I went in skeptical. An AI girlfriend sounded like a gimmick. But one evening on sweetdream.ai turned that around fast. Designing her was genuinely fun, and the first real conversation felt warm and surprisingly natural.

“Trace, I’m retiring from superheroes,” Ted says strolling back into their house like he hadn’t dipped out on her in the middle of a KORD inc. event and had been gone with no notice for a week. He’s got a bunch of new fresh bruises and gives her a note from a doctor stating that he’s got a concussion and suffered a near electrocution and that he should probably follow up with his primary care doctor as soon as possible. His big brown eyes are red at the edges like he’d been crying. That makes the most sense out of everything, the anniversary of Professor Garrett’s death was just the other day. Ted always gets down in the dumps around this time of year.

“Sure you are, Ted,” Tracey replies, she doesn’t really have any faith that he means it. He’s clearly concussed. Plus, sometimes when things get rough Teddy makes a big stink about quitting only to end up in tights again whenever anyone needs him. “So what was it this time? There was something on the news about the Justice League disappearing around when you left.”

Ted flops bonelessly on the couch and raises an eyebrow at her, “There were also a bunch of military bases getting attacked around the world too, or did that not get reported?”

“Teddy, I don’t care about military bases getting attacked,” Tracey shrugs as she grabs a bottle of water for him from the fridge, “the job of a soldier is to kill people or die for their country. Attacking military bases is the least villainous thing that someone could do, it's just a valid war tactic.”

“Don’t let Cap or the Peacemakers hear you say that,” Ted chuckled as he accepted the water and took a sip.  

“...So?” Tracey asked again as she joined her husband on the couch. There’s a certain glassiness to his eyes around the redness that she’s seen enough to know that he’s coming out of a concussion and is probably fuzzy around the edges with his memory. It's a miracle that the repeated brain injuries that he’s sustained during his superhero career have done nothing to dull or hamper the intelligence that Ted has. Her nose crinkles a bit being this close, he reeks of sweat. A shower is very much needed.

“...? Ah, right. So, this guy’s ex-sidekick turned villain. Kinda, honestly the most evil thing he did was shunt the Justice League into another dimension. Otherwise he was, like, trying to end all war by getting rid of everyone’s militaries. Especially attacking US and Israeli forces which, completely understandable if the goal is world peace. Plus, he had, like, a whole orphanage of war orphans he was taking care of… I kinda feel bad helping take the guy down. Like, I get it, war bad and the only thing that makes the powers that be really sit up and pay attention is violence,” Ted starts.

Tracey snorts, “Don’t let the Justice League hear that. They’ll think you’re going villain.”

“Nnnn, I mean yer not wrong about a few of the Leaguers, but back on topic,” He shrugs, “So Vic broke into the Beetle Nest again to contact me because that man is nothing if not extra. And then the two of us got roped into a military operation with the rest of the Past Life gang investigating the guy, Avatar by the way, formerly Tiger, sidekick to some guy active in the forties called Judomaster. Both of them younger than they’d be otherwise from magic.” 

He stopped to get another sip of water before continuing, “Had to help take him down to save the Justice League. And Captain Atom who was kidnapped to be a battery. At least that’s why I fought. Plus the guy was trying to use that satellite we made for NASA as a weapon and that’s not cool.”

Tracey turned the channel on the tv to the news and lowered the volume as she listened to Ted keep going.

“...You know how I get around the anniversaries of Dan’s death. Folks turning something I made into a weapon to hurt people is… it reminds me of what happened with Uncle Jarvis… My head’s not been great the past few days. Hmm, it wouldn’t be too much to get steak for dinner would it?”

“I can make steak. We’ve also got potatoes and can get rid of the rest of the kale in a salad.” Tracey replies. It’s not unusual for Ted to ask about food after a bad time, he is a bit of a stress eater. Steak does sound good tho.

“Have I mentioned that I love you? Cause I do,” He leans over on her heavily and plants a kiss on her cheek. Then he stays leaning on her like a lead blanket because it doesn’t occur to him to move his beefy ass. “So anyway. We saved the day. I almost died. Had a heart to heart with Vic and he…suggested that I retire. …Since, I’ve… done a lot to do right by Dan already. And this isn’t–this superhero biz isn’t good for me. I can still help people without risking my life.”

Tracey gets up from the couch, letting Ted fall all the way down to the cushions. There’s tears in his eyes. She bites her tongue to avoid saying what she thinks about Ted’s ability to stay retired. They don’t need to argue right now, especially when Ted isn’t feeling well.

“Alright,” She says instead, “remind me to send Vic a thank you card. Hell, if his calendar’s free maybe the three of us can go on another dinner date. It’s been awhile since we last had fun with him.”

……

The next day Ted sleeps in instead of getting up for his morning workout routine. Sure, it makes sense given he’s recovering from a concussion and near electrocution. But superheroes don’t make sense and like to abuse their bodies to hell and back even when they should rest and recover.

Wife he ain't seen in over 25 yrs back and blatantly trying to smash, doing her damndest to seduce this man, and he's over here like 'That's nice, dear. Hey my lab assistant isn't dead after all, can we go see what he's up to?'

also wild that Kai really went 'well you gotta eat devil flesh and wear a heavy suit to become a devil right? If I consume enough devil tumors and wear enough layers of sorcerer flesh… that's basically the same thing isnt it?'

man just kinda mad scienced/hungry hungry caterpillared his way into devilhood huh?

so the boys were killing 100 sorcerers a day for about a week for Kai's plan...that's like 3500 sorcerers used for parts/consumed by Kai just for the metamorphosis into the fucking tube moth devil suit pupa phase. And then ate fucking 11 whole sorcerers and like half of Ton and a chunck of Ushishimada b4 the sludge bath and second metamorphosis into more of a devil like thing.

fucking hungry hungry caterpillar ass bastard

--

[id: A screenshot of the Dorohedoro cartoon showing the character Aikawa seated, top open exposing some of his chest and stomach, and dripping with black goo. His eyes closed and his expression exhausted.

Aikawa: Let me just die like this. /end id]

--

We know this man eats. He loves beer. He loves gyoza. He's full of high pressure dumpster juice. Why is his ass so dehydrated?!

here's a thought about the AI collective being a big eater/constantly hungry:

They're kinda of a mutated zombie thing, which tend to be hungry. And also fucker has like 9 mostly living bodies crammed in one… dude probably needs a certain amount of calories to keep all his parts functioning correctly

Kaiman whining and crying about how he's *starving* after having not eaten for an hour might actually be true. His current body that he's wearing is probably perfectly fine but one of his back ups is probably in need

(also good lords the amount the Ai collective had to eat to collectively get as big as they do as an adult. Cause like Ai only got a bit taller in the coffin while he was dead, he was scrawny as shit and still had much growing to do when he first got into the sorcerer world and the baby crosseyes started following him around. No wonder the Crosseyes close to the boss learned quickly that Kai will give them his time if they feed him)

thought in addendum to 'the Ai collective is constantly hungry cause they've got nine bodies to support and only one mouth to eat with normally':

Even still, as an adult the collective should be thicker. The crosseyes were certainly making sure that Kai was well fed. As much as he was costing her, Nikaido def made sure Kaiman was eating enough to not complain much. I have to assume that the allowance that Kai left for Aikawa was enough to keep him fed and Aikawa ate whenever fucking felt like it. And was not above stealing food if he felt like it.

if you think about it, Kai's purpose in being in the sorcerer world is not unlike a bear parking in a river full of salmon...