"Hey, stop. I'm not proud of it." Zack was definitely proud of it.
He glanced back at the new transfer hoping to see him cowering and had he been drinking anything he would have done a spit-take right then and there.
Oblivious to the looks he was getting, Daniel, continued flirting with the increasingly reddening blonde. His pickup lines were downright atrocious, but Jay didn't seem to mind it at all.
"Are you French? Because Eiffel for you."
Zack began wondering if this was a fever dream but a quick look at his gobsmacked goon confirmed they were seeing this too.
"Are you a parking ticket? Because you’ve got FINE written all over you."
Zoe quietly despaired in a corner with large crocodile tears running down her face.
"I must be in a museum, because you truly are a work of art."
Zack sneakily pulled out a notebook and began furiously scribbling down notes.
"Are you a time traveler? Cause I see you in my future!"
Daniel was not smirking mischievously at that one, thank you very much.
"Can I follow you where you’re going right now? Because my parents always told me to follow my dreams."
"Does he even have a dad?" someone whispered in the background, genuinely curious.
As expected, there was no reply.
"Do you like Star Wars? Because Yoda only one for me!"
Mira could no longer keep a straight face and face-planted into her desk letting out something that sounded like a mix between a moan of despair and a muffled snort. It came out like the sound of a wounded pterodactyl.
The teacher walked in unnoticed.
"My love for you is like diarrhea, I just can't hold it in."
The teacher promptly walked out and never returned.
Everybody knows me differently. Some know me as a monster, while others hail me as a saint. To many I am a saviour of sorts... others tell their children scary stories of me, as a cruel villain, at night.
Many know of me, yet few know me. They call out to me, although I have no name, and sing me praises, despite their voices never reaching my ears.
Beneath rays of moonlight they pray to me and bring me offerings of flesh and metal, but I am unable to aswer their pleas and soothe their pain. Upon finding out this truth they curse me out, only to later return to me either out of fear, regret or even more greed. They lay down their short mortal lives for me, out of desire for things I cannot gift them.
For I am their god, and I am powerless.
He had been stupid and careless. Again. Only this time it had been someone else who had paid the price.
Hubris.
Danny thought he was untouchable. It's easy to understand why. He was a man who couldn't die, or more accurately, couldn't stay dead. There was nothing anyone could do to him to make him break, not anymore, not after he had repeated his life so many times he could tell you what would come to be in 30 years spot on.
He acted on impulse, and did things without thinking them through because what's the worse that could happen? Excessive pride had let him to provoking Eugene, using his deepest darkest secrets to threaten him, and for what? Fun?
Daniel tempted fate, forgetting that although he was not bound by it others were. His friends were. His mother was. Jay was. And although he knew that, come the next loop, they would not even recall the horrors they had suffered and their broken bodies would mend themselves as if it had all been a mere dream born of a sickened mind, it didn't mean anything to him in the end.
"No" Had been the first word that slipped past his lips when he lay eyes on the mangled corpse of his beloved.
Daniel swallowed the bile, unconsciously cataloging each injury and automatically knowing how it had been done. He knew how those injuries were done because he himself had both experienced and inflicted them on others. He stumbled, suddenly dizzy and vaguely nauseated.
Burn marks covered his darling's once fair skin, almost entirely covering the other wounds present on his torso. There were bruises. Cuts. Punctures. His face was a pale shade of gray and his lips were swollen. His love's last moments had been spent gasping for air, the torturous end deliberately prolonged for the attacker's sick entertainment. The bastards had FUCKING STRANGLED him, slowly...painfully... (cut off their hands~)
Gently, he caressed Jay's cheek and for a moment wished he could pretend that the blonde was just asleep, waiting for Danny to wake him up by peppering him with kisses. Then he took the body in his arms, carefully holding it as if it were made of glass. He took it-HIM! home and laid him on the bed with his arms crossed over his chest like ancient kings.
The funeral was a messy affair filled with sobbing and streaming and blaming. It wasn't how Jay would've wanted. It was horrible and the boy returned home quietly with a gaping hole in his heart.
It didn't take long for the numbness to fade, washed away by the raging storm of anger.
How dare those filthy maggots lay their disgusting hands on his beloved?!
Red...(More~)
Did they think they would get away with their odious actions?!
Blood...(Yes~)
He would make them pay!
Whose blood...?(More~ More~)
They deserved to suffer for their sins!
There were too many of them to count...(MORE!)
He would not forgive them for this!
It didn't matter anymore...(It didnt~)
THEY WOULD PAY!
...the blood...it didn't matter whose it was...(It didn't matter! Just bring us more!)
...
...
...
The loop reset again...It didn't matter...He would continue his mission regardless...they would pay...in blood...with their lives...again...and again...until he would be satisfied...until they learned...until-
The loop tugged at his soul in warning, coiling its dark tentacles around his neck threateningly. No more! it seemed to hiss in his ear. Enough!
Reluctantly, he obeyed.
Pity! I only got to torture them for a measly 20 loops. Well, it just means I have to get more creative! If physical torture was banned it just meant he had to mess with them in other ways. He already had plenty of ideas. After all, the mind was fun to toy with as well! (yes~)
"Home..." the word itself left a bitter taste on the back of his tongue, though perhaps that should be attributed to the amount of dirt and soot that had slipped past his cracked lips in those moments of weakness when he had relapsed to his primal instinct and wept akin to a child who had just killed his first hunt.
I was wondering about a time loop in which Big Deal takes in Yohan and he trains under Samuel and in which Samuel was female. I feel like Samuel would definitely still be as tall if not buff and pass as masculine, so a time loop where she either stays with Big Deal and Yohan or she helps Yohan with God Dog and his mom.
I just thought it'd be interesting for one of Big Deal's fighters to be female and none of them except Alexander knowing and finding out.
(Mommy Sammy is simultaneously the most unhinged and brilliant idea I've ever been asked about! Like, does she still tear her clothes off when she fights or is that just me being weird? Nvm. Since most of my loops are from Daniel's perspective we'll just pretend he died early in this loop and is currently spying on various people waiting for his loop to end.)
Sometimes Danny wondered if the loops had been made by some unstable maniac. [Shhh, don't expose me!]
When he had stared the loop already dying it hadn't come as that much of a surprise. It was more annoying after you got used to it. That meant, however, that he hadn't gotten to check on anything that might've been changed from the original setting of the loops. He was a bit further back, that he could tell from how small his body had seemed at first.
He hadn't expected to drift towards a familiar street in search of entertainment and do a spit-take with his immaterial smoothie.
"What in my green god-given mustache?"
It wasn't Big Deal's new addition, in the form of one chestnut-haired dog-lover, that had garnered that reaction from the spirit, though it did add to the oddness of the situation. Danny's eyes drifted from the boy currently pummeling some no-name extra into the ground, to the person keeping a watchful eye over him from a little ways away while traumatizing fighting several other people.
Hovering over Johan like a mother hen was a distinctly-not-how-he-was-supposed-to-be-shaped Samuel. The mullet was there, in all its sexy glory, as was the terrifying signature grin and the usual two-piece suit, though it seemed to fit rather strangely on his body-oh! on her body. Samuel was a woman!
She was a buff strong woman and had Danny not been so utterly besotted with his beloved he would no doubt be slightly crushing on her at first sight. As it was, however, he just shuddered at the thought of her matching her counterpart and his apparent eagerness to rid himself of his tops at any possible opportunity and wondered if she were the same. He hoped that wasn't the case.
He paused, looking back and forth between the small Johan and Sammy (that was a good name to call her for now!). His mouth opened in the shape of an o. There was care in her gaze and even, if he were so bold to dare say it, affection. But not the kind that led people to have butterflies in their stomachs and sweaty palms, it wasn't the kind that burned, no, it was the soft type that came with taking a young one under your wing, it was the type that made you want to cherish and protect, the kind that didn't burn, but merely warmed and warded off the darkness. Sammy saw the little copycat as her ward.
Really, speaking from his own experiences, these tiny humans were really easy to get attached to. Hell, he himself had gone through the same thing with the boy in question at one point or another.
Samuel was a person that Danny associated with greed. A man willing to do anything to reach his goals. The sight of his female counterpart being so parental and openly caring for someone that couldn't do anything to further her position and status settled a part of Danny that had always wanted to believe that there was some semblance of good in the former Worker's member.
A tentative smile pulled at his lips as he watched the one-sided carnage fight end and Sammy's eyes instantaneously move to scan the young prodigy for any wounds in a motion that was so familiar to the spirit that his eyes glazed over for a moment. How many times had it been him doing this for a younger version of Johan? He couldn't recall, but the memory left a faded bitter-sweet taste in his mouth.
His soul shuddered with the pull of the loop. It was time to start anew. This time, however, with the peace of mind he hadn't had in a while, that came with the realization that if Samuel was worthy of redemption, then perhaps so was he.
"When these loops end, I will have that peace." He whispered the promise breathlessly, as the fragments of his soul drifted into the breeze.
The hourglass was turned, and the sand started falling again.
I remembered the Mommy Sammy loop and I was wondering - what if it was combined with the Little Daniel getting adopted by Big Deal loop? For example, what if Danny is adopted and the whole Johan incident happens soon after, but Sammy decided that she'll take her in under her wing. Female Johan and Samuel would be so cool.
Meanwhile, Danny is growing up and he realizes that Samuel and Johan are girls but Big Deal still hasn't realized it. Cue Daniel casually tring to tell Sinu and Yeonhui and the rest of Big Deal about it and them not believing him because what girl would be as much a psycho as those two (they think this with affection).
It would also be kinda fluffy since Samuel would probably stay with big deal and maybe try to legally become a business mogul (kind of like going to school and still making one mcn, just not with workers).
Idk I just thought it was a cool idea. Sorry for all the rambling.
"All of them are dumbasses," Daniel grumbled, kicking pebbles.
"Mhm." Sammy didn't even bother pretending otherwise, as she completed another test and began checking her answers.
Daniel had just returned from his usual daily attempt at opening Sinu and Jake's eyes regarding Sammy and Johane's gender. It had gone as expected, he got laughed at and sent on his way so the adults could 'do their job' (playing video games until 3 am). He had managed to convince Yeonhui a few weeks ago, as the girl was obviously much less dense than the two dunderheads leading the crew.
The time-looper trapped in a 7-year-old's body gave a long-suffering sigh, crouching near the steps on which his big sister figure was sat.
"They even had the gall to laugh in my face and tell me that I was making stuff up to avoid doing my homework. Can you believe that?!"
"The audacity." Samuel drawled making the tiny boy bristle even harder.
"You aren't even listening to me!" He shouted in annoyance, maybe a bit too loud for how late at night it was.
'Yep, definitely too loud' he sweatdropped when the lights in the building behind them turned on. A ruffled, half-asleep brown-haired girl made her way out after a few beats of silence, followed closely by her loyal companion. Eden took one look at them, deciding that whatever human business they were doing didn't affect him, and headed back in after a large yawn. Johane looked tempted to follow his example.
"What are you two doing?" She asked instead, plopping down beside Sammy. "You know you're going to ruin your eyes like that, right?"
Sammy looked up at her. She had a flashlight strapped to her head and was checking her answers in pink glitter pen while the book was precariously balanced on one of her knees. The buff girl pointedly pushed her glasses up her nose.
"You know what I meant." Johane huffed "You're going to damage your eyes even more, then you'll have to wander around like a blind bat before age 30. And what's gotten in you, pup, why'd you shout at 1 in the morning like a damn prairie dog?"
The child shuffled his feet, the tips of his ears reddening.
"I didn't mean for it to be that loud. It's just that the guys-"
"What guys?"
"Sinu and Jake" Sammy supplied
"-are being such idiots that it's starting to really irk me!"
Johane paused, probably still a bit slow from tiredness and trying to gather her thoughts and articulate them in a kid-friendly way.
"Did you just now notice?" Was all she managed to come up with. "I mean, they've been like that since-"
"Forever." Sammy completed her sentence, closing the book and turning off the flashlight before turning to face her two younger siblings figures. "So those fuckers can't take the fact that me and her were born with vaginas and boobs. What are you gonna do about it? It's not as if you can force them to change their minds..."
The maniac smirk that spread on the beastie's face (She thought him that! That was her greatest achievement in raising the little hellspawn and no one could deny it!) made her pause. Sammy knew how devious the brat could be, but as she thought back to what she had said offhandedly just now, the Economical Studies students could already predict his thought process.
"Thanks, Sammy! You just gave me a great idea, I knew those crocodiles with lightsabers would come in handy again!" He ran up to the buff girl and gave her a quick peck on the cheek before running off.
"What have we just unleashed?" Sammy pondered out loud.
"And where is my kith?" Johanne slurred already half-leaning onto her shoulder.
Danny: There is no future. There is no past. Don't you see? Time is simultaneous, an intricately structured jewel that humans insist on viewing one edge at a time, when the whole design is visible in every fact. Zack: ...All I asked was if you wanted to cut your birthday cake first.
Danny: Alright, listen up, you little shits. Danny: Not you, Jay. You’re an angel and we’re thrilled to have you here.
Something clicked my mind. How about a loop of genderbend Jay and genderbend Gun.
I just want to see both of them fighting for Daniel attentions.
Jay was a girl, again. That in itself was not a problem.
The problem came in the form of a tall fit black-eyed hellspawn who also happened to be of the fairer sex this time around. Gun was just as hard to deal with in his female form if a bit more due to society's somewhat-acceptance of women competing rather aggressively for their crushes. Having been a woman himself, Daniel knew the many nuances of the affection a girl may harbor for a man, and while it wasn't much different from the one between same-sex couples, it brought a few issues that were experienced more rarely by our lovesick idiot. Namely, rejection.
"I already have someone I like." Had been his first attempt to dissuade Gun from her chosen path the first time she had approached him at the festival. Although no fight had occurred between them she had somehow gotten interested in him. (Forget being her successor, she went straight for the kill this time, no pretenses or anything!)
"It doesn't matter."
"I'm already in a relationship and you're not my type." Was his second try. Danny didn't want to be rude to her and thus relied on borderline polite phrases to shoo her away, to no avail.
"What does she have that I don't?"
"She's..." He scratched his nape with a far-off look, wondering how he could try to sum up his vast love for Jay. Reducing her to simple qualities felt downright insulting. She was so much more than he could ever articulate.
Misinterpreting his silence, a smirk painted Gun's blood-red lips, but before she could speak she caught a flash of blonde hair in the corner of her eye. Her mind suddenly came up with a scheme to humiliate her rival while simultaneously staking her claim on the interesting boy.
"Is she richer than me?" She asked in a honeyed voice.
"Mhm..." He replied distractedly as if he couldn't care less.
"Is she prettier than me?"
"The prettiest..."
Gun gritted her teeth in frustration. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Once again her gaze was drawn to the little blonde who had suddenly taken a step towards them before both girls froze in place as Daniel opened his mouth again and spoke in a tone that was so clearly drunk on love it sent a shiver down the black-eyed girl's spine.
"She's more beautiful than the sun, and I sometimes wish I could go blind so that she would be the last sight I ever get to see. The way she laughs makes me feel all dizzy and clumsy, and I get flustered when she smiles at me. I can't help it. She's beyond perfection in every way that matters and I'm so lucky I met her." He gave a long sigh and continued, despite how stupid he felt or how the tips of his ears burned bright red for all to see. "That's not why I love her though...that...I can't put it into words...she's just...Jay...and that's more than I could ever ask for..."
He gave Gun an apologetic smile, but the girl was too stunned to react.
"So I'm sorry. But I would be a fool to ever let go of such a blessing. I can't date you."
With that, he turned and left, without noticing a flustered blonde quickly retreating from the scene and fleeing into a bathroom to calm down the thundering breathing of her heart and the feverish blush on her cheeks. Good thing she had pulled out her phone just in time to record that last part.
(Jay played the recording over and over for herself until Danny finally found out about it. After he was done stuttering and looking like a fresh tomato he embraced her tightly and promised her that she didn't need a stupid recording and that he would have no problem making those kinds of confessions to her every day if it made her happy. He was awarded many kisses and cuddles and savored his reward thoroughly.)
-----------------------
BONUS!
After Gun was left by her lonesome in the parking lot she finally snapped out of her trance. A bright blush coated the apples of her cheeks and her eyes turned hazy with desire. That kind of adoration, she wanted it for herself.
She would get his heart no matter how long it took. That silly little blondie wouldn't stand a chance! She had to have that man and bathe in his adulation for herself!
"Just you wait~Daniel Park~"
Sammy: Daniel… Danny: Oh no, 'Daniel' in b-flat. Danny: You're disappointed.
Daniel strutted down the corridors like he owned the place. He was a man on a mission. A hunter. His pray? The cryptid dressed in cheetah print prowling around James Lee's old school ready to melt out of the shadows and mow his ass like grass.
His ghost detector beeped twice when he turned it left.
"Huh?"
Daniel pulled down his anti-bullshit protection glasses. He was all geared up in pink hello kitty pajamas, ready to fight against the cheetah-print abomination and thus end the urban legend's grip on the common people. That and he really wanted to kick Gun's ass while being literally half his size just for shits and giggles.
He needed a change of mood after he had begun the loop strapped to a table and bald while being interrogated by Jinyeong. When the doctor had asked about his deepest darkest secret he had looked him dead in the face and uttered ominously "I'm supposed to get a senior discount when I go shopping" before promptly passing out. It was technically true, though, by the look on the man's face, he probably thought something had gone wrong with the serum. With how he had been ranting about squirrels even before he got the serum Jinyeong might actually assume he had lost his mind.
Brushing away all other thoughts Daniel reached into his backpack and pulled out a thick book the size of his head with "How to catch a cryptid" written in bold red letters on the cover. He flipped it open at a page he had marked with a cute squirrel sticky note that had unfortunately gotten crumpled in his backpack and began reading aloud.
"To catch a cheetah print abomination in the wild you must first know what it is. A cheetah print abomination is the Mothman's cousin and shares with this its distinctive mating cry and other negligible physical traits such as height comparable to Slenderman and an outward appearance that makes people tremble at the sight of it." Daniel hummed as if he had been given great knowledge and flipped the page, continuing to read aloud.
"The cheetah print abomination is easily spotted by its abysmal fashion sense and atypical behavior, such as being turned on by physical combat and physical injuries caused during fights (for reference check page 67, paragraph 9 "What to do in the event of a wild Jonngun attack, tips and escape methods by prof. Daniel "the Taller" Park)."
Daniel ignored the sound of creaking floorboards and continued reading before he suddenly stopped and let out an exclamation of glee.
"Oh look, they even have a photo!"
He raised his book in the air and put the grainy picture of a black baby cow parallel to the man staring at him. He made a big show of analyzing the picture and let out appropriate sounds of understanding and awe while comparing it to the live specimen. Finally, Gun had enough of the perceived mockery and ripped the book out of the boy's hands, took one look at the page Danny was currently reading and at the picture, and promptly tossed it out of an open window.
"No wait, that was my only copy!" He bemoaned while looking at the darkness behind the window dejectedly. "You know you're going to have to pay me back for that, right?'
The man's expression twisted into a sneer and he reached for the boy, intent on getting rid of this disrespectful bug. His attempt was promptly met with a wet shoe to the chin and then another when he tried to kick the little gremlin away. He looked disgustedly at the little puddle forming beneath the second shoe before looking up at the boy.
"It's holy water." Daniel shrugged pulling out a pair of flip-flops which he used in place of his thrown sneakers, "Need to be prepared, you know."
A laugh bubbled up in Gun's throat at the sheer absurdity of the situation. He was getting mocked by a child in hello kitty pajamas who thought he was a cryptid and had turned his holy water-soaked sneakers into projectiles against him. He stared down at the still-smoking cigarette in between his fingers and pondered upon his life choices for a few awkward minutes while the gremlin stared at him with a mix between curiosity and wariness like he was some sort of weird creature he had just encountered.
"I need something stronger than this." He announced, snuffing the cigarette beneath his shoe and turning around.
As he walked out of the school he heard the genuine voice of the little hello kitty-clad menace echoing down the halls.
"You know, smoking and drinking can be really bad not only for your health but also for your interpersonal relationships!"
Gun walked faster.