Grim reaper flash tattoo

Hey there, readers! Here's chapter five for your reading pleasure! Please consider leaving a comment or review as those really do just pick me right up!
I've Been Reincarnated as a Bunny Girl?! (Chapter 5)
by
ShadowDragon88
A fine drizzle was coming down on the town of Starlight Rose. A familiar wolf-kin beasta in red robes that appeared to be shimmering despite the cloudy gloom of the day was walking along the main road. In his right hand, he held a long polished oak staff, topped with a red glowing gemstone the size of his fist. In his left hand, held away from his body, was a tan leather satchel, the drawstring tied in a knot. It appeared full, and seemed to shudder and wriggle. Felixin smiled and nodded to passing villagers.
​
"Hey there, Felixin," came the rumbling voice of Earl Shatterknuckle. The blonde dwarf, presently wearing just simple brown leather trousers, fell in step beside his taller friend. Felixin looked down at the dwarf, whose smaller frame was bulging with muscles, with blue and gold glowing tattoos tracing intricate spider-web-like symbols across his chest and arms, smiling back.
​
"Good day to you, Earl," the wolf said. There was a spitting-chittering sound coming from the bag, making Felixin pause and frown before giving the satchel a good whack with his magical staff. "Quiet, you!" he hissed at it.
​
"Caught yourself another evil spirit, eh?" Earl said with a smirk.
​
"Oh yes, and this one was quite the nasty piece of work. I'm on my way back to my lab to properly dispose of it. I think it's from some destroyed remnant of Eld technology, one of the ones that gained sentience, or at least some spiritual semblance to it," Felixin said as he gave the bag another whack when it started to make some electronic beeping sounds.
​
"Oh?" Earl asked, curious. "I remember more than once we had some nasty run-ins with Eld-tech back when we were adventurers."
​
"I remember you and Melthi being the ones to turn the blasted machines on, both times when cautioned not to," Felixin said pointedly, making the dwarf chuckle.
​
"What can I say? We're both curious by nature!"
​
"Yes, that's one word for it," Felixin said with a smile, remembering his adventuring days and the party of friends he would regularly travel with. "Anyways. For some reason, about six years ago, they suddenly became much more prevalent. Thankfully, their numbers have been dropping back down over the years."
​
"What makes you think this one is from Eld tech?"
​
"It kept saying 'Does not compute!' over and over again, while also identifying some kind of rabbit threat." Felixin's mood seemed to shift and his ears laid back on his head, while his tail dipped, almost long enough to drag on the ground behind him. "And when it mentioned rabbits, it made me think of my little princess."
​
Earl rolled his eyes as he reached up and clapped the town wizard on the back. "Ah, Kiana'll be back to visit before you know it."
​
"I know... it's just, one minute she was this little delicate baby girl, and the next minute, she was this amazing young woman, all ready to up and go out."
​
"Didn't Kiana kick down a couple of brick walls when she was a baby?" Earl asked, scratching his head. Felixin waved a dismissive paw at that.
​
"Pure coincidences. Those walls were clearly unsound and improperly constructed, so much so that when she was having one of her tantrums just a little punch or kick was enough to send them tumbling down. We're lucky she wasn't hurt or scared, just confused and curious more than anything. Anyways, I just get so worried when I think of her, out there on the open road. Just so... vulnerable. Thankfully I made sure to instill in her a proper sense of caution." Earl snorted at that.
​
Meanwhile...
​
Kiana let out a roar of fury as her trusted tetsubo connected with the raised steel shield of the bandit before her. The metal dented and warped just as the bandit, shield and all, became airborne. They traveled in an arc straight towards a stone tower connected to an old run-down fort the bandits had holed up in. The screaming man smashed into the top of the tower, crumbling it, his screams instantly going silent.
​
"Fire!" Kiana heard a deep voice shout. There were several blasts and, thanks to Kiana's speed, she watched as five cannonballs headed in her direction. To the ordinary person, the black metallic spheres were probably nearly impossible to follow. To Kiana, it looked as though they were moving incredibly slow. She simply stepped aside from four of them, letting them explode into the nearby hillside. As the fifth one hurtled her way, she crouched slightly, raising her tetsubo like a baseball bat. She swung and smacked the cannonball, her tetsubo making a loud DING, and sent it flying right back where it had come from. The two bandits manning the cannon were obliterated along with the weapon itself, as well as a good chunk of the fort wall.
​
"She's some kind of demon!" one of the bandits cried. The man, really more of a boy, no older than Kiana, leapt down from the fort wall onto a carriage they had recently stolen from some traveling aristocrats. He then leapt onto the ground and sprinted out into the forest, stripping off the black cloak with the red eye in the center.
​
"DAMMIT!" the bandit leader cursed, pulling off his tricorn hat and dabbing his bald sweaty head with a handkerchief. While the remaining men were busy barring the windows or reloading and firing the cannons, he was gnashing his teeth. After a moment's hesitation, he pointed to a nearby subordinate. "You! Follow me. We'll unleash the troll on her."
​
The other bandit paled, audibly gulping. "Th-the troll? Are you sure th-that's wise?" Just as he finished asking that, another cannonball destroyed another cannon, making the entire structure shudder.
​
"We don't have any other options. Hopefully, after it kills her, it'll be injured enough for us to finish it off... or the other way around if she kills it." The other bandit grimaced at the options laid before them, but nodded solemnly. Outside, Kiana smacked another cannonball back at the cannon that fired it, being careful not to send it flying towards the base of the tower. According to one of the kidnapped merchants that had managed to escape and make it all the way to town, the cells where the bandits were holding their ransom victims were all on the ground floor. Kiana stopped when she heard a loud guttural roar, followed by a rapid series of loud BOOMs. Bandits ran by the windows and open holes of the fort, while the front gate slowly opened.
​
Out stumbled a massive creature. Its flesh was a dark brown, and had a texture not unlike tree bark. Its long arms and legs were thicker than the old oak trees in the forest near Starlight Rose. Its gnarled hands, with thick thorn-like protrusions sticking from the knuckles, balled into fists, fists that were as big as Kiana was tall. Its barrel-chest heaved, with white criss-crossing scars in its bark-flesh. It didn't have much in the way of a neck, and its head looked just like a tree stump, complete with root-like tendrils wriggling back and forth. It's mouth was partially concealed by the tendrils, until it reared back and opened its gaping maw, revealing rows of broken yellow teeth, to let out a bellow that shook the ground. From the top of its head grew two slightly spiraling branch-like horns.
​
"These idiots somehow managed to get a forest troll?" Kiana asked out loud, a smirk appearing on her face. "And this was only a gold-ranked quest? Something tells me I'm in for a sweet bonus."
​
The beast stopped as its knot-like eyes, of which there were at least seven, caught sight of the bunny girl. Up above from the second story windows and holes and from on the roof, the remaining bandits, many of them injured, looked down. Most were smirking, some of the more foolish ones shouted out taunts. The bandit leader stood there, looking grim-faced, but taking some satisfaction in knowing that despite their losses today, the annoying source of their problems was about to end, one way or another.
​
Kiana stuck the end of her tetsubo into the dirt, large and surprisingly quick thudding steps shaking the ground. The beast was lumbering towards Kiana, who didn't look the least bit afraid. While not intelligent enough to be truly sentient, the troll did have enough sense to know that its prey should be running. And the fact that it was just calmly standing there, staring at it, only angered it further. With a final roar, the forest troll charged forward. It balled up a massive fist, and swung straight for Kiana. Kiana swung her own fist, the two colliding.
​
There was a very loud, sickening crunch and pop. The bandits looked down in shock and horror as where the now screaming troll's fist and forearm had been, there was a bloody and jagged stump that ended just above the right elbow. The troll screeched and lunged at Kiana, hoping to impale her on its horns. But the bunny girl simply kicked, knocking the head clean off the rest of its body. The head bounced off a tree and rolled for a bit, settling in the dirt, a look of surprise on the stump-like face. The rest of the body tumbled over three times before coming to a rest near the make-shift stables, where the carriages and horses of the abducted nobles were kept. Kiana looked back up at the fort, making the majority of the bandits shrink back and shudder. A few of them began to wave white tablecloths hastily tied to sticks and tree branches.
​
A short time later the bandits, now in shackles, were being marched to the mechanical cart as the local sheriff and his deputies led them. Except for the severely injured ones, who were shackled to stretchers and loaded up into a seperate mechanical carriage. Kiana looked on as bodies were checked for possible survivors, there being very few to find, as the merchants and a few nobles were led by deputies out from the fort. Kiana smiled at them and nodded to their looks of awe, some of them having gotten a good look at the show of force the petite bunny girl had demonstrated. Ignoring the ones who shrank back away from her in fright, Kiana spotted the sheriff, a large older man in his mid-fifties with salt and pepper close-cropped hair and a matching mustache. He was wearing the classic green cloak, directing his deputies. He turned to face her as she approached.
​
"I think that's all cleared up," Kiana said, her voice chipper, belaying the fact she had a smattering of blood and gore staining her fur.
​
"I'd have to agree with you, young lady," Sheriff Tonsol said, his voice even. In truth, he had tried to avoid enlisting the aid of any adventurers until pressure from various merchants and nobility forced his hand. And even then he had expected it to involve a large party and, more than likely, some lives lost from the hostages. He was a little surprised when the girl reached into her satchel to produce a clipboard with a form on it, as well as an ink pen.
​
"In that case, would you mind signing this form indicating that I completed the job satisfactorily?" Tonsol looked at the form for a minute, and then his mouth curved upwards. He let out a chuckle and signed his name on the indicated line, writing in the date as well.
​
"Satisfactorily is putting it lightly, miss," he said, handing the clipboard and pen back to the bunny girl. "I had no idea that they had a forest troll in their possession. I went ahead and bumped up the reward."
​
"Oh wow, thank you, sir!" Kiana said, looking excited.
​
Tonsol smiled, something his deputies claimed to be a rare sight to behold. "Well, you earned it. I'm just glad you were able to get them to surrender without harming any hostages. Well, without them harming any more than the ones they did last time someone came out here to free them."
​
"I'm glad I could help!" Kiana said, bowing a little. "Now, I'm going to head back into town." She spread her arms wide and indicated to herself. "I'm really in need of a bath at this point."
​
"If you don't mind waiting a minute, you can ride back to town with us. It's faster than walking."
​
"Oh, thanks for the offer, but I'm good." Kiana waved, before jogging back to where she'd left her tetsubo and pack, Mirabelle coiled around it protectively. She grabbed the items up, quickly looking through the travel pack to make sure she still had everything, and nodded to herself, satisfied. She slipped the pack onto her back, then scooped her pet snake into her arms, and started to jog down the road in the direction of the town of Hengecliffe. Picking up speed, she rapidly became a blur, and in just a few seconds she was coming to a sliding stop in front of the town gates, startling a couple of bored-looking guards.
​
She greeted them and let Mirabelle down before they let her inside. They stared at the snake with the big pink ribbon around its neck slithering obediently behind the bunny girl. She stopped off at the local guild hall to drop off the signed paperwork and collect her now even heftier reward. She noticed a few stares in her general direction, and some unhappy grumbling from some fellow adventurers, but otherwise no one said anything.
​
Kiana then headed to the town inn where she still had a room for another night. Thankful again that this world had indoor plumbing, with hot water to boot, Kiana wasted no time in stripping off her gore-coated clothes, which she would wash in the laundry room down the hall, and enjoyed a nice steamy shower. She didn't have to worry about possible intruders, as Mirabelle sat coiled on the bed, ever vigilant.
​
"Today was a good day," Kiana said, stepping out of the shower and drying herself off, a feat that took several minutes with a towel. This left her gray and white fur all fluffed-out, which led to her brushing it out. Kiana had grown accustomed to the care and maintenance of her fur, taking pride in keeping it clean. She then donned her underwear and a cream-colored sundress from her pack, carefully putting her dirty clothes in the laundry sack in her pack. She smiled and stroked Mirabelle's head, the snake letting out a contented purr-like hiss.
​
"I'm going to go out and enjoy the rest of the afternoon in town. You stay here and guard the pack, okay?" she asked, slipping her mithril knuckles into her dress pockets, along with a small money pouch. Mirabelle hissed, thumping her tail on the bed in response, curling up tighter around Kiana's belongings.
​
"Good girl," she praised, before heading out, locking the door behind herself for good measure. Kiana smiled as she stepped out onto the paved sidewalk, carriages passing by on the street. Hengecliffe was much larger than Starlight Rose, with paved streets and even streetlights. Centrally located in a region of plains, it served as a trading hub. Kiana walked along, noticing a few men and women looking her over. Some seemed to do so with distaste, more than likely not enjoying the sight of a beasta. But most seemed to be pleasant people observing a new face.
​
"Well now, if my eyes are not deceiving me, it seems that an angel from the heavens has decided to grace us mere mortals with her presence." Kiana's ears twitched at the sound of the male voice. She paused and turned, looking down an alley, where a man leaning up against the side of a building stood, looking her over. He was wearing brown leather trousers, a white linen shirt, and a belt with a large buckle which, matching the large buckles on his boots, made him look a bit like a pirate. The goatee and the cutlass sheathed at his side were also not helping.
​
"Hello, beautiful," he said, giving Kiana a wink. Kiana rolled her eyes, and moved to keep walking, only to find a squat bald man standing in her way, grinning sinisterly. Kiana checked behind herself and saw another man, a larger one with a completely shaved head, arms crossed with a club under one arm. "Now, how about we all go somewhere more... private," the pirate-looking moron asked, giving Kiana a smug wink.
​
"Wow, you idiots have no idea just how badly you messed up," Kiana said, walking into the alley, the two guys following right behind her. The men chuckled. Passersby stopped when they heard three loud thuds coming from the alley, all of which made the nearby buildings shudder. They saw a bunny beasta girl walking out, brushing some dust off her sundress. She smiled and waved and continued on her way, leaving behind three broken figures. Two were lying in craters in the pavement of the alley, while the third, this one with a cutlass laying at his booted feet, was standing... his head laying all the way back in a hole in the brick wall right behind him.
​
Later that evening...
​
Kiana was sitting just outside the town walls on a hill, watching the stars come out. After sixteen years, it still mystified her to look up at the night sky, and not see any of the old constellations. She smiled as a shooting star streaked its way across the sky. Suddenly, Kiana felt a surge of energy just course through her. Her eyes faintly started to glow with the blue light, and she felt a strange pulsing in her chest. Looking around, she felt a strange magnetic pull coming from the south.
​
Starting as a jog, Kiana soon found herself sprinting outright across the countryside. She ran, as a blur, following the pull, her eyes gradually glowing brighter and brighter, shining with the crackling blue energy. Then, she came to a stop. She stood at the foot of a mountain, itself part of a larger range. Looking up at the mass of rock and ice, she could see broiling clouds up over it, flashes of lightning briefly illuminating the rocky and snowy peaks. With one such flash, Kiana saw something move. Something big. Kiana's glowing eyes went wide.
​
"Oh wooooooooow," she said, her jaw hanging open. There were rumbles as the giant coiled mass shifted. Several avalanches were caused by the serpentine body, buried under tons and tons of snow. At the very peak of the mountain, a gargantuan head rose.
​
"Is that a giant... cobra?" Kiana asked under her breath. Indeed, that was what the creature that seemed to dwarf the Spire appeared to be. In the light of the lightning, she saw that its scales were a deep blue, almost purple. There were stripes running down its back, but they were glowing a bright bioluminescent blue. That same glow radiated from the creature's reptilian eyes, and the inside of its hood. The same glowing blue as Kiana's eyes.
​
"What... are you?" Kiana asked, quietly.
​
I can ask the same of you, little one, a deep female voice hissed in Kiana's head. She winced and looked around. She then looked back up at the creature, her veins flooded with adrenaline. There was another flash of lightning, and in that very instant, the creature's head was bent down low, right in front of her. Kiana almost jumped back, but stopped herself. As the snake-entity looked her over with an eye that was twice as tall as she was, Kiana felt a sense of calm overtake her.
​
"Are you... a storm dragon? A real storm dragon?" Kiana asked, reaching out and touching the creature's cheek with her hand. It flicked out a blood red tongue, its mouth curling up a little at the corners.
​
That is something that little ones like to call my kind, she said. Kiana figured right then and there that this was a female.
​
"A monk said that... my spirit is like one of yours," Kiana said, breathlessly.
​
Your soulsong feels similar to one of our kind, little one, she said, turning her head and gently nuzzling the top of Kiana's head, making her ears lay flat. The storm dragon's head was almost as large as the entirety of her hometown.
​
"My... soulsong?" Kiana asked. The monk she had met hadn't said anything about them.
​
The song of your innermost being. It stands out from the loud and noisy cacophony that happens when most little ones gather together in large groups. Yours is beautiful, and a little... fluttery. The dragon gave her a wink. She reared up and opened her mouth. Electricity danced between the dragon's fangs, before she shot out a sonic boom. The raging storm above abated, the clouds dispersing, leaving only a crystal clear night sky for miles and miles around. She then turned and looked down at Kiana. The bunny girl felt the storm dragon's gaze. She felt a radiating warmth coming from her. It reminded Kiana of her mother.
​
It was so nice to meet you, little one. It was quite the pleasant surprise to awaken to. She let out a proud roar, and her body began to undulate. Sections of the mountain range began to crumble as large sections of mountain were crushed and smashed by the body slamming into them. The body of the dragon rose into the air, beginning to gracefully slither about. Levitating there, partially coiled, the sheer size of the storm dragon just boggled the bunny girl's mind.
​
"Will I see you again?" Kiana asked, feeling a little sad. She had just met this beautiful and amazing being, and already they were leaving.
​
Of course, little one, the mental voice in her mind chuckled warmly. I have listened to your beautiful soulsong, and I have shared my soulsong with you.
​
"I... I don't understand what that means," Kiana said, confused.
​
You will, little one, she said, you are still young, but my soulsong has resonated within you. When you stop and listen, it will become easier and easier to hear it. And thus, the bond has begun to form. In time, you shall understand. With a flick of the creature's tail, there was a flash of lightning that radiated from within the hood, and she was gone. Kiana stood there, her eyes readjusting to the dark.
​
"This world is so awesome," she said, a smile on her face, as she began to job back towards town. She figured that if the town gates were closed and locked, she could just jump over the wall.
​
Meanwhile...
​
The lone figure stood in the dark, staring at where the great serpent had been levitating. They were sitting on a log in a small clearing, where they had set up camp. The individual in question was polishing their armor when a gray blur had shot right past them. And then, where it had been heading, the giant serpent, an actual storm dragon, arose. They sat there in stunned silence. They knew right then and there, that it had been a sign from the gods. As they unsheathed their katana, it began to thrum with magical energy, the blade becoming engulfed in bright purple flames.
​
The light of the purple flames illuminated his green face, glinting off his polished tusks. "Soon, the war shall begin," said the orc, sheathing the blade and cutting off its purple light. The same purple light shone from his eyes.
​
Name: Kiana
​
Species: Beasta (Rabbit-Kin)
​
Age: 16
​
Skills: Sibling Wrangler, Babysitter, Puppy-Dog Eyes, Master Martial Arts, Brawling, Heavy Weapon Proficiency, Sarcasm Mastery, Eyerolling Mastery, Beast Taming Level 3
​
Class: (Official) Master-Level Dragon Monk: Storm Dragon School, Storm Dragon Hatchling.
​
​
Str: 141
Int: 12
Dex: 140
Cha: 12
Wis: 10
Con: 172
Languages: Common, Draconic
​
Equipment: Adventurer's Pack, Steelwood Tetsubo, Mastercraft Mithril Knuckles (x2), Rope (25 Ft.), Canteen (Full), Road Rations, Spare Clothes, Bedroll, Health Potion (x2), Books (x3)
I really hope that you enjoyed the new chapter! Thank you for reading so far!
Prev - First - Next

I wasn't going to do a trip write up at all, but I'm planning a return trip in the Fall and I realized some of the things I learned on my first trip might be useful for other people, so here we go! I don't often see post write ups from people who are specifically into rhythm games/ arcades/ anime stuff
 
Dates: March 8 - 24, 2023 Background: Planned this trip mostly for myself but one of my friends decided to tag along fairly last minute. I had planned to spend the whole trip in Tokyo but the one thing she wanted to do was Kyoto, so we added a side trip + a very pleasant day at a Ryokan. I used Wanderlog to plan (HIGHLY recommend, this site is amazing), and my basic daily itinerary was morning shrine > pick an area to explore and have 1-2 major things per day. The person I was travelling with ended up taking a long ass time to get ready each day, so most of my morning stuff got cut or rearranged. Costs: I will fully admit I did not budget for food/ shopping, 100% vibes. I simply do not acknowledge what I spent

• Flight: $1,500 (Delta from MSP > SEA > Haneda. Direct from MSP had not resumed yet)
• Hotels: ¥314,000 (Roughly $2,300 USD for all 3 hotels total) [¥205,000 (Tokyu Stay Tsukiji, 15 nights) + ¥30,000 (Tokyu Stay Kyoto, 2 nights) + ¥79,000 (Kyokoyado Muromachi Yutone Kyoto, 1 night)]
• Shinkansen: ¥42,000 for 2 round trip tickets from Tokyo/Kyoto and back. Roughly $300 USD, machine did not take foreign CC only cash

Highlights

• The Kingdom Hearts concert, I maxed out my luck on this trip and we were able to see this on it's last night in Tokyo. Absolutely incredible!!
• Sushi Yuu, Roppongi (omakase sushi for about ¥20,000 per person, we paid more with drinks)
• ShibuyaSky, the open air viewing makes the experience so much better, plus there's a bunch of different spots to hang out up on the observation deck
• Fushimi Inari, the whole shrine blew me out of the water, absolutely must experience in person
• TeamLabs Planets, so few things live up to the hype and this is one of them
• Golden Gai, the bars were so much fun, got the full experience of a salaryman pissing on the side of the konbini

Lowlights

• Caffeine- if you are addicted to non carbonated caffeine like I am be prepared to be disappointed. The monsters are only 40mg compared to America's 150mg+. I'm glad I brought caffeine pills
• Tsukiji market is really not worth going out of your way for, it's nice if you're near it but it's really just a fish market + insane lines for most of the food
• I'm still mad about how bad the food was at the Square Enix cafe is, at least we got coasters + placemats out of the deal. This was genuinely my only bad experience in Japan
• Everything on this subreddit told me that people in Tokyo don't really care about tattoos, however they do really seem to care about colored hair. I have very long, bright ombre hair and I was a bit of a sideshow attraction, including people taking photos of me in public multiple times. Probably the most frustrating part of the trip was being stared at constantly
• Japanese thrift stores love old American clothes, I was definitely let down by the majority of these

Goals:

• Buy anime stuff
• Play rhythm games
• Go thrift shopping
• See cherry blossoms
• Collect shrine stamps (goshuin)

Advice:

• TAX FREE SHOPPING: This has to be first because no one mentions it?? There are 2 types of tax free, discount and rebate. Everywhere has a minimum for tax free. Don Quijote you have to go to the separate tax free counter, and they will seal the bags shut. You're not supposed to use the tax free items in the country - I didn't know this and did it anyways? There seems to be no repercussions unless they open your bag and count every individual KitKat. I had to open the bags to repack everything anyways. The places that do rebates are generally malls, you bring your receipt + passport and they'll give you the 10% back in cash (minus a fee). When you get to the airport, you scan your passport after you drop your luggage, indicating you made tax free purchases. You do not need to keep your receipts anymore
• Don Quijote does sell luggage but Ginza Karen is cheaper
• Besides the standard things that every single trip report has (get a suica, you'll walk a lot, etc etc), the biggest thing I learned is not to go to an area without at least 1-2 specific goals in mind. For example, I had given us like a half day to go around Shibuya/ Harajuku, but because we didn't look into what malls or stores we might like to go to, we ended up wandering pretty aimlessly and not really enjoying the area. This happened a few different areas we went to, so I decided that in the future I would pin some stores on Google Maps and try to make it to those specific stores
• Install LINE and set up an account. It's crazy how much connects to LINE. For me the biggest thing was 1) making Sushiro reservations and not having to sit in the store for an hour plus waiting for our table and 2) being able to grab a chargeSPOT to charge my phone. I brought a battery pack but at this point it must be like a decade old, it took the entire night to recharge and died on me during the day a few times. I have a Pixel 6 Pro and was literally constantly charging my phone
• If you're coming from the Americas, don't try to do something on your first night. Get your Konbini dinner and go the fuck to sleep
• Getting from place to place can take longer than expected, you'll have to navigate the stations, find the entrances (sometimes hidden in malls) and exits (sometimes closed), don't make plans too tight together
• Navigating Kyoto was so much more confusing. At first our Suica cards didn't work because we apparently didn't tap out at a station in Tokyo, so we were buying day passes and paying in cash on the bus. Some of the buses have 0 English and 100% Kanji (navigation difficulty: extreme). Suica cards DO work in Kyoto so if you're having issues go to a gate with an attendant and they can help
• It can be weirdly hard to find bathrooms, most konbini have them but you're supposed to ask the cashier if you can use them. I speak very basic Japanese but hammed up the gaijin card here and would just ask to use the toilet in English, no one ever told me no Weeb specific advice:
• If you want to do pop ups (like the Jujutusu Kaisen Animation exhibit), a Japanese e-sim will be a lifesaver. You need a Japanese phone number to do SO much, they really make it extremely frustrating to make reservations without it. I did manage to make reservations for the Square Enix cafe though, the write-up is on my profile. (Was it worth it? Absolutely not, worst food all trip, -3/10)
• Prices are all over the place for figures, especially prize figures. There's a solid chance you might buy something and see it cheaper at the next shop, however going back/forth between shops in Akihabara can be a huge pain in the ass. I'd recommend 1) making a list of things you want the most and 2) setting a per item budget and a total budget. A lot of the anime stuff was cheaper in Kyoto as well
• You can find a ton of gachapon stuff at Surugaya, so you can just buy what you want and don't have to gamble. Surugaya bins are organized by series
• Use collabo-cafe.com to find cafes and pop up events you might be interested. Plan ahead because reservations can be hard to come by

 
Now on to the super detailed trip report! Here's the big album if you don't want to look through photos separated by day. Warning for flashing video
 
Day 1 (travel)

• Landed in Haneda around 3pm. Immigration + customs took about an hour (we did the visit Japan web ahead of time and had both QR codes ready). There was virtually no lines anywhere
• It took about an hour to navigate to the hotel. I chose to stay at the Tokyu Stay Tsukiji because 1) it was really cheap, 2) it was close to the Ginza line, and 3) it had a washer in the room. Although the location was slightly inconvenient for late nights, I'd say it was totally worth it for the ability to grab food in Tsukiji market, and the room was pretty large compared to some other areas of Tokyo. In fact, the room was so cheap that when we went to Kyoto, we opted to not check out of the Tsukiji room and just leave the majority of our possessions there. This didn't cause any issues and made travelling on the Shinkansen way easier
• I thought we were built different and could do some stuff this evening. We ended up walking to the Donki and being assaulted by sound in every direction. 7/10 didn't discover the 2nd floor until days later. At this point exhaustion kicked in and we got a Lawsons dinner and crashed

Day 2 (Akihabara, photos)

• Going to Akihabara on our first day in Japan sure was a choice. Thankfully neither of us suffered jetlag on the way in. Checked out like 10 different game centers and a ton of anime shops. Managed to find the only Monster Rehab of the whole trip here
• Konbini lunch + strong zero! That flavor was terrible :')
• Dinner at the Monster Hunter cafe (no reservations required). Expectations were low but my travel partner is a huge MH fan. The food wasn't bad but the drinks were awful. The ambiance is nice and there were definitely some regulars there playing MH on the consoles they had set up
• The new Namco game center had like 12 brand new Taiko cabs and all of them had phone mounts so you could film yourself playing! I was really intimidated by everyone there being extremely good so we didn't play any games here

Day 3 (Shibuya & Harajuku, photos)

• Breakfast at Tsukiji outer market since we were already there
• Went to Shibuya Loft for the Bravely Default pop up shop
• Checked out Tower Records
• Ate lunch at Japanese McDonalds
• Went to Takeshita Street. TBH this felt like in-person AliExpress, I'm sure the charm of the early 2000s is long gone
• Visited Hachiko
• Shibuya Sky Observatory

Day 4 (Asakusa, photos)

• Started at Kaminarimon Gate & went down Nakamise shopping street. It was very crowded on a Sunday but I enjoyed it immensely, you just need some patience to get where you want to go. I liked trying all the food, most of the food stalls here were cash only
• Senso-ji temple, bought Goshuincho to collect stamps
• Ate lunch and dinner in the area, there's a ton of food options
• We ended going all the way over to Yoyogi park as well but nothing was in bloom. Because it was overcast the park looked really sad

Day 5 (Shinjuku & Kabukicho, photos)

• Now is the time to come clean, I'm a huge Yakuza/ RGG fan. In the morning I had my Majima birthday cake delivered by PRIROLL. I pre-ordered it and chose the delivery day where we didn't have morning plans. It comes frozen and needs to defrost in the fridge. While we left Majima to chill, we made the pilgrimage to Kabukicho to see the iconic gate. It was raining in the morning so we hit up some arcades then went shopping
• There's a really cool mall that seems anime-centric (I believe it's called Shinjuku Marui Anex). It had a Godzilla store, Cinnamoroll Cafe, a JJK pop up, and best of all... A Surugaya. These stores have bins where everything is ¥100-300 and we ended up buying way too much in every one we came across
• Went back to Kabukicho and explored a bit, went to Golden Gai and drank at a handful of bars. Almost missed the last train because I drunkenly insisted on a final game of MaiMai. 10/10 staying in Kabukicho next time

Day 6 (Ikebukero & Rippongi, photos)

• The plan today was to check out Ikebukero and Roppongi, but we ended up spending so much time at the first mall that we didn't really do anything in Roppongi besides get dinner. Went to the Pokemon Mega Center and the cafe. The main cafe was closed so it was just take out, all the food was really cute but the waffles were kind of terrible
• Gashapon no Depato Ikebukuro was super overwhelming. A lot of the smaller gashapon stores are somewhat organized by what is in the machines, this one just felt chaotic, and it went on forever
• Sushi Yuu was incredible, I didn't take photos of every single course but I was so full that couldn't finish my dessert at the very end. The owner speaks some English and I made our reservations by messaging him on Facebook

Day 7 (Yokohama, photos)

• We didn't get to Yokohama as early as I would have liked - I took us out way into the suburbs to try to find this Yakuza plushie from the claw machines. I looked up the locations on the Sega website, unfortunately this machine was extra rigged and I couldn't win it >:[ On the bright side all the rhythm games had no one else playing them
• Took the cable car over and went to the Cup Noodle museum. Unfortunately we didn't have a reservation so we had to come back later. Found some cafes in the area and had a late breakfast
• The museum was really small, the main draw is making your own Cup Noodles. Entrance costs 500 yen and this is an additional 500. We had some trouble navigating this part because no one spoke any English
• Had dinner at a pie restaurant that was 10/10
• Explored a bit of Yamashita park (Yakuza 7, anyone?) I was kind of disappointed I wasn't able to see this during the day
• Walked around Yokohama Chinatown & visited the local Round 1 ;)

Day 8 (Kyoto, photos)

• I bought the Shinkansen tickets to Kyoto the evening before, so we weren't able to get great seats. The machines are also a huge pain in the ass and don't take American CCs, so plan ahead here
• It took us longer than expected to figure out how to use the tickets and read the signage, so we weren't able to get food before and I had to have one of the train bentos. I knew it was going to suck and it was worse than expected :(
• You can bring a full sized suitcase and just put it in front of you, seeing other people do this was unexpected
• My travel partner was destroyed at this point so she rested in the room. I went to the National Garden and Imperial Palace alone. The sakura were just starting to bloom and the weather was great, loved it. The National Garden is SO huge that I only ended up walking up the west side before I tapped out
• Checked out Heian-jingu shrine + the giant torii, I went to another smaller shrine with a great view but I can't remember the name
• We did photoshoots at ESPERANTO Kyoto. There's basically no reviews from foreigners about this place but it was fantastic!! Their online booking form didn't work for me, so I emailed asking for a reservation. I emailed in Japanese and English and they replied in English. They gave me time options and I replied with what package and room each of us wanted (the website says they require a deposit but they told me they didn't need one). When we got there they did our hair and makeup, and then you pick your kimonos out. The photographer spoke pretty decent English and we didn't have trouble communicating with anyone else here. They had our photos edited and printed about 30 minutes after we picked which ones we wanted. The whole thing took about 3 hours (it was longer because we used the same set room). I don't want to include my photos but I did add a video of my hairstyle because she knocked it out of the park
• Ended the day with okonomiyaki, one of my favorite Japanese foods

Day 9 (Kyoto, photos)

• Fushimi Inari day! I ended up walking this alone, I did not realize how long it was going to take or the fact it was actually like 10,000 stairs. My knees were very upset on the way down
• It was not as busy as expected, I went at roughly noon on a Friday. Most people tap out before the actual mountain climb
• The Goshuin at Fushimi Inari are on paper, you can paste them into your books later. Even if you don't have a Goshuincho I'd recommend buying them because they are very cute!
• Shrine cats!!!! You can buy photos of them to help pay for their food
• After Fushimi Inari I somehow managed to walk to Tofukuji Temple (I did the garden but not the bridge) and Daigo-ji Gojunoto pagoda and garden. I wanted to cut my legs off after today

Day 10 (Kyoto, photos)

• I started my day at the Kyoto Round 1, I had visited it on day 8 as well. This one is ace because it was literally always empty 10/10
• Decided to explore Gion a bit, ended up at the Machiya Starbucks and had the best thing I ate all trip (a custard dorayaka, I regret not going back for another)
• Ended up at Kiyomizu-dera Temple totally on accident. It wasn't super impressive in early spring but the view was still fantastic
• Ended the day at the Ryokan (Kyokoyado Muromachi Yutone). Ended up picking one without an onsen because we are both covered in tattoos, and I didn't want to deal with finding a private one. The cypress tub was a great trade off, and the food was incredible

Day 11 (Tokyo - Concert, photos)

• Today we travelled back to Tokyo and went to the Kingdom Hearts concert. I ended up trying for the lottery for tickets back in like December 2022. Winners were announced the first weekend in January and you only had a few days to buy tickets. I have a friend of a friend living in Japan who did me the biggest solid ever and bought our tickets. I met up with her during the trip for the hand off. The seats are randomly assigned and we had AMAZING seats near the front. This was also the performance Nomura was at!
• We weren't supposed to take photos during the performance so I just have some before. Also, I made Organization XIII beads that attach onto my dress with magnets and I am very proud of it, so please excuse the bathroom selfie :D
• The concert was about 3 hours long and after all the travelling we were beat. We ate dinner, played our nightly games of Ongeki, and passed out
• Bonus video of the music box that plays Dearly Beloved

Day 12 (Ginza & Sumida, photos)

• We were really starting to tucker out at this point. We managed to drag ourselves to the Ginza art Aquarium in the AM and the Tokyo SkyTree in the afternoon. Today was the Equinox so everything was crazy busy, the line to buy tickets for the SkyTree was literally like 2 ish hours long so we bought them online and went shopping in the mall
• The Art Aquarium was really cool, but a lot of the fish were in really small tanks. I didn't include photos of those :(
• The SkyTree just let people up as fast as they could so it was extremely crowded at the top, and not super enjoyable imo
• I spent the evening at the arcades in Akihabara :D

Day 13 (Tokyo - JJK Exhibit, photos - flashing video warning)

• Today I went off in the am to see if I could buy a ticket to the Jujutsu Kaisen animation exhibit in person. The online site wouldn't let me buy a ticket because I didn't have a Japanese phone number. UNFORTUNATELY you couldn't buy tickets in person. I got super lucky again and 2 foreign exchange students from Europe were trying to do the same thing, however they did have a Japanese phone number and the site allowed you to get 3 tickets at a time. They were able to grab them for all 3 of us for that evening
• Putzed off to Hie Shrine, anyone that tells you it's a mini Fushimi Inari is lying
• Went back to Akihabara, found a Miku racing pop up!
• Went back to... Ginza? for the JJK animation exhibit, it took about an hour to go through. I included a ton of photos so just skip today if you're not interested in that show

Day 14 (Tokyo - TeamLabs Planets & SquareEnix Cafe, photos)

• TeamLabs was so cool! I didn't include many photos since it's 95% selfies. Make sure you explore a bit as the string light room had a couple of different areas that are easy to miss, and it's possible to accidentally skip the hanging garden, which was beautiful! TeamLabs took us about 2.5 hours but we were 100% those bitches taking forever to get a million photos
• Since we were staying in Tsukiji we ended up just slowly walking back to the room for a much needed nap
• Back to Akihabara yet again! More rhythm games, some awful food at SE

Day 15 (Shinjuku, photos)

• This was our last full day in Japan, we honestly didn't want to do anything but we managed to drag our asses to Shinjuku National Garden for the cherry blossoms. Unfortunately it was sprinkling a bit, at least it kept the crowds away
• Managed to check out Meiji Jingu, but at this point my travel partner was sick of walking and tapped out
• I went back to Kabukicho, walked around a bit and ended up back at an arcade (bless Ongeki for having stools)

Final thoughts (Misc, photos)

• We were literally so annihilated by the trip that we took a taxi to the airport, it was about ¥8,000 from Tsukiji ($60 USD ish)
• I ended up buying a 24" suitcase from Ginza Karen for ¥6,000. It was 100% full of stuff I purchased. We also used one or those giant ¥500 bags from Donki as a carry on
• My Goshuincho was my favorite souvenir, I'm so proud of all the stamps I collected (I did get doubles at some shrines). I plan to bring this back late 2023 to try to finish it
• I have the old school GoogleFi plan and don't have to do anything extra to have international data. Lots of places & stations have free WiFi but you'll need to put your email in
• I don't really sleep that much and my schedule in the US is already busted, but it took me about 2 full weeks to get back on normal human hours. I'm tired again just writing this up and looking through all my photos
• My main regret is not trying more food, we ended up waiting until we were dying of starvation and ate at the konbini a lot (typical)

 
Edits for formatting

My mom is turning 70 in a few months and wants to get her first tattoo! It will be very small and fine line work. I live in an area with a few shops, only one of which does walk-ins and mostly American traditional flash. She wants me to be there with her. I feel like making an appointment for such a small piece is kind of silly, but I also want her to get exactly what she’s looking for. Should I go ahead and book one or should we just do a walk in when she’s here?

I’ve been obsessing over this bit of family history lately, and a friend referred this place to me as a community that loves the mysterious and potentially supernatural, so I think you’ll find this interesting.
First, a history lesson: my great grandfather and his brother were privates in the 5th battalion of the King’s Own Royal Lancaster Regiment in the first World War. Now, one of the lesser discussed contributions to the war effort was the General Post Office pulling off possibly the greatest feat of postal infrastructure that had yet been witnessed in history, transmitting literally millions of letters back and forth between the front lines daily, mail carriers from the REPS delving into hell and back time and time again just to make their appointed rounds. They’re often made fun of in the modern internet era, but the truth is, couriers have pretty much been hardcore badasses forming the backbone for all of human history.
Unfortunately, censorship was tight. Officers opened and checked every single one of their mens’ letters not just to check for confidential war information, but also to make sure they weren’t saying anything that contradicted the war propaganda or constituted ‘a threat to public morale’. Basically, unless you acted like the front lines were as peachy as a summer camp, your letter was liable to go right into the bin.
My great grandfather apparently tried to send many letters, but few made it through. It was likely officers of his own unit confiscated most of them, so they were probably left to rot in some trench, but he did one day feel either brave or desperate enough to try to sneak one by in what they called an Honour envelope, or ‘green envelope’. These were special and infrequently allotted envelopes which were, supposedly, delivered without censorship, so long as the sender vowed to mention only personal matters under threat of harsh punishments. Unlike regular correspondence, only a tiny fraction of green envelopes were opened up and combed over by staff back at base. Unfortunately, this letter was one of those terribly unlucky ones.
Most confiscated letters were just destroyed. In many cases, their senders were given no notice their mail had even been withheld, although the lack of a reply usually made it obvious. After the war effort was over, many surviving confiscated letters were given over to archives for the education of future generations, and a few others even found their way, at long last, to their original intended recipient, if they were still alive to receive it. That is how my great great grandmother came to finally be delivered the last letter he ever sent, many years after his death.
My family hoped that it would maybe comfort her, offer her some closure over the deaths of her sons which she never seemed to quite recover from. Instead, whatever was in that letter only mortified her, and she claimed to have had it burned. She passed away from heart complications not too long after. My grandmother said it was a bittersweet day; sad as it was to see her go, she’d lived a long, long life, and they were sure she was overjoyed to finally rejoin her husband and sons in the everafter.
Imagine our surprise, though, when my mother dug up the original letter tucked away in a drawer of scattered documents while cleaning out the attic of the old family estate.
The old iron gall ink was so faded over the years, we had to visit a photographer’s shop just to be able to carefully piece together the full letter under their UV light setup. We expected some sentimental goodbyes, some waxing philosophical about the insanity of war, you know, the usual. We couldn’t have been more wrong.
My family’s been bandying about possible explanations for the letter for years now. Most agree that it was probably a dream, or maybe some sort of hypnagogic hallucination brought on by the stress of combat. Another theory is that he’d made it all up entirely, as some sort of artistic statement — he had been a published author before the war, after all, and his purple prose seems implausible for someone describing a mind-shattering trauma.
Still, nothing makes complete sense to me. He must’ve had some notion these may be his last words, a final opportunity to relay what happened to his brother and say goodbye to his mother. Would he really waste them on something that wasn’t true? No matter how many times I read over my grandfather’s words, it always makes me wonder: perhaps he really did see something, down there in those blood-soaked trenches?
I’ll let you judge for yourself.
To my mother,
Henry died yesterday. My mind quivers with the memory of those leaden volleys bursting through his chest like a needle pierces a vein. The blood’s faded, now, but I can still feel the little red droplets, like they’re still warm upon my cheeks. I wish I could tell you he cried out your name in the last, but in truth, he was simply gone; extinguished in the instant of a muzzle flash, existence having clawed its way, baying and writhing, up from oblivion, to taste from the waters of life for a trifling moment before being once more consumed by those deep black seas of nothingness. That was all I could see before the gas flooded the trenches once more, and I could only flee, wailing, past the twisted bodies of my countrymen as the gas consumed them; red veins bulging thickly over jaundiced flesh like strings pulled taut over a violin; figures fading, twisting, peeling, bulging, faces wide-eyed, open-mouthed, but silent.
I wish I could tell you that these horrors shook me to my core, but I have become inoculated to them to an extent that frightens even myself; the war proceeds like a blurred and abstract haze around me, each day indistinguishable from the next, dispensing its horrors like a machine, unthinking, unfeeling in its destruction of life. Though he was my brother, his loss failed to shake me, and his name died out on my lips just like it did my countrymens’. Indeed, the true horror did not set in upon his death, but rather, upon his return.
It was during the twilight hours beneath the waning moon that I alone sat alert, watching the moonlight dance a waltz with the wisps of fog, like spiny grey fingers stretching up from the turgid soil, when my eye caught a glimpse of movement from one of the piles of bodies littering the no man’s land beyond the trenches. Words cannot express the horror th at assailed me when I beheld my own brother, crawling from the charred pile with an inhuman lurch. His jaw was slack, clinging to his pale face by scarlet strings of tendons, his eyes swirling with an implacable, cloudy mist of white, emptied of feeling as he limped obstinately through the battle-scarred fields, even as his pierced chest oozed a black ichor.
For too long, this campaign has left me sleep-walking through life, without passion; yet this sight was a grand exigency, lifting me to my feet as if stirring me from some terrible trance. I followed, creeping through the trenches, peering up over the battlements, not daring to make the faintest sound as I observed the grim procession of the thing which was once our dear Henry. The battlefield was more quiet than it had ever been, not a sound audible over the gentle weaving of the wind through the branches of trees, until at last my ears picked up the faintest traces of — music.
My mind recoiled, picking apart the sound, as if unable to accept it as anything more than a flight of fantasy; but the tune persisted, draped over the battlefield like a warm blanket, filling my heart with terror and awe in equal measures, until, at last, I reached the very border of the trenches, and had followed Henry as far as I was able. I peered up at him a final time — and my hand is quivering now, as if it’s committing some mortal sin just by immortalising this blasphemous sight in ink.
There was some uncountable legion of them, their forms nebulous and abstract as they darted in and out of the swelling fog. There were Russians and Germans and Austrians all in communion, and some were more ancient still, man-at-arms from ever more distant and primitive times; across time and nationality, all were united in the primeval dance of war, whooping and wailing as they cavorted across the battlefield, pale flesh clinging to brittle bones. Henry, or what remained of him, locked arms with the promenade of the dead as if they were old friends, his face twisted into some noiseless caricature of laughter.
My mind struggled most of all to comprehend the ever more monstrous silhouette they danced around in undying supplication, their twisted bodies connected to the great beast with scarlet strings. It was a cyclopean creature, a thousand faces bulging from its malformed flesh, their features blackened by shadow; said flesh had been torn through in scattered patches, revealing only a burning, undying fire raging in its hollow belly, from which the faint cacophony of battle could be heard; and in its many hands, it clutched the instruments of war, from glittering swords and rotting firearms all the way down to the bloodied stone that had felled Abel some eons ago. I watched as if spellbound, unable to so much as breathe as their waltz unfolded before me; until at last, their dancing slowed, and the entity unhinged its rapacious maw. Two by two, the young men goose-stepped into the behemoth’s jaws, driven by some unholy sense of duty to allow their existences to be snuffed out without feeling, without ceremony, their names never again to be uttered by a human soul.
It was at that moment, I awoke in the trenches, as if roused from some grand and terrible dream - but no dream could match the vividness of what I beheld beneath that callous moon. I do not know why I write this; I know these letters never reach you, mother. Perhaps I write this out of some vain hope to relieve myself of being alone in what I had witnessed in those final moments; as, just moments before stepping into that darkened maw, Henry turned and let his pearly eyes meet with mine, raising a rotted finger, and he beckoned to me, with a twisted smile not formed of malice, but of love.
It was at that moment that I knew I would never again see your face; never again soak in the fragrance of your cooking and the chirping of woodpidgeons in the cabin I had once called home. If you ever read this, I am so sorry, dearest mother - but the morning your children stepped into these boiling trenches, war already had us clutched in her pallid hand, dangling us above the fire for but a few futile moments until it was time for us to join her in her immortal dance!
With love,
JH
My grandfather didn’t survive long enough to be court-martialed for trying to sneak this letter by. He went MIA while fighting in the Second Battle of Ypres before his letter even reached London. His body was never recovered, but his name is still immortalised on the Menin Gate Memorial to the Missing.
May we all pray that the world is never wracked by another war of such a scale again.

Stunning babe Bella shows off her gorgeous curves and sexy tattoos as she’s hanging out by the pool. Flashing her perfect tits and fingering herself, she’s warmed up and ready when lucky stud Brad joins her. Brad will get a blowjob at the pool before heading inside to finish off their intense fuck session!"

A
ABABCd
Acarine The Acrid Corpse
All is Known
Alluda Majaka
Altered Beast I
Altered Beast II
Altered Beast III
Altered Beast IV
Alter Me I
Alter Me II
Alter Me III
Ambergris
Am I in Heaven?
Anamnesis
A New World
Anoxia
Astroturf
Ataraxia
Automation
B
The Balrog
12 Bar Bruise
Barefoot Desert
Beginner’s Luck
Big Fig Wasp
The Bird Song
Billabong Valley
The Bitter Boogie
Black Hot Soup
Blame It on the Weather
Boogieman Sam
The Book
Black Tooth
Bloody Ripper
Blue Morpho
Bone
Butterfly 3000
C
Candles
The Castle in the Air
Catching Smoke
Cellophane
Change
Cold Cadaver
Countdown
Cranes, Planes, Migraines
Crookedile
The Cruel Millennial
Crumbling Castle
Crying
Cut Throat Boogie
Cyboogie
D
Danger $$$
D-Day
Deat-Beat
Deserted Dunes Welcome Weary Feet
Digital Black
Dirt
Doom City
Down the Sink
Dragon
Dreams
The Dripping Tap
Drum Run
Dusk to Dawn on Lygon Street
Dustbin Fletcher
Dust in the Wind
E
East West Link
Elbow
Empty
Evil Death Roll
Evilest Man
Evil Man
Evil Star
Exploding Suns
Eyes Like the Sky
F
Fishing for Fishies
Float Along - Fill Your Lungs
The Floating Fire
Flying Microtonal Banana
Footy Footy
Fort Whipple
The Fourth Colour
The Funeral
G
Gaia
Gamma Knife
Garage Liddiard
The Garden Goblin
Gila Monster
Gliese 710
God is Calling Me Back Home
God is in the Rhythm
The God Man’s Goat Lust
Gondii
The Great Chain of Being
Greenhouse Heat Death
The Grim Reaper
Guns & Horses
H
Han-Tyumi, The Confused Cyborg
Hate Dancin’
Head On/Pill
Hell
Hell’s Itch
Her and I (Slow Jam 2)
High Hopes Low
Honey
Homeless Man in Adidas
Horology
Hot Water
Hot Wax
The Hungry Wolf of Fate
Hypertension
I
I am not a Man Unless I Have a Woman
Ice V
If Not Now, Then When?
I’m in Your Mind
I’m in Your Mind Fuzz
I’m Not in Your Mind
I’m Sleepin’ In
Infinite Rise
Inner Cell
Interior People
Intrasport
Invisible Face
Iron Lung
It’s Got Old
J
A Journey to (S)Hell
K
Kepler-22b
K.G.L.W. (Intro)
K.G.L.W. (Outro)
2.02 Killer Year
The Killing Ground
L
The Land Before Timeland
The Last Oasis
Lava
Let it Bleed
Let Me Mend the Past
Life / Death
Lonely Steel Sheet Flyer
The Lord of Lightning
Loyalty
Lunch Meat
M
Magenta Mountain
Magma
Mars for the Rich
Melting
Minimum Brain Size
Most of What I Like
Mr. Beat
Muckraker
Muddy Water
Murder of the Universe
Mycelium
Mystery Jack
N
Nein
N.G.R.I (Bloodstain)
No Body
Nuclear Fusion
O
Oddlife
Oddments
O.N.E.
Ontology
Open Water
Organ Farmer
P
Paper Mâché
Paper Mâché Dream Balloon
30 Past 7
People-Vultures
Perihelion
Persistence
Pipe-Dream
Planet B
Plastic Boogie
Pleura
Polygondwanaland
Pop in My Step
Predator X
Presumptuous
Q
Quarantine
R
The Raid
Rattlesnake
Real’s Not Real
Red Smoke
The Reticent Raconteur
The River
Road Train
Robot Stop
Rolling Stoned
S
Sadie Sorceress
Sam Cherry’s Last Shot
Satan Speeds Up
Sea of Trees
Searching
See Me
Self-Immolate
Sense
Shanghai
Short Change
Sketches of Brunswick East I
Sketches of Brunswick East II
Sketches of Brunswick East III
Sleep Drifter
Sleepwalker
Slow Jam 1
Smoke & Mirrors
Some Context
Some of Us
Soy-Protein Munt Machine
The Spider and Me
Static Electricity
Stoned Mullet
Straws in the Wind
Stressin’
Superbug
Superposition
Supreme Ascendancy
T
Tetrachromacy
Tezeta
This Thing
Time = $$$
Time = Fate
Timeland
Trapdoor
U
Uh Oh, I Called Mum
V
Vegemite
Venusian 1
Venusian 2
Vomit Coffin
W
Wah Wah
Welcome to an Altered Future
The Wheel
Willoughby’s Beach
Work This Time
X
N/A
Y
Ya Love
Year of Our Lord
You Can Be Your Silhouette
Yours
Z
N/A

My head throbs as I pull myself upright. Water drips from my hair back down into what I can only describe as an ocean. A bright, large moon sits at the edge. Its hallowed light reflects on the surface and beyond, giving light where there should be none and an illusion of its continuance and completion.
It’s a beautiful view, a confusing one too, as this shouldn’t be possible. Sitting in the water with my head in my hand, I groan and moan, cursing the damn thing that flung itself at me. Is this now the true afterlife? What was all that dungeon vibes before?
A ripple in the water breaks my thoughts. I’m not alone this time. I look up to find a woman approaching, her steps gentle on the ocean surface, as though she glides above it. Her long, deep-colored robes are the culprits behind the ripples. Her movement brings attention to my own. How have I not sunk?
She’s as pale and beautiful as the moon, her lips a deep shade of blue, eyes alluring as the night sky. But she frowns at my sight, scowls even, as though I’d offended her by being.
Folding my legs in, I peek over them to find my reflection for the first time, and to my surprise, it’s only me staring back in the unnaturally clear waters. I thought for certain—
“Orson! Where is Orson?” I’m sure she’s mouthing off gibberish, but I understand her as clearly as any of the three languages I’ve learned, except this isn’t any language I’ve heard. Her hands peek out of the long-robed sleeves as balled fists. She regards me with an accusation of theft, if I’m understanding her words and demeanor well enough at all.
I pick myself up, having faith the water will hold my weight on two feet. She graces back as I do, and I raise my hands in surrender and speak, “I don’t know who Orson is, I’m… new here?”
Her brows furrow, but the glare in her eyes softens. She raises an arm, her fingers barely peeking off the top as she gestures. It’s swift and sudden, but the ocean, the world warps around to jerk me forward until my cheeks are in her hands.
I gulp, taken aback by her obvious power and control over this place. Is this the grim reaper? A tall, pale, and beautiful woman? At this point, I wouldn’t put anything to doubt.
Her fingers are long, thin, and strong. I can’t keep my eyes off her. Caressing my cheek, her fingers trail down to my neck where she gasps at the horror. I know what she sees; I’d seen it in my reflection. It’s how I knew I am myself once again. I take her hand in mine and pull it away. She meets my eyes again, and I find sympathy in them.
“You’re an unforgiven soul… If you’re here, that must mean, surely my sons are dead.” Her voice speaks to the world, the waters darken, and the moon begins to cloud.
“I’m sorry about your son, but if you don’t mind me asking… where am I? And what’s an unforgiven soul?” I’m not sure I want to know what it is, but I’m certain it’s important.
She glances at me as she melts into her clothes, resting against the water. “An unforgiven soul… My mentors taught me of your kind, called you… travelers, the gods' unforgiven travelers. The ones cursed to continue life, those without the mercy of death. Your kind often know many things, but it seems you are young…oh you poor thing.”
Her words chill my skin and I stammer to ask, “W-what do you mean cursed to continue life?”
She gives me a pitiable smile and says, “You will never see rest, never see an afterlife. Death itself boycotts your soul, you are unforgiven. Should you…” she glances at my neck and sighs, “Do as you do again, you will simply travel as you have, again and again and again. Until the universe, the heavens and the depths of Reais itself are snuffed of all living beings.”
I take an involuntary step back, unsure of what to think. I always thought all awaited me in death was darkness, but there’s an afterlife and now, because I’ve…I’ll never get to see it. My bottom finds the water and the woman, moans pitiably at me.
“Have you seen the afterlife? Are you like me? What is this place then?” I ask, trying to distract from the pit of lead my stomach is turning into.
“I am…not a soul.” She confesses, “I am an imprint of one, a memory…a ghost of Orson and James’ mother.”
“James.” I yelp. “I know that name.”
She looks hopeful, sitting up straight, letting the light of the moon grace the waters again. “Have you seen him? Is he alive? Orson was to have the Moon’s Eye but you…you’re not him, he’s long gone now.”
“I don’t know if James is alive or not, but I heard a child scream when I woke up in that room, before that thing attacked me.”
She graces me with a smile as she picks herself up, “Apologies on behalf of the Moon’s Eye, it’s the only way to bind to the soul in the body and…unfortunately that happened to be you.”
I raise an eyebrow and glance at the moon on the eerily close horizon then back at her, “The Moon’s Eye?”
“Ah, yes.” She spreads her arms outward, as if pushing a bowl into the air and just like that, the ocean sinks away from my feet— the entire place tilts on some invisible axis until everything that was stands in a pitch darkness.
My heart is in my stomach but she’s not done. The ocean and moon, the surface of it in all its imposing might and size doesn’t spill and crush us beneath it— the water falls into the nothingness below and the Moon gradually shifts into a waxing crescent shape in the sky.
And then, like nothing ever happened, silence. The large oval portrait of a waxing crescent moon hanging over a falling ocean shrinks, getting smaller in size despite logic telling me this shouldn’t be possible. It stops once it’s the size of a small tablet and finds its place at the woman’s shoulder, choosing to orbit her head.
“W-who are you?” It’s dark, that’s all there is now. All except for the hallowed light of a moon and ocean gracing her face, she’s like an angel.
Blushed, she giggles, “Me? I am Marian Gildweather.”
***
Awakening in a cacophony of noise, with three people gathered around me, screaming at one another, I’m certain it’ll be years before I get used to this place. Now conscious, I find myself as the main source of much of the noise. Judging by how sore my throat is, I must have been screaming since the Moon’s Eye whacked me.
The others notice me calm down and cough. I’m thirsty again. The little boy in the middle of two is quick to fetch me a cup of water from some bucket. “Here, drink up!”
“Thank you,” I say and pause immediately after, “Thank… you? Hello... hello?” Is that the same gibberish she was speaking that I’m speaking? I look up at the boy, realizing he’d spoken the same language just a second ago. I’m not getting used to this anytime soon.
“What’s wrong, Orson?”
I drink down the water in greedy gulps, trying hard to ignore the terrible pout and the inflection of love in the child’s behavior. Sometimes I wish I were oblivious to things, but I can’t ignore what’s blatantly obvious— this is James, Marian’s last living son and my supposed brother.
I have half a mind to groan at the thought of the task ahead of me, all things considered, I don’t even know how true or how difficult any of it will be. Marian wants me to protect her son, and Orson, the body I’ve come to inhabit, wants that as well because—
“Don’t worry about me, oddball. Are you hurt?” I say, brightening up James’ sunken cheeks. Like me, he has been starved and kept a prisoner— Marian, or the specter of her, filled me in on that much. However, we hadn’t had enough time to get to the crux of the issue.
One of the men behind James pushes him aside to squat in front of me with a club. He smells offensive, but this close up, I recognize his face and obey the feeling telling me not to provoke him.
“He’s just fine, better than you should be.”
I can’t help but frown at the odd word choice. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He doesn’t answer. Rather, he looks beyond me and reaches out with a finger to poke at something. A look over my shoulder, and I find the Moon’s Eye camping behind me. Its blinding light and colors now dull and muted, so it looks like a floating waxed marble, patterned with the waves of a falling ocean and a crescent moon observing all.
“What is that thing?” The man asks, index finger out to poke. I’m about to advise him against it when the Moon’s Eye brightens up. He flinches, eyes wide, mouth falling ajar, but it’s far too late.
Blood splashes over my face and gets into my eye. It stings, but not as much as the sudden shriek of pain as the man falls back on his ass. “I was just about to warn you about that. No one else is allowed to touch it.” I pick myself up and drag James, stunned, back behind me as I address the man’s companion.
Bright smile plastered over my face, I tell him, “You should let us go now.”
His club trembles in hand. He looks between me and his friend and colleague yelping and squirming for help, for him to do something—for his maimed hand to not be so. A number of things are going through his mind right now, and I’m sure defiance isn’t one of them.
The club thuds and rolls along the floor as he makes a run out of the room. I hurry over to the door, grabbing the club as I do. The fleeing guard doesn't look back once. He reaches a door at the end of the corridor and fiddles with his keys, only for it to open up all by itself.
“What’s all this noise for?” A man slightly taller and far better dressed than the guard asks. His anxiety doubles at the sight of him, and he fumbles through three awkward attempts at a proper greeting. I don’t hear what the guard says to him, but the new man yells, “What? You incompetent...! Get out of my sight!”
I shut the door, grabbing keys from the dead or maybe unconscious guard lying on the floor. I try my best not to look at his wound, but with all the blood, it’s hard not to. Locking the door behind me, I search the room, but nothing’s changed except the people in it.
“Orson... what’s going to happen now?”
“Oh, don’t worry about a thing, oddball.” Leaning by the window, I find no sight of land or sand or even hay, only darkness. The window itself isn’t wide enough for me to push through.
“Are we going to burn?”
His words halt my movements. “What?”
“Like Mum and Father.”
I abandon all objects and grab him by the shoulders, look him in the eye. “I won’t let them hurt you. I won’t let anyone hurt you.” In my Moon’s light, I find James to be a brilliant child. Dark brown hair and hazelnut eyes that pair with the hint of freckles all around the bridge of his nose—or is that dirt?
A rude bang at the door brings my attention back to the threat at hand. The Moon’s Eye warbles, lighting up as it does an orbit around my head. Picking up the club, determined to go down swinging and protecting James.
“Open it up, I said open it up right now!”
“No!” I say. “Get back, or you’ll end up like the other guy!”
The rattle of keys, followed by a click, has me embarrassed—of course, he wasn’t actually talking to me. The door swings open, and my club meets the chin of the first unfortunate person to walk through. He stumbles back into the other... four?!
“We’re literally children! This isn’t necessary!”
“Orson? Is that you?” The man, or rather young man, judging by the youthful glow and gut instinct. He struts in, takes note of the bleeding guard on the floor, and scowls at the other whose teeth I’ve knocked out. “I’m surprised you’re still standing... swinging. Though I suppose that’s why you’re a Gildweather. Take and bind them.”
I know I said I’d go out swinging, but this is a bit much.
***
Chapter 1

Hello there! I'm open to any numbers of games to trade! I only want to trade games, no paypal or any money transfer whatsoever or such. Here's my flair profile! profile
My wish list! Is outdated but there's quite a number of games that I'm still interested in it! Wishlist
THE INVISIBLE HAND
BEHIND THE FRAME: THE FINEST SCENERY
BUILDER SIMULATOR
OPERATION: TANGO
BENDY AND THE DARK REVIVAL
SPIRITFARER: FAREWELL EDITION
FOBIA - ST. DINFNA HOTEL
SHADY PART OF ME
FALLOUT 76 + FALLOUT 1
MONSTER CROWN
GOLDEN LIGHT
DEMON TURF
ROGUE LORDS
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION 2
REVITA
THE LIFE AND SUFFERING OF SIR BRANTE
LIFE IS STRANGE 2: COMPLETE SEASON
Rollerdrome
Death Stranding DIRECTOR'S CUT
Zombie Army Trilogy
Warhammer: Vermintide 2
Killing Floor 2 Digital Deluxe Edition
GROW: SONG OF THE EVERTREE
PowerSlave Exhumed
Prehistoric Kingdom
Submerged: Hidden Depths
Supraland Six Inches Under
Wasteland 3
Greedfall
Blade Assault
Toem
Borderlands 3 Super Deluxe
CivCity: Rome
Mafia: Definitive Edition
Railroad Tycoon 3
Railroad Tycoon II Platinum
Sid Meier's Civilization VI
Sid Meier's Railroads!
WWE 2K Battlegrounds
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS - Ultimate Brawlers Pass
THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: LITTLE HOPE
MAID OF SKER
JUST CAUSE 4: COMPLETE EDITION
DESCENDERS
SHAPEZ + PUZZLE DLC
Dungeons 2
Dungeons 3
THE ASCENT
GAS STATION SIMULATOR
IN SOUND MIND
MIND SCANNERS
EMILY IS AWAY <3
OMNO
Bound by Flame
Hood: Outlaws & Legends
The Surge
The Surge 2
The Technomancer
LAWN MOWING SIMULATOR
LEGO Ninjago Movie Video Game
YES, YOUR GRACE
RPG Maker 2003
RPG Maker VX
RPG Maker XP
Skyborn
Monster Hunter: World
Street Fighter V
SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS: BATTLE FOR BIKINI BOTTOM - REHYDRATED
IF FOUND...
GENESIS NOIR
THE DARK PICTURES ANTHOLOGY: MAN OF MEDAN
EVAN'S REMAINS
Finding Paradise
Kathy Rain: Director's Cut
Sid Meier's Civilization: Beyond Earth - The Collection
Sid Meier's Civilization III Complete
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: The Complete Edition
Sid Meier's Civilization V: Complete
Sid Meier’s Civilization® VI
Sid Meier's Pirates!
Sid Meier's Railroads!
BORDERLANDS 3
JUST DIE ALREADY
PARADISE LOST
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Dead by Daylight
Dungeon of the Endless
Hamilton's Great Adventure
Homeworld Remastered Collection
Little Nightmares
PAYDAY 2
PAYDAY 2 Bonus
Peppy's Adventure
Red Faction®: Armageddon™
THE HENRY STICKMIN COLLECTION
FARMER'S DYNASTY
RETROWAVE
THE SURVIVALISTS
LACUNA - A SCI-FI NOIR ADVENTURE
8 DOORS
FLING TO THE FINISH
TOHU
VOIDIGO
Kingdom: New Lands
Kingdom Two Crowns
Batman: Arkham VR
JUNO: NEW ORIGINS
TIMELIE
WRATH: AEON OF RUIN
One Finger Death Punch 2
Slap City
AMNESIA: REBIRTH
GUTS AND GLORY
GARAGE: BAD TRIP
TOOLS UP
HIVESWAP FRIENDSIM
SYBERIA 3
Tropico 3: Gold Edition
Tropico 4 Collector's Bundle
Tropico 5 - Complete Edition
PGA TOUR 2K21
NOT FOR BROADCAST
RÖKI
WEST OF DEAD
HEAVEN'S VAULT
ORWELL: IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
FRAMED COLLECTION
Ageless
The Escapists
The Escapists - Alcatraz
The Escapists - Duct Tapes are Forever
The Escapists - Escape Team
The Escapists 2
The Escapists 2 - Big Top Breakout
Flockers
Golf With Your Friends
Mugsters
My Time at Portia
Overcooked
Overcooked! 2
Overcooked! 2 - Too Many Cooks Pack
Overcooked: The Lost Morsel
Overruled
Sheltered
Worms Rumble
Worms Rumble - Armageddon Weapon Skin Pack
Worms Rumble - Captain & Shark Double Pack
Worms Rumble - Legends Pack
Worms Rumble - New Challengers Pack
Yoku's Island Express
Aragami
ECHO
Ghost of a Tale
Heat Signature
HITMAN 2 - Gold Edition
Hitman (2016) Game of the Year Edition
Styx: Shards of Darkness
BLOODSTAINED: RITUAL OF THE NIGHT
SUPERLIMINAL
WE NEED TO GO DEEPER
CARTO
AS FAR AS THE EYE
CEPHEUS PROTOCOL
NOWHERE PROPHET
BLUE FIRE
ENCODYA
Drawful 2
Fibbage XL
The Jackbox Party Pack 2
Quiplash
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK HEADRUSH
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK MOVIES
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK SPORTS
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK TELEVISION
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Vol. 1 XL
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Vol. 2
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Vol. 3
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK Vol. 4: The Ride
Curious Expedition
EVERSPACE™
Hero Siege Complete
Hero Siege - Wrath of Mevius (Digital Collector's Edition)
Golf It!
The Infected
Sakura Agent
Sakura Dungeon
Sakura Fox Adventure
Sakura Gamer
Sakura Gamer 2
Sakura MMO 3
Sakura Nova
Sakura Sadist
Sakura Shrine Girls
Sakura Space
Sakura Swim Club
NIMBATUS - THE SPACE DRONE CONSTRUCTOR
PARADISE KILLER
BEE SIMULATOR
ELDERBORN
S.W.I.N.E. HD REMASTER
ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
SID MEIER’S CIVILIZATION® VI PLATINUM EDITION
SECRET NEIGHBOR
STUBBS THE ZOMBIE IN REBEL WITHOUT A PULSE
WORMS RUMBLE + LEGENDS PACK DLC
MILKY WAY PRINCE - THE VAMPIRE STAR
DESOLATE
EFFIE
GUILTY GEAR XX ACCENT CORE PLUS R
Little Nightmares Complete Edition
Pac-Man 256
F1® 2020
MAIN ASSEMBLY
ROCK OF AGES 3: MAKE & BREAK
REMOTHERED: BROKEN PORCELAIN
IN OTHER WATERS
SIMULACRA + SIMULACRA 2
COLT CANYON
SKULLY
Ultimate Chicken Horse
XCOM: CHIMERA SQUAD
WWE 2K BATTLEGROUNDS
PEAKY BLINDERS: MASTERMIND
CYBER HOOK
PESTERQUEST
BOREAL BLADE
THE BEAST INSIDE
THE HAUNTED ISLAND, A FROG DETECTIVE GAME
FROG DETECTIVE 2: THE CASE OF THE INVISIBLE WIZARD
STILL THERE
STRUGGLING
PATH OF GIANTS
RAILWAY EMPIRE
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA DEADLOCK
YUPPIE PSYCHO
BEAT HAZARD 2
SIGMA THEORY: GLOBAL COLD WAR
DON'T ESCAPE: 4 DAYS TO SURVIVE
VERLET SWING
Vikings - Wolves of Midgard
GRID™ - ULTIMATE EDITION
HELLBLADE: SENUA'S SACRIFICE
THE MESSENGER
BAROTRAUMA
FELIX THE REAPER
MEN OF WAR: ASSAULT SQUAD 2 - WARCHEST EDITION
STYGIAN: REIGN OF THE OLD ONES
REMNANTS OF NAEZITH
THE STILLNESS OF THE WIND
THE KING'S BIRD
JURASSIC WORLD EVOLUTION + 1 DLC
XCOM® 2 + 2 DLC
RISE OF INDUSTRY
NICHE - A GENETICS SURVIVAL GAME
HEAVE HO
MO:ASTRAY
CHESS ULTRA
HORACE
HITMAN 2
GRIS
OPUS MAGNUM
MOLEK-SYNTEZ
RAIDEN V: DIRECTOR'S CUT 雷電 V DIRECTOR'S CUT 雷電V:導演剪輯版
TRUBERBROOK / TRÜBERBROOK
SHOPPE KEEP 2
CAPITALISM 2
Train Valley 2
AI WAR 2
ETHERBORN
Sakura Agent
Sakura Angels
Sakura Beach
Sakura Beach 2
Sakura Dungeon
Sakura Fantasy
Sakura Magical Girls
Sakura Nova
Sakura Shrine Girls
Sakura Space
Sakura Spirit
Sakura Swim Club
ELIZA
THE HEX
NIGHT CALL
Fluffy Horde
My Time at Portia
Regular Human Basketball
Sword Legacy Omen
11-11 Memories Retold
Evergarden
SYNTHETIK: Legion Rising
Bridge Constructor Portal
Concrete Jungle
Portal Knights
SEUM: Speedrunners from Hell
Tricky Towers
When Ski Lifts Go Wrong
Avernum 3: Ruined World
Planet Alpha
Puss!
The Spiral Scouts
Deep Sky Derelicts
HIVESWAP: Act 1
Pillars of Eternity
Tyranny - Standard Edition
Darkwood
State of Mind
Death Squared
Killing Floor 2 Digital Deluxe Edition
Think of the Children
The Adventure Pals
Almost There: The Platformer
Swords and Soldiers 2 Shawarmageddon
Yoku's Island Express
DISTRAINT 2
Rusty Lake Paradise
Duskers
Paratopic
Pool Panic
Clustertruck
The Final Station
Party Hard
Punch Club
SpeedRunners
Streets of Rogue
Bomber Crew
Stealth Inc 2: A Game of Clones
Stikbold! A Dodgeball Adventure
Offworld Trading Company + Jupiter's Forge Expansion Pack
She Remembered Caterpillars
Amnesia™: Memories
EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 DLC
Sniper Elite 3
Pony Island
Risen 3 Complete Edition
Saints Row 2
Secret Files: Tunguska
Westerado: Double Barreled
A Story About My Uncle
Divide By Sheep
No Time To Explain Remastered
Layers of Fear: Masterpiece Edition
ADR1FT
Broken Age
Grim Fandango Remastered
The Darkness II
Spec Ops: The Line
Dropsy
BATTLESLOTHS

These are too good to scrap but not good enough for people to pay big dolla dolla bills for so i'd rather give them away. Don't just take one to sell or scrap cos that's not cool, man.
I shall mod them for full auto and give you some spikes to get going as well.
Here's the basis of a build as well to get the best out of it. The build.
You don't NEED bandolier but it is recommended as spikes are heavy and especially if you wanna use this as a main weapon and not a secondary or backup.
I recommend blocker 3 in STR for defence for the odd time something is dead and manages to get close enough to hit you.
For bosses add in tenderizer and suppressor in CHR. Add in Inspirational if you want more XP.
Gunsmith if you are struggling to keep your weapons repaired. Demo expert if you have an explosive weapon. More INT = more xp as well.
In AGI you may want to add Escape artist or covert operative. but tbh everything should be dead so what are ya sneaking for?
if you want 1 more point in LCK maybe add grim reapers sprint.
​
THE GUNS!
Quad aiming movement speed
Quad last shot DRWA
​
Aye!

In the late 23rd century, the skies darkened with the arrival of the Nokrians. A reptilian race known throughout the galaxies as conquerors, destroyers of civilizations, and relentless expansionists. The first contact had a single, chilling message. Surrender or be eradicated. Humanity spread across Earth, Mars, the belt, and the solar system's farthest reaches bristled at the ultimatum. A united response was sent back. "We are the children of Earth. We do not surrender!" And so, the war for Earth began.
The Nokrians had underestimated humanity, viewing them as a young race scattered, technologically inferior. The aliens had crushed such civilizations before. But humankind was different. Beneath the diverse flags, languages, and planets, the fire of unity roared. Human technology, while less advanced, was innovative. Adaptive tactics and strategies changed quickly and unpredictably.
The first defining battle took place in the inner belt of Jupiter. Earth's combined fleet clashed with the Nokrian Armada. The alien cruisers dwarfed Earth's vessels, and their plasma weapons tore through our hulls. The Nokrians watched as dozens of human ships turned to stardust, confident in their victory. But humanity had a secret weapon. Its spirit. The spirit dared to dream, innovate, and resist against all odds. And amid that bloody battle, it shone brightly. Following a hasty, desperate plan, the remaining human fleet utilized Jupiter's powerful magnetic field to create a slingshot effect, hurtling smaller ships with tremendous speed toward the Nokrian Armada.
The Nokrian Shields, designed to absorb direct high-energy attacks, could not adapt to the bombardment of these human missiles. The loss they faced was unexpected and disheartening. The mighty alien Armada was forced to retreat, leaving the humans to celebrate their first victory. That day, the message of humanity echoed across the solar system. "We do not surrender!"
On the Nokrian's home world, supreme warlord K'rul watched in disbelief as reports streamed in. "So, you're telling me we lost our greatest superweapon because humans rammed a flagship into it?" The room fell into an uneasy silence. Humans were meant to be weak and insignificant. Yet they had just dealt the Nokrians a heavy blow. Despite this unexpected setback, the Nokrians remained disdainful of humanity. They saw this victory as a fluke, a lucky shot.
Commander Xok'rath received an order from the Nokrian High Command as the war entered its second year. An all-out assault on Earth aimed to crush human resistance once and for all. Closing his eyes, he remembered a phrase from an ancient human text. "The calm before the storm." The storm was indeed coming, but who would prevail in its wake was a story yet to be told. With a final look at Earth, he ordered his Armada to advance, leaving the future of humanity hanging in the balance. A cliff on the horizon of a story yet to unfold.
"Operation Thunderbolt? I must admit humans come up with interesting names," Commander Xok'rath muttered. Starring at the holographic plans of an Earth-based counter-strike against his armada. He found it difficult to understand how a young and fragile race could put up such a fight. His second in command, Virox, watched the hologram with narrowed eyes. "Commander, have you noticed? These humans fight differently compared to the other races we've conquered. They're more... reckless." "Yes," Xok'rath replied, a hint of curiosity in his voice. "They seem to have a remarkable capacity for taking risks and performing under extreme stress. There's a term they use" Adrenaline." Xok'rath said. Virox tilted his head. "Adrenaline?" "Yes," Xok'rath said. Gesturing at a display, an image of human anatomy diagram appeared, highlighting the adrenal glands. "It's a hormone triggered by stress or danger significantly enhancing their physical abilities. It allows them to perform feats that seem impossible." "Like flying their ships directly into our Armada," Virox murmured, understanding dawning in his eyes. "Yes," Xok'rath nodded. "Like that." Their discussion was interrupted by the ship's automated alarm. Operation Thunderbolt had begun.
Reports started pouring in, and Earth's smaller but highly maneuverable attack force began strafing runs on the Nokrian fleet. From Earth's surface, missiles arced, their brilliant trails illuminating the dark void. Nokrian shield generators sparked and faltered under the sheer onslaught. The human ships danced among the Nokrian Armada. "Incoming! Brace for Impact!" Xok'rath's command echoed through the ship as the Earth missiles found their target. The ship shook violently, the powerful shield failing under the human's relentless bombardment. "Damage report!" Xok'rath demanded, clutching onto the armrest of his command chair. His scales bristled with tension. "Shields down to 17%; we have hull breaches in sectors 7, 9, and 12." A junior officer reported, panic evident in his usually steady voice. "Initiate evasive maneuvers and get those shields back online!" Zok'rath ordered, his mind racing. No enemy had ever breached a Nokrian command ship's shield. Yet, here were the humans achieving the impossible again.
Meanwhile, on Earth, General Maya Serrano watched as Operation Thunderbolt unfolded. Despite the high stakes, she couldn't suppress a small smile. They were showing these arrogant aliens the true might of humanity. Serrano was a seasoned veteran, having served in the Solar Defense Force for three decades. She'd fought against pirates and led exploratory missions into unknown regions of space, and now she was helping to defend against an alien invasion. Her strategic mind was behind Operation Thunderbolt, a daring high-risk counteroffensive designed to exploit the Nokrians' overconfidence.
Back on the Nokrian command ship, the situation was dire. The shields were failing. casualties were mounting, and to Xok'rath's disbelief, the human force showed no signs of relenting. Instead, their attacks became fiercer, their maneuvers more daring. Suddenly an urgent message flashed on the command screen. It was from the Nokrian Supreme Warlord K'rul himself. His statement was brief and to the point. "Fall back to high orbit," "Regroup," "We will not be defeated." Xok'rath stared at the message, his mind swirling with questions. "Fallback?" "Regroup?" These were terms not often used in Nokrian warfare. He looked back at the holographic display of Earth, its blue and green hues seeming to pulse defiantly. "Commander your orders?" Virox asked, his eyes reflecting the unease rippling through the command ship. Xok'rath took a deep breath. A newfound respect for humanity hardened his resolve. "We follow the warlord's orders, full retreat to high orbit." "But make no mistake, Virox, this is far from over. We've awoken a giant, and we must brace for its wrath," said Xok'rath.
As the Nokrian Armada began retreating, the humans watched from their home world, ships, and colonies. They had won this round. Their defiance, unity, and sheer audacity had pushed back the invaders. If only for a while... But they knew this was not the end; the war was far from over. The Nokrians would return more determined, more desperate. Humanity would have to be ready, for they were the children of Earth, and they would not surrender!
The lights flickered in the makeshift lab as a beacon of hope emerged. On a remote outpost on Titan, Doctor Elena Petrova, humanity's leading quantum physicist, made a breakthrough. A radical new technology project, Quantum Lattice, is an adaptive energy shield that could neutralize the Nokrian's plasma weapons. News of the breakthrough spread like wildfire, the anticipation mixed with caution; after all, the security was untested in actual combat.
They needed to be more unified on the other side of the war line. In the Nokrian High Command, disagreement festered; some commanders like Xok'rath argued for a more cautious approach acknowledging the human's unpredictability. Others, like the fiery Z'tran, scorned such caution advocating for overwhelming direct force.
Back on Earth, another development was taking shape. Lieutenant Isamu Takashi, one of the few survivors of the battle of Jupiter, was chosen for a mission most deemed suicidal. Utilizing his combat experience, survival skills, and the new adaptive camouflage suit. Isamu was to infiltrate the Nokrian mothership, gather intelligence, and if possible, sabotage their operations. Leaving behind a tearful goodbye to his family. Isamu steeled himself for the task ahead. He was not just a soldier but a symbol of human determination.
Meanwhile, Project Quantum Lattice was fast-tracked for field deployment. The prototype was to be installed on the USS Vengeance, a newly commissioned cruiser. Captain Amina N'dour, an experienced and unyielding officer, was given the helm. Her task was twofold: test the shield in battle and buy enough time for Isamu to complete his mission. The USS Vengeance embarked on its maiden voyage equipped with untested technology. The moral of the human forces was... Palpable. On the Nokrian side, tension mounted as descent grew. The war was about to take an unexpected turn.
Onboard the Nokrian mothership, Commander Xok'rath studied the report of increased activity among the human forces. A chill ran down his spine; he felt the wind of change, a shiver of uncertainty. He turned to his second in command, Virox. "Prepare the fleet for an imminent attack and enhance security on our ship. I have a feeling... the humans are up to something." And thus, the stage was set the pieces were moving. As the USS Vengeance ventured into the dark abyss, Isamu descended onto the alien ship in his stealth shuttle. The entire solar system held its breath. Unbeknownst to them, they were on the brink of a new chapter in the war for Earth. A turning point was on the horizon, and with it, the tides of war were about to change.
Deep within the heart of the Nokrian mothership. Lieutenant Isamu Takashi navigated the labyrinthine corridors, and the calm hum of alien technology resonated in the walls. Contrasting starkly with the pounding heartbeat echoing in his ears. Invisible under the cloak of the adaptive camouflage suit, he slipped past patrols, moving like a phantom. His objective was clear, gather intel on the Nokrian's capabilities, identify weaknesses, and if possible, sow chaos within their ranks. But first, he had to reach the core command center.
Meanwhile, far from the silent tension of the alien vessel, the USS Vengeance found itself in the throes of battle. The Nokrian vanguard had descended upon them like a swarm of metallic hornets, but humanity had its own sting. "Activate the Quantum Lattice!" Captain Amina N'dour ordered. A shimmering energy net bloomed around the ship absorbing the volley of plasma beams from the Nokrian fighters. The cruiser seemed to glow in a lattice of light before the glow subsided, leaving the USS Vengeance unscathed. In the silence that followed, a cheer erupted on the bridge; The Quantum Lattice worked.
Then, on the Nokrian mothership, Z'tran, a high-ranking commander known for his aggression, stormed into the war room. Reports of the failed attack on the human ship had just arrived. Z'tran blamed Xok'rath for the failures, his words slicing through the tense air. "Your caution has cost us, Xok'rath. These humans... they are not as weak as you believed." A heated argument ensued, voices echoing through the chamber. Z'tran's accusations held weight among those frustrated with the human resistance. The room split, tension escalating until Z'tran, by force of numbers, wrestled control of the Armada. His first order was a resonating call for the destruction of the Earth.
During the power struggle, Isamu found himself at the heart of the command center. He had gathered precious intel, learning about Z'tran's intended all-out assault. Unfortunately, he transmitted the information to Earth before an alarm blared around him. His cover was blown, and his heart pounded in his chest as he found himself surrounded and trapped at the center of the enemy hub. His eyes darted, calculating escape routes, but it was too late. The Nokrians closed in; their alien faces were grim, and weapons were drawn.
Back on Earth, as the data from Isamu started streaming in, they also received his final message. "I've been compromised; proceed without me..." The transmission cut out abruptly, leaving a haunting silence in the command center with the enemy closing in. Isamu steeled himself; he was cornered, outgunned. His chances looked grim, but he was a symbol of humanity, and he was not going down without a fight. And thus, the climax of the War for Earth began with a lone spy's fate and humanity's future hanging in the balance.
The alien corridors were bathed in a harsh red light, the alarm blaring relentlessly. Lieutenant Isamu Takashi, cornered and outnumbered, faced the approaching Nakorians with a defiant glare. He knew he wouldn't walk away from this fight. His hand found the tiny remote in his pocket. a last resort. A beacon to call down hellfire upon his position. He pressed the button. An explosive blaze erupted from Isamu's location, cascading through the Nokrian mothership. Isamu's final act, a daring sacrifice, destabilized a significant part of the alien Armada. It was a tragic but necessary act that the human fleet used to their advantage. On Earth, his sacrifice echoed through the ranks. Isamu's bravery was a catalyst, igniting a resolve deeper than any battle plan.
As Z'tran's all-out assault descended upon Earth, the planet's defenses were pushed to their limit. But inspired by Isamu, the humans held their ground. The Quantum Lattice technology fends off the relentless onslaught. "Remember Isamu!" Became a rallying cry that surged through the human ranks. Each ship fought with a tenacity that was a testament to their fallen comrade.
The Nokrian Armada, vast, began to falter before the stubborn human resistance. And then Earth's forces unleashed a trump card. Within the bowels of these human ships, engineers and scientists worked relentlessly. Exploiting the data gathered by Isamu. They discovered a critical flaw in the Nokrian shield system. A resonant frequency that could disrupt their energy matrix. Timing their attacks to the millisecond, they fired burst after burst. At this frequency, The Nokrian Shields flickered and, with a final, resounding blast, failed. The Armada was left exposed and vulnerable. Humanity pushed, and the Nokrian forces began to crumble.
The victory was not without cost. wreckage of both Human and Nokrian ships littered the Battlefields. The Earth, though protected, was scarred by the relentless bombardment. But amidst the destruction, humanity stood tall. They had faced annihilation and emerged victorious. Both races were left to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the war.
On Earth, a Monument was erected in Isamu's memory, a testament to the spirit of humanity. In the Nokrian home world, Z'tran's recklessness was held responsible for their defeat, leading to a shift in power. As the dust settled, the galaxy watched in awe. A species they had considered insignificant had bested the most fearsome conquerors known. Their story was one of resilience, bravery, and unity. However, with the end of the war came new challenges.
The knowledge of humanity's existence had reached far corners of the galaxy. Allies and enemies alike turned their attention to the small blue planet and its colonies, intrigued and wary. But Earth stood ready. The war for Earth had changed, unified, and strengthened them. No matter what the future holds, one thing is sure. Humanity would face it head-on, as they always had. Because they are the children of Earth! And they will not surrender!

And Abuela Clementine flirted with the father of my family in front of everyone during the hot pot! At the table!! Now I’m trying to repair all the romantic relationships of the household. Everyone’s mad at each other and can’t be in the same room as their spouses. Why did Abuela Clementine have to flirt with her son-in-law at the hot pot?
And don’t get me started on the fact that the Grim Reaper just ominously floats around the house in a cloud of black smoke. Oh that’s just Abuelo Muerte, don’t mind him.