#andy sez

[gayhillzone]

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Mosaic - "Ever The Pessimist"

Earliest evidence posted on November 29th, 2007

Story - Logan Rogan Script, Colours, Letters - wadapan Art - Andy Short

deviantART

wada sez: This is it, folks, we’re almost at the end: tomorrow will be the last post on the archive! But as for this strip—writer Logan Rogan clearly had a soft spot for Dreadwind and Darkwing, as for BotCon 2009, he self-published a full-length comic starring the characters: “Limelight: Dreadwind”. This one-page strip, however, was seemingly never completed; I found the finished lineart over on Andy Short’s deviantART, and hoped to track down the original script—but sadly, Short seems to have left the Transformers community, per his inactivity over on TFW2005, while Logan Rogan simply did not reply to my @ on twitter. Without a script to go off, I decided to try and reverse-engineer what the story in the comic might’ve been like, writing my own dialogue to suit the artwork. Keep reading for a full process breakdown.

From the character designs, it’s obvious that this strip is set in IDW continuity; Dreadwind and Darkwing appeared as part of a Decepticon infiltration unit on the planet Nebulos in Stormbringer (identifiable as the setting of this strip by the architecture of the alien city). They had a fairly minor role in the story, with the Nebulos scenes mostly serving to set the stakes for what Thunderwing might do to Cybertron. Darkwing seems to be the leader of the gang; he orders a token resistance against the monster to satisfy Megatron, planning to flee the moment things get rough.

They’re last seen in issue #3, seemingly having escaped—but in the artwork in this strip, Dreadwind is in a crater for some reason. There’s not a moment in the canonical events where this could’ve taken place, so they must’ve had one last run-in with Thunderwing as he was leaving.

I sketched out the rough shape of the script on my phone while doing some shopping. Here’s what I wrote:

Panel 1

DREADWIND: He’s coming BACK to finish us off.

DREADWIND (CONT’D): You know, I used to ADMIRE that guy. When the war was at its peak, he was like, “We are going to DESTROY this planet.” And he was so SURE of it. He literally turned himself into a MONSTER so HE could be the one to do it.

DREADWIND (CONT’D) : When you think about it, he was the ULTIMATE PESSIMIST.

Panel 2

DARKWING: He’s GONE back to Cybertron. RAZORCLAW is preparing to fight him.

DREADWIND: They’ll lose.

DARKWING: Megatron DOESN’T LOSE.

Panel 3

DARKWING: Look, we did it! Forget about phases 1-5, ol’ Thunderwing just took us straight to phase six. Mission accomplished.

Panel 4

DREADWIND: Megatron will see right through us, you know that? We FAILED to stop Thunderwing, and worse than that, we hardly even TRIED. Face it, we were never going to die to aliens or Autobots. It was always going to be our own team, breaking us down for scrap. That’s all we’re good for.

Panel 5

DARKWING: Right. Well are you gonna get up, or-

DREADWIND: -I’m up, I’m up.

Panel 6

DREADWIND: I bet all the good stuff got incinerated.

DARKWING: You never change, do you? EVER THE PESSIMIST.

My only requirement with the script was that I wanted to incorporate the title directly into the story, because I always liked it when Mosaic strips did that.

So yeah, fairly close to what I ended up with, I just tightened it up in a few places as I was getting it on the page. In Stormbringer itself, Dreadwind barely gets a speaking line; in fact, at one point I considered making Dreadwind near-silent, with most of the script just being Dreadwind’s inner monologue. You can imagine how this might’ve worked:

DREADWIND (NARRATION): He’s coming back to finish us off.

DARKWING: Looks like he’s gone back to Cybertron. They’re going to fight him.

DREADWIND (NARRATION): They’ll lose.

I liked the idea of Darkwing kind of reading his brother’s mind, while Dreadwind is so lost in his own sullenness that he’s constantly coming up with new worse-case scenarios in his head. In the end, I felt like the comic itself didn’t support the interpretation of Dreadwind as a particularly introspective character. In particular, Dreadwind later shows up (and dies) under Mike Costa’s pen, and during that appearance, he’s very talkative!

In the end, I tried to pitch the tone of the dialogue at exactly the halfway point between Simon Furman’s style in Stormbringer, and James Roberts’ style in More than Meets the Eye. The colouring style was also intended to fall halfway between Josh Burcham’s work on the former and Joana Lafuente’s work on the latter. This is because Skullcruncher, another member of the Nebulos infiltration unit, later reappeared as a stand-up comedian in More than Meets the Eye issue #45. I liked the idea that the rest of his infiltration crew are More than Meets the Eye characters by extension, if that makes any sense.

For the lettering, I simply referenced Robbie Robbins’ work on the original comic, using those rounded-rectangle speech bubbles with little nicks in the corners. I also looked to the original comic for inspiration for the colours, though obviously I can’t remotely compete with Burcham’s work. I spent a lot of time building up the atmosphere of the flames. In the final panel, there’s a dismembered arm, which I decided to identify as belonging to Ruckus by colouring it purple. To the Jack Lawrence reading this, sorry not sorry!

I wanted to do a character study of Dreadwind by taking his pessimism seriously, drawing a parallel between him and Thunderwing. Much of Stormbringer has an oddly straightforward environmentalist bent, and I wanted to inject some of my own cynicism regarding the future.

In the first panel, I wanted Dreadwind to say “he actually did it the absolute madlad”, but it just didn’t feel right for him to use the word “lad”, it would’ve been too human in that moment.

I liked the idea that, from Darkwing’s perspective, they kind of end up in a best-case scenario: they survive Thunderwing, and he practically does their job for them, cutting short what could’ve been years of boring subterfuge. Of course, Dreadwind would never see it that way!

The irony of the story, as I’ve scripted it, is something that would’ve been impossible for the story to account for as originally written in 2007—namely, although Dreadwind is mostly wrong in his predictions (Thunderwing is really gone, Megatron is really going to win, the Decepticons seemingly won’t care about anything that happened on Nebulos), he’s right in the worst way: both Darkwing and Dreadwind really will end up being ripped apart by their fellow Decepticons and used for spare parts, and it will be personal.

On another level, I think I wanted to inject a little bit of my own mixed feelings towards the Mosaic archive as a whole. Like, in the context of this project, I’m just a talker—people like Rogan, and Short, and all the others, they were doers. But now’s not quite the time to get into it. If you check back tomorrow, I’ll have much more to say on the experience of curating this archive. See you then...

[lasudio]

StrangeSpot, Round Fifteen: Loner

The main event for this round was Ajay being contacted by Sara Bellum, a student at La Fiesta Tech. She explains that she’s writing a paper on lycanthropy and wants to have a conversation with him, as a primary source. Ajay agrees - as a journalist, he’s impressed at Sara’s initiative in tracking him down. He invites her for dinner and she brings along her brother Andy (making sure Sara isn’t meeting up with some weirdo).

Sara: “Lycanthrope transformations cause a simultaneous increase in energy and decrease in hunger. In the past, hunting for food was required to satiate their needs, but modern day lycanthropes can just order several cheeseburgers to go. Fascinating!”

Andy: “Hey Sez, he’s got SSX!”

End of round fifteen x

[whatsonmedia]

Thursday Thrills: Summer Festival Extravaganza Starts Today!

July is here, and the festival season is in full swing! From music festivals to food festivals to cultural celebrations, there's something for everyone to enjoy this month. So step out into the sunshine, embrace the warm weather, and let the magic of July take you on a journey of discovery. Big Love Festival 14 – 16 July Big Love Festival is an independent music festival held in the beautiful hills of the Welsh Valleys. The festival is known for its eclectic lineup of live dance music, woodland discos, circus & cabaret, and street food. This year's lineup features some of the biggest names in electronic music, including DJ Marky ft LowQui, DJ Yoda, A-Skillz, The Orb, The Skints, and CVC. There will also be performances from Mad Apple Circus, Midnight Zu, Johnny Cage & The Voodoo Groove, Katalyst b2b Ransom, Natty Lou, Double A Side, Gene On Earth, Marc Parsons, Matt Owen, Tom Auton & Bottlebreakers, and Banshi. In addition to the music, Big Love Festival also offers a variety of other activities, such as yoga, workshops, and a silent disco. There is also a dedicated children's area, making Big Love Festival a great family-friendly event. If you're looking for a weekend of independent music, love, and laughter, then Big Love Festival is the perfect place for you. Tickets are on sale now, so don't miss out!Tickets & More Info> biglovefestival.co.uk Funk Up The Farm 14 – 17 July Back to the Future is a 3-day drum & bass rave festival in Kentisbury, North Devon. With a capacity of just 1,000 people, it's a small festival with a big heart. The lineup is stacked with some of the biggest names in the scene, and there will be no massive queues or walking for miles. Just three days of pure unadulterated rave. In addition to the music, Back to the Future will also have a variety of other activities, such as workshops, yoga, and a silent disco. There will also be a dedicated children's area, making Back to the Future a great family-friendly event. So if you're looking for a weekend of dancing, fun, and good vibes, then Back to the Future is the festival for you. Tickets are on sale now, so don't miss out!Tickets & More Info> funkupthefarm.com Soul Sessions Festival 15 July Soul Sessions Festival is a one-day dance party in the beautiful surroundings of Colesdale Farm in Hertfordshire. The festival is family-friendly and features a lineup of over forty artists playing house, tribal/soulful house, amapiano, and UK garage. The lineup for this year's festival is incredible, featuring some of the biggest names in the soul scene, such as Booker T, David Bailey, Groove Assassin, Kismet, Mark Radford, Masterstepz, Neil Pierce, DJ Spoony, Supa D Feat Cold Steps, Sy Sez, Wookie, Angie B, Antony Ranz, Buzzard, Carlos Aries, CKP, Mc Fro, Gemini, Gavin Peters, Lady T, Love Precious, Missfly, N:Fostell, Knowledge, Noushii D, Nse, Onyx Stone, Owen James, Paul Fist Funk, Petchy, Petite, Pivotal The Wizard, Secret Agent, Mc Snoops, Solly Brown, Teaser, Terminal 4, Tippa, Ubiquity, Wesley Jay, Wigman, and Dj Zigz. If you're looking for a day of dancing, fun, and good vibes, then Soul Sessions Festival is the perfect place for you. Tickets are on sale now, so don't miss out! Tickets & More Info> wearesoulsessions.com Beat-Herder 13 – 16 July Beat-Herder Festival is a popular music festival held in the Ribble Valley, Lancashire, England. It has been running since 2006 and has grown in popularity over the years, with a capacity of over 20,000 people in 2023. The festival has a diverse lineup of music artists, including Alison Goldfrapp, Bad Boy Chiller Crew, Bcuc, Cloonee, Confidence Man, Sarah Story, Dub Pistols, Stanton Warriors, Eats Everything, Ewan Mcvicar, Friction, Gardna, Gerd Janson, Hannah Laing, Have Mercy Las Vegas, Horace Andy & The Dub Asante Band, Seb Fontaine, Tall Paul, John Haycock, Jungle Brothers, Lf System, Pendulum, Peter Hook & The Light, K-Klass, Mr. Scruff, Bad, Skream, State Of Satta, Venbee, Wilkinson, and many more. In addition to the music, Beat-Herder Festival also has a variety of other activities, such as workshops, circus performances, and a silent disco. There is also a dedicated children's area, making Beat-Herder Festival a great family-friendly event. If you're looking for a weekend of music, fun, and good vibes, then Beat-Herder Festival is the perfect place for you. Tickets are on sale now, so don't miss out! Tickets & More Info> beatherder.co.uk Read the full article

[indizombie]

In November 2016, Modi performed a high-voltage stunt: He outlawed 86% of the country’s cash, presumably to unearth illicit wealth. People queued up for days to return their worthless notes. New currency was in short supply. Small businesses couldn’t pay workers. Ultimately, demonetization was a fruitless exercise. Most of the outlawed money came back to banks, but the pain Modi inflicted on society helped launch his cult. As Arvind Subramanian, then Modi’s chief economic adviser, would argue later in a book, sacrifice, “as a necessary condition for achieving a larger, loftier objective,” resonated with the population because it harked backed to Mahatma Gandhi’s strategies during India’s freedom struggle. That elevation of Modi in the public consciousness was a turning point in the citizen-state relationship. Unquestioning devotion was in; critical examination was out. Gone was the pre-poll promise of “minimum government, maximum governance.” The dirigisme of the ’60s and ’70s was back. “We are now entering the politics of ‘permanent revolution’,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a political scientist and commentator, presciently warned after Modi’s currency ban. Since then, the government’s whimsical decision-making has intensified. Don’t like what a consumption survey shows? Suppress it. Getting flak for a slowing economy? Publish unbelievably rosy GDP data. Think Covid could get out of control? Impose a nationwide lockdown on four-hours notice. Before IL&FS went belly up, the overextended Indian private sector was putting up a brave face, chanting “Modi, Modi,” and trying to retain its best assets with cheap refinancing. Now the entrepreneur just wants to avoid going to jail. Economic power is concentrating in fewer hands. When I was growing up, telecommunications was a government monopoly. Then came a bustling wireless market hosting a dozen operators. Now the player count is once again down to three effectively. One of them is in serious stress, and the other says it may not be able to bid for 5G spectrum next year. Another private group is establishing a chokehold on seaports and airports, which also were once the state’s preserve. Conglomerates may also be allowed to enter banking because government-run lenders don’t have capital to grow. For my generation, swapping one form of concentration with another doesn’t look like progress.

Andy Mukherjee, ‘Why I’m Losing Hope in India’, Bloomberg

[blakegopnik]

COPIED 1,000 TIMES BY THE MSCHF COLLECTIVE, ANDY WARHOL’S QUEER DRAWING GETS THE PLAY HE WANTED FOR IT

THE DAILY PIC is a 1958 (sez I) drawing by Andy Warhol, much in the news of late because it was bought by the Brooklyn collective called MSCHF for (sez they) $20,000, then immaculately copied 999 times by a robot arm. MSCHF then shuffled the original into the copies, until even they didn’t know which was which, and sold all 1,000 objects for $250 each — earning a  nice profit in the process.

I did a radio interview about the project this morning on the Marketplace Morning Report, claiming that MSCHF’s undermining of authorship, in this case, actually proved how fundamental authorship (and other invisibles) are to the uses we make of so called “aesthetic” objects.

Unique authorship even allows an excellent project like MSCHF’s to take place!

One thing I didn’t have time to talk about, however, was the joy Warhol might have felt at MSCHF’s work. Not because of the obvious links it had to his own, dedicated undermining (and thus reaffirming!) of authorship, but because of the simple fact that this image of queer lust and culture got copied 999 times, then disseminated so widely in the culture.

The drawing almost certainly has close links to “In the Bottom of my Garden” — originally called “The Fairy Book” — a series of naughty, wildly queer images which Warhol put on show in a gallery in December of 1958 and also turned into an offset-printed chapbook. The drawings and book barely sold, flopping as dismally as all the rest of of Warhol’s distinctly queer art of the 1950s, which he dared to release into a country that could hardly bear the thought of men loving men. That’s one reason he made the turn to Pop Art, whose queerness was too subtle for most viewers to note.

But now, more than six decades later, Warhol’s “fairy”  image can go viral — with a bit of help from some Brooklyn conceptualists.

For a full survey of past Pics visit blakegopnik.com/archive.

[pushermania]

(Pushermania Network)

I truly pray that you enjoy this and that this brings you some joy in these crazy times. I love you all!

Tracklist:

TLC - No Scrubs - Qlaque Ampiano Remix Simen Sez - Champagne Navajo

Conway the Machine - Stressed Lil Boosie - Diary of a Madman Fat Tony - Antibacterial

Horace Andy - Jah Provide Badda General & Soul Stereo - The Herbs Eek-A-Mouse - On My Way To Memphis Kingston All Stars - Swing Back - Tribute to Mikey Chung

CG5 - The NFT Man

Gam - Mirror Pep Talks Hanibal Buress, Haile Supreme - Paradox The Suffers - How Do We Heal ft. Son Little and Bryce The Third

Lil Art - I Snatch Your Soul Santi and Tugce - Minotauro DJ Latop - Gouyad Intentado

Mette Rasmussen & Sofia Jernberg - Live at Cafe Oto

Hatis Noit - Fernweh

Kee Avil - Devil's Sweet Tooth 38Kea - Ovul Headed Boy feat. Derit Julian Andreas - Like a Snake

DJ Pedrin, DJ LK Da Escocia E Breno - Esse E Ladrao - Trava No Pose E Faz Carao Toiret Status - #144 Mean Jolene - Sick of Love Illuminati Hotties - Sandwich Sharer

YO STRAIGHT UP I AM DOING #14 IN THE NEXT COUPLE DAYS CUZ I BEEN OFF SO LONG AND HAVE SO MUCH MUSIC TO PLAY FOR YOU. PLEASE SHARE THIS AND TELL A FRIEND TO LISTEN THESE ARE CRUCIAL TIMES AND THIS IS THAT MUSIC THAT WE ALL NEED (that being said... I would LOVE to know how you feel about the second hour. I know you will like the first, yes you, I know for sure).

[doomandgloomfromthetomb]

Joan Shelley - Live At The Bomhard

Hey hey, this is going to be a Bandcamp Monday mega-post! I’ve been liking that some artists are using the platform to release live stuff (especially when live shows are not happening currently). Here are a few recent things I’ve enjoyed. 

When I heard a few recordings of Joan Shelley’s full band late last year, I joked that I was going to need a double live LP of the group. Well, here it is (minus the physical product, of course). This fantastic hour of music captures Joan with the Best Hands Band: Nathan Salsburg, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Nathan Bowles, Anna Krippenstapel -- plus guest appearances from Bonnie Prince Billy and Julia Purcell. Together, they all re-imagine Joan’s songs in splendid and sensitive fashion. The Sinatra cover is the icing on the cake ... 

Tom Carter - Long Time On The Road

Tom Carter’s Long Time Underground is one of the more mindblowing electric guitar records of the past decade or so -- and Long Time On The Road gives us a whole bunch more of that particular vibe. More than four hours worth! It’s a lot to dig through, but Carter is almost always astonishing, finding radical new textures and layers and sounds. Time stops, expands, speeds up and slows down. 

Chris Forsyth with Garcia Peoples - Peoples Motel Band

A killer selection of live Forsyth, with Ryan Jewell and Garcia Peoples in tow. This collective find an expressway straight to yr skull, whether they’re drifting through “The Past Ain’t Passed” or jamming ecstatically on an often-unbelievable 20-minute “Dreaming In The Non-Dream.” I had been looking forward to seeing Forsyth live (for the first time!) at the end of March. We all know how that turned out, but Peoples Motel Band is easing my disappointment plenty. 

Luna - Tell Me Do You Miss Me

A belated soundtrack to the documentary of the same name, Tell Me Do You Miss Me cherrypicks some highlights from Luna’s last tour in 2004 and 2005 (before reuniting a few years back). Totally glorious stuff, including lots of classic Wareham/Eden guitar situations. Eden’s solo on “Bewitched” in particular is exquisite. And the extended “Black Postcards” is an essential Luna jam ... 

Sonic Youth - Live at Cabaret Metro, Chicago, IL 2002

Sonic Youth recently put up a bunch of live tapes on Bandcamp! These were (almost) all previously available on Nugs.net, but now we don’t have to say Nugs.net anymore. Everything is absolutely golden, but if you need a place to start, why not with this O’Rourke/Murray Street-era gig? As good as Murray Street is, I think you’ll find that live versions of tunes like “Rain On Tin” and “Disconnection Notice” leave their studio counterparts in the dust. 

Garcia Peoples - 10-10-2019 Nublu, NYC

Last but not least, here’s Garcia Peoples without Forsyth, but with sax-man (and dad) Bob Malach, extending the already very extended “One Step Behind” into a cosmic 50-minute journey. It’s a trip and a half, to say the least. GP bassist Andy Cush sez: “The music on this tape is at its most alive when you can hear us abandoning the plan and surrendering to the unknown.” Right on ... 

[hitcrashedcarlove]

​​​​​SHE SEZ "DAT'S RITE!"you see? ​AV, really!? aww THIS IN YER VAGINA? & SHE SAYS "QUACK-QUACK like a pretty duck on SHROOM Galaxy- [Emo] ​“What’s INYA LEMONADEJudith all1 ​AV,?”andy cook​LOL WHO BANGS ON A DOOR NEAR MIDNIGHT?

[takerfoxx]

IM Swiftly Descending Dark, Chapter 6

Even before the spellcard had left Kohta’s fingers, Rumia was already turning to run. When the darkness of the night was swallowed up by a flash of light so bright that it banished the shadows and turned the black sky overhead blue, she had already started to accelerate into a run.

And then a wave of force and heat hit her from behind, nearly knocking her off her feet. Rumia stumbled, somehow managed to keep her balance, and used the momentum to give herself an extra push into a headlong sprint.

The white light cooled, to be replaced with a pulsing red. The forest behind them was on fire. As for the spiders, she could hear them shrieking. Rumia didn’t even have the wherewithal to take satisfaction in that and hope that all four were burning like torches. She just prayed that it would delay them long enough for her and her friends to get away.

Running through the webbed-up part of the woods was nearly impossible, and more than once her legs got snagged or something unseen slipped beneath her. At once point her shin hit a low sheet of webbing that was stretched across like a net. It swiped her legs right out from under her and she found herself pitching forward.

Before taking what undoubtedly would have been a fatal landing, a pair of arms grabbed her and hauled her back up. Gasping, Rumia jerked her head around to see Haruko holding onto to her.

The two girls stared at each other for half a second, and then a shrill howl of rage echoed through the forest.

“Run,” Haruko said. Rumia nodded and did just that.

Soon they had left the webs of the spiders’ domain and were fleeing through the rotting leaves of the forest proper. Rumia didn’t know if any of the other kids were even with her anymore. She could hear some of the others panting as they ran alongside her, but she couldn’t spare the time to see if they had all made it out.

No.

They didn’t.

You’re short one. You’ll always be short one.

Rumia gasped and increased her speed. As horrific as the image of Eiko’s butchered body was, it did make for a great motivator.

And then she heard the voice.

“Where yah goin’, me ‘ickle dumplings?” called a nauseatingly phlegmy voice. It was coming from somewhere behind them. “Yah can’t get away from Minty!”

The spiders were coming.

“Run,” Rumia muttered under her breath. “Run. Run. Run. Run.”

The word fell in time with the rhythm of her soles pounding the ground, and soon she forgot that she was even saying it. All that mattered was movement and speed. All that mattered was escape.

Something whizzed past her. Rumia started for a moment, certain that she had been caught, but it turned out to be Keine. The tiny girl was speeding ahead with Kana’s still unconscious body draped onto her back.

If she had the breath for it, Rumia would have laughed. Oh, of course Keine would be the fastest, despite having been knocked out by spider venom and having to bear the weight of another girl on her own! Sure, that was totally fair!

Keine was pulling further and further ahead, sometimes even leaping fully over especially deep piles of leaves while Rumia was forced to skirt around them. As odd as it sounded, Rumia was starting to wish she had been the one to be knocked out by spider venom, then she would be the one carried out and away.

Rumia skirted around yet another tree, and then another, and another. She tried to keep her focus on Keine’s back (or Kana’s, to be more accurate), but her friend was pulling further and further ahead, and Rumia was torn between rooting for her to run completely out of sight or screaming for her to wait for them. She wanted Keine to escape with Kana, yes, but she also didn’t want to be left behind!

She sidestepped yet another tree only to take a bad step and have her legs slip out from under her. She pitched forward and landed in a mess of rotting leaves.

Gasping, she tried to stand up, but as it turned out the leaves were

The monstrous youkai woman slowly looked from one terrified face to the next, her neck gliding back and forth like a snake. “Awww, did’ja tink yah could geddaway dat easy?” she said. “So sorry tah dassipoint, but yah is gonna be-”

Then something red and glowing zipped past Rumia’s vision to splash against the spider’s gaunt cheek, like a flying ember from a fire.

The spider paused in surprise. She touched her cheek, found no damage, and then turned her attention to the culprit.

Haruko was still sprawled onto her back, but her arm was outstretched and pointed right at the spider’s face, trembling as it was.

“Really?” the spider said, her multifaceted eyes narrowing. “Danmaku again? Fookin’ really?” She then made a small, almost casual gesture.

A spray of sickly green diamonds spewed out of her fingers to hail all over the children. Rumia covered herself with her arms, but they still stung her flesh where they hit.

Rumia had never actually been hit with danmaku before. It was supposed to be nonlethal and incapable of causing serious injury, but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt. She had always been kind of curious though, but none of the grown-ups had ever agreed hit her with even the smallest bullet.

Now she knew why.

It felt like getting assaulted by a swarm of enraged wasps. It felt like falling into a pit of needles. Dozens of tiny pinpricks of pain erupted all the backs of her hands and where they managed to cut through her clothes. She drew herself up to her full height, which was far, far, far too tall. “Jus’ fer dat, girlie, we gonna save yah fer last. But we ain’t gonna let you ‘ang in peace, oh no. Every time we eats one of yer friends, they’ll have one of yer fingers stuck in deir eyes as a garnish! And when we does gets to yah, we’ll be sure to split yah open nice an’ slow.” She started to advance on Haruko, who was now shaking all over. “Remember what we dids to yer ‘ickle friend? Oh, we’s gonna do so much worse to yah.”

Haruko tried to get up and run, but one of the spider’s arms came down right next to her. She went the other way, only for the other arm to cut her off.

The spider knocked her back to the ground with one casual swipe. She leaned in close, bringing her face in close so that Haruko had to stare her in the eyes. “‘Ell, mebbe I’ll ‘ave Andy ‘ave some fun wit’ yah. Make a proppa lady outta yah before we slice yah open.” Her black lips parted in a hellish grin, revealing her rows and rows of quivering teeth. “Or bedda yet, mebbe right afta we does the splittin’. Give ‘im more ‘oles tah-”

Haruko thrust her hand forward again and shot her right in her hideous eye.

“ARGH!” the spider stumbled back, both her hands clutching her face. “Me eye! Me fookin’ eye!”

“GO!” Keine screamed.

She didn’t need to say it twice. As the spider pitched this way and that, the children scrambled to their feet and ran.

The forest was already dark, and with her vision now blurred by tears, Rumia could barely see anything in front of her. But she kept running and running and running, because to slow even the smallest bit meant death.

She wasn’t nearly fast enough.

Something snared her leg and yanked her back. Screaming, Rumia clawed at the ground and came up with nothing but handfuls of cold, hard clay. She looked down and saw her right leg encased in a formless white mass, which was connected to a long, sticky rope. To either side of her, her friend were finding themselves in the same predicament.

The spider hadn’t chased them. She didn’t need to. She had merely snagged all of them with her webs and was now reeling them in like the hooked fish that they were.

“Niiiiiiiiiiice try,” she sneered, her wounded eye still shut tight. “But if yah tink fer one minute dat I’m gonna-”

Then she stopped in mid-sentence. And she looked around.

Rumia wiped her eyes with the back of her hand to get a better look. The spider had stopped reeling them in and was now frantically looking this way and that at her surroundings. What was more, she seemed quite alarmed.

“Oh, fook dis!” the spider cried as she hurled her weblines away. From there she took off on all fours, skittering like ancestors as fast as she could go, leaving her terrified and befuddled prey behind.

…

Putting out the fires caused by the little Human brat’s spellcard had ended up taking several minutes, and by the time that the Youkai Forest spider clan had managed to snuff the worst of it out, most of their home had been destroyed and their dinner had fled.

“Figgers,” Andy groused between vomiting great globs of webbing onto any burning patches. “Jus’ figgers, now don’ it? Too good tah be true!”

“I tol’ yah,” Muffet snapped at him. She spat a gooey white wad at what little remained of her chair, choking out the rest of the embers. “I tol’ yah all it be a dumb idea! Only lead tah trubble, I said.” She turned her head toward Edna, who had been the primary organizer behind the plan. “But did yah listen? Fookin’ nooooooooooooo!”

“Shut yer gob!” Edna sneered.

“Oi, mates, let’s jus’ do what dah creepy Hummin sez an’ waltz right intah a buncho Hummins in Hummin land an’ take off wit some o’ dey spawn! Idda be eazy, yah said!”

“I said shuttit!”

“Dere’s no way dey find us, yah said! We gets paid an’ we gets eazy food!”

“Shut! Yer! Damn! Web hole!”

“Now likkit dis place!” Edna shouted at her sister. “We gets unly one good meal, an’ den dah whole place, jus’ goes up in flames!”

Andy sighed. When those two started to get into it, they could go on and on for hours.

As they argued, he looked bleakly around at the remains of their home. The trees had taken only minimal damage, but the furniture was mostly gone, as was the intricate network of webbing they had set up around the place. Moving around was going to be a pain until it was replaced, and they were back to square one when it came to their possessions.

Damn it. Damn it all. Back to poverty.

“Well, at leezt I don’ ‘ave a big fat ‘ead like you!” Muffet screeched.

“Dah fook you goin’ on aboot? We’re twins, yah daft twat! Our ‘eads look dah fookin’ same!”

Then Andy heard something. “‘ey,” he called at them. “Quiet!”

“No wunnda evahthin’s dah shits den, if I gotta share me life wit’ you!”

“I said quiet!” Andy roared.

That did the trick. “What is it?”

Andy held up his claws in front of his lips. Then he pointed to the treetops.

Sure enough, it was Minty. She was scrambling toward them and looked quite disgruntled while doing it too. She also didn’t have any of the brats like she was supposed to.

“Well?” Andy demanded. “Dah fook are dey?”

“Likkle bloodbags gon’ run right inta dah bone grove,” Minty hissed. “Ain’t no way I’m gon’ in dere!”

Andy slapped a hand across his face. “An’ you jus’ let ‘em?”

“Hell nah am I gon’ anywhere near dat fookin’ nightmare! Let ‘em find dah black circle for deyselves!”

“Whaddya tink’ll happen tah dem?” Muffet said.

Before Andy could respond, a new voice, one that was cold as the heart of winter and sharp as Dragon’s teeth, spoke from the dark. “Yes, tell me. What do you think happened to them? I’m interested!”

Before Andy could even begin to register that something was wrong, everything got so much worst.  

Something came whistling through the air to strike Andy’s temple so hard that his brain was rattled in his skull, and he went down.

Muffet screeched and bounded toward the intruder, or at least that had probably been her intention. In truth, she didn’t get much further than the bounding stage before a flash of red and white appeared at her side to seize her by the arm and the hair. Her momentum was redirected, and she was driven facefirst into the ground. She tried to rise up, but two hands grabbed her by the head and gave it a swift twist. Before she could even scream, each one of her limbs was seized up in turn and wrenched this way and that, their joint yanked from their sockets with audible pops. A second later a boot slammed into her back, breaking her spine with a sickening crunch.

Edna tried to scamper up the side of a tree, but then something that looked like a bright red firefly whizzed through the air and flew right in her mouth. She gasped in surprise, swallowing it instinctively. Edna tried to spit it out, but then she choked, she coughed, and she began to scream. Smoke poured out of her mouth, ears, and eyes, and then red flames erupted from beneath her skin. With a piercing shriek she fell to the ground and started writhing as her whole body burned.

Minty was already in full retreat. Given that she was high in the treetops she had the best chance of it, or so she thought.

Unfortunately, a blazing fireball shot from seemingly nowhere like a comet to his her right in the stomach, knocking her from the branches. Before she even hit the ground the blur of red and white slammed into her. There was a confusing moment where the two bodies pitched back and forth in midair, but then a pair of powerful hands seized Minty’s forehead and chin from behind. A sharp twist, and she found herself no longer able to move.

Those hands remained where they were, holding Minty’s moaning head in place. Then Minty’s whole body jerked, and she began to twitch and convulse. Steam rose up from the palms on her cheeks as the veins beneath her skin started to turn red, brightening the pale skin around them to a horrid pink. Minty whimpered and cried and choked as steaming red tears dripped from her reddening eyes.

Andy tried to right himself. His vision was still swimming and his ears still ringing and his limbs felt unwilling to respond to his frantic insistence that they hurry up and get him the hell out of there. As he struggled to push himself up, he saw something come his way, the red and white blur striding across the ground purposefully in his direction, dragging Minty’s writhing form by the hair.

“No, by all means, go on,” said the cold, hard voice. A hand seized Andy by the throat, and he was lifted right off the ground and had his back slammed into the trunk of a nearby tree. And as he gasped and writhed, he found himself facing a pair of burning red eyes, ones filled with a strange, yet terrifying, mix of cold rage and hot fire. “Tell me what the bone grove is.”

…

Though the spider had wrapped all of their legs up pretty good, they still had the anti-youkai knives that Kohta and Rumia had brought along, and they still worked just as well at cutting the sticky strands away.

Kohta slashed away at the mess encasing his legs until he had gotten enough of it off to separate his legs and stand up. Clumps of dirt were now glued to his lower legs and feet, but at least he could walk. Then he went to work on his friends.

“What happened?” Haruko squeaked. “Why’d she leave?”

“You rather she didn’t?” Rumia said.

“Shut up, Rumia!” Haruko was trying to hold still to let Kohta work, but she was unable to keep her body from trembling. “Did you hear the things she was threatening to do to me? I saw what they did to Eiko! I saw the whole thing!”

At this, Hayate abruptly sat upright. “What?” she said in a small voice. “Is…Is that why we left her behind? Did they…did…”

“They made me watch!” Haruko screamed. “I woke up first, and when they saw that I was awake they laughed at me! They laughed and told me to enjoy the show! They already had her on the table, and they did something to wake her up too. They waited until she was awake, they waited until she could see what they were doing, and then they…they…” The rest of her words were swallowed up by a strangled sob. Haruko buried her face in her hands as she cried.

“Dead?” Hayate said after a beat. “Eiko’s dead?”

“Yeah,” Kohta said. “Sorry.”

Hayate slowly laid back and stared up at the black sky. Soon they could all hear her weeping as well.

Rumia had nothing at all to say. It was not often that she felt the slightest bit sorry for Haruko or her friends, but she couldn’t imagine having to watch something like that happen to Keine or Kohta.

She waited until Kohta had freed them all. Her legs were a little wobbly, but fortunately she was unhurt. All the stickiness on her legs were a problem though. She grabbed up handfuls of dirt and slathered them on. Hopefully that would provide her with some friction.

“Come on,” Kohta said as he sheathed the knives. “I don’t know why she ran off, but we need to get moving.”

“What for?” Haruko said bitterly. “If they don’t get us then something else will. We’re all going to die here.”

“Hey, don’t talk like that!” Keine said. “We made it this far. That’s, like, at least three-fourths of the way back! The worst is over, so we just-”

“Don’t say that!” Haruko cried.

“Huh?”

“Don’t say that the worst is over! That’ll just make things get even more bad!”

She had a point, Rumia had to admit. After all, this was supposedly one of the places where superstitions went to grow larger and more powerful.

In the meantime, she was starting to wonder about exactly where they had ended up. For one, she had noted a distinct lack of leaves on the ground for the first time since they had gone into this godsforsaken forest. It was just plain dirt and tree roots. There weren’t even any fallen twigs or pieces of bark.

Well, whatever. That was one mystery she was content to remain a mystery. Let the forest keep its secrets; she just wanted to get out.

“Speaking of which, why did she run off like that?” Kohta said. “I mean, anything that would scare her has to be a problem, right?”

“Who cares?” Rumia said. “Let’s just go already.”

“He has a point,” Keine said. “I mean, that was pretty weird.”

“Well, I don’t care!” Rumia snapped as she continued stomping forward. “All I know is that we’re still stuck in this stupid forest, with hungry youkai coming to-” She turned around to find a hideously deformed skull leering at her. “-gah!”

Rumia leapt back away from the ugly thing. Fortunately, it didn’t pursue her, but that didn’t make it any less terrifying.

The skull was jet-black and looked like it had been partially melted. Parts of it were just drooping down in big drips of solid bone to dangle off of its twisted lower jaw like stalactites.

The skull was partially embedded in the trunk of an equally black, equally twisted, and equally dead tree. In fact, the rest of the skeleton was. It was like whoever it used to be had been standing too close to the tree when a massive wave of heat and force just melted them together.

“Wh-wh-wha-” was all Rumia could think of to say.

Then Keine cleared her throat. “Er, Rumia?”

Rumia looked at her. It was then that she realized that in her panic, she had leapt fully into Keine’s arms and thrown her arms around her smaller friend’s neck. While Keine didn’t seem to have any trouble holding her up, it was clear that the whole thing was getting pretty awkward.

“Sorry!” Rumia hastily dropped to her feet. She brushed herself off, paused, and straightened Keine’s collar. “I was just, you know, startled.”

Haruko brow twisted up. “Just how strong are you, exactly?” she demanded.

Keine shot her a look. “Stronger than you,” she said. Then she went over to investigate the fusion of bone and wood.

“Don’t touch it!” Kohta snapped, but it was too late. Keine had already reached up to brush her fingers across both the tree’s trunk and the side of the skull. She withdrew her hand and rubbed her fingers together.

“Huh,” she said.

“What is it?” Rumia asked.

“It’s…they’re made of stone.”

Haruko frowned. “So…wait. They’re, like, a statue?”

“I don’t think so,” Keine said. “I think they’re petrified.”

“They what?”

“Uh, you know how when really old bones get buried for a long time, and they fossilize and turn to stone? The same thing happens to wood. It’s called petrification.”

“Wait, that can happen? How do you know that?”

Keine looked at Haruko like she was completely dense. “Don’t you ever pay attention in class?”

“No?”

Shaking her head, Keine returned her attention to the petrified tree. “Well, I don’t know what happened here. Just that something fused this poor guy to this tree, and now they’re both kind of like a rock.”

“Wait a second,” Kohta said. “Look! Here’s another one!”

Next to him was another dead and blackened tree, and imprinted in it was the skeleton of a deer and several birds, ones that were just as malformed as the human bones that had scared Rumia.

Rumia felt her gut turn sour. She slowly looked around them.

All around them were black, gnarled trees, with twisting leafless branches and bark the color of midnight. And in those trunks were fused the bones of the dead, all of them malformed. They were standing in a grove of death.

“Um, guys?” Hayate said. “Where are we?”

Rumia didn’t have the slightest idea. None of the stories she had heard of the Old Pine Wood had ever so much as mentioned a place like this.

“Hey, I think I see something,” Keine said, peering off past the macabre grove.

“Where?” Rumia said.

“There! In the clearing!”

She was right. There was a break in the trees, and past it was an area completely clear of the forest entirely. It wasn’t like the clearings they had already seen though. Those at least had things like grass and fungus and other foliage. This was a large circle that looked like it had been completely scoured of any sign of life, leaving nothing but what looked like fine, black sand.

That didn’t mean it was empty though.

Surrounding the whole clearing was a ring of rocks, ones that were about waist-high to Rumia and had flattened tops. And sitting on the rocks were bones. Each one had three arm-bones laid out across each other in the shape of a six-pointed star, and in each of the star’s center a human jawbone was laid.

“What in the hell?” Kohta said. “Who did this?”

“Well, I don’t know and I don’t care,” Haruko said. “Clearly they don’t want anymore messing with it, and you know what? I’m perfectly fine with that! So, let’s get out of here right…huh.”

“What?” Hayate said.

“I thought…I thought I heard…”

Haruko fell silent.

Rumia.

The voice seemed to drift on the wind, not even a whisper and yet Rumia was sure she had heard her name. It was like the Moon itself was calling to her, and she was hearing the call in the depths of her soul.

“Did you hear that?” Kohta said.

“Yeah, I did,” Keine said. “I think it came from…”

Rumia.

Keine started walking. She went past the morbid markers standing guard over the clearing and right into the expanse of black earth. The others followed her.

Upon looking back, Rumia couldn’t honestly say what made her set foot onto that clearing when all of her good sense had to have been screaming at her to stay away. It was more than simple curiosity. It had been like she was being pulled in, drawn by something small, quiet, but deadly insistent.

Whatever it was, it drew them deeper and deeper into the clearing. As they did, Rumia started to notice…changes. For one, everything felt like it was growing colder, from the bite of the night air to the ground beneath her feet. Even though her shoes and socks she could feel the chill of the earth.

For another, things were growing darker. Though the Moon and stars were still shining overhead, it felt like a cloud had passed in front of them, even though the sky was completely clear. The light was now becoming weak and strained.

And finally, Rumia was starting to hear things.

At first she thought it was just the rustling of the wind in the leaves, but there were no leaves around to be rustled. And the further she got toward the clearing’s center, the louder it got. Voices, dozens of them, all of them speaking in quick and furious whispers. She couldn’t understand anything they were saying, she wasn’t even sure if they were speaking the same language as her.

The gibbering increased the further she went, and again she heard her name drift through the night.

Rumia.

The children reached the center of the black circle and stopped. As they did, so did the voices. The night was silent.

They all looked at each other and frowned. Haruko scratched her head. Hayate sneezed.

“Um,” Keine said. “Why exactly did we come out here?”

No one had an answer for her.

“Okay. Then maybe we should…uh…”

The ground had started to move. As everyone stared, a depression began to form between them. It started off small, just a small dip in the ground.

But it grew.

And it grew.

Soon it was clear that the space beneath them was hollow and the sand was pouring in.

“Run!” Kohta shouted.

Run. Okay, that sounded like a fantastic idea. The only problem was that the clearing was swiftly turning into a sinkhole and doing so faster than they could even turn. Rumia tried to bolt, but by then the depression had reached her ankles.

Of them all, only Keine managed to actually start the process of fleeing before she was caught. The ground turned vertical, all of it flowing toward the growing hole in the center. Rumia tried to climb but slipped. She tried to swim, but that was nothing more than an act of desperation.

Fly, she begged herself. Take to the air! Go up, go up go…

The tilt increased, and she was sliding. The hole rushed up to meet them, and then they were all swallowed up.

…

When Mokou had suddenly bolted off into the dark, Joshua wasn’t sure if he would be able to catch up with her. She was just so much more athletic than he, and with much longer legs. He huffed and puffed along the best he could, finally got impatient, and took flight.

Flying through a forest such as the Old Pine Wood was not recommended, especially at night. Go too fast and you risked breaking your neck on an unseen tree trunk or low-hanging branch. Too high, and your hair would get snagged in the tightly woven canopy. Plus, you never knew what was skittering around in those upper branches. But Joshua didn’t have time to worry about safety. He went as fast as he dared, but had to come to a sudden stop on more than one occasion to keep from running facefirst into a surprise tree.

“This is…this is insane…” he whispered under his breath. “Oh Lord Jesus, please be with us. Right now. That would be-”

Then he heard a piercing, feminine scream of agony.

Joshua froze in midair. He swallowed and shot off, a little faster this time.

Another scream followed, followed by the distinct sound of snapping limbs. There was a third scream, this one accompanied by sharp hissing sound, like a flame consuming a lit fuse.

There were lights up ahead, ones that cast thrashing shadows on the nearby trees. Though Joshua knew not what he could do to save Mokou when he reached her, he kept on anyway, praying that he was not too late, praying that there was still enough left of her to save.

What he actually saw when he got there was quite different from what he had been expecting, but still horrifying.

There were three twitching humanoid lumps on the ground. They seemed to be female and had on dresses, though their necks and limbs were far too long, as were their faces. It took Joshua a moment, but he then recognized three of the four spider youkai that had attacked the Children’s Home.

However, they had been in considerably better shape then.

One was a smoking, blackened wreck, her roasted skin flaking away while rivulets of fire still ran over her in places. She was still alive though, twitching and moaning in agony as any wounded spider would.

Another hadn’t been set on fire, but it looked like her back had been broken, her neck snapped, and all four limbs dislocated at the joints and not set back in place. She lay in a heap, croaking out piteous moans through her mangled throat.

The third’s skin had turned beet red and was cracked all over, with glowing orange light pulsing through the cracks that flared up with every tortured breath. She was lying flat on her back, arms and limbs splayed out around her as she continuously tried and failed to scream.

And standing with her back to the trio with her hand grasping the throat of the fourth spider youkai as she pressed his back against a tree was the Aoki Yume Children’s Home’s cook.

Despite all of Joshua’s fears, Mokou looked completely unharmed, thank God. But Joshua wasn’t sure he liked seeing her like this. The spider youkai in her grasp was frankly terrified, and was garbling nonsense at Mokou. No doubt he would have been screaming had Mokou not cut off his air. Mokou was holding him up with her left hand, and in her right…

It was on fire. Her hand was enveloped by a ball of flame, and yet she wasn’t burning. She clearly didn’t even feel the heat. What was more, he was pretty sure that she was glowing. There seemed to be a thin red aura covering her.

Joshua swallowed. Mokou was a strong woman, one that he knew had a dark past. But this…but this…

“Mokou,” he said, his voice cracking.

Mokou sighed. “Joshua,” she said without turning toward him.

“What are…” Joshua glanced at the mangled wretches on the ground. “What did you do?”

“Well, for the blackened one I set all the fat in her body on fire,” Mokou said, her voice terrifying calm. “That was an old favorite of mine, always got a good scream. The croaking one is pretty self-explanatory, just twisted this and popped that, leaving her kind of broken. The glowing one had all the blood in her veins boiled. And as for this guy…” The hand clutching at the spider youkai’s throat tightened. “He’s going to have all three done to him if he doesn’t tell me where the children are, and not necessarily in that order. I already gave him a small taste.”

It was then that Joshua noticed that the male youkai’s hands and feet were twitching and scorched ruins, no doubt to prevent him from clawing at her. Joshua clutched at his head. “You…you tortured them!”

“I did.”

“You didn’t have to do that!”

Mokou breathed in slowly through her nose and then released it out of her mouth in a long sigh. “Josh, buddy. You’re a sweet guy, and I know you can be tough when you need to be. I like you a lot. So I’m giving you this warning right now: don’t go into that clearing over there. Just take my word for it.”

Joshua paused. He then looked over to the clearing in question, which was a ring of tree surrounding what looked like the remains of a scavenged home. He saw the burnt wrecks of several pieces of furniture, including a table.

“Trust me on this,” Mokou said.

“What happened?” he said hoarsely.

“What do you think happened?” Mokou growled, her tone suddenly shot through with venom. Her fingertips started to glow red where they dug into the youkai’s neck, and his strangled gibberish took on a whole new note of urgency. “Why do you think this scum took our kids?”

Joshua fell silent. Then he turned toward the clearing.

“I’m warning you, what you see you won’t be able to unsee.”

Joshua knew that Mokou meant well; he knew that she was just protecting him. However, she was not the only one who had seen and done things that he wished he could take back. And there was plenty that he already wished he could unsee.

Taking a deep breath of the ash-tinged air, Joshua started walking toward the clearing.

“Your choice,” Mokou said.

Stepping between two trees with blackened trunks, Joshua entered the clearing. Sure enough, it was filled with trash and pieces of furniture, most of it burned.

And in its center was a dinner table of all things.

And on that table…

Joshua took a good, long look. Then he slowly bowed his head and closed his eyes. His hand gripped the crucifix around his neck.

Things hadn’t changed at all when he stepped out from the clearing. The three females were still mewling in pain while Mokou held the fourth member of their party aloft. “Told you,” she said.

Joshua nodded. “Who was that?” he said hoarsely.

“Eiko,” Mokou said. “I could tell because of that birthmark on her hand.”

“I…see,” Joshua said. “And the others?”

“Well, as it so happens, this guys was about to tell me all about that when you showed up,” Mokou said. She tilted her head and gave her captive a small shake. “So, how about it, tough guy? I ease up on your throat, and you can tell me all about this Black Circle. And maybe I won’t slow cook you on a spit. Sound good to you?”

The male youkai stopped groaning long enough to shoot her a sallow glower, his yellow, multi-pupiled eyes conveying pure hate.

Then he spat a white gob right in her face.

Joshua started, but Mokou hadn’t so much as twitched. The gob turned out to be webbing, and it had completely encased her face like a mummy’s mask. However, smoke started rise from her face, and the web’s gooey strands began to crinkle and collapse inward. Then it began to turn black.

And then it began to turn red.

“Now that,” Mokou tsked as the burning web fell away from her face in embers, “was big mistake.”

Then she spun around and hurled the spider at a nearby tree. He struck it hard with a pained gasp and fell to the ground.

Mokou began to advance on him, both of her hands now encased in flame. Realizing her intentions, Joshua ran over and put himself between her and the spider. “Wait!” he cried, sticking up his hands.

“Get out of my way, Josh,” Mokou said, her glowing red eyes fixated on the spider.

“This isn’t right!” Joshua pleaded. “You must know that this isn’t right!”

Then Mokou finally looked at him. “Isn’t…this isn’t…”

Suddenly she extinguished the flames in her hands and seized Joshua by the lapels. She swung him around, holding him up with both hands as easily as if he weighed as little as the children they looked after.

“Right?” she snarled. “You wanna talk to me about what’s right? Those monsters came to our home and took our children! They slaughtered Eiko and probably ate her alive! A thirteen year old girl, and they ate her alive!”

“Yes, but torturing…” Joshua’s voice trailed off. Over Mokou’s shoulder he could see the male spider starting to rise. He was hacking and wheezing in pain, but one of his mangled hands was fumbling toward his jacket pocket.

“They deserve no less,” Mokou said. “This is not the time for mercy, so I would appreciate it if you would go off to the side, say a nice little prayer…”

The spider youkai pulled his hand out of his pocket. Though his fingers were still burnt, they hand managed to clutch around something small and glinting.

“Mokou,” Joshua said.

But Mokou wasn’t listening. “…and stay the fuck of my-”

Joshua seized Mokou with his own hands and tried to yank her out of the way. “Mokou, look out!”

It was too late. The spider youkai hurled the tiny knife. Despite the damage to his hands his aim was supernaturally true. The blade hit Mokou at the back of her head and buried itself in up to the hilt.

Mokou dropped like a sack of potatoes.

Joshua fell as well, his eyes wide and mouth agape. Mokou was lying lifeless, the knife still sticking out of the back of her head, the roots of her pale violet hair turning red.

The spider youkai threw his head back and let out a piercing shriek. Then he charged at Joshua on all fours, his gait clumsy from his burns but still horribly fast.

Joshua scampered back away from him. “Wait!” he said. “Stop!”

The spider opened his mouth wide. Inside was a horror of rows upon rows of quivering teeth surrounding a long and pale tongue. He threw himself at Joshua, blackened fingers extended and black spittle running down his pointed chin.

Though he knew that it wouldn’t save him, Joshua threw his arms in front of his face and closed his eyes, bracing himself for the end.

It didn’t come. Instead, there was just a low thump.

Though he didn’t want to at all, Joshua cracked his eyes open. The spider had fallen to the ground, his outstretched arms falling just a few centimeters short of Joshua’s body, his face contorted in surprise and bewilderment.

And wrapped around one of his ankles was Mokou’s hand.

“Ugh,” the dead woman groaned as she pushed herself up on her elbows. She groped around with her free hand until she found the handle of the knife. A quick yank and it was out, its blade still crimson with her blood and brains.

Shaking her head as if she had merely taken a light slap to the face, Mokou rose up. She blinked a couple of times and shook her head again.

Then she looked down at the shocked creature still in her grasp and her eyes narrowed.

“Now that,” she said, “was also a mistake.”

Then her hand twisted in a peculiar way, and suddenly the spider had two shins where he previously only had one.

“Mokou?” Joshua whispered.

“Joshua,” Mokou said as she began to drag the screaming spider off. “Go back into the clearing. I saw some unburnt bags in there. Empty one out and put what’s left of Eiko inside. Then wait for me.”

Joshua blinked. “What?”

“I know it’s not ideal, but we’re short of options, and I don’t want anything spoiling her further.”

“But-”

“I have work to do, and you’re getting in the way. So get to work.”

“Did…you were dead. How did you-”

Mokou’s face snapped toward him, her eyes a blazing fury. “I said move!”

Joshua’s head jerked back in surprise. He opened his mouth to respond, but then closed it without saying anything.

Then he got up to do as he was told.

…

The fall had been dark, terrifying, but at least mercifully swift. The landing hadn’t been that bad, as there was at least a pile of soft sand to land in.

Unfortunately, the sand also turned out to be ice-cold, and it got everywhere! It was worse than having snow go down one’s back, because that at least would melt away.

“Ah! Cold, cold, cold!”

Rumia tried to flee from the pile only to get her feet tangled up, causing her to fall.

“You okay?” Kohta said as he looked down at her in concern. Of course he had managed to get out of the sand and onto his feet.

“No,” Rumia said crankily. “I am very much not okay. But I’m not dead yet, so that counts for something.”

Kohta extended his hand, and Rumia took it. With a slight grunt he pulled her too her feet.

“What is this stuff?” Rumia complained as she shook the freezing sand from her hair, arms, and outfit. “Why is it so cold?”

“Because it’s evil,” Hayate said in a hollow voice. “Don’t you feel it? It’s evil. This is a place where evil dwells. It’ll eat us up, just like they ate Eiko!”

Normally Rumia might have been tempted to mock her for her fear and superstition, but all things considered she was having a hard time coming up with an argument.

“Speaking of which, what is this place anyway?” Keine wondered.

“I don’t know,” Kohta said. “Maybe it’s some kind of…oh, wait. Hang on.”

Everyone froze. “What?” Haruko whispered. “What is it?”

Kohta reached into the pile of cold sand and pulled something out a box of matches.

The cold had made his fingers clumsy, so it took a few strikes to finally light a match. But at last a tiny flame sputtered to life, and he held up the match to give them a better look.

Rumia quite frankly preferred the darkness.

They were in a huge circular space, one even larger than the orphanage. It was empty save for themselves and the tall pile of black sand in the middle, which was still bathed in the circle of moonlight that came from the hole in the center of the roof.

But the walls were an unending tribute to Death.

It was the same as the stone trees. Skeletons of once-living things were embedded into the walls in twisted positions, many of which would not have been possible when they had meat and skin. Most looked like they had been partially melted as well and splattered right against the wall. Only instead of a few, there were hundreds of them: humans, deer, cows, birds, fish, snakes, squirrels, horses, lizards, bats, and several things that she could only guess at.

If there was one thing they all had in common other than being dead and stuck in a wall, it was that they looked like they had been trying to flee from…something, something in the center of the room, something that had pulverized them all with a single blast of power.

“What the hell,” Haruko said flatly.

“We…we got to get out of here,” Hayate said. “This is a bad place. We shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be here. We need to escape.”

“I’m…open to suggestions,” Kohta said.

Rumia opened her mouth to respond, but then low, raspy moan echoed through the chamber, like a mummified corpse awakened from the dead and filling its dusty lungs for the first time in an era. The match in Kohta’s hand slipped from his fingers, and the light went out.

“What was that?” Hayate whispered in the dark.

Then the moan sounded again, and louder this time. Kohta hastily felt around for another match and lit it, and he held it up so that they could see.

They needn’t have worried.

It was Kana, who was finally starting to stir. She had been lying on the ground next to Kohta, but now she was awake and struggling to rise.

“Oh, hey!” Kohta said as he knelt down next to her. “Are you okay?”

“Uhhhh…” Kana groaned. “Feel…airy…”

“So…pretty much the same as always?” Rumia said. Keine shot her a sharp look, which made her feel a little ashamed. “Sorry.”

Kohta helped Kana sit up. She coughed weakly. “Wha…where are we?”

“Underground,” Kohta said. “I think.”

“Ugh.” Kana blinked blearily at her surroundings. “Huh. I…I thought I was flying up. But now I’m down. How’d I get down?”

“You got captured by spider youkai,” Kohta helpfully supplied. “And you got stung with their venom. That’s why you feel so weird.”

“Oh. Isn’t that…nice…” She smiled up at him and giggled. “You got sandy hair.”

Kohta involuntarily touched his spiky hair.

Then Rumia got an idea. “Hey, Kana?”

“Oh, is Rumia here too? That’s also nice. Hi!”

“Uh, hello. Listen, do you remember when you were flying earlier?”

“Uh-huh. It was fun. Until it wasn’t.”

“Right. Do you think you could do it again?”

“Uh…dunno.” Kana’s head slumped forward, digging her chin into her chest. “I’m tired.”

“No, no, stay awake!” Rumia leaned over to slap Kana lightly in the cheeks. “Kana, I need you to try to pay attention. We’re stuck in a hole in the ground-”

“Oh, that sounds fun.”

“No, it’s not! We’re trapped, so we need you to fly out and go find help!”

“Can’t she lift us out?” Haruko asked.

“What, are you crazy?” Rumia snapped at her. “Look at her! It’ll be a miracle if she can get herself out!”

Suddenly the ground started rumbling. Hayate yelped and hid herself behind Haruko, who looked like she wished she had someone to hide behind. Keine threw herself to the ground and covered her head. Rumia and Kohta quickly retreated from the center of the room, dragging the still-loopy Kana with them.

The pile of sand that lay directly beneath the hole had started to rise. It lifted upward like an hourglass in reverse, pouring up into the hole.

“What the hell?” Haruko shouted. “How is it doing that? That’s impossible!”

Despite the frightening situation they had found themselves in, the sheer stupidity of that statement meant that Rumia and Keine both had to stare at her in disbelief.

“What?”

The sand finally all lifted out of the room, plugging up the hole completely and choking out the moonlight. The only light was that of Kohta’s match, which was running low.

A few seconds later, the tiny flame sputtered and died.

For a brief, dark moment, nothing happened.

Then every single dead creature that had fused with the wall opened its eyes.

Everyone screamed as hundreds of brightly glowing red lights appeared in the empty eye sockets all across the walls. Hayate broke off from Haruko and ran toward the center of the room.

“Let me out!” she sobbed. “Let me out! I don’t want to stay here, I don’t want to-”

Then the ground started shaking again.

Something was rising up from beneath, filling the space left behind by the pile of black sand. In the scarlet glow, it was hard to make out, but it appeared to be a multi-sided cylinder about the size of a fully-grown man. It was also completely black, so that any features were nearly impossible to make out.

Hayate screamed and ran back, only to be reminded of the dead things staring at her with red eyes all along the walls. She tried going back the other way, but the cylinder was there, so she just fell to her knees and clutched at her head as she cried. “Please, make it stop, make it stop!”

Under normal circumstances, Rumia might have been tempted to mock her for her cowardice. But in all honestly, if Hayate wasn’t doing that, then Rumia probably would be.

“Oh, it’s a box,” Kana said calmly, as if she were remarking on a particularly interesting cloud. “I wonder what’s inside.”

“A box?” Kohta said. “That thing is…”

His voice trailed off. Even Hayate’s crying had quieted.

Rumia didn’t need to ask why. She heard it too.

Rumia.

The voices were back, the gibbering ones that she couldn’t understand and the one that was clearly calling her name. Only now they weren’t whispering out of the thin air. Now they had a definite source.

It was the box. The box was speaking to her. The box was calling to her.

Rumia started walking toward the box. Without a word the others did so as well. Kohta, Keine, and Haruko all slowly made their way across the room. Hayate stopped sniveling and stood up to follow. Even Kana had managed to totter to her feet and limp her way over.

Rumia.

Each of the six children came to a stop around the box and turned toward one of its many sides. Rumia stared entranced by the smooth, black edge, so flawless and beautiful. It was like it had been carved out of solid night, a perfect piece of darkness.

Rumia.

The gibbering grew louder. Rumia raised up her right hand. Unprompted, the others did the same. As one they all laid their hands against the sides of the box.

Its surface was colder than steel that had been left out all night in the snow. Rumia’s skin instantly froze to it.

Interesting.

Then something sharp bit into her palm. She could feel the hot blood leaking out, warming her palm.

Rumia.

Rumia wrenched her hand away, ripping off an entire layer of skin in the process. It was left on the side of the box, a white handprint set against the black, with a tiny bead of ruby blood hovering in its center.

As Rumia watched in fascination, the bead started to shake. Then it began to grow, sending rivulets of red across the handprint, dying the white skin bright scarlet.

Soon the box had six crimson hands on six of its sides, one for each child.

And then it began to open.

…

To anyone who’s read IM: three guesses at what’s in the box, and the first two don’t count.

Until next time, everyone.

[gayhillzone]

[transformers-mosaic]

Transformers: Mosaic #557 - "Loyalty Rewarded"

Originally posted on November 15th, 2010

Story - Zac DeBoard Art - Kei Tomoe Letters - Franco Villa Edits - Juan Pablo Osorio “Chopper” design - Andy Short Whirl design - Paul Vromen

deviantART | Seibertron | TFW2005 | BotTalk

Later revised and annotated for Transformers: The Lost Seasons

wada sez: The last of three Sunbow-version-of-Animated-character strips. On the Machine Wars Starscream color scheme used for Scrash, DeBoard said on Seibertron: “I believe Scrash's coloring was a way to differentiate between he and Skyquake (even though they were pretty much consdered to be the same character), as well as being a shout out to MW Screamer.” Onslaught’s seeming death here appears to be an choice, as he’s alive and well later in the Sunbow timeline—but Cattleprod points out that the Combaticons first appeared reduced to personality components after a failed coup, so presumably this is intended to lead into that, with Onslaught just heavily damaged but alive. The blue character is an OC based on the Diaclone helicopter who, in later official sources, would variously be given the names "Fumes", "Rotorbolt", and "Skyklik"—the creators of The Lost Seasons apparently used a common fan-name at the time, "Chopper". I've tagged him as Rotorbolt, because of the Wreckers connection. On the strip’s ending, DeBoard said: “Personally, I love ol Luggy and I just assume that while his body may have been destoyed, his spark survived....like they put it in a machine like they have a Garrus 9 or something.” He explained the strip’s plotting as follows: “Again, this is just "in my head" but Megs was probably obsessed with The Autobots on The Ark (at least for the moment) and didnt bother to take attendance, so to speak, and therefore didn't notice Lugnut. Another thing to keep in mind is...we were kinna working within a set continuity and trying to fit stories and characters where we can. Obviously Lugnut wasnt in G1 originally so it's a tricky thing to do. I just kinna thought it was a pretty neat way to introduce him and explain his "absence" from the show. Believe me, I try to take all of this stuff into account when I write, but if I overthink it, I'd never get anything written! Hehe. As for the faces of the "transplanted characters. It seems to be harder to translate the facial features of the TFA bots into a G1 style (for instance, I felt Lockdown's face in the Drift mini was just horrific), but I think Lugnut came out very well in this. [...] We are floating around some more stories featuring G1 Lugnut so hopefully he will be fleshed out more in later stories. Personally, I hope to bring his personality closer to the fanatic he was in TFA, which is what made him one of my favorite characters. With the space limitations of the Mosaic, we really didn't get to do a lot of it (though it was more prevalant in the script).” This strip evolved from an earlier script of DeBoard's, which went unused: “Unfortunately, I realized there was already a Mosaic piece essentially telling this same story. This one however was set in the G1 universe”—I’ve reproduced the full text below, alongside the usual Italian translation. The earlier strip with a similar idea was “False Saviour”, in case you were wondering.

Before I was little more than a thug.  Making a living by robbing those less fortunate than me.  Feeling I was destined for a greater purpose, I had applied numerous times to the Cybertron Military Academy only due be denied due to what the Head of the Academy deemed was an aggressive attitude.

This would haunt me in my future endeavors as I could find little work.

Eventually I found the Arena.

It was there than I unleashed my aggression and anger, my strength was unparalelled and I became known as the Kaon Crusher.

And, as quickly as I embraced my newfound outlet, I soon found myself longing for more.

Was this all I was meant for?  Mindlessly destroying mechs for little more than a thrill?

Blastburn lies defeated at my feet and I feel nothing.  I walk away, feeling just as beaten as my foe.

"Your designation Lugnut?"

I nod.

"It is."

"My commander has had an optic on you for over a Vorn.  He has seen your indifference and longing."

"What do you or your commander know of me?!"

"He believes he can provide you with a sense of purpose--a new life, if you will."

The blue mech (Soundwave) has my attention.

"And what do you call your glorious leader" I say to him mockingly.

"His name is...Megatron."

At the end would be a close up of Lugnut's single red optic, with an image or a shadow of G1 Megs in it.

[phroyd]

Andy Borowitz Sez: Bahamian Refugees Advised To Pretend They Are From Alabama

Phroyd

[mostlysignssomeportents]

#10yrsago Secretive US prisons hold "terrorists" including animal rights activists and people who gave to the wrong charity

Will sez, "The Department of Justice is using secretive prison facilities on U.S. soil, called Communication Management Units, to house inmates accused of being tied to 'terrorism' groups. They overwhelmingly include Muslim inmates, along with at least two animal rights and environmental activists."

In the case of Andy Stepanian, he was one of six codefendants, and by the admission of prosecutors he was one of the minor players in the case. He is not accused of any violent crime or any property destruction, and had no disciplinary problems while incarcerated. Stepanian received the second-lowest sentence of the group, and his codefendants are not in CMUs.

Daniel McGowan's notice of transfer to the CMU gives some indication of the government's reasoning. It says that he has been identified "as a member and leader in the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF), groups considered domestic terrorist organizations."

But in a letter from the CMU, McGowan wrote: "It's funny-I have like 13 codefs [codefendants] + there are 11 other eco prisoners and I end up here."

Part of the explanation for his transfer to the CMU, it seems, is that he is a vocal, prominent activist with a large group of active supporters. For McGowan, his near celebrity status within the environmental movement, along with his continued activism, has become a liability. When I attended his sentencing hearing in Eugene, Ore., in 2006, the judge made a point of criticizing his media appearances and his website, SupportDaniel.org.

https://boingboing.net/2009/04/15/secretive-us-prisons.html

[nbdyuknow]

Wheelie sez, “Andy Dalton revenge game? How can I pass on that! Bear 29, Bungle 18.” https://www.instagram.com/p/CUAmPPBpqLowkYj4l_W3xcG5MMRgM1HZJ7QyHs0/?utm_medium=tumblr

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