Noticed we had one of these for HP and Dresden but not for everything else. So...here it is. I'll throw something up to get us started.

X


The city was burning, high pillars of smoke rising from the quarters that had fallen to the samurai of Fire Country and their auxiliaries. The surviving Earth Country garrison fought them house to house now, their pride and their orders compelling them to fight to the last.


Team 7 watched the end of the siege from a nearby hilltop, with varying levels of interest. Uchiha Sasuke drummed a tattoo on the hilt of the sword at his waist, eyes on the city below. Haruno Sakura was reading, a senbon needle keeping pink hair from falling across her eyes. The third member of the highly successful chuunin squad (and holder of the highest bounty, as he liked to remind his team mates), Uzumaki Naruto, lay on his stomach, pulling up clumps of grass.


“This is boring, guys,” Naruto said, his tone suggesting he was announcing news of great import. “Like, more boring than some C-ranks we've done.”


Sakura turned a page in her book, and Sasuke could very well not have heard him for all the reaction he gave.


“I mean, you'd think an A-rank mission carried out by someone with a bounty as high as mine--”


“Naruto, you 'earned' your bounty by being caught spying on the Lightning Daimyo's wife at the hot springs. Your argument is invalid,” Sakura said. “Now shush. I'm reading.”


Naruto grumbled incoherently to himself, and his team mates shared an amused glance. The orange clad fifteen year old was not silent for long, however.


“Where did Kakashi-sensei wander off to, anyway?” he said. “I thought he would have been excited to be running a mission with the team making him look like an awesome teacher.”


“Hatake-sensei is watching over his charge, like we are,” Sasuke said. He stopped tapping his fingers on his sword hilt and spoke patiently, as if to a child. “Like you should be.”


“Pfft, whatever. You've got a genjutsu over your eyes to hide your Sharingan, Sakura has her toes buried in the dirt to sense underground movement and I've got like, seventy clones henged in hiding around the hill. No enemy nin is getting close to the general's son without us knowing.”


“Speak of the bijuu,” Sakura said softly, lips immobile. She closed her book with a snap and turned to face the approaching officer and his entourage. Her toes remained buried in the dirt.


Sasuke straightened, his casual bearing slipping away as the lessons his mother had imparted to him came to the fore. Naruto rolled over and sat up, brushing grass from his jumpsuit as he squinted at the newcomer.


The officer at the head of the group was a young man, only a few years older than the chuunin of Team 7, and his armour almost seemed to dwarf him. Despite this, his bearing was strong, and he surveyed the ninja protecting him with a level gaze.


“Greetings, Takeshi-dono,” Sasuke said. He inclined his head.


“A pleasure,” Sakura said, giving a shallow bow.


Naruto just waved, ignoring or oblivioius to the stiff postures of the entourage.


“Shinobi-san,” Takeshi said, giving a polite bow in return. “I came to ask about the presence of Iwa shinobi on the field today.”


“None sighted, Captain,” Sakura answered for the team. “The Tsuchikage seems content to continue treating the conflict as a border skirmish between the Courts, rather than involve the Villages.”


“I thought perhaps that something might have changed, given that Konoha sent a shinobi of Hatake Kakashi's calibre to guard my father,” Takeshi said.


“Prudence, Captain,” Sasuke said. “How was your observation of the battle? We chose a vantage point as closely to it as we could safely defend, as your father requested.”


“The battle went well. The enemy were outmatched in both leadership and discipline,” Takeshi said. “I must confess, some of my advisors were leery of my proximity to the battle, but your teacher assured them you were capable.”


“Yeah, we're awesome like that,” Naruto said.


Takeshi gave the blond a speculative look. He coughed and stepped in closer, lowering his voice so his entourage couldn't hear. “Uzumaki-san, I've heard several rumours...is it true? About the Lightning Daimyo's wife...?”


Naruto grinned widely, revealing his canines. “Oh yeah. Not a hair below her eyebrows.”


Takeshi blushed and stepped back, manfully retaining his composure. “I see. Curious customs those Lightning nobles have.”


Naruto snickered. “Hey, don't knock it till you've—contact!”


Sasuke whirled to the direction Naruto was facing, dropping the genjutsu from his eyes. “Five enemies. Missing nin, Kumo and Mizu,” he said, Sharingan spinning.


“Three more underground, opposite direction,” Sakura said. “Naruto, you're misdirection and crowd control. Sasuke-”


“Kill the weakest, move on to the next. On it.” He drew his sword and vanished in a flurry of leaves.


Naruto made his favourite seal and a swarm of orange appeared around Takeshi and his entourage. The next instant, they had all henged into the officer and drawn their swords.


“Let's get wild!”


Sakura grunted as she sank her gloved hands into the earth, lifting a huge slab of rock clear. With a heave, she threw it downhill at the rapidly approaching enemy nin. They scattered, all but one fast enough. He was clipped in the shoulder and knocked about like a rag doll. The kunoichi of Team 7 did not envy the medic faced with reconstructing so many shattered bones. A swiftly thrown kunai rendered the point moot. Idly, she stamped one bare foot and formed a handseal. The missing nin that had attempted to burst up from underground at her back was skewered before he had the chance. Sakura smiled as the other two underground foes veered away. She left the corpse where it was buried.


X


Sasuke felt a thrill of exhilaration as his Shunshin deposited him behind one of the Mist nin as they regained their footing after dodging the slab of rock Sakura had thrown. His blade pierced her back and found her heart, and he revelled in the skill gap his hard work granted him. His training with Naruto continued to pay off – had he tried that move on the blond, he would have been greeted by an explosive clone to the face. The missing nin hadn't even had time for a substitution. A shuriken slipped into his fingers.


His eyes took in the battle in a single glance. The remaining three nin that had charged up the hill like bull at a festival were turning to face him slowly, oh so slowly, and Sakura had slipped underground to hunt the other two.


A hand reached out of a rock sitting innocently at the feet of one nin and slashed his tendons. The man dropped with a shrill scream that was cut short by the clone that had stabbed him as it released its transformation completely and cut his throat. The shuriken, crackling with lightning, ended the lives of the last two foes as they allowed themselves to be fatally distracted with dispelling the clone.


Sasuke turned to a lump of wood several feet away. “I feel distinctly cheated. Are genin going missing from Kumo and Mizu these days?”


The dirt encrusted log burst into smoke to reveal Naruto sitting cross legged on the ground. He shrugged. “I think it's more that we're just that awesome.”


“At least the leader might still be around here somewhere,” Sasuke said, his mouth setting into a thin line. The began to make their way back up the hill.


“Sakuraaaa, Sasuke's being brooooodyyyy!” Naruto sing songed as their team mate emerged from the earth.


One arm was coated in blood, and she wore a thoroughly aggrieved expression. Sasuke raised an eyebrow at her.


“One of the idiots tried to block instead of dodge,” Sakura said, scowling. “I mean, it wasn't like he had just seen me twist his sword into scrap or anything, the mouth breathing so and so...” she trailed off, grumbling.


Naruto snickered, and a grin tugged at the corner of Sasuke's mouth. Sakura took a breath, centring herself.


“One of Takeshi's entourage just revealed himself as a missing nin,” Sasuke said. “He took a hostage and fled.”


“Naruto?” Sakura asked.


“I got it,” he grumbled, forming a handseal as he watched the man flee with what appeared to be their client slung over his shoulder. There was a colourful explosion, and what was left of the nin was scattered across the hillside.


“He took a clone hostage?” Sasuke asked, incredulous. “How did he not see through that?”


“Something something, your clones all had their swords drawn while the real Takesih something something,” Naruto said. He shrugged. “I don't listen to monologues.”


“I never thought I'd hear anyone complain about the incompetence of their enemies--” Sakura paused as the two boys turned to her and she remembered who she was speaking to. “Nevermind,” she said with a sigh. “Let's just get back to the client.”


She tuned out Naruto's indignant response and ignored the grunt that Sasuke claimed counted as communication. Sometimes being the sane one on Team 7 was such a chore.


She flicked off more of the blood coating her arm. The mission wasn't over yet.

 

We need more of these:

Familiar of Zero crossover.

It's not easy writing the Gman. There are many ways to portray his bizarre inflections but they're usually messy.

 

What the hell, okay, it's a work in progress and it has been some time since I last worked on it, but maybe someone can take some pleasure out of this.

Taylor in Hell

[FONT=&quot]I never truly planned on what would happen after Scion was gone. Whether or not we could manage him had always been up in the air, and honestly, I never expected to survive.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]And I didn’t.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]I kinda thought it would be over then, after death, that there would be nothingness, oblivion, unless I was unlucky enough to get grabbed by Glaistig Uaine, and even there, it probably wouldn’t been me, but rather a copy of sorts.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Yet here I am, able to answer whether there is an afterlife or not. There is, at the very least there is Hell and to my not so big surprise, that was my destination.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I deserved it, I know I did. No matter my intentions, willingly or unwillingly, my actions had bad consequences for a lot of people, many of which who didn’t deserve it.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Still, I always had the hope, deep inside, that I could have redeemed myself, but apparently, I couldn’t, or at least, I hadn’t been able to manage it.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]So here I am, in Hell, standing in front of what I probably have to call a demon.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“We have awaited you for quite some time, Taylor Hebert.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]That’s not what you want to hear from the entity which claims to be the King of Hell. He looked, familiar and foreign at the same time. I recognized people in him, people I hated and people I feared.

For a second I saw Emma, I saw Sophia, I saw Bakuda, I saw Behemoth, I saw Coil, I saw myself. Always switching from one person to another and I only realized he had done so after the fact. Then, he also took the forms of things I couldn’t describe, couldn’t understand. Maybe I saw horns, too many eyes, and a gaping maw.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]It changed too quickly for me to truly perceive. It was unsettling. Alien and inhuman.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]“Yes, we have waited, eagerly for you to arrive,” he said, his mouths twisting into a smile.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“I couldn’t possibly be that special,” I said, trying to ignore the stench of sulfur and brimstone. I wasn’t sure I was smelling that because the clichés were true or whether I was unconsciously wanting to smell it and this place had some sort Stranger effect that made it so.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]“You’re not,” he admitted, “You’re not unique, but you have potential. We could roast you over a nice fire for a century or two, but why wait when there is so much to do?”
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] I couldn’t really believe it. I’m in Hell for not even two minutes and the Devil, or whatever was making a recruiting pitch. A small smile made its way on my face.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“I truly do deserve to be here, don’t I?” I said, almost whispered, but I knew he had heard me perfectly.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]“Yes, you do.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“Heaven or whatever else there is, wasn’t ever an option. I always made a better villain than a hero, so it makes sense that I would do much, much better in Hell than in Heaven.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“I’m glad you’re seeing it my way.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“Oh, I’m really not.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Thing is, I may have died, but my power was still working. Oh, there weren’t any bugs here, at least nothing similar to those when I was alive. However, I felt him, the same way I felt my bugs, the same way I had felt all these capes. I felt him, I felt all the damned souls and I felt all the demons, or beings, or whatever they were that were handling them.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]I felt them all.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]“Sorry to break this to you, but I’m taking over.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]He didn’t have time to do anything, nothing in my range had the time to do anything. I didn’t have a body any more, not really. What I was, was pure consciousness and soul, manifested into a more or less solid form. My parahuman power was part of me, both, before it was broken and after. In many ways, it was stronger. I had the range that I wanted to have and I wasn’t losing anything. I didn’t have a good explanation
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I made true of my word, I took over. I took over him, I took over the prisoners, the guards and the warden. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry. I had been here for not even five minutes and I had taken over Hell and its legions.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Why, why was I so good at being a villain, a monster?
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Why was it so easy?[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I really, truly, deserved to be here.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Well, I was, and all I could do, all I always had done was to try and make the best with what I had. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]First things first, I released a specific mind from my control, and started walking towards him, the former king following me without a word.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]An eternity in Hell, and I had to share that with people like Coil. What did it say about me that I was here as well? Was Emma? Did what she did count? Sure, it was horrible for me, but in the grand scheme of things, was it as bad as kidnapping a pre-teen and making a drug addict out of her in order to exploit her? Was it as bad as murder? As robbing the will and agency of countless humans? It had been ages since I last thought of her but she was dead, as was I and there was the possibility that I would find her here, raking on some coals, or heck, maybe they saw how good she was at making others suffer and offered her a job as well.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]It’s not like I could judge, the old boss here had shown up personally to recruit me, after all.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Truly, I would be in fitting company.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Yes, old enemies were here, I could feel them, but more importantly, old friends as well. Of all the people I know, I fought together, only a select few would not land in here, and of all the people I loved, I think only Dragon would find herself in a different after life and not because she was an AI.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We met not long before short.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]“You’re making me look bad, y’know? First you steal my shtick, and now you’re taking over this place. Bet you’re going to make me work as well, dork.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]I could honestly say, while I was never too comfortable with him, I did love him, as I loved everyone in the Undersiders.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]“It has been too long, jerk. And yeah, you bet we got stuff to do.”



[/FONT]
Inspired by 8-Bit Theatre
​

 

[FONT=&quot]

[FONT=&quot]D'awww.

[FONT=&quot]Nice job capturing Taylor's voice[FONT=&quot].[FONT=&quot] [FONT=&quot]The setup is one of those "if I think about it too hard [FONT=&quot]it's kind of[FONT=&quot]... off[FONT=&quot]" things, but since it's [FONT=&quot]short, it doesn't [FONT=&quot]bother me that much.[FONT=&quot] [FONT=&quot]Fun, quick read.[/FONT][/FONT]
[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][/FONT][FONT=&quot][/FONT]

 

Yeah, it is a bizarre premise. I guess I could also have gone the serious route, have Taylor meet deceased enemies, allies and friends and have conversations with them or something but I wasn't really in the mood for it.

This was lying on my harddrive for over a month now, so, decided to just post. Might tinker a bit more with it, try to make it flow better but dunno.

 

An untitled Pokemon snippet that I started back when the PokeQuests-mania took over the forums. I thought it'd be a fun little exercise.

0.0​

My breath is fogged; a fact that I am only distantly aware of. For I was floored—stunned into a stupor by what towered above us—that the mere thought to seal my lips shut escaped me. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from it. I could vaguely see our slack-jawed reflection staring back at us in its glassy emerald scales.

I’m still standing at least, somehow.

Small victories.

It’s strange, because for the life of me, I couldn’t stop shaking—much less move an inch. It isn’t because of the roaring thunderstorm and deluge of rainfall pelting down upon our forms, soaking us to the bone; nor the flaring sun that peaks from behind the veil of dark clouds, trying to bathe us in its near-blinding, oppressive heat.

The black-haired woman next to me utters a barely-audible sound, halfway between a strangled whimper and an awed breath.

The great Ancient shudders and inches closer.

Its pupils, black and beady, surrounded in a pool of molten-gold sclera, narrow into a jagged vertical slit. The intensity behind its gaze, judging me as an unwelcomed gnat in its overbearing presence, makes me question why I ever agreed to this. It's one thing to be ignored, another to bear the full front of its enmity.

It screeches a harrowing cry.

Something primal triggers inside of me, breaking past a wall of memories, of experiences, of inured conditioning, and tapping into the essence of the human condition—fight or flight.

I couldn't help but be swept along the crushing tidal wave of fear.

Whatever false sense of bravado that has kept me on my feet leaves me in that instant. I crumple to the ground, my hands unable to support me from mimicking a human puddle. Still, it consumes me—even then. I could not tear my eyes away from the entity that she had awoken.

The serpent moves, coiling into itself, and launches into the visibly-split skies. The ground beneath me quakes. The shockwave from that alone sways the Pillar to the point that I could have believed it to be made of nothing but toy wooden blocks, teetering like pendulum.

Despite this, my female companion hastily climbs to her knees, her threadbare cloak fluttering madly in this terrifying gale. She raises her arms up to proffer something—a rainbow-coloured stone—to the looming Ancient. “Oh, God! I beseech you! Answer my call!” she struggles to shout over the biting winds; I could barely hear her myself. “In return, I will offer you your rightful cl—!”

I could tell. In that split second that it takes to blink, I could already tell.

When I was young, my father was strict in his lessons, in particular about the creatures that populate our world. What had started as a warning not to venture into the green abyss of tall grass had inevitably expanded as I grew older.

However, he had confided in me this, when I was still a child.

Coexistence is a lie. He isn’t a man to mince words; that’s how he’s always been. There is no balance to be sought when we humans are able to walk alongside our makers.

Please spare me the rhetoric of how there are scientific evidence of a time before the existence of Pokémon. No, I am not one of those people, but I was raised to fear the Gods. For good reason too.

It appears that we have just angered one.

The pseudo-dragon flits through the rapidly-darkening skies, the faintest shimmer of an air current protecting its form. With each flick of its tail, the clouds part as if an invisible blade of wind had cleaved it apart. Then, a vicious streak of lightning strikes down from beyond, accompanied promptly by the deafening clap of thunder. Each bolt finds home on the structure at the very peak of the half-ruined roof we find ourselves on, far ahead of us. The electrical discharge crackles and dances across the pockmarked floors, tinging the spider-web fissures black. With all the static generated, I could feel the fine hairs on the back of my neck rise.

I hear an anguished scream, and force my eyes towards the source.

Zinn—

Blood, the shade of red not unlike her eyes, drips in rivulets from the stump of her right forearm. She clutches it in the other, gingerly, using her cloak as a makeshift bandage. Whatever strength she has left leaves her in that moment, and she collapses.

Move.

Long, black lashes fluttering weakly.

Stop shaking.

Blood red eyes unfocused. At me.

Dammnit. Move.

Pale pink lips. They part briefly, to whisper something; words which do not reach me.

Fuck this.

My breaths come in ragged and shallow. The spellbound air, hanging heavy with ungodly tension, seems to have warped the gravity on the Pillar. It’s harder to move, harder to breathe—Ho-oh, help me, it would have been hard to think if I wasn’t consumed by a single-minded purpose:

Man the fuck up, and move.

I clench my jaw tight, and push off the ground. Trying to standing, here and now, takes more out of me than the entire journey up the Pillar. Just as I take after a stumbling run, the rainbow-coloured stone, the one still clenched firmly in her detached hand, starts to glow.

All at once, the feeling hits me again. This alienness. The pervasive sense that this is something that man should not be privy to. The stone starts to levitate in the air, a golden sheen peeking through the opening of her hand. The sheen glows brighter, near blinding, until the light itself starts pulsating.

It is hypnotic, as if each breathe I take is stolen away into it. The pulsation starts to mirror my heartbeat.

Faster.

Faster.

Faster.

Soon, the light consumes all in its immediate reach. The hand that had once held it is reduced to ash, at first, then nothing, like its existence has been rejected from this world. The now miniature sun rises ever higher into the air, towards the awaiting serpent.

Only then did I realise my mistake.

“Have you never heard of it? The event that shaped our very world?” I remember her ask me once, a day far too long ago. She had laughed then, at my apparent ignorance—a throaty, condescending laugh. “Of course, you haven’t. You probably wouldn’t even know its true name. More than a millenia ago, my people had bestowed upon it the name: Miðgarðsormr. The Midgard Serpent.”

So entranced was I by the stone that I took my eyes off it. The serpent had started to circle far above us, grasping its tail in its maw, like a green-tinted halo. The reddish-black clouds seem to mimic it, creating a vortex around the Pillar. Such is its size that it encloses us in a bubble of reality that isn’t our own.

There is no way out. None which I could see.

The eye of the storm gives way to a void; a black well of nothingness that stretches on forever, tinged with a dark shade of red as if the fiery hell of sulphur and brimstone awaits at the other side.

“You see, the legends have it that Miðgarðsormr had once grown so large that it could encircle the earth and take its own tail. Ouroboros, it is called. Such was the power it held that it dictated every facet of our world. But it is only when it lets go that we should fear the end... well, welcome the beginning actually. Hmm? What is it, you ask?”

Her pretty pink lips had twitched, her small smirk hiding more than what I could discern. But it is only now that the words that had left her lips come to me.

“Dragon Ascent.”
​

 

Interesting premise. I only skimmed it for the nonce but what I saw, I liked. Consider expanding it and running it by the Quests area when you do.

=====

Some of you may remember an old Wheel of Time/Song of Ice and Fire fusion I was tinkering with about a year or so ago. I recently decided to pick it back up shortly after where I'd left the last off in the plot bunny thread, IIRC.


The streets of King's Landing were brown, mired in dust, mud, and filth. Unworthy to contact his boots, that had trawled over the decks of good ships for half his life, the harsh cobblestones of distant Braavos by the sea and the slaver pits of his ancestors splintered kingdom. The snow that once melted underfoot in his expedition in the deep North... now that he had not minded. It was pure. Clean, despite the taint of the Winter King's presence.

Rand al'Thor looked out from beneath the rim of his hood with eyes afire in Oneness. No tell-tale Valyrian lilac-in-silver, but a flood of black instead. A street urchin lunged out of an alley mouth as he neared and assaulted his purse with practiced mobility and practicality. Rand gave the starving child no notice; it was his surly companion, Matrim, who caught the scruffy brat and shook him to within an inch of his no doubt miserly life.

"Now you look 'ere, ya little cretin, one hand less would do ya some good if this is all yer gonna do with it, understand?" The boy bit at Matrim's wrist and was thrown into a wall with a muffled oath. A strong kick followed it up, sending the urchin racing on hands and feet back the way he'd come. "Get!" And the next, outraged breath, "No wonder this country's gone to shit, most the populace is more feral than the Children of the Forest, this lot."

Rand had not slowed. He also did not respond. His eyes tracked the movements of the City Watch, resplendished in their immaculate cloaks and mail, swords and shields swaying at hip and over shoulder. They were clean, but no, Rand-the-Dragon asserted, they were just as dirty as the streets, just as corrupted by filth inside despite the mask on the outside.

Matrim swore again and hurried up, eyes darting around unhappily for much the same surface reason, if deeply different reasoning beneath. Too many for a deserter to be comfortable with. Why in the seven hells are you here, Cauthon? What's the gain in following this man like a loyal steed? He swallowed and shook off the encroaching cold of half-remembered memories only a month gone from the events, of Myrddraal, Shadow Hounds, and a King in frozen blight with eyes of piercing blue turmoil and ashes. Yup, that's right there why. He spared Rand another grim glance and then resumed his study of the street folk and the Watch.

They made good enough time pushing forward through the growing crowd. Rand favored his left hand and his left side, shying back when the subjects that should have been his father's and his own by birthright pressed in. Matrim had no choice but to step forward and wedge himself in just ahead of Rand, shoving back with good measure. They never met eyes - just the look of those swarming black Saa, an infection if there ever was a sign of one, set his stomach to heaving. But Matrim felt the change in the would-be-King. It wouldn't have been noticeable had he not had his eyes on everywhere else, ensuring they weren't pickpocketed.

Eventually they reached their destination. The Red Keep.

The line of peasants stretched out of the wide open doors and seemed only to grow the longer he waited. For ever step forward, the minutes waxed on and on, and the sun rose high into its apex at noon with little forward progress. Rand-the-Dragon simmered inside, fueled by his own sense of justice, of certainty, while Rand-the-Man fumed against the absurdity of it all, certain that the usurper sitting the Iron Throne was absent; it could not take this long to settle the matters of the common ilk. It never had in Meereen.

He ignored his hunger, and his thirst. But Matrim could not. Shortly after noon the deserter swore beneath his breath and sketched a rough bow toward Rand, excusing himself grimly. "Iffn ya don't mind, milord in the makin', Ise got a few issues ta settle, and that soup I turned m' nose up ta earlier is smelling right good right about now, so..."

Rand stirred from his own internal musings long enough to address the other man. "Go." Just one word, spat out without frustration or interest. And then he returned to himself. But one flaw on his mind that could not be ignored as Matrim swore again and sidled off into the mulling, sweaty, decrepit crowds, was that his hold over Oneness was fluctuating. He found that his mind kept wandering abruptly; toward the rumbling of his stomach, now the second day with naught but cold, hard heels of bread, dry, stale cheese, and plain water not even a tavern would have sold to sate his needs. Toward how light-forsaken humid, damp, itchy he felt, from brow to toe. And how badly his side ached with the throb of the Winter King's javelin of ice, a month on since the seeming mortal wound had been melted from his side by the unwavering molten fury of hellfire and Saidin. He checked again the familiar weight of the Winter King's decapitated head next to the wound; perhaps, he reasoned, it was that very proximity that tolled him. Perhaps he should have burned it to the bone, to ashes, dust on the snow and then not even that when he was through.

But no, asserted Rand-the-Dragon. Then he would not have had the proof of his right, as if his eyes, his sword, his power within Saidin, were not enough. His Saa. Oneness. There were others like him out there, false dragons, witch doctors and crooks who found themselves performing acts with the forever tainted Saidin leaked out into the world by the Winter King's malice, like droplets of thawed ice. He thought that he had put an end to thus, but until he could assert his rightful dominion he would never be sure.

No other man should wield Saidin. It was they, the others, who had seen proud Valyria drowned in the seas by their out of control folly. Not his ancestors, not entirely, those who had waited, so sure of their own mastery that they could avert the climax of the disaster; they failed, and Rand would not. He could not.

He drew a breath and focused his mind. He reasserted his attention on Oneness.

He waited until the day turned to dusk, and a weighted, quivering-jawed beast in gold mail and plate shoved out into the crowds. "Back, ya hear me! Back!" he bawled. "The King's Day is done, and his Night shall be preserved for contemplation of the matters of the folk. Now let him have that time and the brief peace of the waning hours ere dawn before you come scavenging around with your squabbles and your blood feuds!"

/...end.

I figure Rand would have managed to defeat the stand-in for Ishmael in the Deep North, the Land of Always Winter, who had taken the guise of the Winter King as in the original WoT assuming the Dark One's appearance. Thus falsely assured of his own victory, Rand would leave to heal and claim his land and titles from Robert Baratheon, carrying Lightbringer and the severed head of the Not-Winter King as proof of his claim, and things would hence spiral out of control. If he managed to get out of that relatively intact, he might wind up dealing with Melisandre and her cult, and through them gradually rise to power.

 

This is basically a pet peeve in drabble form. It's unpolished, primarily because I wrote it in a short span of time, and also because I don't care.

----

Between an Uchiha that reminded him of himself as a child (not in a good way), and a pink haired girl with an annoying voice, Kakashi Hatake was already completely uninterested in his team.

And then there was the blond. Kakashi vaguely remembered his sensei's son as an ultimately kind, if obnoxious brat, who would run around the village in orange, playing pranks on the unsuspecting populous.

"Shut the fuck up you dumb banshee!"

The orange was gone, replaced with a black trench coat, as was the kindness, it seemed.

"Okay... let's begin with some introductions." Kakashi said.

"What do you want to know?" Sakura asked.

Naruto snorted. "Seriously? It's an introduction. What do you think he wants to know?"

Kakashi ignored Naruto with the ease of one who had dealt with annoying shinobi for years. "How about... Your likes, dislikes... Dreams for the future, hobbies, stuff like that."

"Why don't you introduce yourself to us first, sensei," Sakura said. "Just to-"

"Oh my fucking KAMI, Sakura, just shut the fuck up. Everyone hates you, you dumb, annoying, bitch! You're a piece of human shit that was only hoisted upon the rest of us because your fat whore of a mother used her influence on the civilian council to get on the same team as duckhead over there. You have no actual abilities as a ninja. all you know how to do is read, you dumb bitch!"

Sasuke, who was usually completely fine with Sakura getting insulted, shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Considering your grades, Naruto, I wouldn't recommend insulting others on the basis of their intelligence," Sakura said. "And my mom isn't on a civilian council, whatever that is, she's a kunoichi."

"Oh my fucking KAMI, Sakura, I was obviously wearing a mask! How stupid can you be!" Naruto screamed. "We're shinobi now, class placement doesn't fucking matter!"

"You mean the method by which our village judges the abilities of shinobi in training doesn't matter when trying to ascertain someone's abilities as a shinobi?" Sakura asked, her eyebrow raised.

"Obviously not, you dumb stupid banshee whore!"

There was a brief silence. Kakashi coughed.

Naruto turned to Kakashi, and offered him a smirk. "I'll go first sensei."

Kakashi felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. He already had some idea where this was going.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto," Naruto said. "I like ramen, training, the color orange hilarious pranks, my precious people, Ayame and Teuchi, the Hokage, Iruka-sensei, Hinata-chan, plants, and Linkin Park. I dislike the stupid civilian council, the stupid fucking villagers, those that mistake the kunai for the scroll, people who dislike tired and overused metaphors, bullies, those that judge others for shallow reasons, fangirls, and emo bastards. My dream is to become Hokage, and build a harem of every single semi-attractive female within a miles radius of my dick, aside from Sakura. Because she's an ugly whore. My hobbies are training, playing hilarious pranks, plants, making fun of a certain fellow orphan who watched their entire families die in front of them for having poor social skills, insult them for still being sad about it, and then turn around and whine like a little bitch because I was a lonely kid, and acting like a smug, superior shit despite the fact that I stood for the exact opposite of those traits in canon, and generally just being a badass."

Kakashi, Sakura, and Sasuke stayed completely silent for a full minute after having that bit of verbal diarrhea spewed at them.

The silence was broken by, of all people, Sasuke Uchiha. "Holy shit."

"Jealous, teme, or-" Naruto said, just as a kunai embedded itself in his jugular.

Kakashi stood up. "Congratulations, Team Seven, on passing. Admittedly, a two member cell is rare, but not unprecedented. Come on, why don't we finish introductions somewhere else."

Kakashi began walking away. Sasuke and Sakura didn't hesitate to follow, leaving Naruto to bleed out on the rooftop. ​

-----

Long introductions tick me off.

 

Lost it at Linkin Park, lol.

 

Some RWBY AU thing. Not sure on a title yet. Not sure if this will pan out into a full story either, but it feels good to get the creative muscle working again.

I want to add more description to this, maybe less exposition in the final third. Am I getting the character voices right? Hit me with any other comments or criticisms.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Heavy beats and dim, multicolored lights greeted Yang Xiao Long as she passed through the door into the warehouse. The stench of sweat and alcohol hit Yang like an ursa, and her eyes began to water as the smoke from dust fused cigarettes wafted over her.

Furiously blinking, Yang ignored the gyrating mass in the middle area and walked to the bar along right wall. She moved with purpose and strength; tonight wasn’t a night for the seduction game. Her form still drew hungry eyes, but only the stupid or inebriated tried approaching her. A quick glare sent most packing, and the rest left at the sight of her gauntlets. No one wanted to mess with a Hunter ready for a fight.

Yang reached the bar, a plank of wood resting on a line of crates with smaller ones placed in front to serve as stools. Behind it were unmarked kegs, double-stacked. Yang grimaced at the sight.

Joy. Mystery-brew.

She flagged down a bartender, who handed her a red plastic cup of paint thinner being passed as a drink. Yang wrinkled her nose at the smell and took a sip—it tasted just as bad, and burned all the way down. But she kept the cup, no reason to waste free booze, and sat on one of the crates with her back to the kegs. As she slowly drank, Yang scanned the open floor for a sign of her sister. Nothing.

She caught a flash of grey out of the corner of her right eye. Turning her head slightly, she took in her neighbor, and sighed. “What do you want, Mercury?”

Mercury Black didn’t sit so much as flow onto the crate next to her. He was thin, with black and grey jacket and pants hugging his frame. Grey hair framed a tall, pale face with high cheekbones. His eyes, also grey, were sharp and rang with intelligence. He looked handsome, in Yang’s opinion, but his self-satisfied smirk and his smug, side-along glance at her question ruined that image. And then he spoke.

“I was wondering when you’d come back for me, Blondie. It hasn’t even been a week; miss me already?”

“I’m not here for you, jackass,” said Yang as she traced the lip of her cup with a finger, wondering, not for the first time, how Mercury coaxed her into his bed.

Reaching over her, Mercury trailed his right hand along her left thigh, stopping it where it met her hip. Putting his head next to hers, he breathed in and blew out a deep breath. The warm air danced across her neck, and Yang shivered in delight.

Oh. Right. That was why. The bastard.

“Don’t be so coy, Dragon Girl,” whispered Mercury into her ear as he pulled her closer to him. “I remember who left that bed standing, and it wasn’t you.”

Bastard.

Yang grabbed his hand and pushed him away. “Not tonight Mercury. I’m looking for someone.”

“Your sister?” Yang whipped her head around and stared at him, and Mercury oozed smugness at her reaction. “Don’t look so shocked. You’ve hit up every other party tonight asking for her. Did you really think word wouldn’t get around?”

“No. But you don’t know things.”

“True, but I get paid by people who do. And they get concerned when you start running through parties like a boarbatusk in a dust shop.”

Yang nodded. “And you get the call to break my face if I start roughing up another.”

Mercury’s hummed in confirmation. He took a sip of his drink and chocked at the taste, and Yang couldn’t help but giggle at the look on his face as Mercury glared at the cup, as if it had personally insulted him. Mercury gave her the stink-eye, and then poured the rest of the mystery-brew into Yang’s cup. The vicious liquid reached the cup’s lip. Yang eyed it and looked up at Mercury’s smirk. She answered it with one of her own and downed the drink in one go, setting the empty cup upside down on the counter between them. She’s almost gagged at the taste and smell, but seeing the smug look on Mercury’s face wash away was worth it. Belching, Yang grinned and reached over and lightly pushed Mercury’s slack jaw shut.

“Careful, you’ll catch nevermore like that.”

Mercury stared at her for a moment before shaking his head; no smirk this time, just a fond smile. “Maidens protect me if I’m ever stupid enough to challenge you to a drinking contest.” He flagged down a bartender for another drink and passed it to her. “So, Red’s supposed to be here?”

Yang accepted the drink with a smile and wobbled her free hand. “Maybe. I know she’s been coming to the city for the last few weeks for something.” She gestured at the dancing mob. “This isn’t her scene, but I figure I may as well start here since this is what I know.”

“What about the fights?”

Yang eyed Mercury. “All right buster, what do you know?”

“Blondie, what makes you think I know anything?”

Yang put her drink down and leaned over; Mercury’s eyes immediately locked onto the view she gave him. She used her left hand to comb her yellow mane over her shoulder while she reached for his waist with her right hand. “Why, Mercury,” said Yang as she traced his belt line. “One would think.” Her fingers followed the front zipper; Mercury licked his lips, eyes hungry and focused on hers. “That you didn’t.” She rested the flat of her hand on his crotch. And grabbed. Hard. “Want to talk to me anymore.”

“Easy there Yang,” said Mercury, who looked more like a cornered animal than a hungry predator. “Wouldn’t want to bruise the boys, yeah?”

“They might deserve a little bruising.” Yang flexed her fingers and Mercury winced. “After all, you did leave me in that bed.” Flex. Wince. She leaned in and whispered in Mercury’s ear, “Cold and empty sheets weren’t what I was expecting for a morning after.”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry?”

“Where. Is. Ruby.”

“Junior’s.”

Yang stared at Mercury. “Bull.”

“She’s been there every night for the past month. She’s made quite the name for herself in the fights, and a fair bit of lien.”

Yang kept her grip on Mercury for a moment before releasing. “Maidens dammit Ruby,” she muttered. Yang downed her second drink and dropped the empty cup on the bar. “Thanks Merc, I owe you one.”

Mercury grimaced. “Yeah, tell it to me when I don’t want to keel over and cry like a baby.”

Snorting, Yang walked away from the bar and out the front door towards her motorcycle. She was soon racing away from the warehouse as fast as her bike could go.

Junior’s club had no name, but it didn’t need one. Everyone in Vale knew it, even if they’d never been there. It was the hub of Vale’s nightlife: the city’s poor flocked to it for a chance to see the rich and famous, the rich and famous flocked to it for the drugs and the private rooms, and everyone went there for the fights. It was decadence defined and illegal as hell, but for a city barely keeping back the Grimm, it was one of the best defenses to absolute collapse that wasn’t a Hunter.

Yang had been to Junior’s more times than she could count. Her first visit was with Uncle Qrow when she entered Signal, and he got her completely plastered. Next morning, her head feeling as though someone was hammering a railroad spike from the inside moving out, Qrow kicked her out of bed for a ten kilometer run through the dense woods around their home on Patch.

He called it character building. Yang called him an asshole. He laughed, transformed into a crow, and pecked her head and pulled at her hair. Yang ran faster after that.

Her next visit was with her classmates at the end of the first semester. Weeks of preparation, two days of nonstop written and physical exams, and now they had a free night before the Winter Maiden’s festival. It was as if they were cats and someone was waving a feather on the ground in front of their noses—they couldn’t help but pounce.

That trip was when Yang entered the ring for the first time. She was so cocksure, so certain that she would kick the ass of anyone that stepped up. Hadn’t she trained for years under the watchful eyes of three of the best Hunters in Vale? Hadn’t she outperformed everyone on the physical tests? Hadn’t she won every fight she’d ever been in? Didn’t her aura make it impossible for her to lose? She was Yang Xiao Long, Professional Badass, and she was going to own the floor.

She was down and out in less than a minute to a pink and brown haired midget, who kicked Yang’s ass with a fucking umbrella.

Yang went back to Junior’s after that. Again and again, just to get the chance to fight her first opponent, but Miss Pink & Brown never showed her face.

So Yang fought everyone else, and won. Again and again, she would win. Hard wins, sure, but a win is a win even if it’s by the skin of your teeth. When taking on one person got too easy, she started going against two, three, five opponents at once. Yang limited what she would do: one night she wouldn’t use her left leg for anything; another, she wouldn’t use her arms. She still won, and made a name for herself doing it.

But she stopped after a year: Why keep fighting in the ring if no one could beat her, and the only one who could didn’t show up; why keep going to Junior’s if the one thing you wanted wasn’t there?

Yang still had that rep, had used to get into any party under the sun while at Signal, but it hadn’t been used at Junior’s for years.

Time to see if the name Yang Xiao Long was still respected.​

 

Discworld/Gamer, in which Rincewind may be the lowest caliber wizard, but he has other things to do to make up for it.

===

"What is this?" the wizard-to-be asked, staring at the information hanging in the air over his own head(Apprentice, failing grade). His companions, those utter larks who had deemed the bet a superb idea, were gathered around him which, on the whole, was a welcome understanding-- for one thing, it indicated that he was still alive after... whatever it was that he had actually done. He could not say for sure just what he had done, only that he had done something, and that it had been very, greatly, dangerous.

He glanced to each of them when they did not immediately respond, seeing similar words(Apprentice, passing grade) and frowned at the implicit meaning. He made to sit up and they fanned out, and as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting in this corner of Unseen University, Rincewind noticed a handful-- an armful, in truth, if stacked atop each other - of other messages that had previously been displayed only as two-dimensional letters on signs and doors. Most were still the same identifiers, yet a few carried additional scribbles in this new light.

"Rincewind." It was not a voice which he was greatly happy to recognize, although, much as with his silent companions, he appreciated what it represented, at least for the moment.

When all was said and done, the teacher deeming him fine and in very much a great deal of trouble, Rincewind decided to keep to himself the strange messages hanging in the air every where that he looked.

=Oh=
​

(Quest detected!)

An older Rincewind sighed disparagingly. 'Bloody hell, no.' The alert cleared.

Or, rather, it should have cleared, like so many others before it always had, yet this one did not, and he frowned. 'A true event.' By Luck, did he hate true events. They always evolved from something small, like fetching an item he had seemingly disposed of two years before, into a grandiose matter of state and country. Well, not this time, he thought mulishly. No one is going to rope me into accepting another true event.

He ignored the little blue message hanging at eye level about two feet away. It was a minor inconvenience, that, but he would tolerate a minor inconvenience over a major one. (He had been told, on many an occasion, not to tempt Fate. Fate held grudges as proudly as Death, and typically with rather more satisfaction in the end.)

As such, because his eyes were so trained upon the partially transparent message, Rincewind did not immediately see the stone in his way. By the time that he had reached the stone, it had unfolded into a boulder, and that, even now, was unfolding further into a dwarf golem. The diminutive beast blocked the road with a gravelly growl.

At first he was about to turn around and walk away, but then he realized what was happening and that, like it or not, this encounter would not end unless he dealt with it.

Rincewind stood there belligerently and crossed his arms. "Bugger off."

/end.

Couldn't really figure out much to do with the concept after I realized a good opening point back when he was still a student, since I've only read two Discworld novels to date, but I saw some promise in trying this.

 

Untitled Ender's Game snippet I was kicking around for a couple of days. Since I didn't leave myself any notes from last year, I'm assuming I was aiming for a little more hard-edged Ender than in canon.

===

"The enemy's gate is down."

An immortal phrase by now. Carved into the minds of every toon leader and the soldiery underneath him or her, the basis behind every strategy which then stemmed from those brilliant boys and girls who had, up until six weeks ago, been scattered across the entire Battle School and only reluctantly in the beginning drafted into a coherent whole every day since under the guidance of the best damn commander the nations of Earth had ever produced.

Bean's words, yet to hear the troops undergoing training just that morning, every word true. Ender Wiggin did not often like to think of himself in that light, yet. There was another who had long ago earned that utterance, who had prevented the end of humanity only to be rewarded with anonymity and obfuscation so thick that no one alive still knew for sure there ever had been a real man behind the victory. Ender was just living up to the Teachers' standard and pushing the edge that they kept readjusting for him, just as one day the Bugger armies would push him when he sat in the seat of a Fleet Admiral.

What he was doing here was not the norm. Conducting battle, yes, of course, you couldn't do anything but that or else you'd be out, Iced, sent on home with all your regrets for company. But how he conducted. Thinking of things that no other commander in the Battle School's history had managed to pull out. Dividing his toons into six instead of four, which to date no one else had caught on to. Decoys that were half-frozen, Trojan Horses just waiting to unload while the shields up front blunted the retaliation, arrays and clusters that could spread and regroup in seconds and readjust on the fly if a position was determined mid-break to be bad.

How the Armies had fought the self-same tactics up until he had arrived in the commander's hall was baffling from a reasonable standpoint. What did it matter what some commander had done forty years ago if it didn't hold up today? Ah, but there was the catch. Because most of the time it did. Most of the time they had all gotten away with barely scraping the dust off of the old stratagems carried in the archives and passed down since the dawn of the Battle School, because in the Battle Room there was no room for innovation or else you'd get shot down, shut up, and sent to the back of the transfers list.

Which was just what his troops were made of. The innovators. The insubordinates who refused to be stifled. Game after game after game, for two weeks now, his army had answered the call that he laid down. So some of them were weary; there were others who were still bright and fresh. So some of them were losing the edge that made them shine; it only brushed back the surface gloss, beneath which the real gleam awaited.

Ender Wiggin dropped into the Battle Room and for the first time felt that he had lost before he had even begun. The room was completely black. No shine of stars, of suits. They were going to be utterly blind. He drew his gun and aimed off to the north, aiming back toward the very gate through which he had just entered, and tested the glow of the beam at short range. It fizzled pitifully, yet even a match will glow like the setting sun in such conditions.

A few words whispered too softly to be heard even from this distance, but shushed at once by the toon leaders. Typically there would be no murmuring from the troops. Ender understood their apprehension. Nerves weren't something that bothered Dragon Army but to be flung into a pitch black abyss...

Well. This had to be some form of deep space simulation. One day he may have to go into a real battle in just these kinds of conditions, where there were no lights to work with and the enemy could be anywhere on a moment's notice, and if he surrendered to the inevitability of it all here and now... what would he do facing the same then? Ender mentally shook his head. No. If the Teachers expected them to slug it out like this then that is exactly what he'd do.

He flung a hand up and caught the lip of the floor leading outside on his third attempt, then hauled himself up enough to retake his position in the blacked out hall. "This is the first time any of us have experienced this kind of tactic, where tactics are useless. All of our pre-existing information is null. We can't see and we can't communicate once we're out there. All we can do is aim for the enemy's gate, and if we don't have enough practice with that after all of this time I'd say we deserve to have our asses handed to us today." A quiet cheer rippled through the soldiers at that, again shushed down by the toon leaders.

"So what you want us to do out there Ender? Surely you can't have everyone suicide for the gate." Crazy Tom, the voice of reason.

"That's exactly what we're going to do. If Phoenix has any wits about them, they're going to be arrayed right outside of their gates and listening for nothing more than a fart from our direction." Then he had them spread out and organize, forming into the rough pattern of troops necessary for pressing their helmets to the corners of the enemy's gate in one group and the others prepared to throw and follow.

Ender made sure to block the light of the flashers with his own body.

In the meanwhile he kept track of how much time was left before the automatic forfeiture would end this game before it could begin. He'd never allow that to happen. He couldn't. This was the first game of its kind in all of the Battle School history, and he'd be damned before he'd allow them to take away his victory on a technicality.

Today Dragon Army was going to prove itself again in the face of impossibility.

"Now go!" His whispered order was followed by Ender himself flinging out, a distraction - one of thirty some odd distractions. He flubbed the first rebound even though he was keeping track of his speed and the distance, unable to stifle the 'oomph' of protest that raked across the Battle Room like a gunshot. At once a burst of red flickered feebly about his position but failed to freeze anything as he immediately launched again, if not at the original angle than near enough for his purposes.

/end.

That's all I got out of it back then, though I've begun considering what to make of the matter recently. Would this Ender actually stay around and return to Earth after the bugger wars? Would he still break under the pressure at Command School? I dunno, but I'm mildly tempted to try and find out.

 

The aurora of swelling dragon rage illuminated the gathered crowd in the early morning gloom. Eyes that could pierce steel scanned the so-called nobles of the three remaining clans and silently mocked them, such antiquated ideals and ambitions driving a centuries' old wedge deeper and deeper between the proud and the ignorant who were supposed to be his people.

He dismissed their petty outdated games with casual disinterest and turned his sights upon his cousin, surrounded by the elders of their shared clan.

Flinty annoyance burdened her stare. "Champion Lance. Do you understand why you have been asked to attend this audience?"

We both understand perfectly well why, he answered her silently, but I will play along a little longer, for your sake.

A faint crease in her brow conveyed that she had read his intentions, and so he spoke aloud, "I had noticed a lack of the fourth great clan. Perhaps you can inform me as to the whereabouts of the Opelucid, Master Clair?"

The crowd rustled like a gust through an icy chasm. Their collective ire radiated from the ancient orbs that had preceded pokeballs generations ago, casting that peculiar glow, and in their hubris, they assumed it was their wroth responsible for the unnatural skies.

Clair dutifully bristled on behalf of her position and the forsaken duties that might once have been passed down to him instead, had he not made a choice decades ago to be no man's servant. Her voice carried a snap of command when she answered, "You are well aware that they made departure in the early night and abandoned their responsibilities to Blackthorn City. It would be well within my right to soar after them and enforce the laws that have kept our peace intact for two hundred years!"

Now, Lance decided, is the moment.

"Perhaps," he mused aloud. "Although I believe the matter can be resolved quicker than that."

He raised his left arm to the gathering clouds overhead and sighed. As if signaled, thunder rocked the earth underfoot and lightning descended, forking first this way and then that, striking the hills with such volume and ferocity that the charred surface exploded apart. Tonnes of stone collapsed upon what had once been the domain of the departed dragon tamers.

When the noise and the dust had settled, Lance had not moved an inch from where he stood, and neither had Clair, almost as if she had known what was coming.

But everyone else now stood around in varying states of disarray. Some were still coughing to clear their lungs of the sweeping dust which billowed out into the center of the city, and that petulant light stemming from their figures no longer shone so firmly around the lake where this meeting took place.

"Let it be known that I, standing Champion of the Indigo League, rightful heir and Lord of the Wataru Clan, have deemed the era of the shirtouryuu ended. All in disagreement look upon the remnants of the Opelucid Clan's terrain and ponder what a true dragon's rage is capable of."

He panned his gaze around, and few were they brave enough just then to challenge his declaration, his betrayal. Few, of course, but for the old men who had ever been the most set in their self-destructive ways. He dismissed them again with a single shake of his head and turned to go.

"Where do you think you are walking away to, boy?" barked one of the so-called elders. The sound of those antique orbs unwinding and the crackle of transmutation, energy to matter, warned of the well-aged wyrms at their command. "Do you think your treason can be forgiven?"

Lance breathed another sigh, and a second bolt fell from the ether. And a third, and a fourth, and a fifth, until the entirety of Blackthorn City was illuminated and rocked, domains stretching far and wide reduced to mere rubble. He drew the scarred surface of a poké ball from his belt, and when his Charizard appeared at his back, the black and blue wyvern let forth a piercing roar of defiance that further cracked at the air.

Lance paused then, and turned to face the elders with mercurial fire in his gaze.

"Do not speak to me of treason. Treason is what you have done to my family, pushing Clair to the brink of her destruction chasing after a dream that shall never take place so long as breath fills my lungs. I have faced children with greater understanding of this world than you could hope to imagine in all of your petty scheming." His Charizard stared down the opposing dragons, a pair of yellow-bellowed Garchomps and several long, shriveled Dragonairs, and the weaker beasts grown stagnant on faded glory leaned down in submission. "I say once more, and listen closely, for a third repetition will bring about your utter destruction; the shitouryuu is ended, twice and forever. Go back to whence you came, if the valley of Dragonites who have come at my call will allow you passage. I have duties to attend to for the true people I represent, the Indigo League."

As they stood their in the most infuriated and disgraced silence, for without their loyal drakes all the fury in the world amounted to nothing, his gaze sought out and found Clair's. Come with me. Leave behind the machinations. You're free.

Flinty blue ice chipped at the edges of her gaze, yet his cousin resisted his unspoken plea. She had been raised in his stead for too long to abandon this land in such drastic turmoil.

He did not sigh, but he understood.

He flicked Charizard's pokeball across the clearing to her, and Clair caught the modern device in one hand. "A gift to honor your persistence, Master Clair. Return her to me when you have finished your own duties."

And for the first time in two hundred years, a Champion walked into the hall of their history and relieved the Higana posted there by spite more than duty, and together they three strode from the smoking rubble of Blackthorn City.

/end. Just one interpretation of how things would have gone down in Blackthorn City on the morning that Lyra leaves the city. Obviously per the Quest thread the city was still intact so Lance did not follow that path, but I was feeling particularly annoyed back in September and wanted to vent that anger through Lance. It also gave me a chance to work on Lance's 'voice' for whenever he does appear in the Quest ahead.

FYI, shitouryuu roughly translates to 'dragon mortal combat' and refers to the political machinations the four clans were involved in after their actual fighting brought down Lugia's rage on their heads.