tentacles | [Various] AU Meme Drabbles (Part One)

The rest of these will be finished pretty soon, I hope! Until then, here's the two I'm already finished with.

Amatsuki: pirates, for

inarticulate

Toki coughed and sputtered as he was bodily hauled out of the ocean. His eyes stung with sea water, even the blind one under its patch. For a long moment, all he could do was lie feebly on the wet wood of the deck where his savior had dropped him. It was just his luck to slip overboard from their little vessel right as they were approaching the Sakagami. Shinonome would never let him live it down, and he felt an embarrassed pang when he realized that he'd just managed to look totally uncool in front of Kuchiha yet again. Not to mention the entire crew of Sasaki's boss's ship. Great.

Finally managing to roll onto his back and fumble his way into a sitting position, Toki gave a weak grin. "Um, thanks," he croaked. "I--" He stopped, suddenly realizing that he wasn't on the little boat Shamon had lent him, Shinonome, and Kuchiha for their trip. And this ship didn't look like what he'd seen of the Sakagami, either. Maybe his luck was even worse than he'd thought.

"Still alive?" A lazy voice drawled from the direction of the mast. Toki turned towards its source and found himself looking at one of the most striking people he'd ever seen. The man's hair was long and sun-bleached, and he was covered in piercings and jewelry. Even without the strange mismatch of clothing and the tattoos around his eye, without the exotic-looking bird perched on his shoulder, Toki would have known what this man was -- his smirk told it all.

"Welcome onboard the Amaza, Rikugou Tokidoki," the pirate said.

---

Godchild: cyberpunk, for

quixotic

"Cain."

It was Crehador's voice, insistent through the comlink. Cain ignored him, brushing the blinking alert to one side of the screen with a wave of his fingers. It was hard enough to focus with his ear still throbbing from where he'd ripped out the microchip tracking device. He didn't need any more distractions. He had reports to read. Important ones.

It has frequently been theorized that neural implants, if utilized correctly, could be used to modify rather than enhance human brain waves; in essence, to change a person's thoughts and memories, overwriting their original personality as easily as one could erase a hard drive and install new software upon it. In a much less dramatic manner, the basic theory behind this idea has been proven through the use of lab mice in--

"Cain! I know you're there!"

Cain drummed his fingers against the keyboard. Theories were of no use to him. He knew it was possible, he'd seen-- he swallowed that thought quickly, before it could dredge up the memory of Riff's cold eyes and colder words. What he needed was specifics. If he could just figure out what sort of neural implant Delilah was using, maybe he could reverse the process. And if that was impossible, at least he'd know how to overload the implant, causing a hemorrhage in the brain and killing Riff in the process. If he couldn't have Riff, then no one could.

Crehador was still speaking. Something about Mayor Gloria, and his connections to-- Cain pulled up Crehador's comlink window, allowing the scientific paper he'd been reading to cycle to the back.

"I'm listening," he said.