#aunt sia posting

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Forty-One - Love Me Normally

“Impossible choices,” Garrett hummed, still looking down at the tile. “A soldier faced with terrible orders, the only Conduit who could prevent genocide…” They looked up to meet my eyes, stare pointed as they said, “A parent, trying to cure their child.”

9.6 k Words | 40 min - 1 hr read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: death, unreality, experimentation, child neglect/endangerment, mind...control? poisoning, torture, canon typical violence, erosion typical violence. Angst. Reveals :D

⚠ AUTHOR'S NOTE: the second half of the Garrett chapters and my excitement grows stronger, as now, I get to move on, finally, to what I imagined Erosion to always be—and that's thanks to Garrett and their amazing creator, @neverdewitt. Yet again I have to give credit where credit is due and thank him for the amazing character and the chance to let his OC be the one to pull the wool from Jean's eyes, and force her to stare the beast that is the past in its broken, bloody pupils. Thanks for letting me have Garrett, and again, sorry babes for having you wait this fucking long, love. I adore you!

Also....thank you @inhumanghostlight for the permissions. :) I love you as well!

“Dad!” I called out into the night, the sound bouncing back from the waters and ringing in my ears. No. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t him. I stood, rushing to the edge of the rooftop and trying to summon my water to help carry me down. Trying being the keyword.

But it never came.

And I couldn’t stop.

My feet skittered against the concrete of the rooftop, failing to find traction and instead making me slip, falling flat on my back and hitting my head against the hard floor. My legs flew past the edge and went further still, not giving me the grace of letting me get the stars out of my vision before the momentum dragged me off.

I shot out a hand and barely managed to grab the edge of the rooftop, slamming against the side as I held on for dear life. I choked, the hit knocking the wind out of me—but I couldn’t let go. I wasn’t enthused at the idea of plummeting 5 stories without my powers.

Hissing, I blinked back the tears from my pain, swinging my body to get my other hand to the ledge and try to pull myself up. But just as my hand came up, a black converse settled in the place I planned to grapple.

“Shit—“ I gasped; with nowhere to grab and no way to stop my momentum, I teetered hard, fingers on the hand that was holding me up beginning to slip. I wasn’t sure what Garrett was putting me through right now, but I knew I could feel. I knew pain was possible. And that drop was going to hurt a lot.

My fingers kept sliding, and I couldn’t find the advantage to get my other hand back up no matter how hard I tried. In fact, all thrashing around did was make me lose my grip further. I glanced up at whoever blocked me from grabbing the ledge with a scowl, blood freezing when I saw they were staring right back at me—and that wasn’t Garrett. Red pleated skirt, almost like the school uniform Linus Pauling used to make us wear before getting rid of the requirement. Ablazer, black hair pulled back into an immaculate bun and…a mask. A pure white, geometric mask of a rabbit.

I grunted, trying to keep a hold of the ledge as she just stared down at me. “Who—” I cut off, the weight of my entire body now on three fingers. “Who are you?”

She didn’t answer. Instead, the words came with another breeze, their airy tone familiar. “Mother’s favorite child,” Garrett’s voice whispered in the back of my mind.

I didn’t have time to mull over the words—I felt the knuckles of my last three fingers sliding, and I choked out “Help me,” to the girl, who just stayed glaring down at me. “Help me!”

She didn’t. She watched the breeze take me, not even flinching when I screamed as I fell.

There’s this strange dilation that comes with freefalling; it felt like time both sped up and slowed down all at once. Everything became so concentrated until the blood pounding in my head roared in my ears like a seastorm, and all I could hear were the war drums of my own heart rate.

I should have known it was too loud to just be some internal beat.

The fall was far shorter than it should have been, and I wasn’t at all where I should have been; I didn’t meet the dock nor sidewalk, but concrete, slamming so hard into the epoxy coating on top that I half-expected it to crack under me. I writhed in pain as my spine lit up, taking a moment to blink through the tears and will oxygen back into my lungs as I registered that I was, once again, surrounded by concrete.

And that steady beeping became prolonged and harsh as it hit a crescendo, holding its last note.

I propped myself up on my elbows, looking around; this…I think it was Curdun? To be fair, I didn’t know enough about Curdun to safely say so—but the dark concrete on all four walls, the ceiling and floor suggested as much. But this wasn’t like that cell from before, not at all. Everything was too pristine.

I shifted to my stomach, trying to push myself up off the ground as the steady note stopped, some sort of doctor fiddling with a machine in the room. He was staring down at a body strapped to a metal table with disappointment on his face, like he was more inconvenienced that this person just died on his table instead of the horrifying fact that they just died on his table. I shakily got to my feet in time to see the doctor pull EKG pads off of the Conduit’s chest, his pale skin adorned with red blood oozing from every orifice in his face and dripping back into his stark white hair. He was riddled with holes and gaps, tubing being pulled from him one by one as the doctor scowled down at the patient.

The test subject.

I heard of testing done in Curdun Cay long before I knew Dad was Delsin. Everyone did. It was one of those blemishes the history teachers would breeze over in class and you’d have to learn after seeing a survivor’s interview on television or some post on social media. I learned about it from a Wikipedia rabbit hole when writing a report on Delsin Rowe’s tag art and importance of civilian empowerment. Before then, I hadn’t known more than them being locked up. Even then, it was something disconnected from reality, or it at least felt like it.

There was something different in seeing the doctor rip a catheter out of this man’s veins like it was nothing, meant nothing. Like deboning a chicken.

“Shame.” A voice behind me said, making me spin in place. Augustine stood  mere inches away in her classic Director uniform, staring through me at the corpse in disappointment. “I had hoped it would work this time.”

Being in front of her, so close to her, felt unnerving; every fiber in my being was telling me to attack first or suffer the consequences, and I would have had water already surrounding my hands if that was even a viable option here in…whatever this mental charade was. But she didn’t acknowledge how I bristled in place, how I backed up until I leaned against the same table the corpse was on—she acted like I wasn’t there. I guess, in some way, I wasn’t. If this was a memory, I was a spectre—like I was Ebenezer Scrooge and this was my fucked up A Christmas Carol.

It didn’t keep me from scooting sideways and away from her glare, though.

As I did, I realized Augustine wasn’t alone; just off to her right and three steps behind her, Garrett stood, just a year or two older than the last memory with them in it. Their hair was longer and the ends were colored in pink that stank of permanent marker, the closest they could get to a salon. They only glanced at the corpse before screwing their eyes shut and looking away, turning their head my way as their free hands clenched into fists at their sides.

 The one closest to me, though, reminded me of Mei; short black hair cropped just before it could touch the shoulder, high cheekbones that made her monolid eyes defined and deep. She looked down at the body of the young man with her head cocked to the side, face curious. Her hands were free as well and constantly moving, playing with her fingers as she stared on.

“Initial signs were promising,” the doctor said, looking at Augustine. She was nearly 6 inches taller than him and seemed even more so, with the way he withered under her critical gaze as he delivered the news. “The device was implanted successfully, and initially was suppressing the subject's powers within expected parameters—however, prolonged exposure to the inhibitor was deleterious to the Conduit’s condition. The body began to experience threatened homeostasis, which made its HPA axis respond. Lack of power expression makes the Conduit gene continue trying to develop rayacitin, which in turn is prohibited by the device. The extreme stress caused hemorrhaging and cardiac arrest in this subject, which��with our direction to not intervene to see the device’s effects on the Conduit’s physiology…”

The doctor motioned uselessly at the dead body, like that was enough to excuse killing someone in the name of science.

Augustine looked displeased. “That’s unfortunate. I trust I don’t have to stress to you how much is riding on the results of these trials, correct?” She asked the doctor, eyebrow raising on an otherwise cold face.

The doctor nodded. “Yes, Director, I’m aware—but I need you to grasp the gravity of the situation: attempting to ‘switch off’ the Conduit’s powers is like playing with the delicate balance of their entire body. It's not just about controlling abilities; there's a real risk of their entire body breaking down. No Conduit can survive long-term with this device even if we adjust the model’s RFI abilities.”

“She knew the risks then. Before.” Garrett hummed in their youthful body, standing still behind Augustine with their hands still clenched into fists as their eyes raised to meet mine. “There was no real way to disable a Conduit’s abilities without pain.”

“Without results, I'll lose everything I've built here.” Augustine hissed. “There’s too much pressure from above to find a long-term solution to Conduits. I lose funding and the government takes over, all because you can't do what I need you to.”

Solution to Conduits?

“I know,” The doctor promised. “But Dr. Wolfe’s preliminary notes are rudimentary at best. We’re having to build more on his assumption that a Conduit’s power can be controlled via manipulation to the corpus callosum, but this is a science we simply don’t have access to. There’s no possible way to exploit the channel without having severe effects on the subject.”

Augustine took a step forward. “I didn’t ask about impossibility. I am not scrubbing DUP files and handing you Conduits just for you to tell me you cannot commit to the challenge, Bennet. This implant is the only reason we haven’t heard calls from the defense branch to defund Curdun Cay. Without results, we’ll lose everything we have here and these Conduits will be left in the hands of the military.”

“She was trying to figure out a way to get rid of Conduits?” I asked, looking over at Garrett. RFI abilities in an implant? It sounded like she was trying to cure them of their abilities, or whatever she considered curing.

They sighed. “She was trying to find a way to make Conduits safe enough for other humans’ comfort. To find them a freedom the government wasn’t willing to hand over loosely. But,” Garrett drew off, stepping out of place in formation behind Augustine and turning to another table on the opposite wall. They walked across the floor and hopped up to sit on the metal, crossing their ankles. “Mother had another motivation.”

The room got brighter, the sudden shine making my head throb yet again, and I cringed, screwing my eyes shut. Was that all outside stimulus making my head hurt, or was that Garrett playing with my brain matter?

Guess it really didn’t matter either way.

What did matter is by the time the pain subsided and I could open my eyes without cringing, the entire room had changed save for Garrett; the girl with black hair was gone, the guy with white hair no longer laid out on the other table and the doctor, Bennet, no longer hanging over him. Garrett was a little bigger now, hair just past their shoulders and tucked behind their ears as they stared blankly at the floor, face a controlled, blank canvas. There was a new doctor at the end of the table, conversing with a much-less stoic Augustine.

“—trace aggregated forms of alpha-synuclein. It’s practically unheard of in someone of Jorrer’s age, but with the family’s history of degenerative brain diseases, there’s cause for concern—”

“If it’s not common in their age, then what is causing the issue?” Augustine said tersely, the last few words punctuated at each syllable. Her hand was on Garrett’s knee, shoulders back and tense, and I swear for a moment I caught a flash of Dad in the same position just an hour ago. A parent trying hard to keep it together as they heard something devastating regarding their child’s health.

The doctor swallowed thickly, nervously stumbling, “We need to consider the possibility that Jorrer’s abilities are having an adverse effect on their cognitive function. We’ve yet to figure out how they drain for their consciousness powers. There’s a chance it’s…taking from their own synapses.”

I couldn’t believe it. “The implant was…was to help you?”

“Impossible choices,” Garrett hummed, still looking down at the tile. “A soldier faced with terrible orders, the only Conduit who could prevent genocide…”

They looked up to meet my eyes, stare pointed as they said, “A parent, trying to cure their child.”

I did not like the comparison there. 

Garrett let me stew in the symmetry between our stories, continuing, “At some point, like all well-timed coincidences, the lines between the two blurred. The truth is, Jeanie—in a world like this, there are no heroes and villains. There never will be. Just impossible choices, and their effects.”

Garrett broke eye contact to instead look at Augustine, a strange sort of forlorn bleeding into their irises. “Her attempt to muzzle me was out of mercy as much as it was fear.” They said, and something in the corner of my eye moved. I spun around as screaming rang in the room, turning to see Augustine’s face go slack as Garrett glared at her, their gazes meeting. Blood began to trickle out of her nose as Garrett moves like they’re trying to sit up, one half of their head shaven and spliced, still bloody from the staples holding the skin together.

“Turn it on, turn the damned thing on and cover their eyes!” The doctor, Bennet, screamed, ripping off his facemask.

“Although, I think in my case, one fed into the other,” Garrett’s voice rang in my head as Augustine’s snapped back, a nurse using a face mask as an impromptu blindfold on Garrett. Augustine fell with the movement, dazed, collapsing on the ground before beginning to convulse as a seizure took hold of her. “The implant was insurance as well as treatment…but you heard the doctor. The hypothetical Wolfe explored in the past wasn’t a long-term solution.”

There was a scuffle behind me and I turned, instinctively raising my hands and waiting for the water that never came. Not that it mattered—the people there didn’t see me. “I don’t understand,” Augustine growled. Garrett was sitting slouched on the table, power cuffs on—and a black blindfold over their eyes. The metal of their cuffs chimed slightly with every small kick of their leg as they sat. “What do you mean the implant is failing?”

Bennet scowled, showing Augustine the screen of his small laptop. “It seems their powers go beyond mental. The device is showing degradation akin to someone who’s had an implant for decades. Attachment to the Substantia Nigra is nearly severed. With this sort of damage, it explains why the minuscule access they had to their powers has been augmented.”

“Augmented is an understatement,” Augustine hissed, “They managed to get three guards to kill each other.”

“The first time my mother tried to restrain me didn’t last,” Garrett uttered, head still hung. “Halfway through the second year, I’d managed to fix what she tried to break. I had nearly freed myself. Though…” Garrett trailed off, inhaling deep, “Not without paying a price.”

“The implant’s degradation may also be causing their worsening condition,” Bennet added. “Disruption of dopaminergic modulation is known to cause an increase in symptoms like theirs—the tremors, the seizures. Director, I’m advising immediate removal. We need to perform a thorough examination to figure out when exactly it stopped suppressing their powers, and why.”

Augustine looked displeased—and yet a hand reached out to run through Garrett’s hair. “Their disease worsens the more they use their power,” Augustine pointed out, sounding tense. Worried.

Bennet rolled his eyes as Augustine looked at Garrett, but tried to appear sympathetic when she glanced back up. “I’m aware.” He said. “But they’ll get worse if it stays in.”

“Impossible choices.” Garrett hummed yet again. Augustine’s hand left their hair and hovered by their blindfold for a moment before falling to her side. “Her attempt at mercy did nothing but make me worse. In some strange way, I like to imagine she carried guilt over her actions. That perhaps this was her sign that it wasn’t to be. That meddling with nature like this would cause more harm than good.”

Garrett’s head rose and turned towards me, seemingly able to see me through the blindfold. “She didn’t listen. Especially when the universe gave her the perfect opportunity.”

There was a loud and terrible grinding noise and fissures began to spread in the wall to my left, rocks clattering to the ground as the crevice extended, chipping away at the walls of Curdun Cay to reveal a hidden gem; the sight of Mount Rainier and the Seattle skyline outside of the clerestory window was just on the other side of a glass wall meeting room, the sort of ones that were in fancy office buildings where passerby could peek in as people gestured to the projector's images without disturbing the meeting. The concrete wall continued to collapse until there was a space large enough for me to climb through, and I glanced back to see if Garrett wanted me to go on when I realized I was alone in the room now.

Well. There really was nowhere else to go.

I moved over the concrete on the floor and up to the hole, ducking and stepping through the proverbial looking glass to whatever waited for me on the other side. The standstill of the office seemed to switch on from its frozen point; rain began to patter against the window to the meeting room, blurring the blue bruised sky of the settling nightfall. 

I stepped into the office and the motion sensor lights immediately flickered on, the bright buzzing from the fluorescent lighting searing my eyes. That’s all it needed to force the rest of the scene to change as everything in my mind pulled together, the pulsing of my throbbing head the worst one yet. God, it felt like something in there was going to burst. I audibly groaned, pressing my hands into my temples to try and counteract the migraine, pushing against the swell in my mind as I doubled over. My nose began to run, and nothing I did to sniff it back worked. It was only after the worst of the pain began to ebb away and I wiped it that I realized it was blood.

“We’re running out of time,” Garrett’s voice whispered in the back of my mind, making me shiver.

“—here in Seattle will ensure the DUP will be funded for the foreseeable future.” Augustine’s voice said. I rose from my place, looking around the room; the walls on either side, the same ones I could have sworn were empty seconds ago, were now covered in notes, print-outs and stickies and printer paper covered in sharpie all mapped out like a conspiracy theorists’ daydream, tied together with that same red string. Pictures, all things I knew. Some of things I had seen before; DUP memorandums, surveillance photos of people who definitely did not know the photographer was there. There was one that was more pink than anything else, Mom forming from the neon streaks to kick a drug dealer in the chest. The image shifted, warped around a bit with that shimmering magic of Garrett’s power until it was Mom in DUP pants and a white shirt, brown hair tied back as she positioned the same way over Garrett to try and strike them down. “This will allow me to expand our facilities abroad. We have made excellent headway on establishing a permanent science facility in Australia.” Augustine continued, her voice coming from somewhere behind me.

I tried to turn my head and found that…I couldn’t. I willed it to, tried to tense my muscles—but nothing happened. A bubble of panic rose in my chest as I heard the footfalls of Augustine’s steps behind me and yet my body wouldn’t fucking move. Everything about this suddenly made me feel like I was trapped in a nightmare, unable to do a thing as the monster approached and I was trapped in my body.

“The work we’ve already done there using Dr. Sebastian Wolfe’s notes on the Conduit are, well, awe inspiring. Even to me.” Augustine hummed into one hand as the other settled on my shoulder. Electricity shot up my spine that my body refused to heed, the flinch inside not translating to my stature as Augustine sighed, moving to stand beside me. She lowered her other hand from her mouth, pressing a small red button on the device in it before looking at the board. Half of me wanted to run, dash away from this memory or vision or whatever the hell it was Garrett was doing…but there was another half that was overpowering that one that felt content. Calmed by Augustine’s touch.

“With Delsin Rowe taken care of, and this newfound discovery, we have everything we need for restoring the DUP to its full power.” Augustine hummed.

Unassured. That’s how I felt, or some part of me did, at least. My mouth opened without my consent, the words forced through my throat not sounding like mine at all. “You’re sure he’s gone?”

That wasn’t Garrett’s voice, either. Whose head was I in?

“He fell with the rest of the island in Elliot Bay, and hasn’t been seen since.” Augustine said reassuringly. “He’s no longer going to be a thorn in our side.”

My head lowered, the feeling registering two seconds after the movement was already happening for me, like my brain was rushing to catch up to whatever my body was doing. Those hands crossed at my abdomen weren’t mine. This body wasn’t mine.

But it was hard to repress everything I felt when I was in it. Every sensation, every thought. I was slowly losing me the longer I marinated in this person’s mind, and it became we with a stipulation that I was in the passenger’s seat, nothing more than a witness.

“Dr. Mathis has been able to confirm the status of the Conduit.” Augustine continued. Her hand came up to play with the hair of whatever body I was trapped in, tucking a loose strand behind my ear. “The ability to negate another’s powers’ effects. Merely being around a Conduit is enough to weaken their influence.”

My head raised as Augustine’s hand fell, a conscious effort going into correcting the posture of the body I was trapped in. “What are his attacks like?”

Augustine inhaled deeply. “Seems there are none. No physical ones, at least. His power extends to his being, and what he can touch. Nothing more.”

That doesn’t mean much of anything, I found myself thinking. Unsure whose thought it was as we melted into one. We didn’t voice that, though. “That’s a strong ability…” we drew off instead, leaving the end free floating and loose. Allowing Augustine to fill in the space, choose the narrative—as she always did.

She agreed, at least. “Which is why I’m giving approval for the detainee to be sent to our research facility in Purcell. If we can find a way to harness that ability? The DUP would never fall. We’d be a necessity for every government in the world to control their Conduit populations.”

Control. How we hated that word. “But the Conduit has no attacks—”

“Yet.” Augustine stressed. Her voice was sure enough to force us to look at her; she looked tired, a slice in her eyebrow healing steadily as we met her eyes. “I authorized compatibility testing to find a viable source to channel his power.”

Giving the Conduit attacks. Two powers. Not many were lucky enough to be given such a generous gift. “And if they find one?” We asked, looking up at Augustine. “What then?”

“Then the world knows nothing about this Conduit, and only sees results.” Augustine’s tone was set. Serious. Unwavering. “With no knowledge of how, they’ll be forced to accept our why. Why they need us, why the DUP cannot be unfunded.”

“You plan on using the ability on other Conduits.”

We weren’t asking. We were sure.

Augustine sighed. “It’s a necessity—”

Liar.

“A human would allow a wild animal into its home if it were defanged—”

Traitor.

“And it would be a stepping stone to ensure our kind’s safety.”

Our silence. Our extinction. They’d never be satisfied.

Our face stayed stoic as the angry thoughts rampaged through our head, screaming about how this was less fighting back and more complacency. Giving up our rights, our beings, to placate people who meant nothing. And eventually, those thoughts spilled over, and we spoke out of turn. “We’ve seen how dangerous suppressing a Conduit’s powers is. How can you be sure it wouldn’t lead to more instances like Jorrer?”

Augustine immediately bristled. “Do not mention them,” she hissed through gritted teeth. She never liked when anyone brought up her failures, and this was the brightest splashing of red in her ledger by far because of how deep the shortcomings ran.

We hung our head, staring down at our black and white shoes. Properly acted remorseful. “I’m sorry,” our lips uttered, holding the apology in the air like an offering. Waiting for her to take it.

Augustine’s exhale was shaky. “If this Conduit is able to give us a way to deactivate others without adverse side effects, then Garrett will be free from their burdens. So many others will be, too. This is vital to regaining control of the narrative. Giving the government proof that we have such capability now will buy us time.”

It would do more than that. It would lay down expectancies. Conduits would have to be disconnected from their abilities to gain a semblance of rights. To exist beyond four walls made of double-paned and bulletproof glass. There would be nothing beyond the announcement but the choice of imprisonment or inactivity, forced to mold into the ideal person, human, in order to earn the right to be alive. A right snuffed out. A gift thrown away.

“If we can find a physical element to match the ability,” Augustine continued, taking our seething silence as a cue to add to the conversation, “Garrett’s implant may hold merit. The aura of this Conduit is enough to mitigate abilities. Perhaps storing a piece of him in every Conduit would be enough to weaken their abilities.”

Every Conduit.

And we wouldn’t be spared.

Every second that passed without a response forced more tension into the room, against the dewy glass and the pinboard until something else, something louder, sliced through it: sirens. APC sirens that echoed loudly through the silence of curfewed Seattle, dozens of them. Augustine’s head snapped towards the foggy window as the siren sang its song, drawing her away from the conversation.

She wasn’t even three steps away before new footfalls echoed; the heavy stomps of boots. That familiar sound that would be followed by cuffs and commands and constraints. “Director,” The voice greeted. Augustine spun around to look at the DUP Soldier. “Rowe’s been spotted. He’s making his way through the north island and was last seen in Paramount.”

“What?” Augustine hissed. We turned to look at her, and caught the end of the glare she threw around the room before facing the soldier fully. “It’s been hours since he was last seen. That’s impossible.”

“We think he’s following Daughtry to the Marina,” the soldier continued.

Augustine inhaled deeply, clenching her fists. “Alright. Thank you,” she eventually growled, anything but thankful.

The soldier nodded and left, Augustine moving to the meeting table and leaning her palms against its flat surface, hanging her head. Her shoulders sagged, then tensed, and then she straightened, turning slowly to look at us. “I want you to track Rowe. See where he goes, what he does.”

“Do you want me to engage with him?” We asked, head tilting slightly.

“No.” Augustine interrupted before the sentence was fully out of our mouth. “Rowe is still a danger, and I don’t want to put you in his crosshairs.” She fixed the buttons on her jacket, trying to force her hands to still before looking back up at us, face softening.

Taking a step forward, her hand left her jacket to settle on our shoulder, squeezing it gently. A rush of discomfort blossomed from the touch as our mind ran a million miles a minute. “I need you to stay safe,” she reassured us. “We both know Rowe’s capabilities, but with his fury, he’ll also be a danger. After what happened in Elliott Bay, he’ll be on the warpath for revenge.”

She released us and stepped away towards the door, and we watched her with narrowing eyes. “Wh–where are you going?” We asked.

Augustine stopped in the doorframe, gripping it. “To prepare. He’s going to want a confrontation. I’m going to give it to him.”

That managed to calm the storm in our mind, everything sputtering to a stop. “What?” We balked. “You’re going to give him the chance to defeat you?”

Something flashed behind Augustine’s stare, and her jaw set. “You assume I’m going to lose to him,” She fumed, turning around to face us fully. “Rowe is a danger, but with this new Conduit? He could be an asset. We both understand what hangs in the balance if he’s allowed to continue.”

“You’ve seen what he can do,” We interjected, taking a step forward. Trying to be insistent towards that piece of her we hoped was still there, if it ever was more than an act. “If he overpowers you—”

“He’s strong in the abilities he’s gained,” Augustine agreed. “He’s not strong in mine.”

She must be joking. “You’re going to let him take your power?”

“You said yourself he’s incompetent as a Conduit with a new ability.” She stressed. “You’ve watched him fight for the most basic abilities. He’s unnatural in his source, and it’s that weakness that we need to exploit. If we can corner him, and use this other Conduit’s ability to control him further, we’d accomplish our mission. We need to create the perfect chance to capture him, he’s too dangerous to keep free.”

The way her shoulders squared, her face steeled, told us all we needed to know; she wasn’t going to change her mind. She was going to structure the ideal confrontation with Rowe, and try to take control of the situation once more. She could sense our hesitation, and added, “Follow him to me. Let me tire him with a fight, let him take my power, and be there as my lieutenant. Help me ensure we will accomplish this.”

We searched her face for a crack, a waver in the idea she’d already constructed in her mind—but she was too far gone. All we could do is nod and watch her rush off without farewells, knowing in our heart it would be the last time we saw her.

We had come to that crossroad the moment Rowe made himself known—and with this new risk, the threat of permanent impairment to placate the masses that would prefer our death, there was too much to lose. We could not idly wait for freedom. We could not win by painting ourselves the villain and inspiring distance. A road continued here would lead to our demise.

We couldn’t follow this path. Not anymore.

Opening an extension. Surpassing the log in requirements to access the DUP’s internal site. Typing in case file codes perfectly and setting their PDFs to download. Waiting until things were transferred to pull out the USB and pocket it, zipping the secrets against our hip like a loaded revolver to use against whatever forces chased for us after Augustine’s inevitable demise.

And just as she did, we turned and left the meeting room, leaving unspoken goodbyes hidden among the conspiracies. 

Every step down the hall echoed back softly on our well-trained light heels, the electricity to the building short-circuiting and plunging the hall into darkness. Thunder rumbled outside, the lightning that followed it illuminating the grout between the tile until it mimicked her concrete, the pores staring back like dozens of judgmental eyes as we abandoned her.

But she was looking for compromise while we needed freedom. And we would only find that by force.

Lightning struck again, the flash illuminating differences in our surroundings; the flooring was now vinyl, lined with a dark baseboard that snaked along with our steps, the hems of our blue scrubs almost black in the darkness. The walls looked different, less bright, and the whispers in the rumbling thunder seemed to grow until they had audible syllables. The sirens of the APC sang in beats until their siren song sank into staccato, the bass rising into even beats that trailed behind every one of our steps.

Lightning never strikes the same place again. A myth proven by centuries of steeples turned to ash and pyres made from the remains of home. It strikes, relentlessly, leaving markings like blooming scars in its wake. But do the bolts truly strike the same spot twice, if those very atoms are irrevocably changed by their first meeting?

Perhaps it was their first interaction with us all those years ago that caused our disillusionment. It felt fitting to come say goodbye.

The last flash of lightning stayed, the brightness temporarily blinding us as it stayed in the hall, shocking the rest of our surroundings to life as we walked down the melancholic halls. Past the nurses station, past the pictures up of patients and their nurses, praises of their care plastered against the hospital walls. The sterile smell of disinfectant and latex-free gloves made our skin itch, and the beeping of monitors was enough to make us want to rip out our cochlea as we briskly walked down the hall to their room. 

The sign on the door got a precursory glance, a warning we were all too used to—don’t peer into Medusa’s gaze or you’ll meet a fate worse than being turned to stone. We glanced back to ensure our lonesome before opening the door and slipping through it, ensuring it latched silently behind us. 

We didn’t raise our eyes—we learned our lesson last time, when the Dream Eater forced us to confront them on a stage they had power in. Our eyes stayed pointed down, hands rising into our vision as the edges of our palms vibrated, like the epidermis itself was trying to separate from the rest of our skeleton. And in a way, it did; our pale skin got paler, shreddings of it shaking off in large layers and fluttering around our wrists like birds dancing in murmuration before coming to conjoin where we directed, folding against each other into a masterpiece. Sharp corners and pristine edges that bent into cheekbones and tall ears, the mask a welcome sight after years of the persona hiding in its burrow. 

But there was no need to hide anymore, now that our plan was finally coming to fruition. 

We fixed the mask to our face before lifting our head to see Dream Eater resting in their bed, face blanked and empty as they stared off towards the window. Was this truly what they amounted to, in the end of it all? A shadow of everything they could have been, something barely even remarkable now? 

A shame. Baku would have made a formidable partner, if fate had written our stories differently. 

But they were a victim to Purotekutā and the lengths she would go to sell a thousand souls for her own goals, molding others into the cobblestone beneath her feet in order to take another step towards what she wanted. Forcing everyone but herself to sacrifice. 

We moved closer, footsteps calling back in echo despite how lightly we tread. They made no move to flinch, to even look in our direction, but ever so slightly their brow twitched, drawing closer as we paused next to their bedside. A part of them, possibly deep within their core, knew of our presence. 

“Hello, Baku,” We greeted. They’d grown to look more like her in their age—lines of stress cracking across their face like it had in Purotekutā’s hardened façade, their hair showed proof of relation now that they couldn’t dye it in protest of being the apple that did not fall far from the tree. We found our place in the chair at their bedside. “It’s been a long time.” 

We paused for a moment, searching Baku’s face for some kind of recognition, proof that they were still there, in some way. We didn’t receive it from their direct recognition, but by their brow twitching, the slight acknowledgement that they were processing something. Did they do the same studious glare she did, when they were still cognitive? Did their brow come together just enough to make an Eiffel Tower-shaped wrinkle reach up from the bottom of their forehead to the heavens? 

“I always wondered what became of you, in the end. For a while, I had watched before giving you the privacy you deserved,” We admitted to them, watching as their hand flexed and unflexed, like they were testing that they still had control over the appendage. We had seen them in those fleeting moments of mollified life between the point where her reign ended and the disease’s reign began, where the remains of everything before forced Garrett to grapple with the person they’d become, and the memories of who they were. Truthfully, there was no moment of peace for any of us, even long after the dust settled. “We all had things we were healing from—scars that were still rough and raw.”

We looked around the hospital room, adding, “Though, in your case, I suppose they’re still gaping.”

Our eyes scanned the room corner to corner, taking in the additions to the sterile white that made it feel liveable. Blush pinks and lush greens coming together to drown out the memories this smell brought them. Us. Anyone who had grabbed Purotekutā’s interest. 

Purotekutā. “I envied you, you know.” We hummed soft, like we were sharing a secret that could damn us. “Long ago, when I was still an ignorant child. First it was simply because of your relation. Though, later, I learned how little any of that meant to her—she wasn’t looking for a progeny, she was looking for a companion, she was looking for a spear. For something that would help her achieve her goals.” Our tone became bitter and dark as we thought about every bit of falsity that made us hope that somewhere, we would find love. That helped us play right into Augustine’s hands as she manipulated that yearn for family. 

We inhaled deeply, shaking our head. “You realized that far sooner than I did, and in my ignorance, I thought you were a fool. She called for you first, compared my actions to you. I truly thought you were throwing away your one chance to stand beside our mother and make her proud.” 

Baku’s hand clenched into a fist at that, the white knuckles far paler than we’d ever seen before. They had become a shell of themself because of what Purotekutā did to them. A shame, truly. 

Our hand snaked up from our lap, hovering over theirs for just a moment before taking it, trying to ignore how papery their skin felt against ours. “In a way, I have you to thank for showing me the truth,” we said sincerely, hoping they understood how deeply our thanks ran at their interference. Without the seed of doubt they had planted in us, we would have never blossomed into what we were now. “It was only because of you that I learned to take off those rose-colored glasses and see Purotekutā for who she really was—a coward. Bowing to the whims of the humans to placate them enough to allow us to live.” 

We hesitated, the flash of a strong nose and harsh gaze entered our mind. Our favorite plaything. “Well, you…and Fukushū.” 

Fukushū…our doubt was sewn deep by Baku’s warning, but it was Fukushū’s intervention that made that seed grow into more. Helped us realize life could not continue the way it had those seven years, if we ever hoped for more than morsels of understanding from those that weren’t like us. 

We moved, laid another hand over Baku’s until we were cupping their hand gently, like perhaps one with mercy would a baby bird. “I realized, a long time ago, that Conduits will always somehow be at fault for a life they didn’t choose. We will never know peace, will always have to pay for the circumstances we were a product of so long as they have a say. The humans, those people that see us as pests to be exterminated.

“I had hoped that these past few years would show promise.” We said mournfully, the sadness in our voice tinged with anger as we thought of how volatile the world was against Conduits still, all these years later. “That the world would’ve let go of theater hatred and allowed us to live as we are. I hoped I was wrong in my fears and that I was just carrying the remains of Purotekutā’s anger with me, what she raised me with. But I’ve come to see that Purotekutā was right. Nothing’s going to change if left to the humans. Nothing that will actually benefit Conduits—and it’s time to stop relying on hopes. Dreams. Fallacies.” 

Baku moved, shifted like they wanted to react, to say something that they couldn’t, being trapped in themselves as they were. A pang of pity shot through us and we gently patted their hand before releasing them, averting our sad gaze from their face and out of the window on the other side of the room—they would hate to have that pity concentrated on them, they always did. We instead moved to look at the sunset-illuminated skyline of this unfamiliar city from the windows, finding envy in the dozens of people below that simply meandered about their daily life like it was the easiest thing to do. Like there were not pressing issues at hand that needed their constant attention. 

But the likelihood was that they didn’t care. That no one did. “We can’t keep waiting for the world to decide when we’re allowed to live,” we said, our voice low as we shared our sentiments with a sibling who couldn’t respond, gripping the windowsill in an effort to contain our rage. “We cannot keep letting them decide how we’re allowed to live. Badges and borders and branding the entirety of our kind for a sin they didn’t commit, forcing them to carry the blame for a single man.”

Our gaze fell from the busy streets to the windowsill, to the various succulents and knickknacks that cluttered the space in an effort to cover up the sterile simplicity of being victim to fates worse than death. We reached out, gingerly taking the well-loved and very worn toy fox from its place, holding it gently in our hands. “I don’t think any of us will escape this world blameless,” we hummed, thumb running over the orb of the fox’s black eye to clear the fur from its sight. Baku had come to Curdun with this same toy, a token from a life far easier than what they lived now, inherited in some way by the parents that had raised them. “A life is made of wrongs we inherit, and the humans seem intent on bestowing these wrongs to us the moment we show we’re not like them. Maybe Purotekutā was right about one thing—the world needs someone to blame.”

Purotekutā had made herself infamous to the world in an effort to be the shield they bashed their swords against in anger. The point of contention to everyone, a dam to keep from either side spilling over too high for her own liking. But that stronghold came with a price—the cost of our people’s rights, their freedom. Baku was proof of everything she was willing to give up for that aforementioned peace. “I’ve spent the last eighteen years hoping things would change,” we told Baku, carefully replacing the fox in the corner of the windowsill, angling it so its back was basking in the warm sun as we scowled. Eighteen years. Eighteen spent hoping for a fate better than what Purotekutā saw for us, if Conduits were left without someone to intervene. Eighteen years spent preparing, holding our breath with our forefinger on a trigger, waiting to see if we needed to pull it. 

And unfortunately, between the world’s strife and our own, there was no longer a chance to wait. “But time has run out, and so has my patience.” The world had waited too long, and so had we—we had no choice but to move forward now, to put our plans into motion. Years of careful planning and deliberate secrets all amounted to the loaded gun now in our hands, and it was time to pull the trigger. “I’ll become that person for the world to blame, but I can’t stand by and watch our people suffer.” 

We turned to face them fully—they hadn’t shifted much in the time we were away from their bedside, but there was effort to how they were positioned now, like some part of them was yearning to connect in a way that was impossible for them now. We crossed to their bedside once more, grabbing both their hands in ours, surprised by the death grip Baku held us in. Despite it all, they were still a fighter, even as weakened and fragile as they were now. We gave them a squeeze back in the same manner, promise in the grip as two victims, two siblings, connected in a final goodbye. “Once the dominoes begin to fall, it will be too late to stop,” we told them. “In some way, the world will not be going back to how it was. I refuse to allow it to. It’s time we take what we deserve, and show the world it cannot keep pushing us aside. We are the product of eons of evolution, and cannot be ignored any longer.” 

Something on our side buzzed, and we released one of Baku’s hands to reach into the pocket of the scrub set we’d put on to sneak in here undetected, pulling out our phone. Right on time; the clock was closely approaching five in the afternoon on the other side of the country, and progress on our plan was due. 

‘Now we wait’ the message said, in full lowercase. An image followed soon after, a picture of the back of a gutted out van with a picture of her. 

Of me. 

The one way we were sure it would draw him out, so the rest of our plan could begin. 

Holy fuck, that’s me. Back in Portland! When those Russians tried kidnapping me!

Fukushū would stop at nothing to protect those he cared for, we learned as much before. 

That’s me.

“I’m not sure if I believe in any sort of god,” we—they—said, the voice sounding far away now. “But I hope, if there is one, that they can forgive me for what I must do.”

That’s me, that’s me, that’s me. 

This wasn’t me. 

Something in the illusion I was trapped in became harsh, my vision dilating and constricting as the edges became fuzzy like I was no longer recalling  a memory, but a dream. “We’re out of time,” a voice realized in the back of my head, and I wasn’t sure if it was Garrett’s or mine or whoever’s body I was in. The hand holding the phone lowered the device down on the bed, its movement stuttered with the most confusing motion trail that made one hand look like thirty. It hesitated for a moment before raising to place itself close enough to our—their, my, whoever’s—eyes to pull down the mask and set it aside before reaching out to Ba–Garrett, gently cusping their chin. 

And the person lifted Garrett’s head to meet their eyes. 

I wasn’t prepared for the situation to burn as everything rippled like a mirage, or the gross slimy feeling after as the perspective became wholly my own and I was freed from whatever mind I was passenger to. I wasn’t ready for that pain in the back of my head that followed every change Garrett implemented to throb like my mind was going to explode, or for me to suddenly be the one with my back pinned to a bed, Garrett cupping my face. Something about the entire room shook, edges of the room glistening with that magic Garrett could wield as they dematerialized, turning into nothing but burning white and absolute void. The Dream Eater’s kingdom was collapsing. 

They were the Garrett from before, when I first started this rabbit’s hole of a dreamscape—that green silky shirt, hair bright and pink and pulled back. “There’s no time,” Garrett said. They perched over me like a vulture, or maybe the Grim Reaper, eyes wide and wild and worried as they realized they couldn’t tell me more. 

Or that, they shouldn’t have been able to. But it seemed they weren’t going to let that stop them. 

They unceremoniously yanked my face closer, the entire room feeling like it was shaking now as it fell apart. Succulents that sat on the windowsill fell until they burst into glittering nothingness, overtaken by that blinding white as it all inched closer to the bed we were in. Their eyes bore into mine, that diamond blue glint in them multiplying until it felt like it was enveloping the part of my brain that didn’t burn, pushing in on it until everything began to flash. 

Glimpses. Visions. It reminded me a lot of the flashes of everything I could do that hit when Dad accidentally sent the full power of the Core Relay through me, only far less organized and with none of my questions answered. The ruins of a bodega encased in ice, the New Marais air uncharacteristically chill for spring; A burn that felt like being cooked alive, and the soothing balm that spread from between the shoulderblades, staring up at a being far more godlike than anything we were taught. The back of a cell and an extended hand, whispered promises of greatness and righting wrongs. 

A lifetime of flashes from the moment the Beast activated this person played in my mind; the coldness of Curdun, the training. Ruthlessly being pushed to the brink of everything she could do in order to train her to be that weapon Augustine needed. How she stalked Dad, from the moment he entered Seattle. Sleeping in hidden alcoves on the rooftops, trying to help those trapped by the DUP and threatened with being sent to Curdun. A hospital bedside, Aunt Sia bandaged and bruised; a dock just a quarter mile away, hearing his blood-curdling scream as he lost his grip on his brother. A corpse in DUP detainee orange, eyelids gently closed by her hand with a final goodbye and a promise made. That moment in the Sky 6 News tower where a different path was chosen, and Augustine was left to fight alone. 

That’s where the story should have ended. 

But it didn’t. 

My mind burned, felt like it was being stretched and compressed and iced and kindled as everything Garrett wanted to show me was shoved into my frontal cortex at once. A personal thank you to Dad, left behind in a studio apartment that reeked of rotting flesh; the outcrops of Salmon Bay’s shoreline, a house that slowly became a home and an open window that stank of paint as the nursery was built. 

A late and anxious night that bled into an early morning and the return to Seattle; a hospital room, hospital masks and pandemic preventatives, a perfectly obscured face that kept Dad and Mom none the wiser as she slipped into labor and delivery. A vial just like the one I nearly dropped at Garrett’s bedside and another of blood, one traded for the other. A large machine that pulsed with the power of a thousand reactors, and the all-enveloping feeling of a hand too small to fit in her own. The warehouse we rendezvous with kingpins, offering something better than drugs. Revenge. A man seeking her out for the same purpose. Glimpses of the sins she witnessed and the efforts it took to get to this point, years of planning that led to this precipice, all to the image of me in the back of a van. 

She did this. The rabbit face-masked one, she did this. Everything! My kidnapping, Mom’s death, her illness. 

That white around the room grew as I was suddenly shot back into my own consciousness, Garrett’s eyes meeting mine. I’m sure I looked feral in their grip, but their stare was steeled as they slowly nodded, like they were finally satisfied with me knowing everything I did. That white overtook their silhouette and my vision burned like I was staring at the sun, chest hollowing out in a gasping pain as it felt like I was kicked in the sternum, pushed out of wherever Garrett had me.

“Jean! Can you hear me?”

Unfortunately, I could.

Everything was too loud, too bright. My head throbbed so hard I was sure other people could see its pulsing and the first thing I did when I came to was gag before having to hold back a nice stream of bile. Someone yanked me back by my shoulders and I fell on my ass. I felt disgusting, lightheaded and somehow full of lead. I tried to speak, to tell someone, anyone, of what I just saw, but I couldn’t speak. Something between my brain and my mouth failed, like I was here and yet, once again, a passenger in my own mind. My vision was tinged pink and could barely focus on anything beyond it, and when I tried to wipe away, I saw my hands came back crimson. “God, that’s a lot of blood,” Dad muttered, his own hands going to wipe my eyes. He moved in front of me and crouched low, trying to force eye contact and holding me hard by the shoulders. “Jean, are you okay?”

“I covered their eyes!” Aunt Sia called from somewhere off to the side.

“What the hell just happened?” Brent demanded behind me.

Tell them what you saw, their voice still rang in the back of my mind. I flinched, feeling like they were permanently impressed in the centerfold of my brain and I would never be rid of their touch—especially as I moved despite how leaded I felt, heeding their command. 

I let the directions guide me, thankful I didn’t have to put nearly as much thought into the movements as I usually would have as I laid my hand against the ground, water sluggishly crawling down my arm as I pressed my blood-stained palm to the white floor. The two mixed, droplets taking on the red until it lightened, the rinse draining away the blood and using it as ink. I could barely recall how to use my powers, and for a moment, the slick blood stayed a sad puddle before it started to shift, separating into lines.

The color drained in places, strengthened in others, building and bending into sharp lines and deep crevices until it took the form of that rabbit mask and I felt Dad’s grip on me tighten. “Jean,” he said, voice tense, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

My head lifted, lolling slightly on my neck as I met Dad’s eyes. Something in me, the thing tugging deep on the puppet strings that were my muscles and made me move without input plastered a weak smile on my face, the blood from my eyes and nose dribbling into my gums. “Celia, Delsin. Don’t you wonder where she went after it all? Are you so dense in your age you don’t remember her? Find her. She has the key you seek, the person behind the curtain. Trust your friends, trust your children. There’s no time left to dawdle. We face the end.” 

The words ripped through my throat without my permission, something in my mind squeezing as they were spoken, like my ability to speak was choked out of both my mouth and my cerebrum. The laugh that followed was sardonic and crude, the sort a villain gives up before they keeled over. 

Which, I promptly did, as soon as the imprint of Garrett released my head, the sudden lack of a death grip on my mind making it spin. Lights got 80 times brighter, everything sorta shifted like it was a mirage atop water, and the floor rushed up to meet me as I blacked out.

Want more from Doot? Go read more about how he tortures Garrett in All's Well That Ends:

Follow the tumultuous life of Garrett Jorrer, a Curdun Cay enforcer, experiment victim...and child of Brooke Augustine

Told through memories of what was and wishes of what could have been, read through the out-of-order retelling of Garrett's experiences and how life led to this moment...and how it ends. Now with every Erosion chapter added!

I'd also like to take a moment to point you towards something a good friend of mine, @infamoussparks, made. You may remember her as the creator of Dr. Hutch from two chapters ago: 

Dissipate

Dying is a heavy burden to carry but Fetch is doing her best to balance her fate while spending time with her new family. Acceptance is hard in the dead of night but it's also the best time to shine as bright as neon.

A tender moment from Fetch Walker as she grapples with the fate of her illness, and the small children she will never get to see grow old. It genuinely had me sobbing when I first read it. It's heart wrenchingly evil.

I love it.

[cant-write-to-save-my-life]

Modern AU kinda thing where Lp!Athy has been reborn and she's a historian and/or archeologist(she could be both tbh, and no, she doesn't remember anything and she doesn't look the same). Korea and the world as we know it doesn't really exist since... well, we are talking about a post-obelia/modern-obelia world.

(as always this will be all over the place, if I start not making sense don't be surprised because GOD THIS IS LONG AND i WROTE THIS IN AN HOUR AND A HALF)

Athanasia/Sia is part of a group where they are trying to find more information regarding the time Jennette appeared until the death of Claude/her death itself, since other researchers have found a surprising lack of information regarding that era of time even thought the small amount of information found often talked about how loved she was by the empire and, allegedly, other surrounding empires, plus how much Claude was said to have loved her.

Not only that, even when trying to use her spouse, Ijekiel, as a way to get more information, this seemed to come to a halt on the Alpheus records when it came to a certain period of time.

To top it of, old diaries and reports sometimes mentioned a third royal family member being alive and on similar age to Jennette, but the name, description or origin of this family member was a mystery.

The Royal Family of Obelia had been no more for a very long time, but the fact that a second mystery in the form of an unknown royal family member, led everyone to believe it could be tied to the disappearance of the Royal Family trademark: The Jeweled Eyes. Of course, this could be tied to the usual explanation that maybe the magic-gene that permitted this peculiar eyes became recessive at some point, but after doing some digging, the jeweled eyes of the royal family started to disappear with Jennette's first grandchild, her first son having 3 children, one of them missing the royal eyes completely, and the children of said child never inheriting this trait as well.

(Yes these people know magic existed at some point in time, but it either doesn't manifest as it did before, making it so 1% of the world population is able to wield it in a level that can't be compared to how it's used in LP/WMMAP since it's very difficult to do so or it just doesn't exist anymore)

This was more of a theory based on investigations made on the family tree, where a new ducal family, directly related to the emperor at that time, never inherited the eyes as confirmed by some salvaged paintings.

All the missing information just made Sia excited, this just meant she and her team had to start using every piece of information and treat it as a potential clue. And thanks to that, they managed to hit a lead to the York household.

The York's had fallen out of nobility some time during Jennette's reign, with reasons unknown, but information in an old diary from a head maid mentioned a woman with the name of Lilian York was the head maid in the Ruby Palace.

It was very hard to find if the York's had any living relatives, but thankfully they did. They were a normal working family, and even thought they knew of what their family once was, they had very clear that everything was in the past. Grandmother of the family was the one who gave them two heavy medium sized boxes with information of their family. The woman said that she was finally giving them to people who will actually do some sense to all the things in said boxes.

As obvious things happen, they learn that Lily was Athy's nanny, and they obviously learn of Athanasia's existence and death.

But also the aftermath.

Lilian's family(don't know who) had decided to keep information regarding her and Athanasia simply to honor Lily's memory at first, but after it was revealed that Athanasia(and Lily by relation) died for nothing since the true culprit was Jennette's aunt, Countess Rosalia, they decided to keep archiving everything for the sake of justice and to never forget.

In the boxes they found the frustration the matriarch was feeling due to the situation, and how they were the ones to renounce to their title and privileges 10 years after everything had happened. Why?

Because they were tired of the circus nobility had created to cater to the, at the time, Princess Jennette de Alger Obelia.

Jennette never really "got over" Athanasias unjust death, but the amount of time she spent mourning was strange and bizarre for the Yorks, the(at the time) Princess was always someone who always showed herself as sentimental and empathetic. But only mourning the unjust death of her sister which she claimed she was close to for a week? Strange. But not as important as what nobility did.

Since it was discovered that Rosalia was the one behind the poisoning, the nobles has decided that whenever Princess Athanasia was mentioned and Princess/Empress Jennette was present, they would fill their mouths with false sentiments of longing, saying how they always knew Athanasia was innocent, that they always viewed her as beautiful even if she didn't have the money to have the dresses of the current season, how they always felt bad whenever she was bullied, how much they wished they were more brave as to defend her and befriend her. How Lilian York was such a brave woman to never backdown even before the emperor, how diligent Lilian was to not leave the abandoned princess, daughter of a dancer, behind and go back to her family.

How great women they both were.

Lies, all of it lies.

But Princess Jennette always appreciated those words, this actions making some noble ladies from count families to become very close to her.

It was sickening.

And for that, after the second prince of the empire was 5 years old, the York family resign from their titles and lands, the now Empress Jenette asked them why, but the heads of the family never gave her a reason.

Between all of the diary entries there were incredibly well preserved portraits. One of Lilian York when she was maybe 15 or 17 years old, and another of Princess Athanasia when she was 11 or 13 years old.

One mystery to take off the list, right? Wrong.

Thanks to the painting of Princess Athanasia, immediately one of those on the team pointed out how the eyes of the princess looked different from those of princess jennette. At first everyone thought it would simply be due to the artist having a different perspective on how they painted the eyes, but after careful examination and comparisons with the portraits of Claude de Alger Obelia, it was confirmed that the eyes of Jennette and her children had a different hue than the other two royals. They didn't look as bright and it seemed that they were even dimmed or were dimming out through time, in some portraits the eyes of the only princess of born of Ijekiel and Jennette, seemed to have simple blue eyes.

With this findings Sia's investigation group was applauded and praised all around. But despite that, Sia was only happy to finally put one of the greatest mysteries of the Obelian Royal family to rest, and provide more information to the other.

For her, it felt as if some dead weight was lifted off her shoulders.

[alabasterpeony]

Happy wlw Wednesday but it's not Wednesday... but honestly it's never a bad time to post lesbian ponies

Almost pride month!!! Doodled some happy gals to celebrate ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤

[myownprivatcidaho]

Radagast canonically lives in the woods and that seems unrealistic but to be fair my great aunt had a tiny little house that overlooked a huge ass field where she had her garden and it was So Aesthetically pleasing So Don’t Let People Tell You That You Can’t Live A Life Like That

[savelonkar]

CHERRIE NEVER HAD CANCER

Jesus said the truth will set you free. It’s time for me to speak my truth. I’m hoping one day it will set me free. All I want is peace in this life: peace of mind, peace in interactions, peace in relationships. Unfortunately, all my ex wants is war.

You see, we were together for 20 years. We built a life together and raised six kids. It was never easy. Did we struggle from time to time? Certainly, as would any couple. But in 2016, it all went downhill from there. That was the year she conjured up the fake cancer. Yup, you read that right.

CHERRIE NEVER HAD CANCER

Around the time Cherrie turned 35, I was already 41-ish, and had personally started going to the doctor to get the routine checkups you would as an aging individual. Cherrie had never really done the same, so I suggested she see the breast doctor since she was 35 and all. The first time she went for a check-up, or boob-smashing, she informed the breast doctor that her father had cancer years ago. The next appointment, I went along with Cherrie. At the time, I was working full-time, as I was always the sole provider, and I was teaching and working through my email during the appointment. After all, this was just a checkup, right? During the appointment, the doctor asked if anyone else in Cherrie’s family had gotten cancer as of late, and it just so happened that her aunt Carol, her mother’s sister, had breast cancer pretty recently. When the doctor heard that, she left the room for a few minutes, then came back. When she returned, she told Cherrie she would now need a double mastectomy. I admit I was half-listening when she said that. I was shocked, and like, “Can we get a second opinion?” The doctor explained that this was a preventative measure, based on an algorithm, and insurance companies started approving of this procedure, as it saves them money in the long run. Angelina Jolie was one that many will remember having done this same thing. When we went home, I started looking up other alternatives. I told Cherrie she should see another doctor, get another opinion, look at other options. Why did she have to do ANYTHING? There is NO CANCER. Plus, we were up to six kids at that time. Our littlest guy was just nine months old, and breastfeeding. Cherrie talked to family and friends, and then went full-tilt on doing the double mastectomy. She started a Facebook “tribe” to catalog her story, she started “Cherrie’s tribe” on Facebook, and started gathering followers, to follow her pseudo cancer story. 

She died her hair purple, an FU to the pink that represents breast cancer. She got others to wear purple to support. A few weeks later, in February, she gathered myself and a few friends, and she was singing and dancing and rapping all the way to the operating room. She fist-pumped to the Australian Sia/David Guetta’s Titanium. I really did not have much time to process all of this. With everything that was happening, we also had six kids, ranging from less than a year, all the way to eight years of age. All I really understood was that Cherrie was steadfast through this whole thing.

Three or four hours into Cherrie’s double mastectomy, Dr. K, the breast surgeon, came out and found me. I was grading a bunch of classes to pass the time. “Good news!” “We did not find any cancer.” “I know,” I said to myself, relieved but then again, there was NEVER any signs of CANCER. Check this actual post from her good friend that was at the hospital at that time:

UPDATE: first portion of the surgery (the bi-lateral mastectomy) is complete and "went off without a hitch" and everything looked good. The breast surgeon is “fairly certain pathology on the breast tissue will come back benign". Since Cherrie had no active cancer and the suspicious lymph node appears to have been only an infection as it shrunk back to normal size (cancerous lymph nodes do not do that without help) there is a 1-3% chance of anything showing up. Pathology results will be back Monday. They did not do a node biopsy or sentinel node biopsy as the node is normal, it is just standard procedure to send the breast tissue to pathology. The plastic surgeon is doing her portion now (placing the expanders) and should be done in the next 2 hours.

Read that again. That was the truth.

Four hours later, Cherrie was boob-free. For the greater part of the next two years, as Cherrie lie there healing and posting about her story on the “tribe” page, the majority of the days and nights at home, I became the kids’ father and mother all wrapped up in one. Our littlest child was not even a year old when she had the big surgery, so he had to stop breastfeeding, and he could not even go onto his mommy’s lap (due to all the surgeries and incisions) for a couple of months. Every few months, her body would not react well to its healing, there’d be an infection, the list goes on, and she would have to go in for more surgeries (first to heal something that was not healing correctly, and eventually for reconstruction). When the same breast surgeon went in there at the end of April, they called it a bilateral necrosis and unilateral infection. Dead tissue was removed, and the infection was cleaned. 

Fast forward to today, I combed through Cherrie’s Tribe page, because I really wasn’t sure where the fake cancer story started, when she went from saying there was no cancer, to saying she was a cancer survivor. But I can bet that Cherrie knew where this story was going even before she got to the hospital for that first surgery. It was primed and fluffed to be a well-scripted string of half-truths and lies.

You see, Cherrie has this weird thing. She takes bits and pieces of other peoples’ stories, or she crafts her own stories to garner attention or favor or money, and then she morphs them into what she says is her own story. You know that lady that made up crap about her daughter Gypsy Rose? Well, Cherrie makes up crap about her own conditions and diagnoses. I would not figure all of this out until after we had split, years later.

Let me give you an example. Over the years, Cherrie said she had 11 miscarriages. That’s right, she said she had 11 miscarriages with me. More often than not, I would get a call while at work, and she would tell me she “lost the baby.” I grieved hard every fricking time. There was only one time I remember going to the doctor, during one of our “pregnancies,” and then they told us that we no longer had a baby. There was one time, we had to do a D&C (Dilation and Curettage), and that really happened. But all the others, like the other 9? Who knows if they ever happened. You know, Cherrie was engaged to a guy that was already married, before I was in the picture, back in 2000-2001. He had an apartment with Cherrie, while his wife and their babies lived in a neighboring suburb. To throw the scent off, Cherrie’s then “fiancé” informed his actual wife that he just had a crashpad w/Cherrie, as they were flight attendants together. He also said that Cherrie contracted HIV at a very young age due to all the blood transfusions she had as a child. The actual wife grew suspicious, as her husband had many late night/early morning phone calls with Cherrie. There was one phone call she overheard, when her husband was speaking to Cherrie, he said, “Everything is gonna be alright, as long as I continue to get sympathy from my wife.” Back in 2001, Cherrie went with her mother and her “fiancé” and bought an engagement ring/wedding band set. The rings cost her mother $5500. The "fiance" that was already married, to his college sweetheart. His actual wife had a baby in 2000, they had another baby in 2002. Cherrie and her "fiancé" were together in 2001. Cherrie told me that she got pregnant with his baby, too, and then lost it. Who knows if that ever happened.

Back to the “cancer.”

Here’s the thing, she NEVER HAD CANCER. It was all a lie. She started fabricating the “cancer story” immediately after she came home from her double mastectomy. Like IMMEDIATELY, like the day or two after she was able to come home. March 1st, 2016, to be exact. She became my ghost writer, and put a bunch of loving husband posts and fictitious information about her surgery and her recovery. She did this for two entire years! When you look through the Cherrie’s Tribe page on Facebook, I’ll bet like 1-2% of the posts “by me” were actually written by me. In fact, when Cherrie was in the hospital (the first time, February 2016), she asked for my Facebook login and password. This was all a setup, one that helped her gain followers to follow her FAKE CANCER story. While she was healing, she was on lots of drugs, pain meds and such. She sat their like a vegetable many days, sat their in a very nice big electronic lounge chair that one of her friends purchased with their bingo or knitting club money. We had a Meal Train on and off for like two years, and since we did not have any relatives here in Arizona, sometimes relatives would come to visit. “What can I do to help?” they all asked me. I told them that I would take care of all the six kids, and their best efforts were to stay by Cherrie’s side, make sure she is taking her pain meds, and be there for her. By the time I would get to bed, I would be absolutely beat, from working all day, and running around like a chicken with my head cut off, trying to create some normalcy with the daily routine for our kids in an abnormal situation. Once Cherrie was “healed,” she started taking girlfriend trips immediately, to celebrate her “beating cancer.” It was all a lie, one that she used to broadcast a fake condition, and one that helped her grow socially to grandiose proportions. After all, who wouldn’t love a super mom with six kids that fought and beat cancer? Cherrie then told me that, given her “near death” experience, that she changed and I didn’t. When did I have time to “change?” She never had cancer, and I had to run my ass off and play along with her fakedom, taking care of six kids while working a full-time job, going to college, and teaching classes at the university.

Cherrie then used her newfound notoriety to start what is now her thriving business, that serves the special needs and foster/adopt population. The thing is, she NEVER HAD CANCER. Yet that one truth, or in her case, that one LIE, is what she built a million dollar business on.

Seriously, do you have any relatives that fake things like cancer? I have a cousin that once brought a baby that was not hers to a Christmas gathering, and I thought that was the lowest thing ever. But to fake CANCER? One more thing I have to say about that. In 2016, one of my closest colleagues Dave got diagnosed with cancer, and slowly deteriorated over the next two years till he died from his disease. When he was finished with chemo, as his body could not take anymore, he gave his bell that he got at his final chemo treatment to me, to give to Cherrie. He thought it might help her gather strength to beat it. I didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth, as my life was busy covering up this gargantuan lie. So, I brought it home and gave her this gift. Shortly after my dear friend Dave died, I asked Cherrie if I could give the bell back to Dave’s widow. Her response was, “Well, it WAS a GIFT to ME.” And she wasn’t having it. To this day, you will find Dave’s bell sitting like an unearned trophy in her bedroom, for all to see.

CHERRIE NEVER HAD CANCER.

The late Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said, “There is justice, and there is injustice. There is no in-between.” The last few years, I have experienced many injustices. I have cried more in the past two years than I ever have in my entire life. Life is not meant to be this hard. My life is supposed to be MY LIFE. It’s time to start shouting the truth from the rooftops. She’s the Facebook life. I’m the real life.

I’ve already lost almost two years here with my kids. Every time I think my life cannot get any worse, it does. When will this pain and heartache end? When will I be able to see my kids, back to the 50/50 it stated in our divorce decree from two years ago?

From September through December, Cherrie had other people in her life drop our kids off at the “transfer.” She “showed up” for the first time in 4 months to “transfer” our kids at the police station on Christmas Eve. She called the cops. They wished me a Merry Christmas, then asked her to leave. I took five of my kids to Phoenix to feed the homeless in their camps at 10th/12th and Roosevelt. Now, for my 48th birthday, I must go get fingerprinted, because she is saying I violated some order or process. We’ve been divorced for almost two years now. All I want is peace. All she wants is war. You would think after spending 20 years together, there would be some level of human decency. It’ll make a great book/documentary/movie, I guess. Merry Christmas and Happy Bday to me.

CHERRIE NEVER HAD CANCER.

If you'd like to find out more, keep an eye on this blog. I also have a GoFundMe. Do not feel obligated to fund me, but do feel obligated to support me, in mind and spirit, as I am in the fight for my life and for my rights as a father. I welcome your support.

[jjba-fragmented-star]

Name: Grace Bhraghad

Birthname: Hariklia McJohan

Namesake:

Hariklia/Chariklia(Greek)= Hari/Χάρη(Grace) + Kleos/Κλέος(Glory)= Glory of Grace, Great Glory

Alias: Hari, Grace, Ace, Mother, Aunt Ace

Stand: Unstoppable(Unstoppable by Sia)

Nationality: Scottish/Greek

Birthday: 10 November 1974

Zodiac/Chinese Zodiac: Scorpio/Tiger

Age:

14(Part 3)

19(Post-Part 3/1993)

25(Part 4)

27(Part 5)

37(Part 6)

44(Post-Part 6/2018)

Gender: Female

Height: 5,7 ft/1,76 cm(Part 3/14 years old), 6,3 ft/1,93 cm(Post-Part 3/17 years old)

Weight: 77 kg

Blood Type: 0+

Species: Human

Occupation: Baker, Formely; Military(Special Forces)

Personality:

Brave, Passionate, Resourceful, Caring, Protective, Strict, Overconfident, Suspicious, Stubborn, Angry.

Likes:

Family, Baking, Physical Exercise, Challenges, Fighting, Spicy food, Truth, Being Right, Teasing, Volley.

Dislikes:

Dishonesty, Betrayal, Her family getting hurt, Laziness, Unfinished chores, Avocado, Jotaro.

Relatives:

Diogenes McJohan(Father)

Amanda Smith/McJohan(Mother)

Chemaya Alley(Great-Great-Great Uncle)

Ambrogio McJohan(Younger Brother)

Bernard Braghad(Husband)

Orestes Bhraghad(Older Son)

Oswald Bhraghad(Younger Son)

Kyriaki Callas/McJohan(Sister-in-Law)

Isaac McJohan(Nephew)

Giorgia McJohan(Niece)

Background Information:

Original Timeline/Fragmented Star AU(Post-EOH game Timeline)

-In her early years Grace was a rebellious girl who would get easily angered and get into fights, she and her younger brother, Ambrogio, where in the same school and she would protect him from bullies. Grace manifested her stand, Unstoppable, when she was 16 years old.

-In 1992, her father, Diogenes McJohan, decides to enroll Grace in the Military to teach her to have a better behavior, he has a friend there who is a stand user and leads a special forces division of stand and asks him to take her in. She joins in the age of 18 and works for the military for 8 years.

- She married an other stand user named Bernard Bhraghad in 1994 and had two twin boys, Orestes and Oswald Bhraghad, the next year. In 2000 she leaves the military and decides to become a baker and open her own business and spend more time with her family.

-Grace had an encounter with Jotaro Kujo in New Orleans, America in the summer of 1994, she went for a vacation here with her husband, her brother and his girlfriend, Kyriaki Callas. She met him when she and Kyriaki were separated from the and where asking directions for their hotel and accidentally bumped to Jotaro and went to apologize but he screamed at her and Grace punched him in the face. Jotaro was on a mission by SPW in New Orleans to find a stand user in which Grace helps and learns he is a Joestar. She never saw him after this encounter.

-It is unknown what happened to her in the original timeline but she lives a normal life(as a stand user) in a post-Stone Ocean AU(Fragmented Star AU).

EXTRA

-The original colour of Grace's shirt was green and her left hand had a scar which I switched to her right. The reason is her niece, Giorgia, wears a green hoodie jacket and half of her left arm is white referencing Joseph of losing his left arm from Kars.

-Grace found about Jotaro being a Joestar when she saw the star birthmark in his left shoulder (which she also has) during the battle with the enemy stand user. She never said anything about or mention it because she wanted to keep his family away from hers. Her family, the McJohan, are distant relatives of the Joestars and are unaware of their existence, they have have a history with them that starts from the 19th century.

STAND

Name: Unstoppable

Namesake: Unstoppable(Song by Sia)

Stand Type: Wearable Stand

Stats:

Destructive Power: A

Speed: A

Range: E

Persistence: A

Precision: C

Development Potential: E

Appearance:

Unstoppable has the appearance of a green, yellow armor and a red cloth back in the waist, the helmet has blue visors.

Abilities:

Physical Enhancement and Protection: The armor provides protection and boost the power and speed of its user.

Weapon Creation: It can absorb any kind of metal or mineral and the user can make any weapon they want from it(Sword, Gun, whip etc.).

Weaknesses:

The stand doesn't work under water, the user can use its ability and the armor becomes heavy and the wearer might drown if they don't deactivate the armor quickly.

EXTRA:

-The helmet is based from an ancient greek helmet.

-The knight/armor themed stands runs in the McJohan family, the other known family members are Panajotis McJohan and Giorgia McJohan.

[jungleindierock]

Jungle Indie Rock - Indie Christmas Playlist 2019

Here is the Jungle Indie Rock Christmas themed playlist for 2019. Is not your average christmas mix!!! 100 songs as always. A nice mix of old and new, covers and originals.There are 100 songs by 100 artists!!

Ok it seem that posting from Playlists from Spotify seems to be working again!! Only taken six months!! So in the new year, we will get back to posting Time Machine and the early Jungle Indie Rock Playlists.

Ok we are going to take a break over the Christmas period, in the past we have posted over this time, but time to take a break!! so sorry but there will be nothing from us after this playlist post until early in 2020.

So a very Merry Christmas from Reb and Feliz Navidad from Mar and all the best for 2020.

Tracklist

The Dollyrots - Fairytale of New York

Green Day - Xmas Time Of The Year

Best Coast - Little Saint Nick

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones - X'mas Time (It Sure Doesn't Feel Like It)

The Reverend Horton Heat - Winter Wonderland

Alice Bag Band - No Gifts For Nazis

Beres Hammond - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Bryan Adams - Christmas Time

Pale Waves - Last Christmas

Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds - Wandering Star

NOFX - Xmas Has Been X'ed

Keith Richards - Run Rudolph Run

AC/DC - Mistress For Christmas

Zuzu - Distant Christmas

Bowling For Soup - Frosty The Snowman

Gregory Porter - The Christmas Song

Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - Little Drummer Boy

The Wombats - Is This Christmas?

!!! - And Anyway It's Christmas

The Joe Gibbs Family Of Artists - We Three Kings

The Hives and Cyndi Lauper - A Christmas Duel

Mahalia Jackson - Silent Night, Holy Night

Blink 182 - Not Another Christmas Song

Wolf Alice - Santa Baby

Courtney Barnett - Boxing Day Blues (Revisited)

The Magnetic Fields - Everything In One Big Christmas Tree

The Toasters - Rudy Christmas A Jail

Otis Redding - White Christmas

Bob Dylan - Must Be Santa

U.K. Subs - Hey Santa Claus!

Bright Eyes - Blue Christmas

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers - Christmas All Over Again

Billy Idol - Yellin' At The Xmas Tree

My Morning Jacket - Xmas Time Is Here Again

Barrington Levi & Trinity - I Saw Mommy Kiss A Dreadlocks

Bad Religion - God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen

The Frights - Christmas Everyday

Daryl Hall & John Oates - Jingle Bell Rock

Rufus Wainwright - Spotlight On Christmas

Allo Darlin' - Space Christmas

Dwarves - Drinking Up Christmas

4 Skins - Merry Christmas Everybody

Rocket From The Crypt - Cancel Christmas

King Stitt - Christmas Tree

Cheap Trick - I Wish It Was Christmas Today

The Sonics - Santa Claus

The Fall - (We Wish You) A Protein Christmas

Bob Seger & The Last Heard - Sock It To Me Santa

The Band - Christmas Must Be Tonight

The Vaudevilles - Shot My Baby For Christmas

Smash Mouth - Snoopy's Christmas

Nat King Cole - The Christmas Song (Merry Christmas To You)

The Decemberists - Please Daddy (Don't Get Drunk This Christmas)

Dean Martin - Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Screeching Weasel - Christmas Eve

Solomon Burke - Presents For Christmas

John Prine - Christmas In Prison

Eddie & The Hot Rods - It Feels Like Christmas

Louis Armstrong - Cool Yule

CJ Ramone - Christmas Lullaby

Canned Heat - Christmas Blues

Emmy the Great - Zombie Christmas

Gold Blade and Poly Styrene - City Of Christmas Ghosts

Jimmy Jules & Nuclear Soul System - Xmas Done Got Funky

Sia - Santa's Coming for Us

Half Man Half Biscuit - It's Cliched To Be Cynical At Christmas

Lacuna Coil - Naughty Christmas

The Everly Brothers - Christmas Eve Can Kill You

Daniel  Johnston - Rock Around The Christmas Tree

Red Aunts - Little Drummer Bitch

The Fleshtones - Hurray For Santa Claus

The Wedding Present - No Christmas

Alien Sex Fiend - Stuff The Turkey

Helen Love - Merry Christmas (I Don't Wanna Fight)

Alan Vega - No More Christmas Blues

The New Pornographers - The Spirit Of Giving

Grandaddy & Band Of Horses - Hang An Ornament

The Brian Setzer  Orchestra - Dig That Crazy Santa Claus

Jeremy Lister - Santa's Lost His Mojo

The Buff Medways - Merry Christmas Fritz

Guided By Voices - Father Sgt. Christmas Card

Gruff Rhys - Slashed Wrists This Christmas

Pointed Sticks - Power Pop Santa

Beck - The Little Drum Machine Boy

Marc Bolan - Christmas Bop

Sixpence None The Richer - The Last Christmas Without You

Dwight Yoakam - Santa Can't Stay

Nick Lowe - Just To Be With You (This Christmas)

Sam Smith - Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Donny Hathaway - This Christmas

Descendants - Christmas Vacation

Elvis Presley - Blue Christmas

The Soundtrack Of Our Lives - Jingle Hell (Stuck In The Chimney)

Reel Big Fish - Skank For Christmas

Voodoo Glow Skulls - Feliz Navidad

X - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Wizzard - I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday

Everclear - Hating You For Christmas

Crocodiles & Dum Dum Girls - Merry Christmas, Baby (Please Don't Die)

Low - Taking Down The Tree

[otterroripaugh]

Italian Blog Post January 25th

Italian:

Ho vissuto a Oceanside, in California, con la mia famiglia per tutta la vita. La mia famiglia è composta da mia madre, Jenna, i miei fratelli, Max e Sam, e il nostro adorabile gatto, Zephyr. Mio padre non è presente né fa parte della famiglia da molto tempo e preferisco non approfondire questo particolare argomento. Anche i miei nonni, mio ​​cugino e il figlio di mio cugino sono molto legati sia dal punto di vista fisico che da quello familiare. Li visitiamo spesso, poiché vivono a solo un miglio di distanza. Ci piace giocare con il figlio di 2 anni di mio cugino e tormentarlo con domande stupide solo per vedere cosa dirà. Ci piacciono anche i giochi e le cene di famiglia nella mia casa. Proprio ieri abbiamo suonato Uno!

Di recente sono dovuto tornare a casa, sinceramente, e non è stata la migliore esperienza. Per il precedente semestre autunnale, ho vissuto con mia zia e mio zio a circa 30 minuti dalla mia casa d'infanzia per un po 'di spazio di cui avevo bisogno e, purtroppo, quella situazione non poteva essere permanente. Ora che sono tornato a casa, sento di non avere altra scelta che trarne il meglio e perseverare per il prossimo mandato. Spero che io e la mia famiglia possiamo stare lontani l'uno dall'altro.

English translation:

I have lived in Oceanside, California, with my family  for my entire life. My family consists of my mother, Jenna, my brothers, Max and Sam, and our adorable cat, Zephyr. My father hasn't been present or part of the family for a long time and I prefer not to elaborate on this particular topic. My grandparents, my cousin, and my cousin’s son are also very close in both physical location and family connection. We often visit them, as they live only about a mile away. We like to play with my cousin’s 2 year old son and badger him with silly questions just to see what he will say. We also like family games and dinners in my household. Just yesterday we played Uno!

I recently had to move back home, truthfully, and it hasn’t been the best experience. For the previous Fall semester, I lived with my Aunt and Uncle about 30 minutes away from my childhood home for some much needed space and, sadly, that situation couldn’t be permanent. Now that I am back home, I feel I have no choice but to make the best of it and persevere through the coming term. I hope my family and I can stay out of each other’s way.

[rogueshadeaux]

Chapter Thirty-Six — Evolution

Aunt Sia moved away from behind me, setting Jerry back on the table as she moved towards the cupboards in the kitchen. “You know, it’s funny,” she began. “You realize the forced Conduits came out…wrong with the First Sons, too? The batch without that acceleration protein went through the same experience the DUP did.”

5.2k words | 17-26 min read time | TRIGGER WARNINGS: why is there so much lore. Death, experimentation and human rights violations, explained but not described.

The adults didn’t seem to like that at all. 

Dad stayed staring at the screen as Dr. Sims scrolled, the two muttering to each other as they read away. Aunt Sia seemed to catch on to something, as she immediately moved Brent to sit next to me—where he couldn’t see the computers—and left, saying she wanted to get something to show us. 

“What the hell does evolution mean?” Dad muttered, leaning forward with a hand on the back of Dr. Sims’ chair as he looked at the screen. 

“It looks like…” Dr. Sims drew off for a moment, clicking away on his keyboard. “There’s a lot of files on rayacitin here, but they’re corrupted. At least, I think it’s rayacitin? They didn’t call it that back then. Maybe they were looking at the gene itself? Let me try something…”

Dr. Sims brought his hand up to the computer, palm going blue-white hot as he pointed it towards one computer screen, the pixels lifting away and collecting on his palm. He moved that ignited hand to a different laptop, the pixels floating away like blinking fireflies and sinking into that one’s screen. 

“That’s so cool,” Brent breathed, a slightly jealous look on his face. I couldn’t exactly disagree.

Aunt Sia rushed back into the room, a smile on her face as she moved to stand right behind us, reaching over both our shoulders as if to embrace us. But she didn’t; instead, her hands kept coming around, and plopped two rats onto the table before us. 

Aunt Sia and her rats; when we were younger, she’d always have at least two at home — or usually in her pockets. Apparently they’re smart enough to sneak notes or steal keys, which was something she trained them to do during the height of her anarchy with Project Sanctuary. Who was going to blink at a rat in an alleyway in downtown Seattle? Not any DUP agents. 

And certainly not Brent, the one out of the two of us who loved unorthodox pets; he rambled for an hour once about the dream house he wanted to build with a room dedicated to enclosures for snakes and lizards and probably multiple venomous creatures. He was so enamored with herpetoculture that he planned on dedicating himself to it almost as much as architecture.

Come to think of it, Aunt Sia probably caused that obsession in the first place. 

So it wasn't a surprise when Brent’s hand immediately reached out to grab one rat that’s fur was dusted yellow, his grip gentle as he brought it closer. “What’s its name?” he asked, looking up at Aunt Sia. 

She smiled. “I call him Jerry.”

Dad sighed in that way one does when they know their friend isn’t telling the full truth. “And that’s short for?”

Her smile turned a bit devilish. “Surgery. His brother is Archie—short for Anarchy.”

I snorted. Of course it was. 

Brent and I played with the rats while Dr. Sims took to typing on both laptops, the smaller chromebook pinging and pulling his attention away for a moment. “Zeke, do you know anything about the First Sons’ history?” he asked, glancing back. 

Zeke blew out a puff of air, eyes traveling off like he was trying to look into the past. “Lord, you’re asking for information only paleontologists give a shit about,” he muttered as he thought hard. “Well…Cole said something about the First Sons having been around for a long time. Like, Salem Witch Trials old? Apparently they got a lot more members after the Civil War.”

“The Civil War?” Brent repeated, tearing his eyes away from Archie. “Like, the…the first one?” 

Zeke nodded. “The one in the 1800s? Yeah.”

Dad’s brow furrowed. “Wasn’t it required for all the members of the First Sons to have the gene?” he asked. 

“I couldn’t tell you,” Zeke said. “I know John and Kuo were sent in playing spy because they had the gene, but I don’t know how they knew it existed or how they tested for it before. Just that they were a bunch of tinfoil-hat-wearing nutjobs that thought they could bend spoons with their minds like David Blaine.”

I had no idea who he was talking about but apparently Dad did, as his head tilted to the side and he asked, “The magician?” with the same tone of voice he would if Zeke was talking about aliens. 

“They practiced mentalism,” Zeke explained. “Telekinesis and the like.”

“Didn’t realize we were in a bad movie plot,” Brent muttered, glancing over at me. 

Zeke heard it, though. “Hey, laugh all you wanna, but if what Kuo said was true, they were dead serious about the idea. Believed they were the key to…” Zeke drew off, brow furrowing as he realized his next words. “Humanity’s advancement.”

“Evolution.” Aunt Sia added from beside me, glancing at Dad. 

Dr. Sims paused the scrolling to click. “I just found some sort of schematic, look.”

Dad’s eyes lit up. “Zeke, come here.” He commanded, continuing, “Doesn’t this look like those pods in the First Sons’ base?”

Zeke squinted, the lack of glasses keeping him from seeing the image easily. “Looks about right.” he agreed after a moment. 

Dad nodded, vindicated he was right as he asked, “What else does it say?” 

Dr. Sims’ brow furrowed as he took his time in reading, eventually pointing to his screen and reading aloud, “‘Enzymatic Evolution System: this module refers to the part of the power transfer apparatus meant to house the donor’s Conduit protein, artificially mature them via RFE, and…encourage rapid skill enhancement and ability progression cataclysm by implementation of an artificially-integrated enzyme meant to trigger the protein’s natural development.’”

“Natural development,” I repeated, looking at Dad. “Like…getting stronger with your power?”

“It’s gotta be,” he agreed, chewing on the inside of his cheek. The way his eyes glared at the table in thought made it look like his mind was going a mile a minute. 

Something dinged, that same single chime of something having finished downloading, and Dr. Sims looked at the small laptop in the middle of his setup. “The journal just finished decoding.” He announced, leaning forward a bit. 

“Plug in ‘evolution,’ see what you get,” Aunt Sia instructed. 

Dr. Sims did—and both he and Dad cringed at whatever appeared on the screen. “What is it?” I asked. 

Dad shook his head in disbelief and looked away from the computer, moving to grab the physical copy of Wolfe’s journal under a bunch of folders and opening it, flipping back and forth through the pages until he landed on the one he was looking for. And he cringed, hard, like something in it hurt to look at.

And when he set it back down on the table, I couldn’t help but do the same. 

The journal, indecipherable to me by word, wasn’t as incoherent regarding what the entry was about—especially when there was a polaroid paper clipped to the corner that showcased the horror the entry had to be describing. 

There was a man held down…or, what probably was a man. The flat stomach and chest seemed to suggest so, even if the four arms didn’t. One was clamped between metal teeth, the others lying limply at his sides—like even if he wanted to fight, he couldn’t. He just looked so exhausted. His head was leaned back into some sad excuse of a neck support, his waist held in place by what looked like the world’s worst diaper. His skin was purpled, the muscle strained and rippled and looking like it was threatening to shred from the strain. 

And at the foot of the metal platform he was laying against, was the Ray Sphere. 

“Jesus…” Brent drew off, looking away. He never had the stomach for grotesque stuff, not by a long haul—but even I was finding this hard to look at. 

“What is that?” Aunt Sia asked behind us. 

Zeke let his foot fall from being propped up against the wall, leaning forward to look around Dr. Sims at his computer screen. “Son of a bitch, I’ve seen something like this before.”

Dad glanced up at Zeke. “You have?” He asked, bewildered. I couldn’t really blame him; Zeke had seen something like this before? “Is it another one of Bertrand’s things?”

Zeke shook his head. “Nah, nothing like that. ‘Bout a week or two after Cole killed Kessler, when the military invaded Empire City? There was this…thing that was trying to hunt down Cole. Purple like this dude, had four arms too. Couldn’t tell you what it was from, though.”

“Did you ever find out why it wanted Cole?” I asked, moving to cover my cast with my sleeve as Jerry did his best to bite a chunk out of my cast’s plastic. Aunt Sia saw this, grabbed the little rat off of the table, and put him on her shoulder as a form of time out.

Zeke just shook his head. 

Dr. Sims’ head, though, tilted slightly to the side as he looked at the picture on the screen. “I think I remember that,” he said cautiously, trying to access the memory from somewhere deep within. “Remember Mr. Seay’s class, Alessia? He’d have us do these current event things based off of news segments he’d show us. He had us do a whole debate segment on the news reels from Empire City, and it had some creature that looked a lot like this.”

Aunt Sia nodded slowly. “I remember that. I also remember him getting fired and arrested for spreading pro-bio-terrorist propaganda.”

Dad huffed. “Nothing like living in a police state.”

Zeke didn’t concentrate on Dad’s distaste, instead confirming, “The footage that got Navarro impeached? Yeah, that’d be this guy.” 

Dr. Sims typed away for a moment, and I could see the distorted square of a window pop up in the reflection of his glasses as Dad leaned forward to read over his shoulder. “David Warner,” he read aloud to the room. “Looks like he was a…a security guard for the First Sons?”

“Is this what happens when you’re near a Ray Sphere?” Aunt Sia asked, looking down at the picture in equal parts distaste and fear. 

Dr. Sims began perusing through other pop ups. “Well, I imagine it works like mutations in animals that were born in the fallout radius of the Blast, except worse.”

“Anyone macrodosing radiation would probably end up with four arms regardless of if they’re human or Conduit,” Dad added as a joke, the ease of his words not at all reflecting the look on his face. 

Dr. Sims’ fingers settled, a pop up in his glasses’ reflection growing larger as he maximized it. “‘Subject coherent and exhibiting changes to epidermis after being exposed to the Ray Sphere for a thirteenth time,’” he began reading. 

“Thirteen?” Zeke repeated in shock, eyes so wide I could see the tops of them hovering above his sunglasses. 

“‘Subject’s initial mentalist abilities and impressive physicality have improved, that is no doubt—though not without cost.’” Dr. Sims continued. “Subject now needs a substantial amount of neuroelectricity on a biweekly basis to survive. It’s as if its body has rewired itself to depend on neural energy, constantly craving it to keep going. This dependency isn’t just a side effect; it’s a fundamental shift in its biology to the point of being able to seek out neuroelectricity. 

“‘But that’s not all; when presented with a food source, the Subject actually refused after detecting the Conduit gene within them. After Kessler demanded testing and this was proven true, he simply assigned the food source its own kennel and demanded more testing on the Subject; declared it was proof of further evolution of the gene.

“‘It’s evolving, yes, but into what? Cellular structures are changing so fast it might become pathological if we’re not careful. I can’t help but worry about the long-term implications. What if this need for neuroelectricity becomes insatiable? What if its body starts to deteriorate without it? We’re venturing into uncharted territory, and while the scientific discoveries are thrilling, the ethical and practical concerns are mounting. I need to look into stabilization of the metamorphosis of exposure. The potential here is immense, but so are the risks. Strong, formidable soldiers are necessary for the fight ahead, but futile if they have to feed on the people they’re meant to protect. We must find a way to sustain their powers without compromising their integrity.’”

“The fight ahead?” Aunt Sia asked aloud. 

“‘It,’” Brent repeated, looking at me. “You catch that?”

I did. Warner was It, Subject without a name or a history or someone to care about him beyond what he could provide in terms of research. 

Dad only glanced at us before going back to looking over Dr. Sims’ shoulder, eyes squinting a bit like it would reveal some new information to him. “He probably meant the Beast,” Dad answered Aunt Sia, chewing on his cheek. “Wolfe was one of Kesslers’ top scientists, right? Guy had to have told him about the Beast.” 

“Smell Conduits…” Zeke drew off, like the statement had meaning. “Y’know, there were two other Conduits I knew who could suss out the gene. The Beast, and Cole.”

Dr. Sims looked over his shoulder. “Cole could sense the gene in people?”

“He could see it,” Zeke corrected. “John gave him the ability when trying to convince him to join his side. Said it looked like a little glowing ball right in the chest.” He brought a hand up to hold it as a fist in the center of his chest, Dr. Sims’ head quirking to the side upon the movement. 

“That’s about where the conducrine is…” he mused before turning to the other laptop, typing away. 

“So they were making Conduits to take on the Beast?” I asked. I guess it made sense, right? To fight a war, you need an army. Kessler was proof there wasn’t enough manpower the first time, so yeah, it made sense he’d look for more. 

Even if it was in some depraved sort of way. 

“Warner’s name is mentioned in the Vermaak files,” Dr. Sims announced, going through the computer that deciphered the hard drive. “Something called a…Warner’s Threshold…” 

Dr. Sims did that a lot; jump between the computer that held the journal translations and the one that had the hard drives, cross referencing as he narrowed down what he was looking for. “Here,” he finally declared, clearing his throat slightly. “‘Repeated exposure to the Ray Sphere manifests as a double-edged sword for Conduits. While it grants them new abilities, there exists a critical threshold for irradiated Ray Field Energy absorption. Beyond this limit, adverse reactions emerge. Warner's case exemplifies this; heightened smell sensitivity coincided with progressive sight loss due to extended exposure. This delicate balance between gained abilities and physiological detriment underscores the need for a comprehensive reevaluation of RFE assimilation limits. Understanding these boundaries is vital to safeguarding Conduits' well-being amidst their transformative abilities without corrupting their being as a whole.’”

“Okay,” Dad drew out. He regarded Dr. Sims fully. “What does that mean?” 

“If the Conduit gets exposed to RFE too much, seems they start to mutate,” Aunt Sia explained. “Guess that’s why this David guy had four arms.” 

Dad stared hard at the grain of Aunt Sia’s kitchen table, brows knit. “Brent, Jean—they’ve both absorbed core relays.” he realized, raising his head to look around the room. Everywhere but at Zeke, but still. “Whatever’s happening to Jean, could it be because of that?”

Dr. Sims grimaced slightly. “I don’t…think they’d be related,” he admits. “These are two very different situations, and Brent’s not affected.”

Dad didn’t look convinced. He especially didn’t look calm. “Th–the journal—does it say anything else about the RFE intake? If there’s some sorta enhancing-to-corrupting ratio?”

“See, that’s the thing,” Dr. Sims turned to the hard drive computer and scrolled. “There’s nothing left on Warner.”

“Nothing?” Aunt Sia stressed. 

Dr. Sims shook his head, instead reading from the screen, “‘I’m still reeling from Kessler’s sudden decision to pull me off the Warner project and reassign me to New Marais. The directive came without warning or explanation, leaving me to pack up my research and relocate in a matter of days. To make matters worse, Kessler commanded that Warner be put in stasis, effectively halting all progress and declaring the project ‘done with’ despite the lack of any final results. The work we were doing in Empire City was groundbreaking, and I can't fathom why Kessler would interrupt such crucial experiments at this stage. Now, instead of continuing our promising advancements, I find myself thrust into a new and uncertain venture under Joseph Bertrand's command.’”

“Stasis?” Dad asked curiously. “Like...they threw him on ice and forgot about him?”

Zeke huffed. “Sure didn’t work. Fucker tried to eat my brain matter.”

Dr. Sims kept reading as they both spoke, eyes growing more curious the further he read. “Hey, listen to this,” he said, holding up a hand to silence them. “‘My task is to refine the integration process using retroviral vectors and to employ Ray Field Energy that will enable stable, accelerated evolution. The goal is to engineer Conduits who can replicate the abilities of a donor Conduit through the introduction of specific proteins. By successfully integrating these genetic modifications, we aim to create an army of soldiers, each with identical, highly potent abilities derived from a single powerful donor.’”

Aunt Sia exhaled hard. “Sounds familiar.” She muttered.

Dr. Sims agreed with a nod, scrolling further still. “I know. And while it looks like they figured out the acceptable sievert amount—that’s how much radiation someone can absorb before it begins affecting their soft tissues, or, in this case, their ability—they started trying to figure out how to mitigate the damage but keep the quick evolutionary benefits. So they started injecting people with liquidated raythium to try and activate them.”

Everyone flinched at that idea, Aunt Sia asking, “Jesus, and how did that go?”

“Not well,” Dr. Sims confirmed everyone’s thoughts. “Not ‘till they figured out it couldn’t only be raythium. But once they started making a concoction with artificial stress hormones, they didn’t even need a Ray Sphere to make Conduits.”

Dad cocked an eyebrow. “This is starting to sound really familiar,” he said knowingly, looking between Dr. Sims and Aunt Sia. 

The DUP. He had to be talking about them, right?

“You’re telling me.” Dr. Sims agreed, turning back to his computer. “Listen to this: ‘using retroviral integrase and advanced bioengineering techniques, CR13A successfully activated the Conduit gene in an animal model. The subject, a lab rat, demonstrated Conduit abilities mirroring those of the donor, albeit on a lesser scale. We’ve essentially created a forced Conduit—proof that we can transfer powers through genetic manipulation. And no longer will we need the sacrifice of some poor soul to grant a Conduit powers.

“‘This success opens a new chapter in our work. If we can refine this process, the implications are staggering. My next goal is to employ protein engineering to enhance this method. By designing specialized proteins, we could potentially create Conduits with tailored abilities, far surpassing the natural variations. This could lead to an evolved form of Conduits with optimized and diversified powers.’” Dr. Sims finished, looking up at Dad. 

“So that’s how they made forced Conduits…” Dad drew off thoughtfully. “What’s CR…something?”

“Conduit Retroviral Augmentation,” Dr. Sims read off. 

“So they wanted to be able to activate Conduits without the dirty work of disposing of bodies after a Ray Sphere,” Zeke hummed. “At least it cut down on lives lost.”

Dr. Sims’ lips pursed. “I wouldn’t say that.” He looked over his shoulder at Zeke. “Was there anything…wrong with the Vermaak?” 

Zeke huffed. “What wasn’t wrong with them? They were all crazier than a junebug on a string.”

Dad was the only one to react to the idiom, glancing over at Zeke like he was the one that was insane while Dr. Sims scrolled on his computer. “Do you remember why?” 

“He said something about the power transfer not supposed to be used on multiple people,” Brent chimed in instead. 

I agreed with a nod, adding, “That it would overtax the activated.” 

Dr. Sims seemed to be lost in thought as he read. “That’s nothing like what I have…”

“What do you have?” Aunt Sia asked.

Dr. Sims’ leaned forward, reading from the screen, “‘Our recent experiments with retroviral activation in humans has revealed significant drawbacks. While it appeared, at first, that basic, non-manipulated integrase do grant the Conduit abilities, they are weaker than we first predicted. What has me more concerned is our original animal subjects; their abilities have waned greatly, with significant instability to their wellbeing. Illness is rampant in our original test groups, and we’ve lost 30% of the overall batch to death. They gradually lose control over their abilities…and then themselves.’”

Dad’s jaw set as he listened to Dr. Sims speak longer, something in his eyes changing. Gradually lose control over their abilities. 

“She stopped healing first.” Dad had said in the hospital room, what felt like eons ago. “You remember! The healing went first, and then the speed, and then the fuckin’—I thought there was something wrong with her.”

Mom lost control of her powers. So did the old DUP soldiers, and apparently the Vermaak.

Was I next?

Dad seemed to be on the same wavelength as I, saying, “So they had the same issue as the DUP,” as his knuckles white-gripped Dr. Sims’ chair. 

Everyone made sure to avoid looking my way as they processed this. 

Eventually, Zeke shook his head. “That’s…not what was wrong with the Vermaak, though,” he interjected, being the first to meet my eyes and shoot me a genuine, albeit pitiful, look. I could never decide whether that was better or worse than not being acknowledged at all. “They were wild. We…there was a Vermaak soldier that defected, tried helping Cole out. Every time we saw the guy…it’s like he became less and less human.”

“How so?” Aunt Sia asked softly, hand coming up to rest on my shoulder.

Zeke crossed his arms as he stared down at the ground, trying to access a memory that looked like it was purposefully buried deep. “He’d help us out with little things. Fighting off those messed up things Bertrand made, tracking down a…a Blast core, I think. I can’t really remember. But every time we saw him, he’d be…different. I know it’s a shit way to describe it but he would evolve—his powers got stronger, he got bigger, even. But something was wrong with the guy, like, upstairs. He started muttering to himself a lot, saying things that didn’t make sense. Eventually…he became this monster, we called them titans.”

“Monster?” Dad asked. “Like Bertrand’s?”

Zeke threw his head side to side as he decided whether or not to agree with Dad, settling with, “Sort of. You remember the DUP? You had your little guys who could just throw around a bit on concrete, right? But then there were those big fish, the ones who were all decked out in concrete. There were some like that. But there were others…man, they were all ice. Like it took them over.” 

After a pause, Zeke looked back up. “The guy that was helping us? Became this big ice monster. Couldn’t control himself. It…Cole had to put him down.” 

Dad chewed on his cheek so hard I was sure he was going to rip a hole through it, before he shook his head. “But that’s not losing power,” he eventually said. 

Dr. Sims interjected, typing away on the opposite computer. “It’s not,” he confirmed, “Because the Vermaak didn’t get the basic retroviral integrase.” 

He scooted ever so slightly to the side so Dad could see it easier, reading off, “‘CR27B, augmented for enhanced physical performance, heightened cognitive functions to ensure near perfect application of powers, and evolutionary acceleration to achieve rapid and significant power enhancement.’” 

Dad used Dr. Sims’ chair as a prop as he leaned forward to look at the screen before saying, “Try CR27B, see what happens,” 

Dr. Sims looked up the word, following it past journal entries he deemed unimportant before pausing—and as his eyes scanned back and forth, his brow became more furrowed. “‘Bertrand is a fool.,’” he began reading. “‘Even before Kessler’s demise, we all had concerns about using retroviral integrase for gene activation in carriers. Now, he expects god-like production from a process still in its scientific infancy. Our efforts were meant to move away from the need for sacrificial subjects, yet he now seeks to amass an army of them—for his own profit.’” Dr. Sims scrolled a bit and I could see in his glasses’ reflection that there were sections of the journal angrily scratched out, like Wolfe messed up his writings so many times in his rage. 

“‘The buses arrived a week ago’” Dr. Sims continued once he got to the next page. “‘Long before the agreed timeframe Kessler informed me of. Bertrand immediately had me begin evaluating the new arrivals for genetic compatibility, refusing to answer any of my questions. His refusals were punctuated by threats, even brandishing his sword on one occasion.’”

Brent scoffed. “He had a sword?” He asked. “Tryhard.”

Dad shot Brent that fatherly look that said stop that without him having to actually speak, Dr. Sims continuing, “‘He ignores my warnings. The current serum is still in its preliminary testing phase, and the evolutionary acceleration is proving detrimental to the health of the forced Conduits. Illness is rampant in our first group. Splitting one Conduit’s abilities over multiple subjects is not sustainable. The transformations he seeks to impose, however, will tear them apart.

“‘By intubating subjects with a consistent protein supply and exposing them to Ray Sphere energy, I created a Conduit that evolved far quicker than any previous trials—but at a significant cost.’” Dr. Sims turned his head slightly as he read; this whole journal probably meant everything to a biochemical geneticist. “‘As the subject evolved, I observed a marked decline in mental stability. Hallucinations, both auditory and visual, led to incoherent ramblings and eventual loss of speech. When graphite began to overtake their body and they became extremely volatile, I had to euthanize the subject and perform an autopsy.  Tissue samples revealed that the subject required neuroelectricity to survive, similar to Warner. However, instead of draining this energy from others, the proteins began to consume the subject’s own neuroelectrical output, leading to severe brain damage and cognitive decline.

“‘Yet Bertrand intends to create hundreds of these unstable Conduits, planning to distribute them globally under the guise of providing security and welfare.’” Dr. Sims looked over his shoulder at Dad, finishing, “‘His ambition blinds him to the catastrophic consequences of his actions.’”

Everyone was quiet after that. I could barely hear the ringing voice of that one Vermaak soldier in my head as he asked Wolfe why he was warning him. 

“Kessler.” Aunt Sia eventually said. “Wolfe mentioned Kessler informed him of a timeframe. If Bertrand was in charge of this whole thing, why was Kessler involved?”

Zeke huffed. “Because he couldn’t help himself?” he asked with such disdain. 

It was funny how much he hated Kessler, considering who the man was. The only thing that kept me from asking him why he hated that man when it was also his best friend in another life, was how stormy Zeke’s face looked any time he was mentioned.

Dr. Sims shifted to the hard drive computer, scrolling away until one final click and a read later, he declared, “It looks like Kessler finalized a deal with the Vermaak to use them in the forced Conduit testing to prepare for ‘any threats…human or otherwise.’”

Or otherwise. 

“The Beast,” I said, everyone suddenly snapping their head my way as they remembered I was there. “That’s what the Vermaak were originally hired for.”

Dr. Sims clicked back a few times on the journal entry computer. “Wolfe’s entry on being reassigned happens three weeks after this contract,” he observed. 

“And Bertrand hated Conduits,” Brent remembered. “So once Kessler was out of the picture…he had full control over what happened to them.”

Aunt Sia moved away from behind me, setting Jerry back on the table as she moved towards the cupboards in the kitchen. “You know, it’s funny,” she began. “You realize the forced Conduits came out…wrong with the First Sons, too? The batch without that acceleration protein went through the same experience the DUP did.”

“Way quicker than the Dupes did, though.” Zeke pointed out. “I dunno how they did it, but they at least got a good couple of performances outta their monkeys.”

Dad didn’t seem to want to join in on the jokes; he left his place behind Dr. Sims, plopping down in the chair to his right and running a hand over his face. “None of this helps us, though. Sure, we know why the forced Conduits are messed up—but Jean isn’t one. She’s not growing extra arms or hallucinating or going insane. How did Archangel do to her what happened to the forced Conduits?”

No one really responded. 

At least, not verbally. 

There was a sudden poke in my side, and I turned in time to meet Brent’s eyes as he used them to motion towards Dad. He brought his hand up, finger going to his mouth and coming back down in one discreet, swell motion. Tell. 

And I just looked at him like he was stupid, mouthing What?

Brent rolled his eyes, bringing both hands into the equation as he signed Tell Dad about Mom. 

Oh, god. Hallucinations. But that couldn’t be the same as this, right? I pinched my two forefingers and my thumb together, both telling Brent no and hoping he understood that I was miming for him to shut up about it. 

Why not? He asked me, thumb running under his chin accusingly. 

I brought my fingers together in an okay sign, letting the circles connect before flaring the fingers out fully. It’s not important. 

Brent lifted his hands to say something else when we both froze at the sound of Aunt Sia clearing her throat. 

“Brent. Jean.” She said, setting the mug she pulled out on the counter and crossing her arms. Dad and Dr. Sims were looking at us now, both curiously—though Dad with a hint of annoyance. Brent and I would argue all the time around him in sign language when we didn’t want him to know what we were talking about, it always annoyed him. 

I mean, sure, it may have been for arguments about used pads or asking to borrow cash to buy a new dab pen, but we also used it to plan Dad’s birthday and Christmas gifts, so he learned to deal with it. 

But Aunt Sia? She didn’t look impressed at all. She cocked an eyebrow, and asked, “You know I know sign language, right?”

[sialatersquad]

Eden and Elli are off to Grade Two and Pre-K!

I’m a blubbering mess! I have to admit, I was more than excited when I shipped Elli off to Daycare last year. I was pregnant and in a different headspace. This year I feel like my little baby is growing up too fast, right before my very eyes. This picture was taken bright and early as we got up and had a nice large breakfast. No I didn’t let the girls wear those shoes to School. They both wore a pair of running shoes to School but I picked these adorable little boots up when we were shopping because I thought they would be a cute addition to the outfit. They also of course had to take their hats off before entering the School.

Elli has grown up so much in the short little while. We worked on a lot over the summer; she can spell her name, she can count to 10, she knows her address, and she makes it to the bathroom every time now! When Elli grows up she says she wants to be a Baker like her Aunt Candy! 

Eden has come a long way too! Over the Summer we’ve been working on Math books to get her caught up with her age group. Last year one of the subjects she struggled with was Math. She’s finally starting to come out of her shell as well around other kids! She loves ballet and is convinced when she grows up she’s going to be a Dancer! She’s thinking a Ballet Dancer right now but say she may be a professional Tap Dancer.

As for me. I’ve really enjoyed the Summer with the girls; yes tragedy started it off but as a family we were able to push through and come together. I’ve been super busy trying to set up my shop; but the kids and I were still able to do some amazing things! We went to a really fancy hotel just before Summer was up and we had a blast in the indoor waterpark. Sadly (for me) the kids had to spend a lot of time at my Mothers due to the shop taking up a bunch of my time this last month. They didn’t mind however, they loved being at Grammie’s. I’m going to spend the whole day just sitting home with little Cas and just cry a bunch. I miss my kids. I hope they are having the best time at School!

-Sia  

((I wasn’t going to post these until tomorrow but I caved in!))

[marmotish]

MC + Jacob song challenge

tagged by the awesome @hannahsecretchamber and also the amazing @flannerycake !

please consider yourself tagged if you haven’t done this challenge!!

Young Siblings:

🎵 Sisters - Radical Face (replace mum with aunt and it’s their childhood)

I tied your shoes while you sat and watched the rain Hands folded across your lap, and the dull look of peace across your face Mom down the hall, Bible pressed to her chest She swore the Devil hides in everything, and her room was the only safe haven left She watched us grow through window panes

🎵 Pound of flesh - Radical Face 

(Jacob)

A pound of flesh Could never tip the scale that I’ve made I should have stayed But I was never wise

(Freyja)

I can still hear your feet as you ran from the house Knowing you won’t be back doesn’t mean that I will stop waiting You told me then, hold me down, hold me up to the fire But don’t you dare hold me back

Freyja Young:

🎵 Stay Gold - First Aid Kit (hogwarts years)

What if our hard work ends in despair? What if the road won't take me there? Oh, I wish, for once, we could stay gold

🎵 Chandelier - Sia (after finding Jacob, running away to the Muggle world)

I'm gonna live like tomorrow doesn't exist Like it doesn't exist I'm gonna fly like a bird through the night, feel my tears as they dry

🎵 Breathe in now - George (getting her shit together - lyrics here)

I move on holding on to what I learn, it's time to let go of the notion That the whole world's against me Break free of shackles that formed young, time free in now And now I know, it's not all up to me, I can count on another So move on lighter and be free ...

Jacob Young

🎵 Creaks - The Panics (losing sight of goals with cursed vaults - lyrics in vid description)

I've made up my mind I just wanted to be somewhere else For a while I was looking for a little bit more But now I've been away so long I don't remember what I'm looking for

🎵 From the mouth of an injured head - Radical Face (Obliviate post-Azkaban? lyrics here)

But there's something missing' There's something lost in my head Could you help me fix it? Could you please come stitch me up? 'cause I don't know how Yeah, I don't know how The answers are buried in me

🎵 Somewhere only we know - Keane (finally going home)

I came across a fallen tree I felt the branches of it looking at me Is this the place we used to love? Is this the place that I've been dreaming of?

[werecat]

Rules: Answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people who you want to get to know better.

Tagged by… @babywoble thank u!!! many heart emojis from me to you

Nickname: birdo/birdie from my middle school friends (long story), sar, and my mom calls me “mshisha” sometimes which means kitten!

Zodiac: libra and i’m valid

Height: 5′2 or 157 cm. it’s been this way for at least two years...painful

Last Movie I saw: aquaman!

Last Thing I googled: crush by richard siken (yes yes i know)

Favorite Musician: ACK hard question but i’ve always been partial to owl city

Song Stuck in my Head: none at the moment...! but the last one i listened to is uhh elastic heart by sia

Other Blogs: @byakugays for naruto and @ifroppy for bn*a and yes I do have separate blogs for anime even though i post it on main BECAUSE i never thought i’d get super into hxh but here i am! 

Do I get Asks: yes but i usually have to ask for them first lol! 

Following: 352

Followers: 999........

Amount of Sleep: yesterday? 7 hours, give or take. On average? anywhere from 6 to 8

Lucky Number: i don’t get the concept of lucky numbers but 9 is a nice one

What I’m Wearing: fuzzy pajama pants and a shirt that has a cat on it with a speech bubble saying “oui oui” (my aunt gave it me ‘cause she lives in Paris)

Dream Job: i would looove to work in the animal care field especially with big cats!!!!!! i also fancy creative writing but who knows where i’ll go with that

Dream Trip: somewhere tropical maybe??? i don’t know i’m not huge on travel

Favorite Food: i never know how to answer this question but my favorite FRUIT is raspberry if that helps

Play Any Instruments?: nope! i’d like to!

Languages: english, moroccan arabic, modern standard arabic, some spanish from school, and a few scattered french phrases (my mother is fluent in French but doesn’t want to teach me, go figure)

Favorite Songs: hmmm right now I’m enjoying ‘only if for a night’ by florence and the machine + ‘friction’ by imagine dragons + the entirety of ‘be the cowboy’ by mitski. yes my music taste is incredibly scattered but c’est la vie

Random Fact: in elementary and middle school i frequently got in trouble for doing things like sitting on tables or climbing on top of the lockers and bookcases

Describe Yourself as Aesthetic Things: the lazy contentedness that comes from sunbathing, grass rustling at night, teeth that look like they could be fangs, night skies with a full moon and no stars, jackets lined with fur, hands fluttering like butterflies, stray cats roaming morocco’s alleyways

Tag Your 21 People! NO PRESSURE TO DO IT !

i’mmm not sure who’s done this but I’ll tag a few mutuals!! @jiseis @birthcharts @islamstan @lblis @sharmou6 @3abeed @islamstan @inukimi AND @kulluto. 

[galaxa-13]

 Started playing a new campaign with my half-drow sorcerer, Sia.

So Sia ran away from home to experience the world and learn more about magic. She hears about this magical city in the sky pull of scholars and mages. Sounds great! She heads that way, but the stupid guards won’t let her on the boat to the city. Says the city is at capacity. While she starts throwing a fit to get passage an insanely old drow dude comes up behind her and studies her. Then he’s all “come with me” and leads her onto the boat with him, the guard not stopping them.

He takes her to the city and gives her a tour of the place before taking her shopping. Sia is confused, but too busy taking everything in and keeping up with him to ask questions. While he’s shopping she notices a beautiful brooch. Her excitement for the jewelry catches his attention and he promptly buys it for her. 20 platinum pieces. Throwing around that kind of cash and noticing how the guard and the merchants have been treating him Sia surmises he’s a very important dude and offers her gratitude to him. He waves her off and shuffles off to the big tower.

Inside there doesn’t appear any stairs and the ceiling appears to stretch all the way to the sky. The old drow leads Sia to a magic circle and in a flash of color the two suddenly appear in a cushy office. He sits down in an armchair and promptly falls asleep, leaving Sia to stand awkwardly in the middle of the room still confused about what is going on.

Two weeks later a guard of the city by the name of Amon wakes up before dawn to start his day. Before relieving the night shift he is to pick up a dagger that belongs to the Commander that he was tasked with getting cleaned. At the shop he finds the owner who gives him the ornamental weapon and shares a rumor that the Commander has been ill these last couple of days. Amon knows nothing of this and takes his leave to the barracks to check in with the Commander. 

When he gets there he overhears the night guard gossiping about how the Commander plans on stepping down and maybe leaving the post to his hot sister who just moved into town. Amon steps up to remind the two to not be gossiping instead of keeping watch. Before he can relieve them of duty another guard runs up to them with a grin. Apparently some gnome has botched a teleportation and ended up half stuck in the stable wall. He invites everyone to come get a look.

Back on solid ground Sorrow arrives at the boat that leads up to the magical city of Bilviera. The previous night she had been approached by a halfling in fine garb offering her a well paying job from his employer. Here she meets him and he flashes a gold leaf piece of parchment at the guard and they board. Once at the city he’s about to take her to his employer, but the two notice a commotion over at the stables. A group of guards are crowded around the door. The pair shrug and go to investigate.

There they found a gnome indeed stuck in the stable wall, only his face and one hand sticking out of it. He was very annoyed, but managed to keep his voice down as he complained for fear of waking up the nesting griffon whose stable he was currently trapped in.

Amon was having none of this tomfoolery stand and began to order the laughing guards into action. When he ordered one of them to go get help Sorrow’s halfling guide stepped up and offered his services before disappearing.

Sia has woken up to a feeling of wrongness. She can’t quite place it, but as she goes about her morning she notices her mentor is gone. In the two weeks since arriving here she has come to learn that the drow that picked her up was none other than Grand Master Archmage Orlereini and that he had apparently decided she was his new apprentice. He often forgot her name, or thought she was one of his previous apprentices that didn’t pan out. In fact he was known for not having a great track record with apprentices, as well as wandering off with only one shoe.

As frustrating as the situation was Sia was still grateful to him. He got her into the place she wanted to be and was teaching her stuff! . . Kind of. She could put up with him mumbling to himself, falling asleep, forgetting she was his apprentice, and carrying his stuff for him if it meant she got to study magic and also get eclairs when he visited the bakery.

Today, though, he was gone. Not just the normal gone when he wandered off. Gone. She couldn’t find him anywhere in the tower. She tried to talk to the other archmages, but they just brushed her off. Orlereini was known for being a senile old coot, he’d turn up eventually. About to give up Sia decided to go to Master Rotu for help. He basically ran the whole justice system in the city and was usually in the archives working. When she went to him he seemed extremely overworked but agreed to help her find the Grand Master because it would offer him a break. Before they could head out, however, a halfling in fine clothing appeared and told them about a gnome that had gotten stuck in the stable wall who was in need of rescue.

Rotu sighed and pushed Sia ahead of him, saying they’d look for Orlereini while he sorted this out. When they got to the stables Rotu was able to disintegrate the wall with a snap, freeing the gnome and ending the fun of the guards who were still watching (they trudged off back to their posts). The gnome, named Burgell, said that he had been requested to come here by his aunt, who was one of the archmages, and that she had given him a faulty teleportation scroll. Rotu admitted that some in the city had been using teleportation as a form of tax evasion so he had the city islands periodically moved to prevent such misuse. Unfortunately that also lead to poor Burgell into the situation he had been stuck in all morning. He told those present to follow him to the palace.

No one quite knew what was going on, but all followed him. Burgell, Sia, Iago (the halfling), Sorrow, and Amon (who was planning on writing up an incident report) trailed after Rotu and he lead them all to the palace. Inside a manservant explained that the queen had been expecting guests, just not quite so many. He ran off to fetch her.

When the queen arrived she did so with a guard clad in black armor. She thanked Iago for bringing Sorrow to her. She was his employer. Rotu explained that the grand master was missing and before anything else could be said the doors burst open and a large, angry man stood there demanding to know where his missing daughter was.

Tafari was a king from a far off nation here to visit his daughter. His only child who had gone on to study magic. He was quite proud of her. She had sent him a letter of invitation and after wandering around the city looking for her he heard from the librarian that though his daughter spent lots of her time there she had not seen her at all that day. Not only that, but her study group had also been asking about her. She went on to admit that there were rumors people had been going missing lately. Hearing this Tafari was sent into a rage and stormed out. He was followed by a boy whom he had recruited as a pack mule to carry his bags. The child offered to take him to the palace, since his uncle worked there and might be able to help.

With all these people around the queen sobbed and admitted that her husband had been missing these last three days. Few knew about it and nothing had been discovered yet. Rotu listed off that the Commander had also apparently been missing since this morning and that the only other archmage who had been privy to the knowledge of the missing king had recently been afflicted by a magical curse. That was Burgell’s aunt. He demanded to be taken to her bedside at once! The queen said that she’d give up everything she owned to find her husband. Tafari wanted to know if any leads were found on all these missing people, he wanted his daughter back and safe. Sorrows eyes were dollar signs at the prospect of getting paid the big bucks to solve this mystery. Sia wanted everyone to stop being boring and just help her find her mentor. The armor-clad figure seemed to shake with rage and Iago blanched at the queen being willing to give up everything.

[chubbycaucasianchristiancloseted]

If this was a Republican there would never be forgiveness, no matter how many times they apologized.

If this was a Republican there would never be forgiveness, no matter how many times they apologized. Why does Barack Obama get a pass? Just to be clear American’s elected a homophobic president twice? Why didn’t this come out during his campaigns or presidency? What does that say about people who voted for him? Imagine if the last name was Trump.

Thankfully my God offers forgiveness willingly and you don’t have to “earn” it, all you have to do is ask. Supposedly to this author you can pick and chose who or what you want to forgive, I assume that would depend on the infraction? Does the same apply to me? Can I just pick and choose what or who I want to forgive?  

Is this what we want to teach out children? That forgiveness has to be earned and is conditional and should only given when earned? I promise you, if you hang on to that lie and practice that, you will have a sad, alone life.

Direct Quotes:

Barack Obama recently apologized in his memoir, writing that he used homophobic slurs when he was a teen.

Celebrities and politicians, like everyday people, often make mistakes when speaking or posting on social media – and can also say harmful words on purpose.

If they make amends, then the wronged individuals can decide whether to forgive them.

"It was incredibly powerful to me, like I'm in the middle of aisle 26, having a full emotional experience," Robinson-Mosley, a psychologist, tells USA TODAY. "But it was an incredibly transformative experience that was healing for me too, because I was ready to accept her apology, and she earned it from me."

Sheila Addison, licensed family and marriage therapist, says it's hard to confront people for their problematic views, but it's necessary.

"Contrary to popular belief, people seem to think that forgiveness is something that we should give automatically, or that it means that we are going to forgive and forget or we excuse the harm that someone has done to us. But the realistic aspect of it is that if we're real with ourselves, the pain and disappointment might always still be with us. But when we're ready to forgive, forgiveness can minimize the hurtful impact," Robinson-Mosley adds.

Addison says that if a problematic person has died or is otherwise incapacitated, those harmed can turn to loved ones to help them share the burden.

"It can be easier to say, 'OK, I can accept that great aunt Martha never acknowledged my same-sex relationship if you, mom and dad, also acknowledge that when we talk about her, if you also are able to say she was kind to children and puppies, but she also was hurtful to really understand that.'" says that she's seen people who have made offensive remarks change. She's been able to forgive them because they've done the work.

Take Sia, who doubled down after she was criticized for not casting someone on the autism spectrum to play an autistic character in her upcoming film "Music."

Expressing regret: Flat-out apologizing

Accepting responsibility: Instead of saying you were right, saying you were wrong

Making restitution: Asking what you can do to make it right

Genuinely repenting: Doing your best to not make the mistake again

Requesting forgiveness: Asking what you must do to be forgiven).

[wonieleles]

youre so sweet i might just cry ☹️☹️

how was your day? i just woke up and my eyelids r still so heavy 😭☝️ i’ve been taking care of myself so dont worry !!

omg my aunt has this cute ginger cat named kimchi and he’s so affectionate like i spent all morning just rubbing his tummy and playing with him whdjhs

love u lots ‼️💗 make sure you do something nice for urself sia <33 take time to do stuff u like!! ofc doing your work is important but breaks are super good for your health 🫶🫶

i feel like everytime i send an ask its aways long 😭 but you posted that u didn’t mind/liked long asks so it washed away my worries of bothering u ☹️💗

if your day wasn’t amazing, i hope this made u smile a bit :)

noo that’s you honestly 😭😭

omg yayy i’m glad you’ve been taking care of yourself !! and omg same my day just started too 😭😭 i hope you slept well tho <33

AWW KIMCHI SOUNDS SO CUTE i’m not huge cat person but they are honestly so adorable 🤭🤭

PLEASE PRIM YOURE TOO SWEET 😭😭 and i willll (probably more than i should) i’ve been watching contents to relax a bit which is nice ^_^ i hope you do the same for you too !!

ahh i’m glad it helped ease your worries also <33 and yess i love your long asks they’re always so nice to read 😁😁

AND OMG JUNGWON 🤭🤭 he’s so cute honestly 😭😭

[jjba-fragmented-star]

JJBA OC LIST

I decided to make a list of my muses to be more organized. It will be updated with new characters.

-Panacea

MAIN MUSE: Giorgia McJohan & Wanderlust(Post Part 6)

Other Muses:

McJohan-Bhraghad Family

Chemaya Alley/Chimalley & Dark Horse(During/Post Part 1-6)

Isaac 'Isa' McJohan & The Brightest Lights(During & Post Part 6)

Hariklia-Grace McJohan/Bhraghad & Unstoppable(Post Part 3-6)

Orestes Bhraghad & Astronaut(During/Post Part 6)

Oswald Bhraghad & Houdini(During/Post Part 6)

SPW Foundation

Viktoria 'Vik' Erikson/Hamon User(During/Post Part 3, 5, 6)

La Nuova Costa(Cesca-UntoldStories)

Michalis Zannos & Lost Treasure(Part 5-6)