OnAHiatus

If Earth Bet could jump with excitement, it probably would have. After days of experimenting, it had finally managed to keep an animal’s attention for as long as it wanted, even when there were other things it might have preferred to do. It was a small victory, admittedly, and Earth Bet suspected it

The blonde girl sitting at the bar had been nursing the same glass for the better part of an hour, seemingly in no particular hurry to finish it. There wasn’t much else to occupy her attention, anyway, especially in a place like this. Tucked away on a poorly lit street, the establishment was little

The next few days continued in such a mundane fashion that, before Naruto knew it, it was time for the next meeting. He had almost forgotten about it. The village had been busy enough to keep his attention elsewhere. There were still people coming to him with questions that probably could have been

Amy had spent most of the morning trying to work out who Vicky meant by the affected party, but every time she returned to the same answer, she ran into the same problem. Carol hadn’t been affected. Amy had never used the parasite on her, and whatever she might have intended to do, she had stopped b

Naruto kissed Hinata, and when she moved closer, his arm came around her without him thinking about it. He could feel the warmth of her against him, familiar enough that he hardly noticed the movement anymore, yet there was still something about having her this close that made the rest of the world

Naruto watched one of his clones send Greg sprawling across the training floor. The boy managed to catch himself before his face met the ground, though that was probably the only thing he had done right in the last thirty seconds. After giving him a moment to get back on his feet, the clone moved in

Taylor was sure the animals were watching her. Every time she glanced around, there seemed to be one nearby, staring at her with its little beady eyes or making its way towards her. Sometimes it was a pigeon on a windowsill, while other times it was a stray cat or dog that stopped whatever it was do

The last of the lizards collapsed beside a stream of molten rock, its claws scraping against the ground as it struggled to move. Colin kept his distance until it stopped moving altogether, then lowered the jagged piece of stone he had been using as a weapon. His arms ached, his breathing was ragged,

Ever since Taylor had acquired the Omnitrix, she had found herself in more strange and unusual situations than she could reasonably have anticipated. Fighting giant monsters, discovering that aliens existed, intimidating Lung, meeting the Triumvirate, and being dragged across dimensions by an Endbri

Despite his new limbs, patrolling on his motorcycle was as smooth as ever. They caused no hindrance, almost as though they weren’t there at all. One adjusted his rearview mirror while another scratched his exposed chin, and he had to admit that being able to relieve an itch without taking his hands

The room was well lit, with numerous screens showing what was going on elsewhere. Sitting comfortably, Coil observed the footage, some screens providing more information than others, while the rest offered reviews of ongoing events. Two of the screens were showing the news. Each came from a differen

Earth Bet focused on the animals gathered around the tree, following their movements across the bark and through the surrounding undergrowth. It sensed their heartbeats, the contractions of their muscles, and the countless signals passing through their nervous systems as they explored their surround

While a subset of humanity scrambled to find a way to communicate with Earth Bet, the planet itself had more pressing matters to attend to. Namely, figuring out what the hell it was supposed to do with the ring. The first problem was obviously its size. The thing had clearly been designed with human

Greg stared open-mouthed at the enormous building in front of him, struggling to take in everything from the glass frontage to the sleek metal framework running along the upper floors. The place looked like something straight out of a superhero movie, and he could only imagine what the training faci

By the time Naruto finally made it home, slowed down by the many people who stopped him to talk, something he was still getting used to even years later, the sun had been gone for hours. He pushed open the front door and stepped inside, already preparing himself for the usual chaos. After the hours

The first thing Armsmaster noticed about the video was that Leet had stopped talking. It was a small detail, easily overlooked beneath the shaky footage and the excited shouting of whoever had recorded the fight. Leet was usually incapable of keeping his mouth shut when he thought he had an audience

The Z-Team’s meeting room had never been designed with comfort in mind. Everything about it seemed intended to remind its occupants that they were being watched and evaluated, from the immaculate white surfaces and reinforced glass partitions to the camera mounted in the corner of the ceiling. Its r

The ability to overcome great fear came with a ring designed for humans, or at least for beings considerably smaller than a planet, but that was apparently all Earth Bet was getting. There had been no instruction manual, no helpful explanation of what the ring was or how it worked, and certainly no

As morbid as it sounded, the Simurgh’s actions on Earth Bet, before sending her through the portal, had made Taylor accustomed to the casual destruction of lives and property. She had watched buildings collapse, streets disappear beneath the ocean, and people die in numbers so large that it became d

Danny was a coward. A powerless coward, at that. He knew what his daughter was going through, or at least he knew enough to understand that she was suffering. Taylor had told him about the loops, about dying and waking up again, about all the things she had seen and experienced that no one her age s

Objective Complete. Requirement: Survive for 5 minutes. Status: Complete. The words remained suspended in front of Taylor, translucent against the forest, while several feet away, the last living goblin lay sprawled on the ground. It twitched once, and Sophia raised the rock she was holding before b

The day Earth Bet had readied itself for came when Leviathan attacked Brockton Bay. The planet had not known what it was waiting for when it made that promise to itself. It had only known that someday, something would happen that would demand more from it than watching. And for a while, nothing did.

There was a difference between being sentient and being sapient. For the planet however, who had only just awakened, there was little distinction to be made. It had only just become aware of itself. Whether that awareness made it sentient, sapient, or something in between was a question for another

It had taken Amy long enough, but she finally managed to catch Victoria on one of the rare evenings when they were both home and neither of their parents were around. Their parents had gone out for date night. They still did that, somehow. No matter how busy things got, they seemed determined to kee

Naruto reached the meeting chamber a few minutes before the meeting was scheduled to begin. He slowed as he approached the doors, glancing at the people gathered in the corridor and recognizing several of the representatives who were already making their way inside. The meeting was going to be large

Powerlessness is a vicious cycle. You rage and rage and rage against the unfairness of it all, until the anger exhausts itself and leaves you crying instead. Then you cry and cry and cry as the truth of your inability finally sets in, and once the tears have run dry, you find yourself raging all ove

It took longer than Clark had thought reasonable. Earth Bet had changed considerably since his arrival, and while he liked to think that some of those changes had been for the better, the people living on the planet had spent too long being betrayed, manipulated, and hurt to accept something as extr

For the average denizen of Earth Bet, or Sector 3602, life was shit. There were plenty of ways to die. You could be caught in the crossfire of a cape fight on your way to work, crushed beneath a collapsing building because some idiot with super strength had decided that throwing a car through it was

What Paradox had called a settlement gradually came into view as they continued across the dry landscape. Taylor had expected something more substantial, probably because she had grown up around cities and gotten used to thinking of settlements as places with roads, buildings, and clearly defined bo

Naruto had spent most of the previous night forgetting about the envelope. At least, that was what he had told himself. He had taken it out of his pocket after returning to the couch, looked at the seal, and then put it away again when Boruto had wanted to see the photograph. After that, there had b

The sad reality about life was that it was indifferent to our pleas, our desires, and our hopes. It didn’t matter whether we wanted something or not, or even whether it was good or bad for us. What would happen would happen. There was no denying life; as much as people might rage and scream about de

The Lantern series is soooooooooo fucking good, and I've been itching to start working on it. I've got the basic premise down: a Guardian reaches out to Cauldron because of the existence of Scion and the entities and promises them that should they find someone who isn't afraid, they will be given th

Robert Robertson III had never been particularly good at goodbyes, and he was worse at them when the thing he was saying goodbye to had been part of his family for nearly fifty years. The press conference was over. After everything that had led up to it, the reporters, the cameras, the questions, an

The goblin swung its club, and Greg threw himself sideways. The weapon smashed into the tree where his head had been a moment earlier, sending splinters of bark flying across his face. He stumbled when he landed, nearly falling, then caught himself against the trunk and kept running. Objective: Surv

The second meeting with Chief Director Rebecca Costa-Brown happened on a random rooftop in the docks late one night. It was admittedly annoying, since his actions had left him hounded day and night by both civilians and capes, and this was one of the few precious moments he had managed to find for h

The answer, as it turned out, had been floating beside her for most of the night. Corpsemaker shifted her attention toward the spirit orb without taking her awareness away from Lung, an easy enough distinction now that the creature had become so thoroughly integrated with her senses. Its slit pupil

Death was something Taylor knew intimately, and she wasn’t talking only about her own. Her mum had died in a car crash, and even after a year and several months, the grief still had a way of catching her off guard. She had learned to live with it, though there were days when she could still remember

Naruto had learned that there were very few things in life more difficult than getting a two-year-old to sit still. “Boruto.” His son continued crawling beneath the table. “Boruto, come out of there.” A small hand reached farther beneath the table, followed by another determined grunt. Naruto leaned

Colin crossed through the doorway with the rest of the Brockton Bay Protectorate members, all of them still in their civilian clothes. Thankfully, the Wards had been spared whatever this was, although that did little to make the situation less absurd. They had agreed to follow whatever instructions

The three of them arrived at the press conference with just enough time to slip in through the side and find a place away from the main crush of reporters and cameras. Mandy had insisted on taking the car, arguing that there was no reason to make an already complicated morning more complicated by fl

Taylor knew two things about the sniper. They were watching her. More importantly, they were paying close enough attention to recognize when something about her behavior changed. She had learned that much during the last attempt, and it left her with a problem she hadn’t encountered before. If the s

Taylor still wasn’t sure what she was going to do about Victoria. She had told the girl everything she knew, or at least everything she could think of, and Victoria had taken it far more seriously than Taylor had expected. That should have been reassuring, especially after spending days wondering wh

Naruto remembered the swing. He remembered sitting there beneath the afternoon sun, his small hands wrapped around the chains supporting the seat as he watched the other children gather together across the Academy grounds. They laughed and chased one another between the buildings, calling out to the

Taylor woke to the sensation of something cool brushing across her forehead. For several seconds she remained where she was, eyes closed and mind struggling to make sense of the fact that she was awake at all. The last thing she remembered was the ocean, Armsmaster standing in front of her, and the

“Okay,” Greg said. “So everyone has stats.” Taylor looked up. He was staring at his own display with the same fascination he had shown when the Classes first appeared, though even that was subdued by what had happened. “Stats?” Emma asked. “Strength, Agility, all that stuff.” He pointed towards his

Usually, Taylor was the one being targeted, whether the attack came directly at her or through somebody else. Even when someone else got hurt, there had usually been a reason for it, and that reason almost always came back to her. She had known, of course, that the people she cared about could be us

Thomas Calvert wasn’t nearly as subtle as he seemed to think he was. Taylor had noticed him three days ago, although she had no idea whether that was when he had actually started watching her or merely when she had finally noticed the pattern. He had been in the training room that afternoon, using o

Even though he was one of Naruto’s chosen few, as amusing as that was, Sparky wasn’t anyone special. He was fairly sure that if he were a character in a movie, or even a book, he would be one of those minor ones who appeared just often enough for the audience to recognize him before disappearing whe

A few days had passed since Leviathan’s aborted attack, and Brockton Bay had already begun the strange process of pretending that life could return to normal. The streets were still crowded with repair crews and emergency workers, businesses were opening wherever they could, and the constant presenc

Leviathan was dead. The fact took several hours to sink in, and even then, people struggled to understand what its death actually meant. For years, the Endbringers had occupied a category of their own, existing beyond the ordinary scale by which humanity measured threats. Heroes had killed monstrous