#but his is like a chemical vial and some wires

[moonfurthetemmie]

Untitled.MP4

Previous | Next | First (with warnings)

Part 16

June 30, 20XX_TL_1

Zuli is sitting in front of the camera. There’s a mess of wires and vials before him, off to the side of the camera’s view. He seems shaky, but solemn. Resolve is clear in his voice. There’s no sign of the tears he’d had yesterday.

“We’re blowing up the manor.”

He pauses, working on the device in front of him. 

“Mercury’s infected. We noticed the white patches on his skin as he was working on the cure. Here, in the office. I’m sure I’m infected too. The cure is nowhere near done. If I worked on it, I might make it, but I don’t know anything about how chemicals mix, nevermind medicine. And this sickness advances way too fast; I’d probably only have a few hours at best. We’re not going to make it out of here. The least we can do is make sure this thing doesn’t, either.”

Something clicks into place in the device on the desk.

“Before I was kidnapped by Obsidian, I was training to be part of an elite military force in my universe. During that time, I learned how to make explosives. We’re going to make a dozen or so pipebombs and firebombs, hide them around, lure the Colony in close to the manor, and set them off. We don’t have a lot of time. Mercury helped me make a few, and he’s setting them out now. Still in a hazmat suit; the more spores he breathes in, the faster he’ll go, and we need all the time we can get.

“Some of the failed cures we found did slow the progression of the disease, so I had him take any that weren’t deadly. And some were. He said that’s a common problem when trying to treat fungal diseases, so I’m kind of impressed how many were safe, even if they weren’t ever quite enough.”

Zuli carefully wraps his contraption in gauze and medical tape. He grabs more supplies from off-screen, and gets to work on another.

“We know the Colony has done something to make creating portals impossible. We don’t know how, but we know it has. And we know that it wants to infect everyone before it lets anyone leave. Koroit probably could, but it doesn’t want her to. I don’t know why; with how advanced her case is, she could probably infect a town in just a few hours. But, it sounds like it’ll try to absorb the manor into its own structure once it’s sure the last few people in the manor are infected. So…all we need to do is convince it we’ve been infected. And that won’t be too hard. 

“This is the last video. None of us are going to survive this. The fungus burns easily, and burns fast. Anyone who’s infected will die quickly, if painfully. But as long as we can get the big thing outside, this will also help make sure that there’s nothing infectious here; as long as we can get the whole place to burn. Mercury thinks we can. I hope he’s right. If this thing gets out…”

He shakes his head, and finally looks right at the camera.

“Peridot, whoever you are, and whatever it is you do, we’ve dropped a pretty big weight on your shoulders, and I’m sorry. If you’re in a position to do something directly, do it. If you can’t do anything, send these to someone who can. Anyone who might know what to do.

“If someone needs to investigate here, they need to wear good hazmat suits. And they need to make sure they have a way to decontaminate their suits before they leave. We’ve been using strong hydrogen peroxide, but Mercury says that it’s a bad idea for use long-term, so hopefully whoever comes knows something better. 

“We’ve taken more pictures, as many as we could, and we’re sending them with the videos. Pictures of everyone. Mercury’s current symptoms. The mold and fungus on the walls and floor. The…the thing outside. Anything to help you–or whoever you might have to send these to–know what to look for.”

Zuli finally takes a breath. He turns back to the unassembled bomb on the desk, and begins working.

“This is the last one I have to make. Once I’ve placed them, I’m…I’m going to go see Jade.”

His voice cracks.

“I should’ve killed him when he asked me to. It would’ve been so much less painful than this. And I think the fungus will have covered him too much for me to cut him out and give him an easier way out before the bombs go off, and the fire spreads. At least if I’m near him without a suit, it won’t take long for the spores to get to me. I just need to last long enough to be able to set off the bombs when the Colony closes in.”

Zuli slowly reaches forwards. There’s tears in his eyes.

“Peridot. You are our only chance. I’m sorry this has been pushed on you, and I know that this being sent from people who live with Obsidian–one of whom works for him–is going to make you wary of helping. But this isn’t about Obsidian. This disease, wherever it came from, is a much bigger threat than Obsidian could ever hope to be. Unintelligent life suffocates from the mushrooms. Humans–and maybe monsters–are made living agents of infection, who live only to serve the Colony and spread it’s reach. It’s alive. It’s sentient. It can be multiple places at once. And it makes anyone it comes into contact with willing conspirators. Obsidian is an agonized mass of fungus and mold because of this thing. 

“You can’t save us now, but you can save others. Don’t let what happened here spread.”

The video ends.

[letsgofoletsgo]

My part of an art trade for @canon-can-fight-me

~

As the moon rose over New York, the energy of the daytime receded to the nightlife. A different aura awakened, cloaked under blaring neon lights and shadows. The night offered a leeway for the rowdier side of the city to awaken.

Egon Spengler was not the one for such a scene. He never found himself comfortable with large, loud, drunken crowds, much less under strobing lights and deafening music. The only time he’d even think of staying up late was if he was chasing a groundbreaking scientific pursuit. 

Numbers, calculations, logic, that all made sense to him. Most of the time, people didn’t. He was fine with that.

Or, that was, until he met Kaiyo. 

For once in his life, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Sure, she took an interest in his scientific work, listened to him ramble, and gave him space when he needed it, but there was something more that made her feel so special. Something about her that sparked a want to be near her, where he felt like he could truly be himself. It was foreign to him, but he wasn’t complaining. 

Egon found himself deep in these thoughts one night. In his lab under the firehouse, his own little sanctuary within the buzzing metropolis. Even with the specimens in front of him, his mind wandered to Kaiyo. He’d never before found himself so preoccupied with something that wasn’t his current project, so the enigma further eluded him. Just what was it about her-

“Sup professor!” A voice chimed behind him. 

Egon jumped, vials audibly clinking as his hands jerked. “K-Kaiyo! Warn me before you burst into the lab like that!” 

“Heh, sorry. Still wired from training, Ray kept me on my toes today.”

Observing the grin on her face, Egon couldn’t find it in himself to stay mad at her. “I see.” 

Kaiyo tilted her head to watch him as he reorganized the vials. “What’re you working on?”

“Just running some tests. I want to see what chemicals these plasm specimens react with so I can narrow down what they’re made of.” 

“Nice. How long have you been at it?”

“A couple hours. This sort of procedure is mostly trial and error, it should take me a few days to get anything definitive.” 

“Gotcha.” 

Kaiyo eyed the specimens, lips then curving into a small smile. “That purple stuff reminds me of my first bust. You remember that?” 

“I do.” 

She giggled. “I mean, I’m glad we caught the thing, but it didn’t have to explode all over me.” 

“It’s something of an occupational hazard unfortunately. With how unpredictable ghosts can be, you were lucky it wasn’t corrosive.” 

“Well, it's a hazard I’ll take. A bit of slime won’t stop me from being a Ghostbuster, its a pretty bang up job.” She chided, voice then lowering. “Besides, I get to work with you. Not everyone gets to work with the best scientist in New York City.” 

Egon couldn’t deny the blush on his face at that. “W-Well, thank you… The feeling is mutual.” 

Kaiyo smiled warmly. “Hey, when you’re done with the samples, how about we watch a movie together? I think they’re playing some oldies on 85.” 

“Sure. I’d like that.” 

“Sounds like a plan.” She turned,  then looked back at him. “See ya later.” 

“See you.” 

With that, Kaiyo left the lab, and Egon with his thoughts once again. The question in his mind remained, asking it to himself as the specimens were nearly forgotten. Sure, he could never exactly place why he felt the way he did about Kaiyo. But as long as he was with her, maybe he didn’t need an answer; at least not strictly.  

[lalantes]

pony stuff

[phantomrose96]

For Pennies

Warm-up mini fic. Consider this a doodle.

....

The Fentons were selling their house for pennies.

The “For Sale” sign out front was easily missed against the ostentatious display of the op center, and the “FENTON” sign, and the Fenton RV. Or perhaps, all that made it more noticeable. It bolstered the weird and unsettling mundanity of a standard-issue For Sale sign dictating the fate of a house so indescribably odd.

It took only a few curious gossips to find the listing, and to spread the news further when the listing asked for hardly a fifth of standard asking price. Real estate agents weighed in on town facebook pages that, yes, this was abysmally low. Others rationalized it. “It’s only natural. Those house modifications have killed the resale value. The basement is uninhabitable according to the listing. They’re selling an extreme fixer-upper.”

And when the house did not sell in the first week, the price dipped again. And when rumors spread that the house owners were responsible for the town’s ghost blight, the price dipped once again. Then nearly overnight, the op-center vanished, and the FENTON sign disappeared from sight. The Fentons were, if nothing else, impressive engineers, capable of undoing a lifetime’s work in a weekend. Soon after, the listing sold.

The buyer, Peter, was looking for fixer-uppers to flip and rent. He knew about the Amity Park rumors, but if the renting market proved stale for the fear of ghosts, he knew the airbnb market would thrive with curious tourists, so the property was a safe bet regardless.

He met the family once, in the house, when he came to inspect it and sign paperwork if he was satisfied. The husband was perhaps the biggest man Peter had ever seen, portly yet rock solid, clad head to toe in neon orange. The wife matched him in jumpsuits, a powder blue one. Their daughter seemed normal, though she and Peter only exchanged a handful of words.

“Where are you folks headed once this place is sold?” Peter asked, cordially, eyes flitting between the contract before him and the couple seated across the table.

“Westward, a bit. Um, Maddie’s got a sister out there. We’re trying to be closer to family.”

Peter nodded. “Always good to have family around.” He glanced in the daughter’s direction. “Are you excited to be moving closer to your aunt?”

The daughter met his gaze, level. “I’m not going with them, actually.”

“Oh?” Peter asked. “Headed to college? That would make sense.”

“I’m a rising senior,” the girl answered.

“Jazz is—” the mother, Maddie, cut in. “It’s well, it’s about to be her senior year of high school. Hard time to switch schools, you know? She’s going to be renting a place nearby so she can finish school here.”

“Oh? First time living all on your own?” Peter asked, initialing a page of the contract.

“I’m 17. It’s not that weird.”

“Never said it was. I remember my first place pretty fondly. It’s an exciting milestone, don’t waste it!”

Peter initialed another page. He spun the document back to the Fentons to sign as well.

“Well, I really like the place, is what I’ve got to say. The newly redone flooring on this floor was a perk I wasn’t expecting, can’t have been cheap. You still managed to keep the price amazing though. Don’t worry about the dings and scratches – I’ve got the art of fixing up places down to a science. I’ll take a crack at the basement too.”

“We’d rather you didn’t,” Maddie answered.

Peter waved her off. “I know it was some kind of lab, yeah? You won’t be liable if I say, spill acid on myself or dunk myself in radiation or, whatever you had going on down there. We can go over that clause of the contract again if you want. Ghosts, right?”

“It’s dangerous—”

“If I can’t hack it, I’ll seal up the basement for good. But I won’t know until I try. Seriously, don’t worry.”

The Fentons signed the final page, and flipped the contract back around to Peter. He pulled an envelope from his coat – a check made out with the full amount. No loan needed. No mortgage. Their asking price was practically pocket change.

The daughter excused herself from the room.

…

The Fenton basement had fewer wonders than Peter was expecting.

He swung a flashlight around, as the bulb hanging overhead had been cut from the main power supply. Most everything had been cleared out, leaving a room hollowed out. His feet clicked across the metal floor. Walls of bolted steel rose high on all four sides. On the opposite wall, the scars of heavy bolting remained, along with the smoky stain of something huge, and geometric, no longer bolted to the wall.

He swung his beam wide, across every which wall beveling with bloated shadows, until he pinned the electrical panel.

“There you are.”

It took some tampering, and some patience, because something had physically demolished the box before him. Peter knew his way around basic house wiring, so it took only a few experimental adjustments until he threw the breaker, and the industrial light overhead clunked to life.

Peter turned, surveying the mouse cage of pure, uninterrupted steel sheeting, bolted together wall to wall, across the floor, across the ceiling. It was an impressive expanse of space, and under the proper flood lighting Peter could make out the deeper shadowy stains of where industrial cabinets used to be affixed to the floors, the walls. He was staring into the burnt out afterimage of what, he could only conjecture, had once been an impressive scientific facility.

It wasn’t above being carpeted and turned into a rec room.

Peter paused, his eyes training to the back corner near the octagonal imprint left in the wall. Something seemed amiss, something with color, popping bright against a display of pure ash and silver.

Peter stepped forward, flashlight still pointed though it served little use now. The space took shape – a rectangular impression on the floor, about as large as a twin bed, formed a negative image. The rectangle was spotlessly clean, silver and shiny, as though recently cleaned and polished and recleaned and repolished.

It was the edges of the rectangle, the spatters of space stretching beyond it, that held Peter’s attention.

Green, verging toward a rusty brown, splattered the floor. He stepped closer, and knelt, and stared at the pattern. Like a dropped vial of green chemicals that shattered and spattered the floors, the neighboring wall. Like radioactive spill left to eat into the floor. Peter thought back to his radioactive quip, and wondered if he should perhaps back away.

He set a nail to one of the stains and scratched at it. It would not lift. It would not budge. He swung the flashlight beam, and he found the stains glittered, and then dulled where they edged closer to rust.

And it was the rust that confused Peter the most. That copper color, like pennies, that morphed away from the green. It wasn’t uniform. It did not eat away symmetrically at the edges of the stains. Instead it spattered, and dragged, and molded from droplets to long streaks dragging across the floor like chalk dust on a blackboard.

Peter followed them. The streaking ended. Beyond that, he caught a single droplet speckled into the floor a foot away. Another, when he swung his beam. And another. He followed them, one by one, tracing them back to the basement stairs, up, up, up, up.

At the top of the stairs, the trail vanished. The brand new hardwood flooring that stretched through the whole first floor was immaculate.

[preciousthingsareprecious]

Whumptober Day 1: Bound

It's October so of course I'm writing again! We'll see how far I get through Whumptober this year lol.

Day 1: “You have to let go” | barbed wire | bound

Characters: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne

Summary: When Damian becomes the latest victim in a string of kidnappings across Gotham, it's down to Dick to save him and the rest of the missing kids. He just has to get there in time.

AO3 Link

~

The sound of Dick’s boots echoed in the empty hall even as his heart pounded in his chest and his comm buzzed white noise into his ear. Dim lights flickered around him, only just illuminating his path through the old abandoned hotel. But he had to keep moving, had to find the missing kids. Had to find Damian .

He pushed himself a little faster through the hall, pausing only whenever he came to a door to throw it open, then on finding it empty, start his mad dash again. They had to be here, everything pointed to this location.

Batman and Robin had been investigating a series of kidnappings over the past month. Dick had done his best to keep Damian away from the information but the kid was about as stubborn as Bruce had been when he decided on something, so Dick had let him in with the promise they did everything together.

And he’d kept that promise. He’d done so well, and then it had been Dick who’d lost him.

“Stupid.” Dick grumbled, peering into yet another empty room. Every room was empty on this floor, but there were still the ballrooms at the top to check.

He’d been so stupid, taking Damian out to do some shopping then turning away for a moment. A second had been all the kidnapper needed to grab another kid. Another victim. And it was Dick’s fault. For looking away when there was a person out there grabbing kids Damian’s age.

Alfred’s consoling voice from earlier flooded through his thoughts as he took the stairs down two at a time, ‘It is not your fault, you were simply trying to have a good day amidst all this terribleness.’ And what good had it done either of them? Panic in Dick’s chest, and a missing brother.

The only thing that kept him moving was that none of the kids had been found yet. No ransoms had been sent out either, but no bodies meant they had to be somewhere. And Dick was going to find them.

He’d tracked the kidnapper here via an unusual series of shipments of food and chemicals sent to a Dr. Keith Raimy. An ex-professor from Gotham U who’d been kicked out for multiple breaches of student privacy and theft of university property. He'd recently had a paper rejected. It's title? Fear and Trauma: Can We Make Our Kids Strong Enough for the Future, Through Fear Today? Dick had skimmed the paper, and what had been proposed inside had made him sick to his stomach.

The door to the first ball room he tried on the top floor was locked. Muffled, and just through the door, Dick could hear screams. In a fit of rage, and fueled by the panic Dick was only just keeping in check, he kicked it down. The old rotting hinges gave way and the thing toppled backward with a heavy thump.

Silence filled the room for a moment, giving Dick a breath to take it in. Mostly empty, it had rotting carpet and peeling wallpaper. A tattered chandelier hung from the ceiling, pieces held on by a few dangling wires, but mostly disassembled either from time or theft.

Huddled in a group in one corner of an old ballroom, were children. The children Dick had been searching for. From what he could see, they were bound with some sort of rope, and looked rough, but alive and breathing.

At the far back of the room there was a stage, or what had once been used as a stage. Now it was mostly just a raised platform with tall floodlights dragged up to it, a rumbling generator the source of their power. It was cluttered with other equipment too, tables filled with jars and beakers, boxes opened with bits poking out of the top, and a laptop hooked up to a microscope. Standing among the clutter was Dr. Raimy in a stained lab coat just blocking a table.

He had turned to stare at Dick when the door came crashing down. Now, he moved to raise his arm, mouth opening, and in the next breath the moment of silence was broken as the screaming started again. The doctor tensed, shifting a bit to cover the table, but it wouldn’t help.

Clear now, the voice was unmistakably Damian’s, high and terrified in a way Dick had never heard it before and it was coming from behind the doctor.

Dick bolted forward, slipping batagrangs out of his belt. Damian was his only thought. His boy was up there, terrified and suffering all because of the man in front of him.

Dr. Raimy jumped to the side, attempting to make a run for it, and stumbled into another table. It gave Dick long enough to cover most of the distance between them and fling a few batarangs in the man’s direction. One caught his jacket, and the other stabbed into junk on the table making him yelp.  He jerked back, and then turned towards the table he’d been guarding, making a second dart for it, and the figure writhing atop it. Red clouded Dick’s vision as he got his first clear view of his little brother, strapped down to the table with a long strand of barbed wire, and straining against it as he yelled.

Dick roared, and leapt up to the platform, grabbing the doctor as he did so. The man released an aborted shout as Dick flung him back and away from the table into a pile of boxes. He turned for a moment to Damian, catching sight of his brother’s pupils blown wide. He hadn’t even registered the action beside him, trapped in whatever horrorscape he���d been dropped into.

The sound of rustling indicated that Raimy was already pushing himself up, babbling something about science and progress and Batman not understanding.

He stalked forward, raising himself up to as imposing a height as possible and kicked at the doctor, knocking him back into the boxes to stun him. Then, he reached down and dragged the man upwards.

“What did you give him?” he demanded.

“It was--a mixture of my own making.”

Dick shook him so hard that he heard something pop, “Did you make an antidote?”

Behind him, Damian’s screaming changed pitch to something even more desperate.

“ Tell me .” he growled.

“T-there, it’s--it’s in the line of blue vials. Please don’t kill me, I was only trying-”

Dick didn’t give the man the time to finish his sentence, he punched him square in the face, and dropped him unconscious back into the boxes. Then he was over at the vials, thankfully a syringe had already been filled or he’d have to waste time figuring out how much to give Damian. He pocketed it, swapping it out in his hand for a pair of wire clippers and rushed back to the table.

“Damian, I don’t know if you can hear me, but it’s alright.” Dick said, voice gentle, “I’m getting you out of here.”

Something must have gotten through to him, because Damian stilled at his words, staring with wide, terrified eyes up at Dick. Dick tried not to look at the red lines of blood on Damian’s arms and chest he worked on clipping the barbed wire, instead murmuring quietly to Damian to keep him calm.

Thankfully, the man hadn’t totally wrapped Damian in the stuff. The single band was thick and strong enough to keep a drugged kid down, but hopefully hadn’t done too much damage. Still, it made Dick’s stomach churn as he lifted it as gently as he could off his brother, Damian making only the tiniest of sobs as each barb still embedded in his skin pulled out.

“Just one more second, sweetheart.” Dick whispered, hoping his voice wasn’t carrying over to the other kids. There was murmuring coming from them by now, as they realized rescue was at hand, but Dick’s focus was on the kid currently in need of the most help. At last, Dick dropped the discarded wire onto the table and leaned back to find the vial of the antidote.

Something about the sound of the wire, or a movement Dick made, or just whatever concoction the doctor had given him triggered something in Damian the moment Dick leaned away. He shot up from where he’d been lying, and grabbed the wire with both hands, heedless of any damage it was causing.

Dick reached for him, ready to pull the barbed wire away from him but Damian scooted back, precariously close to the edge of the table and yelled, “No! Don’t!”

“Hey, it’s alright, why don’t you give me that?” Dick asked, trying to calm him back down.

“Stop!” Damian yelled again, gripping the wire tighter and pressing it to his chest, “Don’t take him!”

“Damian please, you have to let go. It’s hurting you.” Dick tried again, wincing as red started to drip down the wire.

“No! I won’t let you!”

“Okay, okay.” Dick held up both hands, whatever Damian was seeing must have been convincing and he didn’t want to hurt the kid by forcing the barbed wire out of his hands, he’d only tear them up more that way.

“Would you let me give you something?” Dick asked, gently lowering his arms to retrieve the syringe, “It’ll make you feel better.”

Damian eyed him, the look almost like what he’d normally make when suspicious, but just off enough from the drugs, “Yes?” he said.

“Great. I just need your arm, you don’t have to let go of anything or anyone okay?” Dick said, slowly reaching for Damian’s arm with his free hand. When the boy let him place his hands by his elbow, Dick angled it up, then after a moment, praying he hadn’t been lied to, injected his brother with the liquid in one motion.

Damian jerked back, squeezing the wire closer to him and went tumbling from the table. Dick lunged over it, and just managed to hook an arm around the kid, tugging him up. He heard the clatter of glass falling and hitting the ground as the syringe that had still been stuck in Damian’s arm slipped out and shattered.

“No! No! Stop!” Damian wailed, kicking and jerking in Dick’s hold.

Mindful that if he tugged Damian into his chest the barbed wire would do more harm, Dick decided he'd restrain him by pulling his back towards him. That was easier said than done with a flailing kid. At last, Dick had an arm hooked under Damian’s arms and had him held tight against him, seated again on the table. His brother continued to scream and kick and tug at him for another minute, then two, until gradually Damian’s own chest slowed it’s rapid rise and fall and his cries quieted down to nothing.

“Batman?” His voice was tiny, shattered from screaming, but almost lucid.

Dick dropped his face into Damian’s hair and sighed, “Yeah, I’ve got you.”

He let go of Damian and stepped around to face his front. There, he pointed at the tangled barbed wire still in Damian’s hands, “Will you hand me that?”

Damian looked down surprised to see it, “Oh.”

Wincing he released it, and before anything else could happen, Dick balled it up and tossed it away from them. When he turned back to Damian, the kid was staring down at his palms that were red and torn. He hadn’t said anything else, but Dick could hear the tight way he was breathing, the sound almost like whistles, like he was holding back the pain.

He dug out some gauze, wraps, and something to numb the pain, “Here, let me.”

With gentle motions Dick bandaged Damian’s hands. When he was done, he dropped a kiss onto the knuckles of each one, “Wait for me right here? I have to help the others.”

Damian’s eyes went wide, “The kids--”

“Are mostly fine.” Dick said, sparing them another glance, they’d been remarkably patient, but their chatter had gone up from quiet murmurs to full conversations, “But eager to be untied I’m sure.”

His brother nodded. Even though it tore at Dick’s heart to step away, he did. And he took as much time with each of them as they needed. Batman couldn’t focus only on one child after all, especially when others showed signs of having gone through something similar to Damian.  Gradually though, Dick got them all settled down, untied, and called Oracle to let her know to send police and paramedics. Then he swung by Damian to scoop him up into his arms --the kid for once not arguing being carried-- and corralled everyone downstairs.

Dick could see the lights of the emergency vehicles through the windows, and sent the children out before him, lingering back in the building with Damian. The last thing he wanted to do was let go of his brother, even if it was to hand him off to medical professionals. He’d just gotten him back, and the mere thought of having him out of his sight for a second felt impossible to manage. All he could think of were the number of --mostly implausible-- ways Damian could end up hurt or in danger again.

He was starting to see why Bruce had been so protective of his Robins.

"Batman?" Damian's voice was very quiet in the dim lighting.

"Yes?"

Damian shifted so his face was pressed a little closer to Dick's neck, "I'm sorry. I got caught."

"No, you have nothing to be sorry for. I'm sorry I let you get taken."

"I-" Damian sighed, "Thank you for coming."

Dick tugged him a little closer, mindful that he still had injuries that needed to be cared for, "Always. Now, what do you say we sneak out and let Alfred finish patching you up? The police are used to Batman disappearing, and I found you before I ever reported you missing."

Damian, hummed, “I would like that, I want to go home.”

Dick pressed a kiss into Damian’s hair, “Then straight home we go.”

[arda-ancalima]

Summary: Susato receives a reminder of learning the Science of Deduction from the Great Detective himself. Words: 637

Written for TGAA Greatest Family Week 2022 - July 31st: Hand-me-downs @greatestfamilyweek

This was my first time doing an event like this and posting in this fandom and it was a lot of fun - thanks for reading! :)

Takes place right before the end of the game.

----

Susato set down the cup of tea in the one clear area of Sholmes’ workspace as he fiddled with vials of chemicals and some wiring; a hazardous combination it seemed to her. Nodding his thanks, he gave her a quick once-over before returning to his work.

“You have decided, then?”

She had almost grown used to his quick deductions. “Yes.”

“We shall feel your absence greatly.”

“I shall also.”

While certain of her decision, especially after speaking with Kazuma, it was hard to think about while she was here at home.

Sholmes pushed back his chair and half turned to her as he sipped his tea. “Did you know, I’ve been tidying up lately.”

“Oh?” If he had, it was not in the living room. Not that she would have it any other way.

“Yes, you know, the usual: tossing old newspapers, turning worn clothing to scrap, finally getting around to neutralising explosives…”

Ah yes. Those things. “I see. That is a worthy pursuit.”

Continue reading on AO3

[crowley-in-arkham]

Kraw

I'm sitting in Crane's house at present. I told him I'd stop by. I'm not sure what I expected, but this wasn't it.

I expected a warm-looking house, which, this is-- but it's a giant labyrinth with more books than anyone could possibly read. It's like my desk has been manifested into a living space.

I found Kraw, right where Crane said he'd be, and said hello, the bird is quite friendly. His food was thoroughly replenished, so I suppose that the neighborhood boy is doing his job. I've stopped to write him a letter of gratitude from myself with a few extra dollars, for putting my mind at ease as well.

I'm sure Crane would be happy to know Kraw is well taken care of.

Anyway, the house. It smells wonderful here, like books and the sweetness of dew-covered hay. I know it's invasive, but I looked around the house a bit. Crane did give me the master code, which, is unnecessary to get into his office. I typed it into a few of the doors to different parts of the house, the first being his-- what seems to be a hobby room. A mannequin donning a new iteration of his costume, I had to touch it, I really couldn't help it.

Burlap mask, rough. A soft raw-edged leather patchwork coat. I saw the mask had incredibly well-hidden vents, so I can only assume there's a breathing apparatus on the inside.

There are ports for tubing and a holster for a firearm on the hip. The coat has pockets on the inside, broken up to hold syringes, and whatever else he needed. I actually found it quite funny when I saw he had a pocket designed to hold a phone and let an earbud wire plug into it. Maybe I should introduce him to the Bluetooth function.

I saw other rooms as well. I went upstairs to the master bedroom. It was surprisingly extravagant, filled, like the rest of the house, with books. There was also, scattered about, some of Crane's sillier interests, for such a stoic man, I was surprised to find comic manga among his collections, granted, it was dystopia exclusive, but none the less, seemingly out of character.

I didn't go through his drawers. Save one.

His nightstand drawer was ajar, and out of curiosity, I peeked in. I won't divulge any details, but, I learned a bit more intimately about my professor's interests tonight. Perhaps more than I wanted to.

The last room I entered was actually downstairs, in the basement.

To be honest, I was envious. His lab was pristine, filled with apparatus I'd only be able to dream of harboring domestically. The smell of chemicals slapped my senses. I wasn't dressed to be in such a perfect lab, I didn't want to touch anything. I could only imagine how in his element he would look bumbling around this room, dodging tables masterfully with vials upon vials of variant fear toxin.

I looked around, struck suddenly by the curiosity: what does he test on?

My eyes graced an empty tank. Of course, it's easier to use a more disposable test subject. Rats.

Satisfied, I decided to come back upstairs to his main living room. The couch is actually quite comfortable. I'll go home in a few minutes from posting this. It's extremely late. I've probably rambled enough. Who knew Crane lived in a place like this? It's very pleasant.

I can easily imagine him sitting in that big chair over by the lamp reading a book.

[theimprobabledreamersworld]

A Time Of Magic Chapter Two.

This AU is so much fun to write! And I'm glad people are enjoying it so far 💜 Here is the next chapter!

Taglist: @psychedelicships @jwillowwolf @lost-in-thought-20 @red-imeanblue @writerwithtoomanyships @spicycreativity (Hope this is okay, Spicy- just thought this would be the easiest way to keep you up to date!)

If you would like to be added to this taglist- let me know! 😊

Summary: ‘Virgil needs a hand to hold, a voice to guide, someone that might help him find a purpose for his gifts. There is no one else I can turn to Logan. Only you.’

Virgil's second day in Camelot is even more eventful than the first. Can he get through it without getting into danger, or trouble?

Tags: Mild language, threat, death mention, weapons, food. Merlin/Human/Fantasy AU.

Word Count: 3,047

Read on Ao3!

Chapter Two: A Dark Warning.

'In a time of magic, the destiny of the mythical land of Camelot rests on the shoulders of a young warlock. His name… Virgil.’

Virgil heard the bells ring out within the castle walls and sat bolt upright. As it chimed six times, he realised how early he fell asleep yesterday. He needed to go and apologise to Logan for not being a very good guest. He closed his eyes and listened to see if Logan was awake. Luckily he could hear bottles bubbling and the sound of Logan humming a tune, so he got dressed and headed out of his room. He looked around, but Logan was nowhere to be seen, Virgil frowned in confusion since his bed was freshly made, but where could he have gone?

“Logan? Are you here?” He called out into the seemingly empty room. He jumped as he looked up and saw Logan perched on a ladder re-organising a bookshelf up a small balcony.

“Ah, Virgil! You’re up early. Good mor-“ His chipper greeting was cut short by an excruciatingly loud snapping sound as the ladder Logan was standing on caved in and he was sent flying backwards over the banister, hurtling towards an unforgiving floor.

Virgil acted immediately, without a word his eyes began to glow a rich, deep purple. Logan was suddenly moving in slow motion, buying Virgil more time. He frantically began to search around the room to find something, anything that could cushion the fall. His eyes glowed one more time and he dragged Logan’s bed across the room, he sighed in relief knowing it would be okay. Virgil smiled as he blinked and let the scene run in real time. Logan cried out before landing in a crumpled heap onto the bed . He stared in shock for a moment before patting himself over, relieved that he was not injured. Logan leapt up and stared at Virgil in fascination.

“How… did you do that??” He stared at Virgil, almost looking right into his soul. There were no words, Virgil just stammered trying to desperately come up with an answer that didn’t sound completely crazy.

“Did you express the incantation in your mind?” Virgil was trying not to panic, he knew that Logan wasn’t angry with him, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell Uther about his magic… but he couldn’t explain why he could do everything he does, it just… happens.

“Where did you study?” Logan’s last question stunned him into silence. Study? You can study magic? Virgil had never heard of that before. He took a deep breath and finally got an answer in before Logan’s next question.

“I… I was just born this way.” His voice was timid, and Logan continued to stare at him, stunned at the unexpected answer. Hunith was right, Logan thought. Virgil really was a gifted boy. He glanced over at the open letter on his desk surrounded by vials and strange looking chemicals.

‘Virgil needs a hand to hold, a voice to guide, someone that might help him find a purpose for his gifts. There is no one else I can turn to Logan. Only you.’

Logan sighed, believing his word to be the truth. He put a hand on Virgil’s shoulder gesturing for him to sit down at the table for breakfast. He walked away before returning with a delicate bowl of fresh berries and Virgil began eating them enthusiastically. He smiled with gratitude and when Logan sat down with his own bowl, his face had a serious expression on it, and Virgil couldn’t help but panic slightly.

“While I am completely and utterly fascinated by your powers. I need not remind you that you will need to be incredibly careful, especially while you are in the castle grounds. If anyone was to catch you, you would be executed without a second thought.” Logan’s voice was laced with worry, but Virgil couldn’t stop a bitter laugh escaping from his mouth.

“Believe me, Logan. I am well aware. I watched it with my own eyes yesterday.” Logan’s eyes widened ever so slightly, but he shook it off and just nodded sympathetically. He knew that he wouldn’t have been able to keep it from Virgil, but he hoped that he could have explained it to him in his own way. Virgil had only been part of Logan’s life for roughly one day, but it already felt like he was the son he never had, he couldn’t stand the thought of losing him already. He made a silent vow that if anything ever happened, Logan would try to protect Virgil in every way he could, no matter the cost to himself. Enough of that now though, he needed to create a distraction.

“Well, as you’re up. You can help me with my rounds! I have several draughts and medicines that need to be delivered to people who live in the castle grounds. They are all labelled, and I’ve put in a map with their quarters marked out. Make sure you tell Mr. Duill to not drink the vial's contents in one go… he tends to do that.” Virgil was nodding along in agreement as Logan began pottering around adding liquids to different bottles while watching them bubble and change colour. Virgil grabbed the basket and headed out, it would give him a good chance to finally acclimatise to just how large this castle was.

“Oh and Virgil. Stay out of trouble.” Logan called out as the door slowly came to a close.

Virgil took his time wandering around the castle, he explored the different passageways and climbed multiple staircases to look out at the town. Virgil stared in awe at some of the stained glass windows and the stories that were being told within the glass. He was surprised that he managed to find everyone on the list considering how much time he had just spent procrastinating. As he reached the final door of Mr. Duill, he remembered what Logan had told him as he knocked loudly. The man swung the door open violently and Virgil guided his hand to the medicine. He heard a pop of the cork on the vial as he turned to the man.

“Oh, Logan said don’t drink it all at on-” but it was too late. The man drank the small vial’s liquid vigorously like it was a tankard of mead and Virgil just stared at him in disbelief.

“I’m sure it’s fine.” The man looked at him confused and Virgil just smiled as the man closed the door in his face. He sighed and slowly wandered down a corridor.

It was only eight in the morning, but Virgil was already exhausted. He sat down in one of the corners of the castle to take a breather. Despite the constant coming and going of the castle staff, it was actually quite peaceful. It must have been about an hour later when the same bugles from yesterday began to ring out across the courtyard, and Virgil felt his heart beat rapidly increase. ‘Not again.’ He ran out and sighed in relief when there was no stage and chopping block greeting him. Many people began to flock around facing the balcony as the King, Uther strolled out, that same smug look on his face. The feeling of dread was indescribable.

“As I announced yesterday. Twenty years ago today, we banished the Great Dragon from Camelot and lived in peace, free from the evils of magic. We also executed one more sorcerer who deceived you all and committed evil acts in Camelot. Because of this; I have decided to declare not one day of celebration, but three days. Preparations will begin shortly and there will be a grand feast in the castle tomorrow evening, everyone is invited. Let the festivities begin.” He clapped his hands together and everyone began to cheer at the news. Even Virgil couldn’t help but feel excited, it would be great to see inside the Great Hall.

A horrific wail shattered the joy instantly and Virgil looked around trying to find where it was coming from. A window opened and Logan looked down on the courtyard searching for the noise too. Even Uther showed a hint of concern. The crowd parted and there was a woman standing, staring at Uther with tears streaming down her face, the sorrow in her eyes was apparent. She was hunched over, wrinkles covered her face and her skin was sagged. Blonde, wire-like hair blew around her and the brown torn dress she was wearing accentuated how thin she truly was. She cried once more, and Virgil immediately felt sympathy for this woman even though he wasn’t sure why.

“There is only one evil in Camelot, Uther Pendragon, and it is not magic. It is you! I promise you that by the end of these celebrations, you will be shedding more tears than me. An eye for an eye... A son for a son.” Virgil’s eyes widened as he realised that she meant every single word. She must be Peter Robert Sclator’s mother, the executed man from the previous morning. He had to admit, he couldn’t blame her for being heartbroken… but threatening a King like Uther Pendragon was a terrible mistake. He looked up and was surprised to see fear pass through Uther’s eyes too.

“Seize her! She cannot be allowed to leave.” He roared while pointing down at the woman. Several guards attempted to approach her but she let out a shrill scream and they were thrown backwards onto the ground. She grasped a necklace securely fastened around her neck and her voice broke into a low and vicious tone.

‘Uranun caripe baglen ol. Gemeganza de-noan chiis gosaa. Zamicmage oleol ag-sapah arphe. Oresa ethamz taa tabegisoroch.’ Her arms were thrown backwards as she levitated off the ground and began to disappear. A harsh wind surrounded her body and lashed at anyone who attempted to come closer. As the final fragments of her ragged dress faded from view, Virgil smirked ever so slightly at the fact that she had left Uther looking powerless, but he recognised that incantation. It was Old Magic. Worse than that, it was Dark Magic. This woman was dangerous and she wanted revenge, he hoped he wouldn’t have to intervene… but if she harmed anyone, especially if any harm came to Logan, he would have to protect them, even if it cost him his life.

Uther stormed inside the castle, and Virgil glanced up to see the same window open with the same face timidly looking out. His eyes filled with worry. They looked at each other for just a moment, before the man looked away and he reluctantly closed the window carefully due to the cracks made by anger during the execution. He looked over to the next set of windows and saw an equally worried expression on Logan’s face too. Did he know her?

Virgil ran back to Logan’s quarters, and nearly collided into him in the process. Logan put his arms on Virgil’s shoulders, it immediately helped him calm down. They sat down and Logan waited patiently for questions.

“Who is she, Logan? Why is Uther afraid of her?” Logan put his hand on his head looking for his glasses, but he realised they weren’t there. So he sighed and ran a hand through his hair instead.

“Her name is Mary. She used to be something called a High Priestess of the Old Religion. They were incredibly powerful, and during the Great War… Uther was powerless against them to begin with. Only brute force allowed Uther to win, so she has many reasons to hate him with every bone in her body, but executing her son… that was the final straw.”

Virgil nodded, he could understand how Mary felt. He started to try and formulate plans in his head about how he could fight her if he needed to.

“I know what you’re thinking. You cannot face her, Virgil. We have not even discovered how your powers work. It’s too dangerous.” Virgil nodded again, he was right. It would be too reckless, he couldn’t risk being caught. He smiled, a silent promise was made between the two of them.

“Is there anything else I can do to help you today?” He had to admit that he enjoyed running errands for Logan, it gave him a chance to be nosy and look at areas of the castle others are not allowed to.

“No. Everything is done for today, but thank you for the offer. How about you have another wander around the castle? Have you seen the training grounds yet?” Virgil shook his head and listened as Logan gave him directions. He stood up and waved as Logan as he headed out the door once again. He walked down the now familiar corridor and walked towards a spiral staircase he must have missed this morning. Before he walked down, he peaked over the wall to check that he was definitely going the right way this time, he didn’t want another incident like yesterday. Virgil could clearly see the training grounds below him, and as he looked closer, his blood began to boil.

There were a group of knights, roughly Virgil’s age crowding around a young serving boy. One in particular dressed in a loose red shirt with silver armour on his shoulders and brown trousers with what looked like new brown shoes was spearheading the entire event.

“Where is the target?” The leader demanded.

“Over there, sir.” The boy pointed to the large target timidly, while the leader raised his arm in front of his eyes dramatically blocking the sun.

“It can’t be there… The sun is in my eyes.” The boy who was clearly used to being treated like rotten fruit just sighed and he walked over to move the target by picking it up. The guy smirked and turned to the others while saying he’ll teach him a lesson. As he was handed some daggers by one of the entourage, Virgil decided that he had had enough and stormed down the staircase to the training grounds. When he got there, the serving boy was running around with the target in front of him, desperately trying to avoid being hit. The guy kept throwing dagger after dagger at the target while the others laughed at the boy’s expense. As the seventh dagger hit the centre, the boy tripped and the target rolled away with a loud clatter. Virgil put his foot on it, before taking a deep breath and letting a fake smile grace his lips.

“Hey. Come on now, that’s enough… You’ve had your fun, my friend.” The leader looked at the others and pointed a thumb at Virgil like he had grown a second head.

“Do I know you?” He swaggered over until he was standing directly in front of Virgil. Virgil had to bite the inside of his cheek to avoid showing his disdain for the arrogance in this guy’s voice.

“Oh, I’m Virgil.” He held his hand out for the man to shake, but he just looked at it in disgust before rolling his eyes.

“So I don’t know you… and yet you called me… friend?” The guy paused waiting for an answer to his audacity. Virgil knew that he should have just walked away at that point, but he was too riled up, and this man needed to be taken down a peg or two.

“That was my mistake…”

“Yeah, it was.” The man thought he had won, and Virgil knew he was going to regret the next words that came out of his mouth… but this guy was a pompous prick, and he deserved it.

“Yeah… I’ve never had a friend who could be such an ass.” He mustered all the sarcasm he could and poured it into every word. The guy stopped short, and Virgil winced as he realised that he had absolutely gone too far. When the guy began to chuckle and readjust the armour on his shoulders, Virgil gulped, but he had gone this far... so he needed to roll with it and hope that he would give up soon.

“Tell me, Virgil… Do you know how to walk on your knees?” He was getting in Virgil’s face now, his arrogance really was overpowering.

“No.”

“Would you like me to show you?” He took a step towards Virgil and he stepped back so he couldn’t be grabbed unexpectantly.

“I wouldn’t if I were you.” Virgil shook his head, he shouldn’t be making threats but he couldn’t contain his irritation any longer. The guy laughed loudly in his face, and his entourage joined in boosting the guy’s ego even more.

“Really? What are you going to do to me?” He held his arms out in an antagonising fashion, encouraging Virgil to make the first move. He had to clench his fists to ground himself, Virgil knew he couldn’t attack this guy, not if he wanted to live.

“Oh you have no idea.” Virgil muttered with a smirk.

“Come on, hit me! Weakling.” That was it. Virgil saw red and lunged at the guy, but he misjudged the distance between the two of them. There were gasps from spectators as the guy grabbed Virgil’s arm and twisted it harshly behind his back.

“I could have you thrown in jail for that.” The guy spoke directly into Virgil’s ear as he tried to free himself from the grasp.

“Who do you think you are? The King?!” Virgil shouted mockingly. Who did this guy think he was anyway?

“No… but I’m his son… Prince Roman.” Roman called for guards and pushed Virgil into their path. They bowed at the Prince before grabbing Virgil’s arms to restrain him. They dragged him through the castle and down a broken staircase leading to darkness.

The walls constantly dripped with water and the smell was repulsive. The guards opened a heavy metal door and shoved Virgil unceremoniously onto the straw floor before slamming the door shut behind them. He got up and shook the metal bars before angrily kicking them. He’s only been here two days, and he’s already made an enemy within the monarchy. Virgil sighed, he knew he wouldn’t get out today, so he took off his jacket and wrapped it around his shoulders before trying to sleep.

As the sun set and darkness seeped in, Virgil was sound asleep, but a low growling voice began to call out.

“Virgil… Virgil… VIRGIL.”

He shocked himself awake as his eyes glowed purple, he looked around frantically but there was no one there.

Who was calling out to him?

[the-gay-prometheus]

AU Segment - “Try” (rewrite)

Frankenfandom is asleep (not really I know but seems p inactive right now lmao), time to post my rewrite of “Try”

Rewrite complete! Finally! I’m actually somewhat (somewhat) happy with how this turned out. I realized that my first version of this scene was so ridiculously out of character, especially on Henry’s part, so I really took the time to focus on making sure I got the characterizations right.

Important Warnings for this one!!!! There is a brief mention of a needle, brief mention of violence, and discussion about death/dying in a general sense.

There is some important background info for this one: This takes place long after ‘What’s in a Name’ and a few months before ‘We’ve Got Work To Do.’ By now, things have really mellowed out between the three of them. Victor and Henry are officially ‘married’ and now husbands (that’s a scene for a different time when I’m writing more happy things instead of angst again), Agape (the creature, for those of you who are new here) is their well-loved son. Not all is entirely well, though. Victor has recently been plagued by nightmares, though he won’t explain what they’re about. On what he swears is a completely unrelated note, he’s been dabbling in science again, and at his request, Agape has built a new section onto the cabin as a laboratory for Victor to work in. Victor spends most of his days in there, Agape usually accompanying him either to learn or to assist, as well as staying there alone well into the night, but recently Victor has been starting to neglect himself for the sake of whatever it is he has going on behind that door...

As always, likes, reblogs, and comments of any kind (including constructive criticism!) are much appreciated!

Rain steadily tapped on the roof, the only sound to be heard other than the scratching of a pen as Henry wrote by the light of the last lit candle in the bedroom. The gentle scratching stopped as he read over what he wrote, followed by one final scratch and the gentle snap of his journal as he shut it and set it on the bed stand closest to him. He stretched with a yawn, absentmindedly reaching over to the other side of the bed before suddenly snapping his gaze over. In his deep concentration of writing, he had failed to notice that Victor had still not yet come to bed. Slipping silently out of bed, grabbing the burning candle on the bed stand and walking out of the room as quietly as possible. He passed through the common area, embers still glowing softly in the fireplace, and walked down the short hallway on the other side. The door to Agape’s room was slightly ajar, and, curious, Henry gently pushed it open further and peaked inside. Sure enough, Agape was there, sleeping soundly in bed. With a sigh of relief, he pulled the door mostly shut and continued down the hall to where the door to Victor’s makeshift laboratory was located. 

He pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped in carefully, gently closing the door behind him. “Victor?” he called out softly, walking past the rows of shelves and tables, each covered in a mess of tools, beakers, and jars, weaving through them along the familiar path. Toward the back wall was a softly glowing light emanating from a nearly spent candle upon a messy table covered with beakers that glinted in the light. Sitting slumped over in front of it all was the silhouette of the exact person he was looking for. As he approached, the light from his own candle further illuminated the workbench, revealing various tools he didn’t recognize, a mess of papers, and a large beaker filled with a grimy-looking dark fluid sitting atop what had likely once been a lit burner. “Oh, Victor,” he whispered softly with pity in his voice. He set his candle down and reached out, gently placing a hand on his sleeping husband’s shoulder. Victor awoke with a start, nearly falling off the stool he was sitting on as he jumped at the touch of Henry’s hand. Henry couldn’t help but smile as Victor looked back at him, his brown hair a shaggy mess, his goggles crooked on his face. “I thought you were coming to bed,” he mused quietly as he lifted the goggles up off of Victor’s eyes. Victor squinted as his goggles were lifted, raising his black-gloved hands to rub the sleep from his eyes - only pausing to realize that maybe touching his eyes with gloves he had just been handling dangerous substances with wasn’t the best idea. He yawned as he slipped one glove off and rubbed both eyes before tugging the glove back on.

“I am,” he muttered, speech somewhat slurred as he turned back toward the table. “Justg.. Just gotta, finish- this…” He rolled a hand in the air, then dropped it back down to his lap. “..thing.” Henry chuckled softly - it was amusing, albeit concerning, to see Victor so loopy.

“I think this thing can wait until you get some proper rest, love,” Henry replied, smoothing Victor’s messy hair with his fingers. 

“Mm.. nooot really,” Victor answered, sorting through the various tools and beakers strewn about the table as though he were looking for something, then finally settled on one beaker that looked to have once held some kind of dark liquid in it. The scientist picked it up, inspected it closely, took a few long, slow blinks, then tilted his head back to look up at Henry. “...I needm… more coffee,” he mumbled with a sleepy smile. Henry gave him an odd look.

“More? I just brought some back for you two days ago.”

“Well that- that was… that was two days ago and this is now.”

“Please tell me you haven’t finished an entire tin in two days, Victor.” Victor groaned and set the beaker down.

“More like finished half in two days and half in… maybe one night,” he muttered, slowly starting to wake up more. “It’s all a bit of a blur, really.”

“This is why you need sleep,” Henry pointed out, running his hand from Victor’s hair back down to his shoulder.

“No, no. No I don’t need sleep,” Victor replied, starting to sound much more like himself. “I need… I need um…” He glanced around, his eyes falling on the beaker full of dark grimy fluid on the unlit burner. “Gah- nonono- noooo…” he grumbled, nearly knocking over the beaker that once held coffee as he fumbled for the one on the burner. He grabbed it, took one whiff, then unceremoniously dropped his head onto the table. Henry jumped slightly, gently nudging him as he was somewhat concerned that the smell of the concoction had somehow knocked him unconscious.

“...Victor?”

“I’m fine,” Victor grumbled. “Fine I just. I have to start this over.” He set the beaker down on the floor next to the table and slowly stood, somewhat wobbly at first, before wandering off to grab another one.

“No, I think you need sleep,” Henry called to him, turning and leaning back slightly on the table as he watched Victor grab a new beaker along with various jars filled with substances he couldn’t recognize. 

“I am- I am a god, Henry; gods don’t need sleep,” Victor called back to him with a hint of sarcasm in his tone as he plucked the ingredients he needed from the shelves. Henry chuckled and shook his head.

“Oh, silly me. How could I ever forget,” he mused, rolling his eyes. “Of course you’re a god, darling.” He turned out of curiosity to look at what was on the table, his eyes catching sight of something that Victor had been obscuring while he was sitting there. It was an odd thing, or the makings of an odd thing anyways, just barely started. There were gears and a crank connected to them, a tangled mess of wires - some attached to the thing and others lying nearby, various empty vials with tubes dangling from their cork caps, and sitting directly beside it all was a frighteningly large hollow needle. He leaned in closer to inspect the device. “Since when did you start tinkering?” he asked as he looked at how each gear was connected.

“Since I needed to for this project,” Victor answered as he sifted through more jars to find exactly what he was looking for. “Agape has been a big help. You’d never guess it but he’s got a knack for that sort of thing. Tinkering and such, that is. Well… he’s got an interest in all of it but he can be a little careless with the chemicals,” he continued, suddenly realizing he didn’t have enough hands to hold everything he needed and placing the beaker in his mouth to hold it.

“Can’t imagine where he gets that carelessness from,” Henry muttered sarcastically as he glanced back to see Victor on his tip-toes sifting through jars with one hand while holding far too many other jars in his other and a beaker between his teeth.

“I’s a real ‘ys’ery,” Victor answered sincerely with the beaker still in his mouth. Henry smirked and shook his head.

“Sure is.” He turned back toward the table, his eyes catching sight of an open journal, dark-stained pages covered in writing and sketches. Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he picked it up and moved further into the candlelight to read as Victor returned and carefully set everything down on the table. “So is this what the two of you have been working on?” Henry asked as he flipped back a few pages to start reading closer to the beginning.

“Oh good god no,” Victor answered as he refilled the burner with oil and lit it using a match he ignited from his own nearly spent candle. “I’ve just been doing simple things with him. Common chemical reactions, a few lessons in physics, electricity, etcetera.” He began filling the new beaker with some of the ingredients from the jars he had grabbed. “This is more of a… personal project.” As he continued, he paused once he opened one jar, thought for a moment, then began rummaging around the table, searching for something. “Henry, you haven’t happened to see a journal lying around anywhere have y-” He cut himself off as he turned to see Henry standing there, journal in hand, a look of somewhere between shock and horror on his face. He felt his heart skip a beat as he froze.

“You’re…” Henry began, his voice low and quiet. Victor lurched forward suddenly, snatching the journal from his hands, though Henry still held his hands as though the journal still lay between them.

“What did I tell you about touching my things,” Victor snarled, holding the journal behind him. Henry didn’t acknowledge him, instead staring straight ahead almost unnervingly.

“You’re making another one…” 

“And you just broke my most important rule,” Victor remarked, eyes narrowed. Henry swallowed hard and took in a deep, shaky breath.

“...You’re right. I apologize - I shouldn’t have taken it without asking but-”

“But nothing, Henry. Go back to bed and let me work,” Victor snapped, flipping the journal back open and scouring the pages to find the correct amount of the ingredient he was working with.

“Victor-” Henry reached out to him, placing his hand on Victor’s arm gently.

“Just-” Victor started, voice raised in anger as he knocked Henry’s hand away. He paused, seeing Henry was clearly emotionally upset, and sighed, returning his eyes to his work, as he muttered, “leave me be.”

“No, Victor. We need to discuss this,” Henry managed to mention softly.

“There’s nothing to discuss,” Victor growled, pulling his goggles back over his eyes as he placed the beaker over the burner and began stirring the contents with a glass rod. 

“Then at least talk to me,” Henry suggested, sitting on the floor beside him. Victor ignored him, choosing instead to continue his work. There was silence between them except for the twisting of jar lids and the clinking of scooping tools against glass, only broken as Victor held out a small piece of cloth to Henry.

“Cover your mouth and nose with this until I say so,” he muttered, his voice muffled behind a cloth that he had tied around his own mouth and nose like a bandana. Henry didn’t question him and tied the cloth around his face, peeking up over the table as Victor carefully poured one substance into the heated beaker, which immediately began to furiously boil and bubble while emitting an eerie green light. Even through the cloth Henry could smell something atrocious, and he did his best to hold back a gag while Victor simply sat there observing as though this were something he was entirely accustomed to. After a few minutes the smell dissipated and the light dulled, at which point Victor held his hand back out - which Henry interpreted meant he could remove the cloth, so he did. “I have my reasons, you know,” Victor mumbled, taking the cloth and setting it on the table along with his own.

“I have no doubt about that.”

“Then why is there anything to discuss?” He turned toward Henry, looking down at him though his eyes were masked by his goggles.

“I feel I should have a say in this matter,” Henry replied. “None of this is just about you or me anymore. It’s about us together.” 

“I don’t dictate what you do in your own daily life or what choices you make, why should you dictate mine?” Victor countered, turning back to continue to work on the solution he had started.

“There’s a difference between choosing whether to spend my time writing or climbing, and choosing to create an entire living being that we both will be responsible for,” Henry pointed out.

“I never said you would be responsible for it.” Henry sighed, realizing this conversation was getting them nowhere.

“Did he ask you for this?” he asked, changing his direction. “Has he decided that this is still what he wants even after all this time?” Victor didn’t answer, instead paying close attention as he measured out a powdered substance on a small scale. “Victor-”

“No, Henry. He has nothing to do with this,” Victor interrupted with an exasperated tone, scooping the measured substance up and pouring it into the solution, which instantly swirled into a dark red hue as he stirred it in. He tapped his stirring rod on the side of the beaker, then dropped it into a dirty yet empty flask nearby. Resting his elbows on the table, he leaned forward and raked his fingers through his hair, sucking in a breath through gritted teeth before exhaling harshly. “Not directly, that is.” Henry reached up, placing a hand on his back, which Victor responded to with a silent shudder.

“Then why now? Is it…” He paused, wondering if he should press further with his question. “Is this related to your nightmares?” There was no reply, other than that Victor raised one foot slightly off the ground, his leg bouncing - a typical nervous behavior of his.

“It doesn’t concern you.”

“It does concern me. I’m concerned about you, Victor. You’re withdrawing yourself again, and I’m… I’m frightened for you. I want to help you, but I can’t do that unless you let me.”

“I don’t want your help.”

“Then why am I still here?” Silence. Victor put his foot down, suddenly all too still. “If you really didn’t want my help, you would have chased me out by now. I know you, Victor, and you know that.” Henry leaned over, resting his head against Victor’s leg and reaching upward. Victor slowly removed one glove, his hand slipping down from the table and falling into Henry’s outstretched palm.

“I don’t have a choice, Henry,” Victor said quietly, his voice cracking slightly as though he were on the verge of tears. “I have to do this. For his sake- I-” He sucked in a shaky breath, tilting his head upward. “This is all my fault.”

“What is?” Victor squirmed his hand out of Henry’s and began sifting through the clutter on the table until he found a piece of paper covered in messy handwriting, some words smudged and bled as though water had been dropped on the page as it was being written, and handed it down to Henry. 

As Henry read the writing on the page, Victor removed his goggles and set them off to the side, taking his ungloved hand up to rub the tears away from his eyes. About halfway through reading, Henry slowly stood, moving behind his husband and wrapping one arm around him while he continued to read. Victor practically collapsed into him, leaning back and nestling his face into Henry’s arm in need of some comfort. “Victor…” Henry whispered his name, tears dripping down his cheeks as he set the paper down and wrapped both arms around him, clinging to him tightly. “I’m so sorry.” All at once, everything made sense. The way Victor would wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of each night in panic - sometimes running out of bed and and returning moments later with a sudden need to be as close to him as possible, his sudden reinterest in science, the way he’d lock himself away in his laboratory for hours on end, his sudden need to spend as much time with Agape as he could and to teach him everything he knew, how he had suddenly insisted on tucking Agape into bed each night even if he himself wouldn’t come to bed until hours later… all of it made sense. Victor removed his other glove, turning in his embrace and holding Henry with as tight a grip as his exhausted body could muster. Henry held him tighter with one arm, lifting his other hand to gently run his fingers through Victor’s hair. “I know it seems so real, and I know the pain it’s causing you is very real, but it’s still just a bad dream, Victor. It’s not going to happen and- and it concerns me that you would go so far as to make such a rash decision like this based on a recurring nightmare,” he explained softly. Victor looked up at him, eyes red from tears and a lack of sleep.

“But it is real, and it is going to happen and I-” He paused, voice breaking. “I can’t let it happen Henry I… I can’t just pretend everything will be ok. Everything isn’t ok. Everything won’t be ok. Not until I fix this.”

“Victor, you can’t fix something that hasn’t even happened yet- or that likely never will happen, for that matter.” Victor pulled back, looking up at him pitifully.

“But it will, Henry. If I don’t do this, it will.” Henry hushed him quietly, holding him tighter.

“How can you be so sure?” he asked sincerely. Victor trembled, clutching tightly at the back of Henry’s shirt.

“Because someday he’s going to be alone.” 

“Most children lose their parents someday. He’s just… going to have to learn how to cope, like any other does.”

“No child is alone for eternity, though.” Henry glanced upward, pausing the movement of his fingers through Victor’s hair.

“Eternity?” Victor buried his face into his chest.

“He will never die of old age, Henry.” He heaved a deep, ragged sigh, pulling back and shakily rising to his feet. Henry watched with worry as he began to pace. “All because I was too… too careless to think before I actually made him.” Henry almost wanted to say something, but he kept quiet, realizing that it would probably only make things worse. “I was so caught up in proving to the world that alchemy is a viable science and-” he paused, spinning on his heels and looking at Henry directly, “it is a viable science, I think I have proved that well enough by now.” Henry nodded along with a half shrug, signaling for him to go on, and Victor continued his pacing. “I just- I didn’t stop to consider what actually using it to create an entire new life would fully entail. I mean I- I knew that using the elixir of life on something already dead would never work on its own. It was just a matter of starting the heart. One beat is all it takes, Henry - just one beat and so long as something has the elixir coursing through it veins, it is alive.” He slowed, coming to a stop and standing with slumped shoulders. “What I hadn’t thought about was that the elixir also provides everlasting life, even to something once dead.” Despite his hanging head, he raised his gaze to Henry. “So long as there is blood in his veins, so long as his heart is able to beat, so long as his brain can still function… he will never die.” A crack of thunder sounded from outside, rattling the glasses in the laboratory and causing Victor to jump and cringe with a yelp. He began to shiver, wobbling where he stood as anxiety and exhaustion began to consume him. Henry ran to him and caught him as he collapsed, holding him tightly as he slowly brought him down so they were both sitting on the floor.

“Take it easy, Victor,” he uttered softly, resting his head against Victor’s. “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.” Victor clenched his eyes shut as he steadied his ragged breathing, and pressed himself closer to Henry. “I’d like to think that… maybe after all we’ve done with him, all we’ve done for him, it won’t come to that. Maybe he could be content just to be alone,” Henry murmured, trying to be optimistic.

“Not after what I’ve done. Not after what he’s been through. I-” Victor curled up slightly, hiding his face away. “His fear of abandonment, his need for companionship, both far outweigh any of the progress we’ve made. He may survive for a few years and cope with the grief after we are dead and gone, but it won’t last, Henry. He’ll go searching for friendship and only find hatred and violence.”

“Perhaps we could start trying to find him a friend before it’s too late,” Henry suggested, running his fingers along Victor’s back. “Then we could be sure that he won’t be alone without worrying about what may happen if he tries to find one on his own.” Victor shifted and looked up at him, eyes red and puffy with tears.

“And then what? What happens after that friend dies? Who does he turn to then?” Henry went quiet. Although he was ever the optimistic one, Victor was right - this would be a never ending cycle, and who could possibly know how long it would take for poor Agape to finally cave under the pressure of it all. “If I… if I can manage to create a second one like him, perhaps even perfect my original experiment and create one even…” He hesitated. “...Not better, necessarily, but… more like my original concept, I suppose - if I can do that, he will never have to be alone again, and maybe - just maybe - I could prevent him from making such a decision.” Henry sighed softly, moving his hand up and gently wiping away Victor’s tears.

“We can’t even be sure another one would turn out anything like him, though. And there’s no guarantee that they would get along. I know you’ve thought this through and it all seems very reasonable in your own mind but… Victor there’s more to it than what you’re saying. For example… it could turn out to be inherently violent, unlike him, and wind up hurting him, or us, or others as well. Their personalities could clash - there’s no telling that they would even stick together for their entire lives. If anything it’s more likely they would have their own separate hopes and desires, and need to go their own separate ways. And even if they did manage to keep each other eternal company, why would you want to bring another being into such a lonely existence?” Victor sniffled, glancing away from him.

“I… I can’t guarantee that any of that won’t happen but…” He wrapped his arms tightly around Henry. “If there’s even some semblance of a chance that I could ease the pain for him, enough to stop him from causing his own destruction, then I have to take it. I have to try. I’ve sworn responsibility for him, and thus have sworn responsibility for his future regardless of whether I am present for it or not. This is my mistake, all of this is my mistake, and I intend for this to be my greatest solution.” A sudden hiss and pop caused him to snap his attention to the table, where the substance in the beaker over the burner sat smoking, now looking entirely like that which had been in the beaker that was there when Henry had arrived. “No- NO!” Victor shoved Henry away and scrambled to his feet, leaning onto the table and staring at the ruined solution with wide eyes. Henry stood and walked over to him, gently placing a hand on his shoulder as he suddenly broke into sobs.

“Victor-”

“Henry this has to work! It has to!” Victor managed to cry between sobs. “It has to…”

“I know, love. I know,” Henry reassured him quietly. “Come on… you can try again tomorrow but… for now, you need rest.” Victor trembled as he tried to calm himself, standing frozen as Henry blew out the flame from the burner as well as the nearly dead flame from the candle Victor had been burning for light. “I’m not going to stop you from making preparations,” he mentioned as he turned Victor away from the table and began helping him unbutton his lab coat. “But you need to promise that you’re going to take care of yourself, and that we-” He paused, lifting Victor’s chin and looking him in the eyes. “-and by we I mean all of us, including Agape-” Victor shakily and slowly nodded as he slipped his coat off and set it to the side. “-will have a very thorough conversation about the actual details of it before you go through with anything. Am I clear?” Victor nodded again, embracing him suddenly and tightly. Henry held him close, gingerly kissing his cheek. “Thank you. I’m here for you, Victor, and I know he’s willing to be there for you too. Just, please - don’t shut us out.”

“I love you,” Victor managed to whisper, shaking as Henry released him and took his hand.

“I love you too, Victor,” Henry breathed in reply, bringing his hand up and kissing his wrist gently. Taking the candle he had brought from their bedroom with his other hand, he began slowly leading the way toward the door, Victor stumbling along with him. Just as they reached the exit, Victor hesitated, glancing back over the laboratory one more time. Another rumble of thunder sent shivers down his spine and he gripped Henry’s hand tighter. “Everything will be ok,” Henry reassured him as he pushed open the heavy door and helped him to step into the hall, being careful to close the door behind them gently. “He’s going to be ok. We’re going to be ok.”

[ishouldgetatumbler]

HxH Poisoner AU

“Whatcha making?”

At the sound of the boy’s word, Tonpa jerked in surprise, sending a vial of general antibiotics keeling over and dumping its contents onto his table. He leaped from his stool, snapping it back up right. He pulled his hand from around the neck of the vial and found it was shaking.

He turned around to face the boy. Gon just sat on his stool and kicked his legs, his own table of herbs and caged insects completely ignored. He watched Tonpa with a genuine interest. It made Tonpa’s skin crawl. Gon didn’t look away, instead he blindly reached an arm out for his mug of tea.

“You really shouldn’t talk during these things kid.”

Gon curled his expression, looking like he’d just smelled rancid eggs.

“Well what’s the point of becoming a poisoner if I can’t meet interesting people?”

    Tonpa turned away from the mid-pubecent boy, back to his table of toxins, venoms and cures. Why did people become poisoners? He took the poisoner’s exam to perform chemical cruelty without a liscence. He’d given the inexperienced explosive diarria, tongue ulcers and eye rot. But why did others do it? Money for some; most world leaders and hospitals want an expert in blights and cures, but there is something else it takes to become a poisoner, something just beyond greed.

    It seemed to Tonpa that the really good poisoners didn’t give a shit about money. Or living. or dying for that matter. Truly good poisoners only cared about the contest, the struggle with a poison, natural or manmade. Understanding quickly and at great risk what a poison does and how to stop it.

    He and Gon had traded poisons an hour ago, and he still had no idea what Gon’s poison did. It was starting to make him nervous and queasy, but he couldn’t tell if that was a symptom or just the effect of those piercing, curious eyes. The boy took another sip of his tea.

“If your hands are shaking Mr. Tonpa, I can mix ingredients for you.”

    Tonpa clenched his hands shut, trying not to show his panic anywhere except the white of his knuckles. He smiled with only his lips, forming a tight, unhappy smile.

“No thank you.”

    Gon nodded, and went back to swaying in his chair. He seemed to be restless, almost bored. He should be shitting himself until he runs out of fluids, but no, there he sits. Restless and bored. 

    It hit Tonpa then, the pain in his gut. He clutched at it with one shaking hand while his other wildly jabbed and thrashed across his table for painkillers. He screamed when the pain seemed to evolve, sprouting legs of razor points and shredding his insides. He clutched his gut with both hands. The corners of his vision went white with agony and his organs hurt so much they sang beneath his skin. Just as the pain reached crescendo, the white at the edges of his vision grew heavier until it coated him like a veil.

    He saw, through the blinding pain, Gon smile  sadly. Over the rush of blood in his ears, he could hear Gon say

“Don’t worry Tonpa, you’ll survive. What you’re feeling is just pressed oil grass and wire bramble; it’ll work it’s way out of you in a little bit.”

    The boy finished his tea.

“I don’t think I would have survived the dose you gave me without this.” he added, gesturing to his cup.

[star-captain]

Failed Experiment

Inspiration has struck! I've really been struggling to write these past few days, but Red has been such an awesome friend. Helping me through writer's block with his amazing ideas and awesome art!

So have some Edolas Xisuma angst! Hes fun to write.

The Edolas AU and Edolas Xisuma are the ideas of @theguardiansofredland .

__________________

Edolas Xisuma plops down onto the chair, letting it roll over to the tower of vials, flasks, and funnels. Solutions of various colors, horribly dangerous chemicals and acids, mix and bubble as they flow from serum to serum. Most of the glassware is chipped, scars from previous experiments gone awry. But as long as they work, he’ll keep using them. 

Xisuma pries open the stopper of a vial. It took him weeks to gather a genetic sample of this caliber. It’s hard to get a patch of skin, of living tissue and muscle this large. It’s fresh, and has been bathing in chemicals to keep it from starting to decompose. He can’t let it die. At least, not yet. 

He affixes the scrap of tissue to a petri dish, placing the flesh at the bottom of the tower. Beneath one flask, he lights a burner. The flame sparks, nearly catching his long hair on fire. He knows general lab protocol says to keep hair tied back behind him- he just doesn’t care. It wouldn’t be the first time he set himself on fire. Likely wouldn’t have been the last either. 

“Live sample acquired. Hopefully Mumbo doesn’t ask why Grian is bandaged around the arm.” He writes down his notes as he speaks to himself. His hands twitch and shake as he scribbles down notes, making the script hardly ledgible even to him. “My concoction is almost complete. Then, I can finally start the experiment.” 

Don’t forget to wear your mask, bro. The memory of Ex’s voice haunts Xisuma in the silence of his lab. Why can’t this damned serum be ready sooner? He doesn’t want his brother’s voice haunting him like a ghost, warning him to be careful or to think about what he’s doing. He just wants to do it. 

He looks at the protective gear his brother made him. It’s scratched, from however many times his own experiments have blown up in hsi face, but still useable. Still useful. As much as Xisuma hates to admit it, his brother’s stupid mask has kept him from certain death multiple times. 

Xisuma sighs, and pulls the mask over his face, tucking his hair back. This experiment could have similar results, and maybe it will keep Ex’s voice from his head. The flask he was waiting to heat is finally boiling, and with a twist of a knob the liquid mixes through to other vials. It changes color at least ten times, mixing with chemicals and acids, burning and cooling as it follows it’s roller coaster ride. While it mixes and titrates, he prepares a tube and needle at the end of the path. 

He moves the petri dish of Grian’s flesh out of the way, and pierces his own skin with the metallic syringe. The lime green concoction pumps directly into his bloodstream, seething like ice along his veins. Most other people drink tea, or even coffee to stay awake. Even his dumb brother is all prim and proper with a cup of tea and sugar. But Xisuma didn’t need crushed plants to stay awake. Not when he knew science could do it so much better. 

It doesn’t keep him from twitching, or make his notes any more than the chicken scratch they are now, but with his body awake and ready, he can take care of this experiment. Edolas Xisuma grabs the plate of flesh, and kicks the desk in front of him. It sends the chair and him reeling back, bumping into the metal table he has hooked up to a tesla coil. 

Xisuma hooks up the positive and ground wires into his sample. One massive lever pull later, the tesla coil is beginning to warm up. Gathering and storing energy. Waiting for him to let it release. “I wonder what Grian would look like as a witch.” 

He knew villagers metamorphosize when struck by lightning. Their entire cell structure changes, and he’s tested on them extensively. There’s still blood on his lab coat from all those experiments. But while he was doing that, he began to wonder if the same would happen to a human. Or whatever those freaks he calls friends are. Would they mutate as well? What would they mutate into? Of course, when he asked the others to step close to the tesla coil, even Keralis said no. They’re self preservation was too high. Too much like Ex. 

Which is why he now only has a part of a friend, and hopefully enough to see if the cells in Grian’s body changes when given enough electricity. The coil completes it’s charging, bolts of lightning ricocheting into the air above Xisuma. His hair stands on end, but he only laughs at the danger, his voice echoing off the strong material of the mask. He slams his hand on a button.

Electricity skims down the metal, charging through the wires and into the skin sample. Through the tempered glass of his mask, Xisuma can see the flesh shift and bubble. Like it’s trying to grow warts, or mutate. He doesn’t realize he’s creeping closer and closer, hand rushing to write down notes, until he’s been blown across the lab into the wall. 

The tesla coil powers down, sparking and burning. Xisuma’s body feels the same way, the scent of burned skin and hair permeating the air. He groans, sitting up and clutching his torso. He may have broken a rib, but he’s focused on the result of his experiment. Keeping a tight hold on his notes, he stumbles to the blackened petri dish. Under the mask, an excited smile starts to appear. 

There’s nothing left. Not even a scrap of burned skin remains in the sample. All of his notes, all of his work, and there’s nothing at the end to observe. Nothing to study, no mutated skin. Just nothing. Xisuma starts to laugh, at first quiet and calm. But as he realizes more and more what has happened, the laughter grows louder and more unstable. 

It’s all gone. Weeks of staking out, looking for a vulnerable human to collect a sample from, vaporized. Hours of notes and scribbles into his notebook, evaporated. All this work...for nothing. Xisuma stumbles back to the floor, notes erupting and drifting into loose leaves of paper. Falling like snow around him. He lets go of his side, a bloody hand reaching up and grabbing his mask. He can’t stop laughing, his hot breath sent right back into his face. 

He rips the mask off, watching his own blood dribble down the material. Handmade, for Xisuma. By his brother. To protect him, even when Ex couldn’t be there. But it couldn’t protect him from failing yet another experiment, losing so much valuable time and effort. His fingers turn white as his grip tightens around the mask, his laughter bouncing off the walls and right back at him. The whole room is laughing at him, in his own damned voice. 

Xisuma sends the mask flying, spinning like a disk until it shatters against the wall. The metal turns to shrapnel, glass to shards that go streaking across the lab. His laughter begins to shift as he realizes what he’s done. Xisuma crawls towards the pieces, hands twitching as he plucks sharp metal and glass from the ground. 

He destroyed it. The mask his brother gave him. The last thing Ex gave him before they parted ways. The mask Ex made to protect his brother. To protect him when Ex wouldn’t be able to. Each tiny wound from the metal and glass feels like paper cuts compared to the shock, the horror of what he’s broken. Of what’s broken inside him. Gasping cries escape his throat, fingers trying to will the pieces back together. But he can’t fix what he’s broken. 

Edolas Xisuma is left surrounded by broken things. Broken cries, broken tears across his cheeks, broken glassware and machinery, a broken mask. And a broken man, twitching and wishing for his brother’s caring voice to soothe away the anger just one more time. To fix everything Edolas Xisuma has broken. 

[ask-de-writer]

Dr. Mordenheim’s Travels, Book 1: De Writer’s Equestria, Ch. 4

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Dr. Mordenheim’s Travels, Book 1: De Writer’s Equestria, Ch. 4

by

Mordenheim

(In Hosted Tales)

1458 words

© 2019 by Mordenheim

All rights reserved.  This document may not be copied or distributed on or to any medium or placed in any mass storage system except by the express written consent of the author.

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All sorts of fan art, cosplay, music or fiction is actively encouraged.

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Victor smiled as he finished up with his latest patient.  Using a rag wrapped around one of his fore hooves, the other end gripped in his teeth the zebra polished the shining steel of the green earth pony’s prosthetic rear leg.

“Now then,” he said, tossing the rag aside and picking up a small vial in his teeth, “In a few hours the anesthetic will start to wear off.  It will feel like a dull ache at first but will gradually get worse.  As SOON as you feel that ache I want you to take a teaspoon of this potion, then once every eight hours after that.  I’m sorry if it throws off your sleeping schedule, but this is necessary to make sure that everything heals and melds together properly.”

Rosewater nodded and smiled, taking the vial and placing it in her saddlebags, “Thank you, Doctor!  When that cart ran over my leg, I thought I would be in a mobility cart for the rest of my days.”

“Well, you’re not out of the woods just yet.  There’s still a chance that your body might reject the implants or the nerve connections may not heal properly.  However if you take your medicine at the prescribed times and come back for your scheduled checkups, the risk is minimal.  In fact, you should be right as rain in just a few weeks time.”  He walked around the mare, making sure that everything seemed to be properly finished as well as admiring his own work.  “In the meantime, you can walk on it normally, but no running, jumping, or kicking until I give you the okay, alright?  We don’t want to cause any more damage.”

The mare shook her head, her pink curls swaying from side to side.  “No sir!  I’ll take it nice and easy for now.”

Victor smiled again, draping a hoof over the back of the mare that he towered over.  The red-maned zebra being the size of a Rom horse himself cast a bit of an imposing image, but his gentle words and actions had won over the smaller female.  “Now, since you are the first to get this experimental treatment, there shall be no charge for the surgery, however, I will require a few bits payment for the medicine itself.  I will send you my bill shortly, but I promise it will not be much.”  He carefully helped the mare walk towards the door.

Rosewater opened the door slowly, the well oiled hinges not making even the slightest squeak as she stepped outside and took a deep breath of fresh air.  The sun was sinking low in the sky.  “Oh my, it’s later than I thought!  Thank you, doctor but I need to hurry home before dark!”

Suddenly the heavy hoof of the zebra stamped down on the end of her tail, drawing her up short.  “No running!  Just move at a gentle canter and you should be back in Ponyville proper before you know it.”  He lifted his hoof and smiled before waving.  “Fair travels, miss Rosewater, and I will see you next week.”

As he trotted back inside, he put out an ornately carved wooden sign that said “RING BELL FOR SERVICE” in bright green lettering.  The paint of the sign was designed to glow brightly when struck by moon or starlight as was the bell hanging by the front door.  Heading into the workshop at the back of the clinic, he tossed a few hunks of wood and coal into the large incinerator and fired it up, using a chemical compound and a bit of flint.  After the fire was burning brightly, he opened the door to his operating room.  Carefully gathering up the bloodied sheets and disposable equipment, he tossed them into the incinerator.  Closing the heavy iron door with a loud clank, he turned his attention to his surgical equipment.  He pulled out a few bottles of powerful antibacterial potions and carefully mixed them into a vat of water.  He then set his sharp, shining instruments inside to soak for a while.  He heard the bell ring at the front door.

Tilting his head, he headed for the heavy wooden door.  He'd never actually had a patient this late since the areas near the Everfree could be dangerous after dark, so it must be truly important.  Opening the door, he was used to looking down to greet his patients, due to his towering, Rom-like height.  He was quite surprised to actually find himself eye to eye with a beautiful midnight-blue mare.

“Oh! Your highness!”  He remembered himself at last and bowed to the Princess of Dreams and Nightmares, “To what do I owe this wonderful surprise?”

The zebra found himself being ushered to one side by one of the Royal Guard.  Commander Lightning Rays, a white pegasus with distinctive black wing tips used the tip of his spear to gesture for the doctor to step back to what he deemed a safe distance.  As he glanced through the doorway he could see two more guards posted outside the doors before they swung closed behind his guests.

“Unfortunately, my reason for visiting is not pleasant.  I have received a complaint from the Ponyville Medical Society that there was a doctor in the area practicing without proper authorization.”  She frowned a bit, looking over the zebra’s shoulder, “May I come in?”

Victor nodded, smiling as he backed out of the way, “Of course, of course! Please, make yourself at home!”

Luna cast her gaze around the waiting and consultation area, seeing that everything was clean and brightly lit.  It was cheerfully colored rather than being the normal stark white of the horsepital.  Several comfortable chairs and couches lined the walls.  There was a shelf full of various books.  A small area off to the side seemed to be dedicated for foals to play while they waited.  A large, heavy-looking wooden desk was central to the wall opposite the entrance.  She rested a hoof on it’s shining, smooth surface, the reddish-brown wood so polished that she could see her reflection in the surface.

“Mahogany?” she asked, a bit surprised as the wood was quite hard to come bay so far to the north.

The zebra nodded, his chest puffing up a bit with pride, “I wanted to be sure that everything was the very best, for both myself and my patients.”

The mare looked thoughtful, walking over to the bookshelf, running a hoof over the many different tomes.  There was everything from medical journals, to nonfiction historical books, children’s books, and even a complete set of Daring-Do novels lined the shelf.  Victor watched as she inspected everything carefully before she headed towards the operating room door.  

She pushed through into the operating chamber, finding the room to be a sparkling white.  Her nose stung a bit from the strong chemical smell coming from the bucket of surgical tools, but that was to be expected.  Her ears twitched a little at the low rumble of the incinerator against the far back wall.  “I can see you keep everything meticulously clean.  Not at all what I was told by Dr. Crossly.”

The good doctor looked a bit confused, “Dr. Crossly?  I’m sorry, I’ve never met anypony by that name.  In fact, I haven’t met any of the other local doctors.  They seem to be avoiding me for some reason.”

The midnight mare rolled her eyes a bit, “I expected as much.  It would seem that the Medical Society feels threatened by your business and are trying to use me for a method of bringing you grief.  Tell me, the prosthetic on the young mare who just left, was that your work?”

“Yes, your highness.  In fact, surgical amputation and prosthetics are something of a specialty of mine.”

“Do you have one of your prosthetics that I may look over?  I am very curious about your work.”

Victor crouched down and pulled open a heavy drawer set in the base of the wall.  Dark padding lined the inside of it and a small, foal-sized prosthetic leg was lying within.  He lifted it out of the drawer and placed it upon the operating table, an odd amalgamation of wires dangling from the inside of the hip.

Luna picked it up with her magic, turning it over in the air, inspecting it with a jeweler’s gaze.  Every tiny detail was visible to her, from the wires designed to interface with the nerve endings in a pony’s legs to the special pads and enchanted rods used to allow the natural magic of an earth pony to flow naturally.  She tilted her head a bit before uttering, “Doctor, there is one thing I am curious about.  Many prosthetics are designed to rely on a pony’s natural magic to power them, but I see no such thing in your design. While it is very impressive, I fail to see how it can even function.”

The zebra smiled a bit, reaching up to tap his hoof on a small square panel that the princess had assumed was part of the assembly.  With one gentle press it sprung open, revealing an empty cavity lined with hundreds of tiny metal wires, looking much like  brush of some kind. “This is where the power supply is inserted.”

He pulled the drawer out a bit further than it was before and produced what looked like a small suitcase of some sort.  Opening it revealed a crushed velvet lining and several small quartz crystals nestled within.  Each of the crystals glowed faintly with a differently colored aura.  “A short while ago, I discovered an alchemical process to alter quartz crystals to allow them to hold either magical or electrical energy.  The prosthetics are designed to use either.” Picking up a crystal with a faint green hue, he placed it in the open compartment where it slowly started to rotate, generating tiny sparks as it rubbed against the metal brushes.  He snaped the door closed before picking up another crystal, this one glowing bright white.

“The crystal I put in the leg is charged with earth magic, while this one is charged with pure electricity from the last storm to pass through the area.”  He smiled at the princess as he readied the white crystal.  “Would you mind setting the prosthetic down on the table, please?

At the mention of pure electricity being harnessed from lightning, the guard perked up a little.  He rubbed at his black goatee a bit as he too leaned in closer to see what was going on.

Very curious now, Princess Luna did as he asked and stepped around to the opposite side of the table to watch.  Victor lowered the white crystal to each of the “nerve” wires in turn, causing the leg to twitch and spasm, the artificial “muscles” contracting just as a real leg would.

“I can connect these to the major nerves.  I have even perfected it to the point that if too much is lost I can run artificial nerves straight to the spinal column, though the procedure can be dangerous.”  He sighed a little as he set the crystal aside. “Sadly, my ultimate goal is to give the patient sensation in an artificial limb, but I fear that may be out of my reach.”

Luna actually seemed a bit stunned.  This was an incredible accomplishment for anypony, and his ambition was amazing.  This zebra sought to create a prosthetic leg that would be functionally identical to that of a real one, and he had gotten very, very close!  She leaned down a bit closer, tilting her head as she noticed there were a few silvery wires that he had not touched with the crystal.  “And, dear doctor, what are these connections for?”

The big zebra actually clopped his hooves together and smiled brightly, “Actually, that is the part I am most proud of.”  He gestured to the delicate-seeming bundles of wire, the tiny connections little thicker than a single strand of his bright red mane.  “These allow magic to flow freely through the artificial limb as if it were real, meaning that Earth Ponies still have their full connection to the Earth, and pegasi won’t stumble from having an artificial leg that falls through clouds!”

Luna’s guard took in everything, then gripped his spear a little more tightly.  When their host had smiled, he had caught a glimpse of the zebra’s oddly sharp, interlocking teeth.  Long and white, they reminded him of the mandibles of a shark or some other sleek predator that lurks in deep, dark places.  He shook his head a little because his charge seemed oblivious to the possible danger of the situation, but he knew better than to chime in when she was so wrapped up in what she referred to as “talking shop” with another pony.

Lightning Ray’s ears perked up as he heard a commotion coming from the guards he left posted outside.  As he pushed open the door he saw that they had their spears crossed, pushing back a rather pudgy-looking off-white unicorn.  The intruder stamped his hoof and hissed at them through gritted teeth as he demanded entrance.  His mane, almost the color of a smoker’s stained teeth flipped this way and that.  He turned around and at first Lightning thought he was going to make the massive mistake of bucking at the royal guards, but instead he was trying to use his prodigious rump to shove his way through!

“AHEM!!” Lightning poked at the unicorn’s rump with a wing tip.  He got a good close look at the intruder’s cutie mark.  To most ponies, it would look like a red cross adorning a medical bag, fairly common for pony doctors and nurses.  However, to his trained eye the cross was slightly askew, and it was a bank bag, not a medical bag that adorned his flank.  “May I help you with something?”

The unicorn puffed himself up with pride, almost giving him the appearance of a bloated toad.  “Yes, actually.  I am Dr. Crossly, the representative of the Ponyville Medical Society who reported this fraud for operating without the proper permits.  I came by here to make sure that he was shut down.”

Lightning tilted his head a little, then thought of Luna’s reaction to the work that Dr. Mordenheim was doing.  Smiling a little, he gave the signal for the two guard ponies to let the unicorn pass.  “Of course, Dr. Crossly, right this way.”

The unicron looked like he’d swallowed a lemon when he heard laughter coming from the next room.  A deep, bass rumble of a laugh and a higher, beautiful tone, almost like tinkling chimes.  He burst into the next room, Commander Lightning rays in tow and stamped his hoof on the white tiles.

“What is the meaning of this?  This.. this les... er.. zebra.  Has been operating a clinic without authorization!”

Luna nodded to the unicorn, and sadly to Dr. Mordenheim.  “This is true, and a fine of five hundred golden bits must be paid.”  Dr. Crossly was practically rubbing his hooves with glee at this remark.

“However, I have now thoroughly inspected your facilities and seen examples of your work first hoof.  You have my approval to keep operating your emergency clinic right here on the edge of the Everfree for as long as you are able.  Please stop by town hall tomorrow evening.  Your paperwork should be properly registered by then.”

Crossly’s jaw nearly hit the floor at this announcement, but he quickly recovered.  His shocked face soon became a smirk.  “Actually, to operate a clinic here in Ponyville, he will need to be voted into and become a dues-paying member of the Ponyville Medical Society.  We all have to do our part to protect not just the good ponies of this town, but one another as professionals, after all.”

It was Victor himself who got a bit of a smug grin now.  “Actually, that was what we were discussing when you so rudely barged in.  It seems that my own clinic is actually outside of Ponyville and therefore falls directly under royal jurisdiction.”   He slowly stepped towards the unicorn and lowered his head to Crossly’s level.  He smiled a little wider on one side of his mouth, out of sight of the princess and her guard.  His long, sharp teeth were revealed to the unicorn causing the pudgy pony to pale prodigiously beneath his fur.

“I suggest you leave immediately before I ask our dear princess to have you removed for trespassing, or better yet I take care of it myself.”

Dr. Crossly, who had already been slowly backing up as the towering zebra advanced, nodded and turned tail, his hooves scrabbling on the slick tiles as he scooted back through the door and out into the night.

Victor cleared his throat a bit as he stood upright once more, using a hoof to straighten out his slightly rumpled lab coat.  “Alright then. Thank you, your highness, for the proper documentation to operate my business.  I truly was unaware of the rules at the time, but I shall gladly pay the fine that is due tomorrow when I visit town hall.” He smiled a bit more pleasantly at both Princess Luna and Commander Lightning Rays.  “Perhaps we could meet somewhere this weekend and discuss matters further over tea?”

Eyes twinkling with humor, Princess Luna smiled back at Victor, her own lips spread just enough to show a set of fangs even larger than his. “Your dismissal of Doctor Crossly was delightful, Victor!  I would be delighted to meet you for tea, after my Night Court adjourns.”

A bemused Victor watched his royal guest and her guard take wing. Muttering to himself, “She really does not miss much, does she?” he shut the door.

<==Previous  Next==>

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[trashpandaorigins]

The Body Keeps the Score  Ch.18 Repentance

"You said it yourself bitch, we're the Guardians of the Galaxy." Gamora is finally a part of something. But the past always follows you, eats at you and she must come to grips with her deeds as she tries to build a future. Meanwhile Rocket has never cared much for anyone or anything. Together the two of them discover they are more alike than different and try to heal themselves by befriending the other.

*Content Warnings: Mentions of child/animal abuse, trauma, character death, physical torture/pain*

Title of this fic is taken from the book of the same title "The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma," by Bessel van der Kolk

It was a lie when they smiled, and said, you won't feel a thing

And as we ran from the cops, we laughed so hard it would sting

Yeah yeah, oh, if I'm so wrong, how can you listen all night long?

Now will it matter, after I'm gone? Because you never learn a goddamn thing

You're just a sad song with nothing to say, about a life long wait for a hospital stay

And if you think that I'm wrong,  this never meant nothing to ya

Disenchanted - My Chemical Romance

Blood pooled under Rocket’s tongue, his sharp teeth biting down trying to staunch the contents of his stomach from erupting out of his stomach.

“Where are we?”

Behind him Nebula followed with a staunch stride, in fact he was surprised she hadn’t shot him and fled the moment they touched down. He almost wished she had. They crept through the concrete landing zone, though all the ships that once pulled up to this planet were now dashed to smithereens. Pieces of crumpled metal lay like tombstones. Rocket tried to calm his breathing, he shuddered, eyes darting about. In all the years he’d been gone it appeared no one had come to this abandoned planet, not either the ravagers had attempted to scavenge the wrecked buildings.

“Halfworld,” he struggled to speak.

He hefted his gun, one of many he’d brought with him. Nebula stepped beside him, glaring about with an ire he would normally appreciate. Now however, he just trembled. Entire body wracked with shaking, adrenaline, ready to fight anything that might come out of the shadows.

“So it's a lab, a zoo?”

The raccoonoid’s stomach curdled, Breathe...just focus...get to the building….3C just….just get inside, fix her and….g...get the fuck out.

“Stay close.”

Nebula grunted but continued on. Some part of him was glad for her presence. Shame and self-loathing twisted inside of him.

They’ll come straight here, they might be here already. No! You’re doing this for Gamora. You fucked up. This is how you fix it, and you can fix Nebula too even if you can never fix yourself. You fucked up. You lied, spied on her...you hit Groot. Tears threatened to streak his eyes.

“T...there it is,” he pointed to the large concrete building, a husky shell of a thing. Clearly unused. Rocket halted in his steps….. the doors…. the doors were still broken open. In the darkness he made out the torn rents of metal where he’d blasted through the bolts with an improvised bomb. Screeching, fire and blood, smoke, choking smoke, stinging in his lungs.

The raccoonoid sniffed, wiping a paw across his face and leveled his gun, stepping across the threshold into the bowels of the building.

“Stay close, if you hear anything shoot it.”

“You don’t have to tell me twice,” the woman growled, she bent her arm and Rocket watched a series of clicks and mechanisms come together, turning her hand into a firearm. In any other situation he would’ve admired it but they came to a cross section at the end of a long hall and he stopped, looking around. Paneling from the ceiling had fallen down, hanging by a chord. Dried crusted blood smattered the wall, filling his nose with a scent of rotting flesh and stale chemicals.

Needles punctured into flesh, straps too tight, pinching. The stiff metal table. Their masks, their laughter, their tools. His body opened, the feel of the fetid air brushing against organs and tissues that were never meant to know a breeze.

One paw went to his stomach on instinct. His ears swiveling to pick up any sound. Only Nebula’s heavy foot falls. He gathered himself, stomach still roiling.

“Fox!”

His head snapped up, blinking hard, he ran one paw over his face.

“W...what?”

“Which way?”

Rocket swallowed the lump in his throat, the metallic taste of blood still on this tongue. He shook his head, which way….I came from...down there...shot that one, his eyes rested on the dusty remains of a body, now nothing but bone.

“G...gimme a sec.”

Before she could object he stumbled off down the hall, leaned against the wall and vomited. Here he was again, just a sick animal surrounded by other sick, dying, drooling, decaying animals. Or so they were, before he had escaped in a bloody spectacle of gun fire and rage.

She can see you, his pride warned. But the raccoonoid hardly registered, pinching his eyes shut against the involuntary force of his gut, synching and surging painfully. He wretched again, trying to breathe between spouts of puking.

Pull yourself together! How the flark are you gonna get anything done if you can’t walk down a d’ast hallway?! They ain’t here no more. No one’s here, you made sure of that. How else are you gonna make it up to Gamora? Or Groot….? The image of the scared little flora, reeling from the blow Rocket dealt him  branded in his mind. He swallowed another round of vomit, acid burning at his throat.

“What’s the matter fox? Eat too much garbage?”

Rocket wiped his muzzle with the back of his paw.

“This way,” he steadied his grip on his gun, holding it with two hands and shuffled forward, around the bodies. Down the dark corridor, doors evenly spaced on either side. He knew better than to look up into the shattered windows of the various laboratories. They crept along, through the double doors and down a flight of stairs, deeper underground through the vast labyrinth of rooms filled with cages, testing chambers, operating theaters, chemical testing labs. Rocket’s hair stood on end, remembering the menagerie of agonies.

Just keep going, you got out of here with thousands of guards you’ll be in and out quick as a rocket with no one to stop you. Ha, rocket. He allowed himself a bemused smile, that was the reason for his name after all.

“Agh!”

Rocket spun, bristling, gun aimed, chest pounding, his breath caught.

“I stepped in something,” Nebula yelped, lifting her foot out of whatever it was.

Still shaking with adrenaline the raccoonoid hurried forward, and halted.

The broken skeleton of some small creature lay dispersed and crumbling in the dusty hall. The empty sockets of its eyes staring at them both. Its skeleton had only been partially enhanced as detailed by the odd bending of vertebrae and rusted metal. Rocket crouched, sniffing, whiskers twitching and squinted at the metal panel still fused into the base of the skull. Shining a light on it, he drew a quick breath, realizing.

“You recognize him?”

“Her,” the raccoonoid corrected.

She was in the cage below mine.

Nebula made no retort, but he could feel her eyes on him. He forced himself back up, clearing his throat and sniffing.

Breathe….in...out...you’re doing this for Gamora. You’re not gonna fuck up again. You can’t...you owe Gamora that much.

“We’re almost there,” he wheezed through the fight to keep his breath steady. Nebula shook her head curtly, motioning for him to move forward. Rocket slid his back against the wall before the next corner, holding his gun close to his chest, holding his breath, knowing what he was about to face.

The double doors of the room had long since broken, lying like two more bodies on the hard floor. Beyond the threshold the procedural room yawned like a black hole. He could make out the single ominous table, the five large oversize lights hovering above like demons ready to spirit someone away. Those bright piercing lights illuminating a subject’s insides, penetrating light into everything, exposing things meant to be left in the dark. The fur on Rocket’s arms rose, the cybernetics in his shoulders and spine clenched with tension. He picked at his fur with tension.

“Ah,” he bit his tongue once more, forcing down the high pitched whine that nearly escaped him. The raccoonoid forced himself closer, each step heavy as led. His tail twitched, legs tensed ready to bolt. Though the mind may forget, may block out certain memories, the body remembers everything.

You do this, she won’t hurt Gamora no more. She’ll stop. That was the deal. Gamora won’t have to run...won’t have to be so scared. Tears pricked his eyes as he picked over the broken double doors, and crossed into that dank, room. The last time he was in this lab, he’d escaped. Killing the scientists and orderlies and bursting out the door. Groot was with him. He longed for the flora now, not the little thing who had emerged from a pot but his old best friend. Groot had been the reason for a majority of the rotting skeletons he and Nebula had passed. He wanted the large tree with him, that towering presence. If anything happened, if the Halfworlders who were out there looking for him did come, Groot would be there to protect him. But no...Groot was dead.

At least Groot didn’t die in here, Rocket thought bitterly. A stabbing pain in his gut. Tears ran down his furred cheeks. He sucked a painful breath, the sterol scent of chemicals still lingered in the air, burning him with memories. He longed for those tight wooden arms now, that gentle soothing place he had risked his life to get to just down the hall where their cages sat next to one another. He’d learned to bypass the security and slip passed the bars into the flora’s holding cell, spending the sleepless nights therein.

“So this is where you’re going to fix me?” Nebula asked, looking around the dark room. She surveyed the monitors and equipment, still hanging from wires, there were medical tools scattered about. Computers, carts of liquid vials, an array of needles, restraints, scalpels, a saw. Everything just where they left it. He thought with a shuddered breath.

“Y...yeah, I think I got everything I need..r..right...h..here.” Rocket gestured lamely around the room. Nebula looked up at the large overhead lights, two of which were out, bulbs shattered. Rocket turned the remaining light on, wincing at the white flash of memories slapped across his mind.

He wiped his eyes hastily before turning around and looking at her as she hoisted herself up with ease onto the fated cold table. Rocket sighed, rummaging around for the clear, anesthesia liquid that the scientist kept locked away. He found it easily enough following the sharp scent of it, familiar and immediately bringing him back to the day’s he’d been the one on that table.

Focus, focus. Breathe….you’re the one with the scalpel now. Not them. They're dead.  A small smirk escaped him.

“What’s that?” Nebula glared at the needle poised in the raccoonoid’s paw.

“It’s an anesthetic,” Rocket explained, slowly looking at it as though it were about to come to life and prick him. “I told yah I could undo what Thanos did to yah, and I can but it ain’t gonna be pretty. You want to be knocked out for this, trust me.”

The cyborg woman eyed him, her own gaze much like his. Solid black eyes, with no iris or pupil. Foreign and unnerving. A chill ran down his spine, and not from the hollow breeze blowing through hallowed halls.

“I’m trusting you to not use it,” she countered, though she spoke uncommonly soft. Rocket opened his mouth to press her but stopped. If Gamora’s past was any inclination, there was no doubt Thanos had not offered the younger sister the luxury of anesthetic. The raccoonoid knew well what happened to those who had felt the scalpel one too many times. The body, animal or humanoid did what it did best: adapted. After enough procedures freakish panic turned to heightened panic, heightened panic to fighting, fighting to exhaustion, exhaustion….expectation and finally, grim resolve. If Nebula’s procedures were any like his own then she had grown to expect anguish. Never desensitized, but accustomed to the dance of fight or flight, survival and eventually resolve. At this point she had probably grown more used to that than the uncertainty of falling into a chemically induced sleep not knowing who or what she’d be when she awoke. He looked her over, then set the large needle down.

“Your body, your choice.”

He heard her whisper a ‘thank you’ while he back was turned but did not acknowledge it.

“Alright lay down.”

She obeyed, reclining on the metal slab, face tight. She fidgeted into the most comfortable or at least neutral position possible. With shaking paws he reached for the restraints.

“I won’t move,’ she snapped, voice cracking. He let go of the cuffs. Waiting.

“I won’t move,” she repeated. “Trust me.”

Rocket looked her over, she was more metal than flesh. He finally nodded, climbing up on the table beside her, crouching over her arm. He held his breath, holding the scalpel tight and got to work.

---

In some ways it was easier, in other ways it was harder. Rocket refused to look at her face. If he did, he’d stop and if he stopped the deal would be done and she’d go after Gamora. He worked diligently, it's just another gun, another bomb, another machine. No. It’s not, she’s a person. An evil person but a person. Don’t be like them. They’re the really evil ones.  Steady, stop shaking, don’t vomit. Not one’s here, no one’s coming.

He pulled the taunt faux flesh over from her elbow down to the wrist. It didn’t take long to find the storage, to dye it and measure and cut. He never bothered ransacking the supplies of the place and he knew where to find whatever he needed. Even reduced to abandoned disarray the labs of Halfworld itself were always happy to provide tools of ingenuity and suffering. Art, the scientists had called it. Never saying what their ambitions truly were, butchery. Torture.

Nebula let out a hiss of pain here, a bite of her lip there, but she kept her word and kept still. Only arching her back off the table twice and quickly righting herself. Expertly clenching her muscles and sucking in the pain.

Like sister like...sister. Rocket thought bleakly.

“Almost done,” he tried to assure her, fixing the fake flesh to her wrist. The hand was already done, each finger neatly covered with the skin like material and dyed to match her natural tone. She requested he keep some modifications in place, like the ability to turn said hand into a gun. He did this by leaving her palm alone, the small gun therein could come out if she willed it, covered by what would look like a black fingerless glove.

“T...there,” he finished, examining the arm in its entirety. She flexed it experimentally and eased herself up, dizzy at first. “Easy...it's gonna take a few hours to heal, even with the laser seal.”

Nebula nodded but bent the arm back and forth watching the flexible flesh move with her. Rocket spied the smallest inclination of her lips.

“Told ya I’d make it better.”

She looked up, glaring at him.

“You said you’d fix all of it,” her voice fell to a snarl.

“I will, I will,” he assured, sniffing and rubbing his eyes. Fatigue ached his eyes, suppressing the frenzied urge to run stole any strength of concentration from him,  and the arm was the easy part.

Nebula lay back down, adjusting herself slightly and took a deep breath.

“You don’t wanna….a...break for a sec? You were just lying down for like….eight terran hours.”

Rocket looked around, chest heaving in preparation as he peered down the dark hall the way they had come, nothing.

“Well? What are you waiting for Fox?”

The raccoonoid tried to breathe, looking over the metal plating in her face and skull. His stomach summersaulted, the room going darker, head spinning.

Just...concentrate…

The raccoonoid hopped down from the table, on to the floor and dragged over a nearby stool, up to her head and hovered directly over her face.

“If you try anything,” she seethed, “I’ll kill you.”

Even in his delirium Rocket recognized an empty threat when he heard one.

“Just….hol….hold still.”

Maybe this was his repentance, sort of. If he were worthy of it. Rocket gingerly lifted the main panel from her head that curved over the dome of her head to just over her right eye.

“Stars,” he breathed, eyes widening. “What’d he do to you.”

“Everything he didn’t want to do to Gamora.”

The venom in her voice was plain. For once Rocket did not form a rebuttal. Staring into the inner workings of Nebula’s cybernetically enhanced mechanized brain was staring into the one part of himself he could not see during the procedures. Is this...what I look like...on the inside?  His insides curled in on themselves, the chronic pain in his cybernetics ached and pinched.

Use the pain, channel it.

He did, the noxious nervous energy wracking him to the point of near mania. Mania he forced into working on Nebula’s cerebral enhancements. Wire by wire, snipping things there, modifying things here.

“A’right,” he sighed, setting down the tongs he’d been working with. “Almost done. Now come the memories. What you want me to get rid of?”

He waited for a moment, taking the time to run his paws through his fur, shaking his head. Once again he forced himself to look up, down the empty hallway. Expecting the Halfworlders to come charging in, or one of the corpses on the floor to leap to life.

“Leave it all,” she whispered hoarse. He frowned, staring down at her.

“Yah...sure?”

Nebula’s eyes shifted, her hands knotting together.

“Yes.”

“You really are a masochist,” he grumbled.

“I never knew my true parents. I was an urchin on Wresreenia before Thanos found me. I have nothing else. If I don’t have the rage of those memories...I have nothing.”

“Yeah,” Rocket agreed.  He would have laughed with the ironic similarity between them. The scientists effectively erased all memory of anything before Halfworld. What he was before he was made he did not know. All he knew was that he wasn’t always like he was now.

“Alright, last part. Hold still I’m gonna put the plating back and cover it with that same fleshy covering. The laser seal will leave a small scar but it’ll heal.”

Almost done...you’re almost done...just close her up and you’ll be outta here.

Rocket measured and set the fleshy covering that would go over the panel, already dyed to match her skin and stretched it, shifting about her shoulders and reaching as far as he could to pull it down, hold it in place and close it up.

“Okay, the eyes the last bit,” the raccoon flexed his fingers, aching from the tools and precision. His back wracked with kinks from trying to get the tools at the right angel wherever he needed them. The metal in his skeleton grind against his bones.

The cybernetics around her eye were tiny, nearly imperceptible with enhanced optical cables for enhanced night vision. The raccoonoid hunched over her face, carefully extracting the machinery that made her eyes into scopes, immediately able to identify a target’s weaknesses and anticipating their next move. He left the night vision per her request.

“Is that it?” He could hear the begging in her voice, thin and hopeful.

“All we gotta do is jumpstart your system again,” he answered. A black pit forming in his insides, he eyed the busted generator typically used to start up cybernetic systems. Wires and cables all fell around it and spilled out like guts, several pieces missing.

“How are we going to do that?”

Rocket searched around for any inkling of an idea, spare parts, batteries, something, anything.

“Uhh….”

“You don’t know?!” Nebula cried, clearly fury almost hiding her fright.

“I’m thinkin’, I’m thinkin….” the raccoonoid paused.

It worked with Gamora’s arm...I could use my own cybernetics as the jumpstart….but with Gams it was just a simple set in her arm. I’d have to boost Nebula’s entire system….

He glanced behind her at the port in the base of her head. Unlike her sister’s meticulously placed cybernetics, each fixed with precise care, Nebula’s were shunted in every which way, haphazard.

Even if my wiring were enough to do it….I’d have to maximize electrical output to her...it’d be risky. I could fry my whole system…. he didn’t know what would happen. Still, he jumped down, scavenging through the drawers and store closets for any spare cables. A restraint staff with electrical prongs lay on the floor in the hall a few feet away.

“I thought...we were a family...Groot taught me that. That’s what his sacrifice meant to me. I thought....I was sure it would mean something to you too. I thought if anyone could get through to you it would’ve been him.” Gamora’s voice howled in his mind as he grabbed a bunch of wires, sizing them up.

“What are you doing fox?”

“Shhh, lemme think!” He hissed, pulling one of the blue wires from the bundle, this would do. He took his gun from his holster and crept slowly into the hall, resisting the urge to pull at his fur.

Gamora was right. You sold your teammate for money...Groot would be ashamed of you. His sacrifice taught Gamora something. What will it teach you?

“Gamora is worth it,” he whispered through his tears of fear. He seized the electrical staff, scurried back to Nebula and stood beside her on the table.

Groot thought we were worth dyn’ for…Gamora’s worth this. Even if it goes wrong. I always knew I’d die in this shit hole anyway.  

So what if he did kick the can in here? What would that make him? No better than any of the other sorry subjects who met their end against the tests or under the chemicals.

He yanked his jumpsuit down and shoved plugged the cable into the back of his head, twisting it in until he heard the click.

“What?” Nebula demanded, she sat on the edge of the table now, ready to leap off.

“Nothing. I’m gonna jumpstart your system with my own.”

Gamora is worth it, you little monster.

“This is gonna hurt for both of us, but once your cybernetics get back online you’ll know. When they’re back and you can move, unplug this from my back okay?”

The cyborg woman nodded curtly, dark eyes flashing.

“You remember your parta the deal?”

“Yes.”

“A'ight then smurfette.”

Rocket hooked the other end of the cable into her, then glanced down at his own implants and picked up the electro restraining staff.  He sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his paw, tears now staining the fur of his face. He grit his teeth, switched the electrical staff on and pushed it against the bolts in his clavicle.

White hot bolts of static stabbed through his chest, expanding out his entire body, through his limbs and to his writing tail. The body remembers. He curled inward on himself, dropping the staff to the ground and gripping the edge of the metal, scraping his claws against it. Someone was screaming. Rocket’s body vibrated with the energy of electricity, his pain receptors firing off all at once. He tensed, nearly levitating off the cold slab. The thing inside his skull vibrated.

S….sorr...Gams...b...breathe...just...b..brea…

“AAARRRGGGHHHH!”

He couldn’t tell who was wailing, him or Nebula.

Roving eyes fell on the cyborg woman. He clawed to get to her, though she herself was haunched, biting her lip so hard it bled. The wire between them sparked and fizzed with electric activity.

“Mora…” he gasped, reaching out through the pins and needles in his limbs and grasped for Nebula’s shirt. He crouched on her chest, balling his fist around her collar so tight it tore.

“Gime. Your. Word.”  He seethed, choking through the pink of foam and blood and filled his mouth.

Nebula forced her eyes open, her mouth in a tightly pressed line. Like him the electricity beneath her new skin glowed with purple light.

“I….w...won’t...k...kill her. I...i'll g...give h...her...a...c..chance."

Maybe Nebula never wanted to kill Gamora in the first place, maybe she just wanted someone to listen. Rocket felt his insides shaking harder, the machine in his chest he wished was a heart jumped and started. His muscles seized, tightening, paws shaking. He tried to breathe, lungs spasming with shards of glass. Everything swam, the lights above became dull, his mind clouded, unable to think, to reason. There was no thought, only feeling and non feeling . He couldn’t feel the cyborg lady’s shirt anymore, or her chest on which he crouched. He could feel jets of agonized burning pulses tore through him, heating every piece of metal inside of him.

His mind gone, his body adapted, trying desperately to protect itself by straining to curl into a ball. If only his motor function would cooperate.

“Subject 89P13 is nearly complete…..

“I’m kinda disappointed, I thought it’d be better, this one’s kinda weak.”

Stabbing, clenching.

“You were awake...when they did this to you.”

Gamora

“Thank you.”

Her hand, warm and friendly, holding his.

“Nebula!”

Something somewhere shouted, muffled, like hearing someone speak underwater.

“Let him go! Our feud does not concern him!”

Rocket tried to move his head towards the noise, but it was so heavy, his body would not obey. He curled, tightening, vision turning to black. Pressure builded against his back, at the base of his skull and down through his spine. Pressing and restricting and then….everything stopped.

[psychosistr]

Talk to Me- Chapter 3

Summary: They’ve reached the restaurant and everything’s going great so far!...So why is Steelbeak so nervous about messing everything up? Maybe Domino can help him loosen up a little.

Notes: This scene was so much fun to write- I love writing date stories far too much x3

-First Chapter-

As far as Steelbeak was concerned, the ride to the restaurant had been a complete success. Flirting with Domino had been easy, natural, and fun- and that stroke of luck with the song on the radio had resulted in a surprisingly romantic moment that he honestly couldn’t have topped even if he’d planned it himself. They’d been seated quickly without having to wait, and had even gotten a great table by one of the windows with a stunning view of the moonlit bay in a corner of the restaurant with no one else around. All things considered, it was a great start to the night.

Which, unfortunately only made him more anxious about doing something to mess it all up.

He kept trying to tell himself that things were different this time- that things between him and Domino were better now- but, in the back of his mind, he kept thinking about how all of his attempts at conversation last time they went out to eat had ultimately messed everything up and left him with nothing but a bill to pay and quiet, lonely car ride home. It was a stupid thing to worry about, and he knew it, but he was so completely out of his element that it left him feeling more than a little unnerved.

It wasn’t the going out part he wasn’t used to, mind you. He’d gone out on plenty of “dates” before and those had gone well enough to earn him several “girlfriends” that were so charmed by him that they’d wait literally MONTHS just for a chance to see him again.

No, it was the idea of going out on an actual date with someone he was actually interested in seeing again that had his nerves frazzled.

Every other date he’d been on before had been the same routine: Dinner and drinks. Some sweet talk that he didn’t really mean. Drive back to his place. Have a little fun. And then he’d send them on their way with the usual “Don’t call me, I’ll call you”. Lather, rinse, repeat- the same thing every time.

With Domino, though, things were different. The other man was too sharp to fall for his usual sweet talk (though flirting was definitely still on the table). Steelbeak also wanted more than just a one night fling- he wanted to go out with him again in the very near future, or maybe even just hang out more outside of work. He wanted-

“-something wrong?” The loon’s voice cut through his thoughts instantly.

“Huh?” Steelbeak blinked and looked up from his half-touched plate of seafood paella, unaware that he’d spaced out. “Sorry, ya say somethin’?”

“……” There was that stare he’d become all too familiar with over the past few months- the look that told him the shorter bird was mentally picking him apart and analyzing him with unsettling accuracy. “Something’s on your mind and it’s stressing you out.” And he’d hit the nail right on the head, as always. “What is it?”

Darn, he really couldn’t hide anything from this guy, could he?

With a frustrated sigh, Steelbeak frowned and ran a hand over his comb. “Is it really that obvious?” A nod from his partner accompanied by his deadpan stare told him that, yes, it WAS that obvious. “You’re gonna think it’s stupid..”

“Probably.” Wow, he didn’t miss a beat with that, did he? “But I still want to hear it.”

Well, he thought, might as well spit it out. Otherwise the darker bird would just keep giving him that look until he did. “Can ya ‘least promise NOT t’ laugh?”

The edges of the other’s beak curled slightly in a smirk as he shrugged. “Maybe.” That was probably the best he was going to get.

Figuring that he wouldn’t be able to get it all out if he was looking into those seemingly all-seeing red eyes, Steelbeak chose instead to keep his gaze on the bay. “…..I..ain’t exactly used t’ datin’ like this.” His eyes followed the rolling motion of a wave as it crashed on the beach before receding. “Don’t get me wrong, I like goin’ out with a cute dame much as the next guy, but I don’t even bother rememberin’ their names half the time. We go out, I tell ‘em what they wanna hear, and it works good enough t’ get ‘em home with me.” He blindly waved his hand in Domino’s general direction. “But, with YOU, I don’t even know how t’ start a freakin’ conversation. If I try talkin’ to ya like the rest, it’d probably be charmin’, but it’s not gonna be real- my brain ain’t exactly wired for honesty, y’know? So I’m tryin’ real hard t’ think of somethin’ t’ talk about ‘sides small talk ‘cause I wanna say somethin’, but I don’t wanna look like an idiot for tryin’ too hard.” He gave a short, self-deprecating laugh and shook his head. “Aaaaaannd I just heard myself out loud: I’m tryin’ too hard t’ NOT try too hard..guess that don’t make a whole lotta sense, huh?”

When he finally turned his attention back to his date, he saw that the other bird had reached across the table with an extremely small, unmarked vial of something and currently had his hand angled over the rooster’s glass of water- clearly preparing to drip whatever was inside of the glass vial into his drink. “……” Realizing he’d been spotted, Domino slowly leaned back into his seat properly and set his hands back down in his lap, maintaining eye contact the whole time as if that would hide what he’d been about to do.

“…Dom..what’s that?” Steelbeak asked his partner incredulously.

“…Nothing…” He was clearly lying through his teeth and trying to maintain his poker face, despite being caught red-handed.

“We both know I ain’t buyin’ that.” Steelbeak looked down at the table obscuring the loon’s hands from his view. “I know you ain’t tryin’ t’ slip me a mickey, so spill it.”

“Fine..” The poker face finally fell away and Domino’s hand came back up to rest on the table with the vial still between his fingers, surprising the rooster with the dejected, guilty frown on his face. “It’s a truth serum.”

Steelbeak’s eyes widened in surprise at the admission. “Why the heck do ya have truth serum on ya??”

The darker bird shrugged a little. “I like to be prepared for anything- it comes in handy for emergency interrogations.” He set the vial on the table between them so that Steelbeak could see it better. “I thought that, if you’re uncomfortable because it’s hard for you to speak honestly with me, then a drop or two might help.”

The tiny glass container sat on the table, looking so small and insignificant, but Steelbeak knew better than to assume things when it came to drugs and chemicals in their line of work. “..That stuff really works..?”

“I’ve found it to be effective more than 98% of the time.” Domino replied. “It’s fast acting, too- most people notice the effects almost instantly.”

“……Eh, what the heck?” Steelbeak grabbed the vial and, instead of putting a few drops into his glass as Domino had been about to, he popped the drip-cap off and brought it directly to his beak to chug half of the colorless liquid in one go. “!!” He immediately regretted his decision- the liquid was oily and tasted like someone had boiled down a bottle of mouthwash into a loose syrup. After grabbing his napkin and coughing into it for a solid minute, as well as chugging his entire glass of water to weaken the nearly medicinal taste still coating his tongue, he set the half-empty vial back down in the middle of the table. “Ugh, this stuff better be worth it..”

Domino picked the vial up and put it away after screwing the cap back on. “You know, two drops would have been more than enough. Don’t blame me if you start spilling F.O.W.L.’s most highly guarded secrets.”

“Figured I’d need all the help I could get.” With the horribly minty taste finally cleared from his pallet, Steelbeak took a moment to think about how he felt. “Y’know..I do feel calmer. Wow, you weren’t kiddin’ ‘bout that stuff- it works REAL fast.”

The darker bird smiled a bit, but there was something sly about that look in his eyes that Steelbeak couldn’t quite place. “Let’s test it out: What would you like to talk about?”

“I wanna know more about YOU.” The words fell from Steelbeak’s mouth with surprising ease. “We don’t talk ‘bout much on the clock, so, I wanna know, what sorta stuff do ya do for fun?”

“Hm, that’s pretty tame, but a good place to start, I suppose.” Domino picked up his fork, idly spinning it between his thumb and index finger as he thought the question over. “Well..I read, mostly. I also enjoy going to the shooting range- it’s a fun way to exercise and keep my skills sharp. During the winter I like to go for walks in the snow or even ice skating, if it’s cold enough. Oh, and sometimes I just like to go driving along the coast at night since it’s so quiet.”

“Sounds like a good time.” Steelbeak smiled a little, a general feeling of satisfaction coming over him. He couldn’t believe how easy that had been! He felt more relaxed now, like he had when they talked in the break room the other day, or after their mission to raid and blow up a S.H.U.S.H. base. “Never woulda pegged ya for a skater, though. Found any good places ‘round here for that?”

“The lake in the park was nice, I went there last time it snowed.” The loon had a soft smile on his face as he glanced out the window, clearly remembering the day fondly. “It was in the middle of the night, so there was no one else crowding the ice or crashing into me.”

Ah, there it was- that rare but genuine and gentle smile that made Steelbeak’s heart melt a little. “Maybe I’ll tag along next time. Haven’t gone skatin’ in ages.”

Red eyes looked back up at him, that smile growing a little more. “I’d like that.”

For a moment, they stayed like that, just smiling contently at one another.

Then, Steelbeak noticed, Domino’s shoulders began to shake the way they did when he was trying not to laugh out loud about something. “What’s so funny?”

“Well, it’s just..” Domino’s smile was turning into a grin as he continued resisting the ever-growing urge to laugh. “You know that truth serum you drank?”

“Yeah, what’s in that junk, anyway?” Steelbeak asked, his curiosity piqued now. “I mean, I’m glad it worked, but it tasted like melted toothpaste.”

Domino’s body was practically trembling, as was his voice, but he managed to get out a simple reply. “It’s peppermint oil.”

“…What?” Steelbeak blinked, unsure if he’d heard the other bird properly.

“You just drank a bottle of peppermint oil.” And the last of the loon’s resolve crumbled, allowing him to openly laugh at the baffled rooster.

“What?!” Steelbeak sputtered for a moment. He’d seriously just chugged freaking PEPPERMINT OIL?! After a few seconds of his partner laughing at him, the rooster finally groaned and let his head fall forward to hit a clear spot on the table. “Can’t believe I fell for that…why the heck would ya even HAVE that..?” Somehow it seemed more believable that the other bird would carry truth serum on him then peppermint oil.

Wiping a few laughter-induced tears from the corners of his eyes, Domino’s smile didn’t go down one bit. “Like I said, I like to be prepared for anything. Peppermint is very versatile- it can relieve nausea, help with indigestion, or just be used to freshen breath after a less than fragrant meal. I’ve also used it as a fire accelerant before.” He took notice of the way the lighter bird's shoulders were starting to tremble and his grin lessened slightly. “Hey, are you ok-?”

Before he could finish his question, Steelbeak sat up with a huge grin of his own spread across his face and started belting out his distinctively nasal laugh. “Friggin’ peppermint oil! Oh, that was good!” He had to wipe away tears of his own so he could look his partner in the eyes again. “This is why I like ya, Deedee: You keep me guessin’. I never know what t’ expect with ya. You’re exciting.”

Domino’s own smile returned. “You’re certainly not having any trouble being honest now, are you?”

Steelbeak shrugged, the huge grin still practically splitting his face. “Yeah, but it’s gonna be easier on my ego if I just keep pretendin’ it’s ‘cause of a truth serum. So, let’s keep talkin’ before I lose my nerve again- sound good?” He raised his almost empty glass towards his partner expectantly.

Domino picked up his own half-full glass and tapped it to the other’s. “That sounds good to me. Let’s talk.”

<-Previous Chapter Next Chapter->

End Notes: Just to clear up any possible confusion: Domino WAS trying to get caught spiking Steelbeak’s drink so he could bluff and get him to try it willingly- the guy knew what he was doing x3 Also, by “peppermint oil”, I’m referring to edible peppermint extract that’s used in cooking- he didn’t make Steelbeak drink an essential oil because that is dangerous xP

[mordenheim]

Dr. Mordenheim’s Travels, Book 1:  De Writer’s Equestria, Ch. 4

Dr. Victor Mordenheim has traveled to many different realities in his many centuries of existence.  This series, which I shall add to from time to time, will explore some of them, beginning with the world of @ask-de-writer.   Also, thank you to @ask-de-writer for the editing and ending bit.

=============================================================

Victor smiled as he finished up with his latest patient.  Using a rag wrapped around one of his fore hooves, the other end gripped in his teeth the zebra polished the shining steel of the green earth pony’s prosthetic rear leg.

“Now then,” he said, tossing the rag aside and picking up a small vial in his teeth, “In a few hours the anesthetic will start to wear off.  It will feel like a dull ache at first but will gradually get worse.  As SOON as you feel that ache I want you to take a teaspoon of this potion, then once every eight hours after that.  I’m sorry if it throws off your sleeping schedule, but this is necessary to make sure that everything heals and melds together properly.”

Rosewater nodded and smiled, taking the vial and placing it in her saddlebags, “Thank you, Doctor!  When that cart ran over my leg, I thought I would be in a mobility cart for the rest of my days.”

“Well, you’re not out of the woods just yet.  There’s still a chance that your body might reject the implants or the nerve connections may not heal properly.  However if you take your medicine at the prescribed times and come back for your scheduled checkups, the risk is minimal.  In fact, you should be right as rain in just a few weeks time.”  He walked around the mare, making sure that everything seemed to be properly finished as well as admiring his own work.  “In the meantime, you can walk on it normally, but no running, jumping, or kicking until I give you the okay, alright?  We don’t want to cause any more damage.”

The mare shook her head, her pink curls swaying from side to side.  “No sir!  I’ll take it nice and easy for now.”

Victor smiled again, draping a hoof over the back of the mare that he towered over.  The red-maned zebra being the size of a Rom horse himself cast a bit of an imposing image, but his gentle words and actions had won over the smaller female.  “Now, since you are the first to get this experimental treatment, there shall be no charge for the surgery, however, I will require a few bits payment for the medicine itself.  I will send you my bill shortly, but I promise it will not be much.”  He carefully helped the mare walk towards the door.

Rosewater opened the door slowly, the well oiled hinges not making even the slightest squeak as she stepped outside and took a deep breath of fresh air.  The sun was sinking low in the sky.  “Oh my, it’s later than I thought!  Thank you, doctor but I need to hurry home before dark!”

Suddenly the heavy hoof of the zebra stamped down on the end of her tail, drawing her up short.  “No running!  Just move at a gentle canter and you should be back in Ponyville proper before you know it.”  He lifted his hoof and smiled before waving.  “Fair travels, miss Rosewater, and I will see you next week.”

As he trotted back inside, he put out an ornately carved wooden sign that said “RING BELL FOR SERVICE” in bright green lettering.  The paint of the sign was designed to glow brightly when struck by moon or starlight as was the bell hanging by the front door.  Heading into the workshop at the back of the clinic, he tossed a few hunks of wood and coal into the large incinerator and fired it up, using a chemical compound and a bit of flint.  After the fire was burning brightly, he opened the door to his operating room.  Carefully gathering up the bloodied sheets and disposable equipment, he tossed them into the incinerator.  Closing the heavy iron door with a loud clank, he turned his attention to his surgical equipment.  He pulled out a few bottles of powerful antibacterial potions and carefully mixed them into a vat of water.  He then set his sharp, shining instruments inside to soak for a while. He heard the bell ring at the front door.

Tilting his head, he headed for the heavy wooden door.  He’d never actually had a patient this late since the areas near the Everfree could be dangerous after dark, so it must be truly important. Opening the door, he was used to looking down to greet his patients, due to his towering, Rom-like height.  He was quite surprised to actually find himself eye to eye with a beautiful midnight-blue mare.

“Oh!  Your highness!”  He remembered himself at last and bowed to the Princess of Dreams and Nightmares, “To what do I owe this wonderful surprise?”

The zebra found himself being ushered to one side by one of the Royal Guard.  Commander Lightning Rays, a white pegasus with distinctive black wing tips used the tip of his spear to gesture for the doctor to step back to what he deemed a safe distance.  As he glanced through the doorway he could see two more guards posted outside the doors before they swung closed behind his guests.

“Unfortunately, my reason for visiting is not pleasant.  I have received a complaint from the Ponyville Medical Society that there was a doctor in the area practicing without proper authorization.”  She frowned a bit, looking over the zebra’s shoulder, “May I come in?”

Victor nodded, smiling as he backed out of the way, “Of course, of course!  Please, make yourself at home!”

Luna cast her gaze around the waiting and consultation area, seeing that everything was clean and brightly lit.  It was cheerfully colored rather than being the normal stark white of the horsepital.  Several comfortable chairs and couches lined the walls. There was a shelf full of various books.  A small area off to the side seemed to be dedicated for foals to play while they waited.  A large, heavy-looking wooden desk was central to the wall opposite the entrance.  She rested a hoof on it’s shining, smooth surface, the reddish-brown wood so polished that she could see her reflection in the surface.

“Mahogany?” she asked, a bit surprised as the wood was quite hard to come by so far to the north.

The zebra nodded, his chest puffing up a bit with pride, “I wanted to be sure that everything was the very best, for both myself and my patients.”

The mare looked thoughtful, walking over to the bookshelf, running a hoof over the many different tomes.  There was everything from medical journals, to nonfiction historical books, children’s books, and even a complete set of Daring-Do novels lined the shelf.  Victor watched as she inspected everything carefully before she headed towards the operating room door.  She pushed through into the operating chamber, finding the room to be a sparkling white.  Her nose stung a bit from the strong chemical smell coming from the bucket of surgical tools, but that was to be expected.  Her ears twitched a little at the low rumble of the incinerator against the far back wall.  “I can see you keep everything meticulously clean.  Not at all what I was told by Dr. Crossly.”

The good doctor looked a bit confused, “Dr. Crossly?  I’m sorry, I’ve never met anypony by that name.  In fact, I haven’t met any of the other local doctors.  They seem to be avoiding me for some reason.”

The midnight mare rolled her eyes a bit, “I expected as much.  It would seem that the Medical Society feels threatened by your business and are trying to use me for a method of bringing you grief.  Tell me, the prosthetic on the young mare who just left, was that your work?”

“Yes, your highness.  In fact, surgical amputation and prosthetics are something of a specialty of mine.”

“Do you have one of your prosthetics that I may look over?  I am very curious about your work.”

Victor crouched down and pulled open a heavy drawer set in the base of the wall.  Dark padding lined the inside of it and a small, foal-sized prosthetic leg was lying within.  He lifted it out of the drawer and placed it upon the operating table, an odd amalgamation of wires dangling from the inside of the hip.

Luna picked it up with her magic, turning it over in the air, inspecting it with a jeweler’s gaze.  Every tiny detail was visible to her, from the wires designed to interface with the nerve endings in a pony’s legs to the special pads and enchanted rods used to allow the natural magic of an earth pony to flow naturally.  She tilted her head a bit before uttering, “Doctor, there is one thing I am curious about.  Many prosthetics are designed to rely on a pony’s natural magic to power them, but I see no such thing in your design.  While it is very impressive, I fail to see how it can even function.”

The zebra smiled a bit, reaching up to tap his hoof on a small square panel that the princess had assumed was part of the assembly.  With one gentle press it sprung open, revealing an empty cavity lined with hundreds of tiny metal wires, looking much like  brush of some kind.  “This is where the power supply is inserted.”

He pulled the drawer out a bit further than it was before and produced what looked like a small suitcase of some sort. Opening it revealed a crushed velvet lining and several small quartz crystals nestled within. Each of the crystals glowed faintly with a differently colored aura.  “A short while ago, I discovered an alchemical process to alter quartz crystals to allow them to hold either magical or electrical energy.  The prosthetics are designed to use either.”  Picking up a crystal with a faint green hue, he placed it in the open compartment where it slowly started to rotate, generating tiny sparks as it rubbed against the metal brushes. He snapped the door closed before picking up another crystal, this one glowing bright white.

“The crystal I put in the leg is charged with earth magic, while this one is charged with pure electricity from the last storm to pass through the area.”  He smiled at the princess as he readied the white crystal.  “Would you mind setting the prosthetic down on the table, please?

At the mention of pure electricity being harnessed from lightning, the guard perked up a little.  He rubbed at his black goatee a bit as he too leaned in closer to see what was going on.

Very curious now, Princess Luna did as he asked and stepped around to the opposite side of the table to watch.  Victor lowered the white crystal to each of the “nerve” wires in turn, causing the leg to twitch and spasm, the artificial “muscles” contracting just as a real leg would.

“I can connect these to the major nerves.  I have even perfected it to the point that if too much is lost I can run artificial nerves straight to the spinal column, though the procedure can be dangerous.”  He sighed a little as he set the crystal aside.  “Sadly, my ultimate goal is to give the patient sensation in an artificial limb, but I fear that may be out of my reach.”

Luna actually seemed a bit stunned.  This was an incredible accomplishment for anypony, and his ambition was amazing.  This zebra sought to create a prosthetic leg that would be functionally identical to that of a real one, and he had gotten very, very close!  She leaned down a bit closer, tilting her head as she noticed there were a few silvery wires that he had not touched with the crystal.  “And, dear doctor, what are these connections for?”

The big zebra actually clopped his hooves together and smiled brightly, “Actually, that is the part I am most proud of.”  He gestured to the delicate-seeming bundles of wire, the tiny connections little thicker than a single strand of his bright red mane.  “These allow magic to flow freely through the artificial limb as if it were real, meaning that Earth Ponies still have their full connection to the Earth, and pegasi won’t stumble from having an artificial leg that falls through clouds!”

Luna’s guard took in everything, then gripped his spear a little more tightly.  When their host had smiled, he had caught a glimpse of the zebra’s oddly sharp, interlocking teeth.  Long and white, they reminded him of the mandibles of a shark or some other sleek predator that lurks in deep, dark places.  He shook his head a little because his charge seemed oblivious to the possible danger of the situation, but he knew better than to chime in when she was so wrapped up in what she referred to as “talking shop” with another pony.

Lightning Ray’s ears perked up as he heard a commotion coming from the guards he left posted outside.  As he pushed open the door he saw that they had their spears crossed, pushing back a rather pudgy-looking off-white unicorn.  The intruder stamped his hoof and hissed at them through gritted teeth as he demanded entrance.  His mane, almost the color of a smoker’s stained teeth flipped this way and that.  He turned around and at first Lightning thought he was going to make the massive mistake of bucking at the royal guards, but instead he was trying to use his prodigious rump to shove his way through!

“AHEM!!”  Lightning poked at the unicorn’s rump with a wing tip.  He got a good close look at the intruder’s cutie mark.  To most ponies, it would look like a red cross adorning a medical bag, fairly common for pony doctors and nurses.  However, to his trained eye the cross was slightly askew, and it was a bank bag, not a medical bag that adorned his flank.  “May I help you with something?”

The unicorn puffed himself up with pride, almost giving him the appearance of a bloated toad.  “Yes, actually.  I am Dr. Crossly, the representative of the Ponyville Medical Society who reported this fraud for operating without the proper permits.  I came by here to make sure that he was shut down.”

Lightning tilted his head a little, then thought of Luna’s reaction to the work that Dr. Mordenheim was doing.  Smiling a little, he gave the signal for the two guard ponies to let the unicorn pass.  “Of course, Dr. Crossly, right this way.”

The unicron looked like he’d swallowed a lemon when he heard laughter coming from the next room.  A deep, bass rumble of a laugh and a higher, beautiful tone, almost like tinkling chimes.  He burst into the next room, Commander Lightning rays in tow and stamped his hoof on the white tiles.

“What is the meaning of this?  This.. this les... er.. zebra.  Has been operating a clinic without authorization!”

Luna nodded to the unicorn, and sadly to Dr. Mordenheim.  “This is true, and a fine of five hundred golden bits must be paid.”  Dr. Crossly was practically rubbing his hooves with glee at this remark.

“However, I have now thoroughly inspected your facilities and seen examples of your work first hoof.  You have my approval to keep operating your emergency clinic right here on the edge of the Everfree for as long as you are able.  Please stop by town hall tomorrow evening.  Your paperwork should be properly registered by then.”

Crossly’s jaw nearly hit the floor at this announcement, but he quickly recovered.  His shocked face soon became a smirk.  “Actually, to operate a clinic here in Ponyville, he will need to be voted into and become a dues-paying member of the Ponyville Medical Society. We all have to do our part to protect not just the good ponies of this town, but one another as professionals, after all.”

It was Victor himself who got a bit of a smug grin now.  “Actually, that was what we were discussing when you so rudely barged in.  It seems that my own clinic is actually outside of Ponyville and therefore falls directly under royal jurisdiction.”   He slowly stepped towards the unicorn and lowered his head to Crossly’s level.  He smiled a little wider on one side of his mouth, out of sight of the princess and her guard.  His long, sharp teeth were revealed to the unicorn causing the pudgy pony to pale prodigiously beneath his fur.

“I suggest you leave immediately before I ask our dear princess to have you removed for trespassing, or better yet I take care of it myself.”

Dr. Crossly, who had already been slowly backing up as the towering zebra advanced, nodded and turned tail, his hooves scrabbling on the slick tiles as he scooted back through the door and out into the night.

Victor cleared his throat a bit as he stood upright once more, using a hoof to straighten out his slightly rumpled lab coat.  “Alright then.  Thank you, your highness, for the proper documentation to operate my business.  I truly was unaware of the rules at the time, but I shall gladly pay the fine that is due tomorrow when I visit town hall.”  He smiled a bit more pleasantly at both Princess Luna and Commander Lightning Rays.  “Perhaps we could meet somewhere this weekend and discuss matters further over tea?”

Eyes twinkling with humor, Princess Luna smiled back at Victor, her own lips spread just enough to show a set of fangs even larger than his. “Your dismissal of Doctor Crossly was delightful, Victor! I would be delighted to meet you for tea on Saturday evening after my Night Court adjourns.”

A bemused Victor watched his royal guest and her guard take wing. Muttering to himself, “She really does not miss much, does she?” he shut the door.

[coffee-n-some-cream]

Fair is Foul - Chapter 6: Child, the Innocent and Helpless Monster

There is one place in our Meridiana home that I rarely care to be. Behind a steel-enforced, bolted door, stairs spiral downward, falling and twisting into the dark. My footing is always sure, but down these stairs, my mind involuntarily wonders if my next step will plunge me into an abyss. And with each touch of shoe sole to stone step, the walls echo, announcing my every movement. Down these steps, stealth is impossible for all but Data 7. José purposefully built it that way. He inherited his paranoia from Father. He inherited most things from Father. Usually, as I descend, I walk softly; overtaken by the habitual need to remain unheard, unnoticed. But in this moment, my stride is unchecked. My breaths come heavy and loud. And the passage of every step is accompanied by the steady, wet thump of the enormous severed head I drag behind me.

“José!” I bellow, my voice deep as the cavern I enter. Something I inherited from Father.

I am given no answer, but I can hear him clanking about in that makeshift laboratory, that underground, shameful example of his own childish rebellion. And when I reach the bottom of the stairs and stand in the entrance, I see him. Manic with energy, he pours over notes in a writing pad too large for him to hold in one hand, checking and double checking the settings on his equipment, the samples under his microscopes. All the while he mutters, frantically to himself, his little hands balled into enraged fists that swing out to smash and destroy various scientific paraphernalia. I have seen him like this before. I have seen him like this far too many times.

“José.” My voice is no longer loud, but it is every bit as threatening.

He whips around to stare at me, his eyes wide and glossy. Then his gaze drops to what is clutched in my hand. “You killed it.” He raises his fists at me. “You killed my most promising creation! You stupid bitch!”

My entire body is worn, but my anger flairs strong and new. I throw the head at him. It flies toward him at a devastating speed and he dives out of the way. It slams into the desk behind him. The wood shatters into splinters. Yellow and hairless and oozing green blood all over the laboratory floor, the severed head of José’s monster is bigger than him.

“Your most promising creation managed to destroy three buildings and kill at least eighteen people! Crocodile skin? 360 degree vision? That monster was a juggernaut! It took me an hour to—”

“Monsters are supposed to be powerful!” he shrieks. “Shut up!” He reaches inside the hollowed desk and lifts the monster’s head with ease, twisting it back and forth to examine it.

“At least Father only builds monsters he knows he can control.” There is a bitter taste in my mouth.

José scoffs at me. He hops up onto his stepstool and plunks the head down on the bowing shambles of his desk. “Yeah, he’s doing a great job of controlling me.”

My fingers pull at and run through my hair, pulling it further into my face. “Your little experiments are costing money, lives, and my own honesty! I should have reported your rebellion to Father years ago.”

“Then report me!” He whips around, and I think I see froth lining his lips. “Report me! Do it!”

My hands shake, and I can’t explain why. “You are a monster, José, and monsters deal in—”

“Fuck you! Blathering on about your ‘monster mantra.’” He turns back around and begins to violently tear the flesh of the head asunder, scooping pieces of tissue and samples of fluid into glass vials. “Monsters need, and only that, monsters are content with what we have, and only that, blah blah blah. It’s all bullshit!” He rips an entire ear off the head and tosses it into a bin. “You’re just a pathetic cunt and I’m not! I do what I want!”

I shake my head, though he can’t see it with his back to me.

*

I discovered the laboratory mere weeks after he moved into our home. I noticed his frequent excursions to the basement, but never cared to know what a vulgar little brat like him was up to. Until one day, I saw Data 7 watching the door with his ears back, waiting for me. And I ventured downward to investigate.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I asked, standing amidst the laboratory that was like Father’s in countless ways, but was somehow simultaneously nothing like it at all. There were those white lights, there was that cavernous freezer, there the bubbling tincture, there the bloodied slides, there the newly cleaned needles. But Father’s whispered lies of professionalism, of normalcy, the monstrosities and severed extremities tucked away in glass cases and neat cabinets and pristine drawers. His laboratory was a pristine work of interior design meant to serve dual functions of scientific pursuit and boasting. José’s laboratory operated on no such pretenses. The stereo blasted profane rock music over the scattered bodies and haphazardly scrawled notes. The air was thick with the stench of chemicals and rotting flesh. Dried blood mingled with grime on the stone floor and scraped against my heel. The equipment was a cobbled together monstrosity of wires and spare parts. This was the office of a budding madman, a grotesque stumble into a world that greater men had already mastered.

He looked so very small amidst it all. My hands shook then as well.

Father never knew, not from me nor anyone else. “Don’t let a Techno find this,” I ordered and pleaded all at once, only to receive a scoffed “Obviously.” “Don’t let this be a problem for me,” I ordered and pleaded all at once, only for his lip to curl. I turned to go, nauseated by the stench, but some unexplained ache staid my feet. “Father can’t know,” I ordered and pleaded all at once. I thought for a moment that the look he turned on me was respect.

*

“Yes, you do what you want, always what you want, but what does that leave me?” My hands spread to regard the monster’s head. “Cleaning up your mess, like a mother cleaning up after her child’s playtime! Every monster, every failed experiment becomes my problem—”

His face twists into a puckered approximation of my own, and his voice lilts to mock mine. “Oh, am I not being considerate? Am I not paying you the mind I ought? Am I to be more careful, lest you be saddled with my laboratory mishaps, mother?” His face relaxes back into its usual sneer. “That doesn’t sound very monstrous, does it? Leave me the fuck alone.”

I stride forward, reach around him, and yank him off his feet by his front collar. His throat produces a strangled, shocked sound, and his toes twitch about for footing as they dangle over his stepstool. His hands reach up to find purchase on mine, and my nose is less than an inch from his when I hiss, teeth bared, “I am not your mother, nor your maid. Next time, you slay your own monsters.”

I drop him back to the stepstool, and his hand falls into a pool of green blood when he reaches back to steady himself. He snarls at me. I can already hear the string of profanities ready to burst from his mouth, and I know if I stay one more moment to witness his immaturity, I will do something entirely satisfying, yet entirely regretful. I turn on my heel and storm upstairs, his curses echoing up the stairs after me.

Data 7 watches me march from the basement and toward the nearest window with bemused interest, not bothering to rise from his napping spot by the windowsill. I fling open the double doors of the window with such force that the glass shatters against the wall, and then I leap into the night, abandoning my usual care and caution. I only hear the faintest whispers of his screeching temper tantrum chasing me on the wind. I run and leap from rooftop to windowsill to flagpole to fire escape, the simplicity of José’s selfish behavior burning the blood in my veins and the air in my throat, and all the while I rant and rage to myself, releasing every caged, harsh word into the chilled evening air. I rampage across the Meridiana skyline, tearing the cinderblock with my fingers and my throat with my malice. And eventually, when I land on the building of my high school, I’ve spent every drop of ferocity in my heart.

The night is moonless and the city lights consume all starlight, transforming the sky into a blanket of pitch black ink so thick I can run my fingers through it, so viscous I can open my mouth and swallow it. I drop to a crouch at the edge of the school rooftop, disguising myself as one of the gargoyles, and I wallow in pitiful frustration.

*

José arrived in a sleek black Volkswagen, accompanied by a guard of two Fixed Ideas and a Techno, and with no prior notification of his arrival. I knew the moment he stepped through our doorway, with his reminiscently styled black hair, tucked shirt, and sharp-eyed stare, that he was nothing but Father’s carefully crafted fly on the wall – one that would look, speak, think, and act precisely like him. I said much the same thing to Data 7, who released a heavy huff in agreement.

And from that moment on, countless times in a row, José proved us both wrong. Undeniably, he walked in Father’s footsteps, and for the first few months, this familiar persona made me believe I had been right.

Then, one morning, a Techno let us both know that Father would be calling sometime today with a message of great import, of utmost urgency, and we were to be present and ready at any time of the day to receive his call. I stayed in all day, and José dared not wander too far from the phone, lest either of us receive a reprimand. We waited, and we waited, and we continued to wait until well into the evening. Eventually, we both sat on our satin, poorly cushioned sofa, the telephone on a small table in front of us, and silently listened for the telltale ringing. We waited so long that José fell asleep. And I watched, unable to move, as José’s head slid down and came to rest comfortably on my shoulder.

I could have moved. I could have shaken him awake. I could have shoved him off and forbidden him from such familiarity ever again. But as I watched him sleep, the drool dripping from his mouth and onto my elbow, the way his hand curled into my cape, I couldn’t bring myself to do any of those things. I tried to imagine Father making a mistake like this. Father, unwillingly drifting into vulnerability. Of course, I couldn’t.

Data 7 wandered into the room and caught sight of us, my perfectly still acceptance and José’s jarringly relaxed and childlike figure. He blinked at me once, a slow, understanding gesture, and then moved on. I tipped my head back and took a deep breath, my chest tight.

José walked in Father’s footsteps as a child stepping into their parent’s snowscape footprints. Clumsily, stubbornly, and without much understanding of his destination, his legs too short to make the same strides, his feet to small to fill the footprints.

He slept against my shoulder until dawn, and when he awoke, he shoved himself away from me and left in a flurry of disgust and denial.

*

The tips of my fingers are chilled through when I lift them to worry at my lips. From where I sit, I spot a light on in one of the school offices. The yellow glow illuminates a tousled approximation of an office, strewn papers and littered pencils destroying any hope for professionalism. And amongst the ruins, there is Lucas. His spine curves uncomfortably as he sits hunched over his too-small desk. One hand runs through the papers stacked around him, the other runs through his shaggy mop of golden hair. A pen is tucked behind his ear. My mouth twitches into a smile as he searches his desk, then pulls another pen from a drawer.

I shame and chide José for his selfishness, I bicker and snap and snarl, and yet I cannot bring myself to quell his misdeeds, his desires. I cannot even begrudge him for them. I simply cloak them from sight, a mother robin covering her chick with her wing, shielding them from the watchful hawk, from the prowling feline. I desperately shush his childish squalling, lest those with less sympathy take matters into their own hands.

José was right, in a way. If I wished to put an end to his behavior, I could simply report him to Father. And yet I fail to make good on my threats, every time. Perhaps I am too sympathetic. Perhaps I cannot bring myself to see a child, be it an innocent or a vulgar, impudent brat, squashed under the unforgiving heel of my Father’s authority. Or perhaps I simply cannot bring myself to deny José his sliver of humanity. Perhaps I am Cyber, and I could never deny another their rebellious desires. Their wants. As much as I deny myself.

As much as I deny myself.

In the office below me, Lucas runs his hand through his hair again and knocks loose the pen that was nestled behind his ear. I can’t help but chuckle, warm and low and wet. He shakes his head and stoops to collect it, then goes right back to his papers, diligent, focused. I breathe deeply to soothe the swelling heat behind my breast.

As much as I deny myself.

I think of Lucas’ downcast eyes as he spoke of the man, the one whose life leaked from my hands. I think of how much I craved, in that moment. I think of José’s glossy eyes and furious demands. And I think of José, nothing but an ornery child. I think of how he craves and writhes and grasps at his desires.

As much as I deny myself.

I leap from my perch, gliding through the ebony ink of the night in one graceful arc, and land on the ledge by his office window. My hands are shaking. My breath is short. I am freezing and burning all at once. But inside, Lucas is lit up in warm swatches of yellow and amber by the glow of his desk lamp. I reach out, and with one frozen fingertip, I tap gently against the windowpane.

AO3