain.
"Mika! So good to have you back. Have you seen anything that interests you?" Oh, so she's in regular territory now. That, or this employee just likes her, probably because Mika tips very well here. She scans the food being prepared. "What's the meat? I think I smell the sauce for it."
"They're the equivalent of rats where we live, but bigger, and they'll curl up into a ball when threatened. Not animals, insects." The Syn skewers a piece on a toothpick and hands it to Mika. "Try it."
Mika tries it. Her immediate thought is that the meat doesn't taste like anything special, (or maybe she's just used to eating out of dumpsters) but oh wow, the flavoring on the sauce. "How much for a big plate of that?"
"Twenty shade." Mika fumbles around in her pockets for a couple coins and hands them over as fast as possible. "Would you like a receipt?" Mika nods, and the Syn prints one out on a machine by the counter and hands it to Mika, who almost drops it but does eventually get a hold of it. She looks over it for a moment, and smiles. The Mika discount, huh? He probably knows I'll make up for it in tips.
"So I guess you are someone special?" Mika shrugs when the Syn asks the question, already piling meat onto a paper plate. "I do a lotta work around here. People don't really know me, but they know of me, and it's kind of good business to have me around. That, and if the service is good, I usually come back and pay a little extra next time."
"I heard that people were scared of you." The Syn puts the plate in front of Mika and her mouth starts watering. That is a lot of meat and plenty of sauce and some bread and some steamed vegetables that she doesn't recognize that smell almost sweet. "My father worries about you. He told me to make sure no one put a knife in your back, if I saw you around. I'm afraid I'm not very good at that, but I can for sure feed you. I do most of the cooking here since he got injured."
Mika looks up from where she was shoving the vegetables in her mouth. "Oh no, he got injured? Is he alright?"
"He was caught in an experimental magic accident," the Syn says, and Mika thinks the Syn would be smiling if they had a mouth. "The vegetables are cooked with honey."
"I love you," Mika says. "Oh my god. So good. What kind of experimental magic accident?"
"A child-- one of the trainees at the school--" Mika scoffs, and the Syn shakes her head; they've all heard the horror stories, "she was fooling around with electricity and managed to stop his heart. He's fine now, but still in the hospital. Has been for almost four weeks now."
"Sheesh." Mika slows down when she gets to the insect meat, if only to savor it. The texture is a little different from usual, but not bad. "I really haven't stopped by in four weeks? I gotta start coming by more."
"It's best you don't." The Syn slides Mika a cup of water that she takes appreciatively. "The police have been coming in more and more every week. If you have business to do, I'd suggest you get it done with, quickly. I heard they'll be checking here after something happened at the museum," Mika chokes on her water, "should I get you a to-go box?"
Mika gets her coughing under control and slides the Syn ninety more shade. "Two more to-go boxes and keep the change. For the good food, and the information. I'll grab it on my way out." The Syn nods and takes the paper plate, and Mika jumps down from the chair. Right, time for business then.
I cannot believe, Remix says, coming out of her hood with chocolate on his fangs, that you would drop one hundred and ten shade on something like that.
"It's three full meals that are enough to keep me going for an entire day," Mika says, "and I wouldn't have tipped so much except she warned me and her dad's in the hospital and you know you like him too."
It's not safe to like anybody, Remix counters, and Mika scurries into one of the buildings on the side. She doesn't like nightclubs, but no one would notice anybody going in and coming out with a little more silver on their outfit, even if they would usually notice a slithering heap of metal.
--
The private room is cold enough Mika has to pull her coat tighter around her. The various people who had responded to her emails about the sentient weapons are gathered at the other side of the table she had brought in. She can clock at least three gang wannabes, one person who actually knows what she's doing dressed in icy blue and silver, two Syn that look almost identical, and a wiry girl with cat ears and a tail that is eyeing the hammer Mika has just placed on the table as if she plans to use it on someone. The rest, Mika has no idea about.
"Alright, so." Mika claps her hands together. "I'm sure many of you have wanted this opportunity for a good. Long. While. Anyway, prices can be negotiated, but I'm starting at 890 shade for all of these. I know it's a lot. I'll go down if you give me a really good story. First come first serve, if you kill someone else to get what they have that's fine just don't do it in front of me for the first 28 days. And if you want to leave a deposit in case you're not sure if you want it just give me your name so I can make a note of it. Got it? Alright. Go."
They stare at her. Mika stares back. It might be because she's standing on the table or because that is the single worst intro any aspiring businesswoman has ever given to her weapons auction, but the general response seems to be "what?"
"If I tell you I think I know how to make more of these kinds of weapons could you go down to 650 on the hammer?" the cat-eared girl says, and Mika shrugs. "Do better."
"I was messing around trying to find a way to create something like this again," the girl says reproachfully, and the gears in Mika's brain start turning. "I electrocuted a guy half to death doing it, but I know how to avoid it now and how to do it properly. I just need a reference for the mind, and that'll take my entire life without something to study. I could knock it down to years, twenty maybe, if I had that thing."
Mika sighs. "Sold."
"Really?"
"You gotta go apologize to that man and heal him if you're a magic user first, though. Come back when that's done and I'll hand it over. Oh, yeah, and I'm taking that 650 shade in advance. Plus a deposit in case you don't come back and I'm stuck with this thing forever. They are such downers."
"How much for the deposit? I'm, uh," Mika can see she's deciding on a fake name, "Adagio."
"How much ya got?"
Mika walks out of that nightclub with 5500 shade and some girl's phone. That was more than she expected, honestly. Now she has enough to buy some good stuff for her secret evil hideout she uses to plan her revenge. Technically it is an apartment in the downtown area but it's also her totally evil secret hideout that no one but her has the key to. Not that it matters since she has to leave the door unlocked at all times. Why? Remix ate the key once and she still can't get ahold of the landlord to get another key.
And now time to have a very serious talk with Zura. He usually frequents this one shady place that Mika doesn't like going into, but his girlfriend who Mika also doesn't like is for sure going to be there if he isn't. It's not exactly a tattoo parlor and it's not exactly a pizza place, but kind of… both. The pizza place. The tattoo parlor. The combination pizza place and tattoo parlor. It's scary! At least Mika is used to braving scary things. And she's sure they'll have some food a small child could steal to assert dominance. Maybe not. She doesn't want food poisoning.
Mika counts no less than five people eyeing her as she turns down the side street to the place (it's called the Dragon, but no one calls it that, mostly because the sign is so faded it's hard to tell what it said unless you were alive when it was new) and there's probably more people hidden somewhere she can't see. She recognizes a guy she sold some old trinkets to a few years ago. A cursed amulet or something like that.
She opens the door (the glass is cracked, it wasn't this morning) and stops just before she slips on the floor. It's wet. Who allows water in their--?
Mika pulls her foot back. It leaves a mark in the style of the soles of her shoes, glistening in a drying puddle of thick blood and something else that's probably guts. She wipes it uneasily on the mat in front of the door, sidesteps around the puddle, and dodges stepping in three or four more puddles. There's blood in handprints on the walls, too, and it's not just red, but black. A Syn was injured here. How did someone injure one of those? Machine guns don't even scare them, how could someone… magic, maybe, but no one is strong enough to do something like draw blood from one of those without expending all they have and leaving themselves open to attack. Maybe she doesn't want to go in here. She's survived this long by avoiding fights and things that may or may not involve her, not by going in. But she wants her money back, damn it.
She walks towards one of the doors, marked EMPLOYEES ONLY KEEP OUT and presses her ear up to it. There are people in there. So she knocks, waits until the talking stops, then knocks again. The door swings open and Mika slides in before anyone can check if she's an employee and allowed in there or not.
"Where's Zura," Mika begins, then sees the three bodies, one of which is Zura's. "Oh, shit. What happened here?" She can't see any visible injuries, but there's a lot of blood, and he isn't breathing, and his eyes… there's a reason Mika is a good thief instead of a good killer: she can't stand bodies. She swallows and looks away before the body can remind her of her dad.
A coin purse hits her square in the face, and she catches it as she stumbles back. It's heavy. 300 shade heavy. They're giving it back that easily? Well, Zura's dead, so they're probably giving it back to keep her silent. Oh, well. She wasn't going to tell anyone anyway. "Zura's dead," a blue-haired woman hisses, tear streaks ruining her makeup. Zura's girlfriend. Mika feels a pang of sympathy, then shuts that down quickly. If Zura got into a stupid fight and died over it that's his fault. "Now get out! Leave us alone! We don't want you around here."
Mika counts people. Three of them, one injured and holding an arm limply at his side. Two exits, one window, one door that she could probably break through. Remix twines around her arm, hissing and flicking his tail. Her hands are still covered by her coat sleeves, but the jerk of her arm allowing her knives to slip into her hand would be too obvious even if they couldn't see the blade. "I asked what happened here."
"Some people came around looking for a tiny freak with green hair and blue eyes," the injured one tells her, staring off into space, before his eyes narrow like he's suddenly seeing her. "And a white coat with horns…"
"Don't you dare," Mika warns, then jolts back when he lunges for her, outstretched hands aiming for her neck. Mika swings her arm up to defend herself, and red blooms across his throat as the dark crystal knife slices cleanly through his skin. She had forgotten that it would slip into her hand if she moved it at all. Mika steps back, legs going a little weak, and checks to make sure Remix is okay instead of watching the body crumple on the ground. That guy was fast. Too bad she's always been faster. If she had been slower, had hit his eye instead of his throat, he could have just gotten a replacement…
Mika looks up at the blue-haired woman, who has since stopped crying. "Get out." she tells Mika, and Mika turns and runs. She only makes one stop on the way home, and it's to grab her food. For some reason, it doesn't smell as good anymore.
--
The cracked mirror in the room of the girl who called herself Adagio shimmers faintly when she enters and fixes itself, piecing back together so she can see one picture of herself and not multiple. It wasn't broken when she left. So inspection fucked up, huh? That's the problem with assigning fellow students to go through the dorms and make sure she's got everything clean and in order; they're much clumsier than she is, and only she would know that most people wouldn't see the dresser to their left and hit it with their hip upon entering. No matter; she can just fix it.
The problem with her mask is that it falls apart in mirrors unless she really studies it, and the cat-eared disguise was just something she thought up quickly. Even now, a simple blink makes her grey hair shine through the blond layer over it, and moving… well, moving makes the fox ears visible over the cat ones. How annoying. The one she plans to use next, though, that one is for sure stuck in her memory. People say you shouldn't impersonate someone if you plan to move around a lot, because no one has a memory strong enough to cover an illusion from all angles, but she's sure she's got it. She's been studying her for weeks. And she needs to get into someplace she has access to or else her power level will stagnate even harder than it already is. She doesn't wanna spend her life making the fake stars that glow in the sky or repairing buildings with construction workers! She wants to blow shit up!
She lets the mask fall apart, collapsing into threads of magic that tangle on the ground at her feet. They'll dissolve within a few hours, but if she needs the disguise again she could come back before then and thread it together. The new one she weaves after a few moments of concentration, and studies it in the mirror, shifting around like she's modeling a new skirt. Her stance is completely incorrect for someone used to standing so steadily, and the skirt does occasionally clip into her thighs, but the shoes and the white coat marked by pink lightning bolts are at least the same as they've always been. The green hair she has to make a few adjustments to-- parts of it she knows were cut off in an event two weeks ago and haven't regrown, but she cemented the hair in her memory before then, so that needs to be manually fixed-- and the blue eyes have too much sparkle to them, but the pink pupils do dilate into slits like a snake's when she opens her eyes really wide, which should be enough to convince someone that she really is Mika.
It's weird to be impersonating her idol and realizing that said idol is probably a little bit younger than her, but no matter. She needs it. She really, really needs it. Otherwise, she'll be in the same spot everyone in her place ends up: boring 9-5 making the City of Stars worse every day. She pulls the hood of her jacket over her head and watches the reflection's hood go up too; stuffed white horns forming the distinctive silhouette everyone within a 105-mile radius recognizes.
The girl who called herself Adagio walks out planning to call herself Mika.
needs to get into someplace she has access to or else her power level will stagnate even harder than it already is. She doesn't wanna spend her life making the fake stars that glow in the sky or repairing buildings with construction workers! She wants to blow shit up!
She lets the mask fall apart, collapsing into threads of magic that tangle on the ground at her feet. They'll dissolve within a few hours, but if she needs the disguise again she could come back before then and thread it together. The new one she weaves after a few moments of concentration, and studies it in the mirror, shifting around like she's modeling a new skirt. Her stance is completely incorrect for someone used to standing so steadily, and the skirt does occasionally clip into her thighs, but the shoes and the white coat marked by pink lightning bolts are at least the same as they've always been. The green hair she has to make a few adjustments to-- parts of it she knows were cut off in an event two weeks ago and haven't regrown, but she cemented the hair in her memory before then, so that needs to be manually fixed-- and the blue eyes have too much sparkle to them, but the pink pupils do dilate into slits like a snake's when she opens her eyes really wide, which should be enough to convince someone that she really is Mika.
It's weird to be impersonating her idol and realizing that said idol is probably a little bit younger than her, but no matter. She needs it. She really, really needs it. Otherwise, she'll be in the same spot everyone in her place ends up: boring 9-5 making the City of Stars worse every day. She pulls the hood of her jacket over her head and watches the reflection's hood go up too; stuffed white horns forming the distinctive silhouette everyone within a 105-mile radius recognizes.
The girl who called herself Adagio walks out planning to call herself Mika.
to the two people who sent me asks: i promise i am working on them!! im also currently writing ch4 of no heroes and trying to establish a chapter 1 of falling stars. anyway. i'm getting there. aaaaaaa (this weekend was not very productive and i am so sorry)
okay i have an idea. time to write lighty having a panic attack as she realizes this is not her mika!! this is not her world!! and i will finally have an excuse to really write out how massive the city is both in alt universes AND the original
i feel like if you listen to sunset prelude or solar sailer while reading this it would make it a little better. since thats what i used to write it. writing below the cut! thank you for the ask, feel free to send more if you liked ^^
It's quiet in the small cave in the Highlands where Akari is taking a break from survey work. Rei's notebook-- his third, already half-full with doodles and art of Pokemon behavior-- is laid out in front of their Arcanine to dry, as well as Akari's overshirt and her satchel. Getting into a fight with a bunch of oversized Magikarp at night wasn't their best decision, especially with the moon shadowed by the clouds and no other Fire-types to keep them dry after they fell into the river anyway. Maybe it wouldn't be great having anything other than Arcanine, actually, considering how strong their moves have gotten. Akari wants her uniform dry, not crispy.
She breaks some of her Cake Lure apart and holds it out to Decidueye, who gobbles it up and only pokes her hand a few times. She feels bad about eating the food they initially were going to use to see if they could catch some more Gible, but she's hungry and the actual human food they brought is now swimming with the fishes. At least Rei's satchel was dry. Akari has about five more minutes before she starts worrying about him, and whether or not he got ambushed on the way to pick up the stuff she dropped. It should have been her going out to get it, but the thin long-sleeved shirt that somehow managed to stay dry isn't very protective.
Akari practically tosses herself onto Arcanine, burying her face in its fur and slumping onto her side. She wants to be back out there. That's kind of where her strengths lie, in battling and strategy and Never Backing Down Ever. She is not good at sitting in caves and waiting for friends to come back. At the very least, she wishes she had a book to read, but no one who has any books has been willing to let her take them out on a survey expedition for fear they might be damaged beyond repair. It's not an unreasonable fear. They will definitely be damaged. If not by Pokemon, then by Akari accidentally ripping a page or two.
She looks up when she hears something coming towards the cave (footsteps sound human, but it could also be a small bipedal Pokemon) and dodges the charm that nearly hits her in the face as Rei flings it towards her, then picks it up after it falls to the floor. "Thought these were designed to be lost."
"I guess so," Rei agrees, handing her the rest of her stuff. Six Pokeballs, her Pokedex, the small berry collection she had just in case they found any more Clefairy in the moonlight. "I found it floating in the water. Couldn't find the string it was on, though. And I couldn't find the Heavy Balls you took."
"Yeah, don't worry about those." Akari leans back against Arcanine. "I don't need the weight. I usually wind up dropping them if I get chased anyway."
"Of course you get chased." Rei sits down beside her, crossing his arms and sighing. "Please tell me you have some food left. I didn't bring any. And I'm not capable of eating even one more Oran Berry." Akari winces. "Are you capable of stomaching a Cake Lure?" The stare Rei gives her shuts that down real quick.
They sit together for a moment. Neither of them are particularly upset about what happened back there with the Magikarp, and if anything they'll probably tell their friend later to laugh about it. But it's still ultimately exhausting to get hit by several wet fish hard enough to fall into a river. And to lose the majority of your stuff. In Rei's case, to possibly lose the majority of his drawings. Akari does feel bad about being unable to save his notebook. She has Decidueye. It could have swooped in and... no, the past is in the past. He's not mad at her. So she's not gonna waste time on it.
"Don't tell Laventon," Rei digs around in his satchel for a Pokeball, engraved with a little fire symbol on the top, "but I did actually catch the Alpha Rapidash in the Fieldlands."
Akari straightens up immediately. "No! He's gonna blow his top. That was soo dangerous!"
"I had Samurott attack it from the front, then got it with the back strike from behind in a tree." Rei nudges the Pokeball towards her. Akari can see the inside illuminated by something fiery. "Meet Asha."
"You gave it a nickname?"
"Mai suggested it after I mentioned it to her."
"That's your fourth, right? Fifth?" Neither of them have a full team yet, and they usually share their Pokemon if they need a full team for something. Akari's Pokemon are the strongest battlers; Rei's are better with stealth and sneaking. Usually because he either can't be bothered to battle, or needs something to slink around while he studies and draws. That also makes him the better catcher, since Akari knocks out Pokemon so often she struggles to catch anything.
"Fourth." Rei confirms, and tucks the Pokeball back into his satchel. "How many have you got?"
"Wylfren traded me a Roselia for a Growlithe I caught the other day, so that makes five. I just have to actually... introduce myself. I was gonna do that tonight, but... you know. Any ideas for a nickname?"
Rei shrugs. "I'm no good with names. Talk to Wylfren about that. Or Mai."
"Yeah." Akari pats her shirt where it's drying, then picks it up. Dry. That's good. And it's warm too, though she expected that. She throws it back on, though her satchel isn't dry enough yet to keep it cinched. "Thanks for leaving Arcanine with me. I really need a Fire-type."
"You don't need one. Decidueye hits hard enough without you finding a way to light its arrows on fire too."
"Not like that! I mean for warmth. Especially when we get to the Icelands." Akari fiddles around in her damp satchel for the Pokeball she drew a (bad) rose on and scrubs away as much of the ink as she can with her thumb. "Mind drawing a rose on this for me? It's Roselia's. The ball, I mean."
Rei takes it and gets to work immediately. "You started drawing on them?"
"You engrave your Pokeballs to keep track of it and Wylfren uses different ones for each Pokemon. I figured I'd do something to know who I've got in there too."
"You could just look inside," Rei argues, and Akari rolls her eyes. "You don't have time in a battle to do that."
"Engraving's still better. You don't have to look, just memorize how the symbols feel." He hands the Pokeball back to her. "Sorry. I'm still not great with working on curved surfaces."
"I should get you to remake all of my Pokeballs." He's better at making them than she is. Making them look nice, that is. Hers often wind up misshapen, though they work the same as any other Pokeball. Maybe a little better, if the success of her Great Balls are anything to go by.
"Don't even suggest that. It's so tedious."
Akari laughs. "Weren't you just saying it was relaxing, like, yesterday?"
"Yeah, when I was quoting you!"
Akari stretches her arms and legs and stands up. "It's almost sunrise. Come on, let's get back out there."
Rei yawns. "No thank you. I'm going right back to base after your stuff dries."
"It is dry," she says, picking up her still-obviously-damp satchel and tying it around her waist. "I'll join you in the morning. I wanna catch a Clefairy. I know you have one, but I really gotta stop borrowing her and you need to evolve her into a Clefable."
"Yeah." Rei gets back up too, and pulls his flute out of his satchel. Akari will never understand how he manages to make it fit in there without twisting it sideways like she does. The quick tune to call Wyrdeer comes out even worse than Akari's playing, but at least it's recognizable enough. Taking Wyrdeer back to the base is probably the best way to go back. Much better than Akari's usual idea of limping back or having Decidueye fly Kirlia to the base so he can teleport her there.
"Can I borrow Arcanine?" Akari asks, and Rei nods, tossing her the Pokeball. There isn't an engraving on it, but a large X that Akari can guess has been on the Pokeball since Rei fought Lord Kleavor with her and Wylfren.
"See you tomorrow, Rei."
"See you, Akari."
Neither Professor Laventon and Rei are very surprised after a very scuffed up Akari rolls up with fourteen Clefairy and an Alpha Clefable for study six hours later. Anyone with eyes would also see their mutual friend Wylfren hand over a large amount of PKD to Rei when told about it.
i need to write. you guys get to make me by forcing me to write for certain characters that i need to work on
anons can ask for any mixture of these characters (only two character per thing though) and ill respond with a short little writing bit of them interacting. some of these are my ocs!! i just need to work on developing them further but I usually don't do it unless writing for them specifically which is... hm. need to work on that. same with the others, I need to work on scene specific interaction. feel free to mix and match from fandoms!
list
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cyn (murder drones)
tessa (murder drones)
mika (oc)
erin (oc)
liz (oc)
valina (oc) (this ones a dragon just so you guys know)
akari (pokemon)
rei (pokemon) (separate from akari, i need to work on both of them having distinct personalities)
The dark and shiny ground makes Mika's shoes squeak softly when she steps, but at least she's light enough on her feet that even the squeaks are soft. The gold and silver walls of the museum are quite haunting in a beautiful way, and she's a little embarrassed to be making so much noise in such a nice place. Her coat doesn't rustle at all, though, which is good; she turned the hood inside out so it didn't make a ton of noise in the quiet. At night, the place is so much nicer than during the day; no one to herd her out of this section because it's "not for kids" to look at ancient weapons of bygone civilizations, or to watch the demonstrators demonstrate how they work on ballistics gel. That's for the adults to watch, for them to pay to watch metal streaked with glowing blue and pink grow spikes as it's jammed into a simulated torso, then shift those spikes into hooks and pull out smoothly without ever appearing to change shape. Mika herself is a big fan of the black crystalline knives somehow sharper than obsidian, yet never breaking, or cutting allies even when the blade is drawn smoothly across their throat.
The glass containers reflect her face as enshrouded in fire and Mika reaches into her coat to pat the pet snake she brought out here to see the weapons. "Remix? Doing alright?"
Don't ask, the snake says, and sticks the upper part of his body out around her shoulders to give his golden-blue wings some breathing room. Mika scratches under his chin and enters the museum hall after picking the lock to get in. They're all so pretty. No one knows how they're made anymore, or how exactly magic flows off of them like water, but Mika does. The answer: intertwine your spell with the metal and it'll obey your command almost exactly. It's sentient metal. And it's Mika's job to free said sentient metal from its confines and give it to the people who'll actually give that sentient metal an exercise for once in their lives.
"Come on, Mixer Supreme," she says to the snake, and it hisses in annoyance. Not my name. "I'll let you have a chocolate if you help me out." Fine.
The glass in every display case shatters. The silent alarms start going off; the timer begins in Mika's head. Night security has already been alerted. That's one minute. It'll take another five for police to get here, so that makes it one minute to grab everything and four minutes to get out. "Remix, two chocolates if you can get--" The snake shoots out of her jacket, gliding silently on those metallic wings and twining around everything in the weapons gallery she could handle and slithering into the legally distinct bag of holding she has with them. Mika slips it under the coat of her jacket-- thirty seconds--and hightails it out of there. She runs back to the door, hand on the handle, and nearly runs into it in her effort to open it without slowing down. Locked. The doors must automatically do that to trap any thief in here. Twenty seconds. Mika curses.
She does what anyone worth their salt would: she climbs. Say what you want about Mika, but strength and stamina in climbing are one of the things she is not lacking in at all. She's been climbing trees to the top since she was a child. Well, a smaller child. In contrast, the walls are no problem, with windows all the way up to the ceiling and plenty of windowsills to stand on, not to mention all the gold and silver worked in thick swells big enough to act as a handhold.
I can help. The snake is still in her bag, but she can hear his hiss in her mind. Using telepathy now, huh? "I'm not buying you another chocolate! I can do this!" Five seconds. She's only halfway to the ceiling. The guards burst in, and her new mental timer starts ticking. Best to be gone in three minutes rather than four. This is a very nice museum; the police might spend less time getting there than they would spend on a less reputable establishment like a restaurant. There aren't very many reputable restaurants in this part of the city.
Mika pulls herself up the next windowsill and crouches in it, hiding from the bullets that start zinging past. They're just rubber bullets, but they'll still hurt like hell if they hit her. And if one hits her hand while she's holding onto something-- with no better ideas, she pulls the hood up to cover her hair and lets her sleeves cover her hands and wrists. The guards stop firing when they see the spiked horns of the hood appear on her silhouette. She can tell they're weighing the options: attack her, the person who they've probably signed at least two waivers and NDAs about if they've worked in the security field for any amount of time, or risk getting fired.
Mika uses the time to get moving again. She crawls up the walls like a demented squirrel, kicks open the window closest to the ceiling, pulls herself out of it, and oh wow that was a bad idea. Her legs are still dangling out of the window, but the rest of her is out, and it's high up and windy. Scary. Not to chicken out, but pulling herself onto the roof seems one hell of a task now. She can hear Remix start to offer help again, and shuts him up without really thinking any words, instead rolling back her sleeves and standing on the windowsill, reaching her hand up to the ceiling ledge.
Too short.
She looks back in her bag. Spike, sword, knife, sword, sword... hook. She can practically hear the metal screaming at her, and when her fingers close around it, she can hear it in her mind. "Let me out! Let me butcher!"
"You'll get your butchering later!" Mika whisper-yells. In the back of her head, Remix is shrieking in fury that she would let someone else in. It's giving her a headache. "Help me get up onto the ceiling and I'll make sure you work with someone who loooves to butcher."
The hook thrums in her hand, a silent resonance going through the metal. Mika takes that as an okay to dig the hook into the ceiling and use it to pull herself up. She really needs some new knives. Her old ones would have served perfectly well for this one, but they were confiscated last time she got arrested, and the police force seems to be using them now. She paid a lot for those knives. Anyway, this should serve her perfectly well, and it does; she manages to wriggle onto the roof. It's even windier up here, and she feels like she's going to be blown off the roof at any moment, but if she is, it's okay. She'll just have to buy Mixer Supreme a third chocolate after he flies her down. Even so, she doesn't want to have to spend money on a third chocolate when she's been saving all of that money on getting a bomb.
(Not one that could hurt anyone, but a dark bomb, named for the way it makes lights and magic go dark in equal measure. They're really expensive and super illegal, but they make wonderful wonderful diversions.)
She crouches down on the rooftop, pushing the hook back into her legally distinct bag of holding, and crawls on the roof until she reaches the other edge. It's a long, long drop down to the bottom, and there's no way she won't be noticed. That's not a problem. She just has to wait until the service she called in gets here. They're late, but they'll show up for sure, right? Yeah, her old partner bailed on her a lot of times, but he'll come through.
Mika waits until she hears sirens and has to pull back from the edge to decide yeah, he's not coming and figures that since the 300 shade she spent on the service is just barely over the cost of Remix's chocolates she can afford to ask for another favor once she gets it refunded. Why does she offer chocolates in exchange for favors? It's hard to control a demon when you've allowed yourself to be indebted to them, but it's very easy to keep a hold on them with pay. That way, the exchange is even. And Remix is a massive fan of those expensive dark chocolates from halfway across the world that cost nearly 250 shade. How on earth is an assassin service worth just 50 shade more than a chocolate? A nice apple would only be about .5 shade, and they're much larger... damn, it's crazy what her mind gets up to while she's trying to figure out how to escape from here.
"Remix," she whispers, "I need you to get me over to that building--" she points to the closest building with a fire escape she can find, "and if at all possible land on the stairs please." The snake twists out of her bag and wraps around her torso, golden wings extending until they're large enough to carry her. She looks down, and hoo boy long drop. Large, large drop, and plenty of investigators and police ready to arrest her. She can even see one of the Syn, massive once-humans covered in thick plates of keratin-covered bone, outfitted in even stronger gear. Now, she's good, but not that good. She'd be pulverized if she took on one of the Syn. "Thanks for the sight." Don't mention it.
Mika gets a running start, thinks hard about it for the last two seconds, then stops right before the edge. No way. This is way too scary. Remix could drop her! Even if he didn't, she could completely miss the fire escape, or get spotted by police. Something could go wrong! This is way, way too scary. She definitely shouldn't have decided to do this. So much for the great Mika Bladesleeve. I wanna go home, she thinks, and sits back down on the roof.
Are you gonna go?
"Maybe once they leave."
You'll be here for the next three weeks, then.
"I'm gonna be late anyway." Mika says, and digs around in the bag for anything that might help her. "Okay. Fine. I'm going. Don't let me stop."
She walks all the way over to the opposite edge of the roof this time, ducks her head, and takes off. Usually, being fast is a good thing. It means she can climb walls before anyone can catch her and slip away before anyone can even see her. This time it means that the roof drops out from under her much faster than she would like. She almost screams for a second before realizing she is safely on the fire escape of the opposite building, Remix uncurling from her waist and slithering around her arm. Her legs get a little wobbly, and she sits down hard. That was not fun. She's never doing that again. She checks in her coat for everything she needs: keycard, bank card, keychain, bag, spare change, aesthetically pleasing playing cards. Great. Everything she needs to get these metal weapons to a much better home.
Mika gets up, legs still shaky, and checks the window behind her. Unlocked. EZ. She flips it open, checking to make sure no one's in the room, and steps into it. Then she sneaks out of the front door. Now just to get far enough away fast enough that no one can find her in their area check and things are great.
What are you going to do? Remix asks her, slipping inside her still-up hood where it's warm. When do I get my chocolates?
"I'll stop by the market to get your chocolates and my groceries and rehome these things," Mika says, patting her coat pocket where the bag is. "Then I'm going to have a very long and civilized talk with Zura about what happens when he bails on me."
--
MIKA "BLADESLEEVE"
14 Y/0. FEMALE. RELATIVES UNKNOWN
COSEAN THIEF. ARMED AND DANGEROUS. KILL ON SIGHT.
"How dangerous is a fourteen year old child," Illumina asks, staring down at the three unclassified lines and the picture on the report in front of her, "that she could have a kill on sight notice hovering over her?"
"Extremely dangerous." the trainee in front of her says, holding out a note to her. "Um, I was hanging around the museum when everything happened, and the police interrogated me for hours." Illumina doesn't like the whiny tone of voice she has.
"And you're late because of that?" Illumina asks, then tosses the note into the fire. "You witnessed a burglary, that's all. Go tell those men that we will not offer our divination services for a small child they'll capture when her parents turn her in. Not to mention that there isn't enough information to divine anything about her." The trainee's fox ears droop; Illumina doesn't feel particularly bad about disciplining a chronically late child who is apparently now involved in disorganized crime. Or perhaps the trainee is just upset that Illumina will not entertain her for the millionth time about her divination technique (that rarely works) that doesn't need information. "Out."
Illumina seats herself at the desk, pushing the plaque displaying her title as Principal to the left to make room for the strongly worded letter she's about to write and stops as a pleasant voice comes from her phone. "There is a security disturbance at your home."
It's the cat, Illumina thinks, and hits the security feed anyway just in time to see someone with green hair wrapped in a pink-and-white coat slink into the window before the cam cuts off.
summary: Imagine being 14 and deeper into the criminal underground than most full grown adults could dream of. That's Mika "Bladesleeve" [last name unknown]'s life, basically. Her best friend is a demon taking the shape of a winged snake, she lives in a city so polluted that magicians create fake stars to hang in the sky because you can't see shit for the clouds, and her current goal is to bring down every single person in her way until she unravels why her parents died and who did it. And then a former partner of hers dies. And then someone tries to kill her. Remember what I said about bringing down every person in her way? There are no heroes, so Mika just has to save herself. This is the story of how she does it.
this is a thing that's been in progress for 2-3 years, so i'd appreciate if anyone would give it a read. chapters 1-3 are posted on quotev here !! i'll also be posting chapters on this account as they come out.
thank you if you go to check it out!! i'm really proud of this since it's my first long original work, and all of the characters have been rattling around in my brain for SO LONG. please leave a comment if you do read, i'd love to know what you all think <3
