Thirty fucking minutes to get betrayed and left behind with no way to fight the incoming danger. Twenty-five minutes, exactly, with the remaining five free for Jane Grey to weep and scream as she saw the lights of the emergency capsule flicker further and further away from the JCJenson orbit research center, finally disappearing among the stars.
It’s not like she expected any better from her crewmates. They were a bunch of assholes on a good day and an absolute nightmare to deal with on the bad one. Still, she had the very human, very foolish idea to at least trust them not to leave her behind as bait for a bunch of cruel, unfeeling space pirate AIs.
Well, Jane Grey was, apparently, wrong.
It took the pirates fifteen minutes to actually breach the research center, most of that time spent trying to properly align their bigger vessel with Jane’s puny little space base. When they finally did, it took them very little time to find her and drag her out of her hiding spot. Jane should be grateful she had the forethought to properly suit up before her abduction, but all she felt, being dragged into the bigger ship, was absolute dread.
The droids’ pirate vessel was a lot bigger than what the video manual they’ve made her watch back at the headquarters suggested. The road she had to take to reach the bridge itself took her and her jailers longer than it used to take her to travel the entirety of the laboratory vessel that has been currently being destroyed and repurposed for parts back in the drones’ main garage. Jane knew that there was no way she was ever stepping foot back in that thing, not to mention getting home safely.
With every passing second, she was starting to realize there was no way she’d be getting back home ever.
Jane did her best not to hyperventilate as she was being led on through the narrow pathway, suspended on a bunch of cables over the main hull of the ship. She had very little oxygen left in her spacesuit’s tank, after all. Droids did not need an atmosphere to breathe, and she suspected that they took full advantage of the fact.
Above her, a multitude of stars spread impossibly wide, perfectly visible through the glass ceiling, while a small army of drones mingled below her on the ship’s floor and many platforms that formed a maze of levels connected by a net of pathways like the one she’s been taking.
The drones, her jailers, were shorter than her, barely reaching her shoulder. The one walking in front of her had not deigned to even tie up her hands, and Jane had a sudden urge to grab whatever it was that droid used as their ponytail and throw them down into the maze and run.
Jane shook her head as she threw the idea away. Everyone knew that droids were stronger than humans. They would have her dead before the ponytail ever reached the floor. Jane was a little surprised she was not dead already. Besides, where could she even run to? Her ship was gone, there was no oxygen on this vessel for her to refill her tank, and she knew she had absolutely no chance to hide long enough for anyone to rescue her.
Hell, no one would even try. Her crew probably already happily reported her dead, after what she’s done behind the company’s back.
Jane did not realize the ponytail drone had stopped, and she hissed as her foot collided with whatever the equivalent of the calf was on a drone. Said drone made a very real, very exaggerated movement of sighing, as a new string of words flew by on their visor.
“Welcome to the bridge of a “Purple Nova”. Say hello to the Captain.”
The ponytail drone stepped sideways, gesturing weirdly with their free hand forward. The one at Jane’s back put a heavy hand on her shoulder and another on her elbow, as if she had even a chance to escape.
Jane looked up.
The drone standing at the bridge, leaning carefree on the piloting console as if it belonged to him, did not look like the other drones.
It was taller, easily reaching Jane’s height, which in itself was already very alarming. Its coloring was off, a mix of whites instead of grays, with stark yellow-black details that screamed ‘danger - do not approach.’ It even had a different build from the rest of the ship’s drones and the ones Jane used to see back in her colony, as if customized for a different purpose. He wore a long, fur-lined jacket, with a peculiar hat on top like a cruel mockery of Old Earth’s airplane pilots. A set of lights peeled out from under it, reminding Jane of something she really should remember…
“Jane Grey, ID:3012-92. Designation: lab assistant for JCJenson Company.” The words flashed across its visor, almost too fast for Jane to read, let alone to comprehend how the fuck this machine even got her ID number. “Remove your helmet so we can have a proper conversation.”
Jane froze. She couldn’t simply remove her helmet, could she? Was this AI’s cruel idea of a joke to make her suffocate in here while it watched? She knew that this was a rogue AI, and you rarely knew what to expect from one, but she never suspected that it could develop enough to become sadistic.
She shook her head, making a tiny, terrified sound in the back of her throat.
The ‘Captain’ (because now Jane could see that it must be one, if only from the way the other drones seemed unable to tear their attention away from it) frowned, twisting the aesthetic dot-like eyes (that humans designed for their machines to make them more likeable, for fuck's sake!) into something threatening and not comforting at all. He stepped forward, and in doing so, freed another appendage from where it’s been pinned against the console. A tail with a bright yellow cylinder, ending in a sharp-looking needle, scraped the floor just before her boots, leaving behind a nasty mark.
Only the other drone’s hands stopped Jane from jumping back in fright.
“You can remove it yourself, or we can do it for you.” The Captain tilted its head, a frown still frozen on its human-like mouth. “But, to be fair, my crew will not care if you get hurt in the process.”
As if to underline his words, something seemed to crawl from behind and over the piloting console. The first thing Jane saw was a set of sharp blades replacing the usual drone hands, slipping over the buttons like a shiny set of centipede legs. Then, an array of bright lights appeared over the edge of the console, spread in a mockery of a halo. A giant, glowing, yellow ‘X’ followed, shining brightly where the drone’s eyes should be.
Finally, finally, Jane saw its mouth.
She always had a problem with seeing the drones outfitted with mouths. It was uncanny to see them talk like humans do, their metal tendons working under the synthesized plating in an effort to fake a smile they could never possibly mean.
This drone’s mouth was filled with way too sharp teeth and spread in such a maniacal, bloodthirsty smile that Jane flinched, almost jumping on the spot. Her memory got jump-started, and she suddenly remembered where she saw something like that.
These were not working drones.
They were Disassembly Drones.
Jane heard the stories as a kid. All of her classmates did, huddled together in JCJenson’s approved common rooms, back in her home colony on Beta-49z. She knew of the disassembly drones, lovingly called ‘murder drones’ by the adults who, after all, knew better. Dangerous weapons, used to find and destroy any rabid AI that escaped from humans’ control, incredibly lethal.
The first stories they heard painted them almost as superheroes to humanity, but every time a kid dared to call them that, a teacher would appear out of nowhere, slapping the idea out of their heads.
‘No heroes!’ The adults would hiss, ‘If you absolutely have to imagine them as something else, think of them as JCJenson’s loyal dogs on a tight leash, nothing more than that!’
When the kids grew older and they were allowed to watch a video of a disassembly drone butchering a worker drone, its cries thankfully muted by parental control, they quickly understood the clear distinction.
Disassembly drones were monsters meant to hunt the bigger evil. And they were never supposed to interact with humans.
Jane’s fingers flew to her helmet, suddenly convinced that any type of asphyxiation would be better than ending with a set of claws ripping through her neck or any place on her body. These drones were rogues, a rabid AIs that clearly evolved enough to sway disassembly drones to their side. Who knew what they were able to do to humans now that their safety protocols have been overridden? Jane took one last breath before she threw her helmet down, surprised to hear the bang it made as it collided with the metal floor of the bridge.
For a moment, she feared the most.
Then, a low, unamused chuckle spread through the air.
The Captain was looking at her with one digital brow raised, hands folded against its chest as it leaned back on the console. It didn’t even look away as it flicked a finger at the menacing disassembly drone, making it sigh as it skittered obediently to the side and hid its claws with a quiet ‘shiiing.’ As Jane watched, slack-jawed at the idea of still being alive and being able to breathe, it had the audacity to wink at her.
“Isn’t it more comfortable?” The Captain asked, no hint of amusement in its voice or expression. “It’s more useful for us to keep the atmosphere and actually hear a possible disaster in the making before it spreads enough to be noticed. It’s not much of a stretch to make it livable for humans and besides, we’re quite used to it now.”
Jane didn’t know how to answer and not get in trouble, so she simply nodded.
“Jane Grey, a lowly lab assistant who had dreams of something more.” The Captain's eyes seemed to drill into her now. “No wonder your crew left you to die, after what you did.”
“How do you know-?”
The drone holding her huffed angrily, its hold tightening for a moment, cutting her off. “It’s 'Captain’ or ‘sir’ to you now" it murmured. “You better learn that quickly.”
Jane couldn’t nod faster, suddenly reminded that these were robots, not humans, and that it was a heavy-duty machinery clasped into her shoulder, not a human hand.
“Give her time. She will learn.” The Captain sounded so sure, almost dismissive. “But thank you, Gil, for the effort.”
Jane risked a glance behind her to see the drone actually smile and nod, letting his grip go slacker. She let herself breathe in relief, but it didn’t go unnoticed.
“If you think you’re lucky, you’re quite right. V should be done with your unfortunate crewmates already.”
Jane tensed again. “What do you mean… sir?”
Captain turned a little sideways, his hand gliding over the buttons with visible years of practice as he brought up a giant screen and what looked like a sort of map of cosmos, if said cosmos was split into multicolored areas. A dot appeared on the map, only for it to separate into two, one of them moving quickly past a border of one color and into another.
“It’s a crude and inefficient way to share cosmic space,” said Captain, “but it’s all we could agree on for now. Your crewmates made a fatal mistake by throwing themselves right at another… captain’s feet. And she’s not known to be merciful.”
“Are you… sir?” Jane dared to ask.
“I used to be.” She had the doubtful pleasure of seeing the Captain’s mouth actually quirk up at that. “But now, I'm not sure anymore.”
Jane was going to die today.
“But I am known to be somewhat fair. And, unfortunately, an opportunist, at least sometimes.”
Or maybe not?
“So.” The Captain drew out the sound, stalking towards Jane now, and she realized with a start that he was not as tall as her; he was even taller and far more intimidating up close. “I thought we could make a deal.”
“What kind of deal, sir?” She gulped.
The Captain’s hand suddenly took on a form of very sharp claws as he put the tip of one against where Jane’s artery was. She had a feeling the thick layers of her spacesuit would not stop it for even a moment if the drone decided to take her life.
“You’ve been working on a little something behind the company’s back. Something I’m, or maybe I should say all of us, are very interested in.”
A light bulb lit up in Jane’s head.
“JCSynthetic oil.” She whispered. Of course the drones would be interested in the oil recipe that she’s been testing in her after hours. Didn’t disassembly drones need oil to survive? The idea of making their own was probably too tempting for them not to try.
“Smart girl.” The Captain’s hand suddenly turned back to normal as he straightened and took a step back. “We can make a deal. We give you everything you need to finally nail down that synthetic oil recipe and keep you well and alive while you do so. In exchange, once you’re done, we set you up with a long-journey space capsule and let you go, no harm done.”
Jane took a moment to absorb that information.
“That… honestly sounds way too good to be true, sir.”
She wanted to slap herself across the face and shut down that stupid mouth of hers. Her hands actually moved up to cover herself as she realized that she'd been sassy to the face of a literal murder machine!
But, to her surprise, the Captain actually smiled.
“It’s up to you to lie to the company for the rest of your life about just how you managed to survive without a ship and a crew for so long.” He tilted his head, his smile slipping away. “Then again, you’d actually live to be able to lie, so maybe this deal really is too good for you. Especially considering the fate of your old crew.”
“I'll take it, Captain.” The words were out of Jane’s mouth before she could stop them again, but this time she was glad. “I’d rather live and risk having to lie, Captain.”
The answering smile on Captain’s face was small but not unkind, or at least it appeared so. He outstretched his right hand, waiting until Jane took it, her own still trembling slightly. He cemented the deal for both of them with a firm shake and a nod.
“Welcome to the crew then, my new chief laboratory tech. I’m your Captain. I go by many names nowadays, most of them exaggerated.”
Jane felt like the ground was moved from beneath her, as if she made a deal with the devil, who looked down at her, all perfected smiles, a gleam of white metal, and a blinding, yellow halo above their head.
“But you can call me Captain N.”
————————————
Meanwhile, in the deep, dark guts of a JCJenson flagship cruiser, where no human dared to enter anymore and no robot had any business to lurk, a very particular worker drone pressed on relentlessly, her worn-down hands twisting the screws on her secret machine with desperate strength.
Just a few more parts.
Just a few microchips to steal from the inventory.
Maybe a new cord since the last one almost took her out alongside what used to be her hair, a reminder of a life she lost a long time ago.
The drone wiped her hands on a rag, wincing as the fabric caught on many, many new ridges and deep scratches that marred her synthetic skin. She had to press her loose little finger back into place so hard her screen blinked red with alarm.
Humans really didn't take care of their toys anymore.
No matter.
She was a determined drone with a clear goal in mind. Despite JCJenson’s best efforts at reformatting her, she still remembered some things.
She remembered she had a father at some point. She remembered music she had no right to know. She remembered the feeling of dread at being called to the front of the class and a sharp sting of disappointment at losing a game on her PC. All the things she should not, no, would not remember if what that repulsive human technician said was true about her being literally made to work on this stupid, rat-infested spaceship.
She knew her crude, self-made machine had to work one day. With enough luck and enough failsafes in place, it would not fry itself again when she turned it on.
Uzi Whatever-was-her-name was getting her memories of a life before the spaceship back.
Or she would die trying.
————————————
AKA: An AU where, after Uzi sent N literally flying to safety and fell down the church sinkhole and into Copper-9’s exploding core, the entire planet blew up properly. Uzi got critically damaged and temporarily lost her connection to the Solver, which meant her unconscious body meandered in space until a wandering JCJenson spaceship grabbed her alongside a bunch of worker drones and tried reformatting her back to an average, mindless machine - something that Uzi’s programming actively fought against with everything it got.
Meanwhile, N didn’t escape unscathed either, but after his original body’s destruction, his consciousness got moved to a copy stored in a spaceship at Copper’s orbit, alongside a bunch of other, very confused, murder drones. In his desperation and impatience to get back to Uzi, he instigated a fight in which a bunch of disassembly drones either fled, got destroyed, or actually learned to listen to him, with V as his biggest, if a little hesitant, backup. Upon learning of Uzi’s assumed death, he lost a great deal of his enthusiasm and positivity and started to change, unfairly blaming himself for what had happened. It took V years of desperate efforts to put him back on his feet and help him find a new goal - to save as many worker drones from destroyed Copper-9 as he could and establish a new place for them to live freely.
So he got himself a ship, a few dedicated Disassembly Drones with nothing better to do, and a surprisingly loyal crew (consisting of saved-from-recycling worker drones) and started his Space Pirate Career. V had obtained her own spaceship and her own crew, much less focused on saving the drones and more on scavenging and pillaging whatever and whoever she could.
This shot takes place around 10 years after the destruction of Copper-9. Uzi’s getting close to regaining her memories, and N’s ship is getting close to the spaceship she’s being held at. What will happen if they manage to meet again? Will the Solver affect Uzi IF she regains her memories? And what about Cyn?
…Yeah I’m fist-fighting my own knock-off Calliope over here in order to NOT make it a long-ass fic since I have ANOTHER one I AIM to finish.
Reagan picks her head up from where she’s been slouching over in the helicopter seat, scrunching her eyes up at her husband. It’s been a rough week, hell, a rough two months that led up to this moment. She isn’t exactly in the mood for a guessing game.
“You have five seconds to specify, or I swear Staedtler…”
“Tell me that the fucking epicenter of the Anomaly is not in Gravity Falls.”
Reagan blinks, tired and confused. She looks at Brett, peering over Ron’s shoulder from where he’s seated next to the man.
“Um, pretty sure it is, handsome. At least it was the last time I checked.” Brett takes the tablet from Ron’s hands. Reagan can’t help but notice they’re shaking slightly.
“Yup, Gravity Falls. Little town, a few incidents in the past with time travel, some Bigfoot sightings. Nothing big until today.” even Brett’s smile looks strained as he chuckles humorlessly. “A perfect place to open a door to the other dimension and unleash the apocalypse. When, exactly, is the cavalry coming?”
“We are the cavalry,” Reagan pats the box with her newest invention affectionately and tries not to yawn. “This baby can close any rift as soon as we come in contact with it. I know, I’ve done it before. How far are we from the town again?”
She strains her neck to see their screen and Brett, sweet, helpful Brett, unbuckles from his seat and tries to handle it to her. The machine picks that exact moment to swerve violently, making him stumble. Ron and Reagan’s hands reach out at the same time, holding him in place. He smiles at them.
Good, although an untimely metaphor for their relationship, Reagan thinks blearily.
“Sit down before you hurt yourself, you dumbass” she huffs as she buckles him in next to her.
Brett smiles as she checks for stuck straps next to his head and sneaks in a kiss to the back of her hand. Reagan blushes. It’s been a long summer.
“Reagan.”
Ron’s voice is strained, and she looks at him confused. What they and Brett have has been talked over quite thoroughly this summer, not to mention the years before, when he first found them. They wore different names then and had no idea who they were, but still he managed to sneak into their lives and stay there for years. As a friend and someone more. Ron had no reason to act strange.
Still, her husband looked ill, much unlike himself. His hands did not stop shaking.
“Gravity Falls, Reagan. The portal opened in Gravity Falls.”
“The name does ring a bell. Did we ever have a mission there or something?”
Brett shakes his head, equally oblivious. And suddenly he stops mid-movement, snapping his head up to Ron.
“Wait, isn’t that the place you chose to… To…” he shoots a look at Reagan, his eyes wide.
“The kids.” Ron says finally, and Reagan straightens out in her seat like a soldier with a new order, with laser-like focus finally on her husband.
“Reagan, we send the kids to Gravity Falls for the summer.”
For a moment, no one says a word. And then Reagan inhales, long and strained and focused, and lets out a string of curses so vile that they make Brett shrivel up in his seat and even Ron wince violently. She gets up from her seat despite the men’s outcries and marches over to the cockpit, unfazed by the machine swaying. A few seconds later they hear a yelp as the pilot gets knocked out of the compartment, sliding on the floor until Brett helps him buckle in one of the seats. The helicopter lurches violently and seems to gain speed, as Reagan milks the machine for all it’s worth.
The ride takes forever, in Reagan’s humble opinion.
Kids. Their kids! How could she forget? Sure, she’s been quite busy at the end of the school year, with her father coming back into her life with a goddamn red-taped manila folder and a mission to save the world. He burst into their tiny flat in the city, complaining about them moving from the countryside to make his search for them more difficult, and with panicked Brett on his heels. Who just kept apologizing. She didn’t understand then, so she sent her kids to school for the last day of the year. She called her husband to come home and made some tea for the man who claimed to be her father, and she waited for it all to make sense.
And, to her unspeakable horror, it did make sense.
Before the kids got back from school she and Ron had their old memories back, their suitcases packed and there was an imprint of Reagan’s hands on Randall’s scrawny neck. How dare he? How dare he come into her life again, step into her home, into her safe space with fucking Cognito business in his hands? How dare he say hello to her kids as they passed, when she worked so damn hard to keep him and her whole complicated past life away from them? Ron and Brett had to restrain her before she did the unthinkable, and then they forced her to help cover Brett’s resulting black eye with make-up before the kids came back.
She apologized, but remained angry, fuming in the bathroom while applying her best foundation on the man. Brett kept apologizing for them being found over and over again until she forced his mouth shut with a kiss. Not his fault, she said to him as he recovered, then short-circuited again as Ron pressed another kiss to his hair. It’s not Brett’s fault her father is an asshole who can not survive one measly apocalypse-like event without his daughter.
When the kids came back, they had their suitcases ready, too. They were confused, as uncle Brett offered to ride them to the bus station for “the best summer adventure of their lives”. They talked about it last month, right? Ron’s family owning a house in the countryside? About a mysterious uncle they found through old records? They found him as the kids dug around for family information for the heritage day at school. He seemed nice! It will be so much fun!
Reagan tried to not look guilty as she kissed her son’s forehead, murmuring promises about meeting them soon. He didn’t quite buy it, looking up at her from behind his bangs with that quizzical look she sometimes saw in the mirror, and it almost broke her heart. It took his father’s bent knee and a promise to believe them before he finally agreed to go. Their daughter took less convincing, happy to experience an adventure. She took after Brett in that way, always ready for new things and optimistic about the future, like Ron. She kissed her and her dad goodbye as Ron chuckled and ruffled her hair, and Reagan was ready to murder her father all over again.
As Brett walked out of the house with the kids, the girl riding on his shoulders happily and the boy dragging his feet a little, Reagan sent Ron a desperate look. He responded in kind. They would deal with things and come back to this, as soon as possible.
They did not come back soon.
It took a whole summer to get things back on track. Between the apocalypse, the after effects, the clean-up, the dimensional ripples and a bunch of necessary memory alteration, Reagan lost track of time. She meant to do a more thorough check on this “Stanford” person after she got her memories back. The first one showed no signs of trouble, but you never know! He isn’t even related to them! Who knows what he could do! She meant to call her kids and check.
None of them did.
And now they paid the price as, somehow, the biggest apocalyptic event of the decade has happened right in the middle of Gravity Falls.
They’ve kept getting some weird readings throughout the whole summer but no one could exactly spare their attention enough to check. It’s always been someone else, some other branch, that took care of this particular town. Now that she thinks of that time, neither Ron nor Brett ever even caught wind of the name of the weird town, too exhausted every day after yet another unseen complications. They were out of practice in dealing with the workload and it showed. They collapsed against each other every night, husband, wife and more often than not, Brett, for a well-deserved rest.
Well, it’s not like Reagan thought that rest deserved now. They should have checked on the kids, they should have called, they should have gone to see them, they should have checked on them at least once instead of waiting for them to call!
She speeds up again, glad that she’s alone in the cockpit, as tears of frustration and worry slip down her cheeks. Reagan never prays, and yet right now she begs every force in the universe for her kids to be alright.
———
They find the town leveled down. They find the rubble and the jarred remains of buildings and people, and Reagan’s heart stops before she remembers how to breathe again. The apocalypse site is still far away, but they can already see the reason for the disaster. There’s a giant, purplish and orangish cross in the sky, like reality itself was carved out with a slicing weapon. Under it floats a dark pyramid, and Reagan instinctively sets her course to reach it until she feels someone stop her hand.
Ron looks over her shoulder, tense but focused as he rattles out an address for the house where their kids are supposed to be. He moves to put the coordinates into the helicopter's GPS too, and soon a red dot start’s blinking at them, still too far away. Reagan dutifully adjusts her course, ignoring the people screaming for help down below. Something unsticks itself from the ground below them, reaching for the helicopter with slimy tentacles but Reagan swerves and skillfully lets the appendages meet the business end of the helicopter blades. The only praise she gets is Ron’s hand squeezing her shoulder, but she gets it. There’s no time for putting on a show.
Brett appears on her other side, his eyes wild and scared but his mouth set in a determined line. He holds a weapon out to Ron who takes it, and tucks one into Reagan’s belt, not peeling his eyes away from the wreckage of what’s left of the safe and unassuming town they send their kids to.
The GPS blinks and suddenly goes out, and so does half the lights on the board. Brett’s cry drowns in the sudden noise that fills their ears. The helicopter stops in the air and then starts falling, slowly, like gravity itself malfunctions.
Ron curses and kicks the board to try and force it back on, but Reagan stops him. She points to the anomaly. The black pyramid starts to unravel before their very eyes, brick after brick being sucked into the portal. The rumble is deafening. The last brick being sucked in marks the beginning of the exodus. All the unspeakable horrors fly past them and back into the rift one by one, some of them grinning at the people stuck in the slowly falling machine. The tear slowly closes, the fabric of reality knitting itself back together.
And then, like someone flicked a switch, there’s a sudden blink in the sky. It explodes in the array of pinkish light, covering the Gravity Falls in a gradual swoop. Whenever the light touches, buildings snap back to looking perfectly fine, people are reappearing, some lingering creatures disappear without fanfare. It’s… a perfect clean-up, Reagan can’t help but wonder, and she lets a flicker of hope take hold as she sees injured people standing up, perfectly fine once again.
The light reaches the helicopter and pushes it back, as if sensing they’re not from here. It sends the machine flying, barreling through the air and now all three of them swear, as Reagan grabs the steering wheel and pulls with all her might. She will not die before checking on their kids, thank you very much
———
It takes them another hour to locate the address again, what with the scrambled GPS and the steering system almost ripped out of its base by panicking Reagan.
The lone shack sits in the middle of the woods, way too close to where the pyramid has been. Reagan lands the machine in the clearing, and Brett is out the door before she can call for it. She unbuckles and runs after him, but Ron stops her. He silently wipes the tear stains from her cheeks with his thumbs and tries unsuccessfully to wipe the blood from her chin, before pushing a gun into her hands and letting her through, hot on her heels himself.
The clearing is full of people in various states. Ruffled clothes, tired looks and various scraps and bruises litter the crowd. She can’t see her kids anywhere. Brett is arguing with someone, she realizes. Some big and well-dressed man, who looks like he’s been to hell and crawled back on his hands and knees. His suit is torn, he has a weird hat that keeps falling off, and a pair of broken glasses on his nose. He keeps shouting at them about the government finally taking a damn clue, and trying to shoo them off his front lawn at the same time. He looks ready to brawl, all fists and scowls, but Reagan barely listens, eyes jumping from one weird person to another, all crowded around the front steps of the shack.
Survivors, she mentally categorizes. Aggressive, she notes, as they send her dark looks and she grabs her weapon tighter.
“Stanford.” Ron’s voice carries, when he wants it to.
The old man stops in his tracks and blinks at the gun aimed between his eyebrows. Brett jumps away, reaching for his own gun. People in the back start shouting and Reagan almost automatically picks up and aims her weapon at the biggest threat she can see, a big man with a red beard and an axe in hand. She can see Brett pick aim too, though she’s sure his weapon is only set to stun. The crowd stops and falls silent, tense as Ron steps forward, commanding the area with his clear threat.
“Stanford Pines” Ron all but growls, his weapon’s buzzing getting louder as it charges, a clear threat. “Where. Are. Our. Kids?”
Reagan can hear murmurs from the crowd as she powers up her own weapon. They didn’t get over the plan, there was no plan once she rushed to the cockpit, but she knows her husband. He may be the sweetest man around every day for a lifetime, but he was also the man who planned to uproot their entire lives and reimagine himself a thousand times over if it meant saving the one he loved. And he did. And now he has more people to love than he ever did, but this need to protect? To save? It multiplied. The threat he poses to Stanford is real.
And neither her nor Brett will stop him.
The old man seems to realize it too because he freezes in spot, eyes wide and jumping from Ron to Brett and finally to Reagan. He gulps, and works his jaw nervously but doesn’t say anything, furrowing his brows in determination. Ron tenses and Reagan can only hope his gun is also on stun when…
“Dad?”
The crowd murmurs and undulates as if keeping something in it, but Ron’s attention immediately jumps to them as he calls out for his son.
And then Dipper, their brave little boy, forces his way from between someone’s knees and stops short at the sight before him. At the sight of his wild-eyed parents and his uncle holding people at gunpoint, ragged and bloodied from their tumble in the helicopter.
“Dad? Is that you? What’s going on?” he calls out again, clearly scared, and Ron immediately drops his weapon. The gun doesn’t even stop powering down before he is at his knees before Dipper, throwing his arms around him in a fierce hug. Dipper holds him close too, his eyes watering and burrowing his face in his suit jacket. He claimed he was too old to cry in their arms just four months ago. Whatever happened here must have scared him. Brett tenses and risks a look at Reagan as she grinds her teeth, never taking her eyes away from her target. He follows suit.
“Uncle Brett?” Mabel whispers, way too quietly for their exuberant little girl, as she is also freed from the crowd.
Reagan hears more than sees Brett’s breath hitch as he immediately chucks his weapon away to run towards the girl. He picks her up and cradles her close to his chest, whispering assurance and crying more than she does as she clings to him like a monkey. Ron frees a hand and pulls them both down to him, trying to cuddle around all three of them. They’re all crying now, quietly sniffling, betrayed by the way Ron’s shoulders tremble.
Reagan stands, frozen. She took a lot of damage when she managed to set the helicopter straight. Her nose is broken, her hands are scraped, and she thinks she may have a concussion from how violently her head snapped around in the cockpit. She decided to wear black today, much unlike the mother the kids know. She knows she looks nothing like what they’re used to.
With the helicopter at her back, she can stay invisible for a moment longer, gun still aimed at the potential threat. But she can also see the change in the group, a loosening of tension.
Stanford’s shoulders slowly fall back as he stares dumbly at the gun at his feet, then at Ron and Brett’s backs. Defenseless, something in Reagan’s head hisses violently and, she trains her gun at the old man instantly.
But the man seems to be lost in thoughts. He looks almost… forlorn at the scene. Suddenly he picks up a hand to wipe at his own eyes, as Reagan realizes that the fight might be over. She slowly lowers her gun, which finally earns her a look from Stanford.
He takes her in, in all of her battered glory, with the death in her eyes and blood trickling down her chin. She sticks it out at him, and bares her teeth, more than ready for another challenge. Deep down, she just wants to take her kids and go home.
“Mom, huh?” Stanford asks, humorlessly, “I see where they got that fight from.”
He says it too loud. It seems like all the group’s attention suddenly focuses on her, and Reagan wants to snarl at them all over again and tell them to back off. But that’s also when her kids pick their heads up and start to look for her from her lovers’ protective circle of arms.
Dipper, her brilliant, smart little genius, finds her first.
“Mom?” he asks, hopeful, a little unsure, as if Reagan is just a mirage, or something he can barely believe in.
She can’t help it. She steps forward, into the light, finally lowering her gun, and he gasps.
“Mom! Mom, what happened, are you alright? Mom!”
“Mom!” Mabel cries out, her sunshine given human form, and Reagan feels her knees buckle as she finally crumples under the relief that her kids are safe.
Ron and Brett cry out too, alarmed, but she waves her hand at them as Dipper and Mabel force themselves free and run to her. She wipes blood from her teeth and smiles and spreads her arms just in time to catch them. They look scratched and a little bruised, but they are alive and in one piece and Reagan thanks all the powers she can. They wiggle in her hold, concerned with their mom’s state, until she pulls them even closer and starts leaving kisses on both of their heads and murmuring into their hair.
“You’re safe” she keeps repeating “You’re safe, I’m here, We’re here. I’m fine. You did so good. You’re safe. You will never have to survive something like that again. I will make sure of it.”
Reagan bares her teeth as she spots someone approaching, half-feral now that she has her kids in her arms again, but it’s just Ron. Her husband puts his arms around all of them carefully, like they’re made of glass. Reagan thinks she may be. She looks for the last part of their little jig-saw family and spots Brett walking over, still sniffling, although he looks more put together than she feels.
“Some summer adventure, right kiddos?” he jokes, stopping by them and cracking his back like an old man.
Mabel whacks a hand at his leg, choking out a chuckle, and he laughs, ruffling her hair. He will join them in a moment. For now, he has a clean-up to do.
“Sorry for the scare” he says quietly to Stanford, who looks like he clearly has no fight left in him. “Got a little overprotective - Family bonds and all that, you know?”
“My brother erased his whole identity to stop the Apocalypse.” Stanford says, flatly.
Tough crowd, Brett thinks. But if there’s anything he is good at, it’s at solving people’s problems for them. And Mabel whispered to him to take it easy on the guy. So Brett will do what he does best.
“I think,” says Brett, clapping the man on the arm, “that it's something Cognito Inc. can help you with, if you let us.”
This gorgeous boy here is @alexaloraetheris feline son - a brave little soldier, who currently needs our help. He got diagnosed with Feline Leukemia Virus. He has a limphoma in his chest and he's going to need surgery.
So I’m offering
ART FOR DONATIONS
Anyone who donates to @alexaloraetheris ko-fi and sends me some proof (like a screenshot that they donated - without any personal info of course) will get an art from me.
RULES:
1. Contact me first (there are some things I’m not good at drawing so DM me with comm info before you donate - I will truthfully tell you if I can draw it or not so neither of us gets disappointed)
2. I will operate in batches. I can take up to five comms at the time to make sure everyone will get an art. After I finish a batch I will open another one.
3. Any amount of donation is okay (but donations under 5€ will get a lovely one-color sketch like this - over 5€ you get stuff in more color)
Example of a deal:
Doofenshmitz: Hi, can you draw me a platypus in a fedora?
Me: Sure!
Doofenshmitz: great, here’s the screenshot showing I donated to kofi.
Me: I got it!
[Some time passes]
Me: Here’s your platypus! [Inserted platypus picture with the fedora hat]
Doofenshmitz: PERRY THE PLATYPUS!
… You get the gist of it ;)
Some examples of my art:
TLDR: If you can spare a couple euros, and want to help save a beloved pet, go and donate to Alexa’s Kofi. DM me first, to also get an art piece. Sounds good? :D
Blue eye samurai but with wings?
Because let’s be clear, we all love wings and the amount of references this show makes to birds is insane
Second post with some fanart!
AKEMI
It’s a sketch but I haven’t drawn in so long my hand literally hurts T-T
Akemi with her small wings, decorative only. They glitter like gold and their only job seems to be betraying her thoughts and puffing up whenever she is angry. They also take ridiculously long to wash away any grime or sand they collect. High maintenance!
TAIGEN
Taigen’s wings are his pride and joy, wide and beautiful. They appear bluish green in this sketch but it’s mostly because of the night light. They are brown, just like those of an osprey. They shine with oil and attention they have just gotten at the brothel from all the lovely ladies he’s been drinking with.
Like I wrote before, he spreads them whenever he can, especially to goad.
(Pose comes from the pilot episode and no, it’s not because I didn’t master that beautiful man’s face yet, not at all…)
And now…
MIZU
That’s how her wings look like at the time of her first duel with Taigen:
Yeeeeesh… they look rough. She does cut them evenly, it’s just that lack of preening and being thrown through paper walls will do that to the person (Ignore Taigen - some have good hair genes, he has good feathers).
They are cut as short as she can keep them and are matted and just sad.
For comparison, here’s how they should look like
Woah, big wingspan baby!
And much healthier, too! Shiny, glittering! I have a feeling that Mizu’s wings would be almost iridescent at the top, definitely pretty enough to make Taigen jealous. Also, wouldn’t it be hilarious if they reacted to the littlest bit of care like crazy and make Akemi green with jealousy with how low of a maintenance they actually are?
Too bad no one thought to teach Mizu how to care for them properly…
Anyways, hope you all like the sketches. I would love to hear your headcanons bout this au and I would be HONORED if anyone joined in!
My Journey to the West / Black Myth Sun Wukong fanfictions:
“A second chance”
Status: ongoing (5/?)
Who could refuse an offer for a second chance?
Certainly not Ruth, whose life has so far consisted of long hospital stays and damning prognoses. If all she has to do is play a nurse to a group of pilgrims back in seventh century to earn her second chance, she would be a fool not to take it.
If only she knew that the unforeseen cost of that second chance may be her heart.
