Correct Score Betting Guide: Most Common Football Scores ...

There's a few free entry games you need to remember to enter before kick-off tomorrow!
• ~~Ladbrokes 1-2-FREE: (Predict 3 Scores, ✅❌❌ = £1 Free Bet, ✅✅❌ = £5 Free Bet, ✅✅✅ = £100 Cash.)~~ Not this midweek supposedly! Still on Saturday though.
• 888Sport "Up for 8" (Predict 8 Results, 1X2, Each Correct = £1 Free Bet. All 8 correct = £8000 Cash)
• Super 6 (Six Scores, £250,000)
• Footie5 (Five Scores, £25,000 & 38 match BTTS game, £10M Cash)
• Betway 4 to Score (Predict First Goalscorer in 4 games, £30k) ^{^betway ^banned ^me ^from ^promotions ^after ⁱ ^was ^£200 ^up ⁱⁿ ² ^weeks ^using ^matched ^betting}
• Correct4 - Coral (4 Questions about Man U vs Newcastle, 2/4 = £1 Free Bet, 3/4 = £2 Free Bet, 4/4 = £50 Cash)
Edit: Ladbrokes are giving £1 Free Bet to those who go online/in-app today. Also, Grosvenor Goals (see replies!)
If there's any I've missed then let me know. I've got roughly £40 of free bets from these, which I think is pretty worth the few seconds it takes to punch in scores, or tick boxes. Most Prolific is definitely 888Sports' Up for 8. Predict 1 game correctly and you get a £1 free bet. Easy as that. Got 4 right a few weeks back, then won a 7/1 acca with that £4 free bet. Was a nice meal out for me and the lass.
Best of luck over the Festive Period, but like the Ebenezer Scrooge I am, I'm trying to save pennies everywhere - so free bets is usually how I quench my thirst for a tipple!

What football predictor games are out there? Just for a bit of free fun, with the odd free bet won.
I know of:
-Sky Super 6
-Betway 4 to score
-888Sport UpFor8
-Grosvenor Goals
-Ladbrokes 1-2-Free
-Coral correct 4
-Paddy power and Betfair beat the drop
Any more?

Hey malelivingspace!
Alright, you might have read my last post about how to define your decorating style, did the exercise, and you decorated according to your style.
You can’t put a finger on it, though. Something still feels “off” about your space. You might be wondering, “Why does my room still look boring and uninviting?”
Turns out, there are some small but important decorating rules you can follow to go from blasé to comfortable and stylish. I see tons of your posts asking for styling help, and the issues are basically the same in every post. So, it was time for another guide!

Decorating Problem #1: No defined style

I started this guide assuming that you had already read the other guide I created about how to define your decor style, but in case you haven’t, it’s a good one to read in tandem with this one.

Decorating Problem #2: You feel like decorating isn’t worth your time, and it shows

It’s easy to downplay the importance of decorating our home. It takes time, planning, creativity and money. Ain’t nobody—well—ain’t nobody but a select few people got time for that.
If your home is feels grody and it’s miserable to be there, but you’re still having a hard time reconciling spending the time, effort and expense to make it look nicer, consider this:
70% of people globally work remotely (usually from home) at least once a week
Arguably, “Your Interior Design Is Influencing Your Subconscious”
We’re spending more and more time at home
The last few steps to take your space from “boring” to “amazing” might require some extra effort, but more and more, home is becoming the place we spend the most time, so it’s worth it.

Decorating Problem #3: You have good decorating elements, but they’re executed incorrectly

This is one of the biggest issues I see. You have all the right pieces, but you weren’t clear on how to utilize them. Here are some common decorating snafus.

Cheap materials

Cheap fabric for curtains and pillows, black furniture, plastic trinkets, etc. etc. They’re saving you money, and if you’re on a budget or furnishing your own space for the first time, they’re likely your best bet.
But if you’re ready for an upgrade and wondering why your space still looks bad, check the quality of your materials for decorating elements and furniture. For example, changing your curtains from a synthetic material to, say, a linen fabric, would probably 10x your room’s look.

You have curtains, but they’re too high or too low

Good curtains can warm up a space, but if they’re hung incorrectly, they can look like a mess. Here's a good, quick video on how to hang curtains properly, using some general rules that can apply to any window.

You have pictures, but they’re too low or too high

Same issue as above. Most often, I see people hanging stuff waaayyy too high.
The secret to hanging your pictures properly, every time? Hang them at 57” (144.78 centimeters) on center. Here’s a short article describing exactly what the heck that means, and how to use this rule in your own space.

Speaking of pictures, your posters are awesome, but they make your space look like a teenager’s bedroom

There’s nothing wrong with keeping your posters, as long as you know how to display them. Framing them is always a great choice, as you can see here. It might be expensive, but it will make a dramatic change to your room’s feel and overall aesthetic.
Plus, no jerks can give you shade about holding onto your “kid posters,” because now it looks awesome.

Decorating Problem #4: Something just looks...off?

Lots of things this could be. Let’s go through a few common, potential issues.

You have no focal point for the room

And if you can help it, the answer for what should be the focal point of the room shouldn’t be “My TV.”
A good focal point could be your fireplace, your bookshelves, your bed, some windows, a unique architectural aspect of the room, a striking piece of art, or maybe a plant (or several).
An element can even become a focal point in the room by strategically incorporating a color from that element, elsewhere in the room.
For example, the navy blue fireplace in this living room is clearly the focal point, and that color is echoed by the striking, navy blue pillows on the couch.
But imagine if those pillows were, say, coral pink. The coral color would still complement the navy blue of the fireplace, but it wouldn’t echo and emphasize it, right? (Not like the navy blue pillows do.)
Echoing the navy blue color of the fireplace in another detail in the room—in this case, the pillows—reinforces the blue fireplace focal point.
You can do this with something like a colorful rug, too. (Or anything else that has multiple colors in it.) If you have a rug that has a lot of different colors, look closely at the colors and ask, “What’s a color I can pull from this, and echo elsewhere in the room?”
Take this dining room rug, for example. It’s already a big statement piece by itself, but notice how they decided to pull out the black in the rug and echo it with the light fixtures and chairs.
They also could have chosen the red, light orange, dark blue, light blue, light green, white or pink (or whatever else), but they chose to pull out the black in the rug, and it looks great.

It’s all angles, all the time

Chances are, you probably have a rectangular coffee table, a rectangular entertainment center, square pillows, a rectangular couch, a rectangular area rug—just tons of angles, with few curves or rounded shapes to break things up.
This living room is stylish, and has a tons of angular features, but look closely: the lighting fixtures are rounded, the black poufs on the floor are round, and even the plant helps to break up the streamlined, angular look to make the room look more comfortable and visually appealing.
Now instead of those features being curved and rounded, imagine them being equally angular and blocky. It’s a cool room, so it would likely still look stylish, but arguably the visual appeal will drop.
Look around your space. Are the key decor and furniture pieces varied in their shapes? Or all the same? As you can see from the example room, your space doesn’t have to introduce new shapes everywhere, but here and there will be enough to break up the monotony.

There’s no texture break or change up

Similar to the cheap materials issue and unvarying shapes issue, sometimes rooms have only one or two textures in them, making them look visually boring.
Check out this room. How many textures do you see? I spot a leather couch, a velvet footstool/coffee table thing, a woven basket and rug, a metal magazine organizer, a wooden ladder, plants, wooly blankets...you get the idea.
Look at your room, and notice how many different textures you find. How many times do you repeat yourself? (“Polyester, wood, polyester again, plastic, plastic, polyester, wood, plastic...wait a minute...”)
Could any of those decor elements be switched for another texture to make it more visually interesting?

You’re using one or two colors only

Too many rooms get caught in the death trap of trying to stick within a specific “theme” for colors, and wind up looking really boring and ugly.
For example, blue and grey look good together, but the key to making any color theme work is allowing other colors from the same “family” into the scheme, and tossing in one “wildcard” complementary color.
In this bedroom, you could say that the overall color is blue and grey, but the greywashed wood furniture and the grass in the vase add in a complementary color.
And while the color family is obviously blue and grey, they range in color lightness and darkness (lighter blues, darker greys, etc.) to create a layered, comfortable look. So don’t be afraid to use different shades within the same color family, to make your “color-themed” room work.

Your style is outdated

Have a look through current magazines, websites, or Instagram hashtags for home decorating, and you’ll quickly get a feel for what’s still working, and what is irrevocably out.
You can do two things here. Either find some inspiration from another person who’s taken your same outdated piece and found a way to give it a refresh, (like this easy lamp update, for example) or accept that decorating styles change fairly quickly, and it’s just time for an update.
As you look around for new pieces, don’t overlook websites like Craigslist, Kijiji, and even Facebook Marketplace for scoring thrifty finds.

Your space is straight-up cluttered

This can actually be very hard to spot on your own. We become blind to clutter in our spaces, so call in a friend. Someone who will honestly point out the junky spaces in your room, then go through the junk with you, making you really think if each item is important to keep.
If it’s really an important piece, but it’s cluttering up the room you currently have it in, think of where else in your home could it go instead, so it’s no longer taking up visual space.
P.S. There’s another reason to cut the clutter in your home: Studies are finding it has negative effects on your mental health, too.

Along the same lines, you’re allowing the ugly stuff to be on display

Time to invest in some storage solutions to organize that stuff, pack it away in a closet, or toss/donate/rehome it entirely. The ugliest stuff in your room shouldn’t be front and center.
However, if you’ve got something that’s visually unattractive but you use it daily, try to find a compromise. Can you buy a beautiful storage solution to keep it in when it’s not in use? Can you retrofit the exterior a little so it adds in an interesting design element?

You have no rugs or pillows

Rugs help define a space, and pillows might feel like a superfluous expense, but they add to the comfortable feel.
Note that you can often find pillows sold in sets of 3 for decently cheap on Amazon (I’d link to an example, but this sub’s autobot mod dislikes Amazon links). “Scandinavian style” pillows are really “in” right now, and also work well with modern and boho decor styles, so you couldn’t go wrong with an Amazon search like “Scandinavian decorative pillows set of 3.”
Appropriately sizing your rug to fit your space is important, too. We’ve all seen how a too-big rug can make a room feel clogged, or a too-small rug can make furniture appear hilariously giant. Here are some great tips for how to choose the right-sized rug.

You need plants

It’s recommended so often that it’s become a joke on this sub, but it’s true: indoor plants brighten and warm a room. Plus, they’re good for your mental health.
Worried about how much natural light you have in your space, though?
Recommendations for plants that need little to no light
Recommendations for plants that need slightly more light
Tip: Most indoor plant recommendations call for at least “bright indirect light” for wherever the plant is placed, but how do you know if the spot you’re considering receives “bright indirect light”? See if the plant casts a shadow there. Even if it’s faint, this likely means the spot receives enough sunlight for the plant to make it in that spot.
Still worried that your plant isn’t getting enough light? You can find a decently-cheap LED grow lights on Amazon, and leave it turned on overnight so the plant can get some “sunshine” time. This might be especially important in the winter months, when lighting is low.

Other people’s old stuff is defining your space

So maybe it’s a sentimental thing, but if you’re honest with yourself, you know that grandma’s antique, oversized chinoiserie cabinet might be a better fit for another family member’s home.
As kind of it is for you to try and keep these things around, if it’s just not working for your space, it’s time to let it go.

Decorating Problem #4: The sizing and height for key decorating elements are all wrong

I found this great roundup of 20 common measurements for decorating different rooms in your home

The article above goes over the correct height for hanging pictures, light fixtures and more, plus general rules of thumb for things like sizing rugs and whatnot. Really helpful!

Need help choosing the best-sized couch for your space?

SFGate Home Guides gives actionable advice for how to tell if that couch you’re eyeing will actually fit (or if your current couch is too undersized or oversized) here.
House Beautiful also did a great little guide that had some good tips here.

Decorating Problem #5: Your lighting is insufficient

This is a big one. Here are a few things to look out for.

Emphasize natural lighting

Make sure that your current window treatments aren’t obscuring or diminishing the natural light coming through the windows. Some blockage of light is expected in certain rooms, (like your bedroom) but your window treatment should be able to be moved aside to allow the light in when you’re not trying to sleep or watch a movie.
Are your current window treatments clogging up the natural light? An easy way to tell is by temporarily removing any curtains or blinds. Does the room seem brighter and better with the treatments gone?
It could be as simple as your window treatments are too dark for the space, too. If you have solid black curtains, for example, imagine how much brighter your room would look if you did sheer white curtains with bamboo blinds?

You’re not layering your lighting

“Say wha?”
Yep, “layering lighting” is a thing, and it’s a big one. If you get nothing else from this guide, I hope this is a key takeaway: layering your lighting makes a huge, huge difference in a space.
You see this all the time in fancy kitchens. You’ve typically got can lights or track lighting on the ceiling, pendant lights over the bar, and the undermount lights under the cabinets. This example has all of the above, plus some sconces over the sink, (don’t forget that the window counts as a natural source of light in this layering scheme) and you can see how nice it looks.
Imagine that same kitchen with just the can lights and pendant lights. Likely, it’d look darker and dingy, despite it being a really nice kitchen.
Look at your space. How many “layers” of lighting does it have? How can you fold in more lighting?
If you’re in an apartment, you likely can’t do things like install permanent fixtures, (though you never know. Some landlords might appreciate the “free” upgrade to their unit) but you probably can hang more hanging lights, install removable undermount lights for the cabinets, and have a mixture of floor lamps and desk lamps, which will all create lighting at different heights in the room, creating “lighting layers.”
---
Did I miss anything? These are the decorating problems I’ve spotted browsing through this sub. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. I’d also be interested to hear what your “diagnosis” of your space is—what’s going wrong, and how are you planning to fix it?
I’ll try to help directly if I can ;).

** EDIT ** Man, Reddit Silver? Thank you, Anonymous Redditor! I'm touched :').
** EDIT #2 ** Woo! Reddit Gold! WOW! Thank you, guys!! :D

So about 8 years ago, I was looking at matches to bet on, when I saw that a boca juniors match was stated to start at 2am (uk time) when in reality it actually started at 1am. The available bets were only win, loose or draw. No half time score or anything like that.
So i set my alarm and got up to bet, Unfortunatly half time was 0 - 0, so the time difference didnt really give me an advantage, so i held off on the bet.
But from that time discrepancy, i started looking for more matches that kick off earlia then the betting site states.
I found between 5 - 10 each day, however more often then not, the match time would get corrected as kick off approached.
On the ones where the time zone issue was still there, I did bet, and as i knew the score, i won every bet.......sounds good right? Apart from the fact the next day the website (bet365, coral, Ladbrokes etc) would send me an email saying there was an issue with the time and refund my bet.
All except one site did that, that site being betsafe. I think i won £150 (i never bet big at the time as it usually got refunded).
So i began watching betsafes match times, sure enough one eventually popped up, i think it was a colombian match. There wasnt much bets available but half time correct score was.
Now the problem with betsafe, was at the time (the may still do) they took a small percentage of each deposit as commission, so i was reluctant to put too much money down in fear of having money be deducted through commission and then having my bet refunded.
So being a poor student at the time, i put £40 down on half time correct score......it was a typical score, 1 - 0 or something like that, so odds were not amazing but i won over £500.
I still look from time to time for timezone errors, but nowadays betting companys always seem to change the time when the match kicks off, so the exploit if you can call it that, no longer exists.
Just thought id share

07—Secrets and Subversions

[Previous]
Lesonshae Swordwielder Harsurrd
c.2592C.E.
"Nothing personal, human," Boss said, terminating her call with the client. "I hope you understand."
Lesonshae readied her blade. The mercenaries had decided against carrying guns—kinetic weapons humans used against one another were either unwieldy or else the recoil too dangerous for Kahleptin like herself to use effectively, and blasters or shunt rifles rated for use against a human would doubtless show up in the scans that the Hippocratic Oaf's machine-mind routinely undertook—eschewing them instead for small, sharp knives; stealthier and often more lethal than a gun.
Even with that, the blades had been hidden with considerable paranoia: the AI running the station couldn't see anything in the areas under construction, but they could hardly carry weapons openly in the regions the machine could see.
"Oh," the human said, shifting his—was that a male?—weight. "I do," he added, swinging upright despite clearly-lethal wounds that should have incapacitated him.
It all happened so fast that Harsurrd almost missed it. Boss' sternum shattered in a starburst of bright blood, followed shortly by the side of her face crumpling, a projectile piercing her through and through, puncturing the bulkhead behind her. The human began to spin as the third shot loosed, cutting down one of the men in the mercenary group. He split almost in twain, torso broken by a well-placed gunshot snapping his spine.
So that was what it was. Somehow, a human who was, by the employer's accounts at least, a mad dog in need of putting down for the good of Humans and Greys—Loti, "Grey" was a human noun—alike, had been allowed not merely a weapon designed to kill other humans, but a kinetic one that could probably put enough holes in the Oaf to leave it looking much like a collander. It must have been the human administration here...
A knife, even one as heavy, expensive and sharp as her own, wasn't going to be enough to stop that human. This wasn't the plan! He had gone off script, somehow survived scores of wounds, enough to but a Khorian out of commission, and had managed to continue the fight.
The target was a blur of violence, like a demon from a horror story, pistol in hand that punched voids in targets and station alike. She ran.
Did the employer know the human would be this strong? she asked herself, slipping into a cramped, low-ceilinged storage cabinet and trying to slow her hearts. One of the Loti Consuls, he was the one who had wanted this [direct translation impossible; pawn removed from chessboard]. Had it been a setup? Certainly the mercenaries had done much work for the Loti over the last few decades, assassinating who needed assassinating, blackmailing who needed blackmailing, to allow the Loti to return uncontested. But a mad Human? No, the Loti were too efficient, too gods damned elegant for such a solution to present itself to them. Maybe, then, the Consul had overestimated their abilities?
Just thinking it—even as the chest-rattling thumps of gunfire slowed to a staccato, human doubtlessly picking of survivors—felt like a treason against the mercenary clan she'd taken as her own. Thoughts swam from the murky depths of her subconcious. Memories. The mixture of pride and anticipation she'd felt, taking the title-name of Swordwielder for her mercantile career. The look on her mother's face, a Swordwielder herself in younger times, as she watched her daughter sign the necessary forms and certificates. The contrasting horror in her father's eyes.
The gunfire halted abruptly. Limping steps approached, accompanied by breathing that sounded not quite laboured but certainly heavy, a sound which was replaced by faint wheezing as the human continued.
The steps stopped outside her door, wheezing, shuddering gasps coming from the far side.
She contemplated leaping out at the human, ending him for the crime of surviving.
No such opportunity afforded itself to Lesonshae.
Two small holes appeared in the aluminium closet door in quick succession, and her world turned to pain.
Tomaidh Urchardan
The wound was gnarly.
Separating the sound of his own gasps from those of the xeno coward had been hard, but once he'd managed it he performed some basic guesswork and fired twice into the zebra-thing's lower legs.
They'd shattered like fine china, because of course they had.
"Oi! You fucking shitstain, can yoo hear me righ' naow?!"
The alien creature grunted in response, rolling on its side and clutching the crippled limb close.
"Yoo know why I have'nee killed ya yet? Do yah?!" He gasped.
The beast made another noise, which translated seamlessly in his earbuds. "No."
He smiled. "Because yer a fuckin coward. I donae have tae worry about yoo' durin' tha fight, so I let yoo' live. I want two things from you, and then I'll give you painkillers and bind up yer leg enough to let you crawl."
The creature—he thought it might have been a man, though he wasn't sure why—grunted again. No translation offered itself.
"Your employer was a 'Consul'. On the basis that your boss were speakin' one of the Interspecies languages, I'm guessin' you were no talking to the Terran Empire's Consul, especially since that position has been fuck all but a joke for a century at least. So, yoo're working for tha Greys?"
The creature coughed out harsh words. "The—The Loti... We've worked... Helped them come back... obstacles."
"Obstacles like me?"
"Not humans... Never before." He growled low, a rumbling, pained noise. "Politicians. Revolutionaries. Pieces of... of their plan, never the... whole. No doubt we weren't... their only employees..."
"Why would they send yoo af'er me?"
"Must have been... only crew they used before... near enough to take care of... of you..."
He scratched his stubbled head and sat back.
"Awright. That's one thing, here's the other. Yoo send a message to your employer, this Consul. Yoo tell him that I will take the next fucker he sends after me, I will open this aforementioned fucker up, and I will have their kidneys as fuckin' paperweights, savvy?"
The creature made a noise his translator interpreted as, "Grudging assent," so he gave it what bordered on an overdose of painkillers and limped back to the safety of the main station.
Only once he was well out of eyesight and earshot did Tomaidh allow himself to collapse from the wounds.
Aimil
There was a thread in Aimil's resource queue titled, "Persons of Interest".
Mostly, it was used to—discreetly, and firmly within ethical and legal guidelines—work out who was cheating on who in the various offices Aimil oversaw. Occasionally the thread might be turned to the child who'd painted an impromptu and thoroughly crap mural on some wall but for whom no punishment—aside from extensive criticism of their skills, or lack thereof, with a spray can—were warranted, but on whom a watchful eye should be kept.
At worst, the Persons of Interest process had been used to target a serial thief, or to keep an eye on a pirate crew who'd come to the Switzerland-esque neutral land of the Hippocratic Oaf—for all intents and purposes, her body—for medical treatment.
That was before the human Tomiadh "Reverse-Midas-Touch" Urchardan (as she'd taken to calling him internally) had shown up.
Everything he touched turned to shit.
And now, the Persons of Interest resource thread was twanging like a musical instrument's strings. A cluster of messages here, an unanticipated access to an FTL relay from areas of the station under construction there, an unexpected arrival insystem as a nuclear thermal rocket dropped out of warp and hailed on all frequencies.
She focused on other things.
The human's friend, for example, was rather fascinating.
In Aimil's experience, non-human organics tended towards squeamishness and cowardice in the extreme. They had funny ideas about not violating their substrates with unnecessary adaptations and technology, and even funnier ideas about what should happen if those adaptations became necessary.
This Khorian lacked such scruples, and Aimil respected her for it. Was she horrified, staring at the stumps where two limbs had been? Absolutely. Who—excepting, perhaps, an AI mind like herself—wouldn't be? But she didn't view the prosthetics with the same disgust that the Hippocratic Oaf's resident mind had seen time and time again in other aliens when faced with injuries. Also absent was the usual grief.
Fascinating as that was, the Khorian archaeologist Yath Longstar was little more than an exercise for Aimil's lower mind, an appropriate analogy for a human throwing a ball up and down while thinking.
She wondered what McArthy was keeping from her. Certainly, hacking the databases he and his subordinates were keeping their files in would be little trouble, save for the fact that they'd chosen—rather conspicuously—to air-gap the computers from Aimil's networks. Someone's watched too many Terminator films, an unhelpful subsystem process expressed. Sarcastic as it was, the point within was valid: Nelson McArthy, or a significant portion of his team, didn't trust her.
Which was alright. Hurtful, yes, but all things being equal, McArthy didn't quite meet her standards for trustworthy himself.
She'd lost access to data too many times, blinded and deafened when certain important clients were met. For a human, those long tens of minutes in the dark and quiet might merely have been terrifying.
Aimil experienced the world far faster than any human she was aware of.
For her, it had felt like days. Alone, in the dark. Artificial neural nets firing off, causing her to—for want of a better word—hallucinate.
Not to mention the more recent... issues. Two days ago, the radio tracking from Elva Clements' hand terminal had been moving in... unprecedented ways, vanishing down the damaged end of the Spinward corridor and turning corners inconsistent with schematics of the Oaf and previous surveys of damage in those areas alike. Probably more meddling by Nelson McArthy.
She watched the Khorian try and reach for something on the table with her remaining, injured arm. The female knocked a glass water vessel from the stand by her hospital bed, and Aimil watched listlessly as the glass tipped, its centre of mass shifting, water spilling overboard.
Nelson was keeping something from her. What, though?
The glass began its tumble, twisting through the air, in freefall.
He'd tried to hide the arrival of Urchardan as long as he could. Which was about all of five minutes.
The Doctor by Yath's bedside blinked, body pitching forward to try and intercept the glass. He would, she knew, fail entirely and make a mess of his trouser legs doing so.
The AI searched her peripheral data nets. Scraps of information a dedicated neural net swept up because its models thought she might find them interesting, or useful. Otherwise, information handed in as tips.
Doctor Ramsey's face changed, just slightly, as he realised he couldn't catch the glass in time. Not dismay, too underdeveloped for that. Just... something primal.
She found something. A low resolution image from a hand terminal about an expedition Urchardan was running to return to the planet "Tartarus". Something else, too: low-quality audio recorded by corridor microphones of an argument between McArthy and Clements, about... she checked the quotes. "the tunnels of Tartarus," she'd called them. McArthy had described them as "ancient alien M.C. Escher shit".
The glass connected with the ground. For a split instant, a single frame from a high definition camera, it seemed to warp in shape, just faintly. And then cracks radiated from the corner that struck the floor, spreading like vines in slow motion, from her perspective at least.
So. McArthy had kept the existence of an artefact from her. But why? Aimil had always been content as an AI overseer. This role fit her aptitudes perfectly!
Ramsey recoiled, eyes screwing shut, and he began to slip on some of the spilled water.
It was conceivable that the man feared an information leak. She'd never give out any of her own accord, of course, but AIs were hardly immune to tampering. Or...
The Doctor inadvertently tackled the alien's hospital bed, the impact sending slow, resounding shock waves through his flesh.
...Or, the artefacts were dangerous.
Dangerous to have. Dangerous even to know about.
Something dragged Aimil's attention from the conspiracy brooding within her; the thread regarding Mister Reverse-Midas-Touch himself, Tomaidh Urchardan, had been plucked.
Yath Longstar
The bumbling Doctor Ramsey was still in the process of awkwardly trying to dry his trousers when the message sounded. The station's... mind? It had pinged Yath's handheld to apprise her of the situation with Urchardan.
She still found the Machine Intelligence's presence in every aspect of her recovery yet obstruction of naught confusing. Of course, the Khorians had expert systems and clever neural networks, translators, facial recognition and so on, and every Khorian CEO in the Galaxy had a fleet of personal assistants, both virtual and incarnate, at his or her disposal. But none of those machine intellects were People with a capital P. Khorians took the view, philosophically, that baseline intelligence—supplemented, occasionally, by organic minds suitably enhanced by city-sized computers; even then under careful guidance and control—was the best way to advance culture and science. The dead societies that littered worlds across the Periphery, where a nameless empire lay in ruins, had been enough to frighten most species away from the idea of true Machine Intelligence.
Humanity not so, clearly.
She actually found the machine, which she'd called 'Am', for fear of mispronouncing its proper name, rather likeable and talkative, on the right subject. Its silence now was disturbing.
Longstar strode down the corridors, trying to ignore the itching in her ruined limbs. She thought of Urchardan, of the trouble he was in. Am had listed him as 'critically injured,' and had sent technicians and nurses to transport him to the primary intensive care unit. Yath marched through the awkwardly-sized doors, bowing under the doorframe, and thought she managed to enter with her dignity intact.
The humans McArthy and Clements were stood, serious looks on their faces, watching the operation occuring below through glass panels. The cramped space stank of something astringent, and the walls were the perfect painted white of hospitals the Galaxy over. Or prisons.
"What do you know?" Asked Yath.
"He was stabbed seventeen times by a group of mercenaries. Only one of their number survived the encounter, but in fairness that was only because Urchardan had a gun. If he hadn't, according to him, he'd be 'eh deahd mahn,' in his own words," Clements said. "He's in surgery now. Could be hours yet."
Yath thought on this. The only solution she could think of was that someone was trying to put a stop to them returning to the world Tomaidh had apparently named "Tartarus". Probably not the artefacts there, of course, because this was altogether too subtle. And she wasn't sure how far they could actually reach, or how smart they were. Maybe someone else found out abotu "Tartarus" from Tomaidh? Whatever the case, leaving him behind wasn't an option, the Mad Bastard was his ship, and she wasn't sure she could get it moving even if she'd wanted to steal it from him.
"How many hours? Would it be possible for him to recover while in transit?"
McArthy looked aghast.
"You want him to recover from stab wounds on a dropship? Are you mad?"
She didn't have time to explain either the urgency of their return to Tartarus, or that the Bastard was not, in fact, actually a dropship, despite Urchardan's insistence otherwise. Instead, she turned to Elva. "Would. It. Be. Possible?" Yath still wasn't sure of human limits, and didn't know if a side effect of their endurance, strength and predatory, quick minds was taking longer to heal. Certainly the humans slept much longer hours than Longstar did.
Clements looked like she was being compelled to rob a bank under duress. "Yes... In principle, yes." She hesitated. Something she wanted to say, Yath sensed. What would Tom do? She asked herself.
"Whatever it is, human," Longstar growled. "Say it. Don't doubt that I can't beat it out of you if I must."
"The Correctives we bought," she blurted out. Yath cocked her head to one side, her amputated vestigial limb twitching where it would have been rubbing its fingers together in a gesture of surprise if present. McArthy had tried to stop Clements speaking, but now sat heavily and sighed. Resigned. "It's... Alien technology. Medical things we technically aren't allowed to have. But we've seen the newscasts, the war is gonna get both a lot worse and a lot closer before it gets better or further away."
She was dimly familiar with Correctives. General-purpose medical kits, the kind one would leave on anything to papercuts to minor fractures to repair. Better than basic medical care, less effective for wide-ranging wounds than the autodocs humans mass produced, but good for fixing specific wounds. She could have used one at that very moment, actually; there had been some faint, unceasing nausea since she'd awoken from the coma. Most used clever nanotechnology trickery and integrated computing to diagnose and fix a problem, but even if someone had been stupid enough to sell these humans Correctives, they'd be basic ones. Simple pharmacological general purpose manufacturers with a basic computer chip slapped on. If even that.
"How much will you take for enough Correctives to keep him stable? I'll pay double."
Mothuracurie
There had to be a way to make the others see.
She'd been studying humans for a very, very long time now. And it was only recently that the penny, as they would say, had dropped. And, for that matter, what she suspected was some pretty significant amount of indoctrination she and her fellow Loti had recieved about the First People.
Humans were warlike. There was no denying that. No one conquered their homeworld in any way without it, the Loti had, as had their contemporaries all those aeons ago. And the current examples of Galactic life; Khorians and Ashtai and suchlike. Even the anomalous herbivores had done so, though in fairness most of those wars were fought against their natural predators, at least at first.
Humans were also pyschotic.
Everyone else saw that as a bad thing. But how much faster might the Loti have developed, technologically and culturally alike, if their few mentally-ill geniuses of a generation were encouraged rather than scoffed at? Humans hadn't merely developed a common psychosis, they'd formalised it. Institutionalised, even tamed it.
Ironically, it was their psychosis which overcame their warlike tendencies.
Certainly, it wasn't much new. The First People, humanity's predecessors, had been much the same. But few had studied them, and fewer had correlated the data as Mothuracurie had. Mutually Assured Destruction was not uniquely human, but the fact they'd managed to maintain it for over half a century on a single planet really showed their talents for reigning in their own worst nature.
But humans were also the other kind of psychotic.
The kind of psychotic that let you face down squadrons of Shock Troopers with a kinetic weapon and your wits on an ancient precursor world, and survive.
The kind of psychotic that let you survive a Consul's attempt at assassinating you, too.
It had been an ugly thing, learning of her grandfather's ruthlessness. Worse thing to have to learn when one was young. But she'd gotten over it. By now, it was just obvious, and she'd had her backdoors into his communications for a while, now. Accesses where none should exist, passwords he hadn't known about. Deeply illegal, but hard to trace.
Learning about the attempted assassination, however, had been something else. It defied Loti tactics and culture. There was honour in being assassinated, perhaps, for a general or president from an opposing side. But for a mere soldier, to attempt to murder a single man in such a way? It spoke only of humiliation and a lack of propriety. She didn't much care for such things, but more for the moral side: kill a man honestly, or don't do it at all.
That kind of thinking is why the humans are winning, her grandfather retorted, a memory echoed in her head.
A thought came to her.
If she couldn't convince them humanity was worth saving... maybe she could convince them humanity was too dangerous—too psychotic—to risk destruction facing them in war. That reparations and capitulations would be better. If she couldn't make them see the beauty of humanity, maybe she could make them see their danger.
She stepped out of the Science and Industry hub, a great swirling structure one might have confused for coral, if not for the branching surveilance systems and antennae. She'd make them see.
She'd make them all see.
Elva Clements
She bit the inside of her lip, trying to keep the anger down. It was spectacularly unsuccessful.
"You didn't tell her!" Clements roared, unable to contain her fury.
McArthy had, to his credit, the decency to look a little ashamed. Which made shouting at him hurt more; what they'd been through together, it made anger hard. But unconditional love didn't mean freedom from being called out.
"I don't trust her," he said. "The only reason I trust him is because he's still the same old Scottish dick he was when we last met. But that Khorian is a few priests short of a church, let me tell you!" He hesitated a moment. "And you didn't tell her either, let's be honest."
Elva shook her head, dismissing Nelson's last point. "It's bad enough you didn't tell them about the... the things embedded in them. But not telling them about this?" She gestured towards a shimmering volumetric display, illustrating the impossible twists and turns in the bodies of the Mad Bastard duo. "It's wrong."
Nelson sat down. Nelson, not Stationmaster Doctor McArthy. The man, not the position in the Hippocratic Oaf's hierarchy he occupied. He swept both hands across his eyes and down his face, and sighed. "I don't trust her, Elva, love. I mean, trauma is a part of it, I'm sure. But you heard Urchardan, what he had to say about her before going into the tunnels." He ran his hands through his hair, suddenly charged with some nervous energy. "But now? Since she came out of that coma, hell, since she came out of these tunnels, that Khorian hasn't been the same, and some part of that isn't just alien-PTSD." Suddenly, he surged up, and jabbed his finger through the scan of her body, to where the anomaly had been found. A lump of sort-of carbon, brimming with electrical activity, right under a small-but-obvious laceration on her body. "And this?! Doesn't it seem odd she's so desperate to get back to this, this 'Tartarus', hm?"
"Yes! Yes, it does... But couldn't it still be explained by PTSD, Nelson? Maybe she's re-experiencing and thinks confronting it will solve it?"
Nelson sighed again. "Yeah," he said at last. "Maybe. But is that the way you want to bet? They've both got lumps of what looks rather suspiciously like computational substrate embedded in their nervous systems, and if you haven't noticed, their arteries are pulling the same MC escher bullshit we all saw from those tunnels Yath and Tomaidh were in. And if that Khorian isn't really the one driving the bus, not fully, do you really trust her to be stable when we reveal all that to her? That the eldritch nightmare she fought to escape has now left pieces of itself inside her?!"
Clements shook her head. Disgust and second-hand shame threatened to overcome her.
"You didn't do it for Tomaidh, you fucking bastard. You didn't do it to keep the Khorian from trying to kill us or fly into the sun. You did it because it was the easiest way to get them off our station. You were afraid. And—" She hesitated. Should I really tell him?
"And what, Elva?" He asked, voice soothing.
"And it was for nothing. I think. Two days ago, I was walking down the D-Five Spinward corridor, towards the damaged sections of the station."
"No," he said, mouth unable to close fully afterwards, face a perfect mask of shock. Of awed disbelief.
"I found a right hand turn. Only a right hand turn." That was impossible. There were five D-Five corridors—the "Spinward" one, which ran the entire circumference of the station's rotating drum, and four corridors running down the length of the station's drum, at ninety degrees. They continued straight, meeting in four-way intersections, but they never turned. "I followed the turn and found another, and another. And then another."
"And—And then?"
"And then, like a spell, it was over. I turned back the way I came, only to find myself right back at the start of the damaged sections, right on the edge of Aimil's blindspot." It was common knowledge that the damaged parts of the Oaf were, essentially, invisible to the station's AI without cameras and microphones which let her see there. Many criminals exploited this. Clearly, whatever madness had spread from the Mad Bastard duo must have as well.
"I suppose we're fucked, then."
"I suppose we are," Clements replied, bitterness sharpening her tone.
Yath Longstar
She looked at the hastily-fitted prosthetics, testing their tactile response and reflexes. They wove themselves in carefully-designed, aesthetically pleasing loadbearing designs, webbed and meshed and looking almost like carbon fibre, rather than the carbon nanotube-graphene composite it was truly made of. She'd been aghast, initially, when the doctors explained to her that hardening parts of her skeletal system had been necessary to ensure her survival. After all, a Khorian's body was a funnily-balanced thing, from an engineering perspective. There was little redundancy in her bones, and losing two limbs would weaken her spinal corridor and remaining arm.
They had done a far more comprehensive job than was strictly necessary, of course, while she'd been comatose. Reinforcing her skeleto-muscular systems, adding loadbearing systems in her joints, remaking her. Had she still had all three limbs, using even the most recoil-heavy human weapons would have brought her little more than mild discomfort, where before many human guns would risk strain injuries and hairline fractures at the minimum with long term use.
The new limbs, however, had been tweaked. They were the real reason she'd had her skeleton so thoroughly violated and remade.
The new arms were each of them as strong as a human's.
Somehow, all those beautiful scientific advancements felt like very little compared to the prospect of being rid of the thick nausea which settled itself in her gut. The spasms and stabbing pains where the metalbug had bitten her, [weeks] ago. The [direct translation unavailable; persistent day-dreams/torrent of flashbacks] that wouldn't shift when she shut her eyes or was in a place she felt was too claustrophobic or shifting too fast.
If she could do anything about those, it'd make the reconstruction of her arms seem like mere child's play.
The Mad Bastard was almost ready for departure. Already Urchardan's wounds had begun to heal, and he'd shown slight hints of awareness, face twitching and occasional half-dreampt words spoken. The Correctives were working. She was finding the human-built consoles difficult to adjust, probably requiring too many fingers and too much leverage for her. Still, the ship would take them back to so-called "Tartarus" as soon as the last supplies loaded on.
It was a shame Urchardan's search for a crew hadn't turned anything up before he'd been stabbed. She wondered if anyone had taken that flier he put up down. Probably not, come to think of it. Oh well. Bigger [direct translation unavailable; birds (original "Yeaish")] to [direct translation unavailable; bake (original "Yurtan")]. She thought about the human equivalent of that saying... something about frying fish, if her memory served.
Just another mystery about the humans, she thought. The stabbing pain where the metalbug had stabbed her returned, just momentarily, apparently sneering at such trivial things as Class 4 opiate pain meds. Perhaps it was something intentional, some poision or secretion to deter humans or First People (as if there was a difference) from grave robbing. Certainly would explain the swelling.
The outer cargo airlock door banged twice.
She cycled the outer door open, the inner door locked open, only allowed because of the detection of air outside (that was an ingenious idea she'd have to apply to her own ship, the Looter's Paradise, as soon as she got a hold of it), and said, "Just bring whatever crates are left and put them over—"
They weren't dock workers, or automatons.
Five human beings of varying colours, heights, sexes and ages crowded the Bastard's airlock.
The frontmost, an aged, caucasian human male with a thick white beard and prominent, sharp cheekbones, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and a bluish-grey suit jacket over the top of a collared shirt slowly losing its colour, stepped forward; evidently this was the group's leader, or at least spokesman. "Greetings," he said, in a voice like gravel poured by the [megatonne] from the sky as rain. "We're here to join your expedition, to this world of Tartarus."
Yath Longstar swallowed.
As if one human wasn't trouble enough.
[Next]
[Thanks for reading! Feedback, criticism, and questions are always welcome. I look forward to your comments. :) ]

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Jeopardy! recap for Mon., Jun. 8 - Champ Chris and Craig started well, while Sally had a chance to move up from third place on DD1 with $2,200 to wager. Despite that the DD was under a $400 clue, she elected to bet only $500 and was correct.
DD1 - Health-Related Organizations - It was named for coins sent to the White House during FDR's presidency for an annual fundraising drive
Everyone got off to a slow beginning in DJ, including Chris, who dropped $2,000 on DD2. He still held a $3,300 lead when he picked DD3, bet $4,000 and was correct to improve to $13,400.
DD2 - World Facts - It makes sense that the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is in this sea
DD3 - The Stars - Alvan Clark discovered that this bright star has a companion called "The Pup"
Chris didn't make much progress in the last half of DJ, so while he still was in front at the end of the round with $14,200, Sally and Craig were still in the running for FJ with $9,700 and $9,000, respectively.
Literary Characters- This name made famous in a 17th century novel is derived from the Spanish for "sweet"
Chris and Sally were correct on FJ and Chris wagered enough to cover double of Sally's score, winning with $19,700 for a two-day total of $35,600.
Triple Stumpers of the day: In the category "Soft Rock" the players didn't know that the songs "Lost in Love" and "All Out of Love" were from 80s hitmakers Air Supply. Also, no one was able to connect the quote "I don't make jokes...I just watch the government and report the facts" to legendary humorist Will Rogers.
Correct Qs: DD1 - Who is The March of Dimes? DD2 - What is The Coral Sea? DD3 - What is Sirius? FJ - Who is Dulcinea?

A few pre match tidbits:
Kick off is at 18:45 GMT at Wembley
Ref: Viktor Kassa (Hungary)
Hotels
Manchester United
United have booked into their regular London base, the Landmark in Marylebone.
Barcelona
The five-star Wyndham Grand in Chelsea Harbour is Barca’s 'lucky’ London hotel.
Training base
United
Fulham’s Motspur Park.
Barcelona
Beat United for Arsenal’s London Colney training ground.
Kit
United
White shirts, black shorts. Have let in two goals every time they have worn white this season.
Barcelona
Their traditional blaugrana strip. They beat United in home colours in Rome in 2009.
Mood music
United
This Is The One, by the Stone Roses, will precede their arrival on the pitch.
Barcelona
Cant del Barca is the club’s hymn. It was penned in 1974 to mark club’s 75th anniversary.
Lineups
Early rumours say Manchester United will line up as follows: Van der Sar, Fabio Da Silva, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra, Valencia, Giggs, Carrick, Park Ji-Sung, Rooney, Hernandez.
Barcelona: No information
Betting
Both teams to score at evens (bet365/Paddy PoweSky Bet)
Barcelona (-1) to beat Manchester United at 3/1 (Ladbrokes)
Messi to score first and Barcelona to win 4-2 at 150/1 (Coral)
Feel free to correct/add any information.

It's time! This is the chapter that will reach the end of its climax. Does Kaga die or survive? Read this chapter to find out!
Enterprise was still pinning Kaga against the reef. All Kaga could feel was an unbearable pain she never felt before. The attacks from the American carrier were devastating the effects showed. Nevertheless, Kaga was determined to fight her way out and reclaim the treasures she found. Enterprise was still pointing her secondaries at Kaga and was prepared to execute her properly.
“It’s time you give up already. You know you can’t win!” Enterprise threatened.
“You won’t get away with this… I will survive… Hyaaaaaaahhh!!!” Kaga retaliated with her secondaries.
The shots forced Enterprise to back off and keep distance. The American noticed that Kaga was glowing again. Her powers have been triggered by her determination. The secondaries came flying and managed to scratch Enterprise’s hull. Sakura 0 watched from above while still avoiding Enterprise’s fighters. He was the last plane left.
“I will… not… go… down!” Kaga said as she continued firing.
“All aircraft, engage!” Enterprise ordered.
One by one, bombers attacked Kaga and started to whittle her down. The damage was extensive but she didn’t care. She kept firing as she slowly crept closer to Enterprise. Sakura 0 was screaming for Kaga to stop but she ignored the calls. Enterprise started firing her secondaries and Kaga could feel nothing but pain. But it didn’t matter, she wanted to get back at the traitor. Soon enough, she could not go any further. She started sinking and keeled over a bit. Her engines were dead as well. As a final parting gift before she went under, Kaga fired one last round that left a burn mark on Enterprise’s deck. She returned the favour by firing back and that was enough to finally sink her.
“Too bad Kaga. The treasure is mine and let’s face it. You have no chance of defeating me.”
Kaga was shocked. She had lost and was unable to speak after taking so much damage. All she could do now was sink. Sakura 0 cried out her name as she sank beneath the waves. The ace had nowhere else to go. Enterprise ordered her aircraft to return and she prepared to head out to Midway and get the treasure.
“Leave him. Let him watch his carrier sink before he runs out of fuel and dies with her.” Enterprise told her fighters.
Beneath the surface, Kaga looked up and wondered what went wrong. She was getting further away from the light. She was finally sunk after a long and crazy journey. Will this be the end? She wasn’t ready to die but death was ready for her. She wasn’t so sure if she would enjoy the afterlife either. Whatever would happen, she was just not ready for what was to come. It got darker and darker the deeper she went but after she drowned completely, everything became bright. What was happening?
Kaga was wide awake. She appeared to be floating again but everything around her was all white. There was no sky and the water was clear as day although its depth was infinite. There was no sun or clouds, just white light.
“Where am I?”
“Oh hi Kaga. Welcome to the afterlife.” Takao appeared from behind.
“Takao!? Are you dead too?”
“No no. I’m just here to run another one of my franchises. The afterlife brings me lots of money.”
“So, I guess I’m dead.”
“Well actually, you are in the state of limbo.”
“Limbo?”
“Yeah. The council has not decided if you should stay dead or not. I’m a member as well. C’mon, follow me. We will determine your fate.”
So Kaga followed Takao through the unknown world of the afterlife. There was nothing around but quiet before the pair arrived at a special area. In front of her was a group of ships she was familiar with. It was the Council of Fate. They were the ones to determine whether Kaga should stay sunk or be resurrected. The Council consisted of Takao, Nicholas, Leberecht Maas, Hiei, Emerald, Arizona, Kirov and Tosa. Four of them were the ships that Kaga sank. The odds didn’t look good in her favour.
“The hearing will now begin.” Nicholas announced. “Let’s see here… Kaga huh? I believed in you that you would find that treasure. That attack from Enterprise really surprised me.”
“Will I return to the surface?” Kaga asked.
“Well that depends. The ships in this council will determine if you are worthy of being resurrected. Let’s hear what they have to say.”
“That carrier sunk me! She was the one who stole the Mother of Pearl from the Order. Her dive bombers even killed me!” Arizona accused.
“Well she, along with her friend, attacked me brutally just to take the Emerald of Power from my bridge.” Emerald noted.
“She sunk me.” Leberecht Maas said.
“She sunk me, for the second time, as well.” Hiei voted against.
“She couldn’t save me on time.” Kirov admitted.
“Judging from these reports, it also states that you robbed a vault full of gold in Australia.” Nicholas read out.
“I guess I won’t be returning from the surface. To all those I affected from my greed, I’m sorry.” Kaga sadly apologized.
“Now hold on a minute.That’s all the bad things. What about all the positives to make a counterpoint.” Tosa spoke up.
“Yeah, Kaga is a great friend of mine. She told me all about those wonderful things she did.” Takao argued.
“Well, she did save my home from Habakkuk.” Nicholas remembered.
“I remember her rescuing a carrier out of a block of ice.” Kirov said.
“If it wasn’t for her, my robotic self could have easily conquered the world and start a robot revolution that would have oppressed every other ship with a soul. So even if she did kill me, I thank her from preventing that disaster.” Leberecht Maas balanced her pros and cons.
“Well she did stop my zombie self from infecting other ships and spreading the Scuttlebug. I kind of thank her for returning my hull to restful peace.” Hiei claimed.
“I want to say my sister did many things. The reports even claim that she helped a destroyer make her dreams come true, got some criminals arrested, killed a category 5 kaiju and humbly gave the Guardians of the Coral Sea most of the credit.” Tosa read out.
“Hell, she even saved the world from devastation from asteroid strikes.” Takao added.
“You’re right. While Kaga has a record of activities that would make her a criminal, she also has a long track record of saving the lives of many. These are qualities of a hero.” Nicholas looked at the report.
“Well I had superpowers as well. I also wanted to help whenever possible.” Kaga claimed.
The council murmured amongst themselves trying to decide what Kaga’s fate would be. They then got a secretary ship to come in showing more reports about Kaga during her whole journey. This report was different. It calculated her Kaga Points which she never knew existed. The council was surprised to see how high it was. She had a whopping 15500 points. A score that only heroes and do gooders would have. There was then a vote made by the council. It ended with 6 to 2 in favour of resurrecting Kaga. The 2 who voted against were Emerald and Arizona because they didn’t like what Kaga did to them.
“Good news Kaga. The council has voted in favour of bringing you back. Not only that, but we will help you get back at Enterprise by giving you a new power you never had before. Promise us that you will use it for good.” Tosa announced.
“I will. Thank you so much.” Kaga thanked everyone.
King Neptune then appeared behind the council and announced, “Kaga, the council has spoken. With the powers invested by me, I will now give you life!”
“Good luck Kaga!” Tosa wished her sister. Some magical glitter light thingies then clinged onto Kaga and she started rising towards the “sky.”
Back in the real world, the sunken hull of Kaga started rising from the depths. She was glowing bright with the light that raised her up. On the surface Enterprise was getting her last plane to land on her. “Finally, now that she’s gone, I’ll get all the treasure for myself. You planned this quite well Enterprise.” She talked to herself. The carrier looked back to see the A6M8 start to lose fuel before falling into the sea. Enterprise didn’t need to see it and started moving on to Midway. What she didn’t know was that the last of Kaga’s planes started glowing and transforming. Suddenly, she felt and heard a rumbling noise.
“What was that?” She thought. She decided to turn around to witness something come out of the water where Kaga sank. She was expecting a carrier but what she actually saw was something else. The ship before her had a superstructure, 5 twin 41cm guns, 20, 140mm secondaries and some torpedo tubes. She was painted the in the darkest of black and her bridge was glowing red. That wasn’t a carrier. It was a battleship, a Tosa class at that.
“K-Kaga?” Enterprise was surprised.
“Actually, it’s Kaga Tosa.” The battleship said and announced her full name. The former carrier used her powers and caused a powerful thunderstorm. The huge concentration of lightning zapped Enterprise and stalled her engine. She panicked and rushed to launch her planes. Not only that, but Kaga was firing shells at Enterprise and they hurt her badly. Her force fields could not save of her this time because Kaga has become stronger than before. She was not bounded by the limitations of determination, but the power of free will. Every primary shell she fired was bright red with red trails that only elite warships could use. Holes were ripped across Enterprise’s hull and exposed the treasures taken from Kaga.
It was time to make the move. Kaga zoomed to max speed and used her superpowers to ram Enterprise. She was a blur for a split second and reached Enterprise in no time. As a result, she swiped the treasures away and loaded the Golden Shells of Justice. There were 6 left and she placed 1 shell in each turret, which left 1 left for her to use at the Gate of Midway. Kaga quickly moved away and positioned her turrets at Enterprise.
“OK, I give up. I surrender. Please don’t hurt me!” Enterprise pleaded.
“After what you did to me and plotted it all behind my back, I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you. It’s time you suffer the consequences.” Kaga finalised her decision.
She fired the broadside and the shells flew right into Enterprise’s hull. All of them hit and penetrated. Enterprise froze in fear as she looked down at the shells in her. The moment they started vibrating, it was already too late. Enterprise screamed, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!” before blowing up in an explosion that was brighter than the sun. Kaga resisted the heat and pressure of the blast but when everything subsided, nothing remained except for the ashes of the American carrier.
Kaga let out a sigh of relief. It’s finally over. Her red bridge glow faded away and the storm died out. She noticed her ace turned into a floatplane but she could not use him as she wasn’t designed to launch planes in battleship form. Regardless, she found a way to pick him up and stored him away. She moved on towards Midway when she saw Ark Royal and I-168 waiting for her.
“Hey guys! I finally reached you guys in time!” She announced.
The submarine and British carrier gave confused looks as they did not recognize Kaga. I-168 started sniffing around. ‘Who are you?” Ark Royal asked.
“It’s me! Kaga!”
“You don’t look like Kaga. You look like a battleship I never seen before.”
“I’m telling the truth.”
“If you are Kaga, can you turn yourself back to carrier form?” Ark joked.
“I can try.” Kaga replied. “Hnnnrrrrgggghhh…”
Then in a matter of seconds, she transformed into her triple deck form. “Whoops, wrong me.” she said. Then she tried again and returned to her normal self.
“Whoa! I didn’t know you can do that?”
I-168 barked happily that it was indeed Kaga. Then, Ark Royal asked where Enterprise was. Kaga answered to her that she betrayed her and had no choice but to sink Enterprise. Ark Royal admitted that she kind of saw that coming. She knew that Enterprise plays with deceit and is only interested in the money. Once the reunion was done, Kaga sailed towards the Gate of Midway. It was guarded by the two carriers, Hornet and Hornet II. They looked at her and asked what she was doing. “I came here to unlock the treasure. I have all the keys.” She proudly said. The two stepped aside and allowed Kaga to insert the items into each slot. She started with the Mother of Pearl, then the Emerald of Power. Next came the Golden Shell of Justice, the Silicon Chip of Knowledge, and the Wooden Bucket of Everlasting Oak. Next she got the Royal Ark to place herself in the large gap near the door. Kaga placed the Gold Coast Bar, then the Shiny Coral Crown, and then the Neverust. Finally, on the last slot, she inserted the Jade Key. All 10 treasures have been placed in the correct locations and the door started to open up.
The gate revealed a magical looking portal with purple swirls like the ones you see in Minecraft. Ark Royal couldn’t come along as she was still the key to opening the gate. The Hornets still had to guard the entrance but wished her luck in finding what she wants.
“So the treasure is in here huh? C’mon I-168, follow me.” And the pair went inside the portal.
As they travelled through, it was very discombobulating but soon enough, Kaga reached a light area and she could see where she was. She was in a very large room filled with gold, doubloons, silver, credits, diamonds, pearls and more.It amazed her to no end and she looked around at what she could take.
“Welcome traveller. I’ve been expecting you.” A familiar voice said.
Kaga looked up and saw the legend himself. The now retired pirate destroyer, Kidd.
“Where am I exactly?” Kaga asked.
“Well miss, you are in my underground treasure room. I secretly stored the treasure under my home and nobody expected a thing. Congratulations on finding it. I bet it was no easy journey.”
“So is all this treasure mine for the taking?”
“What is your name?”
“It’s Kaga.”
“Well Kaga, I have a small set of rules for you to follow. You can take as much treasure as you can hold but you may not return here to receive more. Since you are a large ship, you’ll be able to get plenty.”
“Is that all?”
“However, I’m giving you a choice right now. The moment you leave with all the treasure, the powers you gained throughout your adventures will be no more. You’ll be rich but powerless. If you refuse to take the treasure, you’ll keep your superpowers as long as you promise me that you will be a hero. Those are your choices.”
The thought was intriguing. Kaga’s original plan was to be rich, but her adventure also made people admire her as a hero. She really appreciated her superpowers and the thought of helping others felt good. Maybe there was a third option like killing Kidd and getting the best of both but that might be a bad idea. She viewed the pros and cons and finally decided on her option.
TO BE CONTINUED…
So what did she pick? Take the money or keep the powers. Option 3 is a choice too but not a good one. Whichever one you pick, will determine how the series will come to an end. Be prepared for that finale!
Getting resurrected required 10000 Kaga Points but at least Kaga destroyed Enterprise, so you receive 1000 Kaga Points (TOTAL: 6500). By the time we reach the finale, we will rate how well you did once the final tally is made.
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