golden-feathers-fall - Tumblr blog

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I FORGOT ABOUT MERMAY

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this moment from tommy’s new video w/ phil is so sweet :’)

captions 🫧

phil: it's [referring to the new music disc] really good!

tommy: there's a new disc in the game!?

phil: it's my favorite song that they've added

*disc begins playing, as they listen and tommy gets more into the song the screen begins flashing with past memories of happy times in tommy's streaming career, including clips of the dream smp, his tour, mcc, and also clips of technoblade and schlatt. the scenes fade and it cuts back to present where tommy is staring at the jukebox*

phil: you good? are you just like, that shocked at how good it is or are you just being — do you like it?

tommy: bro... oh my god! yeah. i think this disc has just single-handedly got me back into minecraft.

phil: *laughs*

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First, love your content on colt.

Second, 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷 ❤

Third, about your shitten, Anomality, how does he came to this world? Magic spell? Old natural way? If the last one, who gave birth to him? If an egg, who had the trouble to lay it?

Sorry if it was already asked ♡

accidental ritualistic child

Thank you @xmajordumps for coming up with that one I owe you a big ol kiss

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Do you think that when the little ghost told Bagi she felt a connection with her, like she already knew her that for a moment Bagi thought it was the spirit of Em who had found her

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more babies :D

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what am i if not a dog - El (9)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: dehumanization, headache, loneliness, trauma

El wakes up with a headache.

It's not really an abnormal experience, feeling as his brain is tugged in a hundred different directions, a thousand tiny strings stretching and coiling around the base of his skull. Still, just because something's normal doesn't mean that he has to like it. Especially when it makes the edges of his vision hazy and his hands a hair shakier than usual.

He groans, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and trying to remember why he thought sleeping in a tree was a good idea.

Something about Philza and birds' nests, he thinks, but his insides are twisted up enough that he might have just been drunk.

Not very drunk, he figures, sniffing the damp sleeve of his shirt only to find a very pleasant mixture of water and monster guts assailing his nose.

He tries to ground himself and ignore the headache as he makes his way out of the tree and towards Roier's home, ducking into the underbrush when he catches the sound of islanders headed his way. He waits until they've passed, and then a beat longer, before hurrying back along.

His head throbs just a bit more. It stings a bit, to be hiding again.

He thought things were going well.

After Fit let him crash inside his base, Ramón poking at him to keep him awake as he shook under a dozen different blankets, things had finally started to shape up for El. For the first time in probably ever, the islanders looked at him without the usual open hostility and hatred he'd grown accustomed to.

And then, probably predictably, things had gotten bad again.

Whatever happened isn't his fault, he's pretty sure, but crashing into Roier and sending both of them sprawling right outside his home probably is.

"Fuck!" Roier says, his usual cheer replaced with something sharp as he scrambles up, "Be careful, man!"

"Sorry," El says, and for the first time in weeks he flinches when Roier's hand settles in front of his face, frozen for half a beat before he clasps their hands and lets the islander pull him up.

"What were you even doing here?" Roier asks with a grin, but it feels sharp and wrong and--fuck, Roier was supposed to be the one normal Islander-- "Were you coming to spy on my house?"

He wiggles his eyebrows, but El feels a line of tension in all of it like maybe he was actually worried about El coming to spy.

"No way, man!" El says, trying to bring the conversation back to normal, even if it means being a bit more excited than usual, "I found a dungeon no one's touched yet. You in?"

"I can't," Roier says, shrugging apologetically, and El rolls his eyes.

"Come on, man," he protests, knocking their shoulders together playfully, "You love dungeons!"

"Yeah, yeah," Roier agrees, picking up his fallen sword and handing El his own axe that had fallen out of its sheath and onto the ground.

"Come on," El needles, and Roier shrugs again.

"I really can't."

El rolls his eyes. "I bet you're just avoiding me, huh?" he says, knocking into Roier again. Roier, who'd been trying to sheath his own sword again, fumbles as it clatters to the ground again.

El can feel the moment things snap. It's like the air itself gets electrified--has been getting electrified--and Roier spins on his heel, his expression twisted.

"Would you stop it, man!?" Roier demands, "I said I can't! Just go find someone else to bother! Or go back and report to your Federation bosses!"

"I--" El feels the words die in his throat. He feels Roier's eyes digging under his skin, frustrated and annoyed, and knows he can't fix this.

El doesn't even know what he did, not really, since his words made it clear that Roier was bothered by more than dropping his sword.

Something sinks deep in El's gut.

Roier lets out a cross between a sigh and a huff, dragging his hands down his face.

"I'm sorry, man," he says, but it sounds uncomfortably flat, "I'm crazy busy right now, you know? Maybe later?"

El just nods, trying to keep whatever's growing in his chest off of his face. Roier sighs again.

"See you later, man," He says with a little wave, and just like that El's alone again. His hands are cold again at his sides. Maybe that's just how things are meant to be.

(Maybe that's what he deserves.)

---

El should have known not to take Roier's advice.

He stumbles down the trail, still not far enough from his superiors' offices to get away with collapsing onto the floor like a tantruming toddler, and he keeps his eyes focused on the path in front of him.

His legs feel like dead weight, suddenly heavy and exhausted. His ears ring, a shaking shriek between his skull, and the space between his temple and his eye throbs. It's going to bruise, he's sure.

That's what he gets for following Roier's ideas and reporting in to his bosses. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but he didn't have anything new for them at all. Worse, he'd tried to stick around and ask questions after they'd dismissed him.

El's lucky a freshly revived headache--his new constant--is all he'd gotten.

Still, it isn't fair.

He gives his whole life to the Federation and they still skirt around him like he's a particularly live wire, a stack of TNT ready to go off at a moment's spark.

El's doing everything for them, but it's barely anything at all.

And no one will tell him anything. He can hear the operatives get quiet the second they spot him peering around the corner, voices hushed and files shoved into drawers like he's spying on the Federation for the islanders, and not the other way around. The sanitation workers won't even meet his gaze anymore, turning away like he isn't even there. Every sense of camaraderie he had with anyone is gone, replaced with a stiff and unrelenting tension.

The helpless frustration tugs at his brain like a really persistent alligator, stretching his thoughts in a billion different directions. It's painful, almost as painful as a boot to the face. His skull throbs and his whole body feels hot with frustration. His eyes well up with embarrassed tears.

El grits out a cross between a scream and a groan between his teeth, clenching his jaw and his fists tightly as he walks.

Why is it all going wrong now?

Just when things started to be almost okay for him?

El wipes at his eyes with the sleeves of his shirt; it's fine. He moves forward, aimless but steeled, trying to redirect his thoughts away from the static that consumes them.

'I'll just go to the dungeon myself,' he thinks, kicking at the ground while he walks. 'Who needs Roier anyways?'

El pauses, processes what he just thought, and then immediately scowls. The guy's so annoying El can't even escape him in his brain. He would never say it to him, but if the islander were some sort of disease, El would definitely have it.

It's like he's an infection, always festering on the forefront of El's mind.

And, now he can't stop thinking about the dismissal, the way Roier used to be with him painfully different from the way he is now. The distance between them stings something fierce, and he grits his teeth harder as the static in his head grows louder, more present, almost like it's zeroing-in.

Then, because he isn't dealing with enough right now, voices come into focus.

"Ḿ̸̻͂̅̔̍a̵̢̻͍͊n̵͉͕̮͈͎̑,̸̡̤̻̦̫͊́ ̷̻̆̕w̸͚̪̓͝h̷̺̪͔͊͊a̷̗͕̝̭͘t̵̲̭̗̠̫̍̎̉͋ do you think?" Roier asks and El jumps, his heart in his throat.

It only takes a second for him to decide to duck behind a bush, pressing a hand over his face in an effort to keep himself quiet. He's already in hot water with the islanders, they already think he's spying on them. He does not need to make that worse for himself.

"I̶͓̼̋͊̚̕͠ͅ ̷̣͇͈͓̗̎̈͛̄̕m̸̢̖̗̋̄̂̈̕è̸͍̺̯̟͈̃͊͘ā̴̻͋ņ̷͐́̒ͅ,̶̧͕͘ who knows," someone--Foolish, maybe--says with a laugh.

El tries to breathe, his headache pounding in full force and only getting worse as his heart pounds inside his chest. His breath comes faster with every second, his lungs aching, and his hands are starting to cramp from the force he's been clenching them.

A pained noise covered in static rings out and it takes him more than a moment to realize it came from him.

"W̴͓̉͌̆̉h̵̯̐̕o̷̰̥̍̇'̷͙̯̦͕̀̾͗͗́͜ș̷͛̔͊̍̂͌ there?" Roier asks, his voice tense and suspicious.

El stills. He can feel the blood draining from his face.

He is so, so fucked.

---

Part 9 of ? First Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - Richas (8)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: danger, hypersomnia (kind of), nightmares mentioned, anxiety

Richarlyson is surprisingly good at tag.

He didn't know if he would be since he's not a very fast runner, especially since his prosthetic has started to click and crunch when he bends the knee wrong, but he's very good at jumping out of the way just in time. He's an egg of near misses, and by the time Cellbit and Roier have stopped whispering while they watch the eggs scurry around, Richas is the only egg who hasn't actually been tagged.

Unfortunately, Richarlyson knows what it means to be the only egg to avoid failure, and he braces himself for what comes next.

He's won the game, gotten too good at being the best, and now his siblings are going to gut him like a fish. Even Pomme, who usually doesn't get very upset with him even when he tripped with his sword and ruined her hat once, is glaring at him.

He has ten seconds before they swarm him, and he shoots off like a bullet, speeding as quickly as he can without falling flat on his face. Behind him, he can hear the 'it' spreading between them like the plague.

He's a survivor with a whole horde of zombies behind him, and it's really just a matter of when he dies and not if. He can't run too far away, or his pai Cellbit will make a face and ground him to sitting next to him and Roier on the bench.

Richas knows he means it, too, since Tallulah had to sit on the bench for half an hour for wandering off a bit even though it wasn't on purpose. Usually, the adults wouldn't care so much, but whatever's happening has made them more careful for all of the eggs.

Still, Richarlyson swerves between the trees, the horde moving behind him quickly.

His feet--or foot, really--slam into the ground as he runs as quick as he can through the trees, jumping over tree roots and going around prickly bushes. He jumps really high over a tree root and lands funny, his prosthetic crunching loudly beneath him as he curses everything.

If he fails now, he's going to die, eaten by his crazy zombie siblings.

He makes a wide turn to keep far away from a burr bush and feels the ground disappear beneath his feet, suddenly looking down to a steep and long drop, sharp jagged rocks lining the bottom.

Suddenly, that dying seems a lot less pretend, and Richas wishes he'd just let them tag him.

The air rushes past him and he feels stuck frozen as he starts to drop. A hand snags the back of his hood, tugging him up until another arm wraps around his middle and hoists him up against a warm chest.

"Richas!" Forever scolds, "You're running like a crazy person! Do you want to fall?"

Richarlyson blinks. He looks down at the bottom of the fall that would have probably broken his legs. He blinks again. It takes too long for him to wake up from the shock, and the tiredness he's been running against for weeks now seems to come back in full swing as he finally slumps and shakes his head.

'We were playing tag,' he tells his pai with slow signs, pulling back enough that Forever can see his hands, 'Final Elimination.'

"Ahh," Forever says understandingly. Richas squirms a little, but Forever just adjusts his grip, walking right back to the place Richas had just been running from. Fortunately, Forever's arrival must be much more exciting than defeating Richas because his siblings don't even bother to tag him when the group rushes over excitedly in a swarm.

"Forever!" Roier calls, seeming confused but not upset, "What are you doing here? I thought you were with Bad?"

Forever winces, making the kind of face the adults have been trying to hide from the eggs, and Cellbit furrows his eyebrows.

"Richas, all of you go play over there," he says, pointing to a spot they'd already given up on because of the lack of good fighting sticks.

Forever deposits Richas back on the ground and Chayanne has to grab onto his elbow to keep him from tipping onto the grass when he wobbles, his prosthetic crunching again.

'You okay?' Chayanne asks.

Richarlyson nods, heading over to the patch of clearing they've been directed to, wishing he could take a million naps instead. He would sleep on the dirt if he weren't so worried about Romero Richas causing more trouble.

Still, Richarlyson just wants to go to sleep.

---

Chayanne calls the Council of Eggs to order.

They sit on the dirt almost shoulder-to-shoulder with each other in their usual circle, and they're careful to keep their signs closer to their chests in case any of their parents--or anyone else--tries to listen.

There's an empty spot they have to scoot closer together to fill, right between Ramón and Leo.

Richas tries not to think about it.

'Something's happening,' Chayanne says, meeting each Egg in the eye so they can tell how serious he's being, 'Something even crazier than what's happening now.'

'They've been planning more,' Leo agrees, eyeing the three nervously chattering adults skeptically.

'Whatever it is, it's going to happen soon,' Chayanne says. 'We have to be ready.'

Will they be? They don't even know what's going to happen, or really what's happening now. How are they supposed to be ready for a monster they can't even see yet?

After a moment, Pomme speaks up, extra careful to keep her signs hidden.

'I heard they're going to attack the Federation,' Pomme explains with quick flitting things that are hard to read on purpose. Richas has to squint for a minute, making some of the motions with his own hands tucked to his chest until he understands.

He knows the other eggs can tell something's wrong, but he hopes they just think he's only his usual kind of tired.

'Maybe they'll find tío Quackity,' Tallulah says hopefully. Richas doesn't know how he feels about that.

Leo raises an eyebrow and signs, 'But then what will we do with El?'

'Why would we do anything?' Chayanne asks, scowling a bit, 'He's a jerk.'

'He saved my life!' Pomme says, 'He's…just confused I think.'

Chayanne makes a skeptical face, one Richas definitely relates to, but just signs, 'Okay.'

'About El,' Leo says, a funny look to their eyes, 'what do you think he is? I heard my dad talking to Bad about it, and they don't know either.'

'Maybe he's a clone,' Ramón offers and Tallulah nods eagerly.

'Probably!' she says, 'That's why he looks just like Quackity.'

'I think he's a monster,' Chayanne signs grumpily, but he looks like he wants to take it back when he sees Pomme's face fall. 'Sorry,' he says instead, probably because he meant it.

Pomme waves him off. 'It's fine.'

'Maybe he's an egg,' Richas jokes, cracking the tension with his expertly crafted pickaxe of comedy, and Tallulah snickers. Leo levels him with an unimpressed look, but Pomme seems to find it funny too so he doesn't mind.

'No way!' she denies, stifling giggles, 'He doesn't have any powers! He can't be an egg!'

Richas pretends to be put out, sighing. 'Yeah, maybe not.'

'It'd be cool if he was, though,' Tallulah muses once the laughing's died down, but even Richas thinks that maybe would be a little too crazy.

'You'd want to be related to that jerk?' Leo asks.

Again, Pomme points out, 'He isn't a jerk! He saved my life! He didn't have to, but he did!'

Leo makes a face, but gives in when Chayanne pokes her in the side, smacking his hand. 'I guess.'

The conversation changes to something else and Richarlyson finds himself watching Chayanne's hands as they move, his signs feeling far away even though they're all right next to each other.

He only watches for a little while, his brain feeling foggy and slow, before Leo demands his attention.

A finger pokes into his side and he turns to Leo. He stares at them, waiting for something, and they stare back at him with a weird look on their face.

'Are you okay?' Leo asks, almost suddenly, still staring at Richarlyson.

Richas blinks, waiting for him to explain why he asked. Of course Richas is okay.

'You look sick,' Leo finally signs and Richarlyson recoils, Dapper still fresh on everyone's mind.

'I'm not sick!' he says, signing quicker than before, but his fingers stumble with every other word, 'I'm just tired. I'm…very tired.'

'Did you sleep?' Ramón asks and Richas wobbles his hand. 'A little.'

He peeks to make sure none of the adults are looking and admits, 'I've been having more nightmares.'

Pomme shudders. 'So has everyone, I think.'

'More Romero Richas?' Leo asks and Richarlyson nods, a yawn finally breaking free.

He knows Romero Richas is part of his power, or at least everyone thinks it is, but no one knows what his power really is. He doesn't remember the nightmares or the diary, or the weird-looking egg that keeps showing up in all of his new paintings. He doesn't want to risk anything if his power could be something dangerous, and he definitely doesn't want his parents to look at him worriedly like they do when they find him and his burning paintings.

Normally, he's not as worried about Romero Richas, but everyone's worried about everything right now and it's hard not to do it too.

'I don't like it,' he admits.

'You'll get sick if you don't sleep,' Leo points out, but Richas shakes his head adamantly.

'What if when you start having a nightmare, I'll play my flute in your ear until you wake up?' Tallulah asks.

That's really a good idea. Richarlyson yawns again, finally nodding and lying down on the grass until Chayanne pulls him over to rest his head on his lap like a pillow.

It takes a minute, but the others start signing together and he just listens to the world around them with his eyes closed. Leo drapes her jacket over him like a blanket and, when he starts to get restless, Ramón lets him hold his hand.

Richarlyson is out like a light after that.

---

Part 8 of ? First Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - Bad (7)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: dehumanization, dead eggs mentioned, experimentation

Bad arrives home alongside a gust of wind.

Hidden far from the prying eyes of the Federation, doors slam open as he barrels through them, files caught between his claws.

Jaiden and Cellbit startle a bit from their spots beside Dapper, tired faces quick to alert and quicker to draw their weapons, a sword and a crossbow jerked his way.

While outside it was clear that their night shift was coming to a close, the sun beginning to rise, the only tell of the passage of time is their exhaustion in the windowless room Bad's squirreled away his son in.

Bad lets the files drop onto the room's center table with a thunk, every bit of information he could carry set between them.

"Did you find it?" Cellbit asks, gaze roving over the files pensively.

"I think so," Bad says, and he does. He doesn't know what he'll do if he hasn't.

Jaiden is quicker to move, flicking through the files with a rapid intensity. It takes a moment for Bad to remember exactly what is in the files, but by the time he remembers to warn her it's too late.

"Wait, Jaiden it's--" He stops, the warning dying on his breath.

Jaiden stands stock-still, her eyes wide as she touches the file almost reverently, her fingertips brushing one of the only remaining photographs of Bobby. Why the Federation felt the need to erase every aspect of his existence, Bad still isn't sure.

Cellbit steps closer, barely glancing at the file before stepping away with a sympathetic look.

Bad can see the moment she moves on from his photograph, her shoulders stiffening as she reads.

"What is this?" Jaiden demands, her voice hollow and crackling as her grief turns to something sharper, the glass she has to swallow.

"I don't know."

Cellbit peers over Bad's shoulder to look at the file again, finding the spot that has Jaiden gripping the table's edge with white knuckles.

"Pass?" he reads, scanning the file. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," Bad says again, "It was in Tilín's file too."

"What kind of test do you pass by dying?" Jaiden demands, distraught. "Direct casualty? A direct casualty of what?"

Bad pauses, returning to scanning the files again with dread low in his gut. The words 'ability alteration' seem all that he can focus on, his eyes drifting back to them whenever he tries to look away.

"What if it wasn't a test for them?"

Jaiden turns to him, an unreadable look in her eyes.

"What do you mean?" Cellbit asks.

"What if--" Bad swallows around the sick in his throat. "What if the thing that passed wasn't them."

"It was the thing that killed them," Cellbit says, starting at the files with an unnerving intensity, "This 'XXXY.'"

Jaiden stares at the file, grief thick in the air.

"They killed him," she realizes with a quiet sort of despair. Emotions flicker over her face like a candlelight, the shadows of her features shifting from grief to resignation to a different sort of realization.

Eyes narrowing, she echoes, "They killed him."

"They did," Cellbit agrees, with a silent ' what are you going to do about it?'

"They already took my son," she says, loss twisted into a thrumming fury that meets Bad's gaze. The words sound like they're painful to say. "I won't let them take yours too."

Badboyhalo nods, Cellbit following suit, and they sit together at the table, a plan growing between them.

---

Bad saved his son.

He knew he would, he didn't have any other option than to save him. He knew that Dapper wasn't just sick, or that if he was the Federation knew how to cure it. He knew something was wrong.

It's all kinds of terrifying to know that he was right.

Scrawled in a fine print is confirmation of every fear he's ever had. If he hadn't put Dapper on lockdown, away from even the Federation's prying eyes, his son would be dead right now.

The current experiment requires multiple and continuous instances of direct exposure with the E.G.G. Failure to maintain contact with the E.G.G. will result in experiment Failure. Experiment conclusion projected two weeks from final exposure.

There's no note of any final exposure occurring, and Bad clings to the flimsy hope in his chest that it hasn't, that his son will still wake up.

It eats at him, a gnawing fear he does his best to dismiss in favor of tearing through the rest of the E.G.G.s files.

They won't have a repeat of this. He, Jaiden, and Cellbit scour every letter for any new information on the ability alteration.

They do find more about the ability alteration, ultimately.

It comes in the form of files that shouldn't be as jarring as they are, more deceased E.G.G.s than they'd ever guessed. At most, the islanders had thought one batch of E.G.G.s and islanders might have come before them. Maybe two, but even that seemed unlikely with the state of the island.

The reality is dozens of E.G.G.s, child after child after child pictured moments before--and sometimes after--their deaths.

In the thick remaining files lie page after page of experiments detailing horrific deaths, gruesome lives no creature should have to live, let alone a child. Bad's heart aches inside his chest.

If the files are any indication, though, this ability alteration is a fairly new development for the Federation. Or at least the earliest E.G.G.s with it as their listed cause of death are from the batch just a few years before the islanders awoke on the island.

"There was another file," Bad remembers, suddenly breaking the contemplative and almost crushing silence, "I couldn't access it. It was in its own case, away from the EGG files, but it exploded when I tried to open it. And the authorization was by XXXX."

"The ability alteration must be tied to it then," Cellbit decides.

Jaiden shrugs halfheartedly, not glancing up from the files. "It might," she agrees, "or it might be somewhere with even higher clearance than what we found."

Cellbit pauses. "I thought this was the highest clearance."

"The highest clearance aside from Cucurucho's office," Bad reminds him.

It's why they needed this to work.

Cucurucho's office wasn't an option, not really. It would be next to if not impossible for them to get into the office by force, and no signals could get in or out of it. Only Pomme's telepathy could permeate the office walls, but never the Federation Workers or Cucurucho himself. That wasn't a risk they were willing to take, though.

Bad is confident he could take on most of the Federation in a fight. Cucurucho was the glaring exception to that.

"Bad," Jaiden calls, sounding pained as she grounds him back to the present, the E.G.G. experiment files under her hands, "Look."

With a heart that grows heavier by the second, he does.

The dead faces of the dozens of E.G.G.s look back, the experiments that killed them summarized in neat little bullet points beneath them.

He stops where she points, his eyes raking over the blank-faced little E.G.G., startling.

Their photograph is listed as taken only a week ago. But more glaringly, below that, their final trial date sits set four nights away.

Across the island, hidden away in some Federation building, another little E.G.G. waits patiently to die.

At the table, Badboyhalo begins to scheme.

---

Part 7 of ? First Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - El (6)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.)(or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: dehumanization, implied/referenced torture, loyalty, passing out

El hates this part of fucking up.

He shivers, his knees curled to his chest as he huddles around himself for warmth.

It doesn't help much. The room would be uncomfortably chilly even if he wasn't drenched, his hair plastered to the sides of his face and the back of his neck, and the clothes that hadn't been torn off him suctioned to his skin.

He shakes, a fine tremble to his hands. Goosebumps grow on every inch of his exposed, too-pale skin. The muscles in his back twist and clench, spasms so deep he has to bite his knuckles to keep from crying out.

He can still feel the electricity arching into his skin.

He takes deep, careful breaths as he tries to keep his heart under control. He curls up tighter, trying to preserve warmth as much as he can.

He knows what hypothermia looks like, what it feels like, and he isn't keen to relieve it any time soon. He'd shed layers if he thought he could get away with it, but there's no chance he'd be able to put them on convincingly enough by the time his supervisors return.

Chains rattle and, after a bit of delay he elects to blame on the possible brain damage, El startles at the noise. His head jerks up, his heart resuming its favorite game of how fast can we go until El passes out. He eyes the cell attached to the room warily.

Quackity shifts again, moving closer to the bars separating the stone floor of his cell and the tiles of El's office.

El's heart is beating fast because he's cold; his body's trying to warm him up. He isn't afraid, and definitely not of his...his--whatever Quackity is.

"You look like shit."

The islander meets his gaze nonchalantly. Blood crusts along the side of his face and, when he looks, there are bloodied bandages wrapped around his middle.

In a building that probably has an entire room devoted to health pots, they've both drawn the short end of the stick.

El takes a breath. It shakes and warps as it leaves his lungs, and his next inhale is loud enough that Quackity's eyes narrow.

The man leans back a bit, every inch of him invested in his false casualness even though El can see where the position twists his bandages painfully. El doesn't know why he does this, what it gives him. He isn't going to do anything to El, and for whatever reason he wants him to know it, to see it.

"They really did a number on you, man," Quackity says like he isn't regularly left with more of his insides on the outside just for fun. Or, science, probably. That sort of thing's above El's clearance.

"'m fine," El grits out, his tongue a lead weight in his mouth. He slurs more than snaps, "Worry about yourself."

"I am," Quackity says, his mouth curling up in a lazy smirk.

El wants to punch him in his stupid face.

He takes a breath instead and reminds himself that he's getting out of this mess much sooner than Quackity is. He takes another breath for good measure and feels like he should be able to see it with how cold the room has gotten.

He can't curl up any tighter so he just shivers, his teeth clicking a bit inside his skull. At least the cramps in his back have finally died down to only a faint twitching in the muscle.

"Why do you let them do that to you?"

El scoffs. He's not surprised Quackity sounds curious. "Someone like you wouldn't understand the first thing about loyalty."

Quackity sighs, a soft sound that El can barely hear.

"Alright, man," he says, settling back for the silence they both know is coming, "Whatever you say."

---

El stumbles forward.

His limbs weigh heavy, his fingers dragging to the earth like a magnet and his feet sticking to the ground like mud sucks at his boots.

His shivering feels more like seizing, a tremor that wracks every part of his body. His muscles would probably ache from the strain, if he could feel them at all.

The air is so cold he can feel it chilling his heart as he stumbles along the blessedly mob-free path. For so early in the morning, he'd been half-expecting to be shot dead the second he left the Federation base.

He's due some luck, he supposes.

Especially after being interrogated for god knows how long over something that definitely wasn't his fault. He doesn't know how those files disappeared or how he came to be on the suspect list, especially since they're way beyond his clearance level.

It could be worse.

If they hadn't decided he wasn't the traitor, if they hadn't believed him when he babbled near-incoherently in between their high-voltage incentives...

El shudders.

It could definitely be worse.

He keeps moving forward and, when he listens, he can make out the faint noises of the island waking up just ahead of him, footsteps and someone talking nervously.

Before he can say anything to let them know he's there--he does not want to deal with another arrow to the shoulder because he was a little too sneaky--El's foot catches on a loose stone and he trips. He just barely manages to catch himself on the trunk of a tree, the bark eating at the skin of his hands.

By the time he reorients himself, he looks up to find a crossbow leveled with his face. His breath stutters in his chest, but his fear is distant and hard to touch. Cold, like him. His heart beats shaky and slow.

He can see the moment they recognize him, the islander's gaze going from furiously murderous to very, slightly less murderous. The man lowers his weapon just a bit.

"Hey, El," Fit greets tensely, Ramón frowning at him from behind the islander's leg, "I don't usually see you out this early."

And it's true. Usually, El keeps inside until the sun has really crested in the sky, night mobs burned away with the daylight or hiding under trees and in ravines.

El shivers, the barest hints of the daylight just starting to peer over the horizon.

'You look like a ghost,' Ramón signs, his nose wrinkling, 'A very wet ghost.'

El doesn't respond, isn't sure what he'd even be expected to say. He just stares at them, a little more blankly than he intends.

"Seriously, though," Fit says, his eyebrows pinching together as he gives El a more thorough once-over, "You look a little pale, man. More than usual, I mean."

Hypothermia will do that to you, El's found.

"I'm fine," he tries to say. It barely sounds like words. "I'm just cold."

"Are you drunk?" Fit asks, amusement curling his lips even as suspicion narrows his eyes.

El starts to shake his head but screws his eyes shut when his brain decides to scream in protest inside his skull. The shivering makes it hard to hold himself up, even with the tree's help.

Ramón makes a curious noise, but when El glances up it's to Fit holding out a hand in front of the E.G.G., blocking his path. It's to be expected, really, but the islander's suspicion stings, especially since El can barely stand.

He half-expects the man to turn away, or take a shot at him anyway.

"You should come inside," Fit says instead, sounding conflicted.

El blinks at him confusedly.

Then, taking more than a second to look around, he realizes just how close to the man's base he really is.

"Inside?" he asks. Or, tries to.

He opens his mouth to ask, to be sure, because he isn't going to give them an excuse so prefect like wandering into one of their bases uninvited, and he feels the world tip sideways before he can say much of anything.

It could be worse, he tries to remind himself before everything dissolves into the darkness of sleep.

It could be worse.

---

Part 6 of ? First Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - Bad (5)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: violence, dehumanization, dead eggs mentioned, mentioned sickness/injury

Badboyhalo finds the files on accident.

He's scouring the earth, bloody claws shredding through the dirt and Federation workers lying still in his midst. A corpse gurgles like it's trying to tell him something, but these ones have nothing to say to him.

Before, he would have been careful. He was so, so careful to keep the Federation at arm's length, Dapper tucked into his side next to all of their secrets.

He doesn't regret the lengths he's gone to keep them off the Federation's radar, but...

It doesn't matter anymore.

He can't afford to sit idly, pretending to be the sort of person he isn't.

This, blood dripping down his arms and the taste of flesh caught between needlepoint teeth, this is who he needs to be. If not for the islanders, then for his son.

His son, who's limp and still and hot to the touch like magma is crusting underneath his skin, his Flame that won't stop burning in all the wrong directions.

His son, who hasn't been able to control it for months, his grip on his own abilities loosening with every passing day until it creeps up his arms like vines. Weeds, nestling around his chest and curling down his throat, burning his insides until even screaming took too much for him to do.

His son, who lies like a corpse under the watch of the Islanders he couldn't have afforded to trust before. He could have figured something else out, maybe, but it would have slowed him down. He might not have time to be slowed down by even the smallest of margins.

Ultimately, it was this:

Badboyhalo had a choice, and he chose his son.

He'd do it again in a heartbeat.

He'd do this again in a heartbeat, or maybe even less than that. The blood on his tongue tastes sweeter than he remembered, even in the stale air of doors long unopened.

Bad shoves past his own distraction, pulling open cabinets and flicking through paperwork until he catches sight of the acronym he needs.

E.G.G.

The first file opens to a picture, a little face that stares free from scars and the hardships of the island, a photo taken just after she had been given to her parents; he can see the Adoption Center blurred behind her wobbly grin. He remembers when they lost her, powers they didn't know she had growing in strength and hostility until she died in her bed, writhing in her father's arms.

Beneath the photograph, a lazy scrawl.

JuanaFlippa, it reads, FAIL

Further down, past text he doesn't have time to care about, Abilities: Unknown. Cause of death: Unkown.

Bad snaps the file shut and moves on to the next one.

Tilín's is a face he hasn't stopped seeing, the echoes of them pressed like an imprint into their father.

The photo is fresher, taken from a distance while they glare at Quackity with a playful disdain.

Tilín, it says, PASS

Bad stops for a moment, starts again.

Abilities: Fear Manipulation, Level 4

Fright Night, they'd called it with a toothy grin. It really was something else, something Bad had only once had the pleasure of being subjected to.

Cause of death: [XXXY] ability alteration, authorized by [XXXX]. Crossfire casualty

Charlie had never forgiven himself for the fear that had seeped out from the Skeletons they were fighting, catching Tilín in the midst of it with a sword through their chest. Even after Quackity had finally stopped trying to kill him, a reluctant concession that this was bigger than any of them, Charlie had never bounced back from it.

Ability alteration, though. That's...certainly something he doesn't have time to unpack. Food for thought, Bad supposes as he grabs Tilín and JuanaFlippa's files, tucking them under his arm.

The next file is just as morbid as he thought it would be, the photograph of a barely-visible and too-thin Trump probably taken a few weeks before he actually died. A stark FAIL is pressed just beside his name.

Abilities: Invisibility. Cause of death: Malnutrition, Neglect

Bad's heart aches inside his chest as much as it's able to. He remembers the grief the E.G.G.s had felt, the regret that had choked the islanders when they stumbled across his still-invisible, emaciated corpse that had begun to rot weeks after the fact.

The final file he flicks open is Bobby's, the little boy's wide grin staring directly into the Federation's camera. Bad's not surprised he knew it was there, even though Technopathy was really Leo's thing, feeling the electricity he was sure to move made some sense at least.

Bobby the file reads, and again, PASS

Abilities: Electrokinesis. Cause of death: [XXXY] ability alteration, authorized by [XXXX]. Direct casualty

Bad snaps the file up, adding it to JuanaFlippa and Tilín's.

There's something here, something he's going to find.

If it's the Federation that's killing his son, somehow, someway, he's going to put a stop to it.

---

Bad may have bitten off more than he can chew. Slightly.

In his defense, what with all the Flame in his life lately, he thought it would be funny. Ironic, even.

It is kind of funny, too, even though he doesn't have time to tear through the remaining E.G.G. files as the fires he set start to catch up to him.

He grabs the remaining E.G.G. files without flipping through them and starts to pry open the silver file case that even the high-level clearance badge he stole can't seem to open.

He grunts, his claws straining as he pulls, the image of his son and the dead E.G.G.s he refuses to let Dapper join fueling his efforts.

Finally, the file unlocks with a pop, the case click, click, clicking as he lifts the lid.

Beneath a glass panel, the title sheet is almost entirely blank, except for a small, careful scrawl.

Broadcaster Experiment, Authorized by [XXXX]

It's fairly innocuous, if you ignore how hidden the case was, but Bad can't help but feel like he's stumbled onto something big.

The case clicks under his hands, a steady click, click, click that seems to be getting louder and louder the more that he listens to it.

It's getting faster, too. Click, click, click, click, click.

It takes a moment too long before it--well, it clicks for Bad.

Then, eyes blowing wide, he grabs the case and tosses it as far into the corner of the room as he can, grabbing the files he set aside in his arms and rushing for the door.

The world seems to slow as he takes, one step, two steps, three steps, before the case explodes.

His ears ring, the armor on his back charred and hot where it touches his skin.

He pulls a health pot from his bag with shaking hands and downs it in one go, quick-footed as he hurries out of the burning and now half-exploded building.

Oops.

---

Part 5 of ? First Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - El (4)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: dehumanization, conflict, self-loathing

El really, really wishes he could have all of actual Quackity's skills.

One would think that being someone's clone--or whatever the change was that had made the nameless, faceless Federation Worker he was before into the person he is now--would give you that person's skills.

If El had even a modicum of Quackity's ability to fight, he probably wouldn't have had three arrows sticking out of him, only healed because Pomme had come prepared with spare potions in her backpack.

By some stroke of luck, they manage to get away from the monster relatively unscathed.

There's still at least ten minutes of forest left to walk through, mobs probably hiding around every corner, but they're not in immediate danger.

Pomme, insufferably, has decided to take advantage of their temporary safety by driving him insane.

'But why do you hate everyone?' Pomme signs with the sort of fearless curiosity that's going to get her killed one day.

El wishes he could get away with just turning away from her, pretending like he didn't see, but he's now well aware that she will tug on his pant leg until he trips.

"Because everyone fucking sucks," he says, scowling. That, at least, he doesn't have to fake.

He used to think that his superiors got on his nerves sometimes, but now that he knows the islanders he wishes he could go back to that blissful ignorance.

It's not like he can really be blamed for hating the islanders. They hated him first.

Nothing's really changed about that either. He knows that even the ones who aren't openly hostile are just waiting for him to be vulnerable, trusting.

It's not hard to keep his guard up, most of the time.

Pretty much every islander can be lumped into one of those two categories, with one glaring exception. Roier is in a tier of his own.

He's trying to kill El through the slow and incredibly painful method of annoying him to death.

Worst of all is that it's working.

Every time Roier drags him out to do something around the island, El can feel the cells in his brain withering away alongside his patience.

Seriously, El might end it all himself if the man takes him on one more glorified treasure hunt or drags El to his house to 'catch up' before roping him into some ridiculous scheme.

The man is insufferable.

Almost as insufferable as Pomme, who looks at him with painfully curious eyes and asks, 'Do you hate me?'

El stops short, literally stumbling to a stop.

"I--"

Pomme doesn't look disappointed, or even surprised.

She just asks, unfearingly, 'Is it because of Tilín?'

Pomme is lucky that she's talking to El who has to pretend to be upset at the mention of Quackity's daughter and not the man himself, who had more success trying to kill the E.G.G.s than the Federation ever has.

"Don't talk about her," he says, continuing their walk out of the forest, but he doesn't sound as snappish as he likes.

'Okay,' Pomme agrees, probably choosing the next item on her list of increasingly-upsetting things, 'Are you working with the Federation?'

Technically, the sign for the Federation is a combination of watching, evil, and mean, but he knows what she means.

The sign the E.G.G.s use isn't too hard to pick up, especially for someone like him who's always had an unusual skill for learning new languages, but sometimes he wishes he'd never bothered to learn it.

"Should you really be asking me that alone out in the woods?" El asks instead of yelling at her, but he probably should have started off by denying it. A rookie mistake.

Pomme looks at him, disappointed and a little surprised this time, and signs, 'You know they're evil! Why would you work for them? They're terrible!'

You're terrible, he wants to say, You're a monster we made by mistake.

He keeps his mouth shut tight as they near the treeline.

Emphatically, maybe even a little bit angrily, Pomme signs, 'You had so many friends! Why would you throw them all away!? The Federation hurts everyone!'

El thinks of Quackity, crumpled in a cell with more blood visible than skin.

He thinks of the monster in front of him, the parasites the Federation is trying to destroy.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he snaps, stalking through bushes that prickle and snare on his skin.

Pomme follows at his heels, staring at him, her eyes digging into his skin like tiny knives. Finally, they breach the treeline into open fields, the sun shining overhead. Having cleared the danger El should have left the E.G.G. in, he stops. His legs feel like lead beneath him.

'I'm sorry,' Pomme signs, her face painfully despaired.

El looks away.

(So is he.)

---

El should have left her at spawn.

Really, he should have left her in the forest, but at the very least he should have left her at spawn. His supervisors would be on him like bloodhounds if they knew he was being so irresponsible.

Unfortunately, he is susceptible to nagging, so he ends up setting course with Pomme all the way to the edges of La France.

He's not so susceptible that he agrees to go inside with her. He knows how it looks, him of all people trying to be alone with an E.G.G. He'd be lucky if all he got was a sword rammed through his gut.

Even if he could manage to convince her parents that he wasn't actively trying to kill her, the hassle wouldn't be worth it.

Now that he thinks about it, he's surprised they haven't already hunted her down swords-drawn.

"I'm not going inside," he says for the umpteenth time, unswayed by the near-teary disappointment on her face, "I doubt we'll even make it to your house before your parents show up anyways."

Pomme's face lights up and she signs, 'Oh! I commed them! They're waiting at home.'

El thinks about her insistence they go to spawn and feels suspiciously like he's been played.

If he weren't so fucking tired, he might appreciate her drive to join Roier in the annoying him to death category of islanders.

Not that she's really an islander, since the islanders are people.

"Great," El says flatly, relieved to finally pass through the borders of La France.

Then, spotting an islander before they spot him, El ducks behind a structure. He wouldn't want to fight Etoiles even if it wasn't in his own literal backyard. Pomme looks at him funny before spotting Etoiles too and grinning.

'Thank you for taking me home,' she signs, smiling so brightly it hurts, 'Bye!'

She's off like a shot before he can say a word.

He eyes the two of them from his comfortable distance, watching as Etoiles scoops her up into his arms and spins, laughing with audible relief. Pomme beams, her smile an eerie shadow of his.

Etoiles pops her back down on the ground and steadies her when she stumbles a bit. He says something quietly before leaning down and kissing her hair with a soft look on his face.

Her eyes sparkle with an identical warmth.

El turns away from them, his gut churning; he shouldn't be watching this.

He's seen enough, anyways.

Pomme isn't a person, and her stolen face is proof enough of that.

(El tries to keep from thinking about how his own face hadn't always been Quackity's, or how the bridge of his nose looks more like Roier's with every passing day.

It doesn't work.)

---

Part 4 of ? First Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - Leo (3)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: ptsd, the Federation, implied injury/illness

Leo is very much over this.

When her dad had dropped her off, depositing her and Ramon with Fit for a day of "fun and adventure," she had expected a treasure hunt at least.

Maybe a dungeon or two.

Not that he's amazing at fighting, or even really a fan of it, but it would be better than sitting around outside of a massive building waiting for an eternity until someone comes to unlock the door.

"They should be here by now," Fit says, like it's going to make Leo feel any better.

They just feel more annoyed. If there were even a little bit of actual technology in the stupidly huge doors, they would have yelled at it until it opened up.

She nudges Ramón, shoulders brushing, and he looks at her sleepily.

'Stop being tired,' Leo demands, reaching into his backpack to hand Ramón another bribe.

Ramón, who also favors the classy things in life, takes the netherite ingot from their hands and buries it in his backpack, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and rocking on his heels to wake up his brain.

'What do you want?' he asks, because he loves her. And money. He also loves money.

Leo grins. 'We've waited here a long time,' he says, adjusting his hat to contain his growing eagerness, 'I think we should get revenge.'

'On my dad?' Ramón asks, tilting his hands away from Fit without any hesitation. Money is money, after all.

Leo understands. She's going to give him something else later, just for being the best.

Fit gives them a suspicious look but elects to ignore them and keeps fiddling with his comm, probably yelling at people for leaving them outside forever.

'Maybe later,' Leo says, 'I think we need to get revenge on who's making us wait.'

Ramón nods agreeably, eyes already a little more awake.

'I have a lot of confetti,' Ramón tells him, and Leo pauses.

'Confetti?' she asks, making a face, too focused on pranks to remember why she's stuck with Fit in the first place, 'Why?'

It's Ramón's turn to make a face this time and he doesn't have to say anything else, because Leo knows what he means the moment he does. They kind of wish they didn't.

'I was going to throw it on Dapper,' he says anyway.

Confetti was a choice, but it was a pretty easy choice too. Leo should have gone for something like that. Maybe a bunch of gold leaf? It would be pretty funny.

Instead, Leo, who definitely would rather pay someone else to bake a cake than do it himself, had made a sugar-mash-thing that resembled a cake just because he thought Dapper might want one.

Not that it really matters now, since their cake is smashed at the bottom of a ravine. It was kind of impressive how much it had splattered.

Leo never gave Dapper the cake she made, and Ramón never covered him in confetti. Their 'surprise, you woke up and aren't dead' party had been a total bust.

It's annoying, is what it is. Even Ramón is scowling, a little bit.

If Dapper were here, Leo bets that the doors would be open.

(If Dapper were here, she wouldn't be here in the first place. Her dad wouldn't be tearing the island apart with Bad, and Fit wouldn't be watching them with a really badly-disguised concern.)

Leo really, really hates the Federation.

---

Leo does not hate Walter Bob.

He's...weird.

He's pretty bad at Hide and Go Seek, which Fit said was the whole point of going to Pac and Mike's giant build. Even though Leo and Ramón both know that he really just wanted to hang out with Pac, she does want to at least play one good round, so she decides to teach him.

He actually learns the game really fast, and Leo hides with him in a spot they know Ramón is never going to find. Even they probably would take a while to find it if they were Seeking.

Walter Bob is a pretty decent Hide and Go Seek-er, she decides as she sits next to him in their perfect hiding spot.

It's kind of weird, staring at the scribbles Mike drew on Walter Bob's mask, but it's less weird than just looking at the blank mask.

All of the Federation Workers wear them, smooth white masks that cover all of their face. You can't even see an inch of skin anywhere, with the weird white suits and thick black gloves and boots.

It's probably really hot under there, especially since they're both hiding next to the lava room.

'I want to know somehting' Leo writes, placing his sign so the (Ex?) Federation Worker can see.

Walter Bob, who doesn't know egg sign language, pulls out a sign of his own. 'Okay. What do you want to know?' it reads.

They take a second to read it, and then stop. Do they really want to know?

He already has nightmares about it, but he is very curious. And, he knows the other eggs want to know too.

'Do yuo have a face?'

She's pretty sure Walter Bob is smiling under his mask right now, which is definitely a good sign.

'I do!' his next sign reads and Leo takes a massive breath of relief.

He's been imagining what they look like without faces for a while, and it's creepy.

Leo demands, 'Why do you cover your face then?'

Then, when Walter Bob takes too long to respond, they plop down a second sign. 'Are you ugly?'

She thinks Walter Bob is probably laughing inside right now. Unless he really is ugly. That would be sad.

'It's Federation rules,' Walter Bob explains, 'Federation Workers all wear this.'

That sucks. Leo doesn't even like wearing armor when it gets too hot. No wonder Walter Bob doesn't like his bosses.

Also probably because they're awful and evil and terrible.

'Does Cucurucho hae a face?' she asks.

He wishes he didn't say anything, since Walter Bob flinches and Leo immediately feels like a jerk.

Leo puts down another sign, insisting that they go and start a new round since Ramón is taking forever, and slips her last remaining netherite ingot to Walter Bob before Fit finally takes her home.

'Jerk tax,' he signs, when Ramón asks about his sudden lack of netherite.

Walter Bob's flinch stays as stuck in their brain as Dapper lying in his bed like a corpse. They want to punch Cucurucho in the face.

She fucking hates the Federation.

---

Part 3 of ? First Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - El (2)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

TW: dehumanization

El is just doing his job.

Or, at least, he's trying to.

It's not a particularly nice job, but that's just how life is.

You deal with the cards you're dealt, and sometimes the cards you're dealt fucking suck. His only saving grace is that his cards are considerably better than actual Quackity's.

El tries not to listen to him much, the few moments they're allowed in the same space, but at least he gets to keep all of his organs consistently inside of his skin.

And so far, his job hasn't been terrible.

Most of the islanders are pretty fucking suspicious, and often more than a little hostile, but he hasn't had to actually do anything terrible.

Or, he hasn't actually done anything terrible, because no one really expected the explosion to actually work. It was a test of his loyalty, apparently, and he'd passed.

He doesn't think about what would have happened if he'd listened to that voice that insisted children didn't deserve to die.

Besides, it's not like the E.G.G.s are really kids anyways. They're not even people, just crude imitations wearing tiny bodies.

They might have tricked their parents with their familiar faces, but El knows how they were made. There's nothing human about them and they'd be nothing but faceless husks of creatures if they didn't have their parent's features to steal.

The Federation was testing him then, but it's clear they've grown tired of the parasites that are the E.G.G.s, even if the islanders have welcomed them into their homes like fools.

He doesn't know exactly what's being done, most of the current plans made over his head and out of earshot, but he knows they're going to involve him in the next stage of it.

Something like satisfaction swirls in his chest.

He's finally proven himself to the Federation, proven that he knows the truth and isn't being swayed by the E.G.G.s, and they're going to let him help in their plan to finally rid the island once and for all from the super-powered monsters they made.

---

El curses his luck.

His mission for the day had passed easily,  too easily, and he should have known that something would come up to throw a wrench in things.

That something, of course, being the hulking 12-foot-tall warped skeleton creature that had been hiding conveniently out of sight behind a ledge he had ducked around on his way back to spawn, opting to crawl along the side of the mountain to avoid the mob-filled forest.

An arrow embeds itself in dirt and soft stone half an inch away from his face. The creature shrieks a rattling, ear-piercing scream that seems to echo inside his skull.

El's lungs burn, his heart speeding inside his chest as he decides actually, fuck it and races between the trees to lose his pursuer.

His feet slam into unstable ground, each step sending a reverberating shock through his knees as he twists through the forest.

It isn't long at all before he has to pull himself around the other side of a tree to catch his breath.

He finds his mind humorlessly caught on a joke Roier had made just a few nights before when a few extra feet of falling had left his legs shaky for hours, something the man had said lightly, poking at his "fragile disposition."

For all that El had defended himself honorably, the words hold an uncomfortable amount of truth to them. He wasn't built for this.

His lungs ache, something deep with a rattling wheeze, and he has to hold his breath to make the world quiet enough for him to be sure that the monster isn't chasing him anymore.

Or, if it is, it's at least far away enough that he doesn't need to worry about it.

He spends way too long leaning on the tree and trying to breathe, long enough that the sun's ticked further along the sky by the time he finally starts making his way back to spawn again.

It's fine.

He's just going to be more careful and avoid having to run. Through the monster-infested forest. By himself. Before it gets dark.

It's fine.

---

El's nearly cleared the forest when it happens.

The trees have been blessedly silent and still as he made his way to the edge, the only noise the rustle of the wind through the leaves and the occasional bird.

Of course, just before he can be rid of the trees, a noise rings out that stops him in his tracks.

It's a shriek, a very familiar, teeth-rattling shriek.

And it's close.

El's already pulled himself behind one of the few sizable trees this close to the edge of the forest, waiting, waiting, waiting, before his head catches up to him and he realizes the monster isn't close enough to be coming after him.

When he listens closely, he finds he can make out the sounds of a scuffle and then, horrifyingly, the sound of quick-footed steps rushing towards him.

He tries to think quickly, crouching low to the ground.

He could wait out the monster, let it chase its prey until they got away or it eventually died. Alternatively, he could throw himself directly into the path of danger by getting involved.

It isn't hard to see which option is better.

Though, it might be worth it if only to get the Islanders to trust him. No matter how minuscule, every bit of faith they put in him was another chance at helping the Federation with the new mission.

The only problem, of course, is the fact that he's more likely to become a liability than a help in a fight or a chase.

He doesn't know what to do, what would be best, and he can't turn to his supervisors since they only listen in when there's something serious happening these days. He's not sure they'd even answer if he called.

He tries to think through his options, his heart picking up in speed as the footsteps and shrieking get louder, but his mind is blurry and his thoughts all stick together.

Apparently, though, El doesn't have to make that choice, because his hand is already moving, grabbing the player and pulling them next to him behind the tree and out of the monster's path.

It won't work for long--there's a reason the islanders run and fight instead of hiding--but it'll give El time to come up with a plan if the other player doesn't have one.

Only, as he turns to meet the other player's gaze, he finds himself having to look lower and lower and lower until--

Fuck.

It's Pomme, her crimson apple-hat blending in seamlessly with the patch of red that stains her hair. Her eyes are wide when she meets his and El tries not to grit his teeth or throw her back in the monster's sight without thinking about it.

"Where are your parents?" he hisses, his hackles raised.

'We got separated by a zombie-group hiding in the trees. I was running back to spawn,' she signs, her hands shaking. Then, more fervently, 'There's a monster!'

"And you brought it right behind you," El snaps, half-ready to actually leave her to fend for herself like his supervisors would insist, her fear uncomfortably human.

Only, he remembers that, technically, he brought the monster to this part of the woods.

It wouldn't be fair to leave her to face the still-shrieking monster alone, person or not.

Besides, the amount of paperwork he'd have to file if she actually died would be a nightmare.

At that point, it might just be easier to save her.

El groans, wraps a hand tightly around Pomme's wrist, and pulls out his sword like he actually knows how to use it.

---

Part 2 of ? First/Previous Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

what am i if not a dog - Philza (1)

(or: the E.G.G.s have superpowers. this, surprisingly, is only the beginning of El's problems.) (or: or: El Quackity gets rehabilitated like a rabid dog, Quackity yoinks his evil little brother, and A1 is safe and sound at the end of things)

tw: nightmares, body horror, fear

Philza meets them in a dream.

(He won’t recognize them until much, much later.)

He's wandering forward, hacking through the underbrush with a blade that struggles to cut, lost in a part of the island he's never seen. The foliage is rough, trapping and hard to describe. Creatures laugh somewhere distant as something shrieks an unforgiving death.

Tallulah clings to his heels, wide-eyed and watching the unfamiliar world with a familiar fear.

She grows quieter with every step, the same sort of creeping quietness Wilbur had when he was terrified, when he woke with gasping breaths Phil could never steady.

Tallulah eyes the sky and Philza follows her gaze to spot the moon, still in the same spot it was when they entered the wilds all those hours ago.

Wilbur's eyes widen inside Tallulah's face, but Philza turns away from the sky. It doesn't matter.

It's just the moon.

Chayanne strays behind a bit, his sword at the ready, but his scarred hands shake in a way Philza rarely sees.

His eyes are steeled as he insists they turn around for the umpteenth time, but his hands babble and mutter incoherently. The sign he eventually places blurs, the letters crumpling as they're written.

Philza isn't oblivious.

The fear is nearly as thick as the air, hot and humid, and clinging to their armor like tar.

There's nothing chasing them, no reason not to turn around, but the reasons to move forward seem so incredibly enticing, the promise of something just out of reach.

Philza ruffles Chayanne's hair, the same gold growing from both of their heads and dusting Tallulah's roots, and his son does not argue.

Tallulah does little more than tighten her grip on Philza's armor.

Even his children cannot resist the promise in the wind.

They press forward, midnight moths lulled closer by the sweet call of a fiery death, and the stars stay frozen in the sky.

The moon lights the ground before them, a path made clear the longer he looks at it.

The trees around them start to blur as they move deeper into the jungle, bark and leaves bleeding into the air, water poured on a drying painting.

The ground sticks to their feet, their boots schluck, schluck, shcluck ing with every step.

Philza feels far, his focus pulled and stretched, but he freezes in time with his children's identical flinches.

Something screams, sharp and there in a way nothing else seems to be. It's as loud as Tallulah's Song, echoing inside his bones.

The scream dies out, choked and pained, and the jungle goes silent and still.

Then, the sky begins to swirl.

The stars spin like all the time passed in the jungle is catching up to them at once, and the moon blinks.

It flickers, like the universe is closing its eyes, once, twice, and then--

Darkness is all he can see. The air tastes of copper and smoke, thick and heavy on his tongue. A chill prickles his skin.

The little hand on his armor vanishes and he barely has the presence of mind to remember how that matters.

"Tallulah?" Philza tries to call, his voice muddled and warped like an underwater scream, "Chayanne?"

Like a wave crashing suddenly over an unsuspecting shore, the fear rushes at him, pulling him off his feet.

He hits the jungle floor without a noise, armor clinking soundlessly in the silent world.

Philza scrambles up, the only noise his own voice as he calls again, "Tallulah!? Chayanne!?"

He reaches out sightlessly, trying to find his kids, where the fuck are his kids?

He stumbles forward, the trees around him gone with the light, and moves forward through the plains.

Branches snap under his feet, thick and hollow under his boots.

He keeps moving, drawn ever closer to the call of the night, his only relief in the truth that he'll find his children there.

Something sobs, the sound too clear in the bleeding world, and Philza freezes as one of his children barrels into his side.

They cling to him, holding tightly like they're terrified to let go.

"It's okay," Philza says, his voice still not quite his own, "You're alright."

The moon flickers again before lighting the world with a brilliant glow. Philza doesn't pay it any mind, frozen where he stands.

The child in his arms isn't his.

It's an E.G.G., he knows that before he knows anything else, but the child isn't either of his. They aren't someone he's seen before.

They have Chayanne's eyes, and a face that wears Tallulah's despair like a well-fitting glove. Richarlyson's hair falls from their head in curls and they stand exactly as tall as Pomme.

They're an E.G.G. more than any E.G.G. Philza's had the pleasure of meeting.

They flicker, for a second, but Philza barely pays it any mind. For a moment, skin stretches over empty sockets, the bump of what might be a nose poking out. He can see where their jaws try to pull open, skin pulling taught over their face, but he doesn't care.

That isn't what draws dread and bile up his throat, something like horror churning in his chest as his attention flicks away from them.

Because there, just behind where the little E.G.G. clings to his leg, are the freshly-snapped bones of his children, no thick branches anywhere in sight.

His bootprint presses the shattered pieces of Chayanne's hand into the dirt.

---

Philza wakes with a scream caught in his throat, choking on his own breaths and scrambling at his sheets until he's free.

He breathes heavily, taking stock of the walls of his home around him, a dream, a dream, just a dream on a loop until his heartbeat begins to still beneath his ribs.

He's quick to move to where his children lie asleep, slow and calm and quiet in the night.

He breathes relief to see them safe and sound and alive, something like a sob pulling free from his chest.

Chayanne, who sleeps like the restless dead, grumbles something resembling a sound.

"Go back to sleep," Philza says and, ever trusting, Chayanne does.

Philza stays there, a silent sentinel, until the moon fades from the skyline and the sun peers over the horizon.

---

Part 1 of ? Next

[golden-feathers-fall]

i like the idea of q variants having a birthmark where cquackitys scar is.... ^_^

[golden-feathers-fall]

Everyone please think about fit carrying sleeping ramon and sunny home after a long day of playing at the park

[golden-feathers-fall]

Simple Brainrot wasn't enough no no, My brain had to convince me to plan seasonal outfits for this subpar series I never actually finished

(Thank you to @catzgam3rz for pushing me to post this and yelling at me whenever I showed you the finished product :p)

Versions with just the outfits (Like the second Aphmau) Under the cut!