This. I Have Always Wondered What The Non-overblotters Would Look Like If They Were The Ones To Overblot.

This. I have always wondered what the non-overblotters would look like if they were the ones to overblot.

If Ruggie can shove twenty people down the stairs on a regular day, can you imagine what he can do if he overblot

"Hevell228." Idia's voice is as cold and hard as stone as he speaks, anger ready to erupt at any given moment. Somehow, the way he addresses me by my username doesn't remove from the gravity of the scenario. I can't see his eyes, and his hair betrays nothing, still the cool, even, faintly glowing blue of a Minecraft soul torch.

"Yes, housewarden?" I don't sound as meek as I did that first fateful raid, in the middle of class.

"Report." He wants to know. I take a deep breath and pray silently to the devs of every game I know in the hopes they can somehow keep him from taking his inevitable rage out on me. He never has- I'm just the messenger- but my dad wasn't the same, and my fears are ingrained into my skull.

"They came again last night, around 8:54pm. The usual five. We couldn't identify them. They stayed their usual six hours and took their usual quarry. We weren't able to stop them. They engaged with only a few, and we were unable to stop them. But! We were able to save some of the high-quality targets from their grasp. They only made off with seven of the good ones. And eighteen low-quality and eleven medium-quality."

"Ha ha!" Idia's hair turns a triumphant orange. He throws his fists in the air, turns around, and faces me directly. "I knew it! Those noobs stand no chance against the AOE I loaded the defense crews with! GGEZ to them! Finally, it's not a game over for our inventory!"

I smile, sharing his victory- our victory. Ignihyde's victory. It's small, no doubt, but it's not like this is a lifelong fight- and the Culinary Crucible ends tomorrow.

My smile morphs into a smirk. They probably won't come back.

Masterlist

I GOT ONE IN!! :D

Madoka Magica remake set years after the original

Magical girl transformation but she just transforms into herself with a machete

Everyday Freak of Science: part 7

(I, the author of this work, do not consent to this work being crossposted/translated without my knowledge or used to train an AI, ever.)

Masterlist

Jade pauses, considering his next words. His apparent brother, however, either doesn't realize that or doesn't care, because he interrupts.

"Blacktip reef shark? Why's one of them in here?"

Jade doesn't sigh, but Azul does. How peculiar, the speaker doesn't mind it but the witness does.

"I was getting there, dear brother. This particular blacktip reef shark has some... issues involving food. He cannot digest plant matter, but appears to have flashbacks when eating meat."

"Flashbacks? To what?"

"To whatever made him stop eating meat in the first place."

"He looks frail."

Well, that's pretty obvious- no need to say it out loud, Floyd! I'm changing the subject. Passive aggression sounds really appealing right about now, too. I'm doing both.

"Thanks!" I beam.

Floyd, Jade, and Azul now all look baffled, but Azul remains silent. The twins do not, and their shared confusion reflects in their voices.

"Eeh? What's Melanopte-chaaaan talkin' about?/What exactly do you mean by that?"

Yes! They've taken the bait.

"Oh, y'know... the strongest ones always died first. Never really lasted more than a week, poor things. Being too weak just meant ya never made it into your water- you'd just never live over an hour, and they wouldn't waste a tank on ya. But, frail? That's the sweet spot. We frail ones got to live."

I'm not really lying, exept in one regard: the strong ones didn't die. The researchers would preserve them and they'd end up with a bunch of machines around them, keeping them alive and totally out of it. I don't feel like explaining that, though, so I summed it up as "died."

Jade is looking away. I saw him nod. Floyd, however, is staring right at me. I stare back, but only into his left eye- that encounter with Jade has taught me my lesson about looking Leeches in the yellow one.

Finally, Floyd asks me the question I've been waiting to hear: "What the fuck are you talking about?"

I grin. He's swallowed the lure, too.

"The lab I was made in."

Uncomfortable scilence. One second, two seconds, four. Five draws into six draws into seven draws into eight- still, nobody dares speak or move. Twelve seconds. Thirteen. Floyd's eyes dart around the room, fliting from me to Jade and back again. Behind the nervous, teal-haired boy, Azul blinks. The stillness settles back over the room. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty seconds, and nobody dares break this suffocating scilence.

Twenty-two. Twenty-three. An off-putting twenty-five. Azul inhales deeply and resumes his quiet, shallow breaths. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. I can feel Jade's eyes darting around the room. My gaze sharpens. Thirty seconds of this, and all three of them have willingly kept it going. Minimal interruptions, and it's only growing longer. Thirty-eight, thirty-nine... Forty.

How odd. Humans hate scilence, do these ones love it? Peculiarities, all three of them. Forty-two, forty-three, forty-four... We're approaching a minute now, and not one of these three unusual people has break it for any longer than a second. Fifty. Fifty-one. Fifty-two. Floyd is glaring at me now. Fifty-four. Fifty-five. Just five seconds more, and it'll have been a minute.

Five. Four. Three. Two. One. At long last, the scilence is shattered, a voice that surprises me with the anxiety and fear behind it practically echoing in the small room.

"Jade, what the hell is he talking about?"

I suppress a laugh. Floyd sounds downright terrified. He's talking quickly and staring right at his brother, but does not twitch. Interesting.

Jade stands. I am suddenly supporting my own weight, and the unexpectedness of that leads to me kneeling on the floor for a quick second before standing on my own two legs. Let's pretend I didn't try to stand so fast I fell.

"Well..." Jade leans in and starts whispering in his brother's ear. I can't catch much, but the words "issue" and "experiment" are easy enough to pick out of the conversation.

"Oh, okay." Floyd sounds a little defeated now. I guess it's an improvement from "scared," at least for him. "Why don't'cha just try cooking it? I'll go and make something right now!"

Before I can properly register what he just said, the exited twin is out of the room. The door slams behind him. Jade sighs and turns to me.

"Regarding your eating disorder: is the taste the problem?"

"Uh... good question. Never thought about it." As embarrassing as it is (not much) to admit, it's true.

Jade closes his eyes and contemplates. As soon as he's done that, they're open again and there's a piece of salmon on his fork. I notice that one of the cutting tentacles is gone- did Floyd eat it, or did I just miscount them to start? Maybe I'm going insaner. Is that even a word? Case in point, I guess.

Azul sits next to me. "I take it you've never worked at a café before?"

I think back. Part of my puphood was media- anime, movies, books, even the occasional podcast. They were used for many things- teaching me, testing me, entertaining me- sometimes it was all three. Those days were fun.

"I'll take that as a no. Do you know how cafés work?"

Oh, that's right, I'm talking to Azul. "There were a lot of shows and books... I think, around half had a café of some sort. I've always thought they looked cool."

Secretly, I've always wanted to live in one. When I was really little, I thought café workers lived in their shops, sleeping in an unknown place in the back. When I got older, I was shown a book about a woman who got a job at a café, and that got cleared up. Still, my little fantasy remained.

Azul does the "pay attention to me" throat noise that humans make when they want people to listen to what they're trying to say. "Well, you're going to need training. Jade and Floyd will handle that, but you do need to pay attention, okay? You can't learn it if you don't try."

I nod. "Okay."

The door opens. Jade walks in, small, clear glass of water in hand. I didn't see him leave. Back in the lab, people leaving was just one of those things I learned to ignore.

He takes the fork from the plate, drops the salmon in, and stirs. I watch, entranced, and Azul pushes his glasses up on his nose.

He holds the glass up to my lips. "Try this." I obey.

An experiment, something different, to see if I'll eat on my own-

Jade is shaking me by my shoulders. My voice- I'm yelling, shouting for help. "Calm down, calm down. You're okay. Look around. See where you are?"

Jade sounds calm and collected, and I focus on his voice. Firm, but kind. I use that to ground myself.

"I-I... I think I'm okay now."

The door opens again. I freeze, momentarily failing to recognize the boy in the doorway as not-a-fake-Jade. However, my mind is pulled away from that as soon as I realize Floyd is carrying a plate with the cuttlefish tentacle and some sort of sauce on top, obscuring its shape.

"Here ya go!" His voice is cheery, uncharacteristic of the room and its vibe. It's a little nice, to be honest.

I take the plate and Jade hands me a fork. When I poke at the sauce, it reveals the tentacle to be darker than it was before.

Floyd grins. His teeth are slightly thinner than my own. "I grilled it."

Distantly, I hear Azul tell the twins they're going to be training me. He sounds like he's in the next room over- I'm too busy staring at the plate.

...Can I bring myself to eat this?

Everyday Freak of Science: part 2

(I, the author of this work, do not consent to this work being crossposted/translated without my knowledge or used to train an AI, ever.)

Masterlist

Incredible.

When I first heard the place was fancy, I started to fear that the place would be like the fancy lab I was made and raised in: sterile white, repeating halls with no decor and only intuition to determine which hall's where.

But, this? This is incredible. There's water- I can't swim or "touch" it, per say, but I can feel it- a comforting pressure on my being. Everything is a kind of fancy I'm not used to: more modern, with décor, color, shapes, and an overall oceany feel I'm not used to, although I should be. I am a shark in part, after all.

I'm hit with inner conflict rather soon: some part of me, the shark part, feels at home and in place. The other part of me- the part that was made instead of sampled from an embryo- feels like I don't belong; like I'm contaminating this beauty with my unnaturalness.

My feelings must soon be pushed aside, though. Before long, I get a real introduction, along with the rest of Octanville's shiny new students: the boy with the off-white hair stands on some kind of raised platform, the lights shut off, and a fucking spotlight shines upon him.

"I am Azul Ashengrotto," he starts, "your new housewarden. Welcome to Octanville. This dorm is based on the benevolence of the Sea Witch, something we try our best to embody, in part by running a café: the Monstro Lounge, which all of you will have the opportunity to work at. Volunteers are always appreciated. First-year dorms are down that hallway. First come, first served, two per room. Choose wisely, as you will be sleeping there until the end of the school year. You are dismissed."

Well, that was sudden. Hey, wait- I'm gonna be late! I want a good pick of the rooms. Should I run? That's what the others are doing. Okay, I'll try- ow! Okay, that hurt. Guess I'm just going to have to try again.

Okay, I can do it now! Let's see... I was near the hallway entrance back at the lab, so I want to be close to the end of this hall. Is there a room? Yep! Mine. I'll take the bed on the left.

Hey, I don't have any stuff... guess I'll just lie on this bed to claim it, then. Ooh, this is extremely soft!

I don't wake up until Jade wakes me up, softly shaking me and whispering.

"Wake up, Requiem. We have something to discuss."

My tired mind recalls a memory: my favorite researcher, softly shaking me awake just like this whenever I dozed off during a test. I like this.

"There you are. Come with me."

The room on the right side of the bed looks like someone else has claimed it. No suprise, there's only so many rooms.

Jade leads me to a place that reminds me of the managers' offices from the shows I was sometimes shown for testing and research. It's probably just that: an office. Azul sits at the desk, clearly waiting.

"Hello, Requiem. It has come to my attention that you are the only student who is not on the list. Why is that?"

"Um. I don't know..."

"Why not?"

"It's my first day..."

"Well, obviously." Azul sighs. "What day did you submit your application?"

Application? "I didn't apply for a job."

"College application. When did you submit it?"

"I'm here as a student, aren't I? Not staff."

"That's... ugh. Okay, allow me to clarify: I have your name and year. I have your year because you just arrived and transfers have a special entry process, which you did not go through, and I have your name because Jade got it at the entrance ceremony. That's it. No birthday, no species, no age, no native language, nothing. As housewarden, that makes much of this very difficult."

Oh, I get it. He wants to make a file on me.

"My name is Requiem Melanopterus. I'm 16 years old. I am a blacktip reef shark, I was made on March 24, and my native language is English, though I am also fluent in Russian, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, German, French, and Polish."

They both appear shocked now. Azul, in stark contrast to Jade, is shocked silent.

"You're fluent in nine languages?" Well, O probability should have considered that most people would be suprised.

"What do you mean, made?" Oh, Ashengrotto can still talk? I was worried I had hurt his voice.

"Well, I was made in a lab. They started with a blacktip reef shark embryo, then altered the DNA bit by bit to make a mershark. Then they wanted to test my learning ability, so..."

For a solid minute, nobody speaks. Then,

"How would you like to work at the lounge?"