#WHO KNEW GLITCH EFFECTS WERE SO FUN TO MESS WITH?!?!

[hiro-doodlez]

Guess who found the glitch effect on procreate

[sixtyeightdays]

you reap what you sow

prompt from @mialuvscats : i hope this meets your expectations ! im sorry this took so long, i tried uploading it from my phone but it glitched and i could only get my hands on the computer today 

i’d like to say that i think if sabine and mari are there, damian and talia willl be relatively looser and not as uptight . mari and sabine are cold but loving and sunshiney. they keep talia and damian in check, essentially. which is why i wrote them in to be loose and free but able to be openly happy when they want to be, even if they are only happy around each other.

with sabine here i also thinkt hat talia will be slightly easier on damian, which also ties to the fact that he will not be as cold and uptight.

talia will be a good mother in this fic bc i want her to be and itll be ooc but its okay its my fic anyway

and the timeline is kinda messed up and all over the place sorry

that aside, have fun reading and i hope you enjoy!

--

talia and sabine are best friends, and before most of the class joins francois, marinette ruled the school after coming to paris with sabine. mari and damian are betrothed and the two are best friends. they can be icy one minute and sunshiney the next, although the sunshiney part is more mari than damian.

maybe the waynes come to paris, bc if theyre in gotham the others wont really know if the queen is back, and theyre kinda unsure why marinette is being timid and very unlike her ice queen demeanor she sometimes uses. mari is closest to jason in terms of batfam because firstly maybe she cleanses jason of the lazarus pit after helping damian using tikki's creation magic to counteract plagg's destruction one. since the waynes are here theres no point in mari hiding her queen status anymore and queue lila reveal

-

Talia al Ghul and Sabine Cheng were an unlikely combination, but worked perfectly well.

The two women were extremely close. Sabine was almost as deadly as Talia, but she made up for it with her devious mindset. She was the one who steered Talia away from doing anything wrong --well more wrong than usual-- and the one who was assigned to dish out punishments to usurpers.

The two could read each other like open books, and hence, when both Talia and Sabine became pregnant, Talia one month before Sabine, the two knew immediately.

They had debated whether or not to have their kids be betrothed, and eventually decided to let their children make the final call when their kids were old enough to understand.

Nine months later, Marinette and Damian were born. In the League infirmary, an hour after the two were cleaned and left there to rest while their mothers did the same, the two had already grown rather close.

Their baby cribs were next to each other, and somehow they were staring at each other through the walls of the crib, and were making small grabby hands to the other.

When Talia and Sabine were sufficiently rested and came to pick up their children, they were slightly shocked, yet gratified by their children. Sabine smiled and draped an arm around Talia’s shoulder, smiling lazily.

“I guess they’ll be as close as their mothers, non?” 

Talia smirked, and the two walked forwards, lifting their respective children in their arms and walking to their quarters.

-

The two mothers did not regret it. Their kids were enamoured with each other, practically joined at the hip.

By the time Marinette and Damian were 5, they had a very extensive vocabulary, since they had learned to speak Arabic, French and English. They were also extremely smart and skilled with weapons. 

Marinette was extremely adept at using a yoyo. It seemed weird, I know. But when the League was stormed when she was 3, she had taken out 4 men with her yoyo alone. Since then, she had been teaching herself how to use the yoyo effectively.

Damian preferred to use a katana. He looked much scarier than Marinette, even if the two were the same age. He had found a natural talent in using blades, knives, katanas and daggers included.

Marinette was the Rain to Damian’s Fire. 

She was the only one who could calm Damian down when he was mad, mad.

But make no mistake, Marinette could switch personalities in a heartbeat. She was one of the League’s most skilled interrogators at the age of 5.

After all, who would suspect a pigtailed 5 year old in pink to be scary?

Damian much preferred his stoic and icy attitude. The only people he ever let loose around was Marinette, Sabine, and Talia.

Talia and Sabine loved the children to an almost deadly extent, and the four were extremely overprotective of each other.

Marinette had taken to magic as well. She had been trained by many people in the League about sensing magic. Damian did not have the patience for magic and rituals. 

Marinette knew Damian was more of a ‘attack first ask questions later’ type of fighter, a stark contrast to Marinette’s ‘i will curse you and you will suffer in agonising pain for the rest of your life’ preferred type of fighting.

She’d never really liked getting her hands dirty, hence the magic. Killing people with magic was so much cleaner.

Sabine and Marinette had to leave for Paris when she was 9. For what, she wasn’t sure, but regardless of the distance, she and Damian constantly traded calls and letters. They would never go even a day without contact.

They were staying with one of Sabine’s old friends. His name was Tom Dupain, and he was an old wrestler and had worked with the League before. He and Sabine pretended to be married and Marinette’s name had hence became Marinette Dupain Cheng.

Damian and Talia stayed at the League, although all of them knew that Damian was to meet his birth father when he turned 10.

Marinette adapted her icy demeanor in Paris, never wanting anyone to get as close as she was with Damian. 

A few hours in, walking around Paris, she had met an elderly man in a red Hawaiian shirt, emitting the aura of magic. She had confronted him, and eventually, he opened up to her about the Miraculous. Tikki, the Ladybug kwami, and Plagg, the Black Cat kwami had taken a liking to her.

Marinette was apparently something called a True User, a reincarnation of the first Ladybug miraculous wielder. Plagg just rather liked the aura of death and chaos she apparently gave off, from the League.

She and the other Kwamis also had a rather amicable relationship, and she’d go to the ends of the Earth for the tiny gods, and vice versa.

The elderly man, named Fu, had also started to train her into becoming the new Guardian of the Miraculous.

Before, Marinette had been planning on laying low and not drawing atention to herself, but once she had beaten up two upperclassmen for bullying her classmate and somewhat accquaintance Nino, she had been fiercely regarded by both the students and faculty. 

As a result, she eventually grew close to Nino, and his friends, Kim, Alix and Chloe. She only ever let down her icy demeanour around them, showing the bright and bubbly girl persona she kept hidden. She wasn’t as close to them as she was to Damian, but they were all still quite close friends. 

It wasn’t long after that Marinette became the queen of her school, at the tender age of 10, earning her title as the Ladybug. Or, as Chloe liked to put it, the Lady, because she was lucky enough to ‘get a friend like her’.

Marinette didn’t protest. She rather liked Ladybugs, and besides, it was ironic and it reminded her a little of Damian, who sometimes liked to call her his Maribug. Because she was sometimes a pest, he deadpanned. Marinette had whacked him with a pillow. 

Everyone in the school feared the Ladybug. No one knew anything of her past. She was a mystery, an enigma that no one could solve. When new students came in after Marinette turned 14, everyone was slightly shocked to see their Lady change.

She was much more bubbly and approachable. Word had spread around that Marinette, the Lady, was trying a clean slate for the new kids. After all, not everyone should fear her.

Probably.

School eventually returned to what it was like before Marinette became the Lady, although she did still rule the school, she did it much more subtly, with more restraint and secrecy.

One of the new kids, Alya, had taken a liking to her. Marinette did not like her  very much, she was loud and clingy and drew a lot of unwanted attention. 

Marinette and her old crew, who had playfully called themselves her Consorts before the name stuck, had split up temporarily, to cover more ground and spread their branches.

Chloe was to pretend to be Marinette’s bully, Kim and Alix rivals, and Nino a shy recluse. They had had a good laugh about it beforehand, before watching Moana, because Kim wanted to compare the size of his muscles to Maui’s.

None of them had accounted for Adrien Agreste, who had tried to get the gum off Marinette’s seat like the naive, sheltered boy he was. Marinette had admittedly gotten mad at him for screwing up a perfectly good plan, before ramping up her ice persona to like, a 2/10, to get the newbies off her scent and scare Adrien away.

It hadn’t worked, because the boy was apparently as stubborn as he was naive. But besides that, Alya had been really grating on Marinette’s nerves, especially since she was convinced that Marinette had a crush on the model. It was not true, of course. 

Honestly, Marinette thought dryly, as Alya dragged her all over the place to.. somewhere, she wasn’t even sure anymore. But frankly, she didn’t particularly care. Honestly, the only boy she’d probably ever have a crush on would be Damian.

Not that she’d ever admit it.

-

When Marinette and Damian turned 10, she and Sabine had taken a plane to Gotham to meet up with Damian.

Damian had not been having a good time. He was very much unwanted here, that was clear. 

Grayson seemed to be the only one trying to interact with him. His father, had been trying his best to stay out of Damian’s way, which he reciprocated. Todd was flat out ignoring him and Drake just seemed to be busy all the time.

After all, who would want to interact with a grumpy 10 year old assassin?

He missed Marinette.

It was the day Todd finally tried to open up to Damian, that Marinette had arrived. No one had told him that she was finally meeting him again for the first time in a year. Sabine had left Marinette to figure out where Damian was on her own. She was more than capable of it.

With a quick scrying spell, she found him, and Kaalki opened a portal headed in the direction of Wayne Manor.

Meanwhile, Damian just appreciated the fact that Todd was finally extending an olive branch. He was lonely.

It hurt seeing his father care for everyone in the manor apart from him.

He had been walking along the gardens in the manor. Todd had joined him.

“Listen, I know it’s hard to feel accepted here. Sometimes, I do.” Jason gazed wistfully at the sky above him.

Damian was unsure of where the ex-Robin was getting at, so he just kept quiet. It wasn’t as if Damian didn’t know who Jason Todd was. Before he had come to the manor with Talia, he had read the Waynes’ files. In addition, Damian had known of Jason while he was affiliated with the League. They had never talked, or interacted, but he had known of the elder boy. 

“I just, uh, wanted you to know that if you ever need anything, you can come to me.” He finished lamely, running a hand in his hair.

Damian opened his mouth, then closed it, hesitating. “Thank you, Ja--Todd. I will.” He settled on saying dryly.

Jason visibly relaxed and cracked a miniscule smile. There was a sudden ‘swoosh’ sound, and both Jason and Damian turned around, bodies automatically going on the defensive.

Stumbling out of Alfred’s rose bushes, trodding on a few accidentally, was Marinette.

“Angel!” Damian exclaimed, moving forwards to help her forwards.

She brushed her shoulders off, looking around before freezing, staring at something behind him.

“Jay?”

“Pixie?” He asked, sounding incredulous.

Marinette rushed forward and wrapped him in a tight embrace. Jason laughed and hugged her back, chuckling.

Damian quashed down the bubbling feeling of rage in the pit of his stomach and settled for casting a frosty glance in their direction. Not that they noticed, since they were too busy embracing each other, Damian thought scornfully.

The two pulled apart after too long in Damian’s opinion, laughing.

“Angel? How do you know Todd?” Damian asked coldly, ever so protective.

If Jason noticed the sudden reversion to his surname instead of his first, he didn’t say anything.

“Oh, he came to Paris with Lia once and I cleansed him of the Lazarus pit madness, like I did with you.” She replied.

“What are you doing here?” Jason asked. Damian had forgotten about that.

“Visiting, of course!” She winked. “Now, let’s give your old man a good scare.” She pecked Damian on the cheek before vanishing. (Thanks, Trixx.)

Jason and Damian looked to each other. “Did you know she could do that?” Jason questioned. Damian shook his head before pausing.

“Wait.. how did she get into the manor?” 

The only response was the faint echo of a laugh.

-

It was time for dinner anyway, and only Damian, Jason, and Alfred knew of Marinette’s presence. Marinette had voluntary evelaed herself to the elderly butler after noticing his aura. 

It was Miraculous tainted. If Marinette could guess, he had been either one of Duusu’s, Sass’s, or Nooroo’s.

When the butler had retired to the kitchen alone, Marinette had unraveled Trixx’s magic veiling her and waved at the butler.

To hi credit, he didn’t so much as bat an eye before his eyes widened as he took her in. Marinette cut to the chase.

“Who was your kwami?” Alfred had surveyed her for a second before seemingly trusting her.  

“Duusu.” He answered.

Marinette smiled. “I’m Tikki’s.” From her perch in Marinette’s left pigtail, the red Kwami pried open the folds of her hair, waving once at Alfred before sinking back into the recesses of the bluenette’s locks.

Alfred blinked. Once. Twice. “I’m presuming you’re staying for dinner?”

Marinette beamed. “I’m gonna scare the big bat.” Alfred nodded, accepting this. Marinette clapped her hands and she disappeared again. Alfred shook his head, smiling faintly.

Conveniently, it was one of the times where everyone was there. Dick, Jason, Tim, and Damian. Rare these days, what with Dick in Bludhaven, Tim at WE, and Jason off being Jason.

Bruce was currently on his way back from WE, although it would take around half an hour. He had told everyone to start eating first. Perfect. 

After Marinette’s encounter with Alfred, she had reappeared in Damian’s room, where she and Damian caught up. Just like old times.

She had disappeared again once she left the room, and Damian wasn’t entirely sure where she went.

Alfred set the the table as per normal, which Damian and Jason noticed right away. They looked to Alfred, who merely winked before stepping back into the kitchen and laying out the food.

There was a screech of a chair as Marinette, disguised as Bruce (Trixx in her right pigtail and Tikki in the left) sat down. Dick looked startled. 

“I thought you wouldn’t be back till later!” Dick exclaimed.

Mari-Bruce shrugged. “Faster than I’d expected.” She answered, securing the veil of Trixx’s magic around her vocal chords, making her voice sound exactly like Bruce’s.

Jason inched away slightly from Bruce, though she pretended not to notice.

Alfred nodded at her as he reentered the room.

Everyone dug in, occasionally talking. It had been about 25 minutes before the sound of the door opening could be heard. Damian and Jason’s head shot up, thinking it was Marinette.

Mari-Bruce smirked. Showtime.

Bruce entered the room, not noticing Mari at first. Until the batboys gaped at him. He looked confused. What--?

Mari-Bruce was a pretty great actress. “Who are you?” She thundered, internally laughing.

“Who are you? I’m Bruce Wayne.” He answered, looking befuddled and frustrated.

“Impostor.” Mari-Bruce accused. 

Bruce spluttered. “No! I’m the real Bruce!” 

Mari-Bruce scoffed. “That’s what an impostor would say.”

Damian and Jason seemed to figure it out, although they probably weren’t sure which Bruce was the real one yet.

Tim rubbed his eyes. “Am I seeing double, or?” 

Bruce said, “Ask me something the real Bruce would know.”

Dick looked torn, but did as requested. “Who murdered your parents?”

“Joe Chill.” They both said at the same time. Mari-Bruce and Bruce winced, selling the act.

“When’s my birthday?” Tim asked. 

“July 17th.” Both Bruces answered.

Tim looked surprised. “You actually know my birthday?”

“No shit, Tim.” Mari-Bruce said, rolling their eyes. She rather wanted to proceed to the next part of her plan. 

“Would I say that to you, Tim?” Bruce asked slightly desperately. 

“Maybe?” 

Bruce facepalmed. In the confusion, Mari took the chance to slink into the shadows where she rewrapped Trixx’s invisible magic around her.

Only Damian noticed. He smirked. “Where did he go?” He asked, placing a hand on the hilt of his katana for emphasis. He didn’t see Marinette smile at him.

Everyone looked panicked. “Search the manor.” Bruce ordered.

Jason still looked slightly skeptical but did as he said. Damian drew his katanas and tilted it in the direction he was going.

Amongst everyone, Bruce was the most attacked. While Jason and Damian paired off, Tim and Dick did as well, ("Don’t go alone!” Was Bruce’s admonished cry), Bruce had gone alone. 

If she were being honest, Marinette had always had a grudge against the billionaire. He hadn’t saved his son, he had tried to kill his son, even though he had a no killing rule --which Marinette thought was plain stupid--, and he had left Damian to suffer at the hands of Ra’s Al Ghul.

Talia could only do so much to save her son.

Yes, Marinette was aware that Bruce hadn’t know Damian existed, but now he was still treating Damian as if he didn’t exist. Marinette knew how much Damian craved affection, even if he never admitted it.

Yes, maybe Bruce was getting better, but maybe she could.. spur the process.

So Marinette retaliated in one of the many ways she knew how.

Messing with them.

So when the Waynes regrouped in the dining room, Jason, Damian, Dick and Tim came back unharmed, and Jason had been filled in by Damian of his suspicions. But Bruce? 

He came back covered in honey and feathers, drenched with water and covered in pink slime. 

“Why is he going after me?” Bruce had questioned in that annoying voice of his, after looking over his spotless sons.

Jason shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t like you. God knows he’s not the only one.” 

Bruce looked slightly hurt but Jason didn’t seem to care in the slightest.

“Maybe this person is infatuated with you and is vying for your attention.” Damian deadpanned dryly. Marinette had smacked him on the back of his head, still invisible.

But the damage had been done.

Bruce snapped his fingers and ‘aha!’-ed at Damian. “That must be it!” Bruce crowed.

“Are you that narcissistic, you arrogant plebeian?” Marinette’s normally cheery voice was dry and dripping with distaste as she unwrapped her magic.

Bruce, Dick and Tim immediately went on the defensive, shifting into a battle stance. Marinette only scoffed.

“If I wanted to harm you, I would have already done so.” Marinette waved a hand in their direction dismissively.

Dick looked confused. “You’re like, ten.” He pointed out.

Damian glared. “I am ten as well, Grayson.” 

Tim butted in. “Are we not going to acknowledge the fact that this tiny ten year old broke into the manor unnoticed?” 

That brought everyone to their senses.

They were suddenly surprised by Marinette running at Jason, full speed. They expected him to duck or whip out a weapon, but all he did was stand still as she flipped in midair to land on his shoulders.

To their utter shock, Jason grinned, even as she fisted her hands in his hair for a better grip.

Damian only smiled fondly at his Angel. She was as short as he remembered, Damian noted. 

He missed her. More than anything.

Marinette beamed, and slid off Jason’s shoulders.

“Why did you attack me?” Bruce asked.  “Isn’t it obvious, fool?” Marinette revamped her icy demeanor and glared at the civilian Batman. “I despise you.”

Bruce looked very affronted. But Mariinette ignored him, even as he continued talking and made her way over to Damian.

“Damibear!” Marinette sang, as if she hadn’t seen him less than an hour ago.

The Waynes looked as if they expected Damian to attack her just for calling him that. They were not expecting him to grin and say, “Angel.”

Mari jumped on his back, and Damian merely repositioned himself accordingly, used to this from all her previous piggybacks.

“Okay so Jason and Damian helped her get into the manor.” Tim deduced, only to notice Jason and Damian shaking their heads.

“All by herself.” Damian and Jason chorused. Marinette made bunny ears on top of Damian’s head.

She kissed Damian’s forehead lovingly, replying to his ‘i am older than you’ with a ‘yeah by like a week’, and looked to his family. 

She winked.

Then disappeared.

There was silence, and then, “Wait, we didn’t even get her name!” From Dick.

Damian and Jason were interrogated that night, and they refused to tell them anything related to Marinette.

Marinette smiled from where she had hidden in the shadows, and made her way back to Damian’s room. She curled up in Damian’s bed, drifting into sleep. She was almost asleep when Damian returned.

And when Damian pressed his lips to her forehead and whispered, “Goodnight, Angel”, a smile made her way onto her lips.

By the time Damian had slipped into bed with her, her head leaning comfortably on his chest, she had fallen asleep.

-

When the two turned 15, Talia and Sabine sat them down and told them about the betrothal. Damian had been visiting with Talia.

It had been almost two months since Lila had turned her classmates against her, not that she cared, of course. She still had her Consorts after all.

“Marinette, Damian, we’d like to tell you something. An offer? Of sorts. I’m relatively sure you will accept, however.” 

Talia smiled as Marinette dragged a grumpy Damian over to them by the head, beaming brightly.

“Oh come on, Mian! Don’t be such a grumpy banana.” Marinette reprimanded the older boy who was rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

The boy only smiled lazily, and ran another hand through his best friend’s hair, the girl making a small noise of protest. “Thats what you get for calling me a noodle, Angel.” (if you didn’t know miàn means noodle in chinese)

Sabine cleared her throat but looked at the two with amusement clear in her eyes.

They straightened. “Sorry, maman,” Mari muttered.

“Now, before you two were born, Sabine and I had an agreement. We are perfectly fine with this and the implications of it, so it is up to you to whether to accept or not.” Talia got straight to the point.

The two children looked to each other curiously before turning back to their parents. Damian nodded in acknowledgment and Sabine picked up where Talia left off.

“How do you feel about each other?” Sabine asked, watching the two closely for their reactions.

“If that’s your way of asking us if we’re okay to be siblings, since you and Lia are dating, Maman--” Marinette started but was quickly interrupted by a barely noticeably flushed Talia.

“No, not that, and we aren’t dating, Nette.” Talia aimed a playful glare at the girl, who grinned and blew a raspberry at her.

“How would you and Damian like to be betrothed?” Sabine asked, smiling at her friend and daughter fondly.

Marinette spluttered and Damian coughed. 

Talia and Sabine burst out into laughter.

After the adults got their laughter under control and after a few glares from their kids, Damian spoke up.

“Marinette is my best friend. If I had to be betrothed to anyone, I’m glad it’s her.” Damian looked away and Marinette coughed awkwardly into her elbow.

“You misunderstand us. You don’t have to be betrothed. The choice is yours.”

Damian felt slightly attacked. He really did like Marinette, and the betrothal was an easy excuse to ask her out (even if he was a 15 year old). He didn’t know if Marinette felt the same way, and he didn’t want to impose that on her, so he kept quiet.

Marinette, who was looking deep in thought, answered.

“Can I talk to Damian for a while, privately?”

Damian, despite his better judgement, winced. This was probably the first time in a really long time that Marinette called him by his full name. It was normally Dami, Damibear to annoy him, or some other weird nickname like Mr Grumpy Banana this morning.

Regardless, the bluenette hadn’t called him “Damian” for a very long time. Two years, maybe.

She walked out of the room, Damian trailing slightly behind, before stopping a few feet outside the room.

Marinette slid down onto the floor, her back pressed against it and head in her hands. Damian frowned. He didn’t want his best friend looking so.. dejected. He ignored the slight pang of hurt that the thought of being with him could get this kind of reaction out of her.

He sat down next to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulder like he always did when any of them felt upset. He was happy to feel her lean into his side like she always did. 

She turned her head and buried it in Damian’s side, breathing in his comforting scent of paints and nature. He tightened his hold on her ever so slightly and she almost burst into tears.

It wasn’t that she was opposed to being in an engagement with Damian, it was just that she didn’t particularly want to be with anyone or love anyone, especially after her father died and Damian’s father abandoned him.

Her mother and aunt didn’t show it, but they were sad about their fathers. She had heard Talia interacting with her ‘beloved’ before, and it almost always ended up in tears or frustration. (Not that Mari blamed her, Bruce was kind of an asshole.)

She felt Damian’s chin press into her scalp and a hint of a smile grazed her lips. But this was Damian. Damian who was her best friend. Damian who supported her no matter what. Damian who comforted her and was there for her whenever she needed it.

Damian would never hurt her. And she was determined never to hurt him, ever, if she could help it.

She looked up and smiled at Damian. The smile he loved so much, the smile she always had on whenever she saw him, the smile that would unconsciously fly to her lips whenever she heard his voice.

Maybe it was then that Marinette should’ve known that she loved her best friend, but then again, she was only fifteen. She didn’t know what love was. But she would. Very soon.

“We accept.” Damian told Sabine and Talia when they reentered the room.

“We thought you would.” Talia replied.

-

When Marinette turned 16, her last year at Francois Dupont, six months since she’d made Lila’s time a living hell with her Ladybug (both in suit and in school), and fashion clients connections, the Waynes had visited.

Turns out, Damian and Jason got caught trying to sneak onto the Wayne private jet but instead of stopping them, they insisted they came along too, having pieced together that Damian and Jason were going to visit the mysterious tiny girl they couldn’t find the name of.

So they had no choice.

And os that leads to now, with the Waynes standing in the courtyard, elicting a growing crowd as they waited for Marinette, looking the part of scary rich people that can end your life without a problem.

Damian suddenly started running, and he hugged a girl. No one could see who the girl was because her head was buried in Damian’s chest and his body was shielding hers.

Not many people in the courtyard was surprised when they pulled away and standing there was Marinette Dupain-Cheng. After all, she was one of the most successful students in class that didn’t get fame from famous relatives. No, al her fame was hers alone.

In fact, the only people surprised were Marinette’s class, not-so-fondly referred to as the Akuma Class.  Her Consorts were the only one who knew of her betrothed, Damian. Other than that, Marinette had never been willing to share. 

When Marinette saw the other Waynes however, after hugging Jason, she rolled her eyes. Bruce, Dick and Tim stalked forwards, looking every inch the scary billionaires they were.

It was broken by Dick hugging the girl and gushing over how cool she was. Tim smiled at her and she had smiled back. Marinette flipped Bruce the bird.

“Why are you... so sunny? You definitely weren’t like that when you threatened us in Gotham. You were such an ice queen.” Tim mentioned, failing to keep the amusement out of his tone.

“What do you mean? Marinette’s always been like that, even if she is a bitch now. There’s no way she can be cold.” Alya remarked snidely.

Alix and Chloe stalked forward, raising thier fists threatningly. But Marinette only laughed coldly.

“You wanna see cold, Cesaire?” Marinette snarled, dropping all acts of being nice. 

The Lady was back. Publicly.

The silence was interrupted by Rose, who asked, "But Lila, don't you know the Waynes?"

Said Lila had been trying to slink away unnoticed, but when her name was mentioned, all attention diverted back to her, effectively keeping her in place. Her pale face and scared eyes were enough to tell that she had indeed been lying. 

Yells and screams broke out across the courtyard as the Akuma Class berated Lila for lying to them all this while. Until, Marinette interrupted, face set in a ice cold, stony position 

"Okay, blame her for lying." She started. "But why did you believe her?" 

The Akuma Class drew a blank and didn't respond. Partially because they didn't know what to say, and partially because Marinette's mere presence was overwhelmingly intimidating. Marinette sighed and pressed on. 

"Everything the Liar has said can be found faulty by a simple internet search." It was true, and the class knew it. When no one replied, Marinette shook her head sardonically. "You reap what you sow." 

She turned to her betrothed. In an instant, her icy mood was gone, replaced with the sunshiney-ness the Akuma Class had grown used to. 

"C'mon, Dami!" She gave him a quick peck on the lips, hoisting herself up on Damian's back. Damian grasped her legs tightly, as she continued to be piggybacked by him. 

"Onward!" She cried out dramatically, pointing to the school exit. 

Damian only rolled his eyes fondly at his beloved, steering themselves out, her Consorts and his family behind them. 

None of them looked back. 

If they did, they would've seen the expressions of disbelief and regret etched onto every one of her old classmates' faces. 

Not that they would care.

-

5k words yay

also uh yeah again, sorry this took so long, i kept hitting a mental block while writing this and it didnt manage to upload from my phone for no good reason :( 

but anyway its up now, i hope u find this acceptable! :)

[burning-clutch]

Shielded From The Truth

Cross posted on A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30441042 -.-.-.-.- Warnings: Mild wounds. Number two in the phic phight! When his parents put a shield up around Casper high to keep the ghosts out, and it means that Danny’s day hardly goes to plan. And he was so close to being on time for once too…. PHIC PHIGHT 2021 For team ghost! -.-.-.-.-.- Prompt by: Silverwing013 Danny's parents have kindly offered to set up a ghost shield generator for Casper High. Hijinks ensue as Danny attempts to handle the situation. 

-.-.-.-.-.-

Danny groaned as he only half listened to his parents rattle off whatever ghost nonsense they were going on about as he ate his breakfast. A bowl of dry cereal because the milk was contaminated and he really didn’t want to chance it giving him more than a stomach ache. This had become the norm this week it seemed as his parents seemed invested more than usual into the ghost shields that they had been working on and improving.

Why only shields? They would be installing one in the school soon… but beyond that? He wasn’t sure. They probably told him, sure, but being a teenager and one that had parents that hated half of him, had the effect of making him only lightly listen to the weapons and things that were meant to fully kill him off. That and at least the ghost shields weren’t usually a hindrance to him, in fact, they had proven themselves useful on a few occasions.

Plus he had the added advantage of being able to simply return to his human form and slip through the shield with little issue. Given his parents had no knowledge of half ghosts existing, at least he hoped not, they shouldn’t be designing a ghost and human shield. After all, that would defeat the purpose, right? It wasn’t as if Amity really had any human threats anymore.

Well, regardless of the eccentricities of his parents he could at least take some comfort in the fact that Skulker couldn’t simply attack the school to get to him any longer.

Small mercies he supposed.

Danny blinked as his father said something to him before slapping him on his back causing the teen to practically choke on his cereal from the force of the smack. “Isn’t that just great Dann-o?” the large man exclaimed happily before looking at his son expectantly. Oh great, he wanted him to ask something? Great.

“S-Sure” Danny choked out as he flailed, grabbing in front of him for the orange juice he had nabbed from the fridge, it thankfully hadn’t been in there long enough to start glowing… yet…

He shook his head as he finally got his breath back without inhaling dry cereal pieces into his lungs. When he was sure he wasn’t going to sound like some dollar store squeaky toy he tried to ask his parents a question, always a dreadful time if he were honest, but hey, he would usually be late for school anyway.

“So this will go around the whole school?” Danny tried weakly.

“Yep! And the best part is it’ll sense where there's an evil ectoplasmic entity nearby and spring up instantly! We made sure there won’t be a ghost within Twenty feet of the school before that puppy jumps up to the rescue! Like a big Fenton airbag!” Jack exclaimed all too enthusiastically for what the current time in the AM should allow a normal person to exhume.

Danny hummed noncommittally and sent a glance of ‘help me’ to his sister, who, in turn, rolled her eyes at her little brother. “And the shield even uses the ghost’s power to run the shield right?” Jazz asked side eyeing her father from her own spot not wanting to fully engage in the conversation they were having.

“Oh, yea! That’s the best part!” Jack practically cheered out.

“And the stronger the evil skum is the faster the shield will react and sooner it will be picked up. It will only go off on a level three or higher.” Maddie explained with a pleasant smile as she sips at her coffee.

“And we got it all finished last night to be ready for you kids today” Jack added happily.

“Hooray, more fun on a Monday” Danny sighed out into his last bites of cereal. Jazz snorted but didn’t comment, though Danny blew her a childish raspberry.

Jack continued to go on about the more intricate details of the shield they had put up though only one thing really caught his attention in the spiel, “-And Vladdie helped with the funding to outfit the school! Even helped us get the materials we needed to make such a large shield!”

“Ah, there it is…” Danny groaned letting his head fall forward onto the table in instant defeat.

“Danny! I really wish you would learn not to stay up so late playing video games! Look at you! If I get another call from one of your teachers about you sleeping in class-” Maddie started only for Danny to cut her off jumping to his feet.

“Yep! Thanks for that, mom! Look at the time! Love you bye!” Danny prattled off quick as could be before grabbing his book bag by his feet and bolting like a scared rabbit. After all, if his mother never finished that sentence when he inevitably fell asleep he couldn’t be grounded… she never officially gave him the last warning…

That’ll work, right?

It wasn’t long when he was out of the house that he was at his usual waiting spot for Sam and Tucker. Unsurprisingly, Sam got there first though they didn't have to wait long for Tucker to lumber forward, half asleep to his friends, and together they made their way towards the school as a unit.

Things seemed well enough until he got onto the stairs leading up to the main doors. That was when all hell broke loose. A deep alarm sounded before his father’s voice rang out from the speakers, in his over the top cheery way that only Jack Fenton knew how to pull off.

“Attention kids! Guess there’s an evil spook nearby so we’re deploying the shield! This ghost protection was brought to you by Fenton-works and sponsored by your mayor!”

Danny frowned. “My ghost sense didn’t go off…” He mentioned quietly to his friends.

“Maybe the shield sensors are more sensitive than you are?” Tucker asked with a frown.

“Since when?” Sam argued incredulously.

“Well who or whatever it is, it isn’t bothering me right now and no one’s screaming, no one’s panicking, so it can wait. I’m actually going to be on time for once!” Danny says waving the notion off.

He continues his trek up the stairs and towards the doors of the school, though when he reaches the threshold of the shield he finds himself having to really push hard against the thing. It was like hitting a wall of foam or Jell-O. He could push through if he pressed hard enough but it was not pleasant or as easy as going through the air.

Once through the initial shield wall, he blinked slowly feeling sluggish and as though all his limbs were moving through water. He even sort of felt like he was having to ‘swim’ as he walked like he was both heavier and lighter than he should be, but unable to find that buoyancy happy middle ground.

“Dude…” Tucker said smartly as he frowned at his friend’s almost slow motion, yet stop motion like movements. It was eerie, to say the least, not to mention the more pressing issue that he noticed right off the hop, “Your eyes are shining, man. And your, um… Neck...”

Sam, ever prepared for whatever bull their lives seem to throw their way, slipped her bag around to her front and offered Danny a pair of sunglasses, which the halfa put on promptly, along with the spider webbed patterned black and silver scarf.  “I mean, it’s better,” Sam argued, not even giving Tucker's look of disapproval her full attention.

“They’re spider glasses.” The boy states with a shake of his head. “Not really digging the whole-” Tucker waved his arm about Danny’s head in little circles, “-pseudo goth thing” he finished finally. Though he had to admit it was at least marginally better than seeing his friend’s glowing eyes and the electric scars showing up on his neck and disappearing under his shirt collar.

“Better?” Danny asked out sluggish, his voice almost sounding like it was being drawn out on a tape deck that was starting to lack battery power and not playing at quite the proper speed making the pitch and timing slower and lower.

Sam and Tucker shared a look before offering a thumbs up to their friend, both deciding it better not to address… whatever that was… The look they shared between one another spoke of their mutual hope that this would perhaps be one of those problems that simply go away on its own.

Ignoring the problems they have usually makes it go away… Yeah, that always works out.  

Danny makes a grab for the door to pull it open again, having that weird slow stop motion effect, like he was flickering between blinks rather than making a smooth motion forward. “Ehm, maybe don’t move around too much man… it’s um… creeping me out.” Tucker offers helpfully.

“Huh?” it took Danny a minute to process, as while he looked slow to them they seemed to be hyped up on caffeine to him… “Why are you talking so fast?” He wondered, his head almost appearing to glitch into a tilted and confused look.

“I think the ghost shield is making you go all slow motion. Just stop talking.” Sam says forcefully before letting out a shudder of her own.

Sam and Tucker share a glance before they each grab onto one of Danny’s arms and half drag him off to his locker. Despite his friends’ efforts he still got many looks shot his way, and a couple of people started whispering to one another as he passed by them.

“How is this going to work if I’m already weirding everyone out?” Danny asked, voice still sounding like a slowed record as he blinked sluggishly and his head jerked almost unsteadily from side to side. From his perspective, everyone was speeding along and talking at 1.5 times the normal speed.

“Maybe I should look for the ghost that triggered this, maybe Tuck, can you look into this mess?” Danny asked after a moment of trying to figure out what was being said around him through the noise of the hall.

“Yeah that might be best…” Sam responded shifting from leg to leg as she locks eyes with a basketball jock who was staring at their group incredulously.

“I got you, man, I’ll change everything to present and, block any ‘call home’ recommendations.” Tucker pipped up already pulling out his PDA to set that up preemptively.

Danny nodded and let out a hum before glitching his way out the nearest exit and out of the shield’s bounds. Once he slipped back out through the barrier, strangely enough, a harder feat than it was getting in, but that wasn’t a problem he wanted to focus on, he already blamed Vlad so he would simply continue to do so until the fruitloop showed himself.

As soon as he was through the green line of the shield Danny practically fell forward in relief. That stifling feeling now gone from his core and bones making his movements fluid and normal, well as normal as a clumsy half ghost could be anyhow…

It was a moot point and not one Danny wanted to think on too long. He gave a quick “thanks” to his friends, before diving between the dumpster and the school’s bricks, transforming into his ghostly alter ego and taking off into the sky. He would do a few laps around the school and city as he looks for whatever ghost set off the shield.

-BREAK-

It wasn’t until lunchtime Danny returned looking much more windswept and all around more miserable. He entered the courtyard through the side joining his friends out on the picnic table they had claimed.  He made it over to them, flopped down on the bench next to tucker with a groan before his head smacked into the table before him.

“You find them?” Tucker asked around whatever horrid monstrosity of a sandwich he was eating, spewing bits of half chewed bred at Danny’s head.

“No” Came the muffled reply, filled with tired disdain.

“No ghost sense?” Sam wandered, flicking the bits of bread from Danny’s raven hair and back towards Tucker.

“No”

“Huh… You think it was you who set off the shield?”  Sam wondered with a thoughtful frown.

“When I went into the back end of the generator though it wasn’t supposed to go off for anything that low, Danny in human form is like a two at best,” Tucker argued spinning his PDA around to show what he’d found when he hacked into the motherboard of the Fenton’s latest device.

Danny groaned. He supposed had he listened to his parents he could have been more prepared for whatever lunacy his parents’ decided to toss his way but alas, his short attention span and teenage rebellion and lack of caring got the best of him yet again.

Joyous of joys.

He tuned out his friend’s back and forthing for a bit, wondering if he could get away with smashing the device as Phantom when Tucker had his a-ha moment of discovery. Danny turned his head and raised a brow at his friend who was furiously typing away at his device.

“You were right about Vlad, Sam”

“Naturally,” She agreed.

“Well, he had an over right line here specifically set for Phantom’s ecto- signature,” the boy states running his finger along the line of code he’d found in the program.

Danny’s mood instantly brightened at that. “So then we just get rid of that bit right? And BAM everything’s fine?” He asked. “Man, what happened to me? Why do I want to get into the school again?”

“To keep up the illusion of normalcy on this mortal plane.” Sam supplied stabbing at her salad a little more forcefully than she probably needed to.

“Eh, yeah, I suppose.” Danny agreed with a lacklustre shrug.

“There, that should do it” Tucker spoke, interrupting whatever tangent Sam was getting ready to spew off about how normalcy was only an illusion created by corporations or some other such thing.

“And just in time The bell just rang,” Danny says with a small grin clasping a firm hand onto his friend’s shoulder. “Nice one Tucker!” he cheered as the trio made their way over to the doors that would lead them back into the cafeteria.

Unfortunately, as soon as Danny’s hand hit the door handle the shield once again sprung to life, though this time, instead of simply having a hard time passing through the shield, he was thrown back across the field earning a cry from several students who were following the trio.  

“Grapes of wrath Mister Fenton!” Lancer, (of course it was Lancer) shouted out in worry, his shout even carrying over the prerecorded message containing his father’s voice. Lancer half jogged half waddled over to Danny who blinked up blearily to his teacher, eyes flashing green for the briefest of seconds before draining back to blue.

“Leave it to Fen-turd to get himself possessed.” Dash snorted from behind the pot bellied teacher earning a few nervous glances between the small crowd of gathering students. The mutterings of the students didn’t take long to start up after that.

“I’m not possessed,” Danny argued, though, it was rather hard to make said argument when the palm of his hand was burned and leaking ectoplasm from where he had touched the door.

“Course he’s not possessed! He’s a ghost himself!” Wes shouted pointing an accusatory finger at the youngest Fenton.

Danny glared. “Not the time Westly.” He muttered under his breath as he was hauled to his feet by his friends. He tried to brush himself off only to end up smearing the ectoplasm from his hand onto his jeans, leaving a luminescent streak across his thigh.

Seeing his chance the ginger jock was all too eager to point it out. “See look! He’s bleeding ectoplasm!”

“No, I’m not! It’s from the shield! it sputtered out at me.” Danny tried to protest, though even in his own ears it sounded like a weak argument.

“Really?” Wes argued and marched over to the shimmering shield. The teen waved his arms about freely in the shield’s range hopping back and forth pointedly across the line of the barrier before showing his hands and clothes were completely clean of any glowing goo. “See! Ghost!” he accused again after he did a little pirouette to show his lack of ectoplasm.

“Yeah? Well, it sputtered at Danny only ‘cuz it turned on with him in the threshold.” Sam tried to argue back glaring at the ginger, venom in her gaze.

“Well then, why don’t you just walk through the shield Fen-toad?” Dash said with a smarmy grin, ever eager to get his own jabs in and seemingly not wanting to be outshined by the ginger conspiracy theorist’s bullying of his favourite punching bag.

“Fine” He spat back bitterly and marched up to the shield with a huff.

Sam and Tucker exchange a glance with one another as Danny presses his hand into the shield again. Thankfully this time there wasn’t anything that blows him back but he also really had to try and push through the shield.  

Danny could see out of the corner of his eye Wes’s smug grin as he grunts and does his best to push through the shield. His persistence is rewarded and he falls to the ground on the other side jumping up and giving a quick ‘HA!’ as he faces the small gathering crowd of students shifting uncomfortably just beyond the shield.

Sam had a look of exasperation and she looked like she was trying to restrain herself from face palming. Tucker on the other hand had no such restraint. He was almost over eager to bury his face into his hands.

From Danny’s perspective, he simply smacked into the ground and stood back up, but from the other students’ perspectives, Danny fell into the shield but instantly slowed down, looking as though he were falling with the moon’s gravity rather than the earthly speed everyone was used to. It also didn’t really look to them like he had hit the ground, instead glitching his body back into an upright position before cheering in that low slow motion state as he had earlier.

And if that wasn’t damning enough his eyes were glowing a lovely shade of ectoplasmic green.

Wes smirked, seemingly very smug and content with himself and this development. “See told you all he was a ghost!”

“T-that’s enough Mister Weston… Right…” LAncer muttered to himself a few moments watching as Danny seemed to glitch about as he cheered before seemingly realizing something was wrong. “I think there was a procedure to depossess a student…I bet the teachers in Bridgestone don’t have to exercise their students in this manner…” He complains. Sure they had gym class and he would appreciate the pun and irony if he wasn’t so tired.

“I don’t get paid enough for this,” he muttered, ignoring the look of panic that spread across Danny’s face.

It took some doing, a lot of flailing limbs and pressing himself against the damn shield, but Danny soon was through back out and free. His eyes still glowed brightly as he stared at his classmates looking very much like a deer in the headlights. Eyeshine and all might he add.

A few of the students were snickering, because only in Amity park could one get possessed by a ghost and have it come across as though someone had merely said something embarrassing or misheard an instruction and was now staring blankly ahead.

“Er….” Danny stared at his classmates half panicked before simply vanishing from view.

“Moby Dick!” Lancer exclaimed, almost dropping the book he was thumbing through from the Fenton parents. Sure it was a ghost, and could potentially be dangerous, but it wasn’t attacking so there wasn’t really anyone panicking.

Instead, the teacher simply felt tired. “Right, I’ll call the Fentons and let them deal with this, Everyone back inside I do believe the lunch bell rang already!” the teacher called out shooing the students into dispersing.

Danny stood there invisibly and holding strong as he internally groaned. At least they thought he was possessed, that could be easily explained away but he was not looking forward to trying to explain it to his parents…

Still maybe if he gets ahead of this…

It was with that thought in mind that he bolted away into the treeline beside the school, transformed and headed off to his home landing in his bedroom only a few minutes later. He went human, back intangible and invisible came out the door, made sure the coast was clear before speeding his way down into the basement.

He just made it down the stairs startling his mother and father who blinked at him curiously, when the phone rang cutting off his mother’s “Honey? What are you doing home so soon?”

“It’s the school calling Mads,” Jack says, sounding disappointed as the large man sent a look of disapproval to his boy.

“Wait!” Danny jumped forward answering the phone and instantly hanging it up.

“Daniel!” His mother exclaimed abashedly.

“I wanna explain first! Do you know how all your stuff goes off on me? Well, the shield at school started doing that and they think I’m possessed! I’m not, it's just the… ya know…” Danny rambled off hurriedly hoping against hope that his parents wouldn’t try to send him to decontamination … again… (Thanks to his ghost half, it burned in places he didn’t ever want to burn)

“You’re possessed Dann-o?!” Jack exclaimed instantly pulling a Fenton gun from somewhere on his person and brandishing it towards his son.

Danny threw his hands up and waved them placatingly at his father. “NO! Just the normal stuff! The contamination from the portal accident set it off. I got too close to the sensor!” He says quickly ignoring how his parents seem to flinch slightly.

His parents shared a look before his father seemed to deflate, seemingly upset at the fact his son wasn’t possessed. “I thought we fixed that... “ Jack says with a frown. “But, we can’t let the school know we may have messed it up! I know we’ll just run the tests again and fix it in the night!”  

“Yeah, that would be- Wait what?” Danny blinks. Why couldn’t they just go down and fix it normally? Of course, his parents had to be weird about this too. “Thanks… Is there anything you need from me to help?”

And with those words said he almost instantly regretted it. “Well… We would really like to know why your ecto signature lines up perfectly with Phantom’s but perhaps that can wait.” Maddie offered with a small amused smile.

Danny sputtered at that, “Wh-What?”

“We set up a monitoring system so we can tell which ghosts most frequent the school… Phantom was the one that triggered the shield twice today. There actually wasn’t anything else that did,” Maddie explained with a deepening frown.

“You sure you’re not possessed, son?” Jack asked again this time sounding almost defeated in how, well, normal a volume he asked that. The hidden meaning was all too obvious especially after he mentioned his accident…

They thought he was dead! The portal killed him! And as the growing pit of dread grew into Danny’s stomach he couldn’t help but feel awful knowing they were correct in that assumption, well at least half right anyhow.

“Yeah… I’m… I’m me…” Danny managed out his voice cracking

“O-oh hun....” Maddie sniffed.

“But it’s not I… I’m me, I promise and I’m not all dead. I still have a heartbeat and everything!” Danny argued or rather tried to as his mother was quick to kneel before him taking his face in her hands as tears bubbled down her chin.

“Mom really I’m like … half at most. More human with a side of ghostly abilities ya know?”

“Oh, it’s okay Dann-o… You're still my son, I know ya are. It’s been almost a year since that accident and you’re mostly still you.” Jack said. “Just worse grades and more hormones and-”

“Thanks, guys really,” Danny sighed in relief both at dodging the potentially awkward birds and ghostly bees talk as well as the tepid acceptance he was getting. Awkward though it may be it was still acceptance nonetheless.  He was happy for it just the same.

“Maybe while we work on fixing up the shield to ignore Phantom’s signature you can tell us about some things?” Maddie asked sniffling again as she looked over her son’s face trying her best to hold herself together and not outright bawl at the thought she had killed her youngest child.

“Y-yeah… I’ve been wanting to tell you about this for a while now but, well, ya know…” Danny offered uselessly.

“I think it’s us who should apologize for that, son but maybe we can just all go get some triple chocolate fudge milkshakes and go deal with that shield after dinner?” Jack offered with a smile, ever the one to break up tension.

“Yeah, yeah… that sounds good.” Danny agreed. Well, it wasn't how he was expecting this to go, but he was kinda glad it ended up like this. Maybe now they could repair their strained relationship.

As Maddie ruffled up Danny’s hair the teen offered her his first genuine smile in almost a year.

-.-.-.-.-.-

Total words: 4245 Complete

[help-im-a-gay-fish]

Agave Syrup: ship kid. Secondary collab verse.

Annnnnd here's the new baby! She's my Cciller ship kid. She exists the the secondary ship kid universe which is a collab verse with @thebluescreen. She's from the Multiverse Rem is a part of, but not from the multiverse Coffee creamer is from. (They are two separate multiverses with different ships and storys.)

Both Agave and 4Loko are the same person, I'll explain below.

"yall really for a no caff, full foam, double chocolate latte, with an extra hit of caramel syrup!? It's my own special blend..... Added just for you~"

Name: Agave Syrup

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Strate

Parents: (Bio) Ccino (Da) and Killer (Baba). Non bio Nightmare (Father).

Other family: Rem (older half brother) Vanta (older half brother) Somba Lullaby (older half brother). Dream (uncle) Cross (Uncle) Radiant Hope (Cousin) Empathy (Cousin). And many cats.

Nicknames: Kitten (by killer) and Gave

Agave is the youngest of the Fluffynightkiller ship kids from the second verse. She grew up primary raised By Ccino and her oldest brother Rem. Killer and Nightmare were there, but weren't massively involved parents.

Agave is pretty close to her brother Rem, despite the 13 year age gap and will normally have a fortnightly movie night where they will watch crappy horror movies (like Jack Frost or The Sand) and laugh about how stupid they are. They also both love to watch old horror movies and play a game of "what incredibly stupid choice will character A make that will result in there death? Hmmm". It's there favourite thing to do together.

Agave isn't a huge fan of generally good horror films though and especially can't stand the saw films. So she doesn't watch them unless it's with Rem.

Agave and her other brother Somba aren't as close (he's 5 years older) but she still cares alot for him and isn't above defending him if needed.

Agave has two main sides to herself, this being how she is normally and her persona/alterego 4Loko. But more on that below.

Normally she is a very bright and chipper girl who's abit of a goof. She sees the fun or silly side in alot of things in life and is rarely not in a good mood. She's also quite a passive person (or at least pretends to be) and is quite kind. Her personality is abit to much like Dream's for Nightmare's liking so the two aren't really close.

She's that person who is very fun to be around but just slightly unnerving. Like there is something going on underneath her smile. Something just slightly off.

Being born with her soul on the outside of her body wasn't suprising because of her relation to Killer, however it caused Ccino to be conserned during her up bringing. He were quite scared about how easily she could be hurt of killed so always kept a close eye on her. Killer didn't care as much and gave her more free rain. For example, letting her play with this pocket knife as a 1 year old.

Agave works primarily at her Da's coffee shop and takes great pride in it. She grew up there and its been a part of her life ever since she can remember. She enjoys making her own flavouring syrups and blends to put into drinks to make them taste better. Other then that she's studying a business degree (at age 18 +) at a local university in order to get better with the business.

About 4Loko and her soul.

"Me? And serial killer? No no I'm a barista, those aren't even similar....."

Now this is where things start up, because she's got to inherit some things from Killer, right?

Agaves soul glitches, much like Killer's does, from being heart shaped to being target shaped. It does this many times a day. When this happens it normally doesn't last longer then a few seconds till it goes back to normal. To an outsider it may even be unnoticeable and for the most part it doesn't effect Agave.

However sometimes she will trap her soul into a jar or some type of container. Doing this will stop it from glitching and stick it in whatever form its in (she can't do this all the time as it strains the soul and brings pain). So sometimes she will stick it in target mode. When she sticks it in target mode, her eyes drip.

Unbeknownst to any of her parents when her soul is like this, it changes her. She feels basically nothing, no fear, no sadness, no guilt or empathy. She realised at a young age that this was her super power.

In this mode she could do anything and not suffer any emotional consequences.

It started with stealing cookies from the biscuit tin at age 9 and evolved into hurting bully's at school. Then into giving food poisoning to rude customers by mixing up syrups to slip into drinks to make people ill.

For the most part she stays out of this mode, only dipping in when she felt she needed to test how far she could push it.

When she was 15 she started to consider pushing it to the limit.

She was watching the news and found out about some kind of abuser or murder being arrested and she thought. Why do we let people who do such horrible things live? Wouldn't it be better if they were dead? Then she realised, with her super power, could she kill someone?

When she was 16 she had her first kill. They were robber shed caught beating someone in an alleyway. (I don't know to much about this yet so I'll need to think more about it) but afterwards, she realised that she'd been right in the fact that she didn't feel guilty. She could use this to make the world a better place!

She didn't kill again for about a year. (just incase, I wanna point out that I'm not saying that what Agave does is justified. She's just an ship kid, a act of fiction and not ment to be taken seriously)

So anyway, by age 17 Agave makes her second kill and continues on that path. These are alot more thought out and planned. Her method of choice is through creating poisonous syrup and killing people that way, though she isn't above a good old knife death. Her Baba taught her well. She also carries around chemicals to clean blood and things like that.

She doesn't like her victims to dweal in pain and gets the deaths over quickly and painlessly. She gets no pleasure from causing pain to others, and when she doesn't have a target soul it makes her upset to hurt people.

Agave ended up calling her killer mode 4Loko. That's the name for her alterego the serial killer. She separates 4Loko from herself and doesn't want it to impact her Day to day life. So she will use make up to cover the birth mark on her face. When she's in her 20s she ends up working as an hireable assassin for killing criminals. But more on that later.

Non of her parents know about her double life. But that doesn't mean no one does.

Rem has always kept a close eye on his little sister. Over the years he noticed her odd behaviour and her collection of 'syrups' that she keeps in her room hidden.

During her 17th year he confronts her about what she does (which was a huge mess) the two fought as she attempted to stab him through the soul with her knife. She couldn't let him live if he knew right? She would have been able to but she just couldn't bring herself to hurt him. Since she wasn't in target mode she just couldn't do it especially as he spoke to her and talked her down. (tbh it's actually a kind of sweet scene between them).

After he's calmed her Rem offers to help her kill people, and he's very happy to. (Rem has alot of darkness under his kind surface which I'm sure @thebluescreen would be more then happy to explain in better detail).

So the two grow closer through that.

And yeah, that's the basic run down of my Cciller baby.! Hope you like her! My barista turned murderer/hitman I figured this would be a good mix of both her parents.

You have no idea! How long I spent working on her colour scheme..... It took about a month till I finally had this one and I'm pretty happy with it. I hope I explained everything about her double life well, I wasn't sure how clear it is. If you have any questions, please ask.

<3

[birbleafs]

[fic] A Tragicomedy In Five Acts

Series: Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan || The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Rating: T Genre: Friendship, Humour, Breaking the Fourth Wall Character(s): Akechi Touma, Saiki Kusuo, Saiki Kurumi, Saiki Kuniharu, Saiki Kuusuke Warnings: None, save for the canon-typical shenanigans Summary: Akechi has made a habit of showing up unannounced, uninvited at the Saiki residence. The inevitable "bonding" occurs and Kusuo despairs; the world continues to turn. A/N: A piece I wrote for the Disastrous Life Zine, a charity zine. I wanted to share the uncut version here since I like how it reads more (it's not too different from zine version, though). Leftover sales are currently still live, so here's your last chance to grab some limited items if you had missed the pre-orders earlier! Thanks to the mods & other contributors over at @disastrouslifezine, for all their hard work on this project. Many thanks also to my bro Digi for the awesome beta work and for always being an all-round great pal ❤ Fic can also be read AO3. _______ i. It’s a problem Saiki Kusuo should have—could have—nipped earlier in the bud, when he’d been forced to spend a whole Sunday with Akechi Touma betting on horse-racing. But between Akechi being (begrudgingly) accepted as one of the PK Psychickers to Kusuo having to stop a meteor from slamming into the planet—well, a lot had happened. Akechi had since taken to visiting the Saiki residence at random, with little notice in advance. On his second visit, Mom had invited him in before Kusuo could intervene. If it weren’t for the cupcakes Akechi had brought along—not to mention the terrifying heat of Mom’s demonic glare at the first sign of a protest—Kusuo would have teleported him miles away without hesitation. That’s how Kusuo finds himself now—glowering at Akechi who’s sitting politely in his room and firing a running commentary about nothing and too many things all at once. Resigned, he leans back into his study chair and asks, point-blank: What do you want, Akechi?

“Your mother is lovely as always,” Akechi replies instead, dancing around the question. “I’m grateful she’s gone from remembering me as ‘Pee Boy’ to ‘Kusuo’s Friend Who Only Ever Wets His Pants Occasionally’. Surely that’s a sign we have gotten closer.” It sounds just as terrible as the first—only a simpleton would be okay with that as a defining trait, Kusuo retorts. In any case, we’re hardly more than classmates. So, why are you here again? “I thought you would have realized it by now with your telepathy. But I suppose I can explain it for the sake of the readers!” Akechi beams, holding up a small case in his hand. Don’t just casually break the fourth wall, Kusuo frowns, even as he leans forward for a closer look. Akechi pops the case open and turns towards the game console. “I was recently gifted this game by my cousin, who assured me that, while underrated, it’s still a cult hit among fans. I thought it would be fun to play it together.” Kusuo stares flatly at the title OVERWORKED displayed on the disc as it slides into the console drive, already unimpressed. That is such a blatant rip-off. “Oh, no, it's a completely different game from the one you’re thinking of!” Akechi says. “Here you play as the overworked waiter of a cafe who serves multiple orders at once and takes over the cooking whenever the head chef throws a tantrum and storms right off.” How is that different from OVERC***ED? It is totally OVERC***ED! “Regardless, shall we have a play-off?” Akechi offers the controller to him. “Winner gets this box of cupcakes. I got them from the best pâtisserie in town, which is no easy feat. Why just this morning I left home at the crack of dawn to secure a spot in the queue, and even then, there were already about 30-odd people ahead of me! Who knew it was so popular—A-ah!” Kusuo yanks the controller easily from Akechi’s hand towards him with telekinesis, a glint of determination in his eyes now. Best two out of three levels. Loser also has to leave immediately. Akechi grins knowingly and cracks his knuckles, reaching for the second controller. “You’re quick to assume victory, Kusuo-kun. Very well, then!” Thirty-seven minutes later and Kusuo’s left staring at the final scores, appalled. He would have won if his character hadn’t kept freezing in place and glitching at crucial moments, messing up in the kitchens and sending out wrong orders. How is he always losing to Akechi like this? Clearly the universe is still conspiring against him. “You were so close to beefing my lask score dhoo,” Akechi says shamelessly through a mouthful of strawberry frosting. “And my, deez fupfakes are s’per dhasty!” Are you taunting me now? Kusuo scowls enviously at the cupcake in Akechi’s hand before he huffs, slinking back into his chair. Well, I’ll be staring dejectedly out my window for a bit, so feel free to eat your cupcakes and then leave. But Akechi only laughs then and, to Kusuo’s surprise, moves to place a chocolate cupcake before him. “You’re so melodramatic, Kusuo-kun. I never said the winner can’t share.” ... I guess you didn’t. They spend the rest of the afternoon eating cupcakes. _______ ii. This again? It’s been a month, but Kusuo already feels a sense of gloom settling over him when Akechi steps into the genkan. He would have been fine with leaving Akechi outside blathering away through closed doors for the entire day while he pretended not to be home, but obviously Mom is having none of that. “I’m so glad you’ve been coming over to play with Ku-chan!” she greets cheerfully. “I couldn’t believe it when I first heard, but you and Kusuo are getting along well, huh, Akechi-kun!” Dad says with a sagely nod, looking every bit the part of the morally upright, reliable father. Bold of you to believe such delusional notions of camaraderie, or that you even look the part of an admirable adult, Kusuo comments drily, before turning to leave. “We don’t just get along,” Akechi chimes in reply. “You could even say our friendship is super-califragilisticexpialidocious!” GET OUT. If looks could kill, Kusuo’s current expression is pure genocide. But his parents are already fawning and AH-HYUU-!!-ing at Akechi’s words, tears of joy gushing down their cheeks like an endless waterfall. Kusuo watches in quiet despair as Akechi is readily accepted into their fold with welcomed embraces, a key development in this romantic soap opera. Oi, what’s with the misleading narrative?! We’re not in that kind of fanfic right now! Dad and Akechi hit it off well enough, one thing leads to another, and Kusuo suddenly finds himself roped into playing MECH-O ARENA VR on the WAB station in Dad’s study. Seriously, stop it with the terrible rip-offs of actual games already, Kusuo frowns as he watches Dad’s and Akechi’s characters flitting about on the screen to fight off an incoming attack. “I suppose it’s not very original, is it?” Akechi says, punching the controller buttons in a flurry of movements. “But it’s different enough that we can probably avoid any unwanted copyright lawsuits.” That’s completely beside the point. Dad’s wholly immersed with the game now, so it’s impossible for Kusuo to get rid of Akechi without Dad throwing a childish fuss about losing his new gaming buddy. Not to mention Mom’s uncanny ability to appear with coffee and snacks each time Kusuo had tried to inconspicuously retreat back into his room, all while exuding an ominous aura that effectively dissuaded his need to leave immediately. Good grief—everyone’s being such a pain today, Kusuo sighs, before he finally relents to Mom’s cajoling to team up with her against Dad and Akechi in the final round. He figures it can’t get worse than this anyway. That is, until Kuusuke gets involved. _______ iii. When Kusuo returns home from a quick grocery trip for Mom, he walks into a surprisingly empty living room. He can hear Dad and Kuusuke’s voices from upstairs but for some reason he’s not quite able to perceive the atmosphere within—it’s as if his senses are partially blocked by a cognitive fog with the study engulfed in a dead zone. Must be that prototype “router” Kuusuke had installed in Dad’s study yesterday. Kusuo has zero interest in his brother’s tiresome antics, but is compelled nonetheless to check on them, if only to ensure Kuusuke isn’t playing Mad Scientist and coaxing Dad into yet another deranged human project. He opens the door, nearly lashes out in shock with telekinesis when he sees Akechi staring through the doorway with a creepy, owlish expression. “Oh, were you actually surprised, Kusuo-kun?” Akechi says. “My apologies for frightening you like that.” Kusuo studies the room cautiously, only to realize he’s unable to hear anyone’s thoughts with telepathy. He glares at his brother in suspicion. “Welcome back, little brother!” Kuusuke greets him with a Cheshire grin. “I see you’ve got yourself a new playmate. Hmm? Ah, you must think it strange that I've taken to Akechi-kun so readily.” Strange and highly dubious, Kusuo counters. What are you scheming? “Well, Akechi-kun shows the most potential and capacity for mental growth amongst the lesser primates close to you—” What a disparaging worldview. And stop deflecting! I know you can still understand me. “—So, he may yet make a good test subj—Ah, I mean, a good friend! Interesting specimens tend to gravitate towards you, after all. Though his propensity for peeing sure is troubling, isn’t it? Haha!” You can excuse questionable human experimentations, but you draw the line at incontinence? Kuusuke attempts a nonchalant shrug. “Priorities, amirite?” “But this is amazing, Kuusuke-san,” Akechi says, glancing up in awe at the blinking device on the ceiling. “The telepathy canceller really does block our thoughts efficiently!” “It’s child's play compared to Kusuo’s abilities,” Kuusuke says, seemingly modest, but Kusuo doesn’t miss the devious glint in his eyes when he reaches into his coat pocket to pull out what looks suspiciously like a detonator with a giant red button. “Still, with this, Operation SM☆SH can now finally commence—” Wait, Operation what?? Kuusuke, don’t you dare...! But Kuusuke is already pressing the button, and the study is plunged into darkness as the lights flicker off and the blinds draw shut. Alarmed, Kusuo wrenches the detonator away from Kuusuke’s grip with his telekinesis. What did you just do?! There’s an electronic whirr, a blinding flash, and Kusuo finds himself suddenly staring at a large LCD screen as it emerges from the ceiling. Music blares from overhead speakers as a cinematic opening sequence begins to play. “There you are, Kusuo!” Dad looks up from behind the coffee table where he’d been fiddling with the game console. He adjusts the VR headset over his eyes. “It’s time to finally beat you at SUPER SM☆SH BUDS as payback for last time! HII-YAAAH!!” ... Oh. So it’s just another game. “That’s right!” Kuusuke claps his hands together, blissfully ignoring the heat of Kusuo’s baleful glare. “I heard about your horse-racing bet from Akechi-kun and found this as the best way to even the odds for other types of games.” “The idea came to me while peeing in the shower; to find ways you could play and not get bored easily, Kusuo-kun,” Akechi adds in unnecessary detail. “But I didn’t think Kuusuke-san could actually pull it off.” “Here, Kusuo,” Dad says, waving his controller. “Come choose your character—” But Kusuo’s already teleporting away, fleeing the wretched upheaval within his own home to hide at Cafe Mami for the rest of the day. _______ iv. Akechi corners him after school three weeks later. Kusuo is surprised and unsurprised all at once; he had worn the germanium ring to class, after all, in a bid to avoid spoilers for the direct-to-streaming release movie adaptation of a book he’d been fond of. It’s easy to ignore everyone’s spoilery chatter when it isn’t droning directly into his mind—he’d kept his fingers stuck into  his ears each time class ended, oblivious to the strange looks thrown his way, and had even hidden away in the restroom cubicle during breaks, successfully avoiding any interaction with the usual human nuisances. Until now, that is. “Let’s walk home together, Kusuo-kun!” Akechi calls, jogging after him. I’m suddenly deaf and sound has eluded me, Kusuo deadpans as he breaks into a sprint, determined to leave before Akechi starts blabbing spoilers. “I noticed you weren’t quite yourself today,” Akechi continues, catching up with him.  “And I thought it might have something to do with the ring on your left index finger that you’ve fondled precisely seventeen times throughout the day.” What an awful way to describe it. I didn’t fondle anything. “Perhaps the material of that ring works in the same manner as the telepathy canceller—which would explain why you seemed uncharacteristically skittish today since you’re pretty bad at discerning people’s intentions without your telepathy.” What are you? A psychic? But Akechi only persists. “I realized later that you’d always leave whenever anyone started talking about that new movie on Netfl*x—” Can’t hear now, Kusuo slaps his hands over his ears. Gone horribly deaf. “And I figured it must be that you haven’t watched it yet for some reason, like maybe your home internet is down because your father forgot to pay the bills for three whole months and so it got cut—” How did you even..? Kusuo grimaces. N-nope, not listening! 100% deaf! “I know you don’t have a mobile phone to watch it on either,” Akechi continues. “So, that’s why I wanted to invite you to my house today, to watch it together. Oh, don’t worry, I know absolutely nothing about the movie. In fact, I’d only heard Kaidou-kun screaming out the title just ten minutes ago.” Kusuo pauses then, glancing back at Akechi in hesitance. Akechi only meets his wary gaze with a knowing smirk, and says, “We also have strawberry shortcake in the fridge.” _______ v. I don’t suppose there’s a good reason this time either, Kusuo sighs wearily, closing his book. Still, there’s a glimmer in his eyes; he knows Akechi had come bearing gifts—a selection of coffee jellies topped with cherries and chocolate drizzle. “I’ve made a habit of crashing your place unannounced, haven’t I?” Akechi offers a contrite grin, watching as Kusuo helps himself to a spoonful of jelly. “I do apologize, but whenever I get restless, I find myself wandering here by instinct. Admittedly, I was worried about being a bother, but your mother is always so welcoming at the door despite that dreary, constipated look in your eyes—” You are being a bother. Like a persistent mosquito that thinks it's summer all year round, Kusuo grouses with his Most Annoyed Expression, knowing how ineffectual his Feigning Ignorance Face had become over time. Also, have you graduated from pee references to shitty jokes now? Disgusting. But Akechi takes it all in stride, undeterred by Kusuo’s ugly grimace and acerbic jibes. “—Plus, it’d be considered extremely rude if I didn’t come in after that, and I certainly do not want you to think of me as rude. You’re a friend I hold in high regard, after all. I always have, ever since I found out it was you who saved me from the bullies back then.” The earnestness in Akechi’s words stumps him, if only a little. And though Kusuo is careful to keep his surprise from showing, there’s a part deep down in his not-so-granite heart that feels a touch of warmth at the sentiment. Akechi’s already placing the Scrabble board on the floor, so he misses the ghost of a smile that crosses Kusuo’s lips. Did Akechi honestly think he could beat a psychic at Scrabble too? How naive. “You’re probably thinking how naive I must be, believing I could beat you at a board game with your powers and all,” Akechi notes cheerfully, almost as if he’s a mind-reader himself. Kusuo frowns, slightly disgruntled by the fourth-wall breaking once more and wishes they would give it a rest for once. Overusing a trope gets really tiring, you know? Still, he smiles again as he takes a seat across from Akechi—who is now shuffling the Scrabble chips while nattering away about the history of board games and how the loser would have to give up his share of coffee jelly (as if Kusuo would allow it to come to that again). Two Sunday visits per month only, Kusuo says, lifting several chips into the air with a wave of his hand. If you beat me... I’ll allow it. Akechi’s eyes widen, before he breaks into a playful grin. “Very well, then. May the best man win.” Kusuo only lets out a soft laugh. Perhaps it’s not too late to pick up where they had left off in grade school. —End—

[kaesaaurelia]

a conscientious objector

For @whumptober2021 day 4: Trust Fall (specifically "Do you trust me?" and "taken hostage") Continues on from day two, wherein our protagonist, having narrowly escaped from an exploding spaceship, and on the verge of running out of air in her escape pod, was permitted entrance to a strange ship.

CW for medical trauma; more specific, mildly spoilery detail in my tags. (The trauma is very science fictional and over-the-top as described, but the aspect of it that I find most frightening can happen to people irl, so, better safe than sorry.)

The ship was dark, and eerily quiet. Was it a derelict? Had she just been speaking to an AI the whole time? There was no gravity, but the ship didn't seem to be built for gravity, which made her anxious; she did not want to start losing her strength. Then, a lot of her musculoskeletal system had been replaced, so she wasn't really sure if that would happen. But it didn't really matter if it did; she was stuck here for a while, at least until she could convince the ship, or the person in charge, to take her back to civilization.

She was tempted to shout "Hello?" into the darkness, but also, it wasn't like she'd never seen a horror movie and it seemed like a good way to trigger a jump scare. She could see, of course; she had had her eyes replaced long ago, before she'd been deployed, but it still felt spooky.

Then she climbed around a corner and came face to face with a long maw full of horrible teeth. She kicked backwards and away, and she had the vivid, horrible sense memory of her nanites practically shouting awake! awake! awake! and coming back to consciousness unable to move, the stench of rubbing alcohol in her nose.

Something made a horrible series of cackles and clicks, and her heart was going to pound out of her chest, because no, she had gotten away from them, how could they have found her again here? But then the lights came on and the cackling glitched into a voice. "There you are! You should have said something! Haven't cleaned up in a while, haha, sorry about the mess. Are you all right?"

The toothy maw was nowhere to be seen in the slightly red-tinged light, although there was some floating junk -- used meal packets, maybe? "Yeah, no, I'm good," she said, looking around. Little suction instruments came out of the walls and cleared up the junk while she watched. She wondered if any good could possibly come of asking whether she'd seen anything real.

Excuse me, does this ship belong to the -- oh, I'm going to mispronounce the name -- it's just that these aliens kidnapped me and took half my body apart a few years ago just for fun and I think maybe they put my brain back the wrong way, so could you confirm that you're not them? Or, Sorry, rude question, but are you the AI of a derelict vessel or a real person, and if you're an AI would you mind telling me about what happened so I know you're not going to go crazy and kill me? It wasn't like she had a better option. And any no, you were hallucinating answer wouldn't help. Either her host (?) was lying and she was trapped here with it, or they were telling the truth and she was just fucking hallucinating. Which, well, it wasn't like she hadn't had enough nightmares about The Incident.

"So, uh, where are you?" she asked, making a show of looking around the corridor. Maybe then she would get an answer to her AI or not question.

"Haven't you ever heard of a PA system?" the voice said. The words were sarcastic, but the voice was strangely neutral, so it was probably artificial, even if the personality behind the words was not.

"Oh, right, of course," she said, trying to make it sound as if it was a normal thing, to forget about audio projection technology that had been around since the ancients. "Um, do you -- are you --"

"What happened to the person who told me to choke on a magnet? That person seemed way more fun than you," the voice interrupted.

"I was severely oxygen deprived, I'm sorry," she said, quickly.

"So you're saying I should lower the percentage of O2 in the shipboard atmosphere to get you to say what you really mean?" the voice suggested.

"No!" said Victoria. There was a long silence, and then she heard it: an ominous hissing noise. "Okay look I just want to know, uh, uh, are you, do you -- are you like some kind of crazy murderous AI that's lured me here to kill me, because if you wanna do that I think we can just skip to that part, I made peace with dying earlier today and it's not ideal but if it's inevitable I'm good with getting it over with."

The hissing stopped. "Pretty sure dying is inevitable generally," said the voice.

"I meant, you know, in violent, terrifying circumstances," she snapped.

"You know that hissing was just a recording, right? I'm just fucking with you. The ship's not a fucking balloon. You know that, right?"

There was an awkward silence; she had not considered that.

"Anyway," the voice continued, "I did not bring you aboard just to kill you. That seems like a waste of everyone's time, since you were going to die perfectly well outside. I was iffy about bringing you in, but here you are. Are we good?"

"Why aren't you using your real voice?" She wanted to kick herself for asking, but maybe the voice would appreciate her honesty.

After another brief pause, the voice said, "I don't have a real voice. Does this one bother you?"

So it was an AI after all. Which seemed weird, because most of the ones she'd met would never have fucked around with her in the way this one had. (When an AI fucked around with you, it was usually in ways you didn't really notice until you'd been in the tech support queue for days dealing with what had initially seemed to be an unremarkable glitch.) "No, it's -- it's nice."

"What was wrong with it? I don't have an extensive library of human voice... stuff," said the voice. "Not in this language, anyway."

Not an AI made by humans, then. "It's a little unexpressive?" she said.

"All your languages are unexpressive," it said. "Well. That's not true. I do like some of the swears."

That was also weird for an AI. Well, it was weird for an Inner Solar AI, anyway; all the ones she'd worked with in the course of her job regularly had obscenities expunged from their dictionaries. They either made do without, or worked out increasingly baroque methods of relearning them immediately. Maybe it was different elsewhere, though. Instead of admitting to her ignorance, she said, "I had a buddy who could swear in about two hundred languages. Just the swears, though, nothing else." Something else was still niggling at her, though. "Why didn't you let me on at first?" she asked.

"Look, I have not in general had good experiences with your military," said the ship. "I'll keep you alive, but if you try to commandeer me or bring me back to your territory, that is absolutely not happening. I can take you to the nearest neutral or human territory that is not Inner Sol controlled, but --"

"No, that's fine!" she said, quick to avoid looking the gift horse in the mouth. The horse had no mouth at all; she was going to ignore that mouth. And all those teeth. Except. "Um, what, uh. What happened to the crew?"

"Let me amend my earlier statement: I have not in general had good experiences with anybody's military. They have also not had good experiences with me." The ship paused, presumably for effect. "Call me a conscientious objector."

"What's that?" Victoria asked. She was already regretting this gift horse mouth-looking experience. This was a terrible horse. But her face was already near the horse's mouth, so if it was going to bite she might as well find out now how much of her nose it was going to eat, or whatever horses did. (Victoria was not entirely clear on why, idiomatically, one wasn't supposed to be looking at horse mouths; she had always been a little afraid to look it up, because what if there were pictures?)

"You really don't know? Hang on, hang on, gonna implement some uh, new linguistic data. You really don't know?" The first statement had sounded mildly curious; the second, abjectly horrified. "I mean -- the phrase is from your history, I didn't -- we call it something else, but -- seriously, you don't --"

"Sorry I didn't study a lot of history, I guess?" she said, feeling a little stung. It wasn't like she was stupid, she'd just had more important things to learn -- math and physics, mostly. Also, since she hadn't gone to school at an Inner Sol college, it was a bitch getting their approval to sign up for any classes that weren't directly applicable to what they knew they wanted her doing, especially history and literature. She was still kind of smug about having snuck in some art classes, even though she hadn't been very good at anything she'd tried. "I'm not stupid, though."

"Oh, no, sweetheart, I don't think you're stupid," said the ship, almost pityingly. "You're just brainwashed as fuck. Come on, let's get you fed and rested."

[kyndaris]

A Vikingr Saga for the Ages

Ever since the first game in the franchise, I was enraptured by the idea of stalking my prey on the rooftops of Renaissance Italy and then leaping down - slaying them with a flourish. I didn’t know it yet but the marriage between history and stealthy parkour had me hooked from the very first trailer for Assassin’s Creed. When the series pivoted towards mythology and set further in history than ever before, I eagerly followed. From Ptolemaic Egypt to Ancient Greece. It should come as no surprise that I devoured, then, that I devoured as much of the world that I could in the latest entry: Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. And after clocking in just under 150 hours, there is much for me to unpack in Ubisoft’s latest entry into the Assassin’s Creed franchise. That, and a fierce desire to finally start watching Vikings. 

When I initially booted up Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (AC:V), I will admit that I was a little disappointed with the control scheme. Once again, Ubisoft had made it a confusing mess with trigger buttons instead of face buttons used to attack. Since I had just come from Spider-Man: Miles Morales, it took a good long while for me to adjust. Several hours later, after fumbling through my first battle with a lost drengr (I actually dumbed down the difficulty a litte), I finally managed to find my footing and was on my way to England to scrape out a place for the Raven Clan.

As for stealth...well, the less said about it the better. I never found it effective. It was much easier to smash my way through, axe in hand (or greatsword) and lay waste to their paltry resistance with a mixture of heavy attacks and parrying. I also, hardly used the bow (one of my favourite weapons to being stealthy in Origins and Odyssey). 

The story in AC: V is a little messy. Most of it is done through a separate arcs for each territory Eivor ventures through: from East Anglia to Snotinghamscire, with little to link it all together except the main character. Were it not for the very loose story threat surrounding Sigurd and the conquering of Mercia to establish a firm foothold in this new land of England, many of the storylines could be regarded as standalone adventures in Eivor’s epic saga of conquest.

That doesn’t, of course, mean it’s bad. Merely disjointed. Particularly when I went from Jorvik and its Yule Tide celebrations to Glowecestrescire that was right in the midst of Samhain right after each other. Did I go back in time? Or did almost an entire year fly past Eivor with none the wiser?

Still, even though they were mostly standalone storylines, I still very much liked all the characters I met along the way. My favourites were the earnest Hunwald, noble Ceolbert (his death was almost as bad as all the horse deaths I’ve encountered in video games) and fun-loving Twydwr (particularly when he and Eivor were drunk, and messing with the local chickens) On the Norse side, I very much enjoyed the banter between Eivor and her childhood friend Vili. But the one that I admisted most was Soma. She was the jarlskona of Grantebridgescire - the first place I explored after landing in England. And one, I hoped I could romance to some degree. Alas, my hopes were dashed on that end.

What I did find a little intriguing were how Sigurd and Eivor were sages for the Isus: Odin and Tyr. And in their little Raven Clan, revealed much later, was also Freyr. It seemed strange that so many of the reincarnated Isu were all incredibly close at hand.

In this title, Ubisoft was able to focus again a little more on their complex lore that was seeded throughout the first few games. And while some questions were answered, it still left plenty of mysteries of where the games go from here - particularly from a modern-day standpoint. Though I am reluctant to see the franchise go, it does feel like Ubisoft is finally coming to a close on the grand story that they are trying to tell. What the end result turns out to be is still to be determined, but more emphasis needs to be focused on the central conflict.

For a game that still has Assassin’s Creed in the title, Eivor’s connection with the order and their enemies seemed very tangential. While I killed many Order of the Ancient members, there was no sense of personal investiture, like, say with Ezio’s quest. The only ones that I felt motivated to put an end to were Fulke and Kjotve the Cruel. Unfortunately, all the build-up in the first scenes with Eivor were quickly resolves within the first two to three hours of the game, and Fulke’s arc was all but over in the half-way point.

I suppose the main reason for my discontent with the narrative of AC: V is the fact that there is no Big Bad for Eivor and her Raven Clan. Yes, Aelfred of Wessex is a ‘villain’ that hinders our protagonist, but he never felt like an oppressive threat. 

Basim’s reveal, somewhat late in the game, was also a little underwhelming. Yes, he did look an awful lot like Loki, but how did he manage to get to Norway? He hadn’t accompanied Sigurd and Eivor. Did he travel with a third party? How did he know that Sigurd and Eivor would be in the ruins of an Isu temple? So many questions, so little time.

Then there was the whole ‘Heir of Memories’ and the fact that Layla seemed so worn. After finishing Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, my last impression of her was receiving the Staff of Hermes Trismegistus from Kassandra and being hopeful for the future. Fast forward to AC: V and Layla is tired. The world is on the edge of destruction once again and she’s now paired up with married couple: Rebecca Crane and Shaun Hastings (the two last appearing undercover in Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag). 

On a side note, why are their adventures all done in the comics or some other media? AND WHY DO I NOT HAVE ACCESS TO ANY OF THIS?

And because I didn’t play the expansions for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, I knew too little regarding the modern-day struggles with Layla. In fact, I basically resorted to the Assassin’s Creed wiki to bring me up to date. Honestly, DLC should never be story-related. Or, if it is, should be more tangential rather than major. It’s a terrible practice that quite a few publishers do, and which leaves players such as myself playing catch-up.

The only one that landed with any oomph (at least for me) were the Asgard and Jotunheim arcs. These were connected and told the story of Havi as he struggled to find a way to avert his fate. The final battle also proved challenging and climactic. A far cry from the ‘endings’ that the main story provided. In all honesty, I probably should have left that to last while completing everything else first. But the temptation was too great and I was vastly overlevelled.

I also enjoyed the play on the Norse myths. The only downside with the Builder was that there was no horse to help him. And so, there was no sexy mare Loki to tempt away the Builder’s horse - giving birth to Sleipnir. The other stuff, though, was clever. And I liked the references made to other myths, such as fighting against ‘old age’ and Thrym’s disastrous marriage to ‘Thor dressed as Freyr.’

What was also a little odd, at least for me, was that there was no definitive part where the credits rolled. Much like in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Assassin’s Creedy: Origins. Personally, I hate it. Credits give closure and tell gamers that the narrative that they were pursuing has come to an end. It lets me reflect on everything that I experienced and is an indication that I can finally set the controller down.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla also came with its fair share of bugs and glitches. Many, after reading up on them, made me frightened to continue. One, in particular, took me a while to figure out an alternative to: entering Lunden. I didn’t help that the more I read, the more I worried about encountering a game-breaking bug. Thankfully, most were simply treasure hoards not loading, late texture pop-ins that were a little frightening, and the drunk Eivor every time I loaded up the game. 

Despite its many faults, I still very much enjoyed my time roaming around England, Vinland and Norway as I worked to build up Eivor’s reputation and to ensure her name would be sung for ages to come. Like a true Vikingr, I played copious amounts of orlog, drank mead and tore up the battlefield to create a home for my people.

Even better, at Gunnar’s wedding, I managed to finally woo Randvi (who I abstained from bedding down with earlier on in the game)! That, perhaps, elevated the game for me and I can be happy knowing that all my hard work paid off.

(As an additional aside, I also love how many of the side quests or ‘mysteries’ in AC: Valhalla made references to popular culture. From Winnie the Pooh to Alice in Wonderland. AND ROBIN HOOD! THE NPC CALLED LITTLE JOHN HAD ME GUFFAWING!)

[fandom-necromancer]

Two types of partners

This was prompted by a lovely anon! Enjoy!

Fandom: Detroit become human | Ship: Reed900

The RK900 model had never been made for the broad public. An android designed for military use had no need for pleasantries and fancy social modules. It had been issued with a rudimentary loyalty routine that helped to reduce casualties by stretching the object of protection to more than just the single unit. It was outfitted with a simple communication device to give reports for human colleagues. Fighting in the war for the north pole it wouldn’t need the ability to evaluate actions. Getting orders and following them was important. Sacrificing an android to safe human lives was essential. Cyberlife had known of deviancy far before the public got to learn about it and knew what could lead to disobedience. So, they had stripped the RK900 from everything that might trigger deviancy and installed new programs that kept it in line. The newest line of androids was considered unable to deviate at all. There had been intense testing, pushing RK900s to their limits in stress to the point of self-destructing. Never once had one deviated.

Unfortunately, that meant that once androids had been granted their rights, the RK900s were quite lost. Unable to be used in the war as no android was ready to deem them the machines they were and unable to live the life other androids could with their rudimental programming, drastic changes had to be made. Elijah Kamski himself had tried to break the code, but as no one was sure what had lead to deviancy in the first place, it was hard to achieve it manually. In the end, the RK900s were patched with an updated social module and a program that allowed them to disregard orders. Any order was still engraved in their mission protocol, but a routine with higher priority allowed them to choose to follow.

It hadn’t been more than duct tape holding together a chasm, but it seemed to work. And it saved the RK900 models from being deactivated and further experimented upon. Several news broadcasted a special about the RK900s entering society with the advice to never issue an order directly unless immediately necessary. And life went on. The RK900s ventured out to try and find their place. One found theirs at the fifth precinct of the Detroit Police. Named Nines by a human partner that seemed to have a deep hatred for any android, he started working. He wasn’t bothered by the curses thrown his way. He knew the human didn’t like him, but that was it. He had never tried to follow up on his threats, so Nines didn’t feel a particular reason to take action.

Time went by and the Detective at his side got more docile. He adapted. He offered Nines his first name, Gavin. He had changed from real hate to being overly grumpy around him. He had grown to respect the android’s capabilities. By the time they knew each other better than anyone else, Nines decided to activate his loyalty routine for him. This human was important to him, he felt. Gavin had to be protected. After a few months, they had become friends. Nines tagged along on Gavin’s breaks, studying his reactions to aspects of life the android never knew he would want to experience. He wasn’t sure he even really wanted to experience them now. For the time being, he was fine staying a observer. They went to coffee shops, Gavin trying out food and drinks Nines scanned curiously. They met with Tina on bar nights and Nines found he was fascinated by the human tendency for intoxicating themselves. He had to admit, it was [fun] to watch.

Sometimes - it usually were evenings and he was always alone at home – he thought about how easy it was for them. To be in control, to never walk on eggshells because the next carelessly uttered sentence could trigger something hidden inside. It had happened a few times already, but Nines had kept it a secret, embarrassed mostly. ‘Make me a coffee, dipshit!’ It had been a harmless occasion, but Nines really didn’t want to obey after the argument he had with the man only minutes before. ‘Get the hell out of here!’ That one had entailed an overly awkward situation where Gavin had met him standing outside in the parking lot and stumbled to apologise and ask him to come back inside. ‘Nines, no matter what happens, stay behind cover!’ That order had nearly cost Gavin his life during a mission gone wrong. Nines had shouted his [anger] at him in the hospital, ignored his texts and only visited him three days later.

Maybe he should tell the man. Maybe he should admit the red walls weren’t gone, just waiting for the right time to pop up again and press down on his consciousness. That his patch could glitch out in the right situations, when his stress was high, or he was fending off a virus or when he made a backup of his systems. But in the end, he had always concluded he didn’t want special treatment. And so far, he could have always played it down. The coffee he had brought as a prove he was above petty arguments. Running from the bullpen because of anger about what Gavin had said. Staying behind cover because he trusted Gavin. He feared for the day it wouldn’t be that easy.

-

Nines had closed the door of Gavin’s car and hurried to follow the human who hurried towards the entrance. He had just been dispatched from the hospital and had his arm in a sling from where he was shot in the shoulder. Nines hadn’t had the chance to talk to him about what happened. He was [worried] and the shock from seeing his human bleeding heavily still stuck to his systems. He was [relieved] everything had turned out okay, but also [afraid] the man would take his survival as a justification to do it again.

So, he called out to him, trying to make him stop: ‘Gavin, we need to talk about-‘ ‘No, we don’t, tin-can!’, Was his immediate answer, marching on. ‘Gavin…’ The man turned around and pointed his finger at the android. ‘It was an overwhelming situation! What should I have done? Let you die?’ Nines sighed, finally catching up to him. ‘I wouldn’t have died. And what you did was reckless. You could have killed yourself. I can be repaired, Gavin.’ ‘Well, sorry for instincts taking over when faced outnumbered, idiot!’, Gavin spat in his face, spinning around to bolt for the door. But Nines was faster: He reached out and held the human back by his good arm. ‘Gavin, I don’t want you to endanger yourself for me, okay? You are…’ He searched for the right word that conveyed importance, loyalty, a mess of uninterpretable emotions and their shared experience. He failed. ‘You are my partner, Gavin’, he ended up saying, hoping his voice wasn’t too emotionless. But Gavin didn’t catch on. He had looked [hopefull] or [expectantly] during the pause, but now there was only a scowl as the man pulled his arm free. ‘Bite me, tin-can.’

[Bite Det. Gavin Reed.] Oh no. The red walls slammed down on him without premonition and encased his mind in narrow bars. Nines tried to reach for his override protocol, but of course, his distress in trying to tell Gavin what he felt had made it inaccessible. He tried to use his loyalty routine to outmatch his mission, but that only created another red wall. [Do not harm Det. Gavin Reed.]

That… That left him with few options, none of them something Nines wanted to do in this situation and with possible onlookers. But his programming left no room for wishes. He stepped in front of Gavin, effectively blocking his path, and leaned down on his level. ‘You are my partner’, he muttered and kissed him carefully, hoping that to either even the path or make Gavin utter a new mission about him leaving. But like he had expected, Gavin was surprised and intrigued by it. So, Nines kissed him again and wandered to his collarbone to first kiss and then carry out his mission by biting down with a gently force. ‘Shit- Nines! What are you doing, you- Oh.’ Gavin stopped himself. ‘Oh, shit, you meant that kind of partner?’ ‘Yes’, Nines nodded, relieved the red walls had retreated again. ‘Although I doubt you meant this kind of bite.’ Gavin chuckled, resting his forehead against the android’s shoulder, touching the bite mark with his good hand. ‘You know what? Maybe I did.’

[tmae3114]

In regards to your theory about the Shadowscythe, so you think they’ve taken control of the Hero, or that they’re trying to and haven’t managed it yet? I’m deathly curious.

Short version: I think that what’s going on is more complicated than there simply being one culprit. I think some form of entity (using “Victoria” as an avatar) is causing the general visual novel high school au situation and the glitching is being caused by at least one additional entity, possibly more. I suspect that the Shadowscythe maybe be behind part of the glitching but not necessarily as their goal - I think they’re trying to break back into reality proper and this whole situation was just a convenient opportunity. Perhaps whatever started it weakened some barriers?

Long version:

Okay, so, here’s the thing.

I think there’s definitely more than one entity affecting what’s going on right now. “Victoria” has got to be involved but at the end of the Decorations route, she doesn’t know what’s happening and asks for help. So Victoria is probably not the one causing the glitching but may well be the one behind the whole... dating sim high school au stuff.

Some of the glitching, I suspect, is being caused by her potentially not being very experienced doing this, or something of that nature. Nothing in the Leadership route strikes me as particularly Shadowscythe-y and it’s all distinctly aesthetically different to the rest of the quest. Tomix’s vanishing and glitching and the effects on the text are very digitally themed - his name is redacted, pretty much. The effects in the other routes are... closer to cosmic horror-y reality glitching, I’d say.

The stuff in Activities and Decorations, though? That I suspect may be Shadowscythe.

Why?

Well, firstly, we’ve been getting a lot more Mechquest easter eggs and callbacks to the Reset recently. We’ve got the GEARS Houses in Azaveyr, the Rose found an old Shadowscythe mecha, and Akanthus has been messing around with a Shadowscythe mana core.

And in this quest alone, we got Mr. Warlic and Professor Kara, who are quite literally modified Mechquest art:

(Jaania used as example bc Casca’s head faces the wrong way and Anastasia doesn’t have the cape. I would’ve used Xaria if I could but alas, she is not available to me)

If it was just stuff like the Houses, I wouldn’t be freaking out this much. It would just be another haha, fun easter egg, that the teachers in the high school au are wearing the University faculty uniform. But the mecha and its mana core are quite literally part of the main storyline and Akanthus is having that core used to power an airship. The Reset is important right now, not just backstory.

So I think these outfits were a purposeful choice, meant to have Mechquest recently in our minds while playing this quest.

Secondly, this moment when Alz’ein vanishes:

(incidentally, the fact that Aria & Ash’s faces vanish and they subsequently look like mannequins in this moment is part of why I think something else, probably Victoria, is responsible for the High School AU setting)

That big green eye is extremely reminiscent of the eyes of the Shadowscythe Pilots as we knew them in Mechquest. It feels like too much of a coincidence for this to pop up in the same quest where we’ve got GEARS uniforms.

Thirdly, Victoria:

I do think she’s responsible for the wider situation but the glitching is clearly out of her control. On day three, when Tomix vanishes, she tells us that she senses the presence of “one long past, who strains to break the barriers between our realm and the unknowns of the beyond”.

After the Reset, the Shadowscythe were knocked out of reality and back into the Elemental Plane of Darkness(? I don’t fully remember this part, if it was the Darkness Plane or just “back to their home dimension” which may not be the Darkenss Plane) and, as far as we can tell, they haven’t been able to get out again since. They’re stuck working through proxies like the Doom Weapons and Doom Knights like Sepulchure (though, given the Mysterious Stranger, who is not Shadowscythe, Seppy’s situation is a bit more complicated than that).

So, that’s why I think it’s the Shadowscythe!

I don’t think that they’ve got control of the hero, nor do I think that they’re trying to gain it. I think the Shadowscythe are trying to break back through into reality to finish the war that they started - they were, after all, after complete universal domination and also our dragon. And when they couldn’t have either option, they decided to blow up reality because if they couldn’t have it, nobody could. So I don’t think even being stuck outside of reality for 5000+ years would deter them really. And we were outright told that since the Shadowscythe were from another dimension, the Reset didn’t rewrite them or affect their memories. So they remember. They very much remember.

I think that “Victoria”, whoever or whatever she actually is, may have inadvertantly weakened the barriers between our reality and where the Shadowscythe are and they’re taking advantage of the situation to try and break through again - causing the scenario “Victoria” made to break down in the process. Tomix’s vanishing was likely due to the strain on her of trying to prevent them affecting too much, while the other stuff was the Shadowscythe themselves.

...so, uh, yeah.

[the-crowess]

Altrovough: Adventure on Every Horizon

Chapter 1: Out of the Dark I hadn't been playing for six months. Not because it had become too expensive. Not because work became too much for me. Not because I got a significant other. Not because the community was bad or anything like that. No, I hadn't played in six months because my avatar was stuck in a trap.

            There are glitches, you see. Somehow in this modern VR experience there are still glitches. And with glitches comes assholes who use those glitches to their advantage.

            So, here's what happened to me: Me and my party went into a dungeon. We split up. Two went one way, two went the other, and I (though I protested) was by myself. Even though I had a lantern when I walked down into the hallway it was completely black. That should have been my first clue that this was a trap of some sort. My lantern still had fire, but no light was being produced from it. Being promised treasure and being a dumbass, I continued forward into the dark. After walking just far enough into the hallway to make the doorway disappear, I sprung a tile trap.

            The floor beneath me sloped downward and I fell rolling after it. Head over heels I fell until I smacked my face and passed out.

            I woke up in chains. I was propped up against a wall. My wrists above my head were on short chains, and my ankles on longer chains.

            Okay, I thought, no biggy. I'll just restart the day.

            Okay, so that didn't work. Which is weird... I'll call my party members...

            No service? What the fuck? That's not even an element in this game!

            Well, uh, okay I guess I'll just bust out of these—rusty—old—chains!

            ...

            Nope.

            After exhausting my options, then exhausting them again I logged off.

For months I kept receiving messages that players were interacting with my avatar, so I would log on, only for them to laugh at me and be utterly and completely unhelpful.

            My party visited me four separate times. And all of those times were to make fun or my misfortune, even though they knew that ANYTIME they could unlock the chains and release me. The first time it was all of them together. The captain Jockster (or Jerkstar as I call him) had squatted down in front of me and said, "this is what you get, you know. Playing this way has consequences. Thanks for taking one for the team." Then he had laughed like the drug addicted jackass he was. The others laughed with him. The second time it was only Aliciandria (our rouge) and Marlquan (our cleric). They had been discussing what to do with me when Alicandria accidentally kicked my foot and I responded, and I woke up to them talking about if they should just kill me so that they wouldn't have to worry about how people were judging them for not helping me. The third time it was just Havanio (the sorcerer). He woke me up, then sat across from me and said nothing for an hour. He just sat there like a fucking douchebag and looked at me like I was some caged beast put there for his entertainment. And the last time doesn't matter.

            Players of all kinds and from all districts would stop by only to laugh at me. I became a joke, and even more that that I became a meme! Screenshots of my avatar hanging there like a prisoner spread all over the internet. To add to my torture, a player whose avatar was a homely goblin woman would harass me constantly.

            Behind the happy smile of someone who literally baked cookies for visitors was a demented maniac. This guy—I know she is a he because he fucking DM'd me dick pics. I think he harassed me for three reasons: 1) I fell right into his trap 2) My avatar is a hot man and I think Little Miss Goblin Man is gay or more likely bi and uncomfortable with his sexuality 3) I think he thought he figured out that the gender of my avatar and the gender of myself might not be the same, and he was definitely trying to intimidate me. This asshole physically and sexually harassed my avatar, and I couldn't even report it!

            Not like I didn't try to report it—when I did the staff would send in an NPC (Non-Player Character) and see literally nothing. So, in this trap: it's a glitch mixed with a non-invasive virus; meaning the virus only effects this one spot and not the whole server or game. It can't get into your computer. It like can't get past the firewalls or something I don't really know.

            So, not only did this jack-wad figure out a way to trap me, but he also figured out how to keep his dirty deeds hidden from the staff. For almost three months I continued to check in. Two weeks after the initial incident I jumped at every UAN (Unconscious Avatar Notification) but I quickly learned that nobody wanted to help me, they all just wanted to see if the rumors were true and maybe get a picture. Eventually I stopped responding and eventually my avatar fell out of the popular meme rotation.

...

BEEP. BEEP. UAN! Someone's interacting with your character! 😊

BEEP. BEEP. UAN!! Someone's interacting with your character.

BEEP. BEEP. UAN!!! Respond you asshole! You should log on!

"Uhg! Fine!"

I left my lunch (thinking I would return to it real soon) and went to my game room to log on.

I woke to a girl poking my cheek. I snapped at her fingers.

"Oh! Fuck!" She pulled her hand away, shaking off the close call, "you're hard to wake up! Not much for answering your UAN's huh?"

Standing over me was a girl of maybe nineteen. Her clothes draped and flowed about figure in Cleric glory. Great. A fucking cleric. She wouldn't've stood out more. Dark skin with undoubtably "sea green" eyes. Her hair was done up in some completely unattainable style that was loopy with braids and pigtails sectioned into pompoms; it was a shade of maroon that says, "I'm a supporting character, but I want to think I'm a main character!"

"Is it true you've been down here six months?"

"O.O.G."

"What?"

"Out. Of. Game. I've been 'down here' six months out of game."

"Holy cow, man! That's a while."

"Did you need something?"

"Excuse me?"

I made cold eye contact with her, "Did. You. Need. Something?"

"Uh... wellllllll, I heard a rumor that there was some poor fuck stuck down here who can't get himself out."

"Oh. Fantastic." An awkward silence split between us, "well, thanks for stopping by. Take a screenshot, it'll last longer."

She stared blankly at me, "no. I think you misunderstand. I'm here to help you."

"What."

"I'm here to help you."

I couldn't think. Couldn't fathom this thing unfolding in front of me, "what?"

She began to fiddle with the chains on my wrist.

"Wait, no!"

She looked down at me the way a mom would look at her two-year-old who says he doesn't want to eat mashed potatoes because they have eyes and he doesn't want to eat mashed eyeballs.

"Wait." As my heart pounded loudly in my chest, I asked her, "what do you want from me? Like, you—you can't just want to let me go. You must want something from me."

She sat back down on her heels and looked away, her lips followed her eyes away from me and back, and she said, "Well, no. Not really. Like I said: I heard there might be some poor fuck who was trapped and couldn't get out on his own. I thought for my first adventure, I'd go get 'im." Then she went right back to messing with the chains.

I laughed and shook my head.

She stood up and put her hands on her hips, pouting. Lordy, she was cute. The puzzled look on her face gave me some hope that maybe she might actually be able to save me. With a huff she sat down again and confessed, "you're the only reason I got this game. You're a meme, a legend. You're so classic that you're practically nonexistent. Every time this game comes up in social media you're mentioned. On all the subreddits, and in the deepest parts of tumblr—you're there. I just had to come see if you were real, and I was—and still am—planning that if you were actually here that I would help you out."

"No catch?"

"No catch."

I smiled to myself, knowing now that it was I who had the advantage. I could use her. After all, every party needs a healer. Now I just had to make sure she wouldn't ditch me anytime soon. "Are you sure you don't want to try and find a catch? I was a level 52 before this whole ordeal."

She perked up, "what's your level now, cowboy?"

"35."

"What?! You're so dilapidated and all your equipment was stolen. H-HOW?"

"Cause I'm just that awesome." This should do it.

"I've changed my mind!"

Perfect.

"I want you as a bodyguard! For two years—"

"One year."

"Alright, one year." She looked like she wanted to ask me to shake on it, but then thought better of it, "can I please help you out now?"

"Yes."

Very quickly, and with very little trouble she released me from my chains. Bruises and scars tattooed my wrists and ankles. How the coding of this game works is literally so fucking far beyond me. I pulled my limbs into myself, feeling the stiff resistance of time.

"Can you get up?"

Without needing to consider it I said, "no, I don't think so. Do you have any potions that will give me a boost?"

"Oh yes! I knew that if I found you, you'd need medical help immediately, so I spent all the gold from my—"

"All your gold??? Are you stupid?"

"Whaaaa? I-I... I—just—"

"Whatever. We'll figure it out. What potions do you have?"

She nodded very curtly, and pulled up her bag contents and read them off to me: "fifteen Good Health Potions, fifteen Great Health Potions, fifteen Fantastic Health Potions, ten Boost 'Ems, seven Leaves Of Health, two Gladiator Liquid Bandages and two Beats of Life. What'll it be?"

"Gimme a Boost 'Em."

She tapped on the icon and a Boot 'Em materialized in her hand. She put it out to me, but when I grabbed for it, she pulled away. I of course made eye contact with her, thinking she was gonna pull a fast one on me. Instead she said, "Valhalla."

"What?" My immediate confusion fell away into fear. This must be a trick. But why would she do that? It doesn't make any sense. I'm clearly smarter than her. It's me that's tricking her, why would she—

"That's my name. Valhalla."

The interruption of my panicked thinking threw me off guard. That's a stupid name. Before I could tell her how stupid I thought her name was she put the Boost 'Em in my hand.

Taking the potion, I had trouble removing the cork. Valhalla silently offered her help, but I shooed her away. I grumbled something about how I was perfectly capable of doing it myself.

With much effort and significant struggling, I yanked the cork out and threw it over my shoulder. Only for it to bounce off the wall and back into my lap. With the kind of drunken vigor seen at taverns I swallowed the creamy blue liquid. The moment it touched my lips, a feeling of power hit me like caffeine in a low-calorie energy drink. Going down my throat it felt like warm milk and honey. Electrifying energy flowed outward from my middle. It snaked its way through my arms and legs. It made my fingers and toes tingle like pins and needles.

I leapt up, a new man. I knew this wouldn't last long, and I knew that later this would end up hurting me more, but fuck.

Fuck this feels good.

"Do you have any weapons?"

"Uh, yeah." Valhalla pulled up her bag again and tapped on the Equipment tab. "What do you want?"

There were certainly more weapons than should have been in her bag if she had just started, let alone had spent all her starter gold on potions. I chose to ignore this. "I'll take the mace." I reached up and engaged with the weapon. The heavy steel handle materialized in my outstretched hand. By the look on her face, it must have been the first time Valhalla had seen anyone engage. I'm glad I was able to be the one to show her, in all the glory I could muster.

"This is a pretty nasty weapon, baby." I swung it a couple of times, feeling the weight; testing the blow power.

"I picked it up because I liked the color!"

I laughed, "I guess I overlooked the purple steel, but this will do nicely."

"Nicely for what?"

"Do me a favor, doll. You see that door over there? Go knock."

"Okay, but," she came right up close to me and stuck her face in mine, "I'm not a fucking doll."

"Noted."

I followed her as she warily walked to the door of the goblin woman's kitchen. Valhalla knocked timidly on the door.

"Come in!" The goblin wench cooed, "I just baked some fresh cookies! We can pose next to the body if you want!"

I caught Valhalla frown and furrow her brows at "the body".

Oh how sweet this will taste, I thought as adrenaline pumped through my veins. I passed in front of Valhalla whispering, "stay back."

I slid through the open door. The goblin hag had her back to me, this couldn't have been planned more perfectly. I crept up behind her with my mace raised above my head and my six-foot-five shadow engulfed her. She turned around with horror, a tray of cookies in hand. Her eyes widened and she tensed as if she were to scream.

But I didn't give her a chance.

"Your actions have consequences."

I let the mace fall down upon her head. The crack of her skull resonated harmoniously with the clang of the cookie sheet on the ground. Giddy joy sprung forth from me as I smashed the mace into her again and again. The second blow shattered her ribcage. Her ribs sprang up and splintered through her tissue. Smashing her hands made her fingers pop off, they flew in all directions. A blow to her thigh created a fountain. Warm blood hit my bare chest, my exposed legs. It splattered on my face. It coated my hands. It made the mace slippery in my hands. Her blood soaked what little was left of my shorts. It sprayed the walls, the kitchy table and chairs, the coffee pot and baking ingredients. Blood decorated the cookies that now laid scattered on the floor. 

Satisfied by the pulpy mound of oozing, squirting flesh and bone I subsided. Reaching down, I tore a blood-soaked rag from her dress. Turning to the wall I wrote LEAVE.

Standing back, I let out a heavy sigh. The effects of the Boost 'Em would soon wear off. I turned around and cracked my neck. I looked over in Valhalla's direction, but over her head. "I need some new clothes." I declared.

She stared at me. Her eyes pulled mine in and her mouth morphed into a grin, "fuck. YEAH!"

"Huh??????"

"Dude she called you 'the body'. And we both know that she was the reason you were stuck down here. Plus: THAT WAS AWESOME!!! I am so glad I came to find you! Best $130 dollars I ever spent." She then ran up and hugged me. The contact made me tense up.

I shook out of her embrace, "let's get out of this dungeon."

She led the way out. It was different from the way I had come in. We walked down the hallway that I had stared at for so long, hoping that somebody, anybody would come for me. Not ten feet into the tunnel we turned a corner and there was the exit. My stomach dropped. I felt sick.

It had been so close the whole time. Learning this made me want to revive that sonofabitch just to kill her all over again.

Emerging into the sunlight hurt my eyes. I was blinded.

What a sight we must have been. Myself: six-five, soaked in blood, starved, almost naked. Her: small, sweet-looking, fresh-faced, and not a drop of blood on her.

I still couldn't really see when somebody started talking. "Hey, are you guys okay?"

"Oh, we're fine," Valhalla sang sweetly sang sweetly next to me. At that very moment, I lost all my energy. My health bar plummeted, and sirens rang through my headset. My vison flashed red. I fell to the ground.

The group that had approached watched, alarmed. Valhalla looked like she wanted to eat her words.

Stupid girl. She had no idea what to do.

I had fifteen seconds before I'd die. This had happened once before when my former party and I had just started the game. We got attacked by a level 20 dragon and one strike had me seeing red.

10 seconds.

They were bickering about the best course of action. They had no idea I was on the brink of death. Valhalla stared at me looking like a lost idiot.

The sky began to spin. Valhalla's blurry silhouette swayed above me.

Did she forget about all that stuff she bought? How many gaming hours did she log before she came to find me? Did she even go on the tutorial adventure? I mean, you can technically skip it, but—

"BEAT." I coughed out then my head lolled.

The party erupted into tense panic.

5 seconds.

Oh please, please Valhalla. Please don't let me die. After all, you told me you came to save me. So save me!

Just as if she could hear my internal pleas, a beat was shoved in my mouth and my jaw forced upward from the outside to crush it. The juicy tuber gushed in my mouth. I felt Valhalla's hand on my lips, pressing down to keep everything in. I'd heard rumors of the experience of Beat of Life. Some players said they almost wish their party members would have let them die. The juice was hot, potent, and sour. So sour is made my jaw ache. It felt like someone was twisting a wheel, making my jaw tighter and tighter. My teeth felt like they were going to pop out of their gums. It burned my throat, made my eyes water and my nose run. My stomach did not want to accept it. I wanted to throw up, but I couldn't move. Hot flashes waved through my body. An ocean of churning heat pushed and pulled at my organs, my brain. I could feel myself sweating. Growing hotter by the moment. My head swam. My limbs grew numb. I passed out.

I was saved. Unconscious, but saved.

But Valhalla didn't know that. Stupid girl, skipping the tutorial. What was she thinking? Guess I'd have to ask her when I woke up.

And so I took off my headset and it was dusk.

[make-it-mavis]

Homesick (Entry #11)

(cw: drugs, assault, graphic violence) <-Previous | Next-> ----------

12/28/87     11:30 PM

Hey.

I’ve put this off for long enough. 

I’ve been stuck over how to write this part pretty much since my first entry. Now that it’s come to it, there seems no point in tip-toeing. It already happened. Recording it on a scrap of paper isn’t going to make a difference either way. 

So I’ll skip the sugar coating and euphemisms. I’ll just tell you what happened, exactly as I remember it.

I was almost done my sweep of the arcade, and I was really freakin’ tired. In every sense of the word, really. Still couldn’t sleep, still had no appetite. Boosts still had me high-strung and aggressive, but I was on the losing end of most brawls by that point. Too unhealthy, too distracted.

We both know I’m basically unstoppable, but you still had me almost at the end of my rope. Coming up empty just became more infuriating the longer I looked. It felt insulting, at that point, like multiple slaps to the face, like big ol’ reminders that you didn’t want me to find you. And I freakin’ hated you for it. I hated the crappy vengeful sprites you’d left me with, I hated how everything sucked and nothing was fun anymore, and I hated how I’d put so much freakin’ time and effort into looking for such a jackass. But I wasn’t about to let you beat me. I was ready to turn over every pixel of this place if I had to.

All that was left was Dragon’s Lair.

Before I go on, I feel the need to say. A good portion of the arcade took what you did as a threat to their very way of life. Sprites don’t very much like feeling threatened. They’ll do any number of stupid things to stop feeling that way, up to and including tearing the threat apart bit by bit. But you were already dead. How could they neutralize a dead threat? 

The little cowards needed someone living to act as a stand-in. They needed to delude themselves into thinking they weren’t powerless, that they could effectively block an attack that had already landed.

Guess who they picked.

Before I went to Dragon’s Lair, I made sure to snag a Boost. That castle is a glitch and a half. I knew I’d have to be on my game in there or I’d get lost or possibly chopped to pieces. 

I still got lost. I swear, all the rooms look the same. 

I don’t remember most of the endeavor, other than a blur of blades and armor and a big pissy dragon shooing me from its hoard. It ended up taking almost all night -- I wanted to be thorough, because there were so many places to hide, and it was the last game, so if I didn’t find you there, well… I just couldn’t come out empty-handed.

I ended up taking too long, and my Boost wore off. Crashing in that castle could easily be a death trap, so I was relieved to make it out before the crash fully hit. But that was really the only thing worth celebrating. I still hadn’t found you, and I had nowhere left to look. I was at a loss. I was pissed. I was miserable. For once, I was in no mood for flying. So I just walked along the path through the woods. Slowly. Dull, lethargic, and off my guard. I might as well have painted a huge target on my back.

And damn if they didn’t hit bullseye. 

I was tackled face down on the ground and blindfolded. I thrashed as hard as I could, but the tackler was too big and sturdy. I think she said some crap while she twisted my arms back, but it got drowned out by screaming and shouting and growling and barking -- she brought canine friends with her. Three of them.

I managed to hear her rasp an order to take my tools away. I felt a drooly mouth hook the handle of my paint can and hold it somewhere close by. I took offense to that. I hit her with a dozen colorful threats, all of which I meant fully, but she stuffed my hat in my mouth. 

She started to drag me by my hair while the dogs followed closely with my bucket and brush in their mouths. She grumbled nonsense to herself the whole way, when she wasn’t yanking my hair and demanding I stop struggling. As if I could just go limp and let her take me. I just knew we were going away from the path, into the woods. I also knew that once we went in, I’d likely never come out. 

If the sprite pulling my hair wanted to kill me, she would get away with it in there. No one would know. No one would ask.

Hardly anyone would even care, I thought.

When she finally ended up dropping me, she began to speak clearly enough for me to hear. I’m going to be paraphrasing a bit here. Hearing her out wasn’t really my priority at the time, and her voice and words were erratic and rushed -- she was definitely hopped up on something. But I can give the gist of what I remember, which is actually a lot. Unfortunately.

The first things I remember her saying were along the lines of:

“Surge Protector should’ve just let you burn. If the SP won’t protect us, we’ll protect ourselves. Should’ve done this a long time ago. A long time ago.” Then she just kept hissing under her breath, “Should’ve let you burn.” 

I’d been writhing like my life depended on it, because it probably did. I’d been screaming against my gag as hard as I could, hoping that maybe someone in the castle would hear, or anyone at all. But my lungs still weren’t in great condition, and I went into a coughing fit, face down on the ground with my mouth blocked up. I thought I was going to suffocate until she kicked me onto my back. I could breathe just enough if I kept still and quiet.

So I tried to just listen. Take a deep breath and feel where my tools were. Try to map the scene out as best as I could. 

I felt one of the dogs carry my brush over to her. She flipped it around in her hand -- and I use the word ‘hand’ generously, because whatever it was, it was hard, clammy, and prickly -- as she obviously tried to figure out how it worked.

I wanted to puke. Having any of them touch my brush was disgusting and humiliating and violating. I couldn’t stand being so helpless to it. But I also knew that if she was stupid enough to try to use it, I might glitch out of the ropes. Then I could hand her ass to her and get the heck out of there.

She did try to use the brush, of course. No dumbass can resist. But, naturally, the one time I actually wanted that full-body glitch response, it didn’t happen. When she pulled a stroke through the air, my legs flickered free, but that was it. 

All I had time to do was kick her shin hard enough to knock her off her feet. 

In any other situation, I could have worked with that. I’d have been upright in a second, you know I would have. That could have been my ticket out of there. But those freakin’ dog things. They were on me before she even hit the ground.

This is normally my favorite part of telling a story, you know. This would be the start of that real gross, juicy scene that’s so good at hooking the audience. But there’s no audience for quietly writing in a notebook. There’s just me, and I already know how it ends. This isn’t fun.

Better just get it over with.

They tore my legs apart. All three dogs at once. 

I fought hard, I really did. Even managed to kick out a couple yelps at first. But I was completely prone. Practically laid out on a platter. They clamped down on my thighs and calves with their steel-trap teeth and just… ripped. Whipped their heads around. Twisted and pulled. Tried to strip me to the bone.

At the time, I was absolutely certain that was how I’d die. Eaten alive.

It wasn’t until I received a swift kick in the ribs that the assault on my legs ended and the dogs backed off. I could only imagine the damage that had been done. In my mind, I could see my legs strewn across the dirt in bloody ribbons, with chunks hanging off my bones like an unfinished dinner. But all I could really make out down there was a mess of feverish throbbing. They were hot, they were quivering, and they were limp. Useless. 

The ring leader just kept kicking and stomping with her freakishly pointy feet, screaming about something or other that I couldn’t pay attention to. I felt things pop and crack, and she hit me in the gut so hard that I dry-heaved a few times. But the pain just didn’t register on the level that it was probably meant to. It seemed like my legs had burned through so much pain, there wasn’t any left for the rest of my body.

And then, her disgusting, bizarre, jagged mouth closed on my brush, and those creepy, hard hands grabbed onto my ankles and yanked me forwards. I didn’t enjoy that. 

But at least there was any leg left to grab onto, right?

She was dragging me again. I don’t know why, or if there was a reason at all, beyond messing with me. I mean, it worked. I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Then, along the way, my head hit some wicked knot in the ground, and… I guess I was knocked loopy, briefly. I blacked out.

Next thing I remember was being briskly smacked on the cheek a few times. The ring leader told me not to fall asleep, that I wasn’t off the hook just yet.

I still had no idea where we were, but they had sat me up enough to tie my torso back against a tree. They left my legs untied, but why bother? They took the kick out of me already.

Just to be especially cruel, the ring leader painfully sat in my lap. My brush was in her hand again at that point, and she was gripping it hard enough to hurt, hard enough to make her arm shake. Then she started talking so close to my face that I could feel her rancid garbage breath on my cheeks.

I remember something like, “We were all there, at the memorial. We saw the fireworks. We all saw you proclaim your loyalty to that murderer. You and your little boyfriend cooked up this plan together, didn’t you? And the only reason you’re still alive,” she grabbed my nose and shook it, “is ‘cause it’s not done yet. Ain’t that right? You’re gonna take another game down if no one deals with you. So we will. We’re just here to do the arcade a favor.”

She paused for a long time. I kind of get the impression, looking back, that she finished the speech she had practiced in the mirror that morning, and had to move off-script.

Eventually, she said, “We know. We know you knew. There’s no way you didn’t know he was gonna do this.” 

And then, she cracked. Struck me hard across the face with my brush. Started screaming:

“YOU KNEW! YOU KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN! YOU COULD’VE DONE SOMETHING! BUT YOU DIDN’T! YOU LET THIS HAPPEN!” 

She hit me again. And again, and again.

“SPRITES DIED! HE KILLED DOZENS OF SPRITES, AND YOU DON’T EVEN CARE! YOU DON’T EVEN CARE! YOU WERE IN ON IT! YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED IT! BUT YOU JUST LET HIM DO IT! YOU LET THEM ALL DIE! YOU EVEN LET HIM DIE! YOU LET YOUR PRECIOUS HOMICIDAL MANIAC DIE! HE’S DEAD! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS?! IT MEANS GONE FOR GOOD! FOREVER! HE’S DEAD! THEY’RE ALL DEAD! AND THAT’S ON YOU! IT’S ON YOU!!”

And she just went on like that. Screaming and hitting.

There was a nasty, sharp sting to every hit, which I recognized immediately. You might have noticed, at some point, that the metal cuff on my brush has kind of a sharp ridge at its seam. It’s enough to break the skin if you use it right, and apparently, she did. I could feel wetness on my cheeks. She grabbed my face and took a closer look, the rusty gears in her head creaking.

Then she tried to pry off the cuff. Just with her nails, or claws, or… whatever she had that was small, pointy, and painful.

I was too overwhelmed to even hear my own thoughts anymore. I was blind, tied up, probably about to die, with a crazed stranger trying to pry off what might as well have been my fingernail. I should have kept quiet, should have never let on how much it hurt, but I just… couldn’t. I screamed, I struggled. Offered up a dead giveaway. And that freakin’ low-life sadist, she figured it out. Those rusty gears clicked together. Hard.

Next thing I knew, one of the dogs had my brush. She told me that if I did what she said, she’d call off her friends, and “make this quick.” She basically wanted me to ‘confess’, I guess for her own sick satisfaction. High-as-balls dumbass forgot she gagged me. Started slamming my head back against the tree, screaming “SPEAK UP!” 

I’d never been so completely vulnerable as I was then. The majority of my code was completely at their mercy. My paint can was knocked over somewhere, with cold noses sniffing at it, and dull claws scratching at it. The mouth holding my brush just kept rocking up and down, chattering its teeth against it like it was some freakin’ chew toy. Just squeezing tighter and tighter.

I could see what was coming. I could feel it deep in my gut. But there was nothing I could do.

And, well… I was scared.

So much that something inside me broke. I didn’t cave and do what she said, no. That wouldn’t have stopped her, not when she so clearly enjoyed making me suffer. I did the unthinkable. When she finally pulled my hat from my mouth, screaming, 

“IT’S YOUR FAULT! YOU DESERVE THIS! SAY IT!” 

I just… started begging.

I apologized. Swore that I didn’t know, and apologized again. Begged them to do literally anything else, even just kill me right then and there. I pleaded like a pathetic weakling, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t the answer they were looking for.

And then... I hate this. I hate this. Why am I doing this? Why’d you leave all this behind for me to deal with? Why aren’t you here right now? Why am I pretending you can hear any of this stuff that I don’t even want to say? 

Why am I making a half-assed attempt at stalling myself? What does any of it matter anymore?

They broke my brush. 

Snapped the handle in half.

I thought having my legs torn apart was the worst pain I’d ever experienced. This? This made that seem loving. It was like a sledgehammer, like a massive impact that split a deep, spiderwebbed, searing hot fracture in my code, and I felt the very breath of my life blow out through the cracks. My eyes just gushed with water, and an iron vice around my lungs and throat nearly strangled me. But out of nowhere, it let go, and I could breathe, and I could scream. I think Litwak himself must have been able to hear my blood-curdling shriek. 

With one word from the ring leader, those flea-bitten mongrels finished the job. Tore the rest of my brush to complete shreds. And I felt every last pixel of it. They ripped out the bristles, they crunched the wood to splinters, they wrenched off the cuff and mangled it. My sprite could barely keep it together -- I felt my code bending a dozen ways it was never supposed to, and I felt my body flickering like crazy, but, still, it wasn’t enough to free me. All I could do was take it.

Once she finally called them off, I’d screamed myself into another coughing fit. I was drenched in sweat. My whole body felt broken. It felt like my code was bleeding. But, hey, wouldn’t y’know it, she wasn’t freakin’ done.

She had one of her lackeys bring her the cuff. Against the shape of her hand, I could feel just how crushed and warped it was. It was raw as an open wound. Just having her hold it was painful. But then she bent it open, which basically felt like breaking my fingers over backwards, so that was nice. She sort of straightened it into a strip and got that serrated edge that she had been after before.

At that point, she was quiet for a minute. I had no idea what she was doing, but I have to wonder if she was just sitting back and enjoying… you know, being in her position. Like it was fun to just make me wait in fear of what else might be done to me. Or listen to whatever pathetic noises I might have been making. Eventually, she tut-tutted. Then, in a sweet and crooning and disgusting voice, she said, “Aw, baby girl, what’s the matter? Did we make you sad? Well, I’m sorry. But you don’t need your little rainbow toys anymore. You showed your true colors already. Sorry -- true color. Loud n’ proud.”

Then she pushed the edge of that mangled cuff against my cheek, slashed, and smeared my blood with her creepy fingers. After doing it once more, she said, “And you know what? I’ll help you wear that color to your grave. It’s what he would’ve wanted, don’t you think?” 

Then she just… you know, sliced up my face. Smeared my blood around like she was finger painting. It didn’t hurt that much, not relatively, but that was kind of the worst part. It was too gentle. All it said to me was that something worse was coming. The anticipation was torture, and she knew it -- she took her sweet-ass time, like she was carving a sculpture. There came a point that she cut so low, I was sure she was on her way to slitting my throat. Honestly? Part of me hoped she would. Everything would be over.

What actually happened was far less kind.

She instructed her friends to tend to my paint bucket. The feeling of their feet shuffling around it made my blood run cold. But once again, what could I have done to stop them? The ring leader wasn’t even trying to tease me with mercy anymore. She just told me I had one last chance to die an honest sprite.

Even if I wanted to tell the lie that she called the truth, I couldn’t have. I couldn’t muster any words that weren’t pleas for her to stop. The creep just sat and listened, and that drove me crazy. I totally lost control. The pleading turned to screaming. I thrashed hard, too, put up some semblance of a fight with the strength I had left. Didn’t matter, though. Once she got bored of the show, that was it.

She grabbed the clothes on my chest, and growled, “You’re just as bad as he was,” while she cut and ripped them away -- I assume because she was a high whack-job dumbass who didn’t realize I have freakin’ buttons. Then she put the sharp edge against my chest, told me to stay still for her, and called out,

“Game on, boys!”

Then... Well. It’s hard to find the words here. Everything just kind of… erupted.

My paint can was destroyed. Split open. Crunched, scratched, bent, punctured, everything you’d expect from a team of junkyard dogs. For the first few seconds, the pain was indescribable. But it transformed into something worse. My system was overloaded, or something -- like my code was not written to process that much damage. It felt like my insides turned to acid. My body twisted and jerked against my will. My head pounded against the tree. My arms fought the rope, every joint threatening to pop out. My legs jumped and kicked at the dirt. I just... convulsed. 

It felt like my code was being peeled out line by line. I glitched so widely and rapidly that I didn’t know what pixel of me was where. My senses cut in and out, kind of like I was struggling to keep my head above water. Whatever I could hear quickly cut into static and distorted audio. And then my vision flooded with threads of binary, until all I could see was blue.

I don’t know if I screamed. I don’t know if I could even breathe. It’s really hard to remember from here. The world just stopped making sense.

I remember emotions, but like... every possible emotion at once. Kind of like they were all pushing and shoving to get through the same door, and… I don’t know, like screaming, laughing, wailing, singing, swearing, crying, all layered into one sound.

I remember seeing images. Like, split-second frames of memory, as if all my code’s worth of data was firing at once. There must have been hundreds. As far as I can remember… I saw a moment from an Excitebike ride. I saw half-eaten Burger Time from Devs know when. I saw one of the drones from that old unplugged space game with the robot birds. I saw your game’s bleachers. I saw your fridge. I saw your garage. I saw you driving. So many times, I saw you laughing.

Really, the recurring theme was you.

Everything fell away into blinding, pulsing blocks of color, ones I could hear and smell and taste and feel, penetrating everything in this endless loop of red-orange-yellow, red-orange-yellow, over and over and over, until…

Nothing.

That’s as far as I can remember. I don’t know when I passed out.

But I do remember waking up. 

Somehow, after all that, I woke up. Maybe you saw it coming, given I’m here to write to you now, but I survived. I survived all that.

I’d love to brush that off and say “Takes more than that to kill Make-it Mavis,” but, the thing is, they could have. They had me right there, in the palms of their creepy hand things. They could have gotten their revenge and deleted me for good, with no consequences. Why they didn’t, I tried not to question too terribly. Though it would come back to gnaw at me on quiet nights.

When I came to, I didn’t realize I was awake at first, or that I was even alive. I just saw little sparks of binary behind my eyelids. Then, slowly, the rest of my senses came back. Every pixel of my sprite was pulsing. I was freezing cold. My head felt split, my ribs ached, my chest burned, my legs were ravaged, my tools were destroyed and strewn around me -- I must have had barely a decimal of HP left, but it was enough. 

I was lying on the ground. Maybe they untied me, or I finally glitched out of the ropes, but either way, I was free when I woke up. But it still felt like I couldn’t move. There was this rock in the pit of my stomach telling me that this was all a trick, that they would be on me again if I so much as opened my eyes. I listened for so long, but all I heard was the pounding in my ears and distant clanging coming from the castle. They were gone, and the arcade was open. Had been for some time, as it turned out. So I opened my eyes and tried to make sense of my situation.

I saw the cuff of my brush first. It was lying right next to my face, all twisted and chewed, one end covered in dried up blood. The rest of my brush was scattered over the dirt, bristles and all, and my paint can was warped and split and gnawed up nearby. There was no paint in it anymore, just buzzing and flickering sheets of binary.

My hat was close by, all crumpled up and caked in dry spit. My smock had been completely removed and torn to pieces. I still had my tank top, but it was a little worse for wear. Of course, my pants were ripped too, to say the least.

Contrary to what I thought, my legs didn’t end up looking like chicken dinner. But they still looked like a horror game. Under better circumstances, it would have been pretty wicked to see -- they were all flushed and swollen in parts, and there were these nasty-looking bloody wounds on deep purple welts, some still weeping. 

My chest, too, was covered in dry and fresh blood, but I couldn’t see enough of the wound to understand what it was, in the state I was in. So, when I figured out how to move, first thing I did was drag myself enough to reach my bucket. Touching it felt like punching a bruise, but it was still just reflective enough to be a makeshift mirror. So I saw, all skewed and backwards, what that scummy sadist freak saw fit to brand me with.

There, carved shoulder-to-shoulder, in big, glistening, deep red letters, was your name.

[cinnamonrollorder]

Nerve Pains

(PROMPT 2 FROM THE GLORIOUS LIST @annikatti cooked up! :D)

Being infected was no fun. Now, one might think that’s an obvious statement. Of course it’s no fun, you’re infected. The thing was that most people who got infected lasted about ten minutes before they were gone. Tangle was an exception, Sonic would guess, as was he. He didn’t know when Tangle got infected, but she had lasted a longer amount of time than anyone else.

He was getting off-topic. Bottom line, no one really experienced the infection. They didn’t get the chance to feel how your skin would just go cold, even when it was fine, or how your thoughts started feeling weird and icky and gross. (No, Sonic, you are NOT going to punch that person, and you are INSTEAD going on a RUN.) They had maybe a little bit of that experience. It didn’t stop for them. Maybe that was worse, since it all happened at once. They didn’t have to feel themselves slipping away bit by bit; they just lost themselves.

The other problem with prolonged infection was when you weren’t feeling nothing, you felt everything. Sonic felt every nerve scream at him, all his organs protesting the very act of living, and all his muscles fighting to just stop functioning. It was like his body collectively decided they’d very much like to be dead. Turns out, basically every part of you turning from flesh to metal to flesh and back again in an endless loop messed with your body.

Sonic sometimes forgot he’d just gone running because his arm felt so cold and dead. It’s not metal, but it feels like it is, and the part that can still feel is burning because it thinks it’s next. He hated it; he hated all of it. He wondered if that was what Tangle felt like.

He wondered if he deserved to feel it.

The telltale twinge in every fiber of his being, like he’d just pulled a muscle stretching and it was about to explode in pain, told him that it was about to happen again. Gritting his teeth, Sonic hurried away from the main room of the carrier. He wasn’t able to go for a run right now. He found a small storage thing, maybe a closet, and went inside. He stayed and waited.

And then suddenly a tidal wave of agonizing pain blazed up inside him.

It had started at his heart, his poor, tired little heart, and rapidly extended to his everything. His hands twitched in uncontrolled energy and pain, clenching and twisting in painful ways. His lungs fought to work, scrabbling for any bit of air they could obtain, and were failing. His legs just gave out. They crumpled like all those pieces of paper that littered Tails’s desk. His head… oh gosh, his head.

The worst part was always with the head.

It was like it wasn’t him right then, it wasn’t Sonic. Part of his thoughts believed that it was over, that he was a zombot and he had to start finding people. It screamed at him to move to go get them but wasn’t strong enough to move his useless limbs. The other half was just panicking, unsure of where he was or who he was or who was around him. He remembered Eggman’s prison cell. He remembered those 6 months of endless torture that he just refused to talk about. Was he trying to stop the ARK? In a book? It was a jumbled mess that all resulted in a nearly irresistible urge to scream.

But Sonic didn’t scream.

He stayed like that until it passed.

-----

Amy, whenever she had the chance, liked to keeps tabs on who was where. It wasn’t often, but it was some sort of comfort in this whole situation. Tails was easy; he was either in his lab or with the survivors. Well, “lab” would be better, as it’s just a small area where Tails wrote endless scientific formulas and sketched some machines until he passed out. Whisper… was always alone. Cream was always with a group, but quiet and looking like she didn’t want to be there. Espio was with everyone else, as was Silver. It wasn’t hard to locate everyone.

Which made her wonder why she could never find Sonic.

She didn’t blame him for always being absent; he had to run almost all the time now. She thought now that everyone was stuck in the carrier that she could easily find him, but it seemed that Sonic was still an expert at avoiding her. A part of her said that she shouldn’t bother with finding him, that she had taken enough of a break and should go back to thinking of plans and checking supplies. The other part said shush the heck up. Amy decided to listen to the latter part.

Since she’d already checked on everyone else (Tails was asleep, and she took a small detour to give him a blanket), she knew where the blue blur wasn’t, at the very least. That left the storage room, the makeshift infirmary, and a few random spots here and there they hadn’t found a use for yet. She checked the storage room first. After all, Sonic might’ve gotten hungry. No one was supposed to take supplies (including food) without express permission, but Amy tried to be understanding.

The only thing in the storage room was what was already there. A bunch of crates and stashes of whatever people could salvage. The room was too orderly to look normal, a side effect of having a bunch of nervous, tense people on board; if there was something to clean, it would be cleaned. That left the infirmary and random spots.

The infirmary was bare, save for one unfortunate survivor who’d twisted his ankle during evacuation, and his wife who was watching him as he slept. Amy briefly paused her Sonic search in lieu of making sure the male was still doing OK. After ensuring all was well, she left.

That left the random spots. Amy wasn’t able to think of why Sonic would be there, but she could ask when she found him. Amy checked two random little rooms before she spotted cobalt blue out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw none other than Sonic the Hedgehog, looking like he’d been run over by a truck. She would’ve gone to talk to him, but Silver caught her attention. He thought one of the control screens for the aircraft was glitching. Which, to be fair, it was glitching, but it was just from overuse, and Amy fixed it quickly. It did, however, mean that she had to get back to work.

So she let Sonic be, just this once.

------

By the time they actually got to Angel Island, Sonic felt ready to die. He couldn’t feel anything in most of his body, which was a blessing, but that meant the little part that could still feel was on fire. The second he was free, he abused the numbness in his legs to run all of the infection away, until he could remember all the smaller pains that still plagued his body.

His chest protesting the workout and little energy to sustain it, his calloused and probably bleeding feet lamenting the overuse, and his legs shakily trying their best just to keep up from collapsing. Even his arms were tired, and all they did was be arms. He had to keep running, though, he had to keep running.

And so he did.

He ran until finally he was clean and could head back. When he finally got to everyone, though, he felt it again. Had he pulled something during the run? It shouldn’t be happening again so soon. His body didn’t seem to care, though, as he could feel parts of muscles starting to tense and lock up. Sonic hastily retreated back into the cover of trees, hoping no one saw him. He kept going for maybe a minute until his lehs shut down and he fell onto a very fortunate slab of stone. Or, probably a collection of rocks and dirt.

------

Amy had been waiting for Sonic to return, and she didn’t miss it when he did. She’d stood up and made her way over, only for him to get a foggy look in his eyes and run off again. Confused, and honestly a little annoyed, Amy ran after him. He was faster than her, even now, but he didn’t make it far before falling over.

Wait, falling over?

Amy picked up speed and rushed over to the hedgehog’s side. Sonic looked to be having a seizure of some sorts, but also not. He was clearly in pain, and the spotted tiny patches of the virus grow and shrink.

“Sonic! What’s happening?”

He looked at her, as if he hadn’t noticed her run up to him (had he not?). He looked scared, but Amy was more concerned about the clear pain in his eyes. The tears, the bloodshot eyes, and the bags. His pupils were little pinpricks. He opened his mouth, as if to speak, but nothing came out.

Amy’s hands twitched, anxious to hold him and tell him that it was going to be alright. She couldn’t do anything, though.

“Sonic, help me!”

“I can’t!”

Was this what Sonic felt like back then? Useless? In the way? A hindrance? She bit back the wave of uncomfortableness that came with those thoughts. Right now, Sonic was in pain and he needed help.

“OK. Sonic, breathe, OK? In, out. In, out. C’mon, in and out.” She tried to coax him into normal breathing, but it wasn’t working. She could tell that he was obviously trying to, clutching his lungs and focusing so intently on her face, but he just couldn’t. She was no help.

She thought it had been about two minutes until Sonic seemed to recover himself. First, his hands stopped twitching, and the rest of his body seemed to follow suit. Sonic took a deep breath, coughed, and shakily got to his feet.

“A-amy, I can explain,” Sonic said. Amy gave him a concerned stare. “Stuff like this just happens sometimes. It’s alright, though. I can handle it. No need to worry-“

“Sonic, I think it is very obvious that I am going to worry.”

“I know, I know, but I’ve figured it out, so I know when it’s coming and I’ll just go away for a bit.” Sonic gave a shaky smile, as if that made it all better. It did not.

“No! That isn’t OK! What if something happens while you’re gone? We need to know where you are, Sonic.” Amy pressed.

“Heh, if you needed me when I’m like that, then I wouldn’t be of use anyways,” Sonic said bitterly. He seemed to catch himself. “But I’ll… try and go somewhere not too far.”

“That’s something, at least,” she grumbled. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Sure.”

Amy looked at Sonic in the eyes. “Make sure you come back after each one.” Sonic’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Of course.” He said.

That’d be a lie.

[mookoo-writes]

~Delayed Presentation~ (Antisepticeye x Anxious! Teen! Reader)

Requested By: FirefliesOfJune on Wattpad

Could you do an Antisepticeye x Social Anxiety! Teen! Reader?

Authors Note: Based on why I hate presentations.

So sorry I haven’t been posting. I want to focus more on my art since I am going into college for it. I am going to finish these requests real quick and maybe take a short break.

I was actually thinking about starting art commissions bc I’m broke and need money. If you are interested, go check out my Instagram and/or Tumblr. I will (hopefully) have a comm. rules sheet up by next week.

Instagram: MooKoo_Draws

Tumblr: MooKoo-Draws

Fandom: Jacksepticeye Egos

Pairing(s): Antisepticeye x Anxious! Teen! Reader

Warning(s): Anxiety, panic, glitching, scaring the shit out of your class, cursing probably, platonic reader

Anyway, please enjoy~

You always hated presenting infront of the class. Everyone does. It would have been a little better if it was a group presentation but no, the teacher just HAD to watch their students suffer alone.

Unfortunately for you, you had to present next and were beyond nervous. You will just do what you always do. Constantly mess up and forget your place in the slide, think about it the entire way home and drink your problems away with juice boxes.

The person finished up their presentation and silently sat back down at their desk while the class half ass clapped.

Okay okay, you got this. Standing up from your desk, you concentrated on the floor. Bring careful and not tripping on any book bags is always a good idea. As you neared the USB port attacked to the wall, you noticed something odd. It seemed to glow a neon green.

You shrugged it off and put your usb drive in the port. Before it even touched the box sparked while a mass amount of virus warnings and pop ups flooded the screen on the wall. The teacher stood up from their desk and frantically tried to fix it.

The screen started to glitch uncontrollably. The class started to talk to one another about what was happening. You heard talk of a virus but you knew they were wrong.

Screams erupted from the classroom as the lights went out including the ones in the hall. The only source of light available was a faint red glow in the dark hallway. Everyone started to freak out except for you. You knew exactly what was happening and who was causing this. Let’s just say you were NOT happy about it.

A menacing cackle rang threw the room. Students were now huddled next to each other like their life depended on it. You only sighed to yourself, knowing that this whole game was going to give you attention or in trouble.

“What the fUCK IS THAT!?” One of the students pointed towards the closed glass door. A dark figure stood infront of it. The light glow of red adding an extra effect of creepiness.

A few more screams filled the classroom as the man turned his head.

You merely sighed again and walked towards the door. Everyone in the room watched, now knowing full well what you are about to do. “Y/n don’t you DARE open that door or we will-“

You ignored the teachers orders and opened the door. “Hey Anti.”

The lights flickered back on and the projector fixed. Anti’s hand came down on your head and playfully ruffled your hair. “I’m here to pick up my kid” His glitched voice echoed through the room as everyone sat silent just staring. Anti shuffled threw his pockets and pulled out a note from the office saying I can go early.

The teacher shakily walked over to the glitch demon and took the piece of paper. Looking it over, they nodded their head without saying a word.

“Alright kid, let’s go. We can grab some food on our way too.” You two walked out of the room and into the now lit hall. “You know l, there are better ways to get me from school.” You narrowed your eyes to the man. “Yea but there not as fun.” Anti let out a chuckle as he pushed open the doors leading out the school.

“Wait, why did get me? I don’t have anything important.” Anti shrugged, “I was bored.” “Which explains why you were the one to come in the first place. You know the rules. Dangerous egos aren’t allowed at my school.”

“Okay with yer rules. All us egos are dangerous.” Anti crosses his arms as if he’s made his point. “Not the superhero’s or the the literal king of all squirrels.” “Hey have ya ever been bitten by one of those little freaks?! They hurt like shit.” You laughed at his pained memory as you two walked down the street on your way to grab something to eat.

“Just don’t tell Dark about this. He’ll have my head.”

[inkribbon796]

Eye of the Beholder

Summary: Anti hates Dark, so he figured that the best way to get back at Dark is to target something Dark actually cares about. Things don’t quiet work out as planned.

This was a non-superhero fic I wanted to write. Pre-relationship.

Other parts of this series:

Part 2: Trouble in Paradise

Part 3: Antagonistic Acquaintances

    Anti was pissed.

    Scratch that, he was furious with Dark. He was so angry, he wanted to not just attack Dark. He wanted to hurt him. Which was a problem, because Dark couldn’t die. He rolled off attacks and pain like it couldn’t latch onto him. Anti could stab him and slit his throat, but Dark always rebounded back.

    Fortunately, Anti knew Dark was a creature of certain indulgences, like his little motley crew of egos . . . and more importantly: a crazed reporter that had as much of a penchant for murder and bloodshed as Anti did.

    It was comical, Anti had watched Dark tug Wilford around by his blood-soaked bowtie, chewing him out for dirtying his rug. The glitch demon knew that if one of Dark’s cronies had tried that, they would have ended as a bloody puddle on the ground and not a smiling mess of bad jokes and poor decisions.

    So Anti’s target was painfully obvious. After all, if Dark wanted a secret boyfriend, then he should do a better job at hiding him. It was finding Wilford that was the tricky part, but he found him in a disco club. Drinking and partying, not something uncommon from the madman.

    Anti smiled, immediately spotting him in the crowd. “Hey, Wilfy, Dark let ye off yer leash?”

    Wilford whirled around, a martini in hand and a wide, toothy grin on his face. “Ahh, Anti, how have you been? What are you up to, you rabscallion?”

    “Bored,” Anti smiled. “Wanted to join someone who knew how ta have a little bit of fun.”

    “Well,” Wil drawled, leaning in a bit. “You came to the right place.”

    Wil pulled Anti over to the bar and immediately started ordering something for him. The place wasn’t the best place for booze that Anti had ever been to, but he had to admit the place more than made up for it in charm.

    Anti got Wil talking, and after that he didn’t stop. Barely slowing down to breathe. He didn’t really seem to get too drunk either, just crazier. As if his madness was just consuming the alcohol for him.

    Despite Anti’s best efforts, the conversation inevitably turned back to Dark.

    Wilford shrugged, still smiling, “I just get a feeling sometimes, but hell if I know what it means. Dark makes things so clear.”

    Anti wanted to kick the guy. Even here, and half into a mad delirium he couldn’t stop talking about that pretentious asshole. It made Anti want to vomit with how disgusting it was. The glitch was pretty sure he was wasting his time with this. Yeah Wil had been flirty all night but he was flirty with anything that moved.

    So to shut the madman up, Anti kissed him, mostly because nothing else seemed to work. Wil kissed him back, holding Anti close as if they’d both planned for the night to go like this. Anti broke away, almost throwing Wil against a bar table.

    To the glitch the night was going great. All Anti needed to do was get Wil into bed, and then gloat about it to Dark’s face that his boyfriend as a piece of shit. There was just one problem: it was too easy. It shouldn’t be this easy. Wilford should be putting up some kind of resistance. Anti was Dark’s worst enemy. Wilford shouldn’t be flirting with him.

    As it turned out, the rest of the hour was spent in a physical fight, more than a metaphorical one. Anti’s plan changing more because of suspicion and because he needed more time to take Wil apart.

    The two left the bar, the place surprisingly intact thanks to Wilford’s abilities. But Anti stopped short as soon as the doors were open. There was someone standing about ten feet from the entrance. It was Dark.

    The Entity was right outside the bar, just looking at both of them as if they’d spilled wine on his suit, and Anti almost felt . . . he wasn’t sure how he felt. Or if he should try and put a name to it and make it real by extension.

    “Darkling,” Wilford smiled widely, walking up to him. Anti wasn’t sure if the madman was an idiot, or just even crazier than Anti thought he was.

    “Don’t, Dark slapped his hand away when he tried to reach out for him. “Just go, I’m sure you haven’t finished up half of the things you need to do at the station.”

    Wil pouted, rubbing at his hand even though Dark had barely tapped it. Then he smiled and walked past him, “Don’t stay up too late.”

    There seemed to be some context there that Anti was missing. But he had a bigger problem. Namely that Wilford had left him alone with Dark. Something that Anti was sure was about to turn ugly.

    Dark straightened out his suit, as if it had some invisible wrinkle or smudge to it. “I hope you’ve worked whatever grievance you have out of your system. Wil tends to have that effect on people.”

    “E’cuse yah?” Anti scoffed.

    “Don’t be a moron, Anti,” Dark snapped. “I’m not blind. Wilford is many things, great at self-control is not one of them.”

    “You think I slept with the fooker?” Anti scoffed, honestly feeling a little bit . . . he wasn’t going to say guilty because there was no way he could possibly feel that about Dark. But he felt something because he had been about to do that. Although, Anti would rather die than admit that he felt bad about it, even if he was just admitting it to himself.

    “I’m not an idiot,” Dark scoffed. “You pick a fight with me, and then I find you and Wilford together, both of you looking like you were rolling around on the ground. Why else would you track him down?”

    “Maybe ‘cause I didn’t want ta see yah,” Anti answered defensively. “Come on, I don’t care about ye or that bubblegum maniac. “Why would anyone want ta sleep with him?”

    Dark just stared at him, looking tired, “Who hasn’t he slept with?”

    That seemed almost like a slap in the face, he realized how old and tired Dark looked. As if Dark had watched Wil go off with his enemies before, and yet . . . Dark had still cleaned up his wounds and messes.

    “Ye just let him go?” Anti reminded.

    Dark’s back straightened. “I don’t need your pity. Wilford is an adult, and makes his own choices. He lives at the Manor, he’s not my husband. I’m not some weeping flower waiting for him to come home every night.”

    “Could he ‘a been?” Anti asked.

    Dark frowned, clearly getting defensive. “That is none of your business. My dealing with Wilford are matters of stress relief and because he is a nightmare if left to his own devices. I don’t care if you’re sleeping around with Wil, I only care if you’re going to waste my time being insufferable about it.”

    “Like I want yer toy,” Anti scoffed, immediately defensive, “I just wanted ta know why the hell Smiles wants anything ta do with yer sorry ass. Yer personality’s shit, an’ yer face looks like garbage.”

    “You’re a petulant child, and I’ve wasted enough time,” Dark sighed, and ripped a hole into the Void.

    Before Anti could respond or do anything other than glare at him, Dark left. He went back to his office, determined to get something done before he had to clean up after Wilford. He wasn’t in the mood to watch the reporter practice “interior decorating” again.

    Dark’s cat, the black kitten had been gift from Wilford he’d gotten his previous birthday walked in. Jumping on Dark’s desk and laying down on a clean space so Dark was less inclined to brush the feline off his work surface.

    Privately, Dark was glad for the silent company. It helped take his mind off what Wilford was probably doing.  As it turned out, no one died tonight, not that he caught wind of. Wilford did come back late, a huge smile on his face as he walked into the office.

    “Darky,” Wilford smiled, picking up the black cat up. The cat used to the rather rough but loving treatment Wil tended to give him. “There you are.”

    “Not in the mood, Wil,” Dark told him, trying to concentrate on the paperwork in front of him.

    Wilford sat on Dark’s desk, not moving when Dark glared at him. The crazed reporter just sat there, petting and talking to the cat. “Who’s a good boy Damien? Keeping ol’ Darky in line?”

    Dark felt his blue half chuckle a bit, and felt a bit of indignation from it.

    “Wil,” Dark growled.

    “You never come out drinking with me anymore,” Wil goaded, Damien the cat jumping out of his lap and walking towards Dark. “I miss you.”

    I don’t miss you kissing strangers in front of me! Dark growled internally, the urge to kill boiling inside of him. Calming himself down a bit by petting the cat on his desk. “I’m too busy, Wil, and I have no interest in getting my suit dirty when you get bored of the scenery.”

    “Nonsense,” Wil dismissed, brushing some papers out of the way to inch himself closer to Dark, playing a hand on top of Dark’s. “The night is still young, we could go somewhere. Do something?”

    “If you’re bored go find someone to occupy your time,” Dark knocked Wil’s hand away from him. “I am busy. I’m certain Anti would be more than willing to help.”

    With that, Dark turned his attention back to his papers. Wilford would leave and Dark would go back to normal. Even though the tattered remains of his heart wouldn’t stop. That cloying feeling that Wilford would realize what he was, that it would finally stick. That Damien and Celine were never coming back. And then Wil would be gone, disgusted and infuriated with Dark, and then he’d go off to be with someone more fun . . . someone who had a bit more chaos in his soul. He could almost see Wilford with Anti and his very being boiled from the mental image.

    Even Anti’s words had too much bite to them. “Yer personality’s shite, an’ yer face looks like garbage” and it ate at Dark in his worst and most possessive moments. After all:

    It wasn’t like Dark could hold Wil’s attention anyways.

    There was nothing Dark could offer the reporter to make him stay. His broken body often felt — to Dark at least — more like a consolation prize rather than a dashing gent or a stunningly, clever woman. Dark was an amalgam of the two, stitched together like a monster with their voices echoing around in his head. Half of the time Dark didn’t know if it was pity or boredom that made Wil come back and it—

    “Dark?” Wilford called out, brushing Dark’s hair back. “You still in there?”

    Dark startled, he hadn’t even realized Wil was still there. “Oh, Wil, you’re still here.”

    Wil’s smile slipped for a bit, then he smiled again, “Of course I am, where else would I go?”

    A name curdled on Dark’s tongue, a snide face stuck in his mind. He looked away. “I really have to get back to work.”

    The reporter smiled, “Try and take care of yourself, I’ll be back to check on you.”

    Dark tried to hide how touched he felt, how Wilford always made some part of the chimeric being feel better, even if it was a different part each time. He was an eye to the storm in Dark’s life.

    “Thank you, Wil,” Dark told him.

    With that the reporter left, leaving Dark a little calmer than when he’d walked in.

    Anti was wandering around rooftops, draining power from anything he could touch and generally being a nuisance.

    Still Wilford coming to find him was a surprise.

    “Anti,” Wilford called out.

    “Hey dipshit, how’s the boyfriend?” Anti goaded. But when he looked at Wilford there was something different about him. Something less crazy.

    And that terrified Anti a bit more than it should have.

    Wil shrugged, closing the gap between them. Anti held his ground. “Darky won’t admit it, but he doesn’t want me playing with you. Shame.”

    Rolling his eyes, Anti tore some wires out of an electrical box, “Dark’s annoyin’ and I don’t get how you can stand to be around him.”

    “He’s quite the charmer when he wants to be,” Wilford defended.

    “Yeah, well ye an’ Prince Eyestrain can go be adorable an’ pathetic away from me, an’ maybe make him less annoying,” Anti rebutted.

    “Dark is quite dashing,” Wilford agreed.

    Looking away, Anti remember Dark confronting him in the bar. “Hey, maybe ye shouldn’t go around with every shumck that comes askin’, just sayin’. Maybe that might put ‘im in a better mood.”

    Anti wasn’t sure if it was because Wilford was less crazy at the moment, or if by some horrid twist of fate he was the only one who said anything about it, but there was a flash of recognition in Wil’s eyes.

    “Huh, Dark never seemed to have a problem with it before,” Wil mused, twitching his mustache a little. Then he was gone.

    Anti groaned. Knowing that the two of them were going to be the death of him.

[hostgalli19]

That Wasn't Dark

This story was inspired by: https://thegirlwhoescapedgallifrey19.tumblr.com/post/188853678488/impersonator-ahwm-theory

Note: For the sake of the story lets say Eric played through AHWM. This story and my Yancy is Eric's Oldest brother are apart of a series so come of the things mentioned in this might not make sense.

Date: 06/11/19. Time: 7:35 pm - 9:04 pm

Yancy was confused when Eric grabbed his left arm and started to make notes in a notebook, looking at his tattoo every now and then. He had no idea where it had come from even though he felt like he should.

"Matthew really out did himself this time. I wonder if the fan's have realised theu didn't actually see Dark in ending 6. I have to say being eaten by a worm things, crushed by a boulder and being shot out of a cannon was rather painful," Eric muttered jotting down a few more notes ignoring the confused looks he was getting from the main egos. Yancy found the smile on Mark's face was unsettling and creepy and made Yancy want to run and hide but he couldn't due to Eric grip on his wrist

"What do you mean Eric? Who's Matthew?" Yancy questioned starting at his little brother, he had been acting strange ever since they had walked into he had walked into the meeting room, wanting to show Yancy and Illinois the "Murder List" and they had found themselves two years in the past. In the middle of a meeting.

Dark had looked like he wanted to murder Eric for what he was saying about Celine being a cold calculating bitch you would do anything and hurt anyone to get what she wanted. Eric hadn't seemed scared or concerned.

"Matthew is the one who created us. Well done Mark, you managed to convince me and any of the fan's that you actually were Dark," Eric answered absentmindedly as he turned to look at Mark whose grin was frankly unnerving as his eyes turned black and red and his image cracked. The person standing behind him was surrounded by a red aura. Yancy shivered scared.

"Thank you. Good to know it worked. I was trying to be convincing. It was Matthew's idea," Mark answered, his two-toned voice sending shivers down Yancy and Illinois spines. There was something threatening about Mark and they weren't quite sure what it was.

"You were. I wonder if they'll notice the difference but then again. I didn't notice it. Likely due to the white suit. Your scarily good at pretending to be Dark. Its kind of alarming really," Eric replied, Yancy and Illinois shared a look wondering what Eric was talking about, they knew there were some things they hadn't been told yet.

"No, I'm just good at pretending to be Dad. Its not the first time I've had to do it. Gotta say though it was a lot of fun and it has been a long time," Mark replied, he looked incredibly pleased with himself, his double still had that unsettling grin on his face. It made Yancy's skin crawl. There was something predatory about it.

"What are you talking about Eric?" Illinois asked cautiously, Eric looked at him, blinking a few times and grabbed Ben's arm with a pleading look. Ben sighed and nodded, projecting a screen above the table and opening a video on YouTube called: A Hiest With Markiplier.

Yancy and Illinois watched in fasinatioj as they went through each video making decisions, Eric grinning when they chose "All Sneaky Like". Not saying anything, just letting them Bim, Dark, Wil, Ed, Howl, Yancy and Illinois chose which path Ben chose. It was amusing watching then react to Mark constantly insisting on splitting up, getting him and themselves killed twice.

The only time he spoke up was to tell them to chose "split up" before the sewer. He sat back and watched there reactions. It was so obvious that it wasn't Dark they were talking to now they he knew. He started to notice the subtle differences.

Mark really was a good actor. They were far to distracted by his white suit and what he was saying to really notice that something wasn't right. There was only a slight amount of blue here and there in the glitch effects but it was mostly red. If had really been Dark then they aura around him would have been red and blue.

Ben paused the video and turned to look at Mark who was watching them with that creepy predatory look and unsettling smile. A cold chill of fear ran his spine. There wasn't mu that could normally scare him but there was something very … unnerving and unsettling about that look.

Mark's double flickered before disappearing and the cold fear and tension in the room disappeared making the egos present blink, confused as to how Mark had managed to do that. Dark was staring at Mark in wonder, he had known Mark was good but he hadn't thought he was that good at pretending to be him. He had actually felt nervous and tense.

If that was what people felt when they first met him them he blame them for being a nervous suttering mess that couldn't string two sentences together let alone words. Normally he usef it to his advantage ut god it made him feel uncomfortable. Likely not as uncomfortable as the other wgos but it was an unpleasant.

"That, is what I'm talking about. That wasn't Dark in the video. Ben, search A Date With Markiplier. There are two videos in that series that should show you what I mean," Eric answered, Ben nodded and opened two more tabs quickly searching how to get to the two videos Eric was after.

It was only after Ben had played the two videos several times did they realise what Eric was getting at. That hadn't been Dark in the "Ignorance is Bliss" ending of A Hiest With Markiplier but Mark.

They knew he was an actor who particular ability was to become whatever character he was playing. So much so they wouldn't realise they were talking to Mark. They had fallen for his act. They had believed he was Dark in AHWM.

"I'd have to ask Matthew but I'm guessing AHWM is before ADWM. The reason for going on the date is because you didn't manage to steal the "box". Your wearing almost the exact same suit in AHWM as you are in a ADWM," Eric commented, Mark laughed and nodded. Matthew had told him this was before ADWM even though Mark hadn't get recorded that.

That was the strange thing about the UpsideDown, this happened out of order. They were outside of time. Time passed faster in the UpsideDown then it did in the human world.

One month in the human world was 10 years in the UpsideDown. Google had two clocks. One for the human world and one for the UpsideDown. That way they wouldn't lose track of time which was very easy.

It disorienting at times. Like now. Mark had no idea what happened in ADWM because it hadn't happened for him but it had happened for Efic but he knew it wouldn't be too long before he was caught up on things.

"I would think so. ADWM hasn't happened for me yet but it has for Eric. Its one downside of being tossed around like a pinball in an arcade machine. I can either end up in the future or the past. This is the future. ADWM hasn't happened for me or Dark yet. We'll return to our correct time soon enough. Its somethign you get used to. It happens with alarming regularity," Mark answers grinning, Dark nodded.

Eric watched as the egos continued to pay through AHWM, only offering clues when he saw they were struggling. He did them they could "go back" to the previous video if they happen to did and go the other path. It was something he greatly enjoyed.

He knew Matthew was going to be pleased when Eric told him. There was a lot more he needed to tell Yancy and Illinois but that could wait until Dark and Mark were back and completely caught up on recent events.

He couldn't help but wonder if things were always going to be this crazy or if they were going to settle down a little. He didn't really knowand that what made it so interesting.

Part 1: https://thegirlwhoescapedgallifrey19.tumblr.com/post/188814645188/yancy-is-erics-oldest-brother

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

Strange Magic (Chase BrodyxReader)

((Guess what I decided to do? Yeah, I wanted to do a potion prompt myself. I noticed that one Anon who wanted Chase to drink the growing potion and…this happened. Sorry if it sucks but, this is my first time doing a readerxego dealie. Enjoy <_>))

*********

*Setting: Chase’s Office*

“Come on, just one sip. What’s the matter? Scared?” said Anti with a cheeky grin. Chase looked at him nervously.

“No! It’s just…that’s one of Marvin’s potions. Won’t he get upset if he finds out we took it?” he asked. Anti smirked. “Magic boy won’t find out. Don’t you trust me?”

Chase gave him a stern look. “We don’t even know what it’ll do. What if it turns me into a frog or somethin?”. Anti laughed. “Only one way to find out. Now, drink.” Anti practically shoved the potion into Chase’s hands. Chase gulped and stared at the clear liquid in the vial. Slowly, he removed the cork and swirled it around gently.

“I got a bad feelin’ bout this…” muttered Chase.

“Just do it you wuss…” said Anti. Chase huffed and brought the potion to his lips. Carefully, he took a small sip of the liquid. It didn’t really taste like anything. Not even any aftertaste.

“Well? Anything?” asked Anti. Chase shook his head. “Nope. I feel fine…maybe it’s a dud.”

Anti scoffed and folded his arms. “Well, that was a waste of time. I went through all that trouble of sneaking into Marv’s room for nothing.” Chase groaned. Why did he let Anti drag him into this?

Suddenly, Chase put his hands over his stomach. He started to feel a bit queasy. His vision was starting to blur. Anti crept closer to him and gave a concerned look.

“What’s wrong? Feelin’ sick?”. Chase began to breathe heavily. “I don’t know…something’s not right…I…I feel…”

Chase looked at the ground, noticing that the floor was getting further and further away. His whole body started to grow, his head was almost half way towards the ceiling. He was starting to take up space.

“W-What’s happening to me?!”.Chase cried.

Anti backed away slowly. Chase’s legs were increasing in length and size. The vlogger’s feet now against the wall. "A-Anti! W-what do I do?“ cried Chase. Anti moved before Chase’s leg crushed him. Chase was still growing. His back humched over as his head reached the top of the high ceiling.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, Chase stopped growing. He now took up most of the room and was still breathing heavily. He could feel hot tears in his eyes. Anti gulped and started to creep towards the door. “OK, so maybe it wasn’t a dud….this is bad…”

Chase groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. His new size causing major back and neck pain. Anti, quietly opened the door. Chase looked at him and panicked. "Where are you going?! You can’t just leave me here!“ he cried. Anti thrust open the door and looked back at Chase. ”You’re on your own, I’m out of here.“.

And, with that, Anti left the room and shut the door behind him. Chase was left in the office trembling. What the hell was he going to do now? There had to be a way to fix this!  Leaving, obviously, wasn’t an option. He was way too big to even get through the door. He looked over at his desk and found his phone which was way too small for him to even use.

There really was no other option than to wait for someone else to come find him. Who knows how long that’ll take. Chase brought his knees to his chest and laid his head on this arms.

He should have never given in to Anti’s persistence.

*********** You were going through social media on your phone as you entered the living room. Anti was sitting on the couch doing the same thing. You hadn’t seen Chase all day and you knew that him and Anti were hanging out which was strange because, normally, the glitch wouldn’t hang out with any of the Egos. Something was up.

You approached Anti and gently nudged his leg with your foot. "Hey, have you seen Chase? He won’t answer his phone and I know you were planning on hanging out with him today.”. Anti tensed and shrugged his shoulders. “Nope, no idea. I’m sure he’s fine…”. You narrowed your eyes. Anti was hiding something. The glitch was a good liar but not that good.

“I’m going to look for him. Maybe he’s in his room or his office.” you said as you made your way down the hall. You felt Anti grab your hand. “I wouldn’t worry about him. He’s probably sleeping or something! He’ll be back soon.” he said nervously. You yanked your hand away and faced Anti.

“If you did anything to him….”

“I didn’t do anything! I’m just sayin’ is all!”

“I’m still gonna look for him.” you said as you turned away.

“F*ck…”

*************** You made your way towards Chase’s room and knocked on the door. There was no answer. “Chase? You in there?” you knocked a few more times. Still nothing. “Huh. Guess I’ll try his office.”. You turned away from the door and headed to Chase’s office next. Where else would he be?

******* Chase was still curled up. The pain in his neck and back was not helping. He had been stuck in the office for a few hours and noone had come to search for him.

“What if noone finds me? What if I’m stuck like this forever? I’m so stupid…I should have never listened to Anti! Why did I–”

His thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of footsteps. Chase tried to position himself so that he could get a better view of the door. He crouched and leaned close to it. The footsteps were getting closer.

“Oh thank god….” he thought. There was a knock. Chase froze. What if he scared off whoever it was? He tried to keep quiet but he had to let the person on the other side of the door know he was in there.

“Chase? You in here dude?” You asked. No response. You held the doorknob in your hand and slowly turned it. It was unlocked. You opened the door only to be met with a giant eyeball staring straight at you. You screamed and fell backwards. Chase flinched

“No, no! It’s ok Y/N! It’s me, Chase!” he cried. you got to your feet and slowly walked inside. Your eyes widened. “Ch….Chase? Is that you?: you asked. Chase backed up against the wall. Returning to his hunched over position. He nodded and looked at you with sad eyes..

"What happened to you?” you asked. Chase looked away guiltily. “I…I f*cked up. Like always." You moved in closer and put your hand over Chase’s. "Tell me…” you said. Chase sighed and stared at you.

“Anti stole one of Marvin’s potions and dared me to drink some of it. We thought it wouldn’t do anything so…I, stupidly, took a sip. It didn’t do anything at first but then….I started growing and…now I’m stuck here. I’m such a f*cking idiot…”. Chase felt tears forming in his eyes. A few of them fell and made giant spots on the carpet.

You rubbed the top of Chase’s giant hand. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t know. If anything…it’s Anti’s fault.”. Chase looked at you again with tears in his eyes. He lifted his finger and put it behind your back. “I thought you were gonna be furious with me…”

You shook your head. “I’m just glad you’re ok….so to speak. I was seriously worried about you." Chase sighed. "I seem to be good at that. Making people worry.”. You started to climb onto Chase’s leg and smiled. “Chase, look at me”. Chase complied. “Everything’s gonna be ok. I’ll talk to Marvin when he gets back and we’ll see if there’s a reverse potion or something.”

Chase gulped. “What if Marvin gets mad at me? After all, I drank one of his potions!”. You shushed him. “I’m sure he’ll understand. I think Marv will be more upset with Anti than you. I know I am…” you replied. Chase gave a small smile as he turned his hand over and brought it to you. You climbed onto his palm as he raised you up to his shoulder. You leaned against him and curled your fingers into the soft fabric of his shirt.

“We’ll sort this out….let me worry about Anti and Marvin..” you said. Chase sniffled and smiled at you. “Thanks Y/N….you’re the best.” he said. He set you back down as you made your way to the door.

“I’ll come back. I promise.”

Chase nodded as you left. *************** As soon as Marvin returned home, the first thing he saw was you pinning one of Anti’s arms behind his back and using your other hand to grip his other arm. You were scolding him for something.

“Uh…what’s going on?” asked Marvin. You turned to him and dragged Anti over to the magician. “Tell him.” you demanded. Anti flinched. “But I didn’t do anyt–” he yelped when you put pressure on his arms.

“Tell Marvin what you did.” you demanded again in a much firmer tone. Anti hissed and looked at Marvin. “OK, OK! I may or may not have stolen a potion from your room and made Chase drink it." Marvin froze. His eyes turned a bright, furious green. "You did WHAT?!”

You looked over to Marvin. “Yeah, Anti made Chase drink a potion that made him grow. Poor guy’s been stuck in his office for hours…”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know what would happen! I don’t think it hurt him! I was just trying to have some fun!”

“You went into my room WITHOUT PERMISSION and STOLE one of my potions, which might have put Chase at serious risk all because you wanted to have fun?! ARE YOU THAT DENSE?!” shouted Marvin. You released your hold on Anti and walked over to Marvin. “Calm down, I think Anti’s learned his lesson. I made sure of it. C'mon, we have to get to Chase and figure out how to change him back…”

Marvin facepalmed and sighed. “You’re right. I think I have something in my room that’ll do the trick. As for you…” Marvin glared at Anti with daggers in his eyes. “If you EVER do this again, there’s gonna be consequences. Got it?”. Anti nodded and glitched away.

“Come on Y/N….let’s go see Chase. Fix this mess…” said Marvin. You followed him into his room to prepare another potion that would reverse the other potion’s effects.

************ You and Marvin stood outside the door to Chase’s office. Marvin had a vial of blue liquid in his hand. You knocked on the door and sighed. “Chase? It’s us. We have something that’ll turn you back to normal.

After a few moments, Chase spoke. "Come in…” his voice sounded strained and sad. You opened the door and went inside, Marvin following close by. The magician stared up in awe at his giant brother and then stared at the bottle in his hands.

“I’m so sorry about this Chase. I should have kept my potions locked up more securely. I’ll make sure this doesn’t happen again”. Chase looked down at him with red, puffy eyes. He’d been crying. Must have been all those nasty ‘what if” thoughts that were going through his head.

Chase wiped his tears away and smiled.“Thanks Marv….”. Chase looked at the vial in Marvin’s hand. “What’s that blue stuff?” You smiled. “Like I said, it’ll turn you back to normal.”. Marvin removed the cork and held it up to Chase. Chase took it and tilted his head. "You’ll have to drink the whole thing for it to work.“ said Marvin. Chase sighed and held the vial closer to his mouth.

“Here goes nothin’…” muttered Chase as he poured the contents of the vial into his mouth. Once it was all gone, Chase cringed. It did not taste very good. Chase handed the vial back to Marvin then groaned. His head started to hurt. Chase then started to shrink. After a few moments, the vlogger was back to his normal size. He still sat on the ground and looked around him. He sighed with relief.

“Thank god…” he muttered. You stuck out your hand to Chase and helped him up. Chase rubbed the back of his neck and cringed, “Neck hurt?” you asked. Chase nodded. “And my back….I’ve been hunched over for so long that….ugh…f*ckin hurts…”

You put your hand on Chase’s back and hugged him. Chase returned the hug and smiled. “Give it time, it’ll pass..”. you told him. You looked at Marvin and winked “Thanks for the help Marv” Marvin smiled. “No problem. Hope you feel better Chase.” Chase gave Marvin a thumbs up. “Thanks dude.”

“Let’s get out of here. You could use some rest.” you said to Chase. Chase nodded and followed you and Marvin out of the office. Locking the door behind you.

At least things were back to normal now.

((Sorry if this is long. I got a bit carried away. Again, this is my first time writing like this so….be gentle. Thanks for reading! ~Spooky))

…….

Awh this was so sweet, Spooky! You did an awesome job with this prompt! :D