#tcgpara

[the-flashpoint]

Pihuechenyi (aka Something Wally Cannot Pronounce)

People were disappearing into the forest left and right, it was insane. Wally wasn't sure about where they were going or why, but after Olivia had turned up dead, it was safe to assume that the forest was really freaking dangerous and people were being really freaking stupid. Then again, it wasn't their fault. He'd heard the noises and he'd wanted to enter the forest himself if only to shut them up, but by the time he'd nearly ran to the tree line, he'd always managed to tear himself away and run straight back to the houses. For a few nights, he always seemed to regain his logic right before going in too deep.

On one hand, that was really quite unusual for him. Wally knew better than anyone else how impulsive his decisions could be. That being said, he did have great reflexes and super speed to boot, so whatever danger he was getting himself into had to be big. But if it was big danger, that meant his life was actually at stake and he could very much die-

...Where was he going with this? Oh yeah.

On the other hand, he'd been conditioned to be careful and to be skeptical. And right now, he was really damn skeptical...and worried. Tonight, he'd seen more than one person enter the forest and nobody had returned. The noises stopped, but his gut was telling him that this was a horrible thing. Where did they go? Did they die too? Would they find the bodies in the morning? What was happening in there?

He viciously bit into an energy bar, his second that night, as his thoughts raced. His mind was operating on super speed, thousands upon thousands of ideas flying through his mind in a fraction of a second. He quickly devoured the rest of the energy bar as he thought through a poorly conceived idea.

There probably wasn't anything in that forest that could catch him while he was running and he didn't want anyone else getting hurt. Maybe he could do something good with his powers and help other people. Maybe he could try being that superhero he and Jesse kept discussing. He could do it, he knew he could. Mind made up, he took a deep breath and ran.

Dodging stray tree branches and roots, Wally made his way through the foliage. His eyes strained to see in the moonlight and for a second, he thought that maybe he'd fooled himself into thinking people were in here. Still, it didn't hurt to check around and he could save someone. He didn't want anyone else dying even if he knew them or not. A flash of blonde caught his eye and before he went too far, he stopped himself. Thing is, he could never figure out how to stop on a dime and as he skidded across the forest floor, his foot caught on a particularly gnarled tree root. A flare of pain raced up his leg as he plummeted to the ground. He couldn't even cry out. Before any noise left his mouth, his head had an unfortunate encounter with another tree root.

The blow to the head didn't completely knock him out, but it left him dazed for a while. He wasn't entirely sure how long he'd been lying on the damp, slightly muddy ground, but it was long enough to feel like an hour to him. In reality, it was probably more like twenty minutes.

He was wavering between "I just got knocked out by a tree" and "Ow, ow, ow, ow..." when a buzzing reached his ears. There wasn't much he could do. His limbs were refusing to cooperate and the sound was kinda soothing, so his eyes stayed closed and he continued drifting on that cushion of not-quite-consiousness and left it at that. He didn't even twitch when something slithered along his back. It was probably nothing...right?

...No. Shit, no. He had to move, had to wake himself up somehow...

Against the throbbing in his head, he managed to open his eyes. Everything around him was blurry and he wouldn't be surprised if he had a concussion. There was definitely blood running down his forehead, but he wasn't worried. After all, head wounds bled a lot and it wouldn't be too worrisome as long as he didn't lose too much. Besides, advanced healing had its perks and he'd just eaten something before wandering into the forest, so he would be fi-

His neck exploded in pain.

Now fully conscious, Wally let out a strangled gasp as he felt two very sharp somethings force their way into his veins. It didn't take a genius to figure out what was happening.

Without hesitation, Wally clumsily grabbed at the writhing mass and pulled. It was very painful for him, but the thing did come free...and a decent amount of blood wound up on the ground. Clamping a hand over the now widened wound on his neck, the teen could finally get a better look at what attacked him.

It was some weird snake-thing with wings. It hissed angrily at him before lunging. Had Wally been in peak condition, he would've easily dodged the attack and ran like a bat out of hell. However, he was slightly concussed, dazed, and blood was seeping between his fingers. Just as the snake was about to bite his face, he rolled to the side. Unfortunately, the snake managed to sink its fangs into his shoulder. He could feel it scrape against bone and a shiver ran up his spine. That was not pleasant. Before he could move, the snake was biting his side, biting into his back, biting anywhere it could to try and find a good vein. Wally rolled onto his back again, trying to crush the thing beneath his weight. And while the snake hissed in pain, the head managed to wriggle free.

Never in his life had Wally been more terrified of a weird winged snake. The creature slithered into the undergrowth and Wally let out a sigh of relief. That sigh turned into a curse as three more snakes lunged from the trees. He jumped to his feet, not wanting to be on the receiving end of an additional three bites...and promptly fell flat on his face. A quick glance at his ankle made him cringe. It was incredibly swollen, barely being contained by his sneaker, and a feeling of dread manifested itself in his gut.

The three snakes struck hard: two at his wrists and one simply biting him in order to find another good vein. Despite it all, he managed to keep a hand clamped around the gash on his neck. He fought back in whatever way he could. With his free hand, he yanked at the snake feeding from his wrist. As soon as he pulled, he automatically knew it was a bad idea.

The snake wouldn't let go and when he pulled, he simply dragged the fangs through his vein. A large bubble of blood spurt from his wrist and he immediately let go. He'd made it worse.

He could feel himself fading as the vampiric snakes fed on him. Each was at a major artery (the third snake finally taking residence on his thigh) and between the three of them, there wasn't enough blood to go around. They were going to bleed him dry if he continued to lay there.

He was going to die.

...Was that for the best?

No. No, no, no, no, no! No, he was not going to be taken down by a bunch of stupid snakes! He was Wally West for crying out loud! He didn't survive countless experiments just to be taken down by blood loss. Hell, he had people to see, things to do-

People to save.

He fucking failed and it was all because of the snakes.

With his last reserves of strength, Wally grabbed the snake at his thigh, ripped it away, and slammed its body into the ground. Using his speed wasn't a good idea, especially this low on both blood and fuel, but it was the last chance he had. Before the other two snakes could fully react, Wally stood and, releasing the hand from his neck, slammed both snakes' heads into tree trunks. He bit back a cry of pain as the action forced the fangs deeper into his arms. Learning from last time, Wally ignored the pain in his ankle and bolted. He didn't even both pulling the dead snakes from his arms, he just ran. It was a reckless sprint fueled by desperation, but the houses were coming into view and he'd made it back alive an-

With a cry, he fell to the ground. He heard a sickening crunch as he fell and this time, he screamed. Something broke, God, something broke and from the pain running up and down his leg, he knew exactly what. Shit, that was bad. He'd have a hard time keeping his body under control and crap, what was he going to do if he couldn't run?

His thoughts were frantic, but they soon began to slow down to something that even a regular human would consider slower than usual. It was then that he realized he was pretty much soaked in his own blood, that blood continued to steadily flow from his neck and wrist. Maybe it was a good thing to keep the snakes in his wrists. He would have gladly passed out if not for one small detail.

He wasn't completely human, not anymore. Nobody would know how to treat him, how not to kill him. He had to tell someone, had to mention the extra glucose and metabolism and molecular instability and there were just so many things that would go wrong...

So he painstakingly climbed to his feet, trying to keep all weight off of his broken ankle. Dizzily, he yanked the dead snakes out of his wrists, wondering idly why they'd been there in the first place. And...what was he doing again? Where was he going?

...Whatever, he'd figure it out eventually. He just had to move, had to find people 'cause that's what he did, find people. As he limped forward, he was oblivious to the bloody trail he left behind.

[james---kirk-blog]

Into the Woods (Rainforest) | Past Jim N Bones

Food? Check. Water? Check. Boot knife? Check. Rope? Check... Jim rifled through the contents of his bag for the tenth time that afternoon. If there was one thing he'd learned, it was to prepare for the worst and pack a bit more than you thought you needed. As he shouldered the pack, he was pretty pleased to find that it was lighter than he'd initially thought. Or maybe he'd actually gained more muscle than he thought. Weird. Walking out of the shared house, he walked up to the one Bones was staying in. It was fairly early in the morning, fog wafting over the ground. It was better to start earlier due to the heat and he wasn't entirely sure of how well Bones dealt with the weather. There were a lot of things they needed to catch up on. He knocked softly on the door, conscious of Bones' roommates. He heard shuffling noises, so he casually leaned against the side of the house and waited. As soon as he heard the creak of the door, he put on the mask and smirked. "Took you long enough. You ready?"

[james---kirk-blog]

Keeping Up With the Kirk

Eleven guards.

Eleven.

A sick part of his mind joked that he couldn't have made it a solid dozen. The rest of him simply felt like crap. During the rescue and escape, there hadn't been a lot of time to think, only to act. He gladly got swept up in all of it and let himself ignore what had happened. But now there was nothing to do and his mind wandered back to what he hadn't acknowledged: the death toll.

Ember and Dean were gone, killed by the Capitol before they could have been rescued. He'd mourned them now that there was time to think. There were people he was closer with, but both losses hit him hard and he'd kept himself scarce throughout the stay in...wherever the hell they were now.

The memories of the rescue had also come back. The feeling of his knife slicing through flesh, the warm blood running down his hands, the muffled screams that only he could hear...

Well, they weren't all that muffled in his nightmares.

Eleven more bodies to add to the count. Eleven more skeletons in the closet.

When he joined the rebels in the cornfield, he liked to think that was when his life changed. He believed that he had changed for the better, that he'd left his old life behind. But JT reared his ugly head and he'd lost it.

And Clara didn't remember him. Maybe that was for the better.

Jim sighed and took another swig of the whiskey he'd grabbed. He was more of a beer person, but the stress got to him faster than he could read labels. He'd wound up grabbing whatever alcohol he could and locking himself in a simulation chamber. It wasn't a rare occurrence...he'd done it every day for the past week. McCoy was going to rip him a new one.

He couldn't remember the last time he ate or the last time he'd fallen this deeply into a depression. This one kind of took the cake. At least the PTSD from Tarsus took an edge off the whole mass murderer revelation. He'd had a reason to kill last time. He didn't condone it, but it was understandable and somewhat justifiable. During the rescue...none of those deaths were necessary. Not one. He'd simply killed without reason. No, killed for revenge. That was worse. Shaking his head, he walked over to the door, loosely clutching the now empty bottle he'd brought in. It wasn't his place to be judge, jury, and executioner. He needed some form of justice, something to ease the guilt.

He stumbled a bit, searching for someone, anyone, who could help him. He was far from drunk. Hell, he'd sipped at the bottle for a good fifteen hours (because sleep wasn't coming easily and he'd be lucky to get seven hours of highly interrupted sleep). He felt off-center and not great from only having alcohol in his stomach (bad move since he felt extremely nauseous), but brain wasn't horribly impaired. He could think well enough to explain the situation to someone and he knew he needed this. He needed the punishment.

God knows he got away with too much.

[the-flashpoint]

A Wally West Kind of Week

After the initial awkwardness of introductions and hopeless flirting, Wally's week went downhill pretty quickly. He'd managed to talk to the Paylor lady and explain that his metabolism was super unstable and he needed a large intake of calories to live. While the explanation was lacking in the super speed department, he'd managed to get the point (and urgency) across without telling her about everything he was capable of. As far as she knew, his max speed was 80mph on a good day. He'd have to keep a closer watch on how fast he was going.

But that brought up two problems: how he was going to get by for the rest of the week and the whole unstable molecules debacle. Oh, and keeping everything under wraps from everyone else. It wasn't exactly pride, but it wasn't completely illogical. Robin had taught him enough about secret keeping during their time together. If he didn't know he could fully trust people, keeping some stuff to himself was ok. He'd have to confide with some sort of doctor soon, but that was different. Doctor-patient confidentiality and all.

The first couple of days went semi-smoothly. He'd grabbed as much granola as he could and kept the speed down. Anything with a high calorie count was good enough for him. But by day three, he'd eaten all the granola on hand and people wouldn't really like him if he went after the rest of the bread, pasta, and rice. That forced him to ration which, in turn, forced him to reduce his average speed more. That led to a few cases of shifting molecules and nearly making the door explode. By day five, he'd desperately asked the locals who he'd met before to feed him for the rest of the week. But they all refused him. He'd gone with the people from Panem. He wasn't wanted anymore.

That hurt, but it wasn't something too surprising. He'd eaten a lot of their food. He didn't blame them for shoving his problem habits onto other people. But that left him running through the forest eating the fruits. They didn't taste the best, but they'd do. Thing is, fruit doesn't exactly fill you up well...and it's definitely not a substantial diet for a speedster. He needed more food with better accessibility. By the end of day four, all fruit within a decent radius of the houses was gone. The further he trekked, the more energy he used up and the less helpful the fruit was. It was like eating celery: there came a point when he was burning up more calories than he was eating.

Day five was when the problems started. He'd nearly vibrated his hand through a door. It would've exploded had he not decided to jump out of the house's window. His two other roommates had given him questioning expressions, but he mumbled something about food and rushed off to the pantry. To his dismay, there was enough there to feed everyone until the next supply. No extras. He'd have to live off of a normal person metabolism. Some quick calculations told him he'd still be alive by the end of the week, just...not in the best of conditions. Actually, if the food arrived later than 7:00pm, he'd be in very, very bad shape. How did he know this? Cadmus.

So he waited out the time in a simulation chamber, vibrating his molecules enough to stave off the whole "my body will explode without movement" issue. The room was large enough to accommodate for his claustrophobia, thank goodness. He sat in the center of the room, legs up to his chin, trying to ignore the hunger pangs from his stomach. He'd gone longer. He'd gone longer...

When the end of the week rolled around, he'd nearly cried with joy. Starving to death was so overrated. Without thinking, he rushed over to the pantry...and nearly fell face first on the floor. Too much movement, too little food. He nursed a glass of water while he watched the food get loaded into the kitchen and was happy to note that there was significantly more than last time. However, he frowned slightly. They had taken his metabolism into account, but the supply wouldn't keep the hunger at bay. He was used to it, but it looked like he'd have to stretch himself out a bit more than usual. He just hoped people wouldn't notice and that he wouldn't get too thin. He liked what muscle he had, he didn't want his body using it as extra protein.

But he wasn't going to worry about that. As soon as the food was all set, he grabbed a sleeve of crackers and a saucepan. It was time for a well-deserved dinner, Wally West style.

[lineofobscurity]

The Lost Week

Shawn Spencer. That was his name. It didn't feel like his name, but that's what the doctor told him and doctors didn't lie. At least, not about names. Actually, he'd never met - er, heard of - a doctor who lied. Maybe it could happen, but it wasn't likely.

He'd been released from medical about five days ago. In five days, he'd managed to make himself scarce and disappear. He avoided people, ducked in and out of little crevices and shadows just to avoid the looks. The werewolf-doctor, Doctor McCoy, had told him about the amnesia. His whole life was gone. Everyone he'd ever met, everyone he loved...he couldn't remember them.

At first, it hadn't felt like such a huge deal. The people he'd grown up with an known for an extended amount of time weren't around and he wasn't going to see them for a while. The thought was pretty depressing, but he'd probably remember them once he did see them...which was hopefully after he regained his memory. But then there had been Amy and the people he'd met recently and those meetings had been, well, overwhelming.

Shawn discovered two things within his first day of "freedom". One: he was the definition of hyper-awareness. He was freaking good at observation. He could determine who was a vampire in a matter of seconds just by looking at them. Hell, he could recite someone's entire life story from little quirks he found in a matter of minutes.And even the most carefully guarded emotions were no match for him. He knew what people were feeling, how they were feeling, and when they were lying to him. The last one hurt. People were treading on ice around him.

Two: there was something really wrong with his mind. At first, it wasn't anything to worry about. It started with names. Whenever someone introduced themselves to him, he'd always remember their name. He never had to ask again. Ok, so he was good with names. Useful. But then it became more...broad.

Hours after an interaction, he could remember the exact way the person held themselves, the exact words they used, and he could repeat the exchange in great detail. Like, TMI-worthy details. He'd brushed that off as recent encounters. But then he couldn't stop remembering even the smallest things. He could remember everything since he'd woken up in the medbay, remembered how things had happened during the evac, remembered that sharp pain he felt before passing out halfway through the escape. Everything could be replayed in his head in IMAX 3D HD-whatever quality. He could even zoom if he wanted to. He could whatever he wanted with the memories except erase them. He couldn't forget.

Then the migraines came in. There was too much to take in, too much to see, and it all hurt so much. That was half of the reason he'd isolated himself. The other half was from all the looks of pity and guilt he'd seen, all the "reassuring" smiles that were more hopeless than hopeful. And even as he tried pushing them out of his mind, he couldn't and that just made his head hurt more.

And that brought him to the next question: why did he forget? If he couldn't force himself to forget anything, why did he forget the last thirty years of his life? What made him do that?

Shawn sighed, slouching against the wall of a simulation chamber. This was getting him nowhere. Obviously, cutting himself off from people wasn't working, so maybe it was time to try a new approach. He'd have to talk to someone about his mind and whether or not he was going insane. This not-forgetting and forgetting thing couldn't be normal. Maybe he hit his head harder than the doctor thought or maybe he was suffering from some really weird brain damage. Whatever, he wasn't going to figure it out in here.

Slowly, he stood up and headed towards the door. Honestly, he was dreading going back out into the world. He'd liked his little routine of spending hours upon hours in sweet silence, but if he wanted answers, he needed to get out. One particularly nasty throb of his ever-present migraine forced him the rest of the way out and he squinted in the setting sun. Wow, that was really bright.

With a sigh, Shawn made his way towards the houses. Tomorrow, he'd ask around. Maybe someone could help him deal with insanity...and the fact that he kept calling hedge clippers "hacksaws."

[james---kirk-blog]

Rainforest Hustle

Jim curled behind a rock, clutching his makeshift weapon close to his chest. He could here the weird monkey-thing scuffling around, looking specifically for him. This sucked, it really sucked.

Peaking out from his covering, he nearly jumped a bit upon the discovery that the angry primate was less than a meter away from him. Its back was facing his rock. Perfect.

Clutching one end of the vine, Jim stood and quickly chucked the rock attached to it. He threw it from the side, allowing the rock to catch around the creature's leg. Before the beast could fully comprehend what was happening, Jim gave the vine a strong tug. With a smirk, he watched as the monkey fell to the ground with a cry. His victory didn't last as long as he'd hoped, for the animal immediately locked eyes with his and let out an almighty shriek of rage. Jim winced and fought the urge to put his hands over his ears. Instead, he tried to get hold of another good sized rock or stick or something he could hold. There was always the knife he carried around in his boot, but it wouldn't do him any good unless the thing was literally on top of him. He needed a range attack, not hand-to-hand. Judging by the claws, it would rip him apart before his hand reached the knife's hilt.

He cursed under his breath, not finding anything that could be of use. There was only one thing he could do: run. With the monkey still shrieking behind him, Jim spun on his heel and ran like hell. Glancing over his shoulder, he caught a glimpse of orange. Shit, the thing was still following him. Why couldn't it pick on something else?

The forest floor suddenly became best friends with his face. Crap, how'd he miss the root clearly sticking up out of the ground? Spitting some dirt out of his mouth, he tried to stand and run again. However, something heavy landed on his back, pushing his face back into the dirt. Instincts kicked in from there.

Jim violently twisted his body, the sudden movement causing his assailant to lose balance and fall. It allowed him enough time roll onto his back before the thing was on him again. Clenching his hand into a fist, he launched his arm into an arc. His fist connected with the beast's temple and within seconds, Jim was up and running again. Something slashed at his back as he dove through some plants.

"Shit!" he couldn't help but scream as he continued running. He was close to mentally laughing his ass off just thinking about how Bones' face would look when he returned.

But right now, he had more important things to deal with. The orange monkey-monster was his main issue and he wanted to resolve that as soon as possible.