#The coffin is apart of her body and contains most of her organs. She takes the form of a coffin to lure in grave robbers

[quackshley]

Vampire rabbit mimic thing

[shewhowillnotbenamed1]

@ravenfan1242​ You said short and it started short and well, it just became this the way only an open prompt can... I hope it’s remotely decent!!!

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Raven leaned against the table and under her light weight, Jason could swear the solid structure shifted. From the moment she arrived, brandishing an eco-friendly tote, she was weighted down. Even after relinquishing the heavy bag, she still seemed to sag into it.

"I'm worried, Jason."

"Raven, don't be," he offered quickly. "I mean, look around you, it's fine."

"No, it's not fine." A heavy sigh exited her body. "There's something else I'm forgetting... I just feel like I should do something... Something more."

"That's pretty clear." He pointed at the huge bag of groceries on the kitchen counter. It was all organic and more than enough fodder to sustain two down and out Jason Todds for a month. Completely and utterly unnecessary. But, if you spent enough time brushing the tuxedo-covered and satin gloved elbows of the Gotham elite, you grew familiar with the concept of overcompensation. "I don't know why you're worried. I have everything I need here - and some. Oh and good morning - by the way."

Her blue-violet eyes narrowed and then ran their lap around the space for about the eighth time. "Natural light... That's the problem." She wrung her hands together. "There's no natural light... But, I should have figured that bulbs alone weren't enough."

"You think I need exposure to sunlight? That's certainly rich." Jason's chin jutted in her direction. "It really means so much coming from you." The half-demon's pallor was pretty standout in the tight black v-neck, more than usual, which was saying something. It was like someone had flipped a switch to change the settings to negative, then pointed it solely on her, leaving the colors of her skin and sweater equally inverted.

"You're vitamin D deficient - probably... Definitely. Or you will be..." Once more, she fussed about the beige corded string tote. She held up the carton of milk and then a container of yogurt, examining percentages, as if expecting these offerings to remedy the problem in the short term.

Jason half considered telling her she'd do well to down a glass or a spoonful herself, but he held his tongue. This was clearly about alleviating what she could, so as not to focus on the real problem.

"Underground to underground bunker...?" Jason stretched his arms behind his head leaning back onto the small couch in the hideout. "I can't help but consider this a vast improvement." The space was so very much like a studio. So it was practically palatial compared to his previous digs in the cemetery. He barely stifled a scoff as he contemplated yet another bitter realty. B couldn't be bothered to spring for a bloody crypt. It was probably confirmation of where he ranked. What did it matter? There was a revolving door of Robins anyway.

"So, I suppose... it can't be helped," she said somberly.

"Exactly. If you've been deep down enough, natural light becomes a cursory concern." It was meant to be an offhand remark, as he was sure she knew what lay underneath the earth's surface better than most. But Jason watched as the daughter of Trigon actually flinched. She was quivering slightly with her small shoulders starting to shake. Some part of this had to be beyond her, it was the only way for someone so powerful to seem so fragile.

Raven was the only one who could say with certainty that Jason Todd's coffin in Gotham Cemetery was empty.

The hardest part was supposed to be over, but neither of them really knew what was going to happen now.

Would he have good days and bad days? Or just all bad? What were the long-term after effects?

He could try to be proactive and take some preemptive actions. Perhaps he could borrow a leaflet from the shelf of one Raven Roth and start meditating to pinion the chaotic churn burgeoning inside him.

Steady the mind... You are neither a puppet nor a proponent of mania, or the voices inside...

He had a couple of chants he was mulling over. Raven knew the value of a good chant.

She also knew what it was like to have multiple forces pressing themselves upon her at any given time. Sometimes literally.

But the occasional moment in front of the crimson and gold strewn sky of dawn, brought her solace.

She'd told him that once, so he could believe it.

Maybe if he too could feel the sunlight, smell dewy grass, or hear the chirping of birds, it would make him feel less apart from the world. Or maybe he would just feel more strange and inhuman, like he was something indecent that didn't belong. And all the organic groceries and housewares in the world wouldn't be enough to rehabilitate the reanimated corpse of Jason Todd. Though Raven sure seemed willing to try.

Wait.

Did she really?

He sat up straight and craned his neck, not believing it. Among the health food items, Jason saw a flash of bright packaging. An orange tin of biscuits. He also spied a familiar looking paper carton. Well, well. Cigarettes.

Circumstances aside, wasn't Raven a do-gooder supreme, even among her fellow Titans? She didn't strike him as one to approve of cigarettes. They kill and all that. Though now she probably figured what was the harm? And he had to painfully agree.

In a state of delirium, he vaguely recalled mentioning something about a smoke. But how on earth did Raven find his favorite English biscuits? His weakness for Hobnobs was something he figured only Alfred knew about.

How did she always know?

Perhaps Raven had seen a small package on his place setting while visiting the manor and filed it away somewhere. In, but never out, she was Fort Knox. And like a fortress, one rarely ever knew what lay within her walls.

Hmm. A cigarette, black coffee and a biscuit for breakfast. Yes, the familiarity of it sounded comforting. Made the place feel downright homey. And suddenly Jason wanted her closer to him, to hold her, at the most. At the least, reach for her hand to squeeze it, if not to reassure her that she had done more than she could ever know.

"It's nice - the blanket... Wool, right?" He patted the soft blue throw resting over the back of the couch, another furnishing, courtesy of Raven. She pursed her lips, probably thinking he was being facetious again. "But, really. I appreciate this - and the food. Didn't I make that clear?"

"No, you didn't." She thumped the back of the couch, now hovering above Jason. "But, of course that would mean that nothing has changed."

"So..." A smirk spread onto his face, as he replayed the last fifteen minutes of their conversation. "That Vitamin D..." Raven blinked slowly, then rapidly, her expression no longer blank. "Being that you're a bit of a recluse, I always guessed that it's pretty difficult to come by... Is that by choice, or -"

"Raven?"

But the half-demon's body stood frozen like a statue. It was always so sudden and swift when it happened. Jason watched helplessly as the emotions arisen from her depths started to vanish themselves. The bloom of red left her face almost as quickly as it had come.

"Raven?"

It was utterly useless to even try. She was somewhere else now. On another plane - a private one - somewhere beyond this secret room to another. Raven was speaking with people he couldn't see and having conversations he couldn't hear. The severe line of her mouth softened and then curved over, as she bit her lip to stifle a tiny smile.

Well that was just great.

Currently, she was holding back a laugh at a joke that wasn't his. So, not people, a person. The only person it could be. And that man's timing was nothing if not spot on.

He stood up abruptly and -

Wait, was it even abrupt if no one noticed?

Who was to say?

But Jason wasn't going to sit around and wait for her to thaw. He figured he'd at least just pick up where she left off. He shot one more glance at Raven before he opened the empty fridge and filed in milk, eggs, and cheese. Huh. She'd gotten mild cheddar, not sharp.

Did anything at all get by her?

Of course, the fall of footsteps meant she was cooked. Defrosted, no longer in suspended animation. She glanced back and forth, calling out when she didn't see him.

"Jason... Jason?"

"Polo. It's not the manor. There's only one door and it's for the bathroom." That was harsher than he meant it to be. He stopped and sighed. "It was him, wasn't it?"

This was Raven, she didn't often lie, not even to spare feelings. "Yes. He... uh..." She paused for a while. Longer than was necessary. Five whole minutes went by. Was she conversing with him again? "Sorry... That was him. Dick hadn't seen me this morning and he seemed worried."

What did he somehow forget what Raven looked like?

Not likely.

Besides, didn't a mind meld render the need for that redundant? Or did theirs not work that way?

"Twice in twenty minutes, that's got to be serious."

"Well... Yes." She shrunk inwardly, holding herself tightly, amethyst orbs darted to the very corner of her eyes. It was the kind of shape someone twisted themselves into when prefacing a breach of something uncomfortable. "He wanted to make sure I was coming."

"Coming? To what - Birdy Book club?" Jason picked up another package. More cheese? Shredded and sliced in addition to the wedge. And Gods, was there crumbled in there too? He was perfectly capable of slicing or shredding or crumbling his own cheese. After all, he was well-versed in knife handling and had plenty of interesting shapes to carve things into.

Or had Raven removed all the sharp objects and replaced them with throw pillows?

"I told you." He shrugged. "You forgot? It's today." Then Raven's voice went low and quiet, as if she were about to speak about something improper. "It's the opening of the..." She swallowed. "Memorial today..."

The memorial.

His memorial.

Of course, he forgot, he hadn't wanted to think about it.

A can of tomatoes slid from his shaking palm and started to roll past his feet. The ghostly burn of verdant followed the steady path of the cylinder, until it bumped into the couch's leg, unable to go on unaided.

"Yeah..." he said after a while. When Raven didn't move, he nodded. "You should go..." He attempted what he believed to be an encouraging smile. Raven winced and Jason wished she wouldn't. He almost preferred pity. "You definitely have to go to that, don't you?"

"Well, yes I have to go. As a Titan and a friend of the family. I have to go and show my face." The half-demon avoided his gaze.

In spite everything that was thrown at her, Raven did the right thing. Why was it that he always seemed to say and do the wrong thing? He could feel a pull towards it now. Amplified. Not lulling like white noise. Loudly, it was rising, roaring in his ears. Burning, red noise.

All he could think about was why? Why this? Why today? And was he seriously unpacking groceries, when he should be in a grave?

What the hell was he doing?

When he shut the fridge, Raven was standing next to it, with her eyes glazed over, nodding at that which he couldn't see.

And she was talking to him again. In the middle of their conversation.

Perfect.

Raven was on it. She was taking care of everything. And everyone. This was best for everyone right now.

But that certainly didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

Raven would climb out of here once this was over. She could go out there and stand in the bright light - with him and their friends and family. Jason was stuck in a damned bunker and what did he get? A tin of biscuits and a pack of cigarettes. Concrete walls. Stale air. No sun. In his former life, Jason had never fully appreciated the sun or the air. He glared at the spotless, dustless, windowless room.

Was she really going to go off and fake it for the world?

And was he going to stay here underground, like he was dead - or as good as?

"Go, I'm all set here," Jason tried flatly. "You can go and put on a dress. Stand there at Dick's shoulder...let him hold your hand."

He had tried his hardest not to think about what his memorial would be like. And now, he couldn't help but picture it.

The specter of Jason Todd would hang silently above those in attendance. But since he wasn't dead, perhaps the only shadows would be cast by this latest slab of stone. Would it be a statue or a sculpture or an engraved tablet? He hoped this one would at least have a better inscription than the one in the cemetery.

Something like:

Jason Todd.

Never fully at rest in life or in death.

The war wages on.

Eternal.

A little noise ripped the image from him. Raven was staring at him with her eyes widened and shocked. She hadn't ever looked at him like that. Not even when she saw him covered in graveyard soil, suit torn to shreds, body broken. The empath faltered and took a clumsy step backward.

"Are you scared of me, Raven?" He felt worse than terrible. "Where is all that talk about not giving up and not letting go?"

"Gods. There's no doubt you're the same Jason. Still the same arrogant -" She clenched a fist. Was she contemplating shoving him? No. Ironically enough, he was too breakable.

"-ass with a selective filter, you mean?" Jason laughed, though the humorless sound of it was probably cruel. "That's crass of you, Raven. Don't they teach you not to speak ill of the dead in other dimensions? Better practice up on that custom before you step out of the town car."

"Stop it." She reached for him, grabbing the sleeve of his shirt. It was just a hair too big. Because there was a side effect that they could count on: atrophy. Notably, it was one of his least favorite. "It's not me you're mad at. But it is your day. So you can yell, or throw things, and...you can cry if you want to." Her eyes were brimming over with tears enough for the both of them.

He swallowed, wondering if it was too much, if she was taking on too much.

"Crying already?" Jason tried to smirk if not fall back into usual patterns, but he was finding it exceedingly difficult. He had never seen her cry, not even when she was brushing the dirt from his face. "Don't waste it all here. I know they're for me, but... I think you'll need to save some of those, for later."

"Yeah, I do." And then she laughed bitterly. Miserably.

She wiped her face on her sweater sleeve right as Jason felt a sharp impulse to brush them away for her. He ground his teeth. "You'll give 'em a good show - for me?"

"I won't have to, Jason." There was no need to glance at her to know the mask of Raven that everyone knew was back in place.

"Because... it won't be a show."

[lettersnorth]

Prompt #18: Wilt

Part of the 30 Day writing challenge hosted by @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast

Music Theme

The day they found U’Rahna’s body in the river at Fesca’s Watch, Aislinn had been at the library. The heat that day turned the sandstone city into an oven and wilted all but the most stalwart. Yet inside the library it was dark and cool, the thaumaturges guild’s judicious use of ice crystals insuring a constant, climate controlled environment for the tomes and the priceless knowledge they contained. 

She’d been given a fair share of side eye upon entering but it wasn’t until she tried to sign out a few books on aether theory that she was told in no uncertain terms that the books were only to be loaned out to academics. Of which she most definitely was not. She attempted the argument that by virtue of desiring to educate herself she was indeed an academic but that fell apart when the caretaker then asked to see her bona fides.

Trudging back to low-town in the sweltering heat, she wrangled with an idea that had lately been forming piece by piece in her mind. A way to improve the pistol she carried by augmenting it with her ability with aether. But she was stymied on the finer points. She simply didn’t know enough to figure out the details. 

Back at the warehouse, there was more of a flurry of activity than usual, especially considering the heat. That’s when she heard. U’rahna was dead. She had been found that morning, floating face down in the river, two bullets in her back. Obviously the list of suspects was long and included everyone from a rival gang to an unpaid gambling debt to a jilted lover to one of her own men. U’rahna had made a lot of enemies and not everyone in her organization agreed with the way she ran things. 

The wake was held that same evening in a seedy tavern she’d loved to haunt. Or so Aislinn was given to understand. In truth, though U’rahna had been her employer for years she knew little about the woman beyond what could be gleaned from day-to-day interactions. So here she sat at one of the tavern’s small, warped tables that rocked anytime anyone set a drink on it and watched the chaos of the wake happen around her. There were the drunken sods, some continuing to belt out off-key drinking songs claiming each one to be U’rahna’s favorite, some sobbing pitifully into their ales espousing over and over the apparent virtues and exploits of their fallen boss that somehow grew with each retelling. Aislinn was certain U’rahna had never nursed a sick child back to health and she would choke first before giving away any of her coin to a poor mother. There were the celebrators, their glee at their former employer’s demise which had been artfully contained to begin with became more and more obvious with each drink. Then there were her lieutenants, already colluding and planning in a low-voiced huddle in one of the tavern’s dark corners. These were the ones who bore watching. 

She next turned her attention to the pine box at the back of the tavern that currently housed the remains of the small, foul-mouthed miqo’te. The coffin sat precariously atop two of the larger, rickety tavern tables that had been pushed together in haste. A halo of stubby, malformed candles surrounded the base while cut flowers, likely leftover from whatever the flower girls who roamed the markets had at the end of the day, sat on either end, old canning jars serving as vases. Though at this point the flowers were so wilted no amount of water was going to bring them back to life. Aislinn studied the paltry tableau, perturbed by how little she felt in that moment when everyone around her seemed to be feeling something, whether they found the woman a viper or a mother hen. She supposed she should be grateful to her for taking her on when no one else in the city wanted anything to do with a refugee but even that was a hard feeling to drum up when she knew none of them had ever been anything more than tools to U’rahna. You don’t see a hammer crying over the death of a blacksmith. 

Looking to her left, Aislinn found Stark Oak downing yet another pint of ale. Not yet sobbing in his drink, but oddly misty-eyed nonetheless. 

“What happens now?” she asked. 

He looked at her and sighed. “For us? Nothing. Business as usual down with the machines. There’ll be some infighting like a pack of dogs over a carcass,” he said with a dark nod at the tight circle of lieutenants “but it’ll settle down. Soon it’ll just be the same shite, different day.” 

With a nod, Aislinn looked back at the nondescript pine box with its pitiful host of fading flowers. A huff of acknowledgment and that’s all. Then they all turn back to their affairs. Whatever had happened down at the river, this is how it ended. 

[freshwater--mermaid]

Ersatz Ch 24: A Tourist in the Waking World

Danny felt restless, standing so near to the Ghost Zone, but forced himself to focus on the task in front of him.

His increased 'curiosity' in his parents' research had the unintended effect of both making his parents proud, and causing his mother to insist that he help them with their latest studies.

His participation was limited to following exact instructions from Maddie about where to cut or what tools to retrieve. He was strictly not allowed to handle the ghosts otherwise, due to the risk of them escaping when being transported to and from the exam table.

Currently, Maddie was hovering beside him, watching his movements closely after instructing him to slice an ectoplasm sample in two.

Readjusting his grip on the scalpel, Danny lowered it toward the green blob. It had been taken earlier that day from one of the captured rats, and now Maddie wanted to test the sample against various temperatures.

She would start with both extremes; one half was to be frozen, while the other would be brought to boiling point.

The sharp blade cut neatly through the sample, splitting it down the middle. It was clearly beginning to rot already, its glow entirely gone. Maddie frowned as she noted this on her clipboard.

Danny wanted to shudder in revulsion at the memory of the acrid, old ectoplasm he's desperately eaten not too long ago. He was glad for the steady supply of new ghosts that had been roaming about recently. He never wanted to get that hungry ever again.

It had Danny feeling almost regretful that soon Halloween would pass, and the ghost sightings would dwindle back down to a minimum. He'd taken to hunting down any small ghosts he could find each night, easily tracking them with his parents busy in their lab most nights. And upon asking his mother about the exact functions of the Fenton thermos, he'd happily discovered that it could hold multiple ghosts at once, releasing them one at a time. He had used this knowledge to begin collecting the little spirits he captured for when he needed them.

However, one thought brought down his happy mood each time his mind wandered to the ghosts he had stored away. If there were this many of them pouring through the portal every day, then how many more were possibly lingering on the other side. In his home. With his body.

Danny's eyes were pulled once again to the closed metal doors, and he fought to stand still as his mom went about collecting the samples. His grip tightened on the scalpel, wishing vehemently that they'd forget about their stupid tests and go out ghost hunting for the night. Who cared what temperature did to ectoplasm, anyway?

Closing his eyes, Danny turned his head away and stepped back from the table. He looked toward his father's side of the lab. Jack was upstairs taking a snack break, and the finished ecto rifle sat alone on his desk, gleaming under the bright lights. The sight of it did not improve Danny's mood.

Maddie clearly didn't need anything more from him, fully absorbed in her work, and Danny had no interest in watching the experiment unfold. He stretched out his arm and dropped the blade onto the metal table with a light clang, removing his gloves and heading silently for the stairs.

Nothing upstairs could hold his attention, either. His father's loud eating and the buzz of the television got on his nerves within seconds, and he quickly walked to his room.

There he ended up sitting on his bed, staring down at his ever-growing pile of due assignments. At this rate he was going to start failing classes.

'Oh well.' he thought despondently. 'What's the point of keeping up with school? As soon as the next mandatory physical comes up I'm screwed, anyway.'

And there was the final nail in the coffin. The cherry on top of this pile of negative thoughts that had been plaguing Danny lately.

The realisation that his secret was temporary.

It had come to him just a few days ago, when he'd been standing outside the school awaiting his friends' arrival that morning. They had both walked up, laughing at some joke or piece of conversation that Danny wasn't listening to. What had caught his attention were the visible streams of breath that both teens exhaled as they spoke. They were also shivering quite a bit, arms crossed over jackets to keep out the sharp chill that Danny hadn't even been aware of. He himself had worn a short-sleeved shirt that day, forgetting to bring along his old hoodie.

That moment had sparked off the self-consciousness and worry. How was he supposed to fit in with everyone when he couldn't even remember to breathe or maintain a pulse, let alone react to the weather?

Sam had been right. Her statement from weeks before coming to haunt Danny. Eventually the clues would outweigh the doubts. People were seeing ghosts now. They were becoming part of Amity Park's day-to-day happenings. Soon it would take no leap of faith to suspect that the creepy kid who didn't make little spirals of visible breath might be dead.

Would his parents be the ones to find out first, he wondered. Maddie's keen eye could so easily pick up on the evidence if she took just one moment from her work to actually look at Danny. Even when she fretted over him, face filled with concern, she never seemed to actually take him in. He knew it was because of her guilt. The pained guilt that never really left her since the incident at Vlad's home. And as much as it saddened Danny, it was a great advantage to his current situation. He needed that distance between them; it was probably the only thing keeping her from noticing all of his increased oddities.

How would she react, knowing that he was dead. Knowing that he had died in that portal she had painstakingly pieced together over so many years. Would she be hurt? Would she cry and fall to the floor and plead his forgiveness for getting him killed? Or worse still. Would she see an opportunity. A chance to study an advanced form of ghost. One more powerful than any spectre she'd come across in her entire life. Maddie couldn't even comprehend a ghost like him. He'd gotten as much from her long lectures as she plucked samples from the little squawking rats. There was just no way in her mind that a ghost could possibly be so human as to actually fool her. He'd nearly smiled at her when she gave that confidant comment.

How would it feel to shatter that self-assurance? Would it feel gratifying, or just horrible.

Danny figured the latter, and rubbed a hand hard across his face. He frowned down at his textbooks, unable to take sitting still any longer. He had to get out and clear his head.

In the open air he could forget who he was, all of his problems scattering into the wind, seeming less dire. He could shirk his way around any future doctor appointments, and he could copy his friends' homework, and soon his parents would take to the streets once more, in search of new test subjects.

They were running out of the little blobs and rats, surprisingly enough. They had taken most of them apart completely, with Danny present to observe or lend a hand on a few occasions. He did feel sad for the small creatures, but couldn't help but be fascinated by everything his parents were discovering about the ghosts.

Sadly, since the test subjects were all so weak, Danny wasn't sure how well anything he learned from them would apply to himself. When cut open, they contained only globs of ectoplasm, while Danny could most definitely feel the intact bone structure beneath his skin.

And the lunch lady had organs. Green, misshapen organs, but definitely internal structures.

Danny hovered over an empty street, a hand drifting down to press against his stomach. He wondered what his insides looked like now. Not that he'd volunteer to be sliced open. No, best not to follow that line of thinking.

Shaking his head, Danny shot upward, flying around absently, no destination in mind.

A sudden burst of light caught his attention, his head whipping around toward the source. Even from several blocks away, the Fenton ghost shield shined like a beacon.

Curiosity and worry drew him back toward his home, though Danny assured himself it was most likely more little ghosts running amok. Maybe he'd get a chance to catch one before his parents got to them.

As he neared the house, careful to stay in the darkness, a white line swam across the ground below, moving swiftly away from the Fenton residence. Its strange shape and movement bewildered Danny, and he followed after it to get a better look.

The white creature lurched to the side, fading into a nearby home. Danny flew to the building, debating whether or not he should follow.

Screams from within ended his internal debate, and Danny quickly turned invisible before diving through the wall. What he came upon was like something out of a cheap scifi horror movie.

A teenage girl, clad in only a short nightgown, stood cowering in the corner of her bedroom. A disturbingly large, glowing snake raised up as it hissed at her. Its long fangs dripped as it opened its jaws wide, advancing on the girl.

Flying forward, Danny grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the way as the snake lunged. She was just as scared by the invisible grip on her, however, and immediately began to scream and flail about.

Danny grimaced at her in annoyance, grabbing her other arm and lifting her off the ground, planning on flying them both out of there.

That was when the door flew open and the lights turned on, revealing a burly man standing in the doorway and wielding a baseball bat. The man lost all bravado as he took in the sight before him. His daughter, hanging suspended in the air as she kicked and screamed. And a very big snake coiling up on the other side of the room.

For a few seconds he stood there, frozen, only his eyes moving as they swept back and forth between both spectacles. He was obviously deciding which target to go for first, and soon made his choice.

Apparently an invisible foe was less intimidating than a large, reptilian one. The man leapt forward and began swinging his bat wildly in the air around his daughter. When one swing came too close to Danny, he couldn't help but let out a startled "Hey!" in response.

The shout gave all three of them pause, but then seemed to ignite new strength within the father. He gripped the bat in both hands, swinging hard toward where the voice had come from. The strike landed, hitting Danny directly on the head.

Reeling, he dropped the girl to the floor, focusing on remaining unseen as his vision blurred. As it cleared, he could see that the snake was once again rising up, intent on continuing its attack.

Seeing no other option, Danny clenched his teeth and shot forward. He collided with the snake, grabbing hold and turning them both intangible. They flew upward and out of the house, into the open night air.

Danny quickly released the writhing ghost, shivering in revulsion as he put distance between them. The creature coiled around itself in the air, baring its long teeth at Danny and letting out a loud hiss.

Not waiting for it to make the first move, Danny charged up a ball of energy in his hand, sending it at the snake.

It connected, sending sparks of green dancing along the scaled body. The snake cried out and curled up tighter, muscles tensing. Danny realised too late what it was doing, and as he readied another blast, it struck out at him.

The energy in his hand shot off into the sky as he tried to dodge. One of the fangs sliced into his side as the snake dove past him. Blood began soaking into his torn shirt, and Danny pressed a hand against the wound, watching as the snake continued its descent, landing on the street below and winding away.

Danny glared at its retreating form, ready to follow after and get some revenge, when a loud blast sounded off from behind. A large green streak sailed over the snake's body, barely missing it.

"I see it, Maddie!" Jack's voice arose from the dark street below. "It's making a run for it!"

Danny turned invisible once more, following after the snake as his father tried to catch up. He didn't want the snake attacking more helpless people, and since his dad looked to be alone, he also didn't want him to get hurt. He imagined what those long fangs could do to a regular person.

Flying lower, Danny fired off small, quick shots at the glowing white creature. It began swerving widely on the road in an attempt to avoid him, but a few blasts hit, causing it to halt in the middle of the road.

An approaching car's headlights shone on the huge ghost, and the driver slammed their brakes, tires squealing, before quickly reversing and turning in the opposite direction. The snake watched after it, distracted.

Danny began charging up a more powerful ball of energy in his hand, but it dissipated as another large blast of green hit the snake dead on. It's white skin bubbled, peeling away as it flopped around it pain.

Jack had reached them, and Danny quickly glanced down at himself to make sure he was still invisible. Small drops of blood falling from seemingly nowhere was his only give-away. Hopefully his father wouldn't notice.

Jack didn't, and he grinned widely at the stunned snake, his ecto rifle propped up on his shoulder. Danny felt a thrill of fear as he realised that it was the new, improved model. It took a moment to power up for another attack, a high singing emanating from the gun, getting louder. The blast sounded almost like a canon, and Danny flinched away from it, flying far back as the ecto blast hit the snake again.

This time full chunks of the ghost's body flew off, splattering across the road. Danny felt the fear from before falling over him again, stricken in place as he watched the upper half of the animal writhe about on the road. Jack had definitely not been lying when he said he wanted to give the gun more power. It seemed he may have even overdone it.

But Jack didn't seem interested in capturing this particular specimen tonight. Instead, he charged the rifle up, striking his target a third and final time. The glow from the weapon cast shadows over his dad's face, morphing his grin from its usual bright beam into something sinister and malevolent.

There were only white and green bits of the creature left smeared across the black asphalt. Jack laid his gun on the ground, walking toward the remains with a proud stride. Danny turned and rocketed out of there, fearful that the man would soon take notice of the blood slowly collecting on the sidewalk.

The only thought passing through Danny's head as he flew was that he never, ever wanted to be on the barrel end of that gun. Ever.

He could still see the Fenton shield shining brightly, and groaned aloud. Giving up on returning home for the night, Danny began flying to the nearest safe place he could think of.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* 

Tucker really didn't like being woken up to someone's hand clamped over his mouth. Especially when the owner of that hand was floating over his bed and looking down at him with glowing eyes.

The high pitched scream that followed was muffled by Danny's hand, and the hovering teen barely stifled his laughter as recognition dawned in Tucker's eyes.

The boy was less than thrilled, batting Danny away and sitting up.

"What the heck, dude?" he said lowly, reaching for his glasses so that he could glare at Danny properly.

As soon as he did, though, his gaze zeroed in on the red staining the lower half of his friend's shirt.

"What happened?" he asked, his voice rising.

"Calm down, it's stopped bleeding." Danny replied with an easy smile, his feet touching down upon the carpet noiselessly. "Soon it'll heal up completely. But I need to borrow one of your shirts for now."

"Yeah, sure." Tucker said, feeling faint as his eyes stayed glued on the wound.

Danny rifled through Tucker's closet briefly before pulling out a shirt. He then peeled off the ruined one, wincing as it caught on the dried blood.

Tucker muttered a few choice words and looked away as the long slice in Danny's skin was revealed, traveling in a nearly straight line across his stomach. Fresh blood leaked out in thin trails, and Danny frowned down at himself.

"Be right back." he said, disappearing through Tucker's bedroom wall.

He stepped inside the bathroom, where he knew Mrs Foley kept a well-stocked first aid kit. He'd need to bandage over the wound before it healed, or risk staining the new shirt as well. Danny wished it would get on with it, already. The persistent stinging was getting on his nerves.

When Danny returned to Tucker's room, the other teen was already laying out thick blankets across the floor, throwing one of his pillows on top. He scrubbed tiredly at his eyes as he went back to his bed, climbing under the covers with a yawn.

"Should I even ask?" he said as he removed his glasses.

"I'll tell you and Sam about it tomorrow." Danny promised, sitting down on the makeshift bed and pulling out his cellphone.

"I've got an alarm set so that I can get back to my place before Jazz tries to break my door down, so I'll be gone by the time you wake up."

"Cool." Tucker mumbled, already half-asleep.

Checking his alarm, Danny set the phone down and laid back against the blankets, pulling one over himself. He let himself relax, floating adrift in his own thoughts. It may not have been the night sky of Amity Park, but being out of his own home was still freeing somehow. Eventually he fell asleep as well.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~*

Halloween day was heralded in with the sight of costumed kids walking to school. All of the banners and posters that the students of Caper High had worked on days before were now displayed all over the walls of the main hall.

Danny had barely managed to make it out of the house with an angry Jazz trying to "get him into the holiday spirit". She herself was dressed up as a doctor, and had been downright scandalised when Danny had commented that he didn't feel like dressing up. She had immediately begun trying to force different last-minute ideas onto him. In the end he managed to dodge the bed sheet, purple wig, and cat ears, making it out the front door in his plain jeans, shirt and hoodie.

He arrived at school to see Sam and Tucker waiting for him. Sam wore darker-than-usual makeup, her eyes overtaken by thick black. Her lips were dark red, with two little streams of fake blood running down the corners. She was clearly going for a spider theme, with little black and red arachnids adorning everything from the pattern on her dress to her jewelry. All of her earrings were little spiders and cobwebs, and there was even a spider hairclip resting on the unshaved part of her head.

By contrast, Tucker looked very out of place, standing next to her in a white long-sleeved shirt and jeans. He and Sam greeted Danny as he approached, and Tucker smirked heavily as he gestured at himself.

"Go ahead, ask me what I am." he said, already laughing.

"What are you?" Danny humored him.

"I'm a ghost!" Tucker held both arms out. "Get it? 'Cause they look like normal people!"

Sam rolled her eyes as Tucker cackled at his own joke. Danny couldn't help but smile as well. The three friends ascended the front steps and entered the school. The hallway was filled with kids admiring each others' costumes, and the trio had to do a bit of maneuvering before they could reach their lockers.

"Hey, one of you guys let me borrow your English homework." Danny said, spinning his combination into the lock.

"Danny." Sam scolded. "You have to stop ditching out on our study afternoons."

Danny bit back his reply, which was that he had better things to do. There was no way that wouldn't come across as mean. So he silently opened his locker and began putting away textbooks.

"Hey," Tucker spoke up from Sam's other side, his voice lowered. "Did that cut heal over yet? You still have to tell us why you crashed at my place last night."

Sam whipped her head between the two boys, eyes widening. Danny quickly held up both hands and smiled reassuringly at them both.

"Yes, it's gone. Not even a scar. And also yes, I'll explain the whole story at lunch."

Concern flickered behind Sam's eyes, but knowing that he couldn't very well talk about it openly in the hall, she didn't press the matter. She quickly moved on to a new subject as they headed down the hall.

"So are you going to be sticking around to help set up the haunted house tonight? Not that it can even be called that at this point." Sam asked, disappointment sharp in her voice.

Danny's sympathy for her, as well as his desire to not abandon his friends again, warred with the fact that he wanted to be back at his house by that afternoon. His parents would not spend Halloween night cooped up in their lab, and would instead take to the streets to hunt out any remaining ghosts. That would leave the Fenton portal unguarded, for the first time in too long.

"I can stay to set things up and hang out for a bit, but then I have to leave." Danny finally answered.

Sam opened her mouth to reply, but stopped short as her gaze flickered to something behind Danny. A pair of arms wrapped around his shoulders, but before Danny could react they quickly pulled away. He turned around to see Paulina rubbing her arms and frowning at him.

"Danny, you're freezing!" she exclaimed.

"Uh, yeah. They keep it way too cold in this place." Danny replied, shrugging.

Paulina blinked at him for a moment, before Tucker stepped in between the two, a big smile on his face.

"Wow, your costume is amazing!" he said, clearly not needing to feign the admiration.

Paulina blushed and giggled, hands gripping her skirts to give them a twirl. She wore a long, multi-layered victorian gown. Its pale pink fabric was complimented by white gloves that went almost all the way up each arm. The finishing touch was an elaborate crystal necklace that sat neatly upon her shoulders. She glowed a few moments more under Tucker's gaze before turning her attention to Sam.

"I can't wait to see your little haunted house tonight! It's going to be so cute!" she beamed at the goth girl.

"Thanks again for helping out, Paulina." Sam returned the smile, albeit with less shine.

The warning bell put an end to any further discussion, and everyone headed for their home rooms. Paulina followed behind Danny, and he could feel her stare as they neared their classroom.

"Are you feeling sick, Danny?" she asked. "You've been quiet a lot lately. And you're like really, really cold. Maybe we should skip this class and go hang around out back. Some time in the sun should do the trick!"

"No, I'm fine, Paulina. Really." Danny answered, entering the classroom.

Lancer was already there, and his reminder of the annual haunted house drowned out any further words Paulina may have had. Danny slouched into a seat near the front, his mind already drifting off, while Paulina joined a few of her friends at the back.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* 

Tucker and Sam shivered as they listened to Danny finish his story about the encounter with the snake, minus a few details regarding how much his father had creeped him out, or the reason he'd gone flying in the first place.

"And thankfully they had the shield lowered by this morning. I flew into my room just as Jazz was threatening to break my door down." Danny smiled at the mental image of his sister ranting to his empty bedroom.

Tucker shivered, this time not from the cold.

"Giant ghost snake. Like we needed that in the city."

"So your dad really killed it? Like, completely?" Sam asked, frowning.

Only she would show open concern for an oversized ectoplasmic reptile. Danny honestly expected to find her standing outside of his house one day protesting the experiments his parents did on their captured subjects.

"Yeah, I guess he didn't have a Fenton thermos with him." Danny said, fingers picking at the worn end of one of his sleeves.

"Well, now that story time is over can we go back inside?" Sam asked, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"It's your fault for wearing that dress." Tucker smiled.

"I look awesome." Sam replied with a theatrical flourish of her hand. Her eyes then turned back to Danny, quirking an eyebrow.

"And what are you supposed to be, anyway? A ghost like Tucker?" she smirked.

"Didn't feel like coming up with a funny costume idea." Danny shrugged.

Accepting the nonchalant reply, Sam led the way back into the building.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* 

Sam stared down at the little jack o' lantern display she and Tucker had made weeks before, now sitting on a table near the doors. She turned and looked out over the rest of the room. The large cafeteria was dimly lit, with the hand-crafted decorations hung up by her, Danny and Tucker. Fake cobwebs and little spiders were also spread around, along with the Biology class's skeleton propped up on its stand.

Various students stood around drinking punch and sampling the snack table, involved in their conversations. Lancer was the official chaperone for the event, and was clearly fighting to stay awake and alert as he sat in his chair. Tucker and Danny stood nearby, holding plates and looking bored. Tucker's plate was empty, and he occasionally stole a cookie from Danny, who didn't bother to even pretend to eat.

Sam couldn't help the bitter disappointment that still welled up within her. She'd wanted this year's haunted house to actually live up to its name, and not just be a social hangout like every year past. But without financial aid from her parents she'd just not had the money to achieve her goal. She was still refusing to talk to them, sending glares their way as they passed by in the halls of their home.

Tucker could be heard laughing, a pair of confused-looking students staring at him. He and Danny had been asked a few times that day just what they were supposed to be, and each time Tucker was all too happy to answer.

"We're ghosts!" he'd say, breaking off into a new bout of laughter, uncaring of the bewildered reactions of the other students.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* 

Danny looked toward the clock hanging against the far wall. Halloween night had officially begun an hour ago, and his parents were probably halfway across Amity Park scaring trick-or-treaters. He really hoped the police didn't get involved this year.

He wanted to stick around and help Tucker and Sam clean the place up after everyone left, but knowing that the portal was unguarded was making it hard to stand still. He swore he could hear his old body calling for him, letting him know just how long it had been since he'd paid a visit.

He quickly gave his goodbyes and apologies to his friends before exiting out the back of the school. In the dark shadows he went invisible, lifting into the sky and flying as fast as he could toward home.

He'd been half-expecting to find a stream of ghosts pouring through the portal, what with how Vlad and his parents built up this night as a peak for ghostly activity. But as he dropped into the lab, he found it empty and silent, not a spirit or person in sight.

Relieved that he would get a night of peace, Danny quickly entered the portal. The other lab was empty as well, but Danny's mood was quickly torn down when several blasts were heard nearby.

Danny flew through the shadowed home, ignoring the call that urged him to go upstairs. He looked up the stairs, frowning as he turned and headed for the front door. Whoever was messing up his time here was about to have their butt blasted to the other side of the Ghost Zone.

Flinging the door open, Danny's eyes swept across the void landscape. Another blast rang out, and an arc of deep purple flames shot off into the distance.

Danny lifted out of the doorway, rising up over the walls of his house. He had to blink a few times to fully take in the sight that greeted him several yards away from Fenton Works.

"Mr Masters?" Danny shouted out in shock.

His cry drew the elder man's attention. His expression looked nearly as surprised as Danny as he looked at the boy. His opponent, a hulking ghost in armor, took the opportunity to strike out with a ball of flame. It hit Vlad in the chest, and he was sent backward from the force of it. The flames bit into his skin and clothes. His shirt was singed in places while the skin around his neck and chest blistered a painful-looking red.

Realising that he had to help, Danny dove over the rooftop, gathering energy into his hand and throwing it at the strange new ghost. A part of Danny's mind took a moment to admire the guy's style. His shiny black armor with purple flamed accents was definitely cool. He honestly looked like something off of Doomed.

In one smooth maneuver, the ghost pulled out his sword and struck Danny's ecto blast, sending it sailing away.

"Another fool dares to challenge me?" his voice echoed out from within the shadowed helm.

His unseen gaze held Danny for a second, before he turned once again to Vlad as the man sent two waves of ectoplasm toward him.

"Stay back, Daniel!" Vlad cautioned as he continued his attack.

Danny heeded him and backed away. He still sent out blasts toward the other ghost, hoping to distract him. Unfortunately he was a skilled fighter, dodging easily around the attacks while still focusing his attention primarily on Vlad.

He unsheathed his sword again, swinging it toward Vlad. The man dodged around him and sent out a line of ectoplasm. It solidified into a blade of his own, and Vlad began using it to block the incoming strikes. Danny noted how Vlad was completely on the defensive now, focusing solely on keeping the enemy's sword from hitting him.

They were both completely ignoring him, and Danny decided that this freed him up to move in closer, focusing a large ball of energy in between his hands. He neared the armored ghost and sent the charged energy right into his back. White sparks danced along the armor, and the ghost let out a cry.

His shadowed face turned toward Danny, who suddenly realised that it might have been a bad idea to get this close. He loomed over Danny, casting the boy in shadow, and raised his sword.

And then Vlad was swooping in from nowhere, sending a close-ranged blast at the ghost with one hand and grabbing Danny with the other. He flung the teen out, continuing his fight as Danny spun around dizzyingly.

After a few seconds he managed to right himself, annoyed and confused as to why Vlad had knocked him away. Did he think Danny couldn't handle a fight? Danny frowned at the man, who was once again displaying some cool powers by creating a shield out of ectoplasm, blocking the incoming blows. That annoyed Danny, too. Just how was he able to do that?

"Enough of this!" the ghost thundered, startling Danny out of his thoughts. "You have wasted enough of my time."

If at all possible, the ghost's efforts doubled, and Vlad was barely evading blasts of flame and the strike of metal against his shield.

Danny flew back toward them, not willing to let Vlad struggle on his own, despite what the man might think. He flew around the two as they battled, firing off quick shots as he went. As the minutes dragged by, Danny was grateful that they were in the Ghost Zone, or surely he'd be exhausted by now. Still, he wished this fight would end soon. He had only a few hours to spend here before his parents returned, and he did not want to sneak through the lab with them present again.

Frustrated, Danny dove in closer, powering up a second large ball of electricity. If he could stun the ghost again, then Vlad might be able to land a strike. That could be all they needed to end this fight and turn this guy into a floating mass of ectoplasm.

The powerful blast hit across his chestplate, shocks traveling across it, and the armored ghost nearly dropped his sword.

A low growl emanated from the shadowed face, and quicker than Danny could blink his opponent was practically on top of him. He swung the sword up in an arc, and Danny dove backward, just out of reach. The hulking ghost kept up his momentum, following after Danny as he retreated, bringing the sword in a second time.

Danny could distantly hear the sound of Vlad calling his name in alarm as the edge of the sword made contact with him. It went through him, leaving no mark, and Danny had but one second to look down at himself in bewilderment.

And then everything went black.

~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* ~* 

Danny's eyes rolled up into the back of his head, his body going limp and drifting downward.

Vlad cursed the child for his foolishness, glaring at the knight as he turned back toward him, no doubt planning on delivering him to the same fate. He had dearly hoped that Danny would be too distracted to come here this night.

As the ghost charged him, he dropped and flew under him, heading right for Danny. He grabbed hold of the slowly falling boy and flew toward the nearby lair. He dropped quickly all the way down into the lab, gritting his teeth in frustration. The knight would be following behind in mere moments.

He could not leave Danny to float helplessly about unattended in the Ghost Zone. There were still many small spirits hiding around, who would not pass up an opportunity to steal bites out an unconscious ghost.

It seemed that the knight would gain access to the human world, after all. Vlad had hoped to avoid that. Not for the sake of the citizens of Amity Park; it would only be one night, after all, and then the ghost would be bound in slumber for one more year.

But a supernatural attack on such a large scale would attract certain attention. Attention that Vlad hoped would never set its sights on this little city. Too much was here that could be discovered, namely Danny and the portal. And neither was exactly hidden.

Vlad had truly hoped that by engaging the knight in battle, he could have kept him away from the portal's pull just long enough for Halloween night to pass. He'd known it would be a close fight, and that getting cut with that sword was a high risk. What cruel fate had deigned that Danny's lair materialise so damnably close to that castle…

He had no more time for grim thoughts. As a crash sounded from above, Vlad dove through the portal and into the lab. He ascended into the boy's bedroom, dropping the unconscious teen onto his bed.

With his eyes closed and mouth slack, he looked as if he were simply sleeping. But Vlad knew better. He knew that Danny's mind existed in a cage now, and that only Halloween's end would release him.

He hoped that the boy's mind survived the hours to come. After all, one couldn't exactly mentor and mold a child who's mind had been shattered beyond help.

Vlad made a mental note to increase his observation of the boy after this night. If Danny slipped up and revealed himself, it would have far-reaching repercussions.

A roar reverberated through the house, shaking its foundation. Vlad turned away from the child, knowing that he'd need to draw the knight out of the Fenton home and into the streets. After that, he might as well stick around and watch the events unfold. It was sure to be an interesting night.

[nautilusopus]

The Number I

Chapter 20: Vincent Damages Company Property

Sorry for holding this thing back for a couple weeks. We've finally reached a turning point and I had to make sure there were actually things happening in between the dramatic plot-twisty bits. Like plot to twist in the first place.

I had a bit of extra help in that regard -- apart from my usual crowd, I'd also like to thank @socialmimikyu and @terror-billie for helping me get my thoughts in order so the rest of the story past Chapter 21 won't be a disorganised mess. And thank you guys for commenting, because that does wonders for my motivation.

There are holes in the world, and spaces between numbers. Neither should exist. Cloud starts noticing them, and he isn’t the only one who has. And unfortunately for him, he’s both. (Contains graphic depictions of violence.)

The floor was immaculately clean these days.

There had been a time when it wasn't -- when it was covered in dust and dead insects from disuse. Stacks of paper from promising research projects that piled up in corners and on desks. Uniforms and equipment from new subjects. And, once upon a time, stones of all shapes and sizes and colours, and crumbs from home baked bread, and dirt tracked in by a boy that was small enough to squeeze into places he ought not to be.

All of it had been swept away long ago. The place had been cleaned and remodelled and sterilised, and not even rats would enter the mansion anymore, even long after it had been abandoned by the scientists. All that was left were the failed projects.

Something moved in the dark. There was a scraping, then a creaking of old, damp-riddled wood, and with a crash the lid of one of the coffins was knocked the floor and crashed against the Buster Sword lying on the ground next to it.

Vincent Valentine arose from the coffin. All this time he had listened. Heard the screams of defiance and anger, and then weeping, and the pleading to no one in the dark, and at long last the sound of resigned mantras, repeated one after another, and then of silence. He had listened, and he had done nothing. Until now.

Vincent had realised long ago that he could do nothing for them. It was yet another consequence of his failures. One by one, they were fed into the ravenous combine that was Shinra, and one by one they were used up and discarded. But the boy... the boy had been the first in years. The same child that had been so eager to feed himself into those whirring blades one day, and lo and behold, now he was here. Another testament to his cardinal sin.

And yet... there had been something strange about his eyes. He'd seen that look somewhere before. In fact, it had been one of the last things he'd seen before a bullet had ripped itself through his chest, tearing his old life away with it. The look those eyes had given him as he choked to death on his own blood had been full of many things, but one that they were utterly devoid of was regret. He had failed, and in the end, she had chosen this path. For better or for worse.

Lucrecia. The tissue grafts -- they were continuing her research posthumously.

This boy, the boy from the village that hadn't stopped bringing him rocks, that was now huddled in a dog crate and muttering nonsense to himself, that was half-mad already and twisted into a shell of whatever he used to be, was here because of him.

Vincent shut himself away after that, never to reemerge. There could be no atonement for this.

He would awake from time to time in response to noise -- always reminders of why he was here in the first place. Sobbing, rattling against the walls of the little metal box, incoherent rambling... he heard it less and less as time went on, until one day it ceased altogether, as did the visits to the storage room. Vincent hoped that by some miracle the boy had perhaps died in his sleep. He did not awaken for some time after that.

The sounds of a struggle dragged him back out of the deep slumber he had returned to. This was a larger group than he remembered.

"Hold its arms so I can get the legs in," said a voice. One of the lab assistants.

"I am holding. It can't move, I don't see what the big deal is."

"There's still the issue of involuntary muscle responses, and from this guy that could easily wind up taking your head off. So pay attention. I gotta get this all the way to the nerve."

A plaintive, muffled wail echoed through the room along with the voices of the lab assistants. He knew that voice. He doubt he'd be able to forget that voice. The boy was still alive?

"It's looking at me."

"No it's not, it just has its eyes open. Doesn't got any real brain function anymore. Just between you and me, this is why you don't stick a pressurised pump into someone's spinal column and fill it with mako, that's probably what did it. How can you be smart enough to grow a person in a vat and not know that?"

"The president gave him the grant money, man, I ain't gonna question it."

"Yeah, well, that's why we don't have grant money anymore, do we? Hurry up and finish the form so we can leave, it's freezing in here."

"Humanoid... purpose for archiving... organs?"

"Maybe education. It's not gonna make very interesting combat training exercise, and it's technically still alive. They'll probably want to keep it in one piece so they can figure out what not to do for the next time."

"Serial number... six seven dash two, Series three. Jenova Project."

"Project head?"

"Let's see... says here it's one of Crescent's, officially. Guess that explains why Hojo's so bummed out about the cancellation."

"Urgh. Freaks me the hell out. Her and the doc. Somethin' not right about her."

"Hey, you can't say it doesn't make sense though, right? Birds of a feather."

"Yeah, whatever." There was a loud click, followed by the sound of rushing fluid. "So... she's gotta sign off on it, right?"

"Yeah. She's in Midgar right now. The doc's planning on leaving too, so just give that form to him and he'll deliver it to her himself. Guess we're all out of a job now..."

"Yeah, guess so..."

Vincent barely heard the door close and lock behind him over the pounding of his own heart in his chest. Lucrecia was still alive. Head of the Science Department, from the sound of things. This boy -- Lucrecia had done this. To him. To both of them. And Hojo -- he was still involved in this as well? The first child, the one she'd had with Hojo, must not have made it to term. That must have been why the project was still running. The boy -- he was Series 3, it all made sense now. But Lucrecia couldn't have been his mother, could she? He had mentioned a mother quite frequently all those years ago. She did not seem like Lucrecia, and the boy looked nothing like her nor Hojo. This boy had simply been fallout.

It all made a sickening amount of sense. At least now he finally knew, so he could have some peace of mind.

But peace of mind did not return to Vincent. He waited days, and then what must have been weeks, and the men did not return for Series 3. They really were just leaving him here.

He was ill, it seemed. Severe mako poisoning, not to speak of whatever else had been done. If anyone would know how to treat this, surely it would be Lucrecia? She was in Midgar... still making choices like she had the first time he did nothing.

But Lucrecia was still alive. This boy was still alive. Surely something here could be salvaged out of this nightmare.

Vincent decided to leave his coffin.

His legs felt weak as he took his first step in what must have been at least ten years, but they held steadily enough, and he strode over to the wall and flipped the light switch.

The back of the room was lined with glass pods. Vincent did not want to think about what was in most of them, but resting in one of them, a light coat of dust covering the glass, was the boy.

It was a mistake to call him "the boy" now, he realised -- it was a much sharper face peering blankly back at him from inside the cylinder. But while his hair had grown out to his shoulders and solidified into a mat, he didn't seem to have much in the way of facial hair. Perhaps it was malnourishment? Every part of him looked chewed and diminished, and his skin was every bit as unhealthily pale as Vincent's.

He inspected the pod and found a small button in the side that seemed to open it. The fluid inside slowly drained, and Vincent watched impassively as the body inside slumped against the wall of the cylinder, being held up by the tubes coming from its mouth and nose. Vincent carefully disconnected them, and hesitated only briefly before removing the intravenous lines and the feed hooked into the back of his neck. If he had caused any damage removing them, it would be another thing that Lucrecia could fix.

The boy -- no, not a boy. And it wouldn't do to call him Series 3, either. He'd had a name that he said many years ago he would remember. Something to do with the sky. An old Nibeli one, translated into one succinct word for the sake of the Standard that everyone in Midgar spoke. Cloud. His name was Cloud.

Cloud's emaciated body fell to the floor. It appeared they had taken his clothes long ago, and he likely would not survive for long this far north, damp and naked. He pulled a couple of the Soldier First uniforms off one of the shelves and used one of them to pat him dry, then set about stuffing him into the second. It was far too big on him. Another pang went through Vincent at the thought, and he steeled himself against it. He must remain focused. It was unlikely he would have another opportunity for redemption.

The old wooden door had since been replaced with a steel one, requiring some sort of key combination to open. Vincent braced himself against the door and pushed, but it held firm. They had taken his gun from him long ago, and the two spells he had mastered during his time in the Turks worked strictly on people and not doors, and would be of no use here.

One of his sabatons clicked against something metal. The sword. His strength wasn't nearly that of a Soldier, but it was certainly much more than it should have been, and would do for his purposes.

He picked up the sword out from under the lid to his coffin and, with a loud grunt, rammed it into the door like a battering ram. It took another ten blows or so before the metal finally caved and the door opened outward, now crooked on its hinges. His arms ached, especially from disuse, but he held the sword steady and stood absolutely still, listening for the sound of boots on stone and cocking weapons. Someone must have heard that.

A minute passed, and no one came. Something stirred in one of the cylinders on the wall behind him. Vincent refused to look at it again, and dragged Cloud over to the door. Upon further reflection, he placed the sword on the magnetic harness Cloud was now sporting on the back of his uniform, then hefted them both onto his back. Until he could find a gun, it was better than nothing.

He had mastered some magic, but not much. He looked around the storage room for anything that might have been useful. Something was still shining in his coffin. The healing materia -- it was still there. Perhaps...? No, that wouldn't work. Mako poisoning, if that's what this was, was well beyond his capacity to heal with an unused materia. Still, he pocketed it anyway, just in case.

Starved as he was, Cloud was fairly light. It was just as well, since the sword weighed easily as much as he did, if not more. The mansion might be abandoned, but he was still stealing company property. Someone would notice eventually. He would have to move quickly.

Nibelheim was just as he remembered it. Perhaps his mother... no. If they had her child, Shinra would have tied up the loose ends involved. He himself had done as much during his employment. Besides, there was nothing she could have done for him. That's where Lucrecia would come in.

They both stood out rather badly, as he quickly found out. He gave Cloud an impromptu haircut with the Buster Sword's edge, and stuffed his own hair into the back of a coat he'd stolen from a guard station. Would anyone still recognise him? How long had it been since he had gone missing? Or the boy, for that matter? At least ten years, judging by how Cloud had matured. A lot could change in ten years.

The main problem was food. Cloud would not chew, and it took a fair amount of coaxing to get him to swallow. He'd managed to get him to swallow a bit of bread he'd already pre-chewed for him, but it came back up not long after: Cloud had apparently gone quite a while since eating any real food. He considered sneaking back into the mansion for a pack of glucose. He decided against it -- if they hadn't noticed Cloud was missing before, they certainly would now. He would have to figure something else out.

He wound up breaking into a clinic and stealing medical supplies when they reached the next town -- there was a military presence here too, if the massive remains of some sort of missile labelled Shinra Type 26 looming over the skyline was any indication. Vincent dimly recalled mention of a war with Wutai. Was it still ongoing? Was this meant to be used against them? He almost turned to ask Cloud before catching himself.

The expiration labels on the gelatin cups he'd purchased with the stolen money clued him in as to how long he'd been gone. Expires 09/58. Assuming these cups were new and would last about a year, he'd been gone nearly three decades.

The shock didn't really hit him. It didn't seem fully real. He supposed technically this was the "future". That explained how Lucrecia was in Midgar: it seemed they had finished building it. He wondered who was directing the Turks in his absence. Orwell, perhaps, or Avery. Assuming either one of them were still alive. It suddenly struck him that nearly everyone he knew could very well be dead. Thirty years was a lot of time for people to learn too much and become a liability, or for loyalties to waver too much for the company's comfort, or to simply catch a stray bullet at the wrong time. Nobody left the Turks except in a body bag. Or, in his case, a coffin. He was briefly amused by the mental picture of Avery covering up his death. She'd have addressed it to the wrong department, she always did...

He wondered if Cloud had any friends that were still alive. Had he actually joined the military, or had Shinra simply abducted him off the streets? He himself had taken part in such "scouting" expeditions at times, on the occasion when they couldn't simply find a poor, desperate family to volunteer. Eight to ten was the preferred age of most samples -- young enough to be impressionable, old enough to follow complicated orders. And small enough that no one cared when they went missing. The child mortality rate in the slums was quite high in his time. Nobody thought much of it if one or two children slipped through the cracks.

He never saw any of the samples again. Vincent had been a professional, though, and hadn't asked where they had gone. No Turk was stupid enough to want to know.

Next to him in the grass, Cloud made a noise of distress, his hands unconsciously groping for something. Vincent watched him for a few moments until he went limp again. He didn't seem to be responding to any stimulus that Vincent could see. His arm lay twisted at an uncomfortable-looking angle, displaying his serial number quite clearly.

Vincent carefully picked him up and moved Cloud's arm so he could more efficiently bandage it with some of the gauze he had taken from the clinic. One or two times, his hand would twitch, still grasping at nothing. Vincent ignored it. Cloud likely wasn't cognisant enough to feel pain or discomfort, let alone respond to stimuli. Any comforting he did would be lost on both of them.

He had grown quite a bit from the last time Vincent had seen him. It was difficult to tell what was him and what was Shinra's doing, though. He was still just as sickly-looking as he had been the first time they'd met. The strange bony physique he had was doubtless a product of whatever experiments they'd been running on him. His eyes were hollow now -- whatever had been there before, it was beyond Vincent's reach or help. Shinra had shaped his body, and the mako had claimed his mind, and Cloud himself seemed to have gotten lost somewhere in the middle of it all. He wondered who he could have been once, and how much of the boy he'd encountered in that crate steadily becoming more and more unhinged years ago was the person he was currently feeding gelatin and broth too. Not that it mattered much anymore.

Vincent wasn't sure if his own answers were any simpler. He was no longer a Turk -- Hojo had seen to that. Perhaps that just made him Vincent.

Who was Vincent? A dead man, he knew. A man that had failed Lucrecia. A man that wouldn’t fail a second time, though at what he wasn’t really sure. He could offer Lucrecia redemption, but only she could accept it and atone for them both.

Cloud had stopped swallowing, and Vincent didn’t have anymore success afterwards getting him to take more food. He couldn’t have possibly been full, but there wasn’t really anything he could do about that either. Another thing out of his hands.

He, Vincent, was still alive. And apparently Lucrecia had been as well. And so had Cloud. Perhaps it wasn’t so farfetched to assume someone else had returned from the grave.

A week later, and Cloud was still not taking solids. Vincent could not afford to break into a second clinic. It would give him away, if it hadn't already. He would need supplies. And money. He'd need employment on a very temporary basis, with someone that wouldn't ask too many questions -- it was highly unlikely that Shinra was looking for him specifically or expected his involvement in the first place, but he also couldn't risk leaving Cloud alone for too long. His pulse was weak and irregular, and his skin was clammy. His hands no longer twitched, reaching for something that wasn't there. He was practically dead already.

He would not have been the first, or second, or even third person Vincent had watched die. He likely would not survive long enough for Vincent to take him to Lucrecia, if she agreed to fix him at all. In the end, he'd be delivering him right back into Shinra's hands anyway. His eyes landed on the sword on Cloud's back.

It would be kinder, he knew. Whether or not Cloud was aware of it, he was still suffering. It was the principle of the thing. And it wasn't as though he would have much of a life to return to, should he recover. He would spend the rest of his days running. That was no way to live.

Vincent removed the sword from Cloud's back and levelled it at his neck. One cut. He wouldn't even feel the pain. No one recovered from mako poisoning this deep, and it was much better than letting him slowly starve to death or die of exposure. He would be free from Hojo, from Lucrecia, from Vincent's mistakes. Truly free, not out in the wild being hunted like an animal, a marked man for the rest of his life, even if they were to one day stop pursuing him. Vincent had often heard it said that one's face looked peaceful in death, but all anyone had looked like to him was a corpse. Cloud, with his eyes glazed and his face gaunt, was no exception. He sighed and adjusted the blade.

"Why can't I just pretend? Why do you care so much if I just pretend?"

The words came to him unbidden, and he frowned.

"Because it has never done anyone an ounce of good," said Vincent sharply. He realised he was talking aloud to no one. Another thing that wouldn't actually help. Cloud could not hear him.

"Why can't I just pretend?"

He still didn't know how old Cloud was. He could have been fourteen, or forty. His body was too warped, by chemicals and fear and time, for him to tell. Vincent knew he himself was fifty-seven or fifty-eight. He might not look it, after all these years, but he felt the age somewhere very deep. It had settled into him and wrapped itself around his bones, sinking into the fingers that held the sword above Cloud's neck.

Vincent put the sword back down. He was perfectly capable of pretending. He was going to pretend Cloud was awake right now.

"It gains us nothing. You being alive does not serve you any. Neither does my insistence upon talking to you. It's purely for my benefit, in order to come to terms with my thoughts."

Cloud said nothing, as expected.

He had skills he could use. A few mastered spells, though it was likely only fire would be useful to him here. He couldn’t take any jobs that wouldn’t be extremely temporary, both for Cloud’s sake and his own; the longer he was tied to an area, the sooner people would notice he was there. People were not yet asking questions about Vincent Valentine. He did not want them to start.

So, what sort of work was available for former Turks that had avoided the usual method of retirement? Most of them wound up as assassins, most likely. Or mercenaries. Once a Turk, always a Turk, he supposed.

He began picking up small jobs -- a day or two as a porter on the Corel river. That had been one of the first shocks of many -- Corel was gone. He’d expected an economic decline, of course. Coal couldn’t begin to compete with mako in price or efficiency. But Corel was gone. Turks gone. Wiped off the map by Soldier from the looks of things. The bustling little coal town he’d seen pictures of was forgotten and unspoken of.

Phones were portable now, he’d learned as well. He didn’t see much point -- any time one would be away from home long enough to necessitate a portable phone would be long enough for the battery inside it to die anyway.

President Shinra was still alive and still in power. That one was a bit of a surprise, if only because he’d expected the man to have a coronary long before now. Perhaps the science department had perfected biosynthetic organs by now. He drummed the metal fingers of his false hand against the floor of the boat he’d stowed away on -- perhaps they’d be able to grow him a new hand. He couldn’t quite recall how he’d lost it in the first place. He wasn’t sure if it would help if he did.

That was how he made ends meet from week to week: small jobs. He had to be in and out and gone in no longer than a week. Cloud began to put on a bit of weight, but he showed no signs of waking. Little by little, they made their way across the wilderness, and little by little Vincent saw things that were familiar, and things that were different, and things that perhaps had always been that way, but he had simply never bothered to look before.

Not for the first time, he wished he could ask Cloud. Perhaps he should have asked more questions when he had the chance. But then, he hadn’t wanted to know back then.

“If you felt like saying something, now would be an excellent opportunity to start,” said Vincent one day. He had propped Cloud up against a bundle of hay in the barn he’d snuck into. The birds -- chocobos, mostly, with a few aggressive swallows -- were watching them both warily.

“You must admit, there is a certain irony in risking one’s life for someone unable to appreciate the act nor the selfishness of the motivations behind it,” he added.

Cloud said nothing, as usual. Vincent sighed and sat down by the hay next to him.

“I did not care for your visits,” Vincent continued. “I do not felt they accomplished much.” He set about the task of removing his metal hand. Now that he intended to sleep -- truly sleep, not enter a state of prolonged hibernation, he’d found it was rather uncomfortable to have it on during the night.

He stared at the stump that remained of his forearm. He could dimly recall pain. That didn’t really surprise him. And a lot of yelling. And a piercing agony through his arm that seemed to be spreading, and then blissful oblivion.

“Although,” he added, “perhaps I am not without blame myself. If I had been more interest in dissuading you, we would not be here now.” He leaned back against the hay, feeling that strange heaviness building up in his bones again. “It seems my lacking skills as a conversationalist have caused more than a fair bit of misery.”

He looked at Cloud again. It was strange to see him so quiet now. Orwell had always been rather chatty in the beginning. After they'd had to dispose of Yang to prevent a security leak he went quiet. Everyone went quiet in the end.

“Of course,” said Vincent, “you cannot hear me now. This conversation between us is as pointless as the first thirty. You might not have listened then either, even when you could.”

One of the chocobos squawked at him, raising its head crest in warning. Vincent gave it a look.

“And so, here I am, a man that should be well into retirement, peddling my skills as a mercenary,” he said. “That is the hand fate has dealt me.”

He put Cloud to sleep with a quick spell. It was difficult to tell if he was actually resting. This was easier. Vincent wondered if he still dreamt.

He kicked a bit of dirt over their fire and watched it sputter out.

“We are simply what the world makes us, Cloud. No more, no less.”

Vincent limped his way up the staircase, the body draped over his shoulder unwieldy and making each step grind further into his knee. One of the MPs had managed to get the drop on him with a baton, and while it wasn’t broken, he could feel something grinding against something else that had no business grinding against anything in the first place. The gun he’d stolen was clutched tightly in his other hand. An assault rifle. Inelegant, but better than nothing.

There were more than a few bullets lodged in his abdomen by now. Vincent may have been a former Turk, but that was before thirty years of inactivity and the body he'd been carrying over his shoulders had dulled his skills and slowed his movements. He could heal, he knew, but he wasn't sure if there was a limit to it. He may have died before, but he was certainly alive now. Alive and mortal.

He heard the sound of a pistol firing, and Cloud let out a sharp gasp. He'd been hit. Vincent quickly ducked down a hallway by the staircase leading to the sixty-eighth floor.

It was just a graze, luckily. A gash on his leg that was already closing up right before his eyes. He tore off a bit of his cloak and quickly wrapped it anyway. There were already voices approaching them from down the hall, and he couldn’t afford to get distracted this close.

If he had been a bit less focused, perhaps he would have paid more mind to the fact that Cloud had made a noise at all.

Still, he paused outside the door of the stairwell, the ID card in his hand hovering by the reader uncertainly. There was a very good chance he wouldn't come back out of this door. Cloud might not either. Of course, that wasn't really much of a tragedy. Cloud was practically dead anyway. He would either recover or he wouldn't. And he himself... he was a relic. There were still Turks around, most likely, but the world did not need Turks. The world did not need him. He and Cloud were both relics, forgotten in a basement for too long to have any place besides the one carved out for them there. An old man lingering around older sentiments. A boy who had long since missed his chance to ever pursue newer ones. It wouldn't really be such a terrible loss for either of them.

Still, he supposed he must try. Lucrecia still had a place.

Vincent swiped the card and watched the door retract with a quiet humming noise. He adjusted his grip on Cloud and forced his knee to carry him up the stairs.

There were about twenty guns trained on him all at once the minute he set foot in the lab. He took out two right away as he turned the corner, scrambling for cover behind a desk. A third was close enough to knock out with a quick sleeping spell. That left twenty... at least until backup arrived, at which point his death warrant was signed anyway. He shoved Cloud further under the desk and risked a quick peek at the room around him.

Seventeen guards, with likely some higher ranking military personnel among their number. Five scientists that appeared to be scrambling for cover. Vincent recognised two of them.

He forced his breathing to slow. His ears were already buzzing from the sound of unshielded gunfire.

He heard something behind him and quickly flattened out on his stomach in time to shoot the man that had been sneaking around on his blind side with the rest of the cubicle. Sixteen left.

He couldn't carry Cloud with him, but couldn't leave him alone either. He doubted they'd target him given he was still drooling onto the floor, but he wasn't willing to risk the possibility that he could be wrong. Unless -- he could have sworn his eyes moved to follow him as he crept away along the wall to peek around the corner. No time to check for sure.

He encountered another two trying to flank from the front now that they knew he was headed around the other way. They were only MPs. Vincent was a former Turk. It wasn't really fair. Fourteen.

Controlled, deliberate, methodical. Two in the torso, and one in the head. Thirteen, then ten, change magazines, then eight, then seven...

There were noises. Things moving beyond the loudest silence. Something stopped to listen to the Other that were noises that were not the loudest silence. Not him. He was him. He was I. I am.

A loud crack sounded in Cloud's ear, making him wince in pain. It was too loud here. It was quiet before. He wanted to go back to the quiet. The noises around him began to drown it out. His eyes focused on something blurry.

White. Blurry white. And grey, and something red and black and brown that danced around him. He feebly reached for it.

The dancing stopped. He realised something had been at his back only when it was pulled away. The blurriness in his vision receded with the fog and the silence, and he could hear voices.

"...did you get here?"

"What have you done? What have you done, Lucrecia?"

The second voice... he knew that voice. Everything was a blur, not just his vision -- he couldn't seem to focus on anything but the floor beneath him, and the voices above him, which kept getting louder and louder.

"What reason could you possibly have to come back here?" A third voice. An icy, sticky voice, sharp and intent and unforgiving. Cloud hated it, and loved it, and a powerful hurt flared up in his chest. "You were a clever man. I'm sure you know how this will end."

Hojo. He hadn't been good enough for him. He could never be good enough. They'd hurt him because he wasn't good enough. He shivered.

"Behind me," said the second voice. "I brought him for you."

"The Series 3 prototype was discontinued six months ago," said the first voice. Soothing, twisting, indescribably beautiful, profoundly hungry, reaching into parts of himself that called for something he had no name for. Part of him.

Director Crescent. He'd dreamed of her touching him, the way Ma once had.

Ma... the village... Sephiroth... it was all gone now... everything was gone...

"Listen to yourself," said the second voice. "I implore you -- was this the world you wanted to create? You both set out for the betterment of mankind -- he's led you down a path much like your own in feature but unlike yours in virtue. He may have chosen, but you --"

"I thought I made my choice clear, Vincent. I thought you knew that as well."

"Your son, Sephiroth, surely --"

"Vincent... Sephiroth is dead," said the Director.

"And you would condemn another to that fate?"

He knew that voice. Cold and rough, like stone under stone under dirt and snow and frost. Magic rocks. A companion in the dark.

The Pale Man.

Cloud's eyes fixed on the shape above him -- the Pale Man was here. The Pale Man was with him. And the others -- he was real? He was real. The Pale Man was real.

"I set out for the betterment mankind, and Series 3 was a stepping stone towards that goal." Director Crescent was looking at him coldly now. He wanted to go to her and the Professor, but he couldn't move. The Pale Man was still standing between them.

"You were always a hopeless romantic, Vincent. We both know why you came here," said the Director.

"Is it is such a crime, that I believe you are worth saving?" said Vincent.

"There is nothing to save us from," said the Professor sharply. "And certainly nothing you could provide deliverance from in the first place. You should have remained in storage. Goodbye."

The sound of weapons cocking echoed around them. He couldn't move. He was trapped in his own body, and he was useless, and he couldn't move, and the Pale Man -- Vincent, after all these years, he'd been there for him, and he, Cloud, was still as useless as ever --

The world bent. The people around them seemed to refract and waver like a passing reflection. The loudest silence howled around him, impossibly loud, and the ground beneath him felt as though it were about to break at any moment and let it all in. Cloud's hand spasmed, desperately reaching for Vincent, who seemed to be a million miles away and right in front of him.

Vincent was consumed in a wall of flames. It happened almost instantly -- one minute he was standing there, convulsing, and the next he was crumpled on the floor, spasming intermittently, ragged screams quickly trailing off as what was undoubtedly spellfire rapidly charred his flesh. A moment later he stopped moving entirely.

The Pale Man was gone. Everything was gone. The Pale Man -- he saved him. He saved him, and he was gone, because Cloud hadn't done anything, and he was gone and he was real and he wasn't alone in the dark and he was gone and the pale man was gone and ma was gone and he was alone and he had never once been held or wanted by the pale man the director the professor all gone it was all empty empty empty empty empty --

There were many things Cloud remembered about that day. He remembered the hands, shoving him and Vincent's charred corpse into a disposal chute in the lab. He remembered it all being too much. He remembered falling, further and further, his already limp body impacting against metal and concrete, and still there was so much further to fall, and knowing there was nothing in the world that had ever wanted him, Series 3, a failure, alone, broken, who ruined everything he touched. He remembered the other things that had been thrown out all around him in Sector 2, about not knowing where the Pale Man's -- Vincent's body was, so that maybe once he might hold it, and know that something real had wanted him, Cloud, that the something was alive. He remembered the rain leaking down from the plate below, splashing onto his face, creating mud that he felt himself sinking into. He remembered screaming and screaming and screaming, and not knowing how to stop. He remembered understanding that no one could ever want Cloud or even Series 3, that no one would miss them, that the world moved further and further away the more he realised it, and that soon enough it didn't seem real, and then soon enough he wasn't real either. He remembered lying there, the water pooling up around him even as he drifted off into unconsciousness. Some time later, perhaps days, perhaps a week, he remembered a pair of rough, work-worn hands holding him, pulling him close, and moving him out of the mud garbage piled up around him, and carrying him to a little run down dive bar in the slums.

The one thing he didn't remember was the look of confusion on everyone's face in the tower, from the guards to Hojo to Lucrecia herself, because none of them had actually fired yet.

[dbarajas03-blog]

ERIC BROOKS aka BLADE

Eric Brooks, a vampire slayer whose half-human and half-vampire is definitely one of Marvel’s oldest characters. Debuting in July 1973, Blade is quite interesting with having all the powers of a vampire while having only one weakness, a thirst for blood. In his story, it shows the struggle of Blade trying to avenge the death of his mother by searching for Deacon Frost, a vampire responsible for Blade’s powers. Through this post, we will see how Blade deserves more than given, as many don’t seem to think much of this badass vampire slayer.

Powers and Abilities

Blade was born a half human/vampire hybrid, the enzymes in Blade's blood made him immune to normal vampire bites, uniquely attuned to sensing the supernatural and resistant to aging. Since being bitten by Morbius, Blade has gained many of the traditional powers of the vampire without developing their weaknesses. He has superhuman strength, senses, and stamina, plus an accelerated healing factor.  Blade is born as a Dhampir. This altered his skeletal and cardiac muscle system on a cellular level. His skeletal muscles are more dense, more efficient and faster, allowing him to produce short and fast bursts of excessive force. Although this requires a lot of stamina, his cardiac muscle system has changed as well accordingly. The cardiac muscle system provides the skeletal muscle enough nutrition to allow his body to perform for several hours of maximum combat before fatigue begins to impair him. His hardened and thickened skeletal system support his superhuman strength somewhat contributing to his enhanced durability. He possesses the strength sufficient to lift about 1 ton.  As Spider Hero, he showed exceptional prowess in sorcery and the supernatural. He assumed that Photon's light mimicry of Shuma-Gorath's shields would buy them time, and was able to guide Power Man to utilize his chi in much greater and diverse ways that he never had before, creating an astral tiger to defeat him on both levels as he had theorized. Blade is practically proficient in every form of weaponry known to man. His particular specialty is the use of edged weapons, be they teakwood daggers or swords. Blade is a master in the use of small bladed weapons and can hurl knives with great accuracy. Blade also shows great skill with firearms, including both automatic and semi-automatic, which he often modifies to fire hollow-point, garlic-filled silver bullets.  After training with Jamal Afari and various other private instructors, his main form of combat is a mixture of Boxing, Capoeira, Escrima, Jeet Kune Do, Hapkido, Jujutsu, Shotokan Karate, Kung Fu, and Ninjutsu. Blade is unaffected by direct exposure to sunlight, whereas most vampires are either rendered comatose during the daylight hours or are quickly incinerated when exposed directly to sunlight. Vampires are also highly allergic to silver, supposedly because of the metal's mystical purity. As a result, silver blades or bullets are capable of killing vampires. If not killed, and merely injured, it will take a vampire much longer to heal than if the injury had been inflicted by another material. Blade himself could be injured by a silver weapon, much as an ordinary human would, but his healing powers would be able to heal it as if it were an ordinary wound. Blade is also immune to the effects of religious icons, such as crucifixes, whereas vampires are rendered almost powerless when confronted by them.

Bio

First, he was born in Soho, London, in 1929. His father, Lucas Cross, a member of the secret society the Order of Tyrana, sent his pregnant wife Tara to England before he was taken as a prisoner in Latveria. There she took the name "Vanessa Brooks" and found shelter with brothel owner Madame Vanity, another member of the Order of Tyrana. Experiencing labor complications, Tara was forced to seek a doctor's assistance. The doctor, Deacon Frost, was actually a ravenous vampire and feasted on the woman as she gave birth, passing on a series of enzymes that altered her baby. The enzymes entered the infant's bloodstream, transforming him into a being tainted by a vampire's kiss, but not converted. In other words half-man, half-vampire. Frost was driven away before he could slay the child, but Tara perished, leaving the orphaned Eric Brooks to be raised at Madame Vanity's brothel. While he was growing up on the street of London, he ran into American veteran Vampire Slayer, Jamal Afari and saved him from being killed by vampires with a grudge against the old man. Afari soon learned about Eric and his origins and decided to take him under his wing, becoming his mentor and foster-father and helping him to control his powers. Afari taught Eric everything he knew about hunting, fighting, and killing vampires. Blade in his original costume. Determined to avenge his mother's death, Eric fashioned himself into a vampire hunter like Afari while still a teenager and started calling himself Blade, after the sharp weapons with which he used to kill vampires. Finally, Blade and Afari split up when Jamal willingly took the fall for murder when Blade killed a man (who was suffering from a derangement), whom he mistook for a vampire. After stalking the night on his own for a number of years, Blade became a part of a small band of like-minded individuals hunting Dracula consisting of Musenda, Orji, Ogun, and Azu. Blade went to Dracula and told him he represented a group of men who believed that in another sixty years vampires would rule the world, and that realizing humanity had no chance against their "superior," Blade would offer his and his associates assistance to carry on Dracula's bidding during the daytime. Blade further enticed Dracula with this idea telling him that they had facilitated a plan that would speed up global conquest by vampires to only ten years. Intrigued, Dracula agreed to go with Blade to meet his associates. Dracula met these associates: Ogun, Azu, Musenda, and Orji. However, Dracula would soon find that this was all a trap and that they were really a group of vampire killers. They nearly succeeded in destroying Dracula by driving a stake into his heart. It was during this battle that Blade's companion would try out wooden knives of his own design and find that they work just as well as stakes. However, Dracula soon was resurrected by his servants and exacted revenge by murdering the band of vampire hunters, leaving only Musenda and Blade alive.

On November 7, 1972, the murder of a bat-like monster in New York brought Blade's attention. When looking for the corpse in a morgue, he discovered Kaluu investigating the body with magic and attacked him believing him to be a vampire and an enemy. As soon as detective James Lucas, Constance Molina, and Adam Brashear arrived at the scene, the fight was stopped when Blade realized he was among allies. They started investigating the murder as soon as The Bear appeared, and presented herself as the killer of that creature, in self-defense, as she wanted to prevent the Deathwalkers from using it for sacrifice. The Bear explained that she herself was the result of a failed attempt of the Deathwalkers to extinguish humanity in 1908 and that they would try to do it again. With the mystery solved, the people present formed the Mighty Avengers and went to find the Deathwalkers. Kaluu tracked down the magic they used in the were-bat to a secret subway below the City Hall. The Mighty Avengers then attacked the Deathwalkers before they could make their sacrifice. After Blade recovered the Talisman of Kamar-Taj, which was required to perform the sacrifice, Adam Brashear caused the subway to collapse above the Deathwalkers. With the Deathwalkers stopped, the team disbanded.

Blade, still looking for his mothers killer, found a clue leading to their apartment. Blade attacked the occupant, but the vampire was revealed to be Hannibal King, the vampire detective. Hannibal easily defeated Blade but due to their mutual mission, they decided to work together. They waited in Frost's apartment for his recent victim to rise as a vampire. When he awoke, he explained that he had dug up a coffin containing an exact copy of Blade. Blade and Hannibal King continued their hunt for Deacon Frost, they wondered how Frost intended to take over the world with a duplicate of Blade. Blade and King went to London so Blade could visit Saffron. Blade and King found the "Doppelgänger" and he revealed that he was created to destroy the original. The two fought, but Blade stopped when the two began to fuse together on contact. Hannibal King tried to rush to Blade's rescue, however, he was too late to stop the merger from completing. With the vampire doppelgänger in full control of their unified body, it set its sights on King. The Doppelgänger attacked King, and despite his savage fury, he is easily fought off by King who stabbed the faux-Blade in the chest with one of his own wooden daggers, defenestrating the imitator, allowing Hannibal to escape. King fled from the vampire doppelgänger of Blade and their fight crashed into Dracula's party with Deacon Frost in attendance. Furious of Blade's interruption of his party, Dracula attacked and was shocked to find his longtime vampire hunter foe to be a vampire himself. Blade appears to have the upper hand when he stabs Dracula in the back with one of his wooden daggers. However, Dracula turns around and mocking the fake Blade's inferior skill to the original impaled the vampire doppelgänger in the chest with a stake, killing him.

Deacon Frost teamed up with Marie Laveau to take over organized crime in New Orleans as a staging area for greater conquests. Blade was alerted by Bible John, and the two fought Dracula and later Marie Laveau, who was attempting to resurrect Varnae. It appeared that King and Drake had somehow been merged into Dracula when he was resurrected, but the two had since been freed. Deacon captured Blade, Hannibal King, and Brother Voodoo to establish his rep among the undead in a power grab. The heroes freed themselves from the trap and Blade battled Deacon Frost to a stalemate. Deacon escaped and Blade vowed again to hunt him down. In New Orleans, Blade teamed with Brother Voodoo to stop Marie Laveau and Deacon Frost's plans to build an undead army. Later, Blade and Spider-Man encountered the vampire Henry Sage and learned of the development of the Daywalker formula, a version of the Sunlight Serum. Blade helped Spider-Man try to capture their former ally Morbius, who was under the control of a vampire known as the Hunger. During the battle, Morbius bit Blade, but his blood enzymes were not enough to protect him from Morbius' unique form of vampirism. This transformed Blade into a Daywalker: a vampire able to move about in the sunlight and lacking most of the vampire's traditional weaknesses. Blade was now driven by bloodthirst, however, but he was able to hold it back with a serum. Back in New Orleans, he was contacted by Dominique Levant who led him into the midst of a vampiric coup which involved Morbius and the powerful Ulysses Sojourner. Sojourner sought to unify all vampires on the East Coast, but Blade was able to stop his plans.

Blade found the Punisher hiding on a rooftop he was viewing a deal between vampires and some thugs. The Punisher emerged from the shadows the two drew their weapons, Blade eventually lowered his and told the Punisher, that if he shot him, the vampires below would know. Then the Punisher attached a silencer to his gun and shot Blade in the back, Blade remains unharmed and they argued. They turn their attention to the crime below. Blade admitted that he admired the Punisher but suddenly there was an explosion a few blocks away, the vampires think it is the thugs and try to eat them, but Blade and Punisher jumped from the roof to kill them all.

Blade was forced to battle Xarus son of Dracula as he unites the various Vampire Sects. The X-Men are attacked by a siege of Vampires, but Blade was around to lend a hand. The vampires are now using technology to protect them from sunlight. Dracula arrived at Utopia and offered his assistance in defeating his son. With vampire activity in San Francisco escalating, Cyclops gave the order for the X-Men to tackle their foe, find out what their next move was. He had Blade teaming up with Angel in taking down a few vampires at a rock-and-roll concert. Blade and the X-Men have to battle wave after wave of attacking Vampires. With Dracula in the Xarus tried ordering his minions to help him, but receives no support. Blade didn't see eye-to-eye with Cyclops and charged at Dracula, only to knocked unconscious with an optic blast. Cyclops then reminded Dracula of their previous, unspoken agreement. After a short stare down, Dracula called Cyclops' bluff, but nonetheless, decided to end hostilities with mutants, even giving Jubilee back to them. Jubilee was put in isolation. Blade believed that the only solution was to put her out of her misery. Wolverine warned him not to, prompting the vampire hunter to leave.

Blade, when he secretly arrived at New York to ask for assistance by Spectrum, he adopted the former identity of Hawkeye’s (Ronin). He joined the Mighty Avengers assisting them to Attilan and them helping him. Ronin was attacked by ninja were-snakes, which were sent by the Deathwalkers, who had discovered Blade's disguise, to get the Talisman of Kamar-Taj. Numerous other creatures were sent to hunt down Blade, and he was ultimately defeated by were-roosters. Blade was then brought to the Deathwalkers, who planned to use him for a sacrifice. Even though he escaped captivity after being drained a portion of his blood, and the Mighty Avengers located him, Blade couldn't prevent the Deathwalkers from finishing their ritual. The successfully-finished ceremony merged them together into the Deathwalker Prime, a creature with control over the four elements, thus power over the fifth: the spirit, which would be the key for it to destroy humankind. However, the Mighty Avengers managed to get hold of the cup used in the ritual of merging, and using a similar procedure merged themselves into the Avenger Prime, which managed to destroy the Deathwalker Prime, mainly because unlike the Deathwalker, the different personas merged into it were truly spiritually bonded, while the personas composing the Deathwalker were fighting for control

Significance

Blade provides a significant and well-supported character that is versatile in many ways. Blade has been affiliated with the X-Men and the Mighty Avengers, even the Punisher. Although he starred in a trilogy of solo movies, he hasn’t been introduced into the MCU and unfortunately, most likely won’t. However, I still believe Blade has a lot of potential now. I think he should be given a cinematic tv series on Netflix or Hulu perhaps as his story would be well told through tv media. Blade can be related to by many people as he had no parents to guide him through life, toughening him to be this hardened man who depends on no one. This shows how his struggles as a person affect him as a hero and giving the story drama to entice people to watch. Proven, this will make Blade a character perfect to binge on the weekend.

References:

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Eric_Brooks_(Earth-616)

[reapers-carino]

Hidden in Plain Sight

Ch.1

Serena woke to the quiet beeping of her alarm, the insistent noise growing in volume until she turned the device off with a slap. She stared at the ceiling blankly, eyes bleary and unfocused as she tried to chase the sleep from her mind. Forcing herself onto her side a grunt tumbled from her lips, her hand listlessly pushing the silk scarf from her hair. She hated dreaming. She had a vivid imagination, memories of years long since past recalled easily in her unconscious hours. Usually dreams of the Crisis plagued her; bodies blown apart by Bastion units, limbs crushed by Omnic fists, civilians and soldier alike falling victim to the violent hand of those cybernetic monstrosities. Serena thought it funny, in a bemusing kind of way, that now they asked for rights and held peace summits and spoke of a unified world like it wasn’t them that had torn it apart. But those weren’t the dreams that plagued her the most.

At least with dreams like those, she had closure. The war was over. The Omnics, even if she didn’t trust them, had regained their own sentience and she hadn’t heard any stories of farmer’s markets being assaulted by them for being a center of human interaction. It was slowly lulling the world into a dubious sense of security. But no, those were not the dreams she hated the most. The dreams that tortured her the most were the ones of that day. When she dreamt of her last few moments with her mate, of the trap that he had sprung on her. Of regaining consciousness in an unfamiliar home to news that the Swiss headquarters had been blown up. The list of the dead grew ever longer behind her closed lids until two names joined it and her heart broke all over again. Gabriel Reyes was branded a traitor and Jack Morrison, fearless commander, felled in the line of duty. During waking hours, she was able to distract herself but while asleep she was painfully reminded that she had lost her mate.

Losing a mate was much like losing a limb, it had often been described, but much much deeper. Mating marks brought pairs together physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually; tying two people together so tightly that they were bonded forever. Losing a part of that bond could ruin people and it was only compounded with Serena. Gabriel’s body had never been recovered, just leaving the woman with more unanswered questions and absolutely no closure. Jack’s body hadn’t been found either. Just like Ana. Just like Amelie. 

Serena pushed herself up, groaning softly as her joints complained yet again, nose scrunching up in mild annoyance. She wasn’t young anymore, but she certainly wasn’t going to admit to being old. She was a ‘spry’ 48 years young and while she did get the occasional ache, they didn’t stop her from doing all the things she had when she was young. Stretching her arms high into the air, a relieved grunt tumbled from her lips at the sound of her back cracking. Dropping her arms, she scratched at her face before forcing her feet onto the floor. Time to start her routine.

She moved on autopilot, running through her morning calisthenics first and foremost. Stretching, 30 minutes of yoga, a two mile run on the treadmill and then a quick shower to wash the sweat from her body. By the time she stepped out of the shower, the high tech shuttered glass windows had cracked open, the subtle warmth of the January morning beginning to bleed into the house. The house Gabriel had set aside for her was located in the southern tip of Florida, tucked into some unsuspecting little city that was less than an hour away from the beach. The small yellow bungalow had almost everything either one of them had idly talked about when speaking about their future, the man providing you with the near perfect home. One story, three bedrooms, a wraparound porch, and yard filled with brightly colored flowers and shrubbery and three palm trees. Technology had been integrated into the home; appliances, security and upkeep all handled through the same system that could be run through various holopad around the home. It was lovely and nice and should have been enough for her, but her heart constantly ached and yearned for a mate she knew wouldn’t show up.

Wandering into the kitchen, Serena sighed as the smell of Mexican dark roast swirled around her, the aromatic, spicy aroma making her mouth water. Pouring a cup, a melancholic smile pulled at her lips as Gabriel’s voice tickled at the back of her mind. ‘Cariño you’re ruining the flavor. Six sugars is too damn much, it’s better black.’ Then they’d bicker back and forth until one would silence the other with coffee-flavored kisses. Sighing wistfully, she forced the ache for more down before moving to make breakfast. Vegetables from your garden, an avocado from the farmer market, all tossed together with eggs. Like most of her movements that morning she moved into auto-pilot, settling down at the small island in the center of her kitchen and pulling up a holopad that ran through a private VPN. Bringing a forkful of her breakfast to her mouth, she swiped across the screen, several news stories scrolling across the translucent monitor.

‘Former Overwatch CFO, Greta Zaytseva, Found Dead in Ankara Home’

‘Reported Sightings of ‘Reaper’ Figure Increase’

‘Private Plane Crashes, Killing Six’

‘Commemoration Ceremony for the Second Anniversary of the Overwatch: Geneva Campus Bombing Takes Place Despite Protests and Threats of Violence’

Serena hummed low in her throat, eyes scanning over the holopad, highlighting the occasional name and swiping them to join others in a spreadsheet she had prepared to the side. The list held the names of Overwatch agents of affiliates who had been murdered or gone missing, all thought to be the work of terrorists. Radicals whose goals were to snuff out who and what remained of the once infallible Overwatch, to drive another nail through the coffin of the deceitful organization. As far as Serena could tell, they were wrong. All of that had been killed corresponded to the list Gabriel had been populating before his death. The names of outright traitors; those who accepted bribes from drug cartels, worked with anti- or pro-Omnic terrorist groups, sold their allegiance to the highest bidder or any other number of illegal or reprehensible actions.

Grief had prevented her from seeing the connections at first. She had been knocked out in Europe and woke in North America; overwrought, anxious and frantic. Gabriel had assigned Jesse to move her, the younger Alpha, who was more like a son to her, crooning and humming to calm the frenzied omega down. The home smelt of Gabe, god did it smell of him, but when Serena went searching for him she wasn’t able to find him. Just their blankets and his clothing and things he had scented so heavily she sat intoxicated in a room he had made to turn into a nest. She’d spent weeks like that, Jesse barely getting her to eat and drink, her body going through the painful grieving process. It was a month before she’d eat of her own volition, four before Jesse finally felt safe leaving her on her own, the omega sending the young man away with the promise to stay in contact.

It was nine months after the explosions when bodies began to drop, all with some connection to Overwatch. While Serena had gone radio silent after the explosion, only letting those closest to her know that she was still alive, she sent a rudimentary check out to every clean agent she still had records of. They all responded with varying messages of concern and worry for her well-being but they all said that they were safe, that no direct threats had been leveled at them. Lena, Angela, Reinhardt, Torbjorn, Fareeha, Winston, even Jesse. All high-profile former agents, most who still remained in the public eye and none who had faced any direct peril to their life.

She couldn’t shake the feeling of suspicion when she learned this information and it was only confirmed when a name finally crossed the headlines fourteen months post explosion. An unassuming one, just a secretary that had been a liaison between Overwatch and the United Nations, Ju Yang. He had been found dead inside of his flat; shot several times at close range with shotguns, the body damn near exsanguinated. It was brutal and violent and grabbed headlines briefly for a week with speculation before fading into the background. The man had been selling information about Overwatch agents to Volskaya Industries, leading to several deaths and ambushed peace talks. He was the reason Suzanne’s son didn’t have a mother anymore and she knew that she wouldn’t forget that name. But he was a relative nobody to the rest of the world and that is what got her mind moving. What pushed her into motion to investigate the murders happening around the world.

Someone was murdering people from Gabriel’s list, names that only she and a dead man had access to. She had initially taken it to be coincidental but as list of the dead grew longer and the list of those she knew were still alive were never touched, it became obvious that someone had stolen Gabriel’s list. Serena absentmindedly twisted the shined obsidian band on her finger, one of a matching pair that only she and Gabriel owned. It was their key of knowledge, an unimpressive piece of jewelry with a near archaic piece of technology built into it, an NFC chip that was coded to be readable only by a singular device owned by you or Gabriel. The same device that looked to be innocently filled with pictures of the two of them. But when the ring and tablet were used together, they would reveal a files that contained terabytes of incriminating information against the United Nation, world governments, business leaders, Overwatch agents, Blackwatch agents, criminals and the like. Evidence to prove their wrongdoings, evidence that could bring powerful people to their knees. All things Gabriel had intended to do with Jack until the explosion…

Dropping her fork on her plate, Serena stretched her neck from side to side, sighing low in her throat. She didn’t care that these people were dying nor that there was a psychopathic serial killer draining people of their life. She cared that whoever was following this list had stolen it from the body of her mate, had desecrated his remains and disrespected his death. She intended to find out who.

[yippieyaayippieyee]

Burial

In the relentless dry heat of a Texan summer, a body left to the elements will mummify rather than decompose fully. The skin will quickly lose all of its moisture, so that it remains clinging to the bones when the process is complete.

The speed of the chemical reactions involved doubles with every 10°C rise in temperature, so a cadaver will reach an advanced stage of decomposition after 16 days at an average daily temperature of 25��C. By then, most of the flesh has been removed from the body, and so the mass migration of maggots away from the carcass can begin.

The ancient Egyptians learned inadvertently how the environment affects decomposition. In the predynastic period, before they started building elaborate coffins and tombs, they wrapped their dead in linen and buried them directly in the sand. The heat inhibited the activity of microbes, while burial prevented insects from reaching the bodies, and so they were extremely well preserved. Later on, they began building elaborate tombs for the dead, in order to provide even better for their afterlife, but this had the opposite of the intended effect –separating the body from the sand actually hastened decomposition. And so they invented embalming and mummification.

Embalming involves treating the body with chemicals that slow down the decomposition process. The ancient Egyptian embalmer would first wash the body of the deceased with palm wine and Nile water, remove most of the internal organs through an incision made down the left-hand side, and pack it with natron (a naturally-occurring salt mixture found throughout the Nile Valley). He would use a long hook to pull the brain out through the nostrils, then cover the entire body with natron and leave it to dry for 40 days. Initially, the dried organs were placed into canopic jars that were buried alongside the body; later, they were wrapped in linen and returned to the body. Finally, the body itself was wrapped in multiple layers of linen, in preparation for burial. Morticians study the ancient Egyptian embalming method to this day.

Back at the funeral home, Holly Williams performs something similar so that family and friends can view their departed loved one at the funeral as they once were, rather than as they now are. For victims of trauma and violent deaths, this can involve extensive facial reconstruction.

Living in a small town, Williams has worked on many people she knew or grew up with – friends who overdosed, committed suicide or died texting at the wheel. When her mother died four years ago, Williams did some work on her, too, adding the final touches by making up her face: “I always did her hair and make-up when she was alive, so I knew how to do it just right.”

She transfers John to the prep table, removes his clothes and positions him, then takes several small bottles of embalming fluid from a wall cupboard. The fluid contains a mixture of formaldehyde, methanol and other solvents; it temporarily preserves the body’s tissues by linking cellular proteins to each other and ‘fixing’ them into place. The fluid kills bacteria and prevents them from breaking down the proteins and using them as a food source.                                              

Williams pours the bottles’ contents into the embalming machine. The fluid comes in an array of colours, each matching a different skin tone. Williams wipes his body with a wet sponge and makes a diagonal incision just above his left collarbone. She ‘raises’ the carotid artery and subclavian vein from the neck, ties them off with pieces of string, then pushes a cannula (thin tube) into the artery and small tweezers into the vein to open up the vessels.

Next, she switches the machine on, pumping embalming fluid into the carotid artery and around John’s body. As the fluid goes in, blood pours out of the incision, flowing down along the guttered edges of the sloped metal table and into a large sink. Meanwhile, she picks up one of his limbs to massage it gently. “It takes about an hour to remove all the blood from an average-sized person and replace it with embalming fluid,” Williams says. “Blood clots can slow it down, so massaging breaks them up and helps the flow of the embalming fluid.”

Once all the blood has been replaced, she pushes an aspirator into John’s abdomen and sucks the fluids out of the body cavity, together with any urine and faeces that might still be in there. Finally, she sews up the incisions, wipes the body down a second time, sets the facial features and re-dresses it. John is now ready for his funeral.

Embalmed bodies do eventually decompose. Exactly when, and how long it takes, depends largely on how the embalming was done, the type of casket in which the body is placed and how it is buried. Bodies are, after all, merely forms of energy, trapped in lumps of matter waiting to be released into the wider universe.

According to the laws of thermodynamics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only converted from one form to another. In other words: things fall apart, converting their mass to energy while doing so. Decomposition is one final, morbid reminder that all matter in the universe must follow these fundamental laws. It breaks us down, equilibrating our bodily matter with its surroundings, and recycling it so that other living things can put it to use.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.