#daughterofnero

[sxvethelastdance]

Shui huffed, his nose bloody, lip split, and he could feel one eye swelling up already. He didn't care how much trouble he was in, or the injuries he'd sustained, the fight was worth it and Shui knew that the other boys were just as bruised and battered as he was. "I'm not going to apologize. I won't, Ba Kang." He wiped away some of the blood off his chin and pinched his nose, feeling warmth as he redirected his energy to fixing it faster.

He hadn't cried during the argument, the fight, or while being finally split apart, and Shui told himself that he wasn't going to, but he could feel his eyes watering now. "I heard them talking, and, Ba Kang, they were mocking him! They said a-die was a failure! The tournament was rigged, it wasn't even actually during the tournament! It's not fair!" From the fat tears and Shui's wobbling lip, it wasn't clear if he meant the injustice of mocking the father that died trying to save the realm, or the death itself. Likely, the tears spilling through were for both. "It's not fair!"

The scent of eucalyptus wafted about the cell, Liu Kang having laid out his tools the minute he'd caught wind of the incident. His first instinct was damage control, dabbing at the cuts on his arms, stemming the bloodflow and applying a cool rag to the swelling in silence. The cause was left to chance, whether it was because he knew his son would speak freely of what it was on his mind without probing, or because he did not have the strength to summon the version of himself that would reprimand this behavior because the Wu-Shi was all they had left, and fighting would do them no favors.

After a time, he spoke.

"You are right, it is not fair."

Liu Kang took Shui's newly bandaged hands, meeting the boy's eyes.

"We should not have to miss him. So much that it makes us angry when we see that others will not honor his memory as we have. None of this should have happened." But it did, and all he could do was swipe his thumb under the tears of the boy who has lost and gained a family, only to lose it again and pull him into his arms without any intention of letting go. Kang would hold him forever if they had the luxury.

"We had the privilege of knowing and loving Kung Lao. Fighting for him means that he is still with you, even if not by your side. " He wished this was true, but the scholar and student of Raiden knew well where the spirits and sentiments of Kung Lao lay. This went unspoken, a secret he would carry into Kombat and to his final resting place if it was the last thing he would do. It would do nothing to comfort the child who has suffered such loss so young. Shui would never be burdened with this knowledge so long as there was breath in Liu Kang's body. He tightened his grip, a silent vow to protect the boy in the fist where his beads took their place.

If his hands shook, Shui didn't see it.

[lethalpursuit]

@daughterofnero [Jake] from [x]

Today sucked.  Plain and simple.  His whole body hurt.  He had another migraine-- then again, he nearly always had them now.  It was cold.  It was raining, and the lightning crackling through the sky was bringing up a whole truckload of memories he would rather forget.

He wanted to be held.

He gets back to the safehouse and finds Jake laying down, reading a cookbook.  He doesn’t speak-- he doesn’t want to talk.  Hopefully Jake gets the idea.  He crawls on to the bed, and when Jake wordlessly makes a space for him, the sniper is quick to fill it.

At first, Jake doesn’t move, and Piers is worried that maybe he’s done something wrong, that Jake doesn’t want him here...  And then there’s a hand combing through his hair, and almost in spite of himself he lets out a sigh of contentment, shifting slightly and making himself more comfortable before he closes his eyes. Just for a minute.  Just to rest.

“Thanks,” he murmurs softly to Jake, nearly twenty minutes later.  “It’s...  Been a rough day.”

[fortunatesxn]

He’d fought tooth and nail to get back to active duty with the BSAA, and finally, after months of mental and physical assessments, of psychological testing, of waiting for one more test result, for one more study to be done, he’d been cleared to go back out in the field as an SOA.  And his first mission was going to be soon.  

He would be taking a partner, they told him, to watch his back, but he had a sneaking suspicion there was more to it than that-- that his so-called “partner” was really there to keep an eye out for signs that he was going to become a problem.  What worried him more than anything was that they wouldn’t tell him who the aforementioned partner was.  Part of him was foolish enough to hope it would be Chris, but the less foolish part of him knew better than to expect that-- Chris hadn’t so much as seen him since he had transferred back, for some reason completely unbeknownst to him.  Maybe he didn’t want to be seen associating with the BSAA’s first B.O.W. agent, who knew?

Either way, it was pretty shitty that Chris wouldn’t even return his phone calls.

So, he didn’t have a whole lot of hope when he showed up for the mission briefing at 7 AM...  But when he saw who was in the room, he very nearly turned around and walked right back out.

Jake Muller.  The jackass from Edonia.  And China.  Albert Wesker’s son.

God, the BSAA really did take anyone these days, didn’t they?

“What are you doing here,” he snapped.  Was it professional of him to say?  No.  But the guy had shot Chris, had called him a puppy, had called them jarheads....  What could Piers say?  He didn’t like him.

@daughterofnero

[bastardsunlight]

Shui looks up from the book his cousin Jin recently gifted him for the young man's birthday, and looks over his father. He recalls the many, many stories of this parents' youth in the temple, before making his declaration. "A-die, I diagnose you with Wei Wuxian in the Wangxian dynamic. Ba Kang is more the Lan Zhan type."

Kung Lao grunts and lifts a brow. “Hm?” He sees the cover and goes red to the ears. Reaching out with the fastest hands in the White Lotus, he snatches the book from his son and frowns deeply, though it is comical given the color of his cheeks. “And I diagnose you with chores.” He makes a shooing motion and stows the book on his person. Jin will hear about this.

What he does not realize he has done is played himself as he should not recognize either the characters or their names.

[giraffeiisms]

@daughterofnero​

“Jake?” The teen says in a stunned tone. Seeing the male push through crowds near her didn’t seem real, but the moment there was some acknowledgement... Well she rushed him. Running full force at her adoptive brother and hugging him tightly. 

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

[noonegetsleftbehind]

@daughterofnero continued from HERE

The words had been a knee-jerk reaction from Chris. Once he had his wits about him again, lying with the younger man in his arms, a switch flipped. As much as he wanted it, how much did he really want it? Was he here just for Jake? Or was he here in a last ditch effort to cling to his past? Oh, he’d see Wesker here and there in little things-- a small twitch of the lips, an arch of a brow. But it shouldn’t be that way. Jake was his own goddamn human being. He deserved to be loved for who he was not because of the man he shared blood with. Chris had to be damn sure. He wasn’t about to break the younger man like he’d been broken by his father. 

Brown eyes met Jake’s when he rolled on top of him. Chris didn’t move. Instead he listened. In that last sentence, he knew that Jake knew exactly what was going on here. Of course he did, he was smart as hell. Sighing, he held his gaze, palm of his hand coming up to cup his cheek while his thumb absently stroked his cheek. He was instantly aware that this act alone would have never happened with Wesker. He would have been the one on top, searching for and begging for any semblance of affection from the man he’d once been foolish enough to give his heart to. 

“Jake...” His voice was soft, gentle. “I don’t... I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt you. You deserve better...”

[crystalsandstones]

Closed starter with @daughterofnero | Cole

The temple is much different than he remembers. When he was here before, it was so full of life. People were everywhere. A few Outworlders came to escape the emperor, but they were not the fun ones. They didn't seem to care what he did. The generations of humans lived in the temple did care. Some trained to fight, some trained to heal. Some had special powers that set them apart. No matter what their role was, they all chased him around. He liked playing with the humans. They treated him differently, and some even gave him a name.

Kidd Thunder.

Time has gone by. He knows there will be no humans left who remember him, but looking at the temple now, it's almost as if there are no humans left at all. Their statues have fallen and the stone that is left is breaking apart. It's so quiet. What happened here? Where did they all go? He can at least feel charged energy in the air, so he knows the god remains. Maybe he has answers.

Looking around any more is pointless. His presence should be felt soon, so he might as well have a little fun. The arena seems to still be in good shape, and it's familiar enough that he doesn't mind waiting there. Zapping spots in the sand until they turn to glass always earns a few yells in his direction. Or, well, it did. He starts zapping anyway.

[sasorikigai]

How is that you are related to Cole Young?

Random Inbox Shenanigans || anonymous, mention of @daughterofnero || always accepting

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 || The veiled obfuscated faces of death besides Scorpion is all dressed in smoky black, their annihilated silhouettes indistinguishable beneath the haunting cacophonous screams of their agonizing suffering. Their lives already drained away, hollowed and filled with floating and flowing cinder and ash and bonedust. As the wraith looks into their dark, hollowed eyes that mirror his very own, all he would see is the siphoned souls leaping from the abysmal void of their mouths, as essence of all lives, including Shirai Ryu, fueling the eternality of Netherrealm’s hellfire. Amidst of it all, Scorpion, formerly known as Hanzo Hasashi in life, would endure the perpetuity of his trials and tribulations, as searing magmatic torrential surge would threaten to wash over his adamantine bones, as unhealed injuries would ripple out. Like an eroding stone beneath the continued water drops, touching mere ephemerality of moments into countless years, and into the eternity, until his infected voice, heart, and soul would finally embody the darkness between the shadow and the soul of the greatest warrior to ever live. 

No longer, memories become truly ghosts, for Scorpion still remains more or less haunted than most. For millions of tortured souls drift about his tortured own, fueling the catalytic onslaught and discharge of his hellfire. He feels them drifting through his head, never to be peacefully dead; just as Hanzo Hasashi’s vitriol, vengeful wrath would make him a lost vagrant without a settled home and peace. Rot, rot, rot, rot - all he sees is rotten people, relationships, trust. Everything falling through because of his vicious, brutal death that would cause him to crawl, dripping magmatic ferrous stench of blood and phlegm in his utmost chagrin. His soft, bruised, and lanquered mouth still fuels the sundering, disintegrating potency of wildfire, flowing to becoming the seas and the thunder. 

The ashen amber of his gaze fibrillates the rushing onslaught of embers, as infected fissure of his once-handsome visage drips trickling ooze of black tar beneath his golden mask. Beneath the charcoal black of his hood, the stark human reflection of Hanzo Hasashi stares; his gaze enigmatic and fathomless, but viscerally telling in unbidden rawness and unapologetic poignancy. “Cole Young is my descendent whom embodies Hasashi bloodline; the bloodline blessed with perseverance and above all, confidence in ourselves. We are gifted for something, this fueling conflagration of passion which must be attained through our shared Arcana.” 

There is a quieted pride etched upon the infected timber of his voice. Yet, the humanness of Hanzo Hasashi surfaces through the ghostly apparition, as his fixated gaze remains on the individual. The thickened molasses of protectiveness hardens his broad shoulders and steels his gaze into a glower. “As his ancestor who harbors eternal internal inferno, I will do whatever it takes to take care of my sacred bloodline.” ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ||