Have a spooky mystery story that probably most definitively includes some stabbing! Perfect for a Friday the 13th and Ides of March weekend!
Full fic description under cut
Chapters: 5/5
Fandom: Dispatch (Video Game)
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Invisigal | Courtney & Robert Robertson | Mecha Man, Robert Robertson | Mecha Man & Z-Team, Flambae | Chad & Robert Robertson | Mecha Man, Coupé | Janelle & Robert Robertson | Mecha Man
Characters: Robert Robertson | Mecha Man, Invisigal | Courtney (Dispatch), Coupé | Janelle (Dispatch), Malevola Gibb, Flambae | Chad (Dispatch), Z-Team (Dispatch)
Additional Tags: Spooky, Humor, I tried telling this one rashomon style let me know how i did, Robert fighting the damsel allegations bare-handed and winning, Coupé | Janelle Gets Cut From The Z-Team (Dispatch), but she's back baby, The power of friendship and incredible violence, Canon typical swearing sex jokes and violence, I will add more tags as relevant (or at request)
Summary:
A mysterious power-outage and some strange (even for Torrance) calls should be nothing for the team of heroes that took down Shroud and the Red Ring last month. Unfortunately, something stalking the dark halls of the SDN office seems to want the Z-Teams' dispatcher dead.
Their dispatcher who is far more concerned with solving tonight's mystery than with his own safety.
I Tried to Kill Mecha Man and All I Got was this Stupid T-shirt Extras: Part 2
(Major fic spoilers)
Fic Link
The roof scene that was originally written from Robert's perspective before I realized that didn't work at all:
Unfortunately, Robert isn't surprised when they get to the roof. They have just enough time to file out of the stairwell and let their eyes adjust to the moonlight before a familiar voice calls out, "Turn around."
Robert turns from looking at the darkened cityscape of Torrance to see a copy of Inivisigal, gun in hand and aimed squarely at his head.
It's wearing the same dark outfit she'd worn during the Red Ring's attack on the SDN offices, now completed by a face mask, as if to make her purposefully indistinguishable from any other Red Ring villain. Robert is unsurprised to see the gun looks to he an exact copy of the one Shroud had stolen and used to kill his father.
Beside and around him, his team stiffens, obviously ready to take down this nightmare the way they had the one in the basement. The nightmare copy of Visi must realize it too, scoffing at them.
"Make one fucking move and I'll blow Mecha Man's head off. You might be fast, but you can't hit me faster than I can pull the trigger."
It laughs meanly. "And don't even fucking think of trying something like going invisible and sneaking up behind me. I know that fucking trick."
Out of the corner of his eye, Robert can see the real Visi looks like she's about to be sick. He tries a brief glance in her direction -
"Don't look at her! Look at me!
Robert turns back to the nightmare at its scream. As he looks into the copy's eyes, Visi's eyes but wrong, ping-ponging between anger and obsessiveness, the nightmare snarls.
"No! Don't look at me like that. Like I'm you pawn, your pity project, your stupid pet! Look at me."
The hand holding the gun shakes. Not enough to throw the aim off his head, but enough that it is clear the finger on the trigger might twitch and fire at any given second.
Robert takes a step forward, "I can't look at you and see a hero, because you're not Courtney."
The breath in the nightmare's chest grows ragged, "I-"
Robert doesn't let it continue, "Just like you weren't Chad when you hurt me in the lab, or Janelle when you stabbed me in the back."
The nightmare hunches over like it's in pain. It flickers, a stutter-stop of reality. Robert walks close enough to touch but doesn't reach out. Instead, he calls the fear by its real name.
"Elliot."
The flickering stops, the figure in front of him resolving into the form of Elliot Connors, gun still in hand and pointed at Mecha Man's head.
And it is Elliot Connors, not Shroud. No skull-like mask, the relatively minor cerebral enhancements that he'd had when Robert was a child letting out only a subtle glow, face young and bloody from his fight with Mecha Man Astral.
Gun cocked to kill.
"I can still-, I can still stab you in the back, still hurt you." The nightmare presses the gun the Robert's head, the muzzle cold, "Still kill you!"
"I'm not Robbie."
The nightmare full body flinches, and Robert takes the opportunity to take the gun from its hand. It doesn't fight fight him, and so he continues,
"You're from Chase and Aunt Vitalia, right. I bet something went wrong while she was healing him, probably interference from Blazer's amulet.
The nightmare voice's turn beseeching, "I can still kill you." begging, "They can still kill you."
"I know, but they aren't Ell. I'm not Robbie." Robert lets his voice go sympathetic, addressing Chase and Vitalia out in her little house near the stadium.
"Let them surprise you," Robert knew his team, knew they what they could do if someone gave them a chance, "Chase, we have to trust them enough to let them try.
With a final cry like a sob, the nightmare dissolves, and Robert turns back to his team just in time to see the real Visi hit the ground.
I Tried to Kill Mecha Man and All I Got was this Stupid T-shirt Extras: Part 1
(Major fic spoilers)
Fic Link
Foreshadowing for the Nightmare's Real Form
Many of the characters stay very anxious about the Red Ring/Shroud, but that's more to keep them in the reader's mind (and bc it seems accurate to one month after the attack on SDN)
Fake Coop's lights are mentioned to be in the wrong place in Chap 3, and in Chap 2 it's mentioned they are on the side of the attacker's head (same place Shroud's are)
Fake Flambae is noticed to have a bloody face, not just severed fingers (same as Elliot after his fight with Robbie)
It is very late in game, but Shroud's the only character we see hold a gun like Visi has on the roof
Everything the copy's say was intended to be readable as something Elliot/Shroud might say to Robbie or Robert (I'll show you, I'll hurt you worse than you hurt me, look at me [and see a hero])
Foreshadowing for it Being Chase's Nightmare
1, It is mentioned in Chapter 1 that Chase is getting healed by Vitalia, and then several paragraphs later that Vitalia uses magic
2. Malevola stress the magic is "a hippy sort" and "empathetic, and Robert describes Vitalia's healing as "psychedelic" and a "jolt of shared energy"
3. All of the copies attacking Robert being Z-teamer's, or as Robert put it, Mecha Man killed by his teammate again
Ussop likes making up stories about his soulmates, its his second favorite thing besides injecting some life into his sleepy village by warning them of pirates (that aren't here now, but maybe one day).
After all, he's already met on them. Kaya's amazing! She nice and always listening and actually really, really smart and the best audience.
The white ribbon of her mark wraps around Ussop's neck like a banner against his dark skin, and the woody-brown of his own mark wraps like a ring around Kaya's pale, left pinky finger.
Kaya doesn't like her own soulmark though, will frown at on his skin (white like death, around his neck like a noose, an ill-fated mark for an ill-fated girl that won't make it adulthood). Ussop understands because sometimes he doesn't like his soulmark either (small, easily overlooked, forgettable like a child no one came back for)
People like to talk about meaning and patterns in soulmark colors and locations - red for bravery and confidence, blue for gentleness and grace. They always say those who give their soul mates white marks are fated for tragedy, because they look the same whether the person who gave them is alive or dead. No color can fade when the mark had none to begin with.
Ussop doesn't like those stories though, so he tells another. About how the gods broke up a light beam into a rainbow, and used that draw soul marks on people's skin. Only some people were just so great, they had to use all the colors so the marks came out white like a light beam or brown like mixed paint pallet - just like Kaya who is so bright and the great Captain Ussop who is so clever.
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He's got a million stories for each of his unknown soulmarks, the gold one that takes up his upper back and peeks out over his shoulders is for his best friend, his future first mate, his fated rival. The fluffy yellow-orange cloud on the left side of his chest is for his future cabin boy, or an apprentice, or for a mysterious princess. The purple club is for his cool mentor, his future ship's best fighter, his evil nemesis.
Ussop also got a lot of, well, worries though. You can't not meet your soulmate, but you can miss them. Everybody knows some old person who died on their death bed with a mark they never realized they shared, a passing acquaintance that shaped them deeply but with whom they never shared enough love to compare marks.
A soulmark means a connection, but it doesn't guarantee friendship or love, or even like.
(It doesn't mean they'll come back)
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Luffy is stupid and has no sense of direction and is somehow more of a little kid than the actual 8 years olds Ussop used to watch, but he's also a ridiculously strong, badass, real pirate captain.
(And he's kind, too. Good in the way that the sun on your face, or the wind in your hair is good - like warmth and freedom and the promise to be there tomorrow, reliable and natural as the promise of sunrise.)
He's also like, covered in marks, the most obvious being the beautiful red-orange flames and white-blue waves crashing up and down across his right arm, but like he's got hints of color on every limb and twisting out from his back.
They haven't compared marks yet (nobody on the crew has to Ussop's knowledge, which is a little strange when they seem so close) but it's hard to imagine Ussop's plain little mark on somebody so … colorful. So he choses not to stare at Luffy's left hand, where a pale-brown ring might encircle his pinky near invisible against his tan skin, or more likely might not.
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Ussop double-takes upon seeing Nami in a bikini top, and not for the usual reasons. (Well maybe a little for the usual reasons, Nami is really pretty and she knows it in a way that just makes her even prettier).
Rather he's feeling a sense of giddy excitement at the gold mark on her upper back that he recognizes from his own skin. A shared soulmate is a wonderful thing, people who might be strangers woven together by a shared fated person, like paintings that have been touched by the same brush.
He chokes a little when Zoro looks up from one of his near constant naps and upon seeing Nami, says "Oh so you're Luffy's soulmate too?"
This prompt's Nami to start whacking Luffy on the head with loud yells even as she can't hide a pleased looking smile that Ussop can feel on his own face and see mirrored on Sanji and Zoro.
Eventually Luffy's confused apologies are enough to satisfy Nami's wrath and he shows them each their marks on his skin.
Zoro's is a black ragged line across his right palm. (The swordsman presses their right-hands together so their palms go flat like they are clasped in prayer.)
Nami's a bright, orange pinwheel - the same design she tattooed on her shoulder - on his right upper thigh. (She smiles, proud and protective, like a dragon hoarding its treasure.)
Sanji's a grey, smoking swirl that twists around his left leg. (He looks away with a huff, but they can all see a giddy smile take over the chef's face.)
And finally, near-invisible against his tan skin, a pale-brown ring around his left pinky is Ussop. (Luffy - his captain- hooks his pinky with Ussop's own and smiles, and it feels like a promise.)
One of the things that made Nami's mom so cool was that she had tattoos.
Nobody else in the village had tattoos, and sometimes she'd hear people grumble about how disrespectful Bellemare marking her skin up like that was to her soulmates. Those people are just stupid though, Nami and Nojiko have their mom as a soulmate and they've both agreed Bellmere's tattoos are great!
Bellemere lets her daughters trace the tattoos, the Marine seagull on her shoulder, the orange tree across her thigh, and the neat list of every ship she'd served on decorating her inner wrist.
"Fate was definitely right about you two being important, my precious little girls, but I wanted to show off the other parts of myself." She'd pointed at her orange tree, "Where I came from." The seagull, "What I believed in." and then the ships' names, "And what I'd chosen to do."
She'd smiled, "And now with my Nojiko's little flower on my stomach and my Nami's little pinwheel on my leg, I've got everything that matters to me on my skin."
Something warms had bubbled in Nami's stomach, as Bellemare tells the story of what she'd chosen to mark on her skin, what she'd chosen to be, just like she'd chosen to be a family with Nami and Nojiko.
"Don’t encourage them" Gen had muttered, from where he'd come over to dinner. "The villagers already think you are raising them to be hooligans, it is only going to be worse if they go and get tattoos of all things."
Bellmere had laughed, "Ahh, are you upset I didn't include your mark in the list Gen?" She'd flutter her eyes and leaned down a bit, toying with the buttons of her shirt, "Do you want me to show you your mark right now, to make it up to you?"
Like always, Gen had turned bright red and started sputtering and Nami and Nojiko had laughed along with their mother.
-------------------------------------
Arlong's tattoo is the only thing visible on Nami's skin.
The long verdant green stripe along her right stomach that Bellemare gave her - that she shares with her sister and Gen - is hidden under her shirt, along with her two two unknown marks that decorate her back(two, long yellow curves mirrored and just touching like the sun reflecting on the water, crisscrossed by a flowing blue line that resembled a winding river).
Perfect, nobody needs to see those parts of her. The soft vulnerable bits (Bellemare and the family she made of unrelated strangers, those two unknown people that Nami has sworn to protect the way she couldn't her mother) are hidden away, and all that's left is Nami, cartographer of the Arlong Pirates, the cold-hearted bitch thief who works for her mother's murder.
No one gets to see anything else.
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Nami's first act as a free woman is to tattoo the design of her own mark (an orange pinwheel-tangerine, free to grow under the sun and explore in the wind) on her skin, where Arlong's shitty slave brand once lay. She belongs to no one but herself, and she'll proudly wear announce that to the world.
Her second act as a free women is to steal the wallets of everyone in her town (cause she's a tattooed hooligan just like her mother), and use that money to buy herself a cute bikini top to show of her soul marks. Bellemere's vibrant green on her side, and the unknown blue and gold on her back.
Her third act as a free woman is beating her captain senseless when Zoro sees the gold mark on her back and says, "Oh, so your Luffy's soulmate too".
Being tied up is worst during the day, the heat of the sun combined with the dehydration of having nothing to drink but rainwater makes it hard for Zoro to concentrate, his lucidity fazing in and out accompanied by bursts of hungry-nausea and splitting headaches.
Also that stupid son comes back to mock him during the days, which is incredibly annoying.
At night, the cool air makes it easier for him to sink into a state of something like meditation. He can breathe through the hunger, the thirst, the pain of being tied up in such an uncomfortable position. And sometimes when Zoro is absolutely positive he's not being watched, he can twist his head and gaze at Kuina's mark on his right palm (faded with her death, but it had started out white so that was hardly noticeably, a jagged line starting under his thumb then bisecting his palm diagonally - like he'd tried to catch a sword with his bare hand and earned a scar for it).
The other two marks, the one on his shoulder and the one across his back don't matter. He hasn't met them yet, and even if he did it still wouldn't matter. Kuina's mark itself doesn't even really matter, Zoro has their promise and their sword. That is what matters.
He still treasures it though, it’s another thing she'd left him, another part of her he'll take to the top of the world for them both.
To Zoro as a child, it had made perfect sense that Kuina and he were soulmates, they were rivals after all. A soulmate was someone that was such a big part of your fate, such a big part of you, that you carried them around on your skin, and what could be more big and important to a swordsman than a fated rival?
The first time (Zoro 0, Kuina 37) he'd explained this reasoning to her Kuina had scoffed, "What makes you think you are good enough to be a rival to me?"
Which was stupid cause Zoro was gonna be the best and his sword style was way cooler, what did stupid Kuina know? So what if he didn't beat her today, next time for sure!
The second time (Zoro 0, Kuina 1803), he'd reiterated this Kuina had worn a shaky frown, "You don't think it means-? I mean, usually people say that when a boy and a girl of similar age have each other's soul mark it means-" She stops, looking something like distraught or disgusted.
Stupid. Zoro points to his own mark on Kuina's palm (a black jagged line starting above her thumb then bisecting her palm diagonally - like she'd tried to catch a sword with her bare hand and earned a bloody-scab for it), "No, we're rivals. That's why our marks are so similar, though mine's cooler just like my sword style.
Kuina had rolled her eyes, stood up, and added another defeat to Zoro's tally. She'd smirked while she done it too, and just wait one of these days, Zoro is going to beat her.
The third time (Zoro 0, Kuina 2001), Zoro hadn't been explaining to Kuina but to her father. Maybe he didn't think it was stupid, or maybe he did but gave Zoro Kuina's sword anyway because his daughter's only soulmate was the closest thing he had to a heir now.
It doesn't matter, Zoro might never have won against her, but he'd won the soul mark argument in the end.
Zoro doesn't mention the soulmate thing to Luffy, mostly because it took him an embarassingly long time to notice given the Zoro's mark is one of the more visible ones, dark and on the palm so his soulmates would have to wear gloves to hide it.
In his defense, he was really hungry and dehydrated and there was an power-mad Marine captain trying to kill him.
Also, Luffy's got a lot of visible marks, the most Zoro's ever seen on anybody. A flash of gold on his left hand, smoky grey on his left shin, the edges of soul marks -blue and orange - just visible under the hems of his shorts on both thighs, green dots on his left arm, and a particularly badass mark that dominates near his entire right arm from shoulder to wrist that looks like red and blue flames twisting around his arm and each other.
It's a lot of visual info, so he can probably be forgiven for not noticing his own mark (a black, jagged line on Luffy's right palm) till they are eating at Rika's mom's place. Zoro had stared it for a second, wondered which of his two unknown soul marks was Luffy's, then put it out of his mind.
Their promise was the important thing, the soul mark thing didn't really matter.
(It's the one on his back, golden and swooping. He'll still treasure it because it's something he shares with his crew, something his captain gave them).
Like, objectively speaking, I realize that it was just budget constraints. But in lore. There is something funny to me about Aline being like. Listen. Men? I can throw in a few rogue agents. But for the most part? All hot men are going to be my husband in different fonts. And my son.
But girls?
Aline really went. Listen. There's one queen. There's one pinnacle of feminine beauty. And it's my oldest daughter. And then proceeded to drag and drop Clea everywhere.
I'm a lesbian Clea truther but I also believe that if Simon found out Clea was a lesbian the reaction would just be "my darling Clea... I understand. Pass me the estrogen."
Crocodile Rock (2107 words) by divisiblebyfour
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 (Video Game)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clea Dessendre & Original Verso Dessendre
Characters: Clea Dessendre, Original Verso Dessendre
Additional Tags: Family Feels, the good and the bad, mentioned Simon, mentioned alicia - Freeform, Older sibling unionization, specifically the fed up with your parents kind
Summary:
Clea opens her eyes to the soft blue glow of François' mushrooms and Esquie’s nightlights to look at her brother.
“Do you sometimes wish,” she asks, “that you had been born the first daughter of the Dessendre family, and I had been it’s first son?”
The song stops. Verso tilts his head, then starts again, something arrhythmic and almost like a pleasant toothache for how it refused to settle.
you know i'm surprised there aren't more fics of akechi reacting to learning the ren's arrest record was faked because he tried to stop shido from assaulting someone
like i don't know if I think he got so angry at Shido that he passed out from pure rage, or had "wow soulmates for real 🥹🥹" moment, but I bet he had some sort of reaction
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Persona 5
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Akechi Goro & Shido Masayoshi, Amamiya Ren & Shido Masayoshi, Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren
Characters: Amamiya Ren (Persona Series), Shido Masayoshi
Additional Tags: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Referenced Animal Abuse, local man attempts to be a good in-law does the worst job ever and asked to leave the club, established shuake being weird as a backdrop, is that title a frankenstein reference? Yes of course, Character Study, Post-Canon
Summary:
Heart changed and imprisoned, Shido Masayoshi attempts a good deed.
-
Shido's face does something that on a nicer person might have been a gently, amused smile, "Isn't advice what adults are supposed to offer the younger generation? Given the trouble I've caused you, and the energy we've both spent dealing with the fallout of my crimes it seemed the correct thing to do."
The sense of nauseating unreality expands, gummy and disorientating. So too, however, does his curiosity which is the unfortunate victor.
"Go ahead and shoot then." Ren answers.
Shido momentarily raises his eyebrows the phrasing, before settling back into his own seat with a contemplative air, "My father used to raise dogs. Not for shows, or hunting, or even to serve as guards."
-
He really sucks at it.
Phoenix Wright 🤝Joker Persona 5: My beloved tsundere boyfriend and unofficial sister are both gigantic fans of the Stupidest Children's Show on Earth, but bf and sister have a tense relationship because (1) complicated shared past involving multiple dead beloved parents and an evil dad, (2) that one time my boyfriend tried to kill me (don't worry about it), so now I have to watch double the Stupid Show with each of them individually instead of foisting them of on each other.
i almost exclusively play videogames or watch books/movies chronologically, and while part of it the fun of seeing a world or mechanics develop, part of it is so that i can be very, very annoying about deep lore
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