#it just lowered its way done from the ceiling I literally watched it in horror

[chiefguideandcentre]

I just want y’all to know that I just killed a huge spider that came swinging down from the ceiling in my office and it was huge and scary looking and I did it all by myself. Not all heroes wear capes

[five-rivers]

Long Night in the Valley chapter 8

A young man walked in.  His hair was dark, the style conservative.  The only thing that stood out about him was his high-collared jacket.

Aizawa knows who this man is, for much the same reasons that Uraraka knew Skyrunner.  

Fidelity had literally written the book on underground heroism. It hadn’t been published until his death.  

The lights flickered.  The murmuring of the shadows rose, then cut off abruptly, the shadows disappearing along with Nana.  The projector screen changed.  It now read:

Greetings 9’s Friends!  (And teacher.)

“This was my last mission briefing before I died,” said the young man.  “At least, that’s what I’d say if I was really Fidelity.”

“You’re saying you aren’t,” said Aizawa, keeping his voice level.  

The screen behind him changed to read Vestiges: what you need to know.

“I am based on Fidelity.  I’m also based on Railgun.”

“The hero who took down Destro?” asked Uraraka, clenching her fists and briefly floating in excitement.  

Why was she not getting a better grade in history?  

“Not exactly.  He wasn’t actually captured until years later.”

“But you broke his charge, his army!  And all by yourself!”

“Railgun did, yes.  I’ve put together a little presentation for you guys.  Hope you don’t mind.  We all figured you wouldn’t want to go any further without an explanation of sorts.”  He said this all with an enviably flat voice, despite his friendly words.  His body language was controlled and to the point.

Darn Midoriya for managing to build a fantasy that was so close to what Aizawa had always imagined the man to be like.  

(He was not a fan of Fidelity.  Underground heroes did not have fans.  It defeated the point.)

(He pointedly ignored his memories of the bootleg Eraserhead merchandise Midoriya and Yamada had snuck to Eri.)

“You’d be right,” said Aizawa.

“Cool,” said Six.  “Before we begin, I want you to understand that much of what I’m going to tell you will be a lie.”

“What?” said Iida, confused.  “Then what’s the point?”

“The point is, there will be enough truth in it to get you through this safely, and enough falsehood to prevent the commission from taking advantage of Nine later, should they be watching what’s happening here with a quirk we can’t detect.”

“Nine?”  

“Izuku,” clarified Six.  

“Who you called Nine because…?”

“If we count in order of when we were supposedly born, he’s the ninth.  Although, really, he’s the first.  I’ll explain in a moment.”  He pointed to the screen.  “We call ourselves vestiges, and, like I said, we are all based on real people.  We’re part of Nine’s quirk.”  The screen switched to show Midoriya with eight shadowy figures behind him.  “I want to stress that Nine wasn’t aware of us until the sports festival. Specifically…”

The screen now showed Midoriya’s fight with Hitoshi, right before he broke his fingers.  Aizawa recognized the image as a still from one of the cameras.  Except those eight shadows were there as well, right in front of Midoriya.  

“You had something to do with him breaking his fingers and getting out of Shinsou’s quirk.”

“We don’t mix well with mental quirks, apparently. Nine minds all together at once are too many, even if eight of them are fictional.  It’s an interesting side effect.  Speaking of which.”

The new slide was a picture.  An edited picture.  Of a person giving a presentation.  

“Is that a meme?” asked Todoroki.

“Yes,” said Six.  

The slide read, You were never in All Might’s mind.  Nine was just confused.

That meme was so old Aizawa could feel himself taking psychic damage just by looking at it.  

“You’ve been passing through our, the vestiges’, mindscapes. Eight is simply based on All Might.”

That would be a relief, if not for the fact that that Six had admitted he was going to lie.  Also, there was something off about the whole explanation.  

Iida raised his hand.  “Excuse me!  You claim that you are part of Midoriya’s quirk, but you haven’t explained how!”

“I’m getting to that,” said Six.  “Todoroki-san, you’re the one who is always saying how similar Nine and All Might’s quirks are.  Do you have any theories?”

Todoroki’s eyes lit up, even though he kept his habitual deadpan expression.  “Midoriya is All Might’s secret—”

“We wish, but sadly no.  Pick a different one.”

Todoroki looked devastated.  He collected himself quickly, however.  “Midoriya’s strength,” he said, “he got it from All Might, didn’t he?”

“Yes.  Eight is a bit of a complicated case, since he’s based on someone who is alive and Nine knows personally, but in the end, he’s the same as the rest of us.”

“He said something about receiving Skyrunner’s quirk, earlier,” said Uraraka.  

“And Blackwhip…” said Iida.  

“You’re getting it,” said Six.  “Blackwhip originally belonged to Five, incidentally.”

“He has a copy quirk,” concluded Aizawa.  

Six nodded.  The screen changed.  “Right now, Nine has four quirks, three of which he can use freely.  Superpower, Blackwhip, and Float,” he read the quirk names off the screen.  

“And he’s going to get more?” asked Aizawa.

“Eventually,” said Six.  “We don’t want to overload his body—This whole process only kicked off when he met All Might.”

“And why you?” asked Aizawa.  “Why All Might, Skyrunner and these… Five others?”

“I would like to tell you,” said Six.  He raised a finger and waved it in a circle to indicate outside listeners.  

“What are the drawbacks?” asked Aizawa.  

“Hm?”

“The drawbacks.  I get dry eyes when I use my quirk.  Present Mic is deaf.  Vlad is anemic.  A quirk like this one has to have a drawback.”

“What, the broken bones aren’t enough for you?  Or the fact he didn’t hit on the activation conditions until he was fourteen?”

Aizawa stared, unimpressed.  

A tiny corner of Six’s mouth made itself visible over the collar of his coat.  “Well. I think you can make some conclusions but, again…”  He trailed off.  “There are a few more things you should be aware of.  First, Nine had no choice in who we are, although we all fulfil certain criteria.”

“Are you all relatives?” asked Todoroki.  

“Man, you never do give up, do you?” said Six.  “That’s a great quality in a hero.”

“Are you all heroes, then?” continued Todoroki.  

The slide on the screen changed again.  

Vestiges According to History:

8. Yagi Toshinori aka All Might – Hero

7. Shimura Nana aka Skyrunner – Hero

6. Tenma Rokuya aka Fidelity/Railgun ��� Hero

5. Banjo Daigoro aka Lariat – Hero

4. Vigilante

3. Terrorist

2. Terrorist

1. Unknown

 “Unfortunately,” said Six, “no.”

.

Toshinori caught sight of the feathers first.  He had more experience as a hero, and, as he was no longer the primary user of One for All, the mental strain he was experiencing was much lower, comparatively.  His awareness of his surroundings was better.

Stay calm.  Don’t speak. Don’t run.  

Hawks could receive sensory input from his feathers, though neither Toshinori nor Izuku knew how much.  Better to be safe than sorry.  

We need to get out of the city.

Out of the country, too, for that matter, as much as it would hurt Izuku—

They couldn’t leave all their friends behind to face Shigaraki.  

A compromise could be reached.   They knew a few places—An island, near—

But first, the city.  The first priority was to evade pursuit.  

A bus pulled into the stop ahead of them, and they got on. If they could get outside city limits, where there were fewer people, fewer witnesses, Izuku could float them away. Also, Hawks was less likely to trap his feathers on a bus.  

We might be dealing with the Hawks problem earlier than thought.  

Izuku slouched back on the bus seat, covering his eyes. Toshinori looked up at the ceiling. The Hawks problem.  AKA, the others’ theory that Hawks had been raised as a child soldier, and Toshinori had missed the signs.  

Izuku put his hand on Toshinori’s knee.  

“I can’t believe it,” said one of the other passengers, a few rows ahead of them.  “I really just can’t believe it.  It’s like something from a horror story.”

“What?” asked someone else.  

“Look!”  

“Someone kidnapped All Might?”

The bus filled with chatter.  

Toshinori still couldn’t believe people thought Izuku kidnapped him.  The reality was closer to the opposite, honestly.  He’d have to apologize to Izuku’s mother…

There was a tiny incensed gasp from Izuku, and Toshinori saw Izuku glaring up at him.  Izuku made a series of gestures that could probably have been interpreted as ‘You can’t kidnap anyone, you’re All Might!’ even without the psychic link they were currently enjoying, then went into an enthusiastic tangent about how the commission was probably playing up the ‘crazy stalker fan’ angle.

Toshinori sighed, ruffled Izuku’s hair, and studiously avoided any and all thoughts about what he’d done to Aldera Middle School after Izuku had shown up to training with a black eye and bloody nose that one time.

“What?” squeaked Izuku, his eyes gone very wide.  

Drat.  

Out of the corner of his eye, Toshinori saw three passengers near the front of the bus stand up and felt his heart drop.  One of them had an obvious eagle mutation, the second had a bulging, almost spherical, neck, and the third had broad, flat-ended fingers.

Decades of hero experience told Toshinori exactly what was going to happen next.  Even before the guns came out.  

“Well,” said the eagle-headed man, “with all the heroes looking for the ‘Symbol of Peace,’ I guess this is our lucky day!”

“Nobody move!” demanded the man with the round neck. “This is a hijacking!”

Izuku let out an incredulous grunt next to him, but Toshinori could literally feel his mind whirring at a thousand miles a minute, analyzing the quirks of the hijackers and possible motives.  

Really.  There was no way they weren’t going to help.  

.

“By the way, not all of Nine is awake, so, out in the real world his body is operating according to consensus.”

“Consensus of…” said Aizawa, not wanting to finish the thought as he stared at the two entries labeled ‘terrorist.’

“All nine of us together, yes.”

“That’s a pretty big drawback,” said Aizawa, his voice rasping against his throat.

“Eh.  It has its benefits.  Besides, Three and Two lived over a hundred years ago.  We didn’t even have the hero system back then.  Things change.”

“Excuse me!” said Iida, raising his hand.  “Why don’t the last four—the first four? —have names?”

“They asked me not to share them with you quite yet,” said Six.  “Don’t call Three a terrorist though.  That’s a bit of a sore spot with her.”  He looked off to the side.  

“And the quirks?” said Aizawa, hanging on to the very last bit of his will to live by the tips of his fingers.  “The ones I’m presumably going to have to teach Midoriya how to use?”

“Right.”

 Our Splendiferous Quirks

 8. Yagi Toshinori aka All Might – Hero.  Quirk: Superpower.

7. Shimura Nana aka Skyrunner – Hero.  Quirk: Float.

6. Tenma Rokuya aka Fidelity/Railgun – Hero. Quirk: Internet Perception.

5. Banjo Daigoro aka Lariat – Hero.  Quirk: Blackwhip.

4. Vigilante.  Quirk: Danger Sense.

3. Terrorist

2. Terrorist

1. Unknown

 Aizawa was not surprised to see the last four entries, once again, had little information attached.  

“You know,” said Uraraka, “if you ignore the terrorists, this actually makes sense.”

“If you ignore the terrorists?” asked Iida, incredulous.

“I mean, think about who we’ve seen so far.”

“It is like Midoriya to have a split personality based on All Might,” agreed Todoroki.  Because split personalities were going to be his go-to theory, now that figments of Midoriya’s quirk’s imagination had shot down his ‘Dadmight’ conspiracy.  

“If you want to think of us as split personalities, sure,” said Six.  “We really don’t interact that much with the outside, though.”

“And Skyrunner is basically supermom,” said Uraraka. “Like, if she was All Might’s mentor, it makes sense that that’s what he’d envision her as.”

“Ah,” said Iida, “so she reminds you of Midoriya-san as well?”

Aizawa noticed Six shift uncomfortably and look away but decided he honestly did not want to know.  

“Oh, and you,” said Uraraka, spreading her hands to indicate Six, “are kind of like Aizawa-sensei!

“Except with more memes,” said Todoroki.  

“Yeah, except with more memes,” agreed Uraraka.  

Six faked a cough into his fist.  “Anyway, I think that’s everything…  No, wait.  Hawks.”

“Hawks,” repeated Aizawa.  

“Yeah.  We’re pretty sure he was raised and conditioned to be a slave for the commission from a very young age.”  Another pause.  Six turned to face Todoroki.  “Also, Dabi is probably your dead older brother, Todoroki Touya.”

“Oh,” said Todoroki.  

“What,” said Aizawa.  

“We’d just like someone in a position to do things with this information to have it.  Even if we were sure Nine would retain all this, he, ah.  The commission is doing a very good job of trashing his reputation.”

“Is this revenge?” whispered Todoroki.  “Did I push Midoriya too far?”

“Kid, you could beat Nine up on a weekly basis for ten years, and he’d still barely think of revenge.  Come on, I need to take you guys to Five.”

Barely, he said.  Meaning, he did think about revenge.  They had to get out of here fast; Bakugo’s life was in danger.  

.

There were lives in danger.  A simple robbery wouldn’t require this kind of setup.  These three needed hostages for some reason.  

Or…  Izuku traced the direction the three villains kept looking to the college student in the corner.  The young woman’s clothing was high quality, and she looked vaguely familiar.  

He couldn’t help but be exasperated.  Shigaraki Tomura was running around out there somewhere, and these guys were doing… whatever this was.  Causing problems.  He and Toshinori would have to try and evade Hawks after this.  

But exasperation wasn’t going to keep these people safe.  

Eagle-head looked like the leader at first glance, but on closer inspection, he was taking cues from the man with the squared-off fingers. The man with the round neck seemed to have a body expansion quirk of some type, possibly similar to Kendo’s, considering how his joints pulsed and how his clothing was designed with extra folds.

… He’d shown Toshinori a catalogue with similar clothing, once. But Toshinori had said that the ill-fitting look added to his disguise.  

In the tight confines of the bus, that would be dangerous. The best thing to do to him would be to throw him out when the bus came to a stop.

The quirk of the man with the square finger was a problem. It was probably an emitter type, rather than a transformation type.  Something to do with his hands, perhaps?

Honestly, the best thing to do for all of them, at least with regards to the people on the bus, would be to toss them off and then get the driver to gun it.  But then, what about people on the street?  These guys didn’t have any scruple against taking hostages, obviously.

“Hey, you, hand over the briefcase,” said the man with the round neck.  

Izuku glanced at Toshinori, who nodded.  Coils of Blackwhip ran up and down his arms under the sleeves of his suit, much more controlled and complex than Izuku had managed to date.  

Thanks for the help, Five.  

He slammed the briefcase into the eagle-headed man’s beak. Toshinori hadn’t skimped on anything when stocking the hideout, and the metal made immensely satisfying contact with bone.  Blackwhip shot out from near his elbow—like Sero—and wrapped around the hands of the gunmen, forcing their aim down.

The man with square fingers reacted first, raising his hand. Each fingertip emitted a flat, square pane that traveled in a straight line and got progressive larger.  Izuku pulled, slamming the man into the back of his own shield, because really, that was too slow, and how similar was this quirk to Crust’s?  Could the villain change the trajectory of his panels, or no?

Not the time.

The shield cracked as Izuku hit it from the other side, and Toshinori was throwing open the back door.  The man with the expanding quirk—and it was an expanding quirk—seemed to finally realize what was happening, and lashed out, but Izuku was faster than he was.  The spherical throat was evidently a weak point.  

“Can you stop?” Izuku asked the bus driver, who, tense as he was, slammed down on the brakes, making Izuku stumble.  He hauled the villains off the bus, Toshinori hopping off the back with the eagle-headed man a moment later.  

Well, that had happened.  

Izuku caught a flash of very distinctive red out of the corner of his eye.  

.

Six stopped.  “That isn’t good,” he said, looking slightly up.  There was nothing there that Aizawa could see, except for a collection of pipes.  They were travelling through a series of underground concrete passages in an effort to find ‘Five.’

“What is it?” asked Uraraka.  

Six’s form abruptly flickered and vanished.  Oh, that couldn’t be good.  

“Sensei.”  

Aizawa turned to see Midoriya standing behind them, wearing a truly godawful pinstriped suit.  He held his right wrist in his left hand, an odd bracer wrapped around it.

“Is that the Full Gauntlet?” asked Uraraka.  “Why-?”

Midoriya flashed a quick smile in her direction.  “I’m sorry, sensei, this is really last minute, but I need you to tell me how to use your quirk.”

.

We absolutely can’t strike first.

They wanted to.  They knew this would turn into a battle.  The first strike was an advantage they couldn’t discount.  

Win the battle and lose the war.  

He could see the cell phones already out, held bystanders not quite broken from the habits gained in All Might’s era.  Even with the Hero Commission already slandering him, this would affect the narrative.  If he ever hoped to be welcomed back to hero society, or even the public’s good graces, in any way shape or form, he could not be seen starting a fight with a hero.  Much less the current number two hero.  

“I don’t suppose you’ll make my job easier and release All Might from your mind-control quirk,” said Hawks, tone conversational despite the fact he was standing at least two stories above them in the air.  

“I don’t have a mind-control quirk,” said Izuku, reaching up to the knot of his tie.  

“And I’m not being mind-controlled,” said Toshinori, loosening his mask.  

Hawks actually paused.  “Oh my gosh,” he said, raising one hand to his mouth like a scandalized housewife, “I didn’t realize that was you!  What happened to your hair?”

“I… cut it off.”

“That’s, uh.”  Hawks quickly regained control of his expression.  “Terrible that this villain made you do that.”

Hawks’ heart wasn’t entirely in this apparently.  

Just as apparently, that had no bearing on what Hawks was actually going to do.  

.

“You’ve seen me use my quirk,” said Aizawa.  

“I know, and that’ll be helpful, too, but how do you use it?  What’s the feeling you get when you use it?  How do you activate it?  What’s the internal mechanism?  This is important.”

“Why?” asked Iida.  “What’s going on Midoriya?”

“It’s—” Midoriya’s form flickered.  He took a deep breath.  He was now wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants.  “I’m in a fight right now, and it would be useful,” he reported, calmly.

“Please tell me it isn’t with my mind-controlled unconscious body,” begged Aizawa, “or the League of Villains.”  

“It isn’t.”

Thank goodness.

“I’m fighting Hawks.”

Why.  

No, ask questions later.  The Problem Child needed help now.  To fight the number two hero.

He didn’t know how knowledge about his quirk could be useful in a fight against Hawks, but the claim was far, far too stupid to be a lie.  

“When I turn on my quirk, I—”

.

Blackwhip unfurled from his arms like a dark version of Shouji’s quirk, tearing his sleeves to shreds and dislodging the feathers that had been imbedded there.  The ends wrapped around feather after feather, splitting into dozens and dozens of pseudo-arms.  Izuku was amazed.  

Someday, he would be able to do this on his own.  

For now—

For now, he was fighting Hawks, who had trained since childhood to fight on behalf of the commission.  

For now, he was a hero student, with only a few months of practical experience.  

For now, he was a fugitive, on the run and desperate.  

For now, he was host and member of One for All, and collectively they had been heroes for over a hundred years.  

And Toshinori had his back.  

They wrapped the silk tie around his knuckles.  Any protection for the bones in his hands was valuable.  In the other, they adjusted the briefcase.  They had only rarely used weapons in the last hundred or so years. Usually, their quirks made weapons overkill.  

But before that—Before that, things were different.  For a while, One and Two had used swords, of all things.  

This battle was much more even than it looked.  

Their victory condition: Escape with Toshinori.  

Their failure conditions: Civilian injury, serious injury to Izuku or Toshinori, or capture of either Izuku or Toshinori.  

To avoid the first point of failure, it was best for them to get away from the vulnerable civilians.  They didn’t want to give away float so soon in the game, so…  

They grabbed the edge of a building with Blackwhip and launched Izuku upwards, flinging feathers away from him.  Toshinori would follow and provide the group with a second perspective.  

Hawks did not expect to be joined in the air.  An incredulous smile graced his lips.  Izuku smiled back and catapulted himself directly into Hawks.

“You know,” he said, “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile for real!”

.

“What?” asked Hawks, startled.  He wasn’t one to have meaningful conversations with people he was supposed to bring in, but a statement like that had to be responded to.  

Even if most of his attention was on the quirk that Midoriya controlled with much more proficiency than indicated by his school records.  The kid was good, had good instincts when it came to battle, but he wasn’t quite fast enough to get past Hawks’s guard, or to really close the distance between them.

“Your smile!” said Midoriya.  “When I was younger, I didn’t realize it, but once I knew the truth behind All Might’s smile, I understood!”  

“Did you, now?” asked Hawks.  

“Underneath,” said Midoriya, “your face is a lot like Todoroki’s!  It’s—”

Conversation during a battle was usually a distraction, to the person employing it as a tactic as well as the target.  Somehow, though, Midoriya was subverting that rule.

“It’s actually really sad!” exclaimed Midoriya, breathless, but apparently genuine, not mocking.  “Who hurt you?”

“Heh,” said Hawks.  This kid knew.  How? “Shouldn’t I be the one asking questions here?”

“Gotta hand it to the commission, they really did a number on you,” said Midoriya, briefly touching down on a rooftop.  “Why do you keep doing their dirty work for them?”

He was using that second quirk, but not his strength.  Was it a matter of ‘won’t’ or ‘can’t?’  Either way, it was something to keep an eye on.  

“Why don’t you—” Hawks briefly managed to pin Midoriya by the edge of his jacket, but the boy tore free easily.  “—fly free?”

“You’re one to talk,” said Hawks.  “What did you trade to All for One for those quirks?”  He didn’t actually believe Midoriya was in league with All for One.  Even tangentially, through proxies, they’d been at odds too many times, not to mention the videos he’d been shown by the commission of Midoriya and All Might interacting.  The connection there couldn’t be faked.

He’d know.  He’d tried so many times.

(Was trying now, with the League of Villains.)

(Midoriya wasn’t one of them.)

But he had a job to do.  

Besides.  Even he had to admit the commission had a point.  The quirks had to come from somewhere.  

(Just because Midoriya didn’t willingly associate with All for One didn’t mean he hadn’t been forced.  Didn’t mean he hadn’t gotten out.)

(All Might was protecting him.  How did they know each other?)

“Wouldn’t you take any hand offered to you if the person behind it offered to make you what you always wanted to be?”

Midoriya tilted his head to one side.  “Nope!” he responded, cheerfully.

.

On the street below, Toshinori coughed, blood splattering his sleeve.  What had Izuku been doing when he was younger, to get involved with so many dangerous and disturbing people?

It wasn’t my fault!

Kid really is a trouble magnet.  

Oh, heck, I think I recognized that one—

Really, with that sharp mind, and Izuku’s propensity for both curiosity, helpfulness, and, well, finding trouble, it was a miracle he’d stayed alive for so long.  

Wouldn’t call it a miracle, sonny—

HAHA I can’t believe he thought that was a dream.  

In his defense, a dream makes more sense than—

Guys.  Focus, please?

Yes.  This was not the time to discuss… that.  Now… Well.  Toshinori had a role he could play in this battle, even as he was, and—

Hawks and Izuku’s path over the rooftops mapped itself out in his mind.  

Oh, no.  

Izuku wasn’t evading Hawks.  

He was being herded by him.  

.

They tucked and rolled across the pavement, Blackwhip cocooning them and breaking their fall.   This was significantly more than what Five, what Daigoro, could use back when he was alive.  It took everyone’s efforts to keep everything going.  

Wait for it, they reminded themselves, bouncing back to Izuku’s feet.  

Izuku looked up.  This… was not a good position.  Hawks had forced them into the entertainment district.  They couldn’t trust that the fancy facades and art instalations of the buildings would hold up to Blackwhip.  Not to mention, in places like this…  He glanced around.  

Fourth Kind.  

Kesagiriman.

Slugger.  

Death Arms.  

There would be more, soon.  This was… less than good.  Maybe they should just grab Toshinori’s body and launch themselves with Blackwhip and Float, as far as they could.  They’d lose a lot of their advantage on Hawks, but at least then they wouldn’t be fighting five different heroes.  

Izuku gritted his teeth in something like a smile.  Five different heroes.  Well.  Nine on five wasn’t bad odds.  

.

Suzuku pulled himself along the ground, trembling.  He had been falling for—for ages by the time that witch woman had disappeared.  Why she had disappeared, he couldn’t guess, but…

Falling.  

So much falling.  

And hitting the ground again, and again, and again.  

You invaded our minds, said the woman, don’t complain when we counter with something psychological as well.  

Something like a laugh bubbled up from his throat.  

You can leave whenever you want, can’t you?

He’d show her.  He’d show her and find all her secrets.  Just see if he didn’t.  

.

Fourth Kind, Kesagiriman, Slugger, and Death Arms all had very physical, straightforward quirks.  Out of all of them, though, Death Arms was probably the most problematic, followed by Slugger and his long-range attacks.  

None of them held a candle to Hawks, of course.  Which was the reason why Death Arms in particular was so problematic.  

In order to deal with Hawks’s feathers, they needed Blackwhip. But using Blackwhip and One for All’s signature superstrength at the same time wasn’t something Izuku’s body was used to.  They were limiting it to small bursts.  Death Arms’ own physical enhancement quirk, while miniscule compared to One for All’s current stature, was nothing to sneer at.  

If Death Arms—or any of the other heroes—landed a solid blow, that could be it for Izuku.  

They refused to be locked away again.  

That’s when it happened.  

A scene played across Izuku’s inner eye:

A frosty morning.  A little boy with dark hair.  A farewell. Tears.  

He flubbed the landing and a sharp pain lanced through his ankle. Blackwhip wrapped it, giving it much needed support.  

He started to rise, only to drop to avoid one of Slugger’s patented Home Run Pitches (tm).  

The ball spun, ricocheting off the stainless steel of an art installation before drilling right through a wooden beam on a bit of scaffolding holding up part of a building that was being refurbished.  Izuku let out a breath of relief (there were still people around who hadn’t learned how to run away from a dangerous fight) before they returned to the dance with Hawks’s impressively huge number of feathers.  

Blackwhip could keep up with them, barely, but Izuku was tiring. He couldn’t take much more of this.

He needed an opening to get to Toshi—

Another scene:

She couldn’t be pregnant.  Not now. Not right after giving away another. The next time Sorahiko suggested drowning her troubles in sake, she was going to shove it straight up his blowholes, no matter that he was probably just as drunk as she was.  

This slip almost resulted in Izuku getting his face punched in by Death Arms.  Considering what he’d just learned, he’d almost welcome that fate, if it made him forget.  Plus, it might have been funny for the ultimate battle of ultimate destiny, the show down between One for All and All for One, to take place between not one, but two potato-headed individuals—

There was a sharp crack from above as the damage Death Arms had done to the scaffolding made itself known.  

Izuku didn’t have to think before moving.  

.

“Alright,” said Midoriya.  “I think I’ve got it.  Thank you, sensei.”  He looked young, now.  Barely primary school age.  

“I’d feel a lot better,” said Aizawa, “if I knew what you needed this information for.”

“Oh!  That’s simple.  You see, it’s my theory that the overlap in mechanisms between my quirk and Saito-san’s might allow for interesting emergent behaviors.  Specifically, her quirk bridges a gap I’d normally have no way of crossing, although there’s certainly drawbacks.  It’s like what we tried earlier, when I asked you to use your quirk.  Although, I am hoping for different results than what I was looking for back then.  I think, with what you’ve given me, and this processing time…  Yes, this should work.”  He clenched a fist.  “These remnants—I can use them!”

Remnants.  Vestiges.

Aizawa frowned.  Something… something wasn’t right, here.  The explanation Six had given them…

“Just keep going this way, for now.  Six will try to get back to you as soon as possible.  I have to go now!  I love you guys!”

He then faded out.  While waving.  

“Wow,” said Uraraka.  “Izuku-kun sure was a cute kid.”

Aizawa couldn’t argue with that.  

“Aizawa-sensei,” said Todoroki.  “You’re blushing.”

He wouldn’t lower himself to argue with that.  “This conversation is illogical.  Let’s go.”

“Sensei is weak to little kids,” observed Todoroki.  

And if they ever discovered they could remove the ‘little’ in that sentence and have it still be accurate, he’d never live it down.  

.

Hawks saw the eyes first, shining through the dust like two perfect green coins.  Then every one of his feathers went dead, and he started to fall.  

Sensation returned just in time for him to avoid hitting the ground at speed and, just as quickly, vanished again.  

A breeze blew cleared the dust away.  

Midoriya Izuku stood under the collapsed scaffolding, holding it up with black tendrils and sparking green arms.  If this scene had been all that there was, an observer might be forgiven for wondering why he was holding up the scaffolding like that.

But Hawks knew.  If Midoriya hadn’t caught the scaffolding, even he wouldn’t have been able to get those civilians out from underneath it in time.  He glanced to the side, where the almost victims were standing up. Normally, he’d just trust his feathers, but…

“Is that Eraserhead’s quirk?”

“Don’t worry, I asked Eraserhead-sensei for permission, first.”

“What kind of monster—” started Death Arms.  

“Don’t you dare, Mister ‘my quirk isn’t suitable.’” Midoriya shifted the scaffolding to one side and shrugged himself out from underneath it.  “As heroes, aren’t you supposed to consider the civilians around you?”  He laughed. “I guess we’re still a little bitter about that.”

.

Izuku was putting on a good show, but he was reaching the end of his endurance.  Plus, he could already hear the sirens of police cars and the exclamations that followed large groups of heroes on the move.  

Good thing, then, that Toshinori was about to round the corner in three… two… one… There!

To an outsider, Blackwhip wrapping around Toshinori probably looked violent.  In reality, everyone operating the quirk was intimately aware of everything wrong with Toshinori’s body and did not want to add to his problems.  They could have probably grabbed an egg like this.  

Grabbing the newly-exposed concrete and rebar of the building behind Izuku, they launched themselves up.  At the top of their arc, they activated Float.  Blackwhip reeled Toshinori in, and they held onto each other as Izuku prepared to use air pressure to launch themselves forward.  

He hadn’t blinked yet.  

His eyes really hurt.  

(And so did everything else.)

He aimed and kicked against the air, sending them soaring away.

They had escaped.  

.

Tomura ducked behind the wall at the top of the building, glad that his party had put so many points into stealth, because he was not touching what had just happened with a ten-foot pole.  He’d rather be shot again.  He’d rather fight Machia for a week straight with no rest breaks.  He’d rather listen to Sensei try to give him the birds and the bees talk.  

What was that?  Huh? What kind of a broken character build allowed for that kind of combat ability?  The mods had to be asleep.  If he were in charge, he’d nerf it, pronto.  

That was a lie.  He’d take it for himself.  

Still.  

“Uh, Shigaraki?  Boss man?  You okay there?” asked Spinner.  

“No,” decided Shigaraki.  

Suddenly, making all of them jump, Toga squealed.  “Did you see him?  Did you see Izuku-kun?  He was so cute with his nose bleeding like that!”

“Hey,” said Dabi, “are we going after the green kid or what?”

“No,” decided Shigaraki, for the second time in as many minutes.  And then, “Gimme the phone.  We need to call the doctor to get us out of here.”

They did, but that was pretty much secondary to his primary objective, which was to cuss out the doctor concerning the cursed knowledge that was currently trying to escape his skull with a pickaxe.  

.

“Um,” said Inko.  “Aren’t you going to get that?”  She pointed at the phone that had been buzzing on the table for the past several minutes.

“No,” said Garaki, pretending to sip at his tea.  “You were saying?”

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #16- All the Greatest Love Songs are Secretly About Heroin

Dang, been a minute since we got into the series proper. What all happened again?

Oh. Right. That.

…So anyway, let’s brush up on our Ultra Magnus history!

There was a massive fight on top of a spaceship. Swoop was there, Impactor was there, Overlord was there, Heretech was there, Killmaster was there- shit was lit. Ultra Magnus was doing his thing, though it looks like this was before he got LASIK done, because he’s got a visor on.

Then Ultra Magnus got shot in the gut and fell off the spaceship. It was so scary his hand started spasming.

Later on, we return to a place we’ve seen before, albeit from the Decepticon side.

Magnus, your badge isn’t up to code, my guy! Better get that sorted, before your current self comes out of his medically induced coma, invents time travel, and comes to beat you up.

Also, Pious Maximus? What is your friggin’ DEAL, bro? What the actual hell is your deal?

All the K-Cons start falling out of the sky, and Magnus orders everyone to take cover, as a familiar-looking bomb that literally has his name written on it lands bang on target. It’s such an intense experience, his hands start spasming.

Later still, Magnus is in the middle of dealing with the Simanzi Massacre, and it looks like his visor’s seen better days. Hopefully it was a reading pair, and not something he actually needed to see. Rotorstorm is also there, because his character apparently only exists to suffer. Magnus and his team rise from the muck and the mire, coming ashore right on top of a Cybernought, which promptly fries Magnus with its hand lasers. He gets so crispy, his hands start spasming.

For anyone having trouble parsing the scraps of rended metal that used to be Rewind of Lower Petrohex here, allow me a moment to break him down. That cylinder in the lower left corner is his camera, the wire coming off of it is where it plugged into his head, and that squarish chunk with the clean, round hole in it is probably part of his helmet. The other chunky bits I couldn’t tell you what they are, but I think it’s pretty safe to say that Chromedome absolutely put the dog to sleep with that blast last issue.

Inside the Lost Light, Swerve’s trying to be a nice guy by putting on some tunes for Ultra Magnus, who got his spark shot by Overlord last issue, but all it’s really done is make Ratchet get distracted.

Magnus is in a bad way, as was established by First Aid last issue, and it doesn’t seem like Ratchet’s having any more luck than had been predicted. Swerve’s here for emotional support, and also because he’s got medical training. Tailgate’s here for cleanup duty. Drift’s off in the corner making snide remarks about the medical equipment, probably because he’s mad his legs are still off.

Drift looks like he’s been chiseled out of stone here, and I kind of love it. Forget softboi uwu Dwift, I want more of this guy who’ll bite into a teddybear cactus and not even flinch.

Agustin Padilla’s back on the scene for this issue, and he’s decided that everyone’s going to be elongated in as many ways as he can manage in 20 pages. Tailgate and Swerve? Tallest they’ll ever be in the series. They’re as tall as Cyclonus, and he’s a fucking space jet. Someone’s got a chevron? You better believe that thing’s scraping the gotdang ceiling. Drift’s kitty-cat ears almost never fit into the panel, because those suckers are LONG today. It’s like they’ve all been put through a taffy-puller. There are a lot of little quirks with this art, but this is one I can kind of get behind, if only because it’s so distinctive.

Getting back to the story, Drift’s talking about the Death Clock here- no, not the animated band from Adult Swim, but an actual medical device that can calculate the moment a shrinking spark will give out, down to the second. It only measures the lifespans of the terminally ill, so Swerve hasn’t accidentally given himself even more depression by sticking his little hands in the shiny light without a thought as to what the device he’s messing with might do.

Ultra Magnus has about ten days to live. This makes Tailgate incredibly upset, because he, unlike everyone else on the ship, hasn’t experienced the horrors of war and death.

Ratchet’s right, though. There’s certainly a chance that Tailgate, who’s been shown to react to stressful situations by having panic attacks to the point of blacking out, could have a very severe response to what is his first major catastrophe. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder usually isn’t an immediate development, but being proactive about your mental health is never a bad thing if you can swing it. Hell, with how bad the Overlord situation was, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rung was booked solid long enough for Tailgate to actually have time to develop PTSD.

Rodimus is on the intercom to address the situation that just took place, because man oh man, was it a doozy. He intends to hold an inquiry to figure out just what the hell happened and how Overlord got on the Lost Light to begin with. As he tells everyone what’s going to happen, our focus shifts to Chromedome, who’s standing on the outside of the ship, staring off into space.

Man, I hope Chromedome’s on the front half, because this is a fucking grim scene to witness.

Skids comes out, having been looking for Chromedome. Trailcutter of all people pointed him in the right direction- which I suppose makes sense, given that he was on the Ethics Committee on Kimia. He probably would know Chromedome and Rewind decently well by this point.

Chromedome turns around to show off his mourning black Autobot badge, freshly photoshopped onto his chest for our viewing pleasure. It’s especially blatant when contrasting with Padilla’s rougher linework style.

Skids asks our brand-new widower how he’s holding up, and Chromedome says he’s fine, which is funny, because the other day he was all:

Chromedome has a moment of reminiscing, playing connect-the-dots with the stars like he and Rewind used to do all the time.

Skids, they were married for 250,000 years.

Skids might actually have been one of the worse people to have found Chromedome, if this is what he’s going to say, and then immediately leave. He’s so awkward and clearly uncomfortable and doesn’t want to be there. Does he feel weird about Chromedome knowing more about him than he himself does? Does Skids not have access to any of his memories related to mourning? Geez, I hope nobody needs him to help them through a difficult emotional time for a good while, because this was painful to watch.

Back inside the ship, Rung’s come over to Rodimus’ room to see what all the crashing and banging is about. It would seem our dear captain’s upset, and has decided to work through his frustrations by destroying his private quarters, perhaps in an attempt to summon the wrath of Ultra Magnus, thus saving him through the power of his own mess-induced rage. Rung comes to sit with Rodimus, I guess giving up his search for Chromedome, and the two of them discuss Magnus. Specifically, they discuss Magnus’ memos, and how much Rodimus despises receiving them, because they make him feel like he’s not doing his job right. He stopped even opening them, they made him feel so bad.

If you subscribe to the headcanon of Rodimus having ADHD, you could potentially read this as being a manifestation of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria. As it is within the story proper, Rung’s decided to ignore this tidbit of information to get at the more pressing issues, like why exactly Rodimus felt the need to wreck his room.

This is about the point where the art for Rodimus becomes roughly 90% spot blacks, and it’s highly suggested that Rung get out while the getting’s good.

Oh, well this is going to be awkward.

Later on, we’re at the funeral. There’s five coffins, though not all of them actually contain a body. Everyone’s here to see their friends off, even Cyclonus, who was invited to the wake by Chromedome himself. Awful nice of him to do that, given their history.

The lineup in the front row is a bunch of chatterboxes, and they prove that very quickly as Swerve, Skids, and Whirl theorize on the contents of Brainstorm’s mysterious briefcase, which is also here at the funeral. Swerve swears himself to the duty of finding out what’s inside, on threat of death should he fail.

A short time skip is had, and Rodimus is revealed to be wearing his ceremonial funeral cape and terrifying vampire arm spikes to this shindig, as he sends Tripodeca, who is surely the most beloved of all Autobots, off with as many kind words as he can muster in the time they have. Everyone says goodbye, and we get to Rewind’s turn. Rodimus has a moment of pause, as Rung gives him the most withering look I believe he will ever produce in the entirety of the run of MTMTE/Lost Light.

Rodimus concedes to giving Rewind the credit for saving everyone from Overlord posthumously, as well as Fortress Maximus and Chromedome, labelling himself as a failure on that front. Chromedome comes up to the podium for a few words on the love of his life.

…well, it’s been a long day for everyone, I suppose.

Chromedome sits back down, right next to Brainstorm because they’re besties, as Brainstorm stares him down like he knows something Chromedome doesn’t.

Probably because he does.

After the funeral, Brainstorm pays Chromedome a visit, finding him in the middle of spring cleaning. He’s taking all of Rewind’s stuff and shoving it in a box to be destroyed.

Does it count as foreshadowing if it’s like a page before the reveal? I guess so.

Chromedome is trying to ease Brainstorm’s mind about the inquiry Rodimus is conducting, saying that the guy ought to talk to Drift before he gets TOO antsy about spilling the beans- perhaps a touch too late there, Domey- but Brainstorm isn’t here for any of that.

So you’re saying Chromedome/Dominus isn’t going to be endgame.

Turns out Chromedome’s been collecting dead spouses, and he wasn’t even aware of it. When faced with this inherent truth about his personal relationship with grief, Chromedome only has this to say:

Time for a pop quiz!

When the burden of life is too much to bear, what is an addict most likely to do? Is it:

A) Quit cold turkey

B) Seek help for their addiction

C) Relapse

If you answered C, you get a gold star, and a harsh reminder that addiction is a fucking monster that will devour your life and meaningful relationships, leaving you with nothing but itself for company.

Chromedome has had a problem with injecting since he got good enough at it to get his own set of finger needles, and he’s been completely dependent on other people to get himself to even close to stopping the habit. His character bio on the crew roster page has, up until this point, outright claimed this.

Now Rewind’s gone, and there’s really nothing stopping him from just taking that pain away. Brainstorm certainly can’t do it, though not for lack of trying.

Chromedome says that he won’t go through with his plan, but Brainstorm knows he’s lying, because they’ve done this song and dance before. At this point, asking Chromedome to not inject is just a courtesy to the deceased.

No wonder Chromedome invited Cyclonus to the funeral- probably figured why the hell not, since he wouldn’t remember it anyway.

Brainstorm gives Chromedome a data slug- the last one Rewind ever made, shot through the door just before it sliced Chromedome’s arm off, and found by Fort Max. Brainstorm leaves, probably to go prepare himself for that awful, hollow feeling he’ll be getting the next time he sees Chromedome.

Over in the shuttle bay, Rodimus is addressing the crew, Chromedome is retconned into being Toxin because he’s not supposed to be in this scene, and Drift is named as the sole conspirator in the Overlord debacle. Rodimus just starts tearing into Drift, and while he does, we cut over to the medibay, where some zombie nonsense is going on.

Golly, seems like there’s some flavor of undead on the Lost Light every other week, doesn’t it?

Rodimus strips Drift of his Autobot badge and tells him to get the fuck out.

Back at Chromedome’s room, he’s decided to take a gander at what Rewind left behind, plugging the data slug into the computer.

Man, this part always makes me a little weepy.

I can’t do Rewind’s final message justice, not in the choppy format I present here- which is perhaps a bit ironic, given the nature of how it’s presented. In the final moments he had, Rewind pieced together a plea for Chromedome to love himself, and to remember that he was- and still is- loved. He shared his own fears of them being apart, and how he knows how hard the coming days will be. He begged Chromedome to be kind to himself, because he- whether he believes it or not- has grown from the person he was in the New Institute.

As this message plays out, we see Drift swarmed by furious Autobots, who get violent as he makes his way off the Lost Light, only to be helped back to his feet by none other than Ratchet, before climbing into a shuttle, surely never to be seen again.

Shane McCarthy slipped Roberts a twenty to set up a slowburn between his OC and Ratchet all the way back in MTMTE #4. This is the start of the pining portion of their relationship.

God, just- there’s a reason Roberts has claimed this issue as one of his best, and it’s this fucking message. Please, if you somehow have gotten to this post without reading the comics- well, first, how, and second- go and READ THEM. I promise it’s worth it, they’re beautiful and funny and full of heart, even when everyone’s being a dick to each other.

Rewind leaves Chromedome with one final piece, which probably didn’t feel like enough, but was all he could manage in the time he had left.

I’m basically legally obligated to post this panel.

Let’s take a moment to consider Rewind as a character. He’s an archivist, and one who’s gotten very good at his job over the millennia. The guy’s OBSESSED with history, and recording as much of it as possible.

Which stands to reason that he knew about Chromedome’s past conjunx endurae. I mean, why wouldn’t he? It would be public record- even if you don’t necessarily get a marriage license on Cybertron, Chromedome would have been on the paperwork with these other guys somewhere, and the fact that he wouldn’t be able to answer the question of “Who’s this guy you lived with for several thousand years?” Would imply some… rather unfortunate things.

Rewind also has a hard time letting go of things- he gets jealous of Chromedome’s past relationship with Prowl any time it’s brought up, and he’s still looking for his ex-husband after what’s probably been at least a million years. That, combined with the way Rewind lives his life- you know, recording every single moment of it- gives me the impression that he really, really wouldn’t enjoy the idea of being forgotten. He wants Chromedome to stop injecting because it’ll kill him, of course he does, but he also wouldn’t want to be erased.

The video cuts off, leaving Chromedome alone. It’s all up to him now, whether Rewind gets to stay in his heart now.

Chromedome/Dominus is still on the table.

With THAT crisis of love dealt with, we move back on to that weird zombie nonsense we saw a little bit ago. Ultra Magnus is missing. Odd, that.

Ratchet, how many times are your patients going to have to disappear from your medibay before it’s less of a “them” problem, and more of a “you” problem?

As Ratchet goes off to search the rest of the ward, Tailgate accidentally bumps into the death clock, which gives him a nasty little surprise: apparently he’s only got three days to live.

Yeah, this is the point where the comic kicks into overdrive, plotwise- there are no brakes on this train anymore.

[phenomenal1500]

The Blood In My Veins | Black Sails

Chapter 60: XXXIII

For Chapter 59: Actions Have Consequences click here.

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

"Find her? I have her." I immediately smiled at Charles before giving him a shoulder bump to give him credits for his amazing guessing skills and he playfully grabbed me by the hip to push me against him. As always I let out an embarrassing squeak and gasped for air as Charles placed his other hand right under my breast to secretly outline it.

"Then show us!"

~~~

Slowly, the day had almost passed just as fast as a human could blink and see the world again and I had settled myself at the shoreline to watch the sea come closer and pull back again every few seconds followed by the small clear waves. The pirates under Billy Bones leadership were prepared to hold the beach against Woodes Rogers' redcoats and as I examined them they seemed to be ready for every possible strategy and their minds were open for every option that could happen. However.... of course the fighting spirit was soon over when we all noticed that only Silver was returning from the fort and with one of my eyebrows raised I wondered where he had left Flint. Had he killed him?

I didn't have to do much to hear that information because the news was already spreading across the island in less than a second after Silver and Billy had discussed it.

The deal had been done; we were buying Nassau back, in exchange for the cache of the stolen Urca gold.

How weak it sounded for us to choose this outcome.... it also sounded way too easy if I thought about it.

A woman would be rowing out to Rogers' ship to persuade him to sail to Port Royal and await Eleanor Guthrie's arrival with the gold that we had to hand over to regain Nassau. It all sounded too good to be true and I immediately knew there was something off about the deal. Besides, Rogers would never retreat until he had Nassau. I've seen his true self.

Of course I had to warn one of our most important leaders, the one that was now stuck as hostage in that fucking miserable fort.

God, how many bad memories were linked to that place? The war between Flint and Charles.... Abigail's captivity.... my captivity.... Jack's captivity.... Charles' captivity for the second time and almost certain death twice. Slowly I pushed myself up and sighed while letting all the memories flow away as I walked to the hard surface to get a better grip under my feet before I made my way towards the fancy building it had all started in. The Governor's Mansion. I remembered that Jack had made it his salon after he had conquered the L'Urca De Lima. The citizens of Nassau drank, fucked and gambled in the parlor, while Jack had moved into one of the bedrooms to claim it as his own with me moving in for a week or so after Charles had left off to sea, tricked by Jack into capturing a slave ship.

Those weeks had been calm, no enemies to deal with and no problems. Well, that was before the rumours had spread about the imminent arrival of Woodes Rogers.

Jack had then gathered the most important people to discuss the defence of Nassau, but some had tried to refuse before Jack had shown his newly grown backbone by threatening their crews directly.

That was also the first place where I had met Charles' mentor, Edward Teach.... who had at the time announced that Flint had died by the hands of Captain Hornigold. The news had ripped away my faith. Of course I trusted Jack and Charles with my whole life, but I somehow already had felt it in my bones that the show of force wouldn't work out. Because of all that we had now ended up here and to get Nassau back so easily after all the effort we had to put into our forces to regain it would perhaps lure us into a massive trap.

I dragged my tired body up the few stair steps and leaned against the door frame as I watched Charles puzzle out the best strategies with two other men I remembered as his loyal crew members.

I didn't want to disturb them and stood there until one of the men turned around to share a gaze with me. "Captain, I think someone needs you."

Charles didn't even have to think about who the man was talking about and still stood ahead of me with his back my way, leaning over the big table in the middle of the room.

"Naida.... something's off and I can't get it out of my mind." He ran his hands through his long hair, being completely honest with me about his feelings in a long time again, and I hooked my foot behind the leg of the chair on the opposite side of Charles to pull it back and sit down on it straight in front of him.

"I know." I sighed while closing my eyes, afterwards watching the ceiling as I leaned my elbows on the table we had once used to discuss the future and defence of Nassau.

"You heard about it as well?"

"Mhuh." I hummed and looked Charles straight in the eye as he straightened his back and shook his head.

"I can't believe Flint would agree to this, you?"

"I don't know, perhaps he was done with everything, wanting to secure the island and the people within it."

"He would never give up his war." Charles reminded me, but I was still deep down hoping that all of this would be over one day, just so that maybe he and I could one day live how it should have been.

I didn't know how quickly it happened after I had found Charles, but suddenly the room filled with familiar faces who really had no business here anymore.

I was completely lost and I, confused, gazed at Silver who hopped in last after the room was full as I was trying to figure out what the fuck just happened.

"A ship was spotted on the horizon, approaching the rendezvous beach from the south and flying no colors. Kofi and his men are returning. The wind is dying out. The cache will be on the sand in a few hours, at most." Billy coughed a bit to clear his throat while letting his eyes scan the room.

"Who knows they've arrived?"

"So far? Him, you, them...." Billy pointed at me and Charles who calmly walked their way. "And I. That's it."

"But sooner or later, people are going to know." I whispered to the men as we had approached the two and I leaned against the desk to support myself while Charles sat down.

"And we're going to have to give them instructions about what happens to that cache once it lands." Charles went on talking as he rolled a coin through his fingers while resting his boot on his upper leg. He didn't let his eyes drop from the coin so he wouldn't make a mistake, but we all knew he was concentrating on thinking about the best options.

It was always something Charles did to think harder about an important strategy or subject. He was a man with a lot on his mind and by focusing on the coin he could always concentrate on one particular thing.

The reason why I sang was the reason why he rolled a coin through his fingers.

"There's no more putting off a decision. Giving up that money is an impossibility." Silver clenched his jaw as Billy leaned more forward to the four of us so that nobody would suspect what it really was about. "Flint will just keep pushing for these things, costly things that we pay for with our own suffering, with our own lives. You know this. You've always known this." Silver had softly shook his head and sighed while Billy lowered his voice even more so I had to really focus on his lips to understand what was going on. "Sooner or later, it has to end. You send word to the fort and tell them it's here. Arrange for them to come out. I'll have men waiting there. I'll end it quickly. All you have to do is look the other way."

"I don't want it happening in full view of that beach."

"Yeah..." I noticed that Billy looked very tired because of the red glow and bags under his eyes and Silver didn't look so good either, probably both struggling with the former 'friendship' that had been lost by the war.

While I was examining the two men, Mady walked through the door and closed it behind her with a stern face expression as usual, softening a bit as she walked further in and spotted Silver. Charles and I smiled at each other and greeted the unknown red-haired man before my lover got up and offered me his hand to leave the Governor's Mansion with me, clearly a sign to leave the two lovebirds alone.

~~~

Me, Charles and Mady with a few more companions of her side had been ordered to wait for Eleanor and Flint to emerge via the secret tunnel that had led to the fort because Silver had notified that he didn't want the exchange to happen in full view on the beach. It somehow sounded weird and suspicious, but I didn't have to complain about such things. Our only job was to escort Flint and that bitch to a secluded beach which wasn't that far away from the center of Nassau and.... I got to see Flint again. As I heard the insects chirping, I peacefully played with a white butterfly that had landed on my leg and took in a deep sigh as I spotted the blond woman stepping into the light, followed by the redcoats that tried to both.... kill.... Charles.

My heart suddenly started to beat faster and I couldn't hear my surroundings because of the blood pounding in my ears that blocked the other sounds.

I saw nothing but red and squeezed my hands until my nails had torn my soft skin, leaving small moon shaped cuts into my palms.

That whore had stripped me from almost everything, twice! I clenched my jaw in full hate and tears of hatred filled my reddish eyes. It wasn't long before I pulled a knife from my boot and longed for nothing but her death, but instead of actually cutting her to fucking pieces, I had been stopped by the careful and gentle arms of the man I loved and I gazed at him in horror. Why didn't he feel the same way as I did?

"She would have killed you if I hadn't saved you from that fucking fort.... and you are stopping me from the one thing we all fucking want!!"

Before I knew it, I was pushed tightly against the muscular man and bursted into tears without even realizing it. I no longer cared about how my reputation crumbled down at the moment, these people didn't even notice any of this happening as they had already put a pace behind their walking and Flint was the only one waiting for us. Slowly a hand was moving up and down my back to keep me calm and little kisses were left on my hair.

Luckily for the blond whore it helped because the red atmosphere quickly turned gloomy and l became a calm and tired mess.

When Charles got up and hoisted me up with him, he knocked the dust off my clothes and dried my tears before I started doing it myself, taking a deep breath as I did so.

Eventually I managed to stay calm around the demon and we walked through the dunes behind Mady.

Of course I walked next to Flint and Charles who were both always on the lookout if I had any tendencies to turn that whore's neck around again, but for now I would leave her alone until I found the right time.

We actually walked to the coast for the price of the L'Urca De Lima, however, the only thing waiting for us was a delightful Jack with a small crew; the ship that was seen approaching was Jack's and not the one sent to retrieve the gold.

"STAND DOWN!!! JUST WAIT!!!" The clumsy, but highly intelligent man pointed out at his crew as he noticed who stepped his way.

I hadn't seen Jack for maybe a month and a half, and he didn't know the news about Charles who hadn't yet given up his life at the gallows.

With full joy I pushed Charles and Flint to the waterfront and the three of us walked to Jack at a high speed.

It seemed like I wasn't the only one happy to see him.

"Flint?" He furrowed his eyebrows until he saw us. "Naida! Charles!"

"What are you doing here?" Flint questioned the man as Charles and I took turns giving Jack a tight embrace and he was amazed when he saw Charles and me healthy and well. He also immediately changed his gaze to my stomach and I smiled, confirming the kid and I were also okay.

He had cared for us both when we were captured so it was normal for him to question its health.

"Thank you, Jack, for keeping me safe from the governor." I thanked him as I thought back to the day when Jack and I were imprisoned together in Nassau. He had offered himself to go free willingly with Rogers if I was allowed to walk freely around Nassau, unharmed, as long as I did nothing that had something to do with conspiracy against civilisation.

"You're welcome, Dear." He smiled back and then watched Flint. "We escaped the governor's men. Came back to rejoin the fight, but didn't know if the harbor was safe to enter. What are you doing here?"

~~~

"You want to trade it? You want to trade the cache, my cache?"

"It was the only way we could avoid a fight we were more than likely to lose. And it guarantees us control of the island today and for certain."

"All it guarantees is we no longer have the cache that we all agreed was critical. And who decided this? You and Mr. Silver? Because I can't imagine Naida and Charles committing to such a thing." Flint had stayed quiet as he knew Jack was right and I watched the ground. We could have stopped them, but it was too late when Charles and I figured out their plan. "Ah... It won't work."

"It's done. It's already agreed to."

"She agreed to it. Her people agreed. You've agreed. Naida and Charles and I probably didn't. But it's all meaningless unless and until he agrees. Woodes Rogers."

"He left the island for Port Royal as she asked to await her arrival with the money. He's already agreed to it."

"No, he hasn't. I watched him defeat Edward Teach in battle...." I gasped as it occurred to me that Jack had just declared Teach as dead and right away my thoughts went to Charles who had lost his father figure. I gently pushed myself against Charles's side as I wrapped my arms around him and I noticed that Charles weakly embraced me back. "Outnumbered and through sheer force of will. I saw his bloodlust with my own eyes. That man will never surrender his position here. He will never allow himself to be defeated by you or I. Not because we bribed him, not because Eleanor Guthrie told him so. He simply will not allow it to happen. I don't know where that man went or what designs drew him there, but this I know.... Woodes Rogers will be returning.... and this fight isn't nearly over."

[lambs-rest]

Emergent Splendour - Not-so-little Shop of Horrors

When Granye returned to the Grand Dame’s Parlour, Alphinaud was busy putting the finishing touches on his outline. She was well aware of his talents – for the longest time she had kept one of his sketches of Thancred in her pack as a keepsake, and after a while, the one of Yugiri and Gosetsu had joined it in its safe place under their bed in the Roost. But to see him really at work, doing his best under the guise of a commission really made her realise how talented he was at portraits.

It was only once he lowered his hand and seemed to be finished that she leaned over. “Looks brilliant, Alphie.”

He jumped and craned his neck up, flashing a smile. “Ah, please, you flatter me. ‘Tis merely an sketch at this stage.” He glanced at the Chais before asking in a quieter tone. “What of your investigations?”

She shrugged. “They all seem to have ‘eir head in the clouds if ye ask me. Couldnae get a whole lot out o’ anyone, ‘cept that Vauthry ‘as some kind o’ way with the sin eaters.”

“That may explain why he’s held in such reverence by the citizenry…”

“One more thing – there’s some kind o’…rite? Ceremony? They call it Ascension. Somethin’ of a reward fer Free and Bonded alike fer a job well done.”

At that, he frowned. “…I cannot help but be reminded of that apothecary and his ominous remarks. If so many people have entered the city over the years, then where do they go? Perhaps this ‘Ascension’ has something to-”

“Hmph. I take my eye off you for one moment and you’re chattering away with that assistant of yours. Am I to assume the outline is done, then?”

They both started at Chai-Nuzz’s voice, the Mystel staring at them from behind the easel with a flat, unamused stare. Before Alphinaud could speak, he walked around it and stared at the canvas. Granye expected some praise, not for the fellow to literally step back, aghast.

“Wh-What in the blazes…!?”

“Wha’s wrong?”

Chai-Nuzz stared at her like she was an imbecile. “What do you mean ‘What’s wrong’!? It’s so…so…unflattering!” He turned his head sharply to Alphinaud. “Where is your artistic interpretation!? It should evoke images of affluence and nobility, and overwhelm the viewer with its boundless beauty! Explain yourself, Alphinaud!”

“Lord Chai – you stated that the portrait was to commemorate your anniversary. Yours being a joyous union, it seemed to me that a realistic portrayal–”

“Realistic!? I don’t want realism! I want perfection! A spectacle to slacken jaws and weaken knees! To make people cry out in amazement!” he hissed, struggling to scold the boy without drawing his wife’s attention. Dulia still remained at the table, enthralled in the layers of the slice of cake her spoon was carving through; how the gelatin glaze cut cleanly under the silverware, and the fresh cream splurged out of the shape of the slice just a little under the pressure.

Alphinaud bowed his head, fighting not to let his frown show as Chai-Nuzz shook his head.

“Now, fetch a blank canvas and–“

A shrill scream of pain tore through the Canopy, halting all its citizens and drawing heads to look up to the ceiling where it had come from.

Alphinaud and Granye shared a startled look, yet before either could ask their patron Lord and Lady what that was – and why they looked so undisturbed by it – a great trumpet blast sounded. It announced the twin red and blue jongleurs as they gaily skipped into the plaza, waving in front of the parlour to gain everyone’s attention.

“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention pleeeeease: a tale to make you quiver and your noble blood freeze! There was a villain on the loose, set to ruin our fair city –”

“-But our lord has got him now, and his fate will not be pretty! Yes, the hammer of justice is poised to come crrrashing down! And one and all who’d watch it fall are invited to join his lordship in the Offer!”

The jongleurs continued broadcast the invitation, dancing and flexing their lithe forms in synchronised gymnastic routines.

“A malcontent? How dreadful…” Dulia said dolefully, shaking her head, ears drooped slightly and she poked her cake with sudden dissatisfaction.

“This villain is to face sentencing?” Alphinaud questioned Chai-Nuzz.

The man seemed to forget the apparently distasteful outline he had been so upset over mere moments ago. “That’s right. In fact…if you’re curious, it might be worth you going along for the experience. The Offer they mentioned is part of the Emergent – the level above us where Lord Vauthry resides. Ordinarily, you would be barred from entering, but it seems they’ll be opening its doors for the next little while.” He pointed at the nearby corridor. “The Crown Lift will take you up there.”

“…We had better not dawdle then.”

He bowed to Chai-Nuzz, and Granye and Alphinaud shared another look. Though his face held a polite smile, his eyes belied the anxiety her truly felt. After what he had learned of Eulmore and its ways…what could he expect from their justice system?

“Oh, do be careful around that malcontent!” Dulia called out before they could get a step away. “I should hate to see you come to any harm.”

“We shall take the utmost of care, Lady Chai.” Alphinaud assured. His words seemed to settle her, and she happily returned to her cake, while Chai-Nuzz returned his scrutinous gaze back to the outline.

--

The Offer continued the theme that had started in the preceding downstairs hallway that led to the Crown Lift. Lush red carpet carried on, even into the lift itself. All the fixtures were gold, the flooring continuing the green marble tiles. Granye wondered where in Norvrandt such a ridiculous quantity of rare-looking stone had been quarried from.

Enormous, thick double doors greeted them, already open and packed with a throng of Eulmoran onlookers.

Granye halted, then and there, forcing the people who exited the lift behind them to skirt around her.

“Granye?” Alphinaud whispered, pushing his way back to her with a few quick apologies to those he passed between. He looked up at her urgently. “What is it?”

Her insides felt cold, and her eyes were full of fear.

“We shouldnae be here.” she whispered.

“What?”

He jumped as she grabbed one of his shoulders firmly. “We need to leave.”

He glanced toward the awaiting chamber with a tense frown, torn between heeding her panic and finally seeing Vauthry with his own eyes. “This is the first chance I’ve had to some this far, Granye. I must press on if I am to learn more of Eulmore.” He whispered urgently, imploring her.

Granye’s gut sank. Slowly, her hand slid off him. “…All right. But…seven hells, stay close, Alphie.” She begged.

He nodded and they moved forward together. Her reaction had thrown him off and raised his guard as they sidestepped and wriggled through the crowd to get a view.

When he finally saw what lay ahead – the view Granye’s height had afford here – he suddenly understood, and he had never been gladder that it had taken him so long to enter Eulmore. He wouldn’t know how to feel without Granye, mere inches away from him – without knowing he could rely upon her dauntless strength if something happened.

There were sin eaters everywhere. Some half dozen Venerys lay sprawled about the room upon fine pieces of furniture and luxurious cushions. One more powerful looking eater sat with another – a great winged and crowned white lion – stroking its nose in a languid fashion. They were calm and subdued, and he struggled to understand how.

“That’s him. That’s Vauthry!” Alphinaud whispered.

For Granye, everything about Vauthry – his room, his sin eaters – made her skin crawl. She didn’t know what she was expecting, but somehow the view…fit.

Lavish golden furnishings surrounded this man, this monument to the decadence of Eulmore. His body, swollen and rotund to excess, was garbed in fine purple silks that cascaded off his belly where he lay. Huge golden rings, each adorned with enormous sparkling gems, encircled each of his puffy fingers, with golden bracers that matched around his wrists. She noticed, however, that the rings did not constrict, and the clothes did not cling unflatteringly. Vauthry was completely at ease. Comfortable. He was not playing any games or pretending to be something he was not. She could not help but think that his head was too small for his body. The portions were all wrong, even for his size. His large blue eyes were sunken and surrounded by dark circles. Despite his evident life of ease, Granye thought they looked tired. All too big – like a baby’s eyes – but also marred heavily by a scowl. Thus far, everyone she had seen in Eulmore had looked happy, the faces unwrinkled by stress or ire.

“Mercy… Mercy…!”

Terrible pained begging pulled her from thought. As one, without checking, she and Alphinaud pushed through to the front of the crowd.

“By the Twelve!”

Alphinaud’s words failed to capture her horror at the sight. A young man – a Mystel with a blue tail – was hunched over on his knees before Eulmore’s lord. Bright crimson stained the white and gold marble floor, and not far from his right side lay a dropped bloody knife, still gleaming with fresh blood.

They both rushed forward, kneeling at the man’s side. It was only then that she recognised the Mystel as the very same Alphinaud had surrendered his pearl trading idea to.

“Kai-Shirr! What happened to you!?”

“Who are these impudent louts? I do not recall requesting their presence.”

Granye was already reaching for a bandage roll in one of her pouches as Alphinaud took to his feet and confronted Vauthry, voicing his outrage. She lifted Kai-Shirr’s head with her free hand. “Chin up, kitten, come on.” She whispered, pulling out a bandage roll. He shook all over as he struggled to meet her gaze, biting down his pain. She firmly grabbed his arm, bringing forth a scream that he tried desperately to keep clamped behind his gritted teeth. Vauthry’s thunderous voice ensured his whimpering was lost on the ears of others in the room.

“Easy, easy. I ken it hurts, but ye cannae bleed out.” She soothed. Granye quickly began to wrap the gash, pulling the wound closed tight. Small mercies the blade he had been forced to use looked clean, and not rusted. “Hold it tight, kitten.” She urged after tying the wrapping off. Her voice was almost lost under Vauthry’s mocking whine.

“’Another way’ meaning what exactly!?” Alphinaud challenged.

“Sin eaters are part of Eulmore’s society. But they must be fed with aether – living aether. So – I demanded an offering of flesh! Carved by his own hand, from his own hide.”

Granye’s head jerked up sharply. All at once shivers rolled over her, as though the shaking in Kai-Shirr’s shoulders had transferred to her as she held him up.

What?

“And still! Still! He could not do as I asked!” Vauthry furiously waved his arms, bellowing, enraged. “Wholly unsatisfactory performance!”

“Performance!?” Granye breathed, aghast.

The blood that stained the floor, her hands, Kai-Shirr’s wounds- a performance!? Surely, surely no being alive could think such a thing so much a game!? Surely-!

Kai-Shirr seemed pinned to the floor, even though his wound was bound, even though she kept trying to urge him to sit up a little. It was then that she realised what brought such an unease to her.

Alphinaud…was the only one talking back.

Granye turned slowly, horrified to see the Eulmoran citizens, in all their finery, gathered behind them and staring blankly ahead, their faces dispassionate and empty.

Where was the horror? The outrage? The fear!? They had nothing.

“The guarantee of safety and stability. The knowledge that if one only abides by the rules, one has naught to fear. I alone can offer these things, for I alone can command the sin eaters. And thus am I alone the voice of justice – and any who oppose me, villains to be punished!”

Granye felt like she was standing in a house where the furniture was all nailed to the ceiling when applause lifted from the motionless crowd, their faces suddenly aglow with praise and adoration for their twisted Lord’s speech. Vauthry thrived on the approval of his people, a smug, satisfied sneer settling on his face, pushing the fat of his cheek into a rounded lump.

“You were granted a place in my city for a particular skill. What was it?”

“…Painting.” Alphinaud responded reluctantly, almost spitting the word.

“Oho! An artiste! Then you shall paint a picture for me! Of Eulmore! If I find your art pleasing, then I may excuse this display of insolence!”

Alphinaud wordlessly turned his back and knelt on the other side of Kai-Shirr, renewing Granye’s effort to raise him up. Vauthry flailed again, incensed by the disobedience, when he finally looked down to notice the bandages on Kai-Shirr.

“Who gave you permission to tend to that criminal’s wounds!? I told you to PAINT. ME. A PICTURE!”

They lifted up the young Mystel together, getting him to his feet carefully. Granye held her arm around him still, gently asking if he could walk. Kai-Shirr nodded meekly, rattled from the ordeal. But Alphinaud did not leave in silence. He turned back to Vauthry, disgust plain on his features.

“What you need is a mirror, not a painting. It will capture the horror I see before me far better than I ever could.”

They could hear the strangled screams of fury even as they entered the lift, Kai-Shirr between them. The thunderous pounding of meaty fists on plush carpet chased them, echoing in Granye’s head all the way back down to the Derelicts themselves.

--

“Thank you… Again.”

“I’s nae trouble, kitten.” Granye gestured to Kai-Shirr’s arm. “Just make sure ye get that cleaned out an’ treated right quick.”

He glanced at it, grimacing, his ears still lowered in shame, but nodded.

“…I’ve seen enough of the world’s self-proclaimed ‘capital city’ to convince me that our battle against the sin ears will find few allies in Kholusia.” Granye looked at Alphinaud with a bitter twist upon her lips and he met her stare. “Let us return to the Crystarium. We need to regroup and think on our strategy anew.”

He turned to Kai-Shirr, apologising, and while Alphinaud exchanged words with the Mystel, Granye’s eyes fell upon the ramshackle residences that surrounded them, upon the begrimed faces of those who dwelled within.

Did they have any idea what kind of a place it was that they were so desperate to get into? Did they understand the fickle nature of the man who ruled Eulmore; he who could throw them from the balcony on a whim, or demand they carve out their very own flesh? A man who kept the company of more eaters, it seemed, than his own citizens? Surely, if they knew…surely they would seek elsewhere… Surely…

She had to hope.

No sooner had they said farewell to Kai-Shirr did a breathless, exhausted call made them look up toward the stairs, and Granye’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Alph…Alphinaud!”

The portly Lady Chai was fairly sprinting toward them, her brows arched in concern, worry on her painted face even as she huffed and puffed upon halting before them. Her husband followed skittishly in her wake, staying close but keeping his keen eyes on the shacks and their poor inhabitants that surrounded them.

“Lord and Lady Chai?”

“What in the blazes did you do!? They have the entire city looking for you!” Chai-Nuzz blurted, pointing up at Eulmore. But before anyone could get another word out, Dulia pushed forward.

“I took a peek at your unfinished portrait, Alphinaud.”

He braced for much of the same sort of critique Chai-Nuzz had given.

“I’ve had many a beautiful and striking picture painted for me, but there was something about your work… It was as if you have caught the very essence of our love, and rendered it naked upon the canvas. It was bold, unflinching…and I adored it!”

Alphinaud lifted his head, surprise plain on his face as Dulia reached forward and fervently held his hands in hers. “Please, you must come back with is and finish what you began! I will speak with Lord Vauthry, and vouch for your character! I’m sure we can smooth over any hard feelings!”

He looked at a loss for a few seconds, caught off guard by the praise, and the fact that Lady Chai looked to be on the cusp of bursting into tears, her eyes glossy and pleading.

“I…I am sorry, Lady Chai.” Alphinaud shook his head slowly. “There are more important matters to which I must attend.”

“More important? What could be more important than enjoying the days we have left to use to the fullest?” she protested earnestly.

Granye had thought the Chais a decadent, self-servient couple when she met them – Tristol’s tale had done them no favours. But in that moment, when she looked down upon the sight of Dulia clutching Alphinaud’s hands like tender eggshell, she felt as though she glimpsed the truth of them. Of Dulia, at least. She wanted them to be safe; to live the rest of their lives wanting for nothing. It was a sad, misguided display affection…but perhaps, in their positions of blissful idleness at the end of the world, it was the most she could do…

“Pray press me no further.” Alphinaud responded, his voice firm but not harsh. “We are leaving. But I would not presume to take the garments you were so kind as to procure for me. One mome-”

Dulia gasped, aghast at the words, holding his hands a little tighter as if to hug him. “I won’t hear of it! Keep the clothes, you silly boy – I insist!”

Once again, he was genuinely thrown off his guard. Granye coughed. “Sir,” she began, playing her part of assistant. “Maybe once our important work is completed…we could return to finish Lord an’ Lady Chai’s portrait? It might take some time, mind you, ma’am!” she added quickly once Dulia flashed her big, hopeful eyes up at her. “But…well, isnae completely off the table, aye?”

Alphinaud looked up at her as well, seemingly shocked by her offer. Granye shrugged slightly when Dulia looked away from her, back down to him. “Oh, nothing would make me happier! I shall keep the sketch safe, and make arrangements that you may pass through the gate without causing a stir! You simply must come and visit!”

Alphinaud could do little but offer a faint smile. “Truly, Lady Chai, your generosity knows no bounds. …You may rest assured, I will return to Eulmore.”

Dulia seemed positively delighted at his words, but the underlying tone of a far more severe promise did not escape the ears of Chai-Nuzz, and though he regarded the young man with suspicion, he was far too shackled by his timid nature to voice – let alone act upon – such thoughts.

Once she relinquished his hands, Alphinaud stepped back, and they began their walk back to Stilltide. It was only once they were well beyond Gatetown and Eulmore was once more a distant, ugly monument that blighted the skyline that Alphinaud looked back. The expression on his face was hard, but pained.

“That such corruption should be masked by such a glittering facade…and in turn, mask the genuine kindness of its people…” Alphinaud shook his head and turned from the city.

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

Lahabrea found himself longing – for the umpteenth time – that he had a book with him to occupy the time. Even with the currency Alphinaud had given him, nothing the Leaky Keel had on offer appealed to him – or his unsettled stomach after the amaro flight – so he settled for another mug of dirt-flavoured water and some bread.

The bread was rock hard.

He fancied he could kill someone if he threw it at their head with the right force. At least when he dipped it in the water it softened a little, and the earth taste became absorbed by the bread, turning it into a slightly more tolerable grainy flavour.

He had taken to spinning the crust – a truly inedible part of the bread he had attempted to gnaw on, and failed upon fearing for the integrity of his teeth – on the tabletop as he waited, when the doors swung open, and he looked up to finally, finally, see them once more. The boy’s face was set into a hard, determined frown, and Granye seemed slightly worried.

“Well, you two look as though you have caused sufficient enough of a ruckus.”

She smiled brightly as she set eyes on him while Alphinaud offered Theva his thanks for keeping an eye on him. “Aye! So much so that we’re leavin’. Pack up, darlin’, we’re headed back to the Crystarium.”

He nearly bolted to his feet, following her back out of the tavern, jogging down the steps in his eagerness to be free of the sun-stripped wooden walls. Granye took point as they made their way back to the beach. It was only when they were on the pebbles that Lahabrea realised he was still holding the crust of bread. He shook his head and turned around to discard it. But he was waylaid upon spying a hobgoblin in the distance.

He looked down at the crust, then back up at the distant creature. Then, pulled his arm right back, aimed, ran forward a couple of steps and flung. Lahabrea held his hand up to shield from the Light as he tried to track the projectile.

A startled, angry shriek reached his ears as the hobgoblin staggered, and Lahabrea jumped back and dropped his arms by his side, turning on his heel and sprinting to catch up with them.

“What was that?” Alphinaud asked as he reached them, the cry having caught his attention. Granye, however, was staring out over the water, away from Alphinaud’s view, biting her lip and desperately holding back a laugh.

Lahabrea cleared his throat and shook his head, expression neutral. “No idea.” He pulled his hood up quickly and pushed on toward the waiting amaro. Granye let out a loud cough, dipping her head before nodding and following. Alphinaud regarded them oddly, but didn’t press for a reason for their strangeness.

Granye mounted up first, then pulled Lahabrea up into the saddle behind her. But, as Lahabrea gripped onto her waist in preparation for the flight, he could feel her trembling from the withheld giggles.

“Look, at least now we know, if it comes down to it, bread from the Leaky Keel can, in fact, be used as a weapon.”

Granye snorted, a burst of a raspberry slipping out as she tried to keep any fits of full blown laughter at bay. She glanced over at Alphinaud and the Zun on the other amaro, nodding to them to assure that they were ready, before she answered in a hushed whisper.

“I thought it was a stick or somethin’!”

“Oh, that creature wishes it was a stick.” He muttered.

It was only once they were airborne that the pleased, dark smirk on his face faded and he fell silent in favour of holding onto Granye and pressing his face against her back, shutting his eyes.

The giggles took time to fade from her system, but it didn’t take long for her to find something else to focus on in this alien world. This time, it was the Light that pervaded every aspect of the sky around them. At first, it had been a marvel – an oddity. A creamy, glittering carpet, radiant and shining.

But now, it only irritated her. Its permanent brightness hurt her eyes, and flying high made her feel like a great pressure was bearing down on her. The motes of light that drifted past her were an unwanted distraction.

Granye decided, then and there, as Lahabrea’s grip shifted from the sides of her waist to wrapping around her middle completely, that she hated it.

——————————

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[artificialqueens]

papillionlisse 2/? [gigi x nicky / jan x jackie] - pinkgrapefruit

[ chapter two ]

Gigi wakes up from a fitful sleep (mostly caused by the cat laying across her chest) to the sight of Nicky in warrior two - her eyes blissfully closed as her taut stomach twists, muscular thighs tense as she pushes herself into downward-facing dog. She spots Gigi’s staring as she looks up and pokes her tongue out in jest - the brunette giggling slightly too loud for the early hour as Crystal throws a stuffed honey badger across the room before burying her face back into her pillow.

[harry potter hogwarts/beauxbaton au]

A/N - hey! we’re back in the easiest to write multi-chap I’ve ever done! i don’t even care if you guys like it anymore because I’m so in love with these gals. (i still need the validation that you all like it though <3) thanks to frey for being a magnificent beta and let’s get down to it!

*

They learn remarkably quickly that Nicky is unbearably peppy on a morning - the blonde girl rolling out of bed at 6 a.m. while Jan is still drooling on Jackie’s shoulder to practice some light morning yoga in only a pair of tight gym shorts and a sports bra. Her loosely curled hair is tied into a loose ponytail, and sweat forms in droplets in the dip of her spine.

Gigi wakes up from a fitful sleep (mostly caused by the cat laying across her chest) to the sight of Nicky in warrior two - her eyes blissfully closed as her taut stomach twists, muscular thighs tense as she pushes herself into downward-facing dog. She spots Gigi’s staring as she looks up and pokes her tongue out in jest - the brunette giggling slightly too loud for the early hour as Crystal throws a stuffed honey badger across the room before burying her face back into her pillow.

Nicky winks and Gigi smiles back, sitting up as she gives up on the idea of going back to sleep. She pulls Quaffle onto her lap with a sigh, pushing her fingers into his fur until he unfurls happily, stretching out between her legs.

“Morning,” she whispers, but it’s hoarse with sleep and it makes Nicky chuckle as she rolls into a handstand.

“Bonjour, mon chou,” she responds with a smile - her voice tense as she lowers back down. She stands up finally, grabbing her wand off the end of her bed to roll up the yoga mat and fire it back under the bed - her morning laxity getting the better of her as she lazily sends Gigi’s glasses onto her face with a snap of the wrist. Checking the time, Gigi realises it’s quarter to seven and motions for Nicky to flick the curtains off the thin windows that stand in between each bed.

She watches, as she does every morning, as Jan recoils from the sunlight, hiding her head in the crook of Jackie’s neck with a moaning noise causing the sleepy dorm to erupt into quiet laughter. Crystal makes a nondescript noise as she pats her hand vaguely on her bedside table, looking for her glasses, which she finally finds once she lifts her head and realises Nicky is holding them for her. She flops onto her back with a snort.

“Monday, right?” Asks Crystal, as she fumbles her way into the bathroom - coming out with a toothbrush hanging out of her mouth a few seconds later. She takes one for the team and hits Jan’s foot with a cushion, forcing the girl to actually look up as Jackie busies herself with the last few pages of her book on full moon astronomy to avoid her wrath. Nicky braids a silk scarf into Gigi’s hair as the two watch Jan walk like a zombie into the bathroom, only coming out twenty minutes later having showered and put on some makeup.

“Is she always like this?” Nicky asks, gesturing very generally towards the girl who’s resumed her position tucked against the now clothed Jackie until they all decide to go to breakfast.

“In the morning? Yes.” Gigi responds bluntly. “She’s an absolute zombie before nine unless there are waffles for breakfast, but it’s not a Thursday, so, unfortunately, we’re stuck with this until Jackie can force a cup of tea down her, and then she’ll perk up.”

Crystal joins the two of them and sits on Gigi’s bed. “Almost eight,” she notes, which sparks the group into motion. Nicky watches in amusement as they come together like a well-oiled machine - all ready to go and standing by the door in seconds, each in their robes and choice of shoe - bags slung over their shoulders and wands holstered. She’s pulled out of her staring when Gigi snaps her fingers at her.

“C’mon, Nicks,” she says quickly and Nicky slips her feet into her patent black brogues - sliding the unfamiliar black robes over her white oxford shirt. The robes hold the symbol of Papillionlisse - a purple butterfly alighting a leaf - and they feel homely even though they’re brand new. She slings her powder blue Beauxbaton tote over her shoulder and runs to the door so they can all exit together, making sure to remember the code of knocking that Gigi shows her on the barrel outside the common room door.

She finds she rather likes the look of Hogwarts in the morning - the sun shining through old stained glass in a way that lights up the whole main hall with twinkling lights. The enchanted ceiling is sunny today, and even Jan smiles at the sight of it. Gigi calls her a cliché as she picks two or three flavoured croissants from the platter in front of them and she tries to defend herself with crumbs spraying out of her mouth, giving in as Crystal attempts to shoot her a disapproving look ending in them all falling into warm laughter.

She looks around, trying to spot the other Beauxbaton students, camouflaged from view in their billowy black robes. She identifies a couple by their blue bags and pristine blonde hair and finds she hasn’t really missed them yet - she wonders idly if she will, as she watches Jan enthusiastically explain something about Kneazles to Jackie who softens under her girlfriend’s eyes.

*

They’re all making their way down to the dungeons when a burly looking guy bodychecks Crystal - her shoulder jerking back in a way that forces her off kilter and she ends up on the floor. The large brunette seethes ‘Mudblood’ through his teeth and Nicky watches in horror as Crystal’s eyes well up.

“Le con,” she lets out - the words scathing as they fall from her lips. He looks at her - eyes narrowing before he leans forward. She reacts on impulse, a firm fist to the lower jaw and he staggers back in shock, barely calling her a bitch before running on up the stairs.

Crystal is back upright now - looking shocked and slightly sick, but held upright by Jackie and Gigi, who look like they’re trying to lower their own anger levels by breathing very poorly and whispering kind thoughts to Crystal.

“Damn, Nicky,” Jan exclaims with a bemused smirk.

Nicky takes a deep breath, pushing the air out through her nose as she shrugs. “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” she quips - “Now, Crys, how about we prove his, uh, préjudice wrong.” She links arms with the brunette, leaving the rest of them to wander behind.

“You okay?” She asks quietly, chin resting on the girls shoulder for a second.

“Dicks will be dicks,” Crystal replies, voice more solid than it had been. “I’ll be fine. They’re a rarity nowadays.”

“Good,” Nicky says forcefully. “Dicks will be dicks.”

*

It’s a few weeks later - the late spring tumbling into early summer and the sky is a glorious blue, not a cloud in sight - they spend the afternoon lounging on the grass on the edge of the Black Lake.

“I saw the Giant Squid once,” Crystal tells them all as she shields her face from the Sun by waving one hand in its vague direction.

“You did not.” Gigi scoffs from her position, laying on her front, body propped up on her elbows. Nicky giggles, in the same position as Gigi, but with her head resting on her folded arms - face illuminated by the sun that filters through the branches of the nearby elm tree.

“We only have horses that drink whisky,” she whines - making the group laugh together.

“I’ve heard of those,” Jackie pipes up from where her head is on Jan’s lap - the blonde braiding wildflowers into her hair.

“Of course you have,” Nicky jokes and the brunette holds up her middle finger much to the French girl’s amusement. “Have they always been like this?” She asks Gigi quietly, as the group goes back to their own separate conversations for a moment.

Gigi hums in contemplation, brushing a strand of hair off Nicky’s face before she answers - the blonde’s striking blue eyes catching her off guard in a way that shouldn’t shock her anymore.

“Not always this disgustingly cute, no, but they’ve been a thing since third year. We’ve shared a dorm since first year, but they sorted their shit out in the summer of third, thank god. You know what we went through?” Gigi asks sardonically, and Nicky shakes her head in a motion for the girl to continue, letting out a giggle at the matter of fact way Gigi tells this clearly nostalgic story. “God, they were painful for a while. Jackie was our go-to homework help and then she got all sad about Jan, and wouldn’t help any of us, so guess who wasn’t doing great in divination that year.”

“It’s literally making shit up,” calls Jan from where she’s sat - choosing to ignore everything else being said. “And I’m the one who likes it.” She pats her divination textbook affectionately as Gigi goes back to explaining.

“But they got together in Hogsmeade and it was all cute, and now they’re this.” Nicky coos like you would at a small dog, before returning her attention to the brunette.

“Will you take me to Hogsmeade?” She asks, eyelashes fluttering and Gigi has to stop herself from swooning.

“Of course, mon Cherie,” she responds in an awful French accent that makes Nicky laugh so hard she rolls onto her back, letting the sun hit her face in a way sure to pepper her nose with even more freckles. “You didn’t have to go all veela on me,” Gigi whispers, and Nicky just winks.

“HONEYDUKES!” Crystal butts in from where she’s studying for charms - lazily trying to perfect the wand movement for one of her nonverbal spells. A spark shoots up from the lake causing Jackie to raise an eyebrow from where she’s laying, absorbing the sun, and Crystal just cackles in response, dropping her wand in defeat.

“Yes, Crys, we can go to Honeydukes,” Gigi appeases. “Any other questions that don’t involve me being a lonely lesbian?” She asks Nicky, and the blonde blushes at the phrasing. She twirls an already perfect blonde ringlet around her finger before looking up to Jackie.

“What exactly do you want to do, Jaqueline?” She asks - the nickname a joke she’s chosen to stick with out of pure enjoyment of the look on Jackie’s face.

Jackie props herself up on her elbows - Jan pouting as a few flowers flutter out of her hair and onto the grass.

“I want to get a mastery in astronomy and arithmancy, and then probably become an arithmancer or a potions astronomer - maybe a code breaker. Something like that,” she muses as she relaxes back down onto Jan’s lap. Nicky watches on, impressed.

“Damn, that’s cool.”

“Well, I’m pureblood, so I either do something insane or I live off my family’s fortune, and the only way I can do something insane is if I work hard as hell for it.” They all hear Jan mutter something about ‘fucking aristocracy’, but they choose to leave her be as she, perhaps slightly more angrily, threads daisies together to make a crown.

“Jan?” Nicky asks, falling back so she can fully sunbathe, her hair forming a halo on the greenery.

“Oh, easy,” Jan claims with excitement - any anger at her girlfriend’s family having passed as quickly as it arrived. “Magical creature healer.” She says it brightly and with enough whimsy that it almost masks the danger they all know the job poses.

“I can imagine you doing that,” Crystal claims, airily. “You’re making my hopes of a normal healer sound boring though.”

Jan giggles. “You can heal me!” She effuses with more excitement than the topic warrants.

Nicky looks to Gigi with a question in her eyes, and Gigi flops down next to her before she answers - watching the sliver of a white cloud pass through the cerulean of the sky.

“McGonagall’s mentioned taking me on as an apprentice,” she admits quietly. “I mean I’d love to. I’d love it.”

“Gigi, that’s amazing,” Nicky says, and Gigi feels how much she means it like an aura washing over her. She feels the love as it trails through every vein in her body, and she assumes it’s a veela thing, because it feels like this unbreakable connection even if it only lasts a second.

“Thank you, Nicky.”

*

They end up in the library, late at night a few days later. It’s a Saturday, and she and Nicky are pouring over textbooks - barely talking except to pass notes full of badly drawn wand diagrams and the occasional quip.

Gigi has spent the last five minutes watching as Nicky (totally innocently) sucks on a sugar quill and she thinks she might explode, so she practices what she’s trying to write and wordlessly charms her notes page into a paper butterfly, knocking the quill out of Nicky’s mouth, so she can sit comfortably for a minute or two.

“Dieu, you’re so distracting,” Nicky moans as she looks up to Gigi’s smirking face.

“Only for you, mon Cherie,” she schmoozes, eyes half-lidded as she lets her teeth trail her bottom lip.

“Mon chѐri,” Nicky corrects, although her smile is softer, less playful now. “D’amour.” Her tongue darts out to whet her lips. She stands up from where she’s been sitting cosy in a large wooden chair and slides onto the table, so she’s sat right in front of Gigi. The brunette almost short circuits at the way Nicky towers over her like this, but she rolls her shoulders and tries to pretend to be a Veela - just for the confidence.

She pulls her onto her lap, thanking the smoothness of the table and the lack of friction posed by Nicky’s leggings as the blonde lands happily on her thighs.

“Embrasse Moi,” she asks, breathless from the suspense, eyes barely open. “S'il te plait.”

If she looked, she’d see the way Nicky’s ears turn pink when she’s flustered, her pupils the size of saucers, lips full.

“Yes.”

Gigi’s pretty sure she’d be happy to let Nicky do anything to her. Especially in a library.

[freelancer-chronicles]

The first story!!

Faye hung weightless, bodiless, observing the distant tangled lights of minds awake across Bastion. Cyphers just like her listened for incoming messages, crunched numbers, and organized data into archives. Maybe they were linked to Freelancers or Sentinels in javelin suits, flying at high speeds through the cold night air. A feeling of familiarity nagged at her. She knew she’d done this before she’d gone to the Cenotaph, but couldn’t think why, nor what she’d been looking for in the darkness. As if those actions belonged to someone else.

Faye turned away from the lights and listened to the Gateway, the susurration of Shaper instruments doing their strange and unknowable work, and the distant background thrum of the Anthem of Creation behind everything. Somewhere, in the quietest part of the darkness, she knew she could find them. Impressions, like footprints in drying mud, of her own thoughts left in this space. Her own mind. Her own memories. If she just listened hard enough…

Another sound—louder, discordant, demanding—scraped across her concentration.

What? She tensed. The noise repeated, and she brought it into focus.

Someone nearby was singing an Icetide song. Loudly. And without any regard to tempo, key, or melody. Faye could, in fact, only identify the noise as an Icetide song by the repeated refrain of, “Icetide chill! Icetide chill!”

She pulled the threads of her consciousness back to her body, opened her eyes, and sighed. The world reformed itself around her, coalescing into the strider’s amplifier room, barely wide enough for two people to stand side-by-side, now with… strings of multicolored lights hung all over it, shining in the gloom and illuminating the close walls and low, rusted metal ceiling.

Faye shut down the amplifier and climbed out of the chair, which had been covered with paper snowflakes while she was connected. Because of course it had. The singing, if it could really be called that, was coming from down below her in the cargo hold.

She followed the trail of paper decorations and tuneless singing out into the galley kitchen, edged around the table—dislodging a couple of Haluk’s forgotten breakfast dishes—down a narrow flight of stairs, and found Haluk at the forge, which had been bedecked in more colored lights and paper snowflakes, working on his armor and singing at the top of his lungs. His javelin was remarkably free of Icetide décor, but the boisterous ex-Freelancer, who in all the years she’d known him had never once worn a shirt, was sporting a knitted cap adorned with the most enormous Freelancer-yellow pom pom as a concession to the cold weather.

“Hmmm-hmmm when there’s ice on the ground, scars and skorpions aren’t around, and hmmm-hmmm-hmmm-hmmm, Icetide chill! Icetide chill!”

Haluk did a little dance as he switched out his pliers for a screwdriver.

“Haluk.” Faye crossed her arms and waited. He slowly looked up from the javelin.

“Hey, you’re back! What do you think of the decorations?” He gestured proudly around the hold with the screwdriver, beaming.

“Very…” Faye hesitated while friendship and taste went to war in her head. They reached a tentative ceasefire. “Festive. Did you make all these snowflakes yourself?”

“Well, most of them. I may have gotten the rookie to help with a few.” He set down his tools and leaned against the forge to take the weight off his bad leg. “Was I making too much noise?”

Faye sighed. “It’s not so much the amount as the quality.”

“Are you trying to say my singing is less than perfect?” Haluk put on an expression of exaggerated shock.

“It might help if you learned the words. Or the melody. Or literally any other part of the song.”

“Critic.” Haluk laughed. “All right, fine. I’ll try to keep it down.” His eyes took on a far-away look and he sighed, “You know Icetide is completely different in the Mirelands, right?”

Faye did, of course. She’d heard Haluk make this speech at least half a dozen times. “Yeah, it’s this big, somber reflection on the previous year, and a lot of preparing to face the future.”

He gave a small chuckle. “Not a lot of caroling, you know? So… you got plans?”

“Well…” She paused. This was a test, and she knew it. Ever since they had silenced the Cenotaph, her mind wandered. Or reality did. Faye couldn’t always tell. She could see Haluk trying and failing to hide his concern, watching her to see if she remembered what day it was, what year, his name. She tried to recall what she had done for past holidays and felt something within her stir. “I do have the tapes for this year’s Dawnguard Icetide special. I’ve been saving them for the right moment.”

Emotions rushed across Haluk’s face, struggling for space. Amusement, horror… surprise elbowed the others out and stayed there. “How’d you get your hands on that? It hasn’t even aired in Antium yet.”

Faye beamed. She’d been waiting for months to brag about this. “My friend on the staff sent it to me. They recorded it months ago, they just hold it in reserve until the weather turns. You never know for sure when Icetide will start, after all.” She would have gone on, but Haluk was starting to fidget with his cane, a sure sign he wanted to leave. She asked, knowing the answer in advance, “Do you want to listen to it with me?”

“No thanks.” It came out almost apologetic. Almost. “I’ll be heading out soon, anyway. You can,” he hesitated slightly as everything he was about to say was a lie, but was nonetheless required to maintain the Contract of Friendly Roommates, “tell me all about it later, right?”

“Absolutely,” Faye promised, knowing she would under no circumstances attempt any such thing.

Haluk nodded, relieved that the contract was thus upheld and he’d gotten off the hook of listening to Faye’s radio shows, and headed up to the strider cockpit, leaving Faye alone in the hold. She took a deep breath, savoring the quiet. For a moment, she thought the dim cargo hold lit with strings of lights had started to come apart at the seams. Light poured in through the cracks in the world, and a pattern emerged like sound waves rippling through the planes of the room.

It only lasted a moment. The strider engine coughed, sputtered, turned over, and the hold tilted and swayed as the legs began to move. Reality returned with the rhythmic thunder of the feet hitting the ground and shuddering through the hull.

Tea. Tea would help. Faye went upstairs to the kitchen to start the kettle. Then she retrieved her magnetic tape player from her footlocker and set it up on the table. By the time her tea was ready, the strider had reached its destination. Silence settled over the cabin.

She pushed play.

Music blared, and Faye hummed along with it before the narrator’s voice crackled over the tape. “Antium’s elite lancers answer to no one—except the Emperor, Himself. Between the dark of night and the light of day, stands the Dawnguard. The season of Icetide is upon us. What will the chill winds bring for our heroes this time?”

Faye leaned forward in her seat, sipping her tea as the familiar voice of Walker, the Dawnguard leader, came on the tape. “Gather round, Freelancers. We have a mission.” Faye always pictured Walker as a grizzled javelin-armored version of her own mother. Dark skinned, dark-haired, and hewn entirely from steel. An unfamiliar treble voice joined hers. “Members of the Dawnguard, my name is Cypher Mirron."

Faye tensed. Why were they adding a new cypher? Cypher Rada had been with the series for the past five seasons. Rada was Faye’s favorite character. She braced herself for any number of bad one-off-special story twists.

“If this ends up being a dream,” Faye muttered warningly, “I’m chucking this tape directly over Tarsis Falls.”

The new cypher continued, “I have come directly from Corvus with news of most critical importance.”

Suddenly, a reverberating clang sounded through the strider. A motor in the cargo bay squealed painfully, lowering the elevator from the strider rooftop. Faye winced and stopped the tape.

She looked over the railing into the hold. Two javelins stepped off the lift into a space which, any sane person could tell, was not designed to contain even one javelin. The first was a Ranger whose armor was decorated with pink flame decals. The second was an Interceptor painted to look like it was covered in phiranix scales. They peered around the room in a nervous manner, shuffling their steel feet and trying without success to avoid bumping into each other or knocking down any of the decorations hanging perilously close to their heads. The Interceptor had already managed to get a paper snowflake stuck to their arm, elbowing the Ranger in the chest while trying to remove it with their oversized metal hands.

Haluk shouted from the top of the stairs to the cockpit. “All right, Freelancers! Let’s make this quick!”

“Haluk.” Faye managed to put into that one word the possibility that she might save her friend the trouble of climbing all the stairs by flinging him over the railing.

Haluk paused midway through the kitchen. “Sorry, sorry. I’ll get them outside so they won’t bother you.” He stomped quickly down the rest of the way to the hold.

Faye stared intently at the cabinet across from her, drumming her fingers on her teacup.

“Don’t get too cozy.” Haluk's voice boomed up from the bay. “I’m getting my suit and we’re going right back out. No sense trying to learn the layout of the track in here.”

This was followed up by a great deal of grunting as he climbed into his Colossus, with more nervous foot shuffling from the two lancers waiting for him. The thunderous clunking of Haluk’s armor stepping off the forge announced that he had at least made his Gateway connection well enough to move this time.

“Now,” Haluk’s voice came out filtered through his helmet, “when we get out there, remember, stay loose and ready for anything.” A pause. “What is it, Verder?”

Faye hazarded a glance down at them.

The already-crowded space was entirely overwhelmed by Haluk’s massive Colossus suit, which was draped in a string of lights he’d accidentally pulled down while exiting the forge. The Ranger lowered a raised hand, and an alto voice filtered out of the helmet uncertainly. “Uh… how do you stay ready for anything? That’s… a lot of things.”

Another pause. Then Haluk said, in what Faye recognized as his most diplomatic tone, “You know what? We’ll work on that. Come on, Ardsley, you go first.” He nodded toward the lift.

“Me?” The voice from the fish-scaled Interceptor was tenor and a little aggrieved. “Fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

The lift motor engaged again, the squeal even more shrill with three javelins to move. Faye shut her eyes as though hoping she could block out the sound that way. A final clang resonated through the strider as the lift stopped.

Silence.

Faye set down her tea, which had gone cold. She took a deep breath and held it, waiting. Haluk inevitably forgot something. Or one of those Freelancers would come back to use the lavatory. Something.

After another beat of silence, she let out her held breath and pushed play.

“…To answer the Emperor’s concern—” the perpetually worried voice of Lancer Hawking was mid-sentence when Faye stopped the tape again, irritated. She’d missed something. She rewound and hit play again.

The intro music blared again. “Antium’s elite lancers answer to no one—except the Emperor, Himself. Between the dark of night and the light of day, stands the Dawnguard. The season of Icetide is upon us. What will the chill winds bring for our heroes this time?”

The new cypher character began their introduction again, “Members of the Dawnguard—"

The strider’s intercom came to life with a loud burst of static, and Faye narrowly resisted the urge to fling her teacup at it.

“Hey, Faye?” Haluk’s twice-filtered voice sounded vaguely apologetic. “Sorry about this. Could you go up to the cockpit and turn up our transmitter? Our signal keeps cutting in and out.”

Faye stopped the tape again with a sigh and rose to her feet. The stairs at the other end of the kitchen led up to the narrow cockpit. This, more than any other part of the strider, was Haluk’s room, and it appeared as though Icetide had exploded in it. Haluk had left a stack of unfinished paper snowflakes and a box of tinsel in the driver’s seat, and the control panel was now festooned with plush korox dolls and more colored lights. A knit scarf, easily four meters long, had been stuffed under the console, and Faye could not even begin to fathom what that had been for. Was he going to dress his javelin in it? She found the transmitter board and cranked the power up. Then she turned to use the intercom, which had paper korox cutouts stuck over it.

She stabbed the intercom button hard enough that she nearly bruised her finger. “Done.” Faye’s voice came out much more annoyed than she’d intended.

Another loud crackle from the intercom. “Thanks, Faye! Sorry again for the trouble.”

She cast another glance at the holiday chaos of the cockpit, gave a sigh of disgust, and descended the stairs to the kitchen.

Faye glowered at the tape player and hit rewind again. She needed more tea. And snacks. Why was she even attempting this without snacks? She put the kettle on again and waited for it to boil.

In the silence of the kitchen, patterns seemed to emerge from the faces of the cabinets and the floor, rippling along to an unheard sound. Faye squeezed her eyes shut to keep the patterns out. If she didn’t watch them, she wouldn’t hear it, right? She held her breath, hoping, as the chthonian notes of the Anthem of Creation thrummed through the strider kitchen, shivering through her feet and up her spine.

The kettle whistled loudly and clicked off. Faye opened her eyes, slowly releasing the breath she’d been holding. She rose unsteadily, poured herself a new cup of tea, and carried it with exaggerated caution back to the table. She returned to her seat as though fearing she might fall through the chair.

She pushed play.

The lift screamed in protest and Faye immediately stopped her tape again.

Haluk stomped his massive Colossus over to the forge.

Faye moved to lean on the railing, watching him struggle, red-faced, out of the suit, and a warning went off in her mind. “Trouble?” she asked, a hundred angry comments drying up unvoiced.

“Suit problems.” Haluk waved angrily at the empty Colossus which they both knew worked perfectly. “The Gateway connection comes and goes. The limbs started locking up, and then I lost the transmitter. I should find a better use for this old hunk of junk.” He picked up his cane and started up the stairs. “Like a coat rack, or a trash can.”

“It would make an excellent paperweight,” Faye agreed, honoring the terms of the Contract of Roommates, watching her friend take out his frustration with himself by stomping as much as possible on each individual stair. Helpfully, she added, “or a planter, perhaps? Fill it with ferns, it would brighten up the whole strider.”

Haluk guffawed, shaking his head. “Well, I’m going to try to keep on the radio with those kids.” He paused in the stairwell to the cockpit and looked sheepish. “Sorry… again. For all the interruptions.”

“You’d better be.”

“I’ll make it up to you!” Haluk shouted down to her from partway up the stairs. “We get back to Fort Tarsis, I’ll buy you an order of those dumplings you like.”

“Make it two.” She sat back down at the table, and restarted her tape.

“Antium’s elite lancers answer to no one—except the Emperor, Himself. Between the dark of night and the light of day, stands the Dawnguard. The season of Icetide is upon us. What will the chill winds bring for our heroes this time?”

“Gather round, Freelancers—"

Sure enough, the strider’s engines reluctantly turned over and the cabin began to sway with the thumping of the feet on the ground. With a sigh of infinite frustration, Faye stopped the tape again. She stared at the floor beside her feet, silently rehearsing the argument she was about to begin with her roommate.

Cracks opened up in the floor, with light pouring out of them. Strange, cold light in which she thought she could see shapes moving.

“Sorry, Faye.” Haluk crackling over the intercom drove away the vision. “There’s a mountain or something getting in the way of the radio signal. Trying to find a better spot.”

Relief and annoyance fought a short, brutal battle in her head. No victor was declared. Slowly, deliberately, Faye rose to her feet. She walked through the swaying cabin, climbed the stairs, and reached Haluk as he brought the strider to a halt. As he disconnected himself from the Gateway, pulling his consciousness out of the strider and back into his body, she grabbed a plush korox from the control panel and threw it as hard as she could at him. It struck him square in the chest with a wheezy squeak and bounced onto the floor.

“Faye!” Haluk looked startled, and he half-rose from the driver’s seat. “Listen, I’ll make it up to—”

She waved for him to stop. “No. Enough.” She took a deep breath to calm herself. “Do you want me to coordinate… whatever this is you’re doing?”

“Nah, I don’t want to bother you.” Haluk, to his credit, looked immediately embarrassed once the words had left his mouth. “More than… I already have, I guess.”

Faye took a breath to snap at him, then let it out again. “It's no problem. I’ll fire up the amplifier.”

Maybe she couldn’t remember past holidays. She would remember this one.

Haluk sat back down, looking relieved. He leaned over the radio. “Hey, you two, can you hear me? Hang tight a second. We’ve got a cypher incoming.”

Faye walked back to the amplifier and climbed into the chair. The connection engaged and the threads of her consciousness rushed out of her body, the enclosed strider cabin, its colored lights and paper decorations dissolving into the vastness of the Gateway. In the darkness, she could see the twinkling lights of Haluk reconnecting to the strider and the two rookie Freelancers in their javelins. She reached out and touched them, drawing them into her mind, and was soon looking out at the snow falling in Bastion through two sets of eyes and the strider’s optics. She could smell the ice on the wind and feel frost forming on the skin of the strider. The world felt so close and so real.

“All right, Freelancers,” she said, “let’s get to work.”

Through the Gateway, profoundly out of tune, Haluk started humming an Icetide carol. After a moment, Faye sent him the words.

Special thanks to John Dombrow, Ryan Cormier, Cathleen Rootsaert, Jay Watamaniuk, Karin Weekes.

[im-a-fander-of-sander-sides]

The Lower and Higher Do

Character(s): Remus, Roman mention, Deceit mention

Tw: Remus, Sympathetic Remus, Blood, small innuendo joke, mentions of murder and death, a Mace, Deceit mention, mention of Animal Death, Tentacles

~^~°~^~°~^~°~^~°~^~

Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do

Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do

It's a simple phrase really. A simple Do, aimed for a lower scale sound. All the way to the highest Do. Remus always felt that it was unnecessary to have two Dos. Why not a Di? Or a Od? They could've just put in Ed too. Or Re. Maybe Ro- Remus shook that name. Literally. He grabbed the fray letters from the air. It was something he could do. Something he wanted to do. He saw "Ro". He summoned three more letters. "Man". Remus held tight to the letters. Searching around his room, he grabbed his Mace, while placing the all the letters into one hand. He then rushed out of his- Their room. A treasure that he has is the ability to slip out and slip in.

"Slip into a butt.." Remus chuckled to himself in a low hush. Exhibiting a lower Do. Remus continued on, passing through many of his brother's People he had created. Just a little perfect village with a grand castle surrounded by forest.

Remus hated it. He hated all the people around him. They weren't real. So why would his brother get mad at him for hurting them? He could just fix it. Remus doesn't understand. He wants to understand. But he can't.

"I wonder if Thomas can stand underneath a moving car..." Remus thought aloud to himself passing through the village undetected. Dumb falsities. "No, no, no..." He paused aloud, "He needs to stand up on the top of a train! Then jump off! That'll be fun to watch!" Remus did a small twirl, watching his ruffles bounce along. When Remus made it to the edge of the village, there was a place beyond it. Remus wasn't allowed to live there. It wasn't just Roman who denied it. But also Deciet. Remus didn't understand. Standing on a train. Pushing someone off. They die. Life is so interesting. It can fall in under a second.

Remus pushed pass some of the ivy and leaves that littered the area. At some point he did a little skip, but in honesty, Deciet doesn't speak honestly, he lies, he's good at that. But in all honesty Remus didn't know where he was going. Sometimes where he wanted to go was just where he wanted it to be. Other times he needed to find it. This was a finding day. Like a scavenger hunt. But maybe the eggs are bombs. Egg shells....

"Bomb-Shells!" Remus shot out excitingly. He should hide these during the Easter Egg Hunt that the others usually threw. Well...

"If they invited me." His once gleeful stare fell into a dark and cold on. He glanced ahead and found his place. His home away from home. If was a long tower surrounded by a simple moat. It was a little disappointing that it wasn't raining. He'd change that later though. As Remus stepped inside his familiar home, he noticed how empty it was. Compared to the castle, this place was bare. Less crowded.

"Perfect." Another low do of a growl. Remus placed the letters on the cold stone flooring, spelling "Roman". Remus grabbed his Mace, holding it with two hands. Staring at the word. The name. The meaning behind it. The past behind it. He hated it. He hated this. His tower was his home. Not the castle. Remus swung the Mace above his head, before letting it fall onto the words with a loud echo that circulated the bare tower. Remus hit it again. It was a high do. He hit it again, and again, the word slowly caving in on itself. Remus hit it again, and instead of dust or crumbling letter, blood started to poor out.

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Remus laughed. He then snapped up, staring at the ceiling. "Thomas should climb up there. I should climb up there." Remus remarked, talking to no one, not even himself. Slowly, from behind him, tentacles that belonged to the Kraken itself sprung from him. Remus used them to grip onto the ceiling and he sat there for a moment. He felt the blood rushing to his head.

"I wonder if too much blood causes your head to explode." Remus pondered, "Maybe... Maybe it's like a balloon. A blood filled balloon. That would make a fun balloon fight." Remus laughed to himself. As Remus looked down towards the ground, he saw the smashed letters. It was obvious what they had spelled. But still looked beaten.

Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.

Such a simple phrase. Looking at the mangled letters, a rage appeared within Remus. He shot to the ground, baring his teeth at the letters. He summoned his Mace and once more took another swing.

Loved.

"Shut up...." Remus found himself whispering.

Admired.

"Shut up!" Remus smashed the word again, increasing his volume.

Better.

"SHUT UP!" Remus screamed, bashing once more. He stood there, realizing that some of the blood the letters shot out was on him. He laughed.

Not Scary.

Remus stopped laughing. That wasn't funny. Funny is watching a chicken get its head chopped off and watching it run around, before finally passing away. That was funny.

"I'm not..." Remus returned to a low whisper.

Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.

He was the lower Do. Used for the broody music. Used for drama. For horror.

Roman was the higher do. Used for the more bubbly music. For Disney. For... For happy endings.

Remus stared at his Mace.

"Why...?" He whispered.

"Whywhywhywhy???" He started to almost yell out. "WHY ARE THERE TWO DOS?" He screamed. "WHY CAN'T THERE BE ONE?" He started to bash just the floor. It echoed, but no damage was done. Remus grew fury. He repeated to hit the ground. Each hit less stronger than the one before it.

After an hour, Remus gave up and clung to the cold stone wall. He should redecorate. Not now. But later. Remus shuffled his knees close to him.

Do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do.

A simple tune. A simple message. A complicated mistake.

~^~°~^~°~^~°~^~°~^~

((please tell me if I need to tag anything else! Hopefully this wasn't too bad. 😅))

[ashenious]

Some Grand Affairs Amongst the Normality - Chapter 8 of ??? (Dante/Reader)

Overall Story Rating: Mature Overall Story Tags: Alcohol, Big Snake, (Like literally a big snake), Blood, Body Horror, Dead Body Mention, Fluff, Gore Mention, Depressive Thoughts, Drugging, IV Mention, Nausea, Nightmares, Reader is regular boring Human, Reader likes to clean, Reader is also a troublemaker, Slow Burn, Suicide Mention, There was only one bed,

For This Chapter: Rating: Mature Warnings: Blood Additional: A little bit of Violence Word Count: 5979

Part 1/Part 2/Part 3/Part 4/Part 5/Part 6/Part 7/Part 8/Part 9/ Part 10/Part 11/Part 12/Part 13/Part 14

AO3 Link: Part 1/Part 2/Part 3/Part 4/Part 5/Part 6/Part 7/Part 8/Part 9/Part 10/Part 11/Part 12/Part 13/Part 14

           You don’t know how long you sat in darkness for, but for the entire time that you couldn’t see anything your mind lingered on the things you had done in the morning. Replaying the day, you remembered fleeing your house at the smell of Alecz’s horrid coffee and making your way to Devil May Cry, and you remembered how awful Dante looked before he left the store to go search for clues to the case he was working. 

           Where your memory started to blur, however, was after Dante had left. You were able to remember sitting down and sorting out all the case files on Dante’s desk, and you remembered reading the information about the possible victims within the files, although many of the details about them were hazy and unclear in your mind as you tried to think of them. There was also the map that you had gotten out from one of the shelves in the store too, and it was possible that you tried to write down the locations of the mix drinks and/or murder victims’ body locations, because those were the only things that made sense to put on a map.

           Your memory fails to recall much after you started comparing the victim’s information to some other information you had pulled from somewhere else, and as you tried your hardest to recall what exactly you were comparing to the victim’s info, your head throbbed. You grew irritated at the throbbing quickly, as each time you tried to dig into the back of your mind to think of what you were just doing, a pulse of pain shot through your head. Finally having enough of the pain, you slowly opened your eyes, wanting to find something to take to rid yourself of the annoyance in you.

          Expecting to see the Devil May Cry store as you peeped your eyes open, you felt yourself tense up at the sight before you that was not the store and was, in fact, a place you had never been before.

          It was almost completely dark where you were, with the only source of light being a little bit of light that was peeking through little slits in the ceiling. Trying to look up, you groaned at the sudden pain that shot through your head and neck, causing you to flinch your arms as you tried to reach up and grab at your forehead, but when your arms did not meet your head and instead remained in place above you, you began to panic.

           Glancing up again, this time aware of the pain that was going to shoot through you, you braced yourself and quickly looked up, a gasp leaving your mouth at the pain and your eyes slamming shut despite your awareness of the pain. You breathed harshly through your nose for a few seconds, and as you counted the seconds that passed by, the pain slowly dulled in your neck and head. Once the pain was tolerable, you slowly opened your eyes, and tried to steady your breath.

          What you saw first were you arms above you, held in place by metal cuffs, the sight of which made the panic inside of you grow even more. You pulled at the cuffs, cursing as the harsh edges dug into your wrists. Twisting your arms around to be able to at least change your position a bit, you felt your elbows pop at the rotation, a feeling that again caused you to curse before you twisted your arms back to their original place.

           Looking away from your arms and their confines, you moved your eyes to focus on the lights above you and slowly went over the entire ceiling. You were able to see the light coming through the slits at equal distances apart, but only a little bit of light was able to come through from above, only enough to illuminate what appeared to be sides of support beams running perpendicular to the lights. You cocked your head a bit, completely confused as to where you could be, but as you stared longer at the support beams and lights, you realized that you had to be under some sort of wooden flooring with how evenly spread out the slits where.

           Taking your eyes away from the ceiling, you tried to focus your sight to in front of you, and as your eyes slowly adjusted to not looking at light anymore, you skimmed around the room slowly in hopes of seeing anything else that may be in the room with you.

           As you were looking around you, a loud and sudden crack came from above, causing you to jump as a sudden flood of light rushed into the room from the far ceiling corner of the room. Closing your eyes quickly at the rush of light, you heard a few thuds above you, and as you heard the thuds, you knew you were in fact below wooden flooring of some sorts.

           “Finally awake?” came a voice suddenly just before you heard another rather soft thud in front of you. Slowly opening your eyes to allow them to adjust to the new light, you caught sight of a person standing on the other side of the room, their body leaning on a small table that you couldn’t see when it was dark. You stared at the person, your eyes running over their whole being for a second before you saw the tattoo on their arm that seemed faintly familiar.

           “…Who…Well, where am I?” you finally asked as you kept your eyes on the man. He chuckled, and as he pulled himself off of the desk and started to walk over to where you were stuck, you felt yourself tense up.

           “Don’t worry, you’re safe here,” the man said as he stopped before you, and as his hand came up closer to your face, you tried to throw your head back away from it, smacking yourself sharply into the wall. “Come on now, you’re gonna pass out again if you do that,” the man said, his tone sharp as his hand grabbed onto your chin and lowered your face to look at him.

          “Ya’know, that probably wouldn’t be a bad thing…” you muttered as you felt your head throb a little. You watched as the expression on the man before you changed, and as you watched him, his eyes went over your face, leaving you feeling disgusted at his gaze and at his hand as it firmly held on to your chin.

           “Yeah, and why’s that?” he asked quietly, his hand finally releasing itself from you as both his hands went to rest on his sides.

           “Cause then I wouldn’t have to look at you,” you said quietly, your head turning away from the man to look around the room quickly. There wasn’t much in the room besides the desk on the other end, just one chair and what appeared to be a dirty pillow on the floor in the far corner were all that was present.

           Hearing a strangled noise next to you, you turned your gaze to the man, your eyes catching the quick sight of blurred flesh coming at you before you unable to see anything but black again. You had a feeling that the man wasn’t going to take well to your remark, but you were surprised that he would so quick to knock you out. As you sat in darkness, you mind focused on the man and who he was. His tattoo was so familiar to you, something you knew you had seen before but you were unable to find the memories of where you had seen it before in your mind.

           As you slowly accepted that you wouldn’t be able to dig up the memory you wanted, you felt yourself come back to conscious. Your line of sight came back more slowly than it had previously, and as you slowly opened your eyes a bit, a sharp throb of pain struck through your head.

           Trying again to move your hands to your head, you realized that they were no longer above you but were now behind you, and as you tried to adjust yourself, you also realized that there was a pleasant feeling of coldness on one of your arms as well as your face. Shifting your body a bit, you found yourself able to sit up slowly, and you looked around the room slowly before you noticed the metal cuffs on the wall that had once held you. You were now free from them it seemed, but not completely free to move as your arms were still held together with something behind your back.

          Twisting your arms around a bit, you struggled to identify what exactly what was holding your arms tightly, as you could feel that the material was rough but wasn’t like anything you had felt before. Sighing, you twisted your arms back into place and slowly slid your legs in front of you. Pushing on the ground, you slowly backed into the cold wall, and struggled to cross your legs in front of you. Finally accomplishing a ‘comfortable’ position, you waited, your eyes falling down to your legs as you waited for them to adjust to the darkness.

           For the entire time you were alone in the room, all you had were your thoughts to entertain yourself. You thought about the room you were in, the man who had put you here, the case as a whole and how you got here, and at some point your mind wandered onto thoughts of Devil May Cry and Dante.

           The room was stuffy, to say the least, and it was horrible. Your eyes had long adjusted to the lack of light inside, and as long as you kept your head down, then you were able to see the outline of the desk, chair, and pillow that were nearby. The desk and chair sat on the other side of you, and both were just simple pieces of furniture: the desk had no drawers on it, and looked like it was barely being held up by its worn wooden legs, and the chair was hardly any different as it looked like it would break if you sat on it. The pillow in the corner was the weirdest thing to you, as it was hardly recognizable as a pillow. You had scooted over to poke it with your foot at some point to confirm it was a pillow and not just a pile of mold. The puff of air it let out when you barely nudged it horrified you and you quickly found yourself retreating back into the corner opposite of it. You kept a close eye on it as you worried the pile of mold would gain sentience and come eat you with how disgusting it was. At least if the moldy pillow came to life and attacked you, you wouldn’t have to die at the hands of a serial killer who may eat humans with how strange his M.O. was.

           In the short encounter that you had had with the man who lived above, you hadn’t learned anything extraordinary about him, nor did you learn anything while you sat under the flooring in complete silence. You had insulted his looks, but he looked just like any other person, and you had only insulted him to get a reaction out of him, thankful that he knocked you out and then left you alone afterwards. Maybe his ego was hurt and he didn’t want to deal with you anymore, or maybe he was just going about his daily life, completely aware that there was a person sitting below his floorboards and grinning about it. Either way, you preferred to be alone than in his company.

          He looked average at best, minus his tattoo which looked like it had just been finished as the colours on it stood out and the linework was crisp. His tattoo bothered you still, as when you saw it before, there was a feeling of nagging that had begun to pull at you, but you were unable to find any memory of seeing such a tattoo before. It was almost maddening, knowing that there was something in your brain that your body knew and was telling you through the nagging feeling, and yet you had no way to stop the feeling or any way to dig up the memory you needed to remember.

           The presence of the man, when he was in the room earlier, disgusted you to your core. You weren’t sure why, but as soon as the man had entered the room, you felt your body tense up, a feeling of disgust running through it. You knew he was a demon as the dense feeling in your chest let you know, but there was something else about him, something that you couldn’t quite put words to, that made you want to avoid him at all costs. Maybe it was because you knew what the man had done to the other people, knew that he had killed so many people for seemingly unknown reasons, that you physically felt disgusted at him. The feeling of disgust lingered on your face from where he had punched you, and you wished for nothing more than a hot shower to wash it off.  

           You thought about all of the man’s victims, all 9 of them, and how each of them had probably all sat in the same exact position you were in: in pain, tied up and terribly alone in the cold, dark room, unaware of how much time had passed since they first were brought in. They were probably very confused and frightened at what was happening, unsure of what their fates would be when the man came back to see them. It made your stomach turn to think about how terrified each of them must have been the entire time, and if you had anything in your stomach to release, you would have probably thrown it up with how angry you were at the man.

           It was as you were thinking about the case that your mind wandered over to the store, and in turn, Dante. You wondered what he was up to, if he had found your note and ran straight to Morrison and Lady about it, or if he had gone out to try to find you. Was he just waiting now, as the days slowly ticked down to the date you had left on the note for him, or was he still looking around the city for more clues to solve this case? You hoped that he had gotten some sleep at least, and you hoped the stress that was on him had lightened up, even just a little bit.

           You recalled the first time you had drank with Dante, with your mind dwelling on the memory of him killing the large snake demon in front of the store, and your body dwelling on the craving for a strong drink. It seemed like it wasn’t that long ago that you had sat down with him and asked him so many questions about demons and their existences, but it had been half a year since that long night, something you could barely believe. It had become such a normal thing to find yourself at Devil May Cry every week after that day, the feeling of excitement driving you to wake up early and walk to the store each day off you had.

           Every time you had walked into the store, no matter what was happening, whether it was Dante getting bullied by Lady, or the man getting day drunk as he had just returned from a job, there was always a warm and pleasant feeling that flooded you as soon as you opened the door. You thought about Dante’s smile, how it’d warm your heart to see when he laughed at a dumb pun you’d come up with, or how sometimes just seeing his dumb face would be enough to lighten your mood on bad days, and it was as you were sitting in the corner that you longed for just one more day of that normality.

           This case had caused the man so much stress, and the more months that it drew on, the more stress it seemed to cause him. He was worried about the victims, it was obvious as he had spent so much time going around the city to try to finish this case, and you knew he had been turning down other jobs as he focused on this one. You wondered how Dante felt as he wandered the streets as he tried to find information, how the worry inside him was affecting his stress levels.

           You wondered if Dante was worried about you. You knew his worry was about finding the killer and preventing him was taking new people, but right now, with you being the next victim, was he worried about you? There was a part of you felt like he was, hoped he was, and it gave you a horrible feeling to think that.

          It wasn’t that you wanted him to be worried, as it would’ve been better if he didn’t have to worry at all, but that part of you who wanted Dante to worry about you did wonder if he would miss you next Thursday when you didn’t show up at the store. You knew you would miss him, hell, you already missed him. You missed him every week when you left Devil May Cry until the moment you walked in again the next week. It was embarrassing, and it horrified you, but that part of you that wanted him to miss you too still remained.

           Between your thoughts and almost sporadically it seemed, you’d find yourself drifting to sleep, your eyes and body heavy for some reason. You thought it was odd that you were dozing off so much while you were doing nothing, but at the same time it made sense as your thoughts could only entertain you for so long before the feeling of boredom would overtake you again. The feeling of boredom was welcome, however, in contrast to the feeling of dread that filled you every time you’d think about how much time you had left before day 5 and then, the more dreaded point on the criminal’s timeline, day 10 would come up.

           As you sat in the corner of the room again, your mind wandering over from thought to thought as time passed by without an indication still, you were brought back to reality from your overslept, madness dazed state by the sudden appearance of light flooding into the room, a sight that would’ve been welcome if it weren’t for the accompanied body that appeared from the light onto the floor before you.

           You only saw the man for a second before something was thrown on you, and it collided with your body for you didn’t have the energy to even attempt to dodge the incoming object. As the item fell from your chest to your lap, you quickly recognized it as your bag, and as you looked over the now dirty and ripped bag, you wondered how the man came into procession of it. You remembered bringing it with you to Devil May Cry, but you had yet to remember anything new from that day so you weren’t sure if you had had your bag on you when you were taken.

           “Who do you work for?!” the man screamed sudden, his body quickly moving across the room. He reached down as he stood in front of you, grasping your shirt before almost effortlessly lifting you up from the ground only to push you harshly into the wall. You gasped at the sudden force being pressed on you, and as your arms struggled to remain unsquished under your weight and the man’s press, you tried to keep your eyes on the ground. “I asked you a question!” the man shouted, his free hand coming up to grab your chin roughly and forcing you to face him.

           “I don’t work for anyone,” you spat at him. You weren’t lying to the man as you weren’t hired to work on finding him, but you knew that he wasn’t going to accept that answer, and as you felt the fist in your shirt clench and your body being moved, you braced yourself before you were thrown across the room.

           You slid across the floor for a second after you slammed into the wooden flooring, a loud groan coming from you as you finally stopped. You closed your eyes tightly as you breathe heavily, trying to help the pain that was coursing through your whole body from the hard impact. Hearing footsteps approaching, you refused to open your eyes at the sound, instead again bracing yourself for anything that could happen.

           “I was nice to the other ones, but I won’t be to you!” you heard from behind closed eyes. Just as the footsteps stopped right before you, your left arm was grabbed at the elbow suddenly and you were raised up roughly. It was only a second after you were brought to be sitting up that you felt something cold and sharp on the inside of your forearm. Snapping your eyes open at the feeling, you soon felt a sharp pain rip through your arm with a warmth quickly flowing down you, and as you cried out at the pain, the hold on your elbow only tightened. The man pressed his claw into your arm more, causing you to flinch away and cry out more.

          You turned your gaze to your arm quickly, your breathing turning harsh and rapid at the sight of blood flowing out of your arm and onto the floor and your legs. You refused to look at the man who held you, but you knew he had a twisted grin on his face as he watched you, his gratification in hurting you so strong that you could feel it radiate around him. As his hand refused to release you when you pulled against it, you couldn’t tell what you felt more disgusting from: his emotions and touch, or the sticky blood that was now covering you.

          As blood slid down your arm, your captor brought up a small glass to the flow, gently scrapping it along your skin into the path of blood and collected it until the glass was complete full. You tried to pull away again, your arm attempting to yank itself from the man, and it was when you felt the claw press further into your arm that you stopped yourself and turned your attention to your breaths. You worked to slow down your erratic breathing as you started seeing spots around your vision, hoping to prevent yourself from having a complete panic attack in front of the unpredictable culprit.

           “I think that this is enough for now,” whispered the man as he stood up, his arm pulling you up a bit as he rose. You continued to focus on your breathing, your eyes fixated on the floor as you attempted to work your lungs to take in slower and deeper breaths. You felt the hand on you tighten a bit when you didn’t respond, and it was only a moment later that your eyes focused on the sight of a foot coming in close before it collided with your face.

          You were thrown to the side by the force of the kick, the man’s hand releasing you as you were tossed back. Landing on the ground roughly, you tried your best to keep your head from slamming into the floor, but as you felt your back take the impact of another kick, you lost your ability to brace yourself as you cried out from the pain that was surging through your body.

           After the second kick hit, you knew the man was saying something to you, but your head was spinning, the surroundings of the room were completely out of focus as you tried to open your eyes a bit, and your ears were ringing loudly. The pain in your arm was less apartment now as the pain in your back became your main focus, as each breath that you took caused a jolt of pain to run through your entire body. You again tried to calm yourself and your breaths, but as the pain in your chest and head continued to throb, you found yourself unable to stop the rapid breaths that left you.

           You didn’t hear the man behind you leave the room, but as suddenly as the light had appeared before, it was gone, the opening from above closing behind him. You remained laying on the floor, your breaths still the only thing you could focus on. You weren’t sure how long you were on the floor for, as you weren’t able to count the time as it passed while you tried to gain control of your breathing. It felt like an eternity before you were able to take a deep breath again, and the feeling of being able to completely fill your lungs was complete bliss to you. Yet you still remained on the floor, fear keeping your from moving, and it wasn’t long after you began to breathe almost normally again that you noticed that you were shaking and crying.

          You tried to blink out all of the tears from your eyes, but as they slid from your cheek directly onto the floor more were made to replace the ones that were creating a puddle on the floor. You gave up on trying to stop yourself from crying, instead you turned your attention to the throbbing in your arm that matched your heart rate.

            You knew you should be moving, knew that now was your chance to try to escape, but you couldn’t bring your body to move. You could only focus on the pain in your arm now. You had lost a lot of blood, it was obvious from the puddle that was on the ground near you and as you felt more blood seep down your arm the longer you stayed on the floor.

          Everything felt horrible right now, your arm was throbbing in time with your heart, your back had a dull pain lingering in it that threatened your breathing still, your head pounded from its collision with the man’s foot and then the floor, but it was your heart that hurt the most of all.

           You weren’t sure how long you had been on the ground, how long you sat in physical pain, but it seemed like you had spent hours laying on the cold floor as blood slowly gathered underneath you. It may have only been a few minutes in reality as your blood wasn’t flooding out of you due to your complete dehydration, but those few minutes were agonizing as your body rested on the floor, your cheek and arm growing cold from the wooden flooring, and the throbbing of pain coursing through you.

           The longer you waited for something to happen, the more you found yourself trying to ignore the physical pain that you felt and the more you turned to focus on the pain you felt inside, the piercing of despair more prominent in your heart the more the seconds ticked on passed you.

           You thought about how you had gotten here, to this point where you lay slowly bleeding out while you waited for something, anything, to happen. It was as you were thinking about the man who had cut you down and the tattoo that he had on his arm, with its familiarity that had bothered you so much before, that you finally began to remember what you had done after you left Devil May Cry.

           Maybe it was because you were losing so much blood, or maybe it was the complete panic and despair that you felt inside, but your brain slowly released the locked up memories of the bar, and although they were fuzzy, you replayed them in your head as a way to keep yourself from thinking about your body that was slowly becoming cold in a way like you had never felt before.

          You knew what your chances of surviving walking straight into the hands of a serial killer were, you had accepted that there was a good chance you wouldn’t be able to walk away alive once you had walked into the bar, and at the time you were okay with that. It was something that you felt like you needed to do, something that you felt compelled to do given the situation. You knew that the victims of this killer were suffering, it was obvious by what he was doing with the different items he was leaving around town that he enjoyed hurting them, and you couldn’t stand it.

           You had no way of knowing what Dante, or Lady, or even Morrison were going to do when they arrived back at Devil May Cry, expecting to find you there cleaning only to find a piece of paper with simple coordinates and today’s date on it, whether or not they would understand what they were supposed to do with that information.

           It was as you were laying there that you cursed yourself for not writing down more information for them, but time was short when you had left them a note, and you knew you had to hurry. Someone was going to be taken again soon, and you needed to make sure that the next person taken was you, to prevent someone else from feeling the pain that this man was going to inflict on them.

            You were aware of what was going to happen to you when you sat down at the bar, the pictures of victims inside your bag as bait for the man, and at the time you were okay with it; okay with what was going to happen, whether you lived or died in the hands of this serial killer, because at least someone else was being spared the pain. Even if Dante, Lady, and Morrison didn’t understand your note, even if it was after you were gone that they found the mix drink at your birthday’s coordinates that they understood what the killer was doing, at the very least the culprit wouldn’t have hurt and killed an innocent person with no idea what was going to happen.

           And yet, even though you knew that you had accepted that you were probably going to die, why did you still feel such horrid despair inside you? You knew that this was a possibility for you, knew that the man was taking his victim’s blood, knew that the victims either died from their liver being removed or from the man setting them in fire on the 15th day of them being missing, but yet there was something sitting inside you that made you want to go back; to go back and redo everything so you wouldn’t end up here.

           You refused to call it regret, as you didn’t want someone else to be laying in your place, in pain and confused, but there was this part of you that did want that. You hated that part, you wished it would hide away and never return, and you felt shame for letting it exist inside you. Maybe it was that regret that was fueling your despair, but you knew that this was what you had whole heartedly wanted to do when you left your note, knew that you had actually fully accepted that this was going to be your fate. So then why did you feel regret? Was there something else you were supposed to do that you had forgotten about? Was there something you wanted to do before you died?

          You released a shaky breath, and as you slowly inhaled to release another, you began to tap your fingers gently on the floor as your sight slowly began to spot into darkness. It was a comfort to be able to still move them in the familiar way, the feeling of the wooden floor below you reminding you of Dante’s desk that you would always drum your fingers on.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

           It was an awkward angle that your arm sat at, and it almost hurt to turn your wrist completely to tap them on the floor, but still you continued.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

          There was a sudden noise from above, a crash that barely mattered to you as you kept the last amount of focus you had on your hand.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

          You could hear something happening above, but the noises were barely recognizable to you as they were muffled by the ceiling between you and them.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

           The noises continued on, with more crashes being heard as well as some thuds and cracks, and you thought you could hear the sounds of voices accompanying the chaos too, but you weren’t sure.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

            Your senses were slowly failing as your body grew colder, your ears gradually losing their ability to hear and your body slowly losing the ability to feel anything at all.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

          As sudden as the first crash, there was then silence from above. You struggled to keep your hand moving, the field of your sight almost completely gone, but still you willed yourself with a determination you didn’t know you had.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

 Tap.

           You froze, your mind confused at the sound of an odd number of taps. You never tapped your thumb, just your fingers, and the sound of that last tap bothered you. You could barely move yourself now, your arms slowly running cold as you saw your sight fade completely, but somehow you found one last ounce of strength in you to correct the wrong number of taps.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

           The chaos around you came on quickly, and yet you couldn’t see a thing that was happening. All that you could tell was that there were people around you, their movements all quick and vague as you tried your best to stay aware of them.

           You couldn’t feel anything anymore, the cold in your body having completely taken over your being, and your consciousness was fading quickly too. Your will was fading finally, the last bit of it being the only thing keeping you aware that anything was happening around you. That last shred of will kept you aware long enough to feel the warmth of a hand slide to the back of your neck and another to your cheek. The touch was so familiar, its warmth so needed as it remained on your cold skin.

           If you were able to move yourself, you would’ve leant into the hand, would’ve grabbed onto it and kept it pressed firmly against you forever. The feeling of pressure on you kept you conscious for just a few seconds longer, the warmth of it radiating through you as the hand seemingly refused to remove itself from you as its thumb gently ran itself under your eye. You realized, in your last few seconds aware, that the hand on you was not something you needed, instead it was something that was more than a need.

           You realized that there wasn’t something you wanted to do before you die, but there was, in fact, something you had wanted to have before you accepted you could die. It was that want that had fueled your despair from earlier you realized, and now that you had had a touch of what you wanted, you could feel the despair ebb away slowly as you faded to darkness.

           Comfort. It was comfort from another person that you longed for.

[ayurileopardsdream]

Crown’s Blessing - Chapter 1

  Description: Mario and Luigi aren’t the heroes anymore.

Author’s note: Sorry everyone, I believe it’s mandatory to have an intro page to each piece. So just jump right to that Read More!

Rating: T

Words: 1,800

Series: Mario Bros, etc.

Au: Reversed.

Characters / Pairing: Bowsette, Princess Peach. Powsette

Genre: romance, hurt & comfort, fluff, angst. Mild character death.

Welcome to the Reverse World. Be careful upon entry and there may not be a way back.

·ɹǝpɹo uᴉ sɓuᴉɥʇ ʇǝɓ sˌʇǝꓶ

Heh, just kidding. 

The universe wasn’t much different than the Original World. So.. why all the fear and tension?

The adventure into this new world started with a somewhat secret recon mission of the Mario brothers going to check up on the neighboring queen and her odd band of monster friends and servants. Spooky and creepy creatures in a land of beauty. It didn’t sit right for the red-clad figure. So he verbally dragged his anxious brother across the huge stone bridge that was uncomfortably hot under his boots... like it were a bridge over lava, but below was just cool water. That didn’t feel right at all. 

Ever since word of a Koopa queen came around, Princess Peach was mildly excited to see what that meant, for she’d only know what she did by books, tales, legends, stories. She’d never met one personally. 

Anyways, Mario had gotten an awful feeling upon first mention of this person, this creature. So he had to investigate. First stepping onto that soft grass with a tiptoe, hesitant about everything. Slowly but surely he approached the weird dragon-shelled castle, and entered cautiously. Luigi wasn’t far behind, even more awkward and jumpy, but he wasn’t as worried about a monster as his brother. Luigi was just... nervous about entering without permission.

Slowly entering the lovely foyer, red carpet somehow perfectly cut to go down every hall, every corridor. That must’ve been hell to make. Each wall was light gray stone with gold accents. It was certainly regal. No traps, no evil... it felt... peaceful. Happy. Wrong. Luigi was trying his best to be positive, waving and smiling being friendly towards the curious shy Boos and Koopa-Troopas and Dry Bones and Goombas, there were plenty other creatures to wave and say hello to, and the Piranha plants didn’t even try to bite or attack them! Luigi was actually having fun playing with everyone in the hallway, but Mario... just felt so sick. All this joy, all this niceness... for some reason he wanted lava, fire, flames, traps... he wanted danger! Monsters to fight and kick and stomp on! But... nothing! 

After going through multiple doors, Luigi doing most of the talking, they stood before big maroon and gold-edged doors. Behind this door... Mario felt unspeakable evil. Whatever was behind this door... was exactly what he was looking for. Behind these doors... was the truth.

Slowly opening those doors, flooded temporarily with white light, they entered, before taking everything in.

(I want this room to be very beautiful and meaningful, so this next little bit is a lot of explaining of the room)

It was a big stone throne-room. The whole castle was made of smooth stone, and there were 3 fat curved pillars on either side of the large room, with big red ribbons laced across the tops, golden braces above and below connecting the ceilings and floors, more of the red carpet leading all the way to the throne, with big flower pots in between the pillars, a giant skylight with the gorgeous light shining right onto... a stone statue at the back. A large creature, staring right in the boys’ direction, completely regal and calm in his stone throne. He was huge. Spiky, reptilian... a monster. And atop his head, between two large draconian horns, was a gold and pink crown, sitting neatly, on top of what looked like silvery thorns around the statue’s horns, head, scalp, and a little on the back of his neck. What... was this..? The crown looked like it didn’t belong there, but the crown, and the statue, was covered in a light blanket of dust. Behind the statue and its large throne almost high enough to touch the ceiling, was a large black flag with what looked like the statue’s face as a logo... like a pirate flag, but... Koopa. And before the statue of what they assumed was a long lost king, on a large upraised heart-shaped bed covered by some of the lowered sunlight.. was a beautiful woman in a long black dress... a long yellow tail that matched the stone statue’s, horns just like it... like a Koopa version of Princess Peach... just lying there... sleeping so soundly... peacefully... 

The boys stared in awe... both in beauty, but Mario also saw horror. Somehow... this peaceful creature... this woman... something just.. felt so wrong. Luigi just stayed by the door, taking in this wondrous place, and when Mario locked eyes with the statue across the room, he felt his chest tighten, the statue gained red glowing eyes and beamed at him, almost pulsated. A monster. Evil. 

He knew what he had to do.

“Luigi, gimme’a lift.” He said suddenly, shaking the green-clad brother out of his awe. Doing as his brother asked, he knelt down, grunting a little when his brother climbed onto his back. 

“What’a are you’a doing?” He asked shakily, before Mario hopped up, grabbing on of the decorative axes that hung proudly above the main doors. A long silver/stone axe with a wooden and gold decorative handle, like a spear axe, with a sharp poker tip at the end. 

Luigi’s eyes widened, but he felt frozen with shock. Reaching a hand out wordlessly as a sign to stop Mario, but the red-clad brother was already walking towards his prey. 

Sensing movement in her chambers, slowly the woman’s gorgeous aquamarine eyes fluttered open with a cute yawn and a puppy-like stretch, her tail uncurled and stretched too, then she curled her back up like a cat before rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Slowly rising up into a sitting position, blinking blurriness away... He striked.

It was faster than the blink of an eye. Mario had speed and strength. Piercing the heart of a sleeping dragon, to ensure it could not rise completely and attack its intruders. Stopping the predator by becoming the predator. More accurately, he penetrated Bowsette’s chest with the poke end of the axe, pushing it into her flesh just enough.

Luigi’s eyes widened in horror of what his brother had just done.

Mario looked into the eyes of the beast, watching them well up with tears of pain and confusion as blood began to coat the blade and leak out into her dress. Then slowly it coated her, red crimson blood, just like theirs. leaking out and pooling below her on the fluffy top of the bed’s layers. It was gruesome, watching it just ooze out of her slowly. The blade hadn’t gone all the way through thankfully, but Mario stood there, the shade and darkness from his hat covering half of his face. He was the one who looked dark and evil now. Vile. Wicked. 

Bowsette coughed and spluttered and wheezed air, staring up at the man who’d tried to kill her, feeling life slowly ebb away. She let her tears fall, so utterly confused and heartbroken by this invading stranger... what had she done to deserve this? Why was this happening? She couldn’t even form words.

Before anything else could happen, Mario climbed off the bed, feeling very proud of himself, and pulled Luigi out, closing the door behind him, and left the woman there. Just like that.

Luigi was horrified at his smiling brother as they headed back across the stone bridge. Mario literally had a little bit of blood splattered across his overalls from when he punctured flesh. Luigi shivered, and followed a little ways behind his brother, before blinking when they walked all the way to the Mushroom Kingdom in what felt like no time.

Mario walked into the kingdom, up to the castle, into the courtyard. Chest puffed, smile on his face, proud as could be. Luigi however, looked a lot worse than he normally did. The Toads didn’t take too much notice. But the poor taller brother was holding his hands together, obviously very uncomfortable.

And there was Princess Peach, before her flower garden, smiling as she watched over her happy little citizens, and perked up before seeing her two favorite men approach.

“Mario! Luigi! What a pleasure it is to see you!” She exclaimed, before taking note at Luigi’s visible fear.

“Has something happened?” She asked curiously, moving closer to the quivering plumber. With no words at all, he shook his head quickly, before pointing to Mario, who seemed to almost be gleaming with pride. Luigi... was.. afraid... of Mario?

Peach was really confused now, and stepped back to get a good look of her favorite hero. She noticed some red splattered on the top of his overalls where the strap met the chestpiece, but she wasn’t sure to say anything. He looked almost... beaming.

“Mario? Is everything alright? You look a lot happier than usual.” Peach murmured, trying to keep as her usual bubbly self.

“Why’a course Princess’a! I just’a killed a very’a bad Koopa!” 

Peach froze, processing for a second. Bad Koopa? They.. they didn’t have any bad Koopas. Just that one nice woman from the neighboring- suddenly it clicked. Everything was pieced together. Luigi was terrified, Mario was proud. He had killed a Koopa? There was only one Koopa known to the land and she wasn’t bad at all. 

“We’re going to the Koopa kingdom immediately.” 

Once more, making their way back to the Koopa kingdom, this time Mario less impressed, Luigi less hectic. 

Standing on her side of land before the bridge, staring at the happy peaceful kingdom across the bridge, Peach could feel something was wrong. Something was out of place. But enough about that.

Crossing the bridge, clutching her big first-aid kit she knew to bring along, despite Mario being very unhappy about it, they got to the Koopa Castle, and entered, with a spooky feeling overcoming once again.

It wasn’t hard to find the way through. Peach was smart, also the carpet’s longest tongue lead to the throne room, and those were normally at the back.

Soon they approached the doors, and just from putting her hand on the doors, she felt.. sad. Pained. So she shoved them open, and immediately started to cry at the horrific scene before her.

Peach rushed in with her first-aid kit, putting it aside as she ran to the queen, scooping her up into her arms, ignoring the blood coming onto her. Holding the coughing queen close, Peach grit her teeth as tears trickled down her face, and Bowsette winced as one of Princess Peach’s tears dripped onto the dragon’s face. Then with all the pain and rage she had in her system, she glared at the plumbers, Mario alone, and using all that negative power she felt building up inside her pained and burning chest, she spat with such ferocity at the idiotic actions of one Italian man,

“What did you do?!”

[lakinda5654]

~~~~A Girl and A God~~~~ Chapter 22- Floating

—————————————————

A Girl and A God is a RATED M Loki Fanfic with an original character, Alexa, who is taken in by Tony Stark after the revelation of abilities of her own. There’s sex, romance, heartbreak, action, fluff, angst, all that good stuff. Full description in blog, and a jump-to-chapter list if you just want the smut or the cuteness bits. Enjoy <3

Chapter Summary: Alexa tries to recover from an awkward situation, she explains recent human history to Loki, and takes him somewhere special...

Contains: awkwardness, cuteness, fluff, like a tidbit of politics but nothing crazy

Word Count: 1,517

~Previous Chapter~~Next Chapter~

~~Beginning of Story~~

—————————————————

Fuck. She just had to hope that whoever lived here wasn’t home, because if they were they couldn’t have missed the loud bang of her ass hitting their floor. As she struggled a bit to sit up, she heard it.

“Alexa?”

A very confused voice rang out. “Are you alright? How’d you…get in here…?” 

She turned her head to see Steve Rogers, shirtless, in boxers.

Why him? Why of all the possibilities was it his room? He was literally one of the 2 avengers she had never, not even once, spoken to. He was looking confused as hell, and very weirded out, but trying to hide it. 

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry. I fell through the…” she paused, realizing that she would need to give more explanation. “I have a new power phase and I can go through things, and I lost control and fell through the floor.”

“Oh.” He paused, clearly uncomfortable as he wrapped himself in a robe that was thankfully on a hook within his reach. “are you okay?” He asked tentatively, walking closer to her.

 “Yeah, I’m…” She began to try to get up and winced at the pain in her bruised back. She felt strong arms lifting her to her feet. “Thanks. I’ll be okay.”

“Are you sure? You can rest for a bit if you need to…”

Alexa sighed. “Yeah… I’m ok. I can just go back up now that I’m in… control of myself.” She mumbled, extremely embarrassed. 

“Alright.” He said, he gave a short awkward smile, seeming like he didn’t know what to do with himself.

“Okay. I’m sorry… again”

“No worries”

“Okay… well, bye” Alexa gave a little wave.

To leave, she sort of looked up and jumped upward as you would at the bottom of a swimming pool to come back up for air, and faded through the ceiling into her own room, landing her feet gently on the floor. She didn’t see Steve’s face, but she didn’t want to. She’d already been awkward as hell and didn’t want to deal with the situation any more than she physically had to.

She sat down on the couch and held her head in her hands, scolding herself for being so careless and stupid. 

The shower was still running, and she decided to turn on the TV to forget the incredible amount of embarrassment flooding her brain.

Once Loki was out of the shower and back in his dramatic suit again, he came and sat down on the couch next to her.

He seemed to sense something was off. “Are you alright darling?”

“Yeah I’m ok, I just…slipped and hurt my back.”

“Let me see,” Loki said, immediately becoming protective.

She leaned forward and allowed him to look.

“You're bruising,” he said and lowered her shirt back into its position. “How did you do it?”

Alexa didn’t want to tell him what had just happened. It was so completely and utterly embarrassing, not to mention how she got herself in that position in the first place.

“I just slipped. I’m ok, really” she smiled at him. He seemed doubtful, but he smiled and coaxed her head to lay down on his shoulder.

As they lied there and watched tv, she realized just how close it was to the full moon. She had been avoiding the thought all week, but now it was only a couple days away. She didn’t want to deal with it. What if she destroyed the tower? She never knew she was capable to of that much destruction until it happened in Oregon. She had been heavily pushed, but still...

At one point, the show they were watching made a reference to World War Two.

“What did they mean just there? What was he talking about?” Loki asked.

“Oh, he was talking about World War Two and the Holocaust.” She explained.

“The what?”

Alexa looked at him and paused the show. “You don’t know about the Holocaust?”

Loki shook his head.

“Do you know anything about human history?”

“I know pieces, but mostly from far longer ago than you all began to record history.”

“Oh…” she thought for a moment. “Do you want to learn? It kind of explains a lot about why things are the way they are today.”

Loki smiled. “Sure, do tell of how the mortals got to their oh so glorious position today” his words dripped with sarcasm.

“Well first off, almost no one thinks where we are at is glorious. There are immense problems and they feel unsolvable because they require money to solve, and rich people don’t like sharing.”

Loki listened, interested. She explained women’s rights, and how they still radiated into today.

“So women are left to become poor after they bear a child because they are not paid? And they are not paid the same in the first place…” Loki seemed utterly confused. “Why? Why don’t they just fix it? Use laws or rules?”

“Well,” Alexa replied, “They do, but lots of people don’t follow them. Punishments aren’t severe enough or enforced.”

“Then make the punishment treason. Cut off someone’s head, banish them. That will give a message.” He said matter-of-factly.

Alexa laughed. “I don’t think you could vote a punishment like that into place.”

Loki rolled his eyes. “What other lovely accomplishments have humans obtained in recent years?”

She explained human trafficking and rape, and the lack of punishments for those as well. This made Loki purely angry. “If anyone were to do that to you they’d lose their limbs before making it home.” He said through gritted teeth. “How can they let those things happen? In Asgard that doesn’t happen… there are women who do it but they’re paid and they can leave when they choose. If a man were to do it by force he’d be executed I imagine, but it’s never been a problem from what I remember.”

“Well lucky for Asgardian women then. I suppose they aren’t seen as weak?”

“Of course not. Our strongest warriors were the Valkyrie.”

Alexa smiled. She wanted to go to Asgard more and more. She imagined raising a daughter there…

Loki then interrupted her thoughts and asked again about the Holocaust. So, she explained the history of racism, extreme poverty, slavery, and their presence today. After hearing the horror of the Holocaust, Loki seemed done hearing of human history. “It’s awful, how have you all survived this long? And why are you so hateful of others of your own kind?”

Alexa sighed. “I wish everyone thought like you Loki. The world would be a lot better.” She said, smiling and touching his cheek. They were quiet for a moment, and the mood was heavy. Alexa broke the silence. “You want to see something cool?”

Loki looked at her and nodded expectantly.

She took his hand, stood up, and slipped out the door of their room. “What are you doing are you mad?”

Loki pulled his hand from hers and stayed in the room.

“It’s late, no one is up, trust me. We’re going somewhere special.”

Loki looked at her doubtfully.

“Trust me Loki.” She held out her hand.

After a moment, Loki took it.

They exited the elevator on the helicopter pad. The wind was mild that night, and it was beautiful. Loki walked to the edge of the tower with her, looking over the city. Alexa was glowing brightly in the summer night moonlight. “I want to show you my new power.”

Loki smiled. “Well then show me you must, Petal.”

Alexa pushed off the ground, floating as if she were underwater. Her hair floated too, spreading out and flowing a different direction with her every move. She did a backflip in the air, giggling at Loki’s amazed expression. She was so beautiful and mystical floating around like this. 

After watching her for some time, Loki reached out to grasp her hand and pull her in for a kiss, only for his hand to flow straight through her. He was taken aback and tried again. Alexa giggled once more. He stepped towards her and tried to grab her, failing again. “Well do you want to make out with me on this rooftop or not?” Loki said with a laugh, raising his eyebrows at her.

She smiled and moved towards him, this time making herself tangible. Still floating in the night air, she held his face and kissed him. Loki just stood, taking her in, every magical movement she made had him falling deeper in love with her. Taking her by surprise, he wrapped his arms around her and brought her down to lay on the floor with him. He held her close and listened to her beautiful laugh, and became mesmerized by her glowing arms. “I am so in love with you Petal...” he said quietly. 

She smiled. “And I’m so in love with you…” I need a nickname for him. I mean for christ’s sake he already has like 3 for me...

“my trickster.”

He chuckled a bit, and they fell into another kiss, as they listened to the sounds of the city below.

[chisie12]

Dance of Silver - Chapter 8: Signs of Life

Sorry it took so long! Real life got in the way D:  AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17142107/chapters/42895709 ~*~*~

Drifting… drifting. Weightless and free. Quite like a feather, actually. He half thought that it would be dark, like really, really dark, probably similar to Hell. He’ll admit he ain’t no saint, and have probably done some pretty shit things in his life, especially back when he was in a gang in the States.

Jesse McCree shook his head with a grin and folded his arms over and behind his head. One ankle was resting against his propped up knee.

It honestly felt surreal to him, but hey, he wasn’t going to complain. The place didn’t look like no Heaven either, despite being basked in a near ethereal glow of golden-tinged whiteness. Other than that, there was nothing around him; Literally just him, floating like an aimless feather in a white space. And he had lost track of the time too.

Days? Had it been days? It didn’t feel that long though…

“But am I in Heaven or Hell?” he mused out loud.

There were no visible injuries on his body, not a single gunshot wound or cut can be seen — and he’d already strip himself of his clothes to inspect every inch of his body. Old faint pale scars had remained on the places that they were originally at, across his torso, arms, legs and even with a twist of the waist and a stretch of his arms, he could feel the raised bumps of the scars that marred his back. They were all there. Even…

Jesse lightly traced the scar by the side of his neck, calloused fingers tracing them up and down absentmindedly. His mouth parted slightly with light even breaths as his eyes glazed over. He remembered that day so clearly. Underneath the epidermis tissue was a thin linear scar of roughly a centimeter wide and half a ruler long, and if you looked closely enough, on the tanned skin and hidden beneath the scar were puncture wounds, the perfect size and width of an adult vampire’s two top canines tearing and sinking deep into his veins. A little lower was the other half of the vampire’s jaw, which made up the perfect picture of a vampire’s bite.

His hand dropped onto his lap — now clothed — like a lifeless cowboy doll slumping against the wall. A bitter smile curved while the memory resurfaced.

Sis… I miss you.

“Ahhhh!” A sharp pain stabbed his mind when the memory reached the point of the vampire’s bite and he screamed out in agony. It came like lightning shocking his nerves.

———

The blue construction tarpaulin crunched and struggled under the sudden gusts of wintry winds. The duct tape and masking tape held it as securely as it could under the pressure, protecting the contents like a dragon protecting its treasures. That room was neat and tidy, carpets vacuumed, sheets crisp and flat, and the wardrobe door firmly shut — provided you ignored the destruction that clearly took place. Weblike cracks crawled across the walls in the dim lighting, floorboards were broken with splinters protruding, bullet holes riddled the room’s structure like hidden flies, and of course, the most prominent one: the massive hole in the roof that spanned from the window by the bed all the way to the highest point on the ceiling. Thus, the existence of that blue tarpaulin and duct tape.

A heavy feeling settled on the young woman’s shoulders. The pressure weighed down on her mind and soul. Memories resurfaced in her mind and her heart began to ache. Silently. Wordlessly. She took a small step back, her movements light and she pulled her arm towards her. Only the creaking of the door to her bedroom resounded as it clicked shut before her.

More silence. A heavy, uncomfortable, suffocating silence. Shadows casted over her sullen gaze. The cool hardwood tickled her forehead as a curtain of darkness fell, engulfing her sight. Refreshing and a handle on reality. This was all real. Everything did happen.

And now it passed. It was all gone — he was…

“Angie? Do y-you…” Altherr’s solemn voice drifted over. Deep and hushed, choking with an emotion hidden amidst the words.

Angela bit her bottom lip and clutched harder onto the door handle, squeezing the metal hard until her knuckles turned white and muscles numbed from the strain. She gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut tighter. Gone. Just —

“Mm.” She forced herself to nod and move away from her bedroom, dragging her feet and returning back to the medical room downstairs. She stopped a few inches before the viewing glass, her vision already having gone blurry before she even stepped foot down the stairs. Steady beats of the machines echoed in her mind, the various wires hooked the unconscious young man up to the respective devices, but the heartbeats were slowing down. Slower than before, slower than it should have been.

Altherr and Wendell stood a few meters away from her with matching solemn expressions, but hidden in their gazes were a trace of guilt.

“She should know…” Wendell mumbled under his breath, audible enough only for his father to hear.

Altherr resolutely shook his head with a frown. The creases on his face seemed more prominent and his appearance grew dull from all the stress. “No, she can’t know.”

Today was just the beginning of the sixth day since Jesse McCree fell into a comatose state, as the dawn began to break through the horizon. Despite rushing with all her might, Angela managed to only arrive home after nearly 35 hours and even then, she was greeted with a still Jesse, unmoving like a statue. If not for the slow rise and fall of his chest, she would have thought him dead.

But he had been — even if for less than a minute.

The sudden high pitched shrill of a flat line echoed loudly in the silent house, scaring both Zieglers awake from their sleepiness. Machines cried out in horror at the loss of life and Altherr remembered, oh so vividly, how helpless and weak he felt as he watched alone of his son trying to resuscitate his step-grandson who fell into cardiac arrest with the defibrillator. His heart jumped harder and harder, directly out of his chest with every shock Wendell gave the young boy, the motion choking him painfully to the point of gasping for air.

It was only after the third shock did a pulse return, like a small leap over the flatlands, bringing about an arc of new found hope.

But as Angela ‘Zurich Monster’ returned and watched her brother sleep — yes sleep, he was sleeping —, she watched his heartbeat, and the ache in her heart grew. She wished she could watch him laugh that bellyful chortle, smile that toothy grin full of cheekiness, coo and pat any canines that come their way — no matter if they’d snap and growl at him; they were all babies to him—, and perhaps, what she missed most, needed , most, was his hug.

A sharp breath and a slow, deep shuddering exhale. Fingers curled and scratched against the glass. Warm liquid began to pool in her eyes.

At least, he was alive?

Beep beep! Beep beep!

Beeeeeeeeee —

Angela’s head shot up at the warning indicators, gasping in shock. The ringing cry of the flatlined heartbeat echoed in her head and a surge of adrenaline pumped through her veins. Unsteady hands scrambled to pull the door open. She faintly felt another presence and the rustling of the machine behind her. Muscle memory served its purpose as she quickly sanitised herself and donned the gown, hat, and gloves despite the tears clouding her vision. She worked quick and efficient with her father, shuffling towards one end of the bed as he occupied the other, and she confirmed Jesse’s lack of pulse. Next to him stood the resuscitation machine. A familiar process, Wendell lamented as his hands moved swiftly: squeezing the conductive gel, rubbing the paddles together, and placing them on Jesse’s chest. Angela stepped back.

“Clear!”

Her eyes twitched involuntarily at the administered shock as his body jerked upwards before falling back down. Despairing blue eyes gazed at the motionless young man, the tinkering of the machine the only sound in the room.

“Step back.”

Angela obeyed obediently and stepped back just as the paddles hovered above Jesse’s chest, when the body started convulsing. It violently rattled against the bed, his mouth gaping open like a dead fish as Wendell abandoned the paddles to hold him still, but despite his wiry body, he could not properly hold the young man down. Panic filled the room as Angela struggled to help but to no avail. The door slid open as a robust man entered, easily holding Jesse down with his arms.

“What happened?” Worry and anxiety were clearly visible on the aged face.

Wendell opened his mouth to answer, yet no words came out. Uncertainty glazed in his eyes. Jesse clearly flatlined. He was supposed to be dead and the dead were not supposed to move.

“Jesse… Jesse…” Angela cried softly.

“Ahhhhh!” A scream tore through their ears like the shattering of glass. The hair on their arms and neck stood straight up, chilling shivers running down their spine. Jesse roared another monstrous scream and threw everyone off with a wave of his arms. Crashes sounded as their bodies slammed into the equipment and machines. Angela squeezed her eyes at the sharp stinging sensation on her arm, the blood seeping through the teal coloured gown. She returned her attention back to Jesse who constantly screamed, this time filled with agony and pain, as he clawed at his neck. Red scratches marked his tanned skin, veins began to bulge and crawl up to his face, and she felt some sort of heat emitting off his body.

And for reasons unbeknownst to her, the Angelic blood coursing through her veins began to pulse. She turned to her father and grandfather, and their gazes conveyed a confusion similar to hers.

Vampire?

Yet, there shouldn’t be one. Patrols have begun and security was tightened. No vampire should be able to —

All three of them looked back at Jesse.

It can’t be.

But when Angela staggered towards Jesse, his head sharply snapped towards her with bared fangs. Elongated, curved, fangs. What caught her full attention, however, were neither the fact he was moving and alive, but the pair of bright crimson eyes the shade of blood.

“How —!”

No one knew who cried out first or who made the first move, but the Zieglers were already jumping towards their weapons and dodging the newborn. Jesse McCree, the vampire hunter: a newborn vampire. Angela lunged to the side as she unholstered her blaster and a loud crash impacted behind her, yet ignoring the pain from the machines and wall, Jesse snarled at his sister and leapt towards her once again. His gaze followed the streak of blood that trailed the air, her sweet, oh so delicious blood that filled his senses. He needed it, he wanted it. With a hand palming the floor, she rolled forward following the momentum, barely escaping the claws Jesse swiped at her back.

“Oof!”

A large figure tackled Jesse to the side, crashing into the metal frames of the medical bed and the duo began to wrestle. Altherr sat all his weight and force down onto Jesse’s hips while he fought to subdue his step-grandson, but the young man was snarling and fighting back with a strength he never had before. Sweat started to bead from the old man’s pores, the adrenaline and heavy emotions rolling out in waves. Even the room seemed hot, and hotter when he was close to Jesse. The newborn seemed to be emitted an intense heat.

But no one understood why; Just why?

Altherr shot his palm to meet Jesse’s claws, holding on tightly as he tried to push him down with his other arm when the sweat from his palm made him lose his grip — and he slipped. With that split second window of opportunity, Jesse snapped his head forward and headbutted Altherr, the force hard enough to knock him into a complete daze. His vision was spinning and blur, a heavy throb thumping in his temples.

“Jesse!!”

Jesse halted in midaction, the voice seemingly effective. He didn’t lower his claws, the sharp nails inches away from tearing apart the skin on Altherr’s neck, but he turned his head ever so slowly towards the source. There she was, leaned back against the cold wall with her blaster aimed at him. Her arms were slack and breathing heavy. His nose twitched at the metallic yet sweet scent of her blood, but he sniffed the slightest traces of saltiness as well.

“Jesse… Oh, J-Jesse…”

Her voice was quivering, her body shaking, and like the soul leaving his body, Jesse froze, staring at the thick streams of tears rolling down her flushed cheeks. He breathed in sharply, only to have it hitch in his throat when a searing pain burned inside him, through his veins and in his blood. It burned like the flames of a wildfire, burning every inch in his pores, but it burned the worst by his neck, to the point a red, blistering blemish appeared. He clawed at the pain, the sharp fingernails slicing apart the skin like a knife to butter and blood unceasingly flowed. With a cry, he shoved Altherr away and jumped towards Angela.

It hurts! IT HURTS! SHE HURT ME!

BLOOD! I NEED HER BLOOD!

“Angie!” Wendell ran and pulled his daughter away just as Jesse crashed onto the wall. He had zero experience whatsoever in the field, having only focused on medicine and healing, but he’ll be damned if he lost his daughter too!

“Daddy! Let me go!”

Yet, for reasons unknown again, Angela was compelled to him, attracted like a moth to a flame. Her Angelic blood still pulsed with the usual warnings of a vampire’s presence, but at the same time, it felt like Jesse was calling out to her, to her blood. Because not once, never, had she encountered a newborn like this. They were always cold, detached, but Jesse was fiery, a literal hot mess, and he responded. He responded to her voice.

“I can’t! Jesse’s not himself! You know that!”

Altherr groaned in pain as the headache and dizziness relented, crashing harder at the muffled shouts in his ears. He knew his back was hurt; There was a sharp dull pain in his spine that shocked him like lightning when he moved. He breathed in. His head slumped forward.

“Shit — DAD!”

Angela felt her father’s grip disappearing and she rejoiced as she was about to leap towards Jesse, but his shout caught her attention.

A heavy lump in her throat. She forcefully gulped it down as the tears fell harder. Without second thoughts, throwing her worries for Jesse aside, Angela fell before her grandfather instead.

“Please, please. Please!”

She dropped her blaster as she pulled out the staff from her back, immediately activating. Her blood flowed faster, rushing towards the beckoning of the staff as the healing light shone. It enveloped her grandfather. Wendell gritted his teeth, hating the feeling of helplessness and uselessness that eroded his soul. Looking at his father, then at a writhing Jesse, he made a resolve and got to his feet. Not much he could do then and now, except for one thing —

Running towards the cabinets of medicine, he tore open the plastic seal that secured it and shuffled through the glass bottles. There was the clinking of glass as he pushed them aside, frantically searching for the one — His face lit up in joy as his slender fingers grabbed hold of a clear bottle. On its label read ‘Propofol’. Bending down, he grabbed a couple of new sterilised syringes and tore one open from its vacuumed plastic, immediately inserting it into the bottle as his thumb pulled the plunger back. He watched as the liquid was sucked in and once it reached 10ml, he rushed towards Jesse and unhesitatingly plunged the needle into his neck before pushing all the liquid into his vein. Jesse’s screams slowly dimmed in a decrescendo, but it wasn’t enough.

Waving his arm at Wendell, the doctor was thrown aside and crashed into the fallen bed. His body slumped over.

Seeing the scene, Angela’s mouth gaped open. Her lips quivered, the tears slowing but not stopping.

Jesse, you…

Unwilling to believe, she staggered towards her brother who was wailing in pain. Even the anesthesia provided little relief, but when he caught wind of Angela’s blood, he snapped towards her, and just like before, she paused at the sight of those bright glowing eyes.

Genji.

His scarred face and green hair popped into her mind. Why? Perhaps because… Jesse still retained some resemblance of actually being human, and… Genji did too?

Hovering above him, Angela reached out a hand, slowly, just very slowly. The wound on her arm ran down the length and dripped from her fingertips. Pit. Pat. Drop by drop, they landed on the tiled floor. Jesse remained unmoving. He returned her gaze, the craziness dimming in the presence of her gentle, tear-stained one. She bent her knees, dropping to his side, a simple arm’s length away, and she continued reaching out. Her fingertips lightly brushed against his 5 o’clock shadow. Then, they landed on the side of his neck, right above the blistering area, above the scar of the vampire bite; from when he was fifteen.

In that instance, Jesse let out a scream. This time, louder and even more ear piercing than before. Her blood traveled through his wounds on the neck, soaking and disappearing through his veins.

The burn came back ten times worse.

His throat was dry, so goddamn dry, and his screaming began to grow hoarse, husky. As if struck by lightning, Angela grabbed his wrist and holding his finger still, she resolutely used it to cut at her arm. Her blood instantly escaped its confines. Jesse snarled at her when she forcefully gripped at his jaws, but with ignorance, she raised her bleeding arm over his neck, watching it flow into his wound.

“Aaaahhhh! I’M GONNA KILL YOU!”

Jesse thrashed about when the pain intensified and Angela hurriedly sat atop him and kneed his solar plexus, settling all her weight on him. Jesse screamed louder to the point of shattering her eardrums when it was muffled. Angela’s other arm that had been gripping his jaws was now stuffed between his fangs. Biting down mercilessly, Jesse felt the puncture of her skin beneath his canines and he felt the utter satisfaction of blood coating the pearly whites. They slid down his tongue and further into his throat.

The pleasure was enough to ignore the burns.

However, when the blood that flowed in his mouth reached his stomach, he began to convulse and scream. Such a monstrous, agonising scream. He flung Angela away, hurtling her through the glass viewing panels and slamming onto the opposite wall. She gasped out a mouthful of blood. Her body dropped lifelessly onto the floor.

The only sign of life that remained: Jesse McCree.

[ghostsray]

(Merry Christmas Truce, @purpleillusn​ ! You asked for something wholesome with Dani and/or Jazz, and, well, I hope this is good enough.

Warning: Slight body horror I guess?? because of Dani melting)

Word count: 3038

     Jazz’s grip tightened around the book in her hands as she tried to drown out the sounds of her parents arguing. Last Christmas, the two adult Fentons had agreed to forget about their yearly arguments over Santa Clause. Unfortunately, they somehow moved on to arguing over Santa’s elves, which meant that the Christmas tradition of fighting over useless topics persisted, much to the exasperation of their two children.

     She could tell that Danny was trying his best not to be a Grinch after the events of last year, but after listening to around five minutes of how there was no way elves could survive the freezing north pole’s weather in those silly costumes of theirs unless they had fur or blubber, he eventually made the smart choice of spending the Christmas day out with Tucker and Sam. Unfortunately, since she had no close friends of her own, Jazz was unable to experience the same freedom. That was why she was in the living room now, sitting on a couch by herself with a book in her hands as her parents argued away.

     It became evident, once she had to reread the same sentence for the fifth time, that reading in the same room as her parents was impossible. She sighed and left the room, heading toward the stairs. She would have made a comment to her parents, but she doubted they would hear her when they were so invested in their debate.

     Halfway up the stairs, a sudden indoors breeze made her shiver—then something cold and wet landed on her shoulder. Of course, it couldn’t be snow because she was indoors and there didn’t seem to be any ice ghost around. Confused, she turned her head to look at what could have touched her shoulder. A small lump of glowing green goo greeted her.

     She jumped in surprise, nearly tripping down a step, before quickly wiping the substance off her shoulder. A green stain on her sweater was left in its place. She flapped her hand to shake the glowing goop off, and it was then that her eyes caught another stain on the stairs a few steps down. As her eyes traveled farther, she saw more and more green blotches roughly leading to the kitchen.

     She didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that this substance was ectoplasm. Why it was dripped in a trail inside her house was another matter entirely. From her experience hunting specters, she had seen only two forms of ectoplasm which leaked from ghosts. The first kind was in the form of saliva drooled by animal ghosts (which was unlikely to be the case, since there didn’t seem to be any canine phantom around). The second kind was in the form of a ghost’s blood.

     She felt a weight settle in her chest at that thought. Was this Danny’s blood? Did he get injured in a fight? But he said ghosts won’t attack on Christmas. Could he have been wrong? She cast a quick glance to the living room at her parents, but they seemed unaware of the ectoplasmic stains on the floor. Bringing her focus back to the stains, she bit her lip before deciding to follow them to the kitchen.

     Nothing was there, but she did see two more blotches on the floor. It was hard to tell because they were spaced apart, but they seemed to lead toward the basement, so that was where Jazz went. As she reached the basement’s door, she thought she heard clattering coming from below, and she hesitated, wondering what its source was doing. Steeling herself, she finally pushed the door open before cautiously stepping inside.

     Since nobody used the lab on Christmas, the lights were switched off. However, that didn’t mean the place was completely dark. Neon light came from the various ectoplasm in the lab—from the portal behind its striped blast doors, from the ectoplasm-storing weapons, from more stains scattered across the lab and from the thing these stains led to, which was…

     Jazz had to swallow back the bile that rose up her throat. There was a ghost in the basement, but a ghost of what, she wasn’t sure. It looked like it may have been humanoid at some point, but it was melting. Drops of bright ectoplasm fell from parts of its body which it failed to hold together, staining the floor where they hit. The melting ghost was frantically searching through her parents’ inventions, throwing metal scraps off tables and shelves, and Jazz realized that was the reason for the clattering she heard from the kitchen.

     She didn’t realize that her body was moving down the basement stairs until she accidentally skipped a step. She caught herself, but a loud sound echoed from her footstep as she did, alerting the ghost to her presence. It whipped around to face her—

     Jazz had to catch herself after seeing the ghost’s eyes. Though green eyes were not entirely uncommon among ghosts, there was something about the vivid, lime glow in this one’s pair that reminded her greatly of Danny. And they seemed scared. But before she could confirm if this really was her brother or not, the ghost vanished from sight.

     Jazz blinked. It was difficult to see in the dull glow of ectoplasm, so she reached for the light switch and flipped it. The fluorescent lights in the ceiling overhead turned on, giving her a clearer view of the mess that had been her parents’ lab. The girl turned her head in every angle in search for the disappeared phantom when a soft plop snapped her attention to a corner behind a shelf. There, another small blob of ectoplasm had fallen. More drops joined it in a small puddle of green; they were dripping from what appeared to be nothing, becoming visible as soon as they left the ghost’s main body.

     Slowly, Jazz made her way toward the spot. A smear in the green puddle told her that the ghost had moved, so she swiftly held up her hands in what she hoped was a placating gesture. “It’s alright,” she said. “I won’t hurt you.”

     There was a brief silence, and for a second Jazz wondered if maybe the ghost had left. But after a while, she heard an echoey voice ask, “You won’t?”

     It was a girl’s voice—a young one. She even sounded a bit like Danny when he was younger. Jazz turned to where she thought the voice came from and gave a gentle smile. “Just because I’m a Fenton doesn’t mean I’m as impulsive as my parents. If you want to talk to me, I’ll listen,” she told her. She wasn’t sure why she was being so gentle with a ghost—maybe it was because she reminded her somehow of Danny, or maybe it was because of the fear she saw briefly when their eyes met—but she had a feeling that this ghost was innocent and just wanted help.

     Another beat of silence. Jazz could almost feel the hesitation coming from the young ghost. Finally, the phantom let herself become visible again and floated in front of Jazz.

     Now that she was right in front of her and wasn’t disappearing from sight, Jazz was able to observe her appearance; and she found even more traits she shared with Danny, or at least a younger version of him. It was hard to pick them out at first due to all the melting, but she saw, in addition to the glowing green eyes, snow white hair and a faint splash of freckles across her face. She also wore a black-and-white suit akin to Danny’s, although her design was slightly different.

     As Jazz wondered why this ghost looked so much like Danny, a memory clicked in her brain—a story of one of Danny’s adventures which he had relayed to her one day. She remembered how she felt so fussy over her little brother after hearing what happened to him, and how angry she was at Vlad for having done such a thing. But her brother had shrugged it off and said that, on the bright side, at least he had a likeable half-ghost “cousin” now—the same cousin, Jazz was sure, that stood before her now.

     “I know, it looks kind of bad,” Dani said, pulling Jazz out of her thoughts. She had a sheepish smile on her face, although it looked like only half a smile since the other half was literally melting—which, by the way, her face was melting and yet the girl seemed fine by it. Jazz watched as she brought a hand up in a ‘wave it off’ gesture, and she had to swallow back bile when it caused ectoplasm to spray from her hand as she waved. “But don’t worry,” the ghost girl said, ignoring the amount of substance her body was losing, “I’ve totally got it.” Jazz didn’t seem convinced.

     “You’re melting,” Jazz pointed out, still horrified by the sight before her. The younger girl chuckled and brought a goopy hand to rub at her neck.

     “Yeah, I guess I am,” she admitted with a shrug. “…Okay, so maybe it is pretty bad. I’ve kinda been hoping I could find something here to fix me.” Quieter, she added, “Danny did last time.”

     “‘Last time’?” Jazz questioned, having heard her sentence. “So it’s not the first time this happened to you?”

     Dani looked away. “I’m…unstable,” she said after a moment. “Normally, I can keep myself together…but apparently not forever.”

     Jazz felt a surge of sympathy for the young girl, who currently seemed to be sinking lower into the ground as her body spread across the floor. Right. She was still melting. “You said Danny helped you last time,” Jazz pointed out. “How did he do that?”

     Dani scrunched her face (or what was left of it, anyway). “He used something called…Ecto Dejecto, I think,” she stated. “It sort of un-melted me.”

     Jazz nodded. Ecto Dejecto. She knew where that was…right? She always tried to pay careful attention to all her parents’ inventions in case they ever use it on her brother, but lately she’s been focused on prepping herself for college, so she wasn’t as attentive as she used to be. Her brows creased with worry as she tried to recall what Ecto Dejecto was and where her parents may have placed it. From the corner of her vision, she saw of Dani, who was more puddle than person now. The sight made her heart quicken its pace. She had to find this Dejecto thing now.

     She walked in big strides to one of the shelves and scanned the things sitting there. It was then that she realized she still didn’t know what the thing she was looking for looked like, so she turned to Dani (ignoring the churning in her stomach when she saw her) and asked, “Do you remember what it looked like?”

     “It was a liquid, in a needle,” she helpfully supplied. “Could you find it quickly, though? ‘Cause…” She didn’t need to finish her sentence.

     Jazz’s eyes zoomed past the entire shelf, but there wasn’t any needle she could find. She was missing something, she knew, but what? She shut her eyes, trying to remember anything about this Ecto Dejecto—and she did.

     With a bright glint in her eyes, she rushed toward a box in the corner of the lab where her parents dumped all their failed experiments. She rummaged through its contents, and when that took too long, she dumped them on the floor then rummaged through them again. There! A needle with a tape on it labelling it as Ecto Dejecto. She picked it up, hurried to where Dani was, felt startled when she saw that she had become no more than a green puddle, shook away her fear, and pushed the needle’s contents into the puddle that was Dani.

     At first, nothing happened. Then the puddle started to bubble. It continued to bubble, and Jazz began to fear that maybe she got the wrong needle in the dark—or, worse yet, that her parents might have perfected its original purpose of dissolving ghosts. But just as her heart was pounding and tears were beginning to form in the corners of her eyes, the green liquid began to rise, shaping itself into the form of a small girl. Jazz let out a deep breath she didn’t know she was holding, and the tears in her eyes did fall, but out of relief.

     As she watched, green turned to black, white, and tan, until Dani was once again herself, in one piece and fully solid this time. The ghost girl looked down at herself, flexed a hand experimentally, and when she was sure that it worked, a large grin broke out on her face. “Thank you!” she cried to Jazz, and she seemed to hold out her arms for a second, but then she hesitated and dropped them by her sides. Sensing her wanted embrace, Jazz smiled and pulled the girl into a hug. After a moment, the girl hugged back.

     “I’m just glad you’re fine,” Jazz said, “Danielle.”

     Dani pulled out of their hug to give her a surprised look. “You know who I am?”

     Jazz laughed. “Of course I do! Danny told me about you.”

     “Oh,” Dani said, then smacked her own forehead. “Right. Of course he did—you’re his sister.”

     Jazz giggled, enjoying the dumb expression on Dani’s face. “But hey, I guess that makes us sisters, too, right?” she said once her laughter died down. “I mean, Danny said you’re his clone, and I’m not an expert on genetics, but…”

     Dani thought about this and smiled. “Yeah…I guess we are,” she replied. She let a ring of light form around her waist, which then split and traveled up and down her body, turning her hair black, her eyes blue, and replacing her monochrome suit with a colorful hoodie and shorts. Jazz found herself faced with an almost-exact copy of a younger human Danny, wearing a smile that reached her eyes. “Sisters. I like that.”

     After getting over the surprise from her sudden transformation, Jazz smiled back. She understood, now, why Danny was willing to forget what Vlad did back then as long as it led to the creation of Dani; though she only just met her, she could tell that Dani was a sweet girl. Then Jazz broke their eye contact to look around at the lab, and she winced at the sight of scraps and gizmos scattered across the floor. “Yeah, we might have to clean this lab up pretty soon, or Mom and Dad will want to know what happened.”

     “If we’re sisters, then does that make them my mom and dad, too?” Dani asked excitedly, still wearing that grin on her face.

     “Well, sure, genetically,” Jazz said. That must have been a wrong thing to say, because Dani’s smile faded. Realizing what she said, Jazz quickly amended, “We could get them to adopt you, though! Just think about it. We could be real sisters, and you won’t have to live without a home anymore.”

     “Did Danny tell them his secret?”

     Now both the girls’ smiles were gone as that question sunk in. Of course, if they wanted to adopt Dani, then Jack and Maddie would want to know who she is, and there was no way they could answer their questions without revealing Danny as Phantom. Silence hung heavy around the two girls.

     Dani broke it with a shuffle of her foot and a saying of, “I can clean the lab. I’m the one who messed it up in the first place, after all. You should go back to your parents and celebrate Christmas or whatever.”

     At this, Jazz scoffed. At the confused look Dani gave her, she held up her hands and said, “Sorry, but no one would want to be around Jack and Maddie Fenton on Christmas. They argue all the time this day over nonsensical subjects.”

     “Huh,” Dani said. “That explains the yelling I heard when I came in…but I thought Christmas was a time for family bonding.”

     “It is, for most families. But the Fenton family isn’t like most,” Jazz informed her with a sly grin. After a second, her smile receded, and she observed Dani for a moment. “…Have you ever celebrated Christmas?”

     Dani shook her head. Then, smirking, she pointed at herself and said, “This baby is only a few months old. Today is literally the first Christmas ever in my life.”

     “Really?”

     “Yeah.” As her arms lowered to her sides, she looked away and said, “Not like I have anyone to celebrate it with.”

     Jazz frowned. Then she set her face into a determined expression. “That’s not true,” she announced. “You have me. And Danny.”

     Dani looked up at her. “But what about your parents?”

     “I already told you, no one wants to be around them today. Besides, we see them every day. I’d rather spend the day with you.”

     That seemed to put the smile right back on Dani’s face. But then she looked around uncertainly. “What about the lab?”

     “Oh, that.” Jazz took in the sight of the messy lab, then turned back to Dani and shrugged. “I can just say a ghost came in and destroyed it.”

     “Well, it wouldn’t be a lie,” Dani responded with a smirk as she allowed herself to transform again into her phantom form.

     Jazz’s smile stretched across her face once more. Then she got up and held out a hand to Dani. “Coming?” she asked. “I’m thinking about finding Danny and forcing him to celebrate Christmas with us against his will.”

     “Isn’t that kind of rude?”

     “Hey, it’s a sibling’s job to be rude. You’ll learn soon enough.”

     Dani laughed. “Alright,” she said, taking hold of her older sister’s hand. “But we’ll have to sneak past your parents.”

     “I don’t know. I bet they’re still arguing over elves and what they should wear to work.”

     “Wow. Those really are nonsensical topics.”

     Laughing, the two made their way up the basement stairs. “Oh, and Dani,” Jazz said, catching the younger girl’s attention. “You can call them your parents, too.”

[shewhowantsmouseears]

The Son Of Scheherazade, 21

Notes: As always, thanks to my fantastic editors, Drucilla and BlueShifted!

Originally this entire arc was going to be stuck in comedy. (honestly, most of this story was meant to comical when it was first made.) But after some good long thoughts, I decided that things should take a bit more of a dramatic turn.

In other words, next chapter? Gird your heart, things are going to get worse before they get better.

Summary: The next piece of the map has been found, deep within a mysterious cave that offers your greatest desires. But can this  crew survive the caverns when they can't survive each other?

Despite being woken up in the middle of the night, Mickey managed to get up bright and early the next morning. While he never got a straight answer out of Minnie about what had upset her, he decided not to push it. When she was ready, she'd surely tell him. For now he decided to focus on the upcoming location of the next piece of the map. Something about a cave – as usual, Daisy was never one to give details until they had arrived. While the disaster with the Imp hadn't exactly been fun, Mickey was looking forward to a new adventure to learn things and better himself.

He walked into the empty hallways, stifling a yawn behind one hand, Minnie loyally on his right and Pluto lagging behind. “I wonder what today will be like,” Mickey said sleepily, rubbing the last bits of dream dust from his eyes.

But not too long after they started walking, Minnie suddenly spoke, “Master? May I ask you something?”

Mickey glanced over, wondering why she was upping the formality and politeness today. “Sure, Minnie, you can always ask me anything.”

“Do...” Minnie was already regretting asking this, and she knew the answer, yet there was a weight on her chest making her press on. “Do you love your parents?”

Any further drowsiness in Mickey was swiftly swept away, startled by such a question. “Huh?” He momentarily wondered if he heard right, then tried to guess what he'd done in his past that would make her doubt his deep affection for his family. “Of course I do! They mean the world to me! Why else would I be doing all this to rescue them?” His eyebrow quirked. “Why do you ask?”

Minnie, obviously, couldn't just say she recently learned his father was a murderer and that his mother miraculously stopped his blood-lust. “I... I was just … I don't know a lot about them, so...I was wondering what they were like.”

Mickey and Minnie had spent so much time together that Mickey had begun to recognize and understand some of her quirks – when Minnie was trying to find a word loophole, her eyes would widen just a bit, she'd bite on her lower lip, and then she'd speak with a gentle carefulness like someone trying to make their way down a rough hill. Like many of her habits, Mickey found it absolutely adorable. So adorable, really, that it became difficult to care why she was clearly lying. “Well, I'm pretty sure I've told you what my mother is like...but my father, oh boy, he's always over the top.” With a chuckle, Mickey resumed his walk. “Everything's always big and loud with him. The only time I've ever known him to be quiet was when mother was telling one of her stories. Gosh, I remember when I was little, she almost lost her head,” Mickey took no notice of Minnie paling at that ironic phrasing, “ because my father was trying to see how high he could toss me!” The chuckle turned into a boisterous laugh, recalling how his mother nearly hit the ceiling when Mickey literally hit the ceiling, his father trying to apologize through wild guffaws. This was a boy who loved his father.

Did Mickey know about his father's bloody deeds? He must have, she thought. How could the story of Scheherazade spread so far and not have the wretched crimes attached to it? Did Mickey forgive his father for his actions, or were they so far away that they couldn't possibly reach him? Was Mickey ever made to suffer for his father's past? Even with all the good his mother had done,  there were some things in this world that could never be forgiven. Minnie lifted her head, as Mickey went on about the time his father had brought in fresh fish so he and Mickey could pretend their bath-tub was an ocean. As he laughed about the smell that room had for days, the golden scar on his neck bounced on his throat.

It was then Minnie remembered the famous show-down with Daisy that felt like an eternity ago, where that scar had helped him achieve victory. Where had such a hideous gash come from? Why hadn't it healed properly? For the first time since it attained its golden glow, Minnie actually stared deeply at it, studying it, and with great horror realized this was not a wound made by accident or caused by childish mistake. She'd been through enough horrifying masters to know that kind of cut, that was the kind of slice meant to end a life, someone had actually tried to kill -

“Minnie, what was the last thing I said?” Mickey asked of her, slightly miffed but more amused.

Minnie stopped in place, caught and rather grateful she had to stop thinking. “I. Um... something about... fish?” She faltered, and then shut her eyes, embarrassed. “I'm sorry, Master, here I am asking about your family and not even listening!”

“It's fine, it's fine.” Mickey waved a hand, not minding. To him, it was rather funny that someone didn't care to hear about his famous parents. “If you ask me, just talking about them doesn't do 'em any justice. You'll only get to know 'em when you see those two face to face.”

Minnie blinked – until this moment, and she realized in hindsight it was rather silly she hadn't come to this conclusion before, she didn't realize she'd be meeting his parents. Logically, she'd have to – Mickey refused to use her wishes, and turn her into a mortal, until they were freed. That would mean Mickey being right there with his parents, and Minnie, naturally, at his side. Could she face the former villain that fathered Mickey without seeing his face soaked in blood? And what of the beautiful mother, who Mickey would naturally judge all women against? Would they approve of such a girl being with their prince? “I... suppose you're right,” she finally said. “I won't know them until I meet them... and they won't know me until they meet me.”

Mickey nodded, but then paused for thought. “... Actually, since my Ma has that Eye thing, maybe she already knows you! Going by what Daisy said, all she said is a name to keep tabs on folks, and since she has my name, she has to know all of yours!” To Mickey, this was of great comfort. His parents could see how far in his journey he'd come, how much he'd grown and learned, about the amazing friends he'd made, and about the girl he had fallen for. No doubt they'd seen the horrors he committed against the Grimwolds, but surely they'd also seen his remorse and his efforts to change.

Minnie wasn't as pleased. “I'm... I'm sure she hasn't seen everything!” she said quickly, cheeks beginning to redden. “I'm sure she's so focused on where she is and what's going on that she doesn't watch us that often!” Like when Minnie threw a hissy fit about Lotus Blossom, or when Minnie did those ridiculous cheers in Rumansy, or when Minnie yelled at Mickey at the amusement park, or last night when Minnie WASN'T GOING TO DO ANYTHING TO MICKEY WHEN HE WAS SLEEPING!!!! “...I don't think your parents will like me that much.” Could her master please wish up a rock for her to crawl under and die?

“Aw, don't be silly!” Mickey lightly slapped Minnie on the shoulder, oblivious as usual to her inner panic attacks. “Everyone loves you, who wouldn't? I bet right now my folks practicing all kinds of silly welcomes to say when we rescue them.” Although now that he thought about it, he did kind of hope to get to his parents before Minnie did and beg them not to gush about his first romance. Minnie needed to be eased into his parent's strange ways, not be given the full blast right away. Still, he had faith that his mother and father would adore Minnie and gleefully welcome her to their palace life. He could already picture his mother wanting to dress Minnie up in dozens of dresses to see what suited her best while his father shared humiliating stories of Mickey's childhood. Minnie would be in a better life with freedom to do as she pleased, where she pleased, with who she pleased. Father, Mother, Mickey, Minnie, and Pluto, all together as one happy family. This gave him such happiness he couldn't stop smiling.

At least not until he was in the dining room and saw everybody's glum faces around the table – save for Daisy, who had propped herself up in Goofy's seat again, her pipe unlit in her beak. Mickey looked around, surprised that the energetic crew seemed so despondent, their bodies sagging over the table, eyes worn out, heads hung low. “Some kinda morning greet this is!” Mickey said loudly, getting their attention. “What, did somebody die?”

Somehow that little joke seemed to make things infinitely worse, as they now swiftly turned their heads away from him, Clarabelle clutching her stomach and Jose eating his cigar instead of smoking it. “Sheesh, tough crowd.” Mickey mumbled as he walked over and pulled out his chair. The breakfast meal seemed very small this morning, as if whoever had made it – Horace – imagined the crew wouldn't have much an appetite. Mickey shrugged off the oddness and began to eat after sitting. “So, Daisy, where's the next map piece again?”

Daisy straightened up, popping the pipe out of her mouth. “The Cave of Wants. It's located deep within a maze of caverns, a dangerous trap that has ensnared thousands of lives.” She pressed her fingers together, forming a triangle shape. “Legend has it that the gods once possessed a mirror showing them their greatest desire, but after a war with mankind, the mirror fell down to earth and shattered, creating the cave. Thus, whoever goes within will find what they've always wished for... but they can never leave! They are trapped by their greed, following the twists and turns of the cave until they die! Many have entered, determined to take the pieces of the mirror outside with them and sell them for infinite riches. After all, there are many who would love to see their wishes granted without doing any of the work. Hundreds of adventurers have braved the caverns for this fortune... but none have succeeded! Many call it the Cave of Death, because once you go in... you are never seen again!”

Even though the majority of the crew was still weighed down by the retelling of Scheherazade's fame, Daisy still managed to their attention with her excellent story-weaving skills, and a fresh wave of excitement and fear sailed through bodies... except for Donald, who was extra bitter from the night before. “Wait a minute,” he pointed out, “If nobody's made it out alive, then how does anybody know what's in there in the first place?”

Perhaps a day ago, or maybe even long before that, Daisy would have come up with a terribly witty lie about being connected to the gods, but the acid in Donald's tongue so burned her that her creativity faltered. “Because shut up, that's why.” What was she so upset about? This is exactly what she wanted. She wouldn't be surprised if the crew would find a way to keep her off the ship and sail away without her once the map had been attained. They'd be better off without her, and she'd find new entertainment to keep her busy. She'd done it dozens of times before, what made this so different? “Listen, when have I ever been wrong?”

Everyone's hands went up.

“...Okay, when have I ever been wrong about something that was important?”

Their hands stayed up.

“You guys are no fun.”

Goofy cleared his throat, ready to take over before things went belly-up. “This cave sounds like pretty bad business, so we have to stick together. What if we got a piece of rope and tied ourselves altogether with it?”

“Captain, we love you,” Clarabelle said as gently as she could, “but we can't trust you not to trip, tumble, or otherwise make sixty knots in sixty seconds.”

“Thirty seconds.” Horace felt the need to add.

Goofy conceded the point. “Guess we'll just have to hold onto each other... and we can't distracted. No split-ups, no running off, no going away without telling anyone, no matter what you see or hear.”

“... Why is everyone looking at me?” Mickey asked after Goofy had made his clear instructions.

Clarabelle sucked in air through her teeth. “Mickey, how can I put this delicately...”

“You can't,” Horace quipped, earning a kick to the shin.

“You do have a tendency to go into 'Hero Mode',” Daisy answered, making quotes with her fingers, her snake copying with his tail. “And the cave might use that against you. It might show you an illusion of a girl being robbed by vicious thieves, or Minnie misplacing her clothes-”

“DAISY!”

“-so we just need you to tone it down a notch.”

Mickey mercifully ignored the bait. “Okay, okay, so maybe at times I look before I leap... But I promise, that won't happen this time. We'll stay as a group from the beginning to the end until we find the map piece! And since we all have different desires, we can't all get fooled by the same thing. There will always be someone to snap us back into reality.”

Donald turned his back toward Daisy, intending on ignoring her as much as possible, though this also pained him. “And I've gotten much better at controlling my powers! I can just smash those mirrors with my lightning! I won't let any of you get caught...” He then cast a hateful side-glance at Daisy, unable to help himself. “Because I actually care about all of you.”

Daisy smirked, her newest mask the strongest one yet. “How sweet of you. Just try not to get too emotional in there, being drowned in a cave via raindrops would be such a disappointing way to die.”

Mickey looked back and forth between Donald and Daisy, seeing a battle of glares playing out before him, and he leaned toward Panchito, whispering, “Say, uh, did I miss something?” Last he checked, Donald usually went out of his way to defend Daisy, and her taunts towards him were much more playful. All of a sudden they were now bitter enemies.

Panchito was a terrible liar, as evidenced by his long, desperate “Ummmmmmmm,” as his eyes bounced all over the room. “I cannot recall missing anyone or anything or anywhere! Jose, friend among friends, do you remember missing or being missed?”

Jose at this point had eaten more of his cigar than his breakfast. “Panchito, whose glory is only matched by your bravery, if something was missing, we would find it, and if we're not finding anything, then nothing is missing!”

Mickey wondered why he ever bothered asking the two strangest members of the crew about anything ever. “I give up.” Adventure couldn't be started on an empty stomach, so he started to eat, and the heavy air continued to hang all around them. Most of the crew decided that nothing could be done about it.

But Panchito Pistoles and Jose Carioca would not let this stand. After Mickey had questioned the change in Donald and Daisy's behavior, Jose looked at Panchito, and Panchito looked at Jose. With a silent nod, they understood each other at once. They were simple birds with simple needs, and whenever they devoted themselves to something, it got 110% of their energy. Donald's happiness was 120% devotion, and how could they live with themselves if they couldn't help their dear Donald? They couldn't suddenly find his family, but perhaps the cave would give them something else to work with. They would find a way to fix everyone's sadness, Donald's first and foremost! He was their third Caballero! Their brother from another mother! Their mister who was an A-Lister! And so as they ate their breakfast, they plotted and planned, not once thinking about any desires of theirs that would show up in the cave.

~*~

As usual, Pluto was instructed to stay behind and guard the ship, though at this point Mickey believed there was little point in doing this. Not once had anyone aside from a crew member tried to climb aboard, and any treasure that could be stolen wasn't something that carried a lot of personal value. Mickey thought about this as they sunk their anchor in the deep, rich red sand below and how much he'd used his parents gifts – the pup and the rug. The rug hadn't gotten much use since day one, but then it was such a hefty thing that carrying it around everywhere seemed ridiculous. Why, out of all the gifts to prove her Eye was real, did Scheherazade give him the flying carpet? What other secrets was she hiding?

The sand was soft underneath as they walked, and there was a scent of old clay breezing by them. The land beneath them became steeper as they continued, almost as if they were heading toward the underworld or the lair of Hades. Heavy clouds drifted above their heads, blocking out the sun and erasing the shadows. It was because of this they almost didn't see the cave at first – but when they did, the group collectively gulped.

Instead of being attached to a mountain or hill, the gaping mouth of the cave opened up from the ground surrounded by nothing, except for a woman in heavy robes waiting expectantly. The rocky surface of the cave was darker than the shadows, darker than any night, and even as they squinted they couldn't see anything inside the open hole. Only two stalagmites hung from the rim of the entrance, glassy and clear in appearance, making the entire cave appear as if it was a hideous beast waiting for its next meal.

“Could use a nice 'welcome' mat,” Horace said dryly, and only his wife's iron grip prevented him from retreating.

The woman took her time to approach them, her face difficult to see given how large her gray hood was. Black hair spilled out from her shoulders, and her arms were linked together in her long sleeves. Once she was in front of the crew, she bowed respectively. “Captain Sinbad, Son of Scheherazade... I welcome you to the Cave of Wants.” Mickey thought her voice sounded familiar, but couldn't place it right away. “I am here to guide you.”

Mickey raised his eyebrows, surprised. It would be nice to have a little bit of help, but this was too good to be true. “Well, gee, miss, we'd love to have you along, but... how'd you know who we were?”

The woman then chuckled, suddenly sounding much younger than she was pretending to be. “Who could ever forget you... Big Ears?” As if that infamous nickname wasn't enough to jar all their memories, the woman slid her hood down, revealing -

“Lotus Blossom?!” Mickey, Minnie and Donald all shouted together, mutually horrified. Goofy merely blinked, remembering her but not terribly worried.

Clarabelle grabbed Daisy by her ponytail and spun her around. “You knew she was gunna be here, didn't you?”

“I did not,” Daisy said with an unconvincing grin. She had never heard of a guide for the cave before now, but why question something this hilarious? “Maybe the cave got ahead of itself and granted my wish to see Mickey's ex-girlfriend for myself!”

“SHE IS NOT MY EX-ANYTHING!”

Minnie shoved Mickey aside in order to confront Lotus directly, who had been laughing at all these reactions. “You! What are you doing here? Trying to trick my Master again?”

Lotus merely smiled, bending over to match Minnie's height. “It's so nice to see you again too, oh girl who Mickey finds uncomfortable to kiss.”

“THAT'S NOT WHAT HE MEANT!” Much like the last time Lotus drove Minnie crazy, Donald put himself in charge of hoisting Minnie up in his arms to make sure no further trouble was caused. “WE CAN'T TRUST HER! YOU STAY AWAY FROM MY MASTER! PUT ME DOWN!”

Goofy, sensing this might go in circles for a while, took Minnie's place. “You said you're here to guide us, Lotus Blossom? How come?”

Lotus stood up straight, clearing her throat to give a more dignified response this time. “Well, once I served my time for theft, I decided to turn over a new leaf. The last guide to the Cave was retiring, so I took her place. It's my job to get people in and out of the cave safely, but I can't always guarantee it. So if you want to go in there, you'd better be prepared.” She turned toward the cave, her open hand gesturing to the fang-like rocks atop. “Once the illusion catches you, you'll forget everything else. Drinking, eating, sleeping... It'll give you what you want most, and that's a very hard temptation to resist.” As she motioned with one hand, she kept her other hidden in her sleeve, fingering something small and shiny. “Do you all think you have the strength to overcome it?”

Mickey thumped his fist to his chest, trying to ignore his earlier outbursts. “I know we have it! As long as we work together, there's nothing we can't do! Right, guys?” he turned around, expecting to see a sea of triumph, but his enthusiasm was quashed as he watched Minnie rant and rave in Donald's arms, Daisy arguing with Clarabelle and Horace about how much she really knew about this place – so she didn't know about any guide, what was the big deal? -  Panchito and Jose still trying to come up with a plan for Donald's happiness and just up and ignoring everything else, and Goofy had somehow tripped while standing up. “... Uh. We're usually better than this. It's an off day.”

More importantly, Mickey faced Lotus Blossom again, hands on his hips. “Well, I still trust them, but what about you? Are you really on the up and up?” The sting of her deceit still burned, even if ultimately she had been a good lesson for him about going head-first into trust and trouble. “How do we know you're not trying to pull another fast one on me?”

“What could I possibly do this time?” Lotus shrugged, still keeping her one hand hidden. “I'm outnumbered! Even if you go along with it, the rest will keep an eye on me so there's no way I could try anything. Can't a girl get a second chance?”

Mickey “hmm”ed about this for a moment longer, arms crossed and fingers strumming. Those were fair points, and wasn't Mickey the ultimate result of someone giving a criminal a second chance? In the end, they needed the map piece, and a guide would be better than having nothing. With a defeated sigh, he offered his hand to shake. “All right, but no funny tricks! We're here on very serious business! There's an item in the cave we need, and if you can help us get it, I'll forgive you for playing me last time.”

“Done deal,” Lotus Blossom chirped, taking Mickey's hand and shaking it... then yanking him down and kissed his nose. “There! Not quite what I wanted last time, but it'll do.”

Donald slapped his hand over Minnie's mouth to keep in her newest scream, though she was getting harder to hold. Daisy tittered. “I like this girl.”

“You would,” Horace huffed.

“Then let us be off!” Lotus announced, as Mickey quickly rubbed his nose clean. “Everyone stay together, and we'll make this trip as quick as possible! Follow me.” The group began to walk, with Minnie quickly breaking out of Donald's grip and making sure to keep Mickey away from Lotus Blossom. Panchito and Jose hung to the back, and while they hadn't said much to the group, that hadn't meant they weren't listening.

“My dearest and most darling Panchito,” Jose said, using his latest cigar to act as a torch. “I have a conundrum.”

“What puzzles you, and what can I do to help you most?” Panchito asked, moving his guitar onto his back.

“I wonder, you see, how Lotus Blossom knew that we were coming. She didn't seem surprised at all to see us. And to think she would have this exact job at this exact time at this exact location, that is a lot of coincidences piled up together.”

Panchito stroked his chin, now just as intrigued as Jose was. “It seems to me that whenever there are a lot of coincidences piled up together, there are no coincidences piled up at all. That would suggest something else is going on.”

“An excellent deduction! What could that something else be?”

“I have no idea. Isn't that fun?”

Clarabelle jabbed her thumb backwards, unable to hear the birds directly but knowing they were yammering about something or other. “What are those two going on about?”

“Probably how much they love each other,” Donald said with a shrug. “Or me. Or music. Or girls.” He didn't give it too much thought or worry.

As they entered the blackness of the cave, the group huddled together to make sure they wouldn't separate as it became difficult to see where they were going. Goofy linked arms with Horace and Clarabelle, as did Panchito with Jose, and Mickey with Minnie. Daisy felt Donald's arm begin to slink around hers and she violently pulled it back. “Hey!” Donald whispered, hoping it wouldn't turn into an echo across the cave. “I'm just trying to help!”

“I don't recall asking for your help,” Daisy replied snidely, rubbing her arms as the cave began to grow cold without the sun's natural warmth. “We went on about Mickey going into Hero Mode, but you have it just as bad.”

“What do you have against people being nice to you?” Donald growled, finding it harder to see Daisy's shape.

“Because when Nice People help Bad People, they get hurt, and I am a Bad Person. Flintheart should have taught you that first and foremost.” Now she was going too far, but she couldn't stop herself, not if Donald wouldn't learn. “You're nothing but a stupid, spoiled brat who has no idea how the real world works. You should do your family a favor and give up looking for them, because they're better off not finding you.” She drew a breath, stunned at her own words, and for the briefest pause in time, perhaps for the first time in her life, she considered actually apologizing. She hadn't meant it – she rarely meant most of her lies. She could hear the footsteps of everyone going forward, but Donald's had stopped.

Yell at me, she thought. Lose your temper again. Let it all out. Say you hate me. Say you never want to see me again. But Donald said nothing.

“Hey, look!” Mickey's cheerful voice loudly burst out, delighted at what he could finally see. “There's light!”

Just as Mickey said, in the distance there was a hue of rich blue, and as they approached it, they could see clumps of blue goop sticking to the walls and ceiling, surrounded by smaller wriggling blues. All of them glowed brilliantly, giving enough illumination to see their friends and their surroundings. Minnie held up her hand, watching the color on her fingers, amazed by such a sight. “What are these things? It's all so pretty!”

“I think these are glow-worms!” Goofy plucked one off the wall to see it for himself, letting it crawl around his knuckles. “Get enough of these little fellas together and they can light brighter than any torch! If the entire cave is like this, we'll have no problem findin' the next piece of the map.”

“Don't get ahead of yourself,” Lotus Blossom warned. “There's still one vital thing you all need to do if we want to go any further in the cave. I need all of you to understand how serious this. You have to do one big, important thing.”

As expected, now all eyes were on Lotus Blossom, with Mickey frowning. “Well, what is it?”

“Look here.” Lotus Blossom took out her hidden hand, and there was a bright, harsh flash -

Mickey rubbed his fists into eyes – that smarted! He was going to see spots for ages! “What was that for?” he asked aloud, already getting the sense something bad had happened. “Sheesh... this is no time for tricks, Lotus Blossom, we have to keep moving! Just remember everyone, we have to stick together, we cannot be separated!” He turned around to remind everyone of this -

And found himself all alone.

“Well..there's no way they can blame me for this one,” Mickey quietly said to himself.

[jugandbettsdetectiveagency]

@devilinhighheels:  How about a fic where Cheryl dares Betty to spend a weekend at a haunted house where she falls in love with ghost Jughead? Or Jughead tries to save her from an evil ghost with some angst but also lots of fluff? 

Ok, so this isn’t as developed as I wanted because this was supposed to be a short one shot but I seem to have forgotten how to do those so... I guess you can use your imaginations. It’s not exactly in keeping with the prompt because I was trying to keep it short, but then it got away from me just like this explanation is and I’m rambling, yeah, have this half-assed fic.

accepting halloween-y vibed prompts

“My turn,” Cheryl piped up, a sly grin planting itself firmly across her lips as she let go of Dilton Doiley’s sweater, allowing him to fall back in a post-make out daze, wiping at the corners of her mouth to remove any lipstick smudges. Somehow she seemed to be the only woman alive that managed to keep her makeup intact despite a multitude of spit swapping. Betty often wondered if the cherry red stain wasn’t lipstick at all, but that the colour just naturally deepened every time Cheryl managed to slay one of her enemies.

“Betty.” She jumped at the clipped sound of her name. Cheryl’s pupils had turned a menacingly dark shade as she focused her attention on her next victim. “Truth or dare?”

She hadn’t wanted to play this game. In fact, the only reason she was even at the Blossom’s Halloween bash in the first place was because Archie had looked at her with that liquid chocolate, puppy dog expression of his and practically begged her to come with him; she had melted just like his eyes. Betty cursed her inability to deny Archie Andrews anything as she watched him sliding closer to her best friend, Veronica Lodge, by the second. She bit the inside of her cheek as the corners of her eyes began to sting.

“Aren’t we a little too old for truth or dare?” she had protested weakly when Cheryl suggested the game earlier in the evening, noting the way the redhead kept flicking her gaze between the three of them, a mischievous glint appearing in her eyes. Betty could just picture how this was going to go.

“Betty, tell the truth. Are you in love with Archie?”

“Archie, I dare you to make out with Veronica.”

Whatever schemes Cheryl was currently plotting, Betty didn’t want any part of it. She’d been outvoted, nevertheless.

“It’s a time honoured tradition, Betty,” Cheryl stated evenly as she sat down on the crimson upholstered chaise lounge. The way she moved, with such grace and precision, never moving a muscle that need not be moved, only served to further cement Betty’s suspicions that she was actually the living dead.

“Yeah, B, come on! It’ll be fun,” Veronica insisted, barely having finished her sentence before she was glancing over adoringly at Archie, who’d come up behind her baring a red solo cup and a winning smile, guiding her to sit with a warm hand on her lower back.

“Betty, we’re waiting,” Cheryl demanded impatiently, snapping her out of her daze. All eyes were on her as she glanced nervously around the circle, like a cornered animal searching for a way out. Well, if she had to go with the least horrible option she’d pick…

“Dare,” Betty squeaked, clearing her throat a little. The joy in Cheryl’s expression faltered only for a minute before she rallied, glancing around the room for something to torture her with. In fact, she wouldn’t put it past the Blossom mansion to have some kind of secret torture chamber hidden away in its depths…

“Fine,” Cheryl sighed, “I dare you to…” She paused, her eyes looked on something just outside the window over Betty’s shoulder, corners of her mouth turning up in a devilish smirk. “I dare you to spend ten minutes in the abandoned Jones Mansion across the street,” she finished smugly.

Betty cringed, letting her eyes slide closed slowly in defeat as a hum of excitement filled the air. She’d been so focused on her prays that Bluebeard’s chamber wasn’t an additional feature to the gothic horror show that was Thornhill, that she’d completely forgotten that the Blossom’s home came complete with its own creepy, abandoned house just a few feet away.

“That place is totally haunted, dude,” Reggie announced with glee, practically bouncing in his seat. He didn’t notice the withering look Betty shot his way. “One time me and Jase kicked our football over there when we were kids and when we went over to get it I swear we saw someone moving about through one of the blown out windows,” he said solemnly, eyes wide.

“You’re freaking her out!” Jason chastised, throwing a concerned glance towards a rapidly paling Betty. Her fingers began a familiar twitch inwards towards the meat of her palms, hovering just above the surface of the delicate skin.

“You don’t have to do it, B,” Veronica consoled, resting a hand on her forearm in what she imagined what supposed to be a comforting gesture.

“Um, yes she does. She picked dare, she has to do the deed – those are the rules,” Cheryl cut in haughtily.

“Betty, you don’t have to if you’re not up to it,” Archie spoke over her, voice laced with pity.

That was it. She was done being babied.

“I’ll do it!” she burst out, instantly blushing at the sound of her unexpectedly loud voice echoing through the high ceilings. “It’s not a big deal, guys, it’s just a house,” Betty murmured quietly, unable to deny the slight tremor in her voice to even herself.

“Excellent!” Cheryl beamed, rising from her seat like Carmilla from her coffin. “Shall we?” she asked, motioning towards the door.

The group piled out, both tripping over each other with eagerness and reserve as they tried to get closer but not be the one closest to the house that haunted all of their childhood ghost stories.

The Jones mansion had sat, decrepit and decaying, for as long as any of them had known. None of them really knew who had truly lived there, only that the Jones family had been one of the founding families of the town of Riverdale, and that there were many stories surrounding their demise, spanning from debauchery to insanity. Either way, there were very few people willing to venture inside the old house that sat untouched at the other end of the Blossom’s driveway.

“Oh, and would you look at that,” Cheryl said coyly, holding up her phone that they were using as a flashlight to pick their way across the overgrown yard. “It’s almost midnight.”

“Ooh, the witching hour,” Reggie giggled, rubbing his hands together. A muffled ‘oomph’ rang out after Veronica elbowed him in the stomach, her usually highly arched eyebrows drawn low over her eyes.

“Are you sure about this?” she asked, turning her worried gaze to Betty, searching her face for signs of hesitation. “I mean, we literally just walked past so many signs saying to keep out. No one has been inside here since before Gabrielle Chanel started going by ‘Coco’. It’s just waiting to fall down,” she shivered, wrapping her Red Riding Hood’s cloak tightly around her exposed arms as the fall wind picked up ominously around them.

Betty ran a hand down the cheap costume satin of her Marie Antoinette outfit, suddenly feeling like the thin, red ribbon choker tied around her neck (her attempt at backhanded humour) was too tight, watching as she leaned back into Archie’s embrace while he rubbed some warmth into her skin. Maybe she should have worn something a little more risqué, Betty thought dejectedly, glimpsing the exposed thigh between Veronica’s short skirt and knee socks. Steeling her shoulders, she turned away from the group.

“It’s just a house,” she repeated, more to herself than her friends. Really, it was. “I’ll be in and out,” she reassured, flicking an unsteady smile over her shoulder.

“Ten minutes,” Cheryl reminded her, clearly enjoying this far too much.

“Yeah, I got it,” Betty bit out. The shadow of the house loomed before her as she sucked in one last deep breath, the full moon just emerging from behind dark wisps of late night clouds while she reached out and grasped the handle, pushing open the rotted wooden door with a creak.

Something dark and fast scuttled along the edge of what Betty assumed used to be the grand foyer, and she swallowed the bubble of a scream that threatened to burst free, well aware that she was still within earshot of the teens waiting for her re-emergence with anticipation. The door swung shut with a solid bang causing her to flinch in surprise, hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention. Betty conjured the page of the text book she’d read in her mind that explained why this reaction happened – something about the fight or flight response triggered by the rush of adrenaline in a fearful situation causing goose bumps, thus tightening the hair follicles and making the hairs stand on end. If she thought about that she didn’t have enough energy left to consider what might be casting the strange looking shadow on the wall to her left, while making her way towards the heart of the house.

A small yelp escaped her as a flurry of wings erupted above her head, coupled with the sharp snap of the bannister giving way under her sudden weight against it. Betty stumbled back, managing to keep herself upright just in time to watch an ornately carved section of the staircase creak and crash to the floor.

“Betty?” she heard Archie’s voice call out in concern. Her hand was on her chest, feeling the erratic thud of her heart beneath her palm.

“I’m fine!” she yelled back as loud as she dared. She couldn’t help but be overcome with the uneasy feeling that she was disturbing something here.

She reached the second story landing, eyes darting about in search of god knows what; she was sure she was just hoping not to see anything at all. It was clear by the mouldings this house was once a lavish structure, the height of upper-class society, now reduced to rot and rubble.

A soft laugh drifted by her ear and Betty whipped round, breath caught in her throat as her palms began to sweat. She was sure she’d heard it – it was so clear. A light breeze trailed its fingers over her shoulders, rustling her skirts as they went, carrying with it the distant sound of violins, glasses clinking, footsteps thudding. Betty spun around in continuous circles, head all of a suddenly becoming dizzy, as the noises overwhelmed her senses.

“Liza!” The voice was coated in sheer panic, growing in volume with each passing second. “Liza, my love, where are you?!” Betty turned, the air getting knocked out of her as she took in the sight that met her. A man was heading straight for her, his dark curls dishevelled, haunted eyes round with fear, his feet not touching the ground as he ran. Betty watched the moon disappear into the clouds, once more, out of the window behind his head, the flood of light pouring right through his sheer features.

It didn’t make sense, there was nothing here, there was nothing… She thundered down the hallway, the house’s foundations moaning underneath her, awakening from decade’s old slumber with each pound of her boots. The chime of a clock striking midnight reverberated through her skull and Betty cried out, falling back against a door that gave way beneath her.

She landed with a soft thud on a plush, paisley rug, the ringing in her ears abruptly ceasing. Her chest shuddered with each fear-filled breath, her eyes clenched tightly, too afraid to open them.

“What are you doing?” She knew that voice. He wasn’t real, he wasn’t real, he wasn’t real…

The warm weight of a cautious hand on her shoulder was very real.

Betty’s eyes flew open with a gasp. Her vision with filled with a lake of quivering blue, peering out from behind a simple, black mask, those curls partly obstructing the view. “Are you alright…”

“Liza?” Betty whispered, still coming down from whatever trip she’d just taken.

“Liza, are you alright?” he asked again, mistaking her questioning tone.

“No, that’s not…” she trailed off, lifting a shaking hand to her throbbing forehead, pinching her brows to try and quell the pain. She met his eyes again. Why was she trying to explain herself to a ghost? He wasn’t real anyway, none of this was. “Yeah, I think so,” she mumbled instead, finding herself flushing as he swiped a gentle thumb over her cheek.

“Then I’ll ask again, what are you doing?” he smirked, clearly trying to hide his laughter. Betty looked down at her sprawled out position on the carpet, her blush intensifying as she scrabbled to stand, his hand supporting under her elbow.

“I… tripped,” she supplied lamely, unable to meet his piercing eyes.

“Came here for some peace?” he guessed, raising a dark brow. “Me too. I’m not adept at dealing with the types that come to these kind of things. My father insists upon my attendance unfortunately,” he lamented, raking a hand through his hair in exasperation.

Betty watched him intently, waiting for him to disappear before her eyes. The man cleared his throat, straightening slightly. “My manners, forgive me. I’m Jughead Jones.”

“Jones?” she repeated, unable to keep the tone of incredulity from her voice.

“Yes,” Jughead replied, narrowing his eyes. “Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” he asked slowly, reaching up as if to cup her cheek before aborting the movement. “How can you be at a ball without knowing the host?” That secret smile was once again playing about his lips.

Betty pulled her lower lip between her teeth, feeling warm all over. She peeked up at the dream man from beneath her lashes, hoping her silence would appease him. It took her a moment to take in her surroundings, having been so focused on Jughead. The room was filled with a soft, yellow candlelight from the lanterns scattered about. The carpets were clean and untorn, the wood freshly varnished, and the walls filled with shelves upon shelves of neatly filed books.

It wasn’t possible, but somehow she just knew… This was the same house she’d stepped foot into, but it wasn’t the same time. The grandfather clock in the corner of the room read just gone eleven.

“I should re-join the party before my mother sends out a search party. Would you… care to join me, Liza?” Jughead asked, a hint of bashfulness creeping into his request. Betty smiled, looping her hand through his crooked elbow.

“Wait, I don’t have a mask,” she fretted as they reached the top of the staircase. She glanced quickly towards the chunk that had given way beneath her body just moments before, finding it securely in place and perfectly polished.

“Here,” Jughead said, reaching for one of the decorative ones on the cabinet behind them. She stood as still as possible while he tied it in place, his fingertips brushing along the slope of her neck, raising goose bumps for the second time that night.

“Thank you.”

The sounds that filled the air were once again familiar as they descended into the ball below. Clinking glasses, cheerful chatter, the soothing lull of violins playing. Betty was in awe as she took it all in, still not quite sure this wasn’t a dream and her lifeless body was lying somewhere beneath collapsed shingles back in the broken version of this house. But, then again, she didn’t have as much stock in her imagination to believe that she could have made up something this beautiful. And the weight of Jughead’s hand on the small of her back felt so impossibly real.

“Forsythe, dear! Ethel’s saved you this dance!” A high-pitched voice called over the noise and Jughead groaned, ducking his head while simultaneously quickening their pace so they became lost in the crowd.

“Forsythe?” Betty giggled – her imagination definitely didn’t make that up. He shot her a disdainful glare as he peered over her shoulder nervously.

“Yet another family curse,” he murmured distractedly, turning back to her once he was seemingly satisfied that they’d evaded whoever was trying to accost him. “I didn’t get your last name,” he said with an adorable tilt of his head.

“Cooper,” Betty replied, regretting her response as soon as she saw the colour drain from his face. “What?” she asked, apprehension causing her skin to tingle.

“You’re a Cooper?” The way he emphasised her name suddenly made her feel as if it were the worst thing to be right now. “What in the hell are you doing here?! How– Do they know you’re here? Jesus, I hope my parents don’t…” Betty couldn’t help but be transfixed by the way he rolled his lower lip through his teeth in frustration, the colour flooding back in when he let it go with a barely audible pop.

“No, I– I’m just here,” she stammered, because it was the truth. Jughead blew an exasperated breath out of his nostrils, appraising her with caution. Eventually he sighed, shaking his head as a small chuckle fell from his lips. The sound was deep and throaty, and not entirely displeasing to the ear.

“Well, I have to admit you’re braver than I. I like it,” he grinned and Betty felt herself preening a little at the compliment. Jughead’s gaze was drawn to something over her shoulder again, smile vanishing. “Shit. Um… Liza, will you do me the honour of letting me have this dance?” he asked, holding out his hand. Betty took it before she could think. Liza was definitely braver.

“Who are you avoiding?” Betty questioned as they began to glide across the dancefloor. She wasn’t wholly sure what she was doing (she’d only taken ballet for a few years before her mother told her she was too big boned to continue with any amount of grace), but she found that if she didn’t focus too much on her feet it wasn’t so hard.

“My mother. She’s been trying to match me with every eligible woman here,” he grumbled, a look of genuine pain crossing his face. Betty pressed her lips together to avoid laughing at him.

“Sounds terrible,” she murmured with teasing sympathy.

“It is!” he insisted, flexing his fingers against the small of her waist. “Everyone here is intolerable. I think,” he added as an afterthought, his eyes swimming again. Betty, not for the first time, began to feel lightheaded.

She lost herself in the dance, in the feeling of his body pressed against hers. She forgot that this was a dream, or that it was impossible, or that she was probably bleeding out somewhere with no one around. She hoped her friends would find her before any permanent damage was done. Instead, she chose to focus on the way Jughead looked at her with a fire she’d only ever dreamed of being on the receiving end of before. Well, it made sense…

“Why did you come here, Liza?” Jughead asked some time later, as their second dance of the evening was drawing to a close. “It could end so badly, our families despise each other,” he whispered. Betty shrugged.

“I don’t know. Maybe it was fate,” she quipped jokingly. When he didn’t reply she looked up to find him pulling his mask off. He really was beautiful. All strong lines and soft-looking lips. Something in the back of her mind reminded her that dreams had no consequences.

“Fate rarely works in my favour,” he muttered, cupping the back of her neck. Betty’s tongue came out to wet her lips in anticipation, seconds before they were pressed against his.

In the darkened corner of the room his mouth moved against hers slowly, steadily, working up a rhythm that sucked all of the oxygen from Betty’s lungs. He groaned quietly when she let out a small whimper at the way his tongue ran over the inside of her lower lip. Jughead pulled back, resting his forehead against hers when the chime of the clock bellowed, trying to regain their breaths.

“Come with me,” he whispered, pulling her from her place against the wall. Betty followed willingly, weaving through the crowd while a storm of butterflies tried to escape the confines of her stomach.

She tripped through the door at the back of the ballroom, the weight of Jughead’s hand disappearing, the cold wind winding its way into her bones.

“Jughead?” she whispered into the night, tears ridiculously pooling along her waterline. The decomposing floorboards once against creaked beneath her feet.

“Betty! Oh my, god, Betty! We’ve been calling you for ages; we heard a crash and thought something awful had happened,” Veronica sighed, pulling her in for a brief, but tight, hug.

“Something awful did,” Betty whispered, too low to be heard.

“Look what we found though,” Archie cut in excitedly, thrusting a weathered piece of paper into her hand. Betty felt the ground fall away from beneath her feet as she stared down at the figures in the picture. “She looks so much like you, maybe you’re related, isn’t that awesome?” Archie guessed with a shrug.

Betty knew they were more than just related. The woman in the picture stood next to Jughead Jones, bouquet in hand, swathed in the delicate lace of a wedding dress. Around her neck was a thin line of ribbon, tied in exactly the same way as hers was now.

She was reeling. She knew this was her, she knew it must have been real. But now, more than anything, she knew that she must make it back to him.

[ihaveatheoryonthat]

The Long Way Up (Ch 1)

Awhile back, I encountered this post from @everystarstorm and typed up a tentative first chapter for it. In spite of it being a bit old, I still enjoy the concept and wouldn’t be opposed to continuing from here-- I’m mostly just curious whether or not anyone else finds it interesting, or if I should focus on wrapping Sleeping Dogs up.

The Long Way Up on AO3

Lewis didn't rise with noble intentions.

It was absolute fury on his mind first and foremost-- a standard reaction that he'd fought almost every day of his life and failed to combat in death. Where the urge to lash out first came from, he didn't know. There were a lot of things he didn't know about himself, and there were probably more now.

The fact remained: when Lewis pulled away from his body, skewered at the bottom of some nameless cave, his only thought had been to get even.

He didn't get even.

What he did get was a flying high-five through the face, graciously provided by the same hand that had pushed him from the cliff not thirty seconds prior. Stunned into inaction, he watched the limb sail downwards and, spite not fully forgotten, was disappointed when it failed to stick the landing he'd made. As an afterthought, he glanced at the rock shelf.

The only conscious being on the ledge tensed up, caught in the act and, though Lewis wasn't aware of it, he backpedalled in thin air at the sight of its bloodied muzzle. The monster took a step forward. For the first time, the factors started adding up. Though he wasn't entirely sure why he did it, Lewis charged forward to pose a somewhat incorporeal obstacle between the beast and Arthur's bleeding body.

In hindsight, maybe the sight of a disembodied arm flying through the air should have set off some alarms.

Behind the glasses-- glasses?-- its wide eyes relaxed. Tails waving lazily in the gloom, it stalked forward and snagged the cuff of Lewis' sleeve without ever pausing in its march. Automatically, Lewis tried to snatch his hand away-- already intimately acquainted with fatal injuries and wayward arms by this point-- but the monster grumbled at him and something furry bounced off the back of his head, followed by another smack when he tried it again.

It seated itself near Arthur's head, tugging Lewis down with it as it sat, and carefully angled itself so it was almost nose-deep in the wound. Trails of impossibly thick drool came away with it as it released its grip on Lewis' sleeve, and he was torn between absolute disgust in the monster spit or unbridled horror in the fact that oh god there was blood everywhere and that thing just stuck his hand against the source.

"Get angry first," Someone, somewhere said, "And grossed out later."

Oh, now they wanted anger? He'd momentarily lost anger somewhere between being beaned with a flying hand and reenacting one of Vivi's horror movies.

"No, that's not going to cut it. Lewis, are you even listening to me?"

Lewis flinched in surprise and jerked backward, a wave of pink heat dissipating in his wake. He shook his hand with wild abandon, frantically trying to get the blood off of it, and missed the exact moment when it simply fell away, through his hand in certain areas.

"I… suppose that also works."

The monster-- the monster that he'd almost forgotten about-- looked to its paws and gave one a dainty flick , but didn't seem to mind that the edge of the blood pool had slowly crept towards it, marring even more of its fur.

"Never doubt a germaphobic human's ability to cauterize something."

The creature snorted and started back to its feet, casting him what almost looked like a teasing glance. "Ah, I'm sorry. You're not a germaphobe, are you? You're a 'food service worker'."

And now the monster was talking. Vivi would be having a field day.

…where was Vivi?

It stopped midway through settling Arthur on its back-- using its prehensile tails to steady him-- and its face fell. "Though I suppose you aren't human anymore, either."

Among the number of things Lewis 'wasn't', listening ranked high on the list. In fact, Lewis wasn't even there anymore, already racing down the uppermost pathway and past the fork in the cave. The creature went unobserved as it raised its head and hissed backwards from ten before following at a more sedate pace.

As it walked, it cast a critical eye over the new scorch marks decorating the stone.

Lewis didn't afford it more than a glance when it caught up to him, busying himself with tending to Vivi. She didn't look hurt, which-- after Arthur-- was something of a minor miracle, but remained unresponsive no matter how he tried to wake her. Eventually, he settled for lifting her up off the ground, held safely against his chest.

That was when his attention was drawn downwards, to the bottom of the cave.

For several seconds he stood, speechless, and tried to process what had just happened.

The monster stepped forward, matching his footing at the edge of the cliff. It was lower than the cliff, but offered the same view. With one major exception.

"It was my fault, truth be told." To his right, the beast sighed. "For what it's-- Lewis?"

Lewis nodded numbly, unable to tear his gaze away from the sea of stalagmites.

"Fantastic. That makes two incapacitated humans and one ghost in shock." One of the tails stopped waving lazily about and struck him in the shoulder. "Wake up, Lewis! You can have a metaphysical crisis once we've gotten out of here."

When that failed, the tail took a different approach and knocked his feet out from under him. Though, gravitationally, it had little effect, it did what it was meant to.

For several baffling seconds, Lewis blinked up at the stone ceiling, knocked off balance but not out of the air. The weight in his arms reminded him of Vivi's presence and, finally, he looked back at the beast that had been trying to engage him in conversation.

His attention flicked from the jingling dog tag at the monster's throat to its eyes. Understanding tugged at him, though he was hesitant to accept it.

Unsure whether it was a question or a statement, Lewis managed to croak, "Mystery."

He hummed the affirmative and tugged at Lewis' ankle with the same tail that had hit him a moment prior, bringing him back down to ground-level. "Remember what I said about that metaphysical crisis. Now isn't the time. If you would?"

Mystery looked from Vivi's unconscious form back to him, expectant, and, without realizing it, Lewis moved to hold her more securely. The weight of Mystery's stare didn't lessen.

"I can carry Vivi. You should take Arthur-- I suspect you'll jostle him less than I would."

Lewis tensed at the suggestion. "I've got her."

"Don't be so petty; you're both victims here."

The spike of anger that flared through him wasn't entirely unfamiliar, but notes of it struck an odd chord-- something inhuman that would have been frightening if he hadn't been its source.  

Mystery's ears wilted and he closed his eyes. "I-- understand where you're coming from right now, but you have to try to understand as well. You're dead and there's nothing to be done for that, but we can help Arthur. Even if you won't act for friendship, are you going to let the demon that killed you have him too?"

Lewis was the first to break eye contact, reluctantly entrusting Vivi's wellbeing to her loyal dog, and keeping his expression carefully blank as he gathered Arthur up in her stead.

He didn't know how to feel about this and he didn't want anyone else to know it.

Mystery kept pace next to him, neither of them inclined to say anything about the situation they'd been literally thrust into. The heavy silence followed them well past the mouth of the cave and into the van, dulled only by the engine's roar and the crunch of dirt beneath tires.

Even that faded, leaving a set of tire tracks and a growing pool of blood at the cave's nadir.

[Next Chapter]