fandoms 21-24
21.
Title: Amber Magatama
Fandom: Dark Savior/Shin Megami Tensei
Characters/Pairings: Kurtliegen, Bilan
Rating: PG-13/gen
Tags: fusion AU
Word count: 320
Summary: Only one known prison can reliably hold demons on Earth.
No mortal chains can hold back the tide of demons but there is at least one or two prisons constructed by humanity that can sort of rein in some of the more dangerous threats to their world. After all, they didn't make all this technology powerful enough to dip into other worlds without some kinds of safeguards - if not for the safety of their citizenry, then for themselves, in the inevitability that a criminal element obtained the same technology. Or if something broke out the other end. They had thought of that as well.
The Warden wears two amber Magatama around his neck. They are fastened so that they circle each other like two koi carp chasing each other's tails. Upon his person, they make him look like some kind of fanatical cult leader about to order a mass suicide. It's his eyes, somewhere in between those of a man who needed coffee badly enough to murder someone for it and a man who would quite happily murder someone for a cup of coffee even if he didn't need one.
Inside the amber is trapped small splinters of chitin, from fangs and claws, as well as residue of emerald dust. Residue of something from a place even further away than Pandemonium, that makes even the Archdukes of Hell uneasy at its existence on the same planet as them. The Warden has tried three times to properly control it anyway.
He makes no distinction between demons of the human or supernatural variety, does not particularly care who is guilty or who is innocent. In his experience, 'innocent' usually means 'didn't get caught' or 'had enough power to get away with it'. What he does wonder about a lot is how the demons got to Earth and if controlling them might work out better for him than his endless failed experiments with the thing he knows lurks in the island's core.
22.
Title: Light-Souled
Fandom: Shining Force/Undertale
Characters/Pairings: Max, Asgore, Gaster
Rating: PG-13/gen
Tags: fusion AU, implied fourth wall shenanigans, dark
Word count: 256
Summary: Asgore manages to get the last soul he requires, traded to him in return for mutual homecoming.
Our leader was changed when he returned but not really all that much, considering.
He was still alive, still in a human body, only just, it seemed. He was whole and healthy, he just seemed, well, faint, his connection to the world a lot more fragile.
Figures, seeing as he shouldn't have come home at all. The magical reaction shattered the earth, rending the skies. People saw the component parts of the world that day, the machinery behind it, the things you shouldn't see if everything was working properly. Then there was a blindingly bright flash of light like a curtain being opened in the sky and a mountain literally rumbled open.
The Demon King is loose as well but we were told not to fight him, that we had bigger battles, things that were worse in this world. It's only natural for us to go after bigger prey now we've been through our first quest, I suppose. He says we're going to need a bigger party and some actual territory. He's going to retire from front line service now. He'd just be a liability with so much missing from himself and he's been studying up strategy in the long years of his exile, in some hellhole on the other side of that magical portal.
The gleam in his eyes when he said this, the mad radiance of his smile, was nothing to do with getting back the soul he traded for freedom.
This was no longer a time for the naivety of good versus evil.
23.
Title: If I Fit...
Fandom: Fire Emblem: Burning Blade
Characters/Pairings: Oswin, Serra
Rating: PG-13/gen
Tags: humour, random
Word count: 253
Summary: In which we learn how many cats fit in Oswin's armour. (spoilers - The answer is: all of them.)
Note: Randomly chosen fandom and prompt 'Pericci' (as in, the Star Ocean character. The first thing I thought of was that she has a funny scene where she somehow fits herself and about four cats inside a decorative suit of armour)
Shaking one of the gauntlets upside down, Oswin found three more kittens. They tumbled to the floor, their fall broken by soft hay, then squeaked their disapproval at their hiding place being disrupted, before scampering off. He tried again to fit his hand all the way into the gauntlet. Something warm and soft wriggled, then gave him a playful bite. He withdrew his fingers and shook the gauntlet harder. How did they all fit in his armour? How did they wedge themselves inside so firmly that he couldn't extricate them? He had read in one of Serra's textbooks that cats were, in fact, liquids, and he was also aware that Ostian armour was considered ridiculously, ludicrously large and heavy by other nations, who didn't understand why armour needed to be so heavy that it required less physical strength and more clever feats of engineering, mostly involving chains and winches, to get yourself into it, never mind in it, which involved lots of hidden wheels. Still, the magic by which the cats managed to fit into his armour defied space and time. He had checked it several times for hidden compartments but this did not seem to be the trick. He wasn't even sure how they had ended up with so many cats and kittens. Was Serra secretly adopting more of them than she would admit to? Were they attracted to the pegasus stables that was having a lot of trouble with mice lately? He shrugged. He would probably never find out the answer.
24.
Title: High Spirits
Fandom: StreetPass plaza games (cafe, quest)
Characters/Pairings: King!Mii/Ultimate Ghost, cafe owner
Rating: PG-13/slash
Tags: headcanon (all plaza games happen in one world), human/ghost
Word count: 381
Summary: The former adventurer's tavern was becoming quite the place for undead-human mediation.
Note: Randomly selected fandom and prompt - 'moderate'.
What had once been a rough and rowdy adventurer's tavern was now the restaurant every noble in the land coveted a reservation at. The proprietor hadn't really done anything special, only made excellent quality food, often in large portions, chosen a good location in a convenient crossing point for most trade routes. Nothing special except one thing: they had the progressive forethought and inclusive mindset to cater to the differently vital population, or, to put it in simple terms, they had a stock of food that ghosts could eat. Mostly that meant souls. It wasn't that hard to get hold of souls if you had fish and meat, you just needed it to be freshly, locally hunted and for you to know a relatively high tier necromancer you can send out in time. It wasn't even illegal to trap a soul if it was a pheasant or salmon's soul, the law just didn't cover it and the guards didn't care enough. The tavern's owner had been given the idea during the last raid by the Undead army, before they stopped being a thing any more. The wights and ghouls had been just as happy to snack on a stray cat's soul as a lost traveler's. Then when the eccentric, well-dressed fellow and his terrifying giant lich companion heard of the newly opened tavern and paid a visit in the middle of the night, well, they couldn't very well turn down a generously paying customer, could they?
Truth be told, it was turning into more of a political institution, a neutral meeting place between humanity and the Undead, with the increasing number of high-ranking officials on both sides of the war who had the brains and imagination to actually sit down and talk to each other. Clientele paid good money to book the tables in darker corners with thicker curtains separating them, harder to overhear, and a few private alcoves had been installed.
The proprietor knew that he was in over his head, as someone who only knew about eatery management, not inter-species diplomacy. One day all of this was going to get him into big trouble. Still, the pay was good and the atmosphere was respectable. And if he was very lucky, it might actually bring peace to this accursed land.