#also don’t mind the pixels on Alcor

[the-real-couchrat]

Part one of “fanart for specific but favorite TAU fics of mine”!

Yet She Still Stood by @sezija

I was going for a victorian mourning dress for The Women, and futuristic formal for Dipper. (Inspired by these posts)

I had the idea that The Women would tattoo (magic, she can make them visible at will) Alcor’s blessing all over herself, as extra psychological torment (because that mark is only given to those he loves and trusts, and she absolutely does not qualify) but it’s not canon in any way, I just made it up.

Reference art by @sezija

Don’t mind the backgrounds please.

Edit:

I forgot to add this earlier, but I made a playlist for it

Also if anybody has suggestions or advice for it, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I struggled with this one for a while.

[flying-guinea-pig]

Season Finale 6/7

A/N: I’m still alive! I promise I’m not a ghost.

AO3 link.

The previous chapters.

Chapter 6: The Lower Levels (part II)

They must be far below sea-level now. The air was damp and smelled of salt and rust.

A bump against the corridor wall jumped up at their approaching light and hurled itself at Elisabeth. “Don’t leave me!”

“April?” Steve said. “Why are you alone? Where is everyone?”

“I don’t know!” said April, clinging to Elisabeth, whose heart now went a mile a minute after that sudden attack. “We noticed you were gone and wanted to look for you but John said to keep going, and then we went down here and everything went dark and I heard screams and my lights stopped working and I was all alone…”

There was something fishy about this. But she couldn’t detect any trickery in April’s terrified face.

“He said to keep going, huh,” she said, with a glare for Steve. “Your boss is just the best, isn’t he?”

“He’s very… focused,” Steve said. “The show must go on.”

“Good for him, but I’m not prepared to die for a B-rated reality show.”

“So what do you suggest?” Steve snapped. “You want to turn back? Go on, then. But I’m not leaving them down here. We’ve been through a lot with this show – you don’t want to know – and we never leave someone behind.”

“I’m not leaving,” Elisabeth said. Where would she even go? This place was a maze, and walking around on her own was just asking to be eaten by a ghost or whatever. “I’m just saying we should be pragmatic about this. We should get back-up.”

“The phones aren’t working, and even if we can reach Monifa on the ship, she’s even less qualified to banish ghosts than I am. At least I know the basics. We have to go on.”

“I understand,” April whispered. “We have to find the others, wherever they are. The only way we can get out of here is together.”

Elisabeth made a face. “That sounds all nice and motivational, but we’re still all going to die.”

Steve swung his camera to her face. “Can you repeat that? If we survive this, it’ll make a good bumper.”

“Shut up.”

The corridor opened out into a larger room, ‘large’ being relative of course. Everything down here was cramped.

“I don’t think the others came this way,” Steve said. “This place looks undisturbed.”

For some reason it reminded her of the demonology classroom – a half-circle of benches arranged around a clear spot, yes, it did look like some kind of small auditorium. But why down here? Space was already an issue in this bunker, why put this room here and not higher up in the oil rig?

“Careful,” Steve said, and nodded at the empty space the benches were facing. There was something on the ground there. No – someone.

A skeleton sat with its back against the wall, slumped sideways in death, its tattered clothes probably the only thing keeping the mouldy bones together.

April made a small noise.

“Look,” she said, and took something lying beside the skeleton. “Their knife looks just like the one on your belt. Same runes and all.”

“Standard demonology gear,” Elisabeth said, distracted. “It’s all rusted though.”

Wait a minute.

No wonder this place reminded her of the demonology classroom. Those markings on the metal floor – those were binding circles, encasing a summoning one she couldn’t identify. Had they been painted on? No – that wasn’t dried-out paint, it was too thin, too faint for that. This looked like… rust?

A small trail – the memory of droplets – led from the outer edge of the circle to the body.

Blood was widely used in summoning. It was all about the sacrifice. Someone had made the ultimate one.

But even that shouldn’t have been enough to keep this circle so pristine through all these years. The rust should have flaked off, the magic broken, without a force of will to keep it standing. Unless…

“How much willpower would you say ghosts have?”

Steve shrugged. “Depends. If it’s an echo, not much. If it’s a stranded soul – their own willpower is what traps them here. The feeling they have to do something more important than eternal peace – sometimes that’s revenge, but not always.”

“So theoretically, if someone died while holding a binding circle, they could keep the magic going after death?” Elisabeth asked, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

He shot her a funny look. “I suppose. You’re the expert here. Has something like that happened before?”

“No clue. I don’t meet many ghosts.”

“We should move on,” April said, backing away from the body. “Keep looking for - urk.”

Steve nearly dropped his camera in his hurry. “April? April, are you okay?”

For a moment there April had seemed frozen mid-step, one foot still slightly off the floor – now she turned her head and smiled.

Elisabeth glanced at the floor. At the smudged, broken lines of rust.

She wasn’t the type to curse unduly.

“Fuck,” she said, and grabbed for the spare spray bottle in her belt, the only thing she had on hand this quickly –

April – what had been April – didn’t attack. She ran.

“No, wait!” Steve called after her, before he too disappeared through the sidedoor.

That idiot! Hadn’t he seen what happened?

Damn it all! Where had they gone? The corridor seemed empty. She should be able to hear their footsteps, they had to be nearby!

In the silence, she could only hear her own labored breaths. She stopped running. The shadows were flickering over the walls again, moving in ways she didn’t want to examine closer...

Ding!

She nearly dropped her flashlight.

“Now what?” she said, grabbing her phone. “I’m kind of busy!”

Something was moving in the darkness. A dragging, approaching sound.

[Now will you listen to me?] the Alcor Virus said. [You have to call Dad! This is wrong.]

[I should be able to summon him, but I can't. I can't even reach the internet. This is wrong. Dangerous.]

The way behind her seemed clear of shadows. Could she return to the auditorium?

It was a relief to slam the door behind her and lock out the shadows haunting the corridor. The auditorium and its morbid occupant was at least not actively menacing right now.

She’d never felt so alone.

Ding!

Ding!

[Please.] The pixelated face was pleading. [He told me to keep an eye on you.]

Let’s see. Murderous ghosts. A mysterious summoning and binding circle, broken. One person possessed by a demon who’d been trapped for about sixty years and who couldn’t be happy about that… And yet it had ran off. Why? Demons didn’t run from mere humans like them. Not unless they had some other goal in mind…

Something was scratching at the door.

Damn it. She sighed. It was obvious what she had to do. It was just really annoying to admit it.

Elisabeth turned off her bodycam. The she flipped open the little pocket on her belt where she kept her chalk.

Time was of the essence, so against all better judgement she only drew a really rough and wonky binding circle on the surface. Her hands shook – must be the adrenaline. Were the lights flickering again? Another ghost... or something else?

She hissed between her teeth at the sting of the needle. It was a feeling she should be accustomed to, in her line of work, but with her nerves all tense like this everything seemed to be amplified. She pressed harshly next to the little wound, massaging more blood from it. A wonky circle like this might need more than just a drop to activate... At least she knew the summoning incantation by heart. That should be enough.

Darkness spread. But, thank god, not from the walls or the floor - it was contained inside the circle, and quickly bloomed into the familiar shape of her personal headache and part-time sidekick.

"Hey Adams," Alcor the Dreambender said, flashing her a shark-toothed smile. "I knew you'd miss me. Did you enjoy Alvie’s company?"

“No,” she said, and threw him her phone. He caught it with ease. His glance at the screen seemed to be relieved. “I’m in trouble and so are the people with me. You'll get the contents of both my freezers if you help me and the rest of us here out of this mess, okay?"

"Wow. What is the matter? Your deals aren't usually so vague."

"One of my companions is possessed. And I don’t know where the others are.” She tried to keep her voice level. “We were trying to release the ghosts of murdered cultists back into the reincarnation cycle. The Xuerus Cult, remember? Anyway, everything is getting recorded, I’ve got my cam switched off but the others probably don’t, so put on some disguise unless you want to be on national television."

"Hm. Maybe I do... Alright, fine." He shrugged and stepped out of the circle. His feet touched the ground and he seemed to grow, becoming tall and gangly and freckled. Bright red curls topped his head, his eyes bleeding from gold to poison green. "This okay?"

“It’s fine. Now –“

"Hold on, we haven't shaken on anything yet."

She made a face. In for a penny, in for a pound...

"Whoa," he said, as she took his hand without any more arguing. "You're... actually really worried. You're never that careless about making deals."

"Didn’t you hear what I said? Someone is possessed," she snapped. "Also, I forgot to mention, a lot of murderous ghosts. Right now, you’re the lesser of two evils."

“Am I blushing?”

“Shut up. And try to stay under the radar, okay? We're in Canada. Here I technically only have a license to bind and banish demons, not summon them." Sure, they were outside coastal waters, where things like 'illegal' were a bit... complex, but she'd rather not risk it. "Please pretend to be human. Unless necessary."

"No problem,” he said, passing her phone back to her. “I'm good at pretending to be human."

At least his disguise was less obvious than 'Tyrone Evergreen'. She swallowed. Had she made the right decision? She just ran for her life. Those ghosts had... really rattled her, to put it mildly. That probably hadn't been the ideal state of mind to consider summoning demons.

But no matter how she'd like to deny it, having Alcor around was comforting. Whatever would wait for her down there, she had some power in her corner now.

Of course he was probably just waiting for the right moment to do unspeakable things with her soul and she'd just shown how dependent on him she had become... but still. Not like she could reverse that decision now.

"I know that look on your face," Alcor said. "What's making you paranoid this time?"

"I am not paranoid," she growled.

"Are you sure? You were convinced one of your classmates was possessed by a demon."

“Oh, shut up and make yourself useful. Steve can’t be far, he ran after April when she got possessed and that was just a few minutes ago.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll find them.” He grinned. “I used to be a real pro in hide-and-seek."

"Who would play hide-and-seek with a demon?"

"You'd be surprised." Alcor seemed to focus for a moment. “Huh,” he said. “This is odd.”

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“This place feels a bit… claustrophobic. Locked in.”

“We’re in a haunted bunker deep underwater, of course it feels like that,” Elisabeth said, not mentioning the masterwork of layered containment circles she’d crossed. If she could figure out how they worked… of course, she’d have to survive this first.

“True,” Alcor said, looking disturbed. “Shouldn’t affect me like this though. My magic feels… wonky.”

“Great,” she sighed. “So you can’t find them?”

“Shh,” he said, waving a hand. “I think I hear a heartbeat – follow me.”

The creeping shadows fled as they approached. No screams or creepy weeping this time. Elisabeth noticed the drag marks by the door, the scratches in the dust, and swallowed.

---

Steve hadn't wandered very far.  He was huddled behind an open hatch door, half hidden by the metal, holding his camera like a shield in front of him. The light of his screen illuminated his face with a pale glow, making him look a bit like a ghost himself.

He jumped to his feet when they saw him.

"Adams!" he said. “I thought you were right behind me – everything went dark, I lost track of April, this isn't a normal haunting anymore – who the hell are you!?”

Ah, he’d noticed Alcor.

"I got some reinforcements," Elisabeth said. "This is - er..." Damn, she couldn't call him Evergreen because this was getting taped, Alcor still used his Evergreen persona, she wasn't good at names… "Al."

Steve blinked at her. Turned to look at Alcor, then back at her. "Al?"

"Yes," she said. "Al... Star."

"Really," Steve said. "Al Star. That totally doesn't sound like a made-up name at all."

"I get that all the time," Alcor laughed, offering Steve his hand. There was no fire, but Elisabeth couldn't help a small shudder as Steve shook it without thought. "Blame my parents."

"Right," Steve said, slowly. "Okay then... Mr Star. How the hell did you get down here?"

"Helicopter," Elisabeth said. She kept her face impassive underneath Steve's unbelieving gaze. "He's the one I've been texting all this time."

Ding! said her phone.

"Now someone else is texting me, obviously," she said. That little demon virus had horrible timing.

[... Al Star? Seriously?]

"Yes, we're part of a secret agency," Alcor said, smiling just a bit too wide. "That's why our phones work in a place like this. Very secret. Don't tell anyone though!"

"Mr 'Star', you realise you're being recorded, right?" Steve deadpanned. "This thing I'm carrying here? Not a flamethrower."

Elisabeth rolled her eyes. "You're a real comedian. At least a flamethrower could've been useful."

"Hey, I've been useful! I banished that ghost - that stinking stuff you got all over us didn't do anything."

"Yeah, yeah." Enough dawdling. Did the overhead lights still work? Yet another narrow corridor, great. "Which way did April go?"

“I don’t know. She was so fast…”

“Maybe it’s a good thing you didn’t catch up with her,” Elisabeth said. “You could have been killed.”

“April wouldn’t kill me! She’s just confused –“

“Are you joking?” she said. “Did you miss the decades-old containment circle she disturbed? She’s possessed.”

“That makes no sense. No demon would hang around for sixty years just in case some victim might show up.”

“Unless it couldn’t leave. Until some idiot broke the lines!”

“Don’t call April an idiot!”

“Wait,” Alcor interrupted. “She got possessed, and immediately ran off? While you two were just there, within easy disemboweling distance?”

“Yes,” Elisabeth said. “Odd, isn’t it?”

“Very. I mean, if I’d been locked up for sixty plus years in a mouldering bunker, I’m sure I’d have some pent-up anger to vent. Wouldn’t you? The fact they didn’t... they must be planning something.”

Ding!

[That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!] the chibi Alcor said, frustration rolling off every pixel.  [There’s something down here, something big – I can’t get inside the electronics – I can’t get out, either. Something is pulling at me – are you even listening? Give me to Dad!]

“Your turn to babysit,” Elisabeth said, throwing her phone back to Alcor. “Just keep it.”

The overhead lights flickered out, leaving them with the glow of the camera screen and the phone.

She backed away from the gaping darkness until she nearly bumped into Alcor. “Great. As if we didn’t have enough to worry about.”

Mist spread through the corridor, glowing with a light from within. It coalesced into figures, humanish if humans were colourless and transparant and faceless and rolled out until every limb seemed double as long as it should be. Their distorted voices echoed against the metals walls, coming from everywhere at once.

̧̯̑͝ ̤͙̈́͘ḯ͙̤̤͙̈́͘͘ẗ͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘'͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘s͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ ͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ẗ͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ö͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ö͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ ͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘l͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ä͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ẗ͙̤́͘ë͙̤́͘

̟̇͛͘ͅt̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅo̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅo̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅ ̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅl̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅa̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅt̟͛̇͘ͅe̟͛̇͘ͅ

̇͘ͅṫ̇͘͘ͅͅȯ̇͘͘ͅͅȯ̇͘͘ͅͅ ̇̇͘͘ͅͅl̇̇͘͘ͅͅȧ̇͘͘ͅͅṫ͘ͅė͘ͅ

"How about that banishing chant?" Elisabeth said, backing away even more until she was near the open hatch, Alcor safely between her and the ghosts. "Your time to shine, Steve."

"You're not calling it gibberish anymore?" Steve teased. "They don't seem threatening. Maybe we can communicate with them." He cleared his throat. "Dearly departed, we mean no harm. We are here to set you free."

̘̈́ ̴̤͙̈́͘ÿ̴̴͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ö̴̴͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ǘ̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́͘͘ ̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘d̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ö̴̴͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ö̴̴͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘m̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ë̴̴͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘d̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ ̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ḯ̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́͘͘ẗ̴̴͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘ ̴̴͙̤̤͙̈́̈́͘͘ä̴̴͙̤̤͙́̈́͘͘l̴͙̤̈́͘l̴͙̤̈́͘ ͘

̟̇͛͘ͅd̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅo̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅo̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅm̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅe̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅd̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅ ̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅi̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅt̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅ ̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅa̟̟͛̇̇͛͘͘ͅͅl̟͛̇͘ͅl̟͛̇͘ͅ

̇͘ͅḋ̇͘͘ͅͅȯ̇͘͘ͅͅȯ̇͘͘ͅͅṁ̇͘͘ͅͅė̇͘͘ͅͅḋ̇͘͘ͅͅ ̇̇͘͘ͅͅi̇̇͘͘ͅͅṫ̇͘͘ͅͅ ̇̇͘͘ͅͅȧ̇͘͘ͅͅl̇͘ͅl̇͘ͅ

"We will bring you peace," Steve went on. "We’re here to help."

The glowing figures melted together and a deep sense of despair permeated the corridor. It was so thick and heavy it took Elisabeth’s breath away. She was faintly aware of falling to her knees, her head spinning, pain and anguish and fear rolling like thunderclouds inside her head –

Something grabbed her arm and dragged her backwards. The loud metal clang of a hatch, slamming shut.

The darkness cleared, both inside and outside. She blinked open her eyes, to see Alcor’s currently freckled face hanging over her.

“Still sane?” he asked. “Well, as sane as you ever were, I mean?”

“Shut up,” she mumbled. “What happened?”

“The two of you stopped breathing. I figured that was a bad thing and got you out of that corridor.”

“… thanks. Help me up.”

Yet another corridor. How large was this place? They should be pretty close to the cult’s inner sanctum now, right?

Steve was sitting up next to her, his side leaning rather heavily against the wall.

Elisabeth glanced at him, still trying to catch her breath. "Not threatening, hm?"

Steve shook his head slowly. "I don't understand what I did wrong. Ghosts usually love to talk about their deaths. It's pretty much the only topic on their mind, most of the time."

“I don’t think these were the talking kind of ghosts,” Alcor said. “More the killing kind.”

Elisabeth rubbed her head, trying to dislodge the last traces of that horrible, alien despair she’d felt. “How good is Tenney again? Think he can handle this?”

“I don’t know,” Steve admitted. He met her eyes, his face haunted. "This is my fault.”

“What?”

“I did this. There's this ritual... Sometimes the legends exaggerate. Make for boring television. So we... give the ghosts a boost. But we didn't mean to - I mean, we didn't know! There was barely any haunting in the living quarters, this is supposed to be the season finale, we needed pazzaz!"

What the hell was he talking about? Whatever it was, it did not sound good.

"You jacked up the esoteric resonance of this place," Alcor said, as if those weren't just nonsense words. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a really illegal ritual?"

"Yeah, well, so is summoning demons in Canada without a Canadian permit," Steve snapped. "Don't think I don't know, 'Mr Star'. I'm not stupid!"

"You could have fooled me," Elisabeth muttered, and added a bit louder: "So you, what? Gave the ghosts here an upgrade?"

"That's one way to put it, yes. You had classes on magic, you know this."

"Working with ghosts was an elective," she said. "Didn't take it. Fine. You told me why you would do something as idiotic as that. But why in the ever-blazing hell did you make them so powerful they actually became dangerous? We nearly got killed!"

Steve looked away. "That wasn't supposed to happen. We thought... we thought they would be weak. So a little boost wouldn't hurt. But down here, they're not weak at all. So that little boost must have pushed them over the edge into -" he shivered, "- Category Twelves."

"Let's imagine for a moment I know nothing about the various classification systems for ghosts," Elisabeth said. "That's bad?"

"It's really bad." Alcor was the one who said it, his face troubled. "Those legends about the Grim Reaper? That’s actually a category ten. They just kill you. Twelves can do worse."

"Great. Thank you so much, Steve."

Alcor offered Steve a hand to help him up. The idiot took it, even though he had admitted a second ago that he knew what 'Al Star' was.

"You said 'we'," Alcor said, as Steve brushed away some dust from the camera lens.

"Oh. Did I?"

"Yes."

At least Alcor was good at making people squirm, even without unsettling demon eyes.

"Tenney," Steve admitted. "But I performed the ritual, so it's on me."

No surprise there. No one could smile that much at people and be innocent.

“We can figure out who to blame later,” Elisabeth said. “Right now, the important thing is to find the others and get them out of here. Without getting killed. And we will."

"I hope so," Steve said. "Why so sure, though?"

"We've got Al."

---

They had Al. Who was most likely a demon, so now they had even more than only murderous ghosts and a possibly possessed teammate to worry about.

Steve wished, not for the first time, he could send a message to his slightly younger self. A few hours younger, even. Not too much time travel. Just enough to warn him never to perform that ritual, and maybe get everyone off this oil rig before the darkness broke loose.

"So, Mr Star," he said, to distract himself from the whole oh-shit-I'm-going-to-die vibe he kept getting in these damp tunnels. "What did she promise you in exchange for your help?"

"None of your business," Adams growled. Heh. It was still fun to rile her up.

Mr Star grinned. Too wide, too many teeth. "She promised me meat."

Steve swallowed. Alright then. He did ask.

"And ice-cream," the demon added. "For dessert.”

“… right.” He turned to Adams. “Was this really a good idea? We don’t know for sure what happened to April, the others are all missing - and you really thought adding a demon to this mess would help?”

“He came by helicopter.”

Steve gave her a deadpan look. “I’m not recording right now.”

“In that case, yes. I did think he would help.” She sighed. “It’s not my fault he’s having performance issues.”

“Hey!”

“Performance issues,” Steve repeated, keeping an eye on the rattled demon. “Explain, please?”

“There’s something down here that messes with his powers,” Adams said. "He's basically useless, except for scaring away ghosts."

"Jeez, Adams, you always know what to say," the demon complained.

"Really?" Steve asked. Of all demons she could have summoned, she picked a weak one?

Though... Al. Al Star. That sounded vaguely like...

... nah. Couldn't be. Even she couldn't be that arrogant to summon that demon. He couldn’t be bound into service, everyone knew that.

“I don’t have issues. I’m very well-adjusted for a demon.”

Adams rolled her eyes. “That is such a relief.”

"This is normal for you?" Steve blurted out.

"What do you mean?"

"This, this whole - thisness!" He waved a hand. "You two act like, like you're in some kind of buddy-cop story or something!"

Mr Star had the gall to shrug at it. "This isn't our first cooperation, you're right."

"It should be our last," Adams said.

"You always say that."

"This time I'm serious."

"You always say that too," he sighed. "After all we've been through, Adams... I don't expect you to trust me. But even you have to admit that I've been a lot of help to you. We've had a lot of fun, too."

Adams was quiet.

Steve surreptitiously switched his camera back on. Working with Tenney had given him a sixth sense of a sort for when people were either going to argue or going to be dramatic or mushy towards eachother. Those moments made television.

"You have been," Adams said, after a long silence. She was avoiding Mr Star's earnest gaze. "I would probably not be here if not for you. You know that."

"That's not what I meant," Mr Star said, just as softly as her.

She shook her head, curled her arms protectively around herself. "I don't have nightmares," she said. The tone didn't match with her words. Her words said she didn't have nightmares - her tone and cold expression said she wouldn't have nightmares. She wouldn't allow herself.

"Don't sell yourself short," Mr Star said. "You were pretty amazing back there, too. We both got tricked, but you still won."

"Did we?" she said. "Did we both get tricked? Or is this just empty flattery, are you just telling me what I want to hear? I can't ever trust you. Whatever you say, whatever you promise. You have to know that. So why do you keep trying? Why do you keep pushing? You should know better! Do you think that I'll give in, eventually? That I'll be so blinded by your sweet-talking and helpfulness and friendship that I'll just hand myself over to you?" Her laugh was bitter. "Because it might just work. And I hate myself for that."

Mr Star's face fell. "Adams... that was never my intention. I mean... Don't hate yourself."

Her face was twisted in self-derision. "Just saying. How stupid do you have to be? You are what you are and I know better. And I still call for you. I shouldn't trust you."

"You just said you didn't."

"And I don't!" Adams snarled. She gave Mr Star a push, which he took without blinking. Her shoulders slumped. "...but sometimes, I lie."

"I wouldn't, you know," Mr Star said, after a painful silence.

"Wouldn't what?"

"Double-cross you. I'm not tricking you. Well, not in any big way at least - little tricks keep life interesting for both of us. But I'm not after your soul."

"Really," she deadpanned. She wiped her sleeve across her face, leaving behind a smear of grime of dust in damp conditions. "Then what are you after?"

"Companionship."

She looked at him. Steve barely noticed he was holding his breath.

Mr Star - a demon, whatever nonsense they'd cooked up about spies and secret agents and magical phones - was standing there, a tall shape huddled into himself, his eyes downcast.

It must be a trick. Because no demon had the right to look so... sad. So lonely. So much like a kid that had been kicked around by Fate too often.

Working with demons was tricky, Steve realised. But in the stories the demons came with teeth and claws and burning magic, a raging threat. Not this... creature with a sad face that asked for friendship.

Tricky indeed.

And Adams, licensed demonologist... was quiet. Just looking at Mr Star, her expression hard to describe, a small furrow on her brow.

"You've got others for that," she said, eventually. "Don't you?"

Something in Mr Star seemed to fade. His nodded quietly.

"Alright," he said. "Let's just… do our job, then."

"I mean, you don't need me," Adams added, as if the demon hadn't just spoken. "I'm bad company."

"I don't think so."

"You know what I said. I can't trust you."

"Alright. You made your point, don't need to keep rubbing it in." Mr Star shook his head. "Work. We were doing something important, weren't we?"

Adams looked at him, long and silently, until she finally seemed to make a decision. She nodded, and was suddenly all business again. "Yes. I suggest we go left - are you filming this?"

Busted. Steve lowered the camera slightly, but not enough to let Adams' glaring face drop out of view. "This is a show, you know," he said defensively.

It didn't work.

"If that footage ever sees the light of day I'll kill you," Adams snarled. "This was private!"

"Then you shouldn't have been talking about it in front of a camera - hey! Don't touch my stuff!"

He held the camera in the air until she stopped attempting to grab it.

"Hmpf." She took a deep breath. "That footage is going to be deleted. You hear me?"

"Well, you're just lucky we lost the livestream to the boat then," Steve said. "Down here there's no reception. Of anything."

A loud groan of straining metal shook through the walls. The floor trembled.

Adams was suddenly very, very pale.

"What was that?"

Steve ignored her. He put his free hand to the wall of the corridor and felt the slight shivers. Aftershock? Had they just felt an earthquake? This was bad.

"Those were ghosts, right? Just ghosts?"

"I don't think so," Steve said. "Maybe. Ghosts usually make things float, or mess with your head. Stuff like that. This felt big."

Monifa had mentioned a storm, hadn't she? Maybe the protective enchantments around the oil rig were less stable than they'd thought...

"You remember how to engage your underwater spell, right?" he checked.

Adams seemed to pale even more, if possible. "Please don't tell me the bunker is flooding."

"I don't know. Worst case scenario. Probably not. But let's speed up our walking, even so."

For once she didn't argue and just took his advice. The floor trembled again.

"Question," Adams said, after a long walk in silence, aside from the metal creaking of the walls. "What good is that waterbreathing spell and the pressure suit going to do, actually? If this thing bursts, odds are we will be stuck. Inside."

"It'll help us live long enough for the rescue team to come find us," Steve said.

"True. If they show up, and the boat hasn't been trashed by, I don't know, a storm or something."

"You're so pessimistic. The boat will be fine. And they would show up. This isn't the first expedition that went badly. We've had to be rescued a few times before."

"Alright, so let's say someone does show up, eventually," Adams agreed. "But meanwhile, until they find us down here... we'd still be trapped. In the dark. With ghosts and a really ticked off demon."

"I could tesser you out in a snap," Mr Star shrugged. "No problem."

"No problem, really?"

"Jup. You see, it's probably those wards around this place that are interfering with my magic. If they drop, well, you'll be sunk. But my limits would be gone, I bet."

"You're not sure?"

"Not a hundred percent, but it sounds plausible."

Adams rubbed her face. "Great. We're all going to die."

"Pessimistic," Steve sighed.

"I know, right?" Mr Star commisserated. "She's always like that. Too worried about everything to cut loose a bit."

Steve... really didn't want to be around a demon 'cutting loose'. He worried a bit about Mr Star's definition of that, but decided not to ask.

"I can hear you, you know," Adams said.

Mr Star nodded wisely at her. "You should relax more."

"Here and now? That's the advice you're giving me?"

The world shook again. There was something odd about the shaking, something Steve couldn't quite put his finger on. For a second, it had felt like he'd been floating...

Well, the mind plays tricks on you, underwater.

The corridor ended. There were no more doors, except for one. Another hatch in the wall, not very different than the ones before. Whatever this cult had been, they hadn’t cared much about style. The inner sanctum of a demon worshipping cult should at least have an impressive door…

“Looks heavy,” Adams said. “Can you open this for us, Alc- Al?”

No response. Mr Star had paused a few feet behind them. He seemed rooted to the floor, wide eyes staring at the flat X symbol on the hatch.

"No," he said, seemingly to himself. "It can't be."

"What are you waiting for?" Adams called. "A little help please."

"...coming."

[flying-guinea-pig]

Season Finale 4/7

AO3 linky

The previous chapters.

Chapter 4: The Upper Levels

Don't split up. That was the first rule of horror movies. And what did they do? They split up.

She kept her eyes open for anything strange. What did a regular oil rig look like, anyway? Maybe they all had those bands of spidery runes crawling over the ceiling, could be part of the stabilisation spells, right?

Oh. False alarm. It was just cracked paint.

“According to the blueprints, the main computer room should be this way,” Tenney said.

[Ooh!] the Alcor Virus perked up. [Yes, let’s go there!]

Tenney glanced at her over his shoulder. “If you insist on playing with your phone, Ms Adams, at least have the decency to turn off the sound.”

“Apologies,” she said, turning down the volume.

[Did you really expect that to work on me?] The pixelated Alcor asked. He tapped a finger on his chin, then nodded. [But okay. I’ll allow it.]

“How gracious of you,” she muttered, as the words crawled across her screen without those annoying noises.

"Do you think the computers will still work?" April asked.

"Perhaps," Tenney said. "I doubt they will be very informative, however. According to the official report, what little data they could get from them was all scrambled beyond understanding."

"Oh," April said. She hesistated. "Too bad. It would have been nice to have, I don't know, some camera footage perhaps? Old pictures?"

Tenney patted her shoulder, his smile compassionate and heartening. It didn't escape Elisabeth's notice how he made sure to keep his face in full view of the camera guy.

"We can always try," he said. "Perhaps they didn't put much effort in it, since there was already enough evidence of a cult gone wrong. And a lot of progress has been made in sixty years."

[Challenge accepted,] her phone added, vibrating to catch her attention.

"But I have another motive to go this way," Tenney said. "Ah, there it is. Steve, if you will?"

He led them to a room that was barely worth the name. Three massive mechanical things filled it from wall to wall, leaving barely enough room for Steve to squeeze past them. He put the camera down and fiddled for a moment with the machines. They started to hum.

"Voila," Tenney said, and flipped the light switch with flair. Light, cold white and buzzing faintly, flooded the corridor.

"Generators," April laughed, just as Elisabeth realised the same. "That will make exploring the lower levels a lot easier. If all the lights still work down there."

The room next to this one had windows, looking out over the platform and the growing waves. It also had computers, dusty and old-fashioned.

[Put me on top of one,] the Alcor Virus asked, jumping up and down on the screen with excitement.

"Why?" she said. Whispering, since the others were distracted by the view through the windows, but maybe not distracted enough to miss how she was arguing with her phone again.

[No connection, wireless or otherwise,] the chibi Alcor said. [Hasn't been one in ages, I bet. Feels a bit like gravedigging, doesn't it? This is so cool.]

"No, I meant why as in why should I?" The last thing they needed was a demonic virus playing around with the electronics. This place was haunted already, let's not make it any worse.

[I could just jump there anyway, if you don't mind the showy fireworks when I do. You don't mind, right? Fireworks are awesome.]

She glared at his smug smile. Oh look, this room had windows. Open window. Drop phone. Probably wouldn't get rid of him for long, but it would make her feel better...

[Aw, come on... please?]

Those pixelated puppy eyes were truly ridiculous.

The computer started booting up the second she put her phone down on the bulky screen. There was a gasp from behind her.

"Look!" April was staring at the screen. Strings of numbers were scrolling past. "It just... started, all on its own."

"Ah, yes," Tenney said. "This place knows you, my dear. This is clearly the work of a spirit."

"Clearly," Elisabeth muttered.

The screen switched to a desktop. It was relatively empty, with only a few files and a calender sidebar. The background didn't offer much of a clue either, being a random picture of the sea.

Seriously now, what kind of cult didn't even use their demon's symbol as a background? It had to be somewhere!

April made an hesistant movement towards the computer. “Should I- ?”

At Tenney’s nod she sat down. A speck of white pixels appeared in the center of the screen, a blob that grew until it overtook the entire desktop.

[Hello April,] black letters crawled across the white screen.

April gasped.

[We're so glad to finally meet you.]

[There is much you need to know.]

Text and graphs started flashing on the screen, so many it was just a blur of data, before the acrid smell of burned plastic drifted from the computer case and the screen went black again.

Tenney pressed the power button, to no avail.

“Interesting,” he said. “Steve, you got a good view of the screen, I hope? Make sure Monifa gets it and decrypts it.”

“Will do, sir. I’m sending it right now.”

“It looked like… mathematical formulas,” April said, still blinking at the screen. “All those symbols and numbers… Why would they show this to me?”

Tenney patted her back. “I don’t know, Ms Merrick, but if your ancestors go to such lenghts to share it with you, it must be important.”

“Or it’s gibberish,” Elisabeth said. “It could be anything. Your great-grandmothers recipe for stuffed turkey or something.”

“Ghosts don’t expend their strenght sending meaningless messages, Ms Adams,” Tenney said.

Sure, maybe ghosts didn’t. But the Alcor Virus?

She gave Tenney a curt nod – no use in arguing about this, especially since she really didn’t want anyone to know about her possessed phone – and shot the latter a suspicious look as they left the control room.

"That was you, wasn't it?"

[You’ll have to be more specific. What are you talking about?]

"I swear, I'm this close to throwing you overboard."

[Go ahead,] the chibi Alcor grinned. [I'm already in the building. See?]

The lights flickered on and off, in a regular pattern, like heartbeats.

[Whoever these cultists were, they really liked their electronics! Can’t really go deeper than the seventh floor down, though. There’s something blocking me.]

Elisabeth nearly bumped into the others, who’d slowed down when the lights flickered.

April was pale as a ghost herself, clearly rethinking this whole plan to go hunting for her dead relatives’ spirits.

“Have no fear,” Tenney said. He patted April’s shoulder. “This place is watching you, my dear. But you are safe with me.”

Elisabeth made a face as she followed them. An abandoned, probably leaky metal contraption in the middle of a raging sea, with a demonic computer virus and a bunch of ghosts for company. Sure. Safe.

The ‘raging sea’ bit was no exaggeration, unfortunately. A glance out of the portholes showed white-tipped waves under a sky that fit pretty well with Elisabeth’s current mood.

"I don't like the look of those clouds," Steve said, pausing to stand next to her.

She shrugged. Between ghosts and a demon, the weather was the least of her concerns.

"You don't talk much, do you?"

She frowned. "Neither do you."

Steve shrugged, his smile rueful. "It's Tenney's show. I just hold the camera."

“Shouldn’t you go and do that, then, instead of bothering me about the weather?”

He held up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m just saying. We’re not just here to look around. We’re here to make television. So, you know. At least try to participate.”

“I have nothing to add yet,” she said, a bit prickly. “There is nothing demonic going on here.” Her phone vibrated in her pocket. “Nothing demonic at all.”

Steve shook his head. “Fine. Be that way. It’s your job on the line, not mine.”

What was that supposed to mean? Hugh wouldn’t fire her for something like this! Would he? She hadn’t signed up for being an actress, she was an exorcist! And if her boss dared to hold this against her, well –

She took a deep breath. That camera guy was just trying to push her buttons. These kind of reality shows always hungered for drama, didn’t they? And if there wasn’t any, they’d cut and paste their footage enough to manufacture some. She wasn’t going to take this bait, damn it.

[I’m deciphering those files from the computer,] the chibi Alcor said. [They’re encrypted in so many ways! These guys were really paranoid.]

Not paranoid enough to stay alive, it seemed.

Steve was still watching her. Elisabeth kept her eyes on her phone and typed: ‘Anything I need to know? Re: demon?’

Typing worked. That was good to know. Now she could look a little less crazy.

[Nothing yet. This symbol does pop up a lot, but it could be part of the encryption. Still working that one out!]

The screen flashed her an image of something that resembled a flattened X.

[I’m running a few dozen decoder programs right now, just need to find what key they used.]

The pixelated face beamed at her. It seemed just as excited as Alcor was, whenever he was faced with some kind of mystery to unravel.

‘Try Xuerus,’ she suggested.

[… You really have no high regard of cultists, do you?] the Alcor Virus said. [Usually I would agree, but these guys were clever! I never had trouble with deciphering stuff before.]

She slid her phone back into her pocket. At least the Alcor Virus wouldn’t bother her too much, if he was busy with those files. And who knew? Maybe he would find something useful.

“Ah, the mess hall,” Tenney said, at an open doorway at the end of the corridor. “Steve, up front please.”

They waited for Steve to take some shots of the room before entering themselves. The place was a mess, indeed. Benches and long tables. Rotted scraps of cloth littering the floor, the remains of napkins or table cloth or who knew what else.

“Oh,” April said, touching the cracked sheet of plastic on the wall. "There's a bulletin board.”

Age had faded most of the messages. She could make out some numbers and dates - a calender of some kind, probably. In the lower left corner there were two drawings, faded as everything else, but still recognizably made by children. One was just a mass of scribbles. The other depicted blue curls and a black blob in the middle, stick figures on top of it, blue clouds in the sky.

"People lived here," April said, softly. She reached out and touched the drawings. "Children lived here. And then everyone died."

"Your grandmother survived," Tenney said.

"Yes. But by pure coincidence." April took a trembling breath. “I’m sorry, I knew this was going to be difficult but I thought I’d be stronger than this...”

Tenney slid an arm over her shoulders. “Completely understandable, my dear. These people were your family. Do you need a moment to collect yourself?”

April wordlessly shook her head, and Tenney let her be.

They found the kitchen - as deserted as everything else, and with the musty, dusty smell of food that had rotted away a long time ago. From there they went on to old living quarters, tiny bedrooms and communal break rooms.

It was hard to miss the little touches of life, here. The pictures on the walls, the dusty music player. A book had been left on a sitting table, its spine cracked, open and waiting for its reader to return.

Elisabeth carefully removed some of the dust on it. You never know, maybe it was some book on demons, anything that could give a clue about this Xuerus they worshipped.

But no, it was a novel. Just some old romance novel she'd never heard of. Someone had been reading this before leaving it behind, too hurried to put a proper bookmark inside.

"Can I ask you a question?" April said, breaking the silence that followed them into the abandoned rooms.

"Depends," Elisabeth said. "What do you want to ask?"

"Why did you decide to go into demonology?"

She shrugged. Why indeed? No one in her family had meddled with demons, and she had no traumatic tales or - god forbid - Twin Souls obsession to blame for her choice.

"I guess, because I was tired of people being stupid," she said.

April smiled. "You wanted to help people."

Well, yes. Wasn't that the point of everything? "Obviously. Even ignoring cults for a minute, there are way too many demon summonings performed by idiots. They set things loose in this world that are a danger to everyone. We can't let those run around freely." She frowned. "Why do you ask?"

"I'm just wondering," April said, her smile turning bittersweet. "What would bring someone to think demon summoning is a good idea."

"Don't compare me to a cult."

"I'm not, I swear. I know it's different. But don't you think... could this be how they got started? Good intentions, that somehow spiralled out of control?"

"Maybe." Elisabeth didn't really believe it though. You had to be pretty crazy to start a cult. "You know what they say about the road to Hell."

"Paved with good intentions," April said, quietly.

A bit like trying to save your classmate-slash-rival from a demonic possession by revealing it on stage. She cringed at the memory. That had been a bad move. Good intentions, but... not the brightest thing she could've done.

On the other hand, her exorcism had worked, even if only for a second. On the Dreambender himself! It had been a good lesson for her - shows you can get the upper hand on even the most powerful of beings - if you could manage to catch them off guard.

It had also taught her that a large room full of everyone's loved ones probably wasn't the best place to mess around with demons, but to be fair, she wasn't the only one to make that mistake and at least no one had died in her case. These cultists had been less lucky.

Well, there hadn't been any proof yet that these cultists had been murdered by their demon, but really, how big were the odds they all mysteriously died by some other, unrelated cause?

As she looked around though, she noticed more and more signs that whatever had happened, hadn't been part of the plans. There was a bowl of something fuzzy and grey on the table, overgrowing the spoon next to it. A chair had been tipped back. In one of the bathrooms a towel was abandoned haphazardly on the floor, moldy clothes stacked next to the sink.

The current theory seemed more and more unlikely. If the cult had died because of some big summoning that went wrong… well, big summonings didn’t just happen. They needed preparation. you’d expect everyone in the cult to be present for an event like that, wouldn’t you?

Unless something had come through before they were ready for it. In which case it could have been any demon, not necessarily this mysterious Xuerus no one knew about.

Great. This wasn’t confusing enough already. Not that it really mattered, of course. It had been sixty years. Whichever demon was responsible, it would be long gone by now.

---

They took a short break in the mess hall, where Steve cleared a table to do some light maintenance on his camera. The image turned fuzzy sometimes, which really shouldn’t happen. Maybe some settings were off…

“Some flickering lights and a mysterious computer message,” Tenney filled in Francesca on the other end of the phone. “Monifa should be deciphering it now. I expect there’s been some progress with programs like that… How about on your end, anything? Disappointing. Very well, we’ll - no, no, I was actually thinking we’d head down and meet you there. Steve needs to fix his camera – can you repeat that? The line’s breaking up – Wonderful. I lost the connection. Steve, you need to get this fixed.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.” Steve hesitated. “What are the plans? Are we going to reconvene with Francesca’s team?”

“Not yet,” Tenney said. “I told her to go ahead and wait for us on the sixth level down. Smaller groups, that’s the key. There’s so little spiritual activity here, they might get spooked and remain quiet if we’re all together.” He glanced at April. “I doubt they’ll get more than ambiance shots, actually. They don’t have you, my dear, and you seem to be the trigger.”

“Oh,” April said. “I, um, was just wondering if I could use the bathroom, but maybe I shouldn’t go alone then…”

“I’ll go with you,” Adams said. “There should be one next to the kitchen here.”

“Of course, of course,” Tenney waved them away. “But be careful, and don’t wander.”

Adams gave him a deadpan look. “I doubt there’ll be many ghosts haunting bathrooms. But don’t worry, we’ll scream if anything happens.”

As soon as the door fell closed behind them, Tenney turned to Steve and gave the suble hand signal to turn off their cameras.

That never boded well.

Tenney started pacing between the tables, keeping a wary eye on the door towards the bathroom.

"We've been burned on this arrangement," he said.

"We have, sir?"

"We were promised a strong haunting. But there's barely anything here."

Yes, that sinking feeling in his stomach was very familiar. "Are you sure, sir? We’ve come across a spirit already -"

"A mere category one!" Tenney said, with an angry gesture. "Playing around with the lights - that's not the material we need. This is our season finale, Steve. We need something big! Something impressive!"

"We haven't gone very deep yet, sir, maybe in the lower levels, where the bodies are -"

"Yes, yes, I know. There could be stronger spirits there," Tenney said, impatiently. "But if there are category ones hanging around... You know the odds as well as I do. I doubt we will find anything higher than a four, maybe a five if we're lucky. Nearly a hundred and fifty people died here. That kind of brutal murder should have at least spawned a category nine!"

Tenney bared his teeth, his famous smile now a dark grimace. "No, we've been duped. We should have known this would be the case. It's the demon's fault. It must have eaten the souls. And what's left is just echoes. Easily removed. And perhaps a handful of category ones, up here."

That possibility had crossed their minds before, of course. Eating souls was what demons did, and without a soul - or at least a fragment of a soul - it was very difficult to get ghosts of an impressive power level. But with such a large number of deaths, and the fact no one had heard about Xuerus afterwards, which definitely should have happened if the demon had gotten such a power boost... And the malfunctioning drones, of course... Well, it all pointed to a powerful haunting. It should have been.

"And this will not do," Tenney said, determination clouding his face. "It will not do at all."

Steve knew where this was going. And it was really, really illegal. "Sir, perhaps we should take a look in the lower levels before making any hasty conclusions.”

It wouldn't work - he knew his boss - but he had to try.

"I can't sense anything from down below, Steve."

"Maybe -"

"Are you telling me my senses are wrong?"

Oh boy. That sweet tone was usually only aimed at Francesca these days. "Of course not, sir."

"Good," Tenney said. "I've been in this business longer than you can imagine, my boy. If there was something above category five down there, I would know."

He clasped his hands behind his back as he turned to the porthole, to the grey sky and foam-flecked waves. "You have the equipment?"

"Sir..."

"We need at least a category eight if we want our ratings to hold. You know what low ratings mean. No season three."

Steve nodded. He had the equipment. He always did, even if some of it could land him in jail. Preternaturals didn't like it if you walked around with powdered banshee tongue and ingredients like that. That's why Tenney didn't keep it on his own person.

"Good," Tenney said, when Steve took the little container with highly illegal things out of the hidden compartment in his camera bag. "Distract the girls for a few minutes, will you? This episode is going to be talked about for years."