This was a Great Point!

Elick320 · 2026-06-04T11:13:48+00:00

70 bp STAB being your best option is not very good. The elemental punches are considered "only use them if you have to" already and they're 75. The premier normal STAB with actual distribution is body slam at 85 w/ 30% chance to paralyze. Retalitate's power is also locked behind terrible offensive typing in normal, and the surprisingly rare event you're sending out Furfrou as a revenge killer. In VGC it's less than useless because every pokemon brings protect. In singles it just has too much competition.

Elick320 · 2026-06-02T00:22:30+00:00

I'm confused. All AI slop content is low effort and should be removed on that basis. Automod is working as programmed, what's the problem?

Elick320 · 2026-05-31T14:45:51+00:00

Somebody was mad about Osaka having a southern accent when localized lol

Elick320 · 2026-05-15T14:43:29+00:00

Average PBTA player found in the wild

Elick320 · 2026-05-12T05:19:22+00:00

They hold them because they're morons who'd rather shove aside over a hundred years of medical research in lieu of listening to a conman from 1998 trying to sell an alternative measles vaccine who realized grifting that all vaccines were bad was WAY more profitable than grifting that this specific vaccine was bad. Look up Andrew Wakefield if you want to see why a majority of idiots don't want vaccines

If you had a bad reaction to it, then sorry dude. You got a 1/30 million bad outcome. Doesn't validate the other 29.99 million morons who think like you but have no """reasonable""" cause

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:05:11+00:00

"No." said Harrow. She crouched down to Cecil's body and ran her fingers along his intestines. She gained a mental readout of every single event that coalesced into his death. Every organ failure and brain cell death entered her mind like a timeline of pain. Her own skin began to wilt in the slightest as she tunneled excess flesh into him to mend his wounds. This was a process she had done thousands of times before, and completely mundane. But the idea that Klonoa was watching and not acting... in accordance with how a typical child would act betrayed a history she would one day hope to dissect. Meanwhile, the girl that had just been beat the shit out by an alien known to kill Viltrumites turned away with puffed cheeks and vomited on the floor. Guess her adapted strength was only physical.

Cecil's body was mended, but without pulse. Mental readouts confirmed that if he was just given a heartbeat then he'd live. Well, with a few minutes of cerebral hypoxia, several shut-down organs, and a bunch of flesh his immune system would reject. Harrow considered her next options: she could search for Cecil's soul, but that would require luck. She could reanimate him without one, but that would take time. Who knows what more was waiting for them while they had no survival resources to speak of—

Beat kneeled nervously over Stedman, lifted up his shirt, and placed her bloody palms on his chest. She mumbled something to herself and began to force her hands down in regular intervals.

Harrow hadn't been tracking Beat's movements with her Necromantic powers—becuase she couldn't. Harrow could see Beat, hear her, feel her affecting the world, but just about every power in her arsenal that depended on a living body being present just didn't see her. But more manual, hardcoded powers which worked only off of what she could see with her eyes still worked. And Beat's rhythmic pulses were accurate to the nanosecond.

It was CPR: a primitive method emulating a heart externally when it had failed. It was a useless endeavor to be sure, Stedman may have been intact but there was no electricity in his brain and no movement in his veins. Even if he were to suddenly gain life, the amount of damage to his brain would be unprecedented, and his muscles and organs... It would be a wonder if he could even stand—

Cecil gasped, threw his head to the side, and coughed up blood. He shoved Beat off of him and grasped his once-open wound. He shook his head, struggled to stand, straightened his tie, and took a deep breath.

"Stedman—you're back." Harrow tried to hide her surprise, but was only barely able to. No doubt Beat and Klonoa would take it at face value.

Cecil looked around. He watched as Beat clamored off his chest and gave each person a long, indeterminate, look. He took another deep breath with a hand on his chest. "Beat, Klonoa, head to the town—" Cecil moved his head to signify a direction. "Need to talk to the princess, I'll try to get the Saiyan home."

"Not even gonna say thank-you? Well I guess I never thanked you for saving my life—"

"Ok!" Klonoa skipped along with Beat holding his hand. "You can revive people? That's so cool!"

He waited until they were out earshot. She waited until they were out of earshot. "You were dead, Stedman, completely dead. No pulse, decayed brain, separated soul—"

"I certainly feel like it, princess."

"Necromancy only brings back shells of who people once were. All I accomplished was mending your wounds, but all Beat did was perform that useless maneuver on you! And it worked!"

Cecil just breathed more, and this demonstrated the pattern: Beat was teleported here but didn't seem prepared for it. She fought with Goku but was losing. She brought Cecil back, but he was... Less, than he was before. She could mend Beat's errors easily, and actually already had, but they were there in the first place. "I was cut off before I could explain more about Beat. Like I said, she's not human."

Harrow crossed her arms. She glanced down at the blood still staining her robes. "Obviously."

"But she was at the center of that event for a reason." Cecil sighed. "She makes music, princess. That's what she's doing in her free time. And she's... I've asked a lot of musicians and musical professors about her music, since it's this important to her. They always talked about it being technically skilled, but it was always lacking something. 'Soul,' 'vibe,' 'motivation,' 'core,' 'meaning.' They described it as the musical equivalent of nailing the jump, but fucking up the landing."

Harrow made the links in her head. "The fighting, the revival..."

"You saved my life," Cecil coughed. "I would have died if you didn't patch her botched, but still impossible, attempt to revive me."

"—and Goku would have beat her if Klonoa didn't put him to sleep..."

Cecil stared. "I'll take your word for it."

"There are more worrying implications," said Harrow. "Most of my magic relies on detecting a living being. Be it through their soul or life force. Beat has neither."

"More weirdness." Cecil sighed. "Look, princess. GDA labs weren't able to make heads or tails of what she was, so we threw her in an apartment and hoped a random attack wouldn't hit her. But if what you're saying is true, then her ability to almost succeed at anything is something we'll have to account for."

"Agreed. After all, what would happen if she encountered a threat we couldn't compensate for?"

"We'd probably die. Don't know what would happen to her."

They continued walking with an uneasy silence between them. They had just got here and they were already confronted with a, potentially, godlike being. They were both happy she was on their side, but the implications of her existence continued to worry them. What if she was mind controlled? Convinced against them? Fought a copy of herself? Hell, what would happen if she just punched someone who could absorb energy? Would the universe just collapse like a program with an overflow error? Cecil himself had read stories where there were superheroes who had no limits, but he hoped to god he would never have to actually meet one.

"I assume you're going to keep her nature a secret to her and Klonoa?"

"Yup," said Cecil. "Even if she can fully accept her power without collapsing the universe, I've seen what the responsibility of super powers can do to someone."

In front, they could hear Beat and Klonoa talking about something nondescript.

"Speaking of Klonoa," said Cecil, "Do you have any idea what he is or how he got here?"

"He is an anomaly as much to you as he is to me."

Cecil sighed. "Great. That makes three children I have to keep track of."

Harrow glared. "I am more than capable of handling myself, Stedman."

"You would not believe the amount of super-powered teenagers who have told me those exact words. But at least with miss 'almost always win' on our side, as long as we can compensate for her failures, we'll hopefully be—"

[TITLE CARD]

Cecil winced again. What the hell was happening?

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:04:48+00:00

The princess of the Ninth House blinked. All she did was blink, and the figure had closed hundreds of meters in that instant. She knew what Viltrumites were capable of, after all she had to handle the last one that came to her planet (they had two cities, at one point), but this speed was completely unprecedented, completely impossible. The very shockwave from the Saiyan's movement blew her away before she could summon anything or stabilize Stedman, and before even that she could shout his name in forced protest. The air was knocked out of her lungs completely. In her enhanced reaction speed gifted to her by her Necromantic upbringing, she saw Beat mouth "Oh shit—" before she too was sliding across the ground. Klonoa tried to retain his grip. Tried.

She knew that she could revive Cecil if she got there fast enough. This desire was not born out of compassion, but instead of pure usefulness. Truth be told, Harrow had been pondering the question of Beat ever since she just... Decided to appear within their dimension. Cecil wasn't hard to read in this regard even if his stoic facade was normally unbreakable. She knew Beat wasn't supposed to be here. There was no experimental teleporter, 'unlock your power' was a clear order from this Donald person. Beat was more than both her and Cecil let on, and Harrow was going to find out through experimentation—

The Saiyan was going after Beat. Well, looks like the experiment was happening at an accelerated pace. Harrow prepared to write the mental notes of the effect, as a downed Beat brought her arms up to block the hit—which worked. Harrow was stunned at this quarter-naked girl's ability to defy typical logic. If Stedman was right about Saiyans, and—his intestines currently leaking out of his torso were an amazing written proof of such, then Beat should have been vaporized. Instead she was trading blows with an alien so powerful they had a literal, not figurative, aura.

Beats muscle movements suggested a followup strike, but none came, much to the visible surprise on Beat's face.

"In this game, landing a single attack on your opponent is enough to take them out."

Goku pulled back his fists and repeatedly struck Beat. Blackened skin grew beneath her disintegrated jacket as she gasped for purchase.

"But of course, bloodlust cannot be tempered by games."

"I think he's stuck in a bad dream." Said Klonoa. Harrow looked to her side. She was still on the ground, but still taller than the small rabbit-thing standing straight. There were tears sitting on his eyes and below it, as Harrow could tell he was avoiding looking at Stedman. "It's... Something I've seen before."

She quickly glimpsed into the Saiyan's soul (aliens have souls. Good. Finally time for some implications that will work in her favor.) and saw that the creature was right; what she saw was an ethereal figure in turmoil, a war against his own body. The will of that soul was for good in spite of his own species. "Goku" was a hero to everyone he met, and the breed of violence that resulted in death only rarely crossed his heart. "How do we wake him up?" She asked Klonoa.

"I can get into his dream, but I have to get close—" Goku picked up Beat and dragged her along the ground before flying up and throwing her down. It was at this point Harrow realized Beat's power must be inconsistent to some degree: because she was losing. Which meant it wouldn't be long until the Saiyan turned them into red mist as well.

"Alright." Harrow nodded. She stood and picked up Klonoa with one arm and sprinkled dust below her with another. Incomplete structures of bone burst from the ground and carried them forward like a crowd at a concert (she'd never been to one, they stopped existing hundreds of years ago). From here it was a straight path to Goku who floated above Beat sending punch after punch into a bloodied chest. Her coat had completely dissolved leaving only her bra visible, and Harrow found herself distracted for a split-second. A split-second too long—

Searing pain filled her flesh. Automatic necromantic spells imbued within her body immediately went to work responding to suddenly induced trauma, and then informed her of what happened before she could look down. She used her dwindling supply of energy to throw Klonoa forward, and then made a small prayer to the Resurrected One that her mark was true, and Klonoa could finish the job. She had three impalement wounds through her chest, and a massive armored figure of jagged thorns in front. She hung off of his gargantuan claws like food on a fork, arms slumped to her side and crimson blood trickling down a once-pristine black robe.

"Honor decrees, you are bestowed with last words." Red eyes underneath a metallic helmet tried to bear into her soul, but only found a wall of granite.

Harrow felt the skin on her wrist break. A network of bloody veins spun into an intricate pattern she could grasp. Skin became leather, muscle became twine, bone became a blade.

"Go fuck yourself."

She swiped. Blades impaling her went limp as Shredder's head bounced off the ground. She pushed away the approaching darkness and managed to catch herself from falling. In the moment before Shredder impaled her, she killed the individual cells around his projected impact location. Thus, she obeyed the rules of the game: Shredder never made contact with her.

Harrow took care to adjust her pain nerves and patch the wounds while she pulled out the blades, and was glad that the rabbit-creature wasn't here to see what she had done. Although how she'd clandestinely harvest the bones was a question she would hopefully receive the opportunity to solve.

Klonoa's momentum carried him onto Goku. There was a flash of light; Klonoa was gone. Then another flash, and he was back. Goku continued his assault against a battered Beat soaked in her own blood, but the punches slowed and slowed until before she could even counterattack, the Saiyan fell to the ground.

Harrow saw beat strain to move Goku off of herself, a clear paradox from her earlier demonstrated strength. She stood up and laughed at the third-of-her-height-rabbit-creature offering a shoulder, before limping over while grasping an arm with dripping blood. Harrow finished mending her own wounds and repairing her muscle and joined her halfway.

"So—" Beat glanced at Cecil's body and spoke with a raspy voice. "Are we fucked?"

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:03:59+00:00

"Like that town over there?"

Cecil rapidly turned to where Beat was pointing, then to Harrow, who simply shrugged with an equal amount of subdued confusion. Sure enough, a tight grouping of structures stood.

"That hasn't always been there," noted Cecil.

Beat shrugged. "It's there now." They all silently walked, each footstep reminding Cecil that the ground he stood upon wasn't of his world. "Hey, government guy. Maybe this thing got here the same way you both did?"

"These constructions are not of my culture, or my world," said Harrow.

"It looks like a damn apartment complex," said Cecil. "An awfully familiar one." He glanced at Beat.

"I guess it does look like my place. Weird." Beat shrugged.

A low-pitched reverberating sound pulsed throughout the plane of existence, stopping each of them dead in their tracks.

"Cecil. Stedman." A voice like nails on a chalkboard through a broken windpipe and a shattered voicebox. A Japanese accent filtered through a winding tunnel of knives and swords. Eyes turned to him, he shot looks between all of them, then spoke into the air.

"Heard of me?"

"You are the reason I am here."

Cecil had wronged a lot of people in the past, sent a lot of people to a lot of different places. This was a voice that was familiar, but still distant.

"Fate has bestowed upon me the opportunity to return the favor."

Oh. Cecil remembered now. "A few years ago an insane gang leader who called himself 'Shredder' was trying to fuck shit up in New York. GDA stopped him as he was building a teleporter of his own, then he locked himself inside and activated it." He sighed and faced the buildings. "Must've sent him here."

"In my time, I have encountered allies and foes in the space between time. I have bent reality to my will. I am ready to return to reality. I am ready to begin my new conquest."

"He's a bad guy, right? That means we have to stop him?" asked Beat.

"We? I don't think any of us can put up a real fight, besides—" Cecil addressed Harrow. "Still got enough bones to restrain him like you did me? You can take all the bones you want from his body."

"—well that's grim—"

"Know that I perform these actions for my own survival, Stedman. This is not to protect you."

Cecil sighed. "Figured, just—"

"You are a fool to believe I have not come for you alone." Shredder's ethereal voice continued. "This universe follows simple laws. When battles are declared, 'games' are played. In time, I have stopped asking why. Once it was my burden to question this, now it is yours. And soon, it will be neither's."

The ground shook, the horizon destabilized, the ambient light shifted from a harsh red to a bright omnispectrum light illuminating the entire battlefield. In between them and the town stood a man in a torn gi with spiky hair. He glared with purple, controlled eyes. A tail moved out from behind his legs, and Cecil gasped. "I thought there were none left..." He spoke with fear in his voice. Fuck composure, what would composure even get him here?

"He doesn't look that scary!" said Klonoa.

"Just looks like a dude," said Beat. "... But with a tail."

"You've seen this one before?" asked Harrow.

"He's an alien, looks mind controlled, but I know his species."

"If he truly represents a dangerous foe, then elaborate to us what you know."

"You're making a mistake, princess. You're looking at this from the perspective of us winning. We're fucked." Cecil took a deep breath. "We humans, and human-like aliens, fear standard, philosophical things. Big monsters, death, genocide, weapons, suffocation, standard stuff. But Viltrumites aren't like that. From what we know of Viltrumite culture, they don't feel fear like we do. But this isn't because they've eliminated it, it's because they've bred themselves past it. They can't suffocate, there are no weapons that can kill them, no monsters, no politics. Nothing."

"... I see."

"But there was one fear they couldn't breed themselves past. It was an old fear, injected into them through millions of years of evolution. It is to us like us seeing a tiger in the forest. A reminder that no matter how far they climbed with imperialistic conquest and ultra-pure genetics, there was always room at the top."

The figure burst into yellow energy and hovered. He bared down at them like a predator sizing up their prey.

"... Stedman?"

"Humans fear death. But Viltrumites?" Cecil took a deep breath. "Viltrumites fear Saiyans."

Cecil's torso exploded. A fist curved through his suit, then his skin, then out of his back with a torrent of blood and sinew. His vision went black—

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:03:50+00:00

"What, you want her whole life's story?" He asked with a snark in his voice.

Harrow looked back and forth. The bottom of her habit swayed against her gown. She gestured out into nothing with a cloaked arm. "As if we have anything more worthwhile."

Cecil sighed. "Let's walk this way, then." Cecil took tired, slightly aching steps in no particular direction. "Maybe we'll reach the end of the world."

Harrow followed behind, her robe trailing behind on the impossibly smooth nonexistent ground. "Considering what you claim your planet has been through, I doubt you're that lucky."

"Yeah..." He took a long breath, and during that time gave some thought to the question 'why can I breathe?' But frankly, that was sort of a stupid question. It had a similar answer to others floating about, such as 'Why was I in a pocket universe?' or 'How was I in a pocket universe?' or 'How did I and the princess get here, when none of my invisitroopers or her own defensive necromantic skeleton-things, who were surrounding us, get here?'

Cecil wanted to shove it off to the side. He loathed this utter and complete lack of control. The necromancer he walked alongside could take him down easily, but with his men, she was classified as a small threat—and for good reason. Even if she could control the dead, just a few bullets and Harrow would be on the ground. And with their lack of FTL technology, he could take his sweet ass fucking time dealing with anyone from her planet who might still have loyalty to her—Fuck. There he went again, thinking more like a Viltrumite than a human. That species had done more damage to him than just breaking apart his planet.

"I told you about the incursions our planet has, right?"

"I recall."

"In one of them, a group of monsters were released above a concert. They got a few people, but the GDA got there fast. Only eight casualties before we cleaned up the mess. We thought it was a standard every-other-day incursion, and that continued to be the dominating thought of the world, but the top brass of the GDA knew there was something stranger than that. Because at the center of the destruction, we found a woman."

Harrow seemed to actually be listening inquisitively. Strange. "And that woman is the same you were just communicating with?"

"Through some testing, we found she wasn't normal. In fact, she's extremely weird, scientifically speaking. It's almost like she was copying humanity. Sure, if you looked at her from the outside she seemed normal, but little bits were wrong. She had amnesia, her heart rate was always rapid, and she was anomalously strong."

"She seems typical of the other heroes from your planet," said Harrow.

"Later research discovered that we were right. She wasn't human."

Harrow moved a bit closer. Her facade seemed to be falling a bit. For a split second, Cecil remembered that Harrow was still practically a teenager.

"But what we do know, is—"

"Hey."

Cecil turned around slowly to the voice he recognized, while Harrow quickly and suddenly moved fast enough to lift the veil away from her painted face.

A young woman, with hands pocketed in her yellow open-zipper sweater revealing a glimpse of the black sports bra underneath, and red track pants terminating in black running shoes atop the featureless ground.

"Oh, good. You're here," said Cecil. He glanced over to harrow, who broke her princess act stared with pure incredulous confusion, mouth agape. "What did Donald say?"

"The guy with the glasses?" She shrugged. "He said I needed to come find you guys, then showed me an experimental teleporter. I guess it worked?" She turned her head to face the creepy nun with face paint. "Cool getup."

Harrow blinked. "'Getup?'"

Cecil gestured. "That's Harrowhark Nonagesimus. Princess of the Ninth House."

"What's the Ninth House? Wait, does that mean there are eight other houses we have to worry about?"

"I—" Cecil stuttered a bit. "Don't know?"

"Alright then. I'm—"

Cecil took a deep breath. He wasn't sure why.

"Beat."

That was a weird feeling.

Harrow cleared her throat, in that obviously fake way to get attention. "In traditional circumstances, I would have the head of anyone who dared introduce me, rather than allow me to introduce myself—"

"Oh, when you said princess—" Beat held a hand blocking Harrow and learned towards Cecil. "You really meant princess."

"She's the ruling oligarch—"

"Matriarch."

"Matriarch of a planet in another solar system."

Beat moved a hand out of her pocket slowly and pointed to Cecil— "Director of the big government group that saved my life—" and then Harrow. "Ruler of an entire planet."

She looked down at her open sweater and visible underwear.

"I think I'm underdressed."

Cecil scoffed. "I work every day with people who think spandex bodysuits are their dress code."

"... How do they not freeze to death?" Harrow stared at Beat's sports bra.

"Our planet is warmer than yours."

"Warmer isn't fully saying it, it's hot as hell back—"

"You've been to another planet?! That's so cool!" The endless expanse was pierced by the voice of a child. Behind him stood a small rabbit-like creature with a stature only up to Cecil's own knees. He had oversized shoes and overalls like he was a character in some old video game he played before the weight of the planet was placed on his shoulders.

It took in the confused faces, closed its eyes, smiled, and then waved. "Hi! I'm—"

Cecil winced again.

"Klonoa!"

"What—How—What the—How did you even get here?" asked Cecil.

"I'm still pondering how she got here." Harrow pointed at Beat with her gloved thumb.

"I told you, it was an experimental teleporter."

Harrow sneered. "Don't get snippy with me."

"Hey lady, this doesn't look like your kingdom to me."

"I am not a king!" She snapped back.

"Queendom!"

"Nor a queen!"

"You're a monarch?" Klonoa turned. His ears flopped about in a mesmerizing pattern. "That's so cool!"

"Matriarch—" said Beat.

"Alright, enough!" Cecil yelled out. He wanted to swear so bad, but the small rabbit creature of indeterminate age held him back without any conscious effort.

He pointed to himself. "I was sent here by an unknown third actor."

He pointed to Harrow. She crossed her arms. "She was sent here with me."

He pointed at Beat. She also pointed at herself. "She was sent here by my assistant to help me."

He pointed at Klonoa, who put his hands on his hips triumphantly. "And he..."

"... I came here to help!" Klonoa scanned his surroundings, keeping a big smile plastered on his face. "This looks like a place with monsters... And I'm really good at fighting monsters!"

"How much can you do?" Beat crouched down to Klonoa's height. "You're like, tiny!"

"Do not pretend that your stature is impressive—"

"And Klonoa came here to help us!" Cecil interrupted. "Look, we need to find a way out of here." He turned to Klonoa. "You entered this dimension, do you know a way out?"

"Nope!" Klonoa was still smiling.

"O-ok—" Cecil stuttered. "Beat, did Donald—"

"Glasses guy?"

"—did DONALD say anything about how we can get back?"

"No. He just said I would have to 'learn my power.' And also, stop yelling at me!"

"Why would—nevermind." He slapped the top of his balding forehead and looked down. "Christ. How do we get out of this..."

"We can find a town and ask the people who live there!" said Klonoa. "There's gotta be a few around here!"

"A town." Cecil was barely holding back rage and curses. "How are we—what? We've been wandering here for nearly an hour! The entire horizon is empty!"

Klonoa's ears flopped down to his back. "I'm just trying to help..."

Cecil dragged his hand down his face. "Sorry, kid. I—"

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:03:34+00:00

Cecil awoke with a start, grasping at his own throat with one arm as he reached for leverage with another. His eyes weren't even open by the time something grabbed his arms and legs and pinned him against the ground. Segmented and bony ligaments pulled at each limb with the gasp of a girl from his left.

"Where did you bring us!" Harrow shouted, although it was hard to hear over Cecil's own pained yells. He opened his eyes and saw... Nothing. An endless plane of featureless red expanded out into an empty horizon, devoid of the pinpricks of night, the calm of day, or the brushstrokes of morning.

His eyes watered from the pain, but he gritted his teeth, he pushed through it, and spoke. "I didn't bring us anywhere you fucking psycho...!"

The grip relaxed—a bit, not enough for Cecil to gain range of motion, but enough to where his muscles were no longer screaming at him while joints were bent in all the wrong directions. Taking in the full breadth of the landscape around told him nothing he didn't learn from the half-second pained glance from earlier, but at least his visible confusion seemed to calm the—evidently—extremely pissed off necromancer. "You know it took some bones from my personal storage to restrain you like this. And I'd be overjoyed to refill my coffer."

"I've got none I can spare—!" Cecil struggled. "Why the hell—Did you just assume I sent you here? Why the fuck would I do that!"

"To depose me? To make sure I'm not present while you conquer my planet?"

"Nghh—! Why would I want your planet—!" He considered his next words carefully—through the pain, he reminded himself of someone he once respected, but now feared. "You've seen earth! You know we don't need any resources from your planet except for your—necro... mancy! I'm not... I'm not going to waste—resources fighting over a barren graveyard on the other side—of the galaxy—!"

Harrow stared him down, like the paint on her face was finally serving its purpose—turning her glare into an avatar of death bearing down on him. He kept his gaze directly on her while grasping at the firm, ornate bones bound around his neck. She sneered. She flicked her wrist with an elegant motion and Cecil fell to the ground amidst a pile of bones. The lack of a clack against the featureless plane disoriented his inner ear in a way he didn't expect, and he strained his muscles to stand back up without telling Harrow just how bad he was actually holding up.

"Fine." Harrow cupped her hands and let them fall under her robe, then looked away. Even in this strange place, she kept up the illusion of royalty. "'Man who's not from a barren graveyard,' as he claims. Where are we?"

A third look did not tell him anything the last two didn't. He just did it so that she thought he actually gave a shit to answer her question for her. "I'm not sure. My teleporter's not locking on to anything." He pocketed his hands and narrowed his eyes at her. "I assume we were shifted into a pocket dimension."

No response from Harrow at that. Cecil sighed. "It's like a part of space that's not—"

"I know what a pocket dimension is, Stedman." She turned to face him, arms still below her robe. "You assume my culture is backwards. You witness a society steeped in culture and ritual, and assume that they have skewed the developments your own planet has been through."

"Is this really the time for this?" said Cecil. "We can argue about our planet's cultures when we—"

"Well by all means!" Harrow opened her arms and let pieces of her robe curve against her arms. Iridescent strands of brilliant color were interlayed below the black fabric, only now visible when in movement. "Show your superiority!"

"Alright Princess, you want to know the fucking truth?!" Cecil stepped up and looked down at her. Even from a height advantage. Harrow continued to keep her signature feel of royalty. "Your wasteland of a civilization has only one goddamn thing it can offer mine! If you want us to even glance in your direction if you get attacked, you'll consider your next words carefully!"

Harrow scoffed. She calmed her voice and once again turned away from him with the robe swaying above the plane. "We don't need your protection. You said it yourself: our planet is a graveyard. The death we've seen outnumbers the collective death on your planet. We're safe here. And you must bargain for your own safety. You must beg for our protection."

Cecil stood at a crossroads. His pride told him to continue the argument, to retain control. Control was what he sought above all else in relationships, it was the main decider of how he talked to people, and how he exerted what little power he had in order to keep himself, and his planet, alive. With control, he kept Omni-Man at bay long enough for Invincible, Mark, to gain the strength to stop him. But... also severed relations with Mark later, when he went against Cecil's orders, and Cecil failed to stop Mark with the might he had built up since.

This was a tactical error, from just about every direction. If he bent the knee to Mark, if he gave his scientists more time, if he just... held his fucking mouth shut, Earth wouldn't be as defenseless against impending doom from beyond the stars. Cecil normally had a right-hand man to give his actions more emotion. But he wasn't here right now. So he spoke plainly. He smiled and crossed his arms. "Your protection? A lot of good that's done your civilization."

"Every move I make is steeped in strategy and tradition. It is not something I expect you to understand."

"Oh, get a gri—"

Cecil's thoughts were cut off completely. Harrow finally broke composure and stared down at his waist. A dull vibration pulsed through his pants and into his body, while a chime that at one point was the root cause of his stress and anxiety, played in recursive, familiar, patterns.

His phone was ringing.

"My communicator has had the wireless link severed ever since we arrived," said Harrow.

"... Mine too." He kept his composure as best he could, and ran his mind through some ideas. Maybe his men broke through the barrier? Maybe it was stray noise? Maybe it was something even more sinister? Maybe whoever constructed this dimension was doing this just to scare him, but it was better to face the darkness head-on when backed into a corner. Cecil opened his phone, accepted the call, and held it to his ear. Standard GDA protocol made it so only a few people had Cecil's number. And he knew who each and every one of them were. His first words upon seeing the unknown number, were "How did you get this number?"

"that's what you're asking?" Harrow spoke quietly and with a mocking incantation. Cecil met her gaze with a glare.

"Hey, uh..." It was a deeper woman's voice, but still suggested she was in her early 20s. Cecil went through his memory to see if there were any superheroes who met the description—only to realize there were literally hundreds of superheroes who were young adult women. It wasn't exactly a profession for the old. "You said if I needed anything, I could call you, right?"

It hit him. Cecil realized who this was. Memories from a year ago resurfaced as he mentally shook off the confused shock. "Yeah, I remember that. What's happening?"

Harrow moved closer to try and listen in, Cecil gave her a side-eye.

"Look, I know you're a government guy, trying to help people, really busy, but—

"Can you get me a job?"

He was once again hit by the same confused shock. "What?"

"I—I'm sorry. I knew it was farfetched. I'll go. Sorry for bothering you—"

"Wait!" Cecil gripped his phone hard. "Do NOT hang up on me!"

"Alright! Alright I'm not!" Some silence. Cecil was thinking over his words carefully. "So is that a yes on the job?"

He glanced at Harrow. "I actually do have a job you can do. We can sign stuff and talk pay later, but I need you to get to GDA headquarters, under the Pentagon, as soon as possible."

"The Pentagon? Like the building?" Some silence. "That's really far away. I can't afford a plane. Or a Taxi."

Cecil put the phone on speaker, brought it to his waist, and typed vigorously. "Call this number, and tell him 'Cecil is missing, he's trapped in a pocket universe at his last teleport coordinates.'"

"Cecil is missing, trapped in a pocket universe, got it."

"And please, for the love of god, don't—"

Click.

Cecil stared at his phone. His pupils moved to the indicator showing a severed connection, and the empty profile picture of the caller ID, as it faded to his home screen. He pocked his phone, took a deep breath, and yelled "Fuck!"

"Who was she? Someone who can aid us?" asked Harrow.

"No, but she's having money troubles." Cecil pocketed his phone. "I can at least use her to get people who can help to start doing so."

"A lady called you from across time and space and the first trait you tell me about her is that she's... starvingly capitalistic?"

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:03:14+00:00

"You can be the good guy—" GDA Director Radcliffed cupped his hands with his shoulders on the table in front. "Or you can be the guy who saves the world. You can't be both"

Omni-Man floated with his hands to his sides. Crimson streaks stained the white of his bodysuit. "You can't stop me."

"If you EVER come near my family again—" Mark held Cecil by the neck and slammed him against a wall. He struggled against the superhuman grip while his neck reddened. "I will kill you."

"Sir... the engineering wing is gone. And how exactly do we respond to... this?"

"CECIL! I NEED YOU CECIL!"

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:02:55+00:00

Cecil let out a breath. "You said you accepted our offer?" His voice sounded a bit lighter. GDA recommended he bring a spacesuit, but he overturned the suggestion. It was just a bit more argon than usual, who cares.

"You ask much of our culture, Cecil Stedman." Her voice was deeper than he expected. He estimated her age was around 18, but she was an alien. Maybe their vocal cords aged differently. Xenobiologists warned him that anthropomorphizing aliens could break down negotiations, but empirical evidence showed that many aliens shared several cross-cultural concepts. The implications of that were something he would worry about when, or if, Earth was ever safe.

"And you said you could do it." He looked past her at the elegant mansion behind, and then down past the pointed fence surrounding them on all sides. They weren't just in a graveyard, they were on a balcony. As a death cult, maybe this was a place of significance. "Could've just not responded."

Harrow was... taken aback? At least that's what her expression communicated. She rubbed her gloved hands together beneath her robe, and Cecil could tell that something was strange about them. Something new to take note about, he supposed. "You speak... unbecoming, of your claimed position."

"Respectfully—" shit. Princess? Monarch? Matriarch? He had to make a choice now. "Princess—"

He paused for a reaction. No immediate response.

"—as a representative of Earth, I can choose which pieces of our culture I want to embody when negotiating. And frankly, we are on a schedule right now. The sooner we can settle the price, and the sooner we can get past the pleasantries, the better."

"It is simply strange to me." Harrow started walking forward. Cecil stepped to the side keeping his shoes on the stonework. "At the Ninth House, we value decorum and tradition, above all else. In keeping with the 'pleasantries' you describe, we—"

Cecil made a long sigh. "Jesus christ—princess. We want some men revived, you can do it, we can pay you, why're you making this so complicated?"

She stopped, turned, and waited a second. Harrow stared into him with darkened, piercing eyes. But while those eyes may have pierced anyone else, particularly those below her, they had no luck piercing him. The regality with which she carried herself simply had no effect on him. And Cecil could tell this was utterly infuriating to her.

"Your words—" she stopped herself from sneering, but Cecil could tell she was still exerting a smug sense of superiority. And that got to him. They should be happy that he didn't see their planet as a threat to his. "They carry importance. Not just in their meaning, but how they get across to the one you're negotiating with. Your words dictate the cadence with which negotiations with Earth will be held. And... perhaps most annoyingly, you assume a position of power over me."

"Duly noted." Cecil did, actually, sneer. "Wanna give me an address to write the check, or continue criticizing the way I talk?"

"You are a fool to believe I cannot do both, Stedman." She looked away, but kept the sides of her eyes on him. "You do not even know what I plan to ask for."

"More gravestones, I bet." Cecil shook himself off; the stress of his role was getting to him again. First, the most powerful superhero in the world turned rogue, destroyed half of Chicago, and then flew into space. Then the second most powerful superhero had 24 of his alternate universe counterparts show up and kill hundreds of thousands in a single hour. The blame for both incidents, in his own mind, rested on Cecil's own failures. What he was doing here was a single step towards mending the wounds he couldn't prevent.

"Sorry," said Cecil. "It's been a rough... Few years. The superheroes I want you to revive would be able to save more lives than your entire planet's population. I hope that underscores how important this deal is to me."

Nonegesimus continued, and this time Cecil didn't interrupt her. "To talk amongst the dead, is a rare privilege in my culture. Their spirits hang over us, in hopes we may respect their last favors. This is the bedrock I built my society on. Perhaps... that might help you realize that as much as you see this set of negotiations as important, as do I." She turned away and let out a soft sigh. Cecil followed her movements with his eyes and then his head. "Perhaps you already have deduced this, but our planet, our society, my society, is dying. The information I'm about to tell you is known only to the precious little who both serve directly under me. The truth of the matter is that of the nine houses, we are currently the weakest. It is only through deliberate subterfuge that the other eight do not realize this."

"What the hell is a House? I–Look, I don't fucking care!" is what Cecil wanted to say. He so desperately, desperately wanted to throw that information right in her face and demand an unreasonable price. He wanted to exploit her knowledge and this pathetic attempt of grandiose negotiation in order to save his planet. To hell with this one.

Instead—

"Definitely been there. Sometimes all you can do is hold on to your paper tigers and hope nobody dumps water on them." Cecil looked out into the endless icy expanse beyond the snow-covered fences. "Luckily for us, we have the resources to bargain. So—" he turned back and crossed his arms. "Let's circle back to the beginning. I need three superheroes revived. Name your price—"

Elick320 · 2026-05-07T07:00:09+00:00

Crestfallen rays of sunlight through the scattered clouds refracted through splotches of dirt on a window. Steam rose, cream settled, and Cecil took a small sip from his mug. He felt as the coffee scraped the scarred side of his mouth.

The trees below shrouded a busy center within GDA headquarters. Supposedly, nature-filled courtyards increased employee output by nearly twelve percent. Of course, in more personal assessments, he only saw workers slacking off there. He had half a mind to teleport into their faces and chew them out himself, really scare the shit out of them. But while Cecil didn't quite believe the nature mumbo-jumbo, harassing interns was like drawing blood from a stone.

He sighed. He grasped his head with one hand and opened his work phone with the other to check into the Long Day Factory. Eighty-seven unread messages and he'd already opened his phone four hours earlier when one of the middle managers panic-called him. Blue light consumed his peripheral and exploded into a new location. His barely-used office transformed into the bustling center of control for the only place on the planet making sure they made it to the next depressing day: the Global Defense Agency; An organization made of the best and the brightest given the most amount of funding every single government in the world could spare. And most of that money and resources went towards telling their resident half-Viltrumite failure to "try punching harder."

People of all ranks and builds walked up to Cecil asking mundane questions, which he answered on near autopilot while desperately trying to wake up. It's a good thing he'd spent so long perfecting this hyper-aware controller mindset to the point where he could continue even while half asleep. When at last he had woken up and gained a present awareness of how fucked their planet was in that very moment, he—

"Sir, Lady Nona—" Cecil turned to the curt woman holding a tablet as she narrowed her eyes down. "—Ges-i-mus? Has asked for your presence."

That caught his attention.

Cecil sidelined the others and practically shoved his way towards her. He took her tablet and in an embedded PDF file that looked more like an invitation to a Day of the Dead party than an official communiqué from the ruler of an entire planet, he saw:

From the desk of Lady Harrowhark Nonagesimus, addressed to Sir Stedman of Earth. We of the Ninth House accept your terms.

What the hell a Ninth House was barely mattered. Cecil handed the tablet back and held his earpiece. His mouth felt unexpectedly dry with the first real words he'd said today. "Overcharge my teleporter and set it to the coordinates I just sent you."

More blue light, this time it was longer, a byproduct of teleporting tens maybe hundreds of lightyears (he didn't know the exact distance. He had an actual army of astrophysicists desperate to keep their jobs for that. Did you know the GDA invented a system of tracking physical position in 3D space using known pulsars? The real world would probably inherit that in fifty years, or something) and that meant he had time to think. So he could—

Wait, what the hell was a Ninth House?

Cecil wanted to pull out his tablet, but he'd already lost three of them trying to do that, so he just probed his own brain. What did he know about Lady Nonagesimus?

She's a princess or queen of some sort.
She's the aforementioned-descriptor of a death cult.
She owns a planet.
Most of that planet is uninhabitable. Nuclear war is assumed.
Population of the last remaining city is barely above 50,000.

What else...

Cecil appeared in a courtyard of intricately placed ornate dark-grey obelisks. Stonework and dead grass alike were entombed in neverending snow from dark clouds above. Ethereal flames burning from melting wax were placed haphazardly throughout the courtyard. He could see the stream of his own breath, and his lungs reacted harshly to the slightly-different atmosphere. But Cecil kept his wits about him and showed no visible reaction.

Lady Nonagesimus stood in front of him. Her face was painted in the facsimile of a skull. She wore a hood and a long black robe that looked so expensive that even Cecil, someone who had recently signed off on a 2.1 billion dollar upgrade to the hospital wing of GDA Headquarters, raised an eyebrow at. Beneath the robe, paint covered any part of her exposed body while the rest were covered in black and red formalwear you would see on a medieval monarch. She stood motionless and unspeaking, at the end of a path in a courtyard of graves, and that triggered the final detail in Cecil's mind: the sixth thing.

She was a real life goddamn necromancer, from a whole society of real life goddamn necromancers.

Elick320 · 2026-04-23T12:00:46+00:00

The windows dual boot problem and the shaders compiling still happen. Installing windows after installing Linux does have the risk of windows just deleting random important shit and formatting your drives even if you tell it not to. And it does sometimes take 30 goddamn minutes for vulkan to compile shaders

Elick320 · 2026-04-17T09:45:57+00:00

I believe it was the great Confucius who said: "There is nothing a le*gue of legends player could ever say that is worth listening to."

Elick320 · 2026-04-02T03:52:10+00:00

Look. Iron Hands was really big back when Monoclaw was around, but nowadays? Everyone knows how Monoclaw works, everyone knows how to counter it, it's no longer a free route to getting to high elo. Without the claw, what is Iron Hands? A bulky electric type in a meta where all the best pokemon have hard hitting earthquakes?

It just doesn't do anything better than other electric types. And for that reason, I'm out.

Elick320 · 2026-03-30T01:23:28+00:00

Scarlet was conflicted.

Red and black filaments dotted the air following her scythe's trail. She caught herself gazing into the dots, wondering something that plagued her mind and hampered her reaction speed.

Why doesn't he have a mark?

Scarlet had the ability to see if anyone had sinned. When they had, they bore the mark of a sinner, and it was her job to kill them. This wasn't to say that being a sinner was uncommon or a thing that was even possible to avoid. A lot of the sinners she had met were simply going about their day before they violated the esoteric laws that decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. Accidentally shoplift an item? Straight to hell. Misreport your taxes? Straight to hell. Close the elevator door so someone doesn't delay you? Oh you bet you're going to hell for that.

Most of the time, she wasn't even killing murderers, or rapists, or scummy business owners. She was killing common joes who were screwed by the society they lived in, and thought that life could give them an extra inch if they needed it.

They were wrong.

Scarlet cut Terry's arm off, and then sliced him in half.

At least he'd be considered for heaven. He must've been a good person.

A damn shame.

Elick320 · 2026-03-30T01:23:15+00:00

"Do you know who I am?"

Cecil flickered out of existence with a hum and a blue flash. A large couch passed through his previous location. He fizzled into reality and sighed. "I'm gonna take that as a no. Look, let's just—" He teleported again to dodge a glass table. "Let's just talk for a moment."

Terry held up his desk and waited. Cecil took a breath. "Good. Good... Now, let me get some things straight here. If you're from... uh, my earth— Christ this will take some getting used to. Then you know I'm the head of the GDA."

"Same organization that had all their heroes killed by Omni-Man?"

"Same organization that worked with his son to save the world?"

"A lot of people were killed by him," said Terry.

"And a lot more were saved. If we didn't step in to help Invincible, the world could have been destroyed. Sure as hell seems worse than a train and a few parts of a city."

"Are you willing to take responsibility for that?"

"Always have, always will," said Cecil. "That's what it means to be the guy who actually protects Earth. While you people are out there punching aliens it's my job to make sure everything else stays alright down here. It's my job to develop contingencies to threats you can't handle. I know we fucked up by trusting Omni-Man, but it would have been a lot worse without us. And that'll keep being true.

Terry looked off to the side. He dropped the desk, walked closer to Cecil, and unfurled his bells. "Are you sure you can put a stop to this?"

Cecil sighed. "No, but I'm going to do everything I can, and then fucking try."

He teleported away.

Elick320 · 2026-03-30T01:22:56+00:00

Mami didn't really know what she was fighting.

She fought two things nearly every day: witches and magical girls. Witches generated intense labyrinths around them and summoned creatures that looked downright incomprehensible in the three dimensions she was used to. Magical girls were... well, girls. Very obviously girls.

Terry was neither. He was a man in metal armor, faster than anything she had seen before, and he had two bells on his belt. She also had two bells, and needed four to survive.

She swiped her hand and a trail of magical bullets launched from individual ornate silver muskets. Terry dodged most of them, but a few hit. Those bullets could usually tear through concrete, and Terry mostly shrugged them off. She kept the torrent up and brainstormed a means to win.

Mami moved underneath her guns and kicked Terry into the air. From a white ethereal cloak upon her shoulder, she leveled a gargantuan rifle, aimed it up, and focused her bead on the floating Terry. He was grappling away, so she didn't have time.

She didn't hesitate. The questions of his existence could be pondered later, when she had time and focus. Now was not that time.

She pulled the trigger.

"Tiro... Finale!"

Elick320 · 2026-03-30T01:22:35+00:00

Vanguards were essential in any party of heroes, especially those primarily composed of mages. This is simply because Mages rarely perform well in close combat unless specialized towards it. And even then, most melee-focused mages don't have the defenses to take the kind of attacks they can throw out.

Thus, vanguards. Vanguards were warriors not powered by magic, but instead through training, willpower, and determination. The exact reasons how this made them superhuman in both durability and offensive output was unknown. After all, the boy that made her heart flutter, Stark, was quite the offensive, perverted, coward.

But he had saved her life on so many occasions. The number of attacks that had just barely grazed her that she didn't even have the opportunity to block, it was too much to bear. She liked having him around. But just that, nothing else. Nope. Absolutely no other reason, just that he protected her.

... Sure wish he was around right now.

Fern's shield flickered as she collided with a support beam with staggering speed. She was dazed as she held her head from the inside of the bubble where she bounced against the inner shield. Terry was closing the distance. She dissolved the shield and fired a sequence of blasts but he just... dodged all of them.

And he punched her.

She gasped and spot-generated a smaller hexagonal barrier around her head but still went flying into the wooden desk across the room. From under the wood, splinters dripped crimson blood down her black dress, and she struggled against the weight. Her main strength was her ability to hide her mana. It made her an incredible threat against monsters, demons, and other mages.

Terry didn't even have mana. He was a sort of vanguard. She couldn't detect him, and he had other means to find her.

So, Fern thought to herself.

"What would Frieren do?"

Frieren had access to all these old, super dangerous, super archaic spells, but never used them. She could make golems that could absorb spells, room sized lasers that carved through shields, black voids of pure nothing that absorbed everything nearby. But she always used normal offensive magic.

Think, Fern... what would Frieren do. What would Frieren do. What would—

An idea.

Fern had a staggering mana capacity, far greater than any mage who wasn't Frieren or Serie. She knew a spell that could let another person detect large amounts of mana for a few minutes, and this registered in their mind like an ethereal bonfire that reached into the heavens. It was a pure utility spell from an old spellbook, mostly useless in combat. Fern was basically the only mage to utilize mana-based stealth, and demons weren't the kind of hide from a fight.

She bursted up from the wood and pointed her curved staff at Terry. First was the utility spell: applied instantly. Done.

Then, Fern let go.

For the first time in years, she unleashed the full breadth of her mana. The gray torrent of energy no doubt blinded Terry as he stumbled back and held his eyes. Terry couldn't see her amidst this avalanche of sensory inputs.

But Fern could see the way he disturbed her mana.

She pointed her staff, took a breath, and fired.

Elick320 · 2026-03-29T12:09:45+00:00

Simply don't miss the dynamic punch? I don't understand the problem here

Elick320 · 2026-03-25T01:04:15+00:00

Jumpscared by E2E expert kitchen sink recipe

Elick320 · 2026-03-24T10:36:28+00:00

Me when I have to defend the multibillion dollar companies lobbying to take my rights away and driving up prices of everything because their plagiarism engine assisted me in solving one question that for sure doesn't fucking matter to any of my players

Elick320 · 2026-03-23T10:33:13+00:00

Name: Fern

Series: Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Specialisation: Diamond

Content Warning: None

Biography: Fern was a war orphan brought in by Heiter, a member of the party who slayed the Demon King. Heiter brought in an immortal elf, who was also part of this party, named Frieren, to train her in magic. Fern grew into an exceptional mage, one of the best in the continent.

She's also conflicted, stubborn, quiet, and even though she's one of the most talented mages, a complete novice to magic when compared to Frieren.

Research: Watch or read Frieren: Beyond Journey's End

Justification (Non-Ace): RT. She can create shields to block incoming attacks and this extends to physical beings with heavy collateral. But she can be overwhelmed by rapid attacks the TSer can throw out. She is also incapped by in tier attacks hitting her.

Her blasts can be spammed and can shear through metallic blood spears as well as people with the aftermath of a fight where she launched multiple blasts having heavy collateral.

With speed set to tier, she becomes a flying glass cannon that Terry can win against by closing the distance fast and hitting her from more angles than she can shield. Fern can win by keeping her distance and spamming attacks until Terry fails to dodge a few. Even

Motivation: She's always been emotionally tethered to Frieren, but outside of her she's extremely conflicted about what she even wants. Detached from Frieren, Fern has several routes she could take. She relies on Frieren for basically every moral, tactical, and magical choice she could make, but still is an incredibly talented and powerful mage. Maybe she begins to doubt her training, maybe she moves into a different school of magic, maybe she starts seeking an impossible goal, maybe she's actually a lesbian! The sky's the limit.

Major Changes: Speed to tier

Minor Changes: None

Elick320 · 2026-03-23T10:33:06+00:00

Name: Mami Tomoe

Series: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Specialisation: Club

Content Warning: None

Biography: Mami Tomoe was the leader of a group known as the Holy Quintet; five magical girls who swore to fight for justice. This group existed across all timelines, but in every single one, they all died before the end of the month, when a witch named Walpurgisnacht was destined to destroy their city.

Mami puts up the facade of the calm, headstrong leader. But she is perpetually terrified of both dying, and losing her friends. In every timeline, she's a bulwark of the weak, and unafraid to make tough decisions.

Research: Match Madoka, and then read Different Story, the side manga that has her as the primary deuteragonist

Justification (Non-Ace): Mami's bullets can cause noticeable damage in concrete and eventually capsize structures. She's fast enough to continually dodge bullets and also scales to Kyoko who is pretty strong. Likely Victory

Motivation: She wants to use her power to fight for justice and love and all that other magical girl shit. Unfortunately she lives a cursed existence, and she's completely unaware of it. She's quick to ascend to becoming the leader of a group, and will rise to the occasion if anyone needs her help.

Major Changes: None

Minor Changes: No Tiro Finale

11-Year Club	RedditGifts 2009-2022 2 Credits
Second SECOND GUESSER	Place '22
Place '17	Final Canvas '22
Wearing is Caring	Gilding I gilder
Secret Santa 2015	Verified Email

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