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Never before had Rapier stood witness to such an enormous fleet mustered in one location. Dozens of assault carriers and troopships, over three hundred battleships and cruisers, and each one of these capital craft were surrounded by ten frigates for close-in defense. This was the Armada of the Small of which Wakizashi spoke.
Rapier gazed out of the bridge, captivated by the shifting lights in the distance. Such a show of force had surely been ordered by Her Dominance herself, but it was grounds for worry. Not since the war against the great machine empire of the Upsilon had a force so large been raised, and for a moment he wondered what that meant about the current conflict. Then, he expunged doubt from his mind. He may have had his misgivings with his immediate superiors, but his faith in his sovereign, like most Poslushi of the day, remained unshaken. If the great Katana II wished it done, it had to be for good reason.
On a somewhat more relieving note, Rapier had been all but relieved of duty. Overbattlematron Dao of the Oxilini Brood had assumed joint command of the fleet with Wakizashi, but the Tethylen and her escorts would remain as the spearhead of their offensive, joined by a strike group of battleships and carriers.
“You know, this is only about a tenth of our might. Even if we subtract ten thousand of our craft for border patrols, ten thousand more for Judge retinues, and a generous twenty thousand for policing, that’s still only a sixth.” Wakizashi explained.
“It’s impressive, I must say.” Rapier replied, antennae standing almost straight with excitement.
“Her Dominance has made it clear that she will not tolerate delays in the campaign from this point forward. She expects to be meeting with me on Earth quite soon. It shouldn’t be a problem; the Armada alone outnumbers the navies of all their nations combined almost two to one.”
“They really number so little? Damn, we could’ve just had the Council of Arbitrators send a Peacekeeper detachment and been done with it!”
Wakizashi chuckled at the prospect. “Would’ve served those yokel people right. Better than the tit-sucking softskins deserved, even.”
Rapier saw one of the Ovinis crewmen give Wakizashi a dirty look when she wasn’t looking. For a moment, he thought to remind her that such anti-mammalian language was not to be used in mixed company, but found that it would be too blunt and too suspicious.
“Though, that does raise the question: what are you planning to do once we win?” Rapier asked out of a mixture of genuine curiosity and a willingness to change the subject.
Wakizashi’s eyes narrowed in thought. “First, I’ll demolish the capitals of the nations of man and build my palace from the stones, as is custom. Then, once mankind has been brought around, I’ll probably have to rekindle their old martial history. The Council will have… issues with the Combine gaining too much from this war.”
“A prudent choice, ma’am, but would the Council bring a coalition to bear against one of its own Tribunals?” Rapier asked. Such a thing had never occurred before, not counting the war that replaced the Psychocracy with the Upsilon in the position of First Tribunal.
“Remember, Rapier, to put nothing beyond our enemies, and even less beyond our friends.”
Rapier tried to remember what the quote was from. “Tribulations of Sunsword?”
“Axioms of the Before, actually. Nasty time, that was.”
Rapier didn’t know much about the Before; it had been a time of great pain that existed before the rise of Sunsword as First Warlord of Poslush, and all information beyond that was restricted to Judge eyes only.
The bridge door hissed open and someone entered with heavy footsteps. Rapier spun in his chair to see Ulo standing just barely on the inside of the doorway. His bright blue plumage quivered on end with excitement.
“Viceroy, Captain-General, commnets are up and running with all craft. 900th through 1210th Mixed Legions are deploying to the surface as we speak, with artillery and armored elements soon to follow. We’ve currently got 30,000 Aerial Knights in Omen’s high atmosphere as well, but I imagine they’ll be suffering high casualties soon. Human air effectiveness is not to be underestimated, ma’am.”
“Oh, don’t be such a pessimist, Captain. I’m sure the Aerial Knights will perform as admirably as they have ever done.”
Rapier envied Ulo at this moment. As he wasn’t the direct subordinate of Wakizashi, she couldn’t punish him for speaking out without overstepping social norms.
“The issue is not one of performance; it’s one of technology and honor. I’m sure you know of the human air forces’ self-steering air torpedoes, and their tendency to attack without warning. If they were to be engaged by our Knights, it is likely that each enemy fighter could inflict significant losses before running out of munitions or being overwhelmed. The Judges of the Squireworlds would not be pleased to see their Knights wasted, ma’am.”
A foul smell permeated the room and Rapier cringed with apprehension. Wakizashi’s voice had a sharp, angered hiss to it. “Well, you can tell the Judges of the Squireworlds that they can write their complaints down, roll them up, and shove them up their cloacae. I am still Viceroy, and the forces they entrust to me will still answer to me. Her Dominance does not tolerate factionalism within her demesne, and neither will I. Understand, Captain?”
Ulo lowered his gaze and tilted his head forward, the closest thing to an apology an Aralu could push aside their pride to give. “Understood, ma’am.”
“Good. Tell Dao that we are ready to proceed with the offensive.” Wakizashi said, shooing Ulo from the room with one hand. Then, she turned to Rapier.
“What do you think, Captain-General? How should we proceed?”
Rapier’s antennae raised in excitement. Ever since she had stung him, she had paradoxically become more open to suggestion. Perhaps she was willing to be more vulnerable before somebody she thought didn’t have the capacity to use such vulnerability against her.
“Well, in this situation, I would suggest a doctrine of combined-arms tactics. The Aerial Knights wrest control of the skies and work in tandem with our artillery to bombard enemy positions, and our armored and infantry columns support one another in rolling over what remains.”
A sweet scent tinged the air once again. “Sound strategies as always, Captain-General. Rally the Driver Caste; I’ve been wanting a human servant ever since this war began.”
—
“Flush,” Simmons said, laying her cards out on the floor of the barracks. Overjoyed, Pavlov took his turn to show his hand. “Four of a kind, baby!”
“Ugh, two pair,” Sparrow said, facepalming.
Darren, the dealer, took the opportunity to speak. “And the taker of the grand jackpot of two dollars, a novelty stamp, and a free drink when all this is over: Corporal Pavlov!”
Pavlov eyed the stamp greedily, but before he could collect any of his winnings, Darren’s PDA flashed twice and a message appeared on the screen with a loud ding. Darren picked up the tablet and read the message.
From: Capt. Devon McCullough, USSAC, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Astral
Get your equipment and proceed to Fort von Richthofen’s helipad for your next assignment. Say your goodbyes; it’s unlikely you will return before the fort has been evacuated.
End transmission.
Darren put the PDA in his bag and said, “Get your gear. We’re leaving.”
“Where to?” Pavlov asked.
“Dunno; it just says to wait for a helicopter.” Darren responded, already donning his ballistic vest and helmet. He picked up his rifle, freshly cleaned and greased, and slung it over his shoulder. A minute of slipping into his boots, adjusting his belt, grabbing his pack, but mostly adjusting his belt later, he was combat-ready and already on his way to the vertiport. The walk was short and the air was brisk and clean, unlike Earth’s cocktail of smog, industrial aerosols, and synthetic ozone that passed for an atmosphere. The place would make a good holiday retreat, as long as CAST won the war first.
The Dark Sparrow lay in wait on the helipad, rotors still spinning. Darren ducked under the blades (such behavior was greatly reinforced after he watched a taller trainee get the top of his head removed during Ranger School) and climbed into the back of the helo, the rest of the platoon close behind. The moment Pavlov, bringing up the rear, got in, the doors slammed shut and the aircraft lifted from the ground. Soon, Fort von Richthofen was nothing but a slowly-shrinking cluster of structures behind them, a little city soon to vanish forever.
The flight was solemn and quiet; the gravity of the situation was clear to everyone for the first time. Normally, someone would step up with a quip or joke to lighten the mood, but it seemed that humor was no longer a viable option. The only noises to occasionally break through the drone of the engines were the occasional report of an artillery piece or the whine of a passing fighter. Darren silently dictated a final address to his mother on a piece of stationery. When the helo came down, he left it with the pilot in case he didn’t return; he couldn’t help but notice several others doing the same.
Darren’s PDA flashed one last time as they emerged atop one side of a steep mountain-rimmed valley, about a hundred feet above the floor of the landform. A column of French and Dutch evacuees had recently passed through, and had managed to goad a more foolhardy Battlematron into sending her forces through the canyon in pursuit. To that end, the platoon, alongside two Marine Raider and one SAS detachment of the same size, would set an ambush for her forces, inflicting as many casualties as they could in hopes of degrading her soldiers’ morale. When the job was done, the four platoons would retreat one after another, the Rangers covering the last of the Marines. Darren chuckled as he imagined what the Marines were thinking about not being last out.
“This is Staff Sergeant Hardwell, 75th Ranger Regiment, requesting sound-off, over.” Darren said, one hand to his ear.
“Sergeant Armstrong in position, over.” a gruff, heavily Scottish voice responded nigh-instantly.
“You’re late to the party. Staff Sergeant Walker and Staff Sergeant Kennedy. You might remember me from that intel raid, over.” another voice with a Brooklyn accent spoke.
It took Darren a minute to remember what he was talking about. “Oh, with the Battlematron Sparrow took a leg off. Yeah, I remember you! How’s Abilene, over?”
“Recovering; some asshole put a Bouncing Betty in our patrol path and she, erm, disarmed it. With her unmentionables. We’re running with a replacement, over.”
“Yeesh.” Darren exclaimed, cupping his hand over his microphone. Looking over, Pavlov looked to be simultaneously horrified and suppressing a laugh.
“Well, that’s all. Let’s try to maintain radio silence; God knows whether or not they’re listening in on us, out.”
“Roger, out.”
“Affirm, out.”
Sighing, Darren clicked off his radio and tried to find a good spot to set up his gun. However, he was immediately interrupted when Pavlov called out, “Hey, they left us a cache!”
Instantly interested, Darren ran over to Pavlov’s side, and sure enough, two large steel crates had been partially buried, bearing the insignia of the French logistics corps. When Pavlov cracked them open, it was like they had struck gold. One crate carried dozens upon dozens of STANAG rifle magazines, and the other contained five anti-material coilguns with enough sabot rounds to put a tank brigade out of commission.
A dark whimsy overtook Darren and he smiled as only someone about to destroy something could. This was going to be fun.
(AN: If you could make a tier list of the various characters, who would go where? Why? Just an interesting way to know where I need to work on characterization [I know I'm not the best at it].
​
Love 'ya!)

Due to the corruption that is going on in S4 - give us a new mission type - and here we go again with the good old horde mode idea . . . but the timing is just perfect
-mission objective is surviving 20 waves of enemys (every 5 waves comes a boss) aaand after you managed to deal with your first 5 survival missions you can enter the limitless mode
-you dont need to mine stuff, but instead finding it (maybe some powerups/ items /stuff that supports the team) like automated turrets that can be activated for one wave, to assist on holding a hallway or area they are in (but not active due to the corruption, so the lithophage will grow over turrets to deactivate them again putting a cooldown of 2 waves on it) . . . it is also an idea (depending on what type of turret you activate, it has a bigger cooldown, like laser turrets /rocket and stuff)
special support stuff tied to a specific class, for example the driller can activate traps / scout can activate light sources in areas and hallways / engineer has access to laser walls and energy doorcontrolls / gunner can set up physical barricades or a shooter's nest (while standing behind or in it your weapon dmg gets buffed, should be necessary for higher waves due to the sheer volume of enemys)
you get a 10 min timer where you can explore the belly of the space rig, to find support items and a good location to make your stand
good teams should be able to contain or shutdown areas in between waves(that means they have to push forward in to the dark to shutdown certain "spawn rooms" so they have more room to breathe) spawn locations should swap from time to time , after each wave you get 5 down to 2 min (depending on difficulty or number of wave)
while progressing beyond wave 20, you get different mission mods. for example for haunted cave you get a highly increased spawn rate of b00mers so it can happen that 4-5 can spawn if your team has bad luck
-getting to wave 30 gives you once a week a cosmetic and a weapon matrixcore
getting to wave 50 gives you every time a cosmetic matrixcore that is directly tied to that game mode
-if you get the oxygen modification the bottom of the space rig blasts open all the security doors
-ammunition can befound in crates and 1-2 dwarves can carry it at the same time (only making it faster during transport) ammo crates can be called on a 2 min cooldown
-wave 30 and 50 spawns rockpox infected dreadnoughts (specialy designed for that mission) they can spread the corruption and they are a walking hive nest for lesser infected glyphid's, they can also hatch an infected egg, after the hatching 2 infected pretorians will spawn
rarely you can find drones that will support the team for 2 rounds (if not damaged) with the spreading infection (they can also be repaired)
if you work in a team you can unlock more heavy support like a bet-c that can also support on dealing with rockpox while shooting (it has also different types of weapons, that costs more wavepoints a special currency for the hordemode) - those points can be earned for special activities (shut down a spawn room, over all teamplay like revives killed enemys and so on, and unused special support items like mentioned above - I still have a few ideas, but that's about it for now. Oh and a scary siren should set off while spawning the first wave and every boss wave - a very special siren should blast while on wave 50 very haunting and scary - oh and if you are the last man standing the siren should also set off
Edit: Adding a new Mission Speaker called The General - acting like the sergant of hacksawridge (the movie) or hound (from transformers ) - Why so you may ask ? Well mission control just pooped his pants or (that might be a funny joke) HE is the General, putting mor lore to it, so we see that he is a battle-hardened veteran

Disclaimer: Registered trademarks and copyrights are properties of their rightful owners. As this series jumps realities very often it is hard to track that info.
DM, the Digitalman, the Scion of Variable is a creation of my good friend who does not use Reddit and is used with permission.
The Pokémon Lucario is © The Pokemon Company.
“My Dad is my hero.”
Harry Connick, Jr.
The Daughter that Follows
Chapter 27
Reunited
Part 3
Anna’s barriers flared to life and she felt Hong Long try to push through.
“No, we don't want to scare them any worse than they are.” Anna said telepathically as she felt the creature’s jaws begin to squeeze down on her barriers.
She felt Hong Long strain against her will then finally push through and form in front of her. The dragon roared and slammed into the beast, coiling and restraining the struggling creature. Then it looked in the direction of Alan. Anna followed her tulpa’s gaze.
Alan Quain was casually holding the moth of the Indominous Rex shut, the creature was now forcefully crouched and clearly in a submissive stance. He was patting its side and soothing it with comforting words and a telepathic reassurance. He looked over at Anna briefly and nodded to the other one which was currently trying to bite into Hong Long, which was proving fruitless as the tulpa’s skin was near impenetrable to a mundane creature. Anna, however, was getting the feeling of bites all over her body.
She sighed and walked over to the dinosaur, near enough to its snapping jaws, but more than just out of range. She focused and soon she was in it’s mind. He was a furious and aggressive creature, made even more aggressive by a lifetime of shocks from batons and drugs from guns. She saw his only solace was his sister who was now being casually restrained by something it saw as food. Anna reached out mentally and hugged the creature in its mind. To the dinosaur’s perspective though it was now very tiny compared to Anna’s mental form. She tried her best to comfort it, but it was continually lashing out. Soon though, her father joined her and pulled her away. The dinosaur soon fell into a deep sleep.
“They’ll have to be quarantined in the old Bio-Syn sanctuary, but we don’t have to end them.” Alan said. “This one is going to be a problem unless he’s asleep though.”
“People suck.” Anna sniffled.
Alan nodded. “We can, but we can also...”
“Be better.” Anna nodded. “Kratos wasn’t a subtle teacher.”
Alan laughed, “You’d be surprised.”
“So what now?” Anna asked.
“I contacted Billy, they’ll be here for pickup in the morning. Then they go to the sanctuary and we go back to the camp for a bit. Until then I’ll keep him in a deep sleep, his sister won’t be too much of an issue, she’s calmer, but she’s gonna need to eat.” Alan said as he looked to Hong Long, “Think you can help out there?”
Hong Long snorted and nodded, then looked at Anna.
Anna smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”
Hong Long made a series of mumbles and nudged Anna’s head.
“Go get her something good to eat. Like a big crocodile or something.” Anna smiled and patted him on the head.
The tulpa dragon flew off.
Alan made camp and Anna helped. By the time they had finished Hong Long had returned and put an overly large snake by the Rex’s mouth.
“Well that’s a fucking huge anaconda.” Alan sighed as purple flashed around the area of their camp.
“Something we should worry about?” Anna asked.
Alan shrugged. “Potentially, there are realities where anacondas just get absurdly large and eat people.”
Anna’s eyes went wide.
“I doubt this is one of those worlds, but for all I know someone de-extincted the Titanboa.” Alan huffed and added, “Again.”
“Again?!” Anna almost shrieked.
“I thought you loved all animals.” Alan laughed.
“I do, but who keeps making these clones and why?” Anna stomped her foot on the ground as Hong Long shrunk down and coiled over her shoulder.
“Rich assholes wanting to make more money by selling a ‘perfect weapon’.” Alan sighed. “Story doesn’t change much honestly. Psionic soldier. Cloned dinosaur. Engineered Dinosaur. Ancient Snake. They always want to exploit something, there’s always a Looten Plunder.”
“Okay, was that a name?” Anna asked.
“Ah, you didn’t get to meet The Planeteers, that’s right.” Alan sighed and shook his head. “We’ll go find a world of theirs, you’d get along with all of them. But yeah it's the name of an asshole whose only goal is to exploit nature for money. Also hires a very lethal mercenary I tend to have to kill.”
“Yikes.” Anna said as she sat down and began to stroke Hong Long like a very long and reptilian cat.
“The Planteers were 5 kids recruited by a very literal spirit of the Earth, Gaia. They’re not soldiers and were never meant to be, their entire purpose is education and enlightenment. But they weren’t left defenseless. They each got a magic ring, four with the classic elements and the fifth is heart, which is kinda like telepathy but more here...” He tapped his chest. “If they really get pressed, which happens to them a lot because they're teens and they’re fighting psychotic, sometimes super villain adults, they can combine the powers to make...” He gestured in the air and the illusion of a blue skinned man with teal hair and red suit-like parts on his body appeared, “Captain Planet.”
“Nice mullet.” Anna snickered.
“He likes it.” Alan laughed. “He loves those kids, I try to remember that when I’m in their worlds.”
Anna nodded as she watched the image. “He has the heart of a hero.”
Alan laughed, “Filling those shoes already?”
“I think it’s because the other part of my base is already there.” Anna said. “I’m just waiting on you.”
“Well now we’re just waiting on each other.” Alan smirked. “Get some sleep. I got the watch. Need to keep the big boy asleep anyway.”
Anna nodded and walked into her tent, “Hong Long keep him some company for a bit please?”
Hong Long nodded coiled around Alan’s waist, waiting to be patted.
“Oh no, you don’t fool me.” Alan smiled as he pulled out some cards. “Come on, a game or two.”
Hong Long wrinkled his nose and snorted but coiled his lower body in such a way that it made a flat enough surface to play a game of cards.
Anna woke up to the sound of metal clanging against metal. Slowly she walked out of her tent and saw that her father was loading the male Indominous Rex into a holding sling. The female was actually sitting calmly in a holding crate, two large goat carcasses at her maw for her to eat whenever.
“Your dragon cheats.” Alan laughed as he locked the final column into place. “But he cheats poorly.”
“Why are you teaching my dragon card games?” Anna asked as she patted the dragon that once again coiled around her like a sash.
“He knows them, I just wanted a game or two.” Alan snorted.
Hong Long made some murmuring noises and grumbles that Anna understood as him being upset at being caught.
“Of course he caught you, he’s endlessly old.” Anna said with a minor jab to her father.
Alan smiled then realized what she had said as several work men laughed at the joke.
“My daughter, guys.” Alan sighed. “All right, let’s pack and get back to the camp and a warm shower!”
“Oh, warm showers.” Anna nodded. “And you can tell me about some other places we should visit.”
Alan smiled as he hugged his daughter. “I got a great one!” He laughed.
(T)(D)(T)(F)---(T)(F)(T)(W)
Another helicopter ride and a few time zones later the father and daughter were once again at the Montana based Camp Cretaceous. Alan had gotten the honor of the first shower in no small part due to a pachy skidding and covering him in mud and excrement through the fencing it had. Anna was glad that she had it last though, she got to enjoy the fresh hot water that she knew her dad had helped kick up.
It was well into the evening when they were sitting on his porch, looking out at the heads of the brachiosauruses swaying in the setting sun. Rio was even taking her time to watch them as well.
Alan was actually enjoying himself to a degree he hadn’t let himself in a very long time.
Anna was ecstatic, and enraptured by the gentle giants.
Rio’s recent turmoil and confusion seemed to have faded.
Then Alan sighed loudly and put his beer down on a table.
Anna focused and Rio did as well.
Hong Long coiled around Anna.
Rio stood and took a defensive stance.
From the high above the green aura of Psy-Ko descended, her enhanced powers made her glow like a beacon in the night. Besides her a suit of black metallic armor was descending as well.
“Hello Alan.” Psy-Ko smiled. “Anna.”
“Go die in a fire.” Anna growled.
“Is that anyway to greet--” Psy-Ko was cut off.
“Yes!” Alan shouted, “Yes it is how you great lunatics who hound and harass your family!”
An invisible force sent the armor that contained Sindri sailing into the sky.
“Well, I guess we’re fighting then!” Sindri roared as he rebounded back faster than anyone could react. His armor’s fist impacted a barrier that seemed to pop out of thin air. It was gleaming white and had odd symbols filling it.
“I’m sorry, I’m keeping them safe for a bit.” Ragnis grinned as he appeared. “Allow me to assert your place in the hierarchy of power.”
“Above him.” Psy-Ko grinned as green strands of hair stretched out and began to weave themselves into the various dinosaurs.
“Oh no you don’t!” Anna snarled as she formed a blade of her aura around her wrist and levitated herself up to the stands, cutting through all of them.
Alan just stared as his temper started to flare. “FLEISCH!” He roared.
The psionic woman smiled at the man she hated. “You remembered my name.”
“You’re boring.” Ragnis said as he looked down at the straining form of Sindri in his mech suit. “Now her..” Ragnis made a kicking motion and Sindri’s mech was swallowed by a beam of light and vanished.
Ragnis was then immediately at Psy-Ko’s side swinging a huge claymore down on her. Psy-Ko smiled as she dodged effortlessly. Soon she felt all the strands of her hair were cut free from their targets. Shr grinned again as she turned to Anna.
“My dear, why such worry? They’d be under better care with me.” Psy-Ko tried her best to give a sweet smile.
Anna stopped and turned to her.
“Anna!” Alan shouted. “She’s up to something.” He brought himself into the air and watched as Rio awas now engaging the returning form of Sindri. “This is some sort of trap!”
“Oh do be quiet Alan!” Psy-Ko sneered as tendrils of her hair raced and encased Alan Quain.
Anna roared as she surged forward. Ragnis joined her in the shout of rage. Psy-Ko moved effortlessly as she used her hair to snake into Anna’s aura and steal control of her arm from her. She directed it to the sword arm of the Scion of Life.
Ragnis shrieked in pain as his right arm was lopped off half way up his forearm. The limb fell as Anna watched in shock at what Psy-Ko had done. Psy-Ko laughed in joy as Sindri caught the limb and vanished. Then the hair that had encased Alan Quain detonated as if a bomb of pure power had gone off. It left Psy-Ko with only half of her hair left as she too shrieked in pain.
Psy-Ko floundered as she tried to focus once more. She was able to get just enough focus to see the rising form of Alan Quain, the purple mark of his psionic power that marked his eyes was now expanded out like with the edges splashed in black and white, like volcanoes of rage highlighting just how dangerous a force of nature he was becoming.
“Retreat Ragnis.” Alan said with an angry hiss.
Anna was still in shock. “Ragnis...”
“It’s alright kid.” Ragnis winced, “We both fell for it.” He vanished and left her to her confusion.
“I’m done pulling my punches with you.” Alan focused on Psy-Ko and the woman felt an intense pressure on her throat.
“No!” The high pitched and gleeful voice of Atropos said as she appeared and encased Psy-Ko in a wave of dark pulsing energy. “I think that will have to wait...” Then they vanished.
It took both Anna and Alan a few moments to establish that no major damage had been done, but there were now reports of UFOs fighting over dinosaurs. Which was going to definitely boost their tourism funding at the camp.
When they came down and went back inside Anna was crying into her pillow.
“Stupid question, but can I do anything?” Alan asked.
“I’m sorry, I should have listened.” Anna sniffled.
“She actually surprised me with that.” Alan said. “Hair powers. That’s quite a change.”
“Psychic hair powers.” Anna corrected him with a small laugh.
“That’s...” Alan blinked. “That’s just dumb and I know a woman who uses her normal hair in a similar way.”
“Will he be okay?” Anna asked.
Alan shrugged. “I mean according to them you took off half of the Wicked Bitch’s hand and she couldn’t fix that.”
Anna nodded. “I’m a danger to them.”
A flash outside their door and a knock later and Ragnis was opening the door and walking in. He was wearing a heavily metallic prosthetic.
“You could have waited for me to answer.” Alan said.
“You were going to let me in anyway.” Ragnis shrugged and showed off his hand. “No hard feelings, I got a new one.”
“Why does that look...” Anna stared at it. “Is that Vik’s work?”
“No, but it is from V’s reality.” Ragnis smiled. “Going to need some variants, but now that I have one that’s a part of me I can work with it.”
“But she has your hand.” Anna pointed out.
“Yeah, that’s concerning.” Ragnis nodded. “But don’t blame yourself, they clearly planned this. And we both had to fall for it.”
“I mean, I did say it was a trap.” Alan shrugged.
“Yeah but how did you know?” Anna asked.
“He is endlessly old.” Ragnis nodded.
Alan stared at the Scion.
“I already used that earlier.” Anna said.
“Daughters get a ‘being cute’ pass.” Alan growled.
“Look, I already told the others, I got this so don’t blame yourself.” Ragnis sighed. “She’s been a step ahead for so long.” Ragnis shook his head. “But I’m still keeping an eye on you. Let her meet the kids, get some rest, leave when you’re ready.”
Alan nodded. “Thanks.”
Rio stared at the Scion. “Will she target others?”
“Oh my god she’s trying to become Sarumon of Many Colors!” Anna gasped.
“Wonderful reference, but no it doesn’t work like that. At most that hand has a very small amount of what my concept of life is.” Ragnis shook his head. “Although now I have to have Perfection paint the image of her in a rainbow outfit just to annoy her.”
“Why would it annoy her?” Anna asked.
Ragnis sighed, “She’s Evil, not terribly original and quite frankly she should be easy to predict, but we keep missing something.”
“Her actual goal.” Alan sighed. “It’s been something so insane you can’t grasp.”
“Do you have any insight oh, old one?” Ragnis asked
Alan glared once again. “No, because again I’m not that desperately insane. Once this thing with Darkseid is over you got me for the seconds it takes to flatten her.”
“Or flatline her.” Anna added.
Alan and Ragnis both cast a concerned glance at Anna.
“She’s getting to me.” Anna sighed.
Rio stood up and sat next to Anna. “Would you like to pet my head again?”
Anna smiled and slowly patted Rio’s head.
“When in doubt, pet a friend.” Ragnis said, “You two relax, you’re safe. Even if the res of us aren’t.”
\\\\
First
Previous /// Next
SPOTIFY LIST!
////
S: (looks around) Well...
Perfection: What?
S: I know one of you wants to say it.
Perfection: Say what?
S: Spaceballs, Lord Helmet.
Perfection: But there wasn’t a jamming scene.
S: I keep forgetting your sense of humor.
Wraith: (Walks in wearing an oversized helmet) “So, Lone Starr, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.”
DM: (Walks in wearing the same helmet)
Perfection: Also I’m a fan of Yogurt.
S: I worry about my mind sometimes.

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might discover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
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Let's go!
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• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. After that, you're able to call Franklin every 20 minutes to request a "payphone hit", which are short 3-5 minute missions with optional challenges that grant you a whopping $85,000 per job. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), Cayo Perico's Buried Stashes, etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Remember the Special Outfits: You can visit the front desk of any clothes store to browse various outfits for inspiration. But did you know that you can also visit the "changing room" or wardrobe in the stores or at your apartment, to browse various outfits that you've unlocked via special mission rewards? For example, you can be a Yacht Captain or a GoPostal mailman if you've done the associated missions! Most of them are in the "Outfits: Special" category.
• Character Replica Outfits: Think of a recognizable character, and attempt to replicate the look in GTA as closely as possible. For example, Mr. Bean or Super Mario!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of your banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge stash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you're reading this, perhaps you're like me. You have most things you want in GTA Online. You've "done it all". And now you're bored.
But... have you *really* done it all? Turns out, most of us haven't. There's so much to do in this game, and it's easy to get stuck in old habits that prevent us from discovering everything there is to do in Los Santos!
So I began writing down all my ideas for having fun in the game, and basically use these suggestions as guidelines to always find something new to do. It has completely reinvigorated my joy for the game, and I hope it can help you do the same!
If you're having trouble with motivation or inspiration, then I suggest picking something at random from the list and just doing it! You might discover that you love it, just like I did!
And if you have anything more to add, please share your comments so that we can all help build this list together. :)
​
Let's go!
​

• Break Your Habits: Most people have a routine that they repeat over and over again until they get burned out and bored with the game! Your number one goal for having fun must be to break your old habits!
• Grind Less: If you've played for a long time, there's absolutely zero reason to grind big piles of useless money. People often develop bad habits where they finally grind so much that they forget to have fun. The "wonder" of the world completely vanishes when everything becomes about optimal times and optimal routes and optimal mission rotations. Relax! Start exploring everything that the game has to offer instead! Dare to do the "less optimal" routes, and have the courage to stop stressing about the "time efficiency" when you do the game's content. Sure, perhaps you can do a mission in 2 minutes with an Oppressor Mk2, but why not relax, put on a podcast, and do a relaxing 5 minute drive instead? Relax and have fun!
• Switch Off the Business Mindset: Why grind at all? Why do businesses at all? What do you really need the money for, whatsoever? If it feels like grinding, do something else that's more fun for you! Stop thinking about the money and start thinking about the real-world fun you're having! Start actually enjoying all the things you've previously grinded for! Perhaps you might enjoy treating GTA as a racing simulator where you mostly do challenges/race maps instead? There's so much more to do that isn't purely related to earning money!
• Accept All Invites: When you see invites to races, challenges, missions, etc, accept them! You will broaden your horizons about what you can do in the game, and you will often make the newbies very happy! Of course, if it turns out they're a hopelessly stupid newbie who keeps dying and never improves, then sure, I'd suggest leaving the heist to save your time and sanity. But most of the time, the other players will be smart enough to learn quickly. You can easily make great, new friends this way!
• Protect the Newbies: If you see someone doing a sales mission in a public lobby, why not fly over there in a powerful airborne vehicle (or heck, a missile-equipped Toreador car), and then follow them as their bodyguard against any griefers that may appear!
• Join People's CEO/MC: You can list yourself as "looking for work" via the interaction menu, which will alert other people that there's someone looking for work in the session. You can then join them and help people out with their missions, which is often a fun and relaxing activity for a while!
• Get a Crew: Look around for a crew of like-minded people. They exist. There are crews that specialize in heisting with competent players. There are crews that focus on racing. There are crews for Arena War. There are crews that only do LS Car Meet challenges/races. There's even crews specialized in doing sales missions together, by helping each other with business sales, if that's your thing! Finding a group of people with a compatible mindset and interests really pays off in the end!
• Switch Sessions: You can jump between multiple public sessions until you find one that matches your mood. Perhaps a nice, quiet sessions without griefers, perfect for doing sales missions? Or maybe one where there's a group of people that are actively doing something fun, which you can join in on? Don't just settle for your session. Explore what's out there!
• Do the Stupid Things: Grab your friends or some randoms, and challenge each other to do the most stupid and random things you can think of. The game is a sandbox. So start acting like it! For example, why not challenge each other with things like "everyone starts at the beach without any vehicles, your goal is to get to the Senora Desert convenience store, and you're only allowed to use stolen vehicles, the first person to reach the desert wins", or how about "everyone jumps from the Maze Bank Tower and your goal is to ride your parachute all the way to the ferris wheel". Is that even possible? Who knows! Let's find out!
• Become a Map Creator: If you've had fun making random challenges in freeroam, why not make them into more formal challenges, by creating actual maps? The map creator is very advanced. You can modify the world, add checkpoints anywhere you want, you could make a bicycle race, add pedestrians, enable weapon wheel usage, add parachute jumps, stunt jumps, survival modes, etc. Go wild!
• River Racing: The game has two epic rivers that start at the "Alamo Sea" (desert lake) and head west out to the ocean. Why not do a race with some friends? Get the Blazer Aqua amphibious quad bike and start at the desert, then race through one of the rivers, which is full of fun jumps. Next, decide on a destination (such as the Del Perro Pier) and do the rest of the drive on roads to see who gets there first.
• Stop Flying: Whenever a game lets you fly, you end up skipping huge amounts of content and world design and just flying directly above it all. That's nice if you want to get somewhere efficiently, but it really breaks the game's immersion. Try driving everywhere instead!
• Learn to Fly: Many players are awful at flying (especially the helicopters). Why not practice your flying skills? Perhaps try landing your helicopter at very tight spots, on rooftops, and other fun locations!
• Use Motorcycles: They're more thrilling than cars, because crashing actually has consequences. They're also very fast and agile, which feels awesome while driving through the city!
• Oppressor MK1: Fly around the map, trying to create your own challenges such as flying over the water or climbing Mount Chiliad.
• Climb the Mountain: Find various fun vehicles and attempt to climb Mount Chiliad in them. There's lots of fun to be had with motorcycles at the mountain!
• BMX Tricks: There are so many skate parks and BMX bicycle stunt locations in the city. Why not look at some BMX stunt videos for inspiration?
• Throw Away the GPS: Stop staring at the minimap while driving! This is super fun. Let's say that you need to get to Simeon's shop. Instead of opening up the world map and setting a map marker and following the GPS line like a lemming, try to train yourself to navigate the city! Drive the streets, look at the surroundings and actually navigate! It's so much fun and you'll feel way more relaxed. The city will also feel way more immersive. You can even modify the minimap via "Settings: Display: Radar = Blips", which hides the map so that you can't see the shape of the streets by glancing at the minimap anymore. You can even disable it completely, but unfortunately it also hides the healthbar if you do that.
• Use First Person: You can change the game's camera mode to first person, which is a really unique and immersive way to play the game. Steal some cars and go cruising! It will feel like an entirely different game when you get used to it!
• Take Selfies: Find beautiful locations and attempt to take great screenshots, with perfect framing and composition! You can use the game's built-in snapmatic camera, or you can use your regular screenshot key instead! Collecting photos of your adventures is a nice way to remember where you've been!
• Businesses: There are so many businesses in the game, and it's easy to forget about them after a while. Look at your businesses and begin doing their sourcing and sales missons again! Most of us quit them because they're very grindy, but after a long time away from them, they'll feel fresh again. And they'll feel much more relaxing if you vary between your different businesses and you only do one or two missions at a time, to never get bored.
• Nightclub: Do the promotion/popularity missions, which involve going around town and promoting the nightclub, or helping to remove unwanted or drunk guests from the club. All of that improves your popularity, which improves the passive income you're earning from the club!
• Get the DJs: The nightclub has multiple DJs. Why not unlock them all? Their missions are very fun, and you'll earn new music for your club.
• Bunker: Why not do some manual supply missions, just to relax and have fun? Sure, the optimal way to make money with the bunker is to buy the supplies and do "better" things with your time instead of sourcing supplies, but why does everything have to be about ultimate efficiency all the time? If you're a long-time player, you already have lots of money and you need new things to do!
• Contact Missions: So many people don't even know that you can get missions by calling NPCs on the phone. It's named "contact missions" and they can be very fun. I recommend calling Dax and doing "Request Work" from him, because his missions are very varied and after you've done enough you get various important rewards, such as upgrades for your Acid Lab business.
• CEO/VIP Work: When you're a CEO, you can start SecuroServ missions via the interaction menu. There's lots of fun ones! For example, why not get your favorite car, relax and do the Sightseer mission, seeing where the map markers will take you while you enjoy the relaxing drive? The mission gives you 15 minutes, which is plenty of time to take the scenic route.
• Terrorbyte Missions: Another forgotten relic! The terrorbyte has lots of fun missions which are very good for variation. They used to be the best "active" way to earn money in GTA. Most players who grinded those missions have only done the "optimal rotation", but how about actually doing all of the available missions for fun?
• Rockstar Jobs: There are so many high-quality maps, races and challenge modes in the game. Explore the official list of RockstaCurated jobs in the game's pause menu. There's a ton of them!
• Community Jobs: There's a ton of cool community maps in the game. Remember to favorite the ones you liked so that you can easily start the same again!
• Auto Shop: Do the customer car customization and delivery jobs, and do the heists! They can be done solo.
• MC Club: Do the customer motorcycle customization and delivery jobs.
• Vehicle Warehouse: Do the Import/Export car theft and sales missions. Be sure to use the trick that ensures you only get high-end cars (permanently fill the warehouse with every worthless sourced car in the game, then you will only get high-end cars after that).
• Acid Lab: The best passive income business in the game. Spend some time doing Dax's contact missions to fully upgrade your lab's efficiency and it will become very profitable. Then mix up your gameplay between both sourcing Acid supplies or buying them. And do the sales missions.
• Franklin's Agency: Do the Dr. Dre story missions, then do 201x Security Contract missions until you've unlocked the highest amount of passive daily income (it goes up by $100 every time you do a mission, capped at $20,000 after having done 201 contracts).
• Payphone Hits: They're unlocked after doing at least 3 Security Contract missions. After that, you're able to call Franklin every 20 minutes to request a "payphone hit", which are short 3-5 minute missions with optional challenges that grant you a whopping $85,000 per job. They're very profitable.
• Weekly Time Trials: Do the camotorcycle time trial and the RC car time trial every week, they're a good way to learn how to drive and they give a nice bit of money! Remember that you can hold a key to respawn at the start of the race before the time has ended, if you're sure that you won't make it in time.
• Daily Objectives: In your interaction menu, look at the Objectives and complete them. They're a good way to be inspired to do things you might not do otherwise.
• Daily Collectible Hunts: G's Cache (hunt for the hidden street cache), Kosatka submarine treasure hunt, Street dealer (find it and sell to it every day), Cayo Perico's Buried Stashes, etc.
• Get a Fresh Look: Create a new character outfit (clothes, hairstyle, tattoos, mask).
• Use Different Weapons: Challenge yourself to use different weapons than the same old, boring weapon you always use. For example, how about only using the Heavy Revolver? Make those shots count!
• Modify Your Weapons: Change their styles and attachments.
• Tune Your Precious Car: You might have a "perfectly tuned" car that you've been driving for years and that you're always using. Why not modify it a bit? Put a different livery on it, and some different colors at least? What felt "fresh" two years ago would just be contributing to a feeling of "staleness" today. Freshen things up!
• Ride of the Day: Most long-time players have around a hundred vehicles, but most of them collect dust. Why not set fun "challenge" rules for yourself, such as randomly selecting a vehicle and using only that vehicle on that real-life day?
• Outfit of the Day: Why not make it your goal to create a new character "outfit of the day" (or week) whenever you log in? It's a great way to get a fresh feeling every time you play!
• Remember the Special Outfits: You can visit the front desk of any clothes store to browse various outfits for inspiration. But did you know that you can also visit the "changing room" or wardrobe in the stores or at your apartment, to browse various outfits that you've unlocked via special mission rewards? For example, you can be a Yacht Captain or a GoPostal mailman if you've done the associated missions! Most of them are in the "Outfits: Special" category.
• Character Replica Outfits: Think of a recognizable character, and attempt to replicate the look in GTA as closely as possible. For example, Mr. Bean or Super Mario!
• Minigames: How about some Golf, Tennis, Darts or Arm Wrestling?
• Gang Attacks: Find a gang and eliminate them!
• Stash Houses: Find the stash houses and raid them for resources for your businesses.
• Parachute: Go somewhere high up and do a parachute dive! Better yet, look for the Junk Energy Skydives challenges on the map, or do Dom's parachute challenge (which is a special skydive at a random location).
• San Andreas Flight School: Do the flight school challenges! They're at the Los Santos Airport, at the airplane icon!
• Gun Range Challenges: Complete the Bunker's and Ammo-Nation Gun Range shooting challenges!
• Gun Range with Friends: Challenge a friend to the gun range mini-games, where you compete to see who is the most accurate!
• MC Club Missions: Form a MC club with at least one friend, then ride in formation and start MC missions via the interaction menu.
• MC Businesses: Yes, they're the most hated businesses in the game, but why not do them a little bit? You could do a little bit of supplying and a few small sales missions, to ensure that you have small sales. Or, team up with friends and take turns helping each other do larger sales.
• Racing: Do Open Wheel, Stunt Races, Transform Races, and Regular Races. There are so many different kinds of races in the game! The transform races are the newest feature, and are very cool, since you might drive a supercar down the street to the airport, then transform into a plane and fly through the sky, and other epic things, all in the same race map!
• LS Car Meet: Do the challenges, races and rank up your LS Car Meet rank. Try to win the Prize Ride!
• Lobby Car Meets: You can try arranging car meets with other people in the lobby, to check out each other's cars! Just beware of griefers. You may want to do it in the LS Car Meet building to avoid the griefer explosions, or just switch to a lobby with cooler people.
• Arcade: Play the arcade games and try to beat them! Some of them have hidden rewards for completing the game or completing certain challenges.
• Achievements: Look at the pause menu's Stats - Awards section, and pick some award that you'll try to complete! There are so many fun challenges in there, such as attempting to parachute for more than 3 minutes, or robbing every store on the map (you can see the checkmarks on the map to know if you've robbed those stores).
• Stunt Jumps: There are 50 stunt jump locations on the map, which unlock a few rewards and are also really fun to complete!
• Unlock Vehicle Colors: You may have noticed that certain colors are locked behind challenges, such as winning a certain amount of races. Why not finally unlock those colors you've always wanted but were always "too lazy" to unlock? You'll get to enjoy some flashy, new vehicle colors!
• Arena War: Very fun, but unfortunately hard to get a group going for it. But if you can get a group, Arena War is super fun.
• Freemode Battles: Join a large lobby and just do whatever you want while you're waiting for freemode battles, which start every 20 minutes and will alternate between Business Battles and Freemode Challenges. Then attempt to win those battles! Events will only trigger when there are at least 4 players outdoors, and they cannot be in the same CEO/MC.
• Ride with Strangers: Pick your nicest car and then drive around and invite strangers to either ride with you or do impromptu street race 1v1 challenges.
• Freemode Map Markers: Look at the map. There are icons and glowing markers everywhere on the map/streets. Visit whichever icon is nearest your current location and see what's there! Remember that you can go "On Call" (queue) for public races/missions while you're waiting for them to fill up, which lets you stay in Freemode while you're waiting.
• Weekly Bonuses: Look at the Rockstar Newswire to see what the weekly bonus money is, and focus on doing that business/event for a while, to earn some money!
• Max Your Stats: Get all your stats to maximum! Most people haven't finished Strength, which can be gradually maxed for fun by simply punching every civilian you see.
• Invade the Military: Invade the military base at Fort Zancudo with some friends, and make it your mission to steal a Lazer jet plane.
• Heists: Do some heist preps or full heists for fun! Many of them can be casually setup while solo, which is very relaxing! Most of the newer heists can even be completed while solo!
• Change Your Heist Routes: You don't have to always do the same approach over and over again. Most heists have a lot of different approaches. For example, have you ever successfully completed the "Silent and Sneaky" approach at the Casino? Start exploring the different possibilities out there!
• Yellow Mission Markers: The yellow letters/markers on the map show the location of significant storyline missions (such as ULP, Agency, Acid Lab, etc). Visit those locations and start completing the stories that GTA Online has to offer!
• Do the Jobs: Go to "Online - Jobs" in the pause menu, and explore the available options!
• Answer the Calls: There are so many fun missions for English Dave, the various DJs at the Music Locker, the Casino staff, etc. In most cases, you'll also get some kind of reward if you finish them all! You might even get them to stop calling you when you've finished everything, which is a nice reward in itself!
• Check Your Texts/Emails: There's a lot of "mini missions" that arrive via emails/text messages. For example, Simeon asks you to steal certain cars every day. There's also an early game treasure hunt which starts through an email.
• Use Quick Join: There's an app on your phone named "Quick Join". It queues you for a rapid, random job. It's a great way to explore new content, meet new people and to help them with the queues for their own missions.
• Browse the Internet: There are a ton of funny parody websites in GTA Online's internet browser. Explore what's out there!
• Watch TV/Movies: Have you seen all the TV shows and cinema movies yet? If not, relax and have some fun! :)
• Customize Your Phone: You can change the theme, background, ringtone and other settings for your in-game phone. Why not change things a bit?
• Don't Be Annoyed: The phone calls and missions may seem annoying, but try actually relaxing and doing them. Listen to the phone calls. Call the NPCs. Do their missions! They are pretty nice and chill activities which gives you something to do in the game and some challenges.
• Use a Gamepad: If you're a PC player, you'll know that most of the game is too easy, since the aiming and enemy difficulty was balanced for console (gamepad) players. Try using a gamepad on PC! Not only will your driving and flying be massively improved, you'll also have a much more fun time when fighting enemies, since you can't just "360 No Scope" everything with your superior pointing device anymore. You'll even get immersive rumble that lets you feel the engine of your cars! How cool is that?! The game's options lets you finetune the sensitivity and aiming mode, and true professionals will use "Free Aim" which completely disables the auto-aiming.
• Meet Different People: If you're mostly a heist person, look for someone who loves cars and start hanging out with them to absorb some of their passion for another aspect of the game. You might learn to love car tuning too!
• Trade Prices: Many vehicles in the game have trade prices which give you a massive discount on the vehicle if you complete the challenge first. So set your eyes on a nice vehicle and do its challenges for fun! The discount you're earning will be like earning a huge sum of money that you put towards that specific vehicle. For example, a 2 million dollar discount on a vehicle you wanted is the same as if you had just earned 2 million dollars that you decided to spend on that vehicle! So don't sleep on the trade price discounts! They're a fun challenge with a very high monetary value!
• Bunker Research: If you have a bunker, try doing the research! You can unlock a ton of cool and super useful vehicle and weapon modifications! The explosive and incendiary ammo are must-haves.
• Mobile Operations Missions: The Mobile Operations Center is a forgotten business. It exists in your bunker, but you can request it via your Interaction Menu. Enter the truck's trailer, and then start missions from the computer in the command room!
• Avenger: Take your Avenger out for a drive! It's an extremely powerful, heavily armored aircraft and can be customized with various fun additions.
• Relaxing Yacht: Why not purchase or upgrade your yacht, and chill on it for a while with some friends? It even has lots of fun water vehicles parked in the water at the yacht, and helicopter pads for easy travel.
• Yacht Missions: You can start the fun "A Superyacht Life" mission series from the captain on your yacht. You'll even get a fun Yacht Captain outfit if you complete them all as host.
• Special Vehicle Work: The Vehicle Warehouse provides various epic missions whose "main" purpose is to unlock trade prices on various weaponized vehicles, but the missions themselves are fun too. Most players only do the specific missions for the vehicles they wanted to buy. Why not complete them all at least once, or play them again for fun?
• Collectibles: The map is full of collectible items, such as USB music sticks, playing cards, action figures, signal jammers (to unlock the best hacker for the Casino heist), etc. Why not relax and do them all for fun? They all unlock something fun or useful!
• Dream Vehicle: Relax, do some research about vehicles are available in the game, and set your eyes on a new "dream vehicle". Then work towards earning it and pimping it just the way you want it! Having a goal is fun!
• Test Drives: Check out the weekly test drives at the "Luxury Autos" shop, at Simeon's "Premium Deluxe Motorsport", and at the "LS Car Meet". You might find your new dream vehicle!
• Collect Vehicle Sets: You might have fun building specific collections, such as all Benny's vehicles in the game, etc. Setting goals for yourself about specific vehicle collections gives you something to strive for, and means that there's a lot of new things you'll need to buy and tune, which will keep you busy for a while!
• Sell Vehicles: Let's be honest, there are a lot of stinkers in your collection. Why not sell them? Just beware of the game's daily sell limit. The limit will be hit somewhere around 30-40 cars sold in 24 real-life hours. I'd suggest only selling 1-5 cars per real life day, which ensures that you'll never face the anger of Rockstar, and you'll have more time to make deliberate choices about which vehicles to get rid of. You'll also be getting roughly 50% of your previously spent money back for each sold vehicle! I'd recommend forcing yourself to drive a vehicle for a while before selling it, and looking at its customizations to see if you'd like it if you changed its style a bit, so that you're absolutely sure that you don't want it.
• Organize Your Vehicles: A lot of people have a complete mess in their garages. Why not begin sorting your cars, such as placing all your best cars at the premium display spots in your office garage? Perhaps organizing the floors by vehicle type? You can have lots of fun and you'll get a much better overview of your available vehicles.
• Relocate Yourself: If you've been staring at the same, old, boring spot for years, it could be fun to move! Most players choose the ugly, industrial, "optimal" locations. Why not relax and move to the beautiful beach instead? The Lombank office, the Insert Coin arcade, the Vespucci Beach MC clubhouse, the Del Perro Nightclub, the Strawberry auto shop, and the Vespucci Canals agency are all very beautiful locations with amazing interior and exterior design and great views! They're also very well placed for all of their business purposes!
• Browse in Person: When you're looking at real estate on the internet, things look very boring and impersonal. Why not take a drive around the city and look at the "real estate for sale" map markers in person? Perhaps you'll find a great new location for your home! However, if it's a multi-apartment house, I recommend checking YouTube for the various room views, to find the room with the best view before you buy it.
• Upgrade Your Properties/Businesses: If you haven't yet upgraded all of the equipment for a business, it's a great idea to upgrade it to improve its efficiency and safety. Or how about changing the interior design for fun, to replace the "same old daily view" with a fresh new look?
• Buy Every Arcade Machine: There are so many fun minigame machines for your arcade. Why not buy them all and pimp that place out? It's a nice place to relax, and even get some rewards for completing the games.
• Get All Passive Businesses: Why not work towards getting and fully upgrading all of the passive incomes in the game? Such as the Nightclub (which automatically generates money in the safe based on popularity, and generates MC business products to sell from its basement), the Acid Lab (which can be restocked with a simple phone call to Mutt, and has easy sales missions), the Arcade (which generates $5000 per in-game day when you've filled all of its interior slots with arcade machines, which can all be the same machine if you want), the Agency (which generates up to $20000 per in-game day based on how many Security Contracts you've completed), Street Dealers (finding the daily street dealer is much faster than regular sales missions, and they pay more than regular missions), Bunker (you can resupply it via one click with the Master Control Terminal in your Arcade, and then simply sell the product when it's still less than 25% full, thus guaranteeing a single sales vehicle every time). An added bonus of having passive businesses is the fact that they let you do other things in the game, such as doing racing and other fun challenges, while your businesses passively produce for you!
• Start Fresh: Did you know that your online account has two character slots? You can actually start fresh by simply withdrawing all of your banked money to your primary character, so that there's $0 in the bank. Then create a new character, which will begin at $0. Then relax and enjoy the ride of building a new empire. I suggest doing things differently this time. For example, if your primary character owns every business, why not just focus on a specific business this time, such as the CEO businesses (cargo crates), or just the vehicle warehouse, etc? Take this opportunity to simplify and avoid grinding, while still building a new playstyle to keep things fresh! Why not skip the Kosatka, so that you don't have the "easy Cayo Perico money" either? This slower, more deliberate, old-school way of making money will ensure that you have lots of fun, and you can set your own goals for what vehicles you want to save up money for on your new character! If you get tired of the grind, just switch back to your primary character again and enjoy the wealth. You can even delete your secondary character again to start fresh as many times as you want to.
• Spend Your Money: Having $100 million unused in the bank is just a completely pointless number, and is basically worth the same as having $0 in the bank if you aren't even using it. Unless your goal is to collect a specific amount of money for fun, I'd instead suggest that you actually start spending absolutely all of your money! Because if you can succeed in being perpetually slightly low on cash, you'll have much more reason to care about doing your businesses when you do want to buy something, which in turn drives your motivation to play again! Having a huge stash of money is bad for your motivation to play! Having a huge stash of money is like having an endless "Rich Daddy's Credit Card" in your wallet. Get rid of that credit card, buy a bunch of fun stuff, and enjoy the game more as a result!
• Play the Story: The vast majority of GTA Online players have barely touched the offline story. Why not relax with the story from time to time, gradually making your way through the epic offline story that started it all?
• Take a Break: If you're truly not finding any fun anymore, then take a break, perhaps a few weeks or a month is all you need to enjoy the game again! They also release content updates roughly twice per year, so you'll always have something new to return to in the future! :)

If you’re wondering about the origins of the beloved Dutch Crunch Bread, I’d like to offer you a detailed recounting of its rich history:
First, lets roll the clock back to Denmark in 1940. Operation Weserübung had just started under the command of General Nikolaus von Falkenhorst. Unbeknownst to the Dutch citizens, Der Fürher himself visited the front lines. Of course, Adolph was accompanied by his closest SS officers and the best bodyguards stolen Jewish gold could buy.
Hitler and his beloved General Falkenhorst would watch their Panzer tanks run over the bodies of fallen Dutch enemies from afar through their binoculars. Even though they were a ways away from the action, they could hear the sounds of the Danish bones snapping and breaking underneath the tank treads.
One day Hitler was having himself a lite lunch atop a hill overlooking the massacre and had a revelation as he bit into his sandwich—at the very moment a tank crushed another body. One of his closest guards gave this account later during the Nuremberg Trials:
“Der Fürher bit into the pastrami sandwich and exclaimed ‘Unt Mein Got! Get me the best baker in Düsseldorf!”
The famous baker, who would remain unnamed, arrived on the front lines with his crew of the best culinary experts of the Third Reich. It was there where he and Hitler himself designed what would later become the Dutch Crunch bread. The leader of The Fatherland wanted to give his people a fun and delicious remembrance of their victory over the Danish resistance fighters. The bread had to be crunchy, and crunchy it was!
As they engineered the most famous loaf of the Wehrmacht, the culinary experts used the natural surroundings of the battlefield to influence its design. One day a bread expert tripped over something while walking through the Danish wastelands. It appeared to be a civilian who was previously flattened by a tank tread. The unique design across what used to be their back and midsection would be used as inspiration for the Dutch Crunch’s signature crust. The bread itself visually imitated the appearance of a body after getting crushed by a Panzer. It was a big hit with the Rhinelanders.
There was only one problem, it was TOO big of a hit. It’s popularity caused a huge demand; which the Nazi Bakers couldn’t keep up with. This is when the famous Düsseldorf confectionist came up with a wonderful idea. He knew where there was plenty of large ovens and free labor to operate them.
The Sachsenhausen labor camp was chosen as the headquarters of the Dutch Crunch bakery. It is said that some of the residual human remains could be tasted upon the sweet, crunchy top of the bread. It wasn’t planned to be this way, but those ovens were too hard to clean. Especially when your labor force is so skinny and malnourished. Food critics all throughout the Axis of Evil approved of the sweet crust, even speculating that cremated human remains still retain a sweetness in the ash and fat drippings.
Throughout the remainder of the second Great War, the denizens of The Fatherland would enjoy this new crunchy loaf. Its story was nearly lost to history until two unlikely students attending Northern Michigan University found an old book full of German recipes in the library in 1964. The discovery of the Dutch Crunch bread caused a spark of inspiration.
They would later become the founders of Togo’s Great Sandwiches. Tom Neumann and Gordon Reed were known sympathizers of the struggles of National Socialism, and attended many of their rallies throughout the US. They even provided catering in the form of sandwich platters.
They were such a big hit with the Neo-Nazis of America, they were gifted a crate of stolen Jewish gold by an unknown person somewhere in the jungles of South America. This would help finance the expansion of the Togos brand, making it the popular sandwich shop franchise it is today!
So, now every time you take a bite out of a large number nine hot pastrami on the Dutch Crunch bread—savor it! The ovens might be different and the labor force now wears T shirts instead of torn potato sacks… But! the lunchtime experience Adolph Hitler created all those years ago still lives on—inside every loaf!

"Whoa!"
As Doctor Neo Cortex was building an army of mutants to conquer the world with, he needed a general. One particular experiment caught his eye, a bandicoot that he would give the name Crashworth Cortex the First. But when it came time to brainwash the marsupial into being a leader, the machine malfunctioned, the bandicoot rejected. Escaping from his creator's clutches, Crash woke up on a beach on a nearby island, immediately setting off to rescue the similarly mutated Tawna. While he would lose contact with Tawna and instead spend his time with his sister Coco, Crash would constantly find himself butting heads with Cortex and his schemes. While he may not be the smartest, his determined athleticism ensured he would find all the crystals, gems, or any other object needed to stop any schemes of world domination.

Legend

Strength

Striking - Spinning / Sliding

• Smashes crates and sends enemies flying through the level¹
  • These enemies can include giant alligators³ and lions^N3
  • Hits enemies into a large metal fan to break it^N2
• In a Die-O-Rama, breaks a tree and causes it to fall on him^TTR
• Breaks a stone pillar^T
• Breaks laser generators⁴
• Knocks back scientists with a metal shield^N2
• Sends smaller foes flying^Sky-A
• Sends a robot flying back to damage machines and speakers⁴
• Hits away stone crates^CB
• Spins around large devices with a platform on one side and a net of crates on the other by spinning said net^T
• Skims rocks on water by spinning them^T
• Sends a boulder over a stream of lava to smash against an enemy¹
  • N-Sane Trilogy version^N1

Striking - Other

• Sends smaller foes flying with punches and kicks^Sky-A
• While brawling with Cortex, breaks through a wooden barrier^T
• Smashes Cortex through reinforced crates^T
• Beats up and breaks metal crates^CotT
• Forces open a trap door with a body slam²
• Breaks reinforced crates with a body slam²
• With an ability, creates a shockwave with his body slams that can destroy reinforced crates³
• Hits with a hammer hard enough to make a small shockwave^CB

Lifting / Throwing

• Lifts an dumbbell with ice weights^RR
• Lifts a dumbbell with stone weights^RR
• Lifts a dumbbell with larger stone weights^RR
• Spins while holding onto Cortex and a power crystal^T
• Holds Crunch over his head while slamming him to the ground^MOM
• Throws Cortex over a gap^T
• Throws Cortex into the mouth of a stone statue^T
• Lifts and throws stone crates^CB
• Throws a device an incredible distance to knock a cage off of a blimp^CotT
• Tears up a tree he's chained to^M2

Other

• Throws wumpa fruit at N. Gin's mech to damage and break different parts^N2
• Leaps around a room^Sky-A

Durability

Blunt Force

• Has an extended brawl with Neo Cortex^T
• Smashes through a wooden barrier while riding a mine cart^W
• Sent flying across a street and into a store window^A
• Struck by a ten ton and hundred ton weight^M2
• Hit and run over by a train^BB

Falling

• Drops a large distance¹
• Jumps off of a waterfall^CotT-DS
• Drops into a cave^T
• Belly flops onto stone⁴
• Falls a large distance onto metal^T
• Falls off a cliff into shallow mud⁴
• Thrown a huge distance through the air^T
• Is in a snowball as it drops off a cliff to smash Dingodile's house^T
• Drops out of Neo Cortex's tower and wakes up the following morning, washed up on the beach of another island¹

Explosive

• Can have their kart blown into the air^CTR
• Launched through the air by three crates blowing up beneath him^M
• Blown through the air by a mass of TNT crates^T
• Is in Cortex's lair as it blows up and emerges seemingly unharmed from rubble^M

Other

• Can be crushed flat in a kart^NK
• Electrocuted so his skeleton can be seen for a duration¹
• Electrocuted into ashes before reforming in the same cutscene^MOM
• Is in a space station as it falls to Earth, crashing into a cliff before landing, with Crash appearing unharmed from the experience. While falling he was holding Aku-Aku in front of him, but it's unlikely this provided him any particular protection^MOM

Speed

• Avoids Papu Papu's swings¹
• Evades blasts in a car while Cortex is chasing them in his own^TTR
• Dodges a freeze ray after it was fired when Crunch couldn't react^CotT
• Keeps ahead of giant chasing animals, such as a triceratops³ and a dragon^W
• Rapidly punches a giant robot^Sky-A

Skill

• Can wall jump^CotT
• Wall runs⁴
• Grinds on rails⁴
• Using flames and removing his trousers, distracts Papu Papu to get behind him for an attack¹

Jacking

In Crash of the Titans and Mind over Mutant, Crash can take over foes, mostly large creatures mutated by a substance called mojo called titans, by stunning them and placing Aku-Aku on their face.
Full Titan RT
General

• After stunning a titan, Crash can put Aku-Aku on their face and control them^CotC
• Titans collapse after being unmasked^CotC
• Jacking works on non-titans, with older mutated creatures like Dingodile and regular people like Neo Cortex being jacked^CotT-GBA

Notable Titan Feats

• All titans can break apart masses of stone^CotT and huge stone walls^MOM
• Scorporilla creates a fissure in the ground with its tail
• Spike can send a boulder flying into a huge tree, felling it^MOM-DS
• Ratcicle instantly freezes and shatters a massive amount of ice^MOM
• Grimly can seemingly slow time around it while moving normally^MOM

Other Abilities

Unlocked

• Double jumps³
• Rocket Jump propels him high into the air^NT
• Can spin for longer durations with the Death Tornado ability, using this to glide through the air³
• Can throw around TNT crates and pull in enemies with his spins^Sky
• Slides large distances with the Super Slide^NT
• With one ability can sneak across lines of stable nitro crates without blowing them up^W
• After getting Speed Shoes, can dash through levels³
• A bazooka that shoots wumpa fruit to defeat enemies and break crates³

Other

• Spins so fast he flies through the air¹
• Glides over gaps with a different kind of spin^CotT
• Burrows into the ground while still being able to stick his legs up and spin them^N2

Masks

Aku-Aku
The spirit of an ancient witch doctor, Aku-Aku has been protecting Crash since his first adventure. Since then, he's also played the role of being the fount of knowledge, knowing whenever evil is occurring and how to stop it.
Full RT

• On breaking an Aku Aku crate, the mask follows Crash to protect him from an attack¹
  • Opening another Aku Aku crate strengthens him, allowing him to protect Crash from two attacks²
  • Opening a third causes Crash to wear the mask temporarily, rendering him invincible for the period¹ while smashing through crates, even reinforced ones³
• Crash skates down areas on Aku-Aku^CotT
  • Can create fire around him while being used like this^CotT-DS

Lani-Loli
The quantum mask of space, Lani-Loli is the first to be found in Crash 4 and takes the role of guide and exposition dealer for the adventure.

• Causes certain items to phase in and out of reality for Crash to be able to affect⁴
• When used by a machine, causes rows of tiles to phase out of reality⁴
• Can sense rifts in space and open them when not being rampantly created by N. Tropy's device, with this likely being applicable to the other quantum masks⁴

Akano
The quantum mask of matter.

• Strengthens spins to break reinforced crates⁴
  • Hits back a large mutated N. Brio⁴
  • These spins deflect green magic⁴
• Causes spins to last longer, providing a gliding effect over gaps⁴
• Is forced to empower a machine, causing it to spin while creating extra energy beams⁴
• Launched out of a machine by an explosion before falling to the ground and entering a dimensional rift⁴
• Is notably heavy⁴
  • Traps Cortex beneath himself⁴

Kupuna-Wa
The quantum mask of time.

• Notably slows down time while allowing Crash to move normally⁴
  • Allows Crash to use ice falling down waterfalls as platforms⁴
  • Like this Crash can touch nitro crates and have time to exit the blast radius before they blow up⁴
• When used by a machine, changes the speed of platforms disappearing and reappearing⁴
• Knows of all time, telling that there's a significant event happening in Crash and Coco's near futures⁴

Ika-Ika
The quantum mask of gravity.

• Flips gravity for Crash⁴
• On waking up, flips gravity for several people in front of him⁴
• When forced by a machine, causes the screen to flip upside down⁴

Karts

General

• Jumps up a ledge^CTR
• Drops down a large distance^CTR
  • Does so again^NK
• All karts can take hits that blow them into the air^CTR and crust them flat^NK
• Capable of giving themselves boosts by drifting^CTR
• Karts go faster when wumpa fruits are collected, and when ten are collected the items used are changed to be stronger^CTR
• In Nitro Kart, the karts were modified to be able to drive along walls and ceilings in certain areas^NK
• After driving alongside a teammate for a while, a Team Up meter fills and allows both racers to use unlimited items for a period on activation^NK

Items - Offensive
These are capable of forcing open a door in the original game and remake.^CTR-N

• Bombs which roll along the road in a straight line, exploding on contact^CTR
  • Fully powered bombs have a larger blast radius^CTR
  • These can be blown up early on command^CTR
• Homing missiles^CTR
  • When powered up they are faster with better tracking^CTR
• Creates an electric shockwave around them^NK3
• Releases a warp orb from Crash 3 that chases after the racer in first place, shocking everyone in their path^CTR
  • When powered up it tracks each racer in front of the user in sequence^CTR
• Releases a tornado which targets first place, throwing any racer it meets up into the air^NK

Items - Traps

• Drops an oil slick^NK2
• Beakers which cause anyone running into them to spin out^CTR-N
  • Turn from green to red at full power, adding an extra effect such as slowing down the kart that drives into them for a while^CTR-N
• Crates of TNT which anyone running into needs to hop rapidly to remove before it explodes^CTR-N
  • These change into nitro crates that explode instantly when powered up^CTR
• Ice mines trap foes in a block of ice^NK
  • When fully powered they give the kart ice physics for the duration^NK
• Static orbs short out circuits on karts, slowing foes down while changing their weapon^NK
  • At full power, they draw racers in and reverse their steering for a time^NK

Items - Other

• Shields which protect against any one hit^NK
  • Can be launched like a bomb, with the fully powered shield protecting indefinitely until hit or thrown^CTR
• Speed boosts^CTR
  • Last longer when powered up^CTR
  • Can be used to evade a missile^NK
• N. Tropy's Clocks spin out and slow down all opposing racers for a period^NK
• Call upon Aku-Aku to speed up the kart and render them invulnerable for a bit^CTR

Tag Team Racing Cars

• In Crash Tag Team Racing, all racer's vehicles can merge with each other and break apart again at will^TTR
• Can drive through tree-shaped targets^TTR
• Have a variety of weapons with each car combination being able to swap between two, which can include wumpa fruit launchers and magnetic blasts
  • Missiles
  • A machine gun
  • Electric shotgun blasts^TTR
• Can be rocket propelled^TTR
• Can launch items as large as pianos^TTR

Other Vehicles

Ground

• The atlasphere is a large orb which Crash rolls around in^W
  • Used to seemingly imbue rolling rocks with power for Aku Aku to use^W
  • Can jump in a cage shaped like an atlasphere⁴
• Mine carts^W
• A pogo stick^CB
• Crash's Jeep keeps ahead of a rhino stampede^W
• Motorbikes³
  • Smash through large wooden barriers^N3
• A hovercraft^CB
• Drives a tiny tank which can drop mines^CB
• A tank which shoots ammo which destroys other tanks with one shot and rebounds off of walls^RR
• A mech which has a fruit bazooka on the arm^W
  • Breaks reinforced crates by jumping on them^W
  • Runs away from an explosion^W
  • A variant of it has a water cannon which, when empowered by Aku-Aku, hurts Crunch imbued with the fire Elemental^W
• A boxing mech^BB
• At one point pilots Mecha-Bandicoot, a Neo Cortex creation that can shoot missiles and energy blasts^T
  • Has a chainsaw arm that finishes off another mech^T
  • Flies^T
• A device which can attract and repel balls to hit enemies with while moving side to side^RR
• Any given animal he jumps on the back of, from boars¹ to Neo Cortex^T

Flying

• A hang glider^CotT-GBA
• Biplanes which shoot bullets that destroy the engines of much larger planes³
• Crash's Glider can shoot down tornado generators^W
• The Firefly locks on and shoots missiles which sink ships on repeat hits^W
• The Copter-Pak^W
• Jetpacks²
  • Can come with an energy blaster that can take down a blimp with blasts^XS
• Uses a flying carpet which allows him to shoot magic blasts from his head^NT
• A spaceship which shoots energy beams to rapidly crumple and destroy parts of Cortex and Ripto's machine^RR
• A motorbike which flies through space^XS
  • Appears to quickly circle the Earth^XS
• Rides a bat^RR

Water

• A wakeboard^NT
• Surfboards with engines that allow him to boost through water²
• A turbo boosted inflatable ring^RR
• A hovercraft with a weapon^CB
  • Can drop mines^CB
• An underwater propulsion device which can shoot missiles and dash forwards³
• A submarine which shoots missiles^W
  • Can drop explosives^W

Other Equipment

• Can carry a variety of items to increase health, damage, and turn Crash invincible for a short period^CotT-DS
• Capable of throwing out TNT crates^Sky
  • These crates can contain a jetpack and rocket for Crash to fire at the ground with for a time^Sky
• Uses scuba gear³
• Wields a rocket launcher which instantly turns sheep to ashes^RR
  • Can be charged to launch two rockets at once, and can release bombs^RR
• Throws Molotov cocktails that can destroy large amounts of stone in two attacks, and quickly builds a platform after the platform that was previously there were destroyed by Spyro's Molotov cocktails^RR

Other

• His mutation enhanced his senses and stamina^Sky-A
• Can pick up a 'freejack' which allows Crash to stun any enemy with a kick^CotT
  • Knocks back large foes with this attack^CotT
• Was hit briefly by the ray that turns animals into titans, though the process didn't complete due to a dead battery. Like this Crash had enhanced strength, breaking free of metal restraints and knocking back a titan, as well as the ability to jack them without Aku-Aku, but the mutation visibly appears to be gone by the end of the short^A
• Remotely controls a helicopter to shoot down parachuting devices intent on harming him^RR
• In a Die-O-Rama, creates a fire which quickly thaws out a frozen yeti^TTR
• Walks and jumps on clouds¹
• Only likes wumpa fruit⁴
• Comes with his own theme music^Sky-A

"As for me, heh, let's just say I'm doing just fine."

Yo i’m looking at this lil SRT8 jawn, i Got a RT now i could pay off fully but i know that gonna drop my credit and i probably won’t get approved than . So wit allat i was thinking i could jus take on both loans before the 45 days n pay off the RT and just sell it.
ALTHOUGH , i was looking at engine crates and i seen a 392 Hemi crate that would fit my wheel for 8k 🤷🏽‍♂️ n ngl i been thinking bout buying that jawn , but than you got pay for all the labor n everything . And i would have to switch up the interior n shit so it would have that look like the SRT

I got me an old 2002 Silverado 2500 with a duramax only 186xxx miles with an aluminum flatbed on the back. I plan on building a sleeperish street struck, 6-700 horse and 1200tq (ish???). The engine is in great working order, gonna do a little bit of routine stuff in there first. But what’s the word here guys?

Be me, a new mercenary company, Mason's Warmonkeys.
Also me: Stacked Crates Mod
I'm Rep 4 or so, rolling on a low difficulty contract. Standard Battlefield gig, weight limit is fairly low, 145, I think.
I have my very first heavy, a Archer which I have YAML'd up with some Lostech. Two PPCs, 4 medium lasers, two LRM 10s. XL engine, endosteel. A Hunchback II with twin PPCs and a royal variant Stinger with 4 medium lasers.
Drop into the mission. Optional objective: Investigate the anomaly. Uh-oh.
For those who don't play with Stacked Crates or don't have the particular settings enabled for it, occasionally Stacked Crates will drop a very high value crate full of Lostech or even a Mech (How do you think I got the Hunchback II?) but... it also drops a lance of defenders. I have found this lance is not based on your difficulty level.
I head up to a nearby hill, and I can ping them. Atlas. Atlas. King Crab. Highlander. Fuck. My. Life.
But... there's a voice in the back of my brain. They're all slow. All my mechs do at least 20 kph higher than they do. Maybe I can take one or two out. That'd be worth doing, particularly if I can get to the crate. I can't remember if I get the contents of the crate if I abort without completing the mission but... a part of me wants to try.
First thing is first, I run to the middle of the map where the mission objective is. The assault lance will pull agro from the incoming mission mechs, so I figure that'll at least be a distraction. The first atlas comes over the hill, and I start running away, sandpapering him with LRMs. He's replying back, but there's a series of sand dunes that I can run behind to mostly avoid taking to many of his LRMs. I work backwards across the map and up into the foothills around the edge. The little mechs the mission in spawning aren't doing much, but they're at least keeping most of the big boys occupied. Slowly, I wear down the first Atlas. "I'm punching out! Kill them for me!" the pilot screams as she shoots skywards.
This is going super well so far. *cue overconfidence* Except I keep hearing this noise. It's very loud but I can't place it. It isn't quite a long tom or sniper artillery. My hunchback has no chance. He turns back, because he's an idiot, and takes an arrow 4 to the chest. No more hunchback. Oooookay. That's not great.
I play a game of cat and arrow 4, breaking LOS as soon as I have a lock with my LRMs and dodging Arrow 4s like a Canopian Catgirl on Battle Powder. Then something wonderful happens. One of the mission mechs is equipped with flamers. And shuts the Atlas with the Arrow 4 down. The other two assault mechs are busy. I charge that Atlas, chewing it apart with lasers and PPCs.
There's only two left.
The Crab is a problem. Even staying out of his AC20 range, which I can't always do, he's trading me LRMs, and I don't have nearly the armor. By the time he's down, I'm in the red on... everything, and missing a PPC. But all that's left is the poor Highlander.
I can hear the bagpipes as this madlad stands his ground, encircled by three smaller mechs, and being peppered by LRMs from my battered Archer, which somehow, despite all the damage, has only lost the one PPC. *Cue nervous glances at that XL engine that seemed like such a good idea at the time*.
In the end, I'm out of LRM ammo, and I end up wading in with my energy weapons. Luckily, he'd turned to swat a Spider that was harassing him, and I got some clean shots at his back. Down went the last of the Assault mechs. Cleanup wasn't great, I lost another laser and a leg, and the Stinger lost an arm to the highlander, but victory was ours.
And in the crate? A brand new Hunchback II identical to the one I'd lost, -AND- a Spider 7V -AND- a shiny new Wolverine. Even including the DLC campaigns, that was the single most exhilarating battle I've ever had. So close to defeat, so many 'Oh Shit' moments, but in the end, the sweet taste of victory.
Oh, and the Archer? My beloved baby? Everything was repairable except one PPC. I don't know how. I don't know what Goddess of warfare blessed this mercenary company, but it was about 3 Million C-bills to get her back up and running again. I'm never selling this mech.

This is part of my little series about the adventures of Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick. If you'd like to read previous parts, they're linked below, along with brief summaries of each:
Part One: Alien learns what "sleep" is and how humans prefer to do it in a comfy bed with blankets and pillows. And they find it utterly adorable.
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick are sent on a survey mission together. Things go south, Aldrick makes sure they're safe, and then Vr'ocria learns what human sleep is and how vulnerable humans are when they sleep. Vr'ocria's people don't sleep, but enter stasis, a form of rest in which they typically stand, and they are still slightly aware of their surroundings. Vr'ocria finds human sleep utterly adorable, and also decides she will protect Aldrick while he sleeps. And she also develops a massive crush on him. (Her scales turning purple is her version of blushing)
Part Two: An alien + human adventure with such shenanigans as poison drinking, befriending dangerous wildlife, and fighting a space pirate. Oh, and they have a huge crush on each other.
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick end up assigned together for another survey mission. Vr'ocria tries to deny her feelings for Aldrick after a tense conversation with her nestmate about the danger of humans, but when they're ambushed in the night by a pirate and Aldrick takes a blow to save her, becoming injured in the process, she comes to realize just how strongly she feels for him. She kills the pirate, carries Aldrick to safety, and the two share a tender moment.
Part Three: When a cold-blooded alien has to cuddle a warm-blooded human for warmth
Vr'ocria and Human Aldrick are assigned to an ice plant for their next mission. Aldrick chews out Command for assigning Vr'ocria there when they know she's cold-blooded and not built for the cold, and when the power goes out, they cuddle to keep her from freezing. They finally confess their feelings for one another, and Vr'ocria learns what kissing is.
Part Four: A human leaves a hickey on his alien lover. Her nestmate doesn't understand what a hickey is, and thinks the human injured her
Vr'ocria enjoys neck kisses, and asks Aldrick to indulge her. Later, she has a video call with her nestmate Galek. Galek is already wary of humans, and when he sees a bruise on her throat that she didn't notice, he figures out Aldrick is responsible and freaks out, thinking Aldrick intentionally hurt her. Vr'ocria dresses Galek down, explaining that it's not an injury, and also that he needs to get over it and respect her relationship with Aldrick.
Now for the new story!
TW: There will be blood and broken bones.
—
"I have a bad feeling about this."
Vr'ocria turned to Human Aldrick in the pilot seat next to her. He was drumming his fingers on the console, brow furrowed, as he watched the Xenthum solar system approach.
"What do you mean?" She asked.
"I dunno. I just–" he bit the inside of his cheek. "You ever just get an ick feeling about something?"
Vr'ocria frowned. "No. Can you explain it?"
He scratched the back of his neck. "It's hard to explain. Like, there's nothing wrong that I can tell about this mission, but ever since we got within visual range, I've had this gut feeling that we need to turn back."
Vr'ocria wasn't sure she understood, but she didn't like seeing him uncomfortable. "Well, we're here on orders–"
"I know, I know, I don't want to get us in trouble, I'm already on thin ice after yelling at Lieutenant Prax–"
"–but the minute anything starts to go wrong, no matter how small, we can turn around."
He glanced over at her. "Thanks," he said with a grateful smile.
They had entered the Xenthum system now. Its main planet was sparsely populated, used mostly as a trading outpost since it was so close to the Dridian border. The trick was navigating through the minefield of asteroid clusters. Aldrick let Vr'ocria take the lead piloting, since of the two of them, she was more skilled at delicate maneuvers.
They were almost to the planet when an alert pinged. Aldrick sat up to check the sensors.
"There's a ship nearby," he reported. "A big one."
"Where?" Vr'ocria pulled up the sensor on her screen. "I don't see anything. Just asteroids."
"Turn on the warp detector and increase the ion frequency."
Vr'ocria pressed a few controls. "Oh wow, you weren't kidding." She frowned. "It's way too big to be in the middle of an asteroid field. What are they doing?"
"I don't know, but I don't like it." She could feel the tension radiating from him.
"You want to get out of here?" she asked.
He chewed his lip. "Y'know what? Yeah. Let's at least take an alternate route, we can–"
But before he could finish, there was a loud BANG and they were sent flying from their seats as the shuttle rattled.
"What the fuck?" Aldrick yelled as he scrambled to his feet, lunging for the console. "Did we scrape an asteroid?"
Vr'ocria crawled back into her seat as well and banged out a few commands on her screen. Her blood froze.
"No," she said in a low voice. "It was phaser fire."
They'd been so focused on the massive ship that they'd missed the tiny shuttle creeping up from below them.
BANG. The screens flickered and glitched.
Aldrick cursed. "We've lost shields!"
There was another hit, then another, and another. Sparks were flying now, and the sensors were screaming as the shuttle's operating systems started failing.
Vr'ocria was tossed against the wall in one particularly brutal crash, and the last thing she saw was a broken panel flying right towards her face.
—
Everything hurt.
Especially her nose. The tang of blood clung to the back of her throat.
There were muffled voices somewhere nearby, and the sound of metal scraping. When she tried to move, she abruptly registered something cold and hard encircling her wrists.
"She's waking up."
Vr'ocria coughed, blood splattering from her lips. Moaning in pain, she managed to lift her head and crack her eyes open.
The scraping sound was the heels of her boots sliding across metal grate flooring as she was dragged by her wrists. She craned her head back, pain shooting through her neck, and realized that her wrists were clapped in rusty manacles. A massive blue hand fisted the rust red chains that suspended her arms over her head.
"Wha' th'fmm–" she slurred. Her brain felt like sludge.
Suddenly she was yanked even higher into the air, her toes just brushing the floor. A shock of cold assaulted her and she yelped, flinching as water dripped down her face.
"You awake now?"
A man was standing in front of her, tossing aside a now-empty bucket. There were several people, actually. All different species, all looking very pleased, and all wearing distinctive black Norvidian armbands.
Pirates.
A hand cracked across her cheek, sending more blood flying. She bit back a cry as the shockwave laced through her broken nose. "Fuck you," she spat instead.
The man chuckled. He was tall, muscles bulging through his coat, and his skin was blue. He must've been the one dragging her. "Picking up human words, I see."
Vr'ocria's blood turned to ice. "What have you done with him?" She demanded in a low voice.
His grin only widened. His teeth were crooked and rotting. "I'll be asking the questions here."
Her scales burned a bright and hot yellow and snapped as they turned on end. But before she could respond, his hand lashed out and grabbed her throat–not enough to choke her just yet, but enough to make her freeze.
"You're the lizard bitch from Theta-7, yes?" The grin was gone now, replaced by a withering glare.
Understanding dawned on Vr'ocria. Blast. Oh, blast.
He saw the realization in her eyes and slowly released her throat. "You are."
"What's it to you?" She snapped.
He sneered. "You killed one of my men."
"He attacked us first!"
Stars burst behind her eyes as the air was forced from her lungs, and it took her a moment to realize that he had punched her in the gut. All she could do was cough and gasp, trying to regain her bearings through the pain as he turned away from her and towards the others standing around. He raised his arms.
"We are Norvids!" He boomed, and the others whooped in agreement. "We stand together! We protect our own!"
Vr'ocria tuned him out as he kept proselytizing, using the opportunity to look around the room. It was massive and almost all metal with towering walls. Crane chains hung from the ceiling, and crates and barrels of different sizes were scattered about, everything dusty, rusty, and old. A storage room. An old cargo ship? She wondered. That would explain why it was so big.
She ran a quick headcount of everyone she could see. Seventeen.
But where was Aldrick?
Vr'ocria felt sick. You better be okay…you have to…please be okay…
The man–the captain, she guessed–finally turned back to her. He drew a dagger from a sheath strapped to his arm, and her eyes went wide.
"A life for a life," he growled, stalking towards her.
But before he'd made it even two steps, a voice rang out through the cargo bay.
"Don't you fucking touch her."
It was enough to stop the captain in his tracks.
Footsteps sounded from behind her, and Vr'ocria tried in vain to twist her body around.
But she didn't have to. The man approaching from behind came forward and stepped in between her and the captain, and she didn't have to see his face to know who it was.
"Aldrick," she nearly whimpered.
The caption sneered. "Well well, a little escape artist, are we?"
Aldrick was silent.
Deathly so.
Vr'ocria swallowed.
Even the captain, who was twice Aldrick's size, seemed to waver. Vr'ocria wasn't sure she wanted to know what he saw on Aldrick's face.
Finally, Aldrick spoke. "Any of you touch her, and you will die." His voice was so cold it pierced her to the bone. She could see his clenched fists trembling at his sides. He's not even armed!
The captain began to laugh, his voice echoing around the bay. The others laughed with him.
"And who's gonna stop us?" He demanded. "You? Little human, you don't know who you're messing with." He dashed forward, raising the blade, ready to strike.
"Aldrick!" Vr'ocria screamed.
But Aldrick dodged as easily as water flows through a river, ducking under the dagger and going for the captain's legs. He barreled his full weight against his hips, and with a shout, the giant fell, the dagger clattering from his grasp. Quick as a whip, Aldrick snatched it up–and drove it directly into the captain's throat.
Vr'ocria couldn't help but watch in horror as green blood frothed forth, spraying all over Aldrick. The captain's eyes were wide, and he choked and spasmed as his life drained out onto the dirty floor.
By now, the others were surging forward, shouting, screaming, and brandishing their own weapons.
"NO!" Vr'ocria screamed as they converged on him. She kicked and yanked uselessly at her chains, desperate to help, to do anything. The manacles bit painfully into her scales, some of them even popping off onto the floor, leaving beads of blood welling up in their wake. But the manacles did not yield.
When she looked back, she was terrified she'd see Aldrick lying dead on the floor.
But he wasn't.
In fact, there were three pirates–no, make that four now–sprawled lifelessly instead. Aldrick was a whirlwind of limbs and gnashing teeth–he ducked and dodged, spat and kicked, slashing at knees and elbows, slowly incapacitating or discombobulating each one until he was able to sink the dagger into throats, chests, between ribs–bodies were dropping--he was covered in blood now, eyes wild–
"BEHIND YOU!" Vr'ocria screamed.
Aldrick turned just a second too late, and a woman covered in dark fur landed a kick directly to his chest. He hit the floor, the dagger flying from his grasp. The woman pounced, her hands wrapping around his throat. His legs thrashed as he clutched at her hands, and he was just able to roll them over until he was on top. From there, he simply started punching, and punching, blood spraying his face with each hit.
A large man behind him had stumbled back to his feet. He lunged forward and yanked Aldrick up by the back of his shirt, throwing him bodily into the air, where he crashed against a metal crate.
He hit the ground and didn't move.
Vr'ocria was screaming. She didn't know if she was saying words anymore, but she was screaming, and blood was streaming down her arms now from how hard she was pulling against the manacles. All she could do was watch as the final three pirates approached her mate where he lay lifeless on the floor.
They stopped before they were in arms length, looking between each other. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but one of them finally edged forward and poked Aldrick's side with her toe.
Vr'ocria wanted to rip their entrails out with her bare hands.
He still didn't move. Seeming satisfied, they moved forward, and one bent to grab him.
All at once, her human surged back to life. The man closest to him hit the ground as Aldrick swung his legs around, sweeping the man's feet out from under him. Once he was down, Aldrick bashed a crane hook–one he must've picked up from the floor–into the man's skull so hard that it caved in with one blow. Still lying on the floor, Aldrick used his vantage point to kick the woman's knee backwards, and she collapsed with an agonized scream. One more strike with the hook, and she was silenced.
That left just one. The final pirate appeared to be reptilian like her, although he had large spines stretching across his head and shoulders. This one didn't try to rush Aldrick. Instead, he kept his distance, watching warily as Aldrick climbed to his feet.
"So it's true," the spined pirate said, "what they say about humans."
Aldrick returned a deadly stare. "And what's that?" His voice almost didn't even sound like his anymore.
"You're monsters. Demons. Scourge of the universe."
Aldrick grinned, but it looked more like a feral animal baring its teeth. "That's me."
The pirate's spines flexed. "You could join us," he said. "Join the Norvids. We'll find another crew, you can be captain."
They were circling now, Aldrick crouched like a predator ready to strike, the pirate shuffling back with his hands held out.
"You could be rich!"
Aldrick picked up a rusty chain from a barrel as he passed by.
"Think of the power you would wield!" The pirate cried desperately.
Aldrick still said nothing. He forced him back, and back, until the pirate realized, too late, that he was cornered between two crates. His back hit the wall and he slid down, cowering, as Aldrick loomed over him.
Vr'ocria could barely hear because of the distance, but the metal room carried Aldrick's low hiss as he bent down to the trembling pirate: "You hurt my mate. Now, you die."
The rusty chain crackled as Aldrick wrapped it around the pirate's neck in one fell swoop. He pulled the loop tight and the pirate clutched at the noose, his eyes and forked tongue bulging out. Then, with one swift and hard yank, an audible splinter-snap filled the room–and the pirate was dead before he hit the floor, his neck bent at an unnatural angle.
Aldrick dropped him in disgust. His back was turned, but Vr'ocria could still see his chest heaving.
He turned and met Vr'ocria's eyes, and the demented expression drained from his face. He stepped towards her, slowly at first, and then broke into a sprint.
It seemed like he wanted to throw his arms around her, but he came to a sudden halt before he could touch her, instead raising his shaking hands to her face. "Vr'ocria, 'ria, my Ria, I'm so sorry–" his voice broke and his eyes welled with tears that quickly spilled over and began running down his face, carving tracks into the grime and blood spatter.
"Aldrick," she whispered, drinking him in. He's alive.
"Hold on, hold on, I'll get you out of these cuffs, fuck–" he turned to the dead captain on the floor and rifled through his pockets until he produced a key.
He returned and had to stand on his tiptoes to reach the manacles, and with a scrape and groan of metal, the manacles cracked loose.
Vr'ocria collapsed onto Aldrick, her legs too weak to hold her up. Her arms fell over his shoulders, and he caught her around the waist. Together they sank to the floor until they were both on their knees, clutching at one another as if they would disappear.
Aldrick buried his face in her neck, shaking with silent sobs. Vr'ocria tangled her hands in his bloody hair, not caring about the mess. Her people couldn't weep like humans did, but she might as well have with the way her chest heaved with stuttering breaths, her scales burning bright red.
Aldrick clutched her tight enough to hurt, but she didn't care. "Ria, my Ria, my love," he gasped like a mantra.
She finally took his face in her hands and pulled him back, forcing him to look at her. "Are you alright?" She implored. "Are you hurt?"
He let out a half-laugh, half-sob. "You're asking me?"
She used her thumbs to wipe away some of the grime on his face. "You took on all of those people by yourself," she croaked. "And the way he threw you–planets, I thought you were dead."
His hands slid up her back to clutch her shoulders. "I'm alright," he assured her. "Bumps and bruises is all. But you–" he looked her up and down, rage rekindling in his eyes. "Son of a bitch, what they did to you–"
She shook her head. "They're dead now," she said firmly. "It's over and done." She leaned forward to squeeze him again, resting her head on his shoulder. "Let's just go home."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Aldrick rose, pulling her up with him. Her legs were still too unsteady to walk, so instead, he slid one hand under her knees and swept her up into his arms. She settled against his chest as he carried her out of the cargo bay.
"Should we be worried about any other crew members?" She asked, casting her eyes around the barren corridor.
Aldrick shook his head as he walked. He seemed to know where he was going. "It was just them."
"How do you know? And what happened to you, by the way?"
His arms tightened around her. "After you got knocked out, they locked a tractor beam onto the shuttle and pulled us inside."
They came to a fork in the corridor, and he turned left. "I thought they were just raiding for scrap metal and Union tech, but when they boarded the shuttle, they went straight for you. I–" his voice cracked. "I tried to protect you, but there were so many of them and I was so caught off guard..."
Vr'ocria stroked the nape of his neck with her thumb. "It's okay, it's not your fault."
Aldrick swallowed before continuing. "They took you away and locked me in an old storage container. Thankfully the hinges were on the inside, so I just popped the pins out once they were gone. I was able to access the ship's computer and scan the whole ship, because the idiots didn't know how to encrypt anything. All brawn and no brains, I guess. That's also how I was able to figure out where they kept their own shuttles, since ours is pretty busted."
"Is that where we're going?"
He nodded. "Anyway, I used the scanner to find your location, and then I just crawled through the air ducts so I could get inside without them knowing." He stopped. "We're here."
They'd arrived at a loading door with a rusty label that read "SHUTTLE BAY."
Twenty minutes later found them back out in open space in the least-old shuttle they could find. The engine puttered every few minutes, but with any luck, they'd reach their ship in an hour or so.
Vr'ocria had regained her bearings, and she was rummaging around the storage box at the back of the cabin. She finally found an old "in case of emergency" kit, but frustratingly, all the first aid supplies had been picked clean. She did, however, find an unopened package of wet wipes.
Vr'ocria took the wipes back to the front of the cabin. Ripping the package open, she knelt by Aldrick where he sat in the pilot seat.
"What're you doing?"
"Hold still," she murmured. She raised a wipe to his face, and began gently cleaning the blood off. His eyes became soft as she tended to him, throwing the dirty wipes aside one by one while she worked her way down his face and neck.
When she was done, he took her hand before she could get up. He reached for the package as well, and began wiping the blood from her arms, taking care around the nasty scrapes that marred her wrists. "We need to get these bandaged up."
"It's okay. They're not bleeding anymore, we have time."
Aldrick placed a hand on her cheek. "I love you so much," he whispered. "And I'm glad you're okay."
Vr'ocria leaned into his hand, closing her eyes. "I love you too."
Turns out it's REALLY hard to write fight scenes lol. I can see it happening in my head, but getting it down on paper is another story. I had fun though! And I hope I did it justice.
Thank you for reading!
PART SIX IS UP

Hey everyone. I’m a 22M and I’m currently enrolled in university. Me and my sister decided to get a puppy for my parents after my mom lost her sister and my father lost his brother. We figured it would get their mind off of their passing and get busy with the puppy instead. It’s been two and a half weeks since we’ve had him and he is going to be 3 months old in a week. During the past week, I’ve been regretting getting him. He has destroyed my life pretty much. I cannot find the time to go to the gym, I cannot study an online coding class that I had a planned to, I have not seen my friends, I missed a close friend’s graduation, I cannot get a job, I’ve had no sleep as he wakes me up multiple times during the night to go pee outside. I am losing my mind and I have not stressed this much my entire life. I can’t even sleep as I start stressing in my sleep and always watching over him in my dreams. I wake up with an insanely high heartbeat thinking he has done something wrong, even though he might be asleep in his crate. I think you get the idea. My sister lives at her own place with her two cats. My dad works night shifts, and when he comes home in the mornings, he’s super tired and needs to sleep. My mom has started going to school again and can’t really watch the dog. Point is I have to pretty much take care of him by myself entirely. We live in an apartment and I feel bad for him and for myself. Yesterday he was terrible. All he did was nothing but bark. He’s super moody. He peed inside even though he had just peed outside 15 minutes before. It just kept getting worse. He was up till 1 AM. Everything I put him in his crate he would just scream. His bedtime was supposed to be 10:30PM. He doesn’t like going out because it’s super hot. He pretty much never walks when I bring him out. Just lays down in the grass and eats it. He bit me so hard when I went to remove a tissue from his mouth. He hates his crate and never voluntarily goes into it to sleep. He doesn’t listen to me at all and therefore I can’t train him at all. Sometimes when he does listen, he gets mad at me after a few commands because I’m not giving him the food right away, and therefore I cannot provide him much mental simulation. I’ve bought him 300$ worth of toys and chews yet he still goes to bite the furniture and if I stop him from doing so, he gets angry at me. My parents are pressuring me to give it away. I don’t think he likes me at all. I’m at my limit, I had a breakdown yesterday and this morning I cried remembering how he used to run with me the first day I got him and now I need to give him away. Please help me out. Can anyone tell me the schedule for their puppy that worked? Where can I train him if I can’t do it at home? How many times a day and and how much water do I give him everyday? How much training does he need a day? How much should he walk? Please help me out with any tips you have. I’m starting to dislike him and can no longer see him in my life. I’m already busy and I will be even busier when I’ll need to go back to engineering school. I want to do the right thing and give him away if I have to.

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A quite harsh (EN/GER) PvE/RP server, active Admin, is welcoming all PvE/RP players who want to explore the large Prison Island of Scum at their own pace.
The start can be harsh since there are a lot more puppets roaming around in Towns and Bunkers
Name: ENDZONE (GEEN -- PvE/RP) IP: 176.57.171.142:28402 Location: EU West
Metabolism: Is lowered just a bit, eating twice a day is now enough. Mech Damage: Is set to 1.2 Puppets: x9 exterior, x5 inside, x3 Wild, spawn chance for all is 70%. Puppet Respawn-Timer in Bunkers and Towns is raised to 30 minutes, so once you have cleared out the hordes of Puppets, you get at least enough time to loot what you can before they are back. Suicide Puppets: Active Puppet Damage: 2.8 Loot rate: for stuff found in the world 1.2 and for containers 1.8 RP: more than welcome, but in no way a requirement or must-do to play on this server. NPC Trader: Are active, but a lot of items, like military equipment and almost all guns, scopes and large backpacks, are removed to encourage looting POIs and make that AK you find in some crate feel a lot more special. Magazines and basic Ammo types for any weapon are for sale at the Armory for a higher, price. Building mode: Unrestricted, few rules in place like not building in Areas that are patrolled by Mechs, don't block Bridges or main roads. Cargo Drops: Active, 30-45 minutes in-between Vehicles: A few Cars are scattered all over the Map, the same goes for dirt bikes and bicycles, more can be bought at the Traders or maybe bartered for with other players if anyone has a spare (Engine install works on the server) Nighttime: Will start at 22:00 and Sunrise is at 04:00 (max darkness) Restart times: 06:00 CEST and 18:00 CEST
Discord: https://discord.gg/SuGKYwEScS
-No Bot-shop no P2W, the server is Bot-free
-The start can be challenging if you just run into a town without any preparations because of the high number of Puppets, but the current settings keep it interesting even if you are fully geared out, there is always a risk of losing everything, crafting a bow is the best way to start off.
So if you are having problems just ask in chat, someone can give you a ride to a safer location or a Trader.
--Some additional Info:--
Trade Routes:
Salt: 1Kg Salt pack can be sold for a better profit at the C2 Trader and looted in bigger numbers at the Salt Ponds down in the Z2 Sector
Fishing: All types of fish can be sold to either the Saloon or the Boat-shop at any Trade Outpost, both will pay the same amount.
Hunting Animals: Animal heads from Bear, Wolf, Horse, Donkey, Goat, Buck, and Doe can be sold to any General Goods Trader.Any Saloon will pay some good money for skinned animals and animal parts (no steaks)
Puppet Hunter: At any general Goods trader Puppet heads and Eyes can be sold for a bit of cash.
Stalker: Depleted Plutonium and graphite can be sold to the Armory at any Outpost for a higher amount of money if you survive the Radiation...
Farming: Now your garden can be used to make some money as well, any Saloon will buy crops you can harvest from your garden for a little bit of rofit.

I did the calculations comparing with the previous car I bought, and to me it looks like private leasing it for a period of 5 years is more economical than actually owning the car. I'm a single person household and this would be my only car: is transporting groceries feasible considering boot space? I owned a Smart Roadster for 9 years and I made it work, but because the engine was in the back I had ample space in front. It seems that there is less boot space in the MX5? Can I transport a crate of 24 beers for instance? I'm Belgian, it's important to my people ;-) Also I'm 6"2' and haven't had the opportunity to test drive the car. How's headspace for my size? Any insight would be greatly appreciated.

The whirring blades of my MD-902 throbbed against the warm evening air, and I smiled.
From 5,000 feet, the ground flew by in a carpet of dark forests and kelly-green fields. The sun hung low on the horizon in a picturesque array of dazzling orange and gold, and I could make out the narrow strip of the Ohio River to my left, glistening in the fading daylight. This time of year, the trees would be full of the sweet aroma of fresh blossoms, and the frequent rains kept small pockets of fluffy white mist hanging in the treetops. It was a beautiful view, one that reminded me of why being a helicopter pilot trumped flying in a jumbo jet far above the clouds every day of the week.
Fourteen more days, and I’m debt free.
That made me grin even more. I’d been working as a charter pilot ever since I obtained my license at age 19, and after years of keeping my nose to the grindstone, I was closing on the final payment for real-estate in western Pennsylvania. With no debt, a fixer-upper house on 30 rural acres all to myself, and a respectable wage for a 26-year-old pilot, I looked forward to the financial freedom I could now enjoy. Maybe I’d take a vacation, somewhere exotic like Venice Italy, or the Dominican Republic. Or perhaps I’d sock the money back for the day I started a family.
“Remember kleineun, a real man looks after his own.”
My elderly ouma’s voice came back from the depths of my memories, her proud, sun-tanned face rising from the darkness. She and my Rhodesian grandfather had emigrated to the US when they were newlyweds, as the violence against white Boer descendants in South Africa spiraled out of control. My mother and father both died in a car crash when I was six, and it had been my grandparents who raised me. Due to this, I’d grown up with a slight accent that many of my classmates found amusing, and I could speak both English, and Afrikaans, the Boer tongue of our former home.
I shifted in my seat, stretched my back muscles, and glanced at the picture taped to my console. Both my parents flanked a grinning, gap-toothed six-year-old me, at the last Christmas we’d spent together. My mother beamed, her dark hair and Italian features a sharp contrast to my father’s sandy blonde hair and blue eyes. Sometimes, I liked to imagine they were smiling at me with pride at how well I flew the old silver-colored bird my company had assigned to me, and that made the long, lonely flights easier to bear.
A flicker caught my eye, and I broke my gaze away from the photograph.
Perched in its small cradle above the controls, my little black Garmin fuzzed over for a few seconds, its screen shifting from brightly colored maps to a barrage of grey static.
Did the power chord come loose?
I checked, ensuring the power-cable for the unit’s battery was plugged into the port on the control panel. It was a brand-new GPS unit, and I’d used it a few times already, so I knew it wasn’t defective. Granted, I could fly and navigate without it, but the Garmin made my time as a pilot so much easier that the thought of going blind was dreadful.
My fuel gauge danced, clicked to empty, then to full, in a bizarre jolt.
More of the gauges began to stutter, the entire panel seeming to develop terrets all at once, and my pulse began to race. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the sludge inside my bowels churned with sour fear.
“Come on, come on.” I flicked switches, turned dials, punched buttons, but nothing seemed to fix the spasming electronics. Every gauge failed, and without warning, I found myself plunged into inky darkness.
Outside, the sun surrendered to the pull of night, the sky darker than usual. A distant rumble of thunder reverberated above the roar of my helicopter’s engine, and I thought I glimpsed a streak of yellowish lightning on the far horizon to my left.
Calm down Chris. We’re still flying, so it must just be a blown fuse. Stay in control and find a place to set her down.
My sweaty palm slid on the cyclic stick, and both feet weighed heavy on the yaw pedals. The collective stuck to my other hand with a nervous vibration, and I squinted against the abyss outside.
Beep.
I jumped despite myself, as the little Garmin on my panel flared back to life, the static pulling aside to reveal a twitching display. Each time the screen glitched, it showed the colorful map detailing my flight path over the ground below, but I noticed that some of the lines changed, the names shifting, as if the device couldn’t decide between two different versions of the world.
One name jutted out at me, slate gray like most of the major county names, appearing with ghostly flickers from between two neighboring ones.
Barron County.
I stared, confused. I’d flown over this section of southeastern Ohio plenty of times, and I knew the counties by heart. At this point, I should have been over the southern end of Noble County, and maybe dipping lower into Washington. There was no Barron County Ohio. I was sure of it.
And yet it shown back at me from the digital landscape, a strange, almost cigar-shaped chunk of terrain carved from the surrounding counties like a tumor, sometimes there, sometimes not, as my little Garmin struggled to find the correct map. Rain began to patter against my cockpit window, and the entire aircraft rattled from a strong gust of wind. Thick clouds closed over my field of vision like a sea of gray cotton.
The blood in my veins turned to ice, and I sucked in a nervous breath.
Land. I had to land. There was nothing else to do, my flight controls weren’t responding, and only my Garmin had managed to come back to life. Perhaps I’d been hit by lightning, and the electronics had been fried? Either way, it was too dark to tell, but a storm seemed to be brewing, and if I didn’t get my feet on the ground soon, I could be in real trouble.
“Better safe than sorry.” I pushed down on the collective to start my slow descent and clicked the talking button for my headset. “Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, over.”
Nothing.
“Any station, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, requesting emergency assistance, over.”
Still nothing.
If the radio’s dead, I’m really up a creek.
With my hand shaking, I clicked on the mic one more time. “Any station, this is—”
Like a curtain pulling back, the fog cleared from around my window, and the words stuck in my throat.
Without my gauges, I couldn’t tell just how far I’d descended, but I was definitely very low. Thick trees poked up from the ground, and the hills rolled into high ridges with flat valley floors, fields and pastures pockmarking them. Rain fell all around in cold, silvery sheets, a normal feature for the mid spring in this part of Ohio.
What wasn’t normal, were the fires.
At first, I thought they were forest fires for the amount of smoke and flames that bellowed from each spot, but as I swooped lower, my eyes widened in horror.
They were houses.
Farms, cottages, little clusters that barely constituted villages, all of them belched orange flames and black pillars of sooty smoke. I couldn’t hear above the helicopter blades, but I could see the flashes on the ground, along the road, in between the trees, and even coming from the burning buildings, little jets of golden light that spat into the darkness with anger.
Gunfire. That’s rifle fire, a whole lot of it.
Tiny black figures darted through the shadows, barely discernable from where I sat, several hundred feet up. I couldn’t see much, but some were definitely running away, the streaks of yellow gunfire chasing them. A few dark gray vehicles rumbled down one of the gravel roads, and sprayed fire into the houses as it went. They were fighting, I realized, the people in the trucks and the locals. It was horrific, like something out of war-torn Afghanistan, but worse.
Then, I caught a glimpse of the others.
They didn’t move like the rest, who either fled from the dark vehicles, or fired back from behind cover. These skinny figures loped along with haphazard gaits, many running on all fours like animals, swarming from the trees by the dozens. They threw themselves into the gales of bullets without flinching, attacking anyone within range, and something about the way they moved, so fluid, so fearless, made my heart skip a beat.
What is that?
“Echo Four Actual to unknown caller, please respond, over.”
Choking back a cry of shock, I fumbled at the control panel with clumsy fingers, the man’s voice sharp and stern. I hadn’t realized that I’d let go of the talking button and clicked it down again. “Hello? Hello, this is Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot out of Pittsburgh, over.”
An excruciating moment passed, and I continued to zoom over the trees, the fires falling away behind me as more silent forest took over.
“Roger that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, we read you loud and clear. Please identify yourself and any passengers or cargo you might be carrying, over.”
Swallowing hard, I eyed the treetops, which looked much closer than they should have been. How far had I descended? “Echo Four Actual, my name is Christopher Dekker, and I am alone. I’m a charter flight from PA, carrying medical equipment for OSU in Columbus. My controls have been damaged, and I am unable to safely carry on due to the storm. Requesting permission to land, over.”
I watched the landscape slide by underneath me, once catching sight of what looked like a little white church surrounded by smaller huts, dozens of figures in the yard staring up at me as I flew over a towering ridgeline.
“Solid copy on that Douglass Three-One-Four-Foxtrot. Be advised, your transponder shows you to be inside a restricted zone. Please cease all radio traffic, reduce your speed, climb to 3,000 feet and proceed north. We’ll talk you in from there. How copy, over?”
My heart jumped, and I let out a sigh of relief. “Roger that Echo Four Actual, my altimeter is down, but I’ll do my best to eyeball the altitude, over.”
With that, I pulled the collective upward, and tried my best to gauge how far I was by eyesight in the gathering night, rain still coming down all around me. This had to be some kind of disaster or riot, I decided. After all, the voice over the radio sounded like military, and those vehicles seemed to have heavy weapons. Maybe there was some kind of unrest going on here that I hadn’t heard about yet?
Kind of weird for it to happen in rural areas though. Spoiled college kids I get, but never saw farmers get so worked up before. They usually love the military.
Something moved in the corner of my eye, and I turned out of reflex.
My mouth fell open, and I froze, unable to scream.
In the sky beside me, a huge shadow glided along, and its leathery wings effortlessly carved through the gloom, flapping only on occasion to keep it aloft. It was too dark for me to see what color it was, but from the way it moved, I knew it wasn’t another helicopter. No, this thing was alive, easily the size of a small plane, and more than twice the length of my little McDonald Douglass. A long tail trailed behind it, and bore a distinct arrow-shaped snout, with twig-like spines fanned out around the back of its head. Whatever legs it had were drawn up under it like a bird, yet its skin appeared rough and knobby, almost resembling tree bark. Without pause, the gigantic bat-winged entity flew along beside me, as if my presence was on par with an annoying fly buzzing about its head.
Gripping the microphone switch so tight, I thought I’d crack the plastic, I whispered into my headset, forgetting all radio protocol. “T-There’s something up here.”
Static crackled.
“Douglas Three-One-Four-Foxtrot, say again your last, you’re coming in weak and unreadable, over.”
“There’s something up here.” I snarled into the headset, still glued to the controls of the helicopter, afraid to deviate even an inch from my course in case the monstrosity decided to turn on me. “A freaking huge thing, right beside me. I swear, it looks like a bat or . . . I don’t know.”
“Calm down.” The man on the other end of the radio broke his rigorous discipline as well, his voice deep, but level. “It won’t attack if you don’t move too fast. Slowly ease away from it and follow that course until you’re out of sight.”
I didn’t have time to think about how wrong that sounded, how the man’s strict tone had changed to one of knowledge, how he hadn’t been the least surprised by what I’d said. Instead, I slowly turned the helicopter away from the huge menace and edged the speed higher in tiny increments.
As soon as I was roughly two football fields away, I let myself relax, and clicked the mic switch. “It’s not following.”
“You’re sure?”
Eyeing the huge flapping wings, I nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see me. “Yeah, I’m well clear.”
“Good. Thank you, Mr. Dekker.”
Then, the radio went dead.
Something in my chest dropped, a weight that made my stomach roil. This wasn’t right, none of it. Who was that man? Why did he know about the thing I’d just seen? What was I supposed to—
A flash of light exploded from the trees to my right and shot into the air with a long finger of smoke.
What the . . .
On instinct, I jerked the cyclic stick to one side, and the helicopter swung to avoid the rocket.
Boom.
My world shook, metal screeched, and a dozen alarms began to go off inside the cockpit in a cacophony of beeps and sirens. Orange and red flames lit up the night sky just behind me, and the horizon started to spin wildly outside. Heat gushed from the cockpit door, and I smelled the greasy stench of burning oil. The safety belts dug into my shoulders, and with a final slip, the radio headset ripped free from my scalp.
I’m hit.
Desperate, I yanked on the controls, fought the bird even as she spun toward the ground in a wreath of flames, the inky black trees hurtling up to meet me. The helicopter went into full auto-rotation, the sky blurring past outside, and the alarms blared in a screech of doom. Panic slammed through my temples, I screamed at the top of my lungs, and for one brief second, my eyes locked on the little black Garmin still perched atop my control panel.
Its screen stopped twitching and settled on a map of the mysterious Barron County, with a little red arrow at the center of the screen, a few words popping up underneath it.
You are here.
Trees stabbed up into the sky, the belts crushed at my torso, glass shattered all around me, and the world went dark.
Copper, thick, warm, and tangy.
It filled my mouth, stank metallic in my nose, clogged my throat, choking me. In the murkiness, I fought for a surface, for a way out, blind and numb in the dark.
This way, kleineun.
My ouma’s voice echoed from somewhere in the shadows.
This way.
Both eyes flew open, and I gagged, spitting out a stream of red.
Pain throbbed in my ribs, and a heavy pressure sent a tingling numbness through my shoulders. Blood roared inside my temples, and stars danced before my eyes with a dizzying array. Humid night air kissed my skin, and something sticky coated my face, neck, and arms that hung straight up toward the ceiling.
Wait. Not up. Down.
I blinked at the wrinkled, torn ceiling of the cockpit, the glass all gone, the gray aluminum shredded like tissue paper. Just outside the broken windows, thick Appalachian bluegrass and stemmy underbrush swished in a feeble breeze, backlit by flashes of lightning from the thunderstorm overhead. Green and brown leaves covered everything in a wet carpet of triangles, and somewhere nearby, a cricket chirped.
Turning my head from side to side, I realized that I hung upside down inside the ruined helicopter, the top half burrowed into the mud. I could hear the hissing and crackling of flames, the pattering of rain falling on the hot aluminum, and the smaller brush fires around the downed aircraft sizzling out in the damp long grass. Charred steel and burning oil tainted the air, almost as strong as the metallic, coppery stench in my aching nose.
They shot me down. That military dude shot me out of the sky.
It didn’t make sense. I’d followed their orders, done everything they’d said, and yet the instant I veered safely away from whatever that thing in the sky had been, they’d fired, not at it, but at me.
Looking down (or rather, up) at my chest, I sucked in a gasp, which was harder to do that before.
The navy-blue shirt stuck to my torso with several big splotches of dark, rusty red. Most were clean slashes, but two held bits of glass sticking out of them, one alarmingly bigger than the other. They dripped cherry red blood onto my upturned face, and a wave of nausea hit me.
I gotta get down.
I flexed my arms to try and work some feeling back into them, praying nothing was broken. Half-numb from hanging so long, I palmed along my aching body until I felt the buckled for the seat belts.
“Okay.” I hissed between gritted teeth, in an effort to stave off my panic. “You can do this. Just hold on tight. Nice and tight. Here we go . . .”
Click.
Everything seemed to lurch, and I slid off the seat to plummet towards the muck-filled hole in the cockpit ceiling. My fingers were slick with blood and slipped over the smooth faux-leather pilot’s seat with ease. The shoulder belt snagged on the bits of glass that lay just under the left lowest rib, and a flare of white-hot pain ripped through me.
Wham.
I screamed, my right knee caught the edge of the aluminum ceiling, and both hands dove into a mound of leaf-covered glass shards on the opposite side of the hole. My head swam, being right-side-up again enough to make shadows gnaw at the corner of my eyes.
Forcing myself to breath slowly, I fought the urge to faint and slid back to sit on the smooth ceiling. I turned my hands over to see half a dozen bits of clear glass burrowed into my skin like greedy parasites, red blood weeping around the new cuts.
“Screw you.” I spat at the rubbish with angry tears in my eyes. “Screw you, screw you, screw you.”
The shards came out easy enough, and the cuts weren’t that deep, but that wasn’t what worried me. On my chest, the single piece of cockpit glass that remined was almost as big as my palm, and it really hurt. Just touching it felt like self-inflicted torture, but I knew it had to come out sooner or later.
Please don’t nick a vein.
Wiping my hands dry on my jeans, I gripped the shard with both hands, and jerked.
Fire roared over my ribs, and hot blood tickled my already grimy pale skin. I clapped a hand over the wound, pressing down hard, and grunted out a string of hateful expletives that my ouma would have slapped me for.
Lying on my back, I stared around me at the messy cargo compartment of the MD-902. Most of the medical supplies had been in cardboard boxes strapped down with heavy nylon tow-straps, but several cases had ruptured with the force of the impact, spraying bandages, syringes, and pill bottles all over the cluttered interior. Orange flames chewed at the crate furthest to the rear, the tail section long gone, but the foremost part of the hold was intact. Easily a million-dollar mess, it would have made me faint on any other trip, but today it was a godsend.
Half-blind in the darkness, I crawled along with only the firelight and lightning bolts to guide me, my right knee aching. Like a crippled raccoon, I collected things as I went, conscious of the two pallets of intact supplies weighing right over my head. I’d taken several different first-aid courses with some hunting buddies of mine, and the mental reflexes kicked in to help soothe my frazzled mind.
Check for bleeds, stop the worst, then move on.
Aside from my battered chest and stomach, the rest of me remained mostly unharmed. I had nasty bruises from the seatbelts, my right knee swelled, my nose slightly crooked and crusted in blood, but otherwise I was intact. Dowsing every scratch and cut with a bottle of isopropyl alcohol I found, I used butterfly closures on the smaller lacerations that peppered my skin. I wrapped soft white gauze over my abused palms and probed at the big cut where the last shard had been, only stopping when I was sure there were no pieces of glass wedged inside my flesh.
“Not too bad.” I grunted to myself, trying to sound impassive like a doctor might. “Rib must have stopped it. Gonna need stitches though. That’ll be fun.”
Pawing through the broken cases, I couldn’t find any suture chord, but just as I was about to give up, I noticed a small box that read ‘medical skin stapler’.
Bingo.
I tore the small white plastic stapler free from its packaging and eyeballed the device. I’d never done this before, only seen it in movies, and even though the cut in my skin hurt, I wondered if this wouldn’t be worse.
You’ve gotta do it. That bleeding needs to stop. Besides, no one’s coming to rescue you, not with those rocket-launching psychos out there.
Taking a deep breath, I pinched the skin around the gash together, and pressed the mouth of the stapler to it.
Click.
A sharp sting, like that of a needle bit at the skin, but it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as the cut itself. I worked my way across the two-inch laceration and gave out a sigh of relief when it was done.
“Not going to bleed to death today.” I daubed ointment around the staples before winding more bandages over the wound.
Popping a few low-grade painkillers that tumbled from the cargo, I crawled wriggled through the nearest shattered window into the wet grass.
Raindrops kissed my face, clean and cool on my sweaty skin. Despite the thick cloud cover, there was enough constant lightning strikes within the storm to let me get glimpses of the world around me. My helicopter lay on its back, the blades snapped like pencils, with bits and pieces of it burning in chunks all around the small break in the trees. Chest-high scrub brush grew all around the low-lying ground, with pockets of standing water in places. My ears still rang from the impact of the crash, but I could start to pick up more crickets, frogs, and even some nocturnal birds singing into the darkness, like they didn’t notice the huge the hulk of flaming metal that had fallen from the sky. Overhead, the thunder rumbled onward, the feeble wind whistling, and there were other flashes on the horizon, orange and red ones, with crackles that didn’t sound quite like lightning.
The guns. They’re still fighting.
Instinctively, I pulled out my cellphone, and tapped the screen.
It fluttered to life, but no matter how I tried, I couldn’t get through to anyone, not even with the emergency function designed to work around having no service. The complicated wonder of our modern world was little better than a glorified paperweight.
Stunned, I sat down with my back to the helicopter and rested my head against the aluminum skin of the craft. How I’d gone from a regular medical supply run to being marooned in this hellish parody of rural America, I didn’t know, but one thig was certain; I needed a plan. Whoever fired the missile could have already contacted my charter company and made up some excuse to keep them from coming to look for me. No one else knew I was here, and even though I now had six staples holding the worst of my injuries shut, I knew I needed proper medical attention. If I wanted to live, I’d have to rescue myself.
My bag. I need to get my go-bag, grab some gear and then . . . head somewhere else.
It took me a while to gather my green canvas paratrooper bag from its place behind the pilot’s seat and fill it with whatever supplies I could scrounge. My knee didn’t seem to be broken, but man did it hurt, and I dreaded the thought of walking on it for miles on end. I focused instead on inventorying my gear and trying to come up with a halfway intelligent plan of action.
I had a stainless-steel canteen with one of those detachable cups on the bottom, a little fishing kit, some duct tape, a lighter, a black LED flashlight with three spare batteries, a few tattered road maps with a compass, a spare pair of socks, medical supplies from the cargo, and a simple forest green plastic rain poncho. I also managed to unearth a functioning digital camcorder my ouma had gotten me for Christmas a few years back, though I wasn’t sure I wanted to do any filming in such a miserable state. Lastly, since it was a private supply run from a warehouse area near Pittsburgh to a direct hospital pad in Ohio, I’d been able to bring my K-Bar, a sturdy, and brutally simple knife designed for the Marine Corps that I used every time I went camping. It was pitiful in comparison to the rifle I wished I had with me, but that didn’t matter now. I had what I had, and I doubted my trusty Armalite would have alleviated my sore knee anyway.
Clicking on my flashlight, I huddled with the poncho around my shoulders inside the wreck of the chopper and peered at the dusty roadmaps. A small part of me hoped that a solution would jump out from the faded paper, but none came. These were all maps of western PA and eastern Ohio. None of them had a Barron County on them anywhere.
The man on the radio said to head north, right before they shot me down. That means they must be camped out to the north of here. South had that convoy and those burning houses, so that’s a no-go. Maybe I can backtrack eastward the way I came.
As if on cue, a soft pop echoed from over the eastern horizon, and I craned to look out the helicopter window, spotting more man-made flashes over the tree tops.
“Great.” I hissed between clenched teeth, aware of how the temperature dipped to a chilly 60 degrees, and how despite the conditions, my stomach had begun to growl. “Not going that way, are we? Westward it is.”
Walking away from my poor 902 proved to be harder than I’d anticipated. Despite the glass, the fizzling fires, and the darkness, it still held a familiar, human essence to it. Sitting inside it made me feel secure, safe, even calm about the situation. In any other circumstance, I would have just stayed with the downed aircraft to wait for help, but I knew the men who shot me down would likely find my crash site, and I didn’t want to be around when they did.
Unlike much of central and western Ohio, southeastern Ohio is hilly, brushy, and clogged with thick forests. Thorns snagged at my thin poncho and sliced at my pant legs. My knee throbbed, every step a form of self-inflicted torture. The rain never stopped, a steady drizzle from above just cold enough to be problematic as time went on, making me shiver. Mud slid under my tennis shoes, and every tree looked ten times bigger in the flickering beam of my cheap flashlight. Icy fear prickled at the back of my neck at some of the sounds that greeted me through the gloom. I’d been camping loads of times, both in Pennsylvania and elsewhere, but these noises were something otherworldly to me.
Strange howls, screeches, and calls permeated the rain-soaked sky, some almost roars, while others bordered on human in their intonation. The more I walked, the softer the distant gunfire became, and the more prevalent the odd sounds, until the shadows seemed to fill with them. I didn’t dare turn off my flashlight, or I’d been completely blind in the dark, but a little voice in the back of my head screamed that I was too visible, crunching through the gloomy forest with my long beam of light stabbing into the abyss. It felt as though a million eyes were on me, studying me, hunting me from the surrounding brush, and I bitterly recalled how much I’d loved the old Survivor Man TV series as a kid.
Not so fun being out in the woods at night. Especially alone.
A twig snapped somewhere behind me, and I whirled on the spot, one trembling hand resting on the hilt of my K-Bar.
Nothing. Nothing but trees, bushes, and rain dripping down in the darkness.
“This is stupid.” I whispered to myself to keep my nerves in check as I slowly spun on the spot. “I should have went eastward anyway. God knows how long I’m going to have to—”
Creak.
A groan of metal-on-metal echoed from somewhere to my right, and I spun to face it, yanking the knife on my belt free from its scabbard. It felt so small and useless in my hand, and I choked down a wave of nauseas fear.
Ka-whump. Creak. K-whump. Creak.
Underbrush cracked and crunched, a few smaller saplings thrashed, and from deep within the gloom, two yellow orbs flared to life. They poked through the mist in the trees, forming into slender fingers of golden light that swept back and forth in the dark.
The soldiers . . . they must be looking for me.
I swallowed hard and turned to slink away.
Ice jammed through my blood, and I froze on the spot, biting my tongue to stop the scream.
It stood not yards away, a huge form that towered a good twelve feet tall in the swirling shadows. Unpolished chrome blended with flash-rusted spots in the faded red paint, and grime-smeared glass shone with dull hues in the flashes of lightning. Where the wheels should have been, the rounded steel axels curved like some enormous hand had bent them, and the tires lay face-down on the muddy ground like big round feet, their hubcaps buried in the dirt. Dents, scrapes, and chips covered the battered thing, and its crooked little radio antenna pointed straight up from the old metal fender like a mast. I could barely make out the mud-coated VW on the rounded hood, and my mind reeled in shock.
Is . . . is that a car?
Both yellow headlights bathed me in a circle of bright, blinding light, and neither I nor the strange vehicle moved.
Seconds ticked by, the screech-thumping in the background only growing closer. I realized that I couldn’t hear any engine noises and had yet to see any soldiers or guns pointed my way. This car looked old, really old, like one of those classic Volkswagen Beetles that collectors fought over at auctions. Try as I might, I couldn’t see a driver inside the murky, mold-smeared windows.
Because there wasn’t one.
Lightning arched across the sky overhead, and the car standing in front of me blinked.
Its headlights slid shut, as if little metal shades had crawled over the bulbs for a moment and flicked open again. Something about that movement was so primal, so real, so lifelike, that every ounce of self-control I had melted in an instant.
Cursing under my breath, I lunged into the shrubs, and the world erupted around me.
Under my shoes, the ground shook, and the car surged after me in a cacophony of ka-thumps that made my already racing heart skip several beats. A weather-beaten brown tow truck from the 50’s charged through the thorns to my left, it’s headlights ablaze, and a dilapidated yellow school bus rose from its hiding place in the weeds to stand tall on four down-turned axel-legs. They all flicked their headlights on like giants waking from their slumber, and as I dodged past them, they each blared their horn into the night in alarm.
My breaths came short and tight, my knee burned, and I crashed through thorns and briars without thought to how badly I was getting cut up.
The cheap poncho tore, and I ripped it away as it caught on a tree branch.
A purple 70’s Mustang shook off its blanket of creeping vines and bounded from a stand of trees just ahead, forcing me to swerve to avoid being run over, my adrenaline at all-time highs.
This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening.
Slipping and sliding, I pushed through a stand of multiflora rose, and stumbled out into a flat, dark expanse.
I almost skidded to a stop.
What had once been a rather large field stood no taller than my shoestrings, the grass charred, and burnt. The storm above illuminated huge pieces of wreckage that lay scattered over the nearly 40-acre plot, and I could just make out the fire-blackened hulk of a fuselage resting a hundred yards away. The plane had been brought down a while ago it seemed, as there weren’t any flames left burning, and I threw myself toward it in frenzied desperation.
Burned grass and greasy brown topsoil slushed underfoot, and I could hear the squelching of the cars pursing me. Rain soaked me to the bone, and my lungs ached from sucking down the damp night air. A painful stich crept into my side, and I cursed myself for not putting in more time for cardio at the gym.
Something caught my left shoelace, and I hurtled to the ground, tasting mud and blood in between my teeth.
They’ve got me now.
I clawed at the mud, rolled, and watched a tire slam down mere inches from where my head had been. The Mustang loomed over me and jostled for position with the red Volkswagen and brown tow truck, the school bus still a few yards behind them. They couldn’t seem to decide who would get the pleasure of stomping me to death, and like a herd of stampeding wildebeest, they locked bumpers in an epic shoving match.
On all fours, I scampered out from under the sparring brutes, and dashed for the crumpled airplane, a white-painted DC-3 that looked like it had been cut in half by a gargantuan knife blade. I passed a snapped wing section, the oily remains of a turbo-prop engine, and a mutilated wheel from the landing gear. Climbing over a heap of mud, I squeezed into the back of the ruined flight cabin and dropped down into the dark cargo hold.
Wham.
No sooner had my sneakers hit the cold metal floor, and the entire plane rocked from the impact of something heavy ramming it just outside. I tumbled to my knees, screaming in pain as, once again, I managed to bash the sore one off a bracket in the wall.
My hand smeared in something gooey, and I scrabbled for my flashlight.
It clicked on, a wavering ball of white light in the pitch darkness, and I fought the urge to gag. “Oh man . . .”
Three people, or what was left of them, lay strewn over the narrow cargo area. Claret red blood coated the walls, caked on the floor, and clotted under my mud-spattered shoes. Bits of flesh and viscera were stuck to everything, and tatters of cloth hung from exposed sections of broken bone. An eerie set of bloody handprints adorned the walls, and the only reason I could tell it had been three people were the shoes; all of them bore anklebones sticking out above blood-soaked socks. It smelled sickly sweet, a strange, nauseas odor that crept into my nose and settled on the back of my tongue like an alien parasite.
Something glinted in the beam of my flashlight, and my pulse quickened as I pried the object loose from the severed arm that still clung to it.
“Hail Mary full of Grace.” I would have grinned if it weren’t for the fact that the plane continued to buck and roll under the assault from the cars outside.
The pistol looked old, but well-maintained, aside from the light coating of dark blood that stained its round wooden handle. It felt heavy, but good in my hand, and I turned it over to read the words, Waffenfabrik Mauser stenciled into the frame, with a large red 9 carved into the grip. For some reason, it vaguely reminded me of the blasters from Star Wars.
I fumbled with a little switch that looked like a safety on the back of the gun and stumbled toward a gap in the plane’s dented fuselage to aim out at the surrounding headlights.
Bang.
The old gun bucked reliably in my hand, its long barrel spitting a little jet of flame into the night. I had no idea if I hit anything, but the attacking cars recoiled, their horns blaring in confusion.
They turned, and scuttled for the tree line as fast as their mechanical legs could go, the entire ordeal over as fast as it had begun.
Did I do that?
Perplexed, I stared down at the pistol in my hand.
Whoosh.
A large, inky black shadow glided down from the clouds, and the yellow school bus moved too slow to react in time.
With a crash, the kicking nightmarish vehicle was thrown onto its side, spraying glass and chrome trim across the muddy field. Its electro-synth horn blared with wails of mechanical agony, as two huge talon-like feet clamped down on it, and the enormous head of the flying creature lowered to rip open its engine compartment.
The horn cut out, and the enormous flying entity jerked its head back to gulp down a mass of what looked like sticky black vines from the interior of the shattered bus.
At this range, I could see now that the flying creature bore two legs and had its wings half-tucked like a vulture that had descended to feed on roadkill. Its head turned slightly, and in the glow of another lightning bolt, my jaw went slack at the realization of what it was.
A tree trunk. It’s a rotted tree trunk.
I couldn’t tell where the reptilian beast began, and where the organic tree components ended, the upper part of the head shaped like a log, while the lower jaw resembled something out of a dinosaur movie. Its skin looked identical to the outside of a shagbark hickory but flexed with a supple featheriness that denoted something closer to skin. Sharp branch-like spines ranged down its back, and out to the end of its tail, which bore a massive round club shaped like a diseased tree-knot. Crouched on both hind legs, it braced the hooked ends of its folded wings against the ground like a bat, towering higher than a semi-truck. Under the folds of its armored head, a bulging pair of chameleon-like eyes constantly spun in their sockets, probing the dark for threats while it ate.
One black pupil locked onto the window I peered through, and my heart stopped.
The beast regarded me for a moment, with a curious, sideways sniff.
With a proud, contemptful head-toss, the shadow from the sky parted rows of razor-sharp teeth to let out a roar that shook the earth beneath my feet. It was the triumphant war cry of a creature that sat at the very top of the food chain, one that felt no threat from the fragile two-legged beings that walked the earth all around it. It hunted whenever it wanted, ate whatever it wanted, and flew wherever it wanted. It didn’t need to rip the plane apart to devour me.
Like my hunter-gatherer ancestors from thousands of years ago, I wasn’t even worth the energy it would take to pounce.
I’m hiding in the remains of the cockpit now, which is half-buried under the mud of the field, enough to shield the light from my screen so that thing doesn’t see it. My service only now came back, and it’s been over an hour since the winged beast started in on the dead bus. I don’t know when, or how I’m going to get out of here. I don’t know when anyone will even see this post, or if it will upload at all. My phone battery is almost dead, and at this point, I’m probably going to have to sleep among the corpses until daylight comes.
A dead man sleeping amongst friends.
If you live in the Noble County area in southeastern Ohio, be careful where you drive, fly, and boat. I don’t know if it’s possible to stumble into this strange place by ground, but if so, then these things are definitely headed your way.
If that happens . . . pray that they don’t find you.

A data lake is the act of creating that central repository of your structured and unstructured data whether that be a Hadoop cluster or Cloud Object Storage like S3 or ADLS.
You can run ad hoc read-only analytics on a data lake using many tools, and it is still a data lake.
When does it cross that line into become a data lakehouse?
It’s when you start implementing the components to enable data warehouse like functionality on that data lake that it becomes a lakehouse. The chief component among them is organizing your datasets into tables using a table format (Apache Iceberg, Apache Hudi, Delta Lake).
This enables things such as:

• ACID transactions for inserts, updates and deletes
• Smarter query planning (skipping data files that don’t need to be read for faster queries)
• Schema Evolution
• Time-Travel queries to query historical data
• Table rollbacks for disaster recovery

But a Lakehouse isn’t enough, with the exploding expansion of the quantity and use cases of data you need an OPEN lakehouse that allows your lakehouse tables to interOp with a vast array of tools without key features being hidden away behind proprietary platforms locking you out of tools you need and enabling creeping costs.
Apache Iceberg provides a community backed table format with an expansive and ever growing array of tool support for reading and writing.
Project Nessie provides an open-source data catalog to bundle your Iceberg tables and bring them from tool to tool with git-like operations, time-travel, rollback and more at the catalog level.
With these two technologies you have an Open Lakehouse with high tool interOp. As a bonus you can add the benefits of platforms like Dremio that bring you automated table maintenance, a semantic layer, a blazing fast query engine and more to make your open lakehouse turnkey without locking your data away from tools that are best for any particular job.