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Challenge #02520-F330: Teach to Learn

You know the one student that's always alone? The one student that, for some reason, just seems unable to make any friends? Often they're bullied while everyone else turns a blind eye even when they ask for help. A student can turn one of many ways in this kind of situation. They can turn into a killer, they can harm themselves, they can bottle it up and explode later, or, for the unusual few, it can make them even gentler even when their heart's broken. School.. they graduated almost 20 earth years ago. But still, some nights, they woke up crying. The cruelty they endured in their youth had left a long, harsh, scar upon their heart, matching the many physical scars, like the burn marks that caused permanent stripes along the arms. The alarm went off, it was time to get to work, they had a mixed class of haven worlders and humans to teach. A gentle smile on the kind face, while the broken soul hid within the heart. -- Anon Guest

[AN: I get the feeling that this is very important to OP, so - Nonny, wherever you are, take heart. Those scars stop hurting so much, after a while. That, and we can all take steps to be certain more children don't gain the same scars.]

There's a certain feeling that comes from growing up in an era that introduces all the things you need after you're done needing them. Whilst you are clambering at the cracks you fell through, struggling to create coping mechanisms and falling afoul of every single unforeseen pit-trap... others who follow you walk calmly along on paving-stones laid by someone who never saw you there. It is, very loosely, frustrating.

Imagine fighting for a lifetime. Imagine struggling along a rocky and weed-strewn path, only to find that someone behind you has been making a better path. Yet you can never turn around, go back, and use the path that's been made because that way lies even worse ruin. Imagine the exhaustion. Imagine the frustration. Imagine the tears one could shed. Now imagine becoming a guide for all those who need that path, and would benefit from that guidance.

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Challenge #02519-F329: For the Greater Good

Several Enforcers of Pax Humanis teamed up and took down a pirate's ship. They were tearing the ship apart from the inside-out when one hears crying in one of the cargo holds. Tearing the hold's doors off, they find dozens of children, human and haven-worlder, locked in cages with price tags already printed on the tops of them. Now they have children to care for, and the potential buyers? Were about to get a lesson in what it meant to mess with

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Challenge #02518-F328: Specific Listing Please

Traveling with Humans was, or rather is, a dangerous prospect. Freelance Freighter captains quickly learn that it is usually best to keep your human away from anything that can, could be made to, or might explode.

Hauling volatile chemicals? Heck no!

Mining equipment? That's just ASKING for trouble!

Precious metals? Why not just let the pirates know you're coming and save some time?

Logging equipment? Like, to record data? Seems harmless enough. Even fledgling colonies need some way to keep track of

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Challenge #02517-F327: Kintsugi Badass

The person was a bodyguard, and damn good at their job. However, others did not realize this when they saw the person. Sure the legs could have been replaced long ago with what they made from their work, but it was rather amusing when an enemy saw the bracings and the skin suit covered stumps, and assumed the lack of legs meant being helpless. -- Anon Guest

Sometimes, when the Human was in a good mood, they called themselves Brad the Broken.

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Challenge #02516-F326: Once a Sword

Better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.

Humans, while striving for peace, prepared for war. -- Anon Guest

Let's go in the garden, you'll find something waiting... -- Terran children's song.

This is a gardening planet. Call it Agraria. It has been specifically engineered for farming food crops for Terrans by Terrans. The people who choose to live there are called Vegans and they are, by and large, peaceful. They do not eat animal sourced

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Challenge #02515-F325: Pig Hero

I knew it was futile to ask, it’s nearly impossible for someone like me. But I needed to know, to clear the doubt in my mind, so I can push forward. With a shaken voice I asked, “I can be a hero too, right?” -- Anon Guest

The Great Golden Leader looked down at me, cloak and hair flowing in the wind. She was a vision of muscular perfection and might. Her magnificent dark skin marred slightly by a few battle-scars.

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Challenge #02514-F324: Roll For Initiative

Ever wonder what it would be like to disappear into your fantasy and not have to return? Video games are like that, online role play games even more. It can be more powerful than any drug, and far more seductive. But what happens when the power goes out and the person is forced to face reality? -- Anon Guest

This is a box. This is a window. Turn it on and view another reality. There were other boxes like it, in days

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Challenge #02513-F323: Sensible Steps

The two ships had collided as one had a severe navigational error and the other had been stolen by a youth who wanted to go out for a joyride. They crashed together on a planet that, for both of them, was just barely habitable. The surviving humans called out to the other ship and found it to be filled with Nox who were even younger than the human youths who were barely into their teens. Despite a rocky start, the two groups

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Challenge #02512-F322: One Complex Thought Experiment in the Void

An empath and a sociopath trying to help each other interact with people. -- Anon Guest

Here are two humans. Call them Abe and Bee. Abe cares too much about others and other's feelings, to the point of neglecting their own. Bee doesn't care about anyone but themself. They are both abnormal Humans. They are both trying to get back to civilisation as they know it with a group of strangers for a crew on their kludged vessel. They're a rag-tag bunch

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Challenge #02511-F321: A Pound of Cure

I told you not to come here during New Years but nooooooo “I want to experience the culture there” and now we’re running low on stress relief medication -- Anon Guest

"In my defence, the cultural displays looked very pretty and relatively harmless," said Prrit. Ze was currently huddled under a big, soft blanket and had mufflers over hir tympanum. "They looked so pretty and the music was so nice."

"Mus--" Human Dee tutted and tisked. "You had the offensensitivity filters

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Challenge #02510-F320: Fractal Flaws

it just basically just captured lighting -- Anon Guest

Humans can freeze lightning. That was the original claim. On the edge territories, blocks of acrylic plastic or panes of glass are sold with 'frozen lightning' patterns etched impossibly into the inside of the structure. Some carry them in their vehicles as protection against plasma storms in Hyperspace. Nobody's certain if they work, but belief in sympathetic magic is a powerful thing.

The actual trick of it got out eventually. Of course it

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Challenge #02509-F319: Berry Small Problem

It's inevitable that one person's treat is another person's hallucinogen, especially when it comes to dealing with various species in the Galactic Alliance. There is a plant that, for most Galactics, it's no worse for them than a human having some chocolate. In fact, it's sweet fruit is quite popular. However, if a human eats some, it's inevitable the human will sit for hours completely blitzed. So while it's a treat for some, for humans, it's a potential medicine to help those

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Challenge #02508-F318: An Asynchronous Encounter in Ships' Night

You ever fall asleep on the couch only to wake up in your own bed? Ever fall asleep in your bed and wake up realizing you're standing in your living room? Sleepwalking can be from stress, it can be from night-terrors, it can be from many things. When they hired their young warrior / linguist, they didn't realize he sleepwalks. It wasn't in the file, after all, and this was the youth's first assignment. Though they would find him asleep in the oddest

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Challenge #02507-F317: The Jewels of the Tour

A feathery flash of ruby red, then several bright flashes of green. These tiny birds flit amongst the gardens on the space station as the havenworlders watch them in wonder. They came from a 4.5 deathworld. These beautiful, flying gems. They are more delicate than the most delicate of havenworlders, some humans brought them here to the garden to act as pollinators and to make the place, "more like home,' she'd said. Little nectar-filled feeders can be seen swarming with

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Challenge #02506-F316: Put a Saddle On

Havenworlders, depending on where they're from, are generally small, fairly lightweight, and fragile. On their own homeworlds, they have little to fear. But outside their own homeworlds, there is a vast array of things that can harm them even when just trying to get around. However, one group of Havenworlders find an interesting way to go around the space station without risking getting stepped on, or harmed. They ride on the back of their new, well loved, and very well trained animal

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