WRITING ARCHIVE BLOG
Lew | they/he | 25 driflew skelew asexualzoro liloinkoink brandingnightmare on ao3 @ driflew and skelew icon: vulturegoblin on IG | header @cjskribblez this is a writing archive blog! im not on it very much, so if you want responses, go to one of my other blogs FOR MORE RELIABLE / QUICKER REPONSES TO ASKS/MESSAGES, HEAD TO: asexualzoro (main) or liloinkoink (mcyt)
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please i just fucking cackled in call thank god. the way avery looks almost like he's thrown himself across the bed is destroying me. 10/10 awesome thank you so much
The thought of maybe playing Minecraft crosses Avery's mind as he types in his passcode, but when his laptop unlocks, it's still open to his recording software.
"Oh, right," Avery mutters. He’d been using it for something last night, hadn’t he? He closes the program, but as it vanishes, curiosity strikes him.
Was he recording last night? His whole day's a wash, but if he recorded it... He was up until nearly five in the morning, so he must've been up to something. He may not remember what it was, but his recording should.
...Where do his recordings save again...?
Or, Avery wakes up on January 1st with the vague feeling he's forgetting something really, really important.
amnesia au part 2 is rea. ive been writing it like three paragraphs at a time on my commute for weeks and now it's done. only one part left, and that's the reunion :)
this one is part of amnesia au, but it also 100% could be read without that context and works fine as a stand-alone post-canon fic (tho reading part one definitely enhances it)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
no bridge for bypassing crucifixion
skelew - 4.2k - first in a series
With all that noise, he must be above a street somewhere crowded, if he had to guess. Maybe somewhere downtown, if not on a street in a city somewhere.
…Wait. Why does he have to guess that? Shouldn’t he know where he is?
He blinks, slow, the gears in his head only now beginning to turn. Where is he? He can’t remember. Why can’t he remember?
Or, Derek Hutchins is destroyed. Somewhere, much later, a man wakes up on the floor
hey guys i watched a world that doesn't exist the other day and i liked it a normal amount. post canon d3rlord3 amnesia au. im going to become a trout
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hello! i'm planning on going to twitchcon eu and have been putting together a list of who else in this hermitcraft fandom might be there -- do you have any plans on going to twitchcon eu this year? no worries if not! :]
nope! i do not have cross the atlantic kinda money rn
a commission for @thriplerex-trx for his Fires of Raficon AU! it's a super cool and thoughtful sci fi / mecha AU based on Armored Core VI which includes a lot of mcyt ccs and fandom members. i highly recommend going thru the master post and checking out some of the bios and write ups!
this particular oneshot features a battle between E4 (Etho) and Strudel (Applestruda) on the Old Velvet Spaceport over E4's use of the Slab callsign (based on this post about bee secretly being ethoslab)
[bios for characters who appear in this oneshot: E4 (etho) + valther (vintagebeef) + artyn (inthelittlewood) || "slab" strudel (applestruda) || jaszmine (isjasz+empires!false) || c.iv scard (goodtimeswithscar) ]
A battlefield can be many things, but silent is never one of them. The sound of gunfire and explosions resounds for miles out from a battlefield, loud enough to rattle the teeth of even the most experienced pilot.
As E4-148 arrives at the Old Velvet Spaceport, the first thing he notices is the quiet. There’s no arcing missiles or shrieking metal or shouting comms, nothing E4 would expect of a fight underway. It’s eerie, a stillness reserved only for the grave.
E4 isn’t the only one who notices the silence. Artyn laughs in their head, though E4 can hear the note of nerves in the sound.
‘Don’t tell me Scard gave us the wrong ‘port,’ Artyn says.
“POE and ConVex forces should be here by now,” Handler Valther says, “Get closer. See if you can find what happened.”
The sky over the Old Spaceport is a violent orange. It casts striking shadows across the area, stark shapes reaching through the landing zone and leading E4 toward the scene of a mechanical massacre. The glowing sky matches the bright flames licking the damaged machinery strewn about, ACs and ships alike broken and mangled across the ground. Flickering fire is the only sound now, interrupted by the occasional groan of shifting machinery.
E4 may have the right place, but the battle is already over. POE and ConVex have already fought. But if they both lost, who won?
E4 scans the wreckage for an answer. There’s nothing in the broken ships, but E4 follows the trail of destruction until he sees a figure standing above the smoke.
“If that’s the person who destroyed all the ships, then they’re a serious threat. Be careful with your approach,” Handler Valther says.
Atop one of the destroyed ships is an AC that E4 has seen before, deep red and tan, standing tall above the wreckage. Unlike the other ships, and unlike the last time E4 saw it, this AC is undamaged and active, facing the smoldering sun.
The AC turns around as E4 approaches. The mercenary once known as Slab, or the ghost of her, stares E4 down.
“I’ve identified the target, Slab,” comes a voice over the comms—Jaszmine, says the title accompanying it. She uses E4’s callsign, but she isn’t talking to him. “That’s the mercenary who took your name. Let’s see how far he can tread… on borrowed stone.”
Slab doesn’t respond in words. E4 has a second to process before Slab fires a barrage of missiles, jumping aside just to watch the spot where they used to be standing go up in smoke.
“We’re not here to take the callsign back,” says Jaszmine, “But if you’re gonna call yourself Slab, you’d better earn it!”
Slab fires again as her handler talks, gunfire cutting through her voice. E4 ducks behind a damaged ConVex ship, disappearing into the ship’s heavy smoke.
The cover is fleeting at best. A loud mechanical whirr approaches E4’s hiding spot, the only warning E4 has to ready his own needle pistol.
“Stay cool, 148. Don’t rise to the bait,” Handler Valther says. Jazsmine’s laugh floods the comms, loud and crackling with static.
“Bait?” she asks, “Oh, I see. You’re a hound, aren’t you?”
Slab lands a few paces away from E4. His pistol is already blazing off the first shot, though Slab returns fire just as quickly. She’s a fast shooter—it’s no wonder she took out so many ships before E4 could even arrive.
“Slab, your drones,” Jaszmine says.
“Used them all against POE and ConVex,” Slab says. The comms denote her as “Slab” Strudel, though E4 isn’t particularly invested in the information, on account of all the gunfire. He is, however, invested in the missile launcher over her left shoulder, especially as the barrel flashes with light. E4 ducks as the missiles shoot right over him, but any satisfaction is short-lived as Slab shoots forward. Slab bashes him with her pilebunker, E4 bounding back to avoid having his AC shattered. It’s a heavy weapon—a direct hit from that thing would be devastating. E4 can’t afford to risk it.
“What’re you running away for?” Jaszmine taunts, almost singing over the sound of gunfire. E4 covers his retreat in a burst of bullets, though Slab has no issue meeting him blast for blast. “How can you call yourself Slab when all you do is run away? You’re supposed to be sturdier than that!”
‘If the callsign meant so much to her, maybe she should have taken better care of it,’ Artyn says. E4 ignores him. Slab fires on them again, another round of missiles from her left shoulder. When E4 dodges, it crashes into a ship just behind him. Something in the cargo explodes, pushing E4 forward.
“Careful, 148,” Handler Valther says. E4 tries to put ground between them, but every inch he backs away is an inch Slab takes. She dogs him closely, trying to close the distance for another swipe with her pilebunker.
There isn’t much room left between the ruined ships, but E4 and Slab circle the space, Slab shooting behind or ahead of E4 to draw him closer and closer to herself, all under the cover of E4’s return fire.
“What are you fighting for?” Jaszmine demands, “Just because you were told to? What motivates you, thief?”
“Right now, it’s not getting shot, mostly,” E4 says.
“Stay focused,” Handler Valther warns.
“What, scared he’ll actually think about it?” Jaszmine asks.
Slab charges E4 again, though the second hit also misses, if barely. E4 dodges, jumping as high as he can as he readies his laser and fires. Slab tries to boost out of the range, but the sound of metal screaming betrays her. Her AC’s leg is billowing black smoke, metal scraping with every movement.
“Strudel, do you read me?” Jaszmine asks.
“Loud and clear, Jaszmine,” Strudel replies, heavy static on her mic.
“Now that looks more familiar,” E4 comments. Jaszmine scoffs.
“You— oh, you’re so going down!” Jaszmine shouts, but Slab’s next movement is more jerky. A little damage isn’t enough to stop her, though—E4’s moment of rest is interrupted by another blinding shot, and it’s again off to the races as he dodges her attack.
Slab’s assault only heightens with the damage, a relentless, winding pursuit through the broken machinery strewn across the landing zone. Ships which could be cover turn to a minefield of shrapnel anytime E4 tries to put something between them, and any pause to breathe becomes an opening for Slab’s destructive pilebunker. There seems to be no stopping her, nor any claiming enough ground to make a shot.
“Slab, ConVex reinforcements are on the way,” Jaszmine says, “You need to finish this.”
E4 sees his opening. He stops, spinning on his heel to face Slab. She lunges at him, but as she makes her swing, E4 springs up. He points his bazooka down and blasts it. His target isn’t Slab’s core, though—E4 aims for her arm, detonating her most powerful weapon.
With her AC’s damaged leg, Slab can’t recover in time to move. The blast hits her head on, and Slab’s shocked scream becomes static on the mic.
“Slab?!” Jaszmine shouts, “Slab, do you read me?”
E4 watches the smoke billow off the AC. For a moment, he thinks Slab may be down, but her AC groans to life. Slab sits up in her AC, though the powerful pilebunker doesn’t come with her. The heavy arm collapses into a heap of metal beside her, shoulder sparking with exposed wires.
Strudel stares at E4, the machine’s eyes meeting his own.
“Good move,” she says, “You win this one, Slab.”
E4 doesn’t answer her. He braces as she stands, but she doesn’t attack again.
“ConVex is close. Get out of there,” Jaszmine says; Strudel hums an acknowledgment before boosting away, making a quick escape.
— — —
“Sorry I couldn’t be there to support you. ConVex needed me at another spaceport,” Scard’s voice comes in over the comms, cheerful as ever, “Not that you needed me! You handled that fight like a pro! I caught some of the tail end of it, you were all like boom! and pow! and the fight was over!”
E4 doesn’t say anything, but by the shifting noise he can hear over Scard’s mic, he thinks the man may be reenacting the battle with more than just his sound effects.
“Those two were pretty determined, huh? But they were no match for you,” Scard says, delighted. “The true Slab, you are!”
‘The true Slab…’ Artyn repeats, ‘Y’know, Slab, that callsign of yours is pretty special. I can see why Strudel wanted it back so badly.’
E4 tilts his head, a silent confirmation he’s listening.
‘It’s got a long history, passed down from mercenary to mercenary, just like how you got it from Strudel.’ Artyn explains, ‘Generations of independent mercenaries, all known for fighting for what they believe in.’
“And me,” E4 says. Martyn laughs at that.
‘What, you don’t have a grand fight in you?’ Artyn asks.
“What was that?” Scard asks, almost on top of Artyn, cutting in before E4 can even think of an answer.
“Nothing, nothing,” E4 says.
Scard chuckles, “If you say so.”
When E4 doesn’t respond to that, Scard sighs.
“Well, I need to go. Someone has to tell ConVex about your win! As well as all those ships…” Scard says. He disconnects from the comm, leaving E4 with a cheerful “buh-bye!”
Elsewhere, in his own ship, Scard’s cheerful smile wavers, smoothing into something a little off. He opens another channel, still grinning wide.
“I told you, didn’t I?” Scard says, “There’s a lot more to my buddy than meets the eye.”
i forgot it was sunday. the only thing i wrote this week was for an au i am going to give absolutely no context for. here is a little more than six sentences
"What's up with you?" Martyn asks. The demon tilts his head—another gesture Martyn has seen before, though he tries not to laugh.
"I mean, you keep staring. Do you want something?" Martyn asks.
The demon blinks. He only ever does that when he's confused, Martin's noticed. He doesn't need to blink otherwise.
"I mean, like... I know I'm a good looking guy, but come on," Martyn says. The demon's eyes crinkle—that got a laugh out of him, Martyn's sure of it. "If there's something you want, we can figure it out."
the demon is Ren. i dont know how to explain anything else this au is about
i want to try and get into the habit of doing six sentence sunday again. ive missed it and it IS genuinely useful in helping me write.
normally after posting a new work i post six fun facts instead of six sentences, so i'll do that now and try and resume w six sentences this sunday!
so, here are six fun facts about nightlight! oops all references and OCs
Opal and Esther's address, 11 Bakers Avenue, was a silly nod to anpanbun and 1-marigold-1's tumblr URLS, since i was using their fear creatures for this piece. (they were officially called "fear creatures" in marigold and anpan's story btw--i was calling them mares for this fic, but that's just bc i wanted a snappy name since i had to say it a lot)
like 90% of the scene where Ren and Martyn are talking by the fireplace wasn't in my original draft. i do that sort of thing pretty often, and scenes tend to get longer when i edit, but that one got So Much Longer. basically all the details about evo and his family got added, as did the stupid flirting and Martyn yearning. def the most edited scene by so much
in this scene, Martyn also mentions his dad. that IS a fleshed out character--people who know my illnesses will already know him, but in case you don't, his name is Jay. i use him in a few AUs and i am in love with him. in Lamplight I imagine him as having slight healing magic (but bc Martyn is a deadzone, it wouldn't work on him)
Opal and eEsther are otters! it didn't come up because i didnt think they had enough otter-y traits to make it immediately obvious to Martyn, but that's the animal they are
Esther's name was "Liv" for the entire first draft of nightlight. after i finished the fic, i asked my server if they had any thoughts on names that would be relevant to Ren or Martyn's lores. Anpan offered Esther, after an NPC Martyn liked in a game he played like 10+ years ago, because Anpan is insane. I used that one bc i appreciated the insanity
i said in the fic's notes that Opal was based on a One Piece character. that character is Tama! she also kind of steals a little bit from Daisy, another One Piece character. Opal's magic and name from from Tama (a name meaning jewel, hence Opal), though her personality didn't fully end up stealing from her (which is a good thing)
there are my six fun facts! hope to be back soon with six sentences as well!
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An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
nightlight
skelew - 11,094 words - Part 6 of Lamplight, set between Sleeping Hound and Winter's Herald
Martyn's boots crunch against leaves and gravel as he approaches the house, the small flyer clutched in one hand. It looks like any other old house, albeit tinged with the same eeriness that plagues this area. The windows are dirty, and the highest window, which Martyn can only assume is the attic, is boarded over. The eaves slope in odd places, and the front step creaks loudly as Martyn steps up to the door.
This house, he notices, boasts yet another willow, tall and looming over the house’s back windows. It, too, has lost most of its leaves, its branches abandoned to sway in the wind, creaking and scratching against each other and the wall.
The willow isn't the only sound. Martyn can hear another odd noise, but he can't for the life of him place what it's supposed to be. It sounds kind of like something wailing on the wind... is that the beast the flyer was for?
Or, Martyn takes a job to slay a beast trapped within a family's attic.
ive finally updated lamplight for the first time in like.... 1000 years,,,,, ohgod. realized i was stuck w the big plot pieces and decided to try and write smth that was fully fresh and came up w this!
the mare featured in the fic is a creation by @anpanbun and @1-marigold-1 !!! i really appreciate em letting me use their fear creatures for this fic bc theyre super cool little guys
thank you so much to everyone who's been very supportive w lamplight so far, especially w how sporadic my updates are. i hope you guys enjoy this piece!
"We’re in a pretty similar spot right now. I don’t know who put you down here, but there’s bad people running around your place now. They’re keeping me here, and I’m running out of options."
It's been two years since I last made lamplight fanart (fic by @liloinkoink ) So, having rediscovered it recently, here is Martyn! I also looked at the official designs for the first time today.
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None of this happens in the story, but Ren does want to kill the captain at every opportunity sooo, I'd figure he dreams about it sometimes and I did a silly little thing with it 💥💥💥💥
Put “📓” or some other version of a book emoji into my inbox and I’ll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven’t written but daydream about
hmm. i know i have like three yellow rose au oneshots posted here and ao3 and ive written a fair bit of it, but You Guys don’t know about most of it, so what the hell. let’s talk about yellow rose au, esp bc we've made a change fairly recently to classic branch.
for anyone who hasnt seen it, yellow rose AU is a hero/villain AU made by @cherrifire and i. Ren is the hero Frostburn, who has both temperature control abilities and rapid/enhanced healing. Martyn is the villain Thorn, who uses a variety of artificial powers; he was formerly Rose, Frostburn's sidekick, though he defected due to feeling unappreciated. we have Ren and Martyn as like, 18/19 in this AU, and here are their designs (or. redesigns. from this year). like I said, I've posted three pieces from this AU, but I dunno I'll ever post the whole thing, so like. what the hell, why not, ill put a summary of the fic's like... outline if it were written out. won’t go into too much detail w everything so i can eventually post more fic but def Enough detail i think
THIS IS GOING TO BE REALLY LONG. summary below the cut, including linked to the oneshots I've posted and some doodles by Cherri + an unposted fic excerpt by us both from when we made this au back in July 2023.
Okay, I'm opening this with a content warning,
CW for Ren's backstory, which comes up in the middle of this, because it's definitely the darkest thing in this AU probs one of the darker things in our AUs in general: near-fatal harm to a child and hanging. Ren had to get the neck scar from somewhere.
Ren and Martyn are childhood friends, having met when they were 10. Both Ren and Martyn are carrying some pretty big secrets/wounds by the time they meet that make it hard for either of them to make friends, so once they have each other, they become very close and very attached. Martyn even moves in with Ren, as neither of them currently live with family, when the two are in high school.
One of Ren's own secrets is that he has powers, and he's terrified of using them. But Martyn loves heroes and idealizes the idea of heroes a lot; It’s Martyn who inspires Ren to stop fearing his powers, and eventually to become a hero, Frostburn, albeit in secret. Keeping a secret like this for months creates a distance, and Martyn is hurt by Ren’s sudden pulling away from him, especially when Ren misses Martyn's birthday.
When Martyn figures out what Ren is doing, he decides to become Ren’s sidekick, crafting the persona of Rose. Unlike Frostburn, who fights by using his fire and ice powers, Martyn uses his interest in robotics to create gadgets he can use to fight with. The two take on a number of villains together, becoming the city's most famous hero duo.
After a few years of fighting villains together side-by-side, though, Martyn's injured badly during a fight, which leaves him with a large scar on his cheek. Ren gets really scared by this—he has healing powers and will recover from an injury like that, but Martyn? If Martyn suffers another injury like that, he could die. He starts convincing Martyn to stay home, which just upsets Martyn, because he feels like Ren thinks he's weak and that Ren doesn't trust him. He's back to sitting around and feeling powerless every time Ren encounters a real, dangerous enemy, the same way he did when Ren was hiding his identity from Martyn. Martyn's just as scared of losing Ren as Ren is of losing Martyn, and so being left to sit at home scares him. He tries talking to Ren about it, but Ren won't budge.
The fics we've posted start here. After a few weeks of being benched for every serious fight, Martyn meets Doc by chance—Doc claims to be a scientist studying powers, and he has a plan to help fix things. He offers to give Martyn short term artificial powers, telling Martyn he should fight Frostburn using them. When Martyn wins against Frostburn, he'll be able to take the mask off and show Frostburn he's strong and doesn't need to be left behind. Perfect plan! And he even helps Doc by doing it by testing the effectiveness of Doc's artificial powers for him, offering valuable practical data to Doc's research. Doc also requests Martyn bring Frostburn back for a blood sample—dual powers like Frostburn's fire and ice are so rare, after all. It would be so helpful to Doc's research if he could study how they work, so it's really the least Martyn can do...
Martyn is skeptical at first, but eventually accepts Doc's help. Doc doesn't just gift Martyn powers, though—he also gifts Martyn a suit of armor that will protect him from injuries and enhance his strength, and helps him create a villain persona, Thorn, so that he can take on Frostburn without Ren knowing it's Martyn he's fighting.
(Doc and Martyn doodle, to make Doc a distinct design different from Datastream DOC, who he was based off of, and also decide what the armor under Thorn's costume looks like. Cherri later removed Martyn from this doodle, colored Doc, and posted him as a full design. We've used him in a lot of AUs now as a reoccurring villain, and he has sort of ended up an OC with a pretty distinct personality that is fairly divorced from the datastream lore character)
(Though only one power can be used at a time, both Doc and Martyn's injectors have three slots for three powers. Martyn always keeps a vial of teleportation in the third slot, so he can always escape in a pinch)
Even with Doc’s assortment of random abilities, though, Thorn isn’t strong enough to beat Frostburn. To make matters worse, Ren often tells Martyn Thorn is no issue at all when the two talk about the villain, not wanting to stress Martyn out with the fact that Thorn is a genuinely tricky and powerful foe. This gets worse when Martyn drops out of being Rose entirely, wanting to focus on getting stronger and better as Thorn, as Ren lies about his struggles to Martyn so as not to worry his friend. The more Martyn pulls away, the worse Thorn becomes, the more Ren lies to Martyn to make sure he isn't stressed, the more Ren makes it seem like he doesn't need Rose, the further Martyn pulls away from Ren. It's a vicious cycle, and it wears their friendship to the ground.
This comes to a head with Thorn deciding to burn down their home, in a last ditch effort to prove to himself their friendship means anything at all to Ren. He needs to see that even if Ren doesn’t care about Thorn or need Rose, he’ll still come to Martyn’s rescue. He knows, or thinks he knows, that Ren's terrified of something happening to Martyn, so he targets "Martyn" as Thorn.
Doc, Martyn's main confidant for all of his plans, ventures onto the field the evening of the fire. He knows what Thorn is planning and why, and knows that if Frostburn doesn't show up, it will destroy their friendship. So he uses his own armor and artificial powers to hold Ren up in a fight, stopping him from going home to put the fire out. The apartment burns without Frostburn ever showing up, leaving Martyn to believe Ren has abandoned him entirely, and leading Ren to believe Martyn is... missing. Not dead. He can't be dead.
This is Ren's worst fear realized, as it's happened to him before, with him in Martyn's shoes. Ren grew up in another city, where his parents become a famous hero duo in their city. When Ren was around 8, he was targeted and nearly killed in an attempt to hurt the otherwise untouchable hero duo, and a couple of villains broke into their home when Ren's parents were out.
Ren awakened his own powers that night, with them activating after Ren is nearly hanged. His healing abilities allowed him to survive what would have otherwise been a fatal injury with nothing but a scar around his neck, and his temperature powers awakened with a vengeance in response to his own fear, leading to Ren accidentally killing his attackers. In the aftermath, Ren's parents moved him out of their home city to keep him out of harm's way from other local villains who could target him, which is what led Ren to meet Martyn.
Ren had been terrified of being recognized or even seen at all, and thus was not particularly social; he was completely unable to bring himself to talk. Martyn had been the only person completely undeterred talking to someone totally nonverbal, and had tried to befriend him anyway. After the first time Martyn made Ren break his silence to laugh, they were basically inseparable.
(Since I talked about Ren's backstory, here's a couple of doodles of Ren as a kid and his parents. They don't show up a lot in this AU, but we've used them a lot in other AUs if Ren needed a parent. The dad's name is Charlie and the mom's name is Clementine. Their hero names are Red and Wolf, and their powers are vitality drain and wolf shifting. Vampire and werewolf, basically!)
(Martyn is aware of all of this, as he'd asked about the scar around Ren's neck when they were younger. Martyn is also aware of the fact Ren is generally uncomfortable with being touched on his neck at all, and that any kind of pressure on the front of Ren's throat or loss of breath also freaks Ren out a lot).
This experience also made Ren very afraid of something happening to Martyn because of him becoming a hero, and made him especially protective of Martyn. Not that it mattered, it seems, because villains found and targeted Martyn anyway.
Back to the present, Ren swears revenge on Thorn for taking Martyn from him. He moves in with a hero group known as the Red Army, not knowing where else to go. They're the ones who show Ren the footage of the apartment fire to let him know Thorn burned it, and offer to help him find Thorn and capture him.
Martyn is now convinced the only way he can fix their friendship is by beating Frostburn. If Frostburn doesn't care about him anymore because he was too weak, he has to prove himself. He moves in with Doc, the only person he feels still cares for him.
(Definitely a trustworthy guy to rely on for emotional support)
Thorn and Frostburn have a few more fights, though they're different now. Thorn is far less willing to banter, and Frostburn's hits are far more intense. Both of them are taking this far more seriously, as both of them are hurting far more. Thorn uses different powers basically every fight, but with the data from his field testing, his powers are lasting longer and becoming stronger.
If you've hero hero/villain from Cherri and I before, we've recently made a change and told absolutely no one, and it's how Frostburn learns Thorn's identity.
One of the powers Thorn uses pulls the user and their victim into little unreality bubbles based of their memories. Ren assumes he's been pulled into his own memories by Thorn to hurt him, as he sees a lot of memories of himself and Martyn, though it quickly becomes clear he's actually seeing Martyn's memories. He sees a conversation where he'd told Martyn he couldn't come with him onto the field, but instead of the memory following Ren to battle, it stays with Ren, hurt and rejected, watching the fight from home.
Ren goes running to find Martyn in this space, passing by other memories. He sees one of Martyn putting on the Thorn suit, which confirms his new suspicion, though he still doesn't fully understand why Martyn is doing this. As he moves through the memories, hoping to find Martyn today, he instead finds Martyn as a child.
If I were to actually write this as a fic, I would have Ren come face-to-face with the memory of child Martyn and his robot dad, then just end the chapter there, so the next chapter would be the oneshot I already posted of Martyn's backstory. I won't go into too much detail since you can read that, but I'll give a short version.
About 20 years prior to the start of the story, an apocalyptic event wipes half the world’s cities off the map and grants special powers and mutations to a fair portion of the survivors. This has been alluded to a few times in the posted fics as the Change. While Ren was born slightly after the Change grew up in one of the surviving cities, Martyn did not. He was an infant when it happened, and was saved by a robotic nurse. They wandered what's known as the "wastes," the areas where no civilizations remained, and the robot cared for Martyn until he ran out of power when Martyn was about 10. At this point Martyn was finally found by someone who brought him to the city of Dogwarts, where he met Ren.
(Please look at our robot I think about him every day of my life he's so so dear to me.)
(His serial number is J-L1-77L3W00D, and when Martyn ends up in the city, he picks Littlewood as a surname because it resembles the bot's "name." The bot technically never actually gets a name in this AU, as Martyn only ever calls him "dad," but In other AUs where we've used him in he's called J or Jay, depending on if he's a robot or a human)
(Ren knows some of Martyn's past, though Martyn's never been specific with the details. For example, while Ren knows Martyn grew up in the wastes and was raised by a nurse, Martyn has never mentioned even once his dad was a robot. It just never came up)
Spending 10 years wandering the world believing that there were no large survivor groups and he was one of the only people left alive gave Martyn a profound fear of being alone. One that came true, because Ren abandoned him. Ren finally finds Thorn in the mindscape, but his attempts to talk to Thorn fall flat. Thorn's far too convinced that, unless he proves himself to Ren, Ren will inevitably leave him. Nothing Ren says to him gets through to him.
Ren's focus shifts in their next fights. He starts trying to get Martyn to come home, but Martyn just won't. We have a few specific scenes of them interacting from this stretch of time, though we've never quite ironed them out in full.
A little after Ren finds out Thorn is Martyn (and Martyn is alive), Martyn's birthday rolls around. This is the only holiday Martyn cares about (he and his dad never celebrated any others growing up), and he likes spending it just hanging out with the person he cares for most. He used to spend it just hanging out with Ren, but they can't now, so he tries spending this one on his own. This makes him miserable and makes him feel truly alone, and so by the end of the evening, he decides well, Ren is still his best friend, after all, or he's supposed to be. He shows up at the Red Army base with a cake to split with Ren, calling a single evening truce so they can finish out his birthday together. It's really awkward and mostly silent, and it kind of just sucks and isn't a good experience, but Martyn still thinks of it as better than the birthday Ren missed entirely.
(This is Martyn's hoodie that Ren is wearing IIRC)
Somewhere in this stretch of time, Doc starts asking Martyn for extra help. The field tests are great, of course, but he tries a few smaller thing on Martyn in the lab. Instead of only giving Martyn stable powers, he also tries some that he hasn't quite stablized yet. After all, Martyn lives at the lab. He may as well help, since he's here all day anyway...
A little after this, the Red Army—I don't think I said who was in that group yet, it's Skizz, BigB, Etho, Joel, and Impulse—fights Thorn without Frostburn and manages to actually beat him. They bring him back to the Red Army base, where there's a small holding cell. They use power suppressant cuffs (bulky handcuffs which stop people from using their powers if they're wearing them. Sort of like seastone from One Piece, but without the energy-draining effect. They just shut your powers off) and bring Thorn to the holding cell, and then Ren finds out he's there. After their awkward birthday truce, Ren decides to go talk to Martyn, trying to get through to him.
Martyn sort of acts like this is the end of the world, because if he's caught, Ren will never think he's strong. He doesn't want Ren to see him like this at all, and decides he has to escape. He has teleportation in his injector, but he needs the power suppressants off of him to use it. So when Ren starts talking, he barely listens. He says what he thinks Ren wants to hear—that he'll give up as Thorn, that he'll come home, that he'll stop trying to go on the field, that he's sorry, that he misses Ren, that he wants to be friends again, whatever makes Ren open that holding cell door. And it works. Ren does open the door, he does go into the cell. Martyn asks to have the bulky cuffs removed so he can hug Ren, and when Ren frees him, he injects teleportation while he reaches around Ren's back to hug him.
The artificial powers take a little while to settle, but Martyn uses teleportation basically immediately. It only takes him outside the door, but that's all it needs to do, because Martyn just kicks the cell door closed and escapes while Ren is trapped inside.
I think this moment is kind of a turning point—it's the first time Martyn is really seeing the actual hurt on Ren's face because of what he's doing. Up until now, I don't think Martyn ever really considered he could actually hurt Ren, and the realization makes him panic. He's put so much stock into the idea that everything will go back to normal once he beats Ren and proves himself, he doesn't want to think about the idea that might not be true. Meanwhile, Ren is left sitting in the cell, starting to confront the fact that Martyn might be too far gone to bring back.
They fight a few times after that, but they're both kind of desperate—Ren to be wrong, and Martyn to be right. Cherri's piece for Yellow Rose AU for treebark week a while back takes place around this era of the plot.
(It was for the prompt "ground," and Thorn is using earth manipulation as a power. It's actually the same power Doc uses when he fights Ren the one time, fun fact!)
Around this area of time there's a holiday which Ren normally visits his parents for. Martyn usually comes with him, though Ren has... not really told them about anything that's been going on (don't ask me how he hid the fire from them I don't know). He doesn't want them to worry, either, but now he doesn't know how to explain why Martyn isn't here with him. Until he actually gets home and Martyn... is there, lying to his parents about getting a job that's kept him too busy to see Ren much. It's awkward as hell but the two of them have to pretend nothing has changed for a weekend which just makes them both weirder and more confused and desperate, especially because they both have to sleep in the same bed when staying here.
They fight more. Martyn's desperation to win makes him cross a line he shouldn't. He uses puppetry, a power which creates threads that wrap around and pilot his victim. He does beat Ren, drawing on Ren’s childhood trauma to do so, scaring Ren so badly he's barely able to fight back. Ren’s trust in him is shattered, and he decides their friendship really is ruined. Martyn tries his best to talk about how strong he is and how he can return to Ren's side, but Ren won't talk to him. He's once again dead silent.
Martyn doesn't know what to do, so he brings Ren to Doc, since he's been relying on Doc's advice this whole time. This results in Doc finally having a mask off moment and truly stepping into his role as the story's actual antagonist, which is always my favorite part of writing him.
The moment Martyn starts really having doubts and trying to apologize or free Ren, Doc comes out of the lab to greet them. He stuns Ren and reveals Martyn's suit has a remote control. He uses it to enable a lock function (see those tubes on all his arms and legs?), immobilizing Martyn. I'm just gonna screenshot this whole conversation because it's fun, so take some writing from like two years ago that Cherri and I did together.
(If these screenshots are hard to read, sorry. Can you tell I fucking love writing Doc)
Martyn realizes all at once how terrible of a mistake he's made trusting Doc and turning against Ren, deciding that he has to do whatever he can to save Ren and get them both out of here, especially since Ren won't be able to free himself as he's constantly stunned. Martyn goes through Doc's desk while Doc is gone to find out how to get into the cell in his lab and ends up finding a lethal poison instead. He pockets it, bringing it with him when he actually stages their escape.
Martyn tries to break into the lab when Doc isn't there, but Doc catches him. Martyn pulls out the poison, but Doc has a trick of his own, which is more poison! The tube over Martyn's heart in his own suit has has poison in it the entire time Martyn's been wearing it, in case Martyn ever tried something like this, though the two of them are at a stalemate. Martyn’s got his vial up to Doc’s neck, and Doc’s got his finger on the remote.
Doc says basically anything to get Martyn not to do it, trying to get him to pull the vial away (so he can kill him without being killed himself). He appeals to them being on the same team, he claims Ren will never forgive him so he should just stay with Doc. He even tries one of those "kill me and you'll become a just like me, a real villain" speeches but, while Martyn does falter, it ends up having the opposite effect, upsetting Martyn enough that Martyn kills him.
(He died doing what he loved: monologuing)
With Doc defeated and Martyn freed, Martyn takes Ren to the Red Army base where the two of them finally talk through what caused the rift in the first place—their mutual fear of losing each other. They’re both hurting, but can admit that all either of them have ever wanted is to stay by one another’s side, and their fear of losing that is what caused their split to happen. They both apologize to one another for where they’d failed—Ren in the start by making Martyn feel unwanted, and Martyn in the end for going way too far trying to prove himself. Their trust and relationship is definitely damaged, but both of them want to fix it, and decide they’ll work on fixing it together this time.
Which,
Uh, if anyone has questions about this AU, feel free to ask I guess?
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