Danny: So apparently the 'bad vibes' I've been feeling are actually severe psychological distress. Robin: Robin:...
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.
Did Danny died an embarrassing way >in one of the loop? Like basically died from getting aroused, died from cuteness or any form of weird way to die in your list.
Jay was dangerous, Danny concluded. Even with his anti-cuteness swimming goggles and gas mask he was still vulnerable and had not been able to withstand the sight of his beloved in a bunny onesie. At least he died honorably, for a noble cause! A manly tear slid down his cheek garnering him odd looks from his friends.
The loop had ended coincidentally after his death and he had been swiftly transported into the middle of lunch in the cafeteria while still suffering the after-effects of his blissful demise.
"It was all worth it!" He shouted slamming his fist onto the table, causing Zoe who was next to him to startle and accidentally flip her plate over. Everyone stopped to stare as the hot liquid began pooling over the table while Daniel just sat and stared like a dumbass [he was one].
The table suddenly explode into a flurry of movement as everyone tried to get away from the table while simultaneously balancing their own trays and trying to find something to wipe the soup.
"What the hell was that?!" Zack glared at him from over the table after they finally managed to clean it up.
A spark of mischief appeared in Danny's eyes as he leaned over the table placing his hands together under his chin. Jay could neither confirm nor deny that his heart skipped a beat as the boy's lips curled into a devilishly handsome smirk (it did).
"Zack, buddy-buddy, old pal, have you ever seen the" he swept his eyes over Mira tellingly "object of your affection in a cute white bunny onesie?"
Jay's breath hitched when he locked eyes with the dark-haired boy. His eyes were a mirror of his own love and affection, displayed clearly for all to see. Daniel was shamelessly admiring him in the way one would admire a piece of artwork and the realization made him blush to the very tips of his ears. Meanwhile, Zack was suffering from the same fate while shooting longing looks towards a distracted Mira.
Suddenly Jay realized how one could love from afar for so many years and never once get sidetracked even if their heart's treasure lay unaware of their affections. And for the first time, he wondered why Daniel looked like he had loved him for a thousand years and why? Why would he have loved him so and to what end? It didn't matter, if in the end he always ended up forgetting...
He spoke in a quiet breathy tone ,his words almost inaudible over the low buzzing of the crowds below: ”I’m going to come back and kill you ,even if I have to crawl back up from the pits of Hell!”
Two shots rang out into the night and a body plummeted onto the concrete streets below landing with a thud. A chorus of hysteric screams ensued.
Zack: Where are you going? Danny: To get ice cream or commit a felony, I’ll decide on the way there
"Jesus..."
"Actually, It's Daniel."
Zack craned his neck to look at the tiny figure sitting atop the - frankly massive - pile of bodies. He had stumbled upon the sight on accident and frozen in shock, mouth agape. If he looked more closely all the bodies seemed to belong to well-built muscly men who, judging by the various bats and DIY weapons strewn on the ground, had been armed. This was no accident, but a coordinated attack that had been thwarted by...by a toddler?
"Uhh..." Zack said, ever so eloquently.
The midget turned around a did a backflip (and almost gave the boxer a heart attack in the process), landing in front of him with a large toothy smile. Now that they were standing next to each other he seemed even smaller, no way older than 5, Zack noted after he stopped gaping. He wore what looked like an old yellow t-shirt with a smiling cat, splatters of blood clear on the thin fabric, and a pair of brown cargo shorts. In the middle of December, at night.
Zack resisted the urge to voice some choice words about the kid's parents as another freezing wind cut through his own thick winter coat. He kneeled to be on eye level with the smiling little menace and extended his hand, deliberately slowly not to spook him.
"I'm Zack."
"Oooh, nice to meet you!" Daniel shook his hand eagerly.
'Yep, his hands are freezing', Zack thought bitterly, looking around for his guardian or someone that could resemble a responsible adult. He found none. The alleyway they were in was pretty out of the way, not a place where a child should be, although... judging by the piled gangsters behind him he could handle himself. A bead of sweat rolled down the boxer's cheek, 'Not even I could beat so many at the same time' and wasn't that saying something? Even after being trained by that monk, Gongseob Ji, there were still people who were stronger than him without even trying.
"Achoo!"
That broke him out of his thoughts, and he wasted no more time in unzipping his coat and scooping the child in his arms, before rezipping the coat with the midget's head poking out. Uncaring of what he must've looked like [*cough* pregnant *cough*] Zack got back up and began walking out of the alleyway.
"We're going to get you something warm to eat and then we can try to figure this whole thing out, mkay?"
The midget nodded his head furiously and gave him another blinding smile before settling on his chest like a happy cat. Neither spoke until they finally found an open convenience store. By the time they got what they wanted to eat and sat down in the little eating area of the shop it had begun snowing heavily. Zack put the kid on one of the stools, with his coat still wrapped around him before opening the two cups of instant noodles and pulling out the little bags of condiments. He kept an eye on Daniel as he moved to pour warm water from the dispenser. To his credit, the little one waited patiently, swinging his legs in the air, his eyes glued on the taller male as he prepared their meal.
"So, where are your folks, midget?" Zack asked as they waited for the noodles, trying to keep his tone light.
In spite of his efforts, the boy curled in on himself, his eyes dimming. 'Sore spot, then' he thought, making a mental note to avoid bringing it up again. He couldn't imagine anyone willingly abandoning this ray of sunlight of a child, so he assumed they must've been dead. 'Yes, that's the only explanation' Zack nodded to himself, before addressing Daniel again.
"Do you have anywhere to go?"
The kid nodded eagerly, but the boxer still had his reservations.
"Let me rephrase that, do you have anywhere to spend the night that you know you can reach and where you won't freeze to death?"
"Uhh."
"Right, so that's a no. Great!" Zack rubbed his forehead tiredly.
He pulled the top packaging off the cups of noodles and broke apart a pair of chopsticks mixing them into the steaming meal before handing it to the midget and doing the same for his own cup.
"Ah, thank you!" Daniel chirped before digging in like a starved child.
'He probably was' he thought bitterly, swallowing a mouthful of noodles. For a few minutes, all you could hear was the sound of them eating, but soon enough the boy pushed away his empty cup. Once more, Zack didn't hesitate or even find it weird how his arms moved on their own to place a small packet of chocolate biscuits in front of the kid's nose.
"Eat up, midget." he encouraged, cringing at how sappy he sounded. "Those aren't going to eat themselves."
'Damn it, why am I acting like this?!' The older boy bemoaned mentally, thankful that none of the people who knew him were here to witness how fucking soft this little menace was making him. After finishing his noodles Zack got up to throw the two cups away when he felt a tug on his sweater. Looking down he found an impossibly large pair of doe-like black eyes gazing uncertainly up at him.
'Ah, my heart!' he mentally clutched his heart which had been pierced by an arrow marked "CUTENESS".
"I'm just going to throw these away!" He quickly reassured the little one, gesturing towards the two empty cups in his hand.
"Are you going to come back?" Daniel asked in a small voice which nearly made the boxer kneel over.
"Of course! Of course! I'll be right back!" Zack assured before nearly sprinting to the trashcan and back, to the bewilderment of the cashier.
"See, right back!"
Daniel hummed happily in agreement with a big smile that made him ponder the benefits of having a pair of sunglasses always on hand. he would probably need a pair if he didn't want to go blind from this unbearably bright ray of sunshine. 'How has no one kidnapped him yet?' Zack wondered, sparking a flame of protectiveness in his chest.
You know how you hear people say that they see something, usually a small child or an animal, and go 'yeah, that's mine now'? That was exactly what happened at that exact moment in Zack The Wimp Lee.
Did it raise questions the next day when he showed up to fight with a toddler on his shoulders? Maybe. Did he care? Absolutely not. He kicked names and took ass looking like an absolute badass and a brilliant model for his new little brother. The highlight of his day was when some random extra tried to hit Daniel as a way of getting back at Zack and got promptly locked through a brick wall by a giggly 5-year-old waving around a purple dinosaur plush in one hand and a blueberry popsicle in the other. The looks on everyone's faces had been enough to make his week.
Vasco: Okay, I’m going to get the wedding cake. Jace: Perfect, while you do that I’ll check on the ring bear. Vasco: ... Vasco: You mean ring bearER, right? Jace: ... Jace: Look me in the eyes and tell me you are not going to bring a dangerous wild animal to our wedding.
My cousin asked me what people without a limb were called because she was having a lapsus and instead of amputee I told her prostitutes. We both haven't stopped laughing and I'm stating to think she's suffocating cause she has been making kettle sounds for the past two or so minutes.
With Danny being on loop for thousand of times already wouldn't he also have genderbend of him-self? I wonder what changes in everyone perspective. Especially gun since that guy is a pervert as Goo says.
Maybe she could make this work?
Being a woman was hard. Being an attractive woman was a nightmare, plain and simple. Simply put, being looped into a female body was a lesson in many things, including but not limited to patience, tolerance, humility, and the sheer ability to put up with so much bullshit on a daily basis that it made Danny want to pull her hair out of her skull strand by strand.
To begin with, everyone seemed to suddenly view him as an unowned object, ready for the taking. That was usually resolved with a couple broken bones and broken egos, though some people took more convincing to finally get the message.
Patience. Cross.
Then came the pain. And blood. Oh, god, so much blood! And the pain could be utterly unbearable, leaving him curled on the floor just prying for it to go away. He knew what periods were, of course, but no one had ever told him they could get this bad!
Tolerance. Cross.
Society as a whole apparently expected him to act as if she was less of everything they had applauded him for being. They saw her achievements as boasting or cheating, yet jeered whenever she would get lower than they expected. Nothing she did was ever good enough, but she wasn't allowed to do better. Danny was no stranger to the bigotry of men, but its hist had never resonated in him quite how they did then.
Humility. Cross.
When the assumptions and expectations came she just decided to call it quits. Fuck the world!
Ability to deal with bullshit on a daily basis. Cross.
-------------------------------
In an attempt to regain some semblance of control over her life, Danny decided to stock as closely as possible to the original timeline of events. It didn't work.
For one, Jay seemed to be actively avoiding her. She could understand that, but it didn't mean it hurt any less. At least he still remained friendly with her, if a bit shyer than before.
Zack was another problem. He had annoyed her enough to make her fight him during the second day, but the outcome had been much more different. The boxer was defeated by a girl in front of the whole school, wounding his pride, but since then he had taken to trying to embarrass her in a twisted attempt at payback. It wasn't pretty, but she knew that with enough time he would grow more mature, as he always did, and perhaps there would be hope for e reconciliation.
Similarly to her two classmates, many of her usual friends acted rather oddly in her presence or didn't interact with her at all. The exception to this was, surprisingly, the two troublemakers from the Vocal Department.
Danny had no idea how she did it, but she has somehow gotten adopted into their little clique and they stuck to her like glue ever since, even going as far as leaving Duke alone when she asked them. Their silly antics were a balm to the ache in her soul that had come with losing the chance to bond with the people that she held dear in the same way she always did. That wasn't a problem, the fighting prodigy told herself, she would just have to find new ways to bond with them. For now, she was content with the two friends she had, however odd their friendship might've been. She might be able to make this work.
"HUH? That's stupid!" Vin Jin said a bit louder than he had to, secretly trying to wake his black-haired friend from whatever trance she was in.
"You just can't figure out how great it is because you're a moron!" Mary retorted, gripping the girl's elbow. "Isn't that right Danny?"
That got her to snap out of her thoughts and look up at the bickering pair. She gave them a clueless smile and nod, unaware of them sighing in relief as she once again joined in on the conversation. She had the habit of getting lost in thought every once in a while and they worried about how vulnerable it left her. That's why they could never leave her side. Even now, they could feel the hungry gazes coming from all over the cafeteria, aimed at the beautiful transfer girl. She may be strong enough to fight them off, but that didn't stop those freaky perverts from thinking all sorts of creepy shit about her.
Mary and Vin held a silent conversation between them as the girl ate, cluelessly. These trance-like episodes had become more frequent in the past week and they needed to find a way to put a stop to them. The School Festival was coming up, which is when the two convened to put their plan into action.
When Zack was chosen for the Slave Auction Danny could only cringe and give him her best wishes. Usually, when he was chosen for the Auction in previous loops either he would have to spend a hellish date with Lala or Crystal would come save him, then give him the same speech about not judging people based on their looks. This usually ended in one of two ways, he would lose his temper and yell back, leading to Gun pummeling him into the floor, or he would take it quietly before informing Crystal that he couldn't go out with her because he didn't like her, and would, again, end up kissing the pavement, courtesy of her bodyguard overreacting and hitting him (what a shocker!).
The event went as expected, with Crystal buying the boxer and them leaving for the parking lot. Only, this time Danny followed behind them, as did her two best friends. They didn't even bother sneaking around, just followed closely behind, curious to see what would happen.
"Oh, so it's that way, huh" The black-haired beauty muttered under her breath, seeing Zack's expression grow stormier with each passing moment before he erupted into a screaming match with the Choi heiress.
"Who would've thought that cheeky bugger would still have it in him!" Vin mused out loud next to her, entertained.
Mary agreed, unbothered by the growing tension. Before any of them could blink Danny had bolted from her place, skidding to a halt right in front of the screaming boy. A few centimeters from her face she held Gun's ankle in a vise-like grip, her eyes narrowed sharp and unmoving from the bodyguard's face.
Zack stumbled back half a step, swallowing the knot in his throat. I didn't even see that coming, how did she get here so fast?! He recalled how she had easily sent him flying with just one punch. Back then he had dismissed it as a fluke, but what if...
Crystal stared at the pretty girl who had stopped Gun's Brazilian kick in silent horror and a trace of awe. She had noticed the three watching them, but hadn't thought anything of it. They looked like your typical high-school students, possibly even bullies. Now that she looked closer, however, there was a certain air of danger around each and every one of them, though most notably from the tall black-haired girl. A cold droplet of sweat slid down her cheek, she needed to stop this before it got out of hand!
One look at Gun's face told her that it was too late. He was smiling, no, grinning that abnormally large grin of his that only came when he saw someone as a challenge. His glasses had been discarded onto the ground, revealing the demonic-looking black eyes behind them. This wasn't a fight that could be prevented. Frantically, Crystal pulled out her phone and dialed her father, prying that the maniac wouldn't kill the girl until then.
"Yes, Crystal?" Charles' voice held a note of annoyance to it that, were she not panicking, she would've hesitated before.
"It's Gun" she relayed into the phone panicky "he's gotten into a fight with some girl! He's got that crazy grin of his and he's taken off his glasses-"
A loud thud sounded from behind her and she turned to look, expecting the worst. Crystal froze with her mouth wide open, blinking dumbly at the scene before her. It wasn't the bold girl's body laying bloody and motionless on the concrete. It was Gun's. His shirt was ripped and his hair a mess. His body was a mess of red and able and purple, though by the labored rising and falling of his chest he wasn't dead yet. One of his hands was twisted at an unnatural angle and the other looked very much broken, the bone visibly poking out beneath the skin, near his elbow.
Zack was looking on in a mix of horror and awe, frozen in place by the display of such skill and ruthlessness. She's fast...and deadly, he thought to himself, paling a bit. Meanwhile, Vin and Mary seemed unbothered by the sight and cheered their friend on, the latter holding a phone in her hand and probably filming the ordeal.
"Crystal! CRYSTAL!" Her father's voice snapped her out of it and she was once again able to speak.
"He's down. Out cold. Not dead though." She told him, unable to hide the tremor in her voice. "I didn't even have time to see-"
A shadow loomed over her trembling body and she slowly rose her head. The girl's gaze was detached and cold like she was staring down at a tiny mouse not worth her time. When she spoke her voice sounded like a mix between satisfied and indifferent.
"Take him back."
Crystal could only nod with her eyes tightly shut, feeling this predator's hot breath on her face. She scurried towards the fallen man and dragged him into the car before getting into the driver's seat and spreading out of the parking lot.
"Woohoo! Holy shit!" A pair of arms draped themselves over her shoulders and she found herself sandwiched between two warm bodies.
"That was fucking epic!" Vin praised the shorter girl, while his blonde friend nodded in agreement from the other side.
Danny allowed herself a small smile at the warm feeling that bloomed in her chest. The coldness in her body was washed away by laughter and other such explicit exclamations and praises. Yeah, she could make this work.
Vasco: Who thinks I can fit 15 marshmallows in my mouth? Zack: You're a hazard to society Danny: And a coward. DO TWENTY.