#[ iridescent; ethan ]

[pastel-soft-grunge-kitty]

Ｃｒｙｓｔａｌ Ｃａｓｔｌｅｓ 🌌🏰🪩👽

[pureheartsandrainbowwings]

Silvers of Rotumblr, does your version of Ethan also stay adamant in finding stupid flower nicknames for you?

(Mine is trying to get away with calling me primavera.)

[souenkun]

💥 Pokémon Gameverse Fanfic Recs 2023 💥

Hello! 🥺✨️ I'm pretty new in loving the amazing Pokémon trainers that the official games created, so I thought I'd compile all of my favorite fanfics of them that I've read last year. Here are some notes to read before you start scrolling:

There is almost 80 fanfics that I listed here, if I counted correctly! They're divided into 3 big categories (which are Ships, Gen, and Character Study Fics), and each pairing that I listed follow the same way that AO3 writes theirs ("/" for romantic pairs and "&" for platonic pairs).

Trigger Warnings aren't listed here, so please check the Additional Tags section and/or the Author's Note to do so.

There are a few Explicit (E)-rated fanfics here, so please tread carefully.

Most fanfics are about trainers from the Kanto, Johto, Alola, Galar, and Hisui regions.

Lastly, please show the authors some love by leaving kudos and comments! They've poured a lot of effort and love for these fanfics that will blow your mind 💗✨️

The list is below the cut! Please enjoy these amazing fics as a way to start your new year 🥂💫

Category A: Ships

Truerivalshipping (Raihan/Leon):

dream in my soul, and i won't let it go by notavodkashot

i've battled hard with the face in the mirror by notavodkashot

the sea between us (and the storms we bring) by bukkunkun

against all odds (no matter what) by bukkunkun

namelessshipping (Red/Blue Oak):

return again by bukkunkun

Peaks and Valleys by clefairytea

Red's Halfway House for Troubled Trainers by clefairytea

Your love has come home (And so has your worst enemy) by clefairytea

What's Yours is Mine by lemonjelloarts

the vastness is bearable by synchronicities

the earth badge by littleroot

Supersonic by apockalypsis

Halcyon by Skylark

Huntershipping (Ethan/Silver):

Mistakes Were Made by deamsgirl

Rivalzoned by deamsgirl

kinda like fireworks by ghostscribe

Alloy by untilitbreaks

Sacredshipping (Morty/Eusine):

A New Kind of Future by Skylark

Let the wind rush crowned with foam by vaguada (orphan_account)

Darkunclesshipping (Grimsley/Nanu):

from the dark, will come a light by notavodkashot

beloved by bukkunkun

Dangerous Territory by Orcinus_the_Orca

Perfectworldshipping (Lysandre/Sycamore):

convalescence by bukkunkun

the hope that mattered by bukkunkun

Launchshipping (Archer/Proton):

Garbage Disposal by orphan_account

Recuperations by orphan_account

Fleeting by orphan_account

The Wishes of Archer and Proton by anewdayscoming

Oceanflowershipping (Moon/Lillie):

coming of age by eggtimer

i can't keep going on like this (but i can't stop either) by rosesscythes

Cuteboneshipping (Hau/Gladion):

Brightest Sky by dreamcp

Solace by The Results are Iridescent (flyingllamas)

Miscellaneous Ships:

No Fangs by TheIllusiveMantis (Hardenshipping - Archie/Maxie)

sprinkles and magazines by cocoacandy (Ignitionshipping - Volkner/Flint)

Pricks Like a Bramble by magnetism (Kabu/Peony)

Oversights by Silky_John (Lt. Surge/Koga)

A study in temperature by orphan_account (Lt. Surge/Koga)

leave it to the land (this is what it knows) by synchronicities (Clanleadershipping - Adaman/Irida)

Category B: Gen Fics (Based on Regions)

Kanto:

Feelin' Blue? by orphan_account (Lance & Blue Oak)

Red Herring by orphan_account (Lance & Red)

Bolt From the Blue by orphan_account (Lance & Blue Oak)

Johto:

Teacher, Preacher by mochawhip (Silver & Archer, Archer & Rocket Executives)

Arctic by mochawhip (Silver & Archer, Silver & Giovanni)

Still Breathing by anewdayscoming (Rocket Executives)

planting seeds in a garden you may never get to see by synchronicities (Ethan & Lyra & Silver, Red/Blue Oak)

Half a Revolution by herohelio (Silver & N)

Lance & Silver (I literally had to put a separate category for them here because of how much fanfic I read of them as a found family 😭🤚):

head smash by aeroblast

you know the rest by heart by nevermore_evermore

how do we make this heart (beat on and on) by nevermore_evermore

Silver has an awful time by anewdayscoming

lesson number one: never trust anybody by SakanaKana

when feeling burnt out from grinding on the main quest, try: harder (an ultimate gamer move advice from the best in Blackthorn Clan, Clair Blackthorn) by SakanaKana

Dragon Support by StratusCloudSurfer

pain split by aeroblast

dizzy punch by aeroblast

Hoenn:

on belonging by johnchurch (May & Archie & Maxie, Archie/Maxie)

Fearless by RageCandyBar (May & Norman)

Sinnoh:

maybe the real fire-types were the friends we made along the way by HopeStoryteller (Volkner & Flint)

mourning what cant be saved by miafey (Cynthia & Dawn, Volo & Dawn)

Alola:

until we meet again (Gladion & Lillie, Hau & Gladion) by synchronicities

Silver Bird by Saphruikan (Gladion & Silvally)

Fundamentals of Silvally by cteranodon (Gladion & Silvally)

Hisui:

Tag-Along by capitalj (Ingo & Akari, Subway Masters)

now the sun appears by sojourner (findingkairos) (Ingo & Akari, Subway Masters)

Converging Tracks [Series] by StellarCoachman (Ingo & Akari, Subway Masters)

End of Line by coolcrocs (Subway Masters)

Let’s Get You Back to Her by WaywardStation (Ingo & Akari, Subway Masters)

Dear Nimbasa Times: Please Stop Spreading Rumors About My Brother's Body Being Hidden In The Subway Tunnels Unless You'd Like To Start Paying For My Therapy. Love, Emmet by TrashfireRadiowaves (Subway Masters)

Diverge, Converge by Level99Eevee (Ingo & Akari, Subway Masters)

the only way to be sure of catching a train is to miss the one before it by dittolicous (Ingo & Akari, Subway Masters)

Given Some Time (And Maybe Space) by EVTrainingUniversity (Gaeric & Irida)

Fate Is Written In Stone by EVTrainingUniversity (Hisui Wardens)

Heights of the Tundra by EVTrainingUniversity (Gaeric & Sabi)

Category C: Character Studies

(i know) you're out there somewhere waiting by notavodkashot (Raihan)

these chains will not hold me down, they'll break and fall to the ground by notavodkashot (Piers)

Clever Girl by HopeStoryteller (Kabu)

Fidelity by Skylark (Silver & Crobat)

Alpha Beta by mochawhip (Silver & Giovanni, Silver & Rocket Executives)

1 by Silky_John (Blue Oak)

[saintsofwarding]

WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Header by @keltii-tea

Chapter 27: A Long, Dark Path

Rose fell through darkness.

On and on and on. Wind tore past her ears. She tumbled, raking out at the dark, but it slipped through her fingers, tatters of writhing shadow. Her scream was lost in the howl of phantom wind around her, the rumbling moan of the megamycete. The gullet of the Black God, plunging endlessly down into the chasm of her own mind.

Miranda's mind.

Both of us, as one.

Were they one and the same? Had she been resurrected as Miranda's clone, her perfect genetic copy, primed to download her consciousness after death? Was she a copy of Miranda's daughter, the fabled little lost Eva? An amalgam of them both, and Eveline, and Ethan and Mia's baby girl, and, and, and...

Her thoughts whirled like the darkness, like the howls and screams and scraps of voices that flew past her over the megamycete's eerie song. Was Donna okay? She remembered her mutation like a nightmare, the snap of her rearranging bones still echoing through her body. She'd busted out of the house, she'd crushed it all around her. Was Donna alive?

Am I still alive?

Frustration mounted, and terror, raw as a sob. She'd fall forever. She'd go mad in here if there wasn't some kind of ground, if there wasn't-

It came up fast.

Without warning, Rose collided with- something. The impact rattled her to the teeth, a crack of white and red through her whole body; she tumbled, wincing, to a halt. The ground writhed and pulsed beneath her, soft-hard, like a muscle. It gave slightly under her palm as she braced it against the...whatever it was she'd fallen onto. Stars burst in her eyes, and Rose slumped again, waiting for the pain and dizziness to fade.

It did. She pushed herself upright, wincing, eyes wide.

Around her was a sea of mold. Iridescent, lightless black, organic and in constant, fluid movement. Liquid and solid all at once. It writhed at her hands, nosing at her skin, webs of mycelium sprouting over her fingers. She pulled her hand away, and it retreated, a ripple like a distant tremor shaking the ground beneath her.

"Donna?" she called. "Angie? Are you in here?"

Her voice echoed on, and on, and on, strangely warped, until the entire space seemed alive with  its eerie reply.

Nothing.

A pause. Rose licked her lips, shifting her weight. Her sword was gone from her back, she realized. Whatever waited for her here, she'd have to face it without weapons.

She took a short breath.

Then-

"Miranda?"

That got a reaction. Another, stronger tremor rippled through the mold, and on its trailing edge, sending a chill to Rose's core-

A cry.

A child's cry. A long wail of anguish in the dark.

"Is that supposed to be Eva?" Rose said.

There was no answer.

"You can't trap me here," Rose called. She pushed to her feet, swaying, staring into the dark. "That's not what you want, anyway, is it? What's the point of taking me if you don't get to make me into your Eva, huh?"

She plunged her hands into the mold in front of her. The cold latched on, spilling through her body as she dug her hands deeper into the wet, pulpy mass; fibrous tendrils scraped at her fingers, but Rose grit her teeth and pushed further, jamming her shoulders into the gap, forcing her way through. It pushed back, resistant, but Rose wasn't giving up that easily, and with a slick crackle, she stumbled in.

She lost her footing almost immediately. A tilting, swooping lurch; there was no up or down here. Her legs pedaled against the mold, then scraped- steps. They formed from the mold under her boots, and she settled down with a huff, her hands lifted in case anything leaped out at her.

Nothing did. The long flight of steps curved down and down, their limits lost in shadow. Points of pale light guttered to either side, picking out the shape of the steps. Candles in niches. Or the ghosts of candles.

She recognized this place, reflected and refracted through the lens of the Black God's catalogued memories. One of the passageways deep beneath the village, a holy place far below the mundane world, leading ever downward to the divine.

Would it now? Or was it simply to the unknown?

Either way, Rose pushed on. She hurried down the steps, picking up speed. Around her- rumbles, ripples, great unfurling blooms of iridescence that filled the mold with strange, entrancing patterns. Fractal-like, she might have watched them forever.

Scraps of voices tugged at her- voices she knew, her own, Heisenberg's, Sam's, Chris's, the Lords', on and on. Others she didn't know, in languages she could only guess at. The echoes of memories trapped in here with her.

Am I a memory, now?

Maybe she was. Maybe she'd always been. Memories locked in flesh. But then again, wasn't everyone?

A tremor pushed at her boots. She stumbled; with a gasp, she tripped. Her hands flew forward and slammed into a solid surface. She breathed hard, braced against wood. Its grain pushed at her fingertips. It felt real enough.

Rose pushed back, onto her feet. An arched doorway, illuminated by a torch in a sconce, set into the mold. Black tendrils wound over the wood, but when Rose pulled the handle, it opened without resistance.

Light poured over her boots.

Beyond was a laboratory. The vaulted ceiling was lost in shadow, the corners dripping with damp. Tables groaned under the weight of countless files, stacks of papers scrawled with notes, piles of ponderous-looking books towering higher than Rose's head. Everywhere: the glow of copper, amber light through antique glass, bottled chemicals and medical equipment and hanging diagrams of mutants and monsters.

In a sepia-toned photo that looked much older than the rest, Rose recognized Moreau, harshly illuminated like a clinical specimen. She recognized Dimitrescu's draconic form amidst photos of zombies and lycans, ghouls and bat-winged women that reminded her of the stolen girls from the long-ago town.

Spores danced in the light, illuminated like stars. The air smelled thickly of mold, but of incense, too, twining up from a burner in a corner, a heady, holy scent.

And somewhere, echoing through the vaults, someone was weeping.

A woman. Rose hesitated, then pushed onward, her step silent through the dust. On the far side of the tables, past the equipment, the chemicals, the specimens pinned out with inner workings on display, a woman huddled over a desk. She sobbed her heart out, her arm pressed over her face, the other hand gripping the material of her black robes.

The rest of her was clad in...ohhh, those weren't rags. They were feathers, multiple black wings furled over her, like a shield against the world. Her blonde hair was loose, and before her, on the desk, lay an old photograph.

Rose could make it out, even from a distance. A woman, and a child. She held the baby to her chest, and her face was serene with joy.

Rose blinked, flinching back. Her boot scuffed on the grimy flagstones. The weeping woman's head snapped up. Black tears streaked down her face, her eyes bright mirror-gold, but Rose knew her. Of course she knew her. She'd never really seen her face before- just icons of it, just its impression through her imperfect memories- but now, as Rose stared at Miranda, something settled inside her. A realization, a confirmation, heavy and cold.

Miranda's face was a reflection of her own. Older, yes, and full of a calm cunning Rose had never seen in her own eyes, but there was no denying it.

"Eva?" Miranda said. Her lips trembled, her eyes shining. "It's...it's really you, isn't it? I found you. I told you I would."

A smile broke over her face, radiant with relief. "I promised you. Didn't I?"

"I'm not Eva," Rose spat. "Eva's dead. And so are you. Now let me the hell out of this place-"

"No." Miranda's voice lashed out, a hissing snarl that struck Rose to the core. Those eight wings rustled, feathers fluttering as they began to unfurl from around her. "Not this time, Eva. I don't care what the world beyond has told you all these years. There's no denying what you are. What you truly are. What I made you into."

Her voice deepened into an animal growl. "You're mine. And this time, there's no one to stop me."

She rose from the desk, wings snapping forth, the backdraft sweeping dust and papers aside. Her hair billowed around her face, pale strands dripping with her tears.

Rose scrambled back, toward the door; she grabbed for the handle, but it juddered, locked tight.

"This time," Miranda cried, "I'm never letting you go."

She launched herself toward Rose on a tide of mold; the lab walls shattered under the weight of vast, twining black roots, bursting forth to lift Miranda, to lash around Rose's legs and arms. With a cry, Rose tore free, but Miranda was on her. Gilded claws sank into the front of her shirt; Miranda yanked her off her feet, lifting her like a child-

"Never, Eva," Miranda said. "Never!"

"How many times?" Rose yelled, right in her face. "I'm. Not. Eva!"

She slammed her boot, hard, into Miranda's chest, right over her amulet of the Black God. It was like kicking a stone wall; Miranda barely flinched, but Rose's shirt- and skin- wasn't nearly so resilient. With her enhanced strength, the kick tore her from Miranda's grip and sent her tumbling backward.

She hit the wall of mold-roots hard, the stuff undulating under her weight. Instantly, tendrils snaked over her skin, burrowing deep into her flesh. Her front was a mess of blood and mold, twin sets of torn-up puncture wounds streaking red down her shirt. Miranda loomed over her, glorious, ghastly. An image from a pagan holy book made real.

No wonder the villagers had viewed her as a sacred being. Like this, backlit by the candlelight, eight wings spread, she looked like nothing more than the Black God's true emissary itself.

But if she was so sure of herself-

If she was truly so glorious-

Why was she weeping?

Rose scrambled backward as Miranda advanced, her clawed hands spread, her hair dancing around her face. She hazarded a look back, through the shattered walls of the lab and into the seething megamycete beyond, then flipped onto her hands and knees and made a wild lunge.

"Eva!" Miranda screamed. "No! No-"

Rose flung herself into the darkness. Claws sang through the air, catching her back; her shirt shredded like paper, but she was free, and plummeting, head-over-heels-

Out of control.

***

Heisenberg dropped as the monster thundered overhead. Its talons scythed past, inches from plucking him from the ground like a rat. He twisted to his feet, watching the vast, dark form ascend in a flurry of wingbeats, its long tentacles trailing behind it. They flared like a splayed hand as those gigantic wings dipped, as the beast hit the apex of the sky and wheeled back round for another pass.

This time, he was ready.

"Come on," he snarled, between his teeth. "Mommy."

As jaws opened, as claws unfurled again, he stayed down, stayed on one knee, hammer lowered. Come on. The monster roared closer; its bellow shook the village foundations. Come on. A little closer. Come and get me.

Come and-

Close enough.

Heisenberg shoved to one side, bringing up his hammer in the same movement. It hit moldy flesh with an impact that would have torn the arms off any lesser man; even so, bolts of white-hot pain stabbed into his shoulder joints, his Cadou keening in anguish, the sound a high whine in the backs of his teeth.

A wave of mold splattered him as the combined forces of his hammer in its flesh and the monster's speed ripped a massive furrow down its neck and side. It peeled away, shaking its great, sharp head as it gained altitude again, underlit by the coming day.

Mold rained from its wound, and judging by the labored way one of its eight wings beat, Heisenberg had got it good, right in the joint. He twirled his hammer, lifting it again for another blow, as the monster's wingbeats faltered, as it wheeled round again, as its claws extended.

Ah, shit. It was gonna land.

Time to get real personal.

The monster settled to earth with the boom of displaced pressure and a roll of wind that ripped the snow from the ground, the needles from the nearby trees. An entire two-story house crunched into a mangled mess under its weight, flattened under one of its vast hind paws. Heisenberg kept hold of his hat, but even with his strength it was all he could do to stay on his feet as the creature reared above him, rising higher, higher, on clawed limbs, triple jaws on display, wings spread, huge enough to blot out the sky.

Magnificent. Foreclaws flexed, great curved talons singing against the wind. Tentacles trailed from its back and flanks, radiating around its head like a dark, glistening mane. Its eyeless head was all sharp juts and beak-like snout, its lower jaw split, each mandible lined with a chaotic snarl of glass-shard teeth.

Those eight wings shadowed Heisenberg, stirring the air, keeping the beast's enormous weight upright; he felt their pressure against the air each time the monster moved.

"Not bad, kid!" Heisenberg called up to it. "Not bad! You make for an excellent mutant!"

A snarl rumbled from the monster's depths. It lifted a foreclaw; mold snaked over its fingers, twining them together, slicing forth into a blade of hardened crystal.

A sword. So this thing really was part Rose.

"I know, I know," Heisenberg called, gesturing to himself. "I'm not mutating, but, uh- I wanted to make this fair, see!"

The monster's next roar filled his head; it struck, faster than he would have thought possible. Heisenberg ducked as its blade sliced overhead, taking off his hat and a few strands of gray hair- shit, that thing was fucking gigantic, if it hit him in earnest it would do more than cut him in half. It would  annihilate him. The blade sheared past, demolishing a row of houses, the monster's momentum pulling its whole body round. Dust billowed; a snarl rippled from the beast as it rose again, swinging back toward Heisenberg.

Oho, that look of sheer, dripping loathing was all Miranda. This monster might not have eyes, but he could still tell it was pissed the fuck off.

A grim smile spread over his face.

Keep fighting, kid.

You can do this.

'Cause if you can't, I really, really don't want to have to kill you, after all.

And as the monster rounded on him, as it let out a shriek that echoed off the mountains, as its wings drove down to launch it into a lunge, Heisenberg lifted his hammer and leapt to meet it.

***

Mold roots whipped at Rose's face; her hip struck something hard, and she bounced to the side with a shriek.

She hit the ground with a wet splack. For a moment she thought she'd gone splat, but as her heartbeat hammered and she eased herself to her hands and knees, she realized it was water.

She'd fallen into dark, murky water, shallow and silty. Blinking, she lifted her head. The mold smoothed out around her, settling into forms. Distinct, this time, the echo of voices distant, nearly lost under the thin keen of wind.

Around Rose spread trees. Dark, wreathed in fog, their branches interlaced above her, a fathomless black sky just visible beyond. The trees grew straight from the water, brackish pools reflecting the canopy, reflecting the ropes of viney mold that swung from limb to limb and cascaded in mossy beards to nearly touch the water's surface.

Rose had seen trees like them before. Mangroves.

And the smell in the air...

Do you think you can run from me, Eva?

Miranda's voice twined from the swamp, from the sky. From the depths of her own mind. Rose jerked to her feet, pulse pounding, and staggered forward a step. Another. Got to find a way out of here, she urged herself.

But Miranda was there. Miranda was always there. This is a gift, she whispered. Don't you understand?

A shape loomed from the fog. A house. It grew straight from the water, too, mangrove roots twining up to its walls. The drone of insects hummed from grass scrub and the rusty remnants of old cars.

Objects hung from the trees. Baby dolls, Rose saw. Some missing limbs, some missing eyes. All of them scabbed in mold.

Things crawled in the edges of her vision as she sloshed through the calf-deep water and climbed a set of rotting steps, up toward the scrubby lawn in front of the house.

Piles of trash and yet more pieces of machinery lay scattered around the lawn, the base of the grass not dirt, but yet more mold. The smell rolled from the abandoned house- mold and heat, something rotting in water, the muggy warmth of the bayou, as endemic to Rose as the blood in her veins. Her breathing was overloud in the hush. Nothing but bayou in all directions. Nowhere else to go but forward.

"This isn't a trap, Miranda," she muttered. "I will find you again."

Nothing replied but the wind, the edge of a laugh fading in the breeze.

She limped ahead, up the steps and onto the porch. Without hesitation, Rose pushed through the battered screen door, into the house beyond.

Grimy darkness enfolded her. The mold was worse in here, vast growths and spills of it bursting from walls and between floorboards. The crooked pictures hung on the walls were all blackened, family portraits ruined with water damage or antiques-shop cross-stitch samplers. Homey things, the decor of a quiet bunch of backwoods folk who'd fallen into a nightmare they never awoke from.

Rose had never been to Dulvey; Heisenberg had never even taken her to Louisiana during all their years of moving house, though Rose, in a particularly-strong preteen vampire phase, had begged him to let her visit New Orleans. But she knew what had transpired here. What had been done here. And the people whose lives had been destroyed here. These weren't Miranda's memories; they weren't even Rose's. These were Eveline's, the part of her that made up Rose, that had begun all of this the moment the Annabelle had crashed in the bayou.

"Rose-mary."

The voice was sing-song, drawing out the two syllables of her name. A child's voice. Eveline? But there was no sign of the other girl, nothing but the murk and the endless hallways of the dilapidated house as Rose picked up speed, grinding her teeth at the ache in her bruised hip.

"Rosemary."

Up ahead, down the hallway-

Was that a glimmer of sunlight?

"Come and play."

The wall exploded. Rose screamed, flinging herself back as a chainsaw chewed planks to splinters, sent plaster erupting outward in a choking white haze- the woman with the chainsaw, her face twisted in monstrous, maniacal glee under a matted spill of dark hair-

That was Mia, oh, fuck, that was her mom-

Her eyes flared gold as she rounded on Rose, her breathing raw and glutinous.

"There you are!" Mia's howl chilled Rose to the bone. She backed up, and up, as Mia advanced. "C'mere, you little bitch, and give your mommy a kiss!"

She lunged with a raw howl, chainsaw revving. Rose flung herself to the side. The chainsaw gashed the wall open where her head had been. Rose scrambled on her hands and knees over the pile of destroyed wall, toward the glimpse of sunlight.

It was gone. The hallway stretched ahead, endless in the gloom.

Where is it?

Where the hell-

"Come back here," Mia screamed. Another roar of the chainsaw echoed behind her; footsteps pounded the floorboards, heavy and stumbling, the air thick with the burn of gasoline. "Don't you fucking run away from me."

"You're not my mother," Rose gasped. She clawed herself to her feet again. "You're...you're not fooling me with that face, Miranda, you're not fooling me with any of this-"

A door handle scraped her hand. She tugged at it. Locked tight. With a half-choked sob, Rose pushed herself onward. Her hands were slick with mold, with her own blood; her claw marks had begun to bleed again, turning her shirt front black. Another door. This one came open, but inside was nothing but a truly disgusting bathroom, toilet vomiting mold-tentacles everywhere.

Shit. Shit. The chainsaw revved; it sounded like it was right behind her. When it caught her, what would happen? When this puppet-version of her possessed mother got to her, when the chainsaw bit into her flesh, would she be Miranda's forever?

Don't think. Only do. That's what Heisenberg would have said. Just keep going, kid. There's always a way out.

Improvise, like me.

Another rev, so close she nearly felt the bite of its teeth in her back. "Got you," Mia crowed, as Rose whirled, as Mia's face split in a feral grin-

Rose dropped. She shoved forward, hard, against Mia's legs. The weight of the chainsaw, her lunge, her own unsteady posture- all of it proved too much. She toppled over Rose, over the threshold to the bathroom and to the ground.

Rose didn't hesitate. She slammed the door shut and took off as Mia's screams filled the air, chasing her down the hallway.

It branched; she took the left-hand turn. Another branch. This place was endless, unnaturally-huge, a real house cut-up and copied and pasted back together ad infinitum. Rose pelted up staircases, down narrow basement halls, through pools of dirty water and mold and rust. Mia was somewhere- she wouldn't have stayed long in the bathroom- and Rose heard her screams and howls echoing to her from off in the distance.

"Come on," Rose muttered. "Come on. Where are you?" She searched the dark, turned another corner, searched again.

Something crashed. The chainsaw screeched through wood. She's coming.

"Please," Rose said. Her vision blurred, her throat tight as she ran. "Please, help me."

Another corner.

There it was. A glimmer of sunlight. A child's voice. "This way, Rosemary!"

Rose sprinted for it as Mia's laughter filled the hall, lunging through as the laughs became sobs, became Miranda's voice again, calling Eva's name.

She burst from the darkness of the Baker guest house and into sunlight.

It fell across her in a heavy swathe, dense and golden; the sky arched overhead, the rich, cloudless blue of a perfect summer afternoon. Mountains ringed the field around her, a rustling sea of tall grass. From the far distance Rose heard the peal of church bells, smelled the smoke from a cookfire.

Her heartbeat slowed. She looked back, but the doorway of mold was crumpling like a discarded photograph. It dissolved into nothingness.

"Hello, Rosemary."

She whirled round. A little girl stood before her. She wore a pinafore dress, blue embroidered with birds. Her blonde hair was in two mussed braids, and she held a clump of wildflowers in one hand as she squinted up at Rose through the sunlight.

"What..." Rose panted. She looked back again. "Where...is this? Am I still in the megamycete?"

"Yep."

"Then-"

"Lemme show you." The little girl lifted her free hand. "C'mon. Follow me."

Rose hesitated, then took the girl's hand. She tugged her, off with such speed Rose stumbled. They waded through the deep grass, insects rising before them in a glimmering cloud. The air was so pure Rose thought she could drink it, live off it forever. She glimpsed roofs past a copse of trees below, the high spires of a castle.

"Is that the village?" she said.

"Yup! That's home." Another tug, up a rise in the meadow; they ascended it, and stood at its pinnacle, overlooking the valley, the village, Castle Dimitrescu, even a trace of a lake that must have been the reservoir, far away.

This place, it looked...different. Cleaner, brighter. This was the village as it must have once been. Before Miranda, before the Four Lords, before everything.

"Is this the past?" Rose murmured.

The little girl nodded. "A long, long time ago."

"It's...it's beautiful."

"Mm-hm. Look," the girl said, pointing down the hill.

Bathed in that melting butter light, three figures sat together on a blanket spread over the grass.

It took Rose a moment to recognize Miranda. She was...she was human. Her blonde hair was a darker, dishwater shade, her face rounder, less severe.

And she looked happy. Not the agonizing relief Rose had seen back in the lab, not a narrow smirk of cruel satisfaction, but truly happy. She burst out with a snorting laugh, her blouse sleeves rolled up, her skirt rucked to her knees, so she might better sun her bare legs. They were tucked up against the side of a young man with curly dark hair and spectacles, his waistcoat unbuttoned, his face earnest as he spoke.

Rose couldn't hear what he was saying, and mourned it. She wouldn't have minded hearing Salvatore Moreau's original voice.

Listening to him, her small face shining and rapt, was a little girl. The same girl now at Rose's side, watching the trio like she watched them.

Rose let out her breath.

"You're Eva," she said. "Aren't you?"

The girl nodded.

"This was it," she said. "The last time we were all happy. It's the memory my mama holds onto hardest of all. She's held on for so long. It does things to you, being alive for so many years. You think every thought a person can have, and they go around and around and get all muddled inside. And you get so, so tired."

Rose watched the three people below. She thought of the glimpses of memory she'd seen in the Beneviento house. Miranda's weeping in her lab.

She doesn't deserve this, she told herself. This memory. The things she did to the people you love...to so many others...

But when she spoke, her voice was soft.

"Is she tired now?" she asked.

"Yes. But she's not gonna stop. She's so close. The closest she's been for a long time." Eva's expression sombered. "It'll never be real. But that doesn't matter to her."

"If Miranda succeeds, you'll be with her again. Isn't that enough for you? Why are you helping me?"

Eva looked up.

"Because she'll never rest," she said. "She'll never be able to, not like this. Not really." A quiet breath; her hands curled into fists at her sides. "She's my mother. She loved me so much. I can't let her keep doing this. I can't let her keep hurting people. I can't let her keep hurting."

"You know what I'm here to do."

"Yes."

A cold wind rippled the grass. The sky darkened, as if a cloud had passed before the sun. On the horizon, the edges of this beautiful dream, darkness twined in.

Eva's eyes traced it.

"She's coming," she said. "She's looking for you. She's so sad, and she's so dangerous. Don't forget that."

"I won't." Rose knelt before her. "Thank you." She took the little girl's hands and gave them a squeeze. "Thank you, Eva. When this is done...I'll save you, too."

"No." Eva shook her head. "I'm a part of you, now. It's your turn to live, Rosemary. I'm sorry you had to take this gift."

Rose smiled at her. "Don't be sorry. I do understand, now. It is a gift."

She straightened and stood back. Eva didn't move. She stood with her arms at her sides, watching Rose as she lifted her hand, as she brought it slashing down. Darkness trailed behind it, as if her hand was a knife slitting the matter of reality. The darkness widened, edges shimmering, peeling back. A cleft into the dark, just wide enough for Rose.

And with a last look at Eva, she stepped through.

***

The monster's backhanded blow caught Heisenberg full in the chest. He spun off his feet and crashed through wood, shattering it, collapsing at last into a dark, dingy space so hard he blacked out. He came to in seconds, mouth full of blood.

Still in one piece? He thought so.

The beast loomed above, its great neck curving down, its tentacle-mane coiling and uncoiling against the sky. It pawed through the destroyed houses, searching for him; each rake of its claws sent rumbles through the ground. Heisenberg kicked his way free. Something was bleeding. He ignored it. Business as usual.

"Miranda!" he yelled as he emerged through the remains of the broken house, back into the dawn. Snow swirled down, catching in his hair. The monster's answering roar shook the blizzard, set it to dancing. "Mir...Miranda!"

His hammer stuck from a heap of garbage. He grabbed it; white heat sliced through his side as he hefted its weight. Don't look. It's not so bad if you don't look. The monster's head swung, sunlight glimmering through its thicket of teeth. Its wings fanned wide as it turned its entire body, ponderous-slow, its long tail tentacles sweeping aside the rubble from the crushed village.

Its jaws parted. It lifted its head to the sky and let out a shriek.

Heisenberg breathed hard. It felt like breathing through liquid. Had he punctured a lung? Ah, fuck it.

"Miranda," he ground out.

He lifted his hammer in front of him. His blood dripped onto the street as he advanced, leaving a streak of crimson and black behind him.

"I...I know now," he said. "Better, anyway. What you did to me. What you did to all of us. We were children, you monster bitch. We...we trusted you. Like Eva did."

Heisenberg let out a snarl of laughter.

"And you failed her, too," he said. "You failed her by...by fuckin' destroying your world. You could've been...everything to us. A kind god. A benevolent god. We believed in you. These poor schmucks in the village believed in you."

He considered. "...Well, 'cause you screwed with their heads, but...you didn't have to."

One great clawed foot slammed down, dragging the entire great bulk of the monster after it. Another footfall. Dust and snow swirled before it, driven ahead by its sheer mass. Its blade lifted. The sunlight glimmered down its length.

"'Cause I did," Heisenberg pressed on. "Love you. At first. After you slaughtered my real mother and my entire family and scrubbed those memories out of my skull, of course. After that, I couldn't help but love you. My body wasn't mine anymore; not even my own mind belonged to me. I didn't have anything else to love but you. What you did to me...you destroyed me. You remade me. You turned me into this. And, heh, I can't hate you for that. Not all the way." He flourished his hand toward himself. "I mean, how could I? Look at me."

A bitter laugh rasped from him. "Guess that makes us alike, huh? A taste of power, and then we can't help but cling onto it, desperate for more. And yeah, Miranda. You gave me power."

He let out his breath as the monster's shadow fell over him, as the wind off its feathers raked past him, fanning his coat around him, ruffling his hair back from his face. Mold, and clean air, and something else. Another sunrise in this place. Another new day.

Good. However this ended, it would be his last day in the village. His last sunrise here. An ending, a beginning.

"And now that power's gone," Heisenberg said. He stopped, staring up at the monster looming over him. He spread his arms. "And all you get is me, Miranda. Your favorite child. Now, don't say you didn't miss me."

He side-stepped the first blow, a raking swipe of those massive claws. The next, too, the monster rising to whirl in a mass of whipping tentacles, sending its tail lashing toward him whip-crack fast. Heisenberg swung his hammer as the thing's head dipped, jaws agape, mouthparts glistening in the back of its throat.

Vast teeth clashed together, shockwave aching in his bones. The hammer sparked off the plate of hardened mold covering the front of its head; a crack spanned from the impact point. The monster reared with a shriek, whipping its head back and forth as black liquid spurted from its wound. It crashed back down on all fours, head lowered, hiding the wound behind the sweep of one wing. Heisenberg searched its body for another weak point- yeah, get it while it's distracted- if he could weaken it enough, annoy it enough, maybe Rose would be able to rise up inside and take over.

Come on, kid. You gotta help me out, now.

There. That bundle of tentacles. Behind it glistened the thing's arm joint, a fold of smooth membrane unprotected by keratin or cartilage. Through the translucent membrane, he made out the pulsation of the thing's inner workings, a mesmerizing ripple of muscle and organ.

Perfect.

Before the monster could turn, he shoved off a chunk of broken brick wall, launching himself in a desperate leap toward the soft spot.

The monster snarled; had it noticed him? Oh, yeah, it had noticed him, it was turning, whirling, wings lifting, but he had time, he could get it, he could do this, he could end it-

Cold rammed through him, sudden as a blow.

An instant of silence, of realization. Heisenberg blinked. Why wasn't he holding his hammer anymore? Why were his hands not working? They hung off him like the arms of a deactivated soldat, useless lumps of flesh and bone. Why was the ground red?

The monster's sharp, bladed tentacle impaled him through the chest. Through the Cadou. He felt it writhing in agony, but the pain hadn't reached him quite yet. All he felt was the pressure, the cold.

You're in shock, dumbass.

He had to get it out, get the Cadou's healing factor jump-started...if he could get to his workshop in the factory, get some accelerant...

Factory's gone, idiot.

Oh, yeah.

Well, shit.

The monster- Miranda- rammed the tentacle deeper. He felt it crackle through him, breaking his ribs one by one. He choked. Blood spattered the snow at his feet.

"You..." he managed. "You...think that's...enough, Mother? Let me show you...let me show you what I can really...what I can..."

A low, undulating snarl. Like a laugh.

Bitch, Heisenberg thought.

Miranda ripped the blade out. Heisenberg fell to his knees, all at once. One of Donna's puppets with its strings cut. Shadow swathed him again. He squinted up as Miranda's enormous beaked head swung to his level, as it seemed to stare at him down the length of its sharp, eyeless snout.

Her voice echoed from the monster, from the air, carried on a hissing snarl that surrounded him in its hum and tremor.

"I never loved you, little Karl," she told him, softly, the way she used to sing him to sleep when he was just a child.

"Hm." Heisenberg nodded. His vision began to spider on the edges, dark creeping in. Something crackled; his skin chilled, sudden as a fall into an icy river. He glanced down as crystal began to vein its way from the puncture wound, eating up his living skin inch by inch.

His Cadou was failing. He didn't have long.

"Guess not," he managed, to Miranda. "But you gotta give it to me, just now- I sure was distracting."

She didn't have the chance to respond. An explosion went off along her flank- a blast of artillery fire.

Mia. So she'd gotten to the big gun after all. Nice one, buttercup. Heisenberg tried to hold her face in his head, tried to hold onto hope as a second blast of flames filled the sky, but it slipped away. Even Rose's face slipped from him, gone into the dark.

The crystal spread. He couldn't hold on anymore.

Sorry, kid.

The cold overtook him, and the dark, and when it reached his heart-

He let go.

***

Rose drifted.

There was no ground, and yet she walked, her boots meeting a slight resistance with each step. She was deep in the megamycete, now. The rippling mold was gone, and all that surrounded her was a gusting dark, the faint outlines of trees visible, like a forest in a pitch-black night.

Over vine, under branch, into the forest deep...

Miranda was here. She felt her, felt the essential nature of her, as familiar as the feeling of her own skin, that sting of meeting her own eyes in a mirror.

"I'm here," Rose called. "You ready to talk about this?"

"You were so small."

Miranda stepped from the dark trees, radiant in her black and gold regalia. Crows encircled her, clattering toward the skies. Her wings enfolded her like a penitent's cloak; a glimmer of golden eyes shone from beneath its feathery cowl, the only color in the world.

"Just a little thing," she went on. "Asleep in my arms. Do you know what I thought, the first time I looked into your face?"

Rose shook her head.

"Miraculous," Miranda breathed. "I thought...all this had been worth it. So many years of pain, so many years of destruction. My own body, resurrected, remade. Even my mind, given to divine service, no longer my own. None of it mattered, because I had found you again. And there you were. A precious thing. My special child. My Eva."

"I'm not Eva," Rose told her. "I'm Rosemary Winters. I'm the girl you stole from my parents. Nothing you do, no matter how you change me, can ever make that any different."

"That doesn't matter, either. Eva...understand what it is I'm offering you." She lifted her face to the canopy overhead. "What it is to be one. The world beyond...there's nothing in it but hatred, and pain. Long, weary life."

She lifted a fine blonde brow. "You will live one, darling girl. Years, and years, and years of loneliness. One day, all that you know will be gone. All that you love will be dust, whether by your hand or another's. All your dreams will become...thin. Paper and shadows. Except one."

She faced Rose, a dark Madonna swathed in shifting feathers.

"To be together again," she said. "To be one with the Black God again. To be one with me. Your true mother. I will never abandon you, Eva. I never did. All I have done, all I have hurt...and I never abandoned you. What is the world in comparison?"

Rose stood and listened. Her throat was tight. The forest groaned and creaked around her. She imagined she could smell snow, and gusting night.

The wolves are here, child.

How many times had she yearned for place, for purpose? For something beyond herself, for some phantom something bigger than her, bigger than anything, a longing so great it threatened to consume her?

It could, here and now. It could, with Miranda. On, and on, and on forever, in her endless dream.

"I have family-" Rose began.

Miranda laughed. "That machinating mechanic, Heisenberg? My other false children? Darling. They've lied to you. Hurt you. Stolen your memories. I have never done that."

"Bullshit. You stole me."

Her face twisted- a flash of a snarl. Not rage at Rose, she understood. Rage at herself, at being unable to make her understand. Her wings burst forth; in a racket of beats, she was gone.

Rose gasped, flinching back as feathers brushed her face, leaving behind smears of mold like ash.

"You are mine, Eva!" Miranda's voice echoed from the dark. "Nothing you do, no arguments you make, will change that." "And nothing can change who you are," Rose called.

Rushing darkness swept past her; she twisted out of the way as claws lashed the air. The rush was gone again, gone into the trees; heart pounding, Rose backed off, her step unsteady, the pain in her hip like fire.

"Can it?" Rose searched the darkness. "You could never move on, could you? All the things you did, all the incredible secrets you found, and none of them meant anything because...because there was nothing for you but the past. The Lords and their devotion. The villagers and their fear. None of it mattered to you. You could have been anything, Miranda, and you chose to be-"

Another rush. Rose jerked away. Too slow. Claws raked over her shoulder, snagging her face. She cried out, pitching over as blood burst in her mouth.

"They will always fail you," Miranda's voice echoed. "They will always disappoint you."

Another slash of pain. This one bit deep, bit into muscle and sinew. Rose's scream burst from her. The forest whirled, trees creaking, shadows rising like the monsters in a fairy tale, claws and teeth and gnashing jaws.

"And in the end," Miranda said, "you will end them, or they will end you. Is that what you want? Is that what you long for? To see all things become ash? To see yourself become ash along with them?"

"That's not the way it is," Rose murmured, thick through bloody lips. "And that's definitely not the way it has to be."

And when Miranda rushed for her next, she was ready.

A whirl of darkness, of feathers. Rose was rising; she sprang upward, boot bracing forward, her fingers closing into a fist- just the way Heisenberg had taught her, just the way she knew would get the job done. She glimpsed Miranda's eyes widen the instant before she flung her fist forward and cracked it, with all her strength, with all her will, into Miranda's face.

Bone crackled under her hand. Miranda snapped backward; the darkness was blasted aside as her wings spread, as she flung out her arms, black mold gushing from her broken nose. Rose let out a shriek as the ground rippled, as she tipped forward, after Miranda, into the yawning abyss at their feet.

Wings beat at the air. Rose grabbed out, her fingers snagging Miranda's wrist. Claws slashed at her, but Rose dug her fingers in, holding on, even as Miranda's ragged wingbeats carried them higher, higher.

Branches whipped and tore at them, tattering Miranda's regalia even further, tearing at Rose's hair and ruined shirt. Another hiss of claws through wind; they sank into her flesh again, digging so deep into Rose's torso she no longer felt them, just the pressure and the hammer of adrenaline through her system.

"I saw your memories, Miranda," she yelled, over the scream of wind, the rumble of the megamycete. The Black God's hymn. "All of them. All the way to the beginning. I saw your life, every last moment of it. I saw what happened to your mother, what happened to Eva, what you did to Sal. Your friend. He loved you, and you murdered him-"

"He failed me!" Her voice rose to a raw shriek. "He killed my Eva-"

"The sickness killed her, not Moreau. You can't blame him for everything. You can't blame your own creations for what you did to them."

She wound her fists deep into the robes around Miranda's waist. This wind would tear her off; it was all she could do to keep hanging on.

"Eva's gone," Rose cried. "You loved her, and she died, and I'm sorry. But she's gone."

"It's-" For an instant, Rose thought Miranda would make another excuse, another play at grandeur. Her mask, unshakable.

But it cracked, just a little, on the edge. "It's not fair."

"I know. None of this is fair. But it's time for it to be over, Miranda. It's time for you to be done."

"Let go," Miranda growled.

"Never," Rose spat back at her.

It was excruciating, agonizing, like moving against an impossible weight, but Rose managed to bring up her hand. It slipped between them, slick with blood, shaking. In a monumental heave of effort, she pressed it, hard, to Miranda's cheek.

"You're coming with me," she whispered.

And with a single stab of will, a sword thrust to the heart, she drove her mind into Miranda's, and then they were both falling.

Dizzying. A spiral forever, a spiral through darkness. Through memory. Miranda's, again. Her rule over the village. Her life. Photographs in the rain. Their colors bled away, shadow and dust, images projected on a distant wall. Mold twined through them, veins of darkness, eating them away. And then they were nothing, and they had reached the bottom, and, together, they crashed into a heap of broken feathers, and tangled limbs, and blood.

By the time Rose opened her eyes, her hands were empty, and she lay curled alone.

The floor reflected her hollow-eyed face. A mirror, she thought, running her palm over its frictionless surface.

Light glinted in the distance. She lifted her head.

She wasn't alone.

A little girl sat in a small wooden bed, knees to chest, facing away. A window silhouetted her head. Through it, Rose made out stars.

She climbed to her feet and approached, step silent on the dark mirror below.

The girl couldn't be older than eleven or twelve. She wore a nightgown embroidered with flowers, woolen slippers. Her hair fell in braids down her shoulders. She clutched a carved wooden goat to her heart as she hummed under her breath.

"Hello," Rose said. "Miranda."

The girl's gaze was distant, set on the starry sky. Her humming faded, and the hush crept in. "Don't you hear them?" she whispered. "The wolves?"

"No."

"I do." She paused. "Have they come for me?"

"Yes."

Miranda tilted her head, her eyes bright in the starlight.

"You brought them back together," she said. "The others. I felt them...every single one, alive again. When I made them, each time, I hoped I'd get it right. I didn't. All four of them were never enough. But you would have been."

Rose sat by her side on the narrow bed. Miranda's thin shoulder shivered as she set her hand to it.

"I know," she said. "But don't you see now, Miranda? It doesn't matter anymore. We survived beyond all you touched."

"No..." the little girl said.

"We are alive despite all the ways you hurt us. We're together, despite all the ways you split us apart."

"No." She shook her head, burying her face in her arms with her wooden goat, tears shining on her cheeks. "No-"

Rose took her hands. Miranda's face lifted, her eyes wide.  

"Do you have a story?" Rose asked. She couldn't help but speak gently. "One that helps you sleep at night?"

"You were my story," Miranda said, just as gently.

"All stories end."

"Not you," Miranda told her. "You never will."

Rose smiled, just a little. "And isn't that what children are supposed to do? To grow beyond their parents?"

"I'm frightened." Her hands trembled in Rose's. "It's...it's been such a long, long time."

"It's all right. I'm here."

Miranda's eyes became brighter, reflections of the stars. Blue-gray, like Rose's own. "Don't leave me, Eva," she whispered.

"You lost, Miranda," Rose told her, as she pulled her into her arms, as they held each other in the dark. "Mother. Sweet girl. It's all right. You can rest now."

The starlight glimmered. It faded.

And when it was gone, so was Miranda.

Rose's breathing echoed in her head. She slumped to the ground, weightless, numb. She didn't fight when the darkness flowed to claim her. She let it close over her, cold and familiar, and bear her down.

***

A flutter of ice wind.

The sunlight, breaking over a mountain peak.

Rose opened her eyes.

The mountain pass spread before her. Dawn had just broken, and the world filled with its reaching light, pale gold and clear, herding all shadow to the edges of the world, all the darker for its density.

Each inhale hurt, but it was thanks to the pure, freezing air, not Rose's wounds. She no longer felt them as she lay there, curled on her side, as she watched the sun rise, as she watched the silhouette, standing against it, approach.

He stood over her, then knelt. His face was kind, worn, rusted with old blood. A stranger's face, and yet she knew it. She knew it like a warm glow, a last whisper, a kiss pressed to her infant cheek. He smoothed his bandaged, three-fingered hand over her hair, slow, soft, and lulling.

"Rosemary," he murmured, to her. "I'm so proud of you."

She made herself speak. "Dad?"

Ethan smiled. "It's all right, Rose. It's all going to be okay now."

"I...I don't know, dad, I..." She blinked. Tears pushed at her eyes, hot against her skin. "I think she got me..."

"No, Rose."

"I can't..." She was so tired. She just wanted to close her eyes, to stay with him forever. To be held under his gentle regard.

But that was Miranda, wasn't it? And that would be a shadow, a dream.

Her dad kept stroking her hair.

"I don't want you to go," Rose whispered.

He laughed softly. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I'm not really...Rose. I'm not..." Her throat tightened. She took a hitching breath. "I'm not really your daughter. I'm...her, I'm..."

She stopped, unable to go on. Ethan didn't release her, didn't pull away.

"Let me go," she whispered. "You didn't save Rose."

"I saved you. Isn't that enough?" She sensed his smile. "Don't say I did all that for nothing."

"Never."

"Day's coming," he told her. "Time to go back."

"I don't know if I'm strong enough."

But he was there, slipping his maimed hands under her arms, pulling her to her knees, against him. He held her there for a moment, his cheek pressed to the crown of her head.

"You have to go back," he told her. He gave her a little shake. "You have to live. Will you do that for me?"

Rose nodded. She couldn't speak.

"Good. Then you'd better get to it."

She found her voice. "I love you, dad."

"I love you too. Always." He kissed the crown of her head. "Goodbye, Rosemary."

***

That wasn't the dawn breaking over the mountains. It was the dawn breaking through dissolving mold.

Rose gasped for air as the megamycete crumbled around her, sluicing down over her shoulders, cascading away from her with a rumble. She lay curled, fetal, in a bath of liquid mold; it soaked her to the skin, plastered her hair to her cheeks.

She'd emerged from a kind of cocoon, reconstituted from her mutant form's heart. Its remnants disintegrated as she pushed herself onto one elbow to see what the hell was going on.

Around her was a landscape of complete and total devastation. Vast, broken wings sprawled from collapsing shoulder-joints, decomposing back into slimy mold as Rose watched; the whole creature lay like a beached whale, half-dissolved already. Great ribs jutted toward the sky. Tentacles as thick as telephone poles and tipped with calcified blades snaked away, crushing houses under their weight.

The village was entirely leveled, as if a tornado had swept through, nothing left but shattered wood, remnants of scaffolding and chunks of calcified mold-roots, solitary chimneys sticking resolutely from the ruin. Rose blinked, brows raised. Shit, had she done that? She and Miranda, she supposed, but...this monster, this body...she'd mutated into it. Now she was shedding the excess biomass, sloughing it off like a snakeskin.

She lifted her hands, slick with mold. Could she do it again, if she wanted to?

Holy shit.

Movement caught her eye: a flutter of gray, gleaming in the dawn light.

All thoughts froze in her head.

No.

No.

Please, no.

Heisenberg lay slumped against one of her fallen tentacles. His hat was gone, his head tipped forward at a sharp angle. A massive, crystallized hole gaped in his chest. The calcification spread from it, over his dirty clothes, his trench coat, his arms, creeping up the side of his face.

"H...Heisenberg?" Rose managed. Was he-

No. His hand curled at the sound of her voice. He winced, lifting his head to meet her gaze. One eye was a sphere of cloudy crystal, but the other was still all right, green-gray, focused on her. With a grinding crackle, one of his arms lifted. He dragged himself the last few inches to the side of her cocoon, slumping again over its lip, facing her.

"Hey, kid," he said.

Rose's face crumpled. She scrambled from the bath of mold, reaching for his face, turning it toward hers. "You..." she managed. A sob choked her words. "You came after me?"

"Told you I'd fight for you no matter what." He gave a little shiver as the crystal crept further over his face; a faint haze of glittering dust rose from him. "Heh. You got her."

"Shut up. Just stop talking for once." She couldn't stop her tears; they were warm on her face, quivering in her voice. "She's gone."

"Good." A contented smile touched the side of his mouth unaffected by the crystal. "You did it, kid."

The look in his eye brightened. "Rose. I..."

"Hush." She brushed her palm over the back of his head, over his face, over the wound in his chest. In his heart. In its depths, she made out the faint, dying wriggle of his Cadou. "I know."

She pressed her hand to the wound.

Warmth pulsed from her. From the depths of her power. Around her, the remains of her sloughed-off mutant form writhed; mold-roots twined from the earth, into her, slicking over her skin, filling her sclerae with black. Rose closed her eyes, her brow furrowed. A connection. To all things, to this place, to all people the Black God had touched. I can do this.

The warmth strengthened; it flowed through the roots, through the endless, fractal connections of the mycelium link. A rush, a chorus of voices, a flare of feathers, drifting in the breeze. And when she opened her eyes, it was done.

The skin under her palm, on Heisenberg's chest, was unbroken. The crystal retracted as he stared with a look of shock. He lifted his hands and turned them over, watching the last of the glimmer fade from his skin.

He looked up at Rose.

"You saved me," he said.

Her face split in a grin. "I think we saved each other."

And then it was inevitable- her arms around his neck, his gathering her to him, gently holding the back of her head, like a fine and precious thing. Rose buried her face in the crook of his neck. It was all right. She let it enfold her, miraculous: he was alive. They were, both of them, alive.

Footsteps scuffled through the ruin around them. Rose made herself look up as someone called her name across distance.

Donna. She and Angie picked their way through the destruction, Donna's eyes wide as she took in the destroyed village, the monster corpse sprawled atop it.

"Over here!" Rose waved her arms. Dimitrescu approached, too, striding with considerably more ease from the direction of the castle. Moreau, too, shambling behind Donna, gnawing on a long bone that looked a bit too much like a human femur.

He dropped it as he caught sight of Rose and Heisenberg, picking up speed into a kind of limping jog.

"You're alive!" he gasped as he and the others joined them, as the three Lords stood like a gallery audience before the decaying monster. "Ohhh, Rosemary, Karl...I thought you'd gotten eaten...I thought Mother had murdered you..."

"We could only be so lucky," Dimitrescu muttered, hand on her hip. But the corner of her mouth quirked up into an indulgent smile. "Very nice, child. You're far stronger than I gave you credit for."

"Uh," Rose said. "Thanks?"

Donna took her hand, and Heisenberg's, drawing them both to their feet. Wordless, she touched Heisenberg's scarred cheek. He winked at her.

"Is she..." Donna whispered, to Rose.

"Yeah. Laid to rest." She squeezed Donna's hand. "You don't have to be afraid of her anymore."

"Dear, dear," Dimitrescu drawled, staring out toward the town square below. "We have a visitor."

Rose shook mold from her hands, joining Dimitrescu on the overlook. The echo of horses' hooves rang through the dawn. Its pale light filled the town square, illuminating the remains of the Ouroboros camp, the Maiden of War with her blade resolutely aloft, the single figure on horseback charging through the destruction toward them.

Chris.

He reined his horse around in a slew of grit; in the same movement, he unslung the rifle from his shoulder and vaulted from the horse's back, landing with rifle cocked and leveled.

Not for Dimitrescu, standing like a marble statue of a destroying goddess in the dawn's glow,  crimson smile poised on her face.

Not for Moreau, lips drawn back from snaggleteeth, Cadou tendrils twining free from his tumorous hunchback to whip and snap at the wind.

Not for Donna, her pale face set like a mask, a wild light burning in her single dark eye, a grind of sinister laughter hissing from Angie in her arms.

And not for Heisenberg, who limped to Rose's side, who splayed his hand and, with a guffaw, summoned his hammer and a cloud of shrapnel to swirl around him in a glittering halo.

No. Chris Redfield's next bullet, his next anti-mutant round, was aimed straight for Rose.

She lifted her chin. The wind stirred her hair, brushed her skin, veined with dark mold. She didn't send it down to claim him. She met his eyes, his fervent gaze, bright and steady and set on her. His finger was tense on the trigger. One shot would do. Straight to the heart.

A moment of silence, of wind, of Chris's hesitation.

Then-

He lowered the rifle.

It fell to his side as he straightened and stood back, still holding her gaze. Rose lifted her arms. The ground rumbled- something massive rushing to the surface. It shook the rubble, the Maiden of War on her plinth. Mold erupted from the ground in a seething wave. It twisted toward the sky, twining over Rose and the Four Lords at her side.

The wall of mold closed between her and Chris Redfield, and he was gone from Rose's sight as the first true light of day filled the valley.

[pureheartsandrainbowwings]

EVENTUAOLY ILL LEGALLY BE YOUR BRO IN LAW BUT TILL THEN JUSY KNOW ME AS THE COOLESY ETHAN ON TJIS SITE ASIDE FROM YOU GUYSS 🗣️ hiiiii :] the purple one is argent right?? hi!!! sylvia talks a lot about youuuu she misses you already :]

HELLO LITTLE SIBLINGS MY GIRLFRIEND ACCIDENTIALLY ADOPTED :D

[ @pureheartsandrainbowwings ]

Hey Ethan right? Surprise

HI ETHAN DOES THAT MAKE YOU OUR BRO IN LAW? ??

hi ;)

[primroseprime2019]

OC Q&A Time

Go ahead and ask me anything! I'll do my best to respond with fun, canon answers that'll give you a deeper look into my characters' worlds.

No question is too small or too weird - I want to share my OCs with you all, and I'm excited to see what you're curious about!

So go ahead, ask away!

OC Ships:

Cora x Keagen

Gregory x Idris

Byron x Agatha

Levi x Ivan

Harry x Jackson

Atticus x Hezekiah

Verena x Charisse

Larry x Xavion

Camille x Nyra x Dena

Matthew x Wendy

Demetrius x Emhyr

Drake x Avaline

Nancy x Robin

Mason x Jane

Lincoln x Marceline

Sawyer x Ethan

Luz x Amity

Hunter x Willow

Stella x Mordecai

Blaze x Lacey

Cindy x Brayden x Eos

Emile x Xandros

Laurence x Cody

Miles x Gwen

Natasha x Renee

Pandra x Loba x Kairi

Blake x Walter

Octavio x Obi

Elliott x Theodore

Jay x Sofia

Quinn x Micah

Valentina x Angelo

Natalia x Smith

Iridescent x Sidney

Harper x Begonia

Charlotte x Winter x Eleanor

Destiny x Isabella x Thalia

Waverley x Tabitha

Tyler x Christina

Kendrick x Rita

Arden x Teresa

Wenzel x Hannibal

Tennille x Nelly

Marcellus x Enoch

Eldritch x Phyllis

Edwin x Demeter

Clover x Flynn

Ivory x Petra x Marcus

Lorraine x Willis

Lewis x Desmond

Evander x Calliope

Violet x Xaden

Blu x Ventus

Obadiah x Estelle

Noel x Pablo

Gideon x Jubilee

Shiloh x Silvanna

Anastasia x Chance

Poppy x Branch

Polly x Igor

Avalon x Cliff

Dominique x Theophilus

Ravi x Halo

Nora x Corliss

Avaline x Rameses

[thegreenleavesofspring]

It is..... *drumroll ending with a cymbal crash* TALK SHOP TUESDAY! I actually came up with this question while I was on my trip the week before but couldn't ask it because I didn't have Tumblr on my phone: What kind of motorcycles do the Sons ride (if you know)? The only motorcycle make/brand I can think of is a Harley (with the big handlebars that are above shoulder level when you're sitting on the bike). Or, if you don't know the make/type/brand, I'd love to hear about the style, or what each Son does to decorate or make his own bike unique, or anything like that at all. Just stuff about their bikes.

Also, fun bonus thing (not a question)—tonight while watching baseball, a commercial came on for a state motorcycle lawyer firm, and it made me think of Ethan XD I don't think that's what he does as a lawyer, but it did give me a laugh.

Heeeeey Talk Shop Tuesday! Thanks for the ask!

So the Ways actually drive an entirely fictional type of motorcycle called Eagle. It's probably pretty similar to a standard Harley, though.

I had actually previously plotted out what each of their Eagles looked like - with the exception of Birdie, because I could never quite pin him down. Until we started going on walks around the complex every day and I saw a motorcycle that screamed Birdie - sort of an iridescent dark indigo blue to violet ombre. It was perfect.

This is what I'd compiled before:

Max – dark maroon, boosted speakers

Birdie – accent lights of blue, green, and purple

Riser – blood red accent lights on champagne paint

Cary – black shimmer

Ken – heavily chromed on grey

Ambarussa – red with gold flamework

Silver – silver and heavily chromed

Misty – bright turquoise ocean blue (future)

Allan – sensible navy/indigo (current but not used much)

[theevilicecreamsoda]

WHICH OTHER MFS DO YOU HAVE BESIDES THEO

🤬

Pony

Brokenmind

Soda

Foamflighf

Mockinglie

Flower

Rattles

Wof

Russet

Krait

Lunar

Solar

Bubbles

Angelfish

Bettafish

Forestfire

Barbary

Coral

Larch

Fairy

Iri/Iridescent

Haze

Macaw

Garter

Judgement

Puff

Finch

Fox

Eco

Deer

Fir

Kite

Cordyceps

Cliff

Guppy

Snowbell

Silver Dust

Jay

Stellar

Whiptail

Blue Lunar

Buzz

Cosmos

Crimson

Croon

Snowy Owl

Birch

Honeypot

Jackdaw

Sparrowhawk

Goshawk

Grasshopper

Mosquito

Fizz

Leopard Seal

Timber

Tern

Green Bean

Parakeet

Mango

Sunshine

Inermis

Frazzle

Geyser

Reverie

Brokenmind

Shrike

Headworld

Neal

Bay

Ethan

Rodney

Francis

Charlotte

Lincoln

Purity

Bluss

Eli

Elijah

Guilt

Michael

Theo/Death

Theodore

Theodore Angel Form

Theo Dragon Form

Theo shapeshifter

Flower

Slyvester

Gabe

Lucky

Eco

Ally Cat

Moss

Ducky

Ath

Vix

Vengeance

Revenge

Avenge

Pat

Leon

Lucifer

Arthemis

Fitz

[pureheartsandrainbowwings]

[ Peli .. Ho-Oh 💌! ]

[ The familiar cry of Ho-Oh can be heard from above, sun bouncing off of its vibrant wings. Clearly, this isn't Sylvia's Ho-Oh- considering it's holding Stars on top. ]

[ It seems to be circling the immediate area, trying to find Ethan and Sylvia. ]

…shit.

[ There’s a splash below, the waves breaking as Lugia dives. Ethan’s messy hair is just barely visible before he too sinks under the water’s surface. ]

[ In his haste to get away, he seems to forget that shallow diving in crystal clear waters leaves a trail of waves in the duo’s wake. He’s swimming out to shore, ditching whatever he was looking at. ]

[ethanielwasborn]

As the warmth of this season envelops the air, it is only fitting that we shower him with love on his joyous milestone

May—The Auspicious Time for Expansion, Bolstered Your Dreams.

On the 19th of May, 2024, we bestow the elusive nightingale with extraordinary powers, a constant companion whose bloom lasts an eternity.

Upon this joyous occasion, as the tender embrace of springtime breezes carries the sounds of delight and happiness, I wish you the most blissful coming of age, Ethaniel! Within the depths of my spontaneous spirit, I shall meticulously craft these words, for your birthday marks a milestone to cherish and remember forever. Your presence in this earthly realm is akin to a captivating masterpiece, woven with the threads of our shared experiences and precious memories. You deserve every blessing that comes your way, and may the path that leads you to your dreams bestow upon you fulfillment and contentment.

Birthdays are one of the most blissful points for many figures, indicating their former selves as new ones. Therefore, May 19th serves as the day I wish to express my gratitude to you. May this birthday be adorned with resplendent moments and an abundance of euphoria. May your iridescent spirit continue to illuminate the lives of all who adore you. You have shown your grace through giving the best in this lifetime, your hard work have turned into something meaningful which worth achieving in your life. You have made yourself a man who’s deserving of many praises and admiration—and I, will be a constant reminder of how precious your life is. Each day spent with you deepens my affection for you, and I’m truly fortunate to know you closely, Ethan. I receive many advantages through you, may you find tons of comfort and pure love. Remember that as time flies by, it only makes you stronger, better equipped to face life’s challenges.

Thank you for being the incredible person you are and for gracing our lives with your presence. I sincerely hope my gift and wishes would enlighten a beam on your face on this present day. Continually shine like you always have, or perhaps even more luminously than before! For the second time, have a splendid yarcomingofage, Ethanieeel. Xo

[soraavalon]

DM: This will be the last betting round, we'll start with Nathaniel.

Nathaniel: I'll add two more silver. Not extremely confident.

Marigold: Boo.

DM: Mistletoe?

Mistletoe: So Mistletoe will put in two silver to match that and then...

DM: You can just match if all you want to do is match.

Mistletoe: I know that I can just match and I'm considering doing that, but--

Nathaniel (OOC): The list is getting so long.

Marigold (OOC): Yeah. (IC): Well I'm raising.

Mistletoe: I'm going to add in a small scale that looks green at first glance but has a shimmer of iridescent purple when it moves in the light.

Marigold (OOC): Ah, weretree scale.

-laughter-

Nathaniel (OOC): Wow.

DM: Marigold?

Marigold: I'm also actually putting in a scale, but it is a dragon one.

Ethan: [in chat] wrong

DM: Hmm.

Marigold: That's a raise.

Ethan: [in chat] weretree bark

DM: That is absolutely a raise, the bat is going to fold, so nathaniel do you want to try to match a dragon scale?

Nathaniel: I'm going to fold.

Marigold: Could put in a griffon feather.

DM: That's... I mean... Are you going to fold?

Nathaniel: Nah, I'm going to put in two gold.

DM: Okay.

Marigold: God damnit!

Nathaniel: Just 'cause I know Marigold wants the griffon feather and I want it back.

DM: And Mistletoe, are you gonna match? You don't need to get too much higher, but that's a dragon scale.

Mistletoe: Yeah, I'm gonna match.

DM: What are you putting in?

Mistletoe: I don't have ideas at the moment, so I'm gonna put in some gold.

DM: So the bat is out, so you three reveal your numbers.

Marigold: You first Nathaniel.

Nathaniel: 10

Mistletoe: 5

DM: Marigold?

Marigold: 15!

DM: Yeah! Pot goes to Marigold.

Mistletoe (OOC): Mistletoe's strategy here was to drive up the pot so that Marigold could win.

DM: Aww.

[nightlight-stardust-and-rain]

A dream. It was much longer and there were corridors and things to do but I only remember the end. Sitting in my grandma's bathroom, back to the shower, with friends and maybe people I didn't know and people I loved sitting with me. At my right, a tiny little boy. His curly hair is a bright unnatural red. His name is Ethan. He's a werewolf. His head is resting on my chest. He's sleeping and I shush the person talking to me. Don't wake him up, I love him.

Another dream. Much longer than I remember, too. There was a batcave, and possibly a batman, but only remember finding the entrance. I was a boy, blond, lanky. Swimming because the entrance to the cave was underwater, sort of. It was actually just above water, but in the middle of a lake or ocean and it was small enough that I couldn't fit a finger in. No matter. The instant I touched it, I was aspiré in, no longer human but some sort of iridescent liquid, like petroleum or maybe oil, mixing not-mixing with the water. The same dream, but later. Don't really remember what happened in between. We were an army, I think, and living something like levels of candy crush. Not necessarily candy crush, but something with levels. We were on break, and I noticed that our progression wasn't linear. We were skipping some levels and doing others in a haphazard order. An old lady, our commander? Said that we did well, that we obeyed her by skipping the ordered levels. Suddenly full of Rage, I decided to do exactly the levels she ordered us to skip. Something made look down on myself. My body was covered in very colorful tattoos, and another one was appearing, like a decalc from a bubblegum. From my hip to my ribs in a vertical stripe was the bi flag, with the words bi bi bi baby written inside. I think maybe it was glittering. Maybe. It was nice.

[saintsofwarding]

WE SHALL BE MONSTERS

Header by keltii-tea

Chapter 24: A Traitor’s Bargain

The bellow shook the air, a blast of dust and house-fragments rolling over the face of the full moon. The monster erupted forth, limned in red moonlight. It was huge, and growing by the second. Heisenberg had never seen another mutant grow so massive; this one was on the same scale as Eveline's final form, from what he could tell from the BSAA photos of her calcified corpse, taken at the scene of her death.

Now, this new monster rose, and rose, and rose against the sky, vast wings churning the blizzard winds. It was roughly avian, long masses of tentacles trailing from its back and underbelly, multiple foreclaws opening like cages of blades, its whole mass held aloft by those eight feathered wings. Mold showered from it in thick, glutinous droplets. The entire monstrosity was formed of mold, armored in it, a constantly-shifting pelt of glistening, iridescent black.

Heisenberg watched it rise, felt the shudder of its wingbeats in the backs of his teeth. That thing was Rose; that thing was Miranda. Had Miranda locked herself, dormant, in the megamycete's subconscious, and thus in Rose's? Had she resurrected herself through Rose, and now occupied her body, and with it, her enormous power?

Heisenberg didn't know. All he knew, as he stared at the great monster claiming the sky, was that he'd failed.

He'd failed the other Lords. He'd failed Ethan. He'd failed himself.

And he'd failed Rose.

He couldn't deny it anymore, even to himself. Everything he'd done, since the moment he first looked into her stupid, ugly, moldy little face fifteen years ago, had been for her. To exploit her power for his benefit at first, yeah, but that had changed faster than he liked to admit. Now, all was different. It was all to protect her. To save her, spare her, from Miranda, from the horrors of the mortal world, from all that stood against her.

Hell, he'd do it all again, a thousand times over, just to see her safe.

And now, Miranda had her. They were together again, as much as two creatures could be, all of Rose's power in Miranda's clutches.

His next inhale snagged in his throat, and the grief bit down, sharp and raw as ever.

Maybe, in the end, it always had to be this way.

The monster's howl shook the hillside, the reservoir below reflecting the red moonlight, quivering each time the mutant beat its wings. Over in the village came a flurry of activity- shouts echoing from the Ouroboros encampment, lights flaring on, the whir of helicopter rotors filling the air as commandos ran to their posts.

Movement swung: a massive piece of manned artillery set up somewhere around the Maiden of War, grinding round on its base to level at the monster. Heisenberg snarled between his teeth.

"No," he muttered. "No."

The others were there: Moreau, a look of horror in his eyes. Mia, staring at the monster, all color drained from her face. And Dimitrescu. As the first artillery shot blazed toward the approaching monster, as it burst against her flank in a shower of liquid fire and calcified mold, her look of rage deepened.

The monster shrieked; its wings churned at the air as it banked round, claws splayed, straight for the village.

"Fools," Dimitrescu spat. "She'll destroy them all."

"I'm not so sure." Heisenberg pointed at the monster. The artillery round had chewed a massive, crumbling hole in her side; it immediately began to heal, but another shot followed the first, and another, each one blasting a ragged bite from her tentacle-covered body.

The shells must have been anti-mutant, like the bullets.

Damn Ouroboros. Damn them all.

"They'll kill each other," Mia whispered. She pressed her hands to her mouth, her whole body shaking. "Rose..."

Another blast pounded the monster, lit the sky in a flare of fire-gold and salt-white. Still she advanced; massive jaws peeled wide, bristling with teeth like shards of obsidian, its pulsating gullet roiling with mold-tendrils.

One trailing tentacle struck out; it leveled an outlying house, shattered it to kindling. One of Ouroboros' helicopters strafed past, spitting bullets. The Rose-monster reared back, one vast foreclaw rising; it swatted the helicopter, a backhand, almost lazy movement. The rotors choked and caught fire, and with a screech of metal and seizing parts, the whole machine spiraled out of the sky, exploding off the hillside with a muffled boom.

"They won't let her live now, that's for damn sure," Heisenberg muttered, watching the spray of molten metal as it underlit the monster.

I'm sorry, kid.

I'm so sorry.

Was this the end? Maybe Ouroboros would kill her. Maybe she'd live, and turn on them next. Maybe Miranda would take control again, would start her rule all over again. Maybe she'd execute them all, live forever in her dream, playing dollhouse inside the subconscious of a mutated monster with a ghost of her little Eva. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Or maybe there was still a chance.

The monster careened through the sky, banking to the side as it began to circle the village. It snapped at the air, shaking its great tentacle-maned head. Heisenberg had only seen Miranda mutate from afar, and only the once, but he knew her all too well. Her coldness, her calculation. She wouldn't attack like this, head-on and mindless, seeking only to annihilate. She'd be a lot smarter than that.

This was the attack pattern of a first-time mutant, a newborn. Someone who'd never done this before. Someone on the verge of losing control.

And if Miranda wasn't fully in control-

Then that meant-

It doesn't have to be this way.

Wasn't he Lord Heisenberg? You made me like this, Mother. Full of rage. Full of vengeance. And full of power. She'd taught him everything he knew. How to use that power. How to turn it against all that stood in his way. And he was, as ever, a dutiful son.

No. This wasn't the end. Not for him. Not for Rose. Only for Miranda. He hadn't gotten to strike the final blow fifteen years ago; that honor had gone to Ethan. Now, another red moon, another night of impossible odds. Now, he'd get that chance again.

Now, he'd kill her for real.

Lightning crackled over the snow as he faced the others. "You see that thing?" He flung out his hand to point. "There's still a chance. Get it? Miranda's not entirely in control. Not yet, anyway."

"How do you-" Mia started.

"'Cause I'm a goddamn genius, remember? Now everyone shut the hell up and listen," he ordered. "Moreau. Get down to the reservoir. Might have some company soon."

Moreau nodded, his entire body jiggling with anticipation. "What...what...what kind of company?"

"It's a fuckin' surprise," Heisenberg snarled. "Wait and fuckin' see, fishstick, don't ruin the anticipation."

"You can do it," Mia told Moreau, rubbing his shoulder.

Moreau sniffed. "I'll...I'll see you all soon," he told Heisenberg, told Dimitrescu. "Get little Rose back, all...all right?" And with a last, misty-eyed look at them all, he began down the hillside, toward the reservoir.

"Good luck, fishstick! Try not to die this time!" Heisenberg called after him. He looked up at Dimitrescu. "You're hungry, right?"

She bared her teeth in a grimacing sneer. "Starving."

Heisenberg let out his breath. "Fucking things you make me do." He yanked up his shirtsleeve, exposing the scarred flesh of his brawny forearm and bicep, and held it toward her face.

"Go on," he said.

"I beg your-"

"Drink, you overgrown bitch, I'm telling you to eat my fuckin' blood so you can go kill people!" Heisenberg said. "Goddamn, do I have to write it down in crayon?"

She blinked, her brows arched. Years they'd hated one another. Years they'd never given up the opportunity to fight each other, whether verbally or physically, ripping and tearing and hunting for fresh meat. Even in the depths of her grief, fresh off losing her three beloved daughters, Dimitrescu had spared a share of her hatred especially for him.

Such hatred between them. Such constant, bloody rivalry. Heisenberg didn't remember when it had come about. He only remembered how. He must have been a child when they met, yet already powerful. Miranda must have extolled his abilities, his affinity, his superior potential. And Alcina, hungry, yearning, impassioned thing as she was, didn't stand a chance against their mother's manipulations.

How could she? Miranda had made her that way, after all.

Heisenberg and Dimitrescu. The two of her children closest to her ideal of perfection. Miranda had kindled their rivalry, had turned them against one another from the first, so she could always control them. So they might never realize their own power, might never conspire, might never band together to destroy her.

So they might never do what they did now, stand together in the snow, to look each other in the eye with-

-Well. It would always be hatred on Alcina's part. But now, with their mutual enemy tearing the world apart at their feet, there was something close to respect, too, however grudging.

Here and now, Heisenberg would take it.

Her huge hand snapped around his arm. She wrenched him close; he stumbled, at the mercy of her monstrous strength. With a twist of her wrist she brought his arm to the level of her bent head, nearly wrenching it from its socket.

Alcina's eyes glowed, the hunger in them rising like flames.

"This will hurt, little brother," she told him, voice dusky, and opened her mouth, and with a rippling growl, sank her teeth into his flesh.

Black blood spurted; Heisenberg clenched his teeth as she tore at him, as she drew great, starving gulps of his blood, as she swallowed it down with a shudder of pure, sensual pleasure. Dimitrescu's eyes fluttered shut, and as he watched, the cracks on her skin began to seal together, the hollows beneath her eyes smoothing over.

The gauntness left her face as her grip on his arm strengthened to bone-breaking pressure, the tips of her claws biting into his wrist.

She let him go. Heisenberg slammed back against a tree, breathing hard, leaking everywhere. A streak of his blood darkened the snow; more blood dripped over Alcina's chin, slopping down the front of her armor in a red-black spill. She smeared her hand over her mouth, her too-long, too-red tongue lapping the blood from her face.

Heisenberg stared up at her as she straightened to her full, magnificent height. Dimitrescu thrummed with power, her gray-white skin shining in the moonlight, her hair whipped around her shoulders in the snowy breeze.

"At last." Another shudder, a crackle of bone and muscle deep within her. She shook her head, her face alight with a hazy, feral ecstasy. "I'd forgotten what that felt like."

"Not hangry anymore?" Heisenberg managed.

She shot him a look. "You," she told him, "taste disgusting."

He grinned. "Oh, run off and lord over that ugly-ass castle of yours, you super-sized leech."

She returned his smile, sudden and ferocious as a blow to the throat. "Will I, too, be expecting visitors?"

Heisenberg shrugged. "I know how much you love guests for dinner."

"What's the plan?" Mia touched his bleeding arm, muscles mangled like he'd been mauled by a feral lycan. They twitched as Heisenberg flexed his hand, severed veins and muscle strands crawling back together.

Not fast enough. Dimitrescu had drained him, all right. He felt like shit; his body weighed heavy on his bones, cold save for the burn of his Cadou in overdrive, working hard to repair him. Not ideal, but, then again, when was anything?

"You can skip town, y'know," he told her, quietly. "Get out of the country. I won't hunt you down, I promise. Let's call it a parting gift."

"Leave? Now?"

"That's what I said."

Mia's eyes narrowed. "Fuck you." She produced a roll of bandages from Moreau's secret medical stash. Deftly, she began patching up his wound, her hands soon crusted in his blood. She finished off the bandage with a sharp tug, cinching it tighter than absolutely necessary. "Can't get rid of me that easy."

Heisenberg chuckled. "I knew I liked you, Winters."

He faced the village, the monster in the skies above, circling the camp as artillery shot after artillery shot pounded the air.

He'd find Rose. He'd kill Miranda. And if those Ouroboros bastards got slaughtered along the way? Even better.

See you soon, he told the monster. Mother.

He held out his hand. With a warping hum, his hammer crashed through the side of Moreau's shack and smacked into his palm. He spun it onto his shoulder, slid on his sunglasses, then squinted back round toward the ruined building.

"Now where the fuck," he said, "is my goddamn coat?"

***

The wind rising off the village reeked of chemicals, of ash and liquefied mold, the world spattered in pools of the monster's blasted-off chunks. Gunfire lit the snow: commandos holding back the lycans. The beasts snarled from the woods, darting in and out of Heisenberg's focus as he and Mia approached the camp.

Little wonder. Now the conglomerate lycan in the reactor chamber, Moreau and Dimitrescu's spontaneous regeneration, made sense. There had always been a living host for the Black God; even as a baby, Rose had continued to transmit the megamycete's signals to all its carriers, Cadou parasites still responding to her latent command.

With the host now awake, the lycans had to be going apeshit, unable to make full sense of the garbled signals coming from the Rose-monster's gestalt consciousness. Their base instinct said attack, so attack they would, anything and everything that got in their way.

One of the closer lycans burst in a shower of gore, steaming with chemical smoke as it dropped to the snow. Heisenberg kept his sights on the floodlit barrier, a hastily-erected metal fence set up around the village square. Past it, the square was a flurry of movement, shouted orders, commandos running for more ammo, more supplies.

It looked like they'd built some prefabs around the Maiden of War, had set up their big artillery alongside her, so the statue looked as if she thrust her sword in command of the massive cannon. The stilled rotors of a V-22 helicopter loomed alongside the church, underlit hellish by the spotlamps illuminating the camp like an island of light fending off the dark.

Heisenberg smirked. Mortals. So cute. As if their little prayers and symbols could ward off the real monsters.

Three lycans snarled and snapped at one of the commandos, standing on a rise overlooking the camp.

"Eat this!" he yelled; his assault rifle spat, blasting the beasts into crystal shards. "Yeah, yeah, yeah!"

Perfect.

Heisenberg winked at Mia, then strode ahead. As the commando faced the camp again, Heisenberg swept up behind him.

"Hey, soldier," he purred into the man's ear.

"Wha-"

He grabbed the guy by the back of his bulletproof vest and hoisted him into the air. The commando let out a yelp as Heisenberg lifted him bodily, legs kicking, arms flailing. In a single heave, Heisenberg flung him over the fence, down into the middle of the camp below.

The soldier hit the ground hard and rolled, wincing. Shouts broke out, the snap of dozens of guns cocking and aiming at once echoing over Heisenberg as he strode to the top of the rise overlooking the camp, hammer propped on his shoulder, ferine grin on his face.

"Well, well, well!" he called. "Looks like everything fell to shit after I left!"

"Ah. It's back."

Heisenberg tilted his head. Regan approached from the direction of the church; aside from a bandaged bicep, he looked uninjured.

Shame. He'd make an excellent lycan.

"Long time, buttercup." Heisenberg looked him up and down. "I'm surprised you're still alive. Lycans love chewing on meaty lads like you."

The Rose-monster's bellow shook the air. "We're a little busy at the moment," Regan said. "If you'd like to come back later-?"

"Now why would I do a thing like that?" Heisenberg spread his arms wide. "And after your proclamation earlier? Now, call me a greedy old bastard, call me whatever you like, but above all I'm an enterprising gentleman, and I can't resist a good bargain. Especially when lives are on the line."

"What are you proposing?"

"I-"

A buzz like an angry wasp sounded to his six. Impact stung the side of his neck; Heisenberg snarled, twisting toward its source as he slapped his hand up to the sting. A dart, still quivering. A black-clad figure stood from the roof of a nearby house and gave a wave, sniper rifle propped to her shoulder.

Cal.

"Aha," Heisenberg said. He yanked the dart out, felt the slow cold seep of the drug through his system. His senses dulled; his connections to metal snapped. Another dose of power suppressant, like Mia had sprung on him in the hold of the Osiris. "So that's what you do."

"You have thirty seconds to explain yourself, Lord Heisenberg," Regan said. "I'd get a move on, if I were you."

"Scared, Regan?" said Mia.

She stepped alongside Heisenberg. A few guns swerved to her; she didn't flinch as she stared down at her one-time colleague.

"Winters," Regan said with a sigh. "So good to see you survived. I'd hate to have to deal with all the paperwork involved if your BOW friend there had killed you."

"Yeah. I'm sure you would." She shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet. Heisenberg made out the dart of her eyes- from Regan, to him, to Regan again.

"It's not too late, you know," Regan said. "You can always come back to us. I'd advocate for you.  You're a unique specimen, Mia- not just your physiology, but your experience. I-"

"Yack, yack, enough with this shit." Heisenberg pointed down at him. "Listen, Regan, let's cut to the chase. That thing in the sky? That's my daughter." He paused. "Also my mother. It's complicated."

Regan blinked, glancing toward the monster as it sliced through the blizzard, circling now around the castle towers, rounding them back toward the camp again. "That's the girl?" he said. "That's Rosemary Winters?"

"Sure is." He gestured to Mia. "What? Don't you see the resemblance? Point is, I don't want her dead."

Another artillery shot burst against the monster's flank as it strafed by; its scream of anguish sliced to his core, to his heart. He didn't have much time before those rounds blasted her into moldy memories.

"And?" Regan prompted.

"And I know you want something, too. Something you're clearly not having much luck in locating. The corpse of Ethan Winters." Heisenberg mustered his best grin and flashed it wide. "I'll bring it to you. And more. For a price."

Regan stared up at him, and Mia. The flare of firelight off his pale face cut it stark as a skull. It was impossible to gauge his thoughts. Heisenberg made an educated guess anyway. Ouroboros was clearly forced to improvise to be here at all without his help. They'd come to Romania expecting to get in and get out without engaging with an army of feral lycans and a bioweapon god the size of a 747. They had to be desperate, and how.

Enough to work with Lord Heisenberg himself? He'd take a cue from Mia with this one and bet the whole farm. Or factory, as it were. With Rose involved, anything.

At last, Regan set his jaw.

"Why don't you step into my office," he said. He glanced at Mia. "Both of you."

An alarm sounded as soldiers rolled back the gates, raining bullets on any lycans to make a beeline for the entrance. Heisenberg was faced with a semicircle of rifle barrels, each aimed for his center mass. Even without his powers, they weren't taking any chances. First smart thing Ouroboros had done since they'd entered the village.

The soldiers and researchers in the square weren't the only humans around. To Heisenberg's surprise, a few guns were pointed at a row of freaked-looking people kneeling by the painted wall of an old house. Robed, disheveled, slung all over with saints' metals and charms carved from bone, they looked like a bunch of particularly disconsolate monks after a long night in the wine cellar. One of them, a young woman with a shaved head, struggled to rise.

"Lord Heisenberg! You live! Praise the Black God!" she cried, waving her cuffed hands frantically. "Lord...Lord Heisenberg, please- where is Lord Moreau? Please, if he's alive, convey to him my deepest- my deepest affections-"

One of the soldiers shoved her back down. Heisenberg watched as he backhanded the girl across the face; she crumpled with a cry, then began to rock side to side, mumbling Moreau's name. Well, well. He had devotees. How ambitious. Maybe there was hope for his brother yet.

The soldier turned, eyeing Heisenberg from his helmet's eye slits, traces of the girl's blood clinging to his knuckles.

Heisenberg gave him a slow grin in return.

"He is so dead," Mia whispered.

Heisenberg chuckled. "All yours, sweetheart."

He ambled after Regan and into the prefab, roomy space beyond lit blinding with harsh fluorescent strips. He winced, squinting behind his glasses, tilting his head down to cut some of the glare. The makeshift laboratory jostled with noise and movement- cages fenced off one half of the structure, chain-link and stout metal pillars. Within thrashed lycans, snarling and clawing at the chain-link, gnawing at the locks and hinges. They snapped at Heisenberg and Mia as they passed, baleful stares seething with bloodlust. The cages faced banks of biomedical research equipment, harried-looking technicians working at monitors or chemistry stations. One held a phial of dark blood to the light. Lycan, Heisenberg assessed.

"You're experimenting on these BOWs, then?" Mia said.

Regan didn't spare her a look. "They're fascinating, aren't they? Miranda wrote them off as failures, used them as little more than cannon fodder, but HQ takes a different view. The Cadou not only made a new species, a hybrid of hominid and obligate carnivore, but manifested through them a brand-new culture. You've seen firsthand the way they band together. They have immense potential for battlefield use, and they've already garnered interest in many of our clients. You should find them interesting, too, Mia. We all know how you love failures."

"Fascinating is one word for them." She braced back as a lycan lunged for her, metal rattling as it clung to the gate. "I didn't realize HQ wanted to take back lycan samples."

"Anything for a fistful of lei," Heisenberg drawled. "Isn't that right, soldier of fortune?"

Regan didn't respond to his bait. Heisenberg eyed the lycans as they passed the last of them, eyed the several lain out on gurneys, restrained and sedated, their sawtooth fangs exposed to the overbright lights. The villagers had called them holy creatures, had worshipped them alongside the Lords and Miranda. Now here they were, at the mercy of the irreverent.

A quick buck was right. Hell, if Ouroboros managed to blast Rose from the sky, they'd probably auction her various pieces off to the highest bidder. Every monster had its use.

A slow grin spread across his face.

Regan ushered them through a sliding doorway, up a plastic tunnel hallway with air that burned with chemical disinfectant, and into the church. Its warm darkness was now illuminated by banks of computer screens, its wooden walls stuffed to the gills with equipment. Guards in full combat armor stood at the entrances, weapons at the ready.

Heisenberg's gaze lingered on the altar. Four portraits, four lords enclosed in gilt, and enshrined between them, radiant as ever, Miranda. How dutifully the villagers had trooped here, to give glory, to beg protection, to whisper pleas for mercy- Lord Heisenberg, spare me, please, I beg of you, it was only a mistake.

How dutifully they'd died when the monsters came to call, when he and the others had followed Miranda's orders and wrought bloodshed upon those who'd worshipped them.

Man. He'd had his fun, in his day, but he'd been a shitty god where it counted.

"We don't have much time, so make it quick," Regan said, as soon as the door closed behind them.

"Not much to say," Heisenberg said with a shrug. "My proposal is simple. You don't aim to kill our flying friend out there. And I deliver, straight to your hands, Winters' corpse."

"We already made you that offer," Regan said. "And, it seems, you weren't interested before."

"Right, right, but get this." He gestured toward the lycan research lab outside. "You have money to make, and I have problems of my own. Three of them. Now, lycans are well and good, but just think what your bosses would say if you turned up with not only a passel of wolf-men and an ice sculpture to show for all their cash and efforts, but three of Mother Miranda's Lords, too."

He spread his arms.

"Imagine," he went on, letting his voice fill the church's dusty recesses. He lifted a hand, curling it into a fist with a crackle of bloodstained leather. "Three of the megamycete's descendant hosts. Not quite as strong as the original host, of course, but what can you do. Consider."

He sidled up to Donna's portrait at the altar. "A pretty girl who can flip your brain inside-out with sheer, mind-melting terror..." He made TV-presenter hands around Moreau. "An ugly sack of flesh with acid reflux almost as bad as mine after a three-day bender..." He slid behind Dimitrescu, brushing her painted cheek with a fingertip. "...And a nine-foot man-eating vampire bitch-queen that just won't fucking die."

He put on his biggest showman's grin. "They're all here, in the village. Bioweapons to write home about. I'll even tell you where they are."

Regan's eyes gleamed. He put on a good show of stoicism, but Heisenberg saw the way he leaned in, the way he hung on his every word. They'd already suffered losses, already fucked the mission when they'd lost him and Mia. With three of four Lords in tow, they might just manage to save face.

Besides. What self-respecting terrorist organization wouldn't pay top dollar for Dimitrescu?

"You're talking about your own family, yes?" Regan said.

Heisenberg let out a bark of laughter. "You think I care about my family? Fuck my family. Take them back to your labs. Kill 'em. Do what you want with them. Doesn't matter to me."

He sidled closer, his grin still fixed in place. "So. Soldier." He eyed Regan over the rim of his glasses. "What d'you say?"

A beat. A long silence.

Then-

Regan smiled in return, cold as a knife to the throat. "You have yourself a deal, Lord Heisenberg."

***

The thunder of artillery shots filled the sky as Heisenberg and Mia emerged once again into the freezing wind. Snow flurried down, dark with ash, bitter on Heisenberg's tongue.

"Change your firing pattern!" Regan yelled up at the gunner in his cage. "Hold it off! Do not shoot to destroy. I repeat, do not shoot to destroy."

"Sir?" the gunner called down, but Regan was already shoving past, calling more orders to a platoon of commandos, signaling to Cal, who dropped from the roof and took her place at her brother's side.

"Ooh, you planning something fun for him?" she giggled, nodding at Heisenberg.

"Not this time, pet. You have a job to do." He tapped a map on a nearby command table. "Valley of Mist, House Beneviento. Suit up with a rebreather and bring back Lady Beneviento. She'll be there, and no trouble for you to subdue. Understood?"

She pouted. "Why do you always give me the easy ones?" In a whirl of blonde hair, she was gone again.

"You'll want this, Mia." Regan tossed her a rifle and a clip of anti-mutant rounds. "For the lycans. And in case your BOW companion decides he's better off without you."

"I'd say thanks," Mia said, giving the weapon a quick once-over, "if I wasn't so sure you'd shoot me yourself the second I turned my back."

Regan shrugged. "Business is business, Mia. You of all people should know that by now."

He stood before the immense stone gate to the ceremony site, the ancient dais that had once ensconced Rosemary Winters' remains. The gate that, once upon a time, had led to his territory. It still bore his crest, horse and shoe scabbed over with remnants of Miranda's mold. In a flash, Heisenberg saw it once more as he had that dawn a decade and a half ago. The snow, gusting golden through the first of the daylight. The world cracked open, the Black God's tentacles bursting from the ground to claw and writhe at the skies. The blood, the mold, the remnants of the battle, the ground scattered with crystal shards, left behind after Ethan fought his way toward Miranda.

Now, the world beyond the dais- ended. That was what it looked like, anyway. As Heisenberg and Mia entered the altar site after Regan, Heisenberg saw just what kind of devastation the BSAA's bomb had wrought.

The snow and earth and scrubby pine trees fell away, sudden as an execution blow. Beyond them the crater yawned, the night endless past the crumbling lip of the cliff's edge. It spread on and on and on, a vast bite torn from the landscape, a cigar burn in reality. Rubble filled its edges, but in the center, past the reach of the Ouroboros camp's floodlamps, he made out nothing but a dark pit. For all he knew, it might go down forever.

And it was full of lycans. Infested with the things. Everywhere, green eyes glittered, teeth bared and glistening with blood and mucus. Of fucking course. No wonder Ouroboros hadn't wanted to go down there themselves.

"Ethan's down there," Mia murmured.

Heisenberg looked at her. She stood at the cliff's edge with her new rifle slung over her shoulder, ammo hooked onto her belt. Her boot tips hung off the drop, into empty air. One more step, and she'd go over.

Her face was pale, her gray-streaked hair dancing around her head in the crater's updraft. She'd looked worse when he had his hands elbow deep inside her- heh heh- but not by much. The look in her eyes now was like- fuck, it was the look in his own after Claudia, after he'd thought the last remnants of his soul had been burned to ashes, after he'd thought there was no hope left but that which he could reap from his own destruction.

This was it, he figured, for her. This was all she had done over the years manifest, all her guilt, all her failures. This was what she had made with her own fear, with her own reticence to tell her husband the truth. This was her version of a child gasping for life on the floor, even as she died, even as the hope ran out along with her blood. A pit eaten into the earth, the corpse of the love of her life waiting somewhere in the darkness.

Waiting for her.

He elbowed her in the ribs. She flinched, and looked up at him. Her eyes shone, but her gaze held steady.

"You gonna bitch out on me, Winters?" he said.

Her jaw clenched. "You first."

Heisenberg grinned. "Heh. I see where Rose gets it."

"We'll hold the monster off until dawn," Regan called, from back near the dais. "If you aren't back by then, the girl dies. That's my bargain to you, Lord Heisenberg. See you keep up your end."

Heisenberg didn't look back. He hooked his arm around Mia's midsection, pulled her against him, and leaped into the waiting darkness below.

[primroseprime2019]

To the Creator, what are the sexualities of your Ships? Feel free to add in your extra characters too ^~^

Cora: Bisexual

Keagen: Heterosexual

Gregory: Gay

Idris: Gay

Byron: Heterosexual, Asexual

Agatha: Heterosexual

Levi: Gay

Ivan: Gay

Harry: Bisexual

Jackson: Bisexual

Atticus: Gay

Hezekiah: Pansexual

Verena: Lesbian

Charisse: Bisexual

Larry: Gay

Xavion: Gay, Nonbinary

Camille: Lesbian

Nyra: Bisexual

Dena: Lesbian, Nonbinary

Matthew: Heterosexual

Wendy: Heterosexual

Demetrius: Gay

Emhyr: Bisexual

Drake: Heterosexual

Avaline: Bisexual

Nancy: Bisexual

Robin: Lesbian

Mason: Heterosexual

Jane: Heterosexual

Lincoln: Heterosexual

Marceline: Heterosexual

Sawyer: Gay

Ethan: Bisexual

Luz: Bisexual

Amity: Lesbian

Hunter: Bisexual

Willow: Pride Progress, Pansexual

Stella: Heterosexual

Mordecai: Heterosexual

Blaze: Bisexual

Lacey: Gay

Cindy: Bisexual

Brayden: Pansexual

Eos: Transgender

Emile: Gay

Xandros: Gay

Laurence: Gay

Cody: Gay

Miles: Bisexual

Gwen: Heterosexual, Transgender

Natasha: Lesbian

Renee: Lesbian

Pandra: Bisexual

Loba: Lesbian

Kairi: Lesbian

Blake: Nonbinary

Walter: Pansexual

Octavio: Gay

Obi: Bisexual

Elliott: Bisexual

Theodore: Gay Asexual

Jay: Heterosexual

Sofia: Heterosexual

Quinn: Heterosexual

Micah: Heterosexual

Valentina: Heterosexual

Angelo: Heterosexual

Natalia: Heterosexual

Smith: Heterosexual

Iridescent: Heterosexual, Asexual

Sidney: Heterosexual, Transgender

Harper: Lesbian

Begonia: Lesbian

Charlotte: Lesbian

Winter: Bisexual, Transgender

Eleanor: Bisexual

Destiny: Bisexual

Isabella: Lesbian

Thalia: Bisexual

Waverley: Lesbian

Tabitha: Lesbian

Tyler: Heterosexual

Christina: Heterosexual

Kendrick: Heterosexual

Rita: Heterosexual

Arden: Heterosexual

Teresa: Bisexual

Wenzel: Bisexual

Hannibal: Gay

Tennille: Heterosexual

Nelly: Heterosexual

Marcellus: Bisexual

Enoch: Gay

Eldritch: Heterosexual

Phyllis: Bisexual

Edwin: Heterosexual

Demeter: Heterosexual

Clover: Aromantic

Flynn: Heterosexual

Ivory: Pansexual

Petra: Bisexual

Marcus: Heterosexual

Lorraine: Heterosexual

Willis: Heterosexual Ace

Lewis: Gay

Desmond: Bisexual

Evander: Heterosexual

Calliope: Heterosexual

Violet: Heterosexual

Xaden: Heterosexual

Blu: Bisexual, Transgender

Ventus: Lesbian, Transgender

Obadiah: Pansexual

Estelle: Heterosexual

Noel: Agender, Gay

Pablo: Gay

Gideon: Heterosexual

Jubilee: Bisexual

Shiloh: Heterosexual

Silvanna: Heterosexual

Anastasia: Heterosexual

Chance: Heterosexual

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔

Paige: Bisexual

Marley: Pansexual, Nonbinary

Joanna: Genderfluid, Pansexual, Aromantic

Kaitlin: Demisexual

Brenda: Heterosexual

Osiris: Bisexual

Eric: Bisexual

[stylinskies]

“No you won’t,” Stiles said quickly, thinking about the iridescent puddles of gasoline pooling in the cracks in concrete. The rain had gone away without washing it all down the storm drain. “I’m not interested in having to hang out with another person that smells like gasoline,” He said, trying to make the whole thing light hearted. Checking his phone, Stiles raised an eyebrow. “It’s already 3 am. The bus is supposed to leave at 7 tomorrow. Just four hours of the world’s worst nap…not like we wouldn’t have fallen asleep on the bus ride anyways, right?” 

Raising an eyebrow, Stiles cast a glance down the hallway, as if the Alpha’s would materialize there because they were talking about them. When he confirmed they were alone, he turned back to Allison. “Everyone is ten steps ahead of us.” She reminded. “Half the time we’re pulling shit straight out of our ass. They know something, but I think now we can use that to our advantage.” Leaning against the wall, Stiles dragged a thumb against his lower lip. “We did just save Ethan’s life.” There had to be something Stiles could do to get into his head. He’d think about that later, when the image of his best friend’s fiery demise wasn’t ingrained in his back of his eyelids. Waving a hand at Allison, shooing away her comment, Stiles paused. He hadn’t told Allison about whatever romantic additions to his relationship with Lydia. “How did you…are you fucking with me?” He asked, the levity of the conversation contrasting with how he felt, genuinely helping his energy levels. “Did she tell you about that?”

The nod that comes with the mention of the bus is quick, agreeing that a stiff bus seat sounded much more appealing than the motel. "I'd even sleep in the parking lot at this point." Allison points out, arms crossing to combat the cool night air. She toyed with the idea of calling her father back to see if he'd still be willing to come pick her up, but that would include explaining more things than she'd like -- He didn't need to know the details, not when they had gotten a grip on things. (Okay, a grip on things for now. Who knew how the next few hours would go.) "There's nothing anyone could do to get me to sleep on one of those lumpy mattresses." She continues, in an attempt to make the elephant in the room just a bit smaller. Despite that, she finds herself chewing on the inside of her cheek, looking over her shoulder to the motel room Scott is currently in. Allison knows he's probably fine, that he can able by himself for a few minutes -- But the knots in her stomach don't subside, not even with Stiles pointing out reality. But it's not him.

He's right, Allison knows that. The look Scott had given her when he showed up in her room was one she recognized -- Like it was a full moon, and he wasn't fully present. She knew he wasn't in his right mind, probably wouldn't be until they were home... But the linger thought remains, afraid that this is the complete truth and he's just kept the lid on the pot until it boiled over. "I hate it." Allison states simply, resisting to look back over her shoulder. God, she needed to get far away from this place, too. Nothing has possessed her to try and off herself, but it's certainly done a number on her emotional bandwidth. "He doesn't deserve this." Brows furrow as she speaks, shaking her head slightly. "None of them do." She admits in a quieter voice, surprising even herself.

In that moment, she's never been more grateful for Stiles problem solving nature. Trying to wrap her head around the big picture was giving her a headache, but it beat replaying the events of tonight on a loop in her head. Busying themselves with theories and details made it easier to stomach the distant look in Scott's eyes, and the way he seemed so exhausted he could barely hold himself up. It wouldn't make sense for this to have been the Alpha's -- They are cold blooded killers, but there's a scary amount of thought put into it each thing they do. Sending one of their own into the proverbial Lion's den wouldn't make any sense, especially when he was one half of a weird werewolf animorph. "I think they're about ten steps ahead of us, Stiles." Allison points out, finding it so strange that she's caught herself longing for the days they spent trying to find out who the Kanima was. At least that was a clear end goal. She's not sure they even know what they're looking for anymore, let alone what it wants.

She clenches her jaw as he speaks, using every ounce of will power she has left to keep a stiff upper lip. Allison knows what's going unsaid, the weight of saying anymore would probably crush them both. They experienced something similar after her mother died, when she'd been unable to say much without choking down a sob. So, she settles with a small nod, quickly wiping away a stray tear that threatened to roll down her cheek. A hand brushes through her damp hair in an attempt hide it, prove her facade hasn't fully cracked. "Time and place, dude." She teases with a small laugh. She couldn't deny the similarities -- But Allison knew this wasn't Lydia. They may not know what the red head was, but she wasn't a killer, or a some crazy ritual sacrificer. Even so, she understood why Stiles added her to the list. "Still, not exactly romantic, ya know." Allison points out with an arched brow, desperate to keep any sort of lightness to their conversation. Stupid jokes and teasing were the only thing keeping her afloat. "I have a feeling this night would have been a whole lot worse without her here."

[pureheartsandrainbowwings]

do you guys really think i’m a freak? :(