ZFighter18

Here's another story concept that I plotted but never wrote “I fuckin’ hate that Naruto kid.” Kaji remembers enough to know that’s probably a bad idea. That much stuck the hard landing into his second life as a ninja. "But he's soooooo annoyin' tho!" No perfect timeline. No secret plan. No convenien

Koda expected to wake up feeling like he had been run over by a carriage. The wooden club to the side of his skull yesterday had left his head scrambled like eggs, and the raw drain from whatever that ghost-snake had pulled from left him dead on his feet. Even after Tsunami had fed and watered him,

Three weeks… Three weeks of mud sucking at the soles of his sandals, the old pair of Tazuna’s oddly comfortable. At least when they weren’t threatening to get lost in the marsh and muck of Wave Country, that is. Thick and greedy ground pulled at his feet with every step even now, the wet dirt so eag

"I was fourteen when they shipped me from Dublin to Rome.” The brownstone was a three-story coffin left to rot in a neighborhood that was already half a graveyard yet Keane walked through it like he owned the deed, a black-clad ghost in a house full of monsters. He moved, and Ken just… followed a co

"He died." The two words might as well have been eggs cracked on asphalt for how quickly they dropped between the both of them. That… Ken’s eyes went wide, breath locking tight in his chest as he stared back at the father. That’s it? His mouth turned down in a frown. That can’t be it. Whole tragic b

Tap. Tap. Tap. The cracked asphalt under the man’s feet didn’t do a thing to slow or stumble his measured pace, worn leather shoes steady and staid. Ken’s own steps were more of a shuffle, his legs a restless counterpoint to Keane’s own. Tap. Tap. Tap. His tongue worked inside his mouth, poking at t

Hn. Thwak! Hn. Thwak! Hn. Thwak! Chopping wood was… Easy wasn’t the right word. Not if the sweat slicking his body and the ache in his arms had anything to say about it. No, it wasn’t easy, but it was definitely familiar. All the way down to how he knew how to hold it so his palms wouldn’t blister.

"...s where you want to be?" Cracked vinyl stuck to the back of his thighs, peeling away with a wet sound every single time the cab hit a pothole. “Kid?” Which, considering they were heading into the Narrows, meant that ugly little noise was pretty much its own soundtrack. “Kid!” “Huh?” Chance blink

"...hey b-boss." His tongue fought him, a stutter forcing its way into his jaw as fear made his heart jump. Man up, bro. People respect strength. Sure, people did, but Chance didn’t really think the odds were good that someone who had already slapped him around was gonna have all that much respect a

Flash Grenade [Common Ability] The fuck do I need a flashbang for? One green eye twitched at himself as the name of the power popped into his head, the awareness of what it could do settling into his bones. The name pretty much said it all. I’m a human bomb right now. I can flash and bang alredy. Fl

(Chapter 3 was getting too long so I split it into 3A and 3B. There will also be a Chapter 4. I have rules about not bogging a chapter down with too many narrative beats to preserve reader attention) The groan slipped out before his eyelids even bothered to seperate. Consciousness came to him like a

MARCH 3RD, 2010 - THREE MONTHS AGO Seventeen years ago today, Anthony Chance Pratt was born. And for sixteen years after that, the world had decided that it was gonna make him feel like shit for it. Strangely enough, he’d hoped that the seventeenth year would somehow be different. Which was… Honestl

Life was simple. Simple didn’t mean good, though. But life was simple and it had some simple rules to it. One of those was that when the chips were down — when the deck was stacked — and you had literally no card worth playing left in your hand, you ended up doing some spectacularly stupid shit. Tha

The smell of salt and old wood brought him back to the world of the living. Nothing like the kind of salt that stung at the eyes, but the kind that had been ground into the same old wood of the floorboards for years, heavy and damp with years and years of seaside living. He bit back a groan, moving

The first thing he knew was water. Wetness everywhere; in him and on him and around him. It wasn’t anything unfamiliar, but the wet wasn’t right still. He knew wet; the sharp chlorine bite of a freshly cleaned pool or the heavy soak of a thunderstorm beating down on the pavement. This was none of th

Chapter 25 The corner of the living room was a place he used to camp in growing up, his own little not-so-private area of the house. For the last couple days, though, it had also been his newest spot. Lying down here had gotten him some questions since last night but after passing out here around mi

Chapter 24 Pt II An hour of this. A whole damn hour of leaping between rooftops, and scanning dark piss-stained alleys, had left Kenny seeing absolutely nothing but the usual Blüdhaven bullshit. Just the same dumb drunks stumbling out of dive bars and puking their stomachs out into the gutters. Drug

Chapter 24 Fingers halfway interlinked, Kenny stood dead center in the narrow concrete canyon behind a long-empty laundromat. Pointers on both hands aimed skyward with his palms flush, he simply breathed slow as best as he could, the filth of the alley almost unnoticed as he closed his eyes and simp

Chapter 23 It was a low note droning against yet another set of cracked asphalt that kept him locked in and in his own head, four wheels spinning fast as the world blurred by. The streets of the Blud whined, wailed, and roared as rush hour traffic continued moving as slow as ever, allowing Kenny the

Chapter 22 “Airball!” In sheer defiance of Luigi’s attempt to speak evil on his skills, the ball swished through the net without even kissing the rim. “You wish.” The basketball court in Mellville Park was more crater than concrete after years gone to shit like the rest of the city. It was good enou

Kenny King folded his right leg over the other, new jeans still a little tight as he tried to get comfortable in them. Much like convincing vampires to go vegan, it was already starting to seem like a losing battle. After another minute of trying, Ken decided on surrender and just leaned back in his

Chapter 20: The Price of a Miracle Cold left his hands in a single stream, the cone of freezing air doing a great job when it came to putting out the last of the fires in the main hallway. Weird. One minute he was a walking flamethrower that could turn bloodsuckers to kitty litter, the next he was a

Chapter 19: The Slaughter "Arms up!" Marcus roared in Ken’s ear as the world went to shit. Guns were loud. Correction, guns were motherfucking loud. Especially when you were stuck in a underground box with walls bouncing the sound back at you ten times harder. The Crosscutters' shotguns went off all

Chapter 18: The Clinic I hate this. The sun had barely dipped below the shitty, smog-stained horizon when they arrived at the clinic, the place looking no different from any long-abandoned building in the Narrows. Shut down five years back, that’s what his mom had said. Bad blood transfusions led to

Chapter 17: The Blood Map The ozone off the back of those dinosaur-ass monitors Lucky had wired together down here was almost thick enough to taste. The hum underneath that wasn't the machines, though. Nah, that was all just people. Too many people. It was over two dozen grown-ass adults packed tigh

Chapter 14: The South Docks Shuffle “Whoooo boy, what you got for us tonight, Mr. Magic Eyes?” Kenny King rolled his (currently non-magical) eyes at Lucky’s little joke as they left Tyke’s beater van behind. The fact that it was actually his mama’s van answered one of his questions about why they us

The night is dark and full of terrors. Ken didn’t know where he heard that, but whoever said it was fucking right. “Son of a bitch!” Sewer yellow nails swiped at his face, each one probably able to dice him up as easily as a switchblade. Dark fingers caught the wrist and snapped it backward with a s

The night was dark and full of terror. He knew that well enough. The man ran through the back streets of Bludhaven like he had done dozens of times before, only now the stench of fear was his and his alone. Shoes slapped the wet alley floor, puddles splashing behind him as he did nothing but sprint

Magi. One who walks with death. Kenny King felt a frown pull his lips down, the words still rolling around in his head, trying to make the pieces fit as he stared out over the skyline. The view from the rooftop of Blüdhaven Central High was as depressing as always, the school itself jam-packed betwe

C’mon. C-c’mon… The chakra wasn't enough. His heart was pumping fast as it ever had, flooding his whole body with it, all that blue power rushing through his veins. Push. He was three-four-four-and-a-half times stronger, all of a sudden, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing… nothing was enough. So much mor

The desk next to him being empty was almost an insult. The thing was never empty. It usually had one specific person right there he could count on so that he could keep his eyes open as Ms. Mallon did her very best to knock his ass out. AP Bio droned on—enzymes, ATP, something about oxidative phosph

The Sunday night air tasted like victory. At least, it would if he knew what that tasted like. Accurate or not, that was the kind of BS you said when you were high on life and grinning hard enough to look like a Joker goon. Sweat still cooling on Kenneth's skin, the tired teen couldn’t help but wear

St. Jude's Hope was way bigger than most of the churches he’d ever seen in this city, way too big for a church that probably barely had anyone in it. He’d walked and rode past this place so many times and had always wondered all about it, but honestly… it makes a lot of sense now. Really did, consid

The morning air in Blüdhaven tasted as ugly as the city looked. The sun was as weak as ever behind the morning smog that already coated the sky; a watery smear behind a permanent ceiling of industrial shit that never went away. Just once in my life I don’t wanna see light coming down looking like di

Kenneth stared at the outstretched hand for a second, already imagining his Ma pulling his ear if he even dared. "Yeah... I'm not gonna do that, Father." His dad may have not been big on church anything but his mom was Irish Catholic, through and through, and some things were just burned too deep to

His mouth worked not-so-silently, the sound of crunching and lips smacking echoing loud in the cold stone gut of a basement. The delicious poisonous taste of chemically-created cheese did a good job at masking the scent of air thick with old incense and bleach-thick antiseptic. Honestly, if that was

The front steps of the brownstone were cracked and busted, too many years of Bludhaven acid rain and wear and tear just doing their part since before his mother was born. More than that, the whole damn city felt like that same kind of half-busted greasy mess, not too different from the fading oil st

“I need to…” She needed a lot of things, honestly. A stiff drink, a hot meal, a husband who had less of a drinking problem than she did… many, many many things she needed. But right now… “I need to pick better shifts.” Right now, Madelyn King needed a warm bed. The dim hallway was a blessing after t

Pain first, always. First thing that hit was the throb, hammering behind his eyes like somebody took a crowbar to his skull. Kenneth made a low noise—half-groan, half-cough—and dragged his tongue across cracked lips, tasting nothing but blood-metal and spit that felt thick enough to drown in. Some p