#anip writing

[anip-ocs]

Disillusions - Monster Fight - Chapter 29

I haven't done a lot of writing this NaNo that I feel is worth sharing/can be shared without spoilers, but I do have a smidge of a snippet of a monster fight! I haven't written a fight/action scene in about 10000 years so if it's a bit of a Slog I deeply apologize, this is all still first draft content.

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For a moment, the team stood there, staring at the beast as it convulsed on the ground. Eyebrows raised, biting their lips, squinting in… sheer confusion. Even when it stopped moving, and began to fade away like all of the Puppeteer’s other creations, it only made them more confused. Slowly, they all lifted their heads to stare at each other. They were all thinking the same thing, right? Weren’t they?

“That was way too easy.” CJ said. “Right? Am I the only one who thinks that was way too easy?”

“No, you’re not. However,” Ken sighed, running a hand through his hair and not seeming to notice that he was smearing blue blood into it in the process. “I truly wish you hadn’t said it aloud.”

“Yeah, don’t wanna get jinxed.” Alana said.

“If we just go home, there won’t be anything to worry about, right?” Taylor shrugged, turning to leave. “I’m out! See you guys la—”

The team all froze as thunder boomed in the distance. But the sky was still clear and sunny, save for a few puffy white clouds slowly gliding along the horizon. So… not thunder? Though, the sky was quickly darkening… another thunderous boom, and then a dull roar. In the distance, a parking garage crumbled to the ground. Maddi felt her blood run cold.

Ken wiped a smear of blood off his cheek, squaring his shoulders as he glared in the direction of the crumbling structure. “Well. So much for that being the end of things.”

“W-What do you think it is?” Brian asked, taking a wary step back. Still, the ground rumbled beneath their feet, a loud boom accompanying each of the beast’s loud footsteps.

“It’s getting closer, that’s what.” Maddi huffed, igniting her hands. “Everyone, get ready. This is gonna be a big one.”

Indeed, it would be. As the monster got closer, they slowly began to see its gargantuan features over the rooftops. Spiraling cyan-blue horns, twirling above the rooftops of the buildings around them. Claws, almost as tall as they were, a stark white against the gray asphalt of the city streets. A yellowish-peach underbelly, six scaly blue legs. A long snout, riddled with white razor sharp teeth, a pink forked tongue snaking out to taste the air, and four large, golden eyes. Before they could truly be ready for it, the team of teen heroes found themselves under the analyzing gaze of a giant dragon, one that seemed large enough to snap them all up in one bite.

“What’s the plan here?” Alana asked quietly.

“Don’t hold back.” Ken said, a low growl in his voice. “Go for the underbelly if you can, but watch for the claws.”

“Sounds good to me.” Taylor said, flipping her hair before crouching low. “Is everything evacuated?”

“These few blocks should be, going by the notice that went out. What… are you thinking?” Brian asked.

“Watch and learn.”

The dragon released a deafening roar, so loud that Maddi was nearly knocked off her feet by the impact. Then it rushed forward, snaking between the buildings, its eyes catlike slits as it narrowed in on its latest prey. Taylor raised her hands suddenly, a chunk of asphalt from the street surging up and striking the beast in the chin, stopping it in its tracks. With a pulling motion, one of the tall concrete buildings beside it began to lean, ripping itself from its foundation as it quickly picked up speed, slamming into the dragon’s head and neck. The monster was stunned, but wasn’t crushed—instead, it shook off the damage and continued its war path towards them.

“Oh, we’re in for it now!” Maddi said, stepping forward with a grin. Adrenaline coursed through her veins as she and her friends stared the beast down, watching as it continued racing at them. She charged up her powers, her hands turning to pure burning flame. Waiting… waiting… waiting…

Now!

As the dragon opened its maw, ready to snap them up, the team quickly split directions. Maddi cast a blast of flame directly in its soft, fleshy mouth, instants before Ken grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away. CJ flew upwards, grabbing an abandoned car with his powers and attempting to drive it directly into the beast’s forehead, while Alana summoned a surge of thorns to pierce its side while she bounced away on a giant mushroom. Brian wielded his streetlight weapon once again, attempting to wrap it tightly around the beast’s mouth and narrowly avoiding a swipe of its claws.

Despite it all, the beast didn’t seem to take much damage at all from their attacks. As it turned to face them again, its mouth didn’t even seem singed, and its armored scales were barely even scratched after all their efforts. As the beast hissed at them, sparks dancing around its nostrils, they knew they’d have to try a lot harder if they wanted to finish this alive.

Maddi and Ken ducked to the side instants before the beast opened its mouth and spat out a blast of electricity. Even dodging it, Maddi felt the hair on her arms standing on end, a sharp minty taste filling her mouth, a sparking sensation in her head. Ken dropped from the sky, holding Maddi close as he fell to the ground and protecting her from the bite of the asphalt. The dragon didn’t hesitate, didn’t gloat over its somewhat-successful attack, but instead turned and snapped its jaws at Alana, narrowly missing her in its efforts. The plant girl let out a scream, jumping backwards before shifting into a bird and quickly flying away.

CJ flew in a bit closer, the glowing aura around him pulsing as he focused all his mental strength on the dragon's neck. Crushing its windpipe, breaking its neck, strangling it—whatever he was trying to do, he was unfortunately unsuccessful in the end of it. Their foe didn’t seem too affected, instead standing on its hind legs and swiping, trying to knock CJ to the ground. It missed by quite a big margin, but still forced CJ to retreat. Brian summoned a new streetlight to his side and attempted to maneuver it into piercing the beast’s underbelly, but the projectile was simply swatted away—right towards Taylor, who managed to dodge it easily enough but was still startled.

The reptile hissed, spitting out more bright blue electric blasts. Brian let out a pained shout as he was hit straight-on, knocked back into the wall of a nearby building. Alana gasped, instantly flying over to him and shifting forms, kneeling beside him and taking his hand.

“Oh my god, are you alright?!” she asked.

Brian coughed, looking up at her. “Can I say no?”

“Look out!” Ken shouted. The two looked up, just in time to see the beast rushing towards them, its mouth glowing bright as it prepared a new attack. Alana shifted forms into a pterodactyl and grabbed Brian before taking off, instants before a blue beam obliterated the building they’d just been beside.

“Holy shit!” CJ gaped, stumbling backwards.

“I think we need a new plan! Darky?!” Taylor shouted, turning to where Ken was forcing his way back to his feet.

“Plan’s still the same! Give it all you’ve got!” he yelled, crouching low. The shadows of the buildings around them defied the laws of nature, stretching towards the teen as a dark aura began to surround him. He snarled, flaring his wings as he stood to his feet, his hands held close to his chest as they pulsed with energy. For a moment, his eyes seemed to glow red, and with a shout he cast his hands out. Dark energy shot out of his hands violently, blasting towards the beast’s side as the angel roared. The sky went dark, if only for a brief moment, as the attack pierced the monster’s side and slammed it against the very building it had half-destroyed just a moment ago. The beast screeched as it crumpled to the ground, the building collapsing over it a moment later.

The rest of the team slowly turned, wide eyed, to Ken as he stood there, eyes wild and panting with ragged breaths. The boy paid them no mind, only staring blankly where the reptile had collapsed and met its certain doom, his heart pounding in his ears as energy danced and thrummed at his fingertips. Only when he’d finally caught his breath did he blink and seem to return to reality, noticing his friends staring at him, mouths agape. Ken stood straight, laughing tiredly and smiling a bit. “Well. Suppose that’s the end of that, isn’t it?”

“Dude holy shit!” Brian shouted.

“That was amazing!” Alana gasped, carrying Brian over to the rest of their friends as she finished healing him. “Have you always been able to do that?!”

“It’s not the sort of attack I’m able to do often. Honestly, it’s quite draining…” Ken laughed softly.

“Any way the rest of us can do that?!” Taylor asked.

“I’m not sure. Someone with light-attuned powers, possibly, but otherwise I’m not so sure.”

Maddi opened her mouth to ask a question, but froze as she noticed movement at the edge of her vision. A piece of rubble fell off the larger pile and to the ground—surely wouldn’t have been a big deal, but then two pieces fell, then three, then five, the pile was shifting as if something underneath it all was stirring—

“Guys,” she said loudly, grabbing all of their attention. “We’re not done.”

“What do you mean, we aren’t done?!” Alana gaped. But as the team turned back towards the dragon’s grave, they quickly had to duck to avoid the explosion of rubble as the pile exploded outwards, revealing the dragon getting back to its feet—slightly smaller than before, but still alive and kicking.

“Oh, you’re kidding me!” Taylor groaned.

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Disillusions Tag List: @mallthologist

If you'd like to join the tag list, just let me know!

I hope this was a nice read!

[lux-scriptum]

Many years ago I made a form to make tag lists easier on me. I waffled on making another, but this has been in my drafts for months now, so I've decided to revamp it. I'm tagging my old tag lists just to confirm y'all still wanna be there. You know what to do after the message.

@golden-eyed-writer​ @halfbloodlycan​ @kclenhartnovels​ @idreamonpaper @thespooniewrites @reininginthefirewriting @malkinse @rrrawrf-writes @incandescent-creativity @sancta-seraphina @sheralynnramsey @lady-redshield-writes @aesterea @theguildedtypewriter @anip-ocs @dragonauthor @gingerly-writing @fragmentedink @chalilodimun @rhikasa @solangelo3088 @eponinemylove @commasinsidequotes @joshuaorrizonte @golden-eyed-writer @elliot-orion @pouchedmilk @severe-fangirl-syndrome @boyswillbekillers @midnight-and-his-melodiverse @poetinprose @sarcasm-and-studying

[pulpitude]

meet my mc ✦ ilw edition 2/4

yes i know i mentioned 5 mcs in ame's introduction post but i got rid of the fifth one lmao. rip milena wilder you and your slutty antics will be missed. also got rid of aoya and replaced him with mia since there's just something about ao that didn't leave me satisfied enough with their character to keep her as a mc 😭

also a little fun fact about mc's sister: since all my mcs are so different and have different ethnicities i headcanon their sister's full name to be something else every time i play. in mia's case her full name is annalise labelle, in ame's case it's joanna grimes, for my korean mc it's shin an-hee and for my egyptian mc it's anipe el-sayed

(cw/tw for mention of sa and lesbophobia under the cut)

full name: euphemia "mia" labelle

age: 22

birthday: march 20th, 2000

gender: questioning if cis female or non-binary

pronouns: she/her

sexuality: greysexual lesbian (apologies for forgetting to put the grey flag above 😭)

personality type: genuine 99% of the time, aggressive once in a blue moon

love interest: amalia de león

occupation: unemployed, thinking of becoming a writer/poet

fate: merged with her human half, successfully defeated matty and cured the horrors

fates of friends: everyone survived and stayed

more:

♡ she has two mothers, esmé and miranda labelle, who only legally married when mia turned 12. she calls esmé "mom" and miranda "mama" or even "mamita". her name came to be because esmé wanted something that shortened to mia but didn't want to use just mia itself (she felt it's too basic), to which miranda suggested euphemia.

♡ however, what she doesn't know (and what neither of them wanted to reveal to her, for obvious reasons) is that her biological father is matthias. he used to cheat on silvia with esmé, who tried to leave him after finding out that he's married and that she's into women, but he manipulated her into repressing her attraction to women so she'd stay with him and coerced her into having sex with him.

♡ she's fairly loud about her shipping of abel and lincoln (but obviously not in front of them) and has gotten up to many shenanigans together with amalia trying to set them up, starting from the very first moment they saw the two interacting without arguing.

♡ she is 100% a girl written in pink, glittery gel pen. she frequently listens to female pop artists like britney spears, madonna, sabrina carpenter, (as of recently) chappell roan, girls generation and tomoko kawase. she's also a sanrio girlie and likes dressing in kawaii fashion with a bit of coquette inspiration. (yes all of my mcs are fashion icons don't blame me)

♡ mia does not sleep in that grey hoodie, most of the time she sleeps in bloomers or night gowns/baby dolls but those last ones are usually saved for when she wants to impress amalia. she does wear hoodies (rarely, but she does) but they're in her usual pastel color palette.

ps: if any matty stans follow my blog i'm sorry for making him into an even worse piece of crap than he is in canon

♡ she's very into writing and has been since she was a kid. she writes a bit of everything from poetry to fanfic to original stories and wants to have her works published in the future. ever since amalia got into fanfic as well, mia has beta read for her as well as given her writing tips.

♡ despite neither of them seeing matty as a father, mia still has a healthy sibling relationship with lincoln and considers him to be one of her best friends (and her one closest platonic friend ever since her relationship with amalia turned romantic). the fact they're related has yet to fully sink in for her, but the more time they spend together, the more things in common they realize they have. mlm wlw solidarity fr

[anip-art]

Fear the Jelly Walkers!

It only takes a single Jelly and a single unknowing victim to start an apocalypse.

TW: Death, zombie stuff

A collaboration fic with @105ttt!

Chapter 1 is up now! Will update weekly!

Read it on FF.net

Read it on AO3

[ghostofthewind]

Nos Da go be kind to humans they are not as smart as corgis, cats and other anipals. #goodnight #corgisofinstagram #kindness #fluffydog #fluffycorgi #fluffy #pembrokewelshcorgi #welsh #pnwcorgis #pnwdogs #princess #kfkirwinamazonbooks which I helped her write. Corgi approved. https://www.instagram.com/p/CDA2JBOJn_I/?igshid=1bzgomfb98cqc

[greenwords]

i’m not super great at this powerpoint setup yet, but i’m workin on it!!

↳ tag list (ask to be added/removed): @anip-ocs // @dahladahlabills // @elliewritesstories // @forlornraven // @greenandwords // @pvalwriting // @qlpwrites // @ravenpuffwriter // @tabbykatwrites // @theouterdark // @vandorens // @veleitas // @wildswrites // @wordswearcrowns // @words-in-the-works // @writing-and-dragons

[spacebrick3]

The Goddess Cycle is done!

The story I started on a whim from a single character (Eshe) and a concept (gods losing their humanity) is finished! And it’s honestly incredible, I think, and so I’ve got to say thank you to everybody who gave me feedback or listened to my plot/character ramblings or even just said “hey, this is cool” - it all means so much to me that people were willing to support my story and see it through to the end!

And so! Here are the stats for Draft 1, because stats are fun!

Pages: 256

Words: 113,825

Chapters: 44

Time (note: this is from the first chapter - last chapter, not including the planning and rambling stages beforehand, so add maybe 2-3 weeks for that): 3 months, 5 days (3/3/19 - 6/8/19)

Alright! I want to give you all some excerpts from this draft, but I’ll leave it up to you! Drop me a page number from 1-256 (in replies, asks, whatever) and I’ll give you the best non-spoiler bits from that page!

Tag list: @lady-redshield-writes, @no-url-ideas-tho, @ratracechronicler, @ken-kenwrites, @ravenpuffwriter, @cirianne, @lonelylibrary @maxbeewriting, @endlesshourglass, @thebloodstainedquill,  @anip-ocs, @writerofwriting @dreamwishing, @incandescent-creativity, @fatal-blow, @danafaithwriting, @wri-tten, @writingwhithotchocolate, and @katekyo-bitch-reborn!

[francestroublr]

Last Line Tag

Was tagged by @sundaynightnovels

Rules: post the last lines you’ve written then tag people equal to words in the last sentence. 

This is a paragraph I’m working on from my WIP.

It’s funny how a slight adjustment of mood could taint everything. It was a bright sunny day at the Concrete Pa market, yet all Alliya felt was grey. Just a heavy slab of grey attached to her soles. The sheer effort of moving through the market made her wish she was in bed at her cottage in Moonton.

Tagging @heywriters @avlthd @orion-spills-ink @writer-on-time @phoenixwritesblog @anipwrites @anip-ocs @alittledaylight @writerinafury @somegaywritersfactory @gamernovellist @green-writing @striderftm @eclipsedshadowk @thxtprocess @sunshineomeara @inkovert @bookish-actor @izzuniiwrites @rktho-writes

[milesnsmiles]

Setting and Find the Word!

I was tagged by @anip-ocs to do a few writing tags!! Thanks!

Setting Tag

Rules: Pick one important setting from your WIP and describe it in 15 words or less.  An explanation is optional.  Then, tag as many people as you used words.

Rimerun:  Research village on the edge of civilization, formerly home to 800, now home to One.

Explanation:  5,000 years in the future after humanity was forced underground, a group of 20,000 scientists, the best of the best, return to the surface to settle the midwest.  Rimerun is the furthest settlement from the city of Chicago, one of the smallest of the research settlements.  It’s a farm town 3/4ths surrounded by a large forest.  It had a population of 800 before all but one mysteriously disappeared, leaving 12-year-old Ethan all alone.

Find The Word Tag

Rules: fine the words given to you in your WIP if they are present, and then give different words for the people you tag.

Comfort 

N/A

Egg

N/A

Feather

N/A

Light

(I don’t have “light” but I have “lightning” so I used that. I also only used a couple bc they got kinda repetitive.

He hit the water again as lightning shattered the heavens, and the thunder drowned out another scream of frustration.

And with another crack of lighting, a fissure opened within [the clouds] and released an onslaught of rain.

Skin

But his mouth is open and he grabs at his shoulder, and some sort of bone in there is poking painfully at his skin, like it might rip through but it hasn’t yet.

Edge

N/A

Anyone who wants to do this feel free, I don’t feel like actually tagging.

[anipwrites]

Hi! I really adore the titles of your original writing projects! Can you tell me something about them? :)

Hi! I'm so glad you think my titles are cool! 

Okay, so basically Disillusions is my main original project. It focuses on a small but gradually-growing group of teenage heroes learning about their powers while facing an ever-more-dangerous cast of villains. I'd say its mostly an adventure series, with some supernatural elements to spice things up and some mild social commentary because hey why not. I originally came up with this idea with a handful of friends, and we kinda wrestled with several different titles for the series before deciding on Disillusions because it sounds cool, so we chose it for the team name our heroes take on. Their reason is that--actually there's a really cool quote one of the character says about this.

"It sounds cool. But... why would we call ourselves this?"

"W-well, I get the feeling we're probably going to run into a villain sooner or later. I mean, why would we be granted these powers--higher power or not--if we didn't have any use for them? And who's to say some creep didn't find one of the meteorites too? These villains would have the idea in their heads that they can get away with their crimes and--and other bad stuff, and we'd be the ones to show them that that's not true! Not while we're around! We're disillusioning them!"

So, basically, it's called Disillusions because it sounds cool and they're nerds. I do have an ask blog for the series, @anip-ocs!

Another one of my OC projects is called Our Last Chance, it's kind of on the back burner but this one's definitely fantasy. Prophecies and magical kingdoms and all that jazz--a bit more difficult for me to write, but slowly being written none the less. The main character in this series is named Chance, and he's part of a prophecy in which, on his 16th birthday he's going to make a decision that'll decide the outcome of a generation-long war between a kingdom and the brutish outlaws banished to the mountains. He's either side's last chance at success, or survival. 

If you want to learn more about the series', I have a discord server for them here! Otherwise, you can always send more asks to any of my blogs!

[servicecatsus]

Meweek, Mew, Mew, (Dezi dances around and runs back and forth from the kitchen to her meal mat in the living room) hurry with that brekky mommy, we’ve gotta write our Blest Sunday posty. It’s our 4th Blogoversary!!! And what better day to celebrate it than Blest Sunday. Don’t put too much gravy in Raena’s, you know she’ll throw it all up ifin ya’ do. 

                    (Raena jumps down from the wheelchair and runs right into Dezi re-entering the kitchen) Sissy…  

  Hisssssssss…Watch where you’re goin’, Raena!!! 

            I’s not the one runnin’, sissy, you are. Maybe, you should watch where you’re goin’. I’s want the exact same brekky as you. The more gravy the better. (Raena rubs against the wheelchair and one of mommy’s legs) Meowwwwww  Mommy, I’s want the same brekky as sissy. I’s a big girly now. I’s even got to go the the Cat Scouts Valentine’s day dance. By the way sissy, what’s a Blogoversary? 

          Taggin’ along to a dance doesn’t make you all grown up, Raena. Now leave mommy alone so she can fix our brekky. Haven’t you figgered out by now the more we bug her the longer it takes to get fed? (Dezi meows as she runs back to her food mat. Then she hears the coffee pot beep and runs back to the kitchen, where she watches mommy get her cup of coffee and head for the living room to set it down. Dezi follows mommy back to the kitchen where she picks up the breakfast plates and heads back to the living room. Dezi runs ahead excitedly) Meweeeeeek, Mew, Mew. Here mommy, here. Put me’s brekky right here. (Turns to Raena and meows) We’ve been bloggin’ since February of 2014, Raena. Mommy had just got her furst real catputer and knew nuffin’ ‘bout the world of bloggin’ or the innernet. We actually created a blog totally by accident. But, it’s been one of the greatest things that ever happened to us. We’ve met so many amazin’ furiends, both human and anipal. We can’t ‘magine what our lives would be like without all of you in it. We’ve come so far from our furst posty and our second, both on the same day to innerduce ouselves. We didn’t have a clue ‘bout what bloggin’ was or how to edit fotos, or even what to write ‘bout.

            (Raena runs to her food mat in the living room and looks back for mommy.) MeOWwww I’s so hungry. Put mine’s plate right here mommy, hurry. (Mommy parks the wheelchair and sits in the sitting chair and opens a bag of chocolate chip mini muffins. Raena looks up from her plate and walks over to sniff the bag in mommy’s hand. She goes back to “cover” her plate and then jumps in mommy’s lap.) I’s want some of that mommy…Why? Why can’t I’s have a bite? A little chocolate can’t pawssibly hurt me. (Looking down at Dezi, Raena meows) Well look at us now sissy. I’s can’t ‘magine you ever had a hard time comin’ up with somethin’ to meow ‘bout.

        Ya’ never know Raena. Chocolate isn’t good fur us kitties or doggies. Besides, we’ve got great food, you wouldn’t like those muffins anyways. But, it sure was nice of awnty Cindy and angel Maggie Meme to send it to mommy. She luvs those little muffins and brownie bites. (Thinks about what Raena just meowed) Me’s not sure ifin you’re givin’ me a compliment or bein’ mean Raena, but me’s gonna choose to believe you’re bein’ nice. Back then the blog was mostly me’s meows; sis Lexi had facebook and me had the blog. It’s really nuffin’ like it used to be. But, mommy says that’s a good thing. We have to evolve and learn or we’ll fade away into the lost bytes and bits of the innernets. 

                  I’s sure don’t wanna fade away sissy. I’s very fanky fankful you’re willin’ to share your bloggy with me; and all your furiends who accepted me and luvved me when I’s came here. Happy Blogoversary sissy, I’s hope we have lots more. By the way, did you see those Hawaiin rolls? Mommy can’t get enuff of those things. They are purretty tasty. I’s got to try a little bite once. I’s don’t know what a croissant is, but mommy seemed really happy to see those too. Fanky fank ya’ fur sendin’ mommy a Valentine’s day treat. We are so Blest.

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That we are Raena. Another blessin’ we got this week was help with mommy’s leg ouchie. Some of ya’ may ‘member that mommy fell right befur Christmas and hurt her leg purretty bad. It got to hurtin’ somethin’ fierce last week, so we asked ifin anypawdy had any suggestions on how to treat it. Mommy’s V E T had told her to keep puttin’ that triple antibiotic cream on it and keep it wrapped. But, it didn’t seem to be gettin’ any better. And cuz mommy had to use a few bandaid type bandages cuz she ran out of gauze pads, she had some new sores where the sticky had been. Mommy’s ‘lergic to bandage sticky, and we’re thinkin’ triple antibiotic cream. As always, our pawsum furiends purrayed and gave us some great ideas fur treatin’ her ouchie. Warning: Below are purrgressive fotos of mommy’s ouchie. Ifin ya’ have a weak tummy, scroll quick, there’s only 3 and we made them small.

  Right after the fall

  5 days ago

  After 3 days of Manuka honey

                Sure ‘nuff, sissy. Somepawdy suggested she put Manuka honey on it. She just happened to have some of that cuz she had bought it fur your sis Lexi. I’s thought she looked kind’a crazy slatherin’ honey on her leg, but it really seemed to help, a lot. That honey took the heat and the soreness outta mommy’s ouchie really quick. 

  It even looks better too, Raena. And fanks to awnty Cindy fur sendin’ some green papers, mommy got some more gauze pads and is lookin’ into somethin’ called colloidal silver.

                    And the blessings don’t stop there, sissy. Mommy’s gonna be gettin’ her new fake teethies on Tuesday. We can’t hardly wait. I’s hopin’ we get to pick up some extra treats while we’re in Ardmore. Maybe I’s can meow mommy into gettin’ us some bacon or somethin’. What a week of blessings we’ve had. Good furiends, good food and lots of luvs…What more could a kitty girl ask fur.

        And, A Blogoversary!!! Absolutely Nuffin’ Raena, we’ve got everythin’ we need. What Blest lives we have. We’d like to remind everypawdy to take a minute today and every day to give thanks fur the Blessings in your life. And fank you all fur visitin’ us, commentin’ on our postys and mostly fur just bein’ the bestest extended furmily in the universe. We luv you all very much. 

                    Don’t furget the Sunday Selfies, sissy. There’s been a lot of distractions and things mommy’s had to deal with these past couple of weeks, so we’re purretty behind in our visits to all our furiends. We’re really sorry we’ve not been by to see ya’, but we hope to get caught up soon. Purrlease bear with us, (Raena and Dezi look over at mommy) we purromise to visit soon. And here’s to elbenty billion more Blogoversaries.

  Till the next time…………………………………Be Blest!!! 

  Dezi: Vibrant Blue 

Raena: Navy Blue

  Luv and Hugs and Kitty Kisses

  Deztinee and RaenaBelle  

Blest Sunday: It’s Our 4th Blogoversary & The Blessings Continue Meweek, Mew, Mew, (Dezi dances around and runs back and forth from the kitchen to her meal mat in the living room) hurry with that brekky mommy, we’ve gotta write our Blest Sunday posty.

[anip-ocs]

NaNoWriMo 2021 Excerpt 1 - Pumpkin Fight

Behold, I am Writing this year!!!! Here's a lil bitty!

------------------------------

“Hey, Alana? No offense, but… what are we supposed to do?” Maddi asked.

The backyard wasn’t very big at all. This was without the added burden of a vegetable garden, a stack of bricks, and a hammock. It certainly didn’t seem big enough to do any sort of training in. Not that Alana seemed to realize.

“What do you mean? We’re gonna train,” she said, quirking an eyebrow.

“Well, yeah, but I mean, there’s not much space in here. And if our energy is supposedly nuclear or whatever, I don’t wanna destroy your dad’s veggies.”

“Oh! Yeah, I guess it is kinda small for that…”

“Y'know. If our energy is nuclear, how come people aren’t disintegrating whenever we use our powers?” CJ asked.

“Uh. Y’know. I don’t--I don’t know. This is all new to all of us. Maybe the reading categorized it wrong or something. Not sure if anything like this has ever happened enough to be able to compare it to something accurately anyways, y’know?” Brian mumbled.

“Maybe if we hit someone directly they’d disintegrate?” Taylor asked.

“Let’s avoid finding out for sure.”

“Anyways! Training! What are we gonna do for training?” CJ asked.

“Well, uhm… I mean, we can practice other things! Long range attacks won’t work all the time! Like, you never see a character in a book or a movie who only uses long range attacks, right?”

“Snipers,” Brian interjected.

“None of us are snipers, Brian.”

“Alana has a good point! Heroes have to be well-balanced, be able to handle a lot of different kinds of enemies!” CJ grinned.

“Exactly! So, we can work on our short-range tactics here. Smaller attacks, hand to hand combat, stuff like that.”

“That’s a reasonable plan--we should work on that. Not like we’re all blackbelts in karate.” Ken shrugged.

“You’re a blackbelt in karate?” Taylor asked, eyes wide.

Ken shook his head. “I am not. Which is my point. Ah, I also believe we should maybe work on our team coordination--”

“Okay! Random attack from a monster, what do you do?!” Alana suddenly exclaimed.

“What are you even--hey!” CJ shouted as his foot was snagged from under him. He quickly found himself hanging upside-down in the air. Everyone else giggled at his misfortune before they were grabbed too. Alana was the only one not hanging… because it was her vines that had snagged them.

“No fair! What happened to our warning?!” Brian shouted, trying to wriggle his way out of her clutches.

“Monsters won’t give you a warning! They just do what they can to kill and survive! If we’re going to be getting in the way of their survival, they might use us as their next meal!”

“She has a point,” Ken said, letting his arms hang down even as his shirt fell over his face.

“So, now, uh, pretend that my vines are a giant octopus monster or something! Try to escape!”

“I’m having a hard time imagining the monster? It’s just you and some vines right now, where are we aiming, where’s its body at?” Maddi asked. Alana smirked, her eyes glowing green suddenly, and for a brief moment Maddi wished she hadn’t fucking asked.

“You want a monster? You’ll get one!”

“Okay, hang on a second, ‘Lana--” one of the pumpkins in the garden began to swell, quickly growing as big as a person and then even bigger. It towered over the group of teens, casting a shadow over part of the house.

Then it grew a face, and its vines ripped out of the ground and writhed about, ready to grab at them. The trees around them jerked wildly a moment as the beast moved. The rest of Alana’s team fell from her clutches as she stepped back, shaking.

“Frick.” she muttered.

“Change of heart, or is there an issue?” Ken asked, dusting himself off as he returned to his feet. “I felt that surge of energy.”

Alana shook her head, instinctively drawing near Maddi.”I-I-I, uhm, I didn’t intend for--for that…” she murmured. The pumpkin opened its Jack-O-Lantern like mouth and roared, eyes glowing like fire. Inside its mouth, strands of pumpkin brains stretched across its maw, collecting into a large mass of orange gunk.

“Well, I’ve been eaten enough times this year. I’m not letting it happen again.”

“Any helpful hints about pumpkins?” Taylor shifted into a fighting stance, sending Alana a glance.

“W-well, the top layer’s tough to prevent insects and diseases from getting in, so--so it's probably really really tough now.” Alana racked her brain, not even noticing the pumpkin beginning to advance. “And they have hundreds of seeds--oh, god, how big are those now? And--”

“Look out!” Ken seemed to practically fly at her, pinning her to the ground. An instant later, the pumpkin spat out hundreds upon hundreds of seeds like a homegrown machine gun. They just passed over their heads, and it started aiming for the others instead.

“How do we stop it?!” Brian asked frantically, ducking as the pumpkin’s fury was directed his way.

“Maybe we can smash it?” Taylor asked.

“Leave it to me!” CJ exclaimed. He held his hands out before him, the pumpkin beginning to glow blue and float into the air as he used his powers. But suddenly, the tendrils extended and grabbed him, swinging him around before throwing him into the side of the house. He didn’t smash through the walls, fortunately, but he didn’t get back up either.

“CJ?!” Maddi shouted, eyes wide.

“Holy shit!!” Taylor gaped.

“No, no, no, no, this is all my fault!!” Alana wailed.

“S-Stay calm!! It m-might smell fear…” Brian said. The pumpkin roared again, directing its attention to Maddi. “Looks like it does,”

“So clearly smashing is not the route to take. What’s our next option?” Ken helped Alana up to her feet, sending the pumpkin a glare as he tried to come up with an attack plan.

Alana squeezed his hand tight and bit her lip, pausing a moment as she felt just how cold Ken’s hand was. “Uh, uh--hard frosts! They go bad and mushy if we get a bad frost!” she held up Ken’s hand and shook it around as if to prove her point before dropping it. “O-or, if we can reach its stem--”

“Okay, frost it over, cut the stem. I can--gaah--!” Ken leaped into the air to avoid a tendril about to ram him in the side. Instead, he was grabbed around the neck by another tendril and lifted into the air, to Alana’s ever-growing horror. He tried to kick his way free, but to no avail--especially as it began constricting. His swords were in its scabbards, but his scabbards were in Alana’s sister’s bedroom, out of his reach. He couldn’t cast the spell to summon them--he could barely get any air into his lungs. He couldn’t think of another plan--black dots were already dancing along his vision, his head was spinning, he felt like his chest would explode if this kept up any longer.

Suddenly, whatever wind was left in his lungs was knocked out of him as he fell to the ground. Part of the tendril was still around his neck, but it was limp and easy to tear off even with shaking hands. Ken laid thee a moment, gasping for air as the clear blue sky burned away at the black dots.

Brian had found some garden tools, which were fortunately sharp enough to slice through the vines, while Maddi distracted the pumpkin with jets of flame. But the Jack-O-Lantern wasn’t so easily occupied--even as it shot another round of seeds at Maddi, more tendrils grew back and reached for Brian and Taylor.

“Hey! I can’t keep doing this forever!” Brian shouted, still slicing through the tendrils one by one.

Ken summoned his swords and got to his feet, sneaking his way to the backside of the pumpkin while Maddi dodged its bullets and set the grass before it on fire. As it focused its attention on Maddi and Alana, it didn’t even notice Ken until he had sliced through its main stem and pierced his sword through its back. It roared and tried to turn and face him with a hail of seeds, but Ken placed his hand on its back. Immediately, ice began to crawl around its bumpy orange skin, slowing it down. Thin at first, the layer of frost quickly thickened, until the gourd was suspended in a giant ice cube.

“Okay, that was rad.” Brian said.

“CJ!” Maddi gasped, turning around and running over to where CJ was still slumped over against the house. Everyone hurried over as Alana knelt down and put a hand to his wrist. She looked up at them with a horrified expression.

“I can’t feel anything!” she said.

“What?! Move!” Maddi took the wrist and held it a moment, before moving to put two fingers to CJ’s neck. She let out a breath. “Oh thank fucking god here it is.”

“Oh my god, Alana, you’re a healer who can’t take a fucking pulse?!” Taylor pouted.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t think I’d be having to tell if my friend was dead or not when we went over it in gym class in the fifth grade!” Alana whined.

“We can work on that later, guys, what matters is CJ is alive! And unconscious in an ant bed,” Brian huffed as he scuffed his shoes in the grass. “We need to move him.”

Ken snapped his fingers, and a cool gust of wind set out the flames in the grass. “We need to get rid of this monster and clean up before Alana’s father gets back.”

“And how do we do that?” Taylor asked.

“...we will need a lot of rope.”

“I have some at my place! Be right back!” Brian exclaimed, running back into the house and out onto the street.

“So, what are you wanting to do with it then? Drop it into the Pacific Ocean?” Alana asked with a short laugh.

Location: Somewhere Above the Pacific Ocean

Time: Friday, October 18th, 4:30 PM

“I didn’t expect you to take me seriously!” Alana exclaimed.

Ken let out a chuckle, even as he fumbled with the ropes and bungee cords. “I’m aware. This was actually my intention the entire time,” he let out a groan as the weight of the ice got to the best of him, and he struggled to keep it upright. Who knew a giant pumpkin in a giant ice cube could be so heavy? It was hard to stay flying with this ting weighing him down, especially when holding it by some ropes and bungee cords alone. If he lost his grip, it might fall onto something. And that would be disastrous.

“Need some help?” CJ offered, speeding up a bit to float alongside the 8th grader. When his friend let out a strained nod, he took a few of the ropes in his own hands and suddenly understood why he was struggling so much. But at least, together, each of their loads were just a little bit lighter. Even if it was a bit difficult--Ken was flying so fast. Alana shifted from a sparrow to an eagle and still struggled to keep up.

“So, Alana, what have we learned today?”

“Not to make giant monsters for training sessions?” she said sheepishly.

“How about ‘don’t make giant monsters,’ period! That was almost your Frankenstein!” CJ exclaimed.

“Actually, Frankenstein is the name of the scientist. The monster is never named, he’s just ‘Frankenstein’s Monster.’ Unless we’re considering Doctor Frankenstein to be the true monster of the tale, and the monster a victim.” Ken said. His two companions sent him a look. “Th-that’s besides the point! CJ’s point still stands, you can’t just put yourself in danger like that, little fledgeling.”

“I’ve noticed. Where are we going to drop this thing off at?” Alana asked.

“I’m hoping to get it far enough from the shore that the waves won’t just push it back. We also need to make sure no one sees us, either.”

“So just a bit farther--I can’t imagine any fishing boats going out much further than this.” CJ said. “Granted, I don’t know too much about fishing boats, but--well, y’know. It’s getting late.”

“It’s literally not. It’s not even five yet, I don’t think.” Alana said.

“Either way, I’m hoping to set it down soon. I don’t know how much longer we can carry this.” Ken said.

“Well, at that note, we just passed the last few boats that are around down here.” Alana said.

“Great. Let’s drop down a bit,” Ken and CJ let the weight of the ice lower them down until they hovered just above the water, Alana flying circles around them. “Help me untie the ropes please?”

Alana landed on top of the ice cube and began untying as Ken and CJ held the ice steady. Within a few minutes, she held a tangle of ropes and bungee cords, standing atop a precariously-rocking iceberg. CJ took the ropes, and Alana shifted back into a bird. The three watched as the pumpkin-berg bobbed around on the waves, not sinking any further.

“You do realize that at least a little bit of that is going to stay sticking out of the water, right?” Alana said.

“What?” Ken blinked, turning to look at her.

“Yeah. when you see an iceberg, some of it is always above the water.”

“Right…”

“Well, this one has a giant pumpkin inside. Maybe it’ll sink all the way?” CJ suggested.

“Hopefully? I’m too tired to care. Let’s head home so I can show you guys around the house.” Alana sighed.

“Sweet!”

Ken smiled a bit. “Yeah, let’s head back to Kihiro.”

“Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Alana laughed, shooting off into the sky with a flurry of wing beats. Ken grinned and flew after her. For a second, CJ could have sworn he saw black wings, but when he blinked and rubbed his eyes he just saw the black jet trails Ken always left when he flew. With a shrug, he rushed to catch up, using his powers yet again to stay afloat.

---------------------------------------------

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[anip-ocs]

A Visit

Short fic below!

TW: Parent death, mild suicide ideation

The sun hung low in the sky, streaks of pink and orange beginning to paint their way across the sky. Darkened silhouettes of large trees blocked out parts of the sky, old branches hanging, craggly with time, above rows and rows of tombstones. The field was silent, save for the quiet footsteps of a visitor. His dark cloak hung around him, dark as if made from the shadows themselves, tattered red converse scuffing against the grass. Across his back, a bow and a quiver of arrows glowed, pulsing with a gentle orange light. Had anyone else been present in the graveyard, they would have easily recognized the hero, Shadow. Though, at the moment, his hood was off, and he didn’t look all too heroic cradling a bouquet of flowers to his chest. Of course, none can be too heroic standing amongst the remnants of the dead. And though he wore his hero attire, Shane Parker wasn’t here to be a hero. He was here to be alone. But not quite alone, all the same.

As he approached his destination, he took a breath, the plastic wrap around the flowers crinkling as he shifted his arms a bit. “Hey, Mom.” he said, his voice so shaky and quiet he himself could barely hear it. He could feel he was about to cry if he stayed a moment longer, but if there was ever a place to cry this was certainly it. “I was in the area, so I thought I’d drop by.” a bit louder this time. He lifted his gaze to look at his mother’s gravestone head on, lifting an arm to wipe at his tears as he tried to smile. “I brought your favorites.” he kneeled down and set the pink and white carnations before the grave, before taking a seat next to it. He wasn’t too embarrassed to admit the grass where he sat was worn away a bit.

A moment of silence hung in the air, as he tried to get a grip on the stuttering in his chest. This was a one-sided conversation between him and the two month old corpse of his mother, and the tiniest part of him felt stupid for almost expecting her to say something, expecting her to sit up and hug him to her and promise everything would be okay. Hell, his mother hadn’t been able to sit up in almost a year now, let alone hug anyone. Now was not the time to be craving something impossible to get.

“...everything seems so weird now, with you gone.” Shane said quietly. “Before, I could… I could keep going because I thought you’d get better someday, and we could be a normal family again, y’know? I think we all were hoping for that. Or maybe I was just naive. But now… its so hard. I mean, i-its always been hard, but everything feels like its piling on.”

He sighed, glancing at the grave, at the stems of the flowers he’d brought. Pink and white.

“...Alice got kicked out of ballet, and it's all my fault. I know you really wanted her to do ballet, and she loves it so much, I just… I couldn’t afford it. Haven’t been able to pay the studio in almost a year now, and they’d let it slide, but…” but enough had been enough, he supposed. But they didn’t have to be so cruel about it, did they?

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

“I-I’m sorry, I can’t pay this month, but I promise--” he stammered out, quiet and weak under the glare of the receptionist.

“What, you ‘promise’ to pay next month? You’ve been singing this song and dance for a year now, and I’m having a hard time believing you!” she said, tapping her pen against the record book with a scowl.

“I know, and I’m sorry, I just--I’m working as hard as I can, but--”

“If you can’t afford dance lessons, then don’t come get dance lessons!”

“If it were just for me, then I’d do it, but it's for Alice, I have to, she--”

“Well, then.” the receptionist’s voice suddenly went cold, her glare icy through her dark-framed glasses. She stood from her desk, the pen clattering to the floor. “I’m officially terminating her lessons with Miss Anne. Starting now.”

It felt like his heart skipped a beat, and for a moment he was frozen as the receptionist came around the other end of the desk and marched for the practice rooms. Then his brain kicked back into gear as he realized what she was about to do. “W-Wait, you can’t!! She has a recital in two weeks, she’s worked so hard, please--!!”

“Oh, the big recital?! Swan Lake?! In order to participate she’d need a new tutu, new slippers, new tights, a new leotard in order to match the other dancers, and you, sir, can’t even afford for her to be here! There’s certainly no way she’s going to ruin the big recital, especially if she should’ve been out of here a year ago!”

“M-Miss Greenwich, please, you have to believe I’m trying--”

Before he could try and get another word in, the receptionist threw open the door to the practice room, three dozen little faces stopping what they were doing to turn and see what was going on one by one. Forcing her way through the sea of children, she picked out a frizzy-haired little girl and grabbed her by the arm. Alice let out a shout as her nails scratched at her arm and she was yanked out of the room.

“What’s going on here, we’re in the middle of--” the ballet instructor began, pausing the music and turning to address the receptionist.

“Alice Parker hasn’t been paying the studio fees in almost a year now, Miss Anne, so her time in this class is over. Hopefully she didn’t have too big of a part, though I can’t imagine she would.” Miss Greenwich barely even turned her head as she continued her way across the room, grabbing Shane by his sleeve and dragging them both out of the dance studio entirely, practically tossing the two onto the sidewalk.

“Miss Greenwich, please--” Shane began, only to be cut off once more.

“You’re lucky I’m not calling the authorities! Your girl’s not welcome in here ever again until you can actually afford tuition, and to repay twelve months of it too! Now get off of our property before I do call the authorities, cheapskate!” and then she slammed the door in their faces, her form walking off through the frosted glass. Shane felt like time had frozen for a moment, his brain still trying to process that that had just happened, until he heard Alice start to cry beside him. He picked her up, and she wrapped her arms around his neck as he carried her back to their beat down pickup truck, her tears beginning to wet his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Alice.” he mumbled, hugging her tight a moment as a heavy weight bore onto his shoulders.

~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~ ~~~~

He pulled at the sleeve of his cloak, just thinking about what happened made him feel incredibly… small. “She was heartbroken. But honestly, the only thing worse is that now she feels like she has to worry.” he let out a sigh. “She stopped using the lunch money I gave her… she stopped eating lunch for two weeks before I found out, she said she didn’t want to use up money we need for something else. It’s taken me forever to even convince her that it's okay for her to eat, I don’t know what to do anymore! I’m working as many jobs as I can, but with Disillusions I... “

He laid back in the grass, the bow and arrow fading into sparks of light. “Its… selfish of me, isn’t it. I could be working so much more, but I have to take off to fight villains and monsters and go to team meetings… one of my jobs even threatened to fire me if I took another unauthorized break. I can’t blame them, but I just… Disillusions is one of the only other places I feel like I’m doing something. I could stop, but… I guess I just don’t want to.” he sighed. “Stupid, right?”

Of course, he could get help through Disillusions. Ken was rich, loaded rich--his father owned one of the largest technological corporations on the globe, and sent him $500 allowances that the boy barely used. All he had to do was tell him just how bad the situation really was and Ken was near-guaranteed to throw enough money at the problem to make it not a problem anymore. He’d helped Maddi a ton already, paying to rebuild her entire treehouse home when it was destroyed in a storm and even buying her groceries every other week.

But… he was too afraid to ask. Maybe he was just too prideful to admit that he was struggling, especially to someone who’d been raised in opulent captivity for so long he barely understood what middle class even looked like. Yet… that wasn’t quite it. Honestly? He was just kind of scared of Ken.

It wasn’t hard to be. With his dark black eyes and icy demeanor, most people shied away upon seeing him. Seeing him dressed in a cloak, big angel wings out for all to see, grinning as he sliced the head off the thirtieth little monster that day only solidified the fear. Ken was typically so stoic, it was hard to tell how he felt about… almost anyone. Shane wasn’t even sure if Ken liked him--he didn’t want to ask for help from someone who possibly hated him.

But he did need help. And soon.

“If we could just join the city’s program, that’d make things so much easier, but we can’t. The Independence program only allows one person per home, and Alice is still too young to apply for her own little place through the program. If we want to stay together, we’d have to go to the orphanage… I don’t think I want to do that.” he sighed.

“...I think I’m cursed. Well, I know I’m cursed, but I think it's reaching farther than I thought.” he rested an arm over his eyes and let out yet another sigh. The curse. He’d been cursed with immortality, which gave him an interesting sideset of powers but came with the weight of knowing he’d outlive everyone he’d ever cared for. He’d never imagined he’d lose his mother so soon, but she’d gotten ill and never improved. Only declined. It had started about a year after he’d been cursed in the first place, almost to the day. Since then? It had all gone downhill, until now Shane was struggling to pay utilities on the apartment and everything around him was falling apart.

A fresh set of tears welled up in him, and he wiped at his eyes. “I don’t know if I can do this, Mom…” someone his age was never meant to go through all of this alone--hell, he felt like no one should have to go through all of this at all, let alone on their own. Everything was piling up, and it was a guarantee that the problems would keep piling on his chest as everyone fell around him until he was alone carrying the weight of lifetimes of issues. Part of him wanted to just lay there beside his mother’s grave for eternity, through wind and rain, heat or cold, let himself be buried alongside her until he didn’t have to worry about anything anymore. The life of the dead (or lack thereof) seemed rather peaceful, after all.

But he couldn’t. He had to keep going, if for nothing else, for Alice. He was all she had left, and she desperately needed him to keep going so she could even dare hope for a future of her own. He’d sworn to himself that, if nothing else kept him going, that he’d keep going for his little sister. Even if it meant running on fumes, on bare remnants of energy and self. As long as she stayed happy, he could be a bit happy too.

But he still missed his mother, desperately. It was a constant ache in his chest, like a hand was squeezing at his heart. It sucked the life, the joy out of… everything. The burning determination he felt to care for his sister and those he cared about was nearly swallowed up by a dark void of nothingness. Sometimes he wanted to just fall backwards into it, watch everything fade to black and--

No. He couldn’t think like that. Shane sat up, biting his lip, gripping the grass in hands tight. He had to stick around. He had to. He could grieve, yes, but he had to keep living. Not because he didn’t have much choice, but because he had his reasons to want to. He felt a fire burn in his heart, and knew he could find the strength, the means to go on. His fingertips glowed, orange and hot. If he was strong enough and capable enough to fight hordes of giant monsters, he could find a way out of this mess they were in.

He fought monsters with a team, didn’t he? Maybe what he needed here was a team too. He just had to ask for help. Even if it meant facing down Ken Shinigami himself, he’d do what it takes.

He stood up, turning to face the gravestone again. Aziza Parker, it read, 1978--2019. The doctors had sworn to him that she’d never stopped fighting her illness for even an instant. His mother was headstrong and determined, had been as long as he remembered, and he couldn’t help but feel like she’d just shared a bit of that strength with him. He managed the smallest of smiles, took a deep breath. “Thank you, Mom. I’ll make you proud.”

Then he teleported, vanishing in a flash of orange sparks, bright against the dying light of the sun as the stars began their reign over the sky.

-----------------------

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[anip-ocs]

Camp NaNoWriMo is almost over and I already know I’m not writing anything else this month, so here’s what I wrote in the beginning of the month.

The prologue to the first draft of Disillusions, Book 2.

(TW: implied parental abuse)

Location: Unknown

Time: Unknown

He hated this place. Hated it with a burning passion.

When he’d first heard he’d be living in a mansion for the year, he was excited. Thrilled, even. He hadn’t seen his father in six years, and had few to no real memories of the man, so the idea of seeing him had him a bit jazzed. Sure, his mom didn’t like him, but he’d summed that up to a disagreement of some sort that had led to the divorce.

Because he damn sure hoped his mom hadn’t known what she was tossing him into.

One year in a mansion. Should be a dream come true. It was a waking nightmare.

It was cold. It was always too damn cold, it felt like the man kept the house cold just to spite him. It sapped the strength from his bones, made him feel weaker than he liked. He felt like he had to hide, hide from his own father, afraid of what he’d do or what he’d say. He still felt raw from the last run-in. Cruel words still battered around his head, trying to knock him down.

He envied his eldest brother, yet pitied him. He’d been here seven years, after all, and Luke was already beginning to feel worthless.

He dared to peek out from behind the couch, hoping his fire-red hair wouldn’t alert the man nearby to his presence. He got lucky--Arcis’ back was turned, and he was on the phone, talking about some business meeting he was about to go to. He had plenty of fancy cars, but the route Arcis would be taking was a portal.

Luke’s ticket home.

He crouched low, ready to spring into action the instant he felt the surge of magic in the air. The fire in his gut burned bright, held back for too long. Just a few more moments, and he’d be able to use his flames all he wanted. If he knew how to make his own portals, he would’ve left ages ago, but Arcis seemed to prefer captive prisoners.

This was a prison break.

The tingle could be felt in the air before the portal appeared, a swirling flash of colors floating inches above the floor, the uppermost edges nearly skimming the ceiling. Arcis wasn’t captivated by the beauty, his stone cold face neutral as he finished with his call and hung up. A man so cruel shouldn’t be allowed to make something so beautiful.

It was now or never. In one quick motion, Luke leaped to his feet and started running straight for the portal. His father stopped and turned, making a motion to start closing the portal, the colors beginning to fade. Luke growled, letting fiery red wings snap into existence on his back--though a few feathers had been torn during his stay here, they’d still do their job and get him through in time--

“Where do you think you’re going?” Arcis growled as he froze his feet to the floor, stopping him in his tracks.

“Out of here!” Luke snarled, the fire in his gut spreading over him. His arms shifted, his skin hardening like rock before cracking to reveal red hot magma below. The sheer heat of his presence melted away the ice, and burned the hand Arcis was about to strike him with as he held it back. For a moment, Luke couldn’t help but stare at his arm, at the hand he’d used to hold his father back from hitting him one last time.

‘Whoa. This is new.’ he thought absently, before realizing the portal was still half-open. He could escape.

Before Arcis could reach to grab him again, he turned and flew into the closing portal with a beat of his wings. Whatever his father shouted after him fell on deaf ears.

The world around him was nothing but swirling colors, blues and purples and whites entangling one another endlessly. It was just as cold as the manor, nothing but a colorless void as far as he could see. He reached out, his arms flesh once more, letting tendrils of color trickle over his fingertips. It felt almost like silk, in a way, like he was watching thousands and thousands of silk ribbons dance. He could watch forever, every movement dazzling his eyes.

No. He needed to get home. But… how?

He tried to focus on home, tried to visualize the couch in the living room, his bed with the red sheets, anything. But nothing happened. No sudden swirl of colors leading to a way out of this void, when he blinked he didn’t suddenly appear standing in the living room, nothing. Was he stuck, for real?!

A surge of panic ran through him, and before he realized it he was running. Running to no end, no reason, just running. The colors seemed to become sharper and sharper each step he took, until they were leaving him with tiny cuts along his arms and face. He wanted to get out, he wanted to get out, he wanted to get out, he wanted to get out--

Suddenly, the colors shifted, the cold hues becoming reds and yellows, softening around him. And when he took a few more steps, the void before him seemed to twist into something else. He couldn’t see it before he stumbled through the hole, tripping over his feet and falling to the floor. It was warm here.

Before he could even get a bearing on his surroundings, there was a click of a door unlocking, and two people walked in. They both froze when they laid eyes on him, and the three stared at each other a moment in shock before--

“Mom!” Luke gasped, leaping to his feet and running to hug her. His mom hugged him tight as well, but seemed confused.

“Luke!! What are you doing here, I wasn’t expecting you back until September!” she breathed, holding him back by his shoulders to get a good look at him. Her eyebrows furrowed when she saw the cuts on his cheeks. “And what happened to you, why are you so cut up?!”

“I ran through one of dad’s portals to get here, it cut me up! I couldn’t stay there any longer, I’m sorry, but--”

“You left the manor?” a third voice cut in. The two turned to address the final person in the room, currently holding a dog in his arms.

“...Ken? Is that really--dude, your hair… It’s been forever! I haven’t seen you since--” Luke opened his arms to go in for a hug, but his brother flinched away, turning his focus back to the dog in his arms.

“Come on, let me get you cleaned up. How long have you been in the living room, when did you get here?” Frost asked as she ferried Luke to the nearest bathroom. Luke sighed before he responded--he was beginning to get tired out.

He just hoped this year was better than the last, honestly.

Disillusions Tag List: @ravenpuffwriter @dreamswithadashofspice @ejmcmoon @beeofwriting 

[anip-ocs]

"Why'd I get detention?!" A voice shrieked from inside the building.

"Because Mr. Kent still thinks you don't speak English!" Another shout replied--this was Brett. The first voice must be Diana, then--the girl who sat in the back of her math class making animal noises and answering any questions in what Alana believed may have been either Russian or German. Or both.

Diana Terrível--local queen of mischief and style.

(Bonus Pic and text under the cut)

Location: Kasey K-12 School for the Gifted, Kihiro City, California, United States

Time: Friday, October 25th, 3:15 PM

The detention slip told Ken he had to be in a 'Mrs. Ginny''s room at 3:10. However, it had taken him ten minutes after the bell rang just to find Mrs. Ginny's room, let alone get his things into his locker. There was no sort of room number on the paper, and the man he'd asked had pointed him in the entirely wrong direction. Turns out that man was Mrs. Ginny's substitute. He didn't even seem sorry.

He walked in to see his friends already in there, trying to hide their laughter. In there with them was the boy who had been bullying Alana a few weeks ago, and a girl he’d seen skipping down the hall singing a handful of times. The girl wasn’t subtle at all, and straight-up pointed his way and let out a cackle.

“Nice hair, dweeb,” she said, still snickering. Ken couldn’t help but sigh, even as he sent her a glare and took a seat near his friends.

A few moments later, the curly-haired substitute closed the door and moved to lean on the desk. He was tall--very tall. Taller than Alana--which was unbelievably rare, now that Maddi thought about it. Hell, this guy had to duck to get back inside.

“Greetings, future juvenile delinquents,” he began.

“Hello,” the girl greeted with a grin, leaning back in her chair. The sub laughed a bit before he continued.

“I’m Mr. Peters. I don’t care if you guys stay quiet or whatever it is kids do in detention now, but I’m supposed to tell you to be quiet and do all that stuff anyways. I’m off to the teacher’s lounge. Don’t leave the room, don’t kill anybody, see you guys later.”

“No promises,”

Everyone made sure to scoot as far away from the animal noise girl as possible.

“As I’ve already said, I don’t really care. I’m out.” at that, Mr. Peters walked out of the room and closed the door behind him. ‘Madame Mimicry’ stood and made her way to the window, watching a bit. Brett sent her a look.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Watching Mr. Peters drive away on a motorcycle with his boyfriend.” everyone rushed to the window to see that she was telling the truth--Mr. Peters was noticeably not in the teacher’s lounge as he rode away on the back of a motorcycle, being driven by another man his age.

“How do you know that’s his boyfriend?” Brian asked.

“He gushes about him sometimes when he subs my classes.”

“Well then,” Ken said, watching as the two turned a corner and vanished from view.

“I mean, they could at least wear helmets. They might crash, and then they’d get comas.” Maddi said.

“Or die,” the animal noise girl added. Maddi nodded.

“That too,”

“So now what do we do?” Brett asked.

“...guess we just talk to each other?” Alana said with a shrug. Brett just scoffed, flipping hair out of his face.

“And why would I want to talk to you?”

“Because if you don’t I’ll snap your fucking neck,” animal noise girl and Maddi said at the same time. They sent each other a look before low-fiving each other.

Everyone made sure to stay as far away from those two as possible.

“...let’s start with names, then, since we’re apparently being forced to talk to each other. Not like I know who any of you are--except maybe you,” Brett sent Alana a look. “And not even your actual name. Unless your birth certificate says ‘Glasses Dork.’”

“My birth certificate says Alana,” Alana tucked her arms into her jacket.

“Huh. Okay,”

“Hey, our names rhyme!” animal girl said with a grin.

“Oh, really? What’s your name?” Alana asked, shifting in her seat.

“Diana! Diana Terrível! And the ‘I’ on my last name has a really cool accent on it.”

“Oh, cool!”

“I’m Ken Shinigami,” Ken almost bowed, but then stopped himself. Apparently bowing was weird. Apparently all the formalities his father had taught him were strange here… what else was?

Apparently, his last name.

“Hello there, Ken Demon.” Diana grinned again. Oh right, that. Ken rose an eyebrow and Diana just burst out laughing, Brett following quickly after.

“Demons aside, I’m Taylor. Wakes, since we’re doing last names.” Taylor offered a short wave. The group of students began shifting their desks closer together, sitting on them to talk. Ken sat in the chair the same way they had to during school, instead of taking advantage of their ‘freedom.’ What a dweeb.

“I’m Cujo Smithson, but everyone calls me CJ.” CJ said with a grin.

There was a moment of silence as everyone wondered who was going to go next. CJ nudged Brian so hard he nearly fell off his desk. The boy fumbled with his tablet for a moment before shoving CJ in return.

“Brian Hodges,” he said, sending a glare his friend’s way.

“I’m Maddi,” Maddi said with a shrug. Ken sat up a bit in his seat.

“Hey, Maddi, I just realized you’ve never told me your last name,” he said. Maddi’s hands curled into fists.

“There’s a reason for that,”

“What is it?”

“Don’t use it.”

“Well, why not?”

“Don’t ask,” Alana said, nudging him in the shoulder and sending him a look that said he’d better not ask. Needless to say, Ken didn’t ask.

“...well, I’m Brett Mage.” Brett said with a sigh.

“So what are you all here for?” Diana asked.

“Skipping,” Maddi said. Her friends all nodded in agreement.

“I skipped detention,” Brett shrugged. Alana’s eyes grew wide.

“You skipped detention?!” she asked.

“Yup.”

“What were you originally here for?” Maddi asked. She scarcely noticed Brian’s grin--it was clear he knew something.

“Talking back to the teacher,”

“What’d you say so bad that you got detention?” Taylor quirked an eyebrow. Brian let out a snort and covered his mouth.

Brett slammed his hands on the desk. “I was being smarter than the goddamn teacher, that’s what! He was being all like ‘everyone open Internet Explorer and go to this website’ and I said ‘Why do we have to use Internet Explorer, that program sucks, can’t we use Chrome? They’re all way faster’ and he’s all ‘because I’m the teacher you do what I say, I’m Mr. Gardner and I hate smart children bleh bleh bleh’ and I said ‘I refuse to use Internet Explorer, at least let us use Firefox, goddammit’ and then he handed me a referral for cursing in class.”

Diana started laughing uncontrollably.

“I remember that! Wasn’t that also for playing Overwatch during his presentation on applying animations to PowerPoints?” Brian asked. Brett just seemed even more exasperated.

“I was told that we were going to learn how to design websites and program video games and stuff, but no! We’re just learning stuff that any third grader could figure out! Hell, he does everything the long way, I’m smarter than the damn teacher, what the fuck?!”

“Wait,” Diana gave him a puzzled look. “Are most people not smarter than the teacher?”

“We aren’t supposed to be. Doesn’t tend to happen that way, though.”

“I can’t believe he’s spent two entire months teaching us how to use Microsoft Word?” Brian said. This elicited a groan from Brett, a full-blown, head-tipped-back groan. Diana looked completely lost. Taylor gave her a pat on the shoulder.

“Right?! I mean, doesn’t he know that everyone uses Google Docs now?! It’s way better than anything else on the market, and it's free!”

“Actually, I think Shinigami Docs is better than Google Docs,” Ken stated.

“But you have to pay for it! And that doesn’t even mention…”

This began a three-way techno dork-off. Alana decided that Brett was not only the biggest dork she’d ever met in her entire life so far, but was also rivaling Brianna Jones for the title of Biggest Drama Queen in the Entire School. No wonder they were dating.

“Wait. You never said what you did to get in here?” Alana said suddenly, looking at Diana. She was greeted with a positively wicked grin.

“I put someone in the hospital,” she stated. The room grew quiet.

Everyone made sure to scoot as far away from her as possible. Except, this time, for Brett.

“Liar!” he called, pointing at her. “You are a dirty liar! Ha!” he turned to address the rest of the room. “She’s in here because she keeps meowing and shit in math class, answering questions in basically every language except English.”

“Actually, that’s just what they caught me for.” Ken felt a shudder go down his spine when she smiled again. Her teeth looked like fangs.

Brett scooted away too.

Disillusions: In The Beginning Yakk list: @ravenpuffwriter @dreamswithadashofspice @ejmcmoon @writerofwriting @beeofwriting

(If you wanna be added to/removed from the tag list just hmu)

[anip-ocs]

Location: Town Plaza, Kihiro City, California, United States

Time: Sunday, March 29th, 3:18 P.M.

Compared to other monsters they'd fought before, this one was acting relatively docile... for now. Which probably just made it even more terrifying by that aspect alone.

Disillusions stood huddled in an alleyway, observing it. Whatever the monster had been doing before to initiate the warning ping, it had stopped. Maybe it was because there was no one on the streets anymore? All they knew is that they'd come onto the scene and it was eerily quiet.

The monster perched atop the fountain. At least, they presumed it was the monster. It was a bird--a black crow, just sitting atop of the bow of Eros, out of reach of the spray of the little cherubs spewing water in arcs around the Greek God. It was unmoving, and it's eyes seemed to be closed as well. But nothing else was on the street, nor was there any slight indication that the monster had actually moved to someplace else.

"What are we gonna do about it?" Brian asked, giving it another wary glance.

Ken looked at it a second before looking away, looking more than a little bit unsettled. "I don't think that's a normal bird."

"But what if it is?" Maddi asked.

"Doesn't smell like the birds that are in the forest usually." Claw mumbles, looking over at everyone. "So no, I don't think it is either."

"So then, why isn't it wrecking shit already?" CJ asked. "If it's a monster, then wouldn't it be hellbent on doing that?"

"Maybe it's waiting for something." Jay said with a shrug.

"Like what?" Taylor asked. "Us?"

"Probably."

"But we're here. Why isn't it doing anything yet?"

"I'm not sure, but we should probably go attack it while we have the chance." Ken said, standing straight and reaching for his swords. Alana put a hand on his arm before he could rush out.

"It could be a trap, Ken. I'll go." she said.

"Why you?"

"Because you're terrified of this thing, and I can sneak over and be way smaller so I won't get noticed."

"But what if it--"

"Attacks me? We risk that no matter what. I'll go up, and then pin it and then we'll figure out what it's up to. Okay?"

"I think it’s a good idea!" Claw grins. "And if anything goes wrong, we're here to assist."

"Yeah! I'll be fine." before anyone could protest further, Alana shifted forms into a chickadee and flew out of the alleyway, making her way to the back side of the corvid. It didn't even seem to notice, didn't even shift. She landed on the edge of the fountain behind the bird, shifted forms, and reached out to grab it.

Before she could, it opened its eyes--eight of them, pupil less and red, and turned to face her with a screeching caw that grated at all of their ears and left their heads reeling. By the time anyone was even mildly ready to react and attack the beast, it was as tall as the fountain and had Alana pinned under its talons, one sunk deep into her shoulder.

"Hey! Let go of her!" Ken shouted, but found himself paralyzed to the spot. The rest of the team rushed out to try and help her, leaping into action. Maddi tried to send out a plume of flame its way, but the beast flared out its wings--eight wings--and a flurry of arrows rained down on the group. Claw was hit in the leg, CJ earning a slice in the arm for his efforts to run and defend him. Brian cast out a hand, and a nearby car zoomed over to block them, separating the team from the beast, who still had their friend pinned. When the hail of arrows ended and the bird redirected its attention--and beak--to Alana, the car became surrounded in a blue glow and floated in the air a moment before being sent hurtling towards it. Before it could hit, it was sliced in half by a wing, and the following shots from Brian's gun seemed to do little to nothing more than irritate it.

No one else could even get any other attacks in before it fully grasped Alana in its talons and flew away, with another horrendous caw that seemed to rock the foundations of the buildings around them. Alana couldn't do much of anything more than reach out for them, vines desperately uprooting themselves from the earth to try and ensnare the corvid with no success. CJ tried to get into the air and go after them, but with another screech he let out a scream and plummeted to the ground.

"A-Are you guys okay?!" Ken called out, finding himself able to move again and rushing to their sides. Maddi turned and sent him a glare.

"Why weren't you helping?!"

"I-I panicked, I couldn't move, I--"

"Damn good time to panic! Ala--Bio's gone, Darky! What are we gonna do now?!"

"We could go after her instead of trying to start arguments?" Jay suggested with a flick of an ear. "Which way did they go? The faster we can get there, the more likely we're able to prevent anything worse from occurring."

"Jay has a point, guys." Taylor says, taking the Vastian's hand. "Let's get going." at that, the whole team set out to find their kidnapped friend. Hoping that nothing was happening she wouldn't be able to handle.

Location: Sanders Household/The Puppeteer's Base of Operations, Kihiro City, California, United States

Time: Sunday, March 29th. 3:30 P.M.

Alana was already pretty terrified the instant the monster turned and pinned her, and it only heightened once it took flight and whisked her away from her friends to who knows where. But as she started recognizing gated communities and roads her mother would have to drive through in order to get to the house of an old friend, her anxieties turned into irritation.

Of course, Will was at the bottom of this! For a moment, she'd worried that this monster was made by Zarroff--he was pretty determined to make man into beast, and she'd feared he'd figured it out. But no, it was just the Puppeteer again.

Was the Puppeteer still technically a threat? Yes, of course. Was the Puppeteer a coward who hid behind his magic book, had no real combat skills, and almost a full half a head shorter than her? Yes. All she had to do was make sure he didn't get a chance to crack open his book, and she could hold out until her friends got here--or even beat him herself.

The giant demon bird--that was two now, Will--touched down in the Sanders Household's backyard, immediately shrinking in size as it flew to perch on the back of a lawn chair. The pool was behind her, the chair and the irritating twig of a boy who'd decided to kidnap her in front. The book sat in his lap, the pencil in his hand, but he wasn't too interested in sketching her as it seemed. Instead he looked up at her, lowering his sunglasses to reveal his real glasses and... honestly, one of the more disturbing things today was that look on his face.

"At long last," he grinned, sitting up fully. "You're all mine."

"Uh. No, not really." Alana muttered, rubbing at the talon scratches across her arm. It hurt immensely to even try and move her right arm, nor was she willing to strain it until her shoulder healed. She wasn't a fan of the sticky feeling of blood, nor the boy who'd caused it.

"Oh, but that's where you're wrong, my love." now he was standing up, taking slow gliding steps towards her. Was he trying to be impressive? Right now, he was just annoying, and had her good shoulder not had a hole in it, she might've punched him in the face. "You don't have to pretend anymore, Alana. Your 'friends' aren't here to manipulate you! You can be yourself, we can be together!"

"How many times do I have to tell you that I do not want to be with you?"

"But you only said that because your friends were manipulating you!"

"No, Will. If anyone here is being manipulative, its you. You literally mind control people, and you think my friends are the ones who are being manipulative?!"

Will's smile shifted into a frown, and Alana unwillingly felt herself shudder. Goddamn shoulder, would you heal already?! "Alana. Together, we will be king and queen of this world. I can be king as is. If you need some... persuasion to be my queen, then so be it." he reached for the collar of his shirt and... started unbuttoning it. With every button, he took a small step forward, and Alana reciprocated by taking a step back. Eventually, the shirt was unbuttoned fully, and Will was standing there as if he was presenting something impressive. "Well? What do you think?"

"I think I want to go home." Alana rolled her eyes, but a glance down showed she was almost at the edge of the pool. One more step back and she'd fall into the water, and it wasn't like she'd be able to swim with her dumb arm still being injured. "Will, you can literally stop being a villain whenever you want. Just accept that I am not into you and let us move on with our lives."

"You'll learn to love me soon enough."

"Uh, no, Will, I won't--"

"Here, let me show you how," he took more steps forward, but before Alana could think about sidestepping to avoid him, the crow flew off of his shoulder and grew in size, just enough to block her way out. It made a sort of caw, and her head started to hurt too bad to even really see. By the time the spots were out of her eyes and her skin stopped crawling, she realized Will had grabbed her by the waist and was trying to tilt her chin towards him for a kiss. And then her skin began to crawl again.

Alana shoved out with her arms--her right shoulder began to bleed anew, but she didn't care as much at the moment--to get Will off of her, and stepped backwards, perfectly expecting to feel water start to flood over her. But she didn't get that--instead she got more solid surface to stand on. What? She looked down, and a giant lotus flower had bloomed beneath her, keeping her afloat upon its petals. When she looked back up, Will was lunging for her. Another shove, which wrenched him away and pushed her flower further towards the other side of the pool. He'd torn her shirt a bit, he'd grabbed her so hard. Her whole shoulder was beginning to throb with immense pain, and she clutched at it to try and stop the bleeding. What was in there, what was keeping it from healing?!

Will was occupying himself by taking pictures, but he was frowning. And then he began to make his way back to his lawn chair, to his book and pencil. "I tried to give you a choice, Alana, but now you leave me without one."

"Or you could stop being an asshole! What's your fucking problem!?"

"What can I say? I can't control myself when it comes to you." he was opening the book, flipping through the pages one by one. It was like torture, her heart was beating in her chest, but she wasn't sure she could even manage to shift into anything right now, let alone maneuver in that form well enough to escape in time.

"You can control yourself. You're just choosing not to." she sent him a toxic glare, but he laughed it off.

"You'll see things my way soon. Take a pose, sweetheart."

"Hey!" the two turned to see Claw standing there, the rest of the team behind him. He tapped his wrists and the clawed gauntlets appeared in a flash of red light. "Let her go."

"Coming to crash the party?" Will sounded frustrated, but then a malicious smirk crossed his face as he thrust out his hand. "Be my guest!"

The mutant crow once again began to swell, towering over the team. Ken's eyes widened in horror, his hands shaking as he drew his blade to fight the best he could.

A screeching caw from the creature shattered their resolve, and their focus, and before anyone was anywhere near ready to react, the bird was flying at them with a vengeance. Its talons were outstretched, and it pinned Taylor to the ground and knocked the wind out of her. She let out a scream as it bent to try and peck at her, but before it could a fireball flew into its mouth, and shortly after it was stabbed by Claw's gauntlets.

Will was just about to begin to draw something else when he heard CJ calling for Alana to jump. He and Brian were at the other edge of the pool, urging their teammate to jump to them. He couldn't have that, now could he?

The two boys stopped and turned to see that a snake-headed crocodile was behind them, letting out a hiss of a growl and targeting their ankles. It was a dark green, almost black, but with dangerous looking red spots along its back and at the tips of its fangs and teeth.

"Whoa! Scoot over!" Brian shouted, launching himself onto the leaves of the lotus flower. CJ quickly followed suit, but just as they were thinking they were safe, the beast slipped into the water and began circling around them. Oh fuck.

The others were a bit too occupied to help them, which wasn't necessarily their fault. The bird monster was still on top of Taylor, arrows shooting out of its wings at their friends. Jay had managed to form a shield large enough to protect three people, but Ken was still in the midst of the firefight. His own wings furled out of his back, and he flew at the monster with his swords and a battle cry. The two collided, Ken trying to slash through the monster's thick feathers with one sword while precariously holding back it's razor sharp beak with the other. Another caw sent their heads spinning, and the bird hopped off of Taylor to snap down on Ken's arm and shake him around. He let out a cry of pain, another following as Maddi attempted to hit the monster with her fire but instead hit his wing. Taylor thrust out her hands, summoning rocks to strike the beast in the side of the head and causing it to stumble to the side. The beast tumbled into the pool with a splash, Ken being pulled in with it.

The crocodile monster redirected its attention towards the giant splash, having already been on the leaves of the flower and about to climb over the petals into the center, but deciding to launch back into the water and go after whatever caused the disturbance. The three teens within the flower relaxed a bit, but weren't quite ready to leave the flower yet either.

Maddi almost launched herself into the water, but Claw stopped her, wincing a bit as he strained his leg to do so. "Wait! Don't!"

"What?! Why not?!" she groaned.

"Fire powers and water? No, that's not happening. Let's get Alana and them and--where's the Puppet boy?"

"Over there!" Taylor pointed towards the house, where Will was about to duck inside to supposed safety. The three chased after him, while Jay did his best to help the other three off of the flower.

Maddi, Taylor, and Claw raced into the Sanders Household, only to be stopped by Will's parents. The two servants lunged at them, his mother grabbing Claw and pinning him down and throwing punches while his father went for Taylor. He grabbed her arm before Maddi punched him in the neck, causing him to stumble back and let go of her friend. Claw was struggling to get up, mainly because Mrs. Sanders had relented to pulling at his ears as hard as she could muster, which was really damn hard when considering all of her normal inhibitions had vanished under the control of a madman.

Maddi and Taylor ran to go help him, but the cupboards began to tremble, slowly at first but then violently as a horde of black salamander-like creatures burst out of them and raced their way. While one of them wouldn't be too much to handle, hundreds and maybe even thousands of them was a bit too much, especially considering their footpads seemed to seep toxins into their skin that made them get too tired to keep fighting and resisting. Odd thoughts started filling their heads, thoughts none of them liked or even wanted to be hearing, but as the creatures overtook them, ignoring them became less and less of an option.

When he and the bird crashed beneath the surface, the monster let go of his arm with a gasp and tried to fly to the surface. Ken held his breath and thrust out his hands, and the surface of the water began to freeze over, trapping the bird underwater with him. Now it was a waiting game--who'd break through first, who'd drown first? He snapped his wings to propel him forward under the surface, striking at the bird with his blade. A gash of purple blood clouded out of the wound, but it wasn't fully down for the count quite yet.

Before Ken could go in for another attack, something bit down into his leg, causing him to cry out before he could think not to. Immediately his lungs began to fill with water, burning, but the new offending monster just thrashed about, as if it were trying to rip his leg right off of him. He barely managed to wrench it away, desperately trying to swim up and break the surface of the ice so he could catch his breath. Luckily, this was ice of his own will, and it broke easily enough for him to pop his head out of the new hole and catch a breath.

"Ken! What's going on in there?!" Alana gasped, eyes wide as she hopped off a giant flower atop the ice to run over. Her friend coughed out some water, but was unable to get any words out before he was suddenly pulled back into the water, desperately clawing at the ice to no avail.

"Dude?!" CJ shouted, running over to the hole with his friends beside him. There were three dark shapes under the ice, one large and desperately trying to peck through the ice, but the other two were smaller. One swam to the surface, but it swam too fishlike to be their friend. Indeed, the snake-odile surged up and nearly bit CJ's face off with a hiss. Brian formed a blade of metal and swung at it, but before it could connect, the beast dipped back under the ice. The two shapes began tussling again, the large demon bird fading away into nothing after it had sat still for far too long.

"Should we go help him?" Brian asked, looking to his friends.

"I can swim, but not well enough for that, I don't think." CJ said. "Now, I could try and make a bubble around me, but I don't know how well I could attack like that."

"I don't think I can even shift forms right now. My shoulder won't--oh? Oh, its healing now. Give me a second, then we can talk." Alana said, rubbing her shoulder.

Before anything else could be said, Ken's head popped out of the hole, and CJ and Brian lifted him by the shoulders onto the ice. An instant later, the final monster burst out of the ice, launching itself onto the surface. It came after them, its claws causing it to skid along the icy surface, but it was still moving formidably fast. Ken finished coughing and turned to face the beast, a sword held in front of him as he stood in place umoving.

"We're ending this!" He shouted, glaring down the reptilian monster. It launched into the air to attack him, but he stabbed through it's underbelly with his sword, the tip of the blade piercing through it's leather back, and he took his other blade and sliced it's head off it's form with one fluid motion and a spattering arc of violet blood. Only then did he let the fallen beast slide off his blade and onto the ice, where it then faded into nothingness.

"That looked so cool!!" CJ shouted, eyes wide.

"I wouldn't know anything," Jay said, causing everyone to turn and see him with his arms crossed over his chest. "Ken, with all due respect, I'm not sure what exactly I'm expected to do in a battle scenario like this, let alone why you brought me."

"Well... We could use your healing assistance." Ken offered.

"What about your telekinesis?" Brian asked. "You have that, don't you?"

"Yes, but I don't use it for much more than shields. I didn't really see a reason to train it any further. I can't really aim any attacks, could I?" Jay said, his tail flicking to and fro. "Is everyone alright, by the way? I know Alana's healing powers are faster than mine, but I can still assist."

"Honestly, I had a hole in my shoulder for a good fifteen-twenty minutes, and it's taking a bit longer than usual to heal up. I'm not even close to halfway done." Alana said. "And Ken has some damage on his arm, leg, and wing, so if you want to help him with that, you can."

"Alright! And if CJ and Brian are alright, then the rest of the team went inside a house or something."

"Oh, yeah! Let's go!" the two boys raced inside to assist their friends in hopefully bringing down the Puppeteer and his plots.

Brian and CJ opened the door to the house, and near-immediately a stream of black salamanders poured out, scattering into the world beyond the Sanders' yard. The inside of the house was dark, pale light seeping through as it shone through the bodies of salamanders sticking to the light. Asides from that, no one seemed to be around.

"Uh? Guys?" CJ called out. "Hewwoooo??"

"Maybe they're upstairs," Brian said, stepping further into the door to find the stairwell. Almost immediately, he was grabbed by a hand and slammed onto the tile floors of the kitchen, the force of impact nearly cracking them. Maddi had him pinned, one hand around his throat and the other about to cast a fire attack right onto his face, a knee on his chest. Fortunately, Maddi was pretty short and easy to throw off, but--

"What the fuck, Maddi?!" CJ shouted, only to be grabbed by Taylor and Claw. They seemed to be trying to strangle them, but even in the low light he could tell something was wrong. If the fact that his friends were attacking him wasn't enough of a clue, their eyes were too dark, it was like even the sclera was beginning to turn black. Something had happened. And they needed to snap them out of it.

Something started crawling on Brian's arms, making his skin crawl. He moved to swipe it off, but it just stuck to his hand, and then Maddi slammed him into the counters with bared teeth, trying to hold him still for... some reason... was that a salamander on her neck? And there were a few on her arms too, pressed down like tattoos, nearly flat against her skin. And the one on his arm was quickly being joined by many others, and the more they moved around the dizzier and dizzier he got. Serve the Puppeteer. What? No way that thought was his!

Wait a second.

"CJ! Get them outside!" Brian shouted, gesturing the best he could towards the door. CJ couldn't even properly see it because he'd been pinned on the ground, the blades of Claw's gauntlets hovering dangerously close to his neck.

"Uh, don't think that's an option right now!" he yelled, eyes wide and focused on the knife points.

"We need to!" Maddi tried to pin him more, but he kicked her in the gut to get her back before he pushed off of the counter and ran for the door, the girl giving chase. Taylor tried to block his way, but he just grabbed her arm and dragged her outside as well. Claw looked up at the commotion, distracted, and CJ managed to squirm out from under him and race outside.

The sunlight didn't seem to waver their resolve, the three teammates still chasing after them, but quite frankly Brian had a backup plan that would hopefully help. Ken looked up at the sound of the door slamming against the wall behind it, eyes wide.

"What's going on?!" he asked incredulously, prompting Alana to look up from her shoulder and Jay to stop what he was doing and listen in.

"Un-ice more of the pool!" Brian shouted as he jumped onto the slippery surface and fell on his butt, sliding halfway across the expanse.

"What?! Why?!"

"Just do it!" CJ shouted, leaping onto the surface as well. Ken made a larger hole in the ice just as the rest of their friends launched themselves after them, causing them to fall into the water instead. They let out shouts of shock before climbing out of the water, shaking themselves off as black salamanders slipped off their arms, necks, and legs before scattering into the distance. The instant they were all off, they rubbed their eyes and looked around.

"Since when were we out here again?!" Maddi yelled, spinning in a circle to make sure her eyes weren't tricking her.

"You guys got puppeteed by fucking lizards!" Brian said.

"What?!" the rest of the team exclaimed, eyes wide.

"Lizards?!" Taylor screamed, looking absolutely repulsed. "Oh, ugh, I can't stand lizards, what'd they make us do?!"

"You tried to attack us until you fell in the pool, then they fell off." CJ said. "You guys okay? Not still wanting to kill us, are you?"

"I'll pass on that," Claw said, trying to dry himself off further. "But I'm not really willing to go back into that hellhole again either."

"How'd it happen?" Alana asked, walking up to check them over. Asides from dark marks on their arms, they were okay, and it looked like the marks would go away sooner or later too.

"We went in and his parents attacked us! Then all these sala-shits came out the cabinets, like, thousands of them! Then we were out here!" Maddi huffed.

"That sounds... yeah, you couldn't pay me to go in there right now." Jay said, eyebrows furrowed. "Ken, you should be good to stand."

"Thanks, Jay. So, what are we going to do next?" he asked.

"Will's probably upstairs in his room, laughing his head off at us. And as much as I want to punch that look off his fucking face, I don't want to go back in there either." Maddi grumbled. "I just want to go home. Treehouse is ready now, right?"

"Yeah. I actually got the call a few minutes before this battle happened. You all can come to my house to grab your things and then I'll walk you over."

"Thanks."

"For?"

"Uh, for letting us not go back in there... and for everything else." Maddi's face turned red and she looked away, shoulders hunched. She let out a cough. "I mean, you could have saved your dumb money and done rich people shit with it."

"You're welcome, Maddi." Ken smiled.

"So, we can leave now, right?" Alana asked.

"Yeah. That was more than enough action for the day. We know where his base is, we can attack when we're ready."

With that, the team split off, making their ways home. Being generally sick and tired of Will's bullshit.

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